Dam8610

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 21, 2018 -> 05:36 PM) Abreu Hopefully a big package, then.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 19, 2018 -> 02:55 PM) How could you say no? Rutherford is coming off of a horrible season and if he shows no improvement is barely a top 30 org prospect. Cease by all accounts is destined to be a closer. It would be selling high on Hansen who had a great year but is by no means a lock to be a top pitcher. Yelich gives you cost certainty and flexibility heading into 2019 free agency class. If you don't wasn't to lose two highly talented arms that each have ace potential with one being much closer to fulfilling it, that's how.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Jan 19, 2018 -> 01:55 PM) Baseball players make an exorbitant amount of money. I don't feel bad for them, and no one else should either. Why do we begrudge the worker gains, but not the owner?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 19, 2018 -> 01:19 PM) Players salaries have increased at a dramatic rate. The players are not earning less. When expressed as a percentage of what the total profit is, yes, they are.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 18, 2018 -> 11:58 AM) I mean, that’s totally what’s causing this. It’s really the reason the MLB needs a salary floor. Loosing the luxury tax strings will further impact parity. A floor would bring a lot more one year deals, basically spending just to meet the floor. GMs who are rebuilding aren't going to be willing to offer a lot of multiyear deals to free agents, they're just going to spend what they have to that year to meet the floor. Though it might make things more interesting for players in their age 30-32 seasons. Do you take an inflated AAV 1 year deal to go to a rebuilding club hoping to flip you, or a multiyear lower AAV deal to secure the years and choose the team on which you plan to play?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 07:09 PM) I totally get where you are coming from. I sort of feel similarly about Abreu. Dude sucks. Yet everyone seems to think he provides some kind of value. Guy strikes out in all the big time plate appearances that I can remember. A fine example of confirmation bias at work.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 01:32 PM) Great article. I think you nailed it, though I'd probably lean toward putting Robert on the EST/Rookie Ball track Didn't Hahn say he was likely to open in Kanny or Winston?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 03:55 PM) Is this board truly reflective of the country's opinion of Trump? I was in Dallas area over the weekend and I asked two rich oil people (one man, one woman) what they thought of Trump. One immediately declared: "I like him," adding that he says some dumb things on Twitter but aside from that she liked him. Then the other person said the economy actually was improving and he also liked Trump. Then I hear he gets half cheers/half boos as the national title game. You'd think it would be 90 percent boos if you read this board and listen to the pundits and Hollywood types bash him daily. I know Hollywood tore into Trump at the Golden Globes, but Hollywood should be more humble and silent right now with the scandal going on. I'm just saying ... has Trump had some accomplishments that are making 50 percent of Americans think he's OK to good? His approval rating hasn't cracked 40% for most of his presidency, so probably not.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 02:28 PM) Yet if I or Greg write he sucks, there is a lot of backlash. We are arguing with math. You just don't want to hear anything that contradicts FIP or xFIP. If your claim is he sucked last year, that's just factually not true. The numbers do disagree with you in that regard. If your claim is that he will suck in 2018, you're entitled to your opinion, but all of his numbers from 2017 show a positive trend, so I'm hopeful that he will be a useful piece who can net the team some talent in July, and if he's not, it costs the team nothing but money.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 12:30 PM) It seems to me this particular example doesn't really fit the bill. Using FIP and xFIP after last season, you wouldn't have predicted his FIP and xFIP numbers in 2017, and would have told anyone who did that they are arguing with math . The fact is, even if this is all you claim it is, it is not 100%, and everyone has access to this information. To become better than average, one must find anomalies with these numbers. Personally, I think his numbers were a bit inflated towards the positive, and he will be 34 years old with 2 TJS under his belt. Regression seems way more likely than anything else. The entire crux of this argument appears to be your lack of understanding that a chance of something happening is not a guarantee or prediction that it will happen.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 12:06 PM) This isn't entirely true. It's not math. It's models developed by people who decided which factors they think is important to predict outcomes. It's not 1+1=2. It's predictive models based on some people's opinions. The models require high level mathematics, specifically regression modeling, to work. Just because it's not arithmetic doesn't mean it's not mathematics. At the highest levels, mathematicians don't even use numbers.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 10:19 AM) I remain the exact opposite, I think that it is extremely uncommon for pitchers like Verlander to become available at the waiver deadline. Yes, there are always expensive pitchers available at that point, but not genuine all stars. When I make this point I'm thinking of something like this happening in 2019 - the White Sox sign Machado and suddenly they're way better than anyone expected, on pace for 90-some wins, but with a huge weakness in lets say center field. Let's say that Yelich is still available then, but the price is extremely steep like "top pitching prospect in baseball Dylan Cease". You've got 2 choices - hold onto the prospect or go for the win. I've been circling 2020 all offseason as the year we're going to destroy the league, but if we're there in 2019 and we need one high priced piece to put us over the top, I'd make a deal of that sort. Maybe you could find a cheaper option, but I'd say you "MUST" fill that hole, and I found the moves the Astros made pre-Verlander to be totally lacking. Hell, Gonzalez from the White Sox would have been an upgrade for them at the trade deadline with where their rotation was sitting and they didn't even do that. They needed help desperately and didn't do it until the very last possible second. The danger in not making the move is illustrated by a number of teams recently. I'll take the Mets as one of my favorite comps because we're looking to have the kind of starting rotation in 2 years that took them to the World Series. In 2015 they had a dominant starting rotation, but they needed offense. They traded Fulmer to Detroit for Cespedes and it put them within a couple of baserunning moves of possibly bringing home a trophy. The Mets could easily have said "look at how dominant our rotation is, we should hold onto our prospects and play for 2016". Yes, they'd like to have Fulmer back right now, he's been strong in Detroit. But if they had said "let's wait, 2015 isn't that important and our rotaiton is only going to get better" - they'd have been completely wrong. Their vaunted starting rotation has since completely collapsed. They paid a high price, took their shot, and got almost there. I'd much rather do that if things came together in 2019 than hold onto everyone and assume nothing will go bad in the future. You absolutely have to know when the right time to strike is, but you could find anecdotal examples of this in every imaginable permutation over and over again throughout baseball history I'm sure. My point is the White Sox tried being impatient and "going for it" every year for about a decade with little to no success. Hahn then implemented a strategy of being patient and forcing teams to come to his price for his players, and in less than a year it took the White Sox from one of the worst farm systems in baseball to arguably the best for two years running. This wasn't accomplished by being impatient and taking the first offer on everyone who had value to get them out of town. It was accomplished by waiting and forcing other teams to come up to the price desired. Similarly, the Astros did gamble, but their gamble was smart. Essentially, it was "some team will get desperate and want to move a player we need for something of value at some point, and the price will come down to the level we find acceptable". Sure, it was a bit risky and could've cost them the 2017 World Series, but with the talent they have, they have a very long competitive window (unless something unforeseeable like injuries takes it away), so missing 1 of 10 or so shots may not have been a big deal to them. I'd prefer this rebuild to be the launch point for a prolonged period of sustained success, and I think the way to achieve that will be the same way the White Sox so quickly went from the outhouse to the penthouse of farm systems. Be patient, wait for a desperate team to match your need, and strike when the other team meets your price. Becoming the desperate team and overpaying for a present need depletes the surplus value that the team has worked very hard to build and will eventually lead to being back in the rebuilding process. Now, if the scenario you describe happens, I'd take that risk as well, but for me it's because I don't see Cease becoming that successful (even if the prognosticators are calling him the top pitching prospect in baseball) and even if he is, there's probably not a rotation spot for him here. Also, it's a 1 for 1 deal, which means that the Marlins were likely desperate and the White Sox will get good value from the deal. I'm not advocating never dealing prospects, I just want the team to go about it in the same way that has found them success recently, as well as other franchises like the Astros. Be patient, make teams meet your price, and strike when the time is right.

