Dick Allen

I don't see how anyone can be to blame when you have zero idea what is really going on. It could be a team has offered enough for the White Sox but they are holding out because they like another team's players a little more and maybe they will cave. Until he is ultimately traded, and even then we should wait a while, judging is silly. All we get is rumors.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 09:17 AM) I just go to the local fitness center that's down the block for $25 a month. The workout equipment is a little lacking but there is a indoor track, pool, basketball, racquetball so that makes up for it. They just opened one of those huge FFC gyms nearby. It looks impressive, but I think it's almost $70/month, with a $400 enrollment fee, and an annual fee. Hard to justify the massive jump in price if I probably don't need the extra amenities. I'm in FFC. They have one in the building where I work, and a couple within 4 blocks of my home. I can use any one of their gyms and it's $78 a month through work, and my company contributes $35 a month if you make 8 visits. So it's pretty cheap. They keep the place really clean. I used to belong to Equinox at 900 N. Michigan. It was about $120 a month. Since I don't take many classes, the equipment and pool are about the same at FFC, so it makes more sense doing what I am doing. I do miss the many celebrity sightings at Equinox though. That was kind of fun.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 16, 2017 -> 02:06 PM) I think they'll do that sort of signing but my guess is jason Hammel, who I believe we've heard wants to stay in Chicago Area anyway. Hammel is a terrible fit in the AL and small park, but so is Derek Holland.

QUOTE (shipps @ Jan 16, 2017 -> 09:39 AM) There was a point that Levine said all other 29 teams had conversations with the Sox about Q. LOL He always has to leave the door open to be wrong and still right at the same time. They ll do that. Baseball "insiders'" favorite term is fluid. When they throw that one out there, they really aren't too sold on their info. Bruce has been around for a long time, he has more legit sources tHan a lot of others. He is also wrong sometimes, and I am sure used. We will see.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Jan 16, 2017 -> 07:25 AM) Who will be today's conductor to strike up the band? Will it be Bruce Levine, Bob Nightengale, Ken Rosenthal, Scott Merkin, Phil Rogers, Jon Heyman or Chuck Garfien? One of them is bound to strike up some conversation. Maybe Levine comes out with some more tidbits in relation to his article yesterday. Too many teams involved. I would think we will have ample warning when something is imminent by all you have mentioned.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 14, 2017 -> 06:04 PM) Again, they need a 5th starter. They're still the best team in baseball. Next year they'll need a 3rd starter, and it'll make sense to pony up then. Yes, as a general rule -- except it turns out we have four serious suitors anyway. We are not suffering from a lack of demand. Ok, challenge it. But you'll need to provide evidence against the universal economic adage that "price sits where supply meets demand." Supposedly they may use a 6 man rotation at least initially to try to offset any postseason fatigue.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 14, 2017 -> 04:43 PM) I know Tanaka & Cueto can opt out of their contracts and they would be foolish not to if they have strong seasons next year. Cueto will be 33 and will be passing on about $85 million. Tanaka looks like he will do well, but I would Imagine he stays with the Yankees, and the Yankees have him and still want Q. And Q has been a better pitcher than him anyways I just don't think the market will be as flooded as believed, and Q's contract makes teams that can't or won't pay $150 million for free agents players in his services. I don't think it will come down to it, but if they held him another year, assuming he is still the same pitcher, there will be plenty of interest

Besides Arrietta and maybe Duffy, who are the top of the rotation free agent starters available next year? Looks like a bunch of junk to me.

I was in LA with a buddy many years ago and we went to TPIR with Bab Barker. They were passing out tickets in front of the Chinese Theater. We didnt get on stage but saw ourselves a lot and the guy we met in line did get to play. His name was Bud, he was from South Dakota and was on vacation with his daughter and ex daughter in law in an RV. He won the initial bidding because everyone but himself went over, he then had the game where you pick numbers out of a bag and there put them in their proper place for the price of a car. His was a Corvette. You have 3 strikes. He picked out numbers 3 times that were wrong, picked those same numbers and tried to put them in the same spots. It was unreal. He still wound up winning the Corvette. Of course he then spins a dollar so he goes to the showdown where he bids $11 k on a showcase that winds up being around $40k. The other guy was over so Bud wins about $90k in cash and prizes. You wouldn't beleive how crazy the place went. Watching it didn't do it justice, but Bob said Bud you have a lot of fans. We went back to the theater and they were passing out free tickets to watch them tape Seinfeld. So we went to that as well. It was the one Poppie peed on the couch. I was never on a TV Show but I was on Sports Jeapordy on the Score and made it to the finals, where I lost. I was in studio when it was on Belmont with the heavy rule crew. They wanted to know my job. I told them I was a petroleum transfer technition. Terry thought I drove the big boats.

