caulfield12

We could put together a list of all the former HOF players on the Sox. Griffey, Jr. Thome. Vizquel. Seaver. Carlton. Pudge Fisk. Roberto Remember the Alomar. Michael Jordan (BB). Bo Jackson (CFB). Frank Thomas.

Since the Cubs' thread is closed now, and this sort of fits into the Hahn/FA discussion, thought it was worthwhile to include. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...,7811259.column Do you think Haugh's being fair? Other than Edwin Jackson and Ian Stewart, it's not like Epstein has made a ton of obvious mistakes, either. He's gotten rid of all the bad contracts like Marmol, Zambrano and Soriano. Some will take him to task for the bungled Dempster negotiations. Others, for little moves like Ryan Sweeney (his version of Jeff Keppinger, since he's now acquired him twice) that won't inspire the fanbase. It's hard to fault him for dealing Garza if they didn't believe 100% in him going forward. In a lot of ways, the White Sox and Cubs are in similar situations, with the Cubs' being outfront with their minor league system by quite a bit and the Sox with the much better starting pitching depth and better overall talent in the starting line-up with the addition of Abreu now. Lake LF Castro SS Schierholtz RF Rizzo 1B Donnie Murphy 3B Sweeney CF Castillo C Barney 2B That's a pretty terrible line-up. At least they have a catcher, but Darwin Barney is basically a mirror image of Gordon Beckham at 2B, Rizzo is their Viciedo, Castro's a mess and who knows which ND long-haired/golden-locked pitcher will show up to start the season. Some are suggesting Daniel Murphy for LF over Lake. Others want to repair the bullpen (same issue the White Sox currently have, among others) with Logan/Javier Lopez/JP Howell or Scott Downs. The big signings would be Ellsbury/Choo for the OF or Tanaka for the starting rotation. Their back-up options in terms of pitching targets are Phil Hughes and Danny Haren. Others want to bring back Jeff Baker as a utility INF/PH, or Brayan Pena to split time with Castillo. Finally, concerns about Pedro Strop as a future closer suggest the possibility of bringing in someone like Joaquin Benoit as closer. Other than bungling the managerial search so far, do honestly think he should sign any of those seven most expensive players? Who, if you were the Cubs' GM, would you sign to "fix" your team and inspire your fanbase, looking with your golden ball into the future with Bryant at 3B/LF, Soler in LF/RF, Almora in CF, etc. Maybe Olt at 3B, if he ever figures things out again, with Bryant in LF. Are the Cubs in a place where signing an Ellsbury, Choo or Tanaka even makes sense? Don't you have to find an anchor for your starting rotation to build around...or trade for one and trust your scouts?

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 09:43 PM) Garcia>De Aza>Viciedo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Sizemore.... Lillian is the only one investigating Sizemore...

Tanaka's going to get around $125 million, and he's not even close to the talent that Darvish is/was at the time of the posting. The five best FA pitchers after Tanaka are Colon, Kuroda, U. Jimenez, Garza and E. Santana. A ton of money's going to flow to those top five to ten position players at the top of the FA board. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/japanese-ace-...-171014762.html

