mmmmmbeeer

Great read....thanks

Jose is easily a top 3 hitter in the league, imo. He had 10HR last April but, outside the power, he hit under .260 with an OBP just over .300 (and just 1 HR in May). He absolutely dominated after that. Post-ASB he slashed 350/432/513. June, July, and August were just phenomenal months. He's going to eventually find that perfect mix of average and power and I think it'll happen sooner than later. He could legitimately put up prime Miggy numbers this season or next. You look forward to his 4th season and beyond and I don't think it's too much of a stretch that he could draw parallels to prime Big Hurt. As Sox fans who watch a lot of games, we saw that he was adjusting to the league's adjustments extremely quickly. He was a rookie....couldn't speak English....had money for the first time in his life....was working on getting his family here....there are plenty of excuses for him to have failed last season and he overcame them all. As he becomes more comfortable, the league is in trouble.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 28, 2014 -> 04:54 PM) The most surprising numbers? 52% of the site is 30 or older. I thought it'd be higher than 52%, considering how long the site has been around.

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 12:36 PM) To assume that Johnson will be starting at 2B - unless the Sox just don't give a s*** about his measurable readiness - and Rodon will put up 2 WAR is ludicrously optimistic. This isn't about "what could be," this is about what is the most likely outcome if weighting every possibility based on its individual likelihood. The most polished, possibly best, pitcher in a solid 2014 draft class grabbing a 2 WAR this season is "ludicrous" but a computer program having Q lose 3 WAR for no apparent reason is to be believed? I dig the stats and they do have value, but c'mon.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 05:56 PM) I think those 3 are luxuries. I don't think Robin needs a particularly good year. Frankly, a great bullpen can make anyone a good manager, so if he gets career years in there he'll look so smart. For me, these are the real keys if sox are to jump from a realistic 8-9 win jump to a full 15 win jump to a possible wild card at 88 win: 1. Be remarkably healthy - this team has pretty much zero positions that an injury can occur and the team have an acceptable backup. On this end, and maybe this is greedy to include here, but one of the biggest things that could help this year is Erik Johnson and Beck making huge jumps in Triple A so that we can have that additional depth to bring up if we need burn from a long man in bullpen. 2. Stars need to be stars - Jose Abreu needs a year as big as last year. Sale needs a year as big as last year with more innings. Samardjiza/Q, again, need no dropoff here. We just do not have a deep team to overcome lack of starpower. 3. Bullpen - Robertson needs to be shutdown, Duke needs to be last year Zach Duke, and Putnam/Petricka need to be their June/July selves. Frankly, this I am hopeful for. We killed our bullpen with innings in april-may last year, and throughout the year, with some of our crap starters. Putnam/Petricka were overused, Belli was overused, and then they'd explode. But one thing I've been thinking about is how crucial this year is for our minor leagues. Will 2017 be another 2013? We need to see Anderson, Hawkins, Trey, May, Thompson, etc either be good or turn it around. If Davidson turns around, it would be crucial to future of sox moves. If they don't, we need a bunch of the arms to hit so that we can trade them off. Totally agree on the minor leaguers and hadn't thought of that. Definitely key, especially knowing Sale seems to hit the DL for 2-4 weeks every season with elbow tightness.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 05:41 PM) Those last 2 don't worry me that much. This team could easily get a very weak performance from Tyler Flowers, nothing but a September bullpen stint from Carlos Rodon, and still win the division. You're really high on this team....I like it! I think Flowers is important because the bottom 3rd of the lineup, plus a sort of unknown in Gillaspie, scares me a bit and I think that Tyler offers us the best chance of being the impactful player out of the bunch. I expect a rough season from Alexei. Rodon I chose because I think he could easily earn us an extra 5 wins which would be HUGE in a fairly balanced AL this season.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 05:39 PM) The level of seething, angry disrespect in this thread for anyone who has a negative reaction to signing this guy is really quite remarkable. We often don't even get this level for political discussions. Agreed.... I think Melky is likely clean, now. The past is the past and I'm, personally, going to give him the benefit of the doubt. With me, if a player takes PEDs and goes on to just dominate, like a Bonds, Sosa, or Clemens, I'm more disgusted than I am when a guy like Cabrera, Ozuna, or a Jhonny Peralta gets caught....cheating is cheating but the PEDs didn't have a drastic impact on the game when looking at those lesser-known players, likely due to using PEDs for a different reason (faster recovery times vs. straight performance)

