Dick Allen

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 11:35 AM) I don't believe this to be true. I am guessing he is getting close to $500k a year or more working for ESPN, while he would make considerably less doing the same amount of work, or a similar or greater amount of money while working way more hours for an MLB team. At the end of the day, there wouldn't be enough difference in talent between the "top" choice (Law) and the second best choice to justify the financial cost it would take to make up the difference. And, due to his contract with ESPN, I doubt he can even be a senior advisor to a team. I can guarantee you he is making nowhere near $500k from ESPN.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 10:55 AM) your initial point was that, "if Law was so good, why didn't he have offers?" And he did have offers. Then it was "well if he has offers, why did he turn them down to be with his family?" To be with his family. "But he must not be good enough if he is spending time with his family." It's an 80 hour week. "So if they work 80 hours, he must not be good enough." 40 hours vs 80 hours. "You made my point." WHAT?!?! Rest assured, if Keith Law knew all the answers , he would be an employee of a MLB team whether you choose to believe so or not. He's just another guy with an opinion, and his track record is no better than anyone else in a similair position.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 10:43 AM) For the love of god, yes. That doesn't change the fact that Keith Law is a skilled talent evaluator. I also don't understand why you're driving this "if he's as great as he thinks" angle. I am great at my job, and I work 40 hours a week at it. If I worked 80, I'd be better. I don't need to work 80 and I don't want to work 80 because I value my personal time. Why can't Keith Law do the same? I suspect that wasn't the real reason Law decided not to continue his quest. I'm pretty sure he knew the time commitment from the get go. But you said if you worked 80 you would be better, and I'm sure every team has guys who work that, so you are admitting Law, doing what he is doing, is not as good as any current team's evaluators. You made my point. Thank you.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 10:00 AM) Many of you need to read the new thread I created about Rick Hahn on with Spiegel and Finfer this morning. Those of you that want free agents this offseason are going to be disappointed. Many will be spent on the draft and on the international market. Maybe a free agent here and there. 2014 is a wash. There is a limit on what they can spend on the draft and international free agents. Assuming the Sox payroll makes them break even, with the extra $25 million from a new TV contract, and with Thornton, Crain, Peavy, Floyd, Konerko off the books, or $1 million for Paulie, there still is plenty of cash left over after maxing out on the young guys.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 10:34 AM) I wouldn't dare make that claim, I'm not qualified to judge either way. You're the only one that's trying to tell us how Keith Law compares to ML scouts. I haven't interviewed him for a job -- have you? All I said is if he was as great as he thinks, he would be working for a MLB team. You said the 80 hour a week thing made him walk away. If that is true, the guys working the 80 hour weeks should have a more informed opinion, correct?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 10:25 AM) If you're asking me if he's the best talent evaluator in America, I would say that no one thinks that. But if you're implying that the fact he does not work for an MLB team is sufficient proof that he doesn't have the talent to work for an MLB team, you are wrong. If you think writing a blog and doing a chat on ESPN.com shows he has the talent to work for a MLB team, you're wrong. I don't think anyone should get excited if Law says he likes a prospect, and they shouldn't get too upset if he says they will bust.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 10:00 AM) This is absolutely not a valid argument. Working for a team and working in the media are drastically different lifestyles and it it not at all unreasonable to want to be ESPN's Keith Law rather than an anonymous member of the Astros working 80 hours a week. If that job requires 80 hours a week, how could his opinion be informed when he's not working anywhere near that? Are there specifics examples over the years of Law's opinion being superior ? And if his opinions were superior working whatever he was working, I'm sure a team would offer him a job paying him more money, working the same amount of hours he's working now, for exclusive rights to those opinions.

