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Forte is such an underrated blocker

Have anything to do with his shooting form? It should not. If rust is holding him back, it shouldn't impact something he's worked on for the past 2 years. This is just something I will believe it when I see it, right now it just sounds like one of those Rose talk with confidence thing.

So much for that improved outside shot he's been trying to convince people he now has. It's not a matter of finding his timing or rust, his form is just bad. He's already have a few air balls in 6 games so far.

One thing I haven't hear people talked about yet. Chris Sale's pitches per PA. It's at 4.04 pitches / PA, which is ranks 88th out of 94 qualifying pitchers, and I would bet that number is driven up by the last 6 starts or so.

I think Abreu has gone Joey Votto in the second half

The best thing for the Sox is probably Detroit resigning VMart to a 4 year or more deal for over $60 mil. They already have a lot of money committed to Miggy and Verlander who will soon under perform the value of their contract. Add in a bad contract to VMart and perhaps to Scherzer or Price, they would soon become the Yankees of this division.

Hey Rock, have you been hearing anything on Viciedo's future? At this point, I think it can go either way. But personally, I've seen enough of him and is not confident that he can ever put together a strong season.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 5, 2014 -> 12:22 AM) Avasail is going to be everyday next year, bank on it. Second, they will spend, but im not convinced its next year. The rotation is an issue however and I dont know if they are going to see if they have it in the system or if they have to trade or buy it. Hahn would obviously like to fill the pen through fringe trades like he has recently as well as a garbage heap pickup but the rotation is going to be difficult to patch. I'm hearing there is a ton of payroll room, a TON. But Hahn is reluctant to do a KW and spend money horribly with a team that finishes 10 games out of the division. That is LITERALLY the best thing anyone on here could have ever said.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 5, 2014 -> 12:10 AM) They'll test the waters but it makes zero sense for the Sox IMO. They think they may have the offense, the pitching on the other hand..... Also, I believe they want to keep Alexei for awhile Good to know. I am fine with Alexei for another year or two until Anderson is ready. We obviously have a hole at DH, and as fans we'd like to think we have a chance with the best free agent DH out there. But reality is harsh. We have bigger holes in the bullpen and could use another free agent starter, and perhaps an outfielder. I just don't see a reason for Martinez to leave Detroit, and whoever signs him will be paying for his production this year, which he will have a hard time maintaining for the latter part of the new contract. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives out there that I am sure the Sox will look at.

There is a 0.1% chance Victor Martinez is coming to Chicago. You're more likely to see Konerko playing for the Sox next year than VMart.

8 Team PPR League QB - Brees RB - Charles RB - Vereen WR - Julio Jones WR - Andre Johnson TE - Gronk W/R Sanders K - Crosby DEF - Denver Bench QB - Cutler RB - Ray Rice RB - Pierre Thomas WR - Kendall Wright WR - Maclin TE - Olsen First time in an 8 team league, all the teams were stacked, I would say I came away with a pretty good team.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 4, 2014 -> 04:02 PM) The biggest reason why I didn't put Hawkins in the Up category is because the home run total was disappointing to me. He did a great job improving his K rate (while walking a decent number of times), but I think he needs to be in the 30 home run range to regain his above average prospect status. He's likely never going to have a strong hit tool, so the power better carry him. You look into the power numbers too much. Power is usually the last thing to come for a prospect. You can't keep swinging for the fences if you keep striking out 40% of the time. He's second in the league in HR despite being almost 3 fulls years younger than the average player in Carolina League. Like others mentioned, the fact that he cut down his K% by nearly 10% and improved his BB% by 3.5% is definitely encouraging. Overall, he didn't have a remarkable year, but his OPS did increase by .150, and that a step toward the right direction. Stock up for me.

Sanchez also has the highest floor of the 3. At present, he's at least a solid defensive 2B, can hit .270, and swipe 15 bags.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 2, 2014 -> 09:05 PM) Joshua is getting thrashed here, maybe for good reason, but I do agree with him on something. Danks is doing exactly what you'd figure, which is what Peavy did after his injury year too. The real test to see if he's back is 2015, and I'd be even money he's significantly better next year. Marginally? Yes, just because he's awful overall this year. Significantly? Highly doubt it. Peavy was injured in 2010 and was already back in shape by 2012. Danks was injured in 2012 and we thought he would regain his form by 2014, he did briefly in the beginning of the year, but actually fell apart down the stretch. There has to be a point when you realize a pitcher can long pitch like he used to, for Danks, we are at that point.

