caulfield12

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 25, 2016 -> 05:40 PM) Or maybe the White sox are just that content with their outfield. At this point that hypothesis is currently consistent with the available evidence. And/or waiting for a deal that brings the the likes of Carl Crawford (since we're collecting these types now), Ethier or Austin Jackson yet only adds $7 million or less to the payroll, capping it at around $130 before Opening Day. (Obviously Crawford would be less...ala Josh Hamilton.) At any rate, if going with Avi and LaRoche does blow up, do you think JR blames Ventura, Hahn/KW or his own payroll limitations?

But they still don't necessarily want to help us to earn a wild card, either. I would imagine Hahn just wasn't willing to part with the player Hoyer asked for...and/or they targeted Brooks a long time before he ended up with the A's last year, kind of like the Nestor Molina/Santos deal.

The Cubs have zero reason to help the Sox unless we seriously overpaid as 1) could make them look bad if he outperformed Fowler 2) the Cubs want to create a quasi-monopoly competing with us on media rights in 2019 3) any success we have is highly unlikely to force "spillover" customers to the Cubs since they're already maximizing ticket revenues Who's willing to trade Adams for Coghlan?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Feb 24, 2016 -> 10:05 PM) Condi Rice could become the most powerful person in politics if she earned to. She'd be an obvious choice if she ever wants to get back into politics, but it doesn't seem like it. She did give a great speech at the 2012 convention. No way would Trump go back to Hadley after their war of words. Kelly Ayotte seems to want the job. But she probably has to worry about her own campaign first. Scott Brown is the name that keeps coming up over and over again, but I don't see it after he's lost twice in a row. Susana Martinez would check off a few boxes if that's the goal. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is another possible candidate. Knowing Trump, it will probably be Ann Coulter or Laura Ingraham, haha.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016...at-Donald-Trump Are Republicans finally coming up with a plan to beat Donald Trump? Good article.

Brantley's an MVP-caliber player, when healthy. You also have Kipnis, Carlos Santana, Lindor and Gomes, so those five players alone comprise a very nice and youngish core (Gomes missed most of last season). Obviously, Santana and Kipnis have been a bit up and down, but they're both talented guys, especially Kipnis. Then you have the veterans in Napoli and Uribe, who can be very effective, IF HEALTHY. Almonte shows a lot of promise and the Indians have some really nice looking prospects not that far away. The biggest questions are going to be 3B and RF. Joey Butler and Cowgill are expected to battle for time as back-ups. Barring a late addition – the Indians are still looking to add at least one more hitter – the three outfielders with job security headed into spring training are Rajai Davis, Abraham Almonte and Lonnie Chisenhall. Davis can play all three positions, but is expected to spend most of his time in left while Brantley heals. The switch-hitting Almonte will play center and Chisenhall, who flashed Gold Glove moves when he made the move from third base at midseason last year, will be in right field. The outfielders that win the last two spots are going to have to be versatile so Francona can use them in matchup situations. Take Almonte for instance. Last year he hit .250 (15-for-60) against lefties and .250 (43-for-172) against righties, but the .250 he hit against righties included five homers and 20 RBI. Against lefties, he had no homers and four RBI. So Francona could slide Davis from left field to center when the Indians face a tough left hander, while going to his bench to find a left fielder. http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2...or_clevela.html

One strategy would be for Trump to bring in a female on the ticket...that would mitigate some of the misogynist attacks from Hillary, which would of course be countered by attacking Bill Clinton's proclivities and their partnership/marriage, which might not be the best ground for her to defend since it's so "Washington/Inside the Beltway." Not sure the traditional "abortion rights" tack will work well either, simply because Trump can turn around and moderate his position on a dime and come across as at least fairly reasonable compared to the "fire and brimstone" must have an abortion even in the cases of rape/incest/health threat to the mother religious right. It has to be a lot more credible choice than Sarah Palin, however. A younger, more moderate/centrist candidate might do the trick. Nikki Haley is the obvious choice, but she's already aligned with Rubio. Then again, push comes to shove, it would be quite difficult to imagine her turning it down. It would be a huge opportunity to elevate her national profile and continue to position for 2020 were this general election to go south for whatever reason.

Toronto, Boston/NYY/Baltimore/TB (hard to differentiate, probably that order) KC, Cleve/DET/CHW (any order), Minnesota Houston, Texas, SEA, LAA/Oak All three divisions are incredibly deep and tons of parity. At this point, Houston would be the slight favorite, because there are so many questions about the starting pitching for TOR and KC

Marcus Semien is terrible defensively and made lots of errors...being 6th in WAR for qualified MLB shortstops is meaningless.

