Dick Allen

QUOTE (glangon @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 08:46 AM) The La Roche signing didn't make sense. We went and got a good First Baseman, where we already had someone else incumbent in the position. The sense move would have been to have Wilkins still on the 40 man and playing in AAA in case Abreu went on the DL and Gillaspie as back up 1st baseman and bring in a proper DH such as Butler or Morales. The problem happened when Gillaspie had a poor year and La Roche had a poor year, then all of a sudden we were forced to release Gillaspie in order to bring up Saladino as we had no player on the roster with options as Bonaficio and Beckham wasting away in roster spots they had no right to be in. Our roster construction was flawed and La Roche was brought in to play a position that a) he didn't want to play and b) he had never played before. He suffered, we suffered and it all went to pot. So LaRoche made no sense, but a guy who hit .140 with 22 strikeouts in 43 plate appearances and has traveled to Toro nto, LAD, Baltimore, and Seattle minor league systems the last year, did.

IMO, if the Sox do trade for him either Micah or Lawrie are going to Cincinatti.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 08:24 AM) Steve Stone hasn't actually renewed yet, as far as I know. I wonder if it's a given he's coming back. I would have thought that would have been announced by now, unless they'll unveil the new guy & the news Stoney will be returning all at the same time. The reduced schedule with Hawk wasn't officially announced either. I think everything is coming at once. It would seem Stone would come back or it probably would have been announced he was moving to another team, but stranger things have happened.

I really don't think it will be the Swirsk, too many conflicts with the Bulls.

QUOTE (glangon @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 05:59 AM) What saddens me is that we could have probably gotten better production from Andy Wilkins at Salary minimum than La Roche at $8 million odd. LaRoche sucked but Andy Wilkins is a reach. He has been claimed on waivers by 4 or 5 teams since he left the Sox, and he was pitiful in his brief time in Chicago. Less than .400 OPS and struck out half his plate appearances. The LaRoche signing made sense. It isn't something that would hamstring you for a long time, and he had been pretty solid for a while.

Statistically, Emilio Bonifacio is tough to beat. He brought nothing.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Dec 13, 2015 -> 09:22 AM) How do you know that??? As a fan, I don't think we really know that much about the clubhouse. We hear cliches about winning cures everything but unless there are fights like Philly had, I doubt we really know if a team has leadership issues or not. Heck, we thought AJ was a leader in the clubhouse and Boston cut him loose because he was considered a detriment to there's in 2014. It appears Abreu is trying to become a leader. We also don't know if it is a problem. When teams win, so and so was a great leader. The fact is team's win when players play well. To me it is like team chemistry. If the White Sox win a lot of games next year someone will be called a great leader. There are guys who are great leaders on crappy teams a well. As was stated, improve the positional talent and the question about leadership, if there really is one, goes away or someone becomes the great leader by default,

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 13, 2015 -> 08:43 AM) Fine. You can hit Gordon third and Perez fifth. Although I'm sure you will argue the new and improved Lawrie or LaRoche should be there instead. Maybe Gordon's OBP numbers are still too low? Lawrie has similar OBP numbers and isn't as good an overall hitter, especially compared to others at his position. I don't really care where you pencil in Perez or Gordon to the White Sox line up since they won't be on the team, but Sal Perez wouldn't bat 3rd or 5th. He is about a .700 OPS guy.his offensive game has been in decline for a few years now and he is still young.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 13, 2015 -> 08:30 AM) You're right. He would hit third. Eaton, Cabrera, Perez, Abreu, Gordon, Lawrie, Thompson, Saladino, Sanchez. Based on 2011-2014, that would be the most logical line-up. It's exactly the kind of team we would need to win with defensively...and pitching-wise. Yeah a guy with 2 consecutive years with a OBP less than .290 hitting 3rd. You must not have played varsity baseball.

