caulfield12

Thank god for Malcolm X and the Black Panthers or MLK would have been Kaepernicked as well. And at least he's not advocating for a violent overthrow of the government, burning the flag or trying to steal Kate Upton away from Verlander. Maybe he should have simply refused to pay his taxes, claiming the Federal government doesn't have the right...that would have made him a hero to many. Chelsea Clinton would be massacred because her hedge fund running husband lost a lot of his investors' money...that would be used over and over again. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/0...tors_money.html If you're going to do that, at least be successful like Romney or Buffett.

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Sep 14, 2016 -> 05:32 PM) 24 teams passed on Mike Trout too. If Burdi is better, then he should close. Not saying he's going to be better but using the fact that 25 teams passed on him is irrelevant. Yes, but high school position prospects from NJ are a lot harder to assess and project. At least compared to closers for legit Division 1 programs with lots of exposure.

QUOTE (b-Rye @ Sep 14, 2016 -> 06:34 PM) Trade Carson Fulmer , avisail Garcia for Jonathon villar, cash, ryan Braun Sign Matt weiters 2/15m Resign Austin jackson 1/1m Sign Doug fister 2 yr/15 m 3b- Jonathon villar Cf- adam Eaton Dh- Jose Abreu Lf- ryan Braun 1b - Todd Frazier Rf- melky cabrera 2b- Brett Lawrie/saldiano C Matt weiters/navarez Ss Tim Anderson Bench Navarez Saladano Austin jackson Matt Davidson or Justin morneau Charlie tilson Sale, quintana, rodon, fister, gonzalez Closer - birdie, setup Robertson, Jones, Putnam , Jennings, ynoa, khanle, petricka, shields (dfa, very short leesh) I think this team can contend without spending tons of cash or trading prospects. Dump the losers (albers, shields, shuck, Turner for good), it has good speed, lots of power, decent defense except corner ofs, good pitching, a decent bench. Maybe sign some free agent minors depth so injuries don't cripple the team like 2016. You're adding four more older players (or injury prone ones) and Villar is the only impact player. That really just delays the inevitable rebuild by yet another year or more. Not to mention the undesirability of adding more PEDs cases to the team. And why would the Brewers want Avi Garcia? He was made for AL play...if that.

The rumor still is that Braun and Puig will be flipped in the offseason. Came within 20 minutes of it happening this time around.

Avi Garcia is the fastest, according to some brilliant minds...that's where you get all these arguments about quickest to top speed, fastest, best range, best top/cruising speed, explosiveness, fast twitch muscles, quick vs. fast, etc. Someone claimed Saladino had the best times to 1b out of the RH batter's box. Infield hits would be another indicator. Eaton's a leader there. Anderson's much more likely to hit into a DP.

Fisk was the better overall player because of position, but at that point in their respective careers, Baines was in his prime and Fisk was nearing the end. Unless you can argue another team would have given up the same package the Rangers surrendered. Of course, as a DH, those players forever be handicapped statistically until they come up with a better stat than WAR. That's how you could also argue a month ago that Avila was "better" than Abreu.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Sep 10, 2016 -> 09:39 PM) God sucks being stuck with Anderson We still don't know if Saladino is capable of everyday play or how well he'd do at SS for 7-10 days. Do we?

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Sep 14, 2016 -> 08:36 AM) Haha ok and how are the White Sox going to be better next year by trading Sale and rebuilding? Your hypothetical situation is 100x more improbable than mine in which they can compete next season with the right signings this offseason. You keep forgetting the Royals have a mutual option on Volquez, so that might not get very far. And the odds of the Sox signing Fowler aren't that great, either. And Wieters will draw a lot more interest than Austin Jackson did for Boras Corp. http://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-so...oncada-a-chance Red Sox need to give Moncada a chance...The Globe is coming after prospect haters.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Sep 14, 2016 -> 07:55 AM) A) your whole argument with SS2K is based on the notion that trading Sale will result in more wins next season which will lead to an increase in attendence so yes you did actually say it without saying it. If you don't think the Sox will win more games next season by trading Sale then why are you even arguing? B) of course you left out Fowler and I stand by my opinion that these 4 acquisitions plus an improved bullpen absolutely put the Sox in a position to compete next season. Already stated this before but the Sox are 7-20 when Ranaudo/Shields/Danks start. Give me an average starter in place of these dopes and that results in a 13-14 record in those games (not asking for much). Consequently, the team is 6 wins better with just that one move: 76-68 or 3 GB of the wild card. Again, that's just addressing 1 spot on the 25 man roster while leaving the rest untouched. The problem is you can do the same thing with the Royals and Tigers. Strip away KC's fifth starter and they're on a pace for 94 wins and the playoffs despite everything else (tepid offense, Soria, injuries, Yost). Take away Sanchez and Pelfrey, the Tigers suddenly become one of the best teams in baseball despite JD Martinez, Castellanos and Maybin missing time.

