caulfield12

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 05:39 PM) Scott Merkin ‏@scottmerkin 28m28 minutes ago Merkin: Even without further moves, '16 White Sox should be decidedly improved: http://atmlb.com/1SsDc8Q via @mlb "So, ONE team has won the World Series in the past 23 tries with a below-average team payroll. What does that say about the effect of money on baseball success that I haven't already said? For a reference, if all teams were evenly talented, the odds of a Q3 or Q4 payroll team winning only 1 of 23 World Series is about 1 in 365,000, or roughly three times less likely than being struck by lightning." http://beneathdata.com/blog/does-money-buy-wins-in-baseball/ If the White Sox go into the regular season with this payroll (around $118-119 million), they're going to be in the 3rd quartile. KC was at $152 million last year when they won, fwiw. That Merkin tweet has all the oomph to it of a Joe Crede pop-out down the RF line. It might actually dampen fan expectations. In all seriousness, I'm not sure how it can be considered helpful. If you're not going to make any more moves, at least be honest about it. Don't try to sell or spin the fan base when everyone can see right through it. "The market for the remaining impact players isn't one we're comfortable with in terms of long-term return on investment. We strongly believe in Avi, Saladino, LaRoche and Erik Johnson (obviously they're not going to say that part) as key contributors to this year's team. Rather than move now and be unable to adjust at mid-season, we prefer to retain the financial flexibility to adjust on the fly as the season unwinds. We're understand

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 03:03 PM) Alcides Escobar, Alex Rios, Omar Infante Escobar and Perez over their careers have been much better offensively than last season. Dyson and Orlando will share RF unless they add Fowler or Jackson. The war numbers there should be better overall because Dyson is even better than Cain defensively and should hit well enough in a platoon. Rios was terrible/injured. Infante's the biggest question mark (which is why Royals fans wanted Zobrist back instead of Kennedy). Colon is the replacement, or Mondesi...eventually. Theoretically Gordon won't miss two months again. Honestly, there isn't much difference offensively if the Sox can upgrade one more position. Team defense/speed, starting rotation depth to compensate for injuries, and then a huge difference in bullpens (although Davis is due to finally regress and Soria's a question mark, adding Duffy/Collins helps a lot compared to Franklin Morales). Clearly, the White Sox big advantage on everyone is the top of rotation. If Lawrie, Frazier and the catcher hit as expected, the White Sox will score more runs. Morales falling off is just as likely as LaRoche improving.

The line all season was to attack Semien on his error total and not his actual effectiveness...and overlook the cost factor as well. Also not considering his bouncing around from spot to spot with the White Sox without ever becoming comfortable, the improvement defensively over the second half, the fact his offensive numbers were being put up in Oakland and the fact he never received the individualized mentoring he got from Ron Washington last year. Knowing you're important to a team's future and that they're willing to invest in you makes a huge difference. It always felt like the White Sox perceived him more as a utility guy than a regular...even during his minor league career.

The Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox are among the teams considering Cespedes, Heyman notes. In a separate tweet, Heyman calls the Tigers an "interesting" candidate and reveals that they seriously considered Davis before he re-signed with Baltimore. Meanwhile, the Houston Astros could also be in the mix for Cespedes, Peter Gammons of GammonsDaily.com reports. http://espn.go.com/blog/mlb/rumors/post/_/...l-cespedes-sign

We will be devastated if Fulmer and Adams both flop and Montas becomes a star...but what are the odds of that happening, all three together? It will nevertheless be more disappointing in the next two FA signing periods if we do have to buy starting pitching at the going rates because we don't have sufficient quality depth left to trade from.

