Dick Allen

Again, it's the 25th roster spot. If signing AJ supposedly only gets you 2 wins, bringing back Paulie instead of Jordan Danks or some other minor league fodder is probably even less if Paulie isn't any better. There is really no need to be upset.

I also agree with Marty when he said if Konerko realizes he can't play, he probably won't wait until the end of the season to hang em up.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 09:13 AM) I am surprised Konerko came back. With Abreu in the fold, and Dunn still around, he has to know that PT will be fleeting, especially if his problems the last couple of years weren't just because of injury. My thought is I wonder if Paulie is looking at this as a chance to work in more of a "coaching" role to see if he likes the idea of doing this type of a job in the future. It has to be in the back of his head knowing that Kenny wanted to hire him as a manager. I would think his coming back, considering the roster crunch, considering the current state of the team, shows he thinks his problems were at least mostly injury-related.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 09:09 AM) That looks right. But I have a feeling Keppinger or Gillaspie are gone. You can't go into the season without a 4th OF. They play a lot more than a few innings. Garcia can play the OF. And in a pinch, Dunn can play the OF for a little bit (I am stretching the meaning of can). I don't think, if the roster stands as is position-wise, you can have a guy that is strickly an OF on the bench.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 09:04 AM) This really does mess with the bench. I'd assume we're stuck with Keppinger, but he can't play SS, which means there is no backup shortstop unless Garcia is on the team. Seems at this point that either Keppinger is traded/released, or he learns to play SS. Or maybe, just maybe, they go with a 5 man bench and 6 man bullpen. I suppose that is possible. If they do, then it can work. What else am I missing? Is there some way to make the bench work otherwise? My instinct here is, there are a number of moves coming soon. Almost has to be the case. I think it would mean someone like the guy they claimed on waivers from Houston has a shot. I think Konerko gets Jordan Danks spot. You can plug infielders into the OF for a few innings if needed, but not the other way around. L Garcia basically has the team made if Hahn doesn't clear the 1b/DH logjam.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 09:02 AM) I think we need to make some trade. Whether we dump Dunn or Keppinger, although Dunn would be hard to do... just something. How about Keppinger for the TB catcher?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 08:48 AM) If Konerko wasn't back I'd have said I'd prefer the Granderson option if he was at a contract I liked, but any chance for him to get PA's rotating positions to the DH spot just evaporated. Unless someone is moved. I am surprised he came back. I thought for sure he would call it a career. What would be interesting is if Paulie physically came back better than last year and started hitting again. It's not like he's 45, and before his wrist surgery, he was hitting around .400. Last year he obviously was hurting when Dunn was playing first all those games early. Obviously, chances of broken down 37 year olds returning to form aren't as good as broken down 27 year olds, but maybe Paulie has something left. He apparently thinks so. Also, perhaps the Sox mapped out their plan to him. I would think coming back to a team destined to lose a ton of games isn't so desirable. For some reason, I think the Sox may try to sign Choo.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 11:11 PM) Entertaining Iowa nd game. Excited for the isu game. The difference between Fran and Lickliter is incredible. Iowa can score a ton. Players like to score. I think he is going to start landing some big recruits in the next few years.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 10:40 PM) Wait a second, Syracuse, Pitt, and Notre Dame are in the ACC? So confused. I used to get into this challenge, but once the Big Ten won it, I lost interest in the other games. Just wait for the Rutgers/Pitt Big 10/ACC challenge coming next year.

QUOTE (daggins @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 07:20 AM) Well hopefully he signs with the Mets and the Sox keep their draft picks. I don't think the Sox will sign Granderson, but the odds are a lot higher he would help the Sox win a lot more games than the draft pick and slot money they would surrender signing him.

This has been an amazing couple of days transaction-wise.

Look at the bright side, if the Sox make no moves, they will be selecting high in the draft in 2015.#rebuilding

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 03:29 PM) Clearly the assumption with Salty everyone is making is that he's closer to the player he was last year than the guy who hit .228 from 2009 to 2012. But he got less than 1/2 as many PA's as AJ over that stretch and had an identical number of walks. I would take a guy who hit .270 with a .270 obp over a guy who hit .220 with a .270 obp.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 03:20 PM) You are CONSTANTLY deriding these metrics by using them in a context for which they are NOT meant to be used. These numbers are only inaccurate if you insist on asking them to do things they are not designed to do. They are NOT "the end all," whatever that even means, and absolutely nobody is claiming otherwise. The reason no one has EVER suggested that we "cancel the playoffs and give a WAR trophy" is because that's totally ridiculous. WAR exists in order to allow us to try to compare the sum of different players' contributions under a common frame of reference -- and that is EXACTLY how lasttrip just used it, and it lended an interesting insight to the discussion. It was never meant to be able to predict team W-L records or to imply that adding X player will add exactly Y wins to a team. It is a metric that STRIPS CONTEXT and it would therefore be ridiculous to expect it to hold up when context is introduced. It gives us a frame of reference, DA. That's it. Please stop pretending it's not useful just because it can be misapplied. That's a reference. If it isn't meant for W-L maybe you should mention it when someone says "his war was 2.0, the Sox catchers was -1.0, the Sox wouldn't have won 63 games, they would have won 66. I am not the one misusing it. I never said it wasn't useful. In fact, just the opposite. It is being misused in a big way, and a few of the people who misuse it know better, but do it anyway to try to make a point.

