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Also, someone pointed out on Twitter that JPA is the only player ever to hit 20 HR while somehow managing a sub-600 OPS. Lol

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 05:01 PM) I just hate the idea that Arencibia represents. My other qualm is this - Arencibia has somewhere around 1000-1500 plate appearances on his record. He has had some success at the MLB level. But in his 3rd season as a starter, he took a gigantic step backwards. We are ready to give up on Flowers and Phegley after half a season starting by each, and Arencibia took that step back in the 3rd. If Beckham had put up his .800/.680/.680 or whatever, and then came back with a .600 bomb, there's no question how people feel about him, regardless of the replacements on hand. That's how people should also feel and consider Arencibia. On a minor league deal - great, grand, wonderful. That's not going to happen though. Yeah I pretty much agree with all of this. There's just too much of a C shortage for us to be able to get him at a low enough price to make it worth it. Probably a bad fit.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 04:47 PM) I think the best hope for Arencibia is a guy like John Buck. I'm being overly harsh, but I also think guys like Flowers and Phegley can be like John Buck too. If you have 2 left shoes, should you try and acquire another left shoe or to try and find a right shoe? I don't think you're being overly harsh -- I think that's about right. I think the argument for JPA is something like this: I'm pretty sure the left shoe I have won't work out once I try it on the job, I may as well hedge my bets and bring another one to work to increase the chance that I can get one of them to do be what I need. Is that enough to justify the cost of acquiring him? It's possible, if the price is low enough. However, there's also the opportunity cost to consider -- a flyer on JPA for next to nothing might be better than doing nothing at all, but it wouldn't be better than almost every other effort to improve the C position.

The question is this: is adding JPA thee best allocation of whatever resources it requires? Because he won't be "free" -- he'll either cost some amount of talent in a trade or a few million bucks to sign. Lots of teams will take a flyer on him at or around league minimum, we'd have to offer more PT or money to lure him from a contender.

QUOTE (CWSpalehoseCWS @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 03:27 PM) If the Jays are going to non-tender JP no matter what, their asking price must be extremely low. Maybe it's worth it to trade for him for some low-level garbage prospect? As bad as he is/was he still looks like an upgrade over Flowers, although I'm not familiar enough with him to know anything about his defense. The only problem is if it would preclude them from continuing to try to upgrade the C position.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 03:11 PM) Anybody think Daniel Bard would be an interesting Coop project? Perhaps. He lost velocity, right? If he has a mechanical issue that could give him better command of his diminished stuff, he might be a good fit.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 02:21 PM) Even coming down from his 2012 campaign, he's still a solid player. In the fangraphs world he's a regular 3+ WAR player every year. He's a guy who a reasonable contract could be 5/$80 or more if he's on the FA market. For a team looking to compete next year with a hole at 3b, he makes a ton of sense. I'm not saying he's not good -- just that the perception is that his price is "sky high," and given all the factors I mentioned combined with the fact that the Padres lose additional leverage since they are clearly unable to extend him, I think his ultimate price will be much more reasonable than everyone seems to be predicting right now.

I think someone will pay more than the White Sox should be willing to pay to acquire him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 2, 2013 -> 02:03 PM) If they want a LH bat, the White Sox have nothing to send them. We don't have any LH hitting talent at the minor league levels. Adam Dunn is a negative value player. De Aza is the only LH hitting bat we have of any sort. This. If LH bat is a requirement in a deal, then we can consider the White Sox out of the picture.

FWIW, I think the media overstates Headley's value at this point. The reality is that it was super high after his 2012 in a market starved for 3B talent, but a down year later, Headley looks like a less productive player with just a year left until FA. His price, of course, will come down to how many teams are bidding. I think the WS could put a package together that would get the Padres to accept WITHOUT including Quintana/Garcia, it's just unlikely that some other team won't offer something better.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Dec 1, 2013 -> 01:48 PM) A Fangraphs article suggests Franks is not inducted this year, based on the HOF's unwritten rule of only electing a maximum of 3 players a year. They think Frank would be the 4th guy in. Yeah that article assumes Morris gets in. I could see it going either way. Maddux, Biggio, Glavine, Morris are threats to Thomas this year. I don't think Mussina or Kent stand a chance.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 29, 2013 -> 11:49 AM) Tyler Flowers is only 27. Which is extremely old for someone to go from a sub-replacement player to an effective Major Leaguer.

QUOTE (Jake @ Nov 20, 2013 -> 08:43 AM) This is another reason why wRC+ is such a great stat. It takes this into account. My favorite example was reading it before realizing that it adjusts for year... Juan Gonzalez had a pretty great career while it lasted. I was looking over it on FanGraphs. In 1997, in just 133 games, Juan Gon mashed 42 bombs with 131 RBI to go with his .296 average and .335 OBP. This earned him a 127 wRC+ -- which is pretty damn great, don't get me wrong -- but doesn't feel nearly high enough for those counting numbers. So now, in 2013, let's looking at Marlon Byrd. He batted .291 with a .336 OBP (I wanted someone who didn't walk a ton, like Juan Gon). He struck out quite a bit more than Juan Gon, 25% vs. 17% for Juan. Byrd hit 24 homers with 88 RBI. Nice little season, 147 games so a bit more than Juan.. Sure as hell isn't as good as 42 HR/131 RBI. Byrd's wRC+ in 2013? 136. That's not just better, but notably better. This is why it is so important to adjust for the year when we talk about statistics. This isn't a huge gap in time we're talking about, either, but the league can shift pretty quickly as we see with the 2005/2012 Sox example. Excellent post.

