TheFutureIsNear

QUOTE (mike65 @ Nov 20, 2013 -> 11:09 AM) Thanks, Iamshack. I actually enjoyed posting here back in ther summer. I had convinced myself that Ramirez was the Cardinals main SS target. I still believe that. Piscotty is not a 2nd tier prospect. I expect Piscotty to rank just behind Taveras when new rankings come out unless Martinez is still ranked. The Cardinals minor lague system is really in good shape and there are some quality players beyond the ones that everyone hears about. I would offer Tim Cooney, Stephen Piscotty, Lee Stoppleman, Greg Garcia, Alexander Reyes, and Mike O"Neill as strong players. Ryan Jackson is interesting. I believe he is an above average defensive SS with a modest offense. He is buried in STL and needs a change of scenery. I hope that happens for him soon. He is currently behind Garcia and Kozma. And, before I close, let's take a look at all the possible starting pitchers: Wainwight, Wacha, Lynn, Kelly, Garcia, Gast, Lyons, Martinez with Cooney and Whiting at AAA and Rosenthal, Maness, and Siegrist in the bullpen. Appreciate the response....So I take it the Cards front office would be pretty reluctant to part with Piscotty for Ramirez is what you're saying? Guess we will see how bad the Cards want a SS and how serious the rumors of Tulo are. Its pretty scary to the think the Cards could get a guy like Tulo and not even come close to emptying the farm.

Anybody who wants Salty is crazy. Last year was the only year of his career that he showed the ability to hit what so ever in the big leagues. 470 AB's of above average hitting is not worth $40+ million. Pass on him, let someone else overspend. There's no need to throw $ around at a C who will only be around for a year and doesn't change the fact that the team isn't a playoff contender either. Stopgap and rebuild just do not go together, regardless of how long or short of a rebuilding process it is.

QUOTE (mike65 @ Nov 20, 2013 -> 09:43 AM) Hello. I was last here around the trade deadline because I thought the Cardinals had interest in Ramirez. Back then, everybody was talking about Adams and Martinez as the possible trade chips. Now, with that pressure off, I am assuming the Cardinals still have interest. I read the other day that the four teams the Cardinals are speaking to regarding a trade are the Diamondbacks, Angels, Rangers, and White Sox. I don't believe the Cardinals will go the free agent route. Peralta doesn't fit the "Cardinal way" and Drew's being LH is a problem for the Cadinals because our GM has already said he doesn't want to go anymore left than the team is right now (Adams, Taveras, Carpenter, and Jay). What do you guys think the cost would be these days as compared to July? Can you provide any insight on the Cardinals 2nd tier of prospects? I was looking at guys like Ryan Jackson and Stephen Piscotty. Something like that make more sense for Ramirez on both sides? Any catching prospects worth a darn in the farm? Thanks.

That Carlos Ruiz contract just made the catcher market look kinda scary. Trading for a catcher seems like a much better idea now, Salty has to be looking for 4 years and at least $40M now right? No thanks

I like Jaso as well. He would be my 1st option at catcher. Ryan Hanigan would be my #2 option. Very similar to Jaso, just bats RH

