caulfield12

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 03:13 PM) This definitely goes both ways on this site. There are people who are always going to jump to trash someone we traded away and there are always going to be plenty of people who are automatically going to love the players we traded away. It's more the fact that we were rebuilding and everything was going along fine until the 2014-15 offseason approached. Then they got impatient and tried to rush forward, in the back of their minds certainly being aware they wouldn't have the financial resources to sustain an "all in" year unless EVERY MOVE THEY MADE TURNED OUT PERFECTLY. While we might not be much better off record-wise, an infield of Semien at 3B/2B, Anderson at SS, Thompson in CF, Montas still in the system (and Saladino as super-sub/Zobrist lite rotating around at different positions)...that would be a lot more exciting to watch and have potential for future improvement. Also, a lot more athleticism. Between Montas, Hansen, Fulmer, Adams and Jordan Stephens, we'd have enough pieces to fill the bullpen needs and back of the starting rotation. That team would also be much more affordable/cost-effective, providing payroll space for other fixes like the DH issue with Avi Garcia. And yeah, I did say they pretty much needed to trade Semien because it was clear the organization had already given up on him and he wasn't likely to get another shot...so why not try to turn him into an asset to fill another need? It's not like any of us here can go out and hire individual coaches and bring them to USCF and force them on the White Sox front office to fix their own development and lack of patience with young player issues...(of course, for some reason, they fixate on other guys like Beckham, Flowers and Viciedo and give them way too much time, with Avi Garcia being the most currently example of that phenomenon.)

2B/3B is where Moncada will go, likely 3B to start because Shaw is more expendable than Pedroia. They just traded for Ziegler, so they're not going to add another closer at the cost of Benitendi...especially when that closer is paid in the same territory salary-wise as Jonathan Papelbon. They'll be be fine when Kimbrel returns from surgery with Uehara, Tazawa, Ziegler and Kimbrel, plus some of their failed starters or prospects can be thrown into the mix if need be. Pre-Ziegler trade, it would actually have made some sense, but there's still no way we were getting Moncada back.

LHP Cuban pitcher. Click on link at Post #19.

QUOTE (ChiliIrishHammock24 @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 12:24 AM) Why do you keep comparing the cost to add a major league player to a major league roster to the cost of signing bonus for an international prospect? Those are different markets... As Mr. Richard Allen said, if the White Sox were drawing 35,000 per game (and the Cubs are higher than that) instead of 22,000 (25th in the majors), they'd be plugging $20-25 million extra per season into the international market like the Cubs have been doing... So that's why. Obviously when they do sign international players, they prefer for them to be major league ready (or as close to as possible): Takatsu Iguchi Alexei Ramirez Viciedo (19 but before it was broken into under 21 and over 21 categories) Abreu Compared to the likes of Micker Adolfo, for example. The White Sox have been hard-pressed to add more than 5-7 players at over that $1 million range over the last 3-5 years.

QUOTE (ChiliIrishHammock24 @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 12:16 AM) Just for fun.... Cubs major international signings ($1M+ bonuses) Luis Acosta - $1.1M - Out of baseball Mark Malave - $1.6M - Out of baseball Kyuji Fujikawa - $1.0M - Out of baseball Juan Paniagua - $1.5M - 26 years old and a nearly 6 BB/9 in AA. They have signed many more over $1M, but a lot of them are either too young to consider busts yet. But I saw like 20-25 players since 2011 they have signed for $1M+, and that includes a year that they got penalized to stay under $250K. When you are breaking the rules and loading up on the best INT'L talent, you are going to hit on a few of them. So far, they are. It's very simple...over time, you can track the collective major league WAR of those players and the compare it to the average $6-8 million cost per 1 unit of WAR for adding (mostly) 30+ veteran FA's. Which is the best way to build a team? Just like you can do the same thing for all the Sox FA WAR over the past 1 1/2 seasons for LaRoche/Melky/Robertson/Bonifacio/Beckham/Turner/Navarro/Latos/Avila/A.Jackson/Rollins/Gonzalez, etc. I would guess the Dodgers aren't getting a very good return on their investment. The Cubs, Red Sox and Rangers are doing much better. With JR, it's always been the major league team's record being 10X more important then developing lottery tickets.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03...uit-cubs-figure 5 years/$6 million....lots of hype!!! About the same as the Bonifacio and Beckham signings. Actually, even at that time, the perception was that it was an overpay and it was doubtful he would even make the majors...in the aftermath of all those signings like Soler and Puig, the market for all things Cuban quickly overinflated. Maybe it was worth it just for the resulting publicity, because that money for Boni and Beckham wasn't noticed by anyone but die-hard Sox fans on page 22D, buried in the sports section.

