The Ultimate Champion

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 03:36 PM) Hahn has already commented on this topic. He said "We are not signing any free agent that results in the White Sox losing a draft pick." That's the message he sent to the agents of Ubaldo Jimenez, Ervin Santana, Kendrys Morales, and Nelson Cruz. I get that, but things do change. Santana's asking price was way above what it is now, how do we know he is rethinking this stuff? He also said earlier on there would be no commitment made even approaching Abreu $$$ and yet only a couple months later he's throwing $100M+ at Tanaka.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 03:32 PM) IT NEVER HAPPENS. Give me one example of a team that signed a pitcher to a 3-4 year contract and then turned around and dealt him 3 months later. ONE. I don't think that's legal under the CBA anyway. Peavy sort of counts though, although he was still Sox property when neogitations were taking place even if the contract was new. Signing a guy and then trading him after 1-2 years is more likely. Part of the benefit of bringing in Santana would be to provide extra time for Beck and insurance should things go backwards with Danks, Johnson, etc. We'd definitely have to keep him 1 year, and then if Danks rebounds and we trade him, we'd probably have to keep Santana for a second year at least.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 03:30 PM) Because the player has to agree to sign the contract. And if you lie to him, you get a bad rep (Marlins) Hahn is pretty direct about all this stuff. He's not going to be lying to free agents to get out of NTC and so on. I'm just saying Hahn should make an offer that benefits the Sox with the full understanding that he may be traded during his contract at some point. If he doesn't want to sign the deal then fine, but you can make the effort. Santana has lost a lot of leverage already, he probably can't afford to get too picky.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 03:25 PM) How do you know this? Because it happens every year. Saying that there are teams which aren't looking for pitching now but will be in July is like saying that there will be people lighting off fireworks in July even though they are not doing so now.

Why are we crafting all these arguments that put the pitcher's ideal wants in mind? These guys are FA because their prices were too high & they had to come down. They are available because they *didn't* get what they wanted. The idea is to make the Sox better, not to make them all happy and so forth. Give Santana a deal that benefits the Sox by allowing them to trade him. If he doesn't sign it then oh well, but to act as if the draft pick is THAT valuable is kind of .... questionable at the least. You're looking at one player whose has never played in a MiLB game and is probably 3-5 years away if he makes it, and at least 1-2 years away from being included in a trade for a veteran player. The odds of Santana doing something positive for this organization would be a lot higher than their 2nd rounder doing anything positive for the organization. Sign Santana, keep Danks. If they both do good things then you can turn around and trade them both, get out of their salaries and pick up useful prospects that you've been able to watch develop in the minors.

Marty & Dick Allen have been killing it lately. Respect. As a token of my appreciation I humbly offer the both of you this chicken fried steak: Here also are a few mouthwatering biscuits fresh out of the oven, smothered in the same delictable sausage gravy you see above: And to top it all off, as if there could be anything greater, as if there could be anything left uncooked, here is a fresh slice of caramel apple pie, drizzled with caramel, topped with handmade french vanilla ice cream:

Santana has had 6 full healthy MLB seasons. One of them was terrible, the others have been at least quality if not very good. He's a 200+IP per year guy with the ability to dominate, also the ability to lose focus and so on. I've said this a thousand times, but he's very Gavin Floyd like & at what his price tag might be that's a nice value & provides the Sox with additional trade options to explore. Given that the 2 greatest strengths of our organization seem to be developing pitching/working with established pitching and keeping players generally healthy, I'd say he's a decent bet at the very least, given how the free agency process works & that there are so many bad deals in general. Santana isn't nearly the risky proposition he looked to be early on when his agent was demanding all those years & all that money.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 07:46 PM) Santana has lost 3-5 MPH off his stuff from a decade ago with the Angels and he would absolutely get lit up pitching in USCF. I wouldn't be shocked if there was a statistic out there that has him throwing the most pitches in MLB over the last decade. Finally, Royals Stadium masked a lot of his deficiencies, just as pitching in Seattle or Seattle can do for the Clayton Richards and Eric Stultzes (there's another guy we gave up for nothing) of the world. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...ion=P#pitchtype

