shysocks

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 09:48 AM) It's better for the team (the Sox in this case) because they'll get the first chance to sign him to a longer deal. It's not as good for the player because he'll most likely get less (years and/or money) than if he pursues free agency. We can only hope that the Sox have a good year and Samardzija likes it here. The Sox would have a better chance to extend him. Also, if the player thinks he risks having a bad season or getting hurt, he might give up the extra years and money to get something guaranteed sooner. A little like insurance.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jan 13, 2015 -> 04:20 PM) The only way you can assure you won't have a child is an IUD ABSTINENCE, KIDS.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 13, 2015 -> 03:14 PM) http://m.mlb.com/news/article/106283226/ph...n-consideration One of my favorite baseball arguments. You take the warm fuzzy stuff like a ring, gold gloves, multiple no-hitters, and tack on another 10 WAR and 5 seasons at 200 innings apiece and his argument is interesting. Couple things majorly holding him back: 1. Players need peak and longevity to make the Hall. While Buehrle is in range of some unprecedented longevity, he has never dominated the league for a long stretch. 2. Hall voting for starting pitchers is just GD confusing these days, so who the hell knows.

D-Backs still interested in James Shields. GM Dave Stewart on why Shields likes what the org is doing (emphasis mine): "I think James is a throwback guy by the way he goes about his business and the innings he pitches. I think the fact that Tony (La Russa) is here and that we have more baseball people - he probably sees us as a true baseball team vs. some of the other teams out here that are geared more towards analytics and those type of things." http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/mlb/...udget/21696949/

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 13, 2015 -> 01:29 PM) Pictured, David Robertson: I was thinking more like this:

Ned Yost extended through 2016. See my sig.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 13, 2015 -> 10:08 AM) I know a bunch of you assholes are the same age as me so anyone have/going to their 10 year hs reunion this year? Just got the facebook invite for mine and nobody in my group of friends wants to go but I think it'll be a good time. Mine is in 2016 and I can't think of any good reason to go. The people I still want as friends are still my friends so why bother?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 13, 2015 -> 10:46 AM) IMO, a "comp pick" is now at the point of being dramatically overrated, at least here. If you give me the choice between a comp pick and a guy at AA putting up moderately good but not spectacular numbers and ask me which one is more likely to be a big leaguer/put up >1 WAR in their career, I'll absolutely 100% say the AA guy. Something like 50% of the guys in those rounds look weak by the time they're even in the lower minors and never improve. Another big chunk is lost at the jump to AA. Then there are some who get injured. Only a fraction of comp picks ever get to the point that Ravelo or Phegley got to. Then there are guys like Phegley who get a callup and fall flat. Teams are able to stack the deck somewhat by the fact that the MLB draft has so many rounds. If you have 19 picks after the first round, and they vary from having 10% chances to make the bigs down to 1% chances in round 20, you've got a good chance to pull a big leaguer out of those rounds every year and if you're good at it or lucky maybe more than one, but adding in an extra pick with a tiny chance of making the bigs doesn't change that. I did say the comp pick is arguably more valuable, so I'm glad you're arguing. Part of that overrating has to do with what the Sox have done with second rounders lately. And the comp pick also means we get the pick's value in the signing pool, if I'm not mistaken, so that's nice too.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jan 13, 2015 -> 10:06 AM) Why the hell would you trade prospects for a rental? If the SOX traded for this guy for a year, they are dumber than I thought. If they don't extend him, they know they have the QO comp pick when he leaves. That pick is arguably, hopefully, ideally more valuable than everyone they traded other than Semien.

Think ultimately he'll test free agency. The qualifying offer will help us out.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 13, 2015 -> 09:09 AM) Not astronomical, but it's probably more than his value. Delmon Young is a very comparable player overall and he had to settle for a 1 year, $3 million deal. Really though, teams are paying $6-7 million in the free agent market for 1 WAR players. If some team out there believes he can improve defensively to the point where he's not a total liability and they feel they can get him to hit .250 or .260, he'd be worth it. At this point, those both seem like long shots. I know you acknowledged the longshotitude, but I don't see why any team would believe that.

Just to emphasize again for anybody who somehow thinks it's possible: there is a 0% chance of Scherzer taking a one-year deal.

Meh

QUOTE (skobabe8 @ Jan 9, 2015 -> 07:25 AM) Great video. Unfortunate announcing. Chris Berman was nails on a chalkboard in that series.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 5, 2015 -> 01:04 PM) I do think fans have to contribute. Some of the "crowds" when the Sox were contending in 2012 were ridiculously low. If a fan base won't show it will support a team that is winning, I can't blame an ownership group not wanting to risk losing a ton of money.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 5, 2015 -> 12:41 PM) I really think Micah is the favorite for the 2B job. If you assume he's the long-term answer and anywhere close to ready, then giving him the starting job this year is the better alternative than spending two full seasons developing rookie 2Bs (Sanchez in 2015 and then Micah in 2016). And quite frankly, I think the Sox believe a healthy Micah Johnson is ready enough for a shot at the majors. His speed gives him a tool that will make him at least somewhat dangerous at the bottom of the order even if he struggles with the bat. And they may feel that working with the major league coaching staff and playing alongside Alexei would be good for his defensive development. Not saying that's the right call, but Merkin has pushing him hard since the end of last year as the starting 2B for 2015 and this is one of those rare occasions where he actually might have some insight into what the front office is thinking and is not just spitting out the normal fluff. The better alternative for 2015 would be to play the better guy. I find it unlikely that it'll be Micah next year, but I do agree the Sox seem to like him more.