As long as he doesn't get hung out to try like Stanek at the end of the Futures Game, then even a period of failure/adjustment at the big league level SHOULD be helpful to his eventual development. Just not convinced that rushing Fulmer and Burdi into our bullpen isn't eventually going to come back to bite them. So far, they were right on Tim Anderson (except for the patience to accept walks)...but the results are far from conclusive on Carlos Rodon 14-15 months later in terms of his developing the secondary pitches he needed to at BIRM/CHAR to experience sustained success as a starter.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Jul 11, 2016 -> 06:30 PM) The sox did spend $68 million on unknown Jose Abreu. I mean I wanted Moncada when he was a FA but I can't get too pissed off because they did spend on Abreu. Unknown to American baseball fans. Not to the professional scouting community or anyone who follows Cuban baseball. He's not a flashy player, so he didn't get as much attention as Cespedes and Puig, but every scout in the world had him on their radar. (As we have mentioned 100 times, most of the big market players that offseason weren't looking to replace their 1B, I think the other two primary suitors were the Rockies and Astros.)

Great, Dick Allen has raised another $20-22 million in revenue to spend. Oops, it just went out the window. Even if we were averaging 35,000 rather than 21,000+, it wouldn't be enough to afford Yoenis Cespedes for this season. http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance/_/year/2006 36,511 per game http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensa...cago-white-sox/ White Sox raised the payroll by A WHOPPING $6 million dollars to reward all those fans from 2006, going into the 2007 season. Not to mention the ticket price increases going into 2006, borne by the fans of a World Series-winning team. There's no way to believe the White Sox are suddenly going to change 35 years of history. Most of their money gets plugged into the major league roster. Always has been this way, with just a few exceptions like Borchard and Vicedo, and those two were seen as relatively advanced prospects (compared to high schoolers). In all likelihood, we would have ended up with Alex Gordon...and not be any better off for it, except having another bad contract on their hands. I still don't see any reason to believe the White Sox were going to bid $30 million for Cespedes to play for them in 2016...it beggars belief. The one and only exception to that has been Albert Belle, and luckily they had the escape clauses in that deal or they would have been totally screwed. While I would like to believe they'd invest in the Yoan Moncadas, rather than the Tanakas (always coming in second or third) and Abreus, just don't see it happening.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/why-the-c...-013715997.html Why the Cubs Think They'll Be Okay Tim Brown, Yahoo Sports

http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?g...ox&sid=milb Morneau was 1/3. Our old friend Moises Sierra playing in that AA game and hitting .343 as his career winds down.

Thompson also had a lot of game-winning hits during that hot streak. Should we take all of those wins of the board, too...because they happened in one "hot stretch"? Couldn't we do that with 80-90% of pitchers and hitters? Let's just put it this way. The Dodgers are confident enough in him, Pederson, Kendrick and eventually Ethier to trade Puig now.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos...false/minpa/250 Going by WAR, Thompson is 41st out of the 66 MLB outfielders with over 250 PA's at 0.8. Over a full season, roughly 1.5. By OPS, 47th. That still has a lot of value, for a first/second year player with a dirt cheap contract. It means he would be right around the middle of statistical comparison with "second outfielders" on most MLB teams...with many non-qualified players putting up lower numbers, the same as we talk about with pitchers all the time and how many with terrible stats don't show up because they don't record enough innings to qualify. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos...false/minpa/250 There are a ton of "big names" with large contracts on this list behind Thompson. And a lot of them play in better parks for offense than Dodgers' stadium, especially night games when the marine layer comes in (more impact in SD, but still affects LA, SF and Safeco). Marcus Semien has been around the 13th or 14th SS going by WAR/OPS on a consistent basis, nearly all season long...and those numbers would be even better playing 81 home games at USCF vs. O.Co. That also has a LOT of value.

