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QUOTE (beautox @ Oct 27, 2015 -> 04:27 AM) C Tyler Flowers to Seattle for SS Brad Miller - Hahn has actively been trying to upgrade this spot for quite some time and the mariners are desperate for catching help since Zunino hasn't panned out. By installing Flowers as their catcher that is a swing of 1.2WAR, -.8 to .4WAR. Miller in the outfield has been a disaster for the M's and he isn't going to supplant Cano or Marte. Miller is a slighty above average defender at SS and 2B and can out produce Alexei for 1/20th of the cost. RHP Erik Johnson, OF Avisail Garcia & RHP Spencer Adams for 3B Martin Prado & OF Marcell Ozuna - Miami need young cheap pitching Johnson provides that and Loria has consistently shown a propensity for not wanting to pay anyone more than league minimum, taking all of Prado's salary and their outspoken outfielder in Ozuna solves some of their issues while giving them a lottery ticket in Avisail to play in left and a promising young arm in Adams in addition to 11M freed up to pay someone like Juan Uribe this offseason. Loria is on record saying he would trade Ozuna and Ozuna has had a down year in addition to being upset about how his major league service has been handled. LHP John Danks + 6M, 2B Micah Johnson & OF Courtney Hawkins for RHP Braden Shipley, LHP Cody Reed & UT Phil Gosselin - John Danks would've ranked second in fWAR and innings pitched on the d-backs staff, they've got some great young arms coming up but they need an inning eating stalwart to break their staff in. Johnson replaces Chris Owings at second base while fitting into their aggressive strategy on the base paths (2nd in SB overall in the league) and Hawkins is a change of scenery candidate going to a system that has had a lot of success in developing young hitters. Shipley appears to be a possible 3/4 on a staff in a year and a half, possibly two, Reed has a lot of potential but has issues with conditioning and is a long way away and Gosselin is a solid utility player. 1B Adam LaRoche for RHP Jonathan Papelbon. This is a bad contract / "cancer" swap, both are FAs after '16. LaRoche goes back to a place where he has had modest success backing up the oft injured Zimmerman and providing a left handed bat off the bench. The nats rid themselves of Papelbon and the sox get a high leverage reliever with a chip on his shoulder. I agree that all of those deals would make the team much better, but I don't think any of the opposing teams would actually make any of those deals.

A sample of one just isn't enough to make mathematical equivalency conversions, though I applaud your efforts, ss2k5. Realistically, this decision is 100% on the scouts. I'd like them to gamble in the KBO assuming prices don't seem inflated, but only if the scouts like what they see (like they did with Abreu).

Watched this alone from my dorm-lounge. Ran screaming up to the 10th floor and banged on the door of the only Astros fan I knew of.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Oct 26, 2015 -> 12:36 PM) A long time ago in a galaxy far far away... Mark You are relentless.

