witesoxfan

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 10:55 PM) Thank you for doing this. Some people seem to forget that for some players it does take time to develop. Viciedo is still only 25, he's got talent, just needs to put everything together, and I hope that it's with the White Sox. Every now and then, serial felons turn their lives around and become great members of society. More often, serial felons remain serial felons. The guy has talent, and he'll always get shots based on that, but sticking with someone because two guys in the entire league did it is absolutely ridiculous. Maybe the Sox should pick up Wily Mo Pena too because, after all, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 04:12 PM) Papa Johns = Worst pizza Get out

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 04:17 PM) Sure, but with Castro, you still may be scrambling. But right now, his price should be a couple of clicks lower. I don't think so. If you have a catcher who is good with the glove (both defensively and framing wise) while being able to talk to pitchers and throw guys out, anything you get offensively is a bonus. Castro has pretty well proven capable of the former and has shown potential (and produced to some extent as well) with the latter.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 01:25 PM) Wilhelmsen? Wilhelmsen's been solid this year, and he's 30. Not exactly the kind of piece a team like the Sox looks for when selling pieces off.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 02:42 PM) Oh Bruce Chen http://deadspin.com/royals-pitchers-get-ca...dium=socialflow I was really, really hoping they had gone to Augies.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 01:59 PM) In terms of WAR, what do you Garcia's ceiling is, considering his defence, which has graded as amongst the worst in the league (and fails the eye test too)? Castro had a 4.3 WAR last year (bearing in mind that likely grossly undersells him because it doesn't consider pitch framing), and has 0.6 WAR this year despite hitting way worse. Avi has a career -0.4 WAR, though granted he's been very young in his spells up. In terms of absolute ceiling, I think Garcia is a 5-6 WAR type of player - fairly neutral defensively with pure raw talent that could lead to a .300, 30 HR, 130-150 wRC+. I don't believe there's a very good chance he gets to that, but I believe that's his absolute ceiling. More likely, he turns into a .280, 20 HR, 110-130 wRC+ type of player with below average defense, which is more of a 1-3 WAR player, which is far more inherently replaceable. I don't know that Castro will be a good hitter - there was a lot about his season last year that screamed regression, which is what we're seeing now - but he's still a very valuable player who is much more likely to be a starter for several years. There's no way the Astros would take Garcia for Castro though. Something to consider, especially with his stock down as much as it is, would be Garcia and Erik Johnson for Castro plus another prospect of theirs (whose stock is down), but it just seems too complicated at this juncture to even make those moves.

I would trade Garcia for Castro straight up right now, but that has more to do with the shoulder injury. In my mind, Garcia's ceiling is way higher, but he's also a much riskier player at this point in time too.

Jason gets paid 25 cents for every new thread but only 1 cent for every new post, so there is only a minor amount of corruption involved. (this is not also true)

If you're a player on the free agent market, and two teams offer you a similar deal, are you more likely to sign with the team coming off a 67 win season or an 81 win season?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 28, 2014 -> 10:23 PM) That's all fine and good, but then Micah Johnson has to be more of a Ray Durham clone (who later starts hitting 12-18 homers per year in the second half of his career) at the next level...if he's not going to be like a Pods or Hamilton that will give you 50-75 steals. If your number 1 asset's speed, then you have to use it to affect the outcome of games or your lack of other tools (defense, power, arm, etc.) will always hold you back. If he can be a league average 2B, I'd be perfectly content. He doesn't "have" to be Ray Durham, who was really good overall player for a very long time, nor does he have to be Billy Hamilton (who is seemingly a generational talent) nor Scott Podsednik (who was an incredible base stealer when he was healthy). If he put up Mark Ellis's numbers - absolutely nothing extraordinary but perfectly solid all the way around - I'd be just fine with it. Frankly, I think this level of hyperbole is silly. Guys are going to be who they are, and if it's eventually meaningful for the big league club, then that's all that matters.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 07:04 AM) It might be an uncomplicated answer, like Sox having too many young catchers on the three low minors teams who are ranked ahead of Ayala. The writing was prob on the wall last year when he played about once a week at Bristol in his second pro year. I would bet it's more along these lines. They've worked with him enough, perhaps both on and off the field, and made a decision that he was no longer a fit in the organization. It could certainly be something complicated, but it's likely not that way.

Intentionally tanking the rest of the way would involve trading away Quintana, Beckham, Ramirez, Viciedo, and quite a few other smaller pieces. That's not going to happen. The guys on the field have pride and want to win every game because they're professionals who have a job to do and it pays them well. This team won't tank, they'll likely end up around 78-82 wins, and the 9th-16th spot in the draft.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jun 27, 2014 -> 01:50 PM) Ability yes, you have a 4.1 star ability level, but like Alejandro DeAza, you routinely post at a level well below that. I will again rate your profile 5 stars, but please know it is purely out of sarcasm! This is libelous!

