caulfield12

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. Last paragraph seems to be pretty spot on, albeit tough.

http://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-do...-twitter-2016-1 Fox News had quite the clever retort...

You almost have to get regression from Davis and Herrera. That said, Collins and Duffy will be a huge upgrade over Morales from the LH side, one of the biggest weaknesses last year. Soria is possibly a wash with Madson, but Madson put up some pretty eye-popping numbers. Hochevar's better two years removed from TJ, in theory. Chris Young, Duffy, Dillon Gee all in the running for long man or fifth...no Blanton as well, who had surprisingly good numbers last year, aided primarily by stadium and defense.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 07:13 AM) I know I put too much emphasis on high draft picks, but Sox would not be giving up that pick for Desmond; they would be giving up that pick for the difference between Saladino and Desmond. I hope they keep the pick. Depends on how confident you are Saladino can put up a 2 war and how likely Desmond at age 30 is to be a 2 like last year as opposed to the 3.5-3.6 he averaged from 2012-2014. On the face of it, it's easier to find the 4ish war upgrade from replacing Avi and platooning him or someone else with LaRoche. That said, my confidence in Saladino lasting the season as the starting SS isn't high, either.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-w...risis-michigan/ What went wrong in Flint, excellent and detailed article...

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/does-d...ed-to-win-iowa/ Does Trump have to win Iowa or New Hampshire?

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jan 27, 2016 -> 05:46 AM) Sanchez doesn't have to cover third. Our backup 3B plays.2B. That's fine...so then we have five outfielders or three catchers? What about pinch-running? Sanchez is pretty slow. I suppose they can use Shuck, but it would be nice if we had a player off the bench capable of getting into scoring position by himself in the late innings. That's not Fields or Sands, either. And Carlos is probably going to be similar to Beckham at SS. Saladino will have to play nearly everyday like Alexei.

Just curious, but what's the latest with Eloy Jimenez? He was probably the most hyped of the Cubs' prospects...like Adolfo for the Sox, but multiplied by a factor of 3X-5X. And we can also say the team payroll luxury tax system in general is a joke, because we counted out the Tigers for most of the off-season and then, poof, Illitch authorized the Upton deal. Surely the Angels will be next to "surprise but not really surprise" everyone... Then again, the World Series winner last year had a payroll in the mid to high $120's for most of the season and the Yankees/Red Sox haven't taken over the world, that's "balance" in another sense. The Blue Jays would be another example, the Astros, the Mets and the Cubs, all those teams were successful without huge payrolls until the deadline last year or going into this offseason. Finally, the Dodgers sank like a rock with Boston, and the White Sox and Padres efforts to buy their way into contention fell flat.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jan 25, 2016 -> 03:49 PM) and not much free agent talent to bid on. $30 million or bust for 2017 on Cespedes!!! Except his WAR is more likely to be in the 3.5-4.0 range than 6+. So if we're not going to spend $25-27.5 million on those projections, it seems highly unlikely we'd be able to acquire him in the low $20's, not to mention one year older/additional wear & tear on his body (not to mention the smoking and finally age uncertainty with Cubans). Remember, the original goal was 6 years and $140-150 million...so that leaves 5 years and $112.5-122.5 remaining to pick up.

ESPN’s Mark Simon cautions Mets fans to temper their expectations for Yoenis Cespedes in 2016. While he went on an otherworldly hot streak early with the Mets, a good chunk of that damage was done on the road against weak Rockies and Phillies pitching staffs. Additionally, Cespedes’ career averages prior to 2016 were considerably lesser than his averages this past year, and it’s not reasonable to expect him to maintain his peak-level performance, especially not with the minor injuries he sustained late in the year. Simon notes the projections at Fangraphs boosted the Mets’ win total by two after signing Cespedes. While some will argue that not to be a large enough differentiation, the point Simon seeks to get across is not a specific number of wins which Cespedes will provide but rather that the difference probably won’t be as striking as it was upon his acquisition last July. MLB.com’s Mark Bowman conducted a Q&A with Braves GM John Coppolella, during which Coppolella discussed a number of the moves made in the offseason. Coppolella told Bowman that the biggest surprises of the offseason, to him, were the trades of Andrelton Simmons and Shelby Miller. “We didn’t want to trade either player, but we also felt that the talent we received back in those deals made it too good to pass up those opportunities,” said Coppolella. Additionally, the GM discussed the importance of stockpiling young talent in light of the “hyperinflation” of the free-agent market, noting that this offseason illustrated clearly that most teams cannot simply buy a considerable amount of talent in free agency. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

