caulfield12

The next Rowand (not that he's in the same class as a Sox player at all)...just reckless nature. Adrenalin junkie.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/13/politics/qui...rida/index.html HOW CAN GREG NOT BE ALL OVER THIS ONE?

It's a conspiracy. Of course. How could it not be? Cueto took a big payoff to groove those two pitches to Hosmer and Perez to make up for now badly he pitched in August and September last year. Also surprised the Cubs haven't already offered the Padres big bucks to turn that seat where Bryant's homer against Sale landed in LF into a permanent exhibit about his greatness, with the seat changed to Cubbie Blue and Bryant's uniform number and autograph on it.

I would be VERY surprised by that...but you're welcome to poll them if you'd like. Mine aren't even for baseball, football or basketball, they're for soccer and cross-country (and would have been volleyball if they actually had men's teams in Iowa in the 1980's).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 05:00 PM) Actually, I just assumed you folks were correct when you said 15% and didn't double check that, only last year's numbers. The current White Sox playoff odds from the same calculator are 8.4%. So you're right, things are improving - from 7.9% to 8.4% chance. At this rate of improvement we'll have a better than 50/50 shot at the all star break when baseball is played by cyborgs. But those cyborgs will be truly awesome. That's a 6.3% improvement!!! How does that NOT convince fans to come out the second half of the season? Cyborg Konerko will still turn on the fastball, grip it and rip it or dye trying!!!

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos...qualified/false No, it was for all MLB outfielders, not just AL. It's pretty much impossible to do a stats screen for Puig and not have NL teams come up with him. For some reason, the post/s disappeared. Probably because if we want to start a back and forth about everyone's past assessments on players, the Gordon Beckham 2008-09 time period would be a good one and everyone could be made to look foolish without much difficulty. Even MLB GM's can often fall into that category with their "overpraise" of new acquisitions to sell them to the fanbase. If anyone on this site (including the mods) can be correct on their talent assessments more than 50% of the time, they probably should be working in an MLB front office or on Wall Street in analysis/forecasting.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 04:13 PM) Hmmm, not sure that has anything to do with you polishing his hall of fame statue every day when he came up. Nor does it have anything to do with you declaring he was the best centerfielder in the league despite him playing the position like 3 times that season Well, not every prediction is going to be right...and just because a player has all the tools in the world doesn't mean they're going to take advantage of them. I remember back in 1985, I must have bought 100 Eric Davis rookie cards thinking he was going to be the next Mays/Mantle. Didn't happen. By WAR, Puig's at 1.0 (and looking at around 1.5-2.5 for a full season assuming he stays healthy and continues his recent improved play). That would place him 34th out of 53 in the category (qualified number of AB's). Not nearly up to the standards of his first two seasons, but if a bunch of "Avi Garcia could do that in his sleep in RF" posts come up, it will be pretty amusing. In the context of AL MLB outfielders, 48th-51st out of 197 total players. So, if that's not a starting outfielder, I'm not sure what is.

Cespedes right now is projected as the only $100 million contract, assuming he doesn't go back for one of those "year at a time" deals. It's pretty hard to imagine Bautista or Encarnacion at their respective ages getting that type of money. $60-75 million would seemingly be about the max, like Zobrist last off-season. Then, when you consider losing a 1st round draft pick as well...just don't see many of these players being good matches when you consider the overpay involved, and the fact that, other than Colby Rasmus (an enigma of his own, ala JD Drew) and/or Carlos Gomez, there aren't many viable options for CF. Houston is also bringing up Alex Bregman over the weekend (to play 3B), so that will push Valbuena/AJ Reed/Gattis into shared at-bats...so, in the end, you'd have to think at least one or both of those guys will be available at season's end with all the young talent pushing up from below.

QUOTE (almagest @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 04:03 PM) If the Dodgers don't want too much for him (Hawkins? Adams?), and I don't think they can ask for too much, given his reputation and numbers the last two years, he's a guy I'd take a chance on for sure. He's cooled off a bit lately, but over the last month he's hitting .317/.417/.467/.883. If you assume he'll bounce back even to last year's numbers (OPS+ 110), he's still miles better than Avi or one of our many 4th outfielders. I think Bruce and Cargo are pipe dreams at this point, so the Sox are in the position where they need to look at moves like this. No one's going to just give us currently productive players for nothing, we don't have much trade ammo left at all , and there isn't much on the free agent market next year. Saladino has a higher WAR than Bruce, who can only realistically DH on a contending club.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 02:49 PM) Puig is the best centerfielder that plays right field since Clemente "Traditionally, centre field is not a premium offensive position," Hahn said. "You put a premium offensive player (Avisail Garcia) at a premium defensive position, it puts you in a pretty good spot for a club going forward. "We are not married to the idea of him playing centre. We wanted to take a look at it, get to know the kid a little bit better. He's extremely athletic, he has a world of tools and we want to give him the opportunity to play it out again at the premium position, even if he ultimately does wind up at a corner here in Chicago." http://m.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article/55983572/

