witesoxfan

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 03:50 PM) I wonder if Hahn will fire Ventura or if he will step down. I'm kind of hoping for it actually. I'd love to see Dusty(save me the pitch count garbo), or Leyland. The front office has already endorsed Ventura. He's not going anywhere.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 03:52 PM) How is signing to long term franchise anchors average, which is what a C means. Again, who else did that this off season? The Tigers paid $292 million for Miguel Cabrera. The White Sox have Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, AND Jose Abreu signed for less than half of that... COMBINED. If it is such an average thing to have done as a GM, who else has done it? ftfy

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 03:51 PM) By the way, if we're talking Hahn, one of his biggest negatives to his score was keeping Viciedo on this roster. Given what we saw from him this year, it was a mistake not to take the best offer we had, whatever hill of beans it was, and cut the cord with him. That's a legitimate gripe too, but I think they wanted to see if they could turn him around. Some players need even more time to figure it out, and they'd invested a lot in him. At this point, he's by far the weakest link on the roster. I'd say there's about a 1% chance he's back at this point.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 03:15 PM) The draft is the draft. I do agree it's the GM's hyde so I agree he probably made a nice pick on Rodon. Again, most people on this board would have drafted the same guy. I can't say I would cause I could give a bleep about the draft and don't follow it. How many of them would have gotten as many of the guys signed as the Sox did? I don't remember the last Boras client the Sox drafted in the first round that signed, if it's ever happened. It's still fairly impressive, even if I was 99.9999% sure it was going to happen. Paulino was signed as flyer. He is a guy who's shown good stuff in the past and they took a chance. When it was obvious what he was, they cut the cord. Also, you are using Keppinger against him when that was a move made prior to 2013. They signed him almost 2 years ago. How is that a legitimate gripe against him for this season? When multiple people at multiple times wanted all 3 of those guys released, I think you're wrong. Guerra, Petricka, Putnam, Webb, Carroll, and Surkamp, to me, all have the look of possible bullpen arms. Not that all of them will make the team out of camp nor will all of them likely even be in the Sox organization, but there are guys in there that I think you can count on as back of the bullpen pitchers, which are still important. You go and get a good, "dependable" closer and maybe a lefty reliever and you can fill in the rest behind them. [ I do not think the defense was nearly as bad as you suggest and the bullpen can be turned around in one year. If you replace Dayan Viciedo with a good player in LF, the Sox are already looking like an improved team overall. But, if you don't think the team will improve at all next year, then you are assuming that Hahn will make no moves. Based on the history of this franchise, or frankly any franchise in the past 30 years, you can safely assume that moves will be made. Greg, in your opinion, what could he have done differently to improve this team beyond that 72-75 win threshold? Again, you are talking about a guy who improved this team by 10 wins when the cupboard was essentially bare and now, rather than bare and ugly, they have quite a few guys who look like they could be solid contributors at the MLB level and it's not beyond reasonable expectations to assume they can improve another 10 games next year, if not more. I have no problem with a B, but a C assumes that he did an average job, and I think he went well beyond what would be assumed of an average GM in that situation.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 03:00 PM) Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 7m Source: #Rays’ Dave Martinez out of running for #Astros’ job. HOU search appears to be narrowing. Three other jobs open. For how highly thought of Dave Martinez has become as the Rays bench coach, he sure hasn't been able to find an opportunity. Maybe it's premature to say, but it seems like teams aren't willing to hand the keys over to him.

Hahn could have said that it's conceivable that Sale could pitch out of the bullpen too, but it doesn't mean it's going to happen. There are a lot of things that are conceivable that are not ultimately realistic.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 02:55 PM) Isn't it fun drafting qb's in the 1st round that don't pan out? Love it. I'm not ready to write him off completely yet, but he definitely needs to sit for a while. Keep his chin up, keep working hard, and he'll get another chance.