QUOTE (L. Ron Paultard @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 07:57 PM) LOL, take a deep breath, Senor Greg, and please grow a spine. Trump's in like Flynn. Since June. (The only thing stopping him is his virtually non-existent ground-game; Donald honestly didn't expect to be in this position this late, hence why he's thrown nickels around like manhole covers, as old-timers liked to say. It takes years to built up the required infrastructure, recruit army of volunteers & cultivate relationships with various local power-brokers.... Whereas the Soros GOTV Machine is absolutely legendary; poor Mittens!) Irregardlessly, there is no reason for you to change your entire worldview & personal feelings on a dime - just because of some irrelevant dafuq-bloggery of Lenny Pitts, or the 'Washed-Up White Witch of Weiseltier', et al. Have some self-respect. Seriously. It's all house-money, anyway: GOP as a viable political movement, was pronounced dead circa 2006-2008. Obama's Veep in '08 could have been Bin Laden; McCain had no chance from mid-Sep. onward IIRC. Outlook beyond grim. Made all the worse by the fact that while the New Democrats play in ruthless big-leagues; rally their warring factions, rainbow coalition around the Consensus candidate... Republicans find themselves torn apart by the whopping 5-way (five, Carl!) intra-party Civil War: -Neo-Cons VERSUS -Ron Paul Libertarians VERSUS -Christian-Evangelicals VERSUS -Moderate-Establishment VERSUS -(secular) Tea-Party Constitutionalists so it's a small miracle GOP even survived, haha ------> And yet with some luck, not only could the next POTUS come from your party, Greg, Congressional-supermajority is not out of the question, either. Obama/Clinton Horror-Show is a gift that keeps on giving. If RBG pancreas can hold on for a little while longer, 3-4 Supreme Court picks might be at play. Some serious stakes right there. PS. all the fashionable "Trump = only 3-to-5% of popular support" duh, derr, derrpity McDerp, that's been thrown around lately? Bwaa-ahahaha. --- np: Did Obama personally splinter the GOP? It's like blaming "social values/demonization of liberals" campaigns run by the Atwaters and Roves of the world for 20/24 years of GOP control before Clinton or 28/40 before 2008. Run better candidates!...Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry weren't very good, and then you have the SC issue to blame the GOP being able to hold on in 2000 (thanks to that 20/24 run of presidents), as Gore foolishly ran against or away from Clinton with his populist campaign. Nader's votes also hurt...but then Republicans have almost cursed Ross Perot for the same reason, helping to elect Clinton with only 38.5% of the vote in 92. Besides, the GOP has control of Congress, most governorships, a majority of state legislatures and even more local boards like city councils and school boards.

Any cigarette manufacturers in Chicago willing to step up?

He just completely fell apart his last month with Detroit and subsequent two months plus with the M's. If only we had a Don Cooper for hitters...

QUOTE (glangon @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 08:11 AM) Never believe what you read in the media. If the money is right, he'll come. What slugger wouldn't want to come to the Cell. I feel like we've been saying that about every new power hitter since Nick Swisher with less than ideal results to show for it...

QUOTE (Lillian @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 08:01 AM) The worst part of that entire scenario with Jackson is that the Sox are just about the least likely organization to fix a hitter's problems. They may play in a homer friendly park, but when is the last time a guy suddenly figured it out, at the plate, in a Sox uniform? Quentin, but already a very accomplished minor league hitter. Juan Uribe bounced back with the Sox. Figured it out, though, is pushing it. Rowand, but he and Crede took 2-3 years to break in as full-time players. It happened more with castoff outfielders in the 80s and 90s. Abreu and Ramirez are tough to credit the White Sox coaching staff more than scouts.

But has no interest in playing for the White Sox apparently...the only AL team currently connected to him is the Rangers.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 07:12 AM) If we get Jackson, what do you do with Eaton? Put him in left and move Melky to DH? I don't know if Melky or Eaton could play right. Cabrera in right...Eaton in LF. Cabrera has the bigger arm. I just dont see adding Jackson or Fowler to have them play LF. LaRoche would DH with Garcia. Granted, it's not ideal. The problem is there aren't many natural RFers on the market. Who knows...we'll probably end up with Markakis 2-3 years too late.

