BlackSox13

Last I read Cinci was asking for MLB ready talent in return for Frazier. Do the Sox have enough of that to trade for Frazier? I could see them being interested in Thompson but who else?

This should be a very interesting haul for Cinci. Curious to see what the Dodgers give up if they do trade for Chapman.

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 04:18 PM) oh i know, we poster do not have any inside connections with the FO. so i am with you here. Absolutely! I'm just a fan with an opinion is all.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 04:11 PM) Agree. I wouldn't be shocked to hear about an extension in the next few months for him. Everything I have read indicates the Rockies FO sees Arenado as the new face of the organization so its quite possible. As for the idea of trading Sale, I really don't know what else to say. If the Sox decide it's the right course of action and the price is right, I trust the FO to get it right. If they decide not to I certainly am not about to complain because I still believe the Sox can improve the team without trading Sale. Fact of the matter is that we are all just speculating what could or could not happen since none of us work in the FO to have any inside information about trade discussions/proposals/player values and potential returns.

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 03:56 PM) question..... is this with a sale trade or Q???? I think it could apply to either pitcher depending on the Rockies preference. I think Q and Arenado is pretty close to being 1-1 with the Sox likely kicking something in but if we're talking Sale than its the Rockies likely kicking something in. I'm not saying this will happen, just using Arenado as an example since his name was brought up. I would be stunned if Colorado actually traded him.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 09:41 AM) That's why I said you'd need someone like Arenado to start the talks. This right here is all that needs to be said. A trade based around two established all stars ensures that both teams get what they are looking for. Any discrepancies in the values between the two players can easily be worked out with a minor leaguer or two so the trade had much less moving pieces and easier for both teams to pull the trigger.

Good read and insight by Hostetler. Unless something changes it does not sound like the Sox are likely to sign free agents with comp picks attached which I'm fine with. I'm looking forward to 3 picks in the first 2 rounds in a what's supposed to be a deeper draft than '15. I pay pretty close attention to the draft in the last few months leading up to it but never noticed the money disparity between the picks in the top ten.

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 03:26 PM) scary uh.... Indeed. What was this thread about again?

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 02:53 PM) oops i made my post before i saw yours.... sorry. QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 02:56 PM) but in the beginning of the season and for a month after, he didn't put up those numbers. then he was lights out. hind sight, esp if you accumulate all the other things that went bad.... it just spiral out of control. Lol, we are definitely seeing things from the same perspective LDF.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 02:02 PM) Samardzija didn't "Collapse" though, as I said above he put up exactly the same fWAR he put up in 2013 and 2014. You can't be surprised by that! You can't be surprised when "Guy doesn't put up career year!" Eaton's defense was worse in 2015, but he produced more runs on offense and was a better baserunner, making him about the same player overall per game, and he played more games. And yes, you couldn't predict the collapse of LaRoche specifically, but if you sign 3 free agents, you should expect 1 of them to collapse. Maybe it would have been Cabrera, maybe Robertson, but 1 of them was going to fail badly. Especially if those 3 FAs are the mid-level guys where the risk seems to be the highest - for highest level FAs, sometimes teams just don't have the money to sign guys and they are legitimately outbid, but at the mid-level, every guy you sign is a guy the team could sign and they say "He's not worth it". Every guy we signed was a guy that their own team could have signed and they decided they had better places to spend their money. If you're counting on zero out of 3 of those guys to fail...your season will be a failure because at least one, maybe more than 1 will be disappointing or extremely bad. If "things that happen to everyone" are "terrible luck" when they happen to your team, the problem is your plan. You couldn't predict the specific things that happen...but you could absolutely predict "some bad things will happen". Maybe it's not a 36 year old hitting the wall at mid-season, it's a pitcher spraining an ankle or Chase Utley sliding into 2nd base against you. We built a team that needed nothing to go wrong whatsoever, then bet $120 million and traded away a bunch of players based on that bet. That's a sucker bet! If all of this was so predictable then why didn't anyone predict it in the first place? That's what I've been getting at and why I said what I initially said and I stand by it. The Sox had numerous holes to fill so they tried to fill those holes as best they could within their means in an effort to contend. It's easy now to look back and point out the failures but that's all in hindsight so I fail to see the point. You make some great points that I agree with Balta but you are coming across as though you had seen all these things coming. Maybe I missed your posts last winter/spring where you predicted these things but I don't recall anyone foreseeing everything that happened in '15. Again, its all in hindsight.

