royoung

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 10:10 AM) With Peavy, if you knew the Sox would not contend in 2013 and lose close to 100 games, Hahn would have been torched for signing Peavy. That is the point. The reason given for not signing a pitcher now is the Sox realistically won't contend, and give guys like Rienzo a shot. Well, they didn't contend in 2013, but signing a FA pitcher paid of with a prospect. Peavy wanted to be here and frankly gave us a pretty fair deal because he thought we were going to contend. Peavy is a superior pitcher to Santana or Jimenez and we signed him for comparable annual salary and less years.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 08:49 AM) Absolutely. I look for at least 4 years in the minors. Rookies generally don't help you win that much. Trace Thompson was a second round high school pick in 2009. Hasn't been declared a bust yet, nor should he. Danish is best case scenerio and even then, you don't know what is going to happen between now and 2016 or 2017. I think if you take a HS player with the pick expected him to be a decent contributor to your major league team before 2020 is nonsense. It may happen, but probably not. For every Mike Trout, there are thousands of Trace Thompsons. Hawkins was drafted 2 years ago in round 1. Do you really think he's 2 years away from helping the White Sox win? The whole premise that this is a 99 loss team so the White Sox shouldn't sign pitchers is nonsense. If you knew how bad they were going to be, would you have thought it was a mistake to sign Peavy? Why would you need a "wrong side of 30" pitcher with a history of injury eating payroll? Because they signed Peavy they now have A. Garcia. That is the point of signing pitchers. The Sox don't have too much pitching. Guys are going to get injured. Guys are going to suck. The more you have, the better you will be. If at the end of the day, you luck out and do have too much pitching, it is very easy to get rid of . It's a difficult situation for scouts around draft time I am sure. Let's say we are looking at two players, one is more polished and has a perfect world ETA of 2016, and a very good chance of getting a cup of coffee, a decent chance of being an average major league regular. The other player is less polished, has a ETA of 2018, but has a chance of being an all-star caliber player, but a higher bust risk. Who do you pick? It's a franchise philosophy, the White Sox took the low ceiling guys for years and years and we all complained bitterly. Now the Sox are swinging for the fences and we aren't willing to be patient? Bulls***. Draft picks are lottery tickets, you draft them, stash them, and hope you scout well enough to hit on enough to keep your ball club competitive and cheap. Refusing to play isn't the answer. I keep hearing the Peavy comparisons and they make no sense. He didn't cost us a pick and the Sox were coming off a season where we finished three games behind Detroit. Three games is a gap that can be made up by a free agent acquisition. We finished THIRTY games behind Detroit last year. If your plan is to just sign a starter to flip him, the odds of Santana or Jimenez exceeding the value of a contract in six months to a year that literally no other club in baseball is willing to give them right now is very low. Even less likely that they will exceed the contract so much so that any team would be willing to give us anything close to be as valuable as the #43 overall pick. And that is ignoring the shortsighted financial and roster implications as well.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 10:22 PM) I don't understand why Hahn is stopping right now. I'm thinking in the offseason, Keppinger and Gillaspie sound like very good players and Flowers/Phegs doesn't sound so bad and our pitching staff seems just fine. But that's wishful thinking, fool's gold. To all of you "rebuilding people" please please answer this. My assertion is if we added a real catcher, another starter and preferably a real second baseman we "could" win the division. It's doable to add all three. So tell me ... do you agree with my assertion we are THAT CLOSE to contending now? If the answer as I expect, is yes, then why not go for it? I'd hate to be out of the race in May when we are this close NOW. Not that close sadly. Our rotation is decent but the offense looks pathetic. Eaton, Abreu, Garcia, Davidson, and Phegley/Nieto will most likely make up more than half our lineup and none of them have played a full season in the major leagues. I am bullish on all those players future contributions, but it will take some time and I am OK with that. It's a youth movement, everyone sees it except for the guys arguing for an aging free agent starter. These guys are going to go through slumps and take some knocks but it will make us a better ball club for the future.