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-m...?ex_cid=rrpromo Tied for the eighth likeliest probability to make the playoffs with the Mariners and slightly ahead of KC and NY. http://www.fangraphs.com/coolstandings.aspx 9th...at 8.4% Last year, the Orioles and Twins were flawed teams, as were the Angels. Highly doubt we see the same regressions from Boston, Toronto and Houston this year...because all of those teams are going to make improvements the next 6 weeks (or already have, in the case of Ziegler to BOS). Seattle also has more motivation (and resources) to make a move and reverse their slide. And the projections aren't factoring in Wade Davis and Lorenzo Cain returning from the DL, for example. All things considered, from where we were last year the final week of July, we're pretty much treading water...you can certainly argue the 23 7/9th's - 10 record to start was a sign of progress, but then May/June has been a brick wall that stopped that progress in its tracks. I'm not even 100% sure that their 7 consecutive late July wins last year after a terrible start didn't provide more hope than White Sox fans currently have about the team's prospects of making the playoffs in 2016.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 08:49 AM) Yet you would have had no qualms about including Thompson in the Samardzija trade. It's in your posts for everyone to see. Gee, that was at the end of the 2014 season. SOMETHING DIFFERENT HAPPENED IN 2015....gee, I guess we shouldn't adjust our thinking in any way, shape or form as a result of new evidence, which should LOGICALLY be weighted more heavily than previous seasons.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 08:44 AM) Let's do player a/player b (stole from SSS): Player A: .242/.307/.477, 11 2B, 19 HR, 29 BB, 78 K, 109 OPS+ Player B: .213/.305/.476, 9 2B, 25 HR, 40 BB, 85 K, 110 OPS+ A is Semien. B is Frazier. Surprised Trayce Thompson wasn't included. You're also not taking into account years of control/salary in 2016 and 2017. Finally, almost everyone would agree that getting those numbers from SS/CF/C should be a priority before all other positions.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 08:38 AM) They had more players in the Majors or upper minors that could handle those positions than they had at any other position on the diamond, that what is meant by "out of depth." They could have had 15-20 middle infielders under 6 years of control and it wouldn't matter one iota if none of them were major league regulars. 90-120 years of control!!! Amazing. It also doesn't explain trading Thompson when they had zero depth behind him. If all of those infielders were such quality depth, they wouldn't have had Gillaspie/Beckham there ahead of them....and then traded for Todd Frazier the following off season.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 08:35 AM) Who is "we"? Seriously, you are just making stuff up. Any time you are called out on your broad generalities or hindsight opinions you default to "well everyone said at the time..." Or "well other people on the board said it" Okay, I'm sure Dick Allen can search through every past thread over a decade and find: 1) Those who thought Saladino could/should start at 3B/2B heading into 2015 (pretty limited to those who ONLY looked at his stats and not what actually happened to end his 2014 season). 2) Those who thought Micah Johnson could/should start at 2B. 3) Those who thought Carlos Sanchez could/should start at 2B/3B. LOL. Every time Hahn makes a mistake, the consistent defense is "a bunch of random people on a White Sox messageboard were in favor of the move at the time and felt it was logical, seemingly, therefore....there was nothing wrong with it." Now how does that make any sense? Since when should that be the standard or benchmark?

