caulfield12

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 01:36 PM) If Scherzer becomes available in two years, I think Hahn would definitely take a run at him. He would get more than Tanaka but by then, Hahn will have Dunn, Keppinger, and Beckham off the books. Use that money on Scherzer and your rotation is set for the next 5 years. Sale Scherzer Quintana (extension) Danks (will become FA after that year) Beck/Bassitt I would be very wary of Scherzer. Leyland has pitched him and Verlander into the ground. Look at both of those guys in terms of IP and pitch counts over the last 2-3 seasons. Scherzer is not a guy (when/if he becomes available) that I would be willing to pay $20-25 per season simply because the risk is too high and the number of years on that contract will be at least 5 (if not 6-8). Of course, a lot of the same arguments can be applied to Tanaka, although I'd rather take the 25-27 year old pitcher any day over one in his late 20's/early 30's any day of the week.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 01:28 PM) The light has finally switched on SS2K5. Forgetting the 25% decrease in value in year 1 and 10% each following year.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 12:06 PM) Loaiza got the Sox Contreras, El Duque was pretty cheap, and Freddy Garcia the second time around was effective too. They've had plenty of luck. Humber for one year. Bringing back Colon, the instincts were there, and they've been proven right in more recent years. Quintana cost nothing. Gavin Floyd cost nothing in the sense that Garcia was already on a downward slope and we saved a lot of money as well. Santos and Jenks in the pen.

Mao Asada was one of the two co-favorites for the figure skating gold...went down on her first jump and ended up 16th after the short program. Sad. Great champion.

QUOTE (knightni @ Feb 13, 2014 -> 10:52 PM) Ralph Waite, Actor - 85. Known for The Waltons and NCIS. Gibbs' father....had to look him up. Ho Pun (the hot dog vendor) was Chinese or Vietnamese?

Or they could just set some type of baseline for the "average" MLB team positional arrangement of the defense against every player in the majors and then look for statistical deviations from that standard book. The problem is that you're also having to take into account individual pitches within an-bat as well....such as shading to the opposite side with someone like Scherzer or Verlander pitching or playing pull when guys like Dylan Axelrod are on the mound, or guys like Gavin Floyd are pounding hitters with curveballs. It would be interesting to see if the White Sox, for example, shifted at all when Santiago was throwing a screwball vs. his standard repertoire of pitches. Or how much more they were playing pull when Dank was pitching post-surgery as opposed to with his best stuff.

The "being cheap" with payroll argument against Sox ownership expired about a decade ago. Turning over both CF (Eaton) and 3B (Davidson) was more than the majority of fans expected...not to mention Belisario, Downs, Paulino and bringing back Lindstrom. And realistically, there just weren't any game-changing catchers in their primes (McCann would have made sense if we could fast forward 2 years and keep him from aging by freezing him cryogenically) available, so the lack of action there on the Sox part wasn't surprising at all. Sure...frustrating...but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear or however that saying goes.

Well, Santana's not going to receive the $100 million his agent was posturing for...but it would be pretty hilarious if waiting until the very end to sign works in his favor with starting pitchers getting injured in the first few weeks of spring training. Baltimore was kind of in a similar situation to the Sox coming into 2011 with Dunn...all in, and a very limited window to compete before having to tear things apart before 2016 probably. They were perhaps the most inactive team out there during the off-season, along with Cincy IMO.

I can honestly say watching the Olympic curling match-up between Great Britain and China at the moment has more intrinsic excitement.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 08:42 AM) It's way too early to speculate on anything like that. But it's part of the fun of being a baseball fan, I suppose. Nobody in a million years would have named Jose Abreu as our Opening Day 2014 starting 1B at those contract dollars a year ago, either.