A

Twins just signed Nolasco. Likely completely irrelevant to our season on many levels.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Nov 26, 2013 -> 12:16 PM) Myth: JR is a good owner. QUOTE (Marty34 @ Nov 26, 2013 -> 01:13 PM) He's not a bad owner. You are such a troll

After last year, nothing these clowns will do is going to surprise me. However, I'm leaning toward the feeling that he'll get in this year. Because the whole DH controversy will force people to go back and look at his numbers in perspective -- using both current players and steroid pariahs as frames of reference -- and when you do that you can't help but be shocked both at how dominant he was in his prime and how underrated he was in his decline phase.

The reality is that I think this stuff happens all the time behind closed doors. That doesn't make it OK, but I think that it underscores the point that it's separate from baseball. Like some percentage of your favorite players have done stuff like this and since you never found out, it didn't matter to you. If the guy gets on base, I'm content to let his personal problems be his personal problems. He can be an asshole as long as it doesn't affect the team, he'll deal with the consequences of his actions just like everyone else.

Weird

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 26, 2013 -> 10:54 AM) I think it depends on how many buyers we have in our market, the level of demand we have in solely left handed power, and whether teams are willing to accept substitutes for it. For instance, assume that we solely have two packages of widgets, more widgets are better, and widgets are necessary. Package A has 10 widgets and package B has 5 widgets. Person A is willing to to pay 10 gold doubloons for widgets no matter what, while persons B and C are willing to pay 5 gold doubloons for widgets no matter what. Person A will end up with package A. That leaves package B has the only one available. It's not inconceivable for person B and/or C to increase their offer to make sure that they acquire some widgets. But let's say that person C is also willing to substitude widgets with maggles. They can instead acquire this package of 10 maggles for their initial cost of 5 gold doubloons, which in turn means person B is still only willing to pay 5 gold doubloons for package B of widgets and thus, no increase in willingness to purchase the package. I've made my belief clear that I do not believe that the Sox will draw enough interest in Dunn to trade him. I simply think he is far too limited as a player. I edited my post to correct a major typo that changed my argument completely, lol. But I think your analogy is in line with what I'm saying.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 26, 2013 -> 10:35 AM) Only if you operate under the assumption that all teams have enough power hitters, and that Adam Dunn wouldn't be considered "better" at a position than what a team currently has. Again, I think the effect of the market increases interest for Adam Dunn, not the price. Team A wasn't willing to pay market price for Player B, and so Team A accepts that its sights must be lowered to Adam Dunn. Team A isn't willing to pay more for less, just willing to accept less overall. Edited major typo

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 26, 2013 -> 09:06 AM) The higher priced the free agent market gets, the better off that Dunn's contract looks to a team looking for power in the middle of their line up. At the beginning of winter, the deal was untradable. Now I am not so convinced. I don't think this is necessarily true. Every time a high-priced FA gets signed, the one team that was willing to pay that high price is suddenly out of the market. I think there's probably some fallacy somewhere underneath the idea of "setting the market" in baseball free agency, but I don't have it all thought out. I think it's more likely that there's an effect for being the "best remaining option," but I don't know if it manifests itself in increased value, just increased interest.

Also, the Red Sox made a bunch of relatively short-term, late-offseason signings because they wanted to have a shot at being competitive without mortgaging the future. The fact that everything clicked for them is not an endorsement for mortgaging the future. If you want the White Sox to follow the Red Sox blueprint, you need Hahn to be as patient as possible. The types of offers that get players to sign this early are the offers that are on the top end of the player's value -- i.e.e the ones that require teams to mortgage the future to some degree.

QUOTE (SI1020 @ Nov 22, 2013 -> 01:28 PM) If you're into the newer stats Biggio's JAWS is 53.3, with the average HOFer 2B man at 57.0. His JAWS beats 10 other HOF 2B men including Nellie Fox. I completely agree with your assessment of the hitter Frank Thomas. Nellie Fox was pretty overrated though, wasn't he? I mean, just looking at his numbers, he was more of a "good player for a long time" than a HOFer. A few good seasons with the stick but overall a below league average hitter for his career that added a ton of defensive value. EDIT: Luis Aparicio looks like the same thing but more extreme -- even better defender and a much worse hitter. Another very valuable player but not a HOFer IMO. Now, Luke Appling, on the other hand, looks like a stud. Elite D on top of a career 115 wRC+ out of a SS. Damn.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Nov 22, 2013 -> 12:56 PM) I think people look at Prince and make up their mind about what he is, but from watching him, he is much more athletic than people give him credit for and every year, every team he has been on comments on how he shows up to camp in shape and ready to go. Sure, he is much more athletic than he seems like he should be. But he's still the worst defensive first baseman in the Majors and one of the worst runners. So his athleticism isn't amounting to much