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 09:54 AM) He was completely wrong on Sale and now brushes it off saying he is going to break down soon due to his arm action, which is why he didn't like him in the first place. That brings me to my original point nicely though, he seems to put a high emphasis on a clean pitcher's delivery, for example, when the Sox obviously do not. Poreda, Sale, and Danish are the first few examples that jump into my head. Sox also seem to value athletic ability quite a bit, where he prefers more pure baseball skills. Etc etc The problem is, even guys with "clean" deliveries get hurt. Pitching to me is like smoking. We all know it's bad for you, and pitching is bad for your arm, shoulder, elbow. Some people smoke all day everyday until they are 95 and die in a car accident. Some get sick and die from it in their 40's. It's easy to project Sale eventually getting hurt. I've done it myself. But really you could say that about any pitcher.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 09:05 AM) He interviewed to be the Astros scouting director prior to the 2012 season but withdrew his name from consideration. Wikipedia suggests it was to spend more time with his family. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with not wanting to deal with the pressure. I have no problem with that, though I'm sure some on here will immediately claim that he is "nutless" or is a "fraidy cat" but really, these same people would crumple under the pressure of having a position that high within a professional sports organization. Oh, and in that same chat, he describes Manny Machado as the "MVNTP" which is the "most valuable non-Trout player." At 20 years old, he has a 4.3 fWAR, which, given the actual definition of "most valuable," I would say that is pretty close to being correct, at least in the AL (because I am assuming that Machado will stay pretty healthy and have a long playing career and make greater than $200 million in his career). That was a pretty bold, though not altogether groundbreaking prediction on his part. There are other examples as well too. From this point forward, we'll be able to use Rienzo as a measuring stick because he likes his stuff. His opinions over the years, certainly haven't distinguished himself from anyone. If someone wants to think he really knows any more about what he's seeing than the guys who are getting paid to do the same thing, great, but I don't see it. And isn't his withdrawing his name to "spend more time with his family" indicate that spending more time with his family would hurt his job performance? Since he's spending more time with his family in his current postion, in a roundabout way, isn't he admitting his opinion is probably not as accurate as it should?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 08:29 AM) For the most part, I think he's been pretty accurate Usually when you take a negative view, you will be. He's willing to be way wrong on Chris Sale and brush it off because there are several more guys that are supposed to turn into stars that will not. He comes out ahead. If he really was the player evaluating genius he thinks he is, he would be putting an MLB organization together, not doing chats for espn.com.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 02:20 AM) I know it's beating a dead horse with you but... Rios has a ton of value to other teams as well. I just saw that he hits .315 vs fastballs after hitting .361 the previous year. If you put Alex Rios in front of a really good hitter he's gonna see more fastballs and he's gonna be very productive. He would look really good in front of Beltre in Texas. At this point Dunn, while still dangerous, isn't a guy an opposing pitcher is gonna say "Oh man I better not mess around with this guy with Dunn on deck" What's beating a dead horse is try to get through that no, Rios doesn't have a ton of value. If he did, he would be somewhere else right now.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 08:06 AM) I would argue that there is a different draft class every year and that it isn't useful to choose one random year to make a prediction about the future. You could also look at the 2010 draft and argue that it's crucial to get into the top 3 because you can get a generational talent there but there's a huge dropoff in talent at number 4 (Chris Sale notwithstanding), and it would be equally useless. It's ridiculous to want to have the worst record in baseball for several years or one of the worst because it usually won't work out in the end. People become so dissinterested in your team, if the players you draft turn out to be any good, you wind up unable to pay them. The last time the Sox went into a full rebuild, they struck it rich in the first round 4 years in a row. McDowell was the 5th pick in 1987. Griffey Jr. was #1, so it obviously paid off to be the worst team that year. The other 3 before McDowell weren't special, in fact, had the Sox had the 4th or 3rd pick, they really wanted Mike Harkey. In 1988, the Sox drafted Robin Ventura with the 10th pick. Look at the picks before him, and tell me how it paid off not to lose even more games. Frank Thomas was #7 in 1989. There were some decent players before him, Ben McDonald went #1, but if the Sox drafted higher, they really wanted Jeff Jackson, a guy who never played in the major leagues, and Frank obviously was ultimately the best player of that draft. They did get Alex Fernandez with the 4th pick in 1990 and there is where it may have paid off to draft that high, however, Mike Mussina was selected with the 20th pick. There are really good players in every draft outside of the top 5 picks. It took teams like Tampa and Pittsburgh many years before their draft positions really paid off, and even they have made mistakes. If losing 100 games nets you Tim Beckham, it makes zero sense to try embrace being bad. The Sox are going to draft high the next draft, but I think we all should hope its the last time they draft in the top 5 or 10 for quite some time.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 07:47 AM) The $25 million a year isn't the problem. It's the 10 year long contract that kills you. You have to keep paying him that much through age 41. In today's drug-less baseball, players don't age as well as they did in the 90s That's a good point. 35 year olds are old again.

