Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 5, 2013 -> 04:35 PM) We'll get a better idea after the winter meetings. It's likely this is pretty close to the team we'll see on opening day, and it's likely they'll lose 90+ games. And, as I've asked many others, did you really expect anything differently? I disagree with most of what you say here. First off, I think this team is easily a 70+ win team as currently constructed. Our rotation will be better this year with no Axelrod and a stronger Danks. The offense can only get better, and I honestly think it can get way better if a few key things go right. The upgrade from Paulie to Abreu as the everyday 1B will be significant and I'm also extremely high on Viciedo and Garcia taking off next year. Those three guys will make or break the offense, but right now I'm on the optimistic sides of things with them. Obviously C & 3B are big holes and 2B is a big question mark, so we're still a flawed team offensively. The defense should also improve some, but then again who expected the dropoff from 2013 to 2012. Still, overall this is easily a 70+ win IMO as long as we stay healthy and don't suffer extreme bad luck. Second, I disagree with you that this is pretty close to the team we'll see on opening day. I'm very confident at least one starter will be traded and that a catcher will be added. I also wouldn't be surprised to see De Aza, Gillaspie and/or one of Ramirez/Beckham being shipped out, with Semien taking over in the middle infield and a new CF or 3B coming back in some sort of trade. I also think they'll add a left-handed reliever in free agency. Point is that it's not even the winter meetings yet and IMO we should still expect a lot of changes, especially on the position playing side.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 5, 2013 -> 04:04 PM) You guys aren't going to like this post. ... Robin Ventura is a former player. As such, Robin Ventura respects near Hall of Famers like Konerko (he won't make the Hall but a damn fine career). My take to you is it's Paulie's STARTING job to lose. Look ... we go to spring training. Paulie is going to be healthy. Paulie is going to hit .310 in spring training with 6-7 home runs. Paulie Konerko will be starting first baseman. You heard it here first. Please please give me credit when this happens. It's going to happen. p.s. Am I the only person on Soxtalk thrilled with his return? Honestly greg, please step your trolling game up. This may be an all-time low for you bud.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 5, 2013 -> 09:24 AM) Well, Konerko did put up a .900+ OPS last year vs. LHP, and he keeps Dunn from hitting against many LHP. It's not like he is totally worthless. Not saying he's totally worthless, but when your team only has four guys on the bench (which is what we traditionally go with), you want more flexibility out of the three guys who aren't the backup catcher. And quite simply, my biggest beef with bringing back Konerko back is we could use that roster spot on a guy that hits LHP very well AND can play multiple positions defensively. And what's funny is the guy most likely to get the boot as a result of the Konerko decision is a guy who has a career .829 OPS against LHP and can play all over the field (including 3B where he would have a natural platoon partner). I know Keppinger sucked balls last year, but I honestly think he can be a useful role player if used correctly and provide more overall value to the team than Konerko.

I do think it's hilarious at one point we refused to bring back Jim Thome because we wanted a "rotating DH" and now we'll enter 2014 with two legitimate DHs on our roster. I'm not going to complain too much about bringing Paulie back, but I seriously hate when people say "it's the 25th man on the roster so who cares" to justify the move. I'm sorry, but even the last guy on the bench has a role to play and can impact the team's W/L regardless of what his WAR might be. Context comes in play here. For example, if Jordan Danks can get to one more ball than Viciedo can late in a game he can have a significant impact outcome of that particular game. The same can go for a pinch runner with elite speed or a backup with tons of defensive flexibility. These guys can have a big impact on close games and how teams do in those games can ultimately make or break a season. Bringing back Konerko limits what our bench will be capable of. Maybe it doesn't matter in this particular season, but if we're legitimately trying to win this move makes any sense IMO.

For all those clamoring for Dunn to be released now that we have Konerko back: Dunn: wRC+ of 105 last year as a 33 year old Konerko: wRC+ of 82 last year as a 37 year old

