chitownsportsfan

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 9, 2014 -> 03:35 PM) He looked the same in his first start. Seems to be a little tight, which is causing his arm to drag. Needs more towel drills between starts!

no confidence in the fastball, not good.

he missed that ball by 6 inches with the glove, hopefully he has a cup on.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 9, 2014 -> 03:26 PM) He has no chance of being successful in the majors with a fastball in the 89-90 range, as his command has always been his biggest question mark. Hovering around 90 to start, that might be adequate for a 5th starter type, but it's not what any Sox fan wants or expects out of him. On the plus side, his breaking ball looks pretty good to start.

Velocity not there so far... Ugh.

It's a bit curious that De Aza didn't get the start, especially with Johnson on the mount, who is probably going to give up some gappers to left center. Oh well, Viciedo has started well and despite that strikeout I don't mind playing him against some RHP to see if he's turned a corner verse them. We should just DFA Dunn...

QUOTE (Hawkfan @ Apr 2, 2014 -> 06:07 PM) Great Win! Lets get the sweep! It sucked that Minnesota pretty much gave us the victory but I only saw the 11th inning, so maybe that doesn't tell the whole story. I also thought it was hilarious that Adam Dunn had no idea that the winning run was scoring as he was pimping his walk. Thats okay though, I'd rather he just be focused on hitting, and he did have a good at bat. Go Sox! Sox rallied in the 9th starting with Kong and Tank singles off the Twins' closer, so they did some good work.

QUOTE (BaconOnAStick @ Apr 2, 2014 -> 05:42 PM) Alexei in the 2 hole, now. It should be De Aza against RHP, no questions asked. In fact, it's so obvious Ventura will never do it.

what a great job by nieto.

good job mentally by veal to buckle down. Encouraging sign at least a little bit from him.

honestly I don't know what they see in Veal. It's not like his stuff is overpowering and if he just got his control problems fixed he'd be good. His stuff isn't even that good.

man, thought ramirez was going to come up with that

so the one time adam decides to get aggressive is with a wild pitcher and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th, f***ing sums up his career in chicago perfectly.

come on tank, ugh, got a good pitch to hit popped it straight back

unreal, this is why replay is so f***ing stupid.

come on tyler, gotta stop that.

Two automatic outs at the end of the lineup today. Is what it is, if solid catchers grew on trees we'd have one by now. Not really sure why Conor got the day off, rather see him and Semian than Garcia and Semian.

Garcia is in his age 23 season, do we really need to worry about him slowing down anytime soon? Besides, Garcia has proven he can carry a high average in the big leagues, something Viciedo has yet to even sniff. It's one thing to be a 290 hitter with little patience and mediocre power (as Garcia has been so far in his young career), it's another thing entirely to be a 255 hitter with little patience and mediocre power (as Tank has been so far in his young career). Garcia is not Viciedo and Viciedo is not Garcia, don't conflate the value of the two because they appear to have similar lack of patience. Oliver really likes Garcia, projecting him for over 12 WAR over the next 4 years. That's a pretty damn good player, if he has a good season this year trading him should be the farthest thing on Hahn's mind, he should thinking about locking him up long term.

I've lived in NYC and Seattle for most of my adult life (the last decade), and I've been to Phoenix twice. Phoenix isn't any great shakes compared to cities like those, but it's also hardly a dump. I'll be there from the 26th through March 2nd. I have tickets to the opener against the Dodgers. Staying at a cheap hotel the 1st night in Phoenix ($40 hotwire special) then staying with a friend in Tempe for the remaining few days. First time doing a Sox spring training for me, although I've been to Florida a couple of times with my college team training when it was going on, this will be totally different as I'm going completely as a fan. Won't post my email or contact info here but if anyone wants to meetup for a beer or three send me a PM. Very much looking forward to getting a first look at Abrue, Davidson, Eaton, etc. I'll also be climbing Camelback (did it before when I was in PHX, liked it a lot) when I'm there so if any of you are into hiking lemme know, it's a bit of an ass kicker at the end but short enough to where you can take breaks and still get up rather quickly. Very sweet view at the top. Looking forward to the 80's and sun, although it's been a very mild winter here in Seattle, you can only take so many cloudy 50 degree days. (Sorry Chicagoites, I'm sure that sounds pretty good compared to your winter, but hey, mild climate ftw).