Who was the last really refined collegiate hitter we took? Beckham and Jeremy Reed are the only names that come to mind. Borchard and Fields were more pieces of work in progress, toolsy/athletic getting by with natural athletic ability against lower levels of competition. Same thing with Brian Anderson.

New White Sox motto: Hey, At Least We Avoiding Paying Penalties for Bringing in Premium Talent Like The Cubs Kind of goes against the argument that they don't care about winning, and/or they still believe paying the penalties to be worth it compared to having to overpay for players like Lester or Heyward. And that's probably right, all things considered. Same with the way the Red Sox have been doing things ever since Epstein arrived. Exploit market inefficiencies...in this case, the fact that only about 8-10 teams in the major leagues can afford to employ this strategy and absorb the losses that it entails for the diamonds that are unearthed.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Jul 11, 2016 -> 05:28 PM) That was part of it. He was pissed off that Larry wouldn't trade any kids for players like Mike Scott who was mentioned as potentially going to the Sox and after the A's claimed both Baines and McGee at the waiver deadline when the Sox could have blocked the move by claiming them, he called jeff Torborg in his hotel room and asked "what's going on?" (Jeff told me that himself. Add in the trade that Himes nixed before the 1990 season opened (Yankess wanted to send Hal Morris and Bernie Williams to the Sox for Steve Lyons and Eric King) and his refusal to let Frank Thomas open the season with the big club plus the personality differences between the two men and a breakup was bound to happen, which it did in mid September. Mark Wow, never heard about that potential deal. Why is that we always seem to get the best of the Yankees in trades, but very few other teams?

Five years of being content with being "mediocre at best" is preferable? What is hilarious is that some are arguing that a major reason to NOT rebuild correctly is because the current front office in charge of "competing on the fly" isn't doing a very good job of that, so how could they possibly pull off a rebuild and NOT actually make things worse? Tons of logic there. Fear that things could get worse? Worse HOW? The fact of the matter is that many White Sox fans have given up complaining and have simply turned to other interests that provide them and their families a higher return on investment for their time and money. Because they know complaining is pointless and won't change anything. But they also don't expect things to turn around any time soon for this particular franchise, its owner, its admin/front office and coaching staff. They're just going to wait patiently in the weeds for a playoff team to come around, and then jump back on the bandwagon like happened in 2005 and 2006. No matter what...even if our attendance fell to #28-30 (which wouldn't take much at all), we'd simply roll down the payroll and still be profitable. JR wouldn't sell, the same stadium lease agreement would be in place at least until 2029. They'd still be worth a billion dollars as a franchise, because the riding tide of the NBA and 75% of MLB is going to pull them up regardless of how poorly they are managed.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/189181302/fu...eads-world-win/ That play in RF by Jimenez was amazing...better than his two hits. If you didn't know who it was beforehand, you'd think it was the player Byron Buxton was PROJECTED to be by everyone. Margot was impressive as well....fouling off about 15 pitches, defensively, speed/tools, etc.

You also have to consider that the Rangers were one of the first teams to enjoy the boom in exploding regional network broadcast deals. Not bad, considering they went from near-bankruptcy due to Hicks' shenanigans around the globe. The Cardinals are a "decent example" because of their limited local market/tv deal, but they've had the best fan/attendance of any team in baseball over the last 20-30 years out of all the "mid/small" market teams. "Best fans in baseball," etc. Cardinals' Way/Cardinals' Nation. Of course, they earned that by being a consistently winning franchise over many generations of players. Right up there with the Yankees on the NL side.

Berman was TERRIBLE in 2005 back in that series against the Red Sox with his homerism. http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/page/allsta...sed-how-fun-are Dave Schoenfield ranks the entire All-Star roster 1-64 based on "how fun they are"

