Vance Law

QUOTE (ron883 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 08:22 PM) I hope they go for kendry morales and Jacoby Ellsbury. I prefer Ellsbury to Choo due to the age honestly. He is also a true CFer. We can trade de aza for a halfway decent prospect hopefully. If you are spending money on free agents it would presumably be to compete in 2014. Then why would you get rid of De Aza, our best offensive player this year, whose salary is nothing?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 03:20 PM) Trayce might force one of the OF's out of the way at some point but he's not nearly there yet. He's not hitting in AA now. Hopefully he can hit in AA next year. Hopefully he can hit at AAA in 2015.

So many replies in this thread, not sure if it was already noted that apparently Rios went on waivers Monday, so a deal is done today or tomorrow or not at all https://twitter.com/DannyKnoblerCBS/status/...569974179340288

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 2, 2013 -> 02:23 PM) Wrongly? Come on now, he gave all kinds of reasons to be optimistic, and he wasn't just "a year younger". He was a year younger, at a higher level, where he was THE youngest player in all of AAA going into this year. And yes, he is probably a better defender. At this point Semien is on par with Sanchez prospect-wise and maybe a little better, but your dismissive idea about Sanchez' "attention" last year is nonsense. My point wasn't that Sanchez wrongly got attention, but that it was disproportionate. Semien and Sanchez both started in A+. Semien ultimately had a better offensive season. Sanchez got promoted to AA and hit an unsustainably high number of singles for a month. For that Sanchez was ranked our #2 prospect and Semien around #15. That seemed out of whack. It seems even more out of whack now. I would say the same about any prospect who doesn't walk a ton and has only hit 3 homers in almost 1600 PA's- he needs to pretty much win the batting title to be very worthwhile offensively.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 2, 2013 -> 11:57 AM) I think people are just waiting for the other shoe to drop on Semien. When you break out, you get attention, but then you have to sustain ti a bit to show it is for real. He was 5th in OPS in the Carolina League last year while playing shortstop. Wrongly, all the attention was diverted to Carlos Sanchez,- a year younger, perhaps a slicker fielder- a singles hitter whose batting average was driven by an unsustainable BABIP. Sanchez' ceiling seems to me to be the 2012-2013 crappy version of Alexei Ramirez.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 06:50 PM) Here's my question, if Semien continues to play at a high level, how is he not a top 5 prospect in the Southern League? And if he's a top 5 prospect in one of the three AA leagues, how is he not a top 100 prospect? Based on that logic, he has to be top 3 in our system, because only Garcia and possibly Johnson would make it right now. I agree. He leads the Southern League in hits, runs, total bases, walks, OBP, OPS and is top 10 in everything else including HR, RBI, SB. Fangraphs has a weekly feature where they highlight the most noteworthy minor leaguers who basically have not yet appeared on a top 100 list. No player in the minors has appeared more often than Semien. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-fringe-...e-prospects-14/

QUOTE (Dizzy Sox @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 08:01 PM) Not in the lineup at B-Ham this evening...promoted to Charlotte perhaps? bout time. He's got the Southern League MVP locked up.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 06:47 PM) His WAR of .1 would tie him for 38th among LF and and 36th among CF. His D is bad. We should have moved him Your criticism of his defense in center is all the more reason for him to move to left. He's hit better than Viciedo and Rios.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 04:08 PM) De Aza doesn't have the offense to play left. Yea, he's passable when we rebuild, but when your corners have no power, your deficient. De Aza would be #8 in OPS for all left fielders this year if that's where he was playing. He has a higher OPS than our current left fielder and our current right fielder (who presumably do have the offense to play those corners?).

QUOTE (knightni @ Jul 30, 2013 -> 11:52 PM) Makes you wonder about Mitchell, Walker, Thompson and Hawkins' future if they're trading for outfielders like Jacobs and Garcia. If we ever actually get to a point that we have too many outfielders kicking ass at AAA, that would be a nice problem to have. Then trade one.

Hanson was just pulled in 4th inning

In that case: 2013 OPS+ of remaining 2005 White Sox who are still playing baseball 1) Juan Uribe 108 2) AJ Pierzynski 99 3) Paul Konerko 83 4) Neal Cotts 0 5) Brandon McCarthy -69 4) Mark Buehrle -100

2013 OPS+ of remaining 2005 White Sox who are still playing baseball 1) Juan Uribe 108 2) AJ Pierzynski 99 3) Paul Konerko 83

