lasttriptotulsa

Remember, that $48 million we have committed does not include arbitration eligible and pre-arbitration players. Beckham, De Aza and Viciedo will all be in the $3-$4 million range so if you factor in all those players and possibly pick up Lindstrom's option we are already closer to $80 milion.

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 12:59 PM) Does that mean that he'd be more likely to sign with a team like the Mets, then? Buck is walking and McCann would want "revenge" on the Braves for not re-signing him. I think a guy in his situation just looks at the list of teams he is willing to play for and then takes the biggest contract offered from one of those teams.

The Cubs and Yankees don't really have a spot for him. The Rangers and Giants were both in on him. Could he flop? Sure. But he put up better numbers than Cespedes and Puig in Cuba and they are both doing fine in MLB.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 11:57 AM) Except the Braves might not even want to keep him. They like what they have in Gattis and he's much cheaper. McCann won't take that big of a discount for his one big FA payday. From what I read, it sounds like the Braves are perfectly fine with just letting him walk because they think Gattis can duplicate his production at a fraction of the cost.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 09:56 AM) Rudy Jaramillo makes the most sense. Also, reminder that we can bring in a second hitting coach under the new rules. I want the primary guy being the guy, but would not mind seeing someone like Frank to help a specific player (Tank) or Omar Vizquel under the guise of a hitting coach to help Alexei's focus. Isn't Baines keeping his job as the second hitting coach? Players can work with anybody on the side that they want with team approval. Frank worked with Hrniak many different times after the team let him go.

QUOTE (Baron @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 08:38 PM) I would like to add...the guy's tweet I posted was one of the first to get the Rios trade...pretty reliable which is why I follow him. That's what I hate about team beat writers. Some are great and some are completely full of s*** and there's so many its hard to get a good grasp on who to believe

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 08:31 PM) Knobler is a guy to keep an eye on, he is always on point and doesn't report until its definite FWIW. This would suck so bad the last time I got this excited only to be sick to my stomach disappointed was when everyone was saying we were going to land Miggy only to lose him to DET, we know how that worked out. I rather have Hahn overpay not to see this guy be a superstar for Texas the next 5-8 years. Please Hahn pleas!!! I sure got the impression that his source was Sullivan.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 08:14 PM) Uh oh? Intersting. I'm not worried yet. I trust Rosenthal a little more than a Marlins beat writer.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFan05 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 07:56 PM) Is it true that he's had K problems? We don't need another Dunn We may have just signed the guy said to be the greatest Cuban hitter ever and your worried about his K's?

QUOTE (ChiSoxFan05 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 04:24 PM) Has poor to average defense but most expect him to play DH. Seems like a lot of scouts vary in their opinion in his defense. Some say strictly DH while others say he would be an adequate 1B. One scout even went so far as to say he would surprise people with his athleticism at 1B.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 03:09 PM) There are some people who question this, saying he might be like a .250 30 homer, .800 OPS guy, which is better than your run of the mill 1B but not by much. There have been a lot of reports too that they are juicing the holy bejeezus out of the ball down in Cuba too which is the reason for a lot of these inflated numbers. He did hit some monster homers in the WBC though (3 in 25 AB), which to me shows that his power is probably legit.

QUOTE (flavum @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 03:06 PM) At this point, it's just a good thing to know there's a legit shot to get this guy. But we still don't know if he's any good at Major League Baseball. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty thrilled by the recent happenings but I just don't what to build my hopes up too much and be let down. I got to admit at this point it would a huge disappointment to me if he signed elsewhere.

