VAfan

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 7, 2015 -> 04:14 PM) Um, yes, he should be counted as a lesser player for missing starts and I find it hard to believe that I'd ever be asked that. Being able to stay on the mound is an important thing for a pitcher. He's not a better pitcher when he's on the DL or having starts skipped. There are several guys who would immediately appear on the list of "as good as Sale or better" if somehow you gave the right to ignore the fact that guys haven't pitched 220 innings. Matt Harvey even counting this as a recovery year put up 5.9 fWAR/200 IP between 2013 and 2015, but anyone would call me out of my bleeping mind for including him as a pitcher who has clearly been better than Sale over the last 3 years since he kinda missed the whole 2014 season. Jose Fernandez is right there with Sale at 5.44, but he's pitched only 288 innings so no one on Earth would include him. I could probably find others but I have to go teach. Isn't the problem with this whole debate about how great Chris Sale is that you need a team around him. Whether he's the best pitcher in baseball, or the 5th best, really doesn't matter. For the last 3 years, the White Sox have been out of it early, with no signs that it's going to change any time soon. Yes, we are wasting some great seasons by Sale -- just as the M's have wasted a lot of seasons by King Felix. Meanwhile, we have to watch other pitchers make their fame in the postseason.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 7, 2015 -> 12:31 PM) Yeah the Astros are really the new framework. Power + defense + versatility. Obviously Correa/Springer/Altuve are special talents but Valbuena, Conger, Gattis, Rasmus, Carter, Gomez have all been acquired. Gomez/Gattis came at a decent price but the others... nope. You might beat the Astros, but they aren't going to beat themselves most of the time. I think that's what's so depressing about the current Sox makeup. So fundamentally bad that more often than not they are going make a mistake or mistakes that cost the ballgame. Hard to believe that our club was so good in extra inning games. It's like we didn't focus in regular situations, but did when the game went to extra innings. As I've said elsewhere, I put most of that on the manager.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 11:02 PM) I like this plan, but I just don't like the batting order. I rather flip flop Cabrera and Abreu. Trying to break up the righties. That's why I did that.

QUOTE (daggins @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 07:37 PM) I think that the Sox will bring in 3B help definitely. Otherwise, I expect to see most of the same faces as this year. That's what I posted several pages ago on this thread. Watching Houston last night drove it home even more. You can't compete with a lineup made up of 30 something free agents who cost a ton and don't produce better than the young athletic power hitting speed demons that the Astros accumulated by tanking AND drafting position players well.

Watching Houston last night was depressing. THAT IS WHAT THE SOX SHOULD LOOK LIKE!! Yooung, fast, and with tons of power! Good fielding. Strong baserunning. Everyone, including the smurf Altuve can hit the ball out.

The development side is obviously critical. First, you need players to come up, or at least be tradeable for similar players who are under control and keep the payroll down. Second, if you have a solid enough core, you need enough depth to be able to trade for pieces you might need to get you over the top, when you are ready. Take the debate over trading Quintana for a bat. This makes no sense to me, because you are opening a big hole in your pitching staff for several years to try to close one on the hitting side. If he was part of a deal for Todd Frazier, you'd be giving up a better player, under longer control, for one who's unproven in the AL and on how he might fit on your team. Seems crazy. Much better to trade "prospects" who are not yet producing for you for that bat you need. This can weaken your future, but gains much faster in the present. You have to have enough talent coming up to be able to do this without killing you in the long run. The trick is not making these kinds of deals too early. If you really aren't ready to compete, you just add expensive short-term assets who get you nowhere while weakening the longer term prospects of the club. Personally, I was for the Sox going for it in 2015. On paper, it seemed like a club that could compete. But pretty much everything went wrong, except for the development of Carlos Rodon. And now the Sox are burdened by a bad contract for Adam LaRoche, and don't have the resources to add much new talent. With Ventura back as manager, my new take is to do nothing for 2016. Keep all your draft picks. See if you can develop a second baseman at least. See if Trayce Thompson can be more than a 4th outfielder. Get beyond LaRoche's and Danks' contracts. See what Erik Johnson has as a starter. Keep pushing the other prospects closer to the majors. If you had unlimited money, you could sign Heyward, or Cespedes, and trade for Todd Frazier. Sign a free agent starter. And go for it. I just don't see that happening. And I'd rather spend another year with a bad manager developing than "going for it" and falling on our faces again.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 06:56 PM) That's been pointed out already several times, but Heyward is also a much better defender than Eaton and we had by far the worst defensive outfield in the MLB. Is that enough to make Heyward's massive contract worth it? Maybe not, but Heyward's a 6 WAR player for a reason. But his offense is all you would be gaining, because the Sox have an option to play Trayce Thompson in the field. For $20 million per year, or whatever he's going to command, you would be much smarter to spend it somewhere else.