I just brought him up last week I think in a Matt Thornton thread. He's only 22 and has put together two straight excellent offensive seasons, and as a middle infielder no less. Noting particularly that he's excelling in precisely the things that all of our "prospects" seem to suck at: taking a walk, and not striking out. He's handily besting 2 more highly touted 22 year old teammates in Trayce Thompson and Keenyn Walker in every single offensive category other than steals (Walker) and RBI (Thompson). And while Sanchez is a year younger and in AAA he's been absolutely worthless with the bat and as nothing more than a singles hitter, he needs to hit well over .300 to be worthwhile (see Ramirez, Alexei 2013 edition). So it's nice to see on that MLB top 20 list today, Semien deservedly ahead of Sanchez at #9.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 15, 2013 -> 03:35 PM) Semien is 22 in AA, Sanchez is 21 and in AAA. That's your primary difference. Yes, true. In the not to distant future, they'll both be in AAA and my money is on Semien clearly distinguishing himself from Sanchez, whose upside to me seems like the current bad version of Alexei. .290 avg with no power and no walks. Utility guy or if he's an all-glove middle infielder, we'd better be getting a lot more production everywhere else.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 15, 2013 -> 12:33 AM) Not in a million years. Sanchez had a more impressive season (for his age and level) last year and didn't come close to making it, either. Sanchez was #64 on Fangraphs Top 100 for what it's worth, and his offense is dogs*** compared to Semien. He pretty much has to be the batting champion in order to be worthwhile.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 14, 2013 -> 06:59 PM) The problem is that the Semien's and Sanchez's of the world are, in all likelihood, complementary players. They're not going to get us to the playoffs...they're bench players, like Eduardo Escobar, for example. [/i][/b] I would disagree regarding Semien. The most eye-catching stat in his second straight excellent offensive season is that he has 66 walks and 61 strikeouts on the year. Not bad for 22 year old middle infielder in AA (leading the league in runs). If he doesn't collapse he'll be appearing on some top 100 lists next year.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 13, 2013 -> 09:17 AM) we should look at it like what would/will we be doing with those cost savings, which amount to about $2.25 million. Plus the $1 million buyout we don't have to pay.

QUOTE (Paulstar @ Jul 13, 2013 -> 04:05 AM) With the White Sox lack of ability to effectively scout and develop OF's of the athletic variety the past four years or so (actually more than that), I fully expect Brandon Jacobs to fall into the same mold of Jared Mitchell, Tryace Thompson, Keynan Walker, and Courtney Hawkins as someone with all the talent in the world, but is just not a good baseball player. However, I was not expecting anything of great return for Matt Thornton, so we shall see. Maybe Jacobs will turn out not to suck, but it would be nice to see a true baseball player brought in here for once. Jared Mitchell is the only one of those guys older than 22. Hawkins has played 114 minor league games in his career.

Puig's teammate Hanley Ramirez has 26 fewer plate appearances thus far. Ramirez has scored 2 fewer runs, hit 1 more double, hit 1 more triple, hit 1 fewer home run, has 1 more RBI, 3 more walks, 1 fewer stolen base, 3 fewer caught stealings. Hanley's batting average is 1 point higher, his OBP is 13 points higher, his slugging percentage is 73 points higher, his OPS is 86 points higher than Puig's (1.200 to 1.114). There is zero talk about Hanley Ramirez being an All-Star. The line of demarcation for talk about being an All-Star therefore must be somewhere between 109 and 135 plate appearances?

Just wanted to note that since posting this, Dunn has put up a .985 OPS with 10 home runs over 30 games. So, you're welcome, everyone. It worked.

Wells or Greene will already be gone in a matter of days when Beckham comes back.

Very good article on Dunn at Southside Sox http://www.southsidesox.com/2013/5/30/4379...ar-of-struggles I'm of the opinion that, at the very least you should start platooning Dunn pretty soon. Wells (or any other baseball player) is gonna hit lefties way better than him plus a major upgrade in outfield defense by putting Viciedo at DH or 1B. Batting average is obviously not the one most important stat, but it is pretty unbelievable- overall Dunn has a .180 batting average in his 2 and 1/3 years with the Sox, and against lefties it's .120

QUOTE (southside_hitman @ Feb 23, 2013 -> 04:47 AM) Thus far it looks like Hahn values players who make contact and hit for average rather than for power. Unfortunately, that does not fit the profile of what some people want out of a corner infielder. I would disagree with this. It looks like Hahn is making the smart moves while remaining within a budget. In regards to 3rd base in particular, you had a very thin crop of free agents of which most anyone would agree the top 3 most useful were Youkilis, Keppinger, and Chavez. Keppinger had the best year last year and is by far the smallest injury-risk. And someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Sox make a competing offer for Chavez, but he chose Arizona? If there were a glut of useful power-hitting third basemen available for reasonable prices, I'm sure Hanh would have taken one. There weren't. What he did get was potentially the best player out there (Kepp was the best of the three last year) and definitely the best value for the money.

Smart move. Gillaspie reminds me of Ross Gload- maybe a little worse with the bat, but can play 3rd base. He'll play against righties and give Keppinger, Konk, and Beckham (Kepp at 2nd) days off here and there. I'll take this rather than Jack Hannahan multi year deal any day.