These Sox fans that are upset with not signing Cespedes/Upton/Gordon are likely the same fans that were happy with the signings from last year who now hate the front office because they all flopped. To me, it's more the narrative throughout last off-season that none of those moves were going to impact our ability to sign players for 2016. And it's not even whiffing on Cabrera and LaRoche, it was those smaller deals like Duke and Bonifacio and even Beckham that would now be quite useful in being able to afford the likes of Austin Jackson. And not trading Samardzija at the deadline in a way forced Hahn's hand to hold onto that pick, at least that's one of the main justifications or rationalizations now. At this point, we're not even able to afford "second tier" options like Fowler, Jackson, Span, Desmond...so we keep bouncing back and forth and are so afraid to commit and make one huge mistake with an Upton or Gordon that we're ending up with much higher bust rates on the second and third tier guys. This isn't just a single year complaint, either, it's been standard operating procedure for the White Sox for many years, with the exceptions of Belle, Abreu, Dunn and Robertson being the only "top tier" players we've signed as FA's. While all of our moves look good in isolation (especially Rollins and Latos), we would need a LOT of things to go right in order to make the playoffs and anomalously good health again. http://www.redreporter.com/2016/2/24/11105...-the-2016-white http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2016/2/16/1101...0975.1456422238 Pirates/White Sox/DBacks three most confusing teams In retrospect, why were we all so excited about the offseason the White Sox had last year? They got a closer, a 35-year-old DH and an aging PED bust, and because we were all hopped up and freebasing transactions, it was easy to mistake activity for effectiveness. And those three players are still key components of the 2016 White Sox roster. Last year, Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche and David Robertson combined to make $35 million. They also combined for a win over replacement, according to Baseball-Reference. That's a brutal combination, and everyone's a year older. Those three players might have been a part of the problem, but they weren't the reason the White Sox were so disappointing, Crumbling defense, especially in the infield, combined with hundreds and hundreds of at-bats given to low-upside young players, hamstrung the White Sox far more than the offseason mini-spending spree helped. That's why this offseason, the team addressed the most immediate, unmistakable concerns.

Right now, the only thing that matters is beating three and most likely four AL Central opponents...Detroit has arguably improved as much if not more, the Indians are a little better (Brantley is the biggest x factor), KC is 3-5 games worse and the Twins inexplicably waiting back for the trade deadline infuriating their fans who are impatient with the Pohlads.

Hillary has been bleeding support from young people and the disaffected whites who in large majorities voted for her over Obama in 2008. Trump actually got around 40% from Hispanics, women and evangelicals in NV, which is kind of amazing when you consider his comments on Mexicans, immigration, border walls and the Pope. Otoh, 20% more of the voters in NV were mad/angry with their government compared to the first three states. Remember, the Bundys are from there. Cruz has to win TX. Kasich is done. And Trump's way up on Rubio in his home state of Florida. At any rate, his attack on Rubio from here on out is simple..."Marco, you'd make a great VP but you're just not ready to be the top dog." And he can keep playing the card of the GOP and Priebus are being unfair, so he'll just go independent and make it impossible to beat Clinton or protect the SC nomination. That's a big risk to take, deliberately alienating him and having a repeat of 1964 with Goldwater.

Supposedly 3 years and $42-48 million...similar to the deal Melky Cabrera signed, at the low side. Pushed the value down about $10 million because of the QO, so he essentially got a similar deal to Denard Span, whose name has kind of been forgotten as one of the other options we passed on.

Austin...unless the Mariners' Jackson has had a breakthrough.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baltimo...0223-story.html No opt outs or club options....3 years and $35 million, will play RF with Jones remaining in center.

Arm strength....but that's not enough to cancel out the other defensive issues.

QUOTE (LDF @ Feb 24, 2016 -> 01:01 AM) i would add kemp in that list ref to sunders, that is if you are talking about Michael Saunders - tor, i think he was the one that held up the 3 way trade with him still being hurt or something. i really don't know the whole thing. Prospect going from LAA to Cincy was in question due to health...

http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/2...ichael-saunders Saunders put up a 759 ops against rhp in 2013/14 and a 2.4 war as recently as 2014. Seems he would still be available...