The notion that Q is not a 2 is valid to some extent. His stuff is average and he doesn't have a true swing and miss pitch. His swinging strike rate is at 7.8%, which ranks 66 out of 95 qualified pitchers this year. With his stuff, hitters foul off a lot of his pitches and runs his pitch count up, and as a result he starts to reach his pitch limit around the 5th or 6th inning, that's why we often see him implode during that span. He should not be your second starter in a playoff series, especially with the added pressure. But given that, I still don't think we should trade him. He's got one of the best contracts in the league, and if we can put a legit #2 starter between him and Sale, that would be one of the best 1-2-3's in the league. I can live with him being a #3 with that contract. And we may already have that #2 starter in the system, and he can deliver as early as late 2015.

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Sep 2, 2014 -> 03:54 PM) No that's whats free agency is for. Im trading Quintana, with the thought that Rodon will take his spot in the rotation some point during the season. I would sign Brandon McCarthy to a contract and he would be my new number 2 going forward in 2015, and I would sign Brett Anderon to a short term contract (2 years max) that is also heavy on incentives, and if he stays healthy and pitches well I would flip him at the deadline. ROTATION: Sale, McCarthy, Danks, Noesi, Anderson. 1. That's maybe how you would run a team in MLB 2K but not in real life baseball. 2. Let's even say if you got Anderson on a a good deal and he's proven he can stay healthy, you would want to stash him for better value the year following (teams won't pay high prices for a fragile pitcher who's proven he can stay healthy for half a year), or keep him simply because he's good and you are playing to win. 3. It doesn't make sense to start Rodon in the bullpen next year. You'd rather start him in the minors to stretch him out, and let him work on his offspeed stuff, something he doesn't get to do as a reliever. Not to mention it goes against the notion of saving his service time.

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 07:00 AM) You still don't quite have it. If he starts with the team next year, he will not be Super 2. To qualify for Super 2 status a player must have more than 2 years, but less than 3 years service time and rank in the top 22% of all 2 years players regarding service time. If he is with the team next year opening day, he would not have enough service time after his 2nd year to qualify for Super 2 as he would just have 2 years and 1 month. Here are the ways his time with the White Sox could be laid out. If he starts with the team next year regardless of whether he comes up in September: 2015: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2016: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2017: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2018: Arbitration 1 2019: Arbitration 2 2020: Arbitration 3 2021: Free Agent If he comes up in September and doesn't start with the team next year but gets called up BEFORE his Super 2 cutoff (August-ish): 2015: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2016: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2017: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2018: Arbitration 1 (Super 2) 2019: Arbitration 2 2020: Arbitration 3 2021: Arbitration 4 2022: Free Agent If he comes up in September and doesn't start with the team next year but gets called up AFTER his Super 2 cutoff (August-ish): 2015: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2016: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2017: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2018: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2019: Arbitration 1 2020: Arbitration 2 2021: Arbitration 3 2022: Free Agent If he doesn't come up in September and doesn't start with the team next year but gets called up BEFORE his Super 2 cutoff (July-ish): 2015: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2016: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2017: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2018: Arbitration 1 (Super 2) 2019: Arbitration 2 2020: Arbitration 3 2021: Arbitration 4 2022: Free Agent If he doesn't come up in September and doesn't start with the team next year but gets called up AFTER his Super 2 cutoff (July-ish): 2015: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2016: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2017: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2018: Team Control (near minimum salary) 2019: Arbitration 1 2020: Arbitration 2 2021: Arbitration 3 2022: Free Agent While it may seem like a good idea to hold off on calling him up until after opening day next year because you push his FA date out until 2022, a good portion of that extra year will be spent in the minors and you will end up paying him a hell of lot if he qualifies for Super 2 because of the 4 years of arbitration. If he doesn't qualify for Super 2, you're waiting until the season is more than half over so he spent the majority of the time in that "extra" year pitching in the minors. I think the best thing to do is just call him up in September to let him get his feet wet, start him next year with the big league team to go through the growing pains and then in 2016 we should be ready to compete and Rodon will have a year plus experience and should be ready to really help the team. So if I am reading this correctly, in the scenario of whether we call up Rodon or not in September, it doesn't really change his service time as long as we don't start him next year? This seems to be against the rationale that the team is not calling up Rodon and so his service clock won't start this year. (Also note that I along with most people think that he will get called up in June, which would be before the Super 2 cut off and we won't get that extra year of team control)

