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QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 05:53 PM) He elected to go to free agency. I know he has been a name that has been thrown around here the last couple years. I would like to bring him in, I think he still has good upside even though his numbers away from Coors have been pretty bad. I liked the idea of Rosario as a back C/platooner for LaRoche, but then we signed Avila. The ship has sailed, methinks.

QUOTE (Knuckles @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 05:36 PM) Samardzija gonna cash in. Maybe. The problem with these "precedent-setting" deals is that they have the secondary effect of removing the deepest pocket from the bidding pool. There are four teams that are going to commit big on a starter before Samardzija's name gets pulled, and the Tigers and BoSox are already out.

He'd have to be practically free, and we'd have to be confident he could play third base for us. I'm not sure either of those conditions can be met.

I think Brett Lawrie should be considered a target if he can be had at a price that reflects his risk. If he didn't have warts, he wouldn't be available in the first place. For those that feel the Sox are in a payroll bind while also pot-committed, the only way to make up the talent gap cheaply is to gamble on some upside.

QUOTE (Baron @ Nov 26, 2015 -> 01:10 PM) Nice assumption there. I'll answer the previous question though. I dont think he handled Zach Duke,Adam LaRoche and Tyler Flowers correctly regarding to matchups. Zach Duke's big selling point was that he had neutral platoon splits. In order to platoon Tyler Flowers, one first needs a left-handed player with which to platoon him. LaRoche should be platooned at this point, but you could argue that if he wasn't going to get in his groove and be an effective everyday hitter, the Sox weren't going anywhere anyway, so they were giving him every chance to get it going.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 11:38 PM) Who's b****ing just saying Avila will not play more than Flowers. Because of the negligible difference in their salaries?

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 11:05 PM) I went a bit overboard by saying "conservatively", but Quintana has been worth 9.9 fWAR over the last two years, so saying he's a 5 WAR pitcher is reasonable. Conservatively, he'd be a 4 WAR per year pitcher. This doesn't address that calling Puig a 4 WAR per year OF is fairly generous. I think it's reasonable to call them both 4-ish win players. Quintana's contract is better and he's coming off a better season, so he's got more value. Some of that is negated by the fact that pitchers are more volatile than position players. I agree that Quintana has more value than Puig, but the difference is not anywhere in the same universe as including either Seager or Urias, let alone both of them. Including Avi is nothing; he's close to worthless right now. Montas is nice but again not even close to either of those other guys.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 11:15 PM) No offense, but why does Steamer matter? Quintana put up fWARs of 5.1 & 4.8 the last two seasons. Unless you overweight his first two MLB seasons (as a developing 23 & 24 year old), he's basically been a 5 WAR pitcher. So why should we expect Quintana to pitch closer to his sophomore campaign than his age 25 & 26 seasons? Quite frankly, a 3.6 WAR projection for him next year is garbage no matter how you slice the numbers. It matters because it actually takes regression into account. You can say it's an imperfect system, but it's a hell of a lot more accurate than the typical fan "projection" which is always expecting every player to perform at their peak. OP said that a "conservative projection" is matching his career high. That's ridiculous. Any given player is never "likely" to match their career year at any given time.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 10:39 PM) Quintana is, conservatively, about a 5 WAR per year pitcher. Puig is very inconsistent, but let's call him a 4 WAR per year OF to be generous. So, player for player, Quintana is going to be worth 1 more WAR per year. That's just not true. Quintana's career high is 5.1 fWAR, and he's projected at 3.6 by Steamer. He CAN be a 5 win guy, but that's not conservative at all. He's probably most likely a 4 win guy, conservatively 3.5.

That swing looks awful to me.

Hard not to like this. He's been hurt, which has kept his price down, but if he can get healthy there's some real upside. Left-handedness hopefully relegates Flowers to Sale + vs. LHP duties, limiting his ABs nicely. A $2.5m gamble when there really wasn't much else available, and what was would cost a ton of talent.

Quintana is probably worth Puig + Barnes, or a similarly valued prospect, realistically. He's definitely NOT worth Van Slyke on top of that, and that's not even considering attaching a boat anchor contract like LaRoche's to it. Especially since LaRoche is literally useless to the Dodgers, who have Adrian Gonzalez and no DH spot.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/addressing-...ensive-problem/

