caulfield12

The other thing with Fowler and Jackson... The Cardinals, Cubs, Orioles, Nats, White Sox, Rangers, Brewers and "mystery team" (there's always one) are all theoretically in the market looking for another outfield improvement. My assumption is that Fowler's market isn't yet depressed to the point where he has to accept $20-22.5 million for 2 years or $30-35 million for three years. Of course, that could be totally wrong. Just a guess.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 09:13 PM) Why do you keep repeating 45 million caulfield? It doesnt even look like he'll get 3 years let alone 3 years for 15 million per. If you discount him down to Denard Span territory (because of the draft pick loss), then all of a sudden the mathematics are starting to make sense. I've been operating under the assumption all offseason that he would be in that range ($40-46 million for 3 years). Let's not forget the comparison with the Cabrera deal as well, last year. Now obviously it could be off. We won't know until he signs, or see the AAV of a one-year deal, two year or three year deal with an opt out after 2, etc. The assumption has become that Kendrick, Gallardo, Desmond, Fowler and Jackson will have to content taking much less or signing one-year deals and going back into the market next year.

QUOTE (CyAcosta41 @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 08:49 PM) Count me shocked as well. 10 reasons: 10 -- Great pitcher's park, especially for flyball pitchers; 9 -- great defense; 8 -- GREAT battery mate. REASONS 1-7 ... Pitching all year in the National League. Yeah, All year. In the National League. I'd put the over/under for his Giants ERA at 3.20. Heck, John Danks is probably sub 3.50 in that park in the NL (and I wouldn't be surprised if Danks is a deadline acquisition this year for some NL team if the Sox are out of it). Pagan has really been declining recently, though. The biggest question is the health of Span, Pagan and Pence...if they're 100% healthy, that's a very very solid defense.

Yeah, there's the whole other side of this...how much do they believe in Hostetler to deliver results with that pick? If it was completely the same group running the process, then I could see the argument, that we're almost 0 for the decade producing a DRAFTED hitter, so we can look at past drafts until we're blue in the face and find All-Stars chosen in that same area and find about a 5-10% overall success rate in finding big league regulars. Of course, the other argument, and it's hard to "prove" beyond a shadow of a doubt, is the issue of other players that are drafted like an Adams and you now have the financial flexibility to bring in another potential stud after the first high first round because of your overall pool of money. If you look at it like this: Losing Semien/Bassitt/Phegley/Ravelo + foregoing Adams for the right to pay Fowler $45 million for 3 years...it doesn't seem like that great of an idea. Of course, there's no guarantee we can find another Adams there. On the other hand, there might be someone who turns out even better. The biggest issue is to me that signing Fowler alone (and platooning Garcia/Cabrera in RF but more likely Cabrera in RF with Garcia/LaRoche as DH) isn't quite enough. I would argue Jackson + Desmond for let's say $22.5 million gives you a much higher likelihood of making the playoffs than Fowler alone at $15 million. Now, of course, since nobody here controls the budget or payroll, it might be completely a moot point and nobody will be added other than a veteran bench player. Nevertheless, in "win now/all-in" mode, which we aren't quite there yet...you put everything into the pot and roll the dice. And yeah, the odds of the 2016 draft pick making much of a difference before the midpoint of the 2019 season are very low regardless. That's the difference with KW and Hahn. KW is more of a gambler, Hahn is more calculating and risk-averse. He's cautious about making that one big franchise defining mistake, or maybe he just doesn't have the financial wherewithal to make it after the ineffective spending spree on free agents last offseason.

It's very depressing to think of it this way: Semien (#8 war SS under control for ages), Bassitt, Phegley, Ravelo + loss of $11-13 million in "value" for the #28 pick ALL for the exclusive right to overpay second-tier Dexter Fowler $45 million for 3 years So we're essentially paying Fowler $56-58 million over three years in terms of opportunity cost/alternative choices foregone. We also lost a player in Semien who would be likely to produce a high 2/low 3's WAR at SS for minimal cost...which has now led us down the path to the even riskier Saladino AND the possibility of spending on Desmond to cover that loss in depth. If you start putting it in THOSE terms, it's not very far at all from what the Tigers are paying Upton...granted, you also lose the draft pick there as well. But, you KEEP Upton away from a divisional rival and you're putting your franchise in a very solid position to compete through 2019/2020, but that's ONLY if you called Upton right. (And we don't have any tangible reason to believe Upton was ever open to coming to Chicago...otoh, if you're a FA and can choose between Chicago and Detroit, not much of a contest...and we never heard a peep about the Tigers being in on him at all, either.)

