OmarComing25

QUOTE (fathom @ Feb 28, 2016 -> 08:31 AM) Eaton even said he might DH some at start of the season. Hahn really needs someone that can play CF Austin Jackson makes even more sense at this point. Get it done already.

Once Rollins was signed there was no way the Sox were going after Desmond, but damn that's great value.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Feb 26, 2016 -> 10:58 AM) Law of Averages isn't a real thing. It's a layman theory not based on reality. You're assuming every year the odds of a team winning the World Series are the same for every team and even then, that's not the law of averages. The law of averages is a fallacy like the gambler's wager where awful statistics are used to justify outcomes. Even if baseball were a 30 side coin, that does not mean the Cubs would win three in 100 years. Each side of the coin being equally represented is the single highest likely result, but is still unlikely. I don't buy into the whole "The Cubs have failed a lot in the past so that means they will fail this year" but baseball has so much variance that even the favorite has at most a 20-25% chance of winning it all, and that's being generous. So many people are ready to hand them the title in 2016 already but the odds are still highly against any single team winning it. This isn't the NBA.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Feb 26, 2016 -> 10:36 AM) If the White Sox added Jackson they could look like this theoretically: VS RHP 1. Eaton RF 2. Cabrera LF 3. Abreu 1B 4. Frazier 3B 5. LaRoche DH 6. Lawrie 2B 7. Avila C 8. Rollins SS 9. Jackson CF vs LHP 1. Eaton RF 2. Rollins SS 3. Abreu 1B 4. Frazier 3B 5. Cabrera LF 6. Lawrie 2B 7. Garcia DH 8. Navarro 9. Jackson CF This is why bringing in another OF is so important, it not only addresses the hole in the OF, but it also addresses the DH platoon for LaRoche with Avi.

I cringe to think about what that number was last year.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Feb 26, 2016 -> 09:32 AM) Now I see the confusion and its my fault. The blurb I was reading said Fowler had signed a 1/8M for '16. Apologies to all for my confusion. No worries man, it was an easy mistake to make.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Feb 26, 2016 -> 09:25 AM) I agree and that's what Ive been saying. If the Baltimore rumors are true, Fowler took 3M less to play for the cubs. 13M is more than 11M, so that isn't true.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Feb 26, 2016 -> 09:23 AM) I agree and pretty much said the same thing in a previous post. Fowler is betting on himself this year to lineup a payday next year all the while getting another chance at the post season. Imo, Fowler taking a mere 8M this year speaks volumes, he easily could have gotten much more elsewhere and yet he still chose the cubs. It's not 8M though, it's 13M.

QUOTE (fathom @ Feb 26, 2016 -> 09:18 AM) Cubs signed Victorino! Watch them sign Jackson too just for the hell of it.

Honestly the only way I see Anderson as the starting SS is if Rollins and Saladino both break their legs in Spring Training. Even if Anderson lights it up in March, I'm not going to take much out of 50 PA when guys are just trying to get ready for the season.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Feb 25, 2016 -> 06:41 PM) you failed to see the point that it is all about the $$$ Robertson, Melky, Rollins, and Latos are all recent examples of players taking less money to come here.

When was the last time a player was traded twice in a relatively short amount of time?

