Eminor3rd

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2013 -> 09:47 AM) And on top of it, if you start to look at teams who will spend money, most have their 1Bs that they are committed to. Boston looks like the best fit, since Napoli has been pretty pedestrian after May. But yeah, this is one where the Cubs/Dodgers won't be in a position to blow everyone away this time because of their incumbents.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 12, 2013 -> 09:45 AM) TBH, I'm not so sure that's true. Well, I'm not either. I just know we don't have any of them. Ramirez/Viciedo got peanuts compared to what this guy is going to get. I'm just tempering my expectations, I guess.

This makes almost too much sense on paper, given the Sox clear need for offense, a first baseman, players that will be able to contribute for the next 5 years, and something to get the payroll over $50m. That said, there's no precedent for them going after a guy like this, so I wouldn't be surprised if we don't even have a chance on him. I hope we do though. Something like 6/60 would be the richest deal to one of these guys by far, and even if he was a AAAA hitter, the $10m per year wouldn't kill you. This is a good fit, methinks.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 12, 2013 -> 08:09 AM) Wasn't Jose Abreu the guy who was supposed to make Puig look like crap? Cuba was supposed to have one legendary ballplayer left and I think that was his name. What are the rules here, how would we have to do this? Does he fall under the international signing caps? Do we basically get "him and no other international signings for 2 years" if we offer him big money? He's older than 23, so there would be no restrictions. This is the guy that has all of the Cuban homerun records and stuff. Got a lot of press when Cespedes defected because every time someone wanted to make a claim about Cespedes' monster numbers, it was alwways "and he has the most xxxxxxx of any player in Cuba (except Abreu)!!!"

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 11, 2013 -> 07:41 PM) They'll be competitive quicker by not signing these guys next year. This^ is the major point. The team is bad, and we have no choice but to eat it for a while to rebuild a core. Fortunately, it doesn't look like it's going to take more than a season or two, but if we refuse to suck it up, we're just going to be middling pretenders in the mean time and push the real window out even further.

The payroll is interesting, because it would be hard to believe that the FO would run out there without bringing it up to at least $70m or so, even though no one expects us to compete. Makes you wonder if the will go for someone like McCann if they feel like he can take some ABs at 1B/DH as he gets older and no impact bat in the system that projects at 1B in the near future. Then again: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/08/jose...-from-cuba.html

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 10:20 PM) This is the most ridiculous move you can make anymore. Why is Axelrod brought in in these situations let alone still with this team Because we're like 30-80

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 05:35 PM) What channel is this on? Oh, nevermind. Doesn't start until 7

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 05:36 PM) That said, there's NO REASON to think we can't get similar contributions from Quintana or Santiago or Johnson or even Rienzo at a fraction of the cost of the Peavy contract. Agreed? Jake Peavy was pitching well this year, but not QUITE as well as 2012 in the first half and then you have the injury situation flaring up (yet again). The area where we have to agree for the moment is replacing another outfielder (if Viciedo does move, which is far from certain at this point). Still, you can easily argue that Garcia can equal Rios (eventually, or even in the short-term), right? It's the same arguments we made about Flowers vs. AJ in the offseason, Keppinger vs. 600 OPS from that position in 2012, etc. Danks can be replaced, but we can't trade him. Reed/Jones replaced Santos. We need to replace Thornton and Crain, of course. It all comes down to Alexei Ramirez again...and whether L. Garcia or Semien can hold down the position. You can still argue "competitiveness" in 2014 with the 1B situation repaired, the bullpen and the catching position. No, I don't think can argue competitiveness. IF we can replace that production, we're replacing the production that led to the second or third worst team in the Majors. If you give up current value for a chance at the same value, usually you were in a bad financial situation. If these guys were pending free agents, then you take the best deal possible. But they weren't.

What channel is this on?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 05:13 PM) But there really were no trades of significance except for ours for the most part, so that effectively negates this year from the sample No definitely -- like I said, maybe the game changed this year. It's just frustrating to see because he gave up a ton of ML talent on reasonable contracts for much less talent in return, and a bunch of money that doesn't look like it can be spent under this CBA. That's all I'm saying.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 04:58 PM) But there is legitimately no obvious way that they were going to translate "Spending more money" into additional talent beyond the returns they got. There's a reason why literally zero teams did what you're insisting the Sox should have done - pick up more money for one of these guys to get a top flight prospect added...because no teams are doing that. They haven't done it this year, but they've done it in the past. Maybe teams decided to stop being willing to take money for prospects starting this year, but reports of the Pirates being frustrated with the Sox not being willing to part with any cash seem to suggest otherwise. Again, Beltran trade, Wandy trade, Dempster trade -- there are precedents for this every year except (admittedly) this year.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 04:48 PM) You should have kept reading. The plan should be to have a plan. I'm not sure what Hahn's is. But he's clearing money when there's a very weak FA class, which was alluded to in Jim's article you keep linking to. There are caps on the draft and international signings. There simply is nowhere to spend all this money in the immediate term. Accepting that, and looking at our available resources, it becomes clear that we do not have the talent in-house, nor the supply in the open market to drastically improve anytime soon. If you accept that, then what we should do is what the team across town is doing - converting current resources to future resources. The goal is build an organization that can challenge for championships consistently. This -- we went into the deadline with the best arm and best bat available, in a situation where there were more buyers and fewer sellers than ever before, and we very clearly prioritized salary relief over all else, despite the fact that both Rios and Peavy were controllable and thus trade-able over the winter and next year, and despite the fact that we already had almost no long-term financial commitments and are a large market team capable of sustaining payrolls of $90-100m. At this point it's just very unclear where that money is going to go, as there are extremely strict caps on spending it on amateur talent and the fact that we're trading our best players means it makes little sense to spend big in free agency. Financial flexibility is a great thing, but our organization needs nothing more than it needs young talent, and that financial flexibility can'y buy us much young talent under this CBA.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 04:39 PM) And in 6-7 years we can see what they actually get out of those guys. We might well get more out of Zapata (viva!) than they get out of any of them. Right but that's how you build a player development system that will provide sustainable success. You spend money flooding it with talent at all levels. If you're not spending those dollars on the MLB roster, that's the best place to put them.

