witesoxfan

Looking at Nishioka (they should have seen that coming), Kaz Matsui, and Iguchi, he compares favorably well. Hideki Matsui is far superior, but Aoki isn't bad, relatively speaking. That said, this is not a team that needs to spend more money on outfielders. Quite frankly, they don't NEED anymore outfielders. They need young talent wherever they can get it, but they don't need to spend the $30 million posting fee it's going to cost to get this guy and then trying to find room for him in this outfield. And, when I say "outfielders" and "this outfield," I am NOT including Carlos Quentin. But you tell me, since you suggested it...how would you fit Aoki into an outfield that currently consists of De Aza, Rios, Viciedo, and Lillibridge? Nevermind the fact that Williams will either sign someone he likes (probably a f***ing grinder) or will fall in love with someone during spring training to whom he signed to a minor league contract and that player will make the team and make the major league roster only to be demoted 4 days later never to be seen again. (that final part is not a protest that I wanted Lastings Milledge on the MLB roster...Brent Lillibridge absolutely earned his spot on that roster and was an incredibly bright spot in an otherwise boring season. It's just a matter of thinking on Williams' level, and while I have no problem with him as GM and Senior VP of whatever his actual title is, I just sort of know how he operates, and he falls in love with these guys too. Erstad was probably the last time Williams and Guillen agreed, and that was the worst Sox year of my life)

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 11:58 AM) Lookout for wite creaming his pants somewhere. More pissed that the Sox didn't bring him in. He could be a replacement for Dunn.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 09:36 PM) Hopefully he got more than 1 wish. Hopefully he wished for 50 homers.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 06:16 PM) Very good trade for the Royals. This is one of the first good moves I've seen Dayton Moore make in terms of trades. He turned a small signing from last off-season into a decent pitcher that can be fixed. And this still proves why Brian Sabean is one of the worst GMs in the game, World Series title or not. Perhaps he has a good eye for amateur talent, but I'm going to give more credit for that to the scouting department. Instead, he buys completely high on a guy in Melky Cabrera, who had never had a 2 WAR season before, let alone the 4.2 he had last year, and sells way low on Jonathan Sanchez, a guy who has maintained a consistently excellent K/9 who has tended to struggle with his control but, until last year had been worth about 2 fWAR a year. Based solely upon that, this is a huge win for the Royals. On top of that, they still have Lorenzo Cain in the minors who looks like a really good player too. The Royals, based upon any number of measures, come out way, way ahead in this move.

QUOTE (VictoryMC98 @ Nov 7, 2011 -> 07:54 PM) And yet again the Twins make the right move, getting rid of the person that caused the mess. Even if it is the right move - I generally think it is, but Ryan has been away for a while and has never been one to make a big move - the Twins have 2 players who can play outfield up for free agency (with Kubel being the only one who can really play a competent outfield...Michael Cuddyer is Jermaine Dye without the spectacular catches), a mess in the middle infield, and a mess of a starting rotation. Even their generally stellar bullpen was - get this - the *WORST* in the league. They have an expensive version of a poor-man's Tony Gwynn at catcher and there's no guarantee that he can stay healthy, catching or not, they have a monstrosity of a contract in Justin Morneau whose season was ended due to post-concussion syndrome like 12 months AFTER the concussion happened, and their apparent centerfielder of the future makes Juan Pierre look like Shane Victorino at the plate. They really don't have anyone on the way up that looks like a star player either; Gibson was a big time prospect but didn't have a great year (though maintained solid peripherals that will, to some extent, hold up at Target Field...a lot of his downturn came in allowing 10+ H/9, but he was still allowing 1 HR/9 too, so it wasn't entirely dependent statistics fault), Plouffe hit well in the minors but it's yet to transfer to the majors and he can't play in the infield, and this Aaron Bates they had in the minors appears to be a giant version of Ross Gload. In AA, Benson and Parmelee look like OK players and this Yangervis Solarte looks like he can hit. Liam Hendriks looks like every other pitcher they've ever developed, save Santana (and no, I'm not counting Liriano). This is not a mess cleaned up in 1 offseason. This is probably not a mess cleaned up in 3 offseasons. They will certainly contend at some point during those next 3 years, but I'm not going to count on them winning a division. Of course, they may not contend and simply blow it up, which you would probably suggest be the right move too. I would disagree completely with that. This is a team that opened a new ballpark 2 years ago and have contended for a decade now with a season missing here or there and has opened up the payroll significantly since that point. They need to try and compete. I don't believe they can. Whether they had kept Smith or hired Pat Gillick or had the Steinbrenners trade teams, this rebuilding is going to take a little while.