If the Sox were to add two bats, for my money Cespedes and Frazier would make sense. Cespedes is not eligible for a qualifying offer, is Cuban, and has solid power numbers. Can he play right field? This is the question. But at least it's only a matter of money to acquire him. Frazier gives you a power hitting third baseman whose defensive WAR is at least positive. The question here is what would it take to land him in a trade? These additions would give you a preponderance of right handed power. But they would make a huge difference for the Sox lineup, which could probably hide LaRoche in a platoon, and get by with a weak bottom of the order. Eaton Abreu Cabrera Cespedes Frazier LaRoche/Thompson Ramirez Flowers Sanchez I think this is also a pipe dream, but I'd happily support it as long at Quintana isn't sacrificed for Frazier, because I have no objection to the Sox spending money.

For all you Heyward guys, I thought this juxtaposition was fascinating. It's the ranking by OPS for major leaguers. 47 Jason Heyward STL 547 79 160 33 4 13 60 23 3 56 90 .293 .359 .439 .797 6.5 48 Charlie Blackmon COL 614 93 176 31 9 17 58 43 13 46 112 .287 .347 .450 .797 2.3 49 Adam Eaton CHW 610 98 175 28 9 14 56 18 8 58 131 .287 .361 .431 .792 3.9 Adam Eaton is basically the equivalent to Heyward at the plate.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 05:31 PM) Heyward literally helps this team in the categories that the Sox are weak on as you mentioned above. He makes the most sense this offseason, it's just a matter if JR is willing to open the checkbook a little more and get Heyward signed, along with eating LaRoche's last year or moving him to the "veteran bench role" type of player. Heyward is a pipe dream, and wouldn't make the difference you all imagine, because so much of his value is tied up in his defense. Now, certainly he's a vastly better fielder than Avi Garcia, so you would get Heyward's value as a replacement there. But what if the Sox played Trayce Thompson in RF next year. How much better of a fielder is Heyward than Thompson? I'll bet it's not dramatic. If the Sox are going to spend a ton of money on someone, they need a power and OBP bat. They need Josh Donaldson, who is 6th in OPS. Heyward is 47th. That's not going to make nearly enough of a difference, and the cost will be ridiculous.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 04:18 PM) I'm sure he will, but he's got a lot of power for a SS, and IMO has enough offense to play 3B. A 2nd rounder isn't a big deal especially since they most likely with have the supplemental. They probably won't sign him, but I do think he is a guy they probably look at pretty closely. But Desmond's defense is attrocious, and his OBP is sub .300. Sox CANNOT keep spending money on free agents who make so many outs.

