Dick Allen

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2014 -> 02:24 PM) Ignoring everything you are saying I said, and repeating what I actually said was that someone from the White Sox scouted Jose Abreu LONG before they put Kenny Williams on a plane to the DR to see him. I also said that if it was such a slam dunk when it came to Abreu, he would have signed a MUCH larger contract than $68 million. What you made up doesn't actually prove or disprove either of those two statements. Honestly, most of that post means nothing. Isn't $68 million the biggest contract the White Sox have ever handed out? I would think that means he's considered a slam dunk. I think every team offering him 8 figures for 5 or 6 years thought he would be really successful. And of course he was scouted by the White Sox. He was scouted by every team There was a concern about his bat speed, and they had the perfect storm where teams who really drive prices up like the Yankees and Dodgers and Cubs and Red Sox pretty much had 1B and DH filled up. From the article inside his showcase where KW stated he went to look at him hoping he didn't like him, : "If it hadn't been for those concerns, which have since proved largely unfounded, he would probably have been in the Tanaka nine-figure range," said an executive of one club that liked Abreu but determined it could not afford to bid on him. "From the video I saw, he reminded me a lot of Miggy Cabrera. Which now makes me wonder: If Cabrera was in Cuba putting up stupid numbers at his current age and in his current, somewhat slowed-down physical condition, what would scouts have thought of him? Interesting thought experiment." Here is another interesting thought experiment: Now that Abreu already seems a bargain a month into his six-year deal, what kind of contract might the next decorated Cuban escapee command? Rick Hahn, the White Sox' general manager, puts the bull market for Cuban hitters into some perspective. "We signed Alexei Ramirez in '08 for 4.25 [million dollars]," Hahn pointed out. "We signed Dayan Viciedo a year later for 10. In 2012, [Jorge] Soler goes to the Cubs for 30, and then Puig goes for 42 right away. Now Abreu. The escalation was so quick in this market for this type of player. Contracts went up 15-fold almost since '08. There is something about Jose having not played in the States that ultimately made people shy away, and you completely get that. In retrospect, thus far, it looks like it's going to be a sound deal. But you still had that unknown." Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/.../#ixzz332cAOlu2

