Eminor3rd

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 03:29 PM) Gary Sanchez from the Yankees comes to mind immediately of those ranked in the top 100 pre-season (the Mariners nor Mets will trade Zunino/D'Arnaud). Other guys like Tony Sanchez and Jason Castro make some semblance of sense as well, though Castro is less prospect territory and more "turning into a stud" territory. That is one guy I would give Quintana up for and not think twice. That route is less than optimal, but it's an option. I was hoping we could snatch Blake Swihart in the Peavy deal. But I don't think we have anyone the Red Sox want now.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 03:28 PM) Zunino or buy low on Jesus Montero from the Mariners? D'Arnaud from the Mets? Those are all I can think of. But I don't see them giving them up No reason at all Zunino would be available, and I don't think there's anyone left that still thinks Montero is a C.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 03:08 PM) I'm not going to go back for specifics, but he was a very popular player here. One poster even said he asked him at a game if he would like to play in Chicago and he supposedly said yes, and there were some hopeful follow up posts that it would happen. I think everyone figured Boston really overpaid, but to say no one wanted Crawford at any price is silly and wrong. He won a Gold Glove, Silver Slugger and was 7th in the MVP vote, and the Sox could always use a CF who could lead off. He was an excellent player in Tampa, and was 28 or 29 when he became a free agent. You knew the production at some point would drop. but he fell off the charts almost immediately. Of course he was a very popular player, he was really good and getting better until he signed his contract.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 08:27 AM) Do we really know that? We don't know if he'll turn out to be the right step, but from his stats, we can be fairly confident in saying it's an ATTEMPT in the right direction.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 11:36 AM) If you took salary considerations out of it, I'd guess 15-18 teams would take a risk on Dunn over DeAza. The comment was specifically that there were 8 players WORSE than DeAza. We're not arguing about "value" or ROI or anything like that. I'm not going to argue that DeAza wasn't BETTER than Conor overall in 2013 if you take everything into consideration....but who is likely to be the better player in 2014 or 2015 or 2016? That's far from clear. Most would argue both of them should be platoon players. Probably, the White Sox are one of 5-7 teams that DeAza and Beckham would both be starters...until Semien pushes out Beckham, they can afford to give him one more season. Same thing with Thompson and DeAza/Viciedo. Maybe after the way the Cardinals played down the stretch in the World Series, they would give some serious consideration to DeAza and Ramirez in a package deal...for Wong and Martinez. Here's how I'd lay it out. Likely worse than De Aza 1. Flowers 2. Phegley 3. Dunn 4. Viciedo 5. Jordan Danks 6. Beckham 7. Gillaspie 8. Keppinger 9. L. Garcia Likely better than De Aza 1. A. Garcia (hopefully) 2. Ramirez 3. Abreu Who knows 1. Semien 2. Konerko? You can argue a couple specific names either way, depending on how you are choosing to value contributions (upside, cost, whatever), the point isn't that there are exactly 8 or 7 or 11 or whatever players worse than De Aza, it's that there are many players that are good bets to contribute less than De Aza next year. Therefore, if you are concerned about winning in 2014, replacing De Aza should NOT be your #1 priority. That is my point.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:29 AM) I agree with you on the rest too. Just in case you wondered... That's all I'm saying. It's not that De Aza is awesome or irreplaceable, it's just that he is not even close to the biggest problem we have.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 02:42 AM) We had exactly 3 hitters who amassed more than a WAR of 1.0 last season. THREE f***ING HITTERS!!! One of those was Rios who isn't even here anymore. Just because he was one of the tallest midgets doesn't mean him a tall person. No, I totally get you here. You can argue that everyone on the team sucks and so they should all go if possible and you can make a lot of sense -- but this guy is arguing that the Sox need to be spending more money on big free agent signings so the team can be better next year. You don't add a couple nice players and then get rid of of one of your best to offset it, even if he isn't THAT good. There's just no way you can argue that the team should get better NEXT year by losing De Aza at all costs when there are 8 WAY worse players that should obviously be replaced first.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 04:48 AM) Really??? How many games did this dufus cost us with bad defense, bad baserunning and overall being stupid? He's Carlos Lee part Deux. Tell me what was CLee's WAR in a sox uni? And I recall vividly how 95% on this board wanted him gone... Think outside the sabermetrics box sometimes.... How many games did everyone else cost us just from playing like s*** constantly? His baserunning errors seem like louder mistakes to you, but the fact of the matter is the dude hit better than almost everyone, stole a lot of bases at a solid success rate, and actually played better defense even after his errors than the other inept players that were beside him. How many games did Viciedo/Flowers/Beckham/Keppinger/Phegley/etc. cost us from just getting f***ing out like EVERY time they came to the plate? You don't have to use sabermetrics to come to this conclusion, just look at what happened. I don't know why 4-5 stupid baserunning plays in the midst of a solid season makes him worse than the near constant failure that plagued almost everyone else on the roster.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 09:11 PM) What's that supposed to mean? I'm tired of reminding people that De Aza was one of our top 2 or 3 best position players last year. You can't say, "The Sox need to sign more than just Abreu" and then also say, "#1 priority should be getting rid of De Aza." Those two are mutually exclusive. If you want to win next year, then the #1 priority should be getting rid of Beckham, Keppinger, Flowers, Phegley, Viciedo, Gillaspie, or Dunn becuase every single one of those were demonstrably worse than De Aza last year.

