Jake

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.

"Close" is a pretty vague concept

Fun fact. Cesped in Spanish means "grass," thus Cespedes means "grasses." Yoenis Grasses.

I'm guessing Gordon gets at least 4/$80M or 5/$100M and it may be more like 4/$90M. 30 year old, s***ty Melky Cabrera got $14M AAV for 3 years last year for pete's sake. Gordon will get longer and way more AAV.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 19, 2015 -> 06:08 PM) I still think KW's comments about "no plan" were a smoke screen and some honesty. Why people took them as a condemnation of RH is beyond me. People just like controversy and picking at carcasses and stuff. Sometimes the media gets creepy like that. Yeah, I gave little thought to that comment. KW has always been saying these things since forever. The only time he says anything more decisive is when he says we have nothing planned or no money available, which inevitably means we're about to make a trade or signing.

I was raised in a situation in which there were three choices at the pre-HS level: 1. public schools, one for each set of grades 2. local Catholic public school, had 25 students per class (this was the limit, after that you are on a wait list; several cohorts never had anyone enter or leave over the K-8th grade term). I just checked the tuition. If you are have an "active family," then it costs $2400 for the first student, $1900 for the second, and $1400 for each other one per year. Active families must be members of the church, attend nearly all masses, and go to a few other religious functions. If family is non-active, price is $3000/$2500/$2000. You can get a one-time 10% tuition credit if you "recruit" another family. 3. local non-denominational Christian school located 3-5 miles from most people, located in the country. Had about 2-8 students per grade, I don't know much else about it. This is $3400/student, no special discounts. $200 book fee, $300 optional yearly bus fee each way. $80 fee if you want your child to be served lunch at school, which is not required. Once you reach high school, the local public school is the only option. There is a lab school and a Catholic school 35-40 miles away (this school costs somewhere between $15,000-$20,000 per year to attend, depending on a few variables). From what I understand, the HS I attended is poorly rated and was under the gun from NCLB laws for failing to meet standards. 5-year graduation rates around 70%, free/reduced lunch eligibility applied to half of the 800-900 students. Student:faculty ratio and faculty turnover rates were/are below state standards. However, this is the only high school I experienced! While I loved to gripe about local politics and how this or that teacher was a total dunce, I can't complain much about the education I received. I had involved parents and a comfortable home life. I had admissions to the elitest of the elite colleges thanks great standardized test scores. I was able to do well at a college that was very demanding because I was apparently well-enough prepared from the variety of people and institutions that helped to prepare me. There are two reasons that I hope to put my kids in public schools, whenever it comes time for me to have kids (so take what I say with an appropriate grain of salt). I have to manage my own risks, but my overriding preference except in the case that there is something truly terrible or unsafe about the public option is to get my kids into public. One thing is that I think it's important socially to be around the typical hodgepodge of kids you see in a HS. You might get taken up in the wrong crowd, but that's part of my responsibility as a parent to have my kid prepared for that. I feel like it was highly beneficial to me to be at a school and treated equally to people who were in some cases far better off than I was and in many other cases kids who were really struggling in various ways or by some other measure were very different from me. The other reason I want my kids to go to public schools regards my sense of civic duty. Again, I am no martyr and have no skin in the game at this point, but the school system gets a little better when I put my great kid into it. And I know that when my kid is in the school, I'm not going to let certain problems go unnoticed. Generally speaking, my sense of the abundant research on education is that a great school can break cyclical poverty and improve the lives of children at risk. But for those who have the parents/resources/talent package, the quality of the school doesn't play a very big role in their future outcomes. Only anecdotally, more or less.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 12:57 PM) It is courtney883, duh Sounds a lot more reliable than Kyyle23 or Steve9347