witesoxfan

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 11:18 AM) If they were sold on Quintana as a #2 why didn't they pick up a mid-rotation starter this year in free agency? My thought is they either trade for another top-of-the-rotation starter or Quintana proves to be a #2 and they sign a mid-rotation free agent. I don't necessarily believe that Quintana is a #2 starter, but frankly, a mid-rotation starter doesn't put them over the top and they have a lot of younger or cheaper pitchers that they want to see pitch. You can't do that if you bring in said pitcher, and it stunts the development of those other pitchers.

QUOTE (fathom @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 11:03 AM) It's so difficult to imagine the Sox organization drafting a high school pitcher that high. Over the weekend, Hawk and Stoney were talking about how research showed that a high school pitcher loses about 2-3 mph when they enter professional baseball. I agree. I think they'll be more apt to take some risks in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, but at those times some of these pitchers will be more apt to go to school and try to improve their stock. With the #3 pick though, they really can't afford to miss.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 10:46 AM) The Twins will be starting Ricky Nolasco on opening day, Does everyone think that the Sox will go with the "everyday" lineup consisting of Flowers and Viciedo, or may they go with Nieto and De Aza with the RH on the mound? My guess would be that they play De Aza over Viciedo, but who really knows. The MLB network has a commercial with the PA's saying names of a few players. Hearing Gene Honda say "Now at the plate, number 79, Jose Abreu" gave me chills.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 10:09 AM) We also heard that Choo was going to get 5/90. The difference being that he is a hitter and has better old man skills - he's always had a great eye at the plate and his game has never depended upon his power. Hitters get 8-10 year contracts all the time, and it's much easier to justify overspending on a hitter because the health risks are so much less for them.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 09:54 AM) I hear you. He's already like 30, right? It's still ridiculous but I bet he can get more. We also heard that Ervin Santana was going to get 6 years and $100 million. Teams are getting smarter about giving out long term contracts, especially to pitchers on the wrong side of 30. If he stays healthy, I'm guessing he gets 6/$150 with team options that become vesting options based on games started in years 5 and/or 6 as well as incentives that can raise the AAV in each year by up to $2 mill.

QUOTE (sammy esposito @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 09:54 AM) I would send him down to charlotte. Maybe he could gain some confidence and learn to hit again. If he hasn't learned to hit in 2400+ plate appearances in the majors, going to the minors isn't going to do anything for him except convert him into a AAAA player.

He is close for me, but everything I'm hearing about Tyler Danish made me question it, so I didn't want to say he did for sure. Still, saying both have high upside is OK.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 09:40 AM) Supposedly he turned down a 6 year deal to get 8 guaranteed years. He can probably get 8 on the open market actually. Who was the last pitcher of any age to sign an 8 year deal? CC Sabathia? I think Felix signed a 7 year extension with the M's at one point, so he was locked up at a high price for 8 years. The difference between those guys and Scherzer is that they were in their mid 20s and still getting better. Scherzer has had 1 really good season and he's going to be 30 years old next year.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 09:10 AM) That's why we need to hit it on the head with the college pitchers in June... It's doubtful that Beck ever becomes a 2 at the major league level, and the price keeps going up and up for free agents, so the only true source of #2 starters for 75% of MLB is either through the draft or getting lucky with a Japanese/Korean/Cuban pitcher. Time will tell with Tanaka, but with the huge amount of mileage already on his arm, I think we're going to be glad in the end we didn't end up winning that bidding war. Just a hunch. He's reliant on a ton of movement more than velocity/explosiveness (Darvish), so just have a feeling he might do pretty well for a couple of seasons but that contract will more than likely end up like Dice K's. New York can be the most unforgiving place to pitch, everyone knows that, and he's going to be under the microscope from the first week of the season, with all of the money they've invested in free agents to get back to a competitive level again this year. I'm far more optimistic about Beck than most and while I don't necessarily think he has the highest ceiling in the minor leagues, he was once considered a surefire top 5 pick. The kid has a nice arm.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 08:30 AM) 162 games (DL/rehab stint time is ok). I know 60-day DL doesn't work anymore though, if it ever did. The player has to remain on the 40-man roster.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 08:22 AM) Agree 100%. I think we saw his peak last year, but the improvements in his stuff are likely to be sustainable, so he should still be solid. And that's not a bad thing. Realistically, I think Quintana evolves into an inning eating #3 starter who you have no problem running out in the postseason. His stuff is good enough and deceptive enough to get good hitters out on a consistent basis, but unlike a guy like Sale, Verlander, Kershaw, or whoever, he really doesn't have the ability to shut down opponents when he isn't on. Again, this is not a bad thing. Jose Quintana is a very good pitcher and this is a very good contract.

