Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 08:31 PM) Kemp, Bruce and Me.Cabrera are all unrealistic at this point. Why is that??

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 08:18 PM) that tweet is hilarious. Yea, it's an impressive list...of guys...that met an arbitrary cutoff. Players credited with more than 3 fWAR over the past two seasons: not Adam LaRoche. He's going to be our DH, so who gives a s*** about his fWAR? If he can maintain his wRC+ against RHP then he'll be plenty valuable.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 08:09 PM) Like I said, not a huge deal. I'm not worrying about it... We'll agree to disagree on a lot of that though, except I'm in complete agreement that we have a great nucleus to build around. In my opinion we are like 3/4 of the way through the rebuild and there's no point in not finishing it. I'd much rather wait it out and build something potentially great than add veterans for a wild card run and cross our fingers from there. If it were up to me this would have been another off season of trying to add as much young talent as possible. But we'll see what happens....its early still and anything can happen. But we really don't have many veteran trade chips that can get us good, young talent. Alexei is really the only guy that fits the bill.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 08:03 PM) 2.2 bWAR and .5 fWAR -- almost all due to variations on his defensive value. Hopefully they've done their scouting on his defense, although judging from how often they trotted Konerko out there at the end they don't really give that much of a f*** about 1B defense. Really hope more dominoes are going to fall. They didn't sign LaRoche for his defense, Abreu is still going to get the vast majority of starts at 1B. The key is making sure Robin actually platoons him, as LaRoche is a negative player against LHP.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 07:47 PM) After looking at his splits and yea, no compensation pick, it's slightly more defensible. That said, still don't like it, unless it's part of many more moves that all make sense together, which could still happen. I think you have to assume more moves are coming. This won't be our big offensive addition, or at the very least there will be one of equal importance. Also, I'm not a huge LaRoche by any means, but he's been damn good against RHP and the price isn't too crazy. I'm cool with rolling the dice and hoping he can maintain his production during his age 35 & 36 seasons if Hahn is serious about competing next year.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 07:33 PM) Keep building for the future. Like I said, it's only 2 years so there isn't a ton to complain about, but I'm just not a fan of stop gap old players at this point. Unless Hahn has something big still hidden under his sleeve that would make us legit contenders... But LaRoche doesn't prevent us building for the future. He costs us nothing but money and is blocking no one of importance (sorry Andy Wilkins). Also, I think Hahn believes a lot of key pieces are already in place. We have legit #1 & #2 starters, one of the best hitters in baseball, and a very good leadoff guy. We are obviously not a finished product by any means, but if Hahn can fill our major holes with capable veterans and a few of our young, non-proven players like Avi, Semien, Rodon, etc. take that next step, we have a decent chance of being a playoff team. Burning cost-controlled years of Sale, Quintana, Abreu, & Eaton by refusing to sign/trade for veterans is by far the worst thing we can do IMO.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 07:22 PM) Mehh not the direction I want to see the team going in honestly....but 2 years $25M isn't going to hurt anything so I won't complain What direction would you prefer?

QUOTE (flavum @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 07:19 PM) https://twitter.com/MLBBruceLevine/status/535965162466185216 Thanks, Bruce. Back to your soup at Max and Benny's. What does the Max & Benny's line refer to?

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.