Dick Allen

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 02:27 PM) The Astros didn't take Appel over Bryant because of money. That ended up being an awful pick but lots of people had Appel as the #1 player in that class and most people actually thought Appel and Jon Gray would go 1-2 before Bryant. Appel was a senior with no leverage and signed for underslot, plus he was highly ranked. I think money had a lot to do with it. Take the best player. Don't worry about the other stuff. It's hard enough projecting in baseball anyways, although it is getting better.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 02:02 PM) I feel bad for Gonzalez. His last few starts were pretty solid. His last one he was Houdini with the leadoff walks, but he has been decent. Certainly decent enough to be a #5 starter. But he's still in the show, and is there if Latos can't do the job.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 01:18 PM) It would be interesting to see if the could work something out well below slot at 10 for Lux and then grab Rutherford later in the first round. There were reports that some teams with larger pools were trying to get him to slip into the comp round (like Cameron last year) and the Sox could be one of the teams trying to make that happen. I love the idea of being able to get Perez or Ray at 10. I think at this point the Sox are going to have some pretty good options on the table at 10, it is going to be about getting creative so that you can maximize that value you will get out of your next two picks. I just hope they take the guy who will turn into the best player at 10. The Astros cost themselves Rodon and Bryant playing the underslot/overslot game.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 01:45 PM) Agreed. A solid innings eating pitcher is not an easy thing to find. Getting a guy who will pull down 200 to 230 innings per year makes a big difference. Let me put it this way. If you get 210 innings out of Shields (30 starts x 7 IP average) versus 165 innings out of a guy like Gonzalez (30 x 5.5 IP average) that is a difference of 45 IP being pitched by your bullpen. Dan Jennings pitched 56 innings last season. Adding a guy like Shields is literally saving almost an entire season's worth of IP for a reliever in your bullpen. Plus it moves Gonzalez to the bullpen which, depending on how Latos holds up, could save you from having to acquire maybe even 2 bullpen pieces. The more that one thinks about this, the more it makes sense, assuming Shields can deliver the goods at the level the White Sox expect.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 01:08 PM) I have no special insight into the Padres but "owner who put a lot of money into a player and then loses his temper at that player after an embarrassing game and 1.5 frustrating seasons after he spent a lot of money and was promised results and then the team has to dump the player as fast as possible" doesn't seem like an impossible sequence to me. The owner jumping on him before the trade was announced but while the trade was done seems like impressive enough 3-dimensional chess playing that my instinct is that an owner-outburst seems more likely to me. I doubt it. Everything about the trade was already reported by that barstool fellow except for the money. Up until then, Shields wasn't doing too badly. Owners lose their temper all the time. If anyone is ever at a White Sox game in the club level, you can see JR's suite. Look in there when something bad happens. He's not lighting cigars with $100 bills. He gets pretty agitated. But unless your name is George Steinbrenner, owners calling out players by name in public is very rare. I really doubt he gets singled out if there was much of a chance Shields were still going to be taking the mound for them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 01:05 PM) I think if the White Sox hesitate, the Padres take the 2nd best offer. I wouldn't disagree. We will never know, but that outing certainly didn't help the Padres side of things. One of the national guys said a couple teams backed off after that. It would seem to me they weren't too serious then to begin with. Everyone has a bad game, and he actually was a bad call from saving himself 8 runs I believe.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 01:00 PM) Before coming to the White Sox, Hahn worked as an agent. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10...gency-rick-hahn Didn't Preller get blasted for ruining the Padres system last year? GMs come from all areas. The fact is, most of these players are not personally scouted by the GM, so I don't think Hahn's background works against him. Plus he has been trained by White Sox scouts. I do think he was one of the driving forces, if not the main one in signing Jose Quintana. There isn't a scout alive that hasn't recommended more busts than not in their scouting careers.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 12:54 PM) You probably wouldn't have gotten Shields then. After the Padres owner melted down on him publicly last week, a deal was going to happen ASAP. That was definitely an issue. The rumored trade did come before the shaming, so that was probably done knowing he was gone. The only question would have been was there enough offered from other teams for him to move, or did the Padres owner know he was going to be a White Sox so he ripped him? I do agree, if they weren't trading him, that doesn't get said.

