The Ultimate Champion

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Feb 10, 2014 -> 10:23 AM) I will say that things appear to have gotten much better when he overturned the scouting personnel (which is a knock against the idea that our draft success was random), I just don't know why he had to wait so long to make the change when sustained failure was painfully apparent to everyone else. It's that same general glaring trust/oversight problem IMO, I mean, how is it that like 70+% of your INTL budget each year is used up on guys that aren't worth half that amount? At some point don't you want to go down there and look at these kids for yourself? Nah, just the people in charge run the thing, they know what they're doing, they always have our best interests in mind. But that's not just Kenny, it's really the entire organization from the top down with JR IMO, and it may still be going on. Why was Buddy Bell promoted?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 11:41 PM) Boston gave Dustin Pedroia a $575k bonus as a 2nd rd. pick in 2004. The Sox selected Fields, Whisler, Lumdsen,Gio, and Lucy ahead of him giving everyone but Lucy more money. Lucy got $525k. Pedroia's career WAR is only 29 less than the collective WAR of every White Sox draft pick since 2001.add Ellbury who was given $170k less than Lance Broadway a couple of spots lower in their draft,and the 2 of them add up to only 6 less WAR than the collective WAR of every player the White Sox have drafted since 2001. Thank God Sale dropped down to the Sox or it would have been worse. KW said he could have had a good minor league system had he wanted. If you are implying it is just as simple as throwing more money at it, just look at the major league team. Throwing more money at it did not make them better. You have to select the correct players. I have given many examples of players who signed for slot who were much better players than the players selected by the Sox. IMO this is a pretty good mix of your argument & mine. Whisler was definitely a poor choice. Lucy OTOH had defensive ability and had that bat come along at all he could have been at least a back-up. He dealt with lots of injuries as well. Lumsden, Gio, and Fields all had ability but only Gio turned out, and it happened outside of the Sox organization (although I trust us with pitchers anyway & would have expected the same here). Maybe if Fields is traded to another team as an A-baller he becomes Mark Reynolds for about 3-4 years instead of never playing a full season in MLB as a starter. Also when you look at that Ellsbury draft they had a bunch of supplemental picks. The Ellsbury pick came from the Angels for Orlando Cabrera, the Craig Hansen pick (bust) came from the Dodgers for Derek Lowe, Clay Buccholz came from the Mets for Pedro, Jed Lowrie also came from Orlando Cabrera, Michael Bowden also came from Derek Lowe - and that was just the first round. The Red Sox also gave up Colby Rasmus & some McCormick guy to the Cards for signing Renteria. And in the second round they gave up a late 2nd but picked up #57 overall out of Pedro. They had 6 picks in the top 57 of a stacked draft class and took a ton of value out of that, kudos to them, but that's not an everyday occurrence and I think it's better to compare the Sox with other teams like the Twins for instance who generally drafted around the same spots and spent pretty similarly, and operated under similar circumstances as the Sox.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 08:44 PM) Uh, no. 24 HR's in 116 innings last year is beyond scary. Not that he isn't capable of improving but, no. The rest of his peripherals are good, his BB rate is excellent, and yeah, I'm sure he could improve.

If Paulino makes a full recovery & still has this kind of stuff: http://m.mlb.com/video/v21496783/balkc-pau...ut-frames-vs-os then we don't need another SP, but I wouldn't bet on that. Delgado shouldn't be all that pricey IMO. Controllable too. Keep him until Beck is ready, reevaluate after.

Apparently he's the likely casualty of the brilliant Bronson Arroyo signing. We should probably trade for him, Towers likes us & he's a whole lot better than Rienzo.