QUOTE (pablo @ Jan 8, 2018 -> 10:34 AM) BA's "weaknesses" of the Sox Farm system is pretty comical. And I don't even necessarilly agree with it. This. There are quite a few players beyond the top 10 or even 15 in the White Sox farm system for whom it isn't a stretch to see a productive MLB future. In that regard, the system is very pitching heavy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 8, 2018 -> 07:21 PM) If the market had not come to them right when it did, would the prospects they kept have been worth the 2017 world series title? It's hard to say what the marginal value difference would've been between trading for Verlander then versus, say, meeting the White Sox ask for Q in January. What I do know is, as another poster said, theirs is the model I'd prefer the White Sox front office to follow when it comes time to acquire talent. Rick Hahn has shown admirable patience in getting other teams to meet his asking price for the players he's traded away, so I'd hope he doesn't throw all the surplus value he's worked very hard to build trying to get that final piece that may or may not make it work. Of course if it works it's worth it, but the Astros didn't know they would win it all when they traded for Verlander.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 8, 2018 -> 04:54 PM) I totally agree, I just don't want to do what the Astros did - when we have a team sitting there ready to win 100 games, and we have a totally obvious need from the offseason through the trading deadline, a need big enough that it has a strong chance of costing us a trophy if it is not met....don't pass on it to hold onto prospects. Fill the need, don't play for 2021 if your team is ahead in the division by 10 games in 2020 and you need 1 player to round it out. The Astros totally passed on filling their need and then were bailed out by a team suddenly more willing to shed salary. Another way of looking at this is they waited for the market to come to their price and struck when it did, which is exactly what I'd want the White Sox to do. They kept their farm system from going completely barren while still getting the quality of pitcher they needed, and likely extended their contention timeframe by doing so. Put another way, they won the World Series and still have arguably the best farm system in their division. It's an enviable position, and their patience played a large part in putting them there.