The way the last month has gone, the Cubs will sign him Thursday or right before SoxFest kicks off...

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/162912126/cu...could-sign-soon

Aka Danksed, although in this case they knowingly overpaid by $20 million and are still okay with it. At any rate, they're paying Gordon and Kennedy an average of $12.25 million per year these two seasons...in order to maintain payroll flexibility in order to add at the All-Star break and extend the window two more years... If they miss the playoffs this season, it will turn out to be foolish.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-p...ign-is-sinking/ Greg, read and enjoy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the...0dc6_story.html Milbank/Wash Post rip into Snyder... https://reason.com/blog/2016/01/26/liberals...ity-poisoned-th Counter response is humorous, at best

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 02:55 PM) What? Where am I advocating signing veterans on the wrong side of 30? How many free agents other than Rasmus, Heyward and Upton have been under 30?

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 02:50 PM) And everything I'm looking at projects him being much closer to 2015: .236 .294 .390 .299 wOBA 87 wRC+ 1.5 fWAR Not worth the $ to me. Which is why scouts use their eyes and GM's use their intuition/gut/instincts. Going off projections, Kendrys Morales was done in 2014. It's also the same reason not to pick stocks or mutual funds based largely on previous year performance without considering context.

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 02:40 PM) So $15M AAV isn't a huge comittment if he repeats. I disagree. But that's fine - we can do that amicably. There's good power potential now at 1B, 2B, 3B. I'd rather see that $15M go toward the salaries of a Jackson/Latos, roll with Saladino at SS, and wait for Anderson at SS. Sure. I also realize there's a big difference between $500K and $15M. $14.5M could go toward better options at those other 3 positions you mention. That's the same exact thinking that led from better players to Cabrera and LaRoche...

If we all concluded 3-4 war Cespedes was much more likely this year than 6-7 Cespedes, why would 2 war be more likely than 3.5ish war for Desmond as both players are the same age?

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 02:32 PM) So what would be different on a 1 year deal? Can we afford to continue to compromise defense in the hopes for a bigger bat? What about Anderson? Is it worth $12-14M? I look at all these things and think, no. Can we afford -1 to +1 war out of three positions in the line-up and still compete? You realize it's not at all unlikely Anderson puts up 25-35 errors his rookie season when we are most setup to be competitive?

Okay...but then you're not also looking at 2012-2014.... Or the fact he made 8 errors in 15 games, temporarily/anomalously had the yips and then had 19 for the remainder of the season. If you go back a decade or so, we had this exact same debate with Clayton and Valentin, who made 25% more errors than Desmond last year but always had amongst the top 3-5 in total chances and top 2-3 arms in the game at that position. KW got fooled by Clayton's error totals being so low.

QUOTE (bear_brian @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 09:52 AM) Anyway you cut it, this guy made 27 errors last year and 24 the year before that. Alexei made 16 last year, just for comparison. He is not a reliable defender, and therefore not what we need to resolve our problem. More and more I am beginning to believe that either Ethier or Jay Bruce is the best available OF answer, and we stick with Saladino at SS. And that is assuming that : a) we get the Dodgers to eat some money for Ethier; and b) we give up the likes of no more than a Guerrero or Phillips. We could keep Avi to platoon DH with LaRoche. Please look at Bruce's actual numbers both offensively and defensively in recent years and forget about the brand name/reputation.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 09:52 AM) So you want a guy with something to prove, but a guy who also supposedly caved under the pressure of turning down $107 million. His defensive liability comes from the fact he makes a lot of bad plays, but apparently makes up for them as well. I think also people look at his offensive decline the last several seasons with an increased strikeout rate, and see a guy who if he came to the White Sox would be switching leagues, and the team hasn't had too much luck with that, at least initially. I advocated signing this guy back before the got Lawrie, and then Frazier. I thought he could move to 3B. But signing him has a couple of issues. First on a multi-year contract, if Anderson is the SS of the future and that starts next season, how would Desmond react to having to change positions for a rookie? Some guys don't go for that. And assuming Lawrie and Frazier work out, where would he play? The OF? He loses a lot of value there. Sure, but you're assuming Anderson and Lawrie won't have any setbacks AND he wouldn't be open at all to a Jose Valentin-esque career change. If anything, showing that versatility and willingness to sacrifice over the next two seasons would make him even more valuable when he hit the 2017-18 free agent market. He's also a consistent 20-20 threat, and how many middle infielders can you say that about? As far as playing for a contract goes, I don't recall Jackson or Fowler were ever offered $107 million extensions before the season by the Mariners and Cubs only to turn them down...