One would think the Red Sox will definitely be in play for Rasmus unless Jackie Bradley, Jr., becomes a star this year. Victorino was very very solid last year, but can you expect that again at his age? Nava and Gomes are more like complementary pieces, and then there's Sizemore. Unless something really crazy happens and they move Bogaerts to LF, they'll still probably be short at least one legit outfielder going into 2015.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 10:49 PM) I find Ian boring and annoying. No thanks. The cast was getting way too big so I'm glad they got rid of at least for now Karen and Ian. Hate that they canned the two best characters in Jimmy Steve and Jodie. I will say Mickey is so much better without Ian around. Sheila needs a storyline too. She's great. We might see one soon. http://www.tvguide.com/news/justin-chatwin...ss-1066296.aspx Guess Jimmy Steve is gone for good. Too bad. And using him head in a Brazilian polo match would have been way too derivative of the scene in Breaking Bad with the turtle/Danny Trejo.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:35 PM) Hahn doesn't want to load the kid with pressure. Davidson has many times stated that he just wants to get to the bigs and stay there. Regardless of the reasoning, Davidson should be playing at the MLB level when he's ready. I also strongly disagree with the SSS idea that Davidson is unquestionably MLB ready. No, he's not. You don't know if he's ready until he's playing every day in the Majors. The Sox would be smart to take it slow with him because he has some flaws which if exploited could deflate the whole Davidson experience pretty quickly. I mean f***, the reasoning SSS used was that he hit decently in an MLB cup of coffee & hit well in the PCL. Yeah I'm going to let the Sox judge this guy. Servicetime is a possible issue but it's not like this guy doesn't have holes in his game. See Josh Fields or even Morel for late-season stretches...or Mark Teahen for 3-4 months with the Royals.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:20 PM) This, caulfield, is exactly what I think is wrong with all these threads, which Mary & Dick Allen seem to understand but the rest of you guys don't. Market conditions have changed considerably. Santana wasn't an $18-20+M pitcher over 5-7 years, obviously. NOBODY in their right mind thought that. But he's now fallen into "bargain" territory IMO or at least "reasonable price" territory and yet some posters here just want to make it out like he's terrible, has never been good, isn't worth more than a few million or so, etc. And that is just ridiculous. It's not based in any sort of statistical reality, it's just dumb hate for the sake of it. And the absurd overvaluing of the draft pick - ASSUMING both that the pick will become a valuable asset AND that Santana couldn't bring back an equal or greater return - is just icing on the "cake" and by "cake" I'm not talking about the stuff you want to eat either. If the Sox signed Santana tomorrow for 3/$39 this board's opinion would change overnight. Will the Sox make an effort? Probably not, because they still have a lot of other positional issues to address, but the idea that they'd be stupid to hand out a reasonable deal to a quality SP isn't an idea that any intelligent baseball fan should hold. I've posted links to Santana's B-R page, even you caulfield whom I respect tried to say his stuff had considerably diminished when apparently fangraphs hasn't recorded anything of the sort, and yet all I see is a bunch of people ripping the guy's ability. Then the threads get closed because nobody seems to want to talk any sense, just hate hate hate and bulls***. I was just as sick of Gavin Floyd's mental lapses as anyone. Javy Vazquez gave me fits. Ervin Santana definitely has a little of that Floyd/Javy shakiness no doubt and as a result isn't a top-end pitcher nor should he be paid like one. But all three of the pitchers I have mentioned are/were quality pitchers with above average stuff who just happened to fade here and there, and although sometimes maddening, players like that *do* have value and *are* in demand especially around the trade deadline. IMO anyone who thinks signing that Santana to a reasonable deal would be a *bad* move is being absurd. There is certainly an amount of risk there, as there is in every free agent deal, but it's at least a deal that offers some upside to the team. And it's not like a 3-year deal for the guy is a franchise-crippling event should it go bad. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1848253...illion-contract This is a pretty exhaustive examination of Santana...I should have said his stuff peaked in 2008 and was much more dominating in 2004-2008...as it is, his fastball has been pretty consistent in the last three seasons, around 91-93. Let's try to find some common points of agreement: 1) Nobody said that they were sure Paulino would be better than Santana/Jimenez. Most agree, not taking salary into consideration, that Jimenez/Santana would probably be better at least in 2014. 2) Nobody that I've read wants to give Santana or Jimenez a four year contract anymore, it has come down to 3 or even 2 with an option 3) Nobody wants the White Sox to be bad in 2014 if there's a chance they can still be competitive in the division race. 4) ALMOST nobody wants to give away a 2nd round pick, with the premium now being placed on draft picks and especially how much teams finishing near the bottom of the standings are allocated to spend....looking no further than the fact that 3rd round draft pick Addison Reed netted them a #70-something prospect in all of baseball. 5) Dick Allen is arguing for Jimenez based on straighened out mechanics/ability/Don Cooper, whereas there's some disagreement about how much is left in the tank since his (Jimenez now) velocity has clearly decreased by 3-4-5 MPH compared to his prime in COL...and there's the doping/PEDs rumors out there about his mysterious loss of velocity. 6) There's clearly a point where almost every franchise that could use some starting pitching, and we're now talking 25 teams, including the White Sox...would/should/could be interested in signing either one of these guys (or Nelson Cruz/Morales/Drew for that matter). 7) Nobody wants to buy high on Santana with the risk that 2013 was a second peak in his career and the rest is all downhill, not to mention the concerns about being a flyball pitcher in USCF. In the end, (nearly) everyone has a number where this starts to make sense (to them)...3/$39-40, 2/$27-28, whatever. When that point is reached, the Dunn/Rios/Danks/Keppinger "just another bad contract" risk will be compensated for by the possible return, but doubtless those agents are still holding out for 3-4 years and $40-70 million. If those are the eventual numbers, 90% of the fans would prefer to see how things go with Paulino/Cooper, Erik Johnson and the rest of of our minor leaguers, like Beck, in 2014...simply being realistic about the fact that we're VERY unlikely to compete until 2015.