What do the Sox do well? 1. Draft pitchers. Sale, Rodon, Fullmer (jury still out, but looking good). 2. Find pitchers. Quintana, Jones, Danks (when we got him originally). 3. Tap the Cuban players. Alexei, Abreu, Contreras before them. Viciedo was a failure though. 4. Sign some players to very team friendly contracts. Sale, Quintana, Abreu, even Eaton. What do the Sox not do so well? 1. Develop hitters. When was the last one? 2. Pick managers. Ozzie was the only success, and his was short lived. 3. Find players who have strong on-base percentages, and put the ball in play. 4. Run the bases well. 5. Play good defense. 6. Pick free agents. Most of the recent signings have either barely returned value, or been horrible choices. 7. Hit for power. Used to be a strength of the team. Looks like we've completely lost our way. When you look back at the 2005 team and how that team was put together, the Sox did a good job of tapping a variety of sources for their players. They had drafted players like Mark Buehrle, Frank Thomas (though he was hurt that year), Joe Crede, Aaron Rowand. They brought in Paul Konerko via trade when he was young. On the 2004 team they also had Carlos Lee and Magglio Ordonez. They let Maggs walk, then traded Lee for Podsednik and Vizcaino. They signed mid-level free agents like Iguchi, and pulled Jermaine Dye off the scrap heap to replace Maggs. Uribe was acquired via trade by giving up Aaron Miles, who the Sox had taken out of the Rule V draft. They traded Loaiza, who was a scrap heap free agent signing to Jose Contreras, who took the front of the rotation in the second half and was a horse. They added Jon Garland and Freddie Garcia via trade. Their bullpen was also put together on the fly, with Bobby Jenks a reclamation project who had a drinking problem that they stole from the Angels. It seems to me that the Sox have lost their way. They are doing very well at assembling a young, front line pitching staff, and getting them under team-friendly long term deals. Beyond that, they made a very good deal in signing Abreu from Cuba, and trading for Adam Eaton. But that's it. The Cabrera and Robertson signings have brought in good players, but not at a bargain. The LaRoche deal, like the Dunn deal before it, is a disaster. And the team seems to have no sense of what type of player they want or need, other than on the pitching side. And even there, the experiment with Shark blew up in their faces. I guess this is just a way of agreeing with many of the posters here who say it all starts in the front office. KW did put together a Sox team that won the world series, all the way from picking the manager to acquiring all the players, using a variety of sources pretty well. But whatever magic he once had is now apparently gone, and Mr. Hahn either doesn't have the chops, or the control, to make things work. For example, he didn't hire Ventura, KW did. And KW looking over his shoulder is something KW didn't have to deal with when he was GM. For the Sox to get back on track, it's got to start at the top.

With the Ventura renewal, I had the crazy idea that the White Sox should stand pat and make Ventura manage this team better next year!

