GreenSox

No, I wouldn't do it. I'm not sure that is enough; but I do know that that's more than we can afford to give.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 29, 2014 -> 01:59 PM) I hope they prove me wrong and at least pick up a serviceable upper minors C for Danks. Doesn't have to have much ceiling, but I don't want to pay Tyler Flowers anymore. Flowers is serviceable; we can rent a serviceable vet. We have serviceable prospects with Nieto and Smith.

Red Sox? Who would they want that we have to sell?

He should have value to a team chasing a wild card - he'll give a team a good start 3 times out of 4. Sox will have to eat some salary to move him. No surprise there. He's a back end starter - Sox can find one fairly cheap in the off-season, so I hope the Sox move him.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 07:39 PM) They just picked up Uggla. Exactly. He'd be a huge upgrade over Uggla.

Keuchel is good, but he's a lefty and we need a righty. Cosart was reasonably high on prospect lists, but hasn't pitched well. McHugh was a claimed out of the scrap heap; he's had a great year, but was absolutely terrible the 4 prior years. Anyway, none should be very expensive.

Sanchez is one of those guys that scares me a little. He's been a ranked prospect for 4 years, but is in AA. He hasn't had a AA year with an ops out of the 700s. And he's slowly dropping in top prospect lists. But if his defense is + that would be more settling.

QUOTE (ChiSoxJon @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 02:38 PM) You think he's the future? Hell no i have no idea if he is, but he has held up pretty well so far and was a nifty acquisition; and I do know that if the Sox go around chasing someone that they will hope to be Buster Posey, they will waste a lot of resources. The usual suspects are those 3 Yankee catchers, but given that a)they signed McCann despite those top catching prospects and b)they still have yet to move any of them, my guess is that their is a lot of counterfeit stuff among those 3 or none of them are particularly great. I'm very content with a good defender who plays mediocre offense.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 11:57 AM) Steverson is getting a lot of credit, but what does the White Sox offense look like without Eaton and Abreu? Pretty bleak if you were to ask me. He would be considered just another stooge. 2 players that never played here before hit gangbusters..maybe he helped them, too. Gillaspie's improved. Regardless, Steverson is a big part of this organization now and basically runs the hitting aspect top to bottom.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 07:19 AM) The word I got from the Phoenix Branch of my research staff is that the D'backs just did not like what they saw in his 2013 cup of coffee and were going to trade him to someone. The White Sox showed up on their doorstep, and the rest is history. Maybe Reed's velocity has gone down -- I don't know, but he is still a very serviceable relief pitcher. He came in to close a win Saturday and struck out the side. It looked like he was throwing pretty hard to me. I thinks he ranks well ahead of the likes of Lindstrom, Belisario, Webb, Paulino, et al in the relief pitchers' food chain. Then and now. Yea, that's a risk with these "near majors" prospects who have been on the lists for a while; the teams may be peddling them because they know their flaws. Sox have been burned before with guys like Richar, Zach Stewart and to a lesser extent Molina, et al. (of course, we scored with Quentin). D Backs had good cover with an excess number of 3B and MI. That's why a lot of teams like to trade for high ceiling A and AA players. I know that the Astros when they were tearing down their ML team, rejected near-ready Dominic Brown in favor of A ball prospects. No regrets about moving Reed...just hope Davidson isn't a bust.

Our top prospect is Adrian Nieto. I wouldn't overpay for another catching prospect.

I hope to see a new tandem of Sanchez and M Johnson up here Friday night.

Is there some guy they might have wanted to move up from A that needed to have room? Beck hadn't exactly mastered AA hitters.

That's one reason Boston always has a stocked farm and they win. They aren't sentimental about every player who came up on their org. and aren't afraid to make moves.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 10:08 AM) But you seem to know what he should be doing strategically. Can you share your resume? I know what should have been done when I see De Aza up there in the 9th. It's Ventura's job to think a few moves ahead and know what will need to be done when the inning starts. It's not easy - that's why managers are highly paid. The ongoing objection to having managers with prior coaching experience is just strange. How many NFL head coaches never coached a minute as an assistant?

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 09:43 AM) Very good point. Also not Robin's fault Hahn gave Robin and Coop so many reclamation projects either. The personnel shortcomings certainly aren't his fault. As for managing the team, it's not his fault in that he didn't hire himself. But wasn't qualified for the position when hired, and he manages strategically like his resume suggests he would.

Very few people could do what Ventura is being asked to do: Effectively manage a ML baseball team after being out of baseball for many years, and without a minute of prior coaching experience.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 09:10 AM) At this point in his career, Danks is a #4 starter. If he is an upgrade to your pitching staff, then you probably have no business being buyers at the deadline. That said, if somebody is delusional enough to think that Danks will help them, the Sox should try to extract a nice price, because he can still be useful to the Sox as a #4 starter going forward. What if you upgrade with him as a #5? It's easy to be a contender these days with a horrible #5 or even really bad #4. Peavy moved for useful players; so can Danks.

San Francisco is a team for which Beckham would be a huge upgrade.

QUOTE (chisoxfan310 @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 07:47 AM) They've got depth just not good depth. Knowing we aren't going anywhere this year, if they traded Danks for a couple of prospects and tossed out Wang or Rienzo every 5 days I could live with that until the off-season to fix it. Sure we can get by this year. Next year, even if we sign a FA, we're counting on Rodon just to have 5 legit starters (and that's with NOesi at 5) without Danks next year. and we'd still have zero in the minors on the horizon to cover for injuries. Danks should certainly warrant what Peavy got (which I don't think was a top 100 prospect anymore) which are 2 near ML ready pitchers but with bullpen or 4/5 upside. That would help us.

Phils's right - there is zero pitching depth. Still, if we get a couple of young pitchers for him and we hit FA, then we'd still be better off.

Ventura's really bad strategically. He would have been a lot, lot better had he spent 5 years on a ML bench, managing in the minors, or something.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 27, 2014 -> 04:07 PM) There's just no way you let PK run. Having Rienzo do it is not automatically an option; there's a reason you almost never see this, especially in the AL, especially in a non-extra inning game. Pitchers need to have a lot of notice to get their legs loosened up because they didn't prepare to do any running that day. On this team, with 3 hitters (2 starters) who the manager insists need pinch runners and uses them liberally, you need to have some pitchers ready for the job. Even without that, making sure a .083 hitter doesn't bat against a lefty closer is a bigger priority than making sure the trailing runner has a PR. And he still could have used Flowers to bat.

QUOTE (almagest @ Jul 27, 2014 -> 03:52 PM) Twins announcers wondering why DeAza is hitting, since he's hitting .083 against lefties. I don't think we have any outfielders left on the bench besides Leury. Because Robin Ventura, who can't think 2 moves ahead, used Sierra as a pinch runner.

I see Nieto is learning something from Tyler Flowers.