QUOTE (DrunkBomber @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 02:38 PM) I liked Bad Grandpa. I was worried that all the funny scenes would be in the trailers but there were actually a decent amount of funny scenes that werent, including two of the funniest ones. One of those scenes came right out of Borat/Little Miss Sunshine. It seemed like a lesser version of the Sasha Baron Cohen classic in quite a few places...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 04:41 PM) For the White Sox...going with one of those guys would make sense if they were confident in Phegley or Flowers and wanted a more veteran backup alongside. In that case, Navarro might not fit well since he's a righty. Just keep in mind, neither of those guys has 400 PA's since Navarro in 2009. They're backups. .684 career OPS for Navarro, .651 for Pena. Navarro had solid numbers last year....in 260 PA's as a heavily platooned player against LH starters. I can see how one of those guys can have a role just fine...but it's a backup role next to a starting Josh Phegley who gets 450-500 PA's. Are you confident Phegley can be a solid starting catcher and contribute with the bat like a starter? Is Hahn? I don't know, but that's the situation where adding one of those guys makes sense. In terms of AJ...fine...if we're expecting him to get 200 PA's. The problem is...if AJ gets his usual 500+ PA's and Phegley or Flowers gets consigned to backup duty...we're not doing anything to set ourselves up long term. If you're pessimistic, maybe one of the guys we currently have has a 5% chance of breaking out next year...but AJ would have a 0% chance of being a contributor to the White Sox long term. he'd only be a fit if we signed Ellsbury and had other upgrades on top of that - where they want a starting catcher next year that they can count on to help compete next year. And, if I'm Mike Illitch/Dombrowski, I'm looking for an upgrade over Avila at catcher (a bit touchy with his father in the front office, but he's been subpar two seasons in a row after looking like a future star in 2011)....2B (Cano?)...and then a power-hitting corner outfielder/LF/DH type who can help replace Victor Martinez's bat. So the Tigers, yet another team in the catching sweepstakes that could outbit nearly everyone if they chose to do so. The A's might be looking as well. Buck and Suzuki are two other names to watch.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 02:45 PM) I think Hahn realizes we have 4-5 positions that MUST be changed. He has to do it unless he wants another 95 plus loss season. He won't last long if we don't get to .500 soon and start contending soon. Being the worst team or two in baseball won't cut it and currently the Sox are a bottom feeder entering next season. Hahn will change it. You can say the same thing for Epstein on the Northside. He has at least two more years and probably three. They've just gone through two terrible seasons. Hahn, at a minimum, will have through the 2015 season and probably into 2016 unless the entire organization just falls apart and they badly blow the #3 draft pick next year.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 01:26 PM) Then you are ignoring the right posts. There is a lot of crap spewed on this site just like any similar team site on the internet. But everyone here wants the same thing. I am pretty sure we all want to see sustained success from our favorite baseball team. Most people are down on Beckham and Viciedo. I wouldn't trade Viciedo for a bag of balls but I don't think he's been used properly either. Beckham OTOH, I think gets dealt this offseason. Alexei Ramirez is a really good defensive SS who is overpaid for what he brings offensively. Would not be shocked to see him gone as well. Santiago is not a frontline starter. He has fantastic stuff and needs to not walk as many people. But he should not be traded unless the Sox get value in return. Even if he is a #4 starter, young, cost-controlled LHP is very valuable. And finally, Chris Beck isn't a top 100 guy but at one time he was a potential 1st round draft choice. He had a good season last year and I expect him to build on that. TheFutureisNOTnear cracks me up. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/sort/strikeoutsPerNineInnings/type/expanded-2 Despite fading, Santiago is barely outside the Top 20 for all the majors in this statistic. Looks like a TON of #1 starters on that list to me. All the Cubs' fans rave about Rizzo as if he's a demigod/Thor/Ryan Gosling rolled into one, and yet Viciedo has better overall numbers despite 1/3rd the hype (or overhype). Finally, Beck was viewed by nearly every scout as a Top 5-10 first round draft pick at Georgia Southern before he bulked up. He's gone through major body and mechanical changes in the last two years and is finally starting to gain confidence again and come into his own, putting up more impressive K numbers and fine-tuning his delivery.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 01:13 PM) Steverson should bring Beckham in for a week and start making the necessary changes, the final changes, to his stance/approach. If we are going to keep Beckham, this is his last chance at becoming a productive hitter in a Sox uniform. If Beckham doesn't want to work with him ... that's a bad sign. That's the last thing they need to do. He's not Tiger Woods (cue jokes).

QUOTE (scs787 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 01:22 PM) While we're talking ERA....Guess what Hectors ERA as a starter was???? 3.51 I didn't check recently, but he was in the Top 5-10 in the majors for K's/9 as well for the majority of the season before running out of gas down the stretch. Of course, his detractors will say all those k's led to elevated pitch counts and the bullpen constantly being summoned in the 5th or 6th inning of his starts.