QUOTE (Jake @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 06:22 PM) I think the MLB at its best had individuals with more appeal than basically anyone in today's game. Ken Griffey Jr. had notoriety that so far exceeds anyone playing right now that it isn't even worth bringing up a player to compare to. Big Frank was internationally known. McGwire/Sosa was a larger than life time for the sport. You had pitchers like Randy Johnson that everybody knew. How many people are out there that could tell you everything about Griffey, Frank Thomas, and the McGwire record but not have a clue who the hell Clayton Kershaw is? I think it is an astonishing amount. Puig is a guy who generated a lot of buzz but this time it never felt like it had a ton of merit. It was a lot more Linsanity-esque than anything else, like ESPN was bored and needed something to talk about while baseball was the only game in town. We need people that are really likable and give fans, average and otherwise, the sense that they are watching something really great. I think the steroid era to some extent is responsible for this. We like teams, but investing your emotions/fandom in a particular player feels like an easy way to get burned by a positive test later on. Not only MLB players (steroids), but the fall of Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong, to name just a couple.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 06:10 PM) That's not bad, sounds like an aberration that one pitcher having that will cause the entire team to go to the post season but it's worth keeping an eye on. Wainwright had 19 wins, Scherzer had 21, Hershaw 16, Price 10 and Haren 10. I'm not really sure it's a real accurate measure of wins. Edit: I'm being slightly facetious if you haven't guessed. My point is that I think too many are worried about individual things and not the teams and this "Face of the MLB" will only increase this The whole reason for this is marketing, and baseball's about 20 years behind. One of those recent Harris "popularity" polls had NFL football at 35% and MLB at only 14%, with NBA and NHL also trailing. The NFL and especially NBA have been tremendously successful marketing individual players...and their agents, connecting them to "win win" marketing/sponsorship opportunities. I'm pretty sure other than Mike Trout there are ZERO major league players earning more from product endorsements than their actual playing contract (Boras even famously said sponsorship deals aren't worth it, his players need to concentrate 98% of their time with on-field/physical development/training activity).

