Vance Law

Oh my. This is pretty darn sensible. Hahn not wasting any time.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 02:51 PM) It is still hard for me to understand how power is vanishing in baseball without anyone talking about the ball. They were talking about the ball when it was considered the "steroid era", I remember Hawk calling it a Titleist. But even without steroids, say there were none, players are bigger and a lot stronger these days. Pitchers throw harder than ever on average, yet the power numbers are falling off a cliff. http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-strike-zo...out-of-control/

I'd rather pull Adam Dunn out of retirement.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 06:51 PM) He provides value in that, as the rosters are currently constructed, he is currently the #2 1B and probably the #1 DH on the team. Those will change in a matter of weeks, but he's blocking absolutely no one, and the guy hit 30 homers in the minors last year. He's also not the first guy to look overwhelmed by MLB pitching in his first call up either. He's obviously not going to have the career that Paul Konerko did, but Konerko put up a .214/.275/.326/.601 over his first 247 plate appearances before having an almost hall of fame career. Frankly, I'm going to be surprised if Wilkins is DFA'd. I wouldn't be surprised to see him traded, but he's under control and he's young enough that he could still provide value as a bat off the bench. And I don't disgaree that he's probably a AAAA player - I'm pretty sure I mentioned that and that I've always believed that - but that doesn't mean you get rid of him. He has, what, one more option left?

The next guys removed if there was a need to make space would seem to be Raul Fernandez, Andy Wilkins? Carrol, Rienzo?

QUOTE (MDWhiteSoxFan @ Nov 18, 2014 -> 10:16 PM) Morse played 84 games in the OF last year and some at 1st. Too me I don't want either playing OF everyday and would prefer Morse as he hits both RHP and LHP well. Where Ethier struggles against LHP. I feel like they offer the same tools power bat, mostly DH with some position versatility. That's what I mean they are the same. Ethier is a legitimate outfielder. Morse shouldn't be playing in the outfield. If Morse had played the entire season in the outfield he would have beaten out Matt Kemp for worst defensive OF in baseball. Ethier, meanwhile, is probably a tick above league average at the corners and could play CF if needed. Being the left half of a platoon (Ethier) you get 500 plate appearances. Morse has managed to stay on the field to top 500 plate appearances exactly one time in his career. If Morse is still out there when we're sorting out our DH situation he could make sense, but he's got no business in the outfield.

QUOTE (MDWhiteSoxFan @ Nov 18, 2014 -> 06:40 PM) ME personally prefer Ethier but I felt he would be close to the same player as Morse except he is a lefty. Morse is a DH. Ethier played 68 games in CF this year.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 18, 2014 -> 05:14 PM) I would do that in a second. Kemp at less than what Russell Martin just got, AND a "legit prospect" for essentially nothing? If Kemp would play LF. Hell yeah. The Dodgers would never make that deal. A better comp for Kemp (comp4Kemp) is probably Victor Martinez considering their lack of defensive value.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Nov 18, 2014 -> 03:39 PM) Thats not true. He is a replacement level player that is signed for two years and $36M after Danks contract comes off the books. Danks also plays a position where the Sox should be able to replace him with an internal option about the time his contract expires, until that time he has value as an innings eater. Cy Young he isn't, but he can give you a league average number of quality starts. De Aza makes more sense as a signing than trading anything for Ethier at this point. You think that Ethier is bad based on 1 subpar season where he didn't get regular playing time. Many of the rest of us look at his consistently excellent 6 years prior to that. Some others also have ill-feelings about the word "platoon"- a "platoon" player is a bad player- rather than noting that a guy with a career .885 OPS against righties would be getting 500 plate appearances against righties.

So Castro is now the best available catcher pretty much, right?

I've mentioned Lambo a few times previously because Pirates have no room for him and you'd hope he could be had for relatively cheap. He was a right fielder who only started playing 1B in the past year because he was squeezed out of their OF. He was highly touted as a teenager and was pushed well ahead of his age-level from the beginning. Played age 20 season at AA. Had injury problems and then eventually, crushed AA and AAA at age 24 to the tune of 32 home runs. Since he's played most of his career in the OF you'd think he's at least serviceable (better than Viciedo). Will his minor league success translate to the majors? Who knows. But he was expected by a playoff team to potentially be their starting 1B going into 2014. His poor spring lead to their signing Ike Davis. He'd be in that competition again this year, if it weren't for Pedro Alvarez inability to play 3B. It's an Eaton-esque situation, aside from Lambo not having played much in MLB at all. Who would you rather have from the Pirates, Lambo or Snider?

