The Ultimate Champion

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 23, 2014 -> 03:27 PM) For Viciedo, I could see the cost-benefit analysis fitting. At the very least, you are getting what amounts to be a fairly average hitter with big upside who is still cost controlled for a few years. For Beckham, a guy who has hit worse this year and is a free agent after next year (and likely will be after this year if/when he's non-tendered), I don't see it being worthwhile. The Borass factor kind of minimizes a lot of that potential for excess value. His clients either hit FA or sign FA market value extensions.

If we could do Tank + piece for Maurer + CompB pick I would be thrilled with that, assuming the piece isn't all that significant. I'd give a decent prospect though to close that deal.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 24, 2014 -> 03:07 AM) It's way too cutesy and attempting to be overly-clever to be written by a baseball player. That whole "About Schmidt" thing with the African refugee/orphan, that was classless. You literally read everything

QUOTE (Hawkfan @ Jul 24, 2014 -> 07:01 AM) I had it figured at untethered zeppelin, but then I started second guessing. Yea thats where I stopped reading

Rock's sources confirm this to be 100% true

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Jul 19, 2014 -> 12:51 PM) This right here. Jax is a downgrade from Danks. Enough said. I agrtee, but wee are also a domwngrade from what you would call a good solid baseball team & so why not look at add prospects? But I agree though, that's the conundrum of any s***ty team, you want to get better, not worse, but sometimes you have to get worse now to get better later? Where do you draw the line? I dont know Roostifer, I really don't know.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 19, 2014 -> 02:58 PM) Dan Bernstein, is that you? I may not be Dan Bernstein but I bet my input is equally as useful ... you know I was going to follow this statement with a baghead emoticon but to my utter shock the baghead emoticon is GONE WTF?!?!?! I just wanna know riught now, how in the f*** is this site supposed to operate without a baghead emoticon ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING the type of season we're enduring? I am completely at a loss. I see this smiley guy holding a UK flag, why? I mean I get why you'd want to add the look at me titties emoticon but NOT at the expense of the baghead emoticon!! Trhis is completly ridiculous IMO.

Cuban rocket? Can't call him the missile, and I'm not sure Cuba has any jets, maybe the Soviets gave them some a long time ago & they've been converted to run for short (>10min) flights from recycled beach garbage.

Also would anyone give up a decent prospect if the Cubs gave us EJax at something like $5-6M per? I would give the Cubs some spare parts for salary relief, but they'd probably want something like Semien, and I'd say no.

Put in it's simplest form, let's say there is a way we can swap Danks' contract for EJax's deal in a way that has us receiving 2 prospects both of which would rank in our Top 15 and one of which would rank in the Top 9-10 of our system. If such a scenario exists, would you pull the trigger on that, especially given our need to (at least eventually) clear a spot for Rodon under the most likely scenario of our org planning for a 3-lefty rotation?

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jul 19, 2014 -> 12:15 PM) Did John Danks kick your dog or something? Snubbed an autograph request? EJ quality starts- 5 Danks-14 If we had EJax and the Cubs had Danks I'd probably propose the same scenario in a different way as long as it had us getting prospects. I just want to make trades, that's all. Just make trades. Lots and lots and lots of trades.

My idea is all under the assumption that the Cubs need to dump Jackson to the point where they'd give up prospects. If their intention is to eat as much as they have to and in effect buy a prospect then it can't work. Also I expect that this idea is also terrible.

