Dick Allen

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 10:02 PM) What exactly has Hahn done to deserve that type of trust? They rebuild for 1 year, go for it the next & half-ass it this year. I see no reason to have any trust for a front office who continuously fails it's fans. The two moves on their own were good but you don't trade 2/3 top 10 prospects in your system & now look at this roster & say "we can compete". I'm sorry but as far as I'm concerned, this team has no direction right now. There will be more moves made I think, unless the deadline is tonight. They have half assed it plenty of times, but I still think this year will be different.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 09:59 PM) You have to admire Mike Ilitch. Money doesn't matter, what he has to do doesn't matter. All that matters is winning the World Series. I give him all the credit in the world. At least he's always in all the way. Mark Yet he has never won a World Seriies, and owes Cabrera, Verlander, Martinez, Zimmernan, and Upton over $600 million.

It is funny anything from Levine is laughed at, yet when he says 3 years $55 million offer to Cespedes it is considered gospel.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 09:47 PM) Still would love to know what caused Tigers to go after Upton instead of Cespedes. He is younger and outside of last season, better.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 09:46 PM) Nothing of quality to offer up, just the usual weak attempt to deflect any criticism of the crack management team of the Sox? Well color me SHOCKED! So unlike you. Detroit has a $200 million oayroll. Jerry Reinsdorf is the worst,

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 09:37 PM) I don't know what Sox fans are so worried about. Tomorrow, KW will take to the podium and declare Detroit made this move in an effort to be as good as the Sox. Last time he said that, the Sox did win the division.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 09:30 PM) The people complaining about the Sox not signing him is a little silly. But being mad about him going to the Tigers is not. Division rivals getting better isnt a good thing. But blaming the White sox for that is silly.

QUOTE (blackmooncreeping @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 09:28 PM) I'd say their idiots if the 3 year thing is true. Makes zero sense considering the next 3-4 year window in MLB and with the Sox, etc. The White Sox are going to sign somebody. They have admitted it, besides, they said Alexei was still possible and he wanted to come back but he signed for $4 million. that sort of shows they will be spending some money they could have used for him.

So the White Sox are now idiots because the Tigers signed Upton?

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 03:31 PM) I guess, it just seems like a lot of assumptions that fit your narrative. It appears Saladino and Sanchez know what they are doing defensively, no they had the same coaching.

So Oakland hired Washington during the season. Why didn't they "coach" Semien before that? I still don't think he is a SS.

The problem with Uoton is if he really doesn't want to be a White Sox, then financially you are probably going to have to significantly outbid a more desired location. The other thing is, if the guy didn't want to be here but came for the money, is that really the guy you want to be paying a high percentage of your payroll? That would be up to Hahn and KW to figure if that could be overcome. There have been guys that didn't want to be somewhere, and it showed in their performance, and guys who had their minds changed. Keep in mind, when paying players $20 million or more a year, there really are very few, if any, without red flags. It is a gamble that often doesn't work out. And that isn't a White Sox problem as they have never had a $20 million a year player.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 09:54 AM) #whitesox free agent spending last offseason: $132 million. FA spending this offseason: $6.5 million, and still holding. https://twitter.com/CST_soxvan/status/689111875548778497 Still same payroll as last year and supposedly had money to offer big contracts to either shark or tanaka. So where's that money at IMO it is still there, but instead of spending it to spend it, they are looking to spend it wisely. They are trying to get these guys at the best price.

Cespedes' home/ road splits were ridiculous last year. He was awesome on the road. 25 homers.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 06:49 PM) Harry Caray broadcasting White Sox baseball and singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame absolutely made a difference in Sox attendance. He actually had a bonus agreement in his early years tied right into the jump in attendance. And he made such a difference in improving attendance that the Sox had to scrap the bonus because it was getting too expensive. All of this with him initially broadcasting on a radio network anchored by some 5,000 watt station in LaGrange, and then later on TV with the lowly Channel 44. It's an absolute credit to Caray to make the impact he did with such poor exposure. But in his one and only year broadcasting the Sox on WGN, TV ratings were their highest ever, and attendance began to rise as a result. And so yes it does boggle the mind if you understand what Caray was capable of and then wonder how things would have turned out had he stayed with the Sox. So Dick Allen and the Southside Hitmen didn't matter, the White Sox drew 1.5 million one time when Harry was announcing. That is when they won 90 games, not the opportunity to sing take me out to the ballgame. In fact, the attendance per game the next 4 years after Harry left, was higher than it ever was when he was there, and higher than it was at Wrigley with Harry there during those seasons