DA makes some points here and it's hard to deny that. However, a couple things: 1) As SS2K5 mentioned, the priorities (unfortunately) weren't always on drafting guys we'd plan on keeping. 2) There are some players out there, maybe like Trout, who could probably come through any situation/system, whereas other players need a lot of help and proper development. How much of this is "choice" over poor player development and/or "biting off more than you can chew" when it comes to trying to implement mechanical changes in hitters? I still always will point to Brian Anderson and the "we won't fix him 'til he fails" mantra which is a nice way of letting a very talented prospect coast his way through the minors and immediately out of baseball. 3) The overslot guys in other systems... the Sox didn't do too much of that. And I think, as I've said a bazillion times on this board, it had a lot more to do with JR's stance on the subject and relationship with Selig than anything else. JR is an owner's owner IMO. The new CBA changes things for teams like the Sox that try go by the book. 4) I'd like to see DA's list go back to when KW was scouting director and not GM. Not giving KW a free pass here, but I think he probably focused a lot more on the MLB team than anything else and entrusted others to handle the farm more. I say this because there has seemed to be major problems in oversight with this organization for years, encompassing really all levels, from long leashes to lack of due diligence by superiors, etc. Ozzie's tenure, Wilder, moves like Molina that happened out of nowhere RIGHT AFTER Paddy comes on which reminds me of Teahen (I'll be shocked if Buddy Bell wasn't a big part of that), etc. Juan Pierre and the dreadful slappy DH platoon was Ozzie holding GM duties to a certain extent, etc. I'm not sure much here has changed but I hope it has. Kenny Williams is a high quality talent evaluator and I definitely DO believe that if his focus were entirely on the farm he could do a much better job of building it then he did. However, drafting/signing a raw prospect is just step 1 of a multi-stage process that has a lot more to do with instruction, organizational philosophies re: promotions, proactive strength/conditioning/health programs, etc. And no matter what you bring in in terms of talent, that talent needs to be monitored and so does the personnel in charge of those guys. I posted an article a while back which like no one read apparently about a system the Rays and other teams use, but which apparently the Sox don't (or don't use much) where a pitcher's motion is captured on computer and saved. Red flags are pointed out if there are any & the tests can be replicated over time so that you can see how a pitcher's motion is changing. Now, let's say Danish ends up a total bust. Right now as we stand I think we can all agree he's a very interesting prospect & worth the draft slot & bonus, but if we aren't doing everything we can to monitor every step of this guy's MiLB career & keep him healthy then, should he fail, who do you blame? The Sox/Hahn for drafting the guy and making a "poor choice" or maybe other more stubborn elements of the organization which aren't so apparent on the surface? I personally have no problem with guys who busted like Borchard, Fields, BA, Sweeney, Mitchell, and so on being taken where they were given the talent level. I think however that there's at least *some* chance, if not a decent or pretty good chance, that at least one of those guys would have turned out in a better system like Minny or Atlanta or something. Especially BA who I think we totally pissed away: if he had instructional/headcase issues then he should have been traded when he had value as a prospect, not shelved and later dumped for the ghost Mark Kotsay. And also, I think we should just cut Dunn loose already, this guy is embarrassing the whole team.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 9, 2014 -> 12:31 PM) If only the Sox signed Ervin Santana to $120M/8 years, they'd never have to rebuild again until year 7 when they can trade him for prospects. I would be willing to bet a good amount that whoever signs Santana at a bargain is going to be happier how that ends up going than the Yanks will be in Year 5 of the Tanaka contract.

Also the fact that Kenny thinks so highly of Barnum makes me higher on Barnum as well. Kenny's a good talent evaluator, he's just kind of been absent from the process a lot during his GM years, focusing more on the AA/AAA/MLB guys probably than players entering the draft and in the lower minors. But now that he's in a role where he can focus more on the farm as a whole I think it's going to make the organization stronger, and I also hope we fire B8uddy Bell. Thanks for reading.

If anyone at all ever wanted a stocked farm system it was Kenny Williams. Kenny understands the value of flipping probable future busts for MLB pieces and he's done it a thousand times over. He's also kept some guys who haven't turned out, showing that he does also believe that there is a time for investing in what your farm system produces at the MLB level. We're operating in a completely different era, thanks not to Rick Hahn who was always a part of this process, but thanks to the new CBA. It is nothing more than a coincidence that Hahn took over at a point where the Sox were ready to rebuild and that the new CBA put the Sox in position to be competitive in the amateur siginging process. If Kenny Williams worked for the Red Sox or Yankees he'd have done the same things they did, i.e. spend, spend, spend, take advantage of the system, even if for no other reason than to trade prospects for MLB value during times of need. And I'm drunk. But Kenny Williams is the s***. He's happy about where we are & he's the f***in guy who was in charge the last time the Sox had a truly respectable system.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/cws/white-...p;vkey=news_cws "We were able to execute our long-term plan in a very short time," Williams said. "Each year that we put together our Plan A, B and C, we've talked about, 'Is now the year that we should turn it over and get younger and target guys who could help us and help us very quickly?' "Well, we were always competing so it was hard to do. So we have a bad year and it gives us the opportunity to do what we had tried to position ourselves to do every year. I got to tell you, when we are talking about our target list and some of the guys we've been able to bring in since last July, I'm as excited as I've been in years to see this team take the field."

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 7, 2014 -> 12:44 PM) White Sox sign Ervin Santana would have been the greatest thread in Soxtalk history. Great for us & Marty, absolute torture for the rest of this board. God I hope we sign this guy.