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:58 PM) You've got to remember, the second you trade Alexei you are telling the average fan you are giving up. Be careful with that. It looks like Semien is not as good as many of us hoped, merely an eventual replacement for Beckham, and L. Garcia is horrific. Any minor leaguers ready to be Lexi Junior? SS isn't easy to fill either. My BP says Semien cannot play major league SS. I haven't ever seen him play SS so I couldn't tell you. Sanchez is hitting in Charlotte, but will he hit enough at the major league level to play SS every day? If you sign a free agent, they will be more expensive than Alexei and probably not as good. Until there is an obvious replacement, or a deal where you can't say no, keeping him is the play IMO.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 28, 2014 -> 02:01 PM) We had so much fun on our seventh or eighth grade field trip to Springfield. I won a huge pot in a game of "in between" on the bus and the tour of the park there was awesome with everybody splitting up and having so much fun. It was fun back in the day when parents and teachers both didn't watch their kids' every move. On our 7th grade trip to Springfield, our school was told never to return. Spoiled suburban brats.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:48 PM) Someone looked at Abreu LONG before KW ever went there. No organization sends their VP out to look at a guy first. Many teams had their top people at his showcase. He had been scouted before and had been well known for quite some time. He played in the WBC. If you are saying the White Sox would not have been in on Abreu without Marco Paddy, while you may be complimenting Paddy, you are dissing the rest of the baseball operation beyond comprehension.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:21 PM) I think the cubs have already determined how much they will lose in litigation and decided it doesn't matter anymore. They do have a contract with the rooftop owners, but those owners made a mint off the cubs with no payback before that contract. Let's not pretend like they agreed on the contract and then decided to sink huge money into them, the investment was already made by the rooftop owners. They just legitimised the relationship before the Cubs upgraded so they could have a say in it. I don't think what happened before the contract applies. The Cubs do have a contract with them now. And yes, they did sink a lot of money into them before they had the contract. But they have also sunk a lot of money into them afterwards. Their revenues are sharply lower than they were 5 or 10 years ago. People used to pay $200 or more per person to go on one of those. Now they have groupons for 1/3 of the price. The contract to me makes all the difference in the world. What they are doing now is obnoxious. The last plans before they decided to go for an all out war only affected 4 or 5 rooftops. The Cubs could have bought them out for less than 2 years of Edwin Jackson, and seemingly all their problems would be gone. Now they just added $75 million to their construction costs. Considering what we are hearing about their lenders pressuring them, in some cases to sell their entire stake in the team, it has to be at least a partial bluff.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:20 PM) That only goes so far. The guy signed a $68 million contract (which was the top bid by all accounts). That is no where near what the guy is worth, meaning that there was a decent level of uncertainty regarding Abreu, otherwise there would have been a 1 in front of that contract. That wasn't Paddy. KW was saying he recommeded a 4 year $40 million offer and JR was the one who upped it. Abreu has made the next Cuban sensation a lot of money.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:06 PM) Yep, looking for an "A-" level pitching prospect (probably that orgs best prospect) and then another couple top 10ish guys from that org as well. Bowl Hahn over, maybe he'll pull the trigger. Otherwise, keep him another year and see where you are at in July '15. If Cameron is accurate and teams won't give up much for him, Hahn's decision whether to trade him or keep him is very easy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:56 PM) Wasn't it also Phil Rogers who spent a couple years hyping Salvador Sanchez? Probably. Rogers was a pawn in the Dave Wilder scam. Wilder had his ear and would hype these basically fake propects which in turn Phil would buy and sell to the rest of the BA team. I read a long piece on the Wilder scandal, and how much he used and abused Phil Rogers. But back to Abreu. He was no secret. Giving Paddy credit for the Sox signing him, is kind of like giving the Cleveland GM credit for finding Lebron.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:53 PM) Cameron doesn't "run" fangraphs anymore than Keith Law "runs" ESPN. In general, Cameron is an annoying know it all that likes to make snap judgements for eyeballs/readers instead of using nuance. As for the dollar amounts those are just hard calculations using the cost of a win on the FA market it's a pretty crude measure because the inputs (like defensive WAR) have pretty big error bars. That said, Ramirez is easily worth every penny of his contract even if he falls off to a 270/300/400 hitter as there just aren't many good SS in MLB right now. If some team is offering you a legit top 50 guy and another "B" prospect for Ramirez you gotta look hard at that IMO. It's not that they are shopping him around, just listening to offers -- if a good one comes it might make sense to jump on it. He is the managing editor. I wouldn't do it for a guy in the 50 range. It has to be a guy you definitely can be excited about, not some guy who you hope will master AAA next season. Alexei is too good and his contract too reasonable not to just let it play out until it expires, if that is what happens. You need a SS. Might as well stick with one of the better ones unless someone really wants to make it worth your while trading him. IMO, that would require a prospect or prospects more highly ranked than any they got back this past year. SS is a tough position to fill. The Cardinals are a model franchise and they paid Jhonny Peralta a ton to be a statue on their infield.

If the White Sox needed Paddy to tell them Abreu was a ballplayer, they need to scrap the entire minor league deal. They would be beyond clueless. Phil Rogers had been hyping Abreu for several years.

It seems peculiar to me that the guy who runs Fangraphs which claims Alexei's performance last year was worth $15.6 million and his performance this season has already been worth $9.8 million, and whose worst performance of his career was worth $8.5 million, doesn't think he has the correct skills to bring back anything major when he is owed $10 million next year with a $10 million option with a $1 million buyout for 2016. Seems he isn't buying what his site is selling.