The problem with acquiring a guy like Shields is if he does what he was acquired to do, be a 4th starter, it will be a disappointment to the majority of fans who expect him to be an ace. Personally, I stated before, I think Gonzalez/Latos were a little below Shields but not much. I would have waited, but that said, if Gonzalez helps out in the bullpen, and Shields does give you the extra inning over the guy he replaces, and puts up #4 starter numbers, the trade does make sense as long as, and Hahn verified this with Levine, they still have the resources for some offense, and maybe another arm in the bullpen. Shields now vs. he 2012 velocity, if it were the same, the Padres wouldn't be paying him more than the White Sox the next 2 1/2 years. He is not an ace, but the White Sox don't expect one. It could be a different tune with the majority of the fanbase.

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 10:16 AM) Well one question I have to ask is: how many World Series champions had sh*tty managers? That's one way to look at it. A lot of them were considered stupid in previous or future seasons. Probably most if not all of them. Ned Yost won last year. He's been a total idiot. Bochy has been an idiot. Torre was an idiot. Ozzie is a fool. Farrell was a genius then stupid. LaRussa was an idiot. Matheny is considered an idiot by many. Just about any guy who has ever managed can't do it as well as the people in the stands.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 11:19 AM) That's basically where I stand. And that firing a manager mid-season is a desperation move that conveys the message that the organization is out of answers. Yes. I wouldn't cry if they fired Robin at noon today. But those calling for his head, if they don't do something about the offense, will be calling the next guy a goof as well. Robin Ventura knows more about the White Sox personnel and about baseball than any of us on this board. Some people don't believe it, but it's true.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 09:29 AM) Just my 2 cents about hiring an MLB manager: --Hiring a guy with no coaching or minor league managerial experience is dangerous for the game. We're losing out on guys that put in the time and develop baseball instincts. If a guy has major league managerial aspirations and didn't play in the big leagues for years, he is at a huge disadvantage in becoming a manager. There are exceptions, but we're seeing a lot of Celebrity Managers these days, it's not good for the game as a whole. --You should hire a guy that fits in with a philosophy that fits in with the type of team you're fielding. --Once you hire a manager that fits in with what you're fielding, a three year contract is pretty standard. If that manager doesn't stand out after three years, you move on to the next one. I'll admit, a lot of managers are interchangeable. You can give them the information, they can play by the book, and do nice interviews before the game and after the game...and they may actually win because the talent is superior. But if the manager doesn't stand out and doesn't win when you're trying to win, that manager should be replaced. I really don't know how much different philosophy baseball managers have. It isn't like football and basketball and hockey. Baseball is far more standard, which is why even Hawk says many viewers could run a game. As long as they aren't miserable schmucks, it's pretty much about talent. There isn't a manager alive who people would agree with every move. For instance, Joe Maddon, who seems to be the greatest of all time now, does not like to shift at all.

Perception and reality play a role as well. Ozzie was supposedly a baseball savant when his attention mongoring took the attention away from the players, thus supposedly lessening the pressure on them. But when the exact same thing went on during seasons the team didn't win, he was just an attention whore.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 09:16 AM) I don't believe anyone here believes that the manager doesn't matter. I believe it is more the manager doesn't mean that much and they are all about the same. The differences between managers might not be worth all the angst and bitterness. Exactly. Plus a huge part of managing is something we never ever see. It is what goes on when the game isn't happening.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 07:29 AM) Ugh, same old tired argument. Apparently the 30 smartest & most qualified people in the world are currently managing MLB teams. Might as well shut down this site then. If fans aren't allowed to challenge poor decision-making or even deem a certain manager bad relative to his peers, what else is off limits? I guess the GMs don't make mistakes either, so us "arm chair" GMs really can't question them either. At least we're allowed to rip the players, right Tex? I find it laughable that people continue to defend a guy who literally had no coaching experience before taking the job. The entire hiring process was laughable, ignoring his complete lack of a resume and not interviewing any alternatives. No doubt we had to get the guy with the "Five Star General" traits before the rest of the league realized he was available. And I can already hear the next bulls*** defense coming: he played in the majors for 15 years. Lol at anyone who actually thinks that justifies his hiring. What I find odd is people with zero managing experience seem to think they know what the guy who had zero managing experience was supposed to do and would have done if he had said experience. Robin now has experience. More than anyone on this board. It's time to give the lack of experience card a toss in the trash. If it is so essential, how the hell does anyone here know what exactly he is doing incorrectly?

