The Ultimate Champion

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 03:05 PM) I think if KW likes Tanaka, Hahn will do some contract magic like he did with JDA and Paulie (Signing bonus, Arbitration Opt-out, and deferred money) to try and sign him. Personally I don't care if the Sox offer him a zillion year deal at twenty zillion dollars as long as they have an out somewhere in there after the 3rd or 4th year; allowing Tanaka to opt in to arbitration provides them with an out as a potential non-tender. That would work. What sucks though is that most of these mid-contract opt-outs offer no safety to the team because the opt out only occurs if the player believes he can get more money whereas if the player drops off dramatically the club is stuck with a massive amount of bad guaranteed money and years. IMO the worst scenario of those that would seem most reasonable would be locking Tanaka up for a lot of years at a high annual value & then having him be terrible on the field, but getting regular playing time anyway because of the contract. If he gets hurt it's not going to be so bad because most likely you're going to recover some of that money on insurance, and you should be able to acquire an at least competent starter to take over the workload if there's no one to call up.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 01:15 PM) If the Sox pull off what many here regard as "The Impossible" and sign Tanaka, does that change anyone's perception of the Sox chance to win this season? Or does everyone leave 2014 as "work in progress"? I'd say it might do the opposite , because 2015 definitely would look like a possible contention year. It should force the Sox to become more aggressive as far as seeing what they've got so they have a better idea of what they would need to do after the season. Maybe they would be more aggressive with the likes of Semien and/or Davidson than they would normally plan on being. But I think we're a major long shot here, and we only get him if we get very creative. I mentioned an opt-out clause in the middle of the deal ala CC Sabathia and recently Elvis Andrus, I think it would probably at least have to be something like that since I can't see us giving 6-7 years of big guaranteed money to any pitcher. And Tanaka may still get that big mid-contract opt-out even at a massive annual salary because because the current demand is so great, ala LeBron with the Heat.

QUOTE (chisoxfan310 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 06:42 PM) The only team I see a possible deal with is the Reds for De Aza. Weren't they close to a trade lost off-season? Well, I think CF is a hole right now for the Reds (assuming they want Hamilton to have some time in the minors to start the year. De Aza can bat leadoff and play center and can move into a platoon role with Ludwick when Hamilton comes up. Plus Ludwick is a free agent after this year and De Aza can just be the fulltime LF in 2015 (unless they sign another right handed cheap bat to platoon obviously). EDIT: just looked at their top 20 and they didn't have any catchers there. We could trade for some pitching depth I suppose. I think that if you trade DeAza you just look for BPA in trade talks. That may sound obvious but I think Hahn was looking for "fit" both out of Santiago and Reed, yet I don't think there would be enough demand to insist on the same in return for DeAza.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 07:55 PM) After Choo signed, I thought I read somewhere that they're going to go with Hamilton this year. Maybe that's malarky. I'd prefer to pay Big Funn and ADA almost $20 Million this year with Dunn playing somewhere else. I desperately want to keep ADA's bat in our lineup because I think he can be a dynamic player in the 9 hole. If he can take a step forward this year and put up a hybrid of his last 2 years, maybe .290/.370/.440 could be his peak? I think the only way we can keep him is if Dunn is jettisoned. Yeah I'd do that too. Viciedo/Abreu splitting time between 1B/DH with Viciedo also capable of playing LF while DeAza serves as the full-time LF just makes too much sense. And not that it matters but I think it makes us a better team. Most importantly we'd be giving AB to the right players.

Left Fielders Jeff Baker (33) Jason Bay (35) Brennan Boesch (29) Chris Coghlan (29) Trevor Crowe (30) Sam Fuld (32) Reed Johnson (37) Laynce Nix (33) Juan Pierre (36) Derrick Robinson (26) Delmon Young (28) Center Fielders Rick Ankiel (34) Trevor Crowe (30) Grady Sizemore (31) Andres Torres (36) Dewayne Wise (36) Right Fielders Jeff Baker (33) Roger Bernadina (30) Brennan Boesch (29) Tyler Colvin (28) Trevor Crowe (30) Nelson Cruz (33) After Nelson Cruz, DeAza would be the best FA on the market were he on this list. Maybe after Cruz signs interest picks up.