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 08:21 PM) That would be true if KW was still the GM. But it's no longer the case, Hahn isn't seen as being connected with this signing, so what emotional factor or reason would keep him around? He's obviously not stupid. Unless you think there's a conspiracy in the front office not to dump Dunn so as to keep the spotlight off the Dunn acquisition and dumping/trading him would put a black mark in Williams' future in the game. Seriously, Williams made a lot of mistakes over the last half decade, Hahn can't protect him from that. In the end, the person who most deserves to lose his job is Brooks Boyer or whoever in the PR department thought bringing Dunn to SoxFest would be a wise idea. They probably don't have Courtney Hawkins or Jared Mitchell there for the same reason/s. (Cue someone saying if they can't take some boos and jeers at SoxFest, they don't have what it takes to be MLB players and that it will motivate them to "try harder," even though trying harder in baseball has never been proven to work...nor has it been proven to make Adam Dunn wake up and decide to cut down to 4% body fat in the offseason). Conspiracy? It's almost certainly the "we need to get something out of this guy" mentality that's stupid and emotional and generally harmful if not at least counterproductive in the end, and I'm honestly not sure how much Hahn himself has to do with any of that, nor Kenny Williams for that matter. This may be above both of those guys for all we know.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 06:35 PM) Lets make this clear: THE WHITE SOX ARE NOT SIGNING ERVIN SANTANA. IT IS A STUPID IDEA. RICK HAHN IS NOT DOING ANYTHING THAT WILL COST THE TEAM A DRAFT PICK BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE STUPID AND RICK HAHN IS NOT STUPID. WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL GOING BACK AND FORTH ON THIS? WE ARE FEEDING A TROLL THAT IS LOOKING TO GET FED. THIS HAS TO STOP. MARTY I ONLY HAVE 1 QUESTION: WERE YOU AT SOXFEST ASKING HAHN WHY AJ PIERZYNSKI ISNT ON THE TEAM ANYMORE? YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS TOPIC ALIGN PERFECTLY WITH THEIRS. This argument would be easily torn apart had it been constructed normally. Caps = no can defend, argument is now indestructible. I am at a loss.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 06:37 PM) That lineup might lose 100 games LOL Welcome to "The Process"

As things stand, best 2015 lineup: CF Eaton 2B Semien RF Garcia 1B Abreu DH Viciedo 3B Davidson C Nieto SS Leury LF Johnson (really pushing it here) Not a lot of power there though. And if Beckham FINALLY comes though (how long have we been saying this?) then things change considerably. And man would Castro look GREAT in there somewhere.

If the season started today.. C Whatever 1B Abreu DH Viciedo 2B Beckham 3B Davidson SS Alexei LF DeAza CF Eaton RF Avisail 1st bench option Gillaspie CF Eaton LF DeAza RF Garcia 1B Abreu DH Viciedo 2B Beckham SS Alexei 3B Davidson C Whatever If Nieto makes it & can make enough contact I wouldn't mind seeing Nieto/Gillaspie (when he plays) work in the #2 slot. Main reason being is that I don't see any of our future core pieces that are currently in the lineup as being prototypical #2 hitters, and to increase trade value I'd like Beckham, DeAza, and Alexei hitting in spots where they could look to drive in runners.