If we sign Santana I am going to upload a picture of a nutsac and post it in my sig & another in my avatar. I will aslo post nutsacs all over this forum.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 04:04 PM) You're 100% right. There are plenty of innings for guys on minor league contracts and I'd have zero problem with additional ones of those guys. Those guys generally suck though. When you are rebuilding you might as well do everything you can to give ABs and IP to players with some sort of upside, otherwise you're just filling space. Count me in the non-believer Surkamp camp as well. The curve is very nice, change pretty good too, but that fastball is very much a Carlos Torres/Dylan Axelrod pitch and when he's not getting his offspeed stuff over he's gonna get shelled. Paulino is the hope in our 5th starter "battle" but I'd much rather either have a proven quality arm or at least a SP prospect with some real upside in that mix.

Kenny knew the Cards weren't going to trade Rasmus without getting EJax in the deal, so he held up the Jays with the demand of taking on Teahen's contract, and it worked. In that deal everyone won: Jays got the player they wanted without having to give up top pieces from the farm, Kenny dumped Teahen and picked up a quality (back then) prospect in Stewart plus Frasor who turned into Jaye & Webb, and the Cards of course won the World Series. Rarely do 3-ways benefit all 3 parties, but that one did.

Now that this thread has come full circle it is time for it to be closed as well, WSI gestapo style. Next thread: Triple Threat Action: Dunn vs. Santana vs. Ubaldo; Ultimate Knife Fight

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 02:50 PM) GET OUT THE CHARCOAL, ITS TIME George Foreman grill GTFO time for the BRuce Buffer charcoal grill ITS TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 02:27 PM) I don't think steak/pitching analogy is a good one. Steak is a luxury unlike pitching. Right. Meat is protein and amino acids, which are necessary. Steak is actually more on the negative side, you really shouldn't eat that much red meat anyway, and while it offers positives it's not nearly as good as fish or poultry. It's like buying sweetbreads for carbs rather than multigrain breads. I used "meat" in my example, and it is a truth that by watching what you buy and when you buy it you can save a lot of $$$ over the course of a year by taking advantage of sales. When there are packages of chicken and pork chops on sale at discount, buy them all! Then freeze them. Grilling is awesome, and eating seafood & quality meat is expensive if you're always buying the priciest meats at their peak of value. Don Cooper would agree with me that freezing is awesome. Also freezing allows you to take advantage of special opportunities, like vension during hunting season for example, which is a great opportunity for excellent quality lean protein at a price which is often nothing or next to nothing. I bet Don Cooper likes venison also. BTW I like Marty, Dick Allen, and Balta. Also SS2K5 but he's a lil quirky lately, and wite is just I swear looking for a fite! But EMiro is also cool and Quinarvy too even though I currently disagree with them. But back to meat, yeah, freeze and save, that's my motto. Freeze and save.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 12:18 PM) Why do we think he hasn't done this already? Or at least done so with the handful of teams that could legitimately use a LH hitting DH (which is, admittedly, very few)? I hope he has, we don't know who he is or isn't discussing trades on, etc. I'm more disputing the notion that it shouldn't be done at all, that eating $$$ is bad, etc. It's already gone, and if anyone offers to take on a good chunk of Dunn's salary for us it will be a favor performed by another GM. Other teams don't exist to perform favors for the White Sox; you need something in return to make the favor worthwhile. What would the other team get in return for taking on Dunn? The risk of an OPS below .600, the risk of a sub-.210 BA and a sub-.330 OBP for a guy who can't play anywhere in the field even decently, etc. Vernon Wells is still a FA at the league minimum, I bet he's a better option than Dunn for most teams who might consider Dunn. Major salary relief probably isn't happening. But if there is someone out there, great, do it. 2014 is the decision year on Viciedo and he needs EVERY chance to play. DeAza also, unlike Dunn, could be a useful trade piece around the deadline, especially if he's happy occupying LF & playing more relaxed. The bench needs versatility. If you absolutely have to eat Dunn then you do it, because you've already done it, and no one should be expected to come help you out & help you pay the guy. Not happening.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 11:35 AM) Yeah, I'm done arguing this. You are trying to make me into some anti-Conor Gillaspie person when I've indicated that isn't the case. You just dislike Adam Dunn so much that you want to eat his salary when that is absolutely ridiculous. Brent Morel had a similar rookie season to Gillaspie, and Josh Fields had a better one. Those guys were long gone. He's a nice bench player. I'm sure Steven Tolleson would be too. Bench guys aren't hard to find. Saving $5 million is something that is hard to come by. Not only is it hard to come by, in Dunn's case, it's almost certainly unrealistic. The money is guaranteed. f***ing over your roster on a hope & a prayer of saving a few dollars that you alone and no one else is obligated to pay is ridiculous. If Hahn calls the other 29 teams right now & says you can have Dunn at the league minimum, how much are you willing to give me, etc. and says I'm willing to talk INTL draft slots, unspectacular but solid prospects, A ballers, Rookie ballers, etc. then maybe you can even strike gold and get something of value that will end up worth more than that $5M or so, like say 4 years of a quality setup man or something at the price of 1.5 years of that same guy's FA market value.