QUOTE (fathom @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 03:28 PM) Around the time the Cubs were looking to hire Maddon, all the sports radio guys would talk to experts from Baseball Prospectus, etc. They all believe that managers matter very little over the course of the season with regards to in-game decisions. Maybe a 3-5 game difference at best. The big impact is on preparation and scouting (ie...Pirates over the last few years). In-game decisions is, to me, an important part, but not the crucial part. Are they fundamentally sound? Do they execute well? Do they run the bases smartly? Do they hit the cut off man? Do they hit the other way? Do they know how to move runners over? Do they play as a team? How does the club carry itself? Does it have confidence? Does it know how to win, and find ways to win? Are players put in the best position to succeed? Or used in ways that make that harder? And are players held accountable when they screw up, so as to be brought back to playing the right way? I don't get the feeling Robin Ventura does ANY of this well. And certainly the Sox don't do any of it well.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 12:13 PM) If you think managers have enough of an impact to have -5 or -8 WAR then they are vastly underpaid. No way. Also, Bochy is a good manager but to me the Giants are the poster-child for why baseball playoffs are a crap shoot. They won because Cody Ross randomly became Mike Trout for a few series and Bumgarner became Superman. Maybe they are underpaid, but I can easily see how managers can make bad moves that cost 5+ games a year, and I'm not even counting what I consider the bigger problem with the White Sox, which is HORRIBLE fundamentals year after year without correction. And then there is the issue of just getting the team to play to its capabilities. The White Sox started out horribly this year, with player after player unable to come close to career norms. Is that all the players fault? Would a different leader have helped them perform better as a team to begin the year? And had we started better, would the run just prior to the trade deadline put us comfortably over .500 instead of a last attempt to get to that level? And had we been ahead of .500, wouldn't the team have been fighting for a playoff spot until the end, instead of largely mailing in the last month? In my opinion, different managers of the same team could easily make a 10% difference in the performance level of a club.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Sep 29, 2015 -> 12:34 AM) Here's what I think the Sox WILL DO, not what I want them to do. 1. Keep Ventura another year. As I said in my post above, this would be a very big mistake. He really hasn't brought anything to the table. No one can make even a shred of a case that he's helped the team win more games than it would without him. He doesn't manage pitching well, is a bad in-game tactician, and the team is HORRIBLE at fundamental baseball. It's this last part that should get him fired. But it won't. 2. Keep Adam LaRoche and hope he rebounds. With Trayce Thompson, the Sox may have the right-handed platoon for LaRoche, but otherwise, I think the Sox aren't going to eat his $12.5M contract, and no one would take him off our hands on the trade market. 3. Keep Avisail Garcia in RF. Like they did with Viciedo, the Sox will reason that this was Garcia's first full season, and will hope that he still has upside. This is really a futile exercise, but because he's still so cheap, the Sox will talk themselves into it. 4. Pick up Alexei's $10M option. This is a tricky one. They might try to get him to sign a cheaper deal, but to do so they have to cut him loose, at which point he can sell his services to anyone. I expect he'll think he can get the $10M (or more) from somewhere else, and/or more years at the same time. Knowing this, the Sox will cave and keep him. 5. Keep John Danks. Again, no takers on the trade market for Danks' last season. Sox will see him as a bridge to Fullmer, and will keep hoping he gets slightly better. 6. Plan for 2B to be the same contest it was this year -- Sanchez v. Micah Johnson. Sanchez had only one good month, and the rest has ranged from crap to awful crap. But he plays good defense, and like Garcia, the Sox will hope for his hitting to improve. Johnson's fielding still won't be good enough to displace Sanchez. 7. Keep Flowers at C. The differential between Flowers and Soto for certain pitchers will persuade the Sox to keep Flowers rather than look for a free agent replacement. Sox might also bring Soto back. 8. Tender the Shark, and let him go. The Sox will likely fill this rotation spot from within, with Eric Johnson in the lead. But I expect we'll also sign a cheap starter to have competition for this spot. 9. Keep Quintana. Sox will realize if they trade Q, it will just create a hole in the pitching staff. 10. Sox will do something at 3B, and this will be their "big splash." In short, I think the Sox will not be hugely active this offseason. Instead, they will hope for rebound years from LaRoche, Cabrera, Ramirez, and improvement years from Garcia and Sanchez or Johnson, plus perhaps more from Abreu. And they will hope that the pitching will have a better result with a little more offense. In 2017, LaRoche, Ramirez, and Danks will be gone, which will free up money for the Sox to make another free agent foray. The pitching will be led by Sale, Rodon, Quintana, and Fullmer, and a solid bullpen. If the Sox have somehow fixed 3B this offseason, their focus will be on RF, DH, 2B, and C, with Anderson coming up to play SS. If they don't jettison Ventura, it won't really matter. Well, I got the first bullet point right. Wish I had been wrong. We'll see if my last point also proves true. Another point I'd be glad to be wrong about.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 08:50 AM) Bochy managed teams have lost at least 86 games 8 times. His first 2 seasons in SF, they lost over 90 each time. Now he is a genius. Funny how a better roster works. Go check out Joe Torre and Booby Cox records when they didn't have good players. Even Joe Maddon's. As Caulfield said, there weren't any great players on those Giants teams other than Buster Posey and Baumgartner. I mean they won the World Series with our castoff starter Jake Peavy in the #2 hole!!

Disgusted. As I wrote elsewhere, managers should be assigned WAR. If they were, I'd give Ventura a -5 to -8 range. Just pulling that out of a hat. But I think there is no question managers make a difference. And it starts with whether the team plays good fundamental baseball. Do they field well, or as well as they could give their talent? Do they run the bases well? Do they move runners over? Bunt if called upon? If they dont, this is a managerial problem. Anyone think the Giants win the World Series without Bochy? Any of the 3 they just won? Managers also make in game decisions that win and lose games. Ventura is not good here either. They set lineups, decide who sits, etc. Ultimately, how can Ventura hold any player accountable when he hasn't been held accountable himself?? Another wasted year coming up. Sox could be better, but there is no way they will overcome the anchor that Ventura is for the team. I don't live in Chicago, but I'm not going to see them when they come to DC or Baltimore. And it's hard for me because I have a 12 year old son who loves baseball.