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 08:07 AM) What will we possibly do without the brilliant mind and motivation of a great leader like Robin Ventura? Sign him to a 5-year contract today! Lock that guy up! Maybe tomorrow you will walk in your office and they will tell you that it's been great but you have to go. The company hasn't done as well as hope YTD, and even though it really isn't on you, they have to send some sort of message. I'm sure you would understand, and would expect the company to start doing better as soon as you walk out the door. The funny thing is, the Sox still ARE doing better at this point than most predicted before the season started. If you really could pin walking guys and not getting guys on 3rd base with no outs on the manager, I would be all for canning him. But for all the people who blast old school ways and use of stats, firing the manager when the players suck is the oldest of old school. There isn't a manager in whatever field they are in on this board who thinks they should be fired if the people working under them can't do the job.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Jun 5, 2016 -> 10:14 PM) I'm not seeing an apathetic clubhouse. I'm seeing a group of players that were kicking ass just six weeks ago, but currently aren't getting it done. Some due to injury and some for other reasons. I'm also not seeing chemistry problems. Therefore, firing Ventura would just be a symbolic gesture at this point. As somebody else in this thread stated, it would be nothing more than red meat for the fan base. I don't think that it would motivate the team, either. It's more likely that it'd give the team the message that they're not responsible for their record. It would make more sense to "fire" a player that hasn't produced all season. Jimmy Rollins comes to mind. Exactly. And if people hate the decision making in the dugout now, why would they want Renteria to take his place when he clearly is part of the decision making? Or are they going to say he just sits there all game long and does nothing? They wanted to give him a lot of credit when things were going great. It's just like when many thought the White Sox would have a huge philosophy change when Hahn took the GM job. Why? He was trained by JR and KW and had been part of the decision making process for years. In 1986 if message boards existed, they wouldn't have been ridiculing the Hawk for firing Tony LaRussa. Sox fans hated him. Now they use it against Hawk for firing him. Joe Torre, a guy I think Robin is most like, was thought to be an idiot in Atlanta and St. Louis after he managed them. Then he got great players and is a HOFer. What gives? I read over and over and over how bad just about every player the White Sox have is in gamethreads, then they lose the game and it's why is Robin managing this team? I'm sorry, if people think this is a last place team, so bad, the franchise probably will have to move, no manager in the world is going to fix it. Get Melky back. Have Abreu be Abreu. Hopefully Shields pitches like a 3 or 4 starter, and get another bat. Everything should start rolling again.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 5, 2016 -> 07:27 PM) Keep being an apologist for a team that hasn't made the playoffs for seven seasons going on eight. Greg Walker was the big problem when he was here. Not the players, not anything else. He gets fired, and the offense was fixed. Nope. I.would.rather the Sox do something player wise.it actually produces results.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 5, 2016 -> 07:17 PM) No, it's an attempt at fixing one thing we know is wrong and has been wrong for years. It really hasn't. no manager would have won games with the 2013-2015 White Sox. But keep kidding yourselves,

Firing Robin fixes everything.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Jun 5, 2016 -> 01:12 PM) Please stop putting bench players and rookies in the 2 spot in the line up. Think of the bright side, if he hit him where he was "supposed" to hit him, they wouldn't have had runners on 2nd and third and wouldn't have scored anyway.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 5, 2016 -> 12:55 PM) Except at 5 times the commitment. He was my free agent of choice. Good thing Hahn doesn't listen to me.

Upton is Detroits Adam LaRoche

QUOTE (ventura_abreu @ Jun 5, 2016 -> 11:08 AM) Why is Rollins being put at DH? He doesn't even hit well enough anymore to be the everyday shortstop. Because Robin knows absolutely nothing about baseball, refuses to listen to his coaches or superiors, and does whatever he wishes without repercussion just because JR is a loyal guy,. I wonder if people realized if he actually did everything he was "supposed" to do, like never playing so and so vs. LH pitching, never putting someone in a specific spot in the order etc., he already would have to forfeit just about every game, because he couldn't field a team.

Latos has been better his last 2 outings. Gonzalez got away with walking the leadoff guy a bunch his last start. I would imagine if Latos doesn't pitch up to snuff, Gonzalez replaces him. I don't see what is wrong with that. Latos gets the first crack.