Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 07:10 PM) Despite a lot of message board posters asserting as fact what the payroll will be, they/we do not know. Why $25 and not $20 and not $30 and not $35? I don't know what their payroll will be, but all the writers have alluded to a payroll between $95 and $100M. Based on our current commitments including LaRoche, that would put our available money around $25M. Maybe my math is slightly wrong, but the point is we should have a lot of money to spend. And quite frankly, I think we can probably afford a payroll above $100M, but that's just my speculation.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 06:56 PM) Eh. Hopefully this isn't the big signing of the winter. They have another $25M to spend. I would say the big signing hasn't come yet.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 06:33 PM) Hmmm...not my favorite signing ever, but shouldn't hurt us. Agree with this. Not a huge LaRoche fan, but it's a pretty reasonable deal all things considered.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 08:52 PM) Maybe he "Shouldn't be", but he is in decline. I do classify them as declining if they are declining, which he is. Clown trades like that are a prime reason why the Sox have 3 playoff appearances in 15 years despite a top 1/3 payroll under Williams' watch. The second we have a decent prospect, got to move them. You guys want to pay top dollar for players off of bad years. It's like giving our top 2 pitching prospects for Edwin Jackson and his 5+ ERA. How is he declining? Exclude 2014 and you honestly feel you can stand by that statement?

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 08:43 PM) Wow - you mean it will only take Quintana and a top prospect to land a high K hitter with a .654 OPS! . The love of declining veterans is getting sillier by the minute. Spare parts only. Do you throw everyone into the "declining veteran" box? Bruce is 27 years old and had a serious knee injury last year. You can hate on his high K rate, but the dude is not at the point in his career where he should be declining.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 08:41 PM) Would anybody do Avi, Semien, and Montas for Bruce? No way in hell. I like Bruce over Avi, but not enough to give up Semien and Montas on top.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 08:35 PM) Or he lands a RHP along with JB... Cueto or Axelrod?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 08:37 PM) Ooops, I was confusing him with Votto. Bruce really had a disappointing 2014 though, and had negative fielding metrics, yes? He had a bad knee injury that was likely the cause. I really like Bruce but Q is way too much IMO when you factor in salary and team control.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 08:26 PM) Well, that's a pretty big contract. And it would completely blow a hole open in the rotation. It would also force Rodon to be a 2, almost from the start. (Unless we do something truly unprecedented and spend big money for a FA pitcher). Bruce is not a big contract at all, something like 3/$36M IIRC.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 08:21 PM) Early. Revisiting talks. Might take Q + I'd love to add Bruce, but Q alone is counter-productive and adding more pieces would it a terrible deal for us.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 06:04 PM) Right, but he's just not a slamdunk player that would make me not care about the pick. He is almost Alex Rios-like in his sporadically good and bad seasons. Let me preface this by saying I know WAR is not the end all be all stat, but it's a good quick reference to a player's season, so check this out for his recent years..... 2009: 1.4 WAR (okay year) 2010: -1.4 WAR (epic bad season) 2011: 3.7 WAR (Very good, all-star caliber season) 2012: 4.5 WAR (Awesome season, all-star caliber again) 2013: -0.9 WAR (Only played 88 games, but was awful) 2014: 2.6 WAR (Decent above average year) That's 6 years worth of "What will he be next year"??? Giving him a long term deal is very scary, because his career is like a box of chocolates, you never know which one you're gunna get. Seems like he has been pretty good since since 2011, with 2013 being an exception when he had a tumor on his spine. I guess I disagree with you here.

Yeah, I'm not very excited at the idea of LaRoche. As a fallback plan fine, but I really hate the idea of going multiple years with him. Obviously he had a very nice 2014, but how much longer will he be productive with the bat? He's already a platoon guy with no defensive versatility. It doesn't take much of a decline with the bat to make him essentially valueless.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 19, 2014 -> 07:42 AM) If Zach Duke is fixed by throwing side arm and changing his pitches, why can't Danks do the same? While I agree with you that some people may be writing off Danks a bit prematurely, the statement above is just completely ridiculous. Zach Duke has nothing to do with John Danks.

Alexei for Schebler and Ethier's contract? That's a horrible deal for us. No one is taking Ethier unless the Dodgers eat some serious money. That's just a bad use of our most valuable, tradable asset.

If you can get Pederson for Alexei, you take that offer and don't think twice. Fills a gaping hole with a cost-controlled player with star potential and gives us another $10M to work with this offseason. Not sure why the Dodgers would do that deal though.

