Dick Allen

Noah was on the news today as he provided back to school clothes for s bunch of kids. It could be offseason fluff, but he seemed genuinly excited about his legs feeling much stromger.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 03:35 PM) So, for the once every few years likelihood of giving up the DH, which can be backfilled with PHers anyway, you think it makes sense to give up 300+ OPS points in a 100 to 150ABs during a season??? Such is the logic that got us into this mess. There is a reason for that. Robin is not unique when it comes to not using his only other catcher as a DH. And LaRoche has 53 plate appearances vs. LH starters. 53. You would think it is around 400.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 03:12 PM) I was referring to the comparison of Eaton to LaRoche in regards to the logic and need for platooning them. My suggestion for ALaR, going back to ST, had always been Soto, if no further moves were made. That's all fine and dandy, but if a catcher gets hurt, you lose a DH, so Flowers can't get hurt and can't be pinch hit or pinch run for. and I am sure Soto has caught vs. LHP, so the DH alternative would be Flowers. Not to mention you would be stuck with Soto if they relieved with a RHP because you can't risk not having a catcher available.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 01:54 PM) These situations are so non-comparable for so many reasons that should be obvious. What is obvious? I gave you the alternatives. For some reason, I don't think Beckham or Shuck DHing instead of LaRoche vs. LHP puts this team in the playoff, and as I pointed out, Bonifacio was even worse. So to say Adam LaRoche has sucked would be very accurate. To say Adam LaRoche playing vs. LHP vs. the alternate choices is a big reason this team hasn't played up to expectations, is not.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 01:33 PM) Just did some checking to make sure what a 5 dWAR 3b would be. Brooks Robinson had 1 season where he put up a 4.5 dWAR at third. Manny Machado did it once over there. The highest dWAR season ever recorded by Baseball Reference is Andrelton Simmons with a 5.4 dWAR season at short. Basically, if Tyler could do that for 1 season, it would rank among the top 10 defensive seasons in history regardless of position. If you are expecting him to do that every year....Brooks Robinson couldn't do that. It would be silly to think he could put up a 4 or 5 WAR defensively one year let alone make it routine. It would also be silly to think his current offensive production is his peak.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 12:56 PM) One thing IIRC you've said before is that he's streaky so if he didn't get a chance to play regularly he'd probably never get a chance to have a good streak. I don't understand, if guys don't produce, you don't want them playing, yet for some reason, some think Bonifacio needed to play more. He was awful. .176 OBP vs. RHP fanning almost 50% of the time. He was WORSE than LaRoche. BTW, the White Sox team vs. LHP .237/.287/.343. Only 14 HR. He was/is awful vs. LHP, but the team woes vs. southpaws go far deeper than Adam LaRoche.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 12:38 PM) It was obvious in April that Emilio wasn't going to be utilized, and this happens on Aug 17 - gotta love this org. I can't imagine RH & RV are on the same page here, so that, at least, is encouraging. Emilio had to do something to be utilized. He sucked so bad from the first day of spring training until he was DFA'd. I'm sure if he started playing well, he would have received his shot, but that didn't happen.

With the heat and Cubs fans, they could have had a photographer out do any people at Walmart website this past weekend at USCF.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 12:31 PM) I thought Bonifacio was a great signing. I didn't know much about LaRoche, but, again, It's getting ridiculous to me how much our FA signings failed. During the 13/14 rebuilding, you had several lottery ticket FA signings you'd hope you could flip. No, none worked out. The one who was close (Crain) got injured right before selling. Our solid, stable veteran FA acquisitions seem to not just be off-norms, but actively having some of the worst offensive years in history. If this is just bad luck, Sox seem to be having a lot of it. More specifically, Hahn seems to be having a lot of it. But these are really adding up. One thing veteran free agent players need to keep in mind, if they get a call from the White Sox offering them a contract in the $2-5 million a year range, they might want to start thinking about their post baseball lives.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 12:24 PM) A .561 OPS against lefties (Eaton) is a lot better than a .405 (LaRoche). But mostly I agree with you - LaRoche would be a lot more palatable to people if he were still capably hitting righties. .561 is still needs to be platooned-worthy. And the alternatives were Bonifacio, Beckham, Shuck and either Soto or Flowers. Bonifacio was supposed to hit LHP, but in 35 PA .176..176/.235 with 16 strikeouts.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 12:07 PM) Garbage. 89 AB's mostly in the middle of the order is not a low number since you face lefties a lot less often than righties. It is regular AB's in a key position in the lineup . It seems as if the Sox ignored the splits both in the signing and the playing time. Don't make it seem like it was a mere 89 AB's .Abreu and Alexei don't have many more . Not hitting , playing time and his acquisition is what caused him, Ventura and Hahn to be scorned. You can make it sound like the Sox face3 95% LHP, but it is simply not true. If LaRoche was hitting RHP like normal, he wouldn't be getting booed at USCF. The fact is 80% of the time, right handed pitchers are on the mound. Look what the other Adam with the White Sox is doing in about 30 more PA vs. LHP, and leading off. Why isn't it ever mentioned how his lack of hitting vs. LHP is killing the White Sox? How about Jose Abreu's .235/.311/.370 line vs. LH starters. Should he be benched when they face lefties? Or moved to 7th or 8th? The alternatives for LaRoche vs. LHP weren't great. There is always a chance he might run into one every now and then. It hasn't happened.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 10:38 AM) No it isn't. There was absolutely no hindsight whatsoever in saying "Adam LaRoche should not play regularly against LH Starting pitchers and we shouldn't sign him if he insists that he must". Yes he's been worse against righties, but for the first 3 months of the season his failure against lefties was a major problem too. Hell, he's still put up a .700 OPS against righties on the year, even though that's fallen off over the last month+ while he's been terrible against everyone. He put up a .405 OPS against lefties and that's not that far from what he did last year. If he wasn't willing to platoon he wasn't worth signing. He has a total of 89 PA vs. LHP. The poster was absolutely correct. Not hitting vs. RHP is what is causing the hatred.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 08:29 AM) If Sale spends 6 more years in a Sox uniform and those years are even somewhat close to his 2014-15 numbers, then he will be the greatest pitcher in Sox history by far. He is only the second Sox pitcher to have back to back 200 k seasons