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 13, 2013 -> 02:54 PM) Your splits are probably optimistic. Admittedly, my OBP was low, but expecting anything more than .220/.320/.460 is expecting too much. Adam Dunn is comparable to a durable Travis Hafner at this point in his career. Hafner got $2 million on the open market and it took until February 1st to sign him. He's a last resort sort of guy anymore. Unless the Sox eat about $7.5-10 million of his deal, they aren't going to move him and even then they'd get jack diddly in return. IDK, I think your view of Dunn may be a little slanted. I understand the resentment, but I don't think Hafner is really comparable. I would say Mark Reynolds is more comparable and he got $6 million last year in free agency after putting a similar slash line to Dunn but with 11 less HR's. Teams pay for home runs.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 13, 2013 -> 12:24 PM) Because all of that likely results in a .220/.300/.460 line (or something similar) with absolutely nothing defensively. Teams are just as likely to get that production out of a free agent or a minor leaguer for cheaper. They might prefer a left handed slap hitter who can play all around the field to a guy in Dunn who really should not be playing the field at all. $10 million is very expensive for a guy who is the definition of a 1 dimensional player, regardless of what other guys are earning around the majors. A guy like Marlon Byrd can play a passable CF and is decent to good in the corners while also providing good value on the bases and at the plate. He may not be the player he was last year, but he should still be worth 2+ WAR. Dunn is going to be lucky to be worth 1 WAR. .300 OBP is way off, things really couldn't have gone much worse for Dunn the past couple of years and his OBP still didn't dip below .320. It would more than likely be something like .230/.340/.470. Great? No way, but still only a 1 year commitment and he still probably has more upside. Don't forget Dunn was actually pretty darn good for a 3 month, 300 AB stretch. That kind of production is huge for a payoff team in contention. Byrd had a career year that was fueled by an extremely unrealistic .353 BABIP. A blind guy can see that Byrd is in for a huge regression.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Nov 12, 2013 -> 01:34 PM) Really the market for Granderson should be the market for Dunn. Both are three outcome players, both play shaky defense, Granderson gives you a better base runner and someone who can play some OF but Dunn gives you more power and gets on base more. Hahn should call anyone in on Granderson and say that he can provide a better bat, on a cheaper contract, without having to give up a draft pick and try and make a deal. I would like to see the Sox open the DH spot in case Abreu just can't play 1B. This is more or less the point I was trying to make. We'll see what the market is like, but if Marlon Byrd getting 2/$16M is any indication teams are going to have to seriously overpay for what little bats are available. Adam Dunn for 1 year $10M >>> Marlon Byrd for $8M per year for 2 years.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 10, 2013 -> 05:49 PM) I still don't see a team that fits Adam Dunn. Yankees acquired Vernon Wells with basically a 2 year/$14 million contract. I'm sure they would be willing to take on 1 year of Dunn for $10 million. I could see Texas willing to do it as well if they miss out on McCann. Mitch Moreland is their best LH bat.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Nov 10, 2013 -> 03:06 PM) Get younger by replacing Dunn with an older Konerko? Huh? The prospect(s) we would get in return would make us younger. I've said it like 3 times already, but I'm not expecting anything great in return. I think we get 1 or 2 Brandon Jacobs type prospects back. Or a KW special and a 23/24 year who is considered a failed top prospect. Something along those lines. With so little good hitters available I could see a GM who misses out on McCann or Cruz settling for Dunn rather than overpay for a guy like Morales. We eat $5M and get a teams 10th and 15th best prospects back in return? IDK, seems very reasonable to me.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Nov 10, 2013 -> 12:55 PM) If you wanna go for another top 3 pick then sure, go for it. Only way I'm giving up Dunn is if they get a LH middle of the line bat in here. Even then I might not do it. Paul Konerko offered close to nothing against RH pitching, which is what the Sox predominantly face. Dunn had an OPS nearly 200 points higher than PK against RHers. And if we keep Dunn until the deadline we finish with the 7th worst record instead? Who cares? Save $ and get younger, this team won't be serious contenders with or without Dunn.

Nobody would be willing to drop Dunn for a couple of B level prospects and bring PK back to DH? Provided he wants to of course.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 9, 2013 -> 11:04 PM) I'm sure some team would take Dunn if the sox paid half his salary but they wouldn't give a valuable prospect back. So if the White Sox have to send $7 million along to trade Dunn and they don't get anything of large value back, why should they move him? If they're paying for him either way they may as well get the 30 HR in their lineup and see if either they remember how to catch the ball and win some games or get a decent offer at the deadline. The only reason why they'd trade him for a pittance and not get anything back is of someone in the minors was demanding at bats at his position...but he's a DH and there's no DH pushing him. I was thinking we could pay more like $5M of his salary and get a couple of decent prospects in return. Again, I know any top prospect is unrealistic, but a couple of 20/21 year olds with potential wouldn't be worth it? Unless you think the offer would be significantly better at the deadline.

Provided we eat some $, do you think there would a team willing to trade for Dunn? Trust me, I'm no fan of Dunn at this point, but is 34 HR's enough to entice an AL team? With no obligation past this year and a team only having to pay $10-12M for 30+ HR's I think it could be a real possibility. Could get a team to bite if they strike out on 1 of the few sluggers available in FA. Not saying we could get a top 100 prospect or anything, but a couple more young talented guys in the farm system would be nice.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 9, 2013 -> 09:17 AM) I think to quite a few fans, rebuilding means dealing Chris Sale for that much speculated about huge prospect package (or Stanton/Harper/Trout, etc). And also trading Ramirez, Beckham/Keppinger (if anyone would take them), Santiago/Quintana, DeAza and Addison Reed. Although you could certainly argue that trading Santiago/Quintana would be to improve the team at catcher or 3B, and that closers are completely replaceable and essentially nice luxuries on 99 loss teams. So probably the two players that would be hardest to replace would be Sale and Ramirez (not really counting Viciedo, Abreu and Garcia, since they're all young hitters and part of a "rebuilding/retooling" effort). I'm all for rebuilding and I think the idea of trading Sale is ridiculous. We already have 1/2, and the hardest part, of rebuilding done with a good young pitching staff. Continue to rebuild the offense/defense this year and in 2015 we could easily be contenders with the right moves. Abreu and Garcia is a good start, but we are still a couple good bats away from having the necessary offense to compete in my opinion. And unfortunately I just don't see any of those type of guys coming from our minor league system anytime soon, so trading some more vets to continue to get younger.

