Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 01:04 PM) I don't know where you get that. I feel like Abreu and Delmonico are set to have those roles, maybe with Davidson (if he isn't traded) and Cordell DHing every now and then. I think they're just stockpiling on AA/AAA 1B since Delmonico, Gillaspie, etc. will be lost to the MLB team. Delmonico hopefully will be the everyday LF. He has the athleticism to be solid there in time.

QUOTE (Tony @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 01:09 PM) They also claimed Daniel Palka a few days ago. Given the chatter around Abreu the last 48 hours, I’m starting to buy into the fact the Sox are preparing for a 2018 without Abreu at 1B Or they’re simply making sure they have depth in the event they decide to move him. Never hurts to be prepared. Plus we have a DH spot currently wide open which Gillaspie could claim with a strong spring. Doesn’t hurt to have some fall back options in AAA.

QUOTE (fredmanrique @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 11:05 AM) Just a general observation about AAV and excess value, as I notice a lot of people using that to lower their perception of an Abreu return at his salary. Does it not ignore supply and demand and pretend as though any of 30 teams can have any player at what they view as appropriate value WAR for dollar spent? There are only so many consistent top 10 hitting first basemen in baseball. The whole league these days ttys so hard now to accouunt for defense, it overinflates guys like Hayward, and undervalued almost all 1b in my opinion. Part of that is less steroids in the game too. Just a thought when people say groome+chavis (or whatever) is too much for abreu Along these lines, not all WAR is created equal because of the simple fact there is only so many positons. The more WAR you can get out of an individual positon the greater overall value provided to the team. What this implies that each incremental WAR out a given position is worth more than previous one. So when people say the market value of WAR is $10M per, it’s really a flawed assumption. Teams should pay much less for that first unit of WAR than the second and so on. In other words, a 4 WAR player like Abreu is definitely worth more than double of a comparable 2 WAR 1B. Surplus values should take this factor into account and rarely do I see that happen.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 10:41 AM) That would be fantastic for management, but what would the benefit be to Abreu? That represents $20M per year, which is not much more than he will get through arbitration, for the last 2 years of his pre-eligibility for free agency. I would guess that it would take at least $25M per year, starting this next season and covering 5 seasons total. That would not be a bad deal for the Sox. It avoids a huge long term commitment, and only obligates them through his age 35 season. Do you think that management could live with that? Edwin Encarnacion just signed a 3/$60M deal as a free agent. Yes he’s older, but they have been very comparable players. I have no doubt Abreu would get another year or two as a free agent, but if he’s happy here then maybe he’ll give us a bit of a discount on the years. I think the fact he’ll likely need to move to DH down the road will limit his AAV to about $20M per. Anyways, we basically did something similar with Pauline IIRC and he ended up deciding to stay here. Some of these guys do value stability/familiarity and the fact we should (hopefully) be damn good is another incentive. I just don’t see Jose a break the bank type but I could be wrong.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 10:29 AM) If you offered him that and he said no, would that make you ready to trade him for the best available offer? It would for me. I would definitely trade him, whether or not it was during this offseason or at the trade deadline would depend on the offer. Obviously I’d prefer to move him sooner rather than later, but there are a lot of 1B options on the market right now.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 10:08 AM) Take a look at your own words. He was a 5 WAR player in his age 28-29 seasons. So if you saying "I expect him to be 2 wins better in his age 31-32 seasons than he was at age 28-29" isn't optimistic, I don't know what else to call it, and per your words his age 28-29 seasons "don't make sense". I think optimistic is a very fair description of your projection for him. It doesn't have to be wrong, but at age 29 Jose Abreu put up a 1.8 WAR season. You getting to 7 by assuming he repeats 2017 is you being optimistic as just a person saying he'll be at 3.6 or lower based on his 2016 season is being overly pessimistic. Either could be within the range of possibilities from what we have already seen from him. I don’t think you’re understanding this. These projections are supposed to represent his most likely outcome. Of course 5 WAR is possible, but why am I projecting a one-off injury to happen again in my base case forecast? You’re literally picking his worst statistical season which was impacted by injury and somehow using that to argue his 2018 season will be 33% worse than his average production & nearly 50% worse than m his most recent season. There is absolutely no logic whatsoever in overweighting his 2016 season, which is exactly what you’re doing. A median outcome projection should most definitely be higher than 4.5 WAR over the next two seasons. Let me ask you this, if I were to offer you a $1M if you could predict Jose Abreu’s WAR next year within +/- 0.1 points, what value would you pick? Are you seriously suggesting you’d go with something between 2.0 & 2.5?