BTW the whole point of the above deal I proposed is that the Sox would be able to trade him if they felt he was an opt-out candidate. If not, and he turned into Adam Dunn 2.0, at least they'd be able to get out of the deal in 4 years. And anywhere in between s*** and excellence he's probably a 2-4 starter, meaning you're not overpaying him all that much if at all during the 4 years you definitely have him. I wouldn't guarantee seven years though, that's just nuts, but I think that's what happens. IMO the Dodgers will get him, because why not? If they do I wonder if Kenny ahem I mean Rick gets Kemp in here somehow.

I'd offer a contract like this: 2014: 17M 2015: 18M 2016: 19M 2017: 20M; after the season the player has ability to opt out of remainder of contract; team also has $6M buyout to get out from remainder of deal 2018: 20M - guaranteed year if no opt-out by either side 2019: 20M - another mutual option with a $5M team buyout 2020: 20M - guaranteed year if no opt-out by either side A deal like that would give Tanaka $80M guaranteed over 4 years, or $74M for 4 years plus a shot at hitting FA before 30. Further there are options for the Sox to get out of the deal should things go bad later, but should they stick in the deal the Sox guarantee Tanaka more money. Something that would provide flexibility for both sides I would do. However I think he's getting everything guaranteed. *Edit: deferring some of the early money in 2014 & 2015 to a later point in the deal could be nice too as it could offset the posting fee some.

Sox will meet with Tanaka just to personally tell him his NPB stats aren't impressive because the league over there sucks balls. My sources tell me there's "zero chance" they let Tanaka or his agent use their Keurig & if anyone wants coffee they're going to have to go downstairs to the break room and get it like everyone else.

The problem with the whole Price-Rays relationship if you are an outsider is that no other team is going to be so willing to a) get Price everything he wants $$$ wise, and b) give the Rays everything else talent-wise. The Rays want to deal him for a haul & then Price wants probably $30M per over many years from the Dodgers or Angels or Yankees or Cubs or whoever. What team is going to pay so much just for a rental? And if you think you can sign him, and are willing to give up some talent to get him now, you're still probably going to be more comfortable calling the Rays bluff, showing a willingness to sign him outright rather than surrender a package similar to what the Rays got for Shields. As far as the idea of trading Quintana for a guy we can't extend & who will only be here while we suck, I'd say that's probably not the best idea.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 09:59 AM) IMO, the Sox deals for Eaton and Davidson maxed out the pitching that Hahn had in mind. Losing Q in a trade for Castro, and then needing to sign a questionable, more expensive and far less talented free agent to replace Q, [Rienzo, Surkamp, etc aren't really options, more like AAA ready depth in case of injury] would turn the Sox's rotation strength into an area of weakness. Now if a trade of Q turned into a top SP prospect, a solid upgrade at C, + talent, then maybe. For Castro basically, no thanks. Then maybe you try to do a 3-way with the DBacks (again) because don't they have SP prospects to trade? They desperately want another starter & probably aren't going to land Tanaka. Sox trade: Q 2 quality prospects --> OR Viciedo counts for 2, DeAza for 1, Beckham for 1, Jones for 1, and they can mix/match Webb/Snodgress/other solid but lesser prospect than that above Sox acquire: 1 high-end pitching prospect from DBacks Castro Houston trades: Castro Houston acquires: Whatever they take from the Sox 2 prospects from the DBacks DBacks trade: 1 high-end pitching prospect 2 other prospects DBacks get: Quintana

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 6, 2014 -> 08:07 AM) If it's one for one no. If it's 4 for 1... Unfortunately I don't see any single prospect on the farm that I'd trade Castro for. Houston would at least demand our 3 best guys, probably 4. And given the scarcity of young, high quality catchers who are cheap and under control, they would have no reason to settle for anything less than a haul. Just look at what AJ brought back from the Giants for example. Look at what someone like Bedard brought back to the Orioles. In a sane world Castro should have higher value now than either of those guys did at the time they were dealt. Would you gut the top end of your farm for him? I'd definitely consider it if doing so would mean trading guys who are likely 3+ years away anyway. This is the kind of move that would bring that contention window a lot closer. We're also probably in line for a top-12 or so pick next year even with Castro, so another high pick is probably coming after this season. But then maybe you "just" trade Quintana. That makes it a lot harder to trade Danks if he rebuilds his value. We should probably be trying to extend Q.