QUOTE (Saufley @ Dec 13, 2015 -> 08:10 AM) LaRoche. We have hearsd speculation that last year LaRoche had a hand injury. True or not? If he did and will be healed this year we can hope for improvement from his bat. We can hope but there must also be that backup plan. I would still like to see the addition of Upton but again, will the FO be allowed to spend the big bucks? , He definitely had an injury, how much that could be blamed on his bad year no one knows one thing to keep in mind, the previous season he had the second best walk rate and the second best k rate years of his career, so it does seem odd he would just fall off a cliff. There should be some bounce back. He had a bad injury plagued season before producing almost the same numbers in a smaller sample size and came back huge. I wouldn't expect that, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out what the Sox thought he would be in 2016.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 13, 2015 -> 08:08 AM) Lawrie and Avila haven't been able to stay healthy. Upton alone doesn't make us a playoff team without at least one more dangerous hitter in that lineup. KC had Perez and Gordon hitting 7th and 8th against lefties down the stretch. Those guys would be hitting 3/5 for the White Sox with Abreu in the cleanup spot. Just not enough balance or contact....no threats on the basepaths/terrible baserunning and an improved defensive team but still bottom third in the majors. Will believe in Erik Johnson when the team puts 100% faith in him as well. Hopeless again. Until JR sees his GM needs a varsity letter in HS baseball, this team is screwed. Perez wouldn't bat 5th for the White Sox.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 10:46 PM) Spite is not productive for the future of their franchise Neither is trading him for prospects that don't work out.

QUOTE (BrianAnderson @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 04:02 PM) Anybody else getting tired of these MASSIVE new TV deals that are essentially funding the players contracts ..... which is from us? I love my sports. And it's such a nice release from real world work and life problems, however my cable bill continues to climb, and its because of sports almost exclusively! We are paying for all these huge contracts while our paychecks stay the same, MLB players are making so much more % wise. okay okay, back to the normal discussion. This shouldn't have been posted in here anyways. Happy Friday, Go Sox. Lawrie and Saladino to the World Series! Eventually it may be your choice to pay or not to pay. I think someday, you will be able to watch programs or games one at a time, and pay for that indivually. Right now, my brother lives in Switzerland, and he pays $15 to watch the Bears on Sundays. There are select Sox games he can get for a cheaper price. That is pricier than it would be here I would imagine.

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 03:59 PM) Depends on the partner. If it's ESPN or fox, you may see programming get ported over. And who knows who the Bears will pick to be on. They are currently signed with csn Chicago for the "exclusive" pre and post game coverage. It would be shocking for the Bears to broadcast on a network that almost certainly be named after the Cubs.

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 03:56 PM) Am I the only White Sox fan that is glad the White Sox didn't give the type of money and contract length the Cubs did to Heyward, Zobrist and Lackey? I think I would have been tickled if the Sox added those 3, and the ticket office phone would probably be getting a lot of action.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 03:32 PM) It does annoy me how often he throws the ball 3 feet in front of him and skips in to second base. That is trying too hard. He is holding on to the ball too long, probably because everything else is rushed in an effort to throw someone out. He speeds everything up but the release of the ball, or the grip is too tight trying to get extra on it, and it takes longer to release, and it looks like he's hunting rattlesnakes.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 03:25 PM) Cmon. I am not clueless. I am controversial. Most of the players I mentioned reeked. You may have gotten me on Ellis Burks. Bobby Bonds was awful. The team had to get rid of him almost immediately because he was so bad. ... Explain to me why the Dybber isn't thought of much worse than he is. He's our Bartman, the reason we didn't win a WS that year! Great call on Blomberg! He definitely deserves to be on the list. Blomberg hit a HR to win the game on Opening Day. Then it was all downhill. As for Bonds, he was not terrible for the White Sox. In 90 AB he hit .278/.347/.389. They were trying to use the rent a player that worked well with Zisk and Gamble the previous season, but the team sucked and Bonds was going to be a free agent so they bailed and traded him for young players, one was Claudell Washington.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 03:16 PM) Aren't the Cubs planning to do the "Private network" move when their contract is up in 2019? Yes. It will be interesting to see how that works. It is possible it won't be the windfall we are used to seeing. I read an article about it being a pretty tall task for one team. Programming 24 hours a day all year can be a problem. There are only so many times you can watch a one hour Ernie Banks special. How many homes will have the channel. I watch some Cubs games, but by principle alone, wouldn't pay extra for this channel. But one good thing is until then, when the Cubs are drawing huge ratings, the White Sox make a bit more money.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 02:34 PM) They were already let them going to move once, not sure why they would stop them now. Even drawing peanuts look at the White Sox revenues vs other teams. The White Sox aren't moving, or at least if they did, another team would move in quickly. When Bill Veeck "saved" the White Sox for Chicago, he didn't save AL baseball in Chicago. Finley would have moved the A's here. Chicago is not going to be a one team town, at least for a long time.