QUOTE (TheTruth05 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 02:50 PM) Did Manuel play that bad? Yes. He was good the first two weeks but it wasn't really fluid, just kind of wide open passes. He's played terribly the past 2 weeks. Missing wide open guys, not sensing pressure, taking big hits, throwing really, really bad INTs. If it wasn't for the lucky 80 yard bomb yesterday to Mike Williams, his line would look even worse. Frankly, just having a guy who can hit a pass 10-15 yards downfield on a semi-consistent basis will be a breath of fresh air.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 02:38 PM) @AdamSchefter Kyle Orton has been named the Bills' new starting QB. TIME TO DUST OFF THE BOTTLE

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 01:44 PM) Wait, where is the other one? uhh, baseball

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 12:53 PM) Chase Headley playing the majority of time in LF is not a solid idea. He is a GG like 3B. I am not entirely opposed to the idea of bringing in Headley and using Gillaspie essentially in the Adam Dunn role. Headley has high upside as a hitter, though he hasn't been anywhere near it in 2 years, plus the great defense can save some runs too. I also wouldn't endorse that either. Seems to be a waste to have a guy who plays an acceptable 3B being allocated primarily as a 1B/DH.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 01:24 PM) I don't agree with this at all. It worked out for Sale, but ask the Rangers how it worked out for Feliz. Everyone's different, but if Rodon tears it up in Spring Training and we don't have a better option in the rotation, then he should absolutely be in the starting rotation on opening day. I do not like the idea of that at all. If he breaks camp with the White Sox and stays up the entire time, then they have control of him for 6 years. If they wait a month, then they have control of him for 6 years and 5 months. With Boras as his agent for the foreseeable future, you have to maximize service time above anything else.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 01:30 PM) Gardy is known for not going by the book, and doing strange things. If the record remained the same, as much as a lot of people seem to think Ventura is a buffoon, they would think Gardy is worse. He loves his slap hitting speedsters, has shown a tendency towards the sacrifice bunt and micromanaging his bullpen.

That is mind-blowing. I didn't think that'd ever happen. Whoever is hired will only be the 3rd different Twins manager I will have seen in my life. I wonder if they're cleaning house or if Molitor is a guy they'll consider.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 12:07 PM) The bullpen is a mess, although Cleveland showed it can be rebuilt in a season, and there are a couple of pieces that could be decent. Webb was obviously not ready to be the closer, but if he could ever get some sort of command he could be pretty good. I think the book is still out on Petricka, and Putnam didn't pitch much the last month leading me to believe he probably was injured, so he could very well be a flash in the pan, certainly not someone you say "look at his ERA last season if he is awful next and say it was next to impossible to see coming." Paulino, Belisario and Downs were busts. Abreu was genius, Eaton was genius. Davidson, not so much. There was a lot to like, but there were enough total misses to take his "grade" down a peg. I am sure they were looking at winning more than 73 games. And you've brought up good counter points. We'll agree to disagree, but I definitely don't think you're wrong. I just can't stand people who say "how could you do this?" when they've put no time reasoning anything out.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 12:04 PM) Oh I completely agree. I was extremely happy when that trade was made as that was the exact type of deal that I wanted him to make but Davidson was obviously awful this year so I can't rate the trade a success even though I love the through process behind it. So much more than anything, the process is how a GM is graded. The Diamondbacks won a division title in Kevin Towers' first year as a GM. They were exact .500 the next 2 years and absolutely god awful horrendous this year because he essentially kept trading away high value players for a couple of good players and future value for current value. That does not breed sustainable success. Obviously the results matter too, but there are times where a person who studies a very long time for every test still bombs one here or there, just as there are people who never study for tests who occasionally ace one.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 11:55 AM) You have to remember that he didn't build the team from scratch so you can't just base his rating off of the Sox win-loss record. I'd personally probably give him a B because I feel like there were a few things he could have done a bit better and Davidson being god awful didn't help things but overall he had a pretty good year. That particular trade didn't work, but as has been discussed a zillion times, the philosophy behind the trade is valid. I fault Hahn less for that one.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 11:46 AM) How could Hahn get an A? You can't look merely at the surface and say "the team was bad so Hahn was bad." That's shallow, naive, and wrong. He didn't bring in any bad long-term contracts. He got a guy who has a bit of talent in Nieto. He brought in enough minor league free agents and other young relievers that we can say "hey, maybe they have the makings of an OK bullpen heading into next year." He brought in a #4/5 starter for the cost of a waiver claim. He got something for Beckham, De Aza, and Dunn. He signed Jose Quintana to one of the best contracts I've ever seen in my life. He drafted a guy represented by Scott Boras and then actually got him signed, and said player is already one of the best prospects in all of minor league baseball. He continued expanding the Sox horizons in Latin America. He didn't trade away any valuable, long-term pieces from the minor league teams. Oh, and he also signed some Jose Abreu guy. Frankly, I'd like to hear your reasoning for why he deserves anything other than an A.