This is why trading draft picks would be awesome. The Sox could offer their second rounder which is more like a supplemental first plus that signing slot and then add in some prospects & not have to deal Q. Castro is going to be very expensive. I might be willing to pay the price for 2 main reasons 1) he's a catcher, 2) Hahn would be in a great position to attempt to buy out his arb years. If the Sox could get this guy say for 7 years at what would amount to an average annual salary of say $5M per or so then you're talking about not just a very good player who fits with what you are doing but potentially incredible payroll flexibility as well. I mean, if this guy were a FA right now what would he command? We could potentially buy out his arb years at well under 1/2 of what that figure would probably be.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Jan 5, 2014 -> 06:15 PM) Seeing as how Stassi doesnt look MLB ready we could include Phegley or Flowers in the deal so Houston has a catcher to hold them over til Stassi shows he's ready. That's a great idea. In fact, let's bowl them over with all our catchers.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jan 5, 2014 -> 06:09 PM) Hmmmm, there is probably an argument for both sides here, but I personally would say no, simply because the ceilings of all those guys are so massive, except for maybe Micah, who I don't want to give up on at all yet. I'd rather see something like Nate Jones, Erik Johnson, and Snodgress but I don't know if Houston does that deal. I like EJ but if I had Castro I wouldn't trade him for that. If you had Castro yourself, and another team containing all the Sox prospects called on him, what would you take? I'd probably want one MLB ready piece (E Johnson) as the centerpiece and 3 guys from the pool of Danish, Beck, M Johnson, Hawkins, Barnum, Anderson. You'd want to make a deal that you don't feel like you'd end up regretting.

Let's say the Astros will give you Jason Castro for 4 unproven prospects in E Johnson, Danish, M Johnson, Hawkins and are not interested in moving Altuve... do you make that deal? All 4 guys are very intriguing, but only E Johnson looks like he's ready now. All have question marks, but there's lots of ceiling there.

I think there are 3 ways of potentially obtaining Castro 1) Quintana. Straight up that's a fair deal but a tough pill to swallow. It's one step forward one step back, however, it would have to be very seriously considered given that pitching is our strength and we do have a couple guys that look promising on the farm along with Johnson ready to step in this year 2) Quantity over quality/a depth move. Sox trade a s***load of quality organizational pitching depth rather than the uber prospect type. Would anyone here be comfortable giving up something like Johnson, 1 of Danish/Beck, Snodgress and another piece for Castro? That's a ton of potential value and would also be a tough pill to swallow. I'm not sure we have anything positionally that we could give up that they'd really want either. 3) Something involving Viciedo and/or another team, where we send Viciedo plus prospects or we get another team to take on Viciedo and send a prospect to HOU with whatever we're sending. That's also tough. No matter what the cost though, Castro could be a multi-year solution. He looks extendable. You can trade for him thinking about buying out his arb years. He shouldn't be the type who would have to force a team to play the arb game every year looking for that big FA payday. The gigantic catching headache goes away. You also add a lefty bat to your new righty-dominated middle of the order. You're starting to look like you may already have your new core of position players. Tempting.