There's really nobody up to be excited about. Tilson and Narvaez are the only one who factor into 2017....Carlos Sanchez and Coats are filler, unless someone's really still on the Leury Garcia bandwagon. Actually, the biggest concern of most fans might be Avi Garcia turning in another "false positive" reading and steering the front office into status quo inactivity for 2017, other than swapping out managers.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-legend-of...-001630360.html And a marketing bonanza as well. No, not Tebow. Shohei Otani.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Sep 14, 2016 -> 05:32 AM) To think a full rebuild will result in immediate success (I.e. more wins than this season) is one of the sillier arguments I have seen on here in some time. Also, DA and SS2K are absolutely right in that a Sale trade would signal full rebuild to the fans and absolutely negatively impact attendence and overall fan interest next season even if they get a package of Moncada and Benintendi in return. Moncada has struck out in his last 8 at-bats. If that happened in a White Sox uni combined with an OPS in the Carlos Sanchez range over an entire season, which wouldn't be surprising for a kid just getting his feet wet in the big leagues, that's sure to get Sox fans excited and out to the ballpark. Ventura started 0 or 1 for 41 or whatever. Don't recall anyone getting that discouraged about Robin because of his pedigree. Moncada started off quite slowly in the Sally League last year as well. Btw, why would he have that low an OPS (500's) playing in Boston's line-up? A better comp would be Buxton (than Carlos), but Moncada's going to be a much better hitter without the defensive prowess. Would a team of James Shields, Billy Butler, a shaky bullpen, Narvaez, Leury or Sanchez on the roster and Coats/Avi sharing AB's do better attendance-wise if you still kept Sale, Q and Rodon?

QUOTE (2005thxfrthmmrs @ Sep 14, 2016 -> 03:40 AM) From a fWAR perspective, if we want to be a playoff team, we need at least 36 WAR's (~18 offense, 14 starting pitching and 4 bullpen, according to 2015 and 2016 numbers), . Here's how the potential returning players for 2017 could fare: Offense: C - Navaez/whoever the starter is 0.5 WAR 1B - TBD 2B - Saladino - 1.5 WAR 3B - Frazier - 2.5 WAR (if BABIP theory is true) SS - Anderson - 3 WAR (projecting growth in year 2) LF - Melky - 1.2 WAR CF - TBD RF - Eaton - 4.5 WAR DH - Abreu - 2.5 WAR (time to move him DH) Bench - 0.3 WAR Total minus TBD - 16 WAR Ideally we'd move Abreu to DH to hide his shortcomings defensively, however, I do not think the Sox would end up doing that, so whoever they bring in as DH and Abreu would combine to total of 2.5 WAR. We'd need a 2 WAR CF (Ideally 3-4 WAR, if the other players do not meet their projections) to make the lineup at least playoff caliber. So someone like Blackmon, Cespedes, or Inciarte (would make the OF defense much better) would be ideal. Starting Pitchers 1. Sale - 5 WAR (easily 6+) 2. Quintana - 5 WAR 3. Rodon - 3.5 WAR (is 2017 his breakout year?) 4. Shields 0 WAR (could be much worse, please release him) 5. Gonzalez - 1.5 WAR Total 14 WAR Our 1-2 is top notch. Rodon is teasing us in second half again and could put it together next year. Gonzalez is better than expected and should hold his own as number 5. Shields killed us this year, we must release him (though I don't see it happening). If we could get a reliable #4 (~2-3 WAR), this is comfortably a playoff quality rotation. But I'm doubtful we could do anything to improve, and I do not think Fulmer/Burdi will be the answer in 2017. Bullpen 2016 =3.2 WAR, could finish ~3.5. Need more pieces in 2017 But WAR does not factor in how many blown opportunities we had as a team. In a perfect world, we need a more consistent closer (however I think Robertson sticks around, and I do not want to see Jones closing). We definitely need another quality lefty, and another solid contributor. Pencilling in at the moment as Robertson, Jones, LHP FA signing, Jennings, Ynoa, FA Signing or Juan Minaya (I think he has potential) In summary, we have the pieces, should be close to a 30 WAR team, but would need the following to be a contender in 2017: - Another core player, preferably a high end CF - A quality DH - A quality lefty out of the pen - Shields to not wet the bed every time he starts . If Hanh/KW wants to go all in, we need to move Abreu to DH, both the eye test and advance stats tell us he hurts on the field more than he helps. We also need to move Robertson off the closer role and get ourselves a more consistent and reliable closer. To me these two are long shot but are must moves, otherwise we will hang around the WC for much of the year and end up missing by a few games. A lot of people here are projecting Saladino at 2.5+, we'll just have to wait and see on that. I don't think you'll see them going after Kenley J. or Chapman because they'll trade Robertson and move Burdi or Jones into that role to save money or possibly keep all three (definitely won't add another from outside)...of course, as mentioned above, any entire team can fray with one loose end in the bullpen. That 7th inning bridge guy destroyed the Sox (Albers Putnam Petricka), and did the same to the Royals (Hochevar injured, Soria ineffective). How they fix Shields is beyond anyone at this point...and how long they can go with him sinking the ship early before they turn to Fulmer, if he hasn't already been traded. Blackmon and Inciarte are 3-4 war players, so it's going to cost more than we can afford in prospects. Cespedes will either stay or get a cost prohibitive 3-4 year deal. Tilson will be the name we hear far too often. It's unfortunate, because both he and Avi will still be in the conversation and that will be depressing to suffer through all offseason. We'll also hear how acquiring Gordon and Upton wouldn't have gotten the team near the playoffs either. So best to do nothing and hope for the best, right?