Holy crap

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 04:40 PM) OMG TAKE BECKHAM PLEASE! He looks like he could be Derek Jeter but better.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 03:47 PM) You can still be active and trade some people too. Getting rid of DeAza should be priority #1

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 04:28 PM) Sale Danks Johnson Quintana Santiago Rienzo Beck That's 4 to 5 questions marks

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 04:13 PM) I'd really like him to start at Charlotte because I don't want to see him rushed past that level...but I won't be mad if the Sox find a way to trade someone in the right deal and a spot becomes clear for him. Same here

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 04:11 PM) At the very least...the White Sox really did need at least one veteran in the bullpen if they're going to run out there 5 or more other young guys, and Lindstrom is a guy they're already comfortable with. We can call him a coach as well Assistant BP coach could be a good nickname for him

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 03:04 PM) I think Linstrom is a luxury more than anything else. $3.5m for a glorified one-out righty guy is a lot for a team rebuilding. I don't think that's true at all. You can't get a veteran player that's decent at what he does for any less than that. And our bullpen has almost NO veterans.

$3.5m = less than one WAR on the open market. No brainer to me.

We give up draft picks to sign QO free agents, guys.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 02:45 PM) But even the most locked in saberheads admit defensive WAR at the very least, is a work in progress. So that measurement can be off. I just wonder why the Angels don't seem to like this guy very much if he is destined to be so good. They paid big money to keep him off the field. Right, but the knock on defensive metrics is that they take large samples in order to become predictive. Guys with long track records of substantially positive numbers aren't considered to be off. It also helps when the scouts echo the same types of praise. I wonder why they wanted to keep him off the field too --but I wondered that about Napoli as well.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 02:42 PM) LOL, such as.....??? Take more walks? Oh wait, Parra does that better. Strike out less?? Oh wait, Parra does that better. Hit for average? Oh wait, that's Parra too. Get on base? Nope, still Parra. How about play defense. Naaaah, Parra again. How about hit homeruns? Nope. How about hit doubles? Oh wait, no. Maybe he has a better throwing arm? Nope. How about hit triples? HEY THERE IT IS!! Steal bases? Yes! That's two! So yeah, Bourjos can do "LITERALLY" everything Parra can do, and better......except he can't. Oh wait, he does hit triples at a higher rate, and he's a better baserunner. Oh, and Bourjos is right handed, while Parra is a lefty, and we all know how this team is dying for right-handed hitters, so I guess ya got me there. I think you missed some sarcasm.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 02:04 PM) Not all runs are created equal, so I disagree with your "a run saved is a run scored". Balance is a critical part of winning games and our offense was arguably the worst in baseball last year. Therefore, medium-sized investments in the offense can lead to large returns, resulting in more wins than simply the sum of the WAR we'd be adding. Now, I'm not arguing that improving the defense is pointless, I just think you can get a lot more bang for your buck (or talent) by adding to the offense, especially if we can improve the team's OBP. I don't believe Bourjos helps us there despite his career high .333 OBP last year. Also, you're hyping him up as a "3-4 win player in a full season" and yet after 3 major league seasons he's only had one 3+ WAR season which happens to be 3 years ago. Durability matters and if he can't stay healthy he'll never be a 3/4 WAR player and you'll be relying on replacement-level talents for two thirds of the year. BTW, what happened to his defensive numbers this past year? It appears they slipped quite a bit. Given that his value is so heavily tied to his defense is this a concern to you? I never said htat all runs are created equal, but when your team is horrendous at both offense and defense, getting them on either side helps the same. He was a part time player the past couple seasons because of roster, not injury EDIT: The reason you look at WAR at this point is because you cannot possibly predict event sequencing going into the season. A run saved is absolutely equal to a run scored -- it's the context that makes it true that not all runs are created equal. That's an entirely different thing.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) If you're sending over Danks, you're most likely picking up a lot of his contract, so now we lose 2 starting pitchers including a good young one and a Gordon Beckham and we're just getting another Gordon Beckham back? I don't understand that all. I would assume we'd take the cost savings from Danks and invest in a short-term reclamation project or two. Worst case, we definitely have the bodies to fill two spots.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 01:55 PM) His 2.7 year WAR was 2012 ,it was 2.2 in 2013 according to fangraphs. Sorry, going off of memory there. Still, the point remains.