QUOTE (farmteam @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 05:22 PM) Agreed. And yeah, Karen and Jody went to Sedona, Arizona if I remember right. Fiona is starting to piss me off as well. I want Ian to come back, and it looks like he might given the scenes for next week. Re: Justified Oh yes. Great episode. Just killing it. Re: Boardwalk Empire Agree with whoever said (Milkman, I think) season 3 was the best. If I had to rank the seasons in order, it would probably be: 3, 4, 1, 2. I could be persuaded to switch around 1 and 4. 3 is far and away the best, I think. Ian is about as close as you can get to a moral center on that show...even when he's doing things that are wrong/unethical or downright illegal, he's always doing it for a good/altruistic reason. He's pretty much the only trustworthy character of the bunch. Fiona, of course, is the heart of the show in terms of airtime, along with Frank, but Ian is the best member of that family, with Debbie second.

Jimenez or Santana's agents have to be dialing up the Sox FO, right?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 02:30 PM) Sorry, not release candidates, after thoughts. And if a HS kid is picked in 2014, according to you if they aren't up by 2019 they probably will never be with the White Sox. Here it is: I absolutely think that Hawkins could help the Sox in 2 years. It all depends on how well he performs. The fact is, if these guys aren't helping or close to helping the major league team in 4 years, they're basically after thoughts. Do you really think anyone in the White Sox front office views Jared Mitchell as a potential starting player down the road? But he went to college, so he should have been up in 3 years, right? If the high schooler they take in the 1st and/or 2nd round this year isn't up by the end of the decade, odds are pretty good they'll never be up with the White Sox. For a collegiate player, 4 years is quite fair to judge whether he'll ever be a big major league contributor, although there are always exceptions. For a high schooler, 5 and possibly 6 (for raw players like a Trayce Thompson without much high school experience or multi-sport stars who don't play year-round) is more accurate. Even then, you'll occasionally find guys like a Scott Podsednik that take even longer to blossom.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 02:20 PM) LOL! So were you wrong or right? Oh, the irony. The only reason we've had 3-4 threads on this subject are because MARKET CONDITIONS (THEORETICALLY) HAVE CHANGED. So teams shouldn't ever take that into consideration, apparently. Hahn decided Salty wasn't worth the ongoing risk, in the biggest position of need (will anyone disagree with this claim?) and arguably the most crucial on the diamond. (Note, he also wasn't going to cost the White Sox a draft pick and he still passed on him). Abreu became available at a price probably $20-30 million under what it could have been with the big-spending teams involved...they exploited a market opportunity and found a possible game-changer, and attempted to do the same with Tanaka (putting more effort, seemingly, into it than the Cubs, who predicated their entire offseason on getting Tanaka).

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 01:34 PM) They NEED a starting pitcher just as much as they NEED a first baseman. Just ask Balta. The Sox have plenty of 1B/DH. And as you admitted, chances are the Sox are going to have to rely on guys like Paulino who has pitched 140 innings exactly never in his MLB career, and after him are guys who you admittedly said are probably no good with Rienzo, Surkamp and even Axelrod. They will always need pitching. If they didn't need pitching, no one in their right mind could say they aren't contending for a playoff spot. Even with Santiago AND Jimenez, it's quite doubtful they would be competitive for a playoff spot. Just like almost nobody would feel comfortable with Gillaspie or Keppinger playing 3B on a team with playoff aspirations. Loiaza, Contreras, Jenks, Thornton, Humber (for one season), Quintana, Hector Santiago, Santos, Sale, etc., have proven that the White Sox from time to time know what they're doing with developing pitchers. Even Daniel Hudson, Clayton Richard and McCarthy. Gio Gonzalez is the one glaring miscalculation, thinking he could end up as a reliever due to his frame.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 10:35 AM) I don't call guys with just a minute chance of being effective pitchers on good teams "depth". Guys that make you quesy just putting their name on the line up card. It is OK if you don't plan on winning, but the White Sox plan on winning. Rienzo has never been that great in the minors and really had a tough time keeping the ball in the ballpark when he was called up. Surkamp to me is left handed for Axelrod, and the Paulino love is unreal. I think I posted the last time Paulino pitched which was June of 2012, Paulie was hitting .376 with an 1.100 OPS. Paulino was really good in 6 starts in 2012, he was injured in the first inning of start 7, but basing his future success after major surgery on a guy over 30 on 6 starts is crazy. Maybe they catch lightning in a bottle, but chances are, he is going to have his struggles. He does resemble Bartolo Colon at the waistline, so I imagine some shots will be directed that way in gamethreads when they happen. The irony with Colon is that the last time we had him, it seemed like the end of his career and he was a legit Cy Young contender for most of last season. As has been mentioned over and over again in the 2-3 threads on this, there's surely a magic number in terms of years and total dollar amount that would pique the interest of Hahn and company. It's not 4 years, but it's probably 2 (and maybe 3) years with some type of option. Konerko has never been in 5% body fat shape, and it hasn't ever really impacted his performance, but it has been used a lot as the reason for Viciedo's and Dunn's struggles. As some of the older fans here know, Tony Gwynn and John Kruk were great hitters who didn't even look like they played professional sports if you saw them walking past you on the street.

