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QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 02:03 PM) There's a chance for failure, but you are also not mentioning players that could have been traded for decent prospects. Why sign any high priced free agent if some fail? There is just as good of a chance Eaton fails, Davidson fails Garcia fails, and I really have no idea why so many are so concerned about JR's rather flush bank account. How much money he has is completely irrelevant. There is clearly a payroll ceiling and there always has been.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 12:25 PM) Peavy has not always been better. He had a stretch of 3 years he hardly pitched 300 innings. Santana has been really good 4 of the past 6 seasons: 2008 3.49 ERA 219 IP 2009 5.03 ERA 139 IP 2010 3.92 ERA 222 IP 2011 3.38 ERA 228 IP 2012 5.16 ERA 178 IP 2013 3.24 ERA 211 IP and you are saying this is better? 2008 2.85 ERA 173 IP 2009 3.45 ERA 101 IP 2010 4.63 ERA 107 IP 2011 4.92 ERA 111 IP 2012 3.37 ERA 219 IP 2013 4.17 ERA 144 IP Fortunately, front offices aren't dumb enough to judge pitchers by only looking at ERA and IP.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 12:06 PM) Is the Marlins minor league system be as good, worse or the same by signing Buehrle, Reyes et al. and trading them away? LOL. Yeah, that's an example we want to follow.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 11:42 AM) If is the risk every team takes every year. But there remains substantial value in mitigating risk.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 11:18 AM) This method of thinking makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. "He probably won't help so just get rid of it." That's absurd. FWIW, Addison Reed was drafted in the 3rd round, make a cup of coffee appearance the next year, and was the closer about 24 months later. Yes, he was a reliever, but the fact remains the same. That pick can be extremely valuable for the White Sox in the very near future. ...and netted a top 100 prospect when traded almost entirely because of his youth and cost-controllability. Pre free agency assets are worth SO much more than mid-30's players -- it's just the reality of the market today. If you want something to trade, make it a high draft pick, not a declining pitcher.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 11:11 AM) Like it or not the Sox have assembled much of their core to go around Chris Sale already. A second round pick does little to maximize the franchises best asset Chris Sale and his contract. That second round pick maybe useful to a post-Sale White Sox. Absolutely not true at all. If that pick can be used to bolster the present, it will be traded. If not, it'll be developed for the post-Sale Sox. It's like a stock option in that the risk is mitigated.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 11:05 AM) Peavy has always been a better pitcher than those two. He cost less both in terms of finances (2 years, $29.5 mill versus 4 years, $50 million) and assets (no draft pick versus 2nd round pick). Nice, thanks for illustrating that. The Peavy deal is a poor comparison. Not only was Peavy substantially more valuable, but we have lots of reason to believe that the Tigers were anxious to get rid of Garcia, giving us an opportunity to acquire a higher grade of talent than was typical. Don't forget that it looked like we were keeping Peavy until the Tigers jumped in, and the conditions were absolutely RIPE to trade Peavy.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 10:56 AM) Rumor has it Santana and Jimenez are going for less than Garza. Peavy was $29.5 million for 2 years. I always liked Peavy, but there are plenty of detractors on this site. Right now with the comp picks and competitive balance picks, that pick is #43 in what the Sox head scout says is not a good draft, top heavy with HS players. If Santana and Jimenez pitch the first half like they pitched in 2013, there would be a lot more attractive young players available for them than the #43 pick. Neither of those guys would be traded half a season into a 4 year deal. Most likely, they wouldn't be traded until the third or fourth year. You're making a huge gamble on two extremely inconsistent players being good enough in their mid-30s to command a top-50 draft pick caliber player when you already have that bird in your hand. Maybe you could bring something better in the best case scenario, but how much better? Most likely you get something even or worse. There's very little upside to justify a gamble against poor odds.

