caulfield12

46 strikeouts for Baez now...

Viciedo with two atrocious throws...Alexis should have had kinsler at third as well.

Do we have another beckham/viciedo situation on our hands? Seems he is waiting to identify them first instead of anticipating and getting his bat going early. Guys with great stuff seem to be making him look bad. Ptac is there any medical reason his shoulder would affect him more on breaking stuff than high fastballs? There also seems to be a hitch or a lot of loading going on. Havent most of his Xb hits been on off speed stuff? Or fastballs 92 mph or slower?

Doubront with an excellent start today. Hard to start off better than soler...8 for 12 with two doubles and three homers

DeAza misplayed ball in lf with a bad jumpOut trying to stretch a double to a tripleTwo abreu errors on simple playsBad throw from Alexei to home on deaza's misplayAnother ball getting past ConorTyler calls a hanging curve when he needs Carroll's sinker to keep the ball on the ground instead hunter has an easy time getting the ball in the airFlowers and Carroll fall asleep and allow a delayed double steal and flowers makes a balloon throw...trail runner sneaks into second That's just in the span of two innings

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 12:58 AM) You haven't said anything here that is logically valid. Well, when you compare Miguel Cabrera 2012-2013 with Jose Abreu, there are a lot of similarities, EXCEPT for the strikeouts Jose has accumulated. Both players are/were not noted for their defensive abilities (Cabrera moving back to 3B with the acquisition of Fielder, then from 3B to 1B again, Jose simply adjusting to MLB), although they actually improved and surpassed quite minimal expectations. Of course, Miguel Cabrera was also playing on ALCD winners those two seasons, while Trout's Angels clubs were also-rans.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 09:20 PM) Adolfo's ISO is up to about .160 now, that's impressive for a 17 year old first year player who's playing against competition 2-3 years older than him. His power is legit, if he cuts his K% down to a respectable rate next year, you will start seeing him in many Top 100 list. Before the 2016 season if he's extremely productive in 2015 at some point in Kannapolis. Doubtful it happens, though.

Especially since Sale doesn't have much more ceiling left to get to...passing Kershaw, Felix and maybe Scherzer?

Greg will be happy. The Royals tried to win the game with Holland pitching in a tie game in the Top of the 9th at home, didn't score in the bottom of the 9th and now Bruce Chen's pitching like he does against every team not named the White Sox. KC will need another dramatic comeback off Perkins or will lose a game to the Tigers, who somehow got a quality start out of Lobstein and beat Kuroda. 8-5 now. Royals chances for another miracle finish this week rapidly diminishing. 26-9 now over their last 35 games. Reminiscent of the White Sox 26-5 run in mid-2010.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 09:32 PM) It's time to sit Flowers, DeAza, Tank, Dunn and play four callups in those spots the rest of the year. As well as Semien at second for the final month. Also sit Sale and Danks since there's no reason to put wear on their arms, maybe even Q. Team probably will lose anyway but it'll be fun. Where are you going to play Alexei, Sanchez and Semien? You might as well stick Marcus in LF, because Carlos Sanchez isn't going to the OF. Alexei isn't and shouldn't be sitting too much unless Hahn knows for sure he's trading him this offseason and wants to prevent him from wearing down too much or getting injured. Plus, when you're playing the Tigers and Royals, it's not going to be fair to sit Ramirez and just play Sanchez and Semien up the middle. Or you play Sierra/Michael Taylor for one month. That's another option.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 09:09 PM) The ceiling of the Cubs main prospects (Baez, Russell, Bryant, Soler) is significantly higher than anyone in the Sox organization outside of Abreu. The Sox future pitching seems to be much stronger than the Cubs, while the Cubs future hitting is significantly better than the White Sox. The key will be the team that is able to use their money to fill their weakness without giving out more bad contracts (ie: Dunn and Edwin Jackson). Don't forget Danks. Well, perhaps it's more exact to say it BECAME or evolved into a bad contract, debate the original intention all you want. I know one thing. The Cubs in a million years aren't going to trade you Arrieta AND Russell/Bryant/Soler and probably Baez (whose stock is clearly down at the moment) for Jose Quintana. They might offer Alcantara, Edwards/P.Johnson and Arrieta for him, though. That at least makes for an interesting discussion, although I don't see the Cubs' making that offer until/unless they shore up other parts of their rotation. I don't think they can 100% count on Wada not getting figured out, Turner's a huge question mark at best and Doubront as well.

MVP is always so subjective. Look at the debate over Andre Dawson back in the date when he was clearly the best player but on one of the worst teams. Even with Nelson Cruz's "comeback" season and bulging homer/RBI numbers, a lot of credit there goes to Adam Jones and Pearce as well. It would be harder to pick a "one dimensional" player to some, compared to a Robinson Cano who does everything well and is handicapped by playing at Safeco in terms of his overall offensive numbers, especially homers. The Trout thing's going to be kind of a "first 3 years in the big leagues early lifetime achievement" award, in a way. Of course, Trout's on one of the best teams in baseball now, and Abreu's White Sox are in the bottom 5 for MLB in terms of runs scored/allowed differential. On the other hand, where would the White Sox be without Abreu and Sale?