I would like to borrow those five toolsy outfielders and add them to the Iowa football offense. God, they're the most boring team in the history of college FB, and Iowa's had some boring offenses under Ferentz, who's one of the highest paid coaches in the game. If they're going to do something dumb, I'd rather they spend that money on Ellsbury than a Choo or Granderson, but it's just never going to happen. Everyone has been debating DeAza and the debate will continue on the likes of Beckham, Viciedo and Gillapsie/Keppinger, but NOBODY'S advocating for Flowers/Phegley to be the starting catcher. NOBODY. Which makes it pretty obvious that's where the money should go first. Because having an Ellsbury on a team without a bullpen, without any proven offensive players, without a catcher, it's just not logical. It's like adding a spoiler and racing stripes and platinum rims to a Prius. It might look good, but it's better to change the entire car and start from scratch.

QUOTE (The Gooch @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 10:35 AM) I miss the Vince Vaughn from Swingers... And Jon Favreau, but he's done well for himself, hasn't he? Thor started out around 87% at rt.com, now around 84%...right in the vicinity of Avengers and Iron Man 3. Everyone's saying it's the funniest of all the Marvel movies so far.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 01:09 PM) Why not? They have the space to. Play him a few times a week all over the OF. Nice insurance policy for when Ellsbury hits the DL. And yes, Quintana for Castro. Don't really care about Gordo anymore - but I think it's time to cut bait. I'd keep him on the roster, but I just don't see that happening. The one thing the SOX minor leagues do have are guys capable of playing 2B. Time for the SOX to move on. There's the problem...you can't spend $125-150 million on a player you're already expecting or predicting will be injured. Because those endemic health issues aren't going to improve when he's 34-35-36.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 01:05 PM) This thread is funny. 1. The Sox will not be signing Ellsbury or someone else that costs the team a 2nd round draft pick. 2. A.J. Pierzynski is not coming back. 3. I work with Curtis Granderson's college roommate and he says that White Sox would be interested in a short term deal (2 years). Yankees will most likely give him a QO taking him off the table for the Sox as well. Moves like that just don't make business sense for the White Sox right now. The Sox need to draft and develop the next Jacoby Ellsbury rather than paying the actual Jacoby Ellsbury money for past performance. It's flawed logic. Let someone else do that. Therein lies the problem. None of those toolsy outfielders (Mitchell, Thompson, Jacobs, Walker, Hawkins) are anywhere close to having the impact of an Ellsbury.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 01:02 PM) As others have said, Montero isn't catching much longer. He is atrocious behind the dish. I'd still have some interest in bringing him in, but where's he gonna play? Not a great fit. Zunino and D'Arnaud aren't going anywhere. Someone mentioned Jason Casto - now, that would be a move I could get on board with, and I'd probably trade Santiago + to get. Yikes. A healthy Ellsbury would totally change the complexion of the SOX in a good way. Hell, if I had Ellsbury, I would still keep De Aza and get him some starts all over the OF. There is no doubt that a 7 year $140M contract would be hampering to the SOX at some point, but I think this team has a chance: Ellsbury CF Semien 2B Abreu 1B Dunn DH Garcia RF Jason Castro C Gillaspie / Keppinger 3B Viciedo LF Ramirez SS BN: De Aza, L. Garcia, Flowers. Sale J. Johnson (1 year deal $8M, option for $10M) Santiago E. Johnson Danks Add a veteran arm to the pen, and I like it. That team has a chance to compete next year below $120M. Ding, ding, ding. +1,000 They're not going to keep DeAza on the bench at $4.4 million. And I'm assuming in your example you've just traded Quintana/Beckham for Castro?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 12:55 PM) Has anybody said Sox will be involved in Ellsbury sweepstakes? I don't see it. Too much money for the Sox to spend on one player. I say give Granderson 8 mill a year; AJP 4 million and trade Viciedo and Beckham and Santiago and see if we can upgrade another position, too. We're still a last place team as it stands. Must change a lot more. Granderson's headed for 3 years $42-45 or 4/$48. There's no way they can sign him for $8 million for one season. AJ's going to get more than that...and he'll probably be looking for a one year deal with an option. Trading Viciedo and Beckham won't accomplish much. Who do you want to play in the OF? Jordan Danks? Jared Mitchell? Thompson? Because you're not going to be able to get Granderson unless those salary numbers were from a decade ago. Even AJ will be the 3rd or 4th FA option after McCann and Saltalamacchia. I'm not understanding why everyone wants to trade Santiago unless we're getting a young starting 3B or C.