I like Miller and would love to have him, but $8M+ just seems like too like money for us to spend on a reliever. We need to a starter and two decent bats and those guys will eat a lot of money. Zach Duke at a fraction of the cost seems like the smarter play IMO.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 04:16 PM) Uh, the White Sox and yes, the sox are already in alot of trouble. Right now Noesi is the best bet to be #3. Danks is not the #3, Bassitt is not the #3, Carroll sure as hell is not the #3 and we don't know when Rodon will be ready for a call up much less become the #3 so who do you suggest is the #3? Someone who is not on the roster. I can guarantee you that no one in the White Sox front office is hoping Noesi can be a #3 starter next year. They will be adding a starter and preferably one that can be a #3 or better. Noesi, Danks, Rodon, & Bassitt will be in the mix for those last two spots, but no way we go into 2015 with three of them in our rotation short of injury.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 03:37 PM) As of right now, were hoping Noesi can handle the #3 spot in the rotation and in my opinion Greene already has better stuff than Noesi. I'd feel much better with Greene pitching #3 than Noesi and I really like what I saw from Noesi last season and believe he will continue to improve but I still see him as more of pretty damn good #4/#5. Who is hoping Noesi can handle the #3 spot? If he's anything more than our #5 starter next year we're in a lot of trouble.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 03:05 PM) He'd be worth more but he'll also be paid more, and he'll give us an "improved" tandem of catchers, not a great tandem unless he's the 2013 Jason Castro. As others pointed out in this thread, his numbers that year look like an outlier that he isn't likely to reproduce without significantly improving again. Look at it another way, Castro is 2nd year arb, so let's assume a $4 million salary in 2015 and $6 million in 2016 after $2.45 mil in arb year 1. Can you convince me that I couldn't get similar production for that money without giving up the middle IF? Tell me who would give you similar production? The only good free agent catcher is looking at 5/$75M+ deal right now. If you want a decent catcher, you'll need to find one via trade and I can't think of anyone that's available that are better than Grandal or Castro.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 01:49 PM) I wouldn't give up any of those guys frankly. I think Sanchez or any of the other ones has a good chance of being more useful to us than Castro. Maybe not next year alone, but counting the fact that Castro is close to FA and the rest have 6+ years? Some minor league reliever is about my limit. Maybe one of the starters we have at AAA who isn't high on the list. You might be able to talk me out of Beck just because we have so many other starting candidates on their way up, but I'm iffy and that depends on what the org thinks of him. Are you serious? You wouldn't do Sanchez for Castro straight up??? That's mind-boggling crazy to me. Even if you don't think he's an upgrade over Flowers, he'd give us a great tandem of catchers to work with when we currently don't even have a backup. Also, Sanchez's ceiling is solid middle infielder and I really think he'll end up being just a utility guy (although a good one). That has some value, but let's not carried away here. There aren't a lot good catchers out there and two years of Castro would be far more valuable than six years of a reserve infielder.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 01:25 PM) If he walks 2.5% more, that's going to make up the gigantic gulf in his results between 2013 and 2014? If he draws 12 or 13 more walks he puts up and OPS closer to .830 than .650? You seem to be ignoring that his strikeout rate went up in 2014 to just shy of 30% and that his .294 BABIP shows that he really wasn't unlucky. Look, I don't think he's ever going to repeat his 2013 season. The BABIP and the ISO look real flukey IMO. I also think he's far better than what we saw last year. His BB% was down 3.5 to 4 points from where it has been at the major league level. That's a huge drop regardless of the fact you're trying to minimize it by citing the specific amout of walks it represents. If he can return back to normal in that area, my guess is the K% will also improve as well. I think the .735 OPS Castro put up in 2012 is a realistic outcome for him next year. I think that far exceed what Flowers puts up next year. Do you disagree?

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 12:34 PM) You're making zero sense. You think Flowers will regress based on his progression and Castro will progress based on his regression. Really? Lol...Flowers is going to regress because he got lucky last year. As I mentioned before, his K%, BB%, & ISO were amongst his career lows. You quoted a bunch of stats fueled by luck and said he progressed. If he doesn't either learn to K less or BB more, his stats will go down significantly next year. As for Castro, feel free to overreact to a bad 2014, but he is closer to the 2013 version than the player we saw last year IMO. His BB% has been at or above 9.3% in every single season of his professional career prior to last year when it dropped to 6.6%. That screams outlier to me and I strongly believe that rate will return closer to career norms in 2015. If so, he'll be incredibly more valuable than the player Flowers is likely to be next year. Again, just my opinion.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 11:48 AM) How about BA, OBP, SLG, OPS... All of which, BTW, were better than what Castro put up last year. Even Tyler's defense improved and as others have pointed out, he handled the pitching staff well. The Astros are shopping Castro based on his 2013 numbers which explains why the asking price is "high ". Meanwhile, interested teams point to his 2014 numbers and the fact the Astros have 3 catchers and should get rid of one. The Astros are not in a position to charge full price for Castro and Hahn is not a big enough fool to pay full price under these circumstances. Come on man, the improvement in all those stats you quoted were fueled by an unrealistic BABIP. I'm not buying Flowers putting up a .355 BABIP again next year. Unless those glasses were indeed magical, he's a gigantic candidate for regression.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 11:09 AM) Yeah, I just don't see Castro as enough of an upgrade over Flowers considering there are bigger holes to fill. If indeed the Astros asking price is " high " then the Astros can have him. Castro regressed in 2014 while Flowers made progress, I'm fine with Flowers for now unless the Padres make Grandal available for a decent price. Where did Flowers make progress exactly? His K%, BB%, & ISO last year were all near his all-time lows in those stats.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 10:42 AM) And castro had a BABIP of .350 in his career year; .294 last year. Neither of these guys is trustworthy. Castro's only 6 months younger. That's fine, but check his K% & BB% rates before last season. Much superior to anything Flowers has put up for an extended period of time. I think he's much more trustworthy than Flowers. And quite frankly, Grandal is the guy I really want. Again, I wouldn't give up a top 6 prospect for either guy, but if a package of B prospects could get huge deal then I would bite on either guy as long it didn't prevent us from getting am OF & DH.