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 08:03 AM) Yeah. How many teams need a 1B exactly? Teams could sign Santana, Hosmer, and even Morrison and Bruce just for money. And that doesn't even count the teams that could potentially convert corner outfielders to 1B and sign another outfielder. I've thought all season that it's more likely Abreu signs an extension for about 4-5 years buying out his last 2 arbitration years than the Sox getting a haul for him. I’d give Abreu something like 4/$80M with a 5th year team option and call it a day. He can anchor the middle of the lineup for a big chunk of our window, serve as mentor for Moncada, Robert, & other young LatAm players, improve our sales pitch to free agents next offseason, & further establish our status as the team to sign with for future Cuban amateurs (which becomes important with capped spending). All those factors combined make him worth more to us than other teams IMO.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 07:15 AM) If I wanted to be as pessimistic as you are optimistic, over his age 28 and 29 seasons he put up 5 WAR, so your statement that "nothing below 6 WAR makes sense" for his age 31 and 32 years is undercut by him doing exactly that 2 years ago. The reality is probably somewhere in-between. I think one of the reasons his age 29 season was so bad probably was that he had some leg problems in the first half that he played through. If he stays healthy your 6 is probably pretty close, if that flares back up then the projections could be pretty good. How am I being optimistic? He’s averaged 3.4 WAR/year in his career and is coming off a 4.1 WAR. Assuming 3 WAR/year over his next two seasons is not being optimistic it’s being realistic. That doesn’t mean it’s an automatic. s*** can happen, but when we’re talking about a one-off item, it should not be considered as part of the base forecast. A 4.5 WAR projection over the next two years is most definitely a downside case if you use any sort of logic & reasoning. I do financial modeling for a living and I can tell you the single biggest mistake people make is when they don’t challenge the output of these models and assume they are automatically accurate. Unfortunately models like these are limited/biased by one-time events and small sample sizes. As a result, there is no perfect model that works for every player/situation and as a result there will always be outliers. Anyone looking at Jose’s career and telling me the most likely outcome for him (even with some conservatism) is being a 2.2 WAR per year player is crazy to me. Either you’re taking what Steamer or some other projection system automatically spits out as gospel or you’re assuming he’s going to get injured. No standard aging curve should assume that type of fall-off in his age 31 & 32 seasons.

I gotta disagree with Balta’s logic on team building. Yes, developing your own talent (especially superstar talent) is critical, but there is nothing wrong with filling multiple holes with smart free agent signings if financially possible. The Astros are a perfect example. Yes, they developed their core, but they also went out and signed Beltran, Reddick, Gurriel, & Morton to play important roles. Those four guys earned a combined $50M in 2017. And they were able to add those guys plus some expensive vets via trade (McCann, Verlander) & some pricey relievers in past years (Gregerson & Sipp) because of how little their core guys made. The White Sox should be in a similar position come next season. We could extend Abreu at $20M/per and have a big chunk of our core in place for less than $50M in total commitments. Assuming guys develop as expected, we should be incredibly active in next year’s free agent class. And I’m not just talking about filling in that “one last piece” as Balta routinely calls it. I’m talking adding impact talent where possible (hopefully Machado & an elite reliever) and then buying yourself some time until your next wave of talent is ready by signing veterans to short-term deals at crucial spots. This idea that we can’t compete until all our talent is up and has proven itself is nonsense. The goal should be build a strong foundation, add some vets while you have the financial wiggle room, and gradually introduce more talent over time to help offset escalating costs. Hahn is not going to wait until our less seasoned prospects like Robert, Rutherford, Adolfo, Cease, Burger, & Sheets are ready to start trying to compete. The moment guys like Jimenez, Collins, Kopech, & Hansen are called up our window officially begins. It will likely take a year or two for those guys to fully develop, but Hahn will most definitely try to surround them with as much veteran talent as possible as early as next year, especially since there will be a very deep free agent class to leverage.