fathom pointed this out before but Coghlan actually had a higher fWAR than Fowler last year. They're the same age too, and though projections aren't high on Coghlan for 2016, he also had a pretty good year in 2014, so it's not like last year was his only good year. That's why I'm in the camp over being more upset at losing out on him than Fowler, especially at that soft cost.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 25, 2016 -> 04:07 PM) They would have to be willing to offer him a chance at $16 million + for 2017. Yeah the QO could be $18 million next year. There's a good chance Fowler accepts that QO next offseason.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 25, 2016 -> 02:29 PM) Just to note - by using the phrase "replacement level" you're indicating a stat that partially disagrees with your statement. Fangraphs clocked him at 2.7 WAR, which was exactly what he also put up in 2012 and 2013. B-R put him as worse than that I will also note - something I think is Fangraphs giving more of the credit for the terrible season to the defense and B-R saying the whole white sox pitching staff was weak last year (including Sale, FWIW). QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 25, 2016 -> 02:40 PM) The trick is...I kinda buy that, but at the same time there's information here. If Fangraphs is hanging too much on the defense, then that also means the other pitchers weren't as strong as fangraphs put them either. So, if you're going to say it's all on Samardzija and he's a below-replacement player, as is said there, then Sale was a 3.3 WAR pitcher by the same standard, no where near an ace level season. I think reality remains somewhere in-between. Yes, he got rocked in August, but at the same time, if a guy is pitching for a team with a terrible offense, if he gives up 5 runs or 9 runs you lose either way. At the same time, he also got the team a fair number of wins in June and September and definitely helped keep them in the "we're still in this!!" mode that Hahn was in at the end of July last year. I prefer Fangraphs WAR for pitchers over R/9 WAR in general, but the fact is Samardzija gave up all those runs. Fangraphs says he was probably somewhat unlucky, but that doesn't matter for 2015, he gave up the runs regardless. It means he'll probably be better in 2016, but that point is irrelevant when you're comparing to last year's production. His replacement doesn't have to produce an fWAR better than 2.7 to be an improvement over Samardzija last year. A pitcher could have the unluckiest season in the history of baseball, but that doesn't erase all the runs he gave up. Along the same lines, Greinke is likely to see some major regression in 2016, but that doesn't erase the results of what happened last year. So Samardzija maybe didn't fully "deserve" his 4.96 ERA last year, but when judging potential improvement over last season, the end result is all that matters, not the path the player took to get there.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Feb 25, 2016 -> 02:11 PM) Agree this was not an awful offseason but I don't agree "they made quite a few substantial improvements". Frazier should be substantial and hopefully Lawrie is a solid improvement. But the catchers , Latos, Rollins etc are all pretty questionable and you lost Shark and Alexei. I have posted several times that I feel these substantial improvements you refer to will weaken our infield defense compared to 2nd half of last season. I don't think they are still a wildcard contender but more like a .500 team They both will likely be better in 2016 but in 2015 Shark was replacement-level and Alexei was below replacement-level. His defense was not very good last year. It shouldn't be very difficult to get at least modest improvements from those spots in 2016.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 25, 2016 -> 12:41 PM) I thought Gallardo didn't sign (failed physical). Or did they end up eventually signing him? They restructured the deal to 2 years with an option. It's done.

Really curious as to what happened because that's a scummy thing to do by Fowler. Orioles fans are rightfully really pissed off right now.

So does Soler get traded? Are they really going to platoon him so soon?

So Fowler just signed a 1 year deal with the Cubs.

Dexter Fowler has re-signed with the #Cubs, per @MDGonzales. One year deal with mutual option. WTF?

That was a great read, it'd be cool to see a write-up on the X-Factors for all the AL teams.

Through the first two months of the season last year, Avi had an OPS north of .800, yet had accumulated a WAR of only 0.5 through 1/3 of the season due to his bad defense and baserunning. So even at an absolute best-case scenario at the plate, Avi's ceiling is about 1.5 WAR, which is below average, and would still have us seeking an upgrade. That is the best-case scenario. As others have pointed out, he's never had success, and while Melky and LaRoche were equally responsible for last year's disappointing team performance, they at least have both had a track record of success and were good as recently as 2014. There's a much higher chance of those two being positive contributors in 2016 than Avi, and with the bountiful options to upgrade RF that were available this offseason it was the easiest move to make to improve the team.

QUOTE (shipps @ Feb 24, 2016 -> 03:50 PM) Laurence Holmes is of the belief that the Sox were never REALLY in on it with the FA's but had the thought of putting it out there that they were so it might look better to fans...which ended up back firing. I really dont know what to believe. Such a frustrating and strange off season. How would that make them look better to fans? Putting that out there seems like it has way more downside than upside.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 24, 2016 -> 01:23 PM) If you take BP seriously, they tell you Tim Anderson is never going to be a major league SS. The people doing the White Sox position player write ups this year were a bit cranky. They loved the pitchers, except not so much for Rodon. They did call Quintana perhaps the greatest 6 year minor league free agent signing of all time. BP has Anderson at #19 on their top prospect list, they're higher on him than anyone else.