harfman77

QUOTE (fathom @ Feb 22, 2016 -> 11:38 PM) No way he lasts until ten unfortunately You never know about the mechanics of the draft, last year the Astros got a consensus top 10 player in the comp round due to some creativity in shifting bonus money around. Its possible the Sox could work out some sort of deal that would allow Ray to slip.

The CBA is up at the end of this season so the players and owners will need to agree on a new deal, I put together some things that I would like to see added in the next iteration. 1. Change the compensation system for free agents. A qualifying offer would be the average of the top 10 salaries at a players position. Allow a team to only offer a QO to one player per season. For example, the QO's next season right now would be: C - $12,085,000 1B - $20,835,700 SP - $25,119,047 RP - $7,167,500 (non-closer) 2. Make all amateur draft picks (and corresponding draft slot values) tradeable. 3. Create an international draft. All players outside the US would need to pass through. That means that MLB would pay the posting fees for international free agents. 4. Lower service time requirement to get to free agency from 6 years to 5. This would generate more high quality free agents in their prime. Also get rid of Super Two status and make all players arb eligible after one plus seasons of service time. 5. Remove competitive balance selections. 6. Move the draft(s) to July and make it part of an All Star weekend experience. Have the draft travel with the All-Star game. A prospective schedule would be: Friday: Futures Game Saturday am: Part one MLB draft Saturday pm: Home run derby Sunday am: Celebrity game Sunday pm: All-Star game Monday: Conference call portion of MLB draft 7. Expand active rosters to 26, or allow MLB teams to set one player inactive for every game (most likely the last games SP) without optioning them. 8. Enhance revenue sharing to better distribute the income of local TV contracts. This will help to ensure parity when the competitive balance picks are removed. Set a mid point bench mark and have the teams above that benchmark contribute to the teams below it. 9. Increase luxury tax threshold to $200M and increase it 5% per season. 10. Use luxury tax money for MLB to open baseball academies in Latin America, China, the Caribbean, and Europe to help promote the game and identify talent for the international draft. This will be necessary to help fill the vacuum created when the buscones are forced out of business in many LA countries. Any other thoughts?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 23, 2016 -> 03:29 PM) And honestly it doesn't even need to be a separate draft. Put them all into one entry draft unless we are talking about true free agents. That would be the most equitable way to do things. I think it would need to start out separate, otherwise it is a severe disadvantage to the international prospects. Raw 16 years olds would be selected infrequently in the first round compared to more refined American players at 18-23. Plus that would create some eligibility issues for MLB, it would be very difficult for MLB to keep American kids out of the draft at 16 if they made their international counterparts eligible for the same draft.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 10, 2016 -> 07:00 PM) I think the best way to change the system would be changing two things. 1) Average the top 100 salaries instead of 125. Making it slightly higher will make teams think a little longer before just offer the QO. 2) A team only loses a pick if they sign them for an AAV of more than the qualifying offer. Teams can still gain a pick in the comp round. I would drop it down to averaging the top 30 salaries and make a rule that you can only offer one player a year similar to the franchise tag in football. I would also up the compensation to two picks, one after the first round and one after the second. That way it gives teams the opportunity to restock after losing a superstar. It would prevent average players from getting QO's.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 10, 2016 -> 09:21 AM) And for most of Chicago, they won't be able to watch the game at all, because the teams network won't be picked up by most TV providers in Chicago. Remember Comcast has zero incentive to pick up the network as it is competition. Look at LA and Houston's numbers for great examples. The Cubs will be on millions less TVs if they start their own network. Which is precisely why I think it is a bluff from the Cubs to get more money from Comcast or Fox. What type of programming will the Cubs have in the winter on their network, reruns of old games? You can only show so many greatest games before they lose their appeal. Unless they go out and purchase the rights to the Blackhawks to supplement their programming they just wont have enough pull to get the type of advertising money they would need to be successful.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 8, 2016 -> 01:58 PM) And also thought it was spelled Gourriel previously as well. Looks like BA has updated their spelling of the last name and dropped the "O" like everyone else.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Feb 9, 2016 -> 10:31 AM) That's even better. Top spenders can't go after him now; Sox should be planning on breaking their bonus pool anyway this year. Yulieski is exempt from the bonus pool and Lourdes will be in October.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFanMike @ Feb 9, 2016 -> 05:35 PM) Probably like one in a trillion. Id put $10 on those odds.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Feb 9, 2016 -> 01:54 PM) "Even if I lose the lottery, I just throw the ticket away at no real loss to my bank account." But a lottery ticket is definitively a high-risk purchase. Again, risk =/= price. I don't really know how else to say but I'm gonna drop it for now. Risk is about how much something cost either in money or anything else it is not about the odds. A lottery ticket is low risk/high reward, because the only risk you are taking is not having a dollar to thrown in a tip jar at the bar that night while the possible reward is huge. Just because the odds are not good do not make it high risk.