QUOTE (beautox @ Mar 25, 2014 -> 12:18 AM) I think Q is a #2 all around and there aren't many staffs in baseball that wouldn't love to have him, especially with his recent contract extension. My big prediction is that Q will actually out pitch Sale this year to the tune of a 6WAR season and a CY. Even if Quintana improves, I just don't think the stuff is there for him to be that good. You can see this with his SwStr%. Sale is consistently above average in the 10.5%. Kershaw has typically been around 11% in recent years and it was a ridiculous 17.7% last year. Last year, even with an increase in SwStr%, Quintana's 8.8% was below the 9.3% league average. He could improve that and still be only about average. I honestly don't feel bad in saying that this one is going to be wrong. Unless he gets more tilt or slide on his slider to help differentiate from his cutter, he simply doesn't have the stuff capable of doing that. In fact, I'm actually expecting him to regress back to about a 2.5-3 WAR pitcher this year with his K-rate normalizing and being in the 6.75 range.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 07:29 PM) Ramirez, Abreu, Nieto, Viciedo... damn. #CubanCrushers It'll be interesting to see them all be in the starting lineup. There's only one thing left to do - bring Contreras back and win the whole.f***ing.thing.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 07:09 PM) Really, the Sox fan base should be grateful for the job the Reinsdorf ownership group has done. I don't think I've ever agreed this much with something you've said. Because it's such a fickle bunch, Williams' hands were tied when it came to any sort of rebuilding project (though I think Williams' inherent competitiveness drove that too, while Hahn seems to be a bigger picture kind of guy with an eye towards the present as well). The fact is, in the last 15 years, the Sox have been to the playoffs 3 times, nearly made the playoffs on 3 other occasions, won a World Series, and very rarely put a bad product on the field. Ask almost any other team in baseball if they'd trade that time frame in their history with the Sox. In the AL, I can only think of LAA, New York, and Boston that would keep theirs, and in the NL St. Louis, San Francisco, and then maybe Arizona and Philadelphia, but both of those two had some really hard times in that period as well. (Note that this is looking in a vacuum and isn't considering the last 15 years while moving forward, where a team like the Dodgers absolutely would take their history and the Magic takeover compared to the Sox, but that's a different conversation). The Sox have been an incredibly successful franchise, and it's already looking pretty good moving forward right now too. There are a lot of other decisions and moves to be made, but so far so good.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 06:29 PM) What do we know about this Zach Putnam kid? Anyone seen him pitch this spring? Haven't seen him, but he has an erratic minor league career and in his cups of coffee, averaged about 91 with the fastball. Does not seem like closer material, though it's still worth noting that I have not seen him pitch.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 03:53 PM) Marcus Semien has 142 PAs in AAA. I don't know if Beckham getting injured means that Marcus is ready. Gillaspie has modified where his hands are and as a result, he has seemingly lengthened out his stroke a little bit. Agree completely on part #1. If Gillaspie has lengthened his swing a bit, that's a good thing. The guy has power at the plate, but he was so short and quick to that ball that it was rare that he'd actually hit the ball with authority.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 04:03 PM) I mean, look at Gray and Appel (big league stuff and polished Senior) and neither of them will be starting in the bigs. I don't think you'd want to do that anyways unless you believed that their addition to the roster could be the ultimate difference between you making or missing the playoffs.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 04:27 PM) I know this probably won't be a very popular thing to say and I admit may not be the wisest of decisions but if Keppinger and Beckham are going to start the season on the DL then I would seriously consider releasing them both and move forward with Semien at 2B with Leury on the bench. I've just had enough of both Keppinger and Beckham. Forget trying to get anything for them and just move on. Beckham would likely get picked by another team so the Sox end up off the hook for his salary which means were only stuck paying Keppingers salary until he got picked up. Lawyers more qualified with union regulations may be able to fill in on this further, but I am about 99% sure you cannot release a union employee who suffered an injury while on the job. Hell, you typically can't release them if it's a non-work related injury. They can be "replaced" in the sense that their starting position may not be there when they return, but the only reasons you would be able to release someone is due to inferior performance for their expected level of play or player request (or are otherwise detrimental to the team). If they want, they could certainly banish both of them to the 60 day DL for the entire year (though I'm sure there are safe guards against that too), but that doesn't make a lot of sense anyways. In football, they have a work around because the injured reserve removes a player's eligibility for the remainder of the league's fiscal year, but if they are healthy, they can be released from their current contract with an injury settlement and that clause only stipulates that said player cannot re-sign with the releasing team.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 04:44 PM) Do the Dodgers and Yankees still exist? The Yankees would be more relevant in this situation than the Dodgers, but if he's coming off that season, he's likely looking at something closer to $17-20 mill per opposed to $24-27. Beyond that, if he's really unlucky and that UCL decides it doesn't want to remain whole the entire year, he's not getting a multi-year deal with an AAV anywhere near that. This even makes sense for a guy who will hit free agency at 28. This does not make sense for Scherzer, who will hit FA at 30. If he does get $25 mill per, I do not feel bad for the team who gives him a contract that is impossible for him to live up to.