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 02:56 PM) Look, I don't think he's ever going to repeat his 2013 season. The BABIP and the ISO look real flukey IMO. I also think he's far better than what we saw last year. His BB% was down 3.5 to 4 points from where it has been at the major league level. That's a huge drop regardless of the fact you're trying to minimize it by citing the specific amout of walks it represents. If he can return back to normal in that area, my guess is the K% will also improve as well. I think the .735 OPS Castro put up in 2012 is a realistic outcome for him next year. I think that far exceed what Flowers puts up next year. Do you disagree? I'd think Castro is a better offensive player than Flowers. Probably not by much, considering Flowers was better than him last year. So it is a probable marginal upgrade for 2 years. He has value, so the Astros are not going to give him away, despite Sox fans' hopes of constructing a fantasy "We should trade for this player, would his team accept this collection of failed prospects that we don't want?" They also aren't going to trade him for Carlos Sanchez. We'd have to give up young player(s) that we really want which simply doesn't make sense for a team building to be perennially competitive- trade away your future starters for 2 years of a marginal upgrade at catcher. edit: If Castro were part of a larger deal, potentially with multiple teams and with Flowers being shipped elsewhere, that could be worthwhile. But that's a lot of moving parts and probably difficult to find the right fit of teams and players, all the while, there are more pressing issues.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 02:53 PM) As for Castro, feel free to overreact to a bad 2014, but he is closer to the 2013 version than the player we saw last year IMO. His BB% has been at or above 9.3% in every single season of his professional career prior to last year when it dropped to 6.6%. That screams outlier to me and I strongly believe that rate will return closer to career norms in 2015. If so, he'll be incredibly more valuable than the player Flowers is likely to be next year. Again, just my opinion. If he walks 2.5% more, that's going to make up the gigantic gulf in his results between 2013 and 2014? If he draws 12 or 13 more walks he puts up and OPS closer to .830 than .650? You seem to be ignoring that his strikeout rate went up in 2014 to just shy of 30% and that his .294 BABIP shows that he really wasn't unlucky.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Nov 12, 2014 -> 10:21 PM) Do we think Ethier's last year is an aberration or a trend? I don't mind how he fits in our lineup. He was one of the most consistent players you're going to find for 6 years straight putting up a wRC+ between 120 to 134. Last year he had a bad April, a good May, a bad June, and then after that he only started 22 games the rest of the season because of their logjam. You can't be sure if any player is going to return to form, but he's definitely had a consistent track record. If you ask me who's going to have the best year next year (given that they get regular playing time) between Ethier, Crawford, Markakis, Melky, Morse, Rasmus, Aoki, and Travis Snider, Melky might be my top bet, and Ethier would be 2nd.

QUOTE (BamaDoc @ Nov 12, 2014 -> 02:02 PM) Crawford makes sense if you use the DH as a rotating rest spot so he could play left and DH. OPS .767 last year with nearly equal L/R splits. Owed 62 over 3 years. The Dodgers could also use a #5 and Danks fits in terms of dollars and in moving to NL I think he can perform. Owed 29 over two so a difference of 33 million. I would want both Pedro Baez and Yimi Garcia as young cost controlled relievers and about 20 in cash. We can leverage our payroll flexibility to acquire young ready talent with the "bad contract". That's a little misleading about his left/right splits. They only started him against a lefty in 4 games. He did put up a fine batting average overall, but it was only 64 PAs. In 2013 when he started against lefties regularly, he put up a .551 OPS

Dodgers are saying they prefer to trade Crawford or Ethier http://nypost.com/2014/11/11/dodgers-mean-...-an-outfielder/

Makes the most sense for him to go to the NL where he can platoon/ have more opportunity to pinch hit, pinch defend, and even pinch run. Steamer strangely projects him to retire. He's gonna do his best to get those 156 more hits for 3000 I'd say.

This was mostly a joke, but depending on how various things go, if we have space at DH....there are dumber moves to make.