EJax did pretty well here under Coop & we need another righty. So here's my crazy 3-way trade idea: Sox send out Danks and Beckham to the Yankees, take back Edwin Jackson from the Cubs Cubs send us a good prospect and a RP or something to dump Jackson's salary The Yankees send us Murphy and a low level arm We send a fairly insignificant piece back to the Cubs for PR reasons/effect (i.e. the formula of the typical salary dump deal, you get your Brandon Hynick and you act like you are happy about it) So in summation: we basically swap Danks for EJax and pick up prospects.... does this work? It seems like EJax has very little trade value and the Cubs want to dump him, whereas Danks may have some little bit of trade value and we do not have to dump him. So we just swap the 2 contracts and get prospects for doing so, and balance the L-R part of our rotation in anticipation of Rodon.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jul 19, 2014 -> 11:12 AM) Agreed on all points, but I also wouldn't mind seeing our highest OBP directly in front of Abreu in the two hole vs. RHP. Yeah I was just thinking more prototypically where you'd put Gillaspie but that is all under the assumption that White Sox baseball is actually going to be worth watching at some point in the future here. As it is now I think you can justify batting Connor anywhere so long as he gets a lot of ABs and has some chance to either, 1) get on for Abreu, or 2) drive in Abreu. LOL we suck.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 08:15 PM) An excellent argument. You're so obviously NOT drunk The thing about LeBron and height: that's exactly it, except it's amazing because most guys that are that big are lumbering, uncoordinated, and injury-prone. The COST of raw size is typically very steep, but it just doesn't seem to apply to him. He's like a scaled-up point guard. It defies physics -- his bodily infrastructure should be suffering for the stress of his mass at the speeds he is able to move. It is a common characteristic of a conversation. Yeah with basketball I think in Step 1 you're generally looking at a very small pool of potential players in terms of body type and basic conditioning levels, etc., then you are probably chopping out (I'm just arbitrarily throwing out numbers for effect) maybe 70% or more of those people by refining through separators like overall game smarts/understanding, raw athletic ability, character and work ethic (the Noah factors), etc. At that point you mostly get guys who have a shot at being good players in college or playing in the D-League or at the international level somewhere, and maybe you get a few end-of-your-bench NBA piece or something, etc. And from there you take that pool, cut it way down to find your NBA rotation players, then cut that NBA rotation player pool way down to find an All-Star caliber player, then cut *that* pool way down to find a true superstar.... and then you're still not at LeBron's level. LeBron's level is the "touched by God" level and most of us are at the "touched by my Uncle level" and we can't understand what that level is like.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Jul 19, 2014 -> 07:56 AM) I would say there is a lack of quality 3b in the ML at this point. Many get moved to first. If Gillaspie is a .300 hitter he is absolutely a starting 3B on a World Series team. Boston won the World Series last year and they benched their regular season 3B for a rookie in the WS. If Gillaspie is a .250 hitter then you need to upgrade. quality hitters, .300 + are aslo somewhat limited so if you find one there is a place for them. But if you have a 3B without power you need to find it elsewhere. Now Abreu certainly helps offset some of that lack of power with his above average numbers. Yeah this completely. No team, but especially not us, should be upset about penciling in a quality LH high contact stick somewhere in the 5-6 range in the lineup for the next few seasons. No, Gillaspie isn't a complete offensive force, but guess what? Few players are anyway. If we trade Gillaspie then we'll *still* need power and we will also need his skillset. Right now the biggest need in the lineup is a young LH power hitter who is more of a #3/#4 type than a Dunn. We need someone that doesn't disappear for a month at a time and that can put the bat on the ball when the situation dictates. I'm not sure where Hahn is going to find this guy either because they are pretty hard to find, but we need him. Really Thome was our last true prototypical middle of the order lefty and that was only for a few years, and we had a drought before that, too. Lastly I just think it's funny how people will look at Connor and think "regression!" and then look at Davidson and suppose improvement. Matt Davidson is not currently a Major League player and would get eaten alive at the MLB level by MLB pitching, and I'm not sure why anyone in his right mind would think that his persistent MiLB contact problems would somehow diminish against a vastly improved level of competition. Davidson is a pretty flawed prospect, he was when we got him, and he hasn't done anything to make those concerns go away. IMO our backup to Connor ATM is Marcus Semien and it's not even close. Davidson is nowhere near the picture.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 04:42 PM) It's amazing how quickly threads can turn into something irrelevant to the original topic The topic sucks anyway. Davidson is a minor leaguer who took a huge step back and still Ks for the world, and we want to trade Gillaspie? No. No we don't. Let's hope Davidson builds enough value to get us a nice RHSP prospect or something, now that would be great for us.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 04:09 PM) How about NFL Tight Ends? This has nothing to do with psyches. Baseball players don't go to the minors or college to work on their psyches. They go there because they couldn't hack it in the majors. Had the Sox called up Courtney Hawkins to the MLB last year, one full calendar year after being drafted, he would have hit .100 with 3 homers and 150 strike outs in 300 plate appearances. They play against progressively tougher competition to improve themselves. And yes, baseball players do sometimes need 5 years in the minors. Sometimes they need even more than that. There's no rushing or babying going on. In other sports there are roles for the pure athlete more than in baseball. The closest I can think of is probably Joey Gathright who IIRC some scout famously spotted in some city neighborhood running & jumping over cars almost like out of a scene in Major League ala Willy Mays Hayes. He was a glorified PR, but he's also an example of why you need to be not just fast but a very good baserunner (Jerry Owens comes immediately to mind). Maybe if baseball expanded the rosters to 26 some teams would try to take a player like that, but I doubt it, they'd probably just take a reliever or a platoon/bench bat. There really isn't a place for a player like that in baseball, and so in short, you can't hide him as your 3rd center or whatever where you tell him to go out there and be tall. The only real solution is to go through the minors and learn how to play baseball. And if you get to the Majors & it doesn't work then you quit or go back. This is also kind of why I think Micah is our #1 position prospect. I love the combination of mental aspect/mind and one exciting, potentially game-changing tool. And I think the rest of his offensive game sets his floor as a starting player. I'm just a big fan of this kid & I hope he's able to make it. Even as a LFer I think he has the chance to be an excellent player for us should his offensive game turn out.

