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The Kanny roster this year had been largely uninspiring, but I think that's going to change next year. As it looks like now, Zangari, Zavala, Adolfo, Cruz, Rodriguez and Lassiter on the hitting side, and Solorzano, Comito, Stephens and Erwin on the pitching side should be on that team.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Aug 23, 2015 -> 07:13 PM) So a lack of doubles means Saladino does not have good speed on the base paths? Ive seen Saladino running the base paths and he does have good speed. His lack of doubles comes from his bat, not his lack of speed. Also, Saladino was 25/27 in steals for Charlotte this year so yeah, he does in fact have good speed. Not Micah Johnson speed but speed nonetheless. Thank you. And considering he's playing 3B right now, he's got very good speed for the position.

QUOTE (BamaDoc @ Aug 23, 2015 -> 04:29 PM) The problem is if you drop Danks or LaRoche etc you owe them their money and get nothing for them. Yep, if they are under big league contract they are part of your 40 man

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 23, 2015 -> 01:13 PM) The argument is pretty simple. The White Sox have the weakest lineup in the big leagues. They will not win unless they can upgrade their lineup. The White Sox have excess pitching. The White Sox have spent their last 2 first round draft picks on pitcher in addition to trading for pitchers (Montas) and picked up other pitchers in trades. Trading from our strength to partially fill our weakness makes general sense. Finding an actual match is obviously a challenge, but "A great rotation and a terrible lineup" leads to a season like the one we're watching right now. We also had the one of the worst defense in the league. If we could get a full season of good defense at 3B, full season of Sanchez at 2B, and get a defensive RF who could also bring a bat, yes I am talking about J Hey or J Up, our defense would immensely improve. Gillaspie, Micah, and Avi were some of the worst fielders at their position this year. Great defense would further help our pitching, that plus assuming Rodon would take a big leap in his second year, we might suddenly be a favorite to a WC spot without comprising our pitching strength.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 23, 2015 -> 01:02 PM) I think the key comparison between Saladino and all the other names you mentioned is that Saladino doesn't seem to have a bat that can carry himself at 3b. Sub-.700 OPS when he was at AA over several seasons, .746 career OPS in the minors, .704 this year before getting called up from Charlotte. If you just assume that guys will take a step down offensively in the big leagues, then you might hope for him to be a .675 OPS or maybe slightly better guy in the big leagues. Even if he's a solid defender and a solid baserunner, that's a below average bat at that position and very much so. On the other hand, that's an average to above average bat at SS. If Saladino is going to be looked at as a 3b for the next couple years, we need to find some "very much above average bats" somewhere else. Jose Abreu alone isn't enough to offset having this many weak, defense-first players in the lineup - basically right now the only 2 above average offensive players we have in our lineup out of 9 are Abreu and Eaton. We simply aren't going to win with 1 average offensive player, 2 above average offensive layers, and 6 below average offensive players in our lineup. We need offense somewhere. If there is an upgrade at 3B who could bring a better bat and also above average D at the position, then I am all for it. But in the mean time, there's no one who fit the criteria in free agency. Chris Davis is exactly the type of player we need to avoid, and everyone else aren't good enough to be long term solutions. Pitching is our strength currently, but we're losing Shark this year and Danks is done after next season. We aren't in a position to trade Q for a position player by any means. And I am not sure what kind of return you could get for just Micah and/or Montas. All in all, Saladino isn't a bad fall back option, plus he's making league minimum, so that should give us more flexibility to go after upgrades in other positions.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Aug 23, 2015 -> 11:35 AM) I don't know the orgs well enough to say. But overpaying for a career year will hurt the team. if you have to suck it up with Saladino, so be it. At least the D is there. I'd like to see Sanchez get work at short in September. See if Micah has improved his D...his bat should really work at 2nd. Go for improvements in the OF, DH and C instead. The Sox have 5 or so areas in which they could improve; there have to be young players somewhere. Someone mentioned a signing of Zobrist - that's an idea. Won't cost players. On some level, Saladino could be the "good, young 3B" you want us to trade for, one that we won't have to trade Q for. As you mentioned, at least the D is there, and the bat has some potential, and we know he's got good speed on the base paths. Personally, I'd like to give him at least half a season more at 3B before moving him to a utility role. The other issue is there is virtually no other "good, young 3B" available for trade who isn't an all star caliber player. Moustakas, Duffy, Bryant, and Seager fit the criteria, but those teams aren't looking to trade them.

Here's the thing, I think Saladino can handle playing SS or 3B alright defensively, but I would give him every chance to stay at 3rd unless we could acquire an all star caliber 3B in the offseason. We have quite a few options at SS going into next season, there' no reason to move the only guy in the org with potential to be a regular and making the league minimum right now unless, again you're acquiring a significant upgrade. You could save the $10 mil by declining the option to Alexei, that $10 mil won't necessary get you a better player at 3B than Tyler in today's market.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 06:14 AM) I think it is probably a little too early for that. Most top-100 prospect lists really do not include guys playing in the DSL for consideration. A recent example would be Rafael Devers of the Red Sox. I think he was still in DSL last year and just made the top 100 this year. It's not likely, but I think he will get some consideration, considering the position he plays and the likelihood of him stick there, and his floor is relatively high given his ability to hit for average.