There have been VERY FEW pitchers who moved the needle significantly in terms of home attendance. The ones that come to mind in recent years (last decade or so) are Greinke in KC, Halladay in Toronto (even when they weren't good overall), King Felix in Seattle and maybe Kershaw in LA, although to a lesser extent. I think if you tracked all of his Monday - Thursday home starts from 2011-2016, you might find a blip up of something like 300-500 for Sale starts, but it's not significant. Rookie pitchers like Dwight Gooden, Mark the Bird Fidrych, Fernando, Dice-K or Darvish, the Mets' phenoms...those situations are few and far between.

Reverse the 2006 season and have them not collapsing but playing like they did at the beginning of the season. The Tigers and Twins just obliterated them and all fantasies of a dynasty were gone.

Well, you never know, if Salazar isn't the same pitcher he was the first 3-4 months this year (has had a big workload increase), anything's possible. But the Royals and Tigers will be hungry at the start of the season, particularly if the Tigers miss out on the post-season (they're already blowing 2 games in the standings this week) and then the Royals have their final chance with their core all together...and Minnesota's offense has really been impressive the last 6-8 weeks. It's seemingly pretty wide open. Of course, the off season will change things significantly.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 13, 2016 -> 10:16 AM) I'll take it. I wish more places and people would do the right thing even if for the wrong reasons. Make "doing the right thing" seem normal, not out of place, and we wouldn't have to deal with bigoted crap like this in the first place. See all the multiple options Lincoln looked at first for dealing with the slavery issue, including sending slaves back to Africa...

