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QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 11, 2014 -> 12:53 PM) That doesn't seem like a championship amount of TWTW. They need to revive the San Diego Chicken and bring him to Chicago. That's a championship caliber club right there. I feel like we could get the Chicken on a minor league deal, though.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 11, 2014 -> 12:46 PM) I would certainly take Joakim Soria for him, yes I would. Do you think we could get the Phillie Phanatic? Imagine how zany it would be if BOTH of them were wiggling their arms behind the plate during each game!

Sierra is waiver-wire filler. Konerko isn't helping on the field, but he also isn't causing us to lose games. If you want a defensive replacement, DFA Sierra and his 13 wRC+ and bring up Danks.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jun 11, 2014 -> 11:08 AM) Were there any reports on how Semien looked in LF?? If he can be serviceable out there and his bat ever plays out in the bigs that could be huge, esp. if the Sox don't plan on trading Lexi/Beckham/Gillaspie. A guy with his bat needs to be more than "serviceable" to hold down LF, IMO. I'm all for throwing positional role stereotypes out the window, but if you're going to be a slightly below league average bat, you need to bring the defensive chops big time if you're playing a position that just about everyone can at least fake.

Holy god what a throw

The indie league thing is risky and low-upside under the current CBA. Not only do you put yourself at tremendous risk for injury, but you forfeit time in a ML player development system and forfeit time working up to accruing ML service time, which is where the real money is anyway. The rewards in the pseudo-hard slot environment of today just don't line up. If you go at it long enough to be a FA, all those risks just multiply.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 11, 2014 -> 09:17 AM) I think De Aza is a better offensive player than Jordan Danks. Just my opinion. I agree. He's played like crap, but he's shown he can be a ~100 wRC+ guy in the majors, which is a league average hitter. He's a better bet to hit going forward, so I say you keep him, play him, and then trade him if he improves, non-tender him if he doesn't.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 02:16 PM) Well there were 0 outs, first of all. He gave up two hits to the last three batters in the 7th. Then he comes in and gives up two hits to the first two batters in the 8th (and one run). Gets the third batter to hit a ground ball in the hole at short. Alexei can't find the ears on it; it wasn't going to be a double play like many here have said but he should have at the very least got the force at second. The next hitter gets another hit. That is now five hits in seven batters, and the sixth batter got on via an error (although I think they ruled it a hit). I generally agree, you don't take a pitcher out because of seeing-eye singles or bad luck; those hits are indeed more luck and not a result of his effectiveness. However, given that he's around 100 pitches, and opposing hitters are making contact and finding holes, I think it's fair to assume he was tiring, was losing concentration, or hitters were picking up his release point better. You're looking at one pitch he made to Trout and making your decision for the entire sequence off the location and effectiveness of that one pitch. I don't think many people here have claimed Trout didn't hit a great offering. The point is that Sale and Ventura allowed Trout and the Angels to be in a position where the best hitter in the League hitting a home run tied up what was a 5-0 game in the 8th inning. We all know what Trout is capable of; this is nothing new. Yeah I didn't see the game, so I really shouldn't have a strong opinion. It just so nearly worked out for the best there at the end, seems like.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 12:18 PM) For the 5th or so time, the problem wasn't Chris giving up the homer to Trout. The problem is the other run that scored and the 3 runnners that were on base when Trout came up to bat, SO THAT TROUT'S HOME RUN TIED THE GAME. Additionally, even allowing Chris to face Trout coming off a recent injury in which you absolutely know he is dying to win that matchup. It was an unnecessary risk for injury to the organization's most valuable player. You are really bright. How are you missing this? But what if he grounded out on that pitch? The fact is Sale was able to execute a great pitch exactly how he wanted, so was not Ventura right that Sale was still able to get Trout out? I think if normal things happen at that point, we look and say "Man, that Chris Sale is a bulldog. Kudos to Robin for trusting his ace to pitch over that mess. What a great pitch he threw there to get out the best player in the league." I guess if someone could show that Sale's mechanics were suffering, that would be good evidence that he was gassed. And if he's in there while gassed, that's a huge mistake. But the pitch count alone was reasonable, and that he loaded the bases, by itself, isn't indicative of anything more than a rough patch the third time through the order. Can we look up to see if his arm slot had changed somehow? I feel like I've seen that stuff somewhere but I don't know where it is.

QUOTE (Bigsoxhurt35 @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 12:30 PM) I don't think anyone thought it was a bad pitch. It's wasn't it was good. Trout is just great. But Ventura should be fired, right? At least that's what the thread is about.