Can someone find a specific breakdown of his numbers in Safeco vs. Comerica in 2014...? He was absolutely atrocious on the road that year. Maybe the trade shook him up and he has a hard time adjusting to a new team? http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2014/10/13/6...-austin-jackson Possible explanations for what happened...long but interesting article. "In July, Jackson hit .349/.390/.505 with the Tigers. Then, upon joining Seattle, he promptly went into a massive offensive slump that lasted the remainder of the season. Look at his ISO with the M's. Look at it! Maybe you can't see it because you don't have a magnifying glass handy, but let me assure you that it's miserable. In 236 PA with the Mariners, Jackson racked up SIX extra base hits. This was a man who'd averaged an XBH every 12 PA over the past two and a half seasons and then all of a sudden he couldn't hit the ball out of the infield. He also started striking out a lot more and walking a lot less. This was a shocking, disappointing, frustrating turn of events. But what happened? ... The thing about these numbers that I find to be the most striking is Jackson's GB/FB ratio after leaving the Tigers. Jackson went from a GB/FB ratio of 0.98 with the Tigers (23rd percentile for GB rate in 2014) to a ratio of 2.16 with the Mariners (90th percentile for GB rate). I should point out that Jackson's career GB:FB (GB:FB of 1.33) isn't quite as flyball-heavy as it was at the beginning of this year, but the dramatic change in his numbers after joining the M's is more or less unfathomable to me. Park effects can certainly impact a player's performance, but that is just absurd. (Also, according to Fangraphs, the difference between the park effects for groundballs at Safeco and Comerica is negligible.)" He basically turned into Alexei Ramirez with even more grounders to the left side...

A lot of people thought Granderson was done...look at getting away from Comerica has done for his career. Here's a stat that makes no sense...Jackson hit almost 200 ops points better at home than on the road in 2014. 566 vs. 750. http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/splits/_/id/.../austin-jackson Yet his two home parks were Comerica and Safeco. 729 ops vs. lhp and 688 ops vs. rhp over the last three years. Still, if you stick Jackson in CF, Eaton in LF and Cabrera in RF, the defense would have to be much improved. With our four lefties, quite a few more balls are pulled into LF, as well. Pehaps Eaton would be more confident in that position and not try to do too much?

QUOTE (Lillian @ Jan 18, 2016 -> 05:26 AM) I assume that you meant to refer to Lee, not Fister, when you suggested that "we already have enough lefties" Yeah, I keep forgetting he and Kennedy are righties for some reason...

Now whether it will happen or not, we might have to be content with just one... Both are buy low/er guys. Both give us more speed and athleticism. Jackson, as opposed to Fowler, wouldn't cost the draft pick. Both are still "younger" players in their primes. Jackson has had success in the AL Central already. Desmond can theoretically move to the outfield, 2b or DH (rotating) depending on what happens with Saladino, Anderson and Lawrie. Both would probably be willing to take shorter term deals (1-2 years), so the Sox would have more financial flexibility going forward...fwiw, i'd rather have Desmond for three but his agent probably won't go for that. Other than taking a stab at Latos or Lincecum, there aren't many starting pitching options left on the board. Fister...we already have enough lefties and he's lost so much velocity. Cliff Lee, but he wants too much guaranteed money in order not to retire. At the very least, the White Sox need to add one more significant contributor if they really want to create some excitement in the fanbase...the momentum has pretty much ground to a halt. Next year is horrific for free agents and we already know a ton is coming off the books for Danks and LaRoche. That money would more than cover Jackson and Desmond. Taking a loss now is increasingly more attractive than having to overpay next year at this time.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 09:39 PM) The Sox have three prospects worth anything and no depth at the MLB level. Good luck acquiring an impact player with those resources. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In many ways, the future of this franchise and the ability to compete is resting almost completely on the shoulders of Anderson, Fulmer, and, to a much lesser extent, Adams. If we have any type of setback (performance or injury-wise) with those two, it would be hard to envision exactly where they're going for impact players other than Cuba or the Asian markets (more Korea than Japan for position players recently). Even then, winning bidding wars for Japanese starters has turned out to be a fool's game, with the exception of Darvish, and he still has to prove he's the same pitcher he was before TJ.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 09:20 PM) I hate the Shark possible contract as proof they have money. The amount might be true, but there is no proof they wouldn't have had to move some salaries in order to make it fit. The Shark deal was also when they expected 2015 to be a success and likely strong 2016 ticket sales. So then we're back to Hahn's original statements about Tanaka...young/ace in prime of his career but definitely not cost-controlled. What's the difference between him and Upton, for example? Because Upton is 29 and Tanaka was 25-26? Because Upton, like Cespedes, like Gordon, like Chris Davis...is a very good player, maybe even great, but certainly not a superstar? I just find it interesting that there has been zero smoke there. Maybe it's simply the fact that Upton prefers to stay in the NL or just doesn't see the White Sox as a good fit, who knows. Just leaves a lot less margin for error when you're 15-30% behind the Royals and Tigers in terms of payroll. It used to just be the Tigers.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 09:07 PM) At this point, I would gladly "settle" for someone like Fowler & a guy like Lincecum to compete & spring training. I'm just going to keep my expectations low at this point, so that way if they do something small or nothing at all, I'm not over-the-moon pissed off. I'm almost to the point where it's "to hell with it, roll the dice with Avi/LaRoche/Saladino" and see what happens, hoping to be pleasantly surprised. On one hand, it looks like the Royals are taking a step or two back...and Cleveland still has issues with RF/3B/Brantley's health and payroll limits. There's also a chance the young players with the Twins all make impacts (Buxton's healthy and Berrios makes the Opening Day rotation, although it's more likely he is in the minors for 2-3 more months at least) more quickly than anticipated. How much of a difference will having Fowler really make? Is it worth the draft pick? What will the trade market look in June/July, compared to now? Do you really want to commit to $45 million and 3 years? How will he respond to a guaranteed contract? If the White Sox are just kind of floating along at around .500 and 3-5 games back (or more), there's definitely not going to be an attendance bump of any kind...even looking back at 2012, when we added Liriano/Myers/Youk it seems the impact/momentum lasted about 3 weeks and then fell off dramatically with Youk's health and Liriano's fall out of the rotation.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 08:56 PM) Something so many disregard is Hahn saying they would have to get creative for upgrades, yet they expect 100 million dollar commitment to be an easy thing to sign off. Honestly even Desmond and Jackson is probably too expensive. That must be holdover from the Tanaka/Samardzija idea that the money was available (seemingly) for the right player...as Tanaka was in the $125+ range and Shark $90-100. In retrospect, it does seem a bit dubious to say they could have signed Shark last year for that amount but suddenly it's not there for a critical position player upgrade at possibly the same price.