BTW who cares if the 5th spot guys are terrible? Probably the entire bullpen. Just my guess.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 11:48 AM) That is literally in the post you quoted. I also missed it before, but how does adding Jimenez or Santana *LOWER* the risk value? If anything, it increases the risk because you suddenly NEED these high priced pitchers to do well or you're screwed. If Paulino or Johnson or Rienzo or Surkamp suck, then who really gives a flying f***? No, buying things you don't need no matter what does not save you money. It costs you money. You don't save money by spending money. That's the opposite of how you save money. LOL I learned these lessons at the high priced grocery stores a long time ago. Buy meat on sale, freeze it. Buy things like soap and deodorant with virtually indefinite shelf lives and you save money. Fill your car up with better grade when the gas is cheap. You seem to really have no understanding how to properly spend money, sorry.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1848253...illion-contract This is a pretty exhaustive examination of Santana...I should have said his stuff peaked in 2008 and was much more dominating in 2004-2008...as it is, his fastball has been pretty consistent in the last three seasons, around 91-93. Let's try to find some common points of agreement: 1) Nobody said that they were sure Paulino would be better than Santana/Jimenez. Most agree, not taking salary into consideration, that Jimenez/Santana would probably be better at least in 2014. Agree QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) 2) Nobody that I've read wants to give Santana or Jimenez a four year contract anymore, it has come down to 3 or even 2 with an option I'd say years and dollars matter both. Ex. if it's 4 years/$45M AAV $11.25M or 3 years/$40M AAV $13.3M then I'd do 4 years. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) 3) Nobody wants the White Sox to be bad in 2014 if there's a chance they can still be competitive in the division race. I don't think that's realistic. I want Zooey Deschanel as my personal slave. Not realistic. Any perceived "chance" of that happening is an error in perception. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) 4) ALMOST nobody wants to give away a 2nd round pick, with the premium now being placed on draft picks and especially how much teams finishing near the bottom of the standings are allocated to spend....looking no further than the fact that 3rd round draft pick Addison Reed netted them a #70-something prospect in all of baseball. I think the draft $$$ slot is just as important as the pick slot also. That 2nd rounder has excellent value, I agree, and I wish we had more of them. OTOH, check out your on-paper underwhelming return for a fresh-from-the-DL Jake Peavy last year (who again was *not* the same guy in San Diego anymore) and also check the return on Garza to the Cubs and that's for a guy who couldn't even get the QO. There is a *lot* of value in quality mid-rotation veteran SP in the middle of quality seasons on the trade market in July. And when you make those deals you can scout players in other orgs on a real-time basis, and these guys are all playing against higher quality comp than the high school & college players generally are, and they're using wooden bats and so on. The risk here is that you forfeit the pick (which itself is very uncertain and requires development time to be worth something in trade or help at the MLB level) and the draft slot bonus (you can get an underslot guy here and use the extra cash elsewhere) in exchange for a quality mid-rotation starter now, which costs payroll space as well, but is already valuable now and requires no wait, and further you can expect to exchange this form of value for another (prospects + salary relief) later on should the player continue to perform at a solid level. You're swapping one risk for another, and whether you sign a SP or take the pick, neither deal is likely to destroy the franchise anytime soon. I personally think that given our weak farm but payroll space open, that Santana is a better risk to take ONLY at a discounted value. Because discounted value means better return in trade, it means less in the way of on-field performance is required for the player to be worth the contract, etc. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) 5) Dick Allen is arguing for Jimenez based on straighened out mechanics/ability/Don Cooper, whereas there's some disagreement about how much is left in the tank since his (Jimenez now) velocity has clearly decreased by 3-4-5 MPH compared to his prime in COL...and there's the doping/PEDs rumors out there about his mysterious loss of velocity. I'm not sure on Ubaldo, I just want Ervin. I guess we don't know, I mean I haven't watched the guy. Velocity may not matter as much with him anyway though as he needs to throw strikes, get ahead in the count, stop walking guys, etc. If he were here for all we know Coop might like him better now than in his COL days. