caulfield12

And Lawrie, too.

But we can't maximize and simultaneously protect or mitigate against long-term financial risk...thus, we take the conservative/careful/cautious route, and end up predictably with...? There is never going to be a better opportunity for Hahn to win or lose his job with his next move/s.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 08:52 AM) Your proposal, as unrealistic as it was, was to sign Latos for $10-12 million, sign Parra for $8 million, sign Desmond in June for $10 million. Now you say JR doesn't have the appetite to raise the payroll to $140 million. Your proposal raises it to $150 million. Pick one side of your mouth to argue. Once again, provide your own solution that you think is better and actually realistic. Instead of something like Pedro Alvarez in RF for $6.5-7.5 million...knowing that he would actually defend worse than Garcia. If you believe we can still get Upton or Cespedes for $20 million per year and less than five years, good luck with that belief...

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 08:46 AM) Unless the Sox were to pay Cespedes A LOT per year on a three year deal, I would be very surprised if he were to sign. The Upton idea is intriguing, but isn't the free agent class of 2017 looking very thin? Wouldn't he be more willing to sign a one year deal and take advantage of the weak class next off season? Unless 2018 is looking thin, too. As each day goes by, I'm a little less optimistic about Cespedes signing with the Sox. I'd be okay with one of the second tier free agents on the right deal. But I just have this sinking feeling that we're all going to be disappointed pretty soon. Post 2017 looks like roughly the midpoint between next year and post 2018 in talent...at least as of today. Still not as many big name outfielders. Lorenzo Cain would be one of the best in terms of WAR.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFanMike @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 08:38 AM) I just don't understand the fascination of the people on here that want the Sox to acquire other teams garbage. The Sox have too many garbage players as it is, there is no reason to trade for more of them. Name clear/obvious 2+ war upgrades who won't cost Adams, Anderson or Fulmer. Or more than $15 million per season? Or a draft pick. Not easy.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 08:36 AM) I hope so. And stop with the payroll. You guys who said the Sox have no money where shocked last year, and then you point to Forbes but then ignore the PROFITS this team has made every year except one. Where is that money Caulfield? You have all the answers. Did it vanish? The Sox are still talking to these guys. Its funny, the Sox are in on all 3. Gordon signs back with KC after they apparently increased their offer about 50%. Now, they supposedly aren't signing anybody because they have no money, but, but, Nick Markakis at $11 million a year for the next 3 years makes sense. NO IT DOESN'T. It's just spending $33 million more that could have been spent on something actually useful that vanished with all of the White Sox $200 million + in profit Forbes has claimed over the years. But I will add him to your list of horrible players you want the Sox to spend their, in your mind, limited resources. Latos, Parra, Markakis, Duensing, and Desmond in June. The list is growing. What is your solution, other than the obvious? Waiting with bated breath...as for Duensing, he is good friends with Gordon and I would have invited him to come in and compete with Jennings, Carroll, Beck and Turner as a non roster invitee. No guaranteed salary.

If they got Upton or Cespedes for $12 million and $16 million the next two years (see Gordon deal), they would have to hugely backload it or provide a gigantic balloon payment or bonus after year two or three along with the opt out. Those players aren't going out of their way like a Buehrle, Sale, Quintana or Konerko to help out the Sox from a financial flexibility standpoint if it's not beneficial to them first.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 08:25 AM) Marlins asking for Chi Chi Gonzalez and another player for Ozuna from the Rangers. That seems like an average price as Gonzalez is nothing special. If that other player's Profar... Sure, but Gonzalez is still much more highly regarded than Erik Johnson, and the Rangers have pitching depth now to deal from and a much deeper system. Surely they would ask for Adams plus a lot more or Fulmer.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 08:21 AM) Adding bad, declining players, owed $33 million does nothing to help the White Sox. If that is the only choice, you might as well see what Avi can give you. As to the payroll, once again, despite all your claims to the contrary, you have zero idea what JR is thinking. None of us do. Are you still in the camp that really believes we're getting Cespedes or Upton? I'll ask this. Other than maybe 2005-2007, when has the White Sox payroll expanded 10-15% over two consecutive seasons...in this case, losing seasons where the team profits were low or marginal compared to that time period? 2009, when we added Peavy and Rios, we were coming off a playoff appearance. 2011, we were coming off a season where we led the division for a large chunk of time. The only other time would have to have been 2013-2014 with Abreu (and then last offseason), but I'm pretty sure overall payroll decreased significantly despite that addition as we shed a lot of payroll throughout a disappointing 2013.