I would hope the Sox could get some kind of a prospect with Castro but I wouldn't really complain and I've been very much against the idea of Castro in the past. Castro for Robertson would give the Sox a bit more money to play with while filling the SS void. It's not by any means my first choice but a trade I wouldn't be pissed about either.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 01:33 PM) The White Sox did not have that many things go wrong. The specific discussion there is on Samardzija - Samardzija in 2012 put up 2.7 fWAR, Samardzija in 2013 put up 2.7 fWAR...Samardzija in 2015 put up 2.7 fWAR. Combine bad defense behind him with playing in the AL and basically his season was close to "comparable with what you'd expect from him". That's what the Giants are paying him to do. If "a guy not putting up a career year" is something going wrong, the problem is not with things going wrong, it's your planning. Then take a look at the FA market. I looked through the list of last year's FAs. If you go through the list of guys who signed for legit money (not replacement players) you'll find that if you picked 3 at random, you'd get about 1 guy who lived up to his contract, 1 guy who was ok but disappointed relativet o his money, and the third guy would be a bust. The White Sox signed 3 big FAs last year, Robertson lived up to or even slightly exceeded his money, Cabrera was disappointing, and LaRoche was a bust. Our performance in the FA market last year was just about average. Duke disappointed, but we got a helluva lot more wins out of Soto than anyone imagined. The problem wasn't the White Sox having "so many things go wrong", it was the White Sox believing they could somehow outsmart the FA market to completely rebuild their roster. On top of that, look at defense. Name a strong defender the White Sox brought in. The defense being terrible was basically item #1 on our preseason plan. That can't be treated as something going wrong when we did nothing to make it any better. Then look at our guys. The org penciled in Garcia to be a near all star last year. What did they do to make that happen? As far as I can tell they stuck their fingers in their ears and said louder "He'll be great!" any time someone pointed out an issue with him. There was no overhaul of his approach at the plate. He was the same weak hitter and crappy defender on April 1 that he was on September 30. Then Hell, we brought up a 2b who had injury problems and a month of experience above AA and we were totally shocked that he didn't have a good approach in the running game, couldn't stay healthy, and was weak on defense. Gillaspie and Flowers had better seasons in 2014 than 2015, but are you going to say you were 100% confident in those guys? Enough to bet a $120 million payroll? The fact that we are surprised by these things is sad. Saying "guys will be great!!!" more loudly doesn't make them better players. The moves they had to make these guys better, new hitting coach and new baserunning coach, did jack squat or even made them worse, and that was seemingly a huge part of the White Sox's plan to compete. Turn it around. If the White Sox had somehow won 88 games last year, what would we be saying about some of the other things that happened? "The White Sox were insanely healthy last year. Sale missed 1 start on the DL, aside from that, name a key player that spent time on the DL. Albers on a self inflicted wound? No one got seriously hurt. Our entire starting rotation stayed healthy. Our entire starting lineup stayed healthy. Our closer stayed healthy. A couple guys missed games here and there and that was it. The year beforehand, Abreu hit the 15 day DL, Garcia hit the 60 day DL, Sale missed 6 weeks, and Eaton missed like 6 weeks. None of those guys got hurt! On top of that, no one got their knee torn up by a guy sliding in at 2nd, there were no freak OF collisions, no one broke a hand on a HBP, how on Earth did all that happen?" Baseball teams don't get that lucky with health, it's unheard of. Then who had Trayce coming up and hitting like Mike Trout for 2 months? Who predicted Saladino coming up and being one of the best IF defenders in the league? This team was built on the assumptions that: high-risk older guys would get better or at least not get old, everyone would stay healthy, defense didn't matter, and talent would develop because we said it would. This was not "everything going wrong". This was "Everything playing out exactly the way it was supposed to...but the people in the front office deluding themselves into believing the rules didn't apply to them." This is a great post and you make numerous good points. What I'm referring to is nobody had foreseen the collapse of LaRoche, Eaton's dWAR going from 1.8 in '14 to -1.1 in '15, the collapse of Samardzija. I give the Sox a pass on Avi since despite the results the Sox needed to give Avi a full season to see what he could do, or not do. Melky, sigh, not sure what to say other than he was supposed to be a defensive upgrade over Tank despite Melky not being good defensively. Alexei's regression I feel was a somewhat obvious one to see coming due to his age and trend. Gillaspie' '14 bat had me fooled to the point to where I was fine with him at 3B but looking back, well, yeah nuff said. Flowers, yep same old s***. From my POV there were some things the Sox should have seen coming but there were some things they couldn't have seen coming without advice from Nostradamus first.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 11:44 AM) I think if we were to get him on an 8/9 year deal with opt-outs after year 4 or 5, his older years won't even matter because he likely won't be our problem. Ya know, I like this idea because the Sox can use the defensive upgrade and its very plausible. Good point with the opt-out clause. If the Sox were able to move some salary by means of trade Heyward becomes much more possible. If the Sox moved just one of Robertson/Danks/Melky and add that to the available funds which is roughly 15-20M, the Sox could be sitting around 30M+ to spend on '16 which easily covers the cost of Heyward's annual salary. There are two hangups in that one of Melky/LaRoche would have to be traded which wont be easy and the Sox lose a pick. Otherwise Heyward is a possibility. With the cost of starting pitching sky rocketing so far this off season and the Sox rumored to be looking for a starting right hander, I'm thinking Danks just might be tradable since he's a one year risk and if he pitches decent could bring a team a comp pick for '17 when Danks hits FA after next season. Maybe the Sox plan is Sale, Q, RHP, Rodon, EJ?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 01:15 PM) Ugh. If they want me to take on Castro they can have LaRoche or Melky. You know, someone I don't want. Ha ha, well they are in the market for an outfielder so maybe Hahn can sell them on Melky for CF.