The big ticket guys seem to not live up to the billing. It's the second tier FA, or former top players coming off of injury where you get the bargains and production, like the Sox with Dye. I think it would be overly optimistic to put the chances of the Sox signing Cano at anything above zero.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 04:05 AM) Seriously, wiki the MLB drafts from '98-'07. Besides 2005, which was the outlier in the amount of successful draft picks, all of the other drafts fit the parameters in my post above. 2002 was an incredibly successful first round, but a good amount of the draft picks were in the mid-mid/late of the round. Sure picking top 5 will help in success rate, but don't expect our pitching to finish in the bottom five next year. Think of it this way, of the the 30 1st rounders, give them a hypothetical ranking of 1-30. I guarantee you that a year after draft date if you re-ranked the players it would be an entirely different ranking. I mentioned in another thread the year the Sox drafted Aaron Poreda, 4 of the top 8 picks have lower career WARS than him, and He wasn't exactly stellar. So hoping a team is miserable all summer just for a high pick usually doesn't work out as well as it does in other sports.

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 08:56 PM) He's a f***ing genius. Yes he is.

QUOTE (winninguglyin83 @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 06:43 PM) Kenny Williams thinks Adam Dunn has value. We need another team to hire Williams. Adam has value and actually has been really good the last couple of months. The problem is his value isn't as high as his salary. If he put 6 months together like the last 2 he would be worth it.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 06:26 PM) No reason to drop Alexei for nothing Definitely not, but Rios and Dunn? I would let them go for nothing but full salary relief.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 06:17 PM) Dunn, Rios and Ramirez will get claimed. I think teams are hoping we'll give them away for basically shared salary and a marginal prospect. Keppinger could get claimed; if we eat more salary and take an organizational minor leaguer it could stick. Which Danks? Both would be claimed. The younger is at minimum salary - someone will take a flier. We should keep him for this year anyway - better he than Wise. The Elder would have to be worked out like Rios et al. Shared salary and a marginal prospect? If the Sox were OK with that, if they were claimed, they would just let the claiming team take on the entire contracts. Why pay for marginal prospects?

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 03:25 PM) There is undeniably an attitude problem with this team. It isn't the whole problem, there have been injuries, bad luck, aging, young players not taking steps forward, but also attitude. It has not felt like many players on this team cared about the results of games for much of the season. A writer said they were "too nice". That could be true. I think they miss AJ, or at least someone like AJ. I know, AJ was on the 2007 team, but this team has more ability than that. I think they are missing an agitator.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 03:19 PM) Might be worth picking up his $4M option to see if you can deal him next year If you can't deal him with what he's making now, I don't see that as viable. Really, he's currently not making much more than a guy like Heath would be making to take his roster spot.

Not a lot of deadline dealing. The Cubs did most of their work early. Other than that, really kind of quiet. I reminded me of the winter meetings when they always say this is the year there will be 1,000,000 trades and there never are.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:59 PM) Co-captains! Alex can wear the A on his jersey. He will take over showing the young players how to big league down the line on a routine grounder.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:53 PM) If Konerko retires, who would be next in line to be captain of the Sox? I think they will be captain-free. I don't think they have anyone right now who would be an obvious candidate, and if they picked someone, it could be a burden.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:51 PM) If you are willing to keep him only to deal him at the next deadline, you are going to spend quite a significant chunk of money and tie-up a roster spot which could be filled by Garcia or Thompson (Trayce is raw but I'd think in a rebuilding year the plan would be for him to be on the big squad starting as early as next season). Seems to me in that case, you might be behooved to kick some salary to the team acquiring Rios to speed the process up (and ensure you get some prospects back now...who can help kick start the rebuilding process a little sooner). The Sox have eaten some money recently with a couple players. If the reports are accurate they won't eat any money for Rios, it would indicate to me they aren't being offered any worthwhile prospect or prospects at all in order to do so.