TCQ. TDH. Get'r Dunn. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/nov/10...knees-contract/

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 10, 2014 -> 09:14 AM) Couple things to keep in mind: 1. Lots of teams like Kemp's bat and would like to have him if the Dodgers pay a bunch of money for the contract. There's no way we're going to be able to get him for Danks and expect them to throw in money. Whichever team gets him is going to pay for it -- either by taking on way more money than they want to get him for little talent, or by giving up something of real value to get Kemp at a reasonable salary. 2. Matt Kemp has made it publicly clear that he wants to play center field, and has a a history of inconsistency that appears to be at least partially related to his happiness level. I don't think that he's likely to get exactly what he wants (CF) anywhere, but you can bet he would be very vocally angry if he's relegated to DH, and that's not something that his acquiring team will want to deal with. If we get Kemp, he will be in the field every day, most likely in left. Yep. Excellent post.

QUOTE (Andy the Clown @ Nov 10, 2014 -> 01:47 AM) Ethier would make the most sense if he could still play, but he cannot. Kemp is the only one of the three worth a damn. Kemp would make sense if he wasn't a DH who is owed $110 million.

QUOTE (daggins @ Nov 10, 2014 -> 12:54 AM) Ethier makes the most sense, either in a contract swap for Danks or with the Dodgers eating significant money. Crawford would be nice but he has the "downside" of being actually pretty useful and probably wouldn't come cheap. Kemp's situation is kind of weird/unique and i'm not sure if he can be moved. Agreed. And that's not to mention that Kemp's defense is brutal. Ethier meanwhile was their choice to get starts at CF into the playoffs.

Rick Hahn seems to do things that make sense. Trying to trade for Samardjiza doesn't make any sense. So I bet it won't happen.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 7, 2014 -> 10:18 PM) First, I have no objection to flipping Viciedo for him. do I think that Viciedo has more upside. Yes, but he's yet to grab it. through c. 1700 at bats, Saunders has a career OPS of .685. Viciedo, with a similar number of at bats, is .722. Saunders is off of a career year (although with 1/2 season of at bats and some significant split differentials) so he may be on the upswing. I have no suggestion. I don't want rents, I don't want decliners, and I don't want to trade real assets for guys like Saunders who is okay but that's it. Switch him with Viciedo or something? Fine. Have to wait for a good FA class (terrible in the outfield this year) and for the farm to develop depth. Maybe Hahn can find an undervalued player like Eaton was in CF. First off, comparing guys who play in such drastically different home ballparks using OPS is less than ideal. Their career OPS+ are 96 for Viciedo, 94 for Saunders. But more importantly, Suanders' career numbers are dragged down by his age 22, 23, 24 seasons. His last 3 seasons wRC+ are 108, 100, and 126. Viciedo's last 3 are 98, 96, 88. I'll reiterate again because so many posters continue to have some rigid old notions about what a typical corner outfielder "needs to provide" that don't have a basis in the current state of MLB offense. There were 21 outfielders in MLB who hit 20 home runs last year. 16 of those were corner outfielders. So about half of the baseball teams have even 1 corner outfielder who hit 20 home runs last year. Of those, some are such a liability defensively that you'd ideally have them at DH or 1B or not on the team. Viciedo leads that list which probably includes Matt Kemp, George Springer, Oswaldo Arcia, maybe Khris Davis. There are less than 20 players in all of MLB who hit 20 home runs last year who should be playing in the outfield. There are 30 baseball teams.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 7, 2014 -> 07:24 PM) Apparently he has to cut back on the power stroke to get on base at an acceptable level. great. he made a change and has become a more valuable player and hitter QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 7, 2014 -> 07:24 PM) yes, and in the year he hit 19 homers, he checked in with a Viciedo-like .306 OBP. Viciedo had a bad year last year, but most of his years are like Saunders. he also strikes out like Viciedo does. Like I said, Saunders looks like Conor Gillsapie. Saunders is a good player, but not really what is needed in a corner position, unless you have the rest of them covered very well, which the Sox don't. He'd be an upgrade, but nothing to plunge over. Viciedo had a bad career so far. Viciedo has never gotten on base at an acceptable level. His career walk rate is 5.3% compared to Saunders 9.2. Even if he could manage to hit like Saunders, there's such an enormous difference in their defense, again, Tank has to be one of the best hitters in the league in order to provide much value. And if you're saying Saunders 8 home runs last year makes him "like Gillaspie" you've failed to note he did that in half a season (and in baseball's worst home run hitting park and worst hitting park overall). Who do you suggest as an acceptable upgrade at one of the corners? edit: on the prospect of Saunders at The Cell, here's his OPS in AWAY games the last 3 years 2012 .793 2013 .759 2014 .796