As long as Heyward is really good for 3 years, this is a pretty genius contract for Theo. He lets him walk when his guys get expensive and doesn't have to pay him for his over 30 years. The gamble is Heyward doesn't regress for 3 years. That seems like a decent bet. The downside is if he gets injured or falls apart, Theo has a problem.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 01:54 PM) This thread is missing the words "" All things being equal." All things equal you take Heyward. If all things were equal, it would be a toss up.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 01:46 PM) This is wrong. There's no limit to how much money teams can spend, so the Heyward money is play money. It's all about player value. Teams can sign guys and sit them if they want. There certainly is a limit to how much money you can spend. Why don't you live in a $20 million mansion? There are no laws against you buying one. Why don't you have a better car, a better pair of shoes, a finer quality suit? The fact is baseball teams are businesses, that like you and me, have budgets.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 01:28 PM) And I think it is totally mental at this point. Its the only reason I still have hope that at some point he just gets that swagger back and realizes he needs to play that way. He plays afraid now. This is a good point as was the previous post about when he used to dunk. He was sort of blaming the dunks as part of the reason for his knee troubles in an interview a year or so ago. I think it is in his mind and taken a toll. His first preseason game back he looked explosive. He can't shoot be he didn't need to. Now he is back to fairly unaggressive play and when he gets aggressive, he gets tentative at the rim. Dunk it. If you knee goes it goes. Someone needs to tell him he isn't getting paid to play like he currently is when this contract expires. The one good thing out of all of this, with his injuries, his stupid comments, and his play, when the Bulls make no attempt to re-sign him, there will be no public fallout. Everyone now realizes,(me probably being last) his time is done. What a disappointment. His rise to MVP was mindblowing, but it all went to his head, and his body fell apart. Now it's just sad to watch him.

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 01:39 PM) Ofcourse they get a ton of credit. But if we're doing about player comparisons I'm not taking Eaton over Jason Heyward. I think comparing their contract status is silly. The circumstances are completely different for each player. Contracts are the biggest parts of trades and signings anymore. It isn't about player comparision. I think everyone here knows Heyward is the better player, but if you have $23 million to spend, you are better off with Eaton and whatever else you can get with the balance.

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 01:31 PM) I love when people throw the 4 times number out there without context. If Adam Eaton hit the open market today you think he would be signing for a reasonable deal after what Heyward just signed for? No. Heyward hit the market at 26(1 day younger than Rizzo btw). That almost never happens. It's a fairly poor comparison and done without thinking about the situation both are in. Which makes Eaton's deal even better. If I am spending someone else's cash, Heyward is the easy choice. If it's my cash and I have to budget, I would take Eaton, as much as you guys said you would do the Reed/Davidson trade...10 times out of 10. I am not being sour because Heyward is a Cub. If his defense drops off any, so does a lot of his value. Any kind of leg or lower body injury, he WAR drops more than just about any player. I wouldn't mind if the White Sox signed him, but I understand every team that didn't want to pay him $200 million.