QUOTE (Baron @ Feb 9, 2016 -> 01:13 PM) We have some strong personalities now...should make for an interesting season We just need AJ back now.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 9, 2016 -> 01:24 PM) There is no such thing as low risk / high reward. Please stop it. You can say it is a low-risk signing, because it is. It's only 1/$3M. But the concept is high risk / high reward or low risk / low reward, because risk isn't about what happened in the end. It's about the chances of something happening in the future. If there is a high chance of a high reward, that person isn't signing for $3M. It is also about the LIKELY reward, since obviously ANY investment could go big or go bad. Same in baseball as any other investment. So this is low risk / low reward. And that's fine. Now go get a bloody right fielder. Yes there is. The $3M represents a relatively small financial risk to the organization and there is at least a chance that he will outperform that contract making the reward higher than the risk that was initially taken on. So if Latos puts up 1 WAR, that would be a high reward given that 1 WAR is valued at least at $6M. There is also the possibility of reward that he could be flipped mid-season for a package that has a greater value than his $3M salary. His disaster of a season last year obviously increased the risk that he will be able to perform to that level, but the discount that he took in signing has already factored that risk in which is why you can sign him at the price the Sox were able to.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Feb 9, 2016 -> 01:15 PM) Using this as an excuse to trade Erik Johnson would be a mistake. Again I ask, how many innings can you realistically rely on Latos to pitch? This move was to bolster pitching depth. And people, please stop calling things low risk/high reward. Low risk/high reward is impossible. You make me cranky. Between Latos, Beck, and Turner, there is plenty of innings that can be eaten until Fulmer is ready if Johnson is moved.

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 9, 2016 -> 01:01 PM) Sour grapes, but would have rather had Henderson Alvarez for 1.25 m more Alvarez is a bit more of a gamble coming off the shoulder injury though. Shoulder injuries are really tricky to recover from, see John Danks. He would have been teammates with Frazier, so there is at least some background there.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Feb 5, 2016 -> 02:15 PM) I really don't think they'll go pitching. College and HS bats are the strength of the draft. I think they will continue to get the best pitcher they can in the draft, and then trade some pitching for hitting at some point. They don't seem to have much of an appetite for HS position players and not sure their is a college position guy that has a ceiling to warrant a selection at 10.

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Feb 9, 2016 -> 07:52 AM) Nobodys talking about this yet but from I know the Cubs are going to have all of their games on cable when they have their own TV station. I would like to think that WGN will give the White Sox some serious money to have some of their games on Channel 9. The White Sox will be the only baseball team in Chicago with some of their games on free TV. I am not sure that the Cubs are really going to jump in and create their own station, I think they would really struggle to find quality programming, even MLB and BTN struggle to find a lot of solid programming. I think the threat of creating their own network is more of a negotiating ploy to increase the value of their next TV contract and bring a "wildcard" bidder into the mix.

QUOTE (ChiSox1917 @ Feb 8, 2016 -> 03:41 PM) One of the talking heads on MLB Network mentioned earlier he could see Yulieski playing in about 5 months or so (basically play the second half of the season) since he's not subject to the international signing guidelines. Lourdes he doesn't see getting signed until after October. That would make sense. Things are moving much faster now with the Cuba embargo being eased. Lourdes will get a lot more money if he waits until October, it would almost make sense for him just to play independent baseball this summer to build up a market until he can sign in October.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 8, 2016 -> 12:14 PM) So JR got a sweetheart deal, but if the next owner is serious about being competitive, he or she would need to break that sweetheart deal? What would they do, go some place and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new stadium? It makes no sense. For one thing, the team makes money, and will make more in a couple of years. For another, they have a sweet deal. They aren't breaking it to spend more money elsewhere, and also get a smaller TV contract. You are assuming that JR would pass on his sweetheart deal and not try to function as a middle man to continue to get his cut. Yes they would go someplace that was willing to build them a stadium where they could get a large prime TV contract and draw a more consistent attendance figure. Anywhere they will move they will get a better TV contract than where they are now, they have the lowest ratings of any regional sports franchise. The team makes money, there is no guarantee they will make any more, they are a poor draw on TV and in person. The players have little to no national exposure so they can not compete with major market team because of the lack of national endorsements. Why would any TV network pay the White Sox one dollar more than what they get now for a season? Who will pay them if CSN doesn't? Its not like WGN is going to pony up for it. I would not be surprised if the Cubs TV contract doubles what the Sox get. TV money is what is going to drive the Sox out of Chicago. All the periphery sweetheart deal stuff is not impacting the budget of the roster and will not have any impact on a new owner that wants to be competitive. If the Sox were to move to OKC, Indy, or SLC they would be a huge target for the RSN's in those areas that are desperate for live sports in the summer. It would be a market size downgrade, but the Sox already act like a small-mid market team despite being in Chicago moving to a market that size would bring the revenue and competitive pieces that teams of that size are able to get.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Feb 8, 2016 -> 12:44 PM) I could have sworn Yulieski was already playing in the NPB. I also thought it was spelled, "Gourriel." Anyway, if I'm thinking of the right guy, he's got major swing-and-miss issues and scouts didn't think he could make enough contact to be a MLB star. Then again, many said the same about Abreu. He hit .305/.349/.536 with 11HR in 62 games in the NPB. MLB trade rumors spell it without the O and BA spells it with it, so it is probably an edit mistake on mlbtraderumors side. Badler ranked him as the number one player in Cuba ahead of Abreu, Cespedes, and all the others that have come over. Badlers scouting report: http://www.baseballamerica.com/internation...ects-cuba-1-10/