Seth Smith just signed an extension with San Diego. I think he's safe for at least a year.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 11:38 AM) So far he is a below average defensive player. Now in fairness he has bounced around among 3B-SS-2B. But in 60 games in the ML he had 14 errors. Putting that in perspective, Gillaspie had 12 in 127 games. But Semien also gets to way more balls than Gillaspie too. He got a little wild with his throws, but I didn't have much problem with his glove anywhere he was.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 11:01 AM) Why don't we get the 7th pick? I count only 6 teams worse than us: Boston, Minnesota, Houston, Texas, Colorado and Arizona. We're tied with Philly and the Cubs, but our record was worse than both last season, so we should win the tiebreaker. Isn't that right? Due to Houston failing to sign Brady Aiken first overall, they are compensated with the #2 pick in this year's draft. And, while it will likely have some effect on who the Sox are able to draft, it will have less than normally as Houston cannot fail to sign their player with the 2nd pick as they will not be compensated moving forward. Thus, they really have to make sure that the #2 pick is an easily signable player and, knowing Houston's (somewhat) savvy front office, they will likely draft someone way underslot to assure that they sign them and reallocate some money elsewhere.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 10:19 AM) I had much higher expectations for Semien. He had a pretty rough time with the bat, and never really got going on the defensive end. Sanchez provided plus defense to go along with the no bat. I thought he looked way, way better in September and the numbers bear that out: .273/.333/.485/.818, 6.8% BB, 17.6% K, .359 wOBA, 129 wRC+. He genuinely looks like he could be a very good player wherever it is that he ends up. FWIW, had Semien been eligible for the top 25 prospects in the system at mid-season, he would have ranked #3 for me.

QUOTE (Jake @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 09:09 AM) The entire process is shrouded in secrecy. The anchors are always openly questioning the order and stuff. It's a little silly I blame the Illuminati and Obama.

QUOTE (Benchwarmerjim @ Sep 27, 2014 -> 09:11 PM) yeah, he was called up on emergency from AA and stuck out of position in CF and just ran with it. Sounds like the Twins want to stick him at SS next year, they couldnt do that this year because Eddy Escobar was playing pretty good and didnt want to mess with that. Personally, I think they need to stick with Escobar at SS too. I think he'll continue to improve defensively and he's already good enough with the bat. You keep Santana in CF and have Buxton play LF and that outfield defense is awesome. They need more pitching, but their offense should be a top 3-5 offense in the majors next year. This year, it was already probably the 7th or 8th best, depending on how you want to measure it.

Surprised we didn't get a Rusney Castillo update. He had 40 plate appearances with the Red Sox. He hit .333/.400/.528 with a .409 wOBA, a 163 wRC+, 2 homers, 3 stolen bases, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts, and all in all totaled 0.8 fWAR. If he had hypothetically kept that pace up over 600 plate appearances, it would have been worth 12 WAR. He might be good.