Paulie is the "solid guy" type Let's say Kenny Williams is a big pothead, he and Rick Hahn are bong buddies, always getting stoned in new places, walking around Home Depot all baked looking for parts to make a new bong, etc. Paulie's like the friend since grade school, real solid guy, and when Kenny & Rick are having people over & smoking he's always there, smiling, sipping his drink, not really getting in on the bud at all, bumping fists though, etc. At the end of the day they're all friends, but I don't think Paulie really fits their mold, and I don't think he's going to anytime soon. Solid guy, loyal, everybody loves him, but I think there's a different agenda & soon he'll probably fly fly away and start a new life somewhere else. I think Paulie would rather be a groundskeeper than a coach or manager.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) Don't want to quote the whole post because, well, long. Well you should have anyway. QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) De Aza's max value is what, a B prospect? What's the difference between a C+ prospect and a B prospect? I'm not sure about grades or whatever. I think DeAza could get you a nice looking SP or position prospect at the A+ level or below. I'm thinking the type of guy that is pretty unheralded but is still a quality prospect. Maybe coming off a down year or injury, whatever. I don't think you're likely to get that kind of value out of Dunn or Keppinger. We can hope, but when push comes to shove I doubt there are enough suitors to create much of a market. QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) And then, what is the difference in value between Jordan Danks (or Blake Tekotte or Jared Mitchell or Joe Blow or John Deere) and De Aza as a bench player. The difference is that those bench types get you nothing in trade, however if you play one of them enough then you might end up with a serviceable bench piece. OTOH DeAza shouldn't be platooned because he is a starting caliber player. He's actually pretty decent, he doesn't totally suck, he does some things for you and is probably underrated & undervalued ATM because of his dumbassity last year. QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) Right now, you need to play Viciedo-Eaton-Garcia 140+ games each. That does not leave a lot of time for De Aza to add value. Agree, that's why you take out the trash. QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) And then what is the difference between said C+ prospect and said B prospect? Basically, that is what is comes down to. On top of that, there are very, very few teams that will actually want Dunn to play full time. Maybe the Royals, maybe the Orioles. No NL team should want him. But, from August, September, and the playoffs, teams will want him as a part time player as a DH to add some power to the lineup. You can extract value out of that. I don't care who wants Dunn or who he plays for. He can play for the East Spokane Mudkitties for all I care, as long as it's not here. The roster spot is more valuable than he is. Re: part time player, he can't be that. He needs to be in there against live pitching all the time. That guy's swing can't get any longer, nor can get become even less confident in the box. If that happens you're looking at 2011 Dunn again. Nobody wants him as a bench bat. He's a LH DH/platoon DH/occasional 1B who maybe you could hide in LF from time to time if you're a little on the whacky side. QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) Why not save that money, attempt to compete (which you can do with a good Dunn and can't do with De Aza's place on the depth chart at the moment), and if not, deal the same guys and possibly save some money in the process while getting the same return? Save what money? He's already a $15M sunk cost. f***ing over your roster flexibility to save potentially a couple million bucks is intelligent why? We're under budget. And we're not competing, there's no way we're competing. The Sox aren't trying to do that. What you're asking the Sox to do IMO is go halfway in the proper direction instead of full throttle along the course that has been plotted. Future > Dunn. QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) Keppinger is the same s***, but I think I'd rather deal him for a bad relief contract. Trade him to the Dodgers for Brandon League with LA making up the difference in price. I think you'll find you can get more value out of that contract that way. If you can't deal him, who are you kicking off the roster? Jake Elmore? I'd make that deal. I've always liked League. QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) I just think your philosophy is going about things to an extreme that no one in baseball would be comfortable with, nor any logical economist. You need to try and utilize your resources in the most efficient way possible, and eating Dunn's salary - likely to be around 16% of the team's total payroll - is not doing that. Get that value out of him before you eat anything. I'm not sure about the economist part. When you have dead weight aren't you supposed to cut the cord, pull your investments, liquidate, whatever, basically GTFO while you can rather than hang on something based on a scant hope that maybe you'll recover a bit of something? When big companies realize they've f***ed up and spent a bunch of money developing something they shouldn't have they just make the decision to move on and then they do it. Keeping Dunn is more of a craigslist mentality than anything else IMO. If you think about it, we've given Dunn what like $60M guaranteed? What has he actually earned of that, maybe $20M at best? Given his bad streaks, including all of 2011, I'd say it's probably less if you consider the negative value he's brought here. The Sox have already lost money on this deal. Look at how his career has been trending. We paid for 4 quality years, got the single worst season in MLB history, a down year, then a bad year, and 2014 will be...? Yeah, dump him.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 08:29 PM) Why on earth would the White Sox pay Dunn's full salary to trade him? Honestly thats absolutely ridiculous. The most you pay is $10 mill. You'll be able to move him at the deadline. Honestly, you are suggesting eating $25 million so you have extra time to deal Gillaspie (who you're not going to get much for to begin with) and De Aza (who you're going to get more for than Gillaspie, but still not much). Say you get a C+ prospect for Dunn after eating his entire salary and a C- prospect for Keppinger after eating all his salary. Now, do you expect to get anything different from De Aza or Gillaspie respectively? If you deal De Aza without eating salary, you save money and open a roster spot. If you deal Gillaspie, you open a roster spot. If you wait until midseason, you may be able to save anywhere between $2-5 mill with Dunn and possibly $7 million with Keppinger while getting minimal return but, more importantly, saving money). I'm suggesting eating $14.5M for Dunn if necessary, taking the best deal possible in terms of talent. If I can't get an MLB SP prospect/bust/change of scenery guy, and if I can't pick up a similar player as a starting position player at an area of need, then I look for someone who won't have to be added to the 40 until at least next season. Even getting a useful-looking, non-roster UT or RP prospect will be more valuable to us on paper than Dunn. Not only do we clear a roster spot, we move Viciedo and DeAza both out of potential platoon position. Which is stupid. And I shouldn't need to explain why. Kepp, I don't think we'd need to eat his whole salary. I'd eat no more than $3M total, but $2M or less ideally. I'd probably want a little something back though. But I'd take a middling prospect because I think we have younger bench players that are going to be more valuable to us longterm & could use the PT. I don't know where you get eating the $25M part though. I don't see the point of dealing DeAza for anything less than a solid return. It's not going to hurt us to keep him; it's not like Jared Mitchell or Joe Borchard Jr. are beating down the door. I think Hahn would have already moved DeAza if he got a deal he liked. And I also see no real point in trading Gillaspie. I can't see how he'd bring a lot back, but he really could be a nice piece for us as a bench guy & spot starter. Having someone who could play the IF corners & maybe the OF corners too as a backup, plus as a LH PH bat that can make some contact, could help us quite a bit. We have have him at the minimum for 2 more seasons and if he's just a bench guy, even a solid one, we'll get values on his first 2 arb years as well most likely. I'm not sure how trading him gets you anything you care much about, and I'm not sure why you'd dump him just to open a spot for a non-core player. I don't get (further) why we even care about penny pinching on Dunn. We're *under* our payroll budget as we sit here, and if Hahn gets even more active then in all likelihood we'll fall even below that number. The budget is already factoring in max INTL & amateur draft budgets; what would we be saving money for? If eating all that money gets him out of here right now then we'll be in a better position because of it. There's no way the Sox should dump any even remotely useful 2015+ pieces to keep that piece of crap on this team.

