witesoxfan

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 09:29 AM) Then you don't make the deal if you are Rick Hahn. That's crazy. It's been said several times already, but the Sox are not going to get a top 25 prospect for Alexei Ramirez. Just because you can't get a top 25 prospect doesn't mean you don't work towards making a deal. He's seemingly improved as a hitter the past couple years, but he's already starting to slide a bit defensively, and it frankly will not be long before he is a utility player similar to Placido Polanco. Another name worth mentioning is Darnell Sweeney. I have no idea how the Dodgers feel about him, but he's had an absolutely fantastic year and is age appropriate for the AA level. His BB%, K%, and power have all improved this year, and he appears to be a fantastic athlete.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 09:17 AM) I wonder at what point in his career Konerko said to himself "f***it, I am slow. No more busting ass to first" Sometime in 1999

If the Sox and Twins weren't intradivisional rivals, would you expect them to trade Buxton or Sano for Alexei? Better yet, would anyone here trade Carlos Rodon for Alcides Escobar? That is essentially what you'd be asking the Dodgers to do if they traded Urias or Pederson for Ramirez.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 09:03 AM) Even if Hanley is out, they still can extend him, play Alexei at SS and Dee Gordon at 2B. I'd want Pederson, Lee and Reed for Alexei And I want $10,000. That's not going to happen. Lee and Reed seems to be a feasible package from the Dodgers perspective, but the Sox would likely need one additional prospect. That one additional prospect is not Joc Pederson or Julio Urias.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 08:49 AM) Pederson or Urias would have to be included in any deal. That's absurd. The Dodgers have plenty of prospects that could make it work. You are talking about two of the best prospects in the entire game. If they were going to trade either one of those guys, they could be in the discussion for someone like Tulowitzki. People need to understand that just because Alexei Ramirez is going to likely be the best shortstop made available on the market, the Sox will not be getting top 25 prospects. They can get a perfectly acceptable and generous package of talented prospects without getting the #1 and #2 prospects from some of the best systems in the game.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 08:48 AM) For the last several years USCF has played as a relatively neutral park, except for home runs. This year for some reason, home runs are actually below league average. Perhaps the prevailing winds out of the east is the cause, but wind direction never really seemed significant in previous seasons. You can say Cargo's numbers really have nothing to do with Coors Field, just a fairly normal home/away split. I disagree. What I gave you is his career split. His OPS is over 200 points higher at home vs. on the road for his career.. .330/.387/.601 vs. .260/.316/.442 That's HOFer vs. Dayan Viciedo Troy Tulowitzki, home versus away: .323/.397.565/.962 vs .274/.349/.469/.818 That's a hall of famer versus a merely good hitter. Coors has a large effect, but players will always perform better at home on average. I would imagine that Gonzalez would end up as a .825-.850 OPS, 120-130 wRC+ type of player.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 08:31 AM) .259/.303/.427 Dayan Viciedo's career numbers .260/.316/.442 Cargo's career numbers on the road. Players, in general, always hit worse on the road. That can change from year to year. If the Sox stadium played more like SafeCo or PetCo, I'd be more alarmed, but he's played in one of the best hitter's parks in the majors. Tulo's numbers are similarly split, as were Holliday's when he was there. To clarify, I wouldn't give up a ton due to the assumed risk, and I'd ask that they do include some money (primarily to offset the $20 million salary in '17), but I do think he could be worth the risk.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jul 20, 2014 -> 10:28 PM) Summer League FTW I know you are saying it tongue in cheek, but I'm sure there are people who get legitimately excited by this. I see this and I think that this is even less signfiicant than winning the NIT.

Carlos Gonzalez is the type of dynamic talent that, to me, is still worth taking a chance. There is less commitment with him than there is Kemp, and he costs less per year too - $16 mill in '15, $17 mill in '16, $20 mill in '17. He's also shown the ability to be a good hitter more recently too. If you can get the Rockies to eat some of that, or you can find a taker for Danks, I'd be OK with that type of move.

