caulfield12

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 02:15 PM) Not too disappointed. I am glad need didn't trade Anderson/Danish/Adams for Cespedes. What are the chances of us trading Shark by 8/31 deadline if we're out of it? Zero. He will be blocked and a trade won't be worked out to anyone's satisfaction. The only way he could get through is with an onerous contract.

This is exactly where we said we didn't want to be. Around .500, but not 100% in the race. Not in a position for a franchise-changing draft pick in 2016. Fans more and more apathetic after just starting to buy in again in the last 2-3 weeks. Still missing a RF, 3B, C and LaRoche has been hot garbage. Not to mention that we're counting on Erik Johnson and John Danks going into 2016. Yay, second year of the competitive window, and we'll lose how many season ticket holders again? Between Sale, Billy Pierce passing away, teams like the Tigers, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Royals and Astros just getting richer and richer...the excitement that we had over the last month, it's all going to disappear in the blink of an eye. Yay! A compensation pick that might have the impact of a Keenyn Walker/Jared Mitchell in about 2019 or 2020. We do have one of the most expensive closers in the league, though, so there's that.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 02:06 PM) Michael Fulmer to the Tigers...he's a solid acquisition What would be really hilarious is if Dombrowski said..."We now feel 100% more confident than a week ago about our ability to beat the White Sox in 2016." To top it off, we're going to go out and spend a billion dollars on Greinke or Cueto.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 02:05 PM) Just got Tommy Hunter also He used to have a pretty electric arm with the Braves/Orioles once upon a time...better as a reliever than starter.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 02:01 PM) lol what? The Tigers got two two prospects I've never heard of from the Mets. How did we lack the chips? Once again, great job with that farm system guys. Always second best for a decade, seemingly started when we didn't have the pieces for Miguel Cabrera. Without any quality depth and lacking the secondary pieces to get things done (see Astros, Blue Jays, Dodgers)...well, we shouldn't be surprised. We can't (seemingly) trade Fulmer/Montas/M.Johnson/Anderson/E.Johnson and nobody wants whatever's left behind those guys.

Between Sale last night, Billy Pierce passing away, all the moves other teams made to improve themselves, Detroit getting a lot stronger for next season compared to a week ago...all of the excitement about the last two months of the season has kind of gone out of the balloon.

Cue random groundscrew guys in MAJOR LEAGUE... "Yeah, but they still suck." Or was that a Rob Schneider line in The Waterboy?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:49 PM) Great initial post to this thread. I do agree they probably should have made a trade. But I also agree I'd hate to see any of the Sox "name" prospects gone for a rental. It's kind of buzzkill to not make any changes at all when Baltimore and Toronto and Texas added guys. I will say this ... it's up to the team right now to remove that buzzkill. The team just won 7 of 8 on the road. If it could win the Yankee series at home and continue to hit a bit, there still could be some excitement in the Cell. Saladino is a recent addition and the new Sanchez is almost like an entirely new player. Ditto Melky. Even Rodon appears a new guy the last 3 starts. We are the Rays, lol...franchise stuck in neutral. Unless something changes in the next hour of those announcements that always leak rapidfire in the hour after the actual deadline and they're just messing with us to build the suspense.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:49 PM) Bruce Levine ‏@MLBBruceLevine now7 seconds ago Source says Cespedes has been dealt to the Mets . They've just managed to lose two in a row and made one of their players cry, so hopefully they can stop the Cubs at least. Does that mean the Tigers have added Norris and Wheeler to their rotation? Ouch...

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:48 PM) Why the hell would we want Rajai Davis? On the theory nearly anything is better than Avi I guess...

Why is the headline in ALL-CAPS and misspelled to boot?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:44 PM) Bob Nightengale ‏@BNightengale 35s36 seconds ago The #Whitesox were aggressive, but fell short, and now out of #Tigers Cespedes sweepstakes If they don't acquire anything until August waiver deals and/or we still have Samardzija, it will be beyond disappointing.

If for no other reason than to see how he, Ramirez and Abreu get along. It would be a lot more entertaining than Aviball recently, that's for sure. Dang, if we traded Samardzija at the right time, we could have had Olivera at 3B with that trio...then add Puig and play 20 games in Havana every season to exploit the newest market inefficiency, with the US opening diplomatic relations. Imagine the tv ratings in CUBA!!! April games instead of snowouts. Sellouts instead of September crowds of 12-15,000.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:39 PM) Yeah, Montas could be fantastic but very high risk at this point to drop in value. Still think he'd be a dynamite reliever. And if he's Wade Davis/Andruw Miller/Herrera impact level...that's still worth a ton in today's environment. We have a lot of pieces down there now, but nobody with electric stuff. Not even Nate Jones at 100% health because his fastball was so straight (and Greg didn't like his mechanics!). Apparently Montas' offspeed stuff (knuckle curve for one) is much better.

Do we have a reliever named Montes instead of Montas...we can do the reverse of the White Sox/LA Jeff Berry/Barry fiasco for KW and slip him into the paperwork instead?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:00 PM) They'll just build more ghost towns. Stabilized a bit though. Their whole economy is a relative sham based upon government mechanisms. That's a bit of hyperbole, but yeah, it's hard to know the real numbers (realistically the GDP growth is probably closer to 4-6% than 7%). With the stock market, it's not a situation like in the US where 65-70% have a stake...it's a much smaller percentage, and it doesn't reflect nearly as large a chunk of the GDP either because there are many SME's, state-owned hybrids (banks/insurance/construction) and simply private companies that haven't done IPO's or are waiting on economic conditions to shift to more favorable. It's more the psychology of the stock market, and how it will affect consumer sentiment/buying (especially luxury goods) behavior. From living here now for almost 5 years (off and on since 2007), I'd be more worried about the real estate bubble/ghost towns/shadow banking and margin lending side of things than the stock market bubbles, per se.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 11:21 AM) Many of the buildings, including the Bird's Nest stadium, are now ghost towns. They're planning to reuse those facilities for the Opening/Closing ceremonies, Athletes' Village, etc. From what I've seen online, it's mostly things like beach volleyball and kayaking/canoeing courses. Not any different from Athens, Sydney or some of the former host cities. The weirdest site (like Chernobyl) is the bobsled/luge run at Sarajevo from 1984.