While the reports that keep coming out are sounding better and better for the Sox, I still would not be the least bit surprised to see him sign with the Red Sox or Rangers. They both just like to throw around money too much. I also wouldn't be surprised to see some random team sign him from out of the blue kind of how Cespedes ended up with the A's when nobody felt they were serious contenders.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 02:16 PM) I said they won't be playoff contenders for 3 more years, you said I was wrong because they could win 81 games next year. How does what you say jive with what I said? I think they can win 81 games next year too. I don't think it's likely, but I think there is a reasonable chance. But great, that's still not a playoff contender. You could say 81 wins in 2014, 85-86 wins in 2015, and then just like that, 90+ wins in 2016, and BOOM, a playoff contender 3 seasons away. Soooo insufferable. I said they could be a +.500 team which means more than 81 wins. Any team that is over .500 is close to being a playoff contender. I never once said 81 wins get you in the playoffs, you're tryin to put words in my mouth to prove your point.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 11:38 AM) 81 wins would be a major leap. I think it will take 2 years to get to that. The division got better this year w Cleveland and KC better teams so now the White Sox will have a tougher time winning in the division. I do think Detroit is aging quickly so we have to see if they try getting younger in the offseason. I really don't think an 18+ win improvement is out of the question. I'm not counting on it, but I think it can be done. Signing McCann and Abreu could easily give us a 8 win improvement by themselves. Add in the fact that having another year of development out of Quintana, Santiago, Garcia and Viciedo could add a couple more. We were in a lot of games this year and our record could have easily been better than it was. We played 60 one run games and 23 extra inning games. Our record in those? 24-36 and 8-15 respectively. The additional players/development and an improvement in our hard to explain poor fielding from this year could possibly flip those numbers around. If that happens, we are a lot closer than people realize.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 10:55 AM) Call me crazy, but I don't think 81 wins will contend for the playoffs next year. God, you're insufferable. Nobody said 81 wins contends for the playoffs. The point I was making is that if signing two free agents that fit within your budget is enough to get you over .500, you are very close to being a playoff contender, especially if our young core of players can continue progressing. You are definitely not "3 years away" like you claim every other post.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 06:26 AM) What's happening in 3 years? If we don't start adding pieces right now, it's going to take a lot longer than that. Catcher in particular should be a high priority spot, as having a veteran catcher can only help develop our young pitching. And it's not like we have any catching prospect that will be ready anytime soon. I also don't think Salty is going to break the bank. He's roughly the same age as Russell Martin was last year but has been a less productive player, and Martin only got $15M over two years. I think Salty will get more than that in this free agent environment, but $25/3 or $33/4 both seem reasonable to me. A Salty/Phegley platoon will get us way more production than we got out of the catcher's spot in 2013. Using our excess cash to improve the offense is the smart way to quickly become competitive again, especially when sound opportunities present themselves at key positions. I honestly really like the Salty idea if Hahn plans on adding a legit hitter at 1B and improving one other position. Make those three moves and a couple more deals next offseason and suddenly 2015 seems like a real chance to be competitive again. Big difference here is that Russell Martin was coming off a career worst year where he hit only .211 and Salty is coming of a career best year. Hard to compare the two cases.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 01:03 AM) He is well worth $8M a year if he repeats his 2013, but the question would be if he can repeat it, and the other question is whether any of that will matter to a team that just lost 99 games. I don't see us being a playoff contender for 3 more years, which is pretty much the entirety of a deal Salty would get. Yes, we all know you don't think the Sox will compete next year. You say it in every thread. But I think you are dead wrong. If the Sox were to land Abreu and McCann/Salty, I don't think that there is any reason to believe they won't be a +.500 team next year with the rotation that they have.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 11:46 AM) I know 28 isn't young, but for some reason I thought Salty was older. I'd be okay with signing him if the Sox miss out on McCann. There was an article today about McCann maybe commanding a $100 million deal. I don't know how realistic that is, but I doubt the Sox are going to sign a contract like that. I saw that too. 6/100 was the number they threw out which averages about $16.67 million per. I highly doubt he gets that. He might approach the $16 million per year average, but I don't think any team is going to give out a 6 year guaranteed contract to a 30 year old catcher. I could realistically see teams offering in the 4/55-60 range with a vesting/team option at the end. If it's around that number, I'd like to see the Sox be players for him.

Salty would be a decent pickup and I wouldn't necessarily be against signing him, but if we are signing a free agent catcher I'd much rather it be McCann even with the additional $5 million or so per year price tag.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 10, 2013 -> 12:55 PM) This is why I miss Ozzie so damn much (plus the ring on his finger and the memories I have of the only baseball title I'll see in my lifetime). Some of you (not naming names) take sports so damn seriously. I thought Ozzie was funny as f*** and I miss his quotes. We haven't seen ANYTHING close to the above mentioned quote from plastic Robin. Why does you manager need to be a quote machine? Why does he need to make himself out to be a sideshow to the media like Ozzie did. Did you ever see LaRussa or Torre ever make the story out to be about them? They are paid to manage the team to the best of their ability and that's what the great ones do. I'm certainly not saying Robin is in there league, but I would much rather have him managing than Ozzie who constantly embarassed himself and the orginization.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Oct 9, 2013 -> 05:17 AM) His ex manager Joe Torre said he was a plus defensively. Here's another article about potential bargain free agents who do well defensively when runs scored are way down in baseball.http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9772000/james-loney-potential-bargain-free-agents-mlb You know defensive metrics don't give 1st basemen much leeway or praise like they do other positions. Defensive metrics are still a work in progress so read the article. It's ESPN insider but you can still see the 1st 2 paragraphs about Loney's defense. If your going to trust defensive metrics then you need to see DRS and if you don't know what that is then don't disparage his defense without more knowledge. Ok so lets use DRS. Loney has 21 DRS over the past 3 years (437 games played at 1B). That comes out to be about 1 run saved every 21 games. Is that really enough to overcome his complete lack of power? Especially on our current roster where we will probably only get 30-40 homers total from the rest of our infield? I don't think so. 1B is a offensive position.

Where is the idea of James Loney being a good firstbasemen coming from? He has been a negative value defender his whole career. If I'm signing a first basemen thats going to have a .750 OPS and hit MAYBE 15 homers, he better be gold glove caliber. While I don't think Hart is the piece that is going to put us over the top, give me him anyday of the week over Loney if we miss out on Abreu. He'll probably come much cheaper and if healthy should outproduce Loney.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 8, 2013 -> 12:43 PM) That'd be something, but I'll believe it when I see it. The Sox with Abreu, McCann, and Ellsbury would be contenders. Agreed on both statements. I could realistically see the Sox signing Abreu, McCann or McCann, Granderson or Granderson, Abreu, but I do not see them signing three big free agent contracts. I would love to see Ellsbury on the Sox, but I think somebody is going to drastically overpay for him hoping he can stay healthy and get back to his MVP caliber form of a few years ago. Even with two of those big free agent signings I could see the Sox being contenders barring injuries.

White Sox, 6 years, $65 million