Whether it's a trade target like Rasmus/Gomez/Tucker/Marisnick (discounting having the ability/willingness to acquire Springer for Rodon OR Quintana) or spending money on Fowler, we're going to be dealing with that same set of teams as competitors. Orioles (for Fowler/Jackson), Angels, Tigers, Cardinals, Mets and the Cubs would still have to be considered a threat to bring back Fowler as well depending on the price. It's a crazy year. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that Arenado and Machado are both making less than Addison Reed in 2016. Or the amount of money Happ, Leake and Kennedy have received so far, when the conventional thinking was that young hitting was more valuable than pitching...which obviously has been turned on its head.

More likely to hear from Chelsea Clinton in the future, but it seems her charisma and personality are closer to the mother than the father in this case...which isn't a great thing for winning elections.

Tucker isn't really perceived as a full-time player for the Astros... That said, because of his age and the cost-control factor, they can market him as potentially one, especially since he's LH. Just don't see any way to get Gomez without giving up Adams at a minimum...Fulmer is too much of an ask, but it would be something like Adams + Hawkins, and that's a big cost for one season in the sense they'll be back in the same FA market next year chasing after Rasmus/Bautista (maybe) or trying to resign Gomez in his decline years when he's likely to be highly overpaid (supply/demand issues). That said, he's a big improvement over Garcia, but Hahn has said all along he doesn't prefer one-year fixes...of course, we went down than well once with Samardzija last year already.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 04:42 PM) Inflation will always be a constant. That's not a factor that really even needs to be talked about. So will increasing home values... If anyone believed Chris Davis would get that amount of money back in October, I'd love to see the prediction. Next up for bidding is free-agent first baseman Chris Davis, most recently of the Baltimore Orioles. Born in 1986, he stands at 6 feet 3 inches tall and has led the American League in home runs in two of the past three seasons. Can we start the bidding at $100 million? The Orioles start us off at $100 million. Do I hear $120 million? Orioles again. How about $140 million? Come on, people, this is a great price for Davis, who can even play third base in a pinch! And we have $140 million from -- Baltimore. Oh, and Baltimore also calls $150 million. And $161 million. Are you guys sure you know how this works? Sold to the team from Charm City for $161 million, unless they care to make another bid! http://espn.go.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/...th-best-al-east Even with Davis, Orioles only fourth best team in AL East.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jan 17, 2016 -> 04:46 PM) I'd take Gomez. I wanted him at the deadline last year. For who, though? They don't need Anderson...you're willing to part with Adams and everything remaining on the shelf but Fulmer?