Almost impossible to figure out anything more than a Top 5 or so right now... If I was a betting man, I'd say Mike Trout gets it simply for being the overall best player in baseball the last three years, but he's slumped mightily the last couple of months and is K'ing a lot more as well. Sale just doesn't have enough starts, the W-L record or the winning/playoff-caliber team to merit many MVP votes, although he's deserving in his own right.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 11:32 AM) You ask "who is more likely to be a top 10 MVP candidate," between 3 players who are not likely to be MVPs of a league, which includes, at the bare minimum, 375 players, and I respond with neither because this is a true point. I ask "who would you rather see up in a game situation?" and give two options when disproving your notion that RBI is a meaningful statistic and, in making my very generalized point, you respond with Victor Martinez. Sweet, now if you can let Dombrowski and Ausmus know that we're just gonna use Victor Martinez in this situation which has nothing to do with him, that'd be awesome. Do you see the difference? OK, so who would you rather have up in that situation, Adam Dunn or Gordon Beckham? Remember that Gordon Beckham is going to have more RBI. Or a real life situation with real life numbers: who would you rather have up in that situation, Adam Dunn (50 RBI) or Aaron Hill (55 RBI)? Stone and Harrelson talk about "run producers" in the middle of the line-up all the time. I was listening to Stone on Hit & Run show a couple of weeks ago saying over and over again Conor isn't a run producer. If Conor's outproducing Adam, has a better OPS and yet isn't a run producer, that doesn't say much for Dunn's season. Or you can use another statistic like Runs Created or Runs Created/27. Who would rank 2nd and 3rd after Abreu in that category? I'm going to guess Gillaspie again, maybe Alexei....Dunn could be 3rd. I would argue Alexei's been better at producing runs this year for the White Sox than Adam. And Dunn can't run once he gets on base, so he has to drive them in or be driven in. Part of that's obviously a function of having good hitters behind you, and Viciedo and Flowers and Beckham all had long stretches where they struggled this year. If you're being paid $15 or 16 million and your ONLY job is to hit, and we're arguing whether a SS or Conor Gillaspie is outproducing you offensively (and that's not even taking into consideration WAR or Alexei's defensive contributions), that's not a good argument that will go in your favor. Essentially Dunn isn't even an effective hitter against LHP, so you're getting paid $20-22 million or so to hit, because there has to be another player (in this case Konerko and other bench players) to cover up for your deficiencies.

I'm not even certain the Cubs would trade Arrieta for Quintana straight up. Maybe now. A month or so ago, I would have said probably not.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 02:10 PM) Have you ever seen Barack Obama and Spencer Adams in the same place? Or maybe they are working together. I mean, Obama = Osama, and if you just take the "s" from the end of Adams and you move it to the front...SADAM Be careful America. That theory would work a lot better if it was SaDDam.

QUOTE (peavy44 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 02:05 PM) Which game he doing day or night game Isn't Sale pitching against Scherzer one of those games?

QUOTE (Charlie Haeger's Knuckles @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 12:40 PM) If he pitches well, this probably punches the ticket for Rienzo and Carroll next season. That'd be something, to get that righthanded power arm balance for the rotation without the Sox diving into the deep end of the free agent market. If you'd like to congratulate him, do so here: https://twitter.com/C_Bass419 Yes, but you would have thought the same with Erik Johnson coming into this season. I'll be absolutely shocked if Bassit posts better numbers for a month than EJ did last September...especially when facing teams that are desperate and hungry for wins like that Tigers' line-up.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 02:25 PM) Viciedo's failure was not hard so see during that 25 homer season -- the 25 HR number was literally the only positive hitting data point he had. It's a hell of a feat to hit 25 homers and still have a below average offensive season, but he did. It absolutely screamed fluke, and when you dug into his plate discipline peripherals, it looked even worse. And yet I'm sure it would be hard to find a lot of people arguing in the 2012-2013 offseason that he should have been traded. Maybe it's there. Yes, there were warning signs. But it's also not like he didn't show some significant progress in the minor leagues in those years, and he looked really dangerous as early as 2010 as a 21 year old up for the first time with Ozzie protecting him with favorable pitching match-ups. There's just no way KW's baby was getting traded away by Hahn at that point. Dumping Keppinger, Paulino and Downs, that's a whole lot different.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 02:17 PM) I've seen Semien & I think he may have some real hitting abilities, but like Rios, maybe mentally he can't get there. I like some of what I have seen though. I wonder if Ravelo & Anderson and maybe Wilkins are pretty similar. I haven't seen any of those guys. There are always going to be mental and mechanical things that can come into play but I think there is a base ability that some guys have and others don't. I'm talking to myself here but caulfield is in this thread, and that's great, because he'll talk to me. Anyway I like turtles still. Just relax, lol. You're thinking way too much, or overthinking this. Clearly, it's been an issue with the White Sox for a generation of prospects. That said, they've always been able to identify guys like a Dye/AJ/Iguchi...Jim Thome when some thought his career was over with the Phils...two MVP-type hitters in Carlos Quentin in 2008 and now Abreu, not to mention Alexei Ramirez. OTOH, all those big-time failures like Borchard, Fields, Anderson and Beckham are a lot to overcome, and Semien struggling mightily in his call-up didn't help matters much. We're going to have to cross our fingers Eaton can stay healthy and that Avisail Garcia can mature into a middle of the order presence he appears to be physically...but with the homers and doubles to go with it.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 12:03 PM) As someone who listened to a ton of Fringe Average Podcasts (RIP), Parks really WAS all over the Cubs nuts. He would bring them up constantly, while Mike Ferrin would be discussing other things. I mean, the Twins have a loaded farm system too and he never spoke of them, other than Buxton. Really sad to not have Parks as a prospects resource anymore. He was really funny and I enjoyed hearing him talk prospects. But as soon as I heard he was going to work for the Cubs, I stared laughing because that was such a perfect fit for him. I'm still not sure how having such a "homer" working for your team helps in any other way other than public relations, like a Scott Merkin. Why would any other organization who's looking to trade for a Cubs' prospect do anything but take what he says with a grain of salt and actually perform a lot more due diligence to compensate for the fact that few prospects can ever live up to such constant hyping and media sensationalism.