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 10:47 AM) I understand that. The thing is though, that Garcia is a far better player when you factor in his speed and defense. He has the versatility to play all over the infield and can play the outfield as well. If a roster spot comes down to those two, it better go to Garcia. Between Garcia and the backup OF (whether it be De Aza or Danks) everything is covered. Wasting a roster spot on Elmore just because he could potentially catch in the maybe one time this year that the Sox have to go to an emergency catcher would be almost be as bad as carrying three 1B on the team. Oh wait. Yeah, this. It's correct that we're going to need a super-utility guy to make the DH-heavy roster work, but Leury is a way better option for that than Elmore. The only way I can see Elmore making the team over Leury is if the organization wants Leury getting everyday at bats in AAA at the cost of 2014 MLB wins.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 10:40 AM) Again, the guys signed can be flipped for already developed players, or create an opportunity to flip someone else for players who are farther down the road in their development. Unless you want a 7 or 8 year rebuild, it is something that needs to be considered. Would you rather have A. Garcia or a second round pick? I would argue that in the current market, the odds heavily favor the 3rd pick of the second round being of significantly higher quality than the return for Ervin Santana (or similar pitcher) in 2-3 years. Jake Peavy is/was much better than Santana, was on a much friendlier deal than what we can expect Santana to get, and was traded in a market absolutely starved for good starting pitching, which is a situation that is possible for a future Santana deal, but comparatively unlikely to occur.

Dick Allen -- I don't understand why you so frequently seem to be caught up in arguing that it takes a long time for prospects to develop. That doesn't change the fact that an early round draft pick is an asset and, therefore, an additional cost to sign a DP-compensated FA. That the pick won't likely be on the ML roster within 2 years is irrelevant. The franchise STILL needs good prospects in the system to be developed or traded.

Our young guys need innings this year, even if it's at the cost of winning. There are a TON of new faces that will be on the field, and we need time to see what we have and what we don't have. This is the harsh reality of being bad. If it looks like we have a core and we need a FA pitcher, we can sign next year's Ervin Santana at the same cost. There's nothing special about Ervin Santana at the absolute maximum cost of dead-cat-bounce free agent money + draft pick loss. I know we've had a great offseason, but don't confuse that with a team that should be expected to win. There are a ton of question marks on this roster. It's not time to overspend for 2-3 fWAR starters.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 10:16 AM) That FA pitcher didn't cost anything but money. It's different. Not to mention it was an incredibly team-friendly and thus tradeable deal.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 04:59 PM) What are the Twins doing right now? In a game that always revolves around pitching, and in an era where pitching has become even more dominant (moreso than it has been for probably 25 years or more) it makes a f***ing TON of sense to create a logjam of SP. Personally I think Santana is too scatterbrained and Floydish to commit big money to, but current 4th starter money? Over 3 years? s*** sign me the f*** up please. Do it now. We don't want to just throw our young guys into the fire without making them earn it. Not only is a Sale-Santana-Quintana-Johnson-Danks rotation very good and balanced, it allows the Sox to work in other pieces as they need them and as those guys are ready. Beck can come in when he's 100% ready, and it can be at the expense of Danks or Santana. If Paulino can come back in the pen or as a spot starter, or take over for Johnson should be struggle and need to be optioned back to Charlotte for a little while. There's a TON of positives having too much pitching, and a TON of negatives when you don't have enough. Right now the Sox are logjamming their bullpen prospects. Great. Keep it up, and when the org believes 100% that Bassit and/or Petricka are ready to step in and get the job done, there goes Lindstrom/Belisario/etc. Also that second round pick is a risk anyway. It's not like whoever we take there is definitely going to be a Major League player. There's a lot of development time to be expected. I would say it is far likelier that Santana would be good enough to spin off after 1-2 years at a value greater than whatever player the Royals would take with our pick than it would be that we pick someone there who either makes it as a quality MLB player OR brings back a quality MLB player through trade. The whole point of this thing is to add as much value in new resources as possible while depleting the organization's resources as little as possible. Taking advantage of the late January & February free agents is one way of doing that, especially when it involves pitching. 2nd round pick? For 3 years $40M that's a p****hair over $13M per and no way should we not do that. The Twins are aggressively throwing any talent they can find into their organization because they haven't had ANY pitching talent ANYWHERE in the system for years. This is very different than the White Sox. Also, I'm not sure I like those signings anyway. I agree the young guys have to earn it. But Ervin Santana for 4 years precludes them from earning it for at least two of those years, probably 3. Beck breaking out won't send Santana to the bullpen @ $15m a year.