QUOTE (Al Lopez's Ghost @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 05:34 PM) Deferred dollars are worth less due to inflation. Rich people worry about stuff like that. I think they would be more concerned with interest rates. It is all money they aren't going to spend anyway.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 06:13 PM) Well, you bring up an interesting point mentioning Skip Caray, Harry's son, who did Braves games for many years on the "other" superstation, TBS. And it's interesting because it does go to show that just merely being on a superstation doesn't guarantee success at the box office or in ratings. It does matter who is behind the mic, and Skip Caray was the antithesis of his father when it came to broadcasting. He wasn't particularly exciting to listen to, and certainly didn't inspire people to come from all over the country to see Braves baseball in person in Atlanta. Harry Caray, on the other hand, understood the power of the superstation, and aligned his superb salesmanship with the enormous exposure he was getting on WGN. It did take him a couple of years to endear himself to the Cubbie faithful. He wasn't very popular in the first year, in '82, because he was transitioning from being known as the long-time bombastic voice of the "enemy" White Sox to the voice of the Cubs. It took Cubs fans a little while to get used to his style after decades of listening to Jack Brickhouse. And in '82 he was paired with Milo Hamilton, which was a disaster on many levels. He was paired with Steve Stone in '83, and then by '84 he was well on his way to making the Cubs the national sensation that they remain today. And so my point remains, that could have been the White Sox. The "What if" possibilities boggle the mind. We'll never know, of course, but what we do know is things would have turned out a lot better had Caray stayed with the Sox and had he broadcasted Sox baseball on WGN from 1982 until 1997. There really is no arguing that, in my opinion. It really doesn't boggle the mind. Harry sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame for bad teams on the southside and there was no attendance jump.

Each season during Sportvisions life, befor it moved to cable, the White Sox outdrew the Cubs. They even outdrew the Cubs the next season when the Cubs made the playoffs. Being on WGN would have helped a lot because it would have brought in more viewers from around the country, and cable, which is pay per view, but one thing no one mentions was the Cubs playing all day games at home also helped them immensely. The Braves were on a superstation with Harry's son, and that didn't lead to sellout crowds, I think if they had played the number of night games the other teams played, people from other areas would have been tuned into other things.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 02:21 PM) Ten teams doesn't jive with Cespedes demands. I don't buy this. Of course not. 2 freaking days ago he was deciding between a 5 year and 1 year offer. The team that supposedly offered him 5 signs someone else. Now there are 10 teams in on him. BS.

So 2 days ago he was deciding between a 5 year $90 million offer from the Orioles and a 1 year offer from the Mets. Now there are 10 teams interested and he doesn't have to bother with a short term offer. You have to love the Twitter.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 16, 2016 -> 04:16 PM) 3.5 fWAR the year before that and his strikeout rate and walk rate both improved in 2015 (he threw fewer innings which FG weights pretty heavily and his HR rate skyrocketed). I wouldn't have done it, if I were spending that money I'd have spent it earlier this offseason when there were better options, but there's some logic here. And an 0.6 WAR the year before that. And they gave him $70 million, surrendered the 24th pick in the draft,and are most likely stuck with him for 5 years.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 16, 2016 -> 02:05 PM) Mike Puma ‏@NYPost_Mets 44m44 minutes ago It would be overstating to say they are optimistic, but the Mets certainly see the Cespedes situation as getting interesting. I don't know why they wouldn't be optimistic. That boxing guy said he was close to coming back and they hadn't even made him an offer.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 16, 2016 -> 01:02 PM) Really doesn't matter what people on a message board think. There was no way the Orioles were going to lower the offer. He is a popular long term player who they wanted back and want to keep happy. The fact that the Orioles offered a contract and after months of negotiations, Boras got 1 million dollars per year but also had to give up more deferred money. That is a lot of negotiations for mostly nothing. Boras didn't do well in these negotiations. They shuffled some money around, deferring some payments so it looks like a bigger deal than what he initially turned down.Like you said, these guys are in business together, they don't want him to look bad. It is similar to teams always trying to avoid arbitration. They don't want the player to hear all the negative they have to give the arbitrators.

MLBN really has ragged Cespedes for all the movement he has been involved with the last couple years. They keep mentioning it is a red flag. How come the didn't say the same thing about Shark?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 16, 2016 -> 09:29 AM) The only reason was that the orioles threw him a bone to save face because they wanted davis back. All of the boras tatics of marketing him as a OF and waiting for months got him essentially nothing. I just read there is more money now deferred than the original offer. Now Boras and Davis don't have to look like they went running back with their tails between their legs.