The Red Sox took advantage of last August's salary purge to add middle-market free agents like Mike Napoli, Jonny Gomes, Shane Victorino and Koji Uehara — all key contributors to the World Series championship. As he looks to this offseason, general manager Ben Cherington will need to replace some big parts of the '13 team — including center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury — without making the free agent mistakes of the past. "To be in this position, given where we've come from, reflecting back a year ago at this time, there's been a lot that's happened in 13 months," manager John Farrell said after the game. "Ben Cherington deserves all the credit in the world for what he has done for this roster. To come in and see the energy and the commitment that the (players) had, the buying into a team concept every single day, and the one thing that really stands out more than anything is just their overall will to win. And that was no more evident than in this entire postseason." The Red Sox were still smarting from their 2011 collapse when they traded Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and more than $250 million in future salaries to the Los Angeles Dodgers last August. Although the team finished in last place, with the franchise's worst record in almost half a century, the rebuilding had already begun. Instead of showering money on the biggest names to replace the high-priced talent that had departed, Cherington opted to take smaller risks on mid-range players. It paid off with Uehara, the team's third or fourth choice as closer, winning the AL championship series MVP and closing out the last three wins in the World Series. It paid off with Victorino, who hit a game-winning grand slam in the ALCS and a three-run double in the Series clincher. And it paid off with Napoli, who had a three-run double in Game 1, and Gomes, whose three-run homer won Game 4. boston.com Let's face it, if none of our homegrown players like Courtney Hawkins become superstars, it's going to be almost impossible to win. Boston already had a great core with Ortiz, Ellsbury, Lester and Pedroia...and young emerging talent in Bogaerts and Middlebrooks (yes, I know he struggled but he's still getting one more year to prove himself at 3B/1B) that allowed them to deal Iglesias to the Tigers. We don't have anyone comparable to those four guys, other than Chris Sale.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 12:23 PM) Yes, but they weren't worth the money at 33 or 34, plus Ellsbury tends to get hurt a lot. You probably get at least a year or 2 of an excellent player, but after that, the countdown until his contact is off the books probably is pretty big. If the Red Sox don't give Salty a qualifying offer, there is no comp. of course we are talking about a guy they benched in the WS. Wasn't that because Ross was a personal catcher for one of their starters? He had a pretty miserable post-season, but unless the Red Sox can sign McCann...they're going to want to hold onto him. What other players out there would be a clear upgrade? Then you have the Rangers, the Yankees, the Braves, White Sox, there are quite a few teams out there looking for catching all circling around the same 2-3 guys.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 10:12 AM) Ellsbury is 30 y.o., fragile, and going to be owed north of $150M, 80 wins is likely a high point for the Sox during the Ellsbury contract. Boras' contracts have a high rate of albatross. So basically we shouldn't add anyone older than 30 for the next 5-6 years? That kind of flies right in the face of the 2004-2005 offseason.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 08:40 PM) Judging Cooper on failed minor leaguers and reclamation projects is dumb. And yet that's 80% of the pitching that KW brought in, essentially. Should we judge him on Broadway and McCulloch? That's the scouts' fault, right? So then who has he "failed" or not succeeded with that it's fair to judge him on? Certainly, most Sox fans would admit to being disappointed with the level of progress from Danks and Floyd after 2008. Neither made it to the next level, All-Star or elite status. You will say that Floyd was a reclamation project despite being a high first round draft pick.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 02:05 PM) Catcher is first, second, and third on that list. If they don't come up with some sort of constituency plan at catcher this offseason, even with Abreu signed, it's a complete failure. You can't count on Flowers or Phegley. If nothing else, bring another catching prospect into the system, even if it means trading Santiago or even Quintana for one. The system has quite a few infielders right now with quite a few of them likely capable of covering 3B if necessary. They have 3 capable outfielders and could look to bring in more. For all intents and purposes, they have zilch for catchers right now. contingency