L Eaton R Ramirez L Dunn R Abreu L De Aza/R Viciedo R Garcia L Gillaspie/R Keppinger R Catcher R Beckham I've been obsessed with the idea of alternating handedness lately. In the age of super specialized bullpens, it seems like the way to go.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 26, 2014 -> 03:44 PM) WAR told me. Seriously though, the big dogs will be on the prowl again next year for starters and I believe the market will be higher because of it. By fWAR, Santana's 2013 was his third best season. He is overrated. The big dogs are ALWAYS on the prowl for free agent pitching. Let them overpay for it. We lost 99 games and have a glut of young SPs that need innings. Why you want to create a roster logjam at the cost of $60m and an early second round pick is beyond all of us.

Very surprised that Semien wasn't there.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 05:02 PM) If both Johnson and Beck turn out to be busts your rebuild is screwed whether you hang on to Quintana or not. What? How do you figure? You don't need a stud 5th starter to compete. If we get to the point where we only have 3 good SPs, THEN we sign a fourth.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 03:42 PM) The best way for the Sox to improve over the next couple of years is to deal Quintana and Danks and backfill those rotation spots with Johnson and Beck. Adding a mid-rotation guy this year allows them to make that transition easier. This makes no sense at all. Danks IS the mid-rotation guy you want to add. Danks is not worth anything in a trade, so why would you spin your wheels? And what are you trading Quintana for? If they believe last year's performance is stable, the best thing they can do is to extend him before he can demand market value and then move on to filling the next hole.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 03:22 PM) How long do you think it will take the Sox farm system to start producing the talent needed to contend? My guess 3-5 years. Again -- this is NOT a sound approach. Adding talent to all levels is the goal. You asked before when is the right time. It ISN'T the offseason after losing 99 games. It will depend upon how the core develops. It may be as soon as next offseason. More likely, it's two offseasons.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 01:49 PM) So can a trade of Chris Sale if that's the goal. Chris Sale IS young talent. I'm not following your logic.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 01:44 PM) Explain to me how adding a talented player at a reasonable price hurts any team in any situation. I'd love to hear how signing Ervin Santana is going cause a screeching stop to our entire rebuilding process. $60m can go a long way in acquiring and developing young talent. Or it can go to a post-prime version of Matt Garza. Remember that they did not buy 27yo Garza, they bought 30-34 Garza. EDIT: Not to mention that post-prime Garza would be taking innings away from either Erik Johnson or Andre Rienzo, two guys who needs to log some innings for their development. If we didn't have Danks already, then sure, throw a stabilizing vet into the mix. But Danks is here to stay, so that's who we have.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 11:13 AM) The Sox are not building through the draft, if they were they would have traded for players in AA and below. The Sox are diversifying, prioritizing talent at all levels, which is the smart way to build for sustained contention. The "all eggs in one basket" method is what has led to Dayton Moore's futility.

Blech.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 11:30 AM) Honestly, I've changed my tune overall on Castro, but I still don't know that I deal Quintana for him and I don't know that Houston adds anything to Castro if they are dealing him for Quintana. A move I might make is something like Quintana and Phegley for Castro and Peacock. I'd make that deal. But yeah I don't think I'd do Quintana + prospects for Castro at this point. I WOULD do EJ + more prospects though. Like maybe EJ + Hawkins + Phegley. I like Hawkins but we can find an OFer later.