I haven't watched Jackson at all this year, so I have no idea if this is bad luck or bad command. Given that he's been doing this for a year and a half, I'm going to fall on the side of bad command. He still has a lot of zip on his fastball and I'm sure his secondary pitches are still decent too, but just like our friends Felipe Paulino and Javier Vazquez, if his command is garbage, his ERA and other numbers will outweigh his peripherals.

Lewis has no right to be upset about that. Deadspin has been taking a more in-depth and critical look at some of the unwritten rules of baseball this year, and while I disagree with some of them - a pitcher has the right to the inside part of the plate and a guy crowding and reaching out needs to watch his rib cage - some of them really are ridiculous. Baseball players are big babies quite a bit of the time.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 04:50 PM) In other sports there are roles for the pure athlete more than in baseball. The closest I can think of is probably Joey Gathright who IIRC some scout famously spotted in some city neighborhood running & jumping over cars almost like out of a scene in Major League ala Willy Mays Hayes. He was a glorified PR, but he's also an example of why you need to be not just fast but a very good baserunner (Jerry Owens comes immediately to mind). Maybe if baseball expanded the rosters to 26 some teams would try to take a player like that, but I doubt it, they'd probably just take a reliever or a platoon/bench bat. There really isn't a place for a player like that in baseball, and so in short, you can't hide him as your 3rd center or whatever where you tell him to go out there and be tall. The only real solution is to go through the minors and learn how to play baseball. And if you get to the Majors & it doesn't work then you quit or go back. This is also kind of why I think Micah is our #1 position prospect. I love the combination of mental aspect/mind and one exciting, potentially game-changing tool. And I think the rest of his offensive game sets his floor as a starting player. I'm just a big fan of this kid & I hope he's able to make it. Even as a LFer I think he has the chance to be an excellent player for us should his offensive game turn out. Ever hear of Herb Washington? It's exactly what you're discussing here. Also, threads devolve, and if I get time later I may split this off, but I'm almost done with work and have plans tonight, so I won't be able to split it out till later (and I may completely forget about it entirely).

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 04:41 PM) I hope we finish in the bottom ten at least, from a FA standpoint. This means 11 protected picks next year given that Houston will have two, correct? Not sure how that works (I'm guessing you're correct), but I don't mind either way having a protected or unprotected 1st round pick. Odds are very good that the Sox will not sign someone requiring draft pick compensation next year anyways, and if they do, I can pretty single handedly assure you that we as fans won't give a rip because we will either love or hate the signing itself.

The last 30 days has not been good at all for the Astros front office. I think you could legitimately see heads roll.

QUOTE (winninguglyin83 @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 04:08 PM) Served as a reminder that Coop couldn't fix everybody. If you gave Masaharu Morimoto dog s***, cat s***, and chicken s***, the only thing he's going to be able to serve you is s***. It doesn't mean he's not a great pitching coach.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 03:58 PM) I love the "overall best athlete" debate. I have a friend who argues with me constantly about it. We both agree that the best individual is probably LeBron, but we disagree in the aggregate. I say it's NFL Wide Receivers, he says it's NBA Small Forwards. Both of us think that strength is a big part of the equation, much moreso than those who think soccer players are the best. How about NFL Tight Ends? QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 04:00 PM) But I hate this treatment of baseball players' psyches as being so fragile they need seasoning. What about these 19 year old NBA rookies' psyches? Nobody gives a s*** about them. You think Ben McLemore was ready for the NBA grind? Or most first rounders who suck? They are not ready yet that sport rushes them in with no time in the DLeague unless they are so awful they have to be sent down a while. People still give Beckham a crutch for being "rushed." The babying of baseball players sickens me. They don't need 5 years in the minor leagues if they can play. This has nothing to do with psyches. Baseball players don't go to the minors or college to work on their psyches. They go there because they couldn't hack it in the majors. Had the Sox called up Courtney Hawkins to the MLB last year, one full calendar year after being drafted, he would have hit .100 with 3 homers and 150 strike outs in 300 plate appearances. They play against progressively tougher competition to improve themselves. And yes, baseball players do sometimes need 5 years in the minors. Sometimes they need even more than that. There's no rushing or babying going on.