In all fairness to Cy, it's only a back-up option probably #15-20. Mainly, if we could get rid of Danks' salary and or get salary and prospects (someone that came over from Arizona or Olivera, etc.) back. It's obviously easier to say Gardner, Span, Parra, Fowler, Inciarte, any one of the Rockies, Ozuna, Ethier...but at what cost? Honestly, JR probably doesn't have the appetite for two marginal upgrades that simultaneously boost payroll to $140 million plus.

Stock market poised for a 430 point loss at the opening bell due to China....

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...ision-favorites We may never know to what degree, if any, Alex Gordon absorbed a so-called “hometown discount” along the way to his once-improbable re-enlistment with the Royals in the deal that was offered on New Years’s Eve to become the exhilarating final exclamation point on their 2015 penchant for the comeback. “Do my instincts tell me that Alex took less money to come here? Yeah, that’s what my instincts tell me,” general manager Dayton Moore said Wednesday. “But I don’t know that for a fact, and that’s between Alex and his family.” Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...l#storylink=cpy Where's "Cojones of Steel" guy now? That was one of the most memorable comments in the thread. Where was Hahn on New Year's Eve, haha? Going by the Rabbit/Bucket timeline, Gordon was offered by the White Sox on Monday, December 27th and countered by the Royals on Thursday night. Also, Gordon, his agent and the Royals are refusing to tell anyone the amount of other offers, fwiw.

QUOTE (CyAcosta41 @ Jan 6, 2016 -> 09:04 PM) It would be VERY White Sox to go after Nick Markakis IF the Sox can't land Cespedes (I'm not buying that we've ever been a player for Upton) within the JR budgetary parameters. Kenny always gets his man (and all that jazz). The Sox have been linked to Markakis at various times during his Orioles heyday. Sure, he's not the star he was once projected to be. And his power numbers have diminished to the point where the best that can be said currently is that he has "gap power." But he's a professional hitter, left-handed, a very likely bet to attain the .350 OBP that is needed and so elusive for the Sox, good doubles guy, strikeout rate is decent, and has always shown that good baseball IQ (that is especially valuable in a #2-hole guy). I know the advanced metrics show his fielding reputation has always been overrated, but he's a lot better than what we have, and he has a strong arm as well. In a way, he's almost a poor man's, rightfield playing Alex Gordon. Widely rumored that Braves want to move him and his contract. At $11M, he comes quite a bit cheaper AAV in 2015 than Gordon (admittedly not the same caliber of player). Have to imagine the requested return will be reasonable -- i.e., no significant prospects going to the Braves. In fact, not inconceivable they'd take a year of John Danks to rid themselves of three years of Markakis (and I'm firmly in the camp that John Danks would be a solid #3 or a damned good #4 pitching in the NL). I'd do it. I'm not willing to totally give up on Avi, but it's time to disrupt his world so he understands that at some point raw athletic prowess needs to translate into major league performance. Who would you replace Danks with in the rotation? Turner, likely not. Beck or Carroll? You'd seemingly have to go for Fister, Latos, Gallardo, Chen, Kennedy, etc. Which are going to cost another $10-15 million, so let's just imagine we're adding something like $8-10 million overall to the payroll, putting us around $127-130. That's seemingly doable. I think the biggest issue there is how willing the Braves are to take Danks for one rebuilding season...rather than just giving up a little subsidy/sweetener to rid the Markakis contract but not taking on additional commitments, since they're also partially on the hook for Arroyo as well. All things considered, they might be more motivated to dump Swisher or Bourn first.

Yeah, Markakis would be typical...predictable, expected. Boring. ZZZZZZZ..... The Alex Guerrero idea has upside because of his offensive skills, but not sure about him in the OF. Marisnick, the opposite problem. And then with Bourn, just depends on how much money the Braves are willing to eat... So Swisher back to CF and leading off!!!!!

CarGo, Dickerson, Blackmon Ethier, Crawford, Puig (MAYBE!), Trayce, Van Slyke (doubt LA is willing to sell low on Pederson unless they know something nobody else does about his work ethic/make-up) Tucker...Astros Inciarte or Markakis, Braves Brett Gardner Matt Kemp Hanley Ramirez Jay Bruce Marcell Ozuna Carlos Gomez (maybe, FA next year)

4 years/$52M (2015-18), plus 2019 club option signed extension with NY Yankees 2/23/14 $2M signing bonus 15:$12M, 16:$13M, 17:$12M, 18:$11M, 19:$12.5M club option ($2M buyout) assignment bonus: $1M if traded Brett Gardner is a minimum of $38 million dollar commitment for ages 32-34. There's always going to be a concern about speedy or athletic players declining in their early to mid 30's. Essentially you add him and you're done with the offseason. The major question of course is will he make ENOUGH of a difference to justify the costs in terms of salary AND talent surrendered? You'd definitely have more excitement in the outfield, but I still think you're going to have to face the issue of moving Melky Cabrera to RF. But that's where you get into these interesting discussions, when you analyze the costs and benefits of signing Fowler and losing a pick, Gardner and losing talent or just spending money on Span, Parra and Jackson for a likely lesser rate of performance return.