This doesn't surprise me in the least. He should have been fired simply for keeping Matt Capps over JJ Hardy. He could have done the opposite of that and kept Crain and Rauch at that same price (and Rauch only got 1 year too) and it would have made more sense. JJ Hardy put up 4.8 WAR this year. Capps and Nishioka put up -1.8.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Nov 6, 2011 -> 11:20 PM) If that's the case, then they must be REALLY desperate. Yeah, go get a inconsistent mediocre player who's nearing his mid 30s. See how that goes for you. Gotta replace Raul Ibanez somehow, amirite?

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Nov 3, 2011 -> 11:11 AM) Man, that guy has fallen off something fierce. I remember when he was one of the best catchers around with a ton of hype going forward. He's actually been pretty good the past couple years. I think it's a matter of full-time starting wearing him down, so he can only play 100 or fewer games.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 06:01 PM) 30 for 30's are the only good thing ESPN has left. I didn't see this one yet but heard great things, going to watch it tonight. E:60 can be pretty good too.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 09:23 AM) The full list, plus the truest statement ever. MLB_PR MLB Public Relations by ESPNChiSox AL Rawlings #GoldGlove winners: Buehrle P, Wieters C, Gonzalez 1B, Pedroia 2B, Beltre 3B, Aybar SS, Gordon LF, Ellsbury CF, Markakis RF keithlaw keithlaw The people who voted on the Gold Glove awards also believe the McRib is real food. He's very late on this, because the voters did a very good job this year. Pitchers are difficult to figure out, but Kershaw and Buehrle seem deserving enough. Catchers are also difficult, but I'm going to assume that Wieters threw out a few runners and Molina has always had a good reputation as a defensive catcher. Gonzalez led the AL in UZR, Votto led the NL in UZR. Pedroia led the AL in UZR, Phillips the NL in UZR. Beltre led the AL in UZR, Polanco led the NL in UZR SS was not as good because Aybar is not that good (and never has been that good), but Tulowitzki was probably the best full-time defensive SS. Beltre led the AL in UZR, Polanco the NL Gordon and Ellsbury were both good very good defensive OFers, Parra and Ethier were solid too. Kemp and Markakis were bad and there were better options. I see 3 players that I can strongly disagree with out of 18. That's pretty damn good. I think the voters are doing their research quite a bit more nowadays.

The only team I could see that would be legitimately interested in AJ Pierzynski as a starter is Pittsburgh, and that's if they think their first 4 months weren't an aberration and their final 2 months were. They're losing both of their decent catchers in Doumit (if you can even call him a catcher) and Snyder and even though I'm pretty sure they have a good catching prospect on the way, he's not there yet. You might get a pitching prospect from them, but more likely, they'll scrounge the free agents and pick up someone like Ramon Hernandez to try and catch lightning in a bottle. I could list the reasons why all of those teams wouldn't want AJ, but that seems time consuming and unnecessary. The best time to trade AJ would be at next year's deadline if the team is out of it and there is a team who needs a catcher due to injury.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 09:00 PM) WR's out of OSU are pretty good as of late unless you think Jenkins, Holmes and Gonzalez are total crap. Sanzenbacher was an undrafted free agent and is actually producing. Robiskie was a fairly good WR in college though his work ethic wasnt quite what it could be. He obviously has a very good pedigree though and could still have a career. I do think Jenkins and Gonzalez are total crap, and I really liked Gonzalez. You also failed to Ted Ginn, who has been a monstrosity of a bust thus far. I think by "pretty good" you mean "talented with some sort of major flaw in their game."

They built new Yankee Stadium as close to old Yankee Stadium as they could, and old Yankee Stadium was generally pretty good to lefties because of the deep gap in LCF. There's the LF foul pole that's a bit of a pain, but you really have to hook it to get it in there. It's always seemed to me to be righties that struggle. Doesn't take much other than a quick flick of the hips/wrists for a LH to put one into the upper deck in RF. A LHP can avoid that pretty well.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 07:13 AM) The problem with Frank's approach to hitting is that it only works for somebody with Frank's talent. ‘‘No doubt I can look at the swings of other players and see things. ‘My style was my style, but the bottom line is getting the hands in the right position, the body in the right position, putting your head on the ball and making a good swing. I don’t care if you’re two feet, one feet, hands up, hands down. You just have to get to that same spot and make it work.’’ -Frank Thomas