I wonder what he means about specializing in the wrong skills. He can run. He can throw, he can get to balls not a lot of SS can get to. His power has returned. He isn't going to walk much, and his BA and OBP are always going to be quite similar, but couldn't you say that about most SS these days?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:52 AM) His line since he got back doesnt look sustainable to me, especially moving forward but what do I know. I just go back to last year. He lost all his pop with the wrist injury, yet still had decent slappy numbers until his quad got him. 2012 he wasn't great but he was 2nd in homers to Cano for AL 2nd basemen. He might pull up lame tonight. But to me, that is the question. I am confident, healthy, he is a legit hitter now. I think he's turned the corner with that stuff. He has hit a ton of hard outs this year. Even when he started out something like 4-25, he looked confident at the plate. Something that has been lacking consistently for a while.

If Beckham can stay healthy, he is a guy you want on the White Sox. Not trade fodder.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ May 27, 2014 -> 07:11 PM) Who cares? Do people really feel sympathy for them, or is it just an anti-Cubs thing? The Cubs do have a contract with them, and now want to basically change the terms. I don't know any rooftop owners personally, but do know they have spent a lot of money on those places and Ricketts and the Cubs want to basically take their revenue stream almost totally away. Who is going to spend a lot of money if you can only see a small part of the field? If the Cubs didn't have a contract with them, I would have no problem, but the Cubs hold others up to their end of contracts, why shouldn't they have to do the same? And does anyone find it very weird that the Cubs seem to go out of their way trying to act as if Sammy Sosa never existed, yet they hire Manny Ramirez as a player/coach in the minors?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 10:50 AM) Yep Seriously, it takes about 2 seconds to make sure exactly what I said. I probably should have clarified and said "pretty good," but keep fighting the great good fight. And here it is post 107. Listen to your own advise, and look up what you wrote. LMAO Also, believing that a guy with good stuff who was a great pitcher for a fairly large period of time was going to be a good pitcher is not trolling. It's believing in something. I've already owned up to that.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 10:37 AM) You are going to play your semantics card, but I did state extended, not "long." He was good enough that people on here liked him at $1.5 million. I surely liked that gamble at $1.5 mill and no compensation a hell of a lot more than I did $14.1 mill and a pick or $50 million and a pick. I also don't believe that we have seen the last of Paulino, but if he is done, they can just cut him and only owe him the remaining portion of his $1.5 mill. They could not do that with either Santana or Jimenez. It's not a big loss. EDIT: I also find it funny that you are still defending a would be signing of Jimenez or Santana at this juncture. It's truly outrageous. You have made my day. Thanks for that. You said fairly large period of time, and said he was "great" over this fairly large period of time. I, and most people here, if they were being honest, would say you are exhaggerating.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 10:18 AM) Just so we are clear, this: is not an extended period of time, but this: is worth $50 million over 4 years and a 2nd round pick. Got it, thank you! If 27 starts over 2 years is being a great pitcher over a long period of time, I think Jimenez and Santana have pretty much blown that away during their careers. We will see the numbers at the end of the season. One thing we know, Paulino isn't helping anyone win this year. The other 2 still have a chance and each have had several good starts.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 09:53 AM) Ubaldo also costs 33.3x what Paulino cost PLUS a 2nd round pick. No big deal. Salty's faded, but he'd have been a hell of a lot more valuable at $40 million and no 2nd round pick than Ubaldo right now. Paulino was also good between 2011 and 2012. Look it up yourself. I also have no problem with xFIP, but showed that he has two peripherals that are working against each other - his K/BB is in his favor while a 29% GB rate is an absolutely terrible thing, especially with non-overpowering stuff. One of those is going to give eventually, and if it's his K/BB, his xFIP is going to rise very quickly and he's going to start giving up a lot of runs. The only place Paulino played where his ERA was below 5.83 was KC, and that was 162 innings and 27 starts over 2 years. How is that being a great pitcher over a fairly large period of time? That was also 2 surgeries ago, and his short stint in the minors last year look just like his performances this season. I still would take Jimenez as he has had a few good starts. And no one seems to mention Santana. I guess he is doing too well. (Although I preferred Jimenez myself, and noted it here)

