caulfield12

TCU first rounder Finnegan has been huge for the Royals. He essentially replaced Scott Downs in their pecking order down the stretch.

Seems like Bassitt's pitching himself onto the 2015 roster as either the long man, fifth starter or set-up guy (in the current Daniel Webb spot). Wouldn't be surprised to see the Indians challenge the Tigers next year because of Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar and Bauer...one more veteran starter and a couple of bats and they're very dangerous. Need a bounceback from Kipnis, though. With Brantley, Santana, Kipnis, Gomes, Chisenhall, that's a pretty solid core of hitters, too. Baez 84 K's in 188 AB's. Ouch. Soler still looking good. Alcantara=Semien.

Joyce is another good bounceback candidate, along with Billy Butler. Plus he fits the LH box to check off. Someone else mentioned LaRoche with the Nationals, if Zimmerman's forced to 1B.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 05:45 PM) Sierra hitting near .280 with the Sox , better on D, faster and probably an even stronger arm than Dayan. Viciedo should be on Hahn's attempt to trade list. Bassitt 1-2-3 in the second. Edit: Actually .283 with the Sox Two separate issues. Sierra is NOT an option to be a starting OFer for the White Sox IMO, nor should he be, at least if we're serious about contending. In order to trade Dayan, you're going to have to tender him/go through salary arbitration, and that will make him even more expensive and harder to deal, so it's a bit of a Catch-22.

Royals had the tying run at 2B with two outs but couldn't push the second run of the inning across. Would have been weird to walk-off on a visiting field. Indians, if the game had been tied, wouldn't have been able to celebrate in the top of the next inning, having to wait again for the Royals to bat. Weird.

SUPPOSEDLY the SF Giants are all over Yasmani Tomas, making him the top priority of their off-season spending. The Rangers will have a private workout for Cuban outfielder Yasmany Tomas at their Dominican complex on Wednesday, according to a source. Tomas had his first open showcase yesterday at the Giants’ facility in the Dominican Republic and is at the Phillies today for a private workout. According to sources, the Rangers and Phillies were among the teams with a strong presence at Tomas’ heavily-attended Sunday showcase, while the Padres (including general manager A.J. Preller), Yankees, Diamondbacks, Giants and Mets were also well-represented. Tomas, a 23-year-old corner outfielder, has residency in Haiti and his paperwork lined up from the United States’ Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), though he is still waiting for Major League Baseball to declare him a free agent. from baseballamerica.com

QUOTE (Charlie Haeger's Knuckles @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 05:10 PM) call John Hart and fleece the Braves into trading Luis Avilan to be a primary leftie in the bullpen. Walks bit him in the ass this season, which I am sure is an easy fix for the vastly superior Sox coaching staff. Robin'll fix 'em If it was THAT easy, Cleto and Webb would both be studs. Hart's not going to make any big moves until the new GM is in place and a strategy/vision for the future is in place. Bassitt's role as well will be interesting...

Ooops. Didn't see this one up here at the top of the page. Merge. Since I've never started a game thread ever, better to continue that non-tradition.

Bassit escapes from trouble early....Flowers with homer #15, solidifying his starting spot for 2015. Royals escape bases loaded, no out situation in 1st in CLE and have 1-0 lead heading into the 2nd. TOR all over Seattle early, 4-1. Five teams now within 4 1/2 games of each other, stretching from DET to CLE.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 05:18 PM) How many games would Martinez play in the field next year if the Sox signed him? I'm on board with getting him but we still need to trade for one more good bat that plays in the field IMO. Victor + new guy and we've got a deep lineup. He could play 10-25 games at 1B, being the primary back-up for Abreu. You don't want him catching. Emergency 3B, but you don't want to see that happen, either.

QUOTE (chisoxfan310 @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 05:13 PM) I don't see Cleveland paying for him either. I think it'll be a 5 team race with the teams you mentioned and us (unless an NL team wants him to play first of course). Which means Kendrys Morales, with a full offseason and spring training, becomes one of the five or so likeliest options for the Sox. I'd actually rather have Billy Butler, despite his RHedness.

Aoki, Shields, Butler or V-Mart. The more I've been watching Aoki recently, the more I like him. He has an unorthodox approach, has cut down his K rate dramatically as he dealt with the transition from NL to AL....at the plate, the defense has no idea where to play him as he hits to all fields equally well, he's just a nice/solid glue or complimentary player that does all the little things right, another version of Iguchi. Statistically, he's been on fire the last month or so, so my having watched him a lot in the middle of a hot streak is skewing my viewpoint a bit, but he's just been the most dangerous hitter for the Royals. At any rate, that would be quite a nice off-season, and weaken two division foes. The problem is that I just don't see V-Mart until/unless we're in win now/all in mode, and that's not really setting up for 2015 without also adding another starter, two pieces in the bullpen (at least) and fixing the LF situation. Another solution is simply to sign Aoki and Shields, and DH Viciedo. Of course, if you cut Viciedo's $5ish million, that gives you a lot more flexibility to sign Martinez. (Unfortunately, the Martinez we could really use is JD Martinez, in terms of price range).

Or they move Montas to the pen as a closing candidate, but that's far from an ideal scenario. Olacio's another name that could move fast if everything just clicks. Taylor Thompson, probably the last we've heard from him, fwiw. Somehow I have a feeling we'll end up bringing in the likes of Jim Johnson, Frieri, Grilli, etc. Reclamation project, versus someone we're going to pay $8-12 million per season.