QUOTE (Jake @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 06:42 PM) Our CF/leadoff hitter has been one of our team's best players for 2 1/3rd seasons in a row But that stretch goes back to 2005, right? DeAza has gone from a 920 OPS (limited time at the end of 2011) to 759 to 728. His WAR has been on the decline, from 2.4 (only 152 at-bats) to 2.1 to -0.3. Basically, the last two seasons, he's been around a slightly below average CF offensively and below average defensively. Out of the 10 qualified AL CFer's in 2013, he would be ranked 8th, ahead of only L. Martin and Michael Bourne. If you expand to all of MLB, he's 12/17, ahead of Jay, Blanco and Denard Span. If you go back to 2012, he was 10th out of 19 in terms of OPS. We can keep saying he was one our of better players, but would the Cardinals say J. Jay was one of their better players? Or the Rangers, Leonys Martin? Martin had a +3.4 WAR value. In fact, all of the qualified 16 players in CF were in positive territory except for DeAza. He was actually 1.8 WAR points behind the 16th ranked player in Jon Jay. At least Viciedo had a positive number, even if it was only 0.1.

QUOTE (daggins @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 05:43 PM) Looking at the worst offenders on the hitting side and its no surprise the Sox are dead last in production from 3B and CF over that time span. They're in the bottom five in nearly every position. Those non-awful positions are also no surprise - 1B, SS, C, DH. Of those, only SS is not in the bottom 10. There has to be some balance here. That is unforgivably poor. 3B has been a wasteland ever since Crede's back went out and Uribe left after 2008 as well. Mark Teahen, Morel, Orlando Hudson, Keppinger, etc. As far as CF, well, we know that the Sox haven't found a permanent answer since the Rowand trade...not that trading for Thome was bad, it's just that Brian Anderson never developed, they traded away Chris Young...and we know all about the long list of players like Mackowiak and Darin Erstad that they stuck out there. Later on, you have the Nick Swisher disaster...which forced more players who were spare parts into the position, like Wise. But yeah, along with catcher now being a huge organizational-wide issue, 3B and CF/leadoff are probably the two biggest issues that KW failed to figure out a solution to.

That, and the White Sox needed a CFer. It was getting pretty clear that Crawford was better suited for LF due to his arm.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 02:05 PM) Catcher is first, second, and third on that list. If they don't come up with some sort of constituency plan at catcher this offseason, even with Abreu signed, it's a complete failure. You can't count on Flowers or Phegley. If nothing else, bring another catching prospect into the system, even if it means trading Santiago or even Quintana for one. The system has quite a few infielders right now with quite a few of them likely capable of covering 3B if necessary. They have 3 capable outfielders and could look to bring in more. For all intents and purposes, they have zilch for catchers right now. It's going to be someone like Buck or Suzuki. There's just no way they're bringing back AJ, and McCann/Salty will ultimately either be too expensive or stay put. I wish they could figure out a way for Viciedo to catch, haha. He's been put at every position on the field except for CF and the middle infield! Navarro and Carlos Ruiz are two other options, albeit far from ideal. I'd actually amend my first sentence to say Buck/Suzuki/Ruiz. They have to get a veteran in there who could catch at least 100-110 games and lead the pitching staff.