QUOTE (GermanSock @ Nov 30, 2017 -> 01:34 AM) I would love those but abreu is projected for about 4.5 WAR in two years of control which is worth roughly 40M on the open market. his projected salary is like 30M for those two years if not a Little more so he doesn't have a ton of Surplus value. there is some upside with abreu but I don't think he has more than like 15M of Surplus value(and that is extremely optimistic). that is roughly the value of one grade 50 (bottom of top100) prospect. now you might find a Team overpay some but not much. also if you want JBJ for abreu you don't get any additional pieces expect maybe a throw in guy. JBJ has a lot more suplus value than abreu, if anything the sox would Need to add. now the red sox Need a slugger so I might see them overpay some but still we are mostly talking a one for one swap here. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/dont-trade-...for-jose-abreu/ maybe if the sox throw in some cash they can get a better prospect. if they don't eat cash getting groome or kelly straight up would be a great deal. Where the hell does a 4.5 WAR projection come from exactly? He’s put up 14.5 WAR over four seasons (3.6 avg). He’s coming off a 4.1 WAR season and has exactly one season below 3.2. To expect him to suddenly drop to a 2.2 WAR in his age 31 & 32 seasons is crazy to me. I would question any projection system that is predicting that type of fall off. To me, I don’t see how anything below 6 WAR makes any sense and I would expect him to be closer to a 7 WAR player. So combine that surplus value with the draft pick he’ll get you when/if he leaves in free agency and he should be plenty valuable.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 08:42 PM) You can't admit this board is EXTREMELY happy with anything the front office does? This is a pro front office message board. Because we didn't execute it right. Sox have had miserable guys in Buddy Bell on the organizational level and Robin Ventura as manager. They've arguably made some of the most bonehead acquisitions ever in trying to bring in guys to win. The ONLY way to win is not trade everybody and rebuild. Some teams with cash have done just fine in adding guys to buy a pennant. I personally think our front office gets a free pass on almost everything on here. I have no idea what you’re actually suggesting here.

QUOTE (GenericUserName @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 07:46 PM) I wasn't saying we should have gotten all of them, just that they weren't like off the table. I would have taken any of those three over Rutherford. And then I found this breakdown of his swing (from before the draft) I’d definitely take Rutherford over any of those guys. Mateo has some serious question marks and the other two are coming off pretty serious injuries. I do think Blake is overrated relative to his recent rankings, but the tools are clearly there to be a very good major leaguer. Just got to hope the Sox see something they can address which help him drive/life the ball more.

QUOTE (GenericUserName @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 07:11 PM) I hated the trade at the time, I hated it even more when the A's got all three of Fowler, Mateo, and Kaprielian, but the move is done and now we have to hope Rutherford just had a bad year or needs a small adjustment because we're stuck with him. Sonny Gray was a superior asset though. We should have never expected that type of return for what we gave up. Having said that, I still think we should have got a better second piece than Ian Clarkin, but apparently they are pretty high on him.

Maybe I’m slow, but why would he remove the Sox? I no doubt believe it was intentional, just trying to understand the likely reasoning for it.

Who are the top 5 LatAm prospects in low A & below not named Luis Robert?

The Red Sox would have to include JBJ in any deal for me to even consider them as a trading partner. Honestly, I’d probably need JBJ + Chavis and I would throw in a lesser prospect to offset some of that cost. Don’t think the Red Sox would do that though, which is fine since I don’t really want to trade Jose unless I’m overwhelmed.

QUOTE (GermanSock @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 05:04 AM) why did he Play there at all? He had a Long season with full season minor league ball and the AFL. winter ball is for Players who missed a large chunk of the offseason, he would have been better off resting 2-3 weeks and then starting Lifting and other Fitness Training for the off season. don't want to wear down that Body, especially because he already had some injury Problems in the past. Wasn’t he injured for a chunk of the season? And he didn’t play AFL ball, which is why he played winter ball.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 07:43 AM) I wonder if the Angels would be interested in Sanchez. They have a big hole at 2B. We have four years of control left with him. I’d give him the 3B job to start the year and then reevaluate things at the trade deadline or more likely next offseason. No reason to rush a trade with him when he can still build up his value and when there’s a chance we may need him.