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Aug 16, 2015 -> 04:55 PM) One of the most dominating pitchers in the game. Hard to believe but when this season is over he'd have spent five full years in the bigs. And he hasn't come close to sniffing a playoff start. Such a shame. Mark Came pretty close in 2012.

If they knew it at the combine, I find it hard to believe that wouldn't have leaked out until now. But the Ryan Pace regime isn't off to a great start. Hopefully this won't do anything to set White back forever, but this is the Bears.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 08:16 AM) Wasn't Ozzie Jr. still fairly young and actually drafted/playing in the minors up until Ozzie's last year or two? Or am I mixing up the kids? No. That was Oney, he of the .140/.215/.161 career slashline. Defense was his calling card. 14 errors at 2B in 48 games.

Ozzie Jr. used to pretty much stay out of the controversy. It was usually Oney and then Ozney did step in. I was sitting a row behind Oney and Ozney who were with a couple of others at a game last year and they were opening rooting against the White Sox. Jr. sort of surprised me, especially with his anti-Hahn comments. Of course he seems to think he has all the answers, and as far as playing careers goes, he is pretty much in the same boat as Rick.

I saw sloppy defense, terrible baserunning, from this new greatest team ever this weekend. Schwarber is the greatest hitter of all time, but what happens when his BABIP falls back down to a normal level? They are playing well right now, but I can name lots of teams with young cores that never became the perennial WS champions they were made out to be.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 16, 2015 -> 10:17 PM) The signing did make sense at the time. Then they signed Beckham and there went all the playing time for Bonifacio. Would he have beat Gordon's -0 2 WAR with more at-bats? Who the heck knows, but the pity signing of Beckham doomed him from the start so it's not completely fair to simply judge people's initial reactions before Beckham was added. BS. If Bonifacio would have performed anywhere near the expectation level, he would have played. He was horrible in spring training and horrible during the regular season. Worse that Beckham. The fact is, in that thread it was YOU who posted no one should blame Hahn if the Sox season goes south, he did everything Soxtalk wanted him to do. If you really want to think that is all cancelled out by signing Gordon Beckham, that is ridiculous. Third Base Coach ************* Group: Members Posts: 33,199 Joined: May 7, 2003 Member No.: 385 QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 5, 2015 -> 08:22 AM) * Well if the Sox suck next year, nobody here better blame Rick Hahn, because he is doing everything Soxtalk has demanded. I think Bonifacio gets overrated because of a couple hot streaks (mostly fantasy baseball fans), but he's still better than a lot of the bench pieces the Sox have recently had.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Aug 16, 2015 -> 11:06 AM) And a large reason for that is because of self inflicted wounds. There were also some areas where they had no control over that worked against them. But they had their chances in the past 35 years and completely fumbled them. Also keep in mind the Sox owned Chicago during the Golden Age 51-67, outdrawing the Cubs in 16 of those 17 years sometimes by a wide margin. Things changed dramatically when the Tribune company bought them three months after the Sox were sold to JR and EE. Mark 1984 happened. The first 4 years of JR ownership the Sox out drew the Cubs.

People should go back to the Sox sign Bonifacio thread for some perspective. Hahn and KW really aren't dumber than any of us.

In the things could always be worse department, the Raiders have won a total of 56 games the last 12 seasons.

He'll wind up in St.Louis and be good for 4 months. That is my call.

Stroop just thought they won the WS

WP and single here would be nice.