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Dec 26, 2013 -> 03:21 PM) If that is the case, I was not aware. Does Fangraphs describe that methodology somewhere? It's not really a hard methodology, it's just instead of using MLB average and then factoring in park and league adjustments you just use qualified players by position as the denominator. It's a new run environment in MLB right now, a shortstop that is good defensively doesn't have to hit much more than 240/295/340 to have value above replacement, in fact assuming that hypothetical SS is +10 or so runs above average with the glove and decent on the basepaths, that's a 2 WAR shortstop, solid starter territory.

Nice, this clears a spot on the 40 man right? Could use it to grab another catcher now. I think Davidson is MLB ready, even if he goes 220/290/400 we need to re-evaluate that slash line in today's run environment. 10 years ago that's a DFA candidate, not that's a 1 or 2 WAR 3B depending on his defense. If his defense is really that bad then put him in AAA and let him work on it pressure free, but he's gotta be working his ass off right now on it right, similar to Gillaspie if he just goes from "bad" to "cromulent" his bat will play. I could be wrong, but more moves have to be coming, just to echo some thoughts upthread, there is no way they go into the season with one of Viciedo or De Aza a platoon or bench player right? It makes way too much sense to grab what you can for De Aza (probably a C level prospect maybe a B if Hahn really pulls one over) and it also makes zero sense to give up on a Viciedo going into a rebuilding year. If he sucks again, fine, dump him, but you have nothing to lose by letting him see if he can turn into a 290/330/480 type with the bat.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Dec 21, 2013 -> 08:51 PM) While not as good as he was earlier in his career, Dunn has been pretty close to as advertised the past two seasons. 2011 was obviously an epic failure, but the guy has blasted 75 home runs the past two seasons. That's Adam Dunn. Look a tad beyond HRs. His wRC+ in 2012 was 115, in 2013 it was 105. In comparison his last three seasons in Cincy: 140, 132, 136. That's a pretty big dropoff in production, coupled with his move to DH, it's completely neutered his value. And hey, if we ignore that season with the wRC 60, one of the worst seasons in the history of baseball... He's been awful, there's no way around it. Rob Deer didn't have a lot of value despite quite a few HRs, and neither does Adam Dunn. If you had told anyone in baseball that Adam Dunn, who had posted 5 straight years above a wRC+ of above 125, and above that in 7 of the 8 previous years, including years of 142,142, 136, 138 -- would go 60, 110, and 105 in three years in Chicago they'd have laughed in your face and then probably, more seriously said, "so what, he tore his oblique or something, blew out his knee?" It's just inexplicable how bad he's been given the lack of injury. Anyways, thread drift, it's been a good offseason next move should be to move De Aza and/or Dunn.

s*** for some reason I thought he was signed through next year too, at 15m, well that makes trading him a bit easier although it also means you're only saving 7 million or so if you trade him at the deadline. Man, if Dunn was even 3/4 of the player he was in Cincy for the Sox that would have been a great contract. Still one of the more bizarre cases of a player just completely cratering after a long run of success I've seen.

IMO getting anything other than a "C" level prospect for Dunn, without sending out a ridiculous amount of cash, like 30 million or so, is a pipe dream. Dunn is what he is at this point, his absolute upside is a 2 WAR player, maybe 3 if you squint really hard and blame the appendix, hitting instruction, etc for his recent poor years. His middle case scenario is a barely better than replacement level 1B, that's...not valuable at all, unless you find a trading partner that has a huge hole at 1B/DH and needs an extra 1 or 2 wins to try and get into the playoffs. At this point I'd just keep Dunn, relegate him to a rather strict platoon with Paulie and see if you can regain some value before the trade deadline. I would have preferred not to have signed Konerko but at this point you might as well try and make use of his roster spot by spotting Dunn against LHP. This assumes of course that De Aza is getting moved and that Viciedo is in their plans for every LF. If Viciedo somehow gets benched in favor of De Aza or Konerko against LHP I'm going to be very upset, but I don't think Hahn and Robin are that dumb. I hope they're not.

Forget closer for now, if in July the team is actually good enough for there to be a lot of high leverage innings available in the pen then see about adding a piece and sacrificing a little of the future for the present. That would be a good problem. For now I'd go with closer by committee, with Jones getting the bulk of the chances early.