QUOTE (Wedge @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 04:25 PM) Unless I'm mistaken, Bryant, Baez, Almora, and Soler were draft picks? In the "trade a starting pitcher for prospects sweepstakes of 2013" I like Garcia over Olt. I'll grant you Alcantara as an international signing. Not seeing where the Cubs spending willy nilly in trades is making a difference. They apparently didn't get the memo about the international signing cap this year, blowing away the cap even after making trades to acquire as much cap space as possible. The penalty for doing so is substantial taxes on the the signings. They got a ton of talent, though -- most of the consensus top players IIRC.

QUOTE (Wedge @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 04:25 PM) Unless I'm mistaken, Bryant, Baez, Almora, and Soler were draft picks? In the "trade a starting pitcher for prospects sweepstakes of 2013" I like Garcia over Olt. I'll grant you Alcantara as an international signing. Not seeing where the Cubs spending willy nilly in trades is making a difference. No, Soler was a substantial international signing.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 04:05 PM) What happened already? Why is Miguel Gonzalez already a bad deal? Well, the latest news is that the deal is going to be null because he has elbow problems.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 03:54 PM) There are players that are not subjected to the cap. Right, the guys that the Dodgers and Cubs keep gobbling up by taking insane risks. The problem is that for every Yasiel Puig or Yu Darvish, there's a Gerardo Concepcion, Kaz Matsui, Miguel Gonzalez, etc.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 03:52 PM) Which Texas farmhand was available for $8.5 million? If you are going to post these outrageous claims back them up. Texas" farm isn't the greatest right now either. I don't know, but Rios is owed $17m, and picking up the entire tab would still leave us with a small market payroll next year and would have gotten us a better prospect than Eduardo Escobar 2.0. I can't tell you was available, but it isn't unprecedented. Off the top of my head, the Mets paid Beltran's salary to send him to the Giants for Zack Wheeler.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 03:44 PM) Except they've never done this in the last 30 years, as an approach. It's frustrating to watch the Cubs or the Dodgers amass talent in this way...but the White Sox are highly unlikely to change course right now. The fact of the matter is that DET is head and shoulders above the rest of the AL Central and you're still going to have a VERY difficult time getting Top 1-2-3 prospects back from other organizations even if you eat a ton of salary. The best young player the Marlins got from the massive offseason Blue Jays trade was Hechavaria, for example. And yet this Garcia kid might turn out to be a lot better player in the end. Marisnick and Sanchez are both substantially better prospects than Hechavarria, and that trade was ALL about salary relief anyway. Garcia might turn out better, yes, but he's never been considered a better prospect than those two. I agree that they've never done it like that, I'm just saying it's frustrating. Hahn keeps feeding the media this BS line about how the money is going into draft and international spending -- really, the $50m he just saved? When International signing is capped at ~$2.5m and the draft pool will be ~$7m? If you won't earmark that much money into amateur talent acquisition already in today's MLB, you're not seriously even trying to build a winning organization. The only place to put it is in free agency, where there are two to three impact talents at most these days, and even signing two of them wouldn't put this garbage team over the top. I am awaiting the fruition of the master plan -- I understand i need to see what happens in the offseason -- but it looks really underwhelming thusfar.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 03:33 PM) Not really. Trading Rios for a quality return, which is what we got, was by far the best of the options unless the organization is fully ready to give up on Viciedo. This trade makes it clear they're not. He's not losing his spot to Garcia. It seems very unlikely that Hahn couldn't have got a substantially better prospect if he was willing to pay even half of Rios' contract. And for a team currently scheduled to have a $46m payroll next year, that is frustrating. The Cubs have been doing this for two years and already their future looks extremely bright depsite having way more tearing down to do than us, and yet our front office won't spend a dime on minor league talent. The CBA won't let us spend this $60m payroll disparity on young talent, so where is it going to go? Kendry Morales and the like? Whatever -- that's a recipe for a middling AL Central team for the next eight years. Throw every dime you spend on Morales at getting some actual impact talent from teams you trade with and we may actually have a shot at winning in the next 2-3 years.

Also, all of this is assuming we're the only group of people that see value in Morales on a short-term deal. He's having a bounceback year -- there will be plenty of teams bidding. Very unlikely he doesn't get a 2 year offer.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 03:20 PM) Who do we need that OF slot for now? If Rios wasn't moved I'd have thought that was an option yes, but who is going to take the starting OF slot from Viciedo now unless we sign someone? Jordan Danks? Blake Tekotte? Trayce might force one of the OF's out of the way at some point but he's not nearly there yet. That's what it looks like at this moment, but we're talking about all of next year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 03:17 PM) Morales is a great fit because seriously, who would he be blocking? Andy Wilkins? Paul Konerko's corpse on a 1 year deal? Viciedo to DH/1B with Dunn opens up a slot in the OF.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 9, 2013 -> 03:15 PM) This is not good. L. Garcia sounds like a legit prospect. I'd think the Astros would claim him. Why not? Another cheap body in the system?? Because the Rangers would just pull him back then and we wouldn't get him until the season is over. The Astros will know that he's on waivers because of the trade to us, it would just be a dick move and a waste of everyone's time to claim him knowing there's no chance to get him.