QUOTE (LDF @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 06:36 PM) i will give you credit, you do make a compelling argument but for me, taking the advance stat out of the equation, i will settle this as before his surgery and post surgery result. now the book is clean and everything is new stats as you pointed out. thus there is no book. now for my disclaimer, you may be trying to point this out in using the stats and i am too dumb to realize it .... all i can say to that, if that is the case, pls excuse my post. I actually don't think it's an "advanced stats" thing -- his last three years, in terms of the "traditional" innings and ERA, have been REMARKABLY similar, and since his injury his DIPS stats have never really painted much of a different picture than his run-based stats in the first place. In a low offensive environment like we're in, a 4.75 ERA just isn't very good. But yeah, I'm not saying he's always sucked. I think we probably overrated him pre-surgery, but there's no question he was a very good pitcher. He's just not the same guy after his shoulder issues. It's not his fault or anything.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 06:01 PM) If he puts up,a 1.8 WAR he is worth something. That does not suck. I agree with that, but my point is: 1) Assuming he's going to match his four-year peak despite not much changing in his peripherals just isn't realistic. It's possible, but not likely. We do this all the time as fans -- when a guy "breaks out" to any degree, we tend to bank on it continuing -- but when a guy has a s*** year, we always assume he'll bounce back or progress to the mean. 2) Even if he could be expected to match it, 1.8 WAR for $14m does not suck, but it doesn't have any surplus value at all. So he's not a trade asset. And while you didn't specifically say he should be worth Neil Walker (if we added something small), that's what the posters were suggesting when I jumped in.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 05:29 PM) You really need to read my original post again. You know the one where I said he put up a 1.8 WAR and said you could probably get something for him if you threw in a little money and the team acquiring him thought he could do it again. Clearly you think it is black and white, something you supposedly despise, that he can't. No one is goading you. You think Danks sucks, WAR be damned. I do think he sucks, but the problem with your argument is that WAR doesn't make a case that he's good in the first place, so I'm not sure where the "WAR be damned" comes from. His 2015 fWAR was close but not even league average, and it's a stark outlier, so you need to regress it against the larger sample. It paints the picture of a 1 WAR guy, and that's just not valuable at $14m at all.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 02:18 PM) Misuses a stat? He put up a 1.8 WAR. That's better than several guys owed more money. How come you don't get so upset when guys were posting that Danks sucked 3 out of every 4 starts when that was totally false? I did use saber guys because it was you and your buddy witesoxfan who told me Duke's career numbers were meaningless. He was well worth the contract he was given. One all that mattered was the previous season. Danks, all that matters is everything but the previous season. But if you read your post and your conclusions, the black and white you complain about, is exactly what you are doing. If you want to find a post I made about Zach Duke where I say that his career numbers are meaningless and he's a lock to repeat his career year and sabermetrics prove he's unstoppable, I will gladly eat s*** or whatever. But if you go on a search, you'll find instead that I have said things like "I like this risk because I've read that his transformation was due to an overhaul of his mechanics and pitch-mix, thus making me feel that his recent numbers are more likely to stick," or something similarly reasonable and realistic and notably NOT the type of hyperbolic, extreme claim that you frequently "remember" me making. And that's really the key: you seem to have a need to divide everyone's stance into one of two clear camps, where each side must accept EVERY premise of anyone who also falls on that side, and must simultaneously reject every premise held by anyone on the opposite side. It feels a lot like mainstream political coverage at times. The truth is that I liked the Zach Duke signing and that I thought he was likely to succeed on some level -- and yet I'm not shocked AT ALL that he didn't succeed, because I always knew it was a possibility. I'm disappointed, yes, but it didn't shatter my worldview, because I understand that life isn't a series of pre-meditated events that can be predicted absolute accuracy. Which leads to the following strange conclusion: I still like the Zach Duke signing. I don't like how it's worked out, but even re-evaluating the information that existed at the time, I think it made a ton of sense. Sometimes you have to live with the dice not falling like you wanted. I don't know if it's just the idea of shades of grey, probablities, etc. that is annoying to you or if it's just the intrigue of goading me to argument. I agree that there is appeal to being able to draw a distinct conclusion from everything, it's just that unfortunately that's not how life/baseball works. And I tend to value seeking the truth (even when the truth is frustratingly incomplete) rather than seeking a sense of conclusion. Accuracy over completeness. And I get that that feels "waffle-y" to you probably. But you won't find me posting what you say I'm posting because I don't and have never thought those things. QUOTE (LDF @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 02:48 PM) if i am reading this correctly, you are judging him based on what??? and if you are using anything to judge or compare him too, then you are using the realm of subject opinion following by a perception. ball players a judge on their yearly performance and can be use as a track record. but this whole thing has change due to his injury, surgery etc,.... Right. Danks was a very good pitcher before his shoulder surgery. Since then, he's been varying degrees of bad until last year, where he was merely "slightly below average." Since than last season is the most recent, it holds more weight than the other seasons individually, but it doesn't hold more weight than the combined effect of the larger, multi-year sample. So if you want to say something like "what kind of pitcher is John Danks post-surgery," one VERY simple (too simple, but effective for the purposes of the example) way to do it would be to simply average his