Love Beltre and Perez. If Perez could keep this up, he could make some fringe top 100 list, he's already getting some love from around the league. And my god Ricky Mota has been awful thus far. Striking out 30% of the time for a player with .030 ISO is unheard of even for a pitcher. And errors don't mean much at that level but kid's already have 30 errors in 55 games. He definitely has work cut out for him the next few years.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Aug 15, 2015 -> 09:19 PM) If you guys didn't see, LeBron is putting 1100 Akron kids through college at the University of Akron. The tuition cost would be roughly $41.3M. It's not out of pocket supposedly (he has an agreement with the school) but DAMN if that isn't amazing thing by him. I'll always sports-hate him, but holy s*** he really is an amazing person. Generous, sure. Amazing? I don't buy it. Generosity does not erase all the dickish crap he's done in the past. Before J4L jumps me, I don't consider guys like Jordan or Kobe amazing either.

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Aug 16, 2015 -> 05:17 PM) James shields still got a deal before opening day. I suspect Jeff s will do just fine Except Shields had a 3.20 ERA last season and a much better track record than Shark. He was also the 2nd3/rd best pitcher in the class. 2016 is loaded with free agent pitchers.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 16, 2015 -> 04:03 PM) Thome's numbers were comparable...and considering the aging/expected regression, better than his Philly numbers AJ Carlos Quentin (although not much of a track record) Eaton, compared to his DBacks numbers Jose Valentin...maybe offensively Pods compared to his second year with Milwaukee Iguchi, Ramirez and Abreu all outperformed initial projections Gillaspie last year, compared to SF Giants numbers Eaton had like half a season under his belt before the trade, I'd put him in the same category as TCQ. FWIW he was favorite to win NL ROY at one point Valentin is a pretty good one, although like you said his defense was awful Pods had like 2 WAR's over 3 season worth of games with us, I wouldn't say he did better with us. Gillaspie by all means had one fluky first half, and came back down to earth after. As for the foreign players, credit goes to scouts and the GM's for taking a chance on them. They were all pretty established players overseas, but for right or wrong reasons, the projections always assume that player will have a tough time adjusting from overseas baseball to MLB. At the end of the day, we have far more recent success taking on reclamation project pitchers and turning them into better players than we did with position players, but then again, pitchers are probably the easier fix.

If his pitch count wasn't so high, he would have a good shot of getting 20 today.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 16, 2015 -> 11:17 AM) They actually used to be really good at bringing in retreads...dunno about career norms, but guys that could come in and rebuild their career a bit. Ellis Burks comes to mind. Albert Belle put up a monster year here, although he was pretty amazing for much of his career. They have more success with pitchers. It's just sad that the hitters you're bring up are from the 90's.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 16, 2015 -> 11:13 AM) Geo Soto? You could say the 2015 Geo Soto has been better than the 2011-14 Geo Soto

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Aug 16, 2015 -> 06:22 AM) He wont sit on the market that long. With the trend of young pitchers exploding onto the scene and contributing right away, teams could be less inclined to throw away a first round pick and $100 mil at a pitcher with a career ERA of over 4.00

Can't remember the last position player they Sox acquired that actually did better than his career norm (someone give me a name other they Dye).

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 15, 2015 -> 07:51 AM) And his 5 year control clock will be 2 years old. He's essentially only missing 5 weeks of baseball. I think there's a good chance the Sox push him to Low A at the start of next season.

Jordan Guerrero is kind of a legit dude. Would love to see a scouting report of what his repertoire is. If Stoltz still scouting down in the Carolina League these days?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 14, 2015 -> 04:23 PM) Except he probably is about 19 in terms of baseball development True, but you can't look too much in that. Trying to learn (or relearn) something at 25 isn't as easy as someone who's learning at 17-18. The more important factor is he's having a major physical advantage than other 20-21 year olds he's been playing with since he's already hitting his physical prime.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 3, 2015 -> 12:17 PM) Montas would be a repeat, which is rare though it does happen. My best guess on who you'll see there: Chris Beck (missed time), Michael Ynoa (40 man decision and missed time), JB Wendelken (40 man decision), Nolan Sanburn (missed time), Jacob May (missed time), Nick Delmonico (40 man decision and missed time), and Brandon Brennan (missed time) as the non-AA guy. Other possibilities: Robin Leyer, JB Wendelken, Jason Coats, Myles Jaye, Kyle Hansen, Danny Hayes What's the likelihood of Delmonico getting picked during the Rule 5? Don't think anyone's gonna give him a shot at the big league next year. How does the Triple A and Double A phase work again? Same pool of players as the ML phase, but without the 25 man roster requirement?

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 09:37 PM) Anderson going to AAA soon? Or finishing at AA? I wouldn't mind bumping up Alvarez and Anderson each up a level, and let Rondon go back to A+. They could get a couple weeks taste of the new level and make adjustments in the off season as needed.

Haven't seen recent scouting reports, but when he was signed, Ben Badler cited that he was the best defensive SS down in DR. A player that young should be given every chance to learn to play that position, unless he has outgrown it.

Johan Cruz down in GF has probably pack on some muscle/weight the past 2 years. He went from a SS with 40 steals potential to a now 3B who hasn't attempted a steal this season. Though the spike in slugging is definitely a welcoming sign.

QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 04:36 PM) Chris Bassitt looks pretty good. Ugh He was my guy, I was probably higher on him than anyone else on this board at the moment of the trade. That being said, he's won't stay this good, but he could be a very good #3 guy for a few seasons.