We know he has a big fastball and he can strike guys out. I am just happy that he didn't have the jitters of pitching in AA for the first time and walked a bunch of guys. Pretty promising start.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 30, 2014 -> 08:33 PM) One irony? The O's have 3 quality OF's and a couple days ago someone here suggested signing one of their OF/DH types, Delmon Young, this offseason was a good idea. Wow, still going with this? ADA will not being taking AB's from Delmon Young. Young will still be their primary DH. The Orioles needed a 4th outfielder, their 4th OF was Steve Pearce, but now he's playing 1B with Chris Davis shifted to 3B after Machado going down. Young is still the starting DH for a first place team for the record, and he's holding his own.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 30, 2014 -> 02:01 PM) Most use FanGraphs. I used BaseballReference, went to Tyler Flowers' batting page, moused over "splits", hit "2014", and it gave me his monthly stats. I had to add his hits and divide them by ABs, though. Or you can just go to his BR gamelog, click on a game as the start date, then click on a second game as his end date

Perhaps the Sox are looking at the bigger picture here, knocking Scherzer around and knock his contract next year into their price range? /green

If Sale gets his s*** together he still has a shot at the Cy Young. Felix has been pretty bad the last 3 starts.

QUOTE (BaconOnAStick @ Aug 30, 2014 -> 01:02 AM) Baserunning, sure. I'll give you that. But this PREMIUM DEFENSIVE POSITION REPLACEMENT LEVEL crap has to stop. Any player who can hit like Abreu holds tremendous value, I'd go so far as to say unequaled value. Abreu is the only player, regardless of position slugging above .600. Not only that, he's the only one even close. He's the only player in baseball that has even a remote chance of an OPS over 1.000. He leads MLB in wOBA and WRC+ too, lack of baserunning and all. It doesn't matter what position Abreu plays, he is cramming much more offense than anyone else in baseball into one spot in the lineup. There are plenty of teams that are not getting Abreu like production out of their 4 and 5 hitters combined (totally unverified claim). Don't give me the "well you see Trout plays center and the average center fielder can't hit near as well as the average first...", Abreu so far out classes what anyone in baseball does with the bat arguments over positional semantics are worthless. I think there a bit too much homerism in this post. The difference between Abreu and Trout's wOBA and wRC+ is miniscue compared to the difference between their WAR, despite the fact that Trout actually has a -7 UZR this year, and also the gap between their individual team success is also significant. The media will also sway toward Trout because he's overdue for the award, while Abreu hasn't really been getting any hype as the best player in baseball. I expect Trout to win by a landslide, unless Abreu somehow wins the Triple Crown

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 09:34 AM) This is how I would describe a "run producer" as well. I still prefer the term "good hitter." Also, against RHP - which is all I've ever advocated using him against - his wRC+ is 123. You prefer higher, but that'd be right around 51st in the majors. It'd be nice to have someone better hitting cleanup, or to add another big bat, but if he's hitting 5th or 6th for you against righties, you can still have a pretty good lineup. Unless he's brought back at a insanely good deal next year, something around $5 mil. Paying a number 6 hitter who can neither play defense nor hit lefties any more than that would be a bad deal. Also, we do not have a lot position player who are "good hitters" that you can put at the cleanup spot. Deploying a DH who's only an "average hitter" would put more pressure on Hahn to add a catcher or LF who's also a great hitter, which would be more expensive.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 09:36 AM) Unless you're willing to bat Gillaspie 3rd, you have to convince Robin it's ok to have back to back lefties. Good luck. I think we will see Semien getting a lot of looks at #2 in September. If he gets on base at the rate he did in Tripe A, he will be an ideal fit. I'd like to see Eaton Semien Abreu Gillaspie Garcia Dunn Ramirez Flowers Sanchez