OmarComing25

http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?c...mp;ymd=20150810 Didn't see a thread. Anderson 2-5 with his 11th triple. Montas with a nice start: 5IP, 1R, 0ER, 5K, 2BB

Cubs should send a thank-you letter to Chris Sale. If he doesn't hurt Montero Schwarber isn't up right now.

I feel like Greg thinks we'll never win another game against the Royals again. He predicts us to be swept every series against them.

QUOTE (Sox Fan In Husker Land @ Aug 6, 2015 -> 08:54 PM) Spencer Adams last 7 starts: 41 1/3 IP, 10 ER, 42 H, 2.18 ERA, 35 K, 3 BB. 1.09 WHIP, 7.62 K/9, 11.67 K:BB. 1 of those starts was at A+. Great to see, so happy we didn't trade him for a rental bat (he would have been the most likely to go)

We've hit a rough patch post-deadline, but virtually all our losses came due to the pitching, not the offense, so adding a bat would not have a made a difference in those games. I can only imagine the angst here if we had traded Adams or Montas for Cespedes/Upton and were in the same position we are now. I'm really happy we didn't buy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 08:40 PM) But looking beyond how they got Bryant...look at the other parts of that list and how they got them. With Rizzo they didn't just defraud the Padres, they did something really important. They gave him time to struggle. They gave him the 2013 season where he hit .233 and they didn't say "this 23 year old is going to be a key part right now and he's going to carry us to the division". They picked up Arrieta and didn't discard him when he put up a 1.5 WHIP in his first 7 starts at Iowa. They gave a talented but failed 27 year old a chance to see if he could turn into anything. They did that with enough guys and turned one of them into an ace quality pitcher. Why were they able to do that? Because in addition to piling up draft picks like Bryant...they also piled up castoffs from teams that were ready to "win now". From teams that did "all in" deals and left themselves no room for the guys that weren't 100% ready to go right now. They picked up scrap heap guys and used their other big advantage - time - to turn as many of them into contributing, controlled, long term pieces as they could because they didn't insist that their team was ready to go because it had to be. I fail to see how what they did with Rizzo and Arrieta is special or unique in any way. Rizzo was always a highly regarded talent, and struggles at the MLB level at 23 are hardly surprising. He was always going to get time to struggle whether the Cubs were rebuilding or not. How much time did we give Beckham to struggle? How about Viciedo? The Phillies have been giving Domonic Brown a lot of time to struggle, every team does this, especially with guys who have Rizzo's talent level. The White Sox have done this plenty in the last 10 years, often to the point of getting criticized for giving too long of a leash (see Beckham again), and the only true rebuilding year we've had in the last decade was 2014. Even this year we've shown plenty of patience with guys like Sanchez. How many teams would have cut their losses after his performance the first 6 weeks, and these guys don't have the talent that Rizzo does. As for Arrieta, the move the Cubs made with him is the same move that every team makes every year. Teams take flyers on talented pitchers all the time that haven't put it together yet. How is letting Arrieta struggle in Iowa different than us continuing to give Drabek starts in Charlotte? I just fail to see how those two guys' successes were from rebuilding, you can do those exact same types of moves while trying to compete (and the White Sox have a lot). We had plenty of time to develop Gordon Beckham but look how that turned out. Many of the Cubs' young hitters are struggling right now and they're no longer rebuilding. They're still going to give them time to struggle. I don't see the difference between now and when Rizzo was struggling too, it's the same idea.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 11:25 PM) I don't know if I buy that. He might be good, but almost as good as Billy Hamilton? Fangraphs agrees with you. Bryant might be 2nd, but he's still nowhere close to Hamilton, who's almost twice as valuable as Bryant on the basepaths. Hamilton is just that much better than everyone else.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 09:44 PM) I have no idea how Bryant's output this season results in a WAR of 3.5 especially when you consider that Josh Donaldson is "only" at 5.7. Their offensive numbers aren't even close and Donaldson is the superior defender as well. First of all a 2.2 WAR difference is huge. Secondly, even with Bryant's offense going into the toilet the last 4-6 weeks he's still the 5th best offensive 3B in the game overall this season, and he's getting a ton of value from his baserunning. Fangraphs ranks him as the second most valuable baserunner in baseball this year behind Billy Hamilton. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...0&sort=18,d

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 09:23 PM) That's a completely ridiculous way of looking at it because it looks like 75 of those players have played fewer than 10 games there and even if they're terrible they wouldn't have a DRS more than +3 or lower than -3 so they're all hanging around zero. The way it looks to me there's 15-20 part or full time 3b who are measurably worse than him based on DRS also. So he's certainly not the best 3b in the league and no one would say so...but for a 23 year old in his first season, there's nothing there saying "he must be moved from this position soon." You're right, it's ridiculous to compare him to guys who don't get a lot of time at 3b, though Saladino is already 6th in DRS among all third basemen (+6 DRS) at only 21 games played there, so it is possible to rack up big values in a short amount of time. But point taken nonetheless, I agree that he hasn't shown anything to warrant moving him from third base.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 09:04 PM) Sorting on defense for 3b in Fangraphs, he's 9th out of 21 qualified 3b in defensive value. His DRS is -3 though, which is 115th out of 138 players who have played at 3b this season. This feels like the opposite case of Adam Eaton last year, who ranked well by DRS but poorly by UZR. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/...-fielding.shtml