Looking at the needs of both teams I wouldn't be surprised if a deal centered around Robertson for Castro was discussed.

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 05:42 AM) nor the team. remember.... the was a poll of how many games the sox would win.... many participated in that poll, including me.... the feeling then was the sox would pull off a magical season and go the playoff. Yep. Pretty sure I had them in the 85-87 win range or there abouts.

I remember a few of us were discussing Sale's perpetual value last winter and it was agreed that a trade involving Sale would be unprecedented due to his performance/contract. That perpetual value is even higher now as has been highlighted the last few pages. These new contracts make Sale and his contract obscenely valuable to the point it's hard to imagine what his true value is. In the end, Sale's true value lies within the eyes of the Sox FO because its them that would decide on saying yes or no to a trade offer from another team. For a team like the Sox that doesn't have Boston/Yankee/Dodger type payrolls, a contract like Sale's is so team friendly that it raises Sale's value in the eyes of the FO because its cheap contracts like Sale and Q that help allow the Sox to spend elsewhere. If the Sox had to hit the FA market to try and replace the values of Sale and Q, it would easily cost them 50-60M per year for the two combined. In '16 Sale and Q will cost a mere 14.5M combined! That value is literally irreplaceable and why I'm so keen on keeping them both through the end of their contracts, unless of course some team makes the Sox FO an offer they would be stupid to refuse.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 05:07 PM) I didn't like the idea myself because of Samardzija, his impending FA and that was before the trade. Also didn't like giving up Bassitt or Ravelo but s*** happens I suppose. Despite not agreeing with it, I understand the logic behind the trade since the Sox truely believed they would be contenders but things didn't work. No way could anyone could have envisioned so many things going wrong on so many levels. QUOTE (South Sider @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 12:00 AM) Anyone can take a guess as to what might happen and end up looking brilliant in the future if they were correct. It would seem, though, that if it was really true that it was inherently obvious that Jeff Samardzija would have a terrible year, then one is left wondering what is wrong with the people who run this team? Are they so stupid as to miss this obvious mistake? I fully realize that this organization is not the most competent one out there, but I am not a believer that they are so incompetent that they would miss the most obvious things in the baseball world. Making a trade, giving up a few prospects and quasi-big league players, for a guy who is, in the very least, a workhorse pitcher makes complete sense to me. The idea was that we would sign him to a contract extension should things work out. Our rotation would be further bolstered for years by a good Samardzija. There was even seemingly some mutual interest early in his tenure in Chicago. Then things derailed. The fact of the matter is, it didn't work out. People who were nay saying were correct. But it made sense. I'd do the trade again, in a heart beat, to potentially acquire another piece of the rotation puzzle. However, from the comments I have read about how really obvious it was to some that this wouldn't work out, then I must be just as ignorant as our front office. I guess we're all just a bunch of damned fools. Shucks... If I were JR, I'd sign onto this website and private message everyone here who knows better then his team. Get that advice on big time decisions instead of listening to someone who graduated from Harvard and a bunch of people who have been around baseball their entire lives who are paid to make these decisions. Big time decisions can be tough to make, this was one of them, it didn't work out, and at the end of the day to anyone who ended up correct, I still say to them... Good guess. I agree with you here but just to be clear I wasn't only referring to the Samardzija trade when I said " No way could anyone could have envisioned so many things going wrong on so many levels". That was an over all reference to the numerous other things that went wrong along with Samardzija's bad season. Another thing I'd like to clarify real quick is that while I was very much against the Samardzija trade, in no way did I think he would be as bad as he was in '15. I definitely did not see that coming.