In all fairness, it's a testament (negatively) to the state of our minor league system that Dylan Axelrod was more or less the best starting option for the first 2-3 months last year. That said, the White Sox minor league system produced a plethora of relievers the season before, as well as Quintana and Santiago (at least smart scouting in the case of Quintana)...and then Johnson last year, so that's 3 quality starters in 2 seasons that are offsetting the poor allocation of resources into Dunn/Danks/Keppinger. And the depth with Rienzo/Surkamp/Paulino and eventually Beck means they can allocate those $10-15 million they were going to spend on a pitcher somewhere else, not to mention the savings created from likely trading Alexei Ramirez and in all probability DeAza and/or Beckham as well.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 09:11 AM) Good job, insult posters using words we deem so offensive that we've filtered them, and then break the word up so that we can see it even clearer. You're an extremist. The fact of the matter is a top 3 pick next year would be a devastating blow for this franchise when all is said and done. It would mean that nobody has progressed, there were severe injuries in the pitching staff, and the coaching staff has shown pure incompetence and that this offseason was a complete and utter failure. Yes, in a vacuum, if I had to choose between the 3rd pick and the 16th pick, I'd take the 3rd pick, but this isn't a vacuum, and that pick depends upon how well the team has played, and if they end up with the 3rd pick, then it sets the organization back about 5 years because they need to scrap everything and start over. They're likely going to end up with a pick in the 8-14 range. That's a perfectly good draft pick where there will be a large number of very, very talented players available. That's a success. What is not a success is when the team is decrepit, the minor league system is rather barren, and the team finishes about 84-78. That's when it's bad. I would take 74-78 wins in a heartbeat if Sale/Quintana stayed 100% healthy/productive, EJ looked good, all the young hitters progressed AND Courtney Hawkins and Anderson looked legitimately like future superstars in the making.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 08:53 AM) You seem to have a fetish that some others have on this board, and actually like to watch guys like Axelrod take the mound to get hammered time and time again before you are fairly certain they shouldn't be in a playoff contender's starting rotation. As I stated, there will be plenty of starts to go around if pitchers show they are worthy. Paulino has never pitched 140 innings in a season and is coming off a missed season. It is very unlikely he can or will make 30 starts. Rienzo has to prove he belongs. He hasn't yet. A stint in the bullpen or some more time at Charlotte could be good for him. Others will go down with injuries or if everyone is pitching well another team will need someone, because it pretty much happens every year except once . In 2005 the White Sox only used 6 starters. Will Jimenez make the White Sox a playoff contender next year? How do you plan to replace Dunn/LH bat, catcher, SS/2B (we can assume Semien for one of those positions, probably, but can't be sure as he wasn't even on most top Sox prospect lists coming into 2013) and any weaknesses at the back end of the bullpen?