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 10:42 AM) http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/02/2015...ree-agents.html Yes, it'll be weaker than it's been in year's past, and a lot of these guys will re-sign with their current teams, but the 3B market is better next year, as of this moment, and the SS and SP markets look solid too. But that's all beside the point - the Sox still have Dunn, who people feel received the worst deal in team history. Why commit so much of your payroll to 1 player? What's keeping Cano from following a similar career path to Jose Vidro? They were very similar players - good to very good averages, decent power, respectable defense - and then Vidro lost the ability to hit for power and that took away from his average too. He was no longer a good defender, and he suddenly became a rather useless player. What's keeping Cano from turning into a 1-2 WAR players 2-3 years into this 7-8 years, $25 mill a year contract? The Sox are reportedly already close to their max budget. Spending that puts them over, which removes from their future ability to spend in the future, which limits or inhibits them from fixing holes that they did not foresee appearing. It's just not the right thing for a rebuilding team. Say you don't sign Cano. Say that Beckham does begin producing this year or Semien turns out to be for real - either of them puts up .280/.350/.450. If you sign Cano, you then either have to trade them for another piece or move them to 3B, where they are less valuable than they would be at 2B. That's not a bad thing, but you can spend more efficiently and perhaps try to acquire a guy like Headley, Zimmerman, Wright, or whoever. And then say Avisail Garcia does not develop like the Sox want but instead is more of a .270/.330/.370 guy. You can get by with a guy like that, but if an upgrade is available, and you have these other guys who can be counted on to be good for you at 2B, why not upgrade RF at that point? Basically, if you are in a rebuilding phase and your team is not very good, there is little marginal benefit to the added wins that a guy like Cano will provide for the team. He's going to either cost $30-35 mill a year on a short term deal, or he's going to be there for 7-8 years. You don't know what your future weaknesses will be, nor do you have any idea what potential areas will develop as strengths. If they come out this year, find out they have 3-5 really good starters, and one of the areas of weakness is 2B, then I would have had no problem adding a guy like Cano. As is, I just don't think it's an efficient nor wise way to spend money. Then blow this team up. Like I said, we really have no elite propsects in our system unless Hawkins figures some s*** out and he's still a couple years away best case scenario. Therefore, this team isn't going to be able to develop the impact bat(s) it needs to be competitive anytime soon. Wasting the cost-controlled years of our young pitching is the dumbest thing we could do right now. So either buy some offense to support them or trade them off to the highest bidders and go full rebuild. And I'm fine with 2014 being a transitional year, but I'm not sure how they plan to get signicantly better by next offseason if we don't start addressing major needs now.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 08:41 AM) They may not be a 90 loss team, but I'd be surprised if they were a .500 team. I mean, are you really happy with 76-86? I disagree that Cano wouldn't sell tickets, but he doesn't do enough to make the Sox competitive. --- This is not the year to spend. It's not a free agent market that lines up well with the Sox weaknesses (other than Abreu), and they'll have more to spend next season. Dunn and Lindstrom are free agents who almost certainly won't be brought back, which frees up $19 mill. There are others - De Aza, Beckham, Flowers, Keppinger, Ramirez - who could be traded or non-tendered, which would free up money or commitments to spend money in the future. The team is not going to be very good this year, but there have been significant steps taken in the past 5 months to set the foundation for a team that can win for a long time. I feel Hahn has done a wonderful job thus far as GM and would give him an A. Have you looked at next year's free agent market? What exactly are you going to spend your money on then that makes your team better than with Cano? With teams locking up their star players earlier and earlier, the quality of free agents is starting to dwindle. Also, I've asked this question numerous times, but what exactly is going to change between now and next offseason that will suddenly vault us into a competitive team? Again, the free market sucks next year. We don't have any elite prospects that will be ready to contribute by opening day 2015. We do have some interesting prospects that might be able to be part of the core in guys like Semien, Micah Johnson, & Thompson, but those guys are unlikely to be game changers. We'll need at least one legit middle of the lineup, preferably left-handed, to get this offense where it needs to be. If you wait to next season, it's going to cost you your limited talent to acquire said player, which seems counter productive to me. The benefit of Cano is he only costs of money, which we should have a surplus of starting next offseason. Hold on to all of your young talent and continue to build around a strong young pitching staff and a 3-4-5 of Abreu-Cano-Garcia. You'll improve your chances to win right now without jeapordize the future. Obviously this is all dependent on a Cano deal that isn't too crazy in years.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 03:31 AM) And a bunch of money. Then be prepared to give up a f***ton of talent, because the Dodgers have no reason to move Kemp and pay a bunch of his salary. We're much better off taking on money right now then giving a chunk of our minimal talent.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 10:09 PM) We must sign Cano now then if that's the case. 80 wins would be . . . more of the same. If you're waiting on only contributors from the minors to get us to 90 wins, then you'll be waiting a long-ass time and might as well blow things. Even if Cano gets us to 80 wins next year, we're in a much better position to be a 90 win team in 2015.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 09:19 PM) Map a plan that puts one of the five most talented teams in MLB on the field at some point in the next five years. Stop building 80 win teams with the hope of getting lucky. Gotcha, well then clearly adding one of the best hitters in baseball wouldn't help us towards that goal.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 08:44 PM) You're starting to think smart. I'm now convinced you're Dan Berstein. You recently b****ed how ownership owes the fans for the Wilder fiasco and should spend to make it up for us. If the best free agent on the market doesn't qualify, what would you like them to do make things right with the fans?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 08:37 PM) If they are paying it now, why would they budget it in the future? I mean for salary cap purposes, sure, but for operations, it is still the same hit. Because how and when you pay for an asset is a financing cash flow, not an operating cash flow. That $10M isn't related to just the 2014 season, but all 6 seasons he's under team control. In a normal business environment, the signing bonus would be spread across all six years in a operating budget, but recognized immedietely in a capital budget. Obviously baseball is a different animal, so I can't say anything with certainty. Just thinking about this from a general FP&A perspective.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 08:31 PM) Cano wouldn't sell a single ticket. He's a luxury the Sox can't afford. Lol...I definitely wouldn't want to use any payroll on Cano when B.J. Upton & Dan Uggla are available.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 08:18 PM) Why wouldn't it be? Signing bonuses are almost always paid at signing. The assumption should be that it is this year unless you hear otherwise, and not the otherway around. We're talking about an operating budget, not a cash flow budget. Obviously Abreu is getting paid this year, but that doesn't mean it's not being allocated to Hahn's operating budget (i.e. payroll) in equal installments over the next 6 years. In fact, I would be surprised if that wasnt the case to be honest with you.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 08:06 PM) If the budget Hahn has quoted is anywhere close to true, their budget this year is about $90-$100 million. They're already at that number. Signing Cano would push them well past their quoted budget. Again, you're assuming Abreu's bonus is included is this year's payroll budget, which has yet to be supported by any sort of evidence. Second, if you add Cano you can turn around and deal Beckham and/or Ramirez and clear a decent amount of payroll pretty easily. Third, we don't know how hard (or even realistic) the rumored payroll budgets are. Seems to me that every offseason we start at one number and end up at a much higher number. And quite frankly, I think Reinsdorf just might be willing to increase the payroll to bit if he could land someone like Cano that might sell some tickets.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 07:27 PM) The Yankees are closing in on a seven-year deal with Jacoby Ellsbury, according to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com. "It could happen," someone familiar with the talks told Heyman. It is believed the deal would top Carl Crawford's $142MM, seven-year deal. from mlbtraderumors If this happens, I hope Hahn immedietely calls Cano's agents to express some interest. He would solve so many problems offensively it's not even funny. And quite frankly, given our lack of long-term salary committments, I don't see why we couldn't afford him at $25M/year. Obviously the years would have to make sense, which is the biggest issue with a potential Cano signing, but if the Yankees move on then it can't hurt to at least explore it.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 07:07 PM) Mildly surprised that Salty went at that price and the Sox didn't get him. It either means they didn't like him or they have no money to spend. I'm surprised as well. Perhaps they didn't want to add another player with a high K rate, which is perfectly understandable given who we currently have on the roster. Still, Salty against RHP would have been a tremendous upgrade offensively over Flowers & Phegley and 3/$21M really isn't a lot of money. Hopefully this is a sign that Hahn has something in the works that is a better long-term fit than Salty, and I really hope they aren't planning to go with a cheap stop-gap like Lobaton.