QUOTE (asindc @ Dec 6, 2015 -> 12:21 AM) And that drafted pitcher could suck. Meanwhile, you've traded away a cost-comtrolled, young, in his prime, top ace who has already proven himself for a... maybe. No thank you. Pretty sure GreenSox is referring to the idea of continuing to draft pitching to replace the current pitchers when they become free agents and insanely expensive. Two examples of this would be Erik Johnson coming up next season to replace Samardzija and in '17 (hopefully) Carson Fulmer coming up to replace Danks when Danks becomes a FA after the '16 season. Imo, the annual cost of pitching is why the Sox continue to draft pitchers and after seeing the market explode so far this winter I'd say it's a good strategy. Playing 81 games a year at the hitter friendly Cell helps with that too.

Q thread http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...90&start=90

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 08:21 PM) Can we just go back to the more logical move of trading Q? My newest proposal is with the Astros Q for Preston Tucker, Michael Feliz, JD Davis, and Derek Fisher I'm not trying to be a s*** but this is a thread about Sale and whether or not he should/could be traded. I'm pretty sure there's a thread about Q somewhere. Just hate to see stuff get all mixed is all.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 07:51 PM) I'm almost always right so that's why I say revisit the threads. . I remember Rock Raines thought the Sox had a good chance to extend him and everyone jumped on board that idea since Rock used to have a contact that has since dried up. I don't think I ever thought he'd get extended. I mean ,seriously, common sense says when you got a shot for a mega contract odds are you go for it. Even his suck ass season didn't prevent him getting a pretty lucrative deal. Lol, I'm going to take your advice and look back a few old threads for kicks. Should be good for some laughs. I have to give Samardzija credit since he remained consistent with his going to FA. His insistence on going to FA is the biggest reason why I didn't want to trade for him in the first place when the discussion came up November '14. I know, its neither here nor there now and I promise I will get over it. I think those spacious NLW ballpark's are a really good fit for him so he will likely pitch just fine. I am really looking forward to June's draft now that the Sox have the comp pick. Hopefully the Sox draft wisely which I think they will.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 07:28 PM) Remember when posters on this site were sure the Sox would be able to extend his contract and he wouldn't go to free agency ? Just for s***s and giggles we need to revisit those threads just to humble some of us. Well put. Hindsight is always 20/20. I was one of those fans that wasn't sure the Sox should extend the QO but that was based on Samardzija's ERA being above 5 and pitching like s*** at the time. Thankfully I was wrong in my thinking.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 07:13 PM) This proves by the way Hahn blew it last year a month before the trade deadline. Shark obviously has value and we could have gotten some talent for him, despite the fact I think he blows. Obviously there are teams out there that think Shark is worth five years and TOP dollar. In all fairness to Hahn, it was rumored that Hahn wanted to deal Samardzija to the Jays in late June but KW wanted to wait and see if the team would come around. I do agree that the FO as a whole blew it so all we can do now is take that pick and hopefully draft a great prospect with it. I am greatful Samardzija rejected the extension offer made by the Sox. Can you imagine how pissed all of us fans would be if he had accepted the offer which to my understanding was before he has his dreadful second half? Yikes. Danks 2.0.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 05:26 PM) I know, I know, thread derailment. The bolded is completely false. How so?