results since. That way, his outlier 2015 is included but not over-represented. Danks' average fWAR since his surgery is 0.7 fWAR per season. So are you comfortable saying that guy is a 1.8 fWAR pitcher next year? In truth, you'd make it more complicated. First of all, you'd weight the most recent season by some factor. I didn't do that above because I have no idea what that factor is, but guys that make projection systems have figured it out enough to make a really solid guess. Regardless, it's a safe to assume that the 0.7 figure is low, perhaps a weighted average might make it closer to 1.0 fWAR.Secondly, you'd look at what actually changed to make him more productive, and then decide if those factors are likely or not likely to continue or to be indicative of a sustainable skill. Danks' 2014 (0.5 fWAR) and 2015 (1.8 fWAR) seasons were actually REMARKABLY similar -- the biggest difference is he struck out a few more guys (on a per inning basis) this year. The second biggest difference, though, appears to be that league offense got better, which means something for his contributions but doesn't necessarily suggest that he's a better pitcher. Thirdly, you might try to find a difference in his peripherals or style that could have sustainably contributed to his increased strikeout rate. For example, did his velocity increase? Did he add a pitch? If so, this would very ironically be the same argument for Danks improving that Dick Allen is arguing AGAINST in the case of Zach Duke.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 01:51 PM) He was a lot better than the "he sucks 3 out of every 4 starts" hyperbole we read on this board in 2015. It is funny how iron clad these advanced stats supposedly are at times, and how other times, well, xxx happened, and you can't expect xxx to happen...Go back to the Zach Duke signing. I ranted against it. You saber guys were saying he is a totally different pitcher. Nothing he did before 2014 was relevant. Danks is a different pitcher. Perhaps more healthy. He was throwing a little harder near the end of the season. Now, what he did in 2011-2014 IS relevant. Whether you are totally saber, totally old school, or a mix, we all can spin the numbers around to make the guys we like look good, and the guys we think suck, to suck. As I've said seemingly thousands of times, the only people calling them "ironclad" are those who are setting up strawmen against them, typically in exapserated justification of using a number to try to explain a phenomenon that it was never intended to explain. Every stat has a purpose, and some are better than others. Each is good at telling you some things, and not at telling you others. Some are more reliable at others. If you insist on viewing the situation in a black & white, all or nothing, SABRS VS JOCKS, "I know everything or else I know nothing" manner, then none of this will make sense to you. If someone misuses a stat, and someone else tries to explain how it should be used properly, the result is not evidence that all numbers are a lie.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 11:26 AM) It apparently was worth $14 million. If advanced stats are to be believed, he is a 1.8 WAR left handed pitcher. If you eat a little money, those guys should bring you back something useful if it is determined he can do it again. That's not true. Two things: 1. The $/WAR thing does NOT say "Player x's performance was worth $y because of z WAR." The $/WAR thing DOES say "Teams have paid an average of $x per WAR in the most recent offseason free agent market." It's very natural to want to draw an equivalency of dollars to raw value, but it doesn't work specifically because the number ONLY applies to free agent dollars. In other words, the price paid is for marginal wins from entities that already have MOST of their total wins in the bank at substantially lower costs (in the form of controllable players, both pre-free agency and post-free agency players that outproduce their contracts). The actual dollar value per win in the MLB is way, way lower because of guys like Mike Trout or Jacob DeGrom. Additionally, the $/WAR model shows that the rate teams pay is NOT linear at all. As the yearly salary figure increases, the rate of return decreases -- players essentially give a "discount" on a per WAR basis in exchange for more years or just a lot of money anyway. The whole thing tends to top out around $30m no matter who we're talking about. 2. That John Danks put up a 1.8 fWAR season does not mean he is "a 1.8 fWAR pitcher." Good on him for having a great year and approximating a league average player in 2015, but as I pointed out before, that number is just one of a larger data set, and that larger data set points to him NOT repeating his success going forward.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 10:27 AM) Danks put up a 1.8 WAR last season, valued at $14 million per fangraphs. Apparently he isn't as overpaid as he is made out to be overpaid. Which is an outlier on his entire post-injury career: 0.3, 0.2, 0.5, 1.8 -- 2015 Steamer projection: 0.8 Neil Walker during the same period: 2.7, 2.6, 3.7, 2.4 -- 2016 Steamer projection: 2.6 Walker also makes half the money and they have the same one year of control. Those aren't even REMOTELY equivalent trade assets.

What year is this? Danks for someone of value? Guys

Do you guys not know who Justin Turner is (despite the OP typo)?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 20, 2015 -> 07:05 PM) We should be all over both these. Well Rosario if hes still a capable catcher. Not sure if he is or not. It seems like he'd be PERFECT to act as backup catcher + LaRoche's platoon partner.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Nov 20, 2015 -> 02:04 PM) So what they are contending now in 2016? They aren't contending for jack with or without Avi. He has more upside than Melky so if it's between Melky and Avi for the majority of the starts in the OF that's a no brainer. They have little to lose by trotting him out there and seeing what happens next April/May/June. Yeah, I think it's considerably more likely that they view themselves as contenders in 2016 than it is that they trade all their good players.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Nov 20, 2015 -> 02:28 AM) There is little point is selling this low on him. At this point you give him another 300 PA before July and see what happens. If he sucks, well s***. If he shows something, hell, that's good. He needs to hit 290/330/450 to have positive value. Maybe he can do it. I'd say maybe 40/100 odds. The "point" to selling low on him would be to prevent him from creating more losses for our team.