Jake

I loved Marcus Stroman, I was really hoping we'd take him. Then he got in trouble for taking Jack3d, lol. Also, Courtney has TWTW

QUOTE (Knackattack @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 09:34 PM) Gillaspie's defense has really soured me towards him lately, I could see him being a 3b/1B backup but his lack of power and defense really makes him a bad option starting anywhere He's a very good defender at 3B. He's just made a few bad plays recently.

"Slab City" - a rap song about ribs starring Anthony Adams and Lance Briggs

QUOTE (Springfield SoxFan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 09:26 PM) Now a throwing error by Hawkins allows go ahead run to score. Jeebus. Hope he has a good head on his shoulders because this must be hard to take

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 08:40 PM) I want to see Beckham at short the rest of the year, Gillaspie at second (groom to be a super-sub of sorts), and Morel at third. The Sox lose valuable evaluation time with every game Ramirez plays. I'd much rather see Semien playing SS in this scenario with Gillaspie at 3B and Gordon at home at 2B. Just say no to Morel, it's a bad drug

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 08:10 PM) He'll be 32 next year, currently has a 77 OPS+ for a team on pace to lose 95+ games this year, and is owed ~$20M. He needs to be one of the first out the door. He has the 13th highest WAR of any shortstop in baseball. No player ranks better among his cohorts on this team. I don't like his bat either, but holistically he is highly valuable for us.

Yeah, a little underwhelming

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 06:19 PM) If Alexei is still around next season, I'd rather have Semien starting at 3b than Gillaspie. Indeed. That is the one position where I'm really happy to give someone else a shot -- and if you could get a veteran (a good one) at that spot, I'd jump at the chance. Conor is fine as a placeholder, but it's a spot on the team where you don't have a truly promising young player who you'd like to see get a chance to develop and it has been our hands down least productive position in the past two years. I'd be happy to try Marcus there. If Marcus hits and looks like a staple offensively, this is when I shop Alexei. I think I established well through my other posts that Alexei is probably the least replaceable player on the team. SS is the only position that has been ranking in the top half of the league production-wise for us, so we really do not want to take a step back there as we're really trying to build. If Marcus can hit at about league average wRC+ though, he can certainly make up for the fact that there's no way that he's a fielder of Alexei's caliber. At that point, you'd seek a 3B...I say that because I don't see a 3B in our system that will be ready in the next 1 or 2 years. Next year, you have to see what you've got. You let the young guys play and you assume that some of them are going to play really well and show you that they are going to be a permanent part of your team. The ones that convince you that they aren't capable of being part of the long term future can be replaced following the 2014 season by veterans or whomever.

That doesnt even include the returns for those missing veterans.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 04:26 PM) I hope we make three short term deals for next season. If we suck we can trade them. Go into the year with extra hitters. C: Phegley, AJ 1B: Hart, Dunn 2B: Beckham, Keppinger 3B: Gillaspie, Keppinger SS: Alexei RF: Garcia, Hart CF: Crisp, De Aza LF: De Aza, Viciedo DH: Dunn, AJ, Viciedo. We can get Crisp, Hart and AJ for short term deals and we definitely have the money to. Worst case move them in July. Seems like this just costs all of our best young players ABs - Phegley, Viciedo, Garcia, De Aza

QUOTE (flavum @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 04:10 PM) Angel Sanchez released to make room for Avisail Garcia. And Marcus Semien

Ventura is under contract for next year. Lay off the crack

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 03:44 PM) I'd guess that Chris Curley will go to AA to take that roster spot. Outside chance they go with Micah, but I kinda doubt it. Yeah, that makes more sense to me

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 02:39 PM) Brandon Allen sucked too. Not that Soxtalk didn't enter full freakout mode after we traded him

As I continue to think about this, our roster was clearly constructed based on the idea that the way above average value positions would be 1B and DH and that was largely the case last year (and we saw everything fall apart as Dunn and Konerko slumped down the stretch). This year, you see how bad the team is without its best players being its best players. Dunn has rallied back but playing 1B takes a nearly insurmountable chunk out of his value. The biggest problem with this team is that Paulie did not hit as well as planned AND nobody else hit a ton better as expected to make up for it. This team is probably a contender if PK is mashing and playing 1B. Sadly, it is hard to get a great 1B. Let's hope we figure something out. Someone in FutureSox said they see Andy Wilkins potentially being a 2-2.5 WAR player. Do you know how much better we would be if we had a 2-2.5 WAR player at first right now??