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 07:09 AM) This has got to be a joke right? If not, I’ve lost a lot of respect for Lip. No one that actually watched him play last year would consider non-tendering at this price point. Worst case scenario he should be a solid reserve IF, best case he can be a decent bridge 3B. Either way, he’s worth the $2M or he’s projected to make next year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 04:29 PM) The problem isn't with the Sox making offers, it is with them making the largest offer. As for the Albert Belle example, Eloy Jimenez was 7 days old when it happened. They haven't really shown a propensity to set the market for top level players for 21 years now. They have been #2 a lot of times. #1, not so much. It’s a fair point, but the traditional big spenders are also dealing with a luxury tax right that is far more detrimental than it’s previously been. That’s not to say I expect the Sox to automatically have the biggest offer, but given their complete lack of financial comittments going forward and the need for a big PR move to kick off their return to competiveness I defintiely think it’s a real possibility.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 04:12 PM) You are crazy. I don't always call them draftniks. I also use the word "stat people" and sabes people. I have used draftniks but not often. You can't imply I call people names a lot and get away with that. I contend I am normally polite. I'd say 90 percent of the time. Draftniks or draft people do slay me and frustrate me but I don't always call them draftniks. 450 million would please me. What free agents, though. I stand by my point that we can forget about Manny and Harper. The Sox signed Albert Belle to the largest contract ever at the time. The Sox offered A-Rod a huge deal back in the day, rumored to be like 10/$190M. They recently offered Tanaka a massive deal as well. You’re fooling yourself if you don’t believe the Sox will pursue the truly elite free agents next year when they have like $2M in guaranteed payroll. Whether they can convince one of these guys to take their money remains to be seen, but I have no doubt Reinsdorf will ok an aggressive offseason plan.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 06:00 AM) So, you haven't read any of the posts regarding Sox fans wanting the Sox to pursue big free agents like Machado and Harper? Just about all fans on this board want the Sox to spend, and many are in touch enough to realize that they will. I know my plan had us spending like $450M on free agents next offseason, but maybe my handle doesn’t indicate clearly enough that I’m a Sox fan.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 27, 2017 -> 08:00 AM) Man, I thought I was high on Zavala at 15/16-ish. Felix Mercedes is no longer a middle infielder, he's been playing 1B and OF, so the bar has gotten much higher for his bat. Also he missed the 2nd half last year, and I am not sure why. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about Felix Mercedes. He was doing incredibly well at Great Falls and then all of sudden he was gone and I couldn’t find a single article or note explaining why. He would have been at the bottom of my top 30 if I knew what happened to him and it was simply injury related. Just seems like there is more to the story with him.

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Nov 27, 2017 -> 12:38 AM) Manning did, Brady didn't and Favre didn't either. The point is, you don't know how good a receiver who has a HOF QB throwing to them REALLY is until they no longer have said QB to throw them the ball. Only then do you know if they are really that good and talented. Larry Fitzgerald was one of them, he continued to produce even when he didn't have Kurt Warner throwing the football to him. None of the players that have gone through the Patriots have really done anything anywhere else, other than Randy Moss who was there at the end of his career. You don't know how good Gronkowski really is because Brady is throwing him the ball. Gronk is the only guy that you can really say that may be supremely talented that Brady has as a receiver. First off, I’m not sure why you’re comparing Mitch to two of the greatest QBs. No one other than you has that expectation. But the idea that these guys had no one to throw to is garbage. Antonio Freeman & Donald Driver both had more talent in their little pinkies than this entire Bears WR group. He also had talented receivers like Sterling Sharpe & Javon Walker for periods of time as well. Farve may have made these guys better, but they weren’t some bums like you’re making them out to be. I’d have to look at Brady’s receivers to truly comment on him, but everything about the Patriots is an outlier and they typically found guys who fit their schemes perfectly. So again, if Brady is your expectation here, be prepared for a world of dissapointment with Mitch.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Nov 26, 2017 -> 10:17 PM) I still don't see him stating anywhere that he requires 600 guaranteed at-bats... in fact, all I have seen is him stating the opposite: https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yan...tani-1.14928323 I don’t think anyone has suggested it’s a requirement, but he certainly wants to be a two-way player and not many teams can truly offer him guaranteed DH at-bats. The point is the Sox being a rebuilding club works to their advantage in this area.