caulfield12

QUOTE (LDF @ Oct 20, 2014 -> 09:56 PM) as you said, 05 wipe the slate clean except for Clayton. Except Clayton wasn't anywhere close to that 2005 team, Uribe/Ozuna were. Ozuna's the only one that has been "officially" caught...although there were rumors about Rowand, etc.

Drew Smyly at least had proven results at the major league level, both as a starter, spot starter, long man and lefty set-up guy. Didn't he actually outperform what Price provided the Tigers from the time of the trade? Another example. Surely, a year ago, most of the Keith Laws and Jim Callises would have preferred T.Walker or Paxton (and still probably prefer Paxton), but selecting Walker over Smyly would have turned out to be precisely the wrong move, even though at the time it satisfied the prospect gurus. It's the same reason we'll never ever in a million years get Stanton for Quintana. Quintana's not "sexy" enough, he's merely super productive and efficient, which isn't as exciting or headline grabbing.

QUOTE (professa @ Oct 19, 2014 -> 02:48 PM) Sign Pablo Sandoval 5/90 Sign Adam LaRoche 2/24 Sign Emilio Bonifacio 2/10 Sign Jonny Gomes 1/5 Sign Edinson Volquez 3/24 Sign Joe Thatcher 2/8 Sign K-Rod 2/14 (MLBTR Projected Salary) Trade Tank for reliever or specs Lineup 1. Eaton CF 2. Alexei SS 3. Abreu 1B/DH 4. Sandoval 3B 5. LaRoche 1B/DH 6. Garcia RF 7. Gillaspie/Gomes LF platoon 8. Flowers C 9. Micah/Semien/Sanchez Rotation 1. Sale 2. Volquez 3. Quintana 4. Danks 5. Noesi/Rodon Pen Cl K Rod SU Petricka SU Putnam MR Thatcher MR Guerra MR Webb MR Trade You've just added on $59 million in salary, more or less. I would be shocked if they doubled the payroll in one offseason coming off such a non-eventful year revenue-wise.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Oct 19, 2014 -> 04:18 AM) Floyd and De Aza > Danks and Viciedo 2010/11 Floyd/deaza

Are we serious about contending? If no....we trade him like the cubs unless we have an option for 2016 and noesi falls apart Rodon falters or another starter is shelved due to injury.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Oct 18, 2014 -> 11:02 AM) Personally, I love the KC model because it's essentially about doing all the little things well and limiting mistakes in all aspects of the game, it's smart baseball at its finest. But it's very unrealistic to build the KC model and it's also not sustainable. With the exception of Perez and Gordon, none of their players are top 10 players at their positions. Meaning in an open market, they would often be your 2nd or 3rd choices. Teams with options don't aim to build the KC model. They are for teams who are not popular free agent desintations and are cash strapped. Without having real cornerstones like Sale or Abreu, they will fall back to below .500 if a couple of their positions players or bullpen arms get pay raises. Cain is top ten based on the last 2-3 months. (I'm sure the royals wouldn't trade Cain for eaton.) Hosmer Escobar and moustakas all have the ability. Escobar is close right now...most scouts would have him 7-11. Aoki dyson butler and infante are the glue/complementary players.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Oct 17, 2014 -> 11:19 PM) Agreed. I think the Giants take game one based on Bumgarner matches up better against the Royals offense than Shields against the Giants offense. Just my uneducated opinion of course. But the royals only need that one run lead from the sixth inning on.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 17, 2014 -> 11:16 PM) That article wouldn't have been written had Oakland held a four-run lead in the eighth in the wildcard game. Just saying. ... That's baseball. Lot of hot air out there. We could say the same about joe crede's homer off riske to fend off Cleveland.

http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2014/09...h-table-setter/ Argument for zobrist in lf....makes sense

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/08/...-doing/related/ Long but very good article on why the royals system is working...