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Sep 13, 2016 -> 11:46 AM) Who is punishing him for that? People are just saying they should be on the same playing field, not giving Porcello the benefit of the doubt cause his team is better. For all we know Sale and Q would have better numbers this year if they were in the race and they shouldn't be punished because their team f***in blows. This will never happen while so many 50+ year old BBWAA members are still voting. Even if you had players or managers voting, they wouldn't go off WAR, only the agents.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Sep 13, 2016 -> 05:05 PM) You're using a stat that isn't park adjusted. His wRC+ has gone from 103 to 95 to 91 over the past three years, while his K rate has gone from 17.4% to 23.9% to 28.4% during this same time period. His BB rate is up a little bit this year, but that appears to be the result of a flukey April & May and it was dropping significantly before he got injured. The power numbers haven't really fluctuated much either. Like I said, I think an argument can be made he's regressing and base case scenario you can say he is what he is. And I'm not sure how using a 40 game range of missed playing time demonstrates consistency, but you do bring up another mark against him which is that he's frequently hurt. We're lucky we have a quality backup in Saladino, because if we did not, the overall production at the position could be drained by being forced to play replacement level players there more than you'd ideally like. Outside of slightly above average power for a 2B, I'm not sure what the big draw is to be honest. There is a reason Beane paid a hefty price for him and promptly gave him away. The dude is a physical freak, but a pretty mediocre baseball player. With only one year left of control and a better option already on the roster, I don't see the reason to keep him another year. He does play with a lot of energy, swagger and flair...Hawk overrated it early, but it's not a negligible factor, either.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2016 -> 03:53 PM) This is pretty straight forward. There will be a fall off in attendance after a Sale trade. Even if by some miracle, the Sox return pays some sort of instant dividends, recent history dictates that Sox fans probably wouldn't jump on to the bandwagon with any sort of speed. Maybe if they won in '17 and kept winning in 18, attendance would go up then, but then again, probably not. Even in a season like 2008, where they won a division, attendance fell off over the previous year. Even in a season like 2012, where they were in first place until the last two weeks, attendance fell. Add in the factor that a good portion of the bandwagon section of the fanbase will be angry because they traded their best player. This is obvious. 2007 pretty much destroyed the momentum of the 3 million attendance post World Series in 2006. 2011 was historically disappointing with Dunn. Naturally expectations and season ticket buyers were way down the following years. If the White Sox finished 06, 07 or 11 in a competitive fashion, things would have looked quite different. Attendance is up this year despite a crap offseason and more disappointment because of those extra tockets they sold due to the 23-10 start. If you were one of those fans who bought back in again or even purchased MLB tv, how would you be feeling about right now? Your reward for doing that was watching Sox fifth starters (especially Shields) look historically inept.

Just hope Votto doesn't start 2017 like he did 2016 or all the talk will be about a sell off again...with Frazier, Cabrera and Robertson if he's still around. Why retooling isn't so easy... Alex Gordon $12 million Joakim Soria $7 million Chris Young $4.25 million That gets you a 0.0 WAR for $23.25 million and still on the hook for $85.25 million. Jason Vargas $8.5 Kris Medlen $5.5 million Mike Minor $2 million That actually puts you into negative WAR for another $16 million this year, on the hook for another $14.25 million next. The point here is that you have a small market team with 1/3rd of their payroll producing negative WAR, basically all the players they added with this year's free agent class and the leftovers from past seasons' dumpster diving. So you have a combination of maybe the worst moves of ANY team in free agency...and yet they're still likely to finish above .500 and ahead of the White Sox. They were actually just two games back in the wild card hunt two weeks ago, before Joakim Soria turned into Matt Albers. And keeping in mind again they lost Moustakas, Gordon, Cain, Davis and Perez for significant stretches of the season. Are the odds favoring even more injuries and another set of atrocious free agent moves again this season?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2016 -> 10:13 AM) ??? The last 3-4 years on that deal. Let's just put it this way, the Rockies weren't going to trade their franchise player in CarGo for less than Fulmer, the Reds are going to want even more, especially as they've already dealt Frazier to the Sox and the hit to fans' morale with Votto leaving would be substantially higher. If you're a Reds' fan, you expect a future ace and more for the best homegrown player in a generation. What second player offered in a deal would be enticing enough, especially if we were expecting ANY money coming back? It's not like we can trade trade Collins, too. That would almost defeat the purpose of adding Votto because you have to get some more young impact hitters to replace Frazier and Cabrera coming up.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Sep 13, 2016 -> 09:58 AM) Who should win? Player A: 193.2 IP, 3.21 ERA, 3.46 FIP, 4.3 fWAR Player B: 197.2 IP, 3.05 ERA, 3.14 FIP, 5 fWAR Player C: 201.2 IP, 3.03 ERA, 3.43 FIP, 4.8 fWAR Player D: 186.2 IP, 3.04 ERA, 3.23 FIP, 5 fWAR Player E: 184 IP, 3.13 ERA, 3.41 FIP, 4.6 fWAR Going back to Andre Dawson in 1987 there's always been that debate that the Cy and MVP have to come from playoff contending teams unless the statistical dominance over the field is completely overwhelming voters have no choice. Sale winning over a Red Sox pitcher or even Verlander would be pretty shocking. The only thing more shocking would be Q.

God help the White Sox when the Pujols years of that contract come due...the hard thing is still leaving major holes in CF, catcher, back end of the rotation and bullpen. Couldn't have any injuries to key players in 2017.

Sponsors pulling money, boycotts threatened, etc.