OmarComing25

A Garcia/Parra platoon in RF would probably be OK offensively, but it would still be a big disappointment if it meant we're not getting one of the Big 3.

I know Upton has played mostly LF the last 3 seasons, but he has played in RF for most of his career and in Atlanta Heyward was in RF so the move made sense. Wouldn't he play RF if we signed him?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 28, 2015 -> 07:56 AM) That's all fine and good in the NL. Everyone in the Central has a chance. You have Houston, Texas, LAA and the Mariners have spent a lot in recent years...so the A's are the only team we can eliminate. In the East, who doesn't have a shot at the playoffs? The Red Sox will be better, that's for sure. You have the Jays and Yankees. The Orioles have lots of money left to spend. So TB then? Two teams we can eliminate...that's it. Thirteen teams could make the playoffs, not the greatest odds with our current team...just like at the end of July last year. Similar logjam. I actually wouldn't write off any teams in the AL. Tampa Bay won 80 games despite being ravaged by injuries, and they have great pitching and defense. I also wouldn't be too surprised to see the A's compete. But to your point, should you only try to compete when you have a virtual guarantee at the playoffs? I don't think any AL team has a greater than 50% chance of making the playoffs, it's a league full of parity. But does that mean you should only try to compete when you have a flawless team? I'll be very disappointed if the Sox don't land one of the Big 3, but if we do I think we have as much a chance to make the playoffs or win the division as anyone in the ALC. To your other point, yes Frazier, Lawrie and Melky are leaving after 2017, but nothing has changed about the future outlook on those positions since the offseason began, unless you believe Micah Johnson was going to be our starting 2B or Thompson a starting OF in 2018. Maybe we draft a college OF or 3B with our upcoming pick. Maybe Trey, May, or Engel are major-league ready by then. Maybe we resign Lawrie. A lot can happen in two years, I'll worry about that when the time comes.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 26, 2015 -> 07:40 PM) This is a bizarre thread. Are the white sox particularly unusual in having only 1 player playing CF while most teams switch their CFs out? Because I simply sorted teams in the AL by WAR in CF, the stat listed in the thread title, and found the White Sox overall CF is in the bottom 1/3 of the American league over 2014-2015 and looking particularly mediocre with Eaton Team WAR Angels 16.6 Royals 15.1 Rays 14.6 Red Sox 9.8 Astros 8.7 Yankees 8.1 Orioles 7.9 Indians 7.9 Blue Jays 7.4 White Sox 6.6 Athletics 5.5 Rangers 5.4 Tigers 5.1 Twins 5 Mariners 0.4 The fact that the Sox don't switch out their CF is exactly why they look so "mediocre" when you compare them to the other teams. Fangraphs adds the WAR totals for any player who plays in CF, it doesn't do partial WAR for each position. So even though Colby Rasmus only played 43 of his 131 games in CF this year for the Astros, his 2015 season WAR gets added to the Astros CF WAR totals, even though he accumulated most of his WAR while playing in LF. Those totals are artificially inflated. Look at the Cubs WAR from the catcher position for another example. Fangraphs adds in Schwarber's season total WAR for the Cubs, even though he only played 21 of his 69 games at catcher in 2015. Some of the numbers also don't make sense if you click on the teams to see the breakdown. For example, in 2014-2015 the Yankees have Gardner at 4.9 WAR, then Slade Heathcott at 0.5 WAR, Mason Williams at 0.3 WAR and Eury Perez at -0.2 WAR. That totals 5.5 WAR, far lower than the 8.1 on that list. Same with the Indians. They have Abraham Almonte at 1.4 WAR, Nyjer Morgan at 0.3 WAR, Michael Bourn at 0.3 WAR and Tyler Holt at 0.0 WAR. Same thing happens with the Blue Jays as well. The Sox should definitely be ahead of those teams. If you account for the Astros' WAR inflation the Sox should be ahead of them too (new total for Houston is about 5.8). Boston, KC and Tampa Bay are also seeing a lot of WAR inflation here, but are still ahead of the Sox if you account for it, but not by as much as it seems from your list. According to my calculations (I just adjusted the WAR by percentage of games played in CF, crude yet should be approximate), the Sox are 6th in the AL in CF WAR the last two seasons, just 0.2 WAR behind Boston for 5th. That's certainly not "particularly mediocre", especially considering the kind of talent at CF in the AL right now. I'm too lazy to do the calculations for the NL right now, but there's a lot of WAR inflation for them too (for some reason the Dodgers get to count Ethier's 2.9 WAR for 2015 in their two year CF sample, even though Ethier played all of 1 game in CF this year), though it looks like only the Pirates, Diamondbacks and Brewers are solidly ahead, with the Mets basically a wash. So 10th or 11th in the MLB, sounds about right for Eaton.

QUOTE (OnlyGillis @ Dec 25, 2015 -> 10:38 PM) Late inning lefty specialists? He hit .219 and .231 in the 8th and 9th. I wouldn't be surprised if many of those he faced were lefties. Why would managers bring in a lefty specialist to face Abreu?

Bulls have arguably the best collection of wins in the NBA, what a strange season so far.

Can't breathe on Westbrook without getting a foul called. Our guys get hacked constantly and nothing. So many sloppy turnovers though.

Jimmy having a great game on both ends.