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 28, 2014 -> 09:35 AM) How many of those numbers by the bullpen members have been compiled in closing situations? We could take Purcey's numbers from last year and argue he was better than Addison Reed...should we so choose. Belisario's certainly not going to come out on top of any type of statistical comparison going by this past week. Or, 14/16 saves versus Belisario's two blown saves already. Wait...blown saves don't matter for middle relievers, right? Well, then comparing statistics of middle relievers has little or next to nothing to do with the statistics of those getting the 25th, 26th and 27th outs in a game. Besides, if that was actually the case...your argument was true, then Rick Hahn would be on the phone right now trading for three more position player versions of Matt Davidson and welcoming Putnam/Belisario/Petricka not to let the door him them on the butt on the way out. OMG Caulfield and I agree.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 09:35 AM) Take a stance for once in your life instead of arguing to argue. You might feel better about yourself. I take a stance. You just don't like my stance so you make crap up like this saying I don't take one. It is funny the post after you criticize my "stances", you say I don't take a stance.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 09:29 AM) Petricka, Putnam, and Webb all have ERAs lower than him (on the active roster). That puts him 4th best. Belisario, Putnam, Downs, Petricka, and Webb all have lower FIPs than him. That puts him 6th best. Putnam, Belisario, and Petricka all have WHIPs lower than him. That puts him 4th best. His xFIP is nice, but it's aided by a high K rate and low BB rate. He has an incredibly low GB rate right now and, while his HR/FB is high right now, he's had problems with homers in the past. Something's going to give. Also, believing that a guy with good stuff who was a great pitcher for a fairly large period of time was going to be a good pitcher is not trolling. It's believing in something. I've already owned up to that. BTW, how's Ubaldo doing? You wanted to give him $50 million. That would have looked a lot better going to Saltalamacchia, wouldn't it? And I "only" wanted him for $40 million. That would have been a hell of a lot better than anything you would have committed the money to which, as I recall, was basically anything Marty wanted. /drops mic Ubaldo is doing a lot better than Felipe Paulino. And Salty is fading fast. Oh to have him for double what anyone else would pay him. So reliever ERA means a lot and FIP means a lot. xFIP, a number you pointed out to show us how great Paulino would be I guess doesn't matter. And Paulino was a great pitcher for a fairly large period of time? LMAO, you have officially lost your mind.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2014 -> 09:23 AM) Trolling is making up ridiculous arguments and making people "prove" you wrong, and once they do, changing to another ridiculous argument and repeating the process. Or just dragging in non sequiturs from other threads. And the ridiculous argument here is Addison Reed is a middle reliever. which he pointed out yesterday. , and Addison Reed would be the 5th best pitcher in the White Sox bullpen.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 09:05 AM) He has 3. Fastball, slider, change. He doesn't use the changeup as much, but he should feature it more. Probably something Arizona is doing with him. More trolling. I never said anything about last year. He was fairly solid last year as a closer, but had a tendency to give up big homers (WAR is not the best measure for relievers, but it's not the worst either, so I will let this pass). However, he's been pretty mediocre this year. There's certainly room to improve, but that doesn't change what's happened. Thus, he would be the 4th or 5th best pitcher in the Sox bullpen right now. If you would like, I can give you any number of measures to indicate this. His xFIP seems pretty good. He is 14 out of 16 in saves. Please provide the numbers. And please, it is not trolling. What is trolling is the guy suggesting Felipe Paulino may pitch 180 innings for the White Sox this year based on 7 starts in 2012 calling several posters "arguments" ridiculous this morning.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 08:12 AM) Then make it. --- You can't because it's an absolutely ridiculous argument. He did nothing to me other than pitch like a middle reliever. I like/liked Reed. I honestly think, given his repertoire, he'd be better served in the rotation instead of the bullpen. The Sox bullpen has not been horrendous - have you watched games or seen the numbers the bullpen has put up, or are you still basing this off the first two weeks of the year? Greg, I'm pretty sure that if Adam Dunn puts up .275/.400/.500 next year for Texas or Houston or someone, you'd say that you gave him a B for his time with the Sox and whoever is currently playing for the White Sox would get a D. Addison Reed put up a 1.7 WAR last year. Seems like at his salary, he is a bargain. His k-rate is climbing. His walk rate is decreasing. If he would be the 5th best pitcher in the 2014 White Sox pen, this team should make the playoffs.