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 03:02 PM) To me, I see a guy like Viciedo as "no plan at the plate," where he has no idea what he's going to do except something very basic. That's improving, but still. I view a guy like Tyler Flowers as "cannot recognize pitches fast enough" because he knows what he wants and where he wants it, but he doesn't have the hand-eye coordination to make the sweet spot make contact often enough. Based on numbers alone, Garcia is going to fit into the former rather than the latter. I more or less agree with that. I think Dayan is a guy who is constantly being coached and given a plan and his success seems to be dictated by how good that plan is and how well he sticks to it. Flowers is constantly being coached and given plans but rarely seems to produce based on this type of instruction because he seems simply incapable of either recognizing pitches or just hitting pitches he recognizes on a consistent basis.

Position by position WAR rankings for White Sox (this encompasses the best metrics for batting, baserunning, and fielding): First number is 2013, second number is 2-year average for positions where we have had players returning from last year C - 27th 1B - 28th / 17th 2B - 29th / 28th SS - 13th / 14th 3B - 29th RF - 18th / 15th CF - 22nd / 22nd LF - 20th / 23rd DH - 18th (out of 18 teams with qualifying amount of PA) / 7th out of 21 Here we see that our outfield and shortstop is definitely our strength, 3B/2B have been consistent problems. The biggest changes for this year compared to the 2-year average are the 1B/DH combo and of course the dropoff in catching is clear to us after AJ's career year. We still see the need for change in 1B/DH spots here, with PK in particular really hurting the team. Dunn should be able to shine in a DH role for as long as he's around. Keppinger has really dragged down our production at 2B and 3B this year while Gordon/Conor have not been good enough to balance that out. Catching has been bad. Want to start winning? Get producers at 1B, 2B, 3B, C. Now...how to do that? Because it seems hard at first glance. Well, it seems to me that Phegley turning into a good player would be a great first step. After that, you need Gordon to stay hot and keep Keppinger off of his position. Then, you either need Conor to play over his head and be a league average hitter (and, again, keep Kepp away or have Kep start hitting again) or get a new face over at 3B. We need a new face at 1B as well. It would also help if Dayan, who's been carrying our LF'ers to that mediocre ranking, could start to rake and improve our standing in that spot. De Aza could stand to simply repeat his defensive effort from last year to raise his own value. Rios is probably not a big concern...he won't carry us to having the best RF production, but we won't have bad production either. Ideally, you turn Rios into a producer at one of these weaker positions via trade. Then you hope Avisail can give us similar production in RF. The indispensable character, it seems to me, is Alexei. I didn't expect to think that.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 02:33 PM) No biggie. I'll get used to the posts rooting for the No. 1 pick. I just see it as kind of dumb considering the fact picks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to me are about the same. 1 is the only one that has been historically very significantly different. 1 and 2 are different, but 2-3-4-5-6 are hardly any different from one another.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 02:15 PM) Well, in 2011, it declined from a career worst 35% to a second career worst 34%, and 2012's 29% is still higher than every year before his disastrous 2010. Also, while his K rate has technically declined, Manto has also presided over Adam's OBP and overall offensive production declining. He got a broken version of Adam. He has turned Adam into our best hitter this season and a key contributor last season and the second best hitter on the team if you combine the last two seasons.