Before he got hurt a couple years ago, if someone asked me to name the best *current* athlete in the world that I had ever seen compete I probably would have said UFC Bantamweight Champ Dominick Cruz, and probably no one would have agreed with me. In fact he's white, how could a white guy be the best athlete in the world? It's a fact that the mind and body are one and act on each other all of the time, and I think the mind is way too often overlooked as a key component of an athlete. That's one of the reasons people seem to s*** on baseball players as athletes because they can't appreciate the level of extreme control your mind must have over your body to barrell up a 96mph fastball in a fraction of a second really after you pick it up or to spot a fastball off the mound or locate a sharp breaking ball roughly where you need to throw it. Also, the extreme level of control you must have over your mind in pressure situations or to get through a slump, this is the kind of thing that takes a player like a Tyrus Thomas with an athletic ceiling of a superstar and b****slaps him down to inconsistent role player. What I like about combat sports is that just like baseball you have to think, react, control your mind *and* body, and you only have a fraction of time and space to operate, and if you f*** up then you are the one that gets KTFOd or at least put in a very bad spot, and none of your training partners or coaches or teammates can do anything to help you. The thing about Cruz was that cardio-wise he was off the charts, he maintained the type of pace that would be very rare even for terrific endurance athletes. I'll never be a great athlete but I'm a runner, because there's such a mental aspect there that is so badass to get under control, and when you see a guy like that just go go go beyond anything you could ever do it's inspiring. And the way he would just f*** with his opponents, he'd always be in range but they couldn't hit him, he could take them down but they couldn't get him down, he could land knees, kicks, punches forward and back, everything was in combos, always was new and interesting and impossible for the opponent to figure out. He could fight everywhere, and get the better of it everywhere. He was very explosive athletically, but probably not super fast in a straight line race, and strong in terms of leverage and body control but probably not weight lifter strong, so he definitely wouldn't put up numbers in some NFL combine or something. But I'd probably have to throw a guy like that out there in the convo as "best athlete" because the areas in which he is truly elite are far more functional in real life (and impressive to me personally) than short-burst superhuman acts or doing the same things over and over and mastering them. A fighter needs to always be ready to instantly react to a thousand different possibilities and the consequences of an "error" or whatever come at his own peril. All that said, I would undoubtedly say that the most game-changing athlete in any sport is LeBron in basketball. I imagine he's probably more head and shoulders above his peers than anyone else is in any other sport, but part of that I think just simply has to do with height and how the game scales up. You could be an amazing athlete in every stat that matters but if you're under 6' you're probably not going to play in the NBA. There have of course been exceptions but those are really too few to consider seriously. And I'm inclined to agree with Hawk whenever he talks about a short player, "anybody can play this game." And that's one of the things that is great about baseball, because the skills of the small guys make their statures a positive and when those skills are in abundance they become a weapon for a manager that the opposition just can't match.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 02:26 PM) Basketball is a sport that depends far more upon athleticism. Football is similar for the "skill" positions, but there is more technique involved in those to some extent. Baseball, on the other hand, involves less athleticism and much more mechanics and hand eye coordination and practice. Those great athletes with well-refined skills will still be the best players, but I can't name you another sport in which Billy Butler would be even remotely considered a good player. There are a ton of baseball comparisons that can be made to combat sports. In combat sports, like baseball, athletic ability plays an enormous part in separating equally conditioned, equally skilled, and/or equally experienced competitors with equal attitudes and work ethics, but that highly physical athletic ability like raw speed and lateral or vertical explosion on its own never gets you anything special. Also the hand/eye coordination and the ability to anticipate and to make a decision and react in a split second without thinking, that is pretty much everything at the top of the combat sports food chain where everyone is highly skilled and experienced. I like the Tyrus Thomas example. Tyrus made some money in the NBA because athletically the guy was a freak. I imagine he could have made some money in football too. I'm not sure there's any other major sport here where he could have made anything. And I doubt he'd have ever risen above AA even if he had played baseball his whole life. That said I think the prototypical best athlete in the world is probably a highly skilled point guard in the NBA. Has to be fast, explosive, strong, just very physically gifted all around, but he also has to make a lot of decisions and has little time and space to make them against highly defensive teams, and then the conditioning of course has to be top notch, along with the ability to anticipate or "feel" his range and the hand-eye coordination to hit a long 3 or switch hands on a layup avoiding multiple defenders in traffic. And this now makes me think how underappreciated Derrick Rose probably is/was purely as an athlete.