We're long past the time of dealing Viciedo. If you'd written this thread in 2012 and challenged everyone that a 23 year old coming of a 25 home run season as a rookie (and fielding better than average) was going to regress completely, and also based on how guys like Cespedes and then Puig were having such huge impacts, it wouldn't have seemed possible that Dayan would be the one huge swing and a miss of all the Cuban hitters signed so far, but he clearly has been. As well as they scouted Alexei and Abreu, they missed something this time around that's hard to pick up on in Serie Nacional video or controlled batting practices and "showcases" for scouts. The other thing that everyone really fell in love with Viciedo was his arm strength. If not for that and his ability to drive the ball to the opposite field without much effort, we'd never have heard of him. Those are two tantalizing aspects that don't overcompensate for the lack of walks, the overswinging, the missing of way too many hittable pitches in the zone, the double play balls and numerous defensive lapses, the difficult hitting RHP and just in general hitting pitchers with great stuff (above 93 MPH) up in the zone. As with Crain and Floyd last year, almost every single player that was on the borderline this year has fallen off to the point where they have zero or negligible trade value, except for Alexei Ramirez, who we can't trade if we actually want to compete before 2017. I suppose they could use their magic 8 ball to know Gillaspie, Noesi and Putnam will regress next year, but all three of those "success stories" are likely to be back in Chicago next season for different reasons.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 08:12 AM) I think any season the White Sox play before Chris Sale clutches his elbow or shoulder, where they are playing out the string with over a month to go, is not a successful season. There's a really good Passan article about the Yu Darvish "tenderness" issue and why they're being so careful with him when there's nothing to play for going down the stretch except holding the #1 overall draft pick...and about examples like Daniel Hudson, where pitchers were rushed back too quickly from TJ.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 11:14 AM) The last prospect that Hawk was obsessed with was C.J. Retherford. He hit .201 in AAA before playing Independent ball the following year. Or Ryan Sweeney, when he looked so good that one spring.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 11:05 AM) I didn't say they are realstic, I'm just using the logic you used to show why it's a ridiculous premise. They are virtually irrelevant yes. They do it for traditions' sake. It's the same reason they keep track of W-L. Ultimately, RBI means nothing other than had ample opportunities to drive people in. Homers are different because a home run is the ultimate form of production and efficiency - there is no other hit in the entire game that guarantees a run than a home run. Ultimately, I want good hitters. A lot of times, guys who hit a lot of home runs are good hitters. Home runs absolutely are not irrelevant. Dunn shouldn't return a lot. He's a mid 30s player in the last month of his contract whose only real utility is his productivity against RHP, and even that is limited to some extent by his contact issues. There's still value there, and they should be able to save some money or get a semi-useful prospect out of the whole deal. I wouldn't expect confidence in Dunn into his mid 30s either, but on a 1-2 year deal, he isn't the worst option. I still don't see him re-signing with the White Sox. I could care less if they re-sign him, but I'd prefer they search for alternatives first. If he's the fat chick at the bar, then I have no problem with the Sox bringing him back. It's never going to be a key to the offseason and I've never even come close to saying anything like that. I was primarily criticizing you for using RBI as a justification for run-production when the correlation between hitters and RBI numbers is derivative of their approach at the plate, who they hit behind, and how many at bats they get. If Gordon Beckham hit behind prime Rickey Henderson and Kenny Lofton at the top of the lineup, and Adam Dunn hit behind Rey Ordonez and Mario Mendoza at the bottom of the lineup, who do you think will get more RBI? But, with 2 outs, a runner on 1B, and down by 2 in the bottom of the 9th, who would you prefer at the plate? NEITHER. A hitter I would be confident in actually putting the ball in play, like a Victor Martinez.