I read a lot of concern on here about Avisail....I don't get it. I'm a huge proponent of his and think he's going to be an excellent bat. With that said, we all have different ideas of what needs to go right for us to succeed or is making us doubt any chance of succeeding...What are your 3 keys to this season? Here's my 3: 1. Robin Ventura needs to show that he can manage an ML team with talent. He had an excuse last year with the roster being what it was but I think it was more than obvious that he was making many poor in-game decisions that had nothing to do with a lack of talent. He needs to step up this year or folks are going to be calling for his head early and it will disrupt the clubhouse. 2. Tyler Flowers showed flashes of the offense he achieved in the minors last season. Our stats gurus on here were quick to point out his absurd BABIP during his streaks, but from the eye test he was making more consistent contact and seeing the ball well during those stretches....no surprise that more contact leads to a better offensive contributor. We really need Tyler to feel comfortable most of the season if the Sox are going to make some noise. 3. Carlos Rodon and how management decides to manage his innings. The kid has the ability to be dominant and make an immediate impact on our club leading to easier victories out of the 4th spot in the rotation. I was a fan of bringing him along in the pen out of ST and ease him into a starting role....we know that isn't happening now. My next hope is that we milk those 130-140IP during the regular season being, outside of a possible BP role, we don't need him in the playoffs with our top 3 starters. We need every win we can get and I don't want to see him handled with kid gloves...give him a job and an innings limit and let him do his thing.

I've never really followed Melky very closesly but, looking over his numbers, this is a very nice snag for us. What really jumped out at me was his performance at the Cell....that line in his splits just really jumps out. Great snag and decent price!

BTW, for us out-of-town fans, here's the Shark's interview on the Score. To me, he sounds like a man who wants to stay. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/audio/670-the-score-interviews/

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 06:08 PM) Sale now steps up as sort of a leader, and read nothing but good things about Laroche, Samardzija and Robertson in the clubhouse. This is really important and is being greatly underestimated, imo.....we have truly solid veteran leadership on this team now. Robertson, Mo Rivera's understudy, spending atleast 8 innings a game with young guys just sitting in that bullpen chewing the fat....this will have an impact. Samardzija and Sale, both fierce competitors, will be the media's elected leaders of this team....they'll set a "fun" tone but will be clear that when it comes to winning, you do what needs to be done. LaRoche is a notoriously great clubhouse guy and has spent enough time in the league that our younger hitters will listen anytime he's willing to talk (which will be often). We know that Avi is a fun guy and puts everything he has into his craft....mix that with Abreu, who really impressed me last year with his willingness to become a leader in not only his first year in MLB, but his first year in America. For more than a decade we had Paul Konerko as our leader......Paulie is a helluva guy and great teammate, but I never took him as the type of player who was a natural born leader. This roster is now full of them and it WILL make a difference.

I'm very excited for 2015 until I remember who will be managing all of this talent.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 01:28 AM) Just to put it into text... 1.) Sale 2.) Samardzija 3.) Quintana 4.) Danks 5.) Noesi CL - Robertson SU - Duke SU - Petricka MR - Putnam MR- Webb MR - Snodgress MR - Guerra If we're going all in, gotta believe they won't dick around with the clock on Rodon and let him start in the rotation if he has a good spring.

FanGraphs has him worth a 1.8WAR this upcoming season. What's the $/WAR ratio? Like $7M? Not a bad deal when you look at it like that....even a little under value.

I think that Rick has proven over time that he understands the market as well as anyone in baseball...gotta trust his seeing $10M as a fair contract.

Good read....glad Kevin could take the time to share with us.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 07:44 PM) Viciedo is going to get what, like 4-7 million in arb? That's a pretty damn expensive DH platoon. I know....and I don't like Viciedo in the platoon. The last 2 seasons his splits don't show that he's noticeably better against LHP...he pretty much blows against any pitcher.

His 2014 splits are crazy....620 OPS against LHP, .890 OPS against RHP. He's going to have to be platooned. I'm not a fan of sinking $12.5M into a platoon player BUT he's quite a dominant hitter against RHP, enough so that he'll change this line-up considerably when he's in it. With that said, unless Viciedo will be his platoon partner, this signing still leaves a hole for a RH DH or 1B. I also agree that this signals that the Sox plan on being competitive next season which really surprises me. I thought it'd be 2016 before we threw our chips in.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 30, 2014 -> 01:48 PM) Triple Crown Update- .318 (.014 behind Altuve) 98 RBI (4 ahead of Ortiz) 33 HR (1 behind Cruz) I can't believe we got this guy and he's doing THAT in the first season he's seen ML pitching....with another 3-4 today!

I really hope they give Semien the rest of the season at 2b. While he didn't have gaudy numbers, he looked like a pro at the plate and wasn't afraid of hitting in a big situation. So many guys who come up in this organization look scared in the batters box, Marcus didn't. I think he can be a solid hitter given the opportunity.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 30, 2014 -> 03:36 PM) There's no decision to be made. You don't non-tender that kind of arm. If the Sox are lucky, he's back by July or August of next year, knocks off some of the rust, and is ready to go full time again in 2016. Not only that, but this has "good Samaritan" Jerry Reinsdorf written all over it.....you know JR probably feels horrible for the kid and will do anything he can do to accommodate him.

Kid truly has video game stuff.....some of those sliders were just insane.

Robin catches a lot of hell but I love how aggressive he is when it comes to giving the green light on 3-0 counts. Sierra was visibly nervous that last at-bat....the fact he came through is going to be huge for his confidence moving forward.

Did not see that coming with 1st and 2nd, nobody down, Dyson on 1st. Helluva job, pen!

Downs? Really?