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 10:25 AM) If Buehrle can pitch 5 or 6 more seasons at somewhere near his career averages, and with his style I believe he can, here would be his all time ranks in some key categories: Wins: 260 - 280 (41st - 32nd) Innings Pitched: 4000 - 4300 (41st - 34th) Strikeouts: 2300 - 2500 (48th - 41st) bWAR: 70 - 80 (30th - 27th) While his rate stats aren't the greatest, part of that can be attested to pitching at the Cell most of his career. Believe it or not, Buehrle has a better WHIP and ERA+ than Tom Glavine who was a shoe-in this year. Voters also like a player to have his memorable moments and Buehrle has those in spades. A perfect game, a no hitter, the consecutive batters retired record, being part of the 4 consecutive complete games in the ALCS, the relief appearance and save a day after starting in the World Series and others. Those things stick in the minds of voters. He also never had any off the field issues to hurt him. When you combine all that with his 4+ Gold Gloves, 5+ All-Star appearances, the World Series ring, the 13+ consecutive seasons of 200 IP, and the 14+ consecutive seasons of 10+ wins, there is an argument to made for him being in the Hall of Fame. Now I personally don't think he gets there unless he hangs on long enough to make a serious run at 300, but I do think that anybody that immediately scoffs at the idea of Buehrle as a HOFer really needs to take another look at his resume. Maybe getting out of Chicago was necessary for the rest of the country to really see how good Mark is. It seems like he just started getting recognized towards the end of his tenure here & he seems to be getting a lot more love now in Toronto & playing against the AL East. Mark could easily be one of those "grow on you" guys that take a few tries but eventually will get in. It might take him 5-6 ballots but if he pitches long enough he will have a chance. He's definitely not a guy who will magically disappear from the ballot in a year or two.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 18, 2014 -> 09:06 AM) DeWayne Weiss lol That was his name according to Obama.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 17, 2014 -> 03:26 PM) Carlos Torres averages 91 MPH with his fastball. Scott Carroll is at 89.6 Dylan Axelrod is at 88.3 Maybe, but I have strong doubts. He'll need to be a control + change speeds mind f*** pitcher in the mold of a Bruce Chen or something. But he has a shot IMO because he's not afraid of the hitters. Also Carlos Torres & Carrol pitch at meatball speed as well, that velocity range is pretty much all the same, when you know the fastball is coming and it's pretty straight or in Carroll's case more straight down than late break ala Belisario then if it's anywhere in the zone that the batter can cover it's going to be kylt.

Also "BattleAxe" was the only nickname ever coined by RObin Ventura that 1) took some thought, and 2) made any sense. BattleAxe is the perfect name for this guy. Good luck to him. Definitely was one of my favorite little talent type of players. Lots of heart and balls, the mentality of a pitcher, just the stuff of a non-prospect kept him from achieving more.

Axelrod has a massive scrotum and balls so big they barely fit in there. Dylan overachieved for a long time here, more than most players ever do. If he had half the talent of some or these other guys he'd have made some good money by now. Good luck to Dylan & hopefully he gets a shot. He does IMO definitely have a chance at a LR role somewhere. If Carlos Torres can do it, and Scott Carroll can do it, etc. then so can he.