QUOTE (bruni @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 12:46 PM) Remember when I started this post, I never imagined trading one of our starters - one for one - for Bourjos. I proposed trading a starter for Bourjos AND one of the Angel catchers - Conger or Iannetta. For a young, proven MLB #3/4 starter under team control, a return of Bourjos AND a major league experienced catcher is warrented. I also wanted the Angels' to throw in a minor leaguer to boot, so I am well aware of the premium needed to trade young, controllable pitching. That said, let's look at a few key facts: 1. De Aza, who is on the wrong side of 30, just produced what is likely his best offensive season and what did it get the White Sox? 99 losses. To keep him, the WSox will need to anti up between $3 and $4.5 million through arbitration. For all the offensive production, the countless baserunning errors and other related brain dead plays exposed De Aza as who he is - a replacement level starter who hurts teams in the long run more than he helps. He should be long gone off this roster in 2014. 2. No way the White Sox will be without Alexi or Viciedo in 2014. Did you see the Abreu press conference yeaterday? No way the WSox take away the internal Cuban suport group for their new prize Abreu. WAY too much invested financially and otherwise for the WSox to do anything to compromise getting the very best of Abreu. Jose will have a hard enough time transitioning over - the WSox are going to give him as much support as possible which means Alexi and Viciedo stay through 2014. 3. Borjous has had tough luck with freak injuries but he is a gem. His defense helps cover for Viciedo in left and he is more than capable of matching the best of De Aza's offensive numbers from 2013 if starting every day. I have personally seen him play and practice in Arizona during spring training and the kid can HIT. He was consistantly out distancing home runs hit the same day by Hamilton and Poujos and his speed and pure baseball instincts are miles ahead of De Aza, Danks or any other pretender on the White Sox current 40 man roster. He is for real and the Angels are going to regret giving up on him. Let their loss be our gain! All trades have risk, but it is clear that Hahn will not be shy about taking more risks and more action to improve the team. I agree that they lilely have just one bite of the trade a starter apple. I also believe that getting in return a potential gold glove center fielder just entering his prime and on the cheap ($1.1 mil) and for 3 years of team control PLUS acquiring a catcher like Conger that you can rotate with the winner of the Flowers/Phegley bake off to be the back up is filling two big holes. Now only 3rd base is the glaring weakness but a poi poi combo platter of Semien, Keppenger, Gallespie may be the best the WSox can do for 2014 unless something else falls into their lap. 1. Borjous 2. Semien 3. Garcia 4. Abreu 5. Dunn 6. Viciedo 7. Alexi 8. Conger 9. Beckham World Series/Playoff bound - not a chance. Better than the misery of 2013 - absolutely and now with several players entering prime years and upside potential. Yeah, De Aza is not a replacement level starter, he's coming off a 2.7 WAR season, which was the second highest total on our team (among position players). No idea why people are so anxious to hang the brunt of those 99 losses on De Aza. Almost every other player on our team was worse.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 01:46 PM) I don't disagree, but just curious as to why you would be so confident in Lawrie and so certain that Beckham won't ever come close to meeting his potential? I get it that Beckham has sucked for 4 years now, but Lawrie seems to be going down the same path... You're right, I just think Lawrie hasn't burnt out yet. He's how I felt about Beckham two years ago, haha. But maybe Jays fans feel the same about Lawrie. Watching guys rot in front of your eyes gets old.