Here you go: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/lets-watch-...ething-amazing/

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 09:49 AM) I would say at this point Adams ceiling is a lot higher than Davidsons. Adams has a TOR ceiling while Davidson is resembling many of the scouting reports that we read when he was acquired, a ton of power though maybe not enough contact to make it play at the ML level, so his ceiling has fallen a bit to where he just may be a Mark Reynolds clone. He had 500 PA of 26% K rate in AAA just late year, and showed a 27% in limited action in the ML. Two months or 33% in AAA this year is discouraging, but how could it have lowered his ceiling? He's had larger samples of better performance at this very level less than a calendar year ago. If this was his first taste above AA, you could make sort of an argument that his skills might not translate, and then you'd re-evaluate his ceiling. But what do we have to suggest that he can't be what he was in 2013?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 10:47 AM) And even though Alex Rios had a worse OPS than Avisail Garcia, it still means a 3-4 swing in the standings over just 48 games, since the Cubs won 66? Wow. If Rios is so great that he can make up that much of a difference in the standings in 7 weeks, then why would they have traded him in the first place? The difference between 63-99 and 61-101 and not even remotely close to being statistically significant. Replay the stretch 10 times and you'd see all kinds of results with or without Rios. That's not useful evidence to your point is all I'm saying.

QUOTE (SoxnGiants @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 08:21 AM) I'm assuming Semien no longer counts... otherwise he's #5. 1. Rodon 2. Anderson 3. Hawkins 4. Danish 5. Johnson 6. Montas 7. Adams 8. Davidson 9. Sanchez 10. Michalczewski I cannot fathom how Adams the high schooler who fell to the second round can be higher than Matt Davidson, the preseason top 100 prospect in AAA having his first bad season.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 08:32 AM) But there's no way to quantify what affect his mood/attitude had on the clubhouse. White Sox before Rios trade (43-71, .377 winning percentage) After Alex Rios trade (Aug 9)...finished 20-28, for a .417 winning percentage. If you extrapolate the team's record with Rios, they would have been expected to finish 61-101. That he played BETTER for the Rangers, in your opinion, doesn't mean he would have put up those same exact numbers (especially 16/17 in stolen bases) in Chicago for the final 6-7 weeks. I don't mean to pile on, but man, that is a ridiculous argument.

Jesus

The need to scapegoat courses through the veins of Soxtalk.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jun 9, 2014 -> 01:39 PM) Comes down to Rodon now. No one else will likely get their full slot other than him. If you get him so sign for $5M, then you have a really decent shot at signing Montes de Oca. 1 (3): Carlos Rodon, LHP, /$5,721,500 2 (44): Spencer Adams, $1,282,700/$1,282,700 3 (77): Jace Fry, /$726,000 4 (108): Brett Austin, /$485,400 5 (138): Zach Thompson, /$363,400 6 (168): Louie Lechich, /$272,100* 7 (198): Jake Peter, /$203,800 8 (228): John Ziznewski, /$162,100* 9 (258): Brian Clark, /$151,400 10 (288): Jake Jarvis, /$141,300 14 (408): Bryce Montes de Oca, /$100,000 I can't see Rodon going underslot. I'm guessing we get him right around $6m

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Jun 9, 2014 -> 01:31 PM) It doesn't say he signed for slot, just what slot value is. Here's hoping though. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/06/whit...ncer-adams.html

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 9, 2014 -> 11:27 AM) FB is a pretty common abbreviation for Facebook. I'm guessing they either have different wordings for Facebook and Twitter and they use these abbreviations to differentiate between them. Normally when they get C&P'd to these social networking sites, they will remove this. They merely forgot to. Or it could stand for Fartbreath Noesi, which is really an incredibly terrible thing to say, but at least they abbreviated it. I'm pretty sure they meant "Fat-Butt."

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 9, 2014 -> 12:56 PM) LOL. In all seriousness, if the Sox scrape together half a million dollars, plus a full ride, it will be interesting to see what he does. I don't know how anyone could turn that down.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jun 9, 2014 -> 11:56 AM) Could the Rodon pick be the tool that is used to fix the rift between Boras and the Sox organization? It so it would have big implications down the road in free agency and re-signing Viciedo as he becomes arb eligible after this season. I'm pretty sure that rift only exists on Soxtalk

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 9, 2014 -> 10:56 AM) I don't care who he brought in. The point is he should have just gotten Chris out. I can definitely see the argument in this part of it.

That's not even remotely close to enough of a sample to be predictive.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2014 -> 11:35 AM) More than anything, gut/intuition/logic said Putnam was better to use against Hamilton than Petricka. Well, to be fair, maybe Ventura's gut said Petricka. With this bullpen, I think we're grasping at straws here looking for a scapegoat. They're a bunch of similarly half-decent arms with consistency issues -- sometimes they're going to blow up on us. Even a guy who has three good outings in a row is just a guy who had three good INNINGS in a row. It's just not enough to predict any kind of dominance or crappiness. There's really no clear best guy, so going with who is rested or seems ready is a reasonably defensible move pretty much every time.