QUOTE (TomPickle @ Jan 3, 2014 -> 10:52 PM) How about a computer generated manager that makes its decisions off real-time Twitter interactions? #suicidesqueeze Computers don't work very well communicating with locker rooms or the media, however I would have no problem with the Sox cancelling all pre- and post-game press conferences and instead handing out a toll free number to the media where they can speak to a young, energetic, female sounding robot which provides game recaps, statistics, and general bits of information like "He's our _____ and we're sticking by him," and so on. They have a system like that currently in effect but the technology upgrade over Rongey would be worth it IMO.

AJ is Steve Stone's replacement.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 4, 2014 -> 10:11 AM) If we are going to pay them anyway, I'd rather keep them and see if we can do better later. That's the thing though, I think we have better options on our team already. Dunn is gone, so while he has the ability to smack more HR and take more BB than Gillaspie, he doesn't have a chance to help the next 2-4 Sox teams like Gillaspie does if he continues to develop. Same with Keppinger vs. one of our UT players, especially those out of options, Kepp may be better right now but he's not going to be helping the next several Sox teams. I can't see anything significant coming back for either of those guys around the deadline, especially Dunn, who will probably have much more value now as a full-season player with his salary covered than he'd have mid-season as a rental.

Hahn is directing this, he's calling the shots. Abreu will play until the Sox feel he needs a break. One of the main points as far as bringing in Robin is the fact that unlike Ozzie he's not going to fight the people above him. He doesn't have those same kind of ego issues. Just look at Alexei making the club out of ST after we signed him. Look at Beckham, Boone Logan, etc. the Sox will rush anyone. I'd probably be more concerned about the Sox putting too much pressure on the guy than I'd be about him getting benched for Dunn or Paulie.

If the Sox called around to the other 29 teams and offered to eat all of Adam Dunn's salary in exchange for a quality relief or UT prospect who would not have to be added to the 40-man roster then I have to believe at least someone would make that deal. I'd rather Hahn just get this out of the way and dump the guy. Similar with Keppinger, if you call the other 29 teams and say you'll eat $1M this year and $1M next year and you will take back a non-prospect in return, I have to believe someone makes that deal. Do those 2 things & now there is a lot less pressure to take a less-than-necessary return on a higher quality piece, like DeAza or IMO Gillaspie, who I think has a shot at being kind of a Mark Teahen type of player when he was on the Royals - which is nice so long as you are only playing him the minimum.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Jan 2, 2014 -> 07:15 PM) Not sure how PK doesn't burn a roster spot but Adam Dunn does? Assuming Hahn has to eat virtually all of Dunn's remaining salary to move him, I'd much rather have Dunn than Konerko. Especially considering that a Viciedo platoons with Dunn much better at DH than he does with PK. Also, Dunn might be moveable at the deadline if the Sox are "out of it" and if you want to get someone more plate appearances at DH... where PK can't go anywhere other than the DL. Dunn takes away PA, Paulie isn't taking much away from anyone The last thing the Sox need to do with Viciedo is platoon him Dunn is movable when crappy, field-useless players with big contracts begin to be in demand... I can see a lot of things happening around July, probably not that though