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jun 27, 2014 -> 01:11 PM) I will rate your profile 5 stars, and also Dick Allen's profile 5 stars. Edit: I also rated wite's profile 5 stars out of pure sarcasm and St. Roostifer 5 stars because I forgot to do that yesterday. Did you know EMinor that Wite's 4 star rating was higher than either mine or yours, or DA's or Roostifers? That is terrible. I can't believe that. Good god. 4 is too low for the quality of my posting ability.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 27, 2014 -> 01:42 PM) To be honest, I'll have to go through about 20,000 comments on blogabull and I don't even think it was linked so let's just pretend what I said is not true. I do this anyways.

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Jun 27, 2014 -> 09:22 AM) http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2014/...is-hot-in-june/ Recap posted. Please forgive the cheesy headline. After looking into him, Jacob May is a fascinating prospect. He has good speed, plays a good center field by the accounts I read, and has shown pop. I will be interested to see how he progresses. No need to apologize for the headline, I like it.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 02:59 PM) Is it Sunday? https://twitter.com/whitesox/status/4822485...8474625/photo/1 You jest, but it's as good of a lineup as you could have against a lefty. QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 03:15 PM) Robin pissed me off when he ran out of pitchers in a tie game. But one generally can't blame any of the bullpen decisions on him. He has absolutely no closer but the team does have some saves in spite of that. He has a horrific pitching staff and that's going to make any manager look bad. I worship Ozzie, but he had to go because of his mouth. Or Kenny had to go. They couldn't co-exist. I am of the opinion we don't have a WS title if not for Ozzie, which I am forever grateful cause we ain't winning any more of them in this baseball economy. Robin is OK. Not good. Not bad. His roster is what sucks. I said it then and I'll say it again, had he managed that game to ensure he had pitchers in the 14th inning, he surely would have lost the game much sooner. Ventura has struggled at times with managing his bullpen, but his bullpen has let him down on multiple occasions and it's gotten to the point where it's damn near impossible to trust any of them.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 04:15 PM) Yup, wRC+ is the king of offensive stats, right now I much prefer RBI as it's not what you hit, but when you hit it.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 04:23 PM) While we are discussing WAR, If you take Abreu's WAR per PA, and give Abreu the same amount of PA that Rizzo has, they are actually both at 2.8 WAR right now. And Abreu would be above Goldschmidt, and Encarnacion. At the very top would be Miggy, and then Abreu-Rizzo tied for 2nd. But that's just one metric. I just thought it was worth noting. It's a valid point. I think the bottom line is that they are both very good 1B.

I'll eat my Gillaspie crow here. In Spring Training, I suggested keeping Gillaspie over Danks but that it's still just Gillaspie and it wouldn't be a big loss. He's been a great hitter this year and hopefully a long term solution at 3B. That'd be fine by me.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 02:25 PM) You fire him when he has a team that is supposed to compete and doesn't based on his performance Never in million, zillion years did I ever think you'd make this much sense, but you hit the nail on the head so perfectly and astutely with this that I'm not sure it's really even you anymore.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 02:02 PM) but... but... I'm constantly told WAR is the ultimate stat to say who is good and who is bad. NO ONE HAS EVER SAID THIS

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 12:15 PM) See, this is an argument that isn't winnable, so congratulations, you win. There's always a built-in excuse with the White Sox. I know what you're saying. There have been a few games that Ventura has cost the Sox this year due to poor management, but they were up by 1 and 4 runs in games 1 and 3 of that series, he put his faith in his bullpen, and they blew the game. At some point, it falls on the players. Same with the Twins series...what more do you want him to do? It's hard when the players fail.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 11:32 AM) BTW greatest Rpobin f***up moments: I'll start with the 2012 game he blew something like a 6-run lead in the 9th by going with a s***ty "get his work in" player and then forgetting to get his pen ready, and then bringing in guy after guy cold until the lead was gone. I think they lost that one in extras. Also constantly refusing to trust Q in his rookie season and having Reed blow like 2 games that should have been CGs. This guy is terrible, I hoped he would develop as a manager, clearly not. And if he leaves Quintana in and he blows it, you get people asking why he left the starter in so long, especially a rookie starter. It's not like we don't already hear that with Sale. Robin is in a no win situation, as all baseball managers are.

Haha. People talk about him like he's done as much as guys like Mazzone and Duncan and he clearly hasn't. He's a very good pitching coach who's done a lot for the organization and knows what he's doing, but he's not without fault.