Fwiw, KW was talking a LOT about OBP five years ago...and certainly in reaction to Moneyball, but it was just that, lots of talk. The irony is that the one "athletic/toolsy" guy who could actually take some walks (Thompson) was traded away. We drafted Mitchell (who actually wasn't too bad in this area, either) and Hawkins...and Tim Anderson's troubles with drawing walks are well-documented. Signed Viciedo, etc. So yeah, pretty strange we KNEW there was an OBVIOUS problem, yet it took 10+ years after trading for Thome (OBP machine) to finally do something about it. Finally, clear direction emerged...after all this time.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Jul 11, 2016 -> 04:03 PM) Co-sign. Couldn't have said it better myself. We said this after the 2014 season, when a lot of those free agent pick-ups wet the bed and the team got off to such a terrible start. Our system lost a number of players who could have made contributions at the major league level (Semien, Montas and Thompson being the best examples)...and we simply ran out of money to spend to complete the roster because too much money was being allocated to Danks, LaRoche, Cabrera and David Robertson. In order for your comment to be correct, Kenny Hahn would need to go out and spend $10-12 and perhaps $15 million in contracts for the remainder of this year and take on salary commitments (Bruce/Cargo, etc.) for next year as well (because of the lack of impact FA's, and the number of large market franchises competing for them)...as they did with James Shields, to cover up the lack of depth/productivity from the largely depleted minor league system. Otherwise, a "roll the dice" franchise-defining Q trade is all but inevitable. We've been saying this for a long time, and it has never been more apparent.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2016 -> 03:55 PM) My guess would be very few, if any, have done it consistently over more than a period of say five years or more. With mid-markets, the payroll forces a break up, which it about impossible to recover from without the resources of a large market team. So while a team like the 90's Indians can come along once in a while, the shelf-life is limited. The other one I can think of the Braves playoff run. Other than that, probably no one has done this, no matter what stipulations you put on it. Let's cut it down to 3...anyone come to mind? In the "modern" era since around 2000? I think 4 years is absolutely pushing it these days in terms of a competitive window. You have to have a little luck and good health. The Twins are the team that comes into mind because they sustained that window from 2002 (2001 they really pushed the Indians) all the way through their pretty remarkable 2010 season. Tigers have 2006-2014...and their free-spending owner (which disqualifies them, even though they received comp picks for being "mid market" in name only, like St. Louis). So we can cross them out. The Royals, but they went through a prolonged rebuilding period, and they couldn't sustain injuries to Cain, Davis, Moustakas and Gordon (at least seemingly). The Indians have gone through two massive rebuilds (post 2001 and post 2007) in the last 15 years. They aren't even "mid market" anymore, they're the BOTTOM of the market, but they made the playoffs in 2013 and look to be well set up for a 2-3 or even 4 year run at present. Of course, for Cleveland to go from 2007 to 2013...well, there was a lot of fan "duress" along the way, for a franchise that set the record for consecutive sellouts in Jacobs Field during the heart of their 1995-2001 run of success.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2016 -> 03:37 PM) The big problem is that their TV contract is up in 2019. Are you willing to risk a rebuild being at a place in 3 years, well two really because 2016 is pretty much a sunk cost, to where their is fan interest enough for getting them the best possible TV deal? Two years from now is probably going to be the bottom point of the rebuild. Are you willing to risk an injury to Sale/Q/Rodon that would wipe out any chance of turning ONE of those three pitchers into assets like Moncada, Benitendi, Profar/Gallo/Brinson, etc.??? Then they WOULD be forced to pretty much rebuild anyway...but not on their conditions or control, but selling off pieces under duress like the Padres are doing now. This is where JR needs to decide if he's REALLY all-in this season or they have to look at trading one of Sale/Q in order to get 2-3 potential impact hitters/position players. We ABSOLUTELY know it's not going to happen through free agency (2016-17 free agent class)...and the odds of "winning" trades for guys like Frazier, Robertson and Cabrera (where the acquiring team is taking on salary and giving up lesser prospects), that's not a winning strategy either for most GM's. The only solution is to be 100% RIGHT for the first time in a while and bring in one more big bat (and relying on that bat to be Justin Morneau is something only Sox diehards can do, where hope springs eternal) and take on that contract through 2017. The James Shields move has almost forced it in this direction already.

Or, to put it another way, which mid-market teams (payroll #12-18) have successfully risen up to become consistent playoff contenders without building primarily through the draft and Latin America? That have experienced sustained success by buying second and third tier free agents so astutely (success rate of 60-80%), as well as "winning" 60% or more of their trades...and that weren't willing to go through a prolonged period of rebuilding/Top 10 draft picks, etc.???