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 21, 2014 -> 05:59 PM) Donaldson walk off homer. A's 85-70 Royals 84-71 (unless they score 2 in the 10th tomorrow, and then win) Mariners 83-72 AL Central- Tigers have a 2 game lead on the Royals with 7 left. fwiw, the Royals miss Kluber (pitched Sun) and get Duffy back, so that's two big positives for them. We'll see if today's win was enough to stanch the bleeding. The White Sox had a similar huge nail-biting Addison Reed saved win to take 1 of 3 roughly two years ago and then everything pretty much came unglued. Tigers with four and one-half former closers in Johnson, Chamberlain, Soria, Coke and Nathan, yet can't figure out how to use Soria correctly (which means in the 8th instead of Joba). I still can't understand why AL AL can't put it all together with his stuff, either.

It's not about LOVING Viciedo or HATING Garcia. The question is how much better Garcia will end up being than Viciedo as a corner outfielder with his defensive limitations, what his offensive upside is...and whether he'll be worth more in 2-3 seasons than he is now. If he can't regularly drive fastballs out of the park, then he'll be a 1-2 WAR type of player, which is okay but not going to win us any pennants, either. We'll see next season, as there won't be the missed half season and rust to deal with, presumably. Dayan's a possible non-tender candidate, so his value has been pretty much driven into the ground...although some team out there will give up a B or C prospect for 20-30 homer power, despite its inherent flaws (see Alvarez/Domonic Brown/Chris Carter, etc.).

I think oak is the perfect glue guy if u add that one dh threat. Gordon and butler are really struggling down the stretch....reminiscent of the sox against det and kc in sept 2012. Should easily be 7-2 or 7-1 and moustakas made a completely boneheaded error his fifth on the home stand. Iwakuma has really run out of gas for sea in the last month....so has zunino.

I mean the o.s. Makes some strange characters.

Viciedos at least having better ab's the times I have watched....just no results. Teams are so much more careful with abreu now that Dunn is gone. Maybe that's my imagination.

You can probably blame the tigers...for avi's fundamentals. You can blame the sox for lack of accountability if u want though. Detroit did pick up j.d. Martinez and rajai Davis for practically nothing so you can't be too dumb when u win a division four consecutive years. I personally hope the a's royals or mariners ruin someone's party in the playoffs. Except all three of those teams are holding on for dear life on their individual roller coaster rides. Possessing offenses other than cano are ugly bordering on putrid. Meanwhile Carlos Sanchez is down in the mid 500s ops-wise as predicted.

Everyone goes through similar feelings until/unless something big happens in the offseason... Being married now again I've spent a lot more time shopping and thats just as frivolous and usually wastes more money unless you actually attend most of the games. On the other hand impulse buying brings a different type of happiness for women. Life is always a trade off. I just watched hundreds if not thousands of people waiting for 2-3 hours for the grand opening of an ikea store here in china...and spent $750 on a Mont Blanc pen to make my wife happy so everything is pretty much relative. Next week I will see a wta tennis tournament live for the first time in wuhan. I've loved tennis my whole life yet never attended a single tournament until now. Maybe I will even meet Maria sharapova out shopping later haha. So Reading classic novels watching movies or tv shows...we all need our escapes in one form or another. Maybe for others it's music and going to concerts.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Sep 20, 2014 -> 05:41 PM) Damn I didn't realize how much power Nick Franklin had either. If its true Hahn wanted him, then that sucks to see. High k rate... So-so fielder he's going to be a decent player at the next level but not much more than that especially since he had to be moved off ss. Upside is dan uggla.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Sep 20, 2014 -> 12:12 PM) For all we know the Davidson deal was a blessing in disguise, kind of along the line DA was talking about earlier, how one move affects another. Davidson hitting .199 in Charlotte is bad but none of us give a s*** what the Knights do, we just care about what he does in MLB. But even if he hit .299 with the same or better power numbers and a lot better contact then it still wouldn't necessarily make it as a MLB player. However had Davidson put out a very good year instead of a very bad year then Hahn probably keeps a spot open on the 2015 MLB roster for him, and who knows, that could have ended up a mistake. As it is now, Davidson's bad year keeps him out of the picture & makes Hahn think about making another move he otherwise wouldn't have thought about making. If that move, then, is the one that really makes us better then how much all things considered has Davidson's bad AAA season hurt us? If Davidson or any other MiLB is going to bomb out on *us* before we are able to trade him and capitalize on his present value, then ideally that bombing occurs away from the MLB club where it actually has an on-field impact. That's convoluted logic....we were better off losing the santos reed and Jackson/teahen trades because whiffing on all those resulted in a more pronounced talent gap than previously?

Would love to see Garcia do that with plus fastballs instead of rolling curves but we will take it. Unfortunately the bad nl teams are falling back to us and the protected pick is in legit danger.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 11:19 PM) I believe his point was to show you that "good managers" doesn't equal "good teams". Hell, Maddens team this year is only 4 games better than the Sox....With a bullpen that pans out this season the Sox are at least a few games better than the Rays. Again people like to bring up the defense when talking about Robin, and I brought this up in a game thread the the day...The bottom 3 teams in errors this season are Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Oakland. Those teams are lead by Terry Francona (Last years AL manager of the year), Clint Hurdle(Last years NL manager of the year), and Bob Melvin(2012s AL manager of the year)....Now I know awards can be perceived as irrelevant, but wouldn't you say those guys are viewed as "good managers"? Why are their ball clubs last in errors? What about overall fielding percentage and team uzr?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 10:53 PM) And yet there have been several offseasons where we thought we had a shot to win the WS..... 2006 was long ago as well....2009 nobody knew how Quentin would come back and 2011 will prevent sox fans from ever getting excited again about the addition of a thome/Dunn-esque slugger.