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Feb 6, 2016 -> 07:38 AM) Always remember the following: 1) The City of Chicago offered to build a new baseball stadium for the White Sox in the South Loop at Roosevelt and Clark. 2) JR turned down the offer and wanted to build a stadium in Addison/DuPage county. Keep in mind that the stadium would of been built with tax payer money on land owned by JR. 3) When the stadium in Addison didn't work out, the City of Chicago offer in the south Loop was off the table. 4) The State of Illinois agreed to build the new park at its present location. If they hadn't agreed to that the White Sox would have moved to Florida. 5) I've tried to simplify this as much as possible but JR should have taken the original offer from the City of Chicago and had the new stadium built in the South Loop. EVERYBODY would have been better off. The White Sox franchise, the White Sox fans and the City of Chicago. Its bad enough the stadium was built where it is now, JR is responsible for the miserable upper deck which nobody likes and has ruined the park. The lower deck is wonderful and the upper deck sucks. 6) Sometime, somewhere and someday the White Sox will have a new owner. The new owner is going to inherit a franchise that has a stadium in a location that is not popular and a stadium with a lousy upper deck. It will be interesting to see if the new owner tries to get another stadium for the White Sox or if he renews the lease when it expires in 2027. 7) Looking back at the whole situation I wish JR would not have bought the White Sox. I wish DeBartolo would have purchased the team. Jerry has definitely made a ton of $$ on this deal, the real crime is in how that money has been re-invested into the franchise. The Sox perennially rank as one of the teams that spend the least on amateur talent. That has opened up a bit since the new CBA and pools were implemented but they still are near the bottom. The difference between what JR has and other teams have done is that he got a sweetheart deal for himself and his investors rather than for the franchise. Tampa's lease is up in 2028, its not going to stop them from moving. It won't stop the next owner that is serious about being competitive from moving the Sox either.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 8, 2016 -> 11:08 AM) Nate Rackley @RackleyNate @BenBadler Do you see either signing before the start of the 2016 season? If not, a timeframe? Ben Badler ‏@BenBadler 12m12 minutes ago No chance. Given MLB's pace, might not see Gurriels playing in games until 2017. That works perfectly given the money coming off the books with Danks and LaRoche.

QUOTE (BrianAnderson @ Feb 8, 2016 -> 10:40 AM) To be honest, this is a tough question. And judge me, but I think I become a Cubs fan. Not a die hard, but I'd still want to go to games. However I would remain a fan of the Sox wherever they went. So basically a half and half fan with no real strong allegiance. It would definitely suck. I'm looking forward to when the Sox are sold and they move to the suburbs. That's my hope at least. I think any move would be out of the Chicagoland area altogether. No matter what they do there they are going to be second fiddle to the Cubs in getting corporate sponsorships and media deals. If the Sox move it would make more sense to get out from underneath the shadow of the Cubs and own their own market. The suburbs move should have happened 30 years ago, I think that ship has sailed at this point.

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 8, 2016 -> 10:59 AM) Is Holliday still demanding he be an OF? Where else could they play him? Can't really put Adams in the OF.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Feb 8, 2016 -> 10:52 AM) http://www.hngn.com/articles/177046/201602...son-heyward.htm This makes alot of sense for the Cards. The Cards first over all pick would only slide down 8 spots (25 to 33) while gaining Fowler. Yes, it makes sense, gives them insurance for Piscotty and Holiday injuries and more of a true CF than anything the Cardinals have now.

Two of the three Gurriel brothers defected this weekend. Yulieski is 31 and is considered the best player in country and has been for quite some time. He plays mainly third base. Lourdes is 22, plays SS but will likely need to be moved to another position. With Danks and LaRoche money coming off the books at the end of the season, these guys seems like prime targets. Yes the Sox have Frazier now at 3B, but the Royals were looking at him for LF, so that would likely mean he has at least some ability to play there. You can have a rotation with Gurriel rotating at 3B, 1B, and DH and Frazier playing 3B, LF, and DH. Lourdes probably needs some time in the minors, but can come and play 2B if Lawrie falters or move to an OF spot and upgrade the defense. Lourdes will be subject to international spending restrictions if he signs before October so he may wait until then to maximize his contract.

Would not make a huge difference to me, would give me somewhere else to go on my annual trip to catch baseball. It would depend where they went though, if they left the midwest I would likely find a team closer to home to root for.