Frazier had an off year for him but he still put up a 2 4 WAR. He isn't a bad player.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 14, 2017 -> 02:16 PM) How much does the salary affect the Cubs though? Eventually it will. They were taxed in 2016. I think they can get under this year. If they keep their core together, and they are half as good as advertised, they will have an enormous payroll eventually. With just Hayward, Rizzo, Lester, and Zobrist signed, they have $68 million guaranteed in 2018.

Melky, Abreu, and Frazier all put up over 1.0 WAR last year, and only Melky was 32. Turned 32 in August. So it really doesn't apply. But teams are getting away from paying the Moss types $8 million without a doubt. If he would be willing to play for a million or two, I doubt he would have a problem finding a team.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 13, 2017 -> 09:35 AM) Last night, Hoiberg gave Paul Zipser, a rookie with 47 career minutes and a career 1-16 shooting line coming into the game, his first start matched up defensively against Carmelo Anthony. He then played him 34 minutes. he was a -16 on the game. Yes, Mirotic and Butler were out with illness. Yes there were other people who were as bad - Taj put up a -20. Yes he wanted better defense than McDermott would bring. Yes that did not decide the game. Just stand back and ask yourself whether that makes any sense to you on paper. The guy has had basically 1 D-league appearance this year and he got 34 minutes guarding Melo. More commentary He wanted McDermott to come off the bench. Yeah, it looks goofy, but it didn't change the game, and Zipster actually started out pretty well. It didn't last. There's plenty to nail Hoiberg on, but a bad roster, depleted, isn't one of them. One thing I've noticed is Wade looks a lot older the last couple of weeks from a playing standpoint than he did at the beginning of the season.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 13, 2017 -> 09:22 AM) I don't know, read how BP calculates it. For one, the main reason this became a thing was a technology update (pitch F/X) but then they've even been able to make interesting retro models for it. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article....articleid=25514 They can take it all away and use technology to call balls and strikes. MLBN had a thing where Eric Byrnes called a game, I think it was an independent league, behind the plate. They set it up and had someone watch the box on a monitor and told him in an earpiece if the pitch was a ball or a strike. Not one complaint for batter or pitcher or catcher. Seems pretty simple.

QUOTE (Boogua @ Jan 13, 2017 -> 08:52 AM) He runs a Phillips 3-4 though, which is a one gap system... They're going to be disgusting. I wonder if the citizens of LA are looking back fondly to the days where they had no NFL team.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 13, 2017 -> 08:35 AM) He picked up Wade Phillips to run his Defense today which is about as good of a defensive hire as you can make. The one thing I read that seemed like a convincing argument yesterday was a list of the four youngest coaches in NFL history (name, team, age in years-days, record). Lane Kiffin OAK 32-123 5-15 Raheem Morris TB 33-10 17-31 David Shula CIN 33-101 19-52 Josh McDaniels DEN 33-144 11-17 Yes, when a team hires a new coach the team is already starting off bad, but there's also zero cases of someone at comparable age actually turning a team around. That tells me there could darn well be something more systematic here - either ownership that doesn't trust the kid or players that don't trust the kid or coaches who get theirs too early and need to be chastened once or twice. That said, 0/4 becomes 1/5 and the trend looks a lot different. Phillips seems like a solid hire. The only problem is he's a 3-4 guy, and they were a 4-3 team so there is going to have to be an adjustment, and he is 70 years old when the season starts. Will he stick around to see it through?

I think something will happen before the season starts. Too much motivation on both sides. Q is a top of the rotation guy getting Charlie Morton money for 4 years. And the White Sox are motivated. They don't want this cloud hovering over Q during the season. Who knows how he will take it, and what it would mean to his performance. And even if it doesn't harm his performance, the daily questions about his status will get old before the first series ends. That said, the price has to be right. I think eventually it will be. I think as soon as one team blinks another one or two will follow and RH will have his choice of packages.