I like Sanchez as a guy who is going to fill an infield hole that may still exist by March. But I don't think Sanchez is a guy who we should go into the offseason PLANNING on starting at any particular spot. I think we should be trying to find an upgrade at all three infield positions that Sanchez can play, and if we fail, Sanchez is a fine fallback plan for each.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 26, 2015 -> 12:21 AM) I don't make bets on teams I haven't seen yet.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 03:05 PM) And if you take into consideration his age, leadership abilities, overall performance the last three or four years and especially his contract which is $7 million for five years, he's a top 3-5 catcher in the game. Gomes wasn't healthy this year for most of the season, he's probably better offensively...but you also have to take into consideration the positive effect he has on Volquez, Ventura, Herrera, etc. Having a bi-lingual catcher really helps. He's the bridge in that clubhouse between Latin America and the rest of the team, like Juan Uribe was for the Sox. The best teams have strong leadership...a coach on the field...in that position. Guys like Posey and Molina, as well as Martin once he had his career resurgence in Pitt and matured. McCann was garbage last year and is hugely overpaid. Cervelli has to prove he can do it consistently year after year. Perez has the most favorable contract in baseball, like we always hear about Sale and Q. Other than Posey, for that franchise, there's nobody who fits better (and considering salary as well, you lean towards Perez for overall value as well). Lucroy has his flaws just like Perez does, and he's relatively unproven in postseason play. Salvy also had the biggest clutch hit in the Royals' season last year against the A's in the wc game. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/yea...ARBR/order/true In 2014 he was 6th in war. You have Lucroy, Martin, Posey, Mesoraco and Gomes ahead of him. Mesoraco looked great and fell apart last year with injury problems. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/yea...on/c/sort/WARBR 2013, sixth again. Castro and Wellington Castillo appear here. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/yea...on/c/sort/WARBR 2012, 8th in war. He has consistently been one of the five or six best overall catchers in the game over that period. Couple issues with your issues: 1. The context of the conversation was centered on offense -- greg was positing that C offense is a lost cause because even the best of them are bad. The problem is that Perez is NOT a standard for elite catcher offense, because he's demonstrably NOT an elite offensive catcher. In fact, he's not even average. So the point doesn't stand. 2. I concede that Perez is a top ten catcher in the ML if you include defense. I concede that he's a top 5 "value" at catcher in the ML if you include contract as well. Unfortunately, neither of those two factors were relevant to greg's point or my argument. 3. Your rankings of "leadership" are completely arbitrary and made up. Of course leadership is important, but who's to say Perez is any better than any of the other guys? Even if he was, how MUCH better? What is your opinion based on? Is it just that he gives Hawk a boner? I'm sorry that I'm so damn irritable tonight. But fo' real though

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 02:35 PM) Give me a do-over on this thread. I didn't realize Salvy was a stiff or at best just another guy. My bad. Granted! He's not a stiff at all, I just wouldn't consider his offense the "ceiling" -- I don't think we should simply accept that we won't get any offense out of the position.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 01:23 PM) He's the standard for an excellent all around catcher. Who is regarded as better than him? Definitively or "arguably"? Defensively? Buster Posey, Russell Martin, Francisco Cervelli, Yadier Molina, Rene Rivera, and Jonathan Lucroy would be the definites. I would argue that Yan Gomes, Alex Avila, AJ Ellis, Martin Maldonado, Jesus Sucre, and Austin Hedges would at least be considered in the same class. Offensively? Well, here's a list of catchers (minimum 100PA) that had better offensive seasons in 2015 (by wRC+): Buster Posey Curt Casali Travis D'Arnaud Francisco Cervelli Chris Giminez AJ Ellis Yasmani Grandal Stephen Vogt Russell Martin AJ Pierzynski (lol) Roberto Perez (who?) Hank Conger Miguel Montero Josh Phegley (!) Brian McCann Robinson Chirinos Nick Hundley Jarrod Saltalamacchia Matt Weiters JR Murphy Welington Castillo Derek Norris Steve Clevenger Geovany Soto Jonathan Lucroy Blake Swihart Andrew Susac

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 02:05 PM) That is true. Catchers don't hit much. Even the standard, the great Salvy Perez hit .260 (.280 OBP) with 21 homers and 70 ribbies. That's great and all but again, he's the best and only hitting .260; .280. Flowers coincidentally in a lot fewer at bats hit .239 with nine homers, 39 ribbies and .295 OPB; Soto hit .219, 9 hrs, 21 ribbies and .301 OBP. So combined the Sox catching hit 18 homers to Perez's 21 and had 60 ribbies to Perez's 70. And Flowers arguably is a decent defender, though he's no Salvy. Interesting that catcher did suck but like HH said catcher was no huge problem compared to most teams. He's right. We need to upgrade two of those spots. I'd say if we could upgrade 3B and RF (no way we can dump LaRoche on anybody) that would be a start because arguably Micah/Sanchez would be 'OK' and Trayce 'OK' in right. We can't go with Avi anymore as a regular. He's that bad. If you think Salvador Perez is the gold standard for catcher offense, I'm not sure we're watching the same sport.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 12:00 PM) Fine, have them throw in Piscotty too. QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 12:04 PM) Or Molina.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 11:33 AM) Alexei, Laroche, Garcia for Wong

Just a side note: remember that projections guess at playing time, too, but that's often not real useful. For example, if you want to see what Trayce Thompson is projected to put up next if he takes over RF full-time, you should use Steamer600, which essentially just projects every player as if he were a full-timer (600PA for position players, 450PA for catchers, 200IP for starters, 65IP for relievers).