Stop feeding the troll. The logic behind this thread has been refuted wonderfully several times over. More importantly, Hahn said he's not giving up a draft pick.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 25, 2014 -> 12:02 PM) The addition of a SP would allow you to deal one from depth next year. The idea is Johnson shows enough in the rotation in 2014 to take Quintana's place in 2015 if need be and they can deal Quintana. Or if Danks has a bounce back year he can be dealt. You are conveniently ignoring the fact that if the Sox sign Santana or Jimenez to a multi year deal and attempt to deal them at the deadline or next year they will have to pitch well enough to EXCEED the value of the deal we just handed them. A deal that NO OTHER team in the major leagues was willing to give them this off-season. If you are advocating trading Q instead, you are effectively replacing a young, cheap, excellent starter for an expensive, older, and less effective starter and trying to pass it off as us improving the ball club. If Q would get us a return that could help the ball club in other areas, it's basically just trading one problem for another. Then we would have an issue of rotation depth and you would complain that we don't have any depth in the minors which is because we forfeited a pick. It makes zero baseball sense.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 25, 2014 -> 11:37 AM) Why? The Sox need talent on the Major League level as desperately as they need it in the minors. If the Sox can't outspend the big spenders (as shown by the Tanaka pursuit) they are going to have to go after guys like this. Would you rather give up a 2nd round pick this year than give up a 1st rounder when they are in the middle of the pack? Jimenez or Santana is going to cost us 10 plus million a year, while our 2nd rounder is going to cost us a fraction of that and could possibly be in our organization for the next 8-10 years. I honestly would rather not give a draft pick for mediocre, aging free agent fodder at all. It's not that Hahn isn't participating in free agency, he just is being selective about who to pursue.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 25, 2014 -> 11:27 AM) Dunn is symbolic of a failed strategy. This franchise would be better off without him even if he hits 30 homers. So you don't want a guy who is going to hit 30 homers even though our offense is most likely going to be pathetic because he's "symbolic of a failed strategy?"

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 25, 2014 -> 11:17 AM) Dunn is frustrating as hell to watch, but given our lack of offense and left-handed bats, he definitely has value to us against RHP regardless of what the common Sox fan may think. That said, I don't want to see him in a White Sox uniform after 2014 under any circumstance. Dunn hasn't exactly delivered on his contract, but he has hit 41 and 34 home runs over the past two seasons. Not exactly dragging down our offense out there.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jan 25, 2014 -> 09:46 AM) Hahn on 670: "At this point in time, we're not going to do anything that costs us a draft pick." Exactly the right way to go in this situation. Say what you'd like about the odds of a 2nd rounder amounting to anything, but a team coming off a 99 loss season shouldn't be signing 30 something starters that cost a pick.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 03:22 PM) How long do you think it will take the Sox farm system to start producing the talent needed to contend? My guess 3-5 years. If you are specifically talking about the rotation I believe that the rotation we currently have is capable of contending. If you are talking about the roster as a whole I would guess 1-2 years with Garcia, Davidson, Eaton, Abreu, adjusting to the major leagues. My point is the rotation isn't the thing holding the Sox from contending and spending 13 million to improve it slightly isn't a smart way to allocate resources when there are other areas of need.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 03:10 PM) You're not taking away from Quintana's value if you sign a mid-rotation starter. Would you rather have Jimenez or Santana and say Jason Castro going forward or Quintana? You misunderstand me completely. It's an allocation of scarce resources. Q is a solid #2-3 starter for less than a million dollars a year. That's amazing value and let's you spend elsewhere to improve your ball club. We don't have a gaping hole in the middle of our rotation where we NEED to spend 13 million a year on an aging starter. Good clubs don't have to dip into the free agent market much because they can develop their own talent or acquire it cheaply.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 01:44 PM) Explain to me how adding a talented player at a reasonable price hurts any team in any situation. I'd love to hear how signing Ervin Santana is going cause a screeching stop to our entire rebuilding process. You could apple the same logic to what the Yankees do. With their seemingly unlimited payroll, nearly every talented free agent has a "reasonable price." The White Sox have a hard and fixed payroll limit, every dollar you spend takes away from another potential deal. This is why Chris Sale's contract is so damn valuable, we are getting an ace for the price of a back of the rotation starter. I don't want to pay a 31 year old inconsistent starter 13 million a year to do what Danks can do for the same price or Q can do for a fraction of it. We can (and should) spend that money elsewhere to make a better complete team.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 05:09 PM) This just in, Keith Law thinks Tanaka will be an elite pitcher from day one. Actually in his chat he said he doesn't write his headlines and he specified he thought Tanaka will be around a top 20-25 starter. Which is very good, but not elite. Scott (Boston) I'm surprised that you would label a top 20-25 pitcher as "elite." Or did someone else write the headline? Klaw (1:22 PM) Writers don't write their own headlines. I am no exception.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 10:57 AM) Woah. Lots of same point. It was a slam dunk rebuttal haha.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 10:49 AM) Frankly, I don't know if Garcia will pan out, but I would rather acquire him at his development stage than the unknown in the second round. I'm not saying I would rush out and sign Santana or Jimenez, but picking up a veteran pitcher at this stage makes a lot of sense. Increase the inventory. Money aside, banking your future on future 2nd round picks is a bigger longshot than banking on Santana or Jimenez being All Stars. This speeds up the rebuild. You want to play it close to the vest, you wind up like the Cubs who are now saying to their fans their rebuild might not be complete until next decade. It's funny you bring up the Cubs rebuild, because they did almost exactly what you are recommending with Edwin Jackson. How is that working out for them?