Signing Ervin Santana doesn't block Beck, Danish, or Johnson. It blocks Rienzo & Paulino. Why is this a bad thing? And if Paulino looks good in the pen then great, he can be our spot starter & if one of our SP goes down then he's the guy, and it's not Rienzo (yessss) and neither is it a better prospect who isn't ready.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 12:57 AM) All of this would be TRUE if the White Sox had better DH options or anyone being blocked. In fact, Hahn and Reinsdorf decided to bring back Konerko when they could have given those at-bats to DeAza, for example, or Keppinger/Gillaspie (had they actually forced Paulie into retirement and dumped Dunn). Are you really going to argue that Jared Mitchell or Trayce Thompson should be getting those DH at-bats against a RHP? Keppinger? Gillaspie? Leury Garcia? Jordan Danks? Couldn't we also make the same argument about Jeff Keppinger (being booed/abysmal)? And, after all, Dunn put up one of the best OPS numbers on the team last year, it's not like he has been 2011 bad. I'm guessing that Hahn and Co. still believe that they can get something back for Dunn at the deadline...if he has a putrid 2 or 3 months, at that point he'll be waived, but no sooner. We still owe Keppinger $8.5 million for 2014 and 2015 and Dunn $15 million. There's a pretty good chance we can save $3-5 million on Dunn, if not $6 million and a marginal prospect. The fact of the matter is that Dunn gives us a better chance to compete the first 2-3 months of the season hitting exclusively against RHP, better than DeAza does. Now whether Hahn can get value back on Dunn, Keppinger, John Danks, DeAza, Gillaspie and Alexei Ramirez, we'll just have to wait and see. Obviously we had things go south with Floyd and Crain last year, but he still did a solid job maximizing the return on available assets over the last 9 months, all things considered. FWIW, Adam Dunn will have made almost $113 million in his career by the of 2014. 1) Konerko coming back was first and foremost Jerry wanting Paulie to retire on his own terms. This is straight from Hahn's mouth. It's a great thing to do & Paulie's role as a mentor is being undervalued IMO given what he may be able to do for these guys. Dunn has nothing to do with any of this. 2) Those DH AB's should go to Viciedo, then DeAza gets LF full time, and the bench gets more playing time & can play a more versatile piece. This is child's play. Very simple. 3) No you can't make the same argument for Keppinger because he isn't a sunk cost. Again, the whole idea of a sunk cost is you're supposed to be able to remove the emotion from the situation, step back, look at your investment, and ask yourself if you should continue to sink $$$ into this thing - and make no mistake, ABs and playing time and development time IS $$$$ 100% and this is one of the few resources a rebuilding team has that a contending team does not, and pissing it away on Dunn is unbelievably wasteful and stupid. Keppinger OTOH does fill a role as a proven UT option which is necessary when you have so many uncertainties as position players. 4) Take away Keppinger's salary & take away Dunn's salary, and make both FAs right now. Do the Sox have interest in signing Dunn AT ALL? My guess 100% no. Do they have interest in Keppinger, at the right price? My guess is yes, they probably do. Maybe they wouldn't go above $1M but any team that has Jake Elmore & Leury Garcia as their primary bench UT guys probably has interest in someone like Kepp at the right price. 5) Let me ask you this, let's say Dunn is a FA right now. What do you think he signs for? $2M or more? I'd say it's probably $2M or less. That's 13.3% of his value and playing time. What do you think the Sox stand to gain from this? Again, sunk cost, he's been a bad investment. Move on. The fans are the market, they are your customers, you don't blame your market nor do you blame your customers for your own f***ups. The Sox made a good deal on paper that turned bad, ok whatever, turn the page. Keeping Dunn is a poor decision that makes the Sox look like emotional gamblers who can't stand up and walk away from the table.

There's also a pretty fair chance I'd say that we could give Santana $13M per over 3-4 years while the Yankees get Tanaka for 7 year $175M, and 2-3 years in we're looking like geniuses and they're looking pretty stupid, because we just traded Santana for a small ransom while they're stuck with that contract. The risk on Santana is a lot lower than the risk on Tanaka, and so is the $$$, but somehow Tanaka was the greatest thing since sliced bread while Santana is crap?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 05:03 PM) They don't have young SP depth. They need Johnson and Beck to fill spots in the rotation. If those guys are bust, not much behind them. There's Danish that is really interesting, but you are right, we just don't know. You never, ever, ever know until these guys are doing it on the field. s***, the Rays don't necessarily block their pitching prospects with MLB signings, but they block their guys with other guys they have developed, and they keep starters in the minors when other teams would have called them up; also they send SP prospects to the bullpen to learn and so on. Look at what Terry Ryan is doing over there & is anyone really going to say he doesn't know what he's doing? He's really turned that organization around, and they're not going to suck forever. The Braves block their pitching prospects, too. Those are 3 teams that we should probably try to emulate: the more pitching the better, and the better a prospect has to be/the more ready he has to be to get his spot, the better.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 04:40 PM) THEN HOW ARE THEY GOING TO RECOUP THEIR DRAFT PICK BY TRADING ONE? Isn't there a draft and INTL period every single year? These guys stocks rise and fall all the time, you know that. The draft pick is a great thing to have, it is very high, but give Santana 1-2 years where he's quality and put him on the trade market and there is serious value there. You're looking at 3 good prospects there or maybe 1 very good or great prospect plus more, and the return you get is made up of players your entire org has been scouting WITHIN the MiLB system, meaning you are seeing how they are doing against the best MILB comp at that level, everybody is using wooden bats, etc. It's going to be a lot easier for scouts to get a handle on guys who have been doing it at the MiLB level & have accumulated a bit of a track record in the process. Marty isn't wrong all of the time ya know. He's right about the pitching, you can always trade it if it's good.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 03:48 PM) By fWAR, Santana's 2013 was his third best season. He is overrated. The big dogs are ALWAYS on the prowl for free agent pitching. Let them overpay for it. We lost 99 games and have a glut of young SPs that need innings. Why you want to create a roster logjam at the cost of $60m and an early second round pick is beyond all of us. What are the Twins doing right now? In a game that always revolves around pitching, and in an era where pitching has become even more dominant (moreso than it has been for probably 25 years or more) it makes a f***ing TON of sense to create a logjam of SP. Personally I think Santana is too scatterbrained and Floydish to commit big money to, but current 4th starter money? Over 3 years? s*** sign me the f*** up please. Do it now. We don't want to just throw our young guys into the fire without making them earn it. Not only is a Sale-Santana-Quintana-Johnson-Danks rotation very good and balanced, it allows the Sox to work in other pieces as they need them and as those guys are ready. Beck can come in when he's 100% ready, and it can be at the expense of Danks or Santana. If Paulino can come back in the pen or as a spot starter, or take over for Johnson should be struggle and need to be optioned back to Charlotte for a little while. There's a TON of positives having too much pitching, and a TON of negatives when you don't have enough. Right now the Sox are logjamming their bullpen prospects. Great. Keep it up, and when the org believes 100% that Bassit and/or Petricka are ready to step in and get the job done, there goes Lindstrom/Belisario/etc. Also that second round pick is a risk anyway. It's not like whoever we take there is definitely going to be a Major League player. There's a lot of development time to be expected. I would say it is far likelier that Santana would be good enough to spin off after 1-2 years at a value greater than whatever player the Royals would take with our pick than it would be that we pick someone there who either makes it as a quality MLB player OR brings back a quality MLB player through trade. The whole point of this thing is to add as much value in new resources as possible while depleting the organization's resources as little as possible. Taking advantage of the late January & February free agents is one way of doing that, especially when it involves pitching. 2nd round pick? For 3 years $40M that's a p****hair over $13M per and no way should we not do that.

