Chicago White Sox

As painful as it is to admit, this is a great trade for the Cubs. Shark is incredibly overrated and they weren't competing next year with him. I laugh at some of these pro-Cubs posts that assume all their prospects will make it, but they sure do have a nice collection of young hitters. It will be interesting to see how they acquire all the pitching they'll need though. As we can see with this very deal, trading for established pitching is never cheap.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jul 5, 2014 -> 11:48 AM) The Sox would love to get rid of Danks's contract. Decent-upside, A-ball players is all that is that would be needed. Danks is nothing more than a fourth starter with a bad contract. Disagree here, Danks may be overpaid but his salary won't prevent us from making moves going forward. Therefore, I'd like to see some real value in return or I'd just hold on to him. Not like we're loaded with pitching at the top of our system.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jul 5, 2014 -> 08:43 AM) I don't think anybody said scraps. I believe "Maurer is reasonable for him" was about the lowest Viciedo was rated. Took me 8 posts in this thread to find this: "Anything for Viciedo is pretty good." There are plenty of other posts along these same lines in this thread and others.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Jul 5, 2014 -> 08:26 AM) Wait. That is not the reality of the situation. You are not going to trade Viciedo for cash. The object of trading him is get a a player(s) back who fill a hole. So if you trade him and get another outfielder, a SP or C in return, you are not worse off. You only trade him if you get something of equal value back. The Boston article yesterday mentioned one of their 3 young right handed starting picthers in AAA/ML and a prospect. That might fill the 4th SP spot and maybe you get lucky w a prospect. You don't trade Viciedo unless it fills an existing need or unless you get what you perceive to be a better OF option. Umm, have you read this thread or countless others? Half this site would like to dump Viciedo for scraps.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jul 5, 2014 -> 07:36 AM) Danks isn't the next man up. Michael Taylor is. Danks has posted a better wRC+ over his last 600 AAA plate appearances than Taylor, is the better defender and probably the better baserunner. What makes you think Taylor is next in line exactly? Because he was a failed Baseball America top 100 prospect? The fact that Danks has more major league plate appearances despite never being a highly regarded prospect is pretty telling IMO. No one up until now has wanted to give Taylor an extended look. What is it about him that you think will cause Hahn to be that guy?

The most important point in Jake's post is that we promoted a guy to AAA after striking out 31% of the time in AA. If that doesn't give Hahn enough merit to fire Buddy Bell I don't know what else does.

The reality of the situation for us is if we trade Viciedo now, we enter next offseason with holes at LF & DH and a huge lack of power in our lineup. Given some of our other needs, primary C & SP, that's a pretty large to-do-list for just one offseason and with no solid internal options to fill them. What's it going to cost us in terms of cash and prospects to fill all these holes from the outside? Will there be other options even available? People can hate all they want on Viciedo and be eager to move him, but when Jordan Danks is the next best option we have in-house, things can get a lot uglier. Having said this, I'm sure the stats-oriented posters will say Danks' superior defense and base-running would make him a more valuable player, which I would find laughable. At some point, certain posters have to accept the fact that baseball is not context-neutral and teams with the highest WARs aren't awarded automatic playoff spots. A team playing 81 games at the Cell with Conor at 3B, Garcia in RF, & Danks in LF (or someone like him) isn't going to do well offensively over the course of a season. It's critical to have some balance in your lineup and having those three guys at power-based positions would be a disaster IMO.