Leury, Olt/Davidson (depending on how confident they are in Sanchez covering 3B) or Fields/Jerry Sands...doubtful they would go with 3 catchers. Last year, we started with Beckham and Bonifacio on the infield. However you look at it, that's five pretty uninspiring possibilities.

Well, that much is true...the problem is the White Sox never seem to be able to face reality and force guys like Dunn and now LaRoche into straight platoon situations until it's way too late. Otoh, for a long time, it seemed Melky would never get his average above .100 against LHP and he finally sputtered to life, but seeing as LaRoche only has one more season left (and probably less than that), it would behoove the White Sox to start looking at some realistic alternatives.

But we know if he was on the White Sox...somehow...he would just end up with a 650-675 OPS, be exposed defensively and hit about .050-.075 cumulatively against the Tigers and Royals.

Somehow, Raburn will end up on the Cubs...just to torment Fathom.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Jan 26, 2016 -> 10:09 PM) Given that some of the best remaining options require draft pick compensation, has there been any thought that perhaps the best remaining course of action is to do nothing? Yes, you're banking on Garcia, La Roche and others rebounding from down/bad seasons, but you're not giving questionable deals and losing picks while retaining payroll flexibility. You're also exhausting Garcia - he either makes it or not. Depends on your downside prediction in terms of the consequences of being knocked out in the first 2-3 months and having yet another "development/al" year...where all the attention will be vacuumed up by the Northside. And also facing a major decline in revenue/attendance going into 2017. Would you bet your house today that the team as currently constructed will be within 3-5 games of first place nearing the end of July? Or at least 3-5 games of the 1st/2nd wild card spots?

Will just state that there's no way that Desmond will end up under $10 million IMO... Would definitely put him in the $13-17 million range. From 2012-2014, he was a consistent 3.5 war guy, which is about where everyone assumed Cespedes would be THIS season. 3.5 X $7-8 million value for WAR on FA market=$26.25 million. Even if you go with last year's terribly disappointing year, you're talking $14 million and change valuing him at a 2 WAR. Plus he plays a premium position in SS. And is only 30.

If you go with a one year remaining on a player you trade for, let's just hope the results are better than Shark because you're really emptying out the farm system then. I'm not sure Hahn wants to have all the pressure on himself and Ventura to win THIS year...because trading for a Reddick almost forces you to show results ASAP. Of course Hahn can't blame JR for not being able to acquire Gordon and Cespedes, but he absolutely has to do something with the season prospects partially resting on the shoulders of Saladino, Garcia, LaRoche and Erik Johnson. You can find other teams with similar issues, but they have either the current depth or the financial resources to recover from setbacks more easily. With Saladino, you could probably "survive" with Sanchez out there for a couple of months at SS, but it would be far from ideal. The other three, as things stand right now, there aren't logical replacements that are going to be ready the first half of the season.

QUOTE (EvilJester99 @ Jan 26, 2016 -> 05:42 PM) What would Reddick cost?! Read a tweet from Fox Sports saying A's might trade him http://www.csnbayarea.com/athletics/notes-...ension-possible Could be posturing to increase his trade value, anything's possible with Beane. One would guess it starts with Adams OR Danish/Guerrero and Hawkins, something like that.

I guess the pride of passing up $107 million for 7 years and playing his entire career for one team is getting in the way of reasonable contract expectations. Maybe $45 million and 3 years seemed possible a month ago, but now you'd have to guess he's looking at maximizing his salary for 2016 and going back on the market next year. That could still be a decent deal for the White Sox...if the numbers for one year don't get totally insane. He doesn't have the extreme market demand working in his favor that benefited Cespedes with the Mets.

Unless "science the __t of it" being one of the few comedic lines (and making fun of Jessica Chastain's music choices)...fits the definition. Seems they simply wanted to stick some mainstream films like that and Trainwreck into a category to draw more Golden Globes viewers.