There will be endless speculation about this, because that's what happens in the offseason. Fill space. Get clicks. I don't think Q is going anywhere. The contract is too good.

Here's what I think the Sox WILL DO, not what I want them to do. 1. Keep Ventura another year. As I said in my post above, this would be a very big mistake. He really hasn't brought anything to the table. No one can make even a shred of a case that he's helped the team win more games than it would without him. He doesn't manage pitching well, is a bad in-game tactician, and the team is HORRIBLE at fundamental baseball. It's this last part that should get him fired. But it won't. 2. Keep Adam LaRoche and hope he rebounds. With Trayce Thompson, the Sox may have the right-handed platoon for LaRoche, but otherwise, I think the Sox aren't going to eat his $12.5M contract, and no one would take him off our hands on the trade market. 3. Keep Avisail Garcia in RF. Like they did with Viciedo, the Sox will reason that this was Garcia's first full season, and will hope that he still has upside. This is really a futile exercise, but because he's still so cheap, the Sox will talk themselves into it. 4. Pick up Alexei's $10M option. This is a tricky one. They might try to get him to sign a cheaper deal, but to do so they have to cut him loose, at which point he can sell his services to anyone. I expect he'll think he can get the $10M (or more) from somewhere else, and/or more years at the same time. Knowing this, the Sox will cave and keep him. 5. Keep John Danks. Again, no takers on the trade market for Danks' last season. Sox will see him as a bridge to Fullmer, and will keep hoping he gets slightly better. 6. Plan for 2B to be the same contest it was this year -- Sanchez v. Micah Johnson. Sanchez had only one good month, and the rest has ranged from crap to awful crap. But he plays good defense, and like Garcia, the Sox will hope for his hitting to improve. Johnson's fielding still won't be good enough to displace Sanchez. 7. Keep Flowers at C. The differential between Flowers and Soto for certain pitchers will persuade the Sox to keep Flowers rather than look for a free agent replacement. Sox might also bring Soto back. 8. Tender the Shark, and let him go. The Sox will likely fill this rotation spot from within, with Eric Johnson in the lead. But I expect we'll also sign a cheap starter to have competition for this spot. 9. Keep Quintana. Sox will realize if they trade Q, it will just create a hole in the pitching staff. 10. Sox will do something at 3B, and this will be their "big splash." In short, I think the Sox will not be hugely active this offseason. Instead, they will hope for rebound years from LaRoche, Cabrera, Ramirez, and improvement years from Garcia and Sanchez or Johnson, plus perhaps more from Abreu. And they will hope that the pitching will have a better result with a little more offense. In 2017, LaRoche, Ramirez, and Danks will be gone, which will free up money for the Sox to make another free agent foray. The pitching will be led by Sale, Rodon, Quintana, and Fullmer, and a solid bullpen. If the Sox have somehow fixed 3B this offseason, their focus will be on RF, DH, 2B, and C, with Anderson coming up to play SS. If they don't jettison Ventura, it won't really matter.

