Dick Allen

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.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:40 PM) Between this special and the draft special MLBN pays Harold Reynolds to talk about s*** he barely understands. I'm not watching this, but you could get the same quality of his work on the draft by picking a random Jimmy John's employee to sit in his chair.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:42 PM) I would go with living months out of a suitcase and always traveling through different time zones but yeah, the staring... I don't know, they barely have to touch their luggage, don't have to fly commercial and have a lot of down time. The staring would bother me, as would answering the same questions over and over again.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:38 PM) The truth is that teams have no issues taking on contracts in the offseason when they have a clean slate, but they never like to take on money in mid-season deals Yeah, I don't know how much room teams leave in the budget for inseason moves. Boston picked up Peavy, but their purge last year left them with what I assume is a lot of wiggle room. The Dodgers can pick up cash, other than that, it seems it would be tough to move big contracts without taking big contracts back. I read a couple weeks ago, the well is even drying up in Detroit.

The year Nomar got traded to the Cubs, weren't there a bunch of trades announced right at the deadline and after?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:30 PM) And a dead clock is correct twice a day. Look, if you just rip on every single player we have, you're going to be more correct than not these days. The problem is Greg's rationale for these opinions he has...which is nonsense almost in each and every case. His rationale may not always be correct, none of ours are, but it is exactly what we are seeing on twitter now as to the reason this best bat on the market, an impact bat, better than average defender with a lower than market rate contract, is not all that popular with the rest of the league.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:29 PM) I'm still going to be surprised if Lindstrom isn't moved. I think he'll be gone eventually, but maybe next month. He's not exactly a "must have" guy, and his last couple outings have been pretty brutal after a really good stretch.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:24 PM) My favorite part about Rios is that he really brings out the mouth-breather in fans. I can only imagine this must be what it's like to be a Bears fan. If you don't get what you want. Hold on to him and trade him next deadline when he will have more value. I guess you are putting down all those not so high on Alex Rios. If you want to see the true "mouth-breathers" go back to the first few pages of this thread and look at what people thought Rios could bring in a trade. Turns out, once again, Greg was correct. I do agree he could have more value a year from now. He will be playing for a payday.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 02:11 PM) If you don't eat the money, I'm not sure you'll find a deal at all. You are probably right, but eating a lot of money isn't going to bring back a future all star. Teams are not dumb. It's harder than ever to pry away their best prospects.