How is going from 3.2 to 3.7 to 3.8 war over 2012-2014 and then having an outlier/anomaly in 2015 the sign or indicator of a consistent decline? I could see if he went 3.8 to 3.7 to 3.2 to 2. Then you'd have a good case. Especially if he wasn't 30 years old, but was 33-34.

Here's why I am picking India: 1) China already has NBA and then soccer/football that are far and away the two most popular sports for young boys today... 2) Taiwan already has baseball, but there's a tremendous amount of animosity between the two (Taiwan and China)...and the idea of "America's Pastime" being inculcated into the mainland culture is a bit hard to imagine, especially with both countries becoming more and more nationalistic in their rivalry. Baseball represents "western values," although I suppose you would have to say the same about basketball but that's overlooked because it's more of a global game already, versus something uniquely American. 3) Going along with Point 2, it's impossible to imagine baseball becoming more popular in China with a President Trump, as he's already threatened to put a huge tariff on imports and has railed incessantly about currency manipulation, unfair trading practices and the loss of manufacturing jobs. After that, I'd probably go Brazil and Colombia. Australia was more of a hotbed in the 80's and 90's for baseball but that cooled off, and then you have the tremendous travel distance to consider. You could have C-Lee running a White Sox academy in Panama, that's another possibility... As far as MLB International goes, the biggest irony here is that the most successful method of promoting baseball in China is one you would never think about and was almost entirely accidental. It's primarily through fashion, with many South Korean stars (especially females) in the K-pop industry sporting major league baseball caps....and the export of the Korean culture (drama and K-pop music) has become hugely influential with other Asian countries, China in particular. (Just like in the 90's and early 00's, you had many rappers sporting the White Sox caps, for example.) There are actually quite a few stores here in mainland China selling jackets, caps and shirts...mostly the Yankees, that must be 50-60% of the market, then teams like the Mets, Dodgers, Cubs and Red Sox would probably be #2. Of course, I'm not even sure what percentage of those kids in their teens and twenties and early 30's wearing that merchandise even know what sport it actually represents...they just think anything with NY or B or LA or whatever is cool/hip/trendy.

Nick Hostetler definitely deserves a chance to make his own imprint...that shouldn't overwhelm a "too good to pass up" deal with a Desmond or even Fowler, but you have to consider the possibility he just might be the one who does draft that great player at 28. We already found one further back in Adams, and there were a lot of scouts thinking it was possible to get the same impact out of Beck at the time he was drafted.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 26, 2016 -> 03:51 PM) The Powell is example is why it will take 10+ years to generate any sort of return, which indicates that the up front costs prior to any potential pay-off are significant. To be able to get these to work, you have to reach the youth cricket levels and convert those top players into baseball players and build them up from there. Than you are going to have to hit some guys who actually make majors, to create a potential pathway for others to look / gravitate towards. All the while you might put in this investment only to see an international draft pop up and thus all that money was spent for not (other than you do have additional contacts). The reality is for this to be successful, baseball should invest in putting together facilities and resources in these parts and make it an MLB platform, leveraging MLB scouting channels and specific teams could send reps, etc, out and provide resources, but the best path to success is MLB driving this vs. individual clubs (and if you are going to grow the game, one can argue this is a good use of MLB's resources (i.e., all the owners essentially pay for this together butin theory benefit from it together as it provides potential path towards expanding market / driving global game). Agree 100%. As is, it's only the type of niche one of the richest trams could exploit...and then the door would quickly be shut if it proved too successful for being anti-competitive. In the end, something like the NBA Developmental League or the European League for the NFL would have to be put in place in India first...and the talent level, salaries and general excitement level would have to be high enough in the beginning to attract more and more players and grow the league. Then again, as John Cusack asserted over and over again in Say Anything, kickboxing's the sport of the future. He was twenty years off, but still prescient. Something seems ridiculous until it suddenly isn't.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 26, 2016 -> 02:37 PM) The problem with Austin Jackson is Scott Boras. Wasn't that all overblown with KW? Hahn apparently had no problems dealing with him over Rodon (yet.)