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 08:05 AM) So you get rid of a 2nd round pick in the hopes that an expensive guy with a questionable background performs so that you can trade him for a prospect. So much win

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 06:12 AM) Talk about trolling. Sale can continue to improve as he pitches. Sitting him for a year (I'm still baffled by the mere suggestion) would do nothing but possibly cause him to regress. There are health risks for anyone, and Sale is not a bigger health risk than any deal the Sox can enter into. Signing a 31 year old pitcher to a 4 year $40MM+ contract has much more risk. Here's the point that you are missing (or refuse to accept): There is no reason to go spend money on a veteran starting pitcher just to sign a veteran. It doesn't make any sense, and we should just stop talking about it. Let's just punt the whole 2014 season. Why play? We can forfeit all our games and rest up for 2015! Seriously though, this is baseball and we have a lot of young talent that I am excited to watch develop at the major league level. Are we stocking up like the Yankees? NO. But 2014 will be a step in the right direction and Hahn can continuous evaluate the roster and the trade/FA market for ways to improve the future of the ball club.

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 06:02 PM) Its going to be another long year watching these dudes behind the plate. Even Hahn seems deflated in recent interviews in regards to the catcher position. Keep exploring every option, buddy! Please, Please explore every option... three way deals, financial creativity... do what you need to do, Mr. Hahn. It's going to be ugly, but a lot of teams punt the catcher position. I am ok with him not making a bad move just to put a band aid on the position in 2014.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 12:58 PM) Davidson shouldn't start the year in AAA Why not? He's only 22 and hasn't dominated AAA. Kepp and Gillaspie can form a halfway decent lefty-righty platoon and keep it warm he's ready to stick for the long term. Keppaspie? Gillinger? So many possibilities!

2020?

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 10:19 AM) Also as much as I want to see ARod gone, now I have a need to see him come back next year so the Yanks are stuck paying him till his contract runs out in 2017. They are paying his contract in 2015-2017 no matter what. They just got 27 million in relief when he was suspended for the 2014 season.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 10:07 AM) I'm not all that upset about either. At the prices they went for? Me too. Also, thanks for the information Rock. Very good stuff and kept things interesting to the end. Appreciate it

QUOTE (dayan024 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 10:04 AM) Phil Rogers ‏@philgrogers 1m @Ken_Rosenthal reports that White Sox were one of five teams in Tanaka bidding until the end, along w/@Yankees, @Cubs, @Dodgers @ @astros. So Hahn foiled by the Yankees in pursuit of two free agents targets this off-season. (McCann and Tanaka)

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 09:34 AM) You also have to look at it if he needed an opt out after 4 years, is your team ready to win the next 4 seasons? If winning a WS isn't realistic the next 4 seasons, signing Tanaka and paying the fee makes less sense. Yep. The way I see we have a 6 year window with our current roster construction. Correct me if I am wrong, but Sale, Abreu, Eaton, Garcia, Davidson, EJ, Semien, etc etc are all under team control for the next six seasons. That is why I believe Hahn felt comfortable offering six years at that price. But there is certainly other ways (and perhaps wiser) ways to upgrade the roster with that kind of money.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 09:23 AM) I spread out the 35 million over the course of the contract and added the posting fee, and as I pointed out, it wasn't much different annually averaged. Obviously I am not adding interest made on money sitting elsewhere, but rates are pretty low right now. Maybe in 4 or 5 years that could be very different. 7 years is scary, but so was 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 for that kind of money, but if he pitches well, the 7th year is irrelevant, it won't go that far. He will be re-negotiating after 4. Brutal either way, but you can only push so far. You assume that he pitches well enough to want to re-negotiate a contract that pays him like the a top five pitcher in all of baseball from his age 29-32 years.