Iwakuma was 3rd in ERA, 2nd in WHIP, 3rd in IP, and 1st in WAR (depending on where you look). Not sure how you could be upset with him being a finalist. Sale has an amazing year and will have plenty of more chances to win it. I'd be pretty surprised if he doesn't win 1 by the time he's 30.

Iwakuma was 3rd in ERA, 2nd in WHIP, 3rd in IP, and 1st in WAR (depending on where you look). Not sure how you could be upset with him being a finalist. Sale has an amazing year and will have plenty of more chances to win it. I'd be pretty surprised if he doesn't win 1 by the time he's 30.

Hopefully we don't go after him. We have enough guys with an OBP below .330.

Not sure if this has been done before, but just getting a feel on the consensus of this board.

I live about 20 mins outside of Philly so I watched Halladay pitch on a regular basis and I really think he might be done. He's sitting around 86 mph and his sinker doesn't have the same bite it had when it he was throwing it 92-93. Might be that he wasn't healthy, but I think its more likely that a 36 year old who is at the end of the road. Besides that it still doesn't make sense. Why bring in an old pitcher who will just eat up innings that could be used for developing a young pitcher? Roy Halladay isn't making us a playoff team.

Very underwhelming free agency class this year. Would anybody take a look at Sizemore? I know theres a good chance he ends up not playing or he just has nothing left, but what do we have to lose?

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 09:19 PM) I didn't sneak anything anywhere. The only number I used was the average OPS for AL second basemen the past 2 years: .682 in 2012, .707 in 2013. Beckham's .694 in an injury-plagued 2013 combined with his defensive value adds up to about league average in my book. He was having a very good season well into August despite playing through those injuries. But my point stands: anyone bothering to complain about Gordon Beckham should only be doing so after they've already spent a bunch of time complaining about our 3rd basemen, our catchers, Adam Dunn, Viciedo's 1.1 total WAR through 1200 career PAs, and Alexei Ramirez making $9.5 million next year despite worse offense than Beckham each of the past 2 years (and the most errors in the AL this year) Injury plagued season also makes it a much smaller sample size. That .694 OPS is heavily skewed by a good 30-40 game stretch, but other than that he was his usual .660-.670 OPS self. Beckham is probably best suited to be a good utility infielder. And yes, I am also complaining about the rest of the guys you listed. Our offense stinks as a whole and needs to be completely retooled.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 02:58 PM) I agree fully on Santiago. Q is a different story. I think Q is pretty good. Whether he can take the next step, who knows? Yeah I think Q has already cemented himself as a legit #3 starter and should be a staple to our rotation for a while.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 01:02 PM) I love when posters adamantly claim to know the specific value of a player. And I love when hometown fans overvalue every player on their favorite team. Its only been a few days since I joined this site, but already I've learned..... - Viciedo and Beckham are good players who are just slumping. They'll be better next year. - Alexei Ramirez is a very good player who should only be traded for a top prospect. He's too valuable for anything less. - Hector Santiago is legit frontline starter and possibly even a #2. - Chris Beck is a top prospect with a bright future.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 12:01 PM) Beck's a sinker-baller. Santiago's trade value ought to be really high. The Sox really f***ed with him the last 2 years and he still put up an ERA in the mid 3's. His fWAR is hurt because he didn't get put in a position where he could throw enough innings - he'd probably have doubled his WAR value if he'd been able to get closer to 200 innings, but they put him in the bullpen for over a year and bounced him back and forth to the rotation over and over so he never got stretched out and tired out. Worse, he never got the time to really refine his offspeed stuff he needed. His ceiling is through the roof...but I fear he may not reach it in Chicago because I feel they won't commit to him. I think he's a #3 starter on a good team or maybe even a #2. You're bias is clouding you're judgement. Santiago is 4/5 starter on a good team. He has good, not great stuff, marginal control, and has never shown the ability to get into the 7th inning on a regular basis. He'll keep you in the game for 6 innings, which is definitely a good thing and he is a valuable member of a team. But he's just not a premium talent, he kinda is what he is. His trade value really isn't as high as you think it is.