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 05:37 PM) #78 prospect last year, and former 1st RD pick. Being the #78 prospect last year was completely and utterly unjustified. Like seriously, his numbers just were not good. And this year he had a K/BB of 1. And an ERA over 6.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 12:43 PM) All I know is that in the last two years their farm has produced David Freese, Jaime Garcia, Allen Craig, Fernando Salas, Jon Jay, Jason Motte, Mitchell Boggs and Eduardo Sanchez. They're doing something right over there. And obviously Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez are both on the cusp. Freese has never put up an OPS+ of more than 120 and hasn't stayed healthy. Very Crede-esque. Craig has 343 career plate appearances and they can't find a place to start him. Oh, and he's 27 next year. Jay is a guy I've never been overly impressed with, but he put up 3 WAR this year so he's been good. Mitchell Boggs is middle reliever, and not a particularly good one at that. Shelby Miller looks good, but TINSTAAPP. Always, forever and ever. That's why you stockpile it. Including Carlos Martinez at this point is similar, though not the same, as including Andre Rienzo on this list. No matter the reason, 30 BB in 46 IP is not good. The White Sox are actually doing about the same; the main difference offensively being that the Sox only have a really good hitter and not a machine as a #3 hitter and that the guys they signed and traded/claimed were monstrous busts while Berkman and Holliday both had great years. It is entirely plausible and reasonable to think that Adam Dunn having a typical Adam Dunn year while Rios bounces back to 2010 form creates anywhere from 9 to 12 wins for the White Sox assuming that Rios can be worth 3.5-4 WAR in CF and Dunn can be worth 3-4 WAR as a DH. That's 6.5-8 WAR on its own, but it replaces a -3.6 WAR that the two put up this year, thus resulting in a 9.1-11.6 WAR difference. That takes the Sox from 79 wins to anywhere from 88-91 wins. The Cards won 90 games. --- I still don't think people fully comprehend simply how bad Rios and Dunn were all year compared to their typical selves, even though they watched them all year.

If he stays healthy and latches on to the right situation, I think he could do it in about 2.5 years. Before he went down halfway through the 2010 season with the injury, he already had 9 wins. That was the first year since 1995 that he did not win atleast 11 games in a season. And he is absolutely not a Hall of Famer. It would be entirely possible that he would have allowed more homers than all but 11 players have hit in their entire careers. He's already the leader in that category and has nowhere to go but up.