In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost is a retrospective (past) cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs should not affect the rational decision-maker's best choice. Evidence from behavioral economics suggests this theory fails to predict real-world behavior. Sunk costs do, in fact, influence actors' decisions because humans are prone to loss aversion and framing effects. In light of such cognitive quirks, it is unsurprising that people frequently fail to behave in ways that economists deem "rational". From wikipedia but absolutely true & people here can't seem to get it, neither do the Sox. Adam Dunn is a dog. He's a sunk cost. He's done. He's not part or any future event that matters and his "value" is hilariously overstated given his track record over the past several years and how limited he is both as a player and an athlete. Whoever said that line of blah blah blah im going to los it if someone (me) suggests a dump of Dunn again, well guess what? We already ate his f***ing contract, it's already over and one with, it happened a long time ago. His presence on a rebuilding team should have nothing to do with his salary, that's completely ridiculous. So go crazy. Paulstar here made a great point. Who bought the f***in Soxfest tickets? The fans. They buy the tickets, they get to react however they see fit, and unless a remark is racist or something like that which has nothing to do with on-field performance it shouldn't be a condemnable offense. For f***s sake all mighty. The Sox shouldn't need to have their fan base tell them they are making an irrational and completely stupid decision, but just as the fans booed the crap KW trotted out in CF for years, they have every right to boo Dunn & it is the organization responsible for running that crap out there anyway. Let em hear it. BOOOOOOOOO where's the pooper scooper get thios guy outta here already.

QUOTE (Paulstar @ Jan 25, 2014 -> 05:54 PM) This is just silly. Lets act like casual fans won't speak their mind if given the chance. And lets act all high and mighty and talk down to those classless fans, we're white sox fans, we're better than those people who can't resist speaking their mind! Give me a break, there is no code for being a white sox fan, or a cubs fan, or a fan of anything. People are gonna always act like people have done for thousands of year. So while you might disagree with it, that's fine, but get off your pedastals of looking down at others like your so high and mighty and never disrespect or insult anyone. THIS Dunn is lucky the fans aren't flinging poo at him

The nice thing about trading a proven MLB starter who is in demand is that you can get value in terms of players who are ready right now. Case in point, the Garza-to-Texas deal last year brought back Mike Olt & Justin Grimm, at depreciated values of course, but also near-MLB ready former top prospects. You get one crack at a draft pick, and while I wouldn't like to lose such a high second rounder, I'd do it looking to turn that pick around in 1-2 years.

Most players don't spend that amount of time in the 9 spot of an order and still stay in the game It's like in Bull Durham? when the guy doesn't want to talk about being the MiLB HR leader In Ozzie's case it's a tribute to his D though, so not so bad

Agree 1000000% If it's $14M per or less & at 4 years or less you f***in do this s*** right now Trade the player after 1 year or keep him We sign a guy like Ubaldo or Santana, and if we get good years out of that guy AND Danks next year then Hahn has serious negotiating power next offseason. DO IT

I still want us to get Noesi from the M's. Coop will fix him & I doubt he's not going to be in their rotation plans ATM. I'd rather go after an under control player like that through trade than work in FA. If you strike gold then you have a long-term piece.. we don't really need to help anyone rebuild their value.