3E8

Saw best foreign picture nominee Bullhead. I loved it, but no one else in my group liked it and some people walked out of the theater. It's first a character study and second a crime drama. The main character has similarities to Ryan Gosling's character in Drive. A quiet, awkward, angry guy who gets involved with mafia-types. Except in Bullhead, you flashback to find exactly what made him the way he is. It's very disturbing. If subtitles and noir don't turn you off, check it out.

I think texture is pretty important. If you blenderized a cheeseburger and ate it with a spoon, it would not be as enjoyable.

Our first ST pics are of the guys getting checked for hernias? I'll take it.

Yep. My reaction while reading about your situation was to get the Better Business Bureau and the local news involved. You have in writing what you are owed.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 06:23 PM) Wait, how can 2 WAR possibly be league average? Doesn't anyone see the flaw in that? A replacement level player and league average MLB player are two different things.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 12:11 PM) Tim Brown @TBrownYahoo Source: Yoenis Cespedes has agreed to terms with the Oakland A's. Dang.

QUOTE (dpd9189 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 11:15 AM) Nothing official yet but it looks like Cespedes to Miami and Soler to the Cubs. Am I the only one who thinks the Marlins should be investigated? Where the F did they get all this money? They also gave Pujols the highest offer but he turned them down because they wouldn't give him a NTC and they'd have probably shipped him out in a few years anyway. Something stinks down there. The Marlins have been hoarding money for years now. Routinely they are one of the most profitable teams in baseball due to their lack of spending. Their opening day payroll has been under $22M three times since 2000. If you're going to build a brand new stadium, it makes sense to finally put that money to use.

In Goldstein's top 101 prospect list, Cespedes would rank #20 if eligible, Soler #39 if eligible, Concepcion unranked.

I highly recommend Chronicle. The movie is one big crescendo with a huge payoff at the end. The writer and director are in their mid 20s, impressive.

QUOTE (PolishPrince34 @ Feb 11, 2012 -> 03:13 PM) Marlins offer Cespedes 6 years for $40 million His prime years for under $7M/year? I'd match that.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 01:07 PM) Got numbers? But fascinating if true. It's not from an official publication or anything. It was research I did out a few weeks ago out of curiosity using b-r.com's draft tool. That utility will give you total bWAR by draft year for each team. Since '08, players drafted by the Sox have accumulated 12.5 wins, which is the most in the majors. Hudson - 6.5 Sale - 3.4 Beckham - 1.9 Morel - 0.6 Reed - 0.1 The Nats are the next closest with 11.1 wins, mostly thanks to Strasburg, Espinosa, Storen, and Crow (who they drafted but never actually signed). It drops off vastly from there, the Royals are the next closest with 4.5 wins. There are nine teams who have received a zero or negative contribution. Drafting high school players is obviously a viable strategy which wouldn't produce any results in this kind of analysis. I just wanted to share this fact to counter the argument that the Sox haven't drafted well since 2008.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 01:02 PM) im not sure this statement is true. Sale looks like a good pick. Besides that weve had the football player from LSU who has been hurt, and when healthy has hit .236 in the minors. Walker may be too early to tell, but nobody here can be impressed so far. We've added 0 depth in the later rounds as well frankly, a couple years ago KW had his "re-commitment" to finding prospects with big upside and "overhauled" our amateur scouting....well it hasnt worked one bit yet IMO, and has only gotten worse.... this was tweeted by baseball prospectus The White Sox system is so bad that I decided to write scouting reports on the characters from Real Genius instead: http://bit.ly/xQTokq Since 2008, when Buddy Bell came in and Doug Laumann took over amateur scouting, the players selected by the White Sox in the amateur draft have contributed more in at the MLB level than any other team. Unfortunately, one guy who is the main reason for that accolade is pitching for a different club now. With the Sox drafting players who are more advanced and pushing them through the minors, you get a lowly ranked farm system but production from young players on the big league team at the same time.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 02:37 PM) I also don't see how A.J. is worse than Salvador Perez, who's a B prospect (if he still was a prospect). I see it, definitely. AJ is one of the worst defensive catchers in the game. Perez is quite good in that aspect. Perez also was league average offensively pretty much everywhere he went in the minors despite being very young for each league. He's still just 21.