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Oct 22, 2015 -> 10:26 PM) If the recent past (nine years) is prologue with the White Sox that's probably a pretty good bet. Mark Ugh

The postseason isn't even over and we've already written off 2016.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Oct 22, 2015 -> 07:21 PM) No reason to give up assets to trade for an older and more expensive version of Eaton. Spend the money, and get one of the top 3 OFs. Unless you mean $200m for Heyward, you're going to be committing a ton of money to yet another bad defender with a declining bat. Gardner is a plus defender with young-player skills that's already shown he can develop more power as his approach evolves. Those guys tend to age really well.

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Oct 22, 2015 -> 05:00 PM) Isn't Gardner just a more expensive and older version of Eaton? Yep! But that doesn't mean we couldn't use a second Eaton that's a bit older and more expensive.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Oct 22, 2015 -> 03:09 PM) I would love Upton. I'd rather we be the place that the Yankees trade Gardner to make room for Upton.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 22, 2015 -> 02:28 PM) I'd say by all means trade Eaton. Any way we can acquire Tulo? He'd be a difference maker. We need some stars. This post is so greg Translation: QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 22, 2015 -> 02:28 PM) I'd say by all means trade one of our few good players, despite the fact that he's signed long-term at a below-market rate. Any way we can acquire a player who performed well in the playoffs recently and who is very obviously NOT available? Since he's a good player, he would make our team better. We would win more if we had more good players.

Trading Eaton would be asinine.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 03:03 PM) Bad health...major injuries to key pieces. Basically losing any of six players for significant time would cripple the Sox next year. Knock on wood. Yeah, I meant "worst case" specifically among the new acquisitions. Samardzija - Bad Melky - Bad LaRoche - Extra Bad Duke - Extra Bad Robertson - Solid, if streaky That's rough.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 12:14 PM) But again, it would have been better to have added a young player or two as opposed to 3 or 4 veterans. We are one year later talking about the same holes we did last year- 3b-SS-DH-C and possibly even 2B. Instead we rented all older players who ultimately had bad years. It is understandable that it happened at DH since you tend to add a 30+ year old to that spot. But Beckham, Boni, Melky were all stop gap measures. It is too bad they did not get at least one good prospect in place of one of them. Well, yeah, but to get a young, controlled option at a premium position would have moved the cost into the "giving up the future" range. If it was a guy who you were comfortable "giving up the future" for, then that guy isn't going to be available in the first place.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 08:10 PM) I think the problem with the 2015 moves is they did not upgrade any position with young talent.I agree they failed w the veterans they added but did not incur bad contracts. So 2015 was really a wasted year in that from a rebuilding standpoint, they did not improve. In hindsight, it is unfortunate that they couldn't have filled at least 1 or 2 holes with a talented young player. Maybe Sanchez has a chance to be that but his offense so far has been poor. We can also still hope Avi rebounds but that hope is running out. The good news is Q and Rodon improved and Sale is still a star. I mean, there's no question that 2015 was a terrible year, but that's because outcomes were MUCH worse than anyone expected. If LaRoche puts up anything even close to a career average year, for example, then his one-year, $12m deal for 2016 looks shrewd and low-risk. I'm just trying to illustrate the difference between the ad-hoc and the actual state in which decisions were made (and must be made going forward) Put another way: every time we make an acquisition, there are a range of expected possible outcomes assigned to the player. We improbably saw EVERY 2015 acquisition turn out near the worst possible outcome, and yet we aren't buried. Yes, things obviously look worse than before, but this was almost literally the WORST CASE SCENARIO. And that scenario is one where there's no one making more than $13m at a time, and only one of those guys is even still around after 2017.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 06:27 PM) Sensible comment displaying ability to hold two thoughts in head at same time. What is it doing on this site? Don't worry -- it's fleeting. I'll get knocked into rage mode along with everyone else once the offseason officially starts.

QUOTE (Hamhock @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 09:52 AM) Luckily, it doesn't need to! Touche.