QUOTE (lvjeremylv @ Jan 5, 2015 -> 12:37 PM) I guess. But how many years back are relevant? Is what someone did in 2011 really relevant for what you can expect in 2015? I dunno. I just hope 2012 and 2013 were weird flukes, rather than 2014 being the weird fluke. And yeah, small sample sizes, but presumably that's what we can expect him to have on our team, is anywhere from 100-150 at-bats. We don't want him having anymore than that, right? They're all probably weird flukes and anything can happen next year. It's just if I had to guess one line, it would be close to the career line. I agree that we don't want too see him overused - something else will have gone wrong if that happens.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jan 5, 2015 -> 12:19 PM) I hope he'll be used as the utilityman that he is, but I have a feeling we'll try to start him at second. I don't get that feeling at all. Think the Sox have Bonifcatio pegged as the 10th man and they'll give Sanchez his shot. QUOTE (lvjeremylv @ Jan 5, 2015 -> 12:22 PM) Hmmm. Ugh. Will the real Emilio Bonifacio please stand up? Last year vs. LHP, he batted .365, had a .411 OBP, and had an OPS of .959. Yay! *just for fun, checks 3 year span, from 2012-2014* 2013 it was .231, .295, and .568. 2012 it was .210, .256, and .503. 2012-2014 combined he's .271, .324, and .683. Can someone who has seen him play a decent amount shed some light on this? Was 2014 a fluke? Because it seems to be a big outlier when looking at his past performances. Just that platoon numbers from year-to-year are pretty small samples. You're talking no more than 136 PA's against lefties in any of those three seasons. Look at the career numbers (.291/.340/.380/.720) and it's clear he's capable enough.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 5, 2015 -> 10:27 AM) I tried to watch the new Real World season, especially cause it's in Chicago, but those f***ers are just too crazy for me to watch anymore. And not fun crazy, more like bats*** crazy. Same boat, except I'm in deeper because the house was just down the street from our condo. Seeing all those locales that are literally around the corner has kept me invested but the cast is, as expected, full of idiots.

QUOTE (Rooftop Shots @ Jan 5, 2015 -> 09:57 AM) Ok I don;t know enough about pitching mechanics, and the effects that his injury had on his mechanics as well as his abilities and talent. But here's some thoughts to chew on. is It possible that he can have a real good year this year?. A professional should always be able to play to his maximum potential no matter who he plays for or with. But lets face it, (NO MATTER WHAT SPORT) when you play with some serious competitive and winning guys, it does something inside you that really "UPS" your game. He has had plenty of time to heal, and a season to learn how to "pitch" differently than he used to before his injury. Now that he has 3 key pitchers ahead of him, and a team that will really compete, could that possibly make him "that much better" and worth "some" of his money? He did have some good spurts last year (I believe it was around the July area) . Its a poor analogy..... but an example is Most good starting rotations seem to get better as they feed off of one another's success. If our top 3 have real good years, could Danks FEED off of that and make him the pitcher that we hope for? If he does, then we have Duke and Rodon in the pen in the middle of the season, for lefties. Rodon gets to grow and evolve in the process, and if Danks "does" have a good year, then makes it a lot better chance to trade him next year (and the whole 15 mil) for something worthwhile when Rodon becomes a starter for 2016.At the same time. His 15 mil off the books would free up at least "SOME" money for Samardzija (at last for the first year anyway) Shoulder injuries wreak havoc. Danks could be over the learning curve of pitching with diminished stuff and have a nice year but I wouldn't expect too much.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 2, 2015 -> 08:07 AM) Any games on your "To Do" list this year? Evolve. No Man's Sky. Probably gonna pick up one of last year's big games that I missed (Shadow of Mordor, Far Cry 4) once I feel like the discount is big enough.

Not breaking any new ground here, but there's lot to like about this: He can play multiple positions. He hits lefties. The cost is minimal. His signing signifies that Hahn reads Soxtalk.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 18, 2014 -> 05:20 PM) I posted this in our previous discussion of projections for the Sox, but this needs to go here too. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/does-projec...thing/ When we talk about projections, and you have disagreements with them, this will be referenced often. Projections are not trying to be perfect. Metaphorically speaking, they are painting a picture of what you look like in October of year "x" based on how you have looked in every year prior to that. Given that it's based in the future, we have absolutely no idea what you will look like, but given the circumstances, we can probably make an educated guess. That's all this is, and if it's incredibly wrong on a few samples, it doesn't mean the system or the process is wrong. An R-squared of .43 doesn't strike me as all that great. Give it more than two years of data and that would maybe go up, but this shouldn't really convince us of anything we didn't already know. The projections have the right idea but there are enough big misses to seriously caution against using them as the gospel. I mean, just eyeballing, it looks like there are maybe ten teams that exceeded their projection by 10 WAR or more. That's a sixth of the sample. The most valuable paragraph is easily the one below. If your projection isn't favorable, you're a longshot:

Avi's ISO last season jumped a little bit past what he'd ever really shown in the minors. That increase being real is about the only thing I feel comfortable predicting about him.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 18, 2014 -> 10:30 AM) That's not what he wrote. He said the roster without Melky and Viciedo is equally bad. I'm not in Balta's head, but here's the flow of the conversation: QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 18, 2014 -> 09:17 AM) Right. Imagine this roster without Melky Cabrera AND Viciedo. That's a roster that has Jordan Danks, JB Shuck or some other minor leaguer getting significant playing time as a starter in LF. That does not sound like a good time. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 18, 2014 -> 09:23 AM) Imagine this roster without Melky Cabrera and with Viciedo. It's pretty much equally bad but with a tad bit more money. Maybe worse, far more circus music to be played in the background on average fly balls. The bolded wasn't actually in Balta's post but it's kind of an implied phrase. I initially read it the way you guys did but then thought there's no way anybody could think Melky is not better than Viciedo.