Comparing international free agent contracts to amateur draft signings is the new market inefficiency.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Feb 3, 2012 -> 09:01 PM) Look at it this way, the 2012 No. 1 pick in the entire country Gerrit Cole signed an $8 million contract. Concepcion's deal is also $8M with incentives. That is insane. IN-SANE. That's $8M when a team has exclusive negotiating rights. Cole would get much more if every team had a shot in an open bidding war.

And the average fastball velocity for LHPs in the MLB is under 90.

You guys did a great job. Very detailed and I agree with the rankings for the most part.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 24, 2012 -> 01:10 PM) There aren't even a full ten movies nominated. That's how bad this year has been. Drive should be in there.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 19, 2012 -> 03:06 PM) And I'm sure the teams paying mediocre pitchers a lot of money aren't happy either. Just because other pitchers don't live up to their salary, doesn't mean the Rangers sholdn't expcet Darvish too. If Darvish averages 4 WAR per year as the projections say he should, then that puts him more in Buehrle or CJ Wilson range. If that's what the Rangers were looking for, they could have just signed one of those two and used the extra $5 or $6 million per season to sign someone else and improve the team. If I'm gonna make someone the highest paid right-hander in AL history, he better be a Cy Young candidate every year. The problem is, the contracts that landed Buehrle and Wilson have them earning $20M after they've turned 35. Darvish is 25, and hasn't even entered his prime yet. According to the aging curve, he should get even better. It's a unique situation. Rarely do players who come up through the MLB with superstar numbers hit the free agent market at age 25. And the dollar gets you less each year. What would the buying power be today from the deal Kevin Brown signed 10 years ago? Since we can translate on-field performance into a dollar and cents value, why not use that to evaluate the deal? Seems better than comparing him to other players whose contracts were agreed upon under entirely different circumstances.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 19, 2012 -> 01:17 PM) I'm sure they care when they have to sign his paycheck. Money doesn't grow on trees so salary absolutely matters in a player's value. What I meant was, the success or failure of this signing won't be determined by measuring how Darvish compares to other pitchers making a similar salary. You mentioned Darvish would have to perform as well as high-salary pitchers like CC and Halladay. There are mediocre pitchers making a lot of money too. It's not like if Darvish marginally outperformed Zambrano or Zito, the deal is a good one.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 18, 2012 -> 07:04 PM) This is where I think the financial projections are unrealistic. Adding in the posting fee, he's gonna be about the 4th highest paid pitcher in the whole league. He needs to pitch that well to make it worth it. He needs to be CC/Halladay/Cliff Lee good. If the other pitchers at your salary are worth 6 or 7 wins a year (other than Johan), you need to be that good too. The Rangers could not care less about that. Players' values are not determined by their salary.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 18, 2012 -> 05:36 PM) I'm not going to go that far...but I will say, it's nearly impossible for him to pitch up to that value. That's a $19 million a year average over 6 years. He'd literally have to be one of the top 2-3 pitchers in the AL every season of the deal to out-earn that money. No he wouldn't. To earn $19M per year, he'd have to be worth slightly more than four wins per season, which Dan Syzmborski's ZiPS system predicts he will be. If you took the average value of the top AL starting pitchers in recent years, you'd get something over six wins. Looks like a fair deal for both sides.

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 12:38 PM) I'd say the Tigers are one of top 5 teams in all of baseball. Either try to compete with them or go young. We could be ready to compete with them after just one year of developing/rebuilding, with the right addition(s) from FA. And there's still the wild card, of which there will be two by that time. The Tigers were the only team above .500 in the Central last season, it's not like the AL/NL East.

When you can maintain one of the highest payrolls in the league, and don't play in a most competitive division, things can turn around quickly. Getting rid of every single player who has value would be foolhardy for the White Sox.

Dejesus has been a 3-win player six of the past seven seasons (bWAR). For the next two years, he's being payed like a 1-win player. It's a solid move by the Cubs, no matter what you call the process they are going through. Dejesus' new contract situation is not similar to Danks or Quentin.