The Cubs are held up as an example of a complete rebuild yielding results, yet by far the biggest reason for their success this year - their pitching, had largely nothing to do with the rebuild. You have the free agents (Lester, Hammel) and the guys picked up off the scrap heap (Arrieta, Strop, Rondon, James Russell). Those are moves that can be done without rebuilding, and they're going to drop another $25 million/year on a pitcher this offseason as well. Their best position player was also acquired through sketchy means (Rizzo). If Arrieta pitched like he did in Baltimore and Hammel pitched like he did in Oakland last year, then the Cubs are likely nowhere near a playoff spot. You could argue that their eye for talent is great and the reason why so many of their scrap heap moves work out, and I wouldn't disagree, and yes they still have a lot of young talent that came from the rebuild, but my main point is so far it's the non-rebuilding moves that have led to their success. If we had a few similar scrap heap moves break right for us on the position side, then we'd be right there for a playoff spot too. I'm just not convinced a complete breakdown is the right move. For one I don't trust this organization to execute it correctly, and also the Pirates and Royals were in rebuilding mode for 20+ years before it finally worked out. We'd be punting on several seasons, and there's no guarantee we'd be better off afterwards than we are now. You can rebuild without doing a complete teardown.

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 02:03 PM) I think a rebuild is LOOOONG over due! I asked in an earlier post, when should we have done a complete rebuild? There was no logical situation for it until 2013, which wasn't intended to be a rebuilding year but turned into one anyway. How does that mean we're LOOOONG overdue for one? There was nothing to tear down at the end of 2013, our only assets were Quintana and Sale, both at 24 years old and both the exact kind of players you rebuild around. What year should we have gone for the rebuild? As others have pointed out, there's not necessarily a need to do a complete rebuild with the parity and second wildcard. Look at this season, 84 wins could end up being enough for both wildcard positions the way things are playing out right now.

You don't often see two intentional walks in a row.

How about a wild-pitch walkoff?

Looks like the offense is still on track, why did our pitching have to go into the s***ter the past week?

Bryant has been dreadful the last 40ish games, Soler has been only slightly better than Avi, and Russell's offense has been non-existent yet they keep winning because their pitching just continues to dominate. For those who like run differential their's is still pretty mediocre. They're tied for second after us in terms of outplaying their Pythagorean record. But there's no question they have the best pitching of any wildcard contender. If Bryant ever starts hitting again they'll be pretty dangerous.

I've seen a lot of posters here and on WSI lament the fact that we hadn't torn it all down and done a complete rebuild in the past, but looking back, when would such a move had made sense? In 2009, the year after winning the division? In 2011, a year after we won 88 games and would have probably made the playoffs with a competent DH? In 2012, when we lead the division for 95% of the season? 2013 basically was a total rebuilding year, as was 2014. you could argue they should have made 2015 a rebuilding year too, but we were 13th in runs scored last year in the MLB and had money to spend. If we had the same offensive production as the 2014 squad (and we made a few theoretical upgrades too), we're probably right there for a playoff spot this year. It's hard to argue with the results this season that we shouldn't have made 2015 a rebuilding year, but given that we had money to spend I don't necessarily fault them for going for it a little bit (just like in 2011 when we thought we had filled the DH hole). However, I don't buy the argument that ownership was afraid of plummeting attendance if they committed to a full rebuild. There really wasn't a logical situation for it outside of the last couple of seasons, which were rebuilding years anyway. Also, all our main assets in 2013 and 2014 were young and cost-controlled, so a complete sell-off didn't really make sense.

Hell at the very least Trayce would be a huge defensive upgrade over Avi. And it shouldn't be too hard to do better than the sub .600 OPS the last 30+ games that Avi has put up.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 3, 2015 -> 10:41 PM) 16,459 and SoxTalk can now turn their attention back to the draft pick thread and forever wondering what new prospects we'd have acquired to get us through the last two months were it not for KW/Hahn's titanic debate leading into do-nothingness. I don't think Pentecost was a guy who was going to turn the franchise around.

We probably should have traded Shark, but I'm not going to cry over the loss of a couple B prospects.

Should be 3-1 against Tampa and instead we're 0-4. f***.

Wow Garcia was completely overmatched.

Not even kind of close, are you f***ing kidding me.

When's the last time LaRoche hit a bomb?

Unbelievable, that was such a garbage pitch by Robertson.