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) 6) There's clearly a point where almost every franchise that could use some starting pitching, and we're now talking 25 teams, including the White Sox...would/should/could be interested in signing either one of these guys (or Nelson Cruz/Morales/Drew for that matter). Drew would be a nice target, Cruz not so much IMO because he's just a rebuild-your-value kind of player. That type of buy would work well for a team like the A's or something, Pirates lately, who generally look to capitalize on quality players who can be had for lower value short term deals. I'd really be interested in the pitching alone though, I think we have enough options in the IF and our DH/1B situation may end up being taken care of with Viciedo & Abreu. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) 7) Nobody wants to buy high on Santana with the risk that 2013 was a second peak in his career and the rest is all downhill, not to mention the concerns about being a flyball pitcher in USCF. We're not really buying high though, that's the point. There's also nothing wrong with flyballs so long as they aren't rockets. Pop-ups are great, easy outs, and if Hahn decides to smarten up and clear LF for DeAza and DH for Viciedo then we'll have a pretty athletic OF that can run things down. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) In the end, (nearly) everyone has a number where this starts to make sense (to them)...3/$39-40, 2/$27-28, whatever. When that point is reached, the Dunn/Rios/Danks/Keppinger "just another bad contract" risk will be compensated for by the possible return, but doubtless those agents are still holding out for 3-4 years and $40-70 million. You're taking a risk, but the main risk is money, and you're potentially looking at a quality player for a year or two and then a better return than you could expect out of the draft with the pick. Because we're not loaded to the gills in payroll coming up, we can take that risk. You can't make moves as a GM without taking risks. But I think it should be a lot like Tanaka, throw your cards on the table, make an offer that you think makes your club's future look brighter & makes contention within the next 2 years look more attainable, and then see if you can hit on something. If not, at least you tried. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2014 -> 11:53 PM) If those are the eventual numbers, 90% of the fans would prefer to see how things go with Paulino/Cooper, Erik Johnson and the rest of of our minor leaguers, like Beck, in 2014...simply being realistic about the fact that we're VERY unlikely to compete until 2015. Another route could be targeting someone else's high-ability SP bust and throwing him in that mix. If Beck & Johnson were both in the same spot this year going into ST & both looked definitely MLB ready then I would not advocate signing another SP. But I don't think we're really blocking anyone that matters here.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 08:20 AM) So if you're a basketball player and football cleats go on sale for $100 (normal price $159.99!), are you going to buy them with the intention of using them on the basketball court? This isn't exactly true, as the Sox can always use pitching, but just because something is "on sale" does not mean it is appropriate to buy it. Trust me, we understand that they are cheaper, but the Sox signing them does not make sense. They've suggested as much and they are appropriately staying away from these conversations. I can't wait until those two sign with teams just so these threads die. This makes no sense. You're saying the Sox don't need to keep adding pitching? Or don't need to continue pursuing opportunities to add lower risk values to the organization regardless of where those opportunities exist on the field? Buying things you need now or later when they are on sale is good practice because you save money. The Sox don't have 6 or 7 starters or whatever people keep saying, they have 3 proven vets, a nice prospect in EJ who is going to get every opportunity, and then a few fringe guys like Rienzo and Surkamp and Axelrod and so on to go with a veteran in Paulino who is trying to make a comeback. I see 3-4 slots here filled, not 5, and saying we don't "need" Santana or couldn't use the value he would provide is a little hard for me to understand because making that statement would seem to imply a certain level of trust in the 5th starter candidates I have mentioned and I can't see that as being justified at all.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 6, 2014 -> 11:25 AM) So in essence, you would be paying a bench guy $5 million for 200 plate appearances. People are complaining about Alejandro De Aza costing too much as a bench player and he's making $4.25 mill, and he's a far better and more valuable piece than Gillaspie. Yes, I'm keeping Dunn over Gillaspie. You're getting 5 years control over Gillaspie. You're also giving more PA to Viciedo & DeAza, getting them regular positions which they need. You're also looking at a bench that can actually rest some guys because there's only 1 DH on the team instead of 2. Divide that $$$ up among all those things and it's a pittance.

Let's say the Sox could eat all Dunn's salary except for the league minimum and trade him for a MR prospect like another team's Bassit or something who they wouldn't have to protect on the 40 and also pick up an INTL slot. So you'd essentially be buying a halfway decent spect and more spending cash in the INTL period so you could go over on a slot & sign a better prospect. Would you do that? I would. Great deal, and the roster squeeze is lessened tremendously.