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 17, 2014 -> 08:56 PM) Those stats include guys like Bruce Chen, Francisley Bueno (who?), Michael Mariot, Aaron Crow, & Louis Coleman, who all had ERAs over 4 and most likely rarely appeared in important situations. Their three-headed monster had an ERA of 1.28 over 204.1 IP with 53 holds and 46 saves. The rest of the bullpen had 22 holds and 4 saves. Your entire bullpen isn't that important, just the guys that come in when the game is on the line. Crow was a vital piece of that pen until they lost faith in him this mid-season...about the same time Herrera and Davis started clicking. Collins was the lefty...flopped...downs was tried and they finally got finnegan out of tcu. Those other four names got garbage innings. I think there were two Coleman's.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 17, 2014 -> 03:30 PM) Just a note...KC's bullpen actually on the whole season was not better than Baltimore's. KCs park played a little more hitter friendly and so they wound up with a slightly worse ERA, but Baltimore's pen pitched 10% more innings, walked fewer people, gave up a slightly lower OPS (again add in a park adjustment). Seattle and Oakland are right there too, with better numbers than both but again park adjustments factored in. it's a piece but not the only one. The curse of Scott downs.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Oct 17, 2014 -> 01:01 AM) Agreed. Her voice is just nasal! Annoying as all hell. Technically it really didn't matter since the winning run had already crossed home plate. I don't blame Peavy one bit seeing as how its his first World Series. I'm happy for Jake. Wasn't he on the Red Sox last year...Avisail Garcia trade,etc.?

Pretty soon, they're just going to have to get Anderson's bat and athleticism into the MLB line-up. His ultimate defensive position is becoming secondary, although of course they would love for it to be SS and not 2B/OF. If Micah and Anderson can BOTH stick as infielders, that gives you an incredible amount of excitement up the middle. And Semien at 3B with Conor, that's a potentially very interesting core. In the end, Sanchez will probably fall to the wayside as the utility guy/Joe McEwing/Oquendo with Semien also playing all over the place.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 07:42 PM) That Cardinals postseason pixie dust. Adams has zero homers vs LHP since early July, now he hit them off Kershaw and Bumgarner. Then Tony freaking Cruz homers No David Freese this time around. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Hahn kicks the tires on a "buy low" trade for Bourjos. He fits into the "emulate" the Royals theme/motif, and the Cards don't have a place for him with Jay/Grichuk/Tavares/Holliday. They don't even have enough playing time for all four of those guys at the moment, with Tavares (better prospect than Grichuk) the odd man out. Looks like the Cards are going to live or die with their ace...no PH. Only at 86 pitches, so completely understandable.

How old will that 2010/12/14 stuff about the Giants get the next two years if they win it all again?

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 07:51 PM) He had some "issues" with a former manager and his dad kinda seems like an idiot, but I don't think he's a bad guy. I don't believe he had any problems at all in Toronto. He was a young kid that butted heads with an old coach, worse things have happened. I really don't think Colby Rasmus is the type of person you have to keep away from your clubhouse. Obviously you'd rather not have that blip on the radar, but I'm sure Hahn, KW, and even Robin could make a few phone calls and get the scoop on whether Rasmus is worth having around attitude wise or not....as long as they don't call LaRussa lol Of course, we already had the same experience with Swisher and his dad, so fool me once...different situation now, of course, different managers and hitting coaches. OTOH, we've been a sort of haven for "troubled" players like AJ, Everett, etc. KW was always willing to roll the dice if he had a reasonable belief that player would fit into the clubhouse. Sometimes it backfired spectacularly, like D'Angelo Jimenez. Hahn, up until now, has been much more risk-averse with the exception of the Abreu/Tanaka sweepstakes.