In this instance, I don't blame him at all. $100k is, relatively speaking, not a ton of money and holds less intrinsic value than the education (not sure if I should "quote" that) he will get at Mizzou. Assuming his arm stays attached, he'll get another shot if he wants to pitch professionally.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 03:49 PM) I'm still surprised that Davidson has fallen so far in everyone's eyes. But these guys are as legit as it gets outside of an actual team, so I'm willing to admit that I'm the crazy one. He's had an admittedly rough year, but I really don't think he's that far off of the numbers he was putting up for Reno. His BABIP is down like 100 points from that season, his power is up, and his K and BB rates aren't that far apart. I honestly just think that too much of these rankings is put into the reputation of the system and how much these teams pump up the values of their own guys to publications. In Arizona, he was viewed as someone similar to the next Mark Reynolds, who is a great hitter with whom to be compared. He comes to Chicago and due to his struggles, he's viewed as the next Fields or Morel and people ignore him. I still really like Davidson.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 03:26 PM) There are a ton of baseball comparisons that can be made to combat sports. In combat sports, like baseball, athletic ability plays an enormous part in separating equally conditioned, equally skilled, and/or equally experienced competitors with equal attitudes and work ethics, but that highly physical athletic ability like raw speed and lateral or vertical explosion on its own never gets you anything special. Also the hand/eye coordination and the ability to anticipate and to make a decision and react in a split second without thinking, that is pretty much everything at the top of the combat sports food chain where everyone is highly skilled and experienced. I like the Tyrus Thomas example. Tyrus made some money in the NBA because athletically the guy was a freak. I imagine he could have made some money in football too. I'm not sure there's any other major sport here where he could have made anything. And I doubt he'd have ever risen above AA even if he had played baseball his whole life. That said I think the prototypical best athlete in the world is probably a highly skilled point guard in the NBA. Has to be fast, explosive, strong, just very physically gifted all around, but he also has to make a lot of decisions and has little time and space to make them against highly defensive teams, and then the conditioning of course has to be top notch, along with the ability to anticipate or "feel" his range and the hand-eye coordination to hit a long 3 or switch hands on a layup avoiding multiple defenders in traffic. And this now makes me think how underappreciated Derrick Rose probably is/was purely as an athlete. This is a great tangent that has been started and late on a Friday afternoon, I am thankful for it. Off the top of my head, the best athlete I can think of in the United States is LeBron James. When I think of athleticism, I think of things that were, for lack of a better term, gifted to a person. Speed, strength, explosiveness, yes, all those are gifts, but height is too. LeBron James is the embodiment of all those things you mention, plus he is tall. Another off topic point, but I just compared LeBron James to Calvin Johnson in my head, and it's ridiculous. James is taller, bigger, faster, and stronger than Calvin Johnson. Seriously, take a second and think about LeBron James in the NFL. He'd have to refine his route running, obviously, but he would be an absolute terror on offense.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 02:19 PM) Yeah, Astros clearly must have real concerns. There is no other reason for them to be doing this, it would make no sense. It's just such a peculiar situation, I have no idea what to make of it anymore.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 02:38 PM) But you also put basketball players or football players in the batters box or in the infield, fielding a grounball, they would look incompetent. Absolutely. It's why you so rarely see guys jump straight from the draft to the pros, whereas you see rookies in the NFL and NBA excel and sometimes even dominate immediately.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 02:14 PM) Impressed that no one took the Machado/Bundy bait! Trolls gonna troll

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 02:18 PM) It's funny how 23 is old in the NBA for prospects. Crazy how the two sports differ in terms of "readiness." Basketball is a sport that depends far more upon athleticism. Football is similar for the "skill" positions, but there is more technique involved in those to some extent. Baseball, on the other hand, involves less athleticism and much more mechanics and hand eye coordination and practice. Those great athletes with well-refined skills will still be the best players, but I can't name you another sport in which Billy Butler would be even remotely considered a good player.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 01:58 PM) Cameron doesn't seem to be aware Abreu can (and almost certainly will) opt into arbitration It's still an incredible value, even if he ends up making $45-50 million in those years.

QUOTE (peavy44 @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 12:12 PM) danks for wieters then if we can sign him If you sign him, it's a monstrous deal or a 1 year deal, neither of which are good things to give up John Danks for.