The main thing is that OPS+ number doesn't account for defense, and since there's now such a huge swing towards WAR evaluation, the fact that he's around a 0 means even a pretty decent level of offensive improvement (which isn't guaranteed) leaves him at a 0.75-1.50 number. As far as LaRoche goes, the effort to dump him on the Pirates for pennies on the dollar and his current status is solely about budgets and soft payroll ceilings. It certainly seems LaRoche is going to be given the opportunity to hit for at least 2-3 months, and maybe even be the full-time DH, whether the fans like it or not. So perhaps not focusing on LaRoche is more about that frustration (and the lack of desire to argue about it) and the fact that fans have come up with the concept of combining Avi and LaRoche into one DH and removing him from the outfield altogether, where he does the most damage to his WAR and team defense/DRS. So it's not anything to do with favoring LaRoche, certainly, but more to do with the fact that it was EASY to imagine a 2-3-4 WAR improvement in one fell swoop with the addition of a Justin Upton/Cespedes/Gordon. Because DH doesn't lend itself to those dramatic swings because of the point correction for being only a hitter, the positive correction for improving DH with a platoon in the world of WAR means only a 1 game correction, rather than the 2-4 many were hoping/expecting with a replacement for Garcia. And another part of it's probably Garcia's age, the fact that he was getting booed at SoxFest, fans genuinely seem to like him and maybe they feel a change of scenery trade with a non-contending team would be best. And we know that LaRoche isn't going anywhere until he re-establishes himself as an offensive presence, which would of course make it more unlikely that we would trade him with his contract expiring this year (unless we're out of the race again).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverythi...omepage%2Fstory Actually an article from the Washington Post on the reason why the Republicans didn't try to stop Trump (until it was too late)...buried within was a quite interesting section (and comparison) with the concept of pitch framing and why it's already waning in influence (and partially explaining another reason why Tyler Flowers wasn't retained). "In short, over the past year or so catchers who were historically skilled at pitch framing stopped having consistent success at it. What’s puzzling about this is that over the past decade, new data about the location of pitched balls made it easier for teams to use catchers who were excellent pitch framers. So what happened? Sullivan’s hypothesis is that because of all the analysis of this phenomenon, umpires are now cognizant of pitch framing. They responded to the new data by becoming more suspicious of catchers who are really good at it: ...but the unu s ual thing about thi s i s it ’ s related only s omewhat to actual on-field talent. The re s t i s in the hand s of the umpire s , and at s ome point, umpire s were going to catch wind of what wa s ta k ing place. And then they could have a re s pon s e, becau s e umpire s don ’ t want to be manipulated, not intentionally and not for a team ’ s direct gain. So, in other words, analysts noticed a real thing in baseball, analyzed it, and quantified it — but because the umpires care about this stuff as well, they internalized this analysis and changed the way they called the game, thereby obviating the analysis to some degree."

Trump is well ahead ahead in Nevada with over 11% counted... 44% to 24% for Rubio and 21% for Cruz. Carson and especially Kasich buried. Now all the stops come out from the Republican establishment to push Kasich (first to go) and God knows what influence they'll be able to exert over Ted Cruz, since that relationship is about as frayed as the Trump/GOP leadership "half truce" with Priebus. Carson, undoubtedly, will continue to be largely ignored and push through at least into Super Tuesday.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 23, 2016 -> 11:29 PM) That would be hysterically amazing. I would even include Quinarvy with Beck in the trade, but I'd probably miss seeing his signature quotes too much. However, we should be willing to part with all the extra bags of balls we got back for Beckham from the Angels and in the Alex Rios/Leury Garcia deal as well.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Feb 23, 2016 -> 11:21 PM) Would you trade Beck to the Dodgers for Trayce back? Talk me out of it. In isolation, I'd make that trade every time because it would be very helpful to have an excellent defender/pinch-runner and also a guy with some offensive pop coming off the bench. That's if it is the final move and no other options are left. Assuming they're not going to sign Austin Jackson, it's more than likely we're choosing between Shuck, Sands and whatever veteran castoffs/misfits are wiped out by waivers the last two weeks of spring. Once again, I'd rather have Thompson in that case (going with the youngster over a veteran)...but it's still not easy to be convinced the White Sox would actually start Thompson over Garcia and make Avi into LaRoche's DH partner. If KW is making the decisions, I'm sure he and Harrelson would love to get Carl Crawford in a Josh Hamilton-like deal where the Sox are paying almost nothing...

We all know how important April is for the White Sox, and, going all the way back to 2007, we've never been more than 1 game over .500 and more commonly are 2-5 games under after one bone-chilling month. It clearly seems the White Sox are going to go with all veterans (with the possible exception of Avi) and push for that quick (or at least relatively quick) start that doesn't get them buried in the very beginning stretch of games.

And if you look at the list of "left-handed run producers," not even considering position and fielding ability, the list is quite limited. Prince Fielder, CarGo, Adam Lind, Jay Bruce, Mitch Moreland (probably not available anyway), Ryan Howard, Pedro Alvarez, Josh Reddick, Dickerson (already traded), Blackmon, Justin Morneau, Brandon Moss, Chase Utley, Domonic Brown, Josh Hamilton, Pablo Sandoval, Daniel Murphy (already signed) So essentially, you're very quickly down to CarGo, Bruce, maybe Ethier, Josh Reddick and taking fliers on either Alvarez or Domonic Brown...