C Sal Perez over Flowers, not even close...Perez is one of the best catchers in baseball 3B Moustakas (although he makes a lot more errors than he should) over Gillaspie, not even close SS Escobar, slight edge over Ramirez 2B wash 1B Hosmer has made more errors this year, but he's already won a Gold Glove LF best versus worst OF defenders in baseball CF Dyson/Cain, slight edge over Eaton RF Cain/Aoki...big edge over A. Garcia We don't have a single position of advantage. SS and CF are close, but nobody would pick Ramirez and Eaton over Alcides Esobar/Cain/Dyson. You MIGHT be able to argue Carlos Sanchez/Leury over Infante if they could hit well enough to justify their starting position.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 07:32 AM) 1. What he wants doesn't and can't dictate what he does. And he'd tell you that. 2. The White Sox often put likely relievers into starting rotations for a season or two, for a few reasons. One, getting in more innings allows them to develop faster and go from thrower to pitcher. Two, on occasion, guys like that end up succeeding at it (as is the case with Bassitt), and boom, you have another starting prospect. 3. Related to number two, whether that pitcher can hone the change, curve/slider to the point where he has two plus or at least three legit "out" pitches in his arsenal...this is what the White Sox went through with Jake Petricka, for example. You can get by with two as a starter (see Colon or Contreras with the FB/forkball combination), but it's pretty darned rare.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 07:27 PM) I want nothing to do with Rasmus and I don't want him near this team. Never liked his attitude or work ethic. And that's why Cabrera or Rasmus are unlikely to be White Sox. As long as we don't waste it on Markakis, I'm okay...or Victor Martinez, unless he's the final piece of the puzzle to assembling a contending team over the next three years (and all of the other pieces appear to be in place already).

Markakis isn't going to put us over the top, and the money's too high. If you had to choose between the two, you have to roll the dice on Rasmus. We know that despite his success against the White Sox, Markakis isn't a superstar or capable of putting up those numbers. In that scenario, it's better to put two platoon guys together (and invest the savings into the pitching staff), like Denorfia/Chavez/N.Morgan with Viciedo. It's not ideal, it's your fallback option definitely, but overpaying aging 30+ outfielders to not get their prime/productive years in return is idiotic. He's not the final piece of the puzzle, that's for sure. Same thing with Ethier...

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/columnist...ff-banister.ece Banny will be a great manager. I saw him manage a team of overachievers (the best players on our team were Jimmy Anderson, Chris Peters, Jason Johnson, Lou Collier and finally Jose Guillen near the tail end) for 142 games in 1995 when the GreenJackets won the SAL. He's the right combination of communicator, stern/disciplinarian...you have no choice but to respect him, and he has clearly adjusted over the last twenty years, because analytics/SABR was all still pretty new back at that time and was being scoffed at by most scouts and "insiders." As a personal story of perseverance, he should be a Lifetime/Disney Movie of the Week before he even manages with all the adversity he's overcome already. Here's another article. http://espn.go.com/dallas/mlb/story/_/id/1...anister-manager

Crow's another interesting guy that the Royals will probably discard who's pitched well enough to make an All-Star team out of the pen. There's also a 10-15% chance he could be reconverted into a starting pitcher, although I wouldn't cross my fingers too much on that.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 10:34 AM) I think they have stuck to that model, they picked up quite a few guys this season that fit that mold. Acquisitions Sanburn, Cleto, Angel Sanchez, Henry Rodriguez, and Raul Fernandez all light up the radar gun. It was only last year that they brought in Montas as a throw in on the Peavy deal, so I don't think they have abandoned that approach at all, just have not been all that lucky in getting one to click this year though I think that Fernandez and Sanburn show promise to be pieces of the bullpen in the not too distant future. Webb was supposedly throwing 97-99 in 2013 in the minors as well... We just didn't often see that version at the major league level, though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 09:34 AM) I would like to point out that pretty much no one knew that KC would have a lockdown pen before this season started. Holland is the only guy who hasn't pitched WAY better than he did the previous season. That's been their model for the last three or four seasons, though. It's just that Herrera and Davis completely dominated this year. They had the exact same philosophy 3-4 years ago when it was Soria, Crow, Collins, Hochevar, etc. Shorten the game down to five innings from the starter, dominate the 6th-9th.