The 2005 White Sox were 17th in MLB in wRC+. This year's team is 29th. We were 8th in 2004. We are currently 28th in UBR (ultimate baserunning, which assesses the amount runs earned/given up on the bases via speed, stolen bases, blunders, etc). We were 12th in 2005. 16th in 2004. The 2005 club led baseball in pitching WAR. We are third in baseball this year. We were 17th in 2004. In 2005, we were 8th in team UZR. This year, we're 23rd (worth mentioning we were 10th last year, so there is a reason to believe we can field a decent fielding club). 5th in 2004. We have the pitching it takes to win a WS. We don't have the position players. The players who have cost us most defensively, per UZR: Dunn, De Aza, Viciedo, Konerko, Keppinger, Beckham. As you make Dunn your DH and eventually get rid of him, we should improve defense at that position. Konerko also gone. Crazy that we've given away well over twice as many runs with 1st baseman defense than any other position, relative to the average defenders at those positions. I think De Aza has had a weird season and we can reasonably assume he improves defensively, since he has been an average centerfielder throughout the rest of his career. Viciedo was better last year as well and I think he will continue to just be a slightly negative LF. Keppinger is not going to continue to play much second base for us, where he's cost us the most runs. Beckham has never been looked upon kindly by UZR, but his poor defensive play when he came off the DL has dropped it much lower than normal. I'd expect that to pick back up. Worst baserunners, per UBR: Konerko, Keppinger, Dunn, Flowers This entire stat is weighed down by PK, who's had one of the worst UBR seasons I've ever seen. Keppinger is well below career norms, not that anyone here would shed a tear if he were moved. Dunn is slow. Flowers won't be running the bases for us much in the future. Worst hitters, per wRC+: Keppinger, Phegley, Gimenez, Flowers, Ramirez, Konerko Keppinger's season has been really dreadful. The Phegley/Gimenez/Flowers trio has been really bad and Flowers has been the best of the bunch. I think we're all hopeful and somewhat confident that Phegley eventually outproduces all of them and maybe by a great deal. Let's hope. Alexei is Alexei - his offense among shortstops isn't all that bad, 17th out of 26 SS w/ 250 PA's and is of course leading our team in WAR on the strength of his defense. Paulie sucks, I think you see a theme here. I think as we break it down, we see where to seek improvement. We need to get Dunn off first base where his defense is nearly canceling out his offense. We need Paulie to retire. Keppinger has to either be his old self, go, or ride the pine. We need production out of the catching position. Those are the most efficient places to improve the team. Unfortunately, our top prospect plays the same position as the guy tied for the lead on our team in WAR. This is why you can't simply dump Rios, you need to try to move Rios' production to another position(s). Avisail can be pretty good in RF and it won't improve our team because we have to subtract our best player to get Avisail out there.

I think Law used to dislike the White Sox because KW had singled him out as an "idiot" in the past. I think he has since, more or less, buried the hatchet. There are reasons not to like Avisail Garcia. When he was asked about Avisail on ESPN, he was very diplomatic. He said there is division among people like him about how his approach will play at the MLB level over time. He first presented the case that many see him being a perennial all-star, but said that his and some others' opinion was that he "has no plan at the plate" and thus is unlikely to hit it big.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 12:42 PM) When he was hired he said that OBP was a little overrated or something like that. He should have been shown the door right then and there. All he has ever said, which of course results in people jumping down his throat, is that there are situations in which a walk is not the most productive result of an at-bat. He has always used examples of great hitters needing to hit a pitch they can hit rather than letting pitchers pitch around them. The first time he was quoted saying something like this, he talked about having a runner on third with 1 out. He said if your best hitter is up and the pitcher is trying to walk him, that's not what you want. You want your best hitter to drive the man in instead of allowing the pitcher to set up a DP for an inferior hitter. He also theorized that some of Dunn's issues were related to his preference of walks over hitting the right pitch. Early this season, we thought Manto had f***ed Adam up. It turns out, according to Adam, that he only began to turn around when Manto stuck to his guns and wouldn't let Adam scrap the changes to his approach just because he wasn't executing them correctly right away. QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 01:47 PM) If the White Sox continue to prioritize tools over skills at all costs, though, we're going to need someone that will teach the kids to stop swinging at bad pitches. And considering he was able to convince Adam Dunn, reigning emperor of TTO, to start swinging at anything that appeared to be middle in, regardless of count or pitch type, I do NOT think Manto is the guy to teach that plate discipline. Manto has presided over Adam's K rate declining in consecutive seasons.

You have to wonder if we had them working on something in particular early in the season that was causing them to take a step back

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 12:40 PM) "It may well be 2014 is a season like this one where we got rid of Jake"....to me, that means it's absolutely a rebuild coming up. I got the sense that he's just going to play the market as it comes to him. If the market dictates that we dump everyone for low-level guys, we do it and we probably aren't great. If it dictates that we get MLB-ready talent, we're ready to compete with a young club plus a vet or two. If the market sucks, we hold all the current vets and see what happens at the deadline.

Danks!