Because if Johnson fails in the big leagues this time around, and his stuff isn't there...then basically he has sunk or diminished whatever trade value he had remaining to below Micah Johnson level. Not to mention it forces us to use Turner/Beck as the 5th starter or into an overpay situation via trade or possibly a free agent pitcher that's still dangling unsigned for whatever reason. The last thing they can afford to do is rush Fulmer or Danish up to the big leagues and throw them to the wolves when they're in an all-in/competitive environment and the microscope will be on those guys to perform every time out, as opposed to "development" years like the Cubs, Astros, Pirates, Royals, Mets, Rays, Twins, A's, etc., have had building back up to competitive teams.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 6, 2016 -> 05:20 PM) I just can't understand Raines being left out again. Makes no sense to me. The other guys who missed I can see some sort of argument for why (even if I disagree), but Raines? Don't get it. Could have been alleged drug issues (the older writers tend to feel more strongly) and difficult relationships with some in the media.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Jan 6, 2016 -> 05:17 PM) Rosenthal tweeted his sources told him the Sox were not willing to go four years for Gordon. Maybe then will with someone else who is younger? Mark Upton, but there's been almost no smoke, let alone a fire, coming from that direction.

"Terms of the deal, which includes a mutual option for 2020, were not disclosed when the Royals officially announced the contract Wednesday afternoon. But according to a source, Gordon will make $12 million this year, $16 million in 2017 and $20 million in each of the final two years. The mutual option year is worth $23 million, or $4 million if either side opts out." Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansa...l#storylink=cpy Basically, the minimum possible is $72 million and maximum is $91 million over five years. That really buys KC some payroll flexibility these next two years to add another starting pitcher or bat

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 6, 2016 -> 04:10 PM) If Justin Upton, a 3.6 fWAR player last year and 4.0 fWAR the year before that, makes them a competitor, then Dexter Fowler, a 3.2 fWAR player last year and 1.7 fWAR the year before that leaves them still pretty darn competitive. That's not the difference between 88 and 82 wins. If Dexter Fowler doesn't make them competitive, then the big 2 probably doesn't make them competitive either. They'd have a tiny bit of extra work to do in the latter case. And that lower WAR was in the AL with Houston at a younger age.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 6, 2016 -> 04:04 PM) You have quite a knack for repeatedly mentioning Inciarte in multiple threads that have nothing to do with him. Fine, do you want a separate thread on him? Yes or no? Or to stick all that into the catch-all of other outfield options...which is cluttered already. I'm sure sooner or later if Cespedes is off the table there will be individual threads about 10-15 different possibilities popping up on a daily basis based on which ones are getting the most twitter mentions connecting them to the Whie Sox somehow.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 6, 2016 -> 03:55 PM) FWIW: On one hand, the Marlins can't price themselves out of the market when there are lots of veteran OFers who be acquired for less talent but taking on more salary. Ozuna and Inciarte have much more appeal because of age. Ozuna is also a player they're seemingly going to have to move because of Loria's whims. That said, like a Puig or Chapman, there's a point where the reward outweighs the risk for every team on the market. Whether that price is Anderson or Fulmer, it's not going to be garbage or some combination of three to five top 5-20 players in our system with limited upsides. I don't think Hawkins and Adams gets it done, for example.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 6, 2016 -> 03:41 PM) Haven't you been advocating going after SS/OF/SP as a trio instead of one of the big 3 for the last two weeks? Yes, but would be shocked if JR signed off on this plan...that's actually what I suggested KC do as well, since they're under much less pressure from their fanbase. That World Series bought them five years of good will and patience at least. Maybe even more with two consecutive appearances. I think having Gordon around near the end of his career is going to be used as an additional sales point for their broadcasting rights negotiations which hit the same time as the White Sox. Sox don't have the luxury of asking for fans to wait much longer. Then you have the Cubs sucking air out of the balloon as well. KW hasn't made quality moves that actually worked out like that since 2004-2005 and 2007-2008.

Ozuna was a four plus WAR guy just two years ago, is still under control for a long time and can play CF. Like Inciarte, it's going to take more than Adams "plus" to get him. We just don't have enough quality minor league depth remaining to not have to surrender Anderson or Fulmer. If you're all in, it means trading Anderson and having no long-term deal in sight for SS or catcher. The other teams with top 10-20 systems are better positioned for this move. If you assume Anderson is worth 20+ WAR at SS, that's a tough pill to swallow. If you're not sold on him sticking at short, then you deal him for Ozuna, but it's an incredibly tough call to make for Hahn.