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 09:26 AM) Why don't you post them? Desmond might be fine, but excuses, except for an injury don't work. Just because someone speculates about it on the internet doesn't make it true. If he couldn't handle turning down $107 million, maybe he shouldn't have turned down $107 million. We made lots of them for Alexei and Dunn and numerous others throughout the years... http://deadspin.com/ian-desmond-solves-the...scre-1711269609 And he made 8 errors in the first 15 games and played quite well after that...but those two weeks planted the idea in the minds of some fans he was a defensive liability. If anything, you want to have guys like that with something to prove on your team...the old chip on the shoulder often works wonders. Fowler won't have the same edge on the Sox that Jackson and Desmond would bring, trying to reestablish themselves and prove the doubters wrong.

Can someone please post the drs and uzr and range factor numbers for Desmond? He was terrible offensively and defensively the first 2-3 months last year but it doesn't fit at all with his career numbers in those two areas. Most of it has been attributed to the stress and pressure of rejecting a 7 year, $107 million contract extension. Not to mention the Nationals have been better judges of offensive talent than the Sox, they can't be totally wrong about a player who spent his entire career there and is still just 30.

Which means the Orioles, Nats, Angels, Cards, Rangers, Brewers, Cubs....could all still be in on Jackson or Fowler.

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 08:48 AM) To be fair, he doesn't say that....In fact, he says: Anyway, I do disagree with signing both Fowler and Desmond, but the sentiment behind making those moves is dead on right. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseba...very-incomplete Last sentence...without any additions

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 08:39 AM) So they are a last place team, but if they sign Fowler or Desmond they are a contender? LMAO. You can say that about the Twins, Indians and Tigers, too. That's how close things could be bunched. If Verlander and Sanchez aren't very good or Norris has a setback with his health, the Tigers will have rotation issues all season long. Right now, most have it KC, Detroit or Cleveland and then Minnesota/Chicago at the back end.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 08:25 AM) Hillary talking about Reconstruction in the south was pretty damn terrible Hillary Clinton Goes Back to the Dunning School Notably absent from it is the fact that Lincoln was killed by a white supremacist, that Johnson was a white supremacist who tried to curtail virtually all rights black people enjoyed, that the “hope” of white Southerners lay in the pillage of black labor, that this was accomplished through a century-long campaign of domestic terrorism, and that for most of that history the federal government looked the other way, while state and local governments were complicit. Yet until relatively recently, this self-serving version of history was dominant. It is almost certainly the version fed to Hillary Clinton during her school years, and possibly even as a college student. Hillary Clinton is no longer a college student. And the fact that a presidential candidate would imply that Jim Crow and Reconstruction were equal, that the era of lynching and white supremacist violence would have been prevented had that same violence not killed Lincoln, and that the violence was simply the result of rancor, the absence of a forgiving spirit, and an understandably “discouraged” South is chilling. Why exactly would she learn that in the northern suburbs of Chicago and Wesleyan? From her time in Arkansas?

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseba...very-incomplete Cbssports writer implores Sox to sign Fowler/Jackson and Desmond. Seems to prefer Garcia/Cabrera platoon in rf to Garcia/LaRoche dh platoon. DH Navarro or Saladino against lefties? Last paragraph seems to be pretty spot on, albeit tough.