QUOTE (professa @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 03:19 PM) Salty 2007-2013: .738 Career WAR: 6.2 Projected Salary: 10-12 million Lobaton 2013 OPS: .714 2013 WAR: 1.4 Projected Salary: Around league minimum Only took 2013 for Lobaton b/c it was the only year he had 200+ PA I'd rather save the 30-40 million it'd cost to get Salty and go with a cheaper option like Lobaton or Jaso, or try out Flow/Phegley for one more year. You rebuild through smart trades and the farm, not FA signings. Salty would not make a whole lot of sense considering where we are at the moment. You sign someone like Salty when you are close to competing and need to fill a hole or two. We have holes a C, 2B, 3B, LF/CF (depends if Tank and ADA can give you 1.5 WAR+), and in the pen. Gain some high draft picks, develop the farm, play the kids. We're not the Yanks or the RSox. We have to be like the Cardinals, whose core is their players they developed (molina, adams, carpenter, craig, jay, not to mention their pitching staff) and add guys like Holliday, Peralta, and Beltran when they're close to competing. Nothing to worry about. Salty is going to Miami.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 02:49 PM) This, exactly. And the hate for Salty is just silly. He's not some loser who's never won before. He was benched in the WS because he was in a slump. Slumps happen, and managers have to go with their gut in short series. He was good enough to have just played 119 games for the World Champions, and he brings the kind of on-base skills we severely need. He is much better in this regard than AJ ever was. His career caught stealing percentage is similar to AJ. But this isn't the most important fielding stat, especially for our pitching staff. It has been discussed frequently in various recent articles that pitchers actions have much more to do with preventing stolen bases than catchers' actions. Any ardent fan of Hawk, or frequent listener to Hawk's telecasts knows this. Left handed pitchers, historically, are much, much better at preventing stolen bases than right handed pitchers, and our starting staff, with one caveat, is no exception. Danks, Quintana, and Santiago are all excellent in regards to very lower SB/inning and high CS%. Sale, because of a longish delivery time, is not, but overall we figure to be very good in this area, regardless of who is behind the dish. And we need Lexi to field catchers' throws closer to the bag, but I digress. There was a statistic displayed a few years ago about AJ's CS% in his years with the Sox. No lie, it was something like 55% when MB56 was on the mound, and slightly below 20% for everybody else combined. That should tell a Buehrle fan what he should know already. Since AJ has likely caught more innings of Mark than any other pitcher, subtracting out those numbers would probably give Salty the slight nod. But that would be unfair - AJ also caught Gavin in '08 when he was the worst runner-holder in the game, so there's that More important to our defensive needs at catcher, imo, is limiting the total of PB's and WP's - balls that get past the catcher. In this area, Salty is historically a bit better than AJ, with the anomaly of 2011, when I believe Salty was catching Wakefield. He's also slightly better than Flowers, and a lot better than Phegley, who is simply horrid in this area. How are his on base skills better than AJ's ever was, yet AJ has a higher career OBP? Am I missing something?

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 03:04 PM) I hope it stays that way. It all depends on the price. It never hurts to have something more to look at during spring training. You need a lot of catchers then. I don't think if the Sox acquired him they would be insulting fans' intelligence and gushing about his upside. It's a minor acquistion.

Salty to Miami. The catcher market broke the dam today.

One thing that really concerns me is TB seems to know what they are doing. If this guy is a decent platoon guy or more, why did they spend so much money (if you consider the extension and assumming Bell's money plus paying Molina some cash)to get away from this guy? Maddon is the platoon king.

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 02:41 PM) FYI Greg, last year Lobaton had a 1.4 bWAR in just 100 games. The almighty Pierzynski that you were dying for the Sox to re-sign had a 1.6 bWAR in 134 games. I really think it's ridiculous that people say a guy has a 2.0 bWAR so if he replaced a 0.0 bWAR the team would have won 2 more games. If the number is so accurate, the final standings would perfectly reflect every team's collective bWARs, correct? I think they should just cancel the playoffs, forget about standings and just hand out a bWAR trophy at the end of the year. Sabermetrics is a big part of baseball, but to think these numbers are the end all is ridiculous. People like to mention xFIP for pitchers. Did you know Gavin Floyd had a better career xFIP than Mark Buehrle? Who would you rather have on the mound?

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 01:01 PM) Answer below. This exactly. Ron Zook was an awful coach, and then recruiting fell off on top of it. Zero value. I don't think with Zook Illinois is a consistent middle of the pack team. But yes, he needed to go after 2009. As for your last point, I think it's pretty interesting and telling that no one wants him to do just that. Why would a guy getting paid to sit at home want to be a recruiting coordinator and chase around high school guys? There are plenty of schools that would love to have Zook recruiting for them. There is no question he is a good recruiter. His classes did drop off when his job security became an issue, but Illinois has more players in the NFL than most Big 10 teams even though their record would indicate they should not.

Nathan to Detroit. Sort of explains the Fister deal. The more free agents off the board before the Winter Meetings, the more exciting they will be.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 10:26 AM) But in those years he had the same problem Beckman has right now - how do you convince 18 year olds to come play for you when all they hear is that you won't be around when they get on campus? It's basically an impossible task for a losing program. Once you hit lame duck status, it's hard to get rid of it. The only way would be for ILL to give him a long extension, and the losing makes that impossible.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 10:22 AM) That is just it though, there is nothing in Zook's 2010 and 2011 recruiting classes that suggests this would have been a middle of the pack big ten team going forward. Zook was also coming off a 3-9 season in 2009 where the team wasn't even competitive in most games despite having a number of NFL players. There was literally nothing to suggest he was going to build Illinois into a consistently middle of the pack big ten team after that season. Zook would be a great assistant. Just put him in the coach's booth on gameday, mute his headset, and let him hit the road recruiting.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 08:58 AM) More interesting, perhaps, is that Beane was one of, if not the first, to really correct the overvaluing of closers several years back by trading his away. Perhaps he believes the pendulum has now swung back too far in the other direction... I agree. It definitely appears to be an anti-Moneyball move.