I think Scherzer is dumb too. If he regresses at all or is just unlucky in general, he's costing himself tens of millions of dollars. Scherzer goes out there, loses a MPH on his fastball, puts up an ERA/FIP of 3.85/3.40, but everything else remains virtually unchanged, does anyone believe he is still going to get a 7 or 8 year deal worth $25 million per?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 12:50 PM) @Ken_Rosenthal: #Braves announce release of Freddy Garcia. He may try and latch on elsewhere, but I tend to think this is the end of the line for Big Game Freddy.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 01:28 PM) Damn. Just bench Dunn. Bring Davidson up. Let him bat! They have bats in Charlotte too. Probably both kinds.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 12:41 PM) Yes, it was 28, which is still a lot of 2 runs or less at USCF. 15 times they scored 3. I wonder where they got 50. Maybe they added them with the road numbers where they scored 2 or fewer 25 times and another 15 times scored 3. 53 times in 2013 they scored 2 or fewer runs, and 83 times they scored 3 or fewer. That is pretty brutal. As bad as those numbers are, I don't think they're quite as bad as they appear on the surface. The Red Sox scored 3 or fewer runs 60 times last year in the regular season and another 6 times in the playoffs, and they won the World Series and had the best offense in baseball. The Sox had an absolutely terrible offense - worst in the AL, second worst in the MLB. Frankly, I think natural regression will cut that by 8-13 and then the additions of a few players plus the roster construction should take out a few more. I could easily see that number being 65-70 (not that that's good or bad, just that they'll score a bit more). I think the more important number here is how many times they score 6 or more. My thought is that close, low scoring games increase stress and increase players pressing, which is bad on all fronts. Last year, the Red Sox scored 6 or more runs 69 times. The Tigers - second best offense in the majors - also scored 6 or more runs 69 times. The White Sox scored 6 or more runs 29 times. That's not a magic number by any means, but suggests you actually have an offense that can make up for a bad pitching performance. That number, more than the 83, is the pathetic one in my mind.

So obviously Anderson's the next Addison Russell.

QUOTE (peppers312 @ Mar 24, 2014 -> 11:44 AM) so apparently no one is worried about Q's spring training numbers...? i think it's a good signing, but i hope Hahn didn't jump the gun a year early on this one. Velocity is there. That' the number you care most about in Spring Training. If he were throwing 86-88, the Sox would have been far more cautious. It's honestly just best all around to not put any stock into Spring numbers ever ever ever.