Did that article really say our payroll is expected to be in the mid-to-high $80M's range?

QUOTE (Knuckles @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 09:29 AM) AJ deal is 8.25 mil, that should end all arguments, Sox were not paying that. Yup, we weren't paying a stop-gap that much money. Glad to see A.J. still getting paid well as a 37 year old.

QUOTE (Knuckles @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 09:30 AM) You ever think about changing your display name? Chicago White Sox is so... official. Multiple times, but I do like the simplicity of it and it's easy to remember when I sign in.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 08:03 AM) No surprise. AJ is really good buddies with Big Papi from their Minnesota days. The myth that everyone hates AJ will continue. Some of the battles you fight are classic. Are you really going to argue that A.J. isn't one of the most hated players in all of baseball? Come on man, we all know A.J. is one of your favorite players, but that doesn't mean you can't be objective when discussing him. By all accounts he a douchebag and a s***ty teammate. What did Guillen famously say, "When he's on your team you hate him less". I think that sums of A.J. pretty nicely.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Dec 3, 2013 -> 07:19 AM) AJ isn't a free swinger? That's exactly what I was going to say. For some reason if you acknowledge A.J. is a flawed player (poor defender, free swinger, s***ty teammate) then you're a hater and don't appreciate what he's done for the franchise.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 11:10 PM) We effectively got Daniel Webb and Myles Jaye for Daniel Hudson. Plus half of the package for Youk and most importantly the departure of Mark Teahen.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 10:49 PM) I know, you're right but I have to admit Robin leaves me scratching my head a lot so I guess I can see where AJ would be coming from. AJ does know the game pretty damn well. Don't disagree on that, but he still can't be undermining his manager in front of teammates. It's simply a headache and risk not worth taking on a stop-gap player.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 10:47 PM) Yep. Also, I believe Bucket implied that many of his teammates had issues with him. It was around the time Reed plunked him last year. Part of me would like him just so he could be traded at some point next season and part of me doesn't want that douchebag anywhere near the clubhouse. From a pure numbers standpoint, he might be an ok stop-gap assuming age doesn't finally catch up to him. However, I just think if you're going to add a veteran on a short-term deal he has to be a good clubhouse fit. I don't know if the rumors are even true, but if A.J. was doing what Bucket implied then it's a no-brainer that you don't bring him back IMO.