I guess that means you wouldn't want Andrus, Aybar, Bogaerts, Escobar, Jordy Mercer, Asdrubal Cabrera, Gregorious, Brad Miller or Alexei to play SS for your team, either? http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/po...true/order/true Eight MLB shortstops have more errors, out of 26 qualified. Bogaerts, Russell, Story, Cozart and Ahmed all have 9, along with Semien. So that puts him right around the average. First in total chances, over Lindor. First in range factor. But yeah, keep repeating the same mantra from last year that he's still terrible defensively when that case is no longer supportable by any credible evidence.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 07:53 AM) you seriously have named them multiple times in this thread. the pool of Sanchez/Davidson/Saladino/Anderson/Johnson were all thought to be possible replacements or trade chips for replacements. You are just arguing anymore to see yourself argue, with hindsight points that change from sentence to sentence. But how can we honestly say Semien was traded "out of depth" when none of those players were clear/sure-fire/ready-to-go replacements at either 2B or 3B? They were possibilities. Actually, you'd have to believe the White Sox valued Conor Gillaspie and Gordon Beckham more at 3B based upon their actions (or lack thereof). Isn't that also part of the reason Emilio Bonifacio was acquired, to share time at 2B and give Micah Johnson some competition (PR/outfield, 3B, etc.) We said all along that if you merged Saladino/Micah/Carlos/Leury into ONE player, then you might have a major league regular. Saladino was also coming off an injury that was going to limit him heading into 2015 (at least there was the idea he wouldn't be ready to start the season or even maybe be ready to go in May). Trey wasn't even close to the majors (he still isn't 1 1/2 years later) and Davidson had a 644 OPS in AAA, so it would have been nearly impossible to project him as a starter coming into 2015.

Apparently FOX NEWS and Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio do not exist. And about 85% of small/regional newspapers in the US. By the way, it's AG (Attorney General), not DA (District Attorney). Slight difference!!!

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 07:46 AM) The Sox did not "give up on" Marcus Semien. They wanted Samardzija and they traded from depth. It costs talent to get talent. Who were their future 2B and 3B at that time?

QUOTE (FT35 @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 06:29 AM) See I disagree with this perspective. I don't think the Sox set out to actively trade the guys you mention nor do I think they gave up on the process after too short of a sample size. I think they USED the young guys to get what they wanted at that time--then got STUCK with the guys no one wanted! (Beckham, Viciedo etc). I could be wrong, but I am assuming that there are not many teams calling Hahn trying to get Carlos Sanchez nor is Rick Hahn actively shopping Sanchez as a centerpiece of a trade because he hasn't panned out. But if Hahn was looking for a Jay Bruce type player, the Reds might think to include Sanchez-- a young, cheap player with MLB experience--especially with an aging 2nd basemen on their MLB roster. Same goes for Shark. They weren't looking to trade Semien, they were looking to acquire Shark because they thought he was a top of the rotation RHP that could compliment who we have. It was a GREAT thought and one worth overpaying a little on the prospect side to get done. Semien had showed something to everyone--including the Sox. We didn't MISS the boat on him, we leveraged him. Now...that didn't pan out the way we had hoped because Shark bombed here, but I bet you a dollar, Hahn would make that trade again because the logic was sound behind it. Or they undervalued Semien and overestimated how easy the transition to the AL Central would be for a two-pitch NL pitcher. Cueto learned the hard way. He almost had a 5 ERA, now he's likely to win the Cy Young the next year. Think he got reminded again last night why he's better off in the NL West than the American League.

Should be 1-3 game playoff (usually sudden death) to eliminate one team if they had different division winners in the 1st and 2nd half...then go on to the championship series. We had to play Columbus in 1995 (sudden death playoff) on the road against Jaret Wright, and somehow managed to beat him, then wiped out Piedmont (used to be Spartanburg) in the championship series (Phillies).

LF--I'll cede that to the Cubs CF--Bradley, Jr. over Fowler RF--Betts clearly over Heyward 3B--Bryant SS--Bogaerts 2B--Pedroia over Zobrist, close battle, could go either way...Zobrist isn't the strongest infield defender 1B--Rizzo over Hanley DH--clear advantage to Ortiz over anyone the Cubs have (Baez/Soler, etc.) C--slight advantage to the Cubs, Swihart and Vasquez have been disappointments, but so has Montero...win this one because of the last month of Contreras 4 go to the Cubs. 5 to the Red Sox

Is unobjective even a word? Unless the Cubs are playing the White Sox, they don't have a marked advantage in the DH category. Seriously, the Rangers have better hitting than the Cubs, up and down that line-up.

Contending for 3-5 years would be a minor miracle. So let's worry about "half a decade" or merely getting back to the playoffs before the Marlins, Padres or Mariners. Two of those teams (Miami/Seattle) probably have better opportunities to make it (to the playoffs) than we currently do. It's only SD that is totally screwed, although they'll get some nice pieces back for Drew Pomeranz should they choose to trade him this July.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 13, 2016 -> 05:42 AM) Saladino can't play the OF anymore. Because of the surgery? That doesn't exactly make sense, because if he can play SS and make a throw from the hole flat-footed, why wouldn't he be able to play LF and maybe even CF?