I have a few problems with hard slotting. At what point do you stop the slotting process? Do you have a hard slot through the first 10 rounds perhaps and then set a maximum salary and signing bonus that players can sign for beyond that? The NFL has gone to a hard slot and, as far as I was aware, there were no real holdouts from anyone and the NFL only had a month or so to negotiate contracts whereas in years past, they've had 4 months to do so and still have had holdouts. But there are only 7 rounds in the NFL, compared to 50 in baseball. On top of that, you can only enter the NFL and NBA drafts once (EDIT: correction, you can enter the NBA draft multiple times, but you have a set date to pull out by and if you sign with an agent, you can not go back to college), whereas in the MLB, you can enter the draft 3 times (and there may be exceptions to the rules where you can enter more than that, though I'm not perfectly clear on the rules). So what happens if you draft Bob Pole 1st overall as a junior in college and he simply doesn't want to sign for the hard slot? That's a pretty impossible situation for that team. Drawing from that, how are you going to prevent a player from simply turning down the hard slot money? You could simply have said player be assigned to that team for the rest of his career or for a year or whatever, but if he doesn't want to play with that team for that money, he's not going to. And then he's just going to re-enter the draft the following season and small-market teams will avoid him like the plague, but then he's going to get less money while having a year wasted in his development as a player. And, seriously, how many times are you going to be able to enter the draft? You almost have to limit it to once, but then you will get fewer high schoolers involved, which means less development from a team standpoint and more from whatever college said player attends, which may not be what MLB teams want. That's not to say college players don't develop into superstars...the greatest player in White Sox history went to Auburn...just that there are teams that prefer to develop their own players. On top of all of that, the MLB draft is still an absolute crapshoot, even more than the NBA and NFL. In both of those, you have a failure of a draft if you don't develop a superstar or like 50% starters or extremely valuable role players within those. If you got any of that in an MLB draft - one superstar or even 25% of your draft becoming valuable role players - you are already having an incredible draft and if those role players turn into good starters, one of the best drafts of the past 5-10 years. I don't see any way that hard slotting is somehow going to improve the 50+% bust rate of 1st round picks while very possibly not significantly cutting 1st round costs (except in the case of a Stephen Strasburg type). There is also the argument that some teams would rather build their team in the middle rounds as opposed to the higher rounds because it is cheaper and they have enough faith in their developmental system that they can afford to. The best pitching prospect in the game right now was drafted in the 8th round and one of the best hitting prospects was a 20th round draft pick, and for years Brian Sabean would sign guys before there were even offered arbitration, signifying to the former team that they could offer arbitration freely because he did not want his first round pick (the best example I can think of with regards to this is Ray Durham, and I recall reading several articles at the time citing the exact thing I just said). And, in the end, player compensation through Type A and B statuses will either be eliminated or significantly reduced because you will have to allow for the trading of draft picks...I don't see any way you can do this without having the ability to trade draft picks, just as in the NBA and NFL. I see far too many problems with hard slotting right now to allow it. The best bet is to simply go with the soft slot and hard luxury tax for the time being and if the need arises 5-10 years from now to tackle it then.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 10:46 AM) Ken_Rosenthal Ken Rosenthal Jamie Moyer threw for scouts last Thursday in SD area. Reports from scouts excellent. Nearly a year removed from TJ. Turns 49 Nov. 18. He's going to win 300 games.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 10:05 AM) I'm also a fan of baseball and not just the White Sox. Hard-slotting hurts small market teams that aren't able to lure the big time free agents. Teams like the Rays, Royals, and Pirates realize that it's absolutely necessary to be able to develop their own players and they spend accordingly to make up for other deficiencies they can't control as much. I'd rather not see that taken away from them. It also pushes multi-sport and certain prep talent away from the draft if bonuses are set in stone. Hard-slotting is widely viewed by almost everyone as a terrible hindrance of an idea. It might be good for the thrifty White Sox, but it's awful for the rest of baseball. That is exactly it. Baseball is such a crapshoot draft that to expect any results out of it, you really have to spend between $8-15 million, and there are teams that are going above and beyond that. One of the reasons the White Sox don't do this is because they have been burned by big signing bonuses in the past. It's actually a stupid reason because that kind of stuff simply happens, but it's true (it's also why they generally don't hand out big free agent contracts...Reinsdorf has opened the purse strings a bit in the past 5 years and it has bit him squarely on the ass, so I expect him to reign it in a bit over the next 5). There is also the idea that Selig has in mind for slotting, and Reinsdorf has done quite a bit to stay within that, which is dumb from a business perspective because if you are the only one following the rules and it isn't unethical to break the rules, then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 11:15 AM) Can you explain this? I don't even know what you mean by oil patterns. Bowling alleys have oil on the lanes. I think that's pretty much a given, but there are different ways to put oil down onto the lane to change how the ball rolls down the lane. If you throw a straight ball, the oil pattern means absolutely nothing to you. However, when you actually hook the ball, there isn't some magic force that allows it to start "curving" three-quarters of the way down the lane...instead, what the ball is doing is attempting to curve but because there is no friction - due to the oil - it simply skids down the lane. As long as there is oil, the ball simply will not turn unless the weight block within the bowling ball itself flips over and changes the direction that the ball itself is rolling all together. There are several differently shaped weight blocks too, but that's a different topic for a different day. A pretty standard house is what I've always referred to as a Christmas tree pattern, which simply means that the oil on the lane looks almost exactly like that of a Christmas tree. This is an easy shot to throw on because there is a lot of room for error. If you get it too far outside, the ball will start hooking a bit sooner and come into the pocket. If you throw it too far inside, the ball will skid for a while and still come into the pocket. Here is a decent and quick read about oil patterns with some illustrations. This will help clear it up too if what I've written here hasn't. Once you get onto the professional level, those sport shots become even more ridiculous. If you are using the ratios and typical sport shot being 2:1, pros will shoot on stuff that is 1:1 or even less. That makes for an incredibly difficult shot and one that I would probably average about 130-150 on, where on the typical house shot I average about 180-200.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 10:19 PM) Gotta admit, Ghost Adventures is a guilty pleasure. QUOTE (shipps @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 08:21 AM) I go to bed scared becasue of it. I know its all bull s*** but it creeps me out cause I buy into being real as I am watching it. LOL.......... Dead Files may be more scary IMO. I missed the Live show of GADV last night though. That had the potential to be boring but I am sure they staged something pretty cool. Not sure what's so scary about yelling at fictional specters in really old, creaky buildings. The show is a crock and you are both disappointments.

QUOTE (Greyone @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 02:13 AM) I'd bring him in and see if Herm can work his magic. He is younger than Dye when we brought him in, and still has a lot of talent. I'm not sure what he is recovering from so that could be a huge warning, but it couldn't hurt to see if the Sox can rehab him. Right knee (I read report of microfracture surgery, which is really never a good sign) as well as surgery for a sports hernia. I'd avoid Sizemore like the plague.

How many missed opportunities does it take for you to be offended that Thomas isn't inducted? I think for me, I start getting a bit pissed off after 3, and I am up in arms after 5. This is all hypothetical, I am going to be surprised if he's not inducted on the 2nd go around. And if anything, it'd be cool on 3 because he'd be inducted with Griffey.

I know the team is second to last in runs scored in the entire Majors, and I know they have been no hit 3 games in a row, but consider how much [insert player who has barely improved] has hit better this year. Yes I know [names 6 hitters who have gotten worse, 1 of whom has taken off their own hand from swinging] have gotten worse and even hurt themselves in the process, but that's the nature of the beast. We'll just have to see if he can help [some guy he is not going to help] in the future.