This game has been so sloppy.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Dec 24, 2015 -> 12:36 PM) There's evidence that players peak younger now and decline sooner. 28-29 are no longer the golden years. On a phone so I don't wanna link to anything right now, but I'm sure it's easily Googleable. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/hitters-no-...k-only-decline/ According to this article, the new peak is 26 years old.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Dec 24, 2015 -> 12:08 PM) They've got some OF depth, so that could end up happening I suppose. From what I see out of this team right now, they have a two year window before they potentially lose 3 starters (Frazier, Lawrie, Melky), so I guess the time is now. The only guy we lost this offseason that could have potentially replaced one of those three after 2017 was Thompson, and that was a longshot anyway.

If the Royals don't resign Gordon, with their current roster I don't see them as much more than a .500 team. Cleveland is the team to beat right now.

QUOTE (shipps @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 04:49 PM) We know this as fact? http://www.timesonline.com/sports/pirates/...aign=user-share

QUOTE (shipps @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 04:36 PM) Although Hahn has shopped La Roche I still think he values the guy waaaaaay more than people on soxtalk values him. Maybe to a fault but I think Hahn probably thinks there is still some value in a left handed power hitting veteran either for this current team or with what the return he expects for sending LaRoche to another team. He was willing to give him away to the Pirates while paying more than 60% of his contract.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 04:03 PM) He'd be okay. As his offense has tailed off, he has actually improved production against lefties. He'd be great for a platoon...the Sox could get a little creative. Could save the long term contract, save the draft choice and get close to the same production with a platoon. But Robbie and Kenny Williams don't platoon. I still have no idea what you're basing this on. Who should have been platooned that wasn't?

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 02:03 PM) Unless he's takes a huge hometown discount to return to the royal, they are still in need of a starting pitcher. That's like between 25 to 30 million to try to get a starter and sign gordon. Not sure they can swing that. Plus I'm not sure the motivation is there to take a hometown discount. He already did once, and now he's at an age where he could be looking at his last contract, and he already has a ring.

QUOTE (shipps @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 12:53 PM) Why? Yours and many others logic is that they can only possibly go balls to the wall or just do nothing at all. There can be a middle ground to where you do what you can such as trade to fill two major holes on the defensive end and in your lineup and roll the dice with some of the other guys that under performed last year. I also don't think we require "big" bounce back years to contend. A modest bounce back from LaRoche and Melky, and an ERA under 3 from Sale and we should at least be in the picture. Though I wouldn't feel comfortable with it, which is why we really need one of the Big 3.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 10:39 PM) He's probably right up there with swings out of the zone too. He's good in that he wants to drive guys home but that got exploited a bit his 2nd year. He needs to be more patient especially if the lineup gets much stronger around him . Take a lesson from the Big Hurt , make the pitchers come to you . While his numbers were definitely down from 2014, if you look at his splits it's pretty much all from LHP. 2014: RHP: .305/.364/.555 LHP: .353/.437/.662 2015: RHP: .308/.360/.548 LHP: .232/.306/.352 His numbers against RHP stayed almost exactly the same, but he went from murdering LHP to struggling mightily against LHP. Both were probably a bit fluky, so if he can just split the difference between the two LHP splits next year, he'll be primed to have another monster year.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 09:25 PM) 2014 was rough with Sale, Abreu, and Eaton all going down though. Sometimes it's not how many people get hurt/how long they're hurt, but who gets hurt. 2014 still wasn't that bad though. Abreu played in 9 fewer games in 2014 than he did in 2015. Sale made 4 fewer starts than usual. Nothing that was back-breaking. Also Eaton was playing noticeably less recklessly in 2015 than in 2014, which probably was the reason he was able to stay healthy this year. I don't doubt the Sox told him to tone it down a little.

Yeah for as "lucky" as the Sox got in 2015 when it came to being healthy, we seem to be that "lucky" almost every year. That's not a coincidence.

But moving Gordon to RF would diminish his value. This is the key point that is making me hesitant on Gordon. Moving Melky to RF feels like disaster written all over it.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 04:27 PM) So your argument is that with Victor Martinez instead of Dunn from 2011-2014 we never would have made the playoffs? The only reason we were so close in 2012 was probably related to that injury weakening Detroit relatively. Considering the only year we were anywhere close to the playoffs was 2012, when Martinez didn't play and Dunn had a good year, then yeah, it's a pretty safe bet.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 04:10 PM) Once again, when was the last time we made a move that simultaneously helped the White Sox and hurt an AL Central divisional rival at the same time? To answer this, last week with the Frazier trade. The Indians were close to getting him, but they couldn't agree with the Reds on a package before we swooped in.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 04:10 PM) Once again, when was the last time we made a move that simultaneously helped the White Sox and hurt an AL Central divisional rival at the same time? Sox history is Sox history until it isn't. 2005 did happen. That still doesn't mean with all the financial/media market advantages in the last 25 years that we shouldn't have earned 3-5 more playoff spots than we have... That has literally nothing to do with whether or not we're going to get Gordon, or whether Gordon will end up being the right move for us. If Gordon had played for the Orioles or Rays last year, you wouldn't be talking about this.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 04:06 PM) By your line of thinking, nobody would or should ever consider past history when choosing a mutual fund or the make and model of an automobile purchase for that matter. So what exactly would cause us to disregard all past Sox history about bad/wrong moves and never giving up more than a contract in the mid to upper $60's (Danks, Dunn, Abreu the highest)... What does have bearing that we can objectively consider or quantify, pray tell? You consider that post objective? The point it seems you're trying to make is whatever move the Sox make, it's obviously going to be the wrong one, because of LaRoche and Adam Dunn.