The reason I think Viciedo deserves a bigger leash than most people give him is because he came into this league at a young age with almost no plate discipline. Basically, we did him a huge disservice by bringing him up so early and forcing him to become a more selective hitter at the major league level. That's very difficult to accomplish and it makes sense why he has struggled like he has so far in his career. However, if you've watched him play this year you can see a much more patient approach at the plate. He's finally making some progress in this area and to not give the rest of his offensive game time to catch up to the adjustments he has made would be incredibly foolish IMO. No one is pushing him whatsoever and his value is obviously at an all-time low right now. Might as well give him the rest of 2014 before we sell him for pennies on the dollar, because it is possible for his offensive game to finally come together. The tools to be an impact hitter are clearly there.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 12:15 PM) Feder says that Boers is the highest paid Score on-air personality. Chew on that for a minute. That's absolute insanity if true. He's easily the worst personality on the Score, even worse than Hanley and that dude sucks.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 04:47 PM) Except Viciedo is 2 years and over 1,000 PA older. He's a bad defense, 96 wRC+ left fielder, lol. That's not worth anything on paper. Not saying he should be worth a ton, but you're clearly ignoring his power potential in a baseball environment where power is at a premium. Given that he's only 25 years old and has shown some improvement in his plate discipline this year, I think at least a couple teams would have interest in him if the price was right, regardless of how his numbers look on paper.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 07:05 PM) Isn't Grandal LH as well? He's a switch-hitter, was actually pretty good against both RHP & LHP prior to this year. That trend has changed in 2014, as he's really struggling against LHP. Regardless, he'd some balance to lineup in terms of handedness and would fill part of our OBP need.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 04:30 PM) That's where I'm at, too. I'm assuming that he isn't going to repeat his 130 wRC+ from last year ever again. I'm totally, completely fine with 100 wRC+ with plus defense. I think we'd all be, but the problem is the Astros may still sell him as a 130 wRC+ catcher. Given what they asked for Bud Norris & Lucas Harrell, I don't see them being realistic with their demands for Castro, not when he's one of their best chips. I still think Grandal makes more sense for us. He's younger and under team control for an additional season, plus I think his bat projects better for our lineup. He won't be easy to get, regardless of his down year so far, but maybe a package centered around Davidson (assuming a rebound), Beck, and an A ball wild card would be something they'd consider in the offseason.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 04:26 PM) Good news is, this sort of surgery isn't a big effect on pitching from what we've seen. And he's still quite young. Not ideal of course, but not the end of the world. Horrible news but at least this is a positive.

QUOTE (beautox @ Jun 30, 2014 -> 02:11 PM) I'm happy with how this season has played out so far, but I would keep him at A+ with Anderson for the remainder of this season and possibly the start of next season before bumping them both up to AA. Hawkins should be in AA to start next year. He's taken some major steps forward in terms of plate discipline this season and should be rewarded for that. More importantly, he needs to face the next challenge (and true test) which is AA pitching. One more month in A+ isn't going to due much for his development IMO.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 28, 2014 -> 11:29 AM) I don't think so. I think it was planned for Jones to be the closer once Reed was traded. Are you really arguing that Lindstrom wasn't the opening day closer? Not sure what I'm missing here.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 28, 2014 -> 10:02 AM) You really believe that Lindstrom was the planned closer from the time they signed him in the off-season? I don't remember it being that clear at all. Doesn't matter if he was the planned closer when they resigned him, he was the planned closer on opening day and Nate Jones was a setup man before he got injured.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jun 28, 2014 -> 12:28 AM) And for comparison sake, that makes him the 7th best hitter on the team this year. He's only been better than our revolving doors of LF'ers and RF'ers. No, his 121 wRC+ makes him the second best hitter on the team. His low WAR is due to the DH positional adjustment and/or his bad defense at 1B. While his HR totals are down, he's offset some of that with an increase in doubles. He's also had a big increase in his BB % rate while maintaining his K %. He's obviously not an elite DH, but he's been doing a damn fine job with the bat.

Come on Tumbleweeds, jack one here.

QUOTE (winninguglyin83 @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 08:47 PM) No reason to blame Putnam. Downs was bad in spring training -- and has only gotten worse. Contract is the only reason he's still around. Leesman could not be worse. Doesn't Downs' option vest soon? If so, we need to DFA him ASAP, as paying him $4M to pitch for us on 2015 would be an epic fail.

No f***ing way!?!

Oh boy...Hector looks nervous.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 07:38 PM) At his age, I think the ceiling is going to be a Top 75-100 and some flyers. He's a good player, but people know what he is. No one was fooled into thinking he can sustain the performance he started the season with. Oh I agree, but Peavy landed your exact package a year ago. IMO, Ramirez should get you a little more than that simply due to positional scarcity. Again, I'm not expecting a Mark Texeria type return here, but a prospect with a little more polish than Asivail Garcia (not significantly more) should be required to move Alexei at the deadline.

If we move Alexei, I want a SP, OF, or C that is near major league ready as the centerpiece. As much as Alexei's offense has slipped this past month, he's still an incredibly valuable player and SS is a difficult position to fill. Under no circumstance do you trade him for anything less than a top 50/75 prospect plus some lottery tickets. He's our best trade chip by far and if we can't get a solid return for him then we should simply hold onto him for another season. Also, I've said it before, but Nick Franklin makes no sense for us. Unless he's basically a throw-in, acquiring him would be a horrible use of resources. Give Semien or Sanchez a chance before attempting to replace them.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 08:17 PM) Bad AB by Abreu there. Yup, ugly ass strikeout right there.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 08:04 PM) No offence, but lighten up I'd lighten up, but when you constantly wage war against all the De Aza "haters", don't follow that up with a blatant bait job hoping to egg everyone on. Again, you have every right to express your opinion, but trolling ain't cool.