Don't forget the Rangers, now that they have Hamels. They're more likely to be there than the Tigers sans Price, Soria and Cespedes.

The hitter who had the highest OPS of all the bats available and who used to be one of the best defenders in baseball...interesting he can't even get a 2nd page on his thread. Who was the poster who was absolutely in love with Parra on the DBacks and hyped him like an Adopt A Prospect?

If the White Sox didn't have the killer schedule they do over the next six series, then it would be be worth considering something more short-term... And sure, there are a lot of teams with killer schedules coming up, look at what the Giants have to face in August, for example. If the White Sox were in a position financially to go out and spend unlimited amounts in the off-season, it wouldn't matter, but that's not realistic. It's pretty apparent we could have had Hector Olivera, for example, for the next five years and only $32 million remaining on his deal (and a sixth year for $1 million if he had elbow surgery) if we had been willing to trade Shark at that moment. (This is where the argument comes in that because Wood has multiple years of control, he wouldn't have netted the same package as Wood did, which is impossible to determine with all the other moving pieces in that deal). Even the most optimistic fans in their heart of hearts can't realistically expecting the White Sox to do much more than a game or two above .500 with our upcoming schedule, and more likely a game or two under .500, especially if we dealt Shark and had to replace him with Johnson from here on out. We also are cognizant of the fact that the AL East is softer than the AL Central because the Royals are probably the best team in the league at this point...and that the Blue Jays have four superstars now on that team, and Encarnacion as well. Everyone is picking them at this point, especially AA, whose job and future depend upon those moves working out. He's going for broke. Surrender? No. But make moves that don't completely push this team back into 2017 in terms of competing...take on a contract like James Shields for 30-50% of the rate they would have had to pay for him at the beginning of the year, for example. Get the equivalent of a Hector Olivera for 3B. Maybe there's not an impact catcher out there, but the Giants still have Susac and Sanchez and lots of interesting pieces in the low minors. Bruce/Cargo, whatever...give us at least one position player or a starting pitcher that makes the heavy lifting in the off-season all that easier. At the very least, a Napoli for tier b/c prospects who will give LaRoche relief against LHP and bring another veteran into the clubhouse. Right now, the only players we know for sure who will be back as starters are Cabrera, Eaton and Abreu...and leaning heavily towards keeping Alexei (which has changed in the last 3-4 weeks). That gives you 2 months to make determinations on catcher, A.Garcia, Saladino/Sanchez/Johnson and LaRoche...as well as time to look at Erik Johnson, Montas, Nate Jones, etc. Odds are pretty high that of Saladino/Johnson/Sanchez, we'll be fortunate to get one regular/starter of those three. So we can confidently say we have 5 1/2 players (counting LaRoche as 1/2 for now) and are going to have to fill 3B, C and RF/LF. That's a lot better than a month ago, so there's that.

The Twins also need to do something...anything. A reliever, bat (they're willing to part with Arcia for a rental), another starter. Ryan hasn't made a huge trade in seemingly a decade.

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 08:08 AM) I agree I don't want to give up Montas or Anderson. Or Avi but im good witth Davidson and or EJ Do we still even have Hector Noesi? He's in AAA?

QUOTE (spiderman @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 08:06 AM) If it's safe to assume that the rotation next year will include: - Sale - Quintana - Rodon - Danks They are obviously hoping to get Samrdizia back...I can understand why the White Sox think they can move Johnson (although losing Samardzia, a #2 type starter would hurt the quality of the rotation) given they have in-house candidates to replace Danks after next season (or even during) while the rest of the rotation is young. Sox have a done fabulous job of developing pitching. But that depth disappears in a hurry if you're forced to deal Quintana as a result of not possessing the financial resources (or projected season ticket purchasers) to go out and make enough meaningful additions via trade or FA this off-season.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 08:01 AM) So his utter dominance down there means nothing? Really? Guys who completely tear up AAA stick at the MLB level more often than not. Even if you don't believe in EJ, his turnaround has increased his value quite a bit. If we wanted to trade him, we could do a lot better than an Upton rental. The problem is that he's yet to prove anything at the big league level this year, and he had an unexplainable breakdown last year that still hasn't been diagnosed to anyone's satisfaction. The Cubs are in a similar situation looking to deal Baez but teams not valuing him the same way they did in say May, 2014. If this was the 2013-14 offseason or mid-season 2013, then it would be a different situation, but some of the bloom's off the rose. Then again, that kind of streak of excellence is going to raise some eyebrows when half your games are played in Charlotte. I would be pretty shocked if the Padres would accept him as the centerpiece of a possible trade.

The thing is, if they do trade Johnson, they're going to go out and get another pitcher unless they want to push Fulmer and Montas into the rotation in April of 2016. It would be pretty incredible...so Erik does have a lot more value to us than he does to other teams. As for pitching in SD, we've had guys like Richard and Eric Stults (let get away for nothing) pitch pretty well there. Pitching hasn't been one of the biggest issues for the Padres, it's offense and it will be bullpen if they trade away Kimbrel. That's probably why they would target Montas, to make him a closer.