With the new rules, isnt this next July 2nd period a hard cap?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 11:29 AM) I would have no complaints generally with that either. I would complain if one day Moncada is at 3b and the next day he's at 2b. That is the one thing we should never see. So you don't like the way Joe Maddon manages. He has several moving parts. Not just Baez and Zobrist. The NL MVP played 5 positions in the field.

Ultimately, you would like him to stay in one spot, but the White Sox do have a guy who can speak from experience about how moving can mess you up. KW came up a CF and was pretty good initially. Looked like he would be a really good player. They moved him to 3B, and suddenly he wasn't much of a player anymore. I do think since Moncada is an infielder, any switch if there is one won't be as dramatic as CF to 3B.

He'll probably get trade to some team we haven't mentioned for prospects we haven't mentioned.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 10:12 AM) Coats was ranked as high as 14th, and was ranked over a 2-year period (2015-2016). He just barely made it to rookie eligibility and is gone, otherwise he'd likely have been ranked in a third year this year (though not as high as 14th, with the new talent influx). Dan Black never made a list. If those are the same to you, then sure, you win. You ranked Coats 14th mid season 2016, as a 26 year old, in the White Sox system. It's not a decent prospect. It's very similar to the jump you gave Wilkins in 2014. I see you ignored that one. You're b****ing about Avi Garcia, what was Coats ranked in the White Sox system when he was Avi Garcia's age preseason 2015? He wasn't in your top 30. He was in "others receiving votes". You may not like that I put Coats in with Wilkins and Black, 2 players that got some love for their minor league numbers as older guys, but ultimately, his career will turn out the same. He will either wind up in Japan or Korea, or bounce around on waivers from team to team. Unless you are in your teens or very early 20s, being ranked outside the top 10 in the White Sox system the last decade, isn't very good.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 09:59 AM) Heck I'm a bigger fan of Coats that most, and even I have said his ceiling is maybe, if everything goes right, a short term starter on a bottom feeding team. More likely he's a 4OF or a platoon/role player, and I do think he already is that and could even be better than average in that role. But as you sort of point out, the Sox essentially traded higher floor (Coats) for higher ceiling (Garcia), which does make sense for a rebuilding team. Since taking Avi out of the picture apparently wasn't an option, this makes some sense. Yup that was my Q&A with Dan. Here's my graf about him from that article: So even in an article meant to hype him up a bit, the best I could give him was saying that if a couple guys get hurt/traded/retire and he carried his offense over a level and quickly, this guy might maybe see the big leagues. So yeah, as I said, he was never considered a prospect at the level Coats was. I know you like to pick nits, but get it right. Black wasn't the prospect Coats was, especially as each reached the upper levels, especially AAA. In the end as you said, Coats' role with the Sox in some 2019-ish future wouldn't be much. Maybe the 4th OF, which has some value but is pretty findable elsewhere. No one is saying otherwise - I'm just saying that he's a better candidate for value now and in a couple years than Avi, What am I picking? Coats isn't much of a prospect. In the post before you want to say I am the one picking the fight (you are) you admit Coats isn't much of a prospect. Dan Black wasn't much of a prospect. Andy Wilkins wasn't much of a prospect, and Jason Coats isn't much of a prospect. You admit no big loss, yet you are the one who started the argument. You guys never had Coats rated very high on future sox with a crappy system.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 09:10 AM) Well Dan Black was never anywhere near the prospect Coats was, and Wilkins was a pure 1B which gave him a super-steep path, so your joke doesn't really hit home. But certainly Coats leaving isn't the end of the world, I agree there. I still believe Coats provides more value than Avi Garcia, but obviously the Sox feel otherwise. Tampa likes to go with role players and Coats fits that mold well, rotating through OF slots down there. I don't know. I think this was you. http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2013/...eman-dan-black/ Seems pretty comparable. Older minor leaguers putting up big numbers but not really prospects of any significance. The bottom line is if the goal is sustained winning, losing players like this doesn't set that back.

You think they would have learned when they unceremoniously dumped Andy Wilkins and let Dan Black go to Korea. But no. Now we get to see Jason Coats beat the White Sox for the next 10 years.