hogan873

I don't know why I thought Bumgarner was older than 30. What's the biggest concern over signing him? I'm not being an ass, I'm curious.

Sign Bumgarner and Puig and have them team up with Anderson for the All Attitude Team.

Hey, we resemble that remark.

Rumors and tidbits similar to the Manny chase last season. The latest news about the Phillies is concerning, but as others have said it could be a plant from Wheeler's camp trying to get the Sox to up their offer. I just hope it's over soon.

I didn't see a topic started on this already. If there has been, please feel free to delete/merge. The Sox have decisions on five players today: Colome, McCann, Leury, Marshall, and Rodon. Any chance the Sox decide to move on without any of these guys? The only one I could see being non-tendered is Marshall. Colome, although making a lot of money, should be a solid as the closer/late inning guy. McCann and Leury are no-brainers. Rodon, depending on when he'll be back, should be worth what he'll get, Thoughts?

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But can he crotch bump as effectively as Ross?

That $1M could prevent the Sox from signing Jon Jay again.

This is a good point. He's going to be surrounded by some very good hitters. He's probably going to see better pitches because of this.

I have no problem with this. The guaranteed third year is a bit puzzling, but the money is not terrible. I would say it's pretty certain now that he will end his career with the White Sox.

Yeah, let's sign a guy who can't hit a baseball to start in place of a guy who should be one of the best hitters on the team next season. Otherwise, Madrigal may be ready for opening day, but I don't think he starts with the team. He'll come up mid-season...maybe.

Abreu wants a multi-year deal, and the Sox will most likely offer him a 2+ year deal. I don't think the AAV will be significantly less...maybe $14-$15 million. I would expect the years are more important to him.

A "long term deal" is probably a loose term in this case. I'd be very surprised if they agree on a deal any longer than 3 years. Two years plus an option would be what I'd expect.

I would assume they were referring to Calhoun. I thought the same thing since someone was talking about Castellanos.

What are the chances that Martinez opts out? It seems like most of the rumors and assumptions are that he will, but has there been any news of him leaning one way or the other?

So, is Ross going to continue to do the crotch bumps when one of his players hits a home run?

Giving up anything really significant for Mookie would be quite risky. He'd most likely want to test FA, and I'm not sure the Sox could sign him even if he played on the south side for a season.

It hasn't been an awful year considering what the expectations were. There were some injuries, Lopez regressed, and the Jon Jay/Alonso experiment failed miserably. The Alonso fiasco was dealt with surprisingly quickly, and Jay was a non-factor. There were, however, quite a few individual bright spots: Moncada, Anderson, Abreu, McCann, Giolito, Eloy, Bummer. Cease got some much needed MLB experience and has shown growth. I don't care much about the record when the pieces for the future are shining. Next year, however, I'll be expecting a much better team.

This series was definitely not meaningless to the Twins.

Abreu has played 32 games at DH. His performance while at DH is very similar to his performance while at 1B. He may prefer playing the field, but this isn't a guy who refuses to play DH. Besides, I get the feeling Abreu will play where he's asked to play.

A few folks on this board: Jose sucks and should be shot out a cannon to Mars A few folks on this board: Jose is literally a god in a baseball uniform, and I have a shrine to him in my garage Most of us on this board: Jose is a pretty good hitter, and less than average fielder, and he'd be a nice option at DH for a couple years There. If you haven't read this thread yet, don't waste your time.

The lead-off home run scared me, but Cease settled down and pitched very well. He was locating his fastball which allowed him to throw some really nasty breaking balls for swings and misses or locking up hitters. I think he should have been given the opportunity to get the third out in the seventh. Once Marshall came in and fell behind 2-0, it was pretty easy to see a big hit coming. The 11 strikeouts were really nice. Quite the performance. Eloy is showing what type of hitter he's going to be. His second home run was effortless, and he hit two balls to center well over 400 feet. McCann once again saved the day. I think the extra rest he's gotten lately has paid off. Collins' triple would have been a home run in a lot of ballparks, but his first career triple was nice to see. I hope he gets plenty of opportunities this month.

Castellanos or Puig would be okay. With Anderson and Puig on the same team, that would be a lot of attitude. At that point, might as well go sign Bumgarner and be chock full of attitude.

I agree. One can't live by only traditional stats or advanced stats. The problem on this board is that there are a few who, in regards to Jose, look at only traditional stats and ignore advanced stats, and there are a few who will look at only advanced stats and find the ones that say Jose sucks. Jose is a good hitter who isn't as good as he used to be. But he's going to end up with 30+ HRs, 110+ RBIs, and 35+ doubles, all while batting around .275 - .280. Still pretty good.

I'm not sure this is unique to Abreu or not, but you can look at traditional stats and see that he is pretty good, and you can look at advanced stats and convince yourself that he's not very good. The Sox have score 549 runs this year, and Jose has driven in 100 of them. That's 18.2% of the runs. The player with the next most RBIs is Moncada with 63. His WAR is 1.4. I'd argue that's low only because without him, the Sox would have had to rely on others to score those 100 runs. Without those 100 runs, the Sox would have lost more than they have...a lot more. Maybe it's more of a fact that Jose truly is more valuable to the Sox than he would be to another team. On the Twins, who seem to hit every baseball out of the park, they have no one with more than 86 RBIs. But they have 5 players with more RBIs than anyone else other than Jose. So, for a team like the Sox who struggle to score runs (and give up a shitload), a guy like Jose is really valuable. So, all of my above ramblings lead to me believing that Jose is better than he's given credit for, due in large part to the team he plays for. Because the Sox give up so many runs and don't have a lot of offensive punch aside from a couple guys, someone who drives in nearly 20% of the team's runs is pretty damn important. How important would he be on a team team with Robert, Madrigal, a more improved Moncada, an improved Jimenez, and a more consistent Anderson? I'd argue he'd still be important, but he won't be the best hitter on the team and probably won't be driving in the most runs. I still believe he's valuable to this team for a couple more years, especially considering he most likely won't cost a lot.