Jake

I took that Robin comment to be as much about the crybabies on the team as it was a vote of support for the LaRoches.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 18, 2016 -> 03:20 PM) This is officially a disaster. At this point one of two things needs to happen. Kenny needs to resign, or they need to flat out state that LaRoche is lying, whichever is true. You can't say LaRoche is lying IMO. You need to get your players to shut the hell up and wait for it to blow over. Do whatever has to be done within the organization to get the players calmed down, but most pressing is to get it out of the news.

It's interesting since LaRoche has nothing to lose and if he's pissed at KW, putting the spotlight on him as a potential liar is a great way to get back at him. If you look at who has the incentives to do what, LaRoche can point to the money he's walking away from and the direct way that benefits KW. I still have a hard time believing that KW would go to the media and say he was okay with the kid being there some of the time if he really told LaRoche the kid couldn't come at all. If their 1-on-1 meeting was heated, though, who knows what kind of haphazard kinds of statements may have been made.

There very well could be something in LaRoche's contract that alludes to his having family in the clubhouse but in a way that wouldn't restrict KW from telling him to reduce the amount of time the kid is in there.

LaRoche is a guy who thinks school isn't very important, is best friends with the Duck Dynasty guys, and named his son after a duck. Not too hard to figure out who's out of the ordinary here.

At this point, there's no way the talent level doesn't improve at Illinois. Lovie doesn't have to be a good recruiter, he just needs to make Illinois not one of the worst teams in the conference. Once he's comfortably done that, we can talk about whether he needs to get better at recruiting

Guys let's not act like Tyler Saladino is some kind of big deal. He is on the old side for a prospect and his MiLB record is very spotty. He has some nice skills and we saw that he could pick it at 3B last year, but if the Sox are trying to win this year then they don't owe him s***. I'm already borderline shocked that the Sox seem to be putting him ahead of Sanchez on the depth charts.

I don't believe Dexter Fowler was worth a late 20s pick at any price.

It could also be the case that this player has taken the initiative to seek out Cooper's advice. A lot of these guys, knowing Coop doesn't see them play all that much, may not see any reason to be calling the guy up all the time when they have instructors in person to talk to.

I've wanted Rollins since I saw what the SS market looked like. Now the only question is whether you let him win it in ST or find a way to have him wait in the wings if/until a youngster fails there.

The argument against Eaton as a RF doesn't live and die on this statistic. He has trouble with his arm last year because he was frequently very inaccurate. Something that I believe affects outfielders in a way that doesn't apply nearly as much to infielders is the carry on the throw. Two players with equivalent exit velocity could be vastly different in the functional speed if one has a lot of slicing type of action and the other can throw with a perfect backspin. If nothing else, the pure backspin throw is faster because it travels in a straight line, but I'm also fairly certain that it loses less velocity while in the air as well. My guess is that this is the reason that a reasonable person could have watched the Sox last year and assumed Melky had the strongest throwing arm of the 3 starting OF, probably because his seems to have a nice carry to it. I'm not sure that Eaton and Avi are bad in this way, certainly not like Rios, but both of them struggled hitting a target at times.

These players are proof that something has to change with the QO system, because they truly aren't worth a lost 1st round draft pick when you also have to pay them money on top of it.

Not a soul in this thread mentions the actual ranking the Sox got

Seems like Ishikawa keeps finding ways back into MLB. I could see him as a useful bench piece under the right circumstance

Will be interesting to see what Sox are thinking about 5-man rotation. How much better of a bet is Latos than Erik Johnson? Is John Danks a better bet than either one?

Quentin was clearly wound tight and while somewhat flukish, the early end to his 2008 season can be connected to that. Still, I don't see good evidence that his mental approach to the game was the reason he didn't reach his potential. He has basically always hit well when reasonably healthy, but his body has broken down.

Paxson and Forman essentially have had one big f***up in their tenure—Aldridge for Tyrus—which we would never recognize as such if we had just decided the draft Tyrus outright. The rest of the criticism is almost solely about things fans assume could have happened but did not happen. They had one big stroke of luck, Derrick, which incidentally turned into some of the worst luck later on. They have an incredible knack for turning chicken s*** into chicken dinner on draft day and have in general avoided big mistakes and overreactions. I don't love the way the Thibodeau era ended, but ultimately it did end at the right time. A front office that can consistently find and retain talent like them is worth far more than a coach, especially one with the kinds of glaring flaws Thibs had/has (and I still think he's one of the most valuable coaches around). I won't pretend to know which of Gar and Paxson is most responsible for what goes right and wrong, so I won't speculate about whether one of them could go and leave us better off.

Ian Desmond is a massive risk, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he doesn't have a job until the draft pick compensation goes away midseason.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 20, 2016 -> 02:58 PM) I doubt he'd less than $8-10m though, which I think the White Sox expressly DON'T want to pay at SS. I would be pretty surprised if he got that much, but I'm definitely not making the claim that he is worth that much or that the Sox are likely to give him that much. My thinking was more in the 5-6 range, though I believe FG projects 8.

I'd see what Jimmy Rollins is thinking for next season. Have to think he's in a position where he'd be attracted to a team like the Sox that has no obvious choice at SS but also doesn't have the bargaining power to demand a promise of a starting spot.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 15, 2016 -> 11:19 AM) If it was like capitalism, Sale & Quintana could leave to the highest bidder instead of being under Sox control for 6 years. Nah, the players wouldn't be unionized and wouldn't make squat

Yes, but can Benetti take the mantle from Swirsky and weave an everlasting devotion to the greatness of Steve Stone into the broadcast?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 05:03 PM) The FO made the trade so blame it on the the FO. What differnce is it if it was RH, KW or JR. This was the consensus trade. None of them work by themselves. Not to mention that we've gotten pretty decent value out of the other pieces in this trade.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 04:17 PM) And it's not just that the tools aren't above average, they're mostly grading out as awful Yeah, the thing that makes me feel least confident in him is how many different things have to improve. Basically no part of his game graded out as even approaching average last year, with his overall hitting probably being the closest (but not all that close). His defense looks so bad that he almost certainly has to fall back on his bat to provide value, but a close look at his hitting just reveals so many problems. Not enough walks, too many strikeouts, chases way too many balls out of the zone, his measures of power are all piss-poor. It would be genuinely surprising to see him even put up a 1.0 WAR season, IMO.

We got roughly what I expected. I didn't assume he'd have such an up and down year, but I figured his bat would hover near league average and his defense wouldn't be very good.