QUOTE (Moncada @ Jan 7, 2018 -> 01:31 PM) I would say 75-100 wins bc our division is gonna be awful. Our pitching should be getting better and better This bold prediction puts the team anywhere from Top 5 pick to World Series contender.

QUOTE (mac9001 @ Jan 6, 2018 -> 04:13 PM) Ryan Cordell is our starting RFer by July. To be replaced by Eloy Jimenez in August.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 7, 2018 -> 10:32 AM) From Rosenthal’s latest: “— The White Sox were not only the team interested in reliever Joakim Soria, whom they acquired from the Kansas City Royals on Thursday in a three-team trade that also included the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Oakland Athletics also wanted Soria, and like the White Sox envisioned him as a potential late-inning weapon who might yield a significant return at the non-waiver deadline.” Glad to see Hahn can see past a statistic that isn't particularly useful in terms of predictive value for non-closers.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 5, 2018 -> 04:32 PM) If the White Sox took on the full salaries of both Kazmir and McCarthy, that would be just under $30 million for 2018. Let me put it this way.... for $26 million, the White Sox got Luis Robert. It would have to be a pretty big return. Gohara?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 5, 2018 -> 04:13 PM) Only one of those guys is a Dodger today. Right, forgot McCarthy and Kazmir went to Atlanta in the Kemp deal. In that case, same question, replacing 3 Dodgers with 2 Braves.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 5, 2018 -> 04:00 PM) Guys who come to mind... Martin Prado, Kelvin Herrera, Matt Kemp, Brandon McCarthy, Scott Kazmir, Jacob Ellsbury,... So if the Sox took those 3 Dodgers, how many of the Dodgers Top 10 prospects would they come with?

Soria was a Top 25 reliever in MLB in 2017 by fWAR and a Top 75 reliever in MLB in 2017 by bWAR. If Kansas City traded him because they think he's bad, then I wouldn't trust their talent evaluation staff much.

Jordan Stephens and Seby Zavala are two guys that I hope get opportunities soon, because there may not be spots for them for much longer.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 5, 2018 -> 01:49 PM) Examples? If Soria was thought of as highly around MLB as he is on this board, not only would the Royals have been able to trade him and not eat money, they wouldn't have had to include a valuable piece with him. They had to do both. Or maybe they like the prospects they got back?

I think they should target Jaime Garcia. LHSP with control issues, seems like a perfect Coop project that could yield dividends in the form of a deadline trade (when an asset like him is likely to be at his highest value), and if he's awful from the start, cutting your losses is pretty easy when Rodon gets back.