I think to have an offseason plan, you have to decide first what the Sox' flaws are. Only then can you start thinking about how to fix them. FIRST = CHANGE THE MANAGER The biggest flaw the White Sox have, IMHO, is having Robin Ventura as their manager. Do managers have WAR? Of course not. But maybe they should. Because some manager help their teams win more games than perhaps they should, while other managers clearly cost their teams wins. I think Robin Ventura is in the latter camp. I would put his negative WAR as somewhere around 5-8 games. If you can get that number back to 0, that's like adding a top player in terms of wins. Unfortunately, I don't have any replacement manager names at the tip of my tongue. But if you want to fix the Sox, that's where I'd start. Why do I think Ventura has to go? Because ever since his first year, when he was the anti-Ozzie and had a veteran club that could run itself, the Sox have been HORRIBLE at fundamental baseball. Terrible at fielding. As bad or worse on the basepaths. Can't execute basic plays. These things scream out at me as managerial problems. Well-disciplined teams have good managers. Ozzie used to tweak him to no end, but Buck Showalter is an example of an excellent manager who gets a lot out of his clubs. I'd say he's worth positive WAR. Joe Maddon is also very good. The minute he took the reins of the Cubs, he said they were a playoff team, and he's proven himself right. SECOND = ADD POWER The second biggest flaw I think the Sox have is a lack of power. The White Sox are tied with Cleveland for next to last in HR in the AL, one ahead of KC. KC can get away with a lack of power because of the ballpark they play in. Even though US Cellular is now ranked below average in HR, I think you can't have a winning team at the Cell without much more power than the Sox have. We have 1 HR threat in our lineup -- Jose Abreu -- and his HR numbers are down from a year ago. That just won't cut it. Ideally, I'd like to see at least 3 guys with 30+ HR. If you can't get that, you need Abreu plus at least two more guys who can average 30 between them. This is one reason why I don't see the value for the Sox breaking the bank for Jason Heyward. Yes, he had 27 HRs one year. But he's really a 12-15 HR guy, which is what we're getting from Garcia in RF already. Sure, the D is much much better, as is the OBP, but I just don't see how his bat is going to make that big of a difference in our current lineup. If I had to pick two guys to add to the Sox, it would be Josh Donaldson and Yoenis Cespedes. Obviously, we can't actually add Donaldson. But he's the type of player you would want to add, at a position of need for the Sox. Cespedes could be a possibility, if the Mets don't re-sign him. Though you'd have to decide if he'd produce at the same level he did when he switched leagues and went on a total tear, hitting 17 HR in 51 games for the Mets v. 18 HR in 102 games for the Tigers. The point is, the Sox desperately need a power boost if they want to win more games. 3B, DH, and RF cry out for power bats. Other positions might as well, but the Sox seen pretty set in LF, CF, and 1B, and have gotten 18 HR combined out their catchers, plus 10 at SS. THIRD = REDUCE THE OUTS The Sox have the worst OPS in the AL. This is because we are last in Slugging percentage. Which is why we need to ADD POWER. But we're also horrible in OBP, at .308. This is near the bottom of the league. We have only 2 regulars above .319 OBP -- Eaton and Abreu. And we have a ton of regulars, or guys who've received significant ABs, who are below .300 OBP -- Sanchez, Saladino, Gillaspie, Beckham, Flowers, Ramirez, and LaRoche. That's your infield for most of the year. SUMMARY ON THE HITTING SIDE I'll come back to pitching. On the offensive side, the Sox have two players worth keeping and building around -- Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton. Melky Cabrera is also probably locked in for the next two years with his contract. The rest are up due for upgrades. FOURTH = DON'T DECIMATE THE PITCHING A lot of the ideas in this post suggest the Sox trade pitching to bolster their offense. Seems like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Not sure it's a solution. Assuming the Sox tender a QO to the Shark and he turns it down, that leaves the Sox with Sale, Quintana, Rodon, Danks, and all the guys they have in the minors, led perhaps by Eric Johnson. In other words, 3 quality starters, an expensive journeyman on the last year of his contract, and a bunch of rookies. I just don't see how you take out Quintana from this equation and stay competitive. On the bullpen side, it's a little easier. Robertson is locked up as the closer, and the Sox have decent depth behind him, with Nate Jones having returned, and Frankie Montas a flame throwing possibility for next year, plus Petricka, Putnam, Duke, Jennings, et al. CONCLUSION I'm not sure it's all going to get fixed in 2016. If we were 1 or 2 guys short, then free agency would make sense, especially if we finish at least 10th worst this year and can protect our first round pick. The problem is, we aren't there. We have 2 regulars who are plus players -- Abreu and Eaton. Cabrera could be a third. Everyone else could be chucked (though Flowers is good for the pitching staff). There isn't enough money in the budget to buy new guys for all of those slots. So what do you do? Not totally sure yet. I'd be looking for bargains. Guys without big names or big contracts, but who have decent to good OBP and SLG numbers. Then perhaps you splurge on one power hitting guy who can help anchor your lineup with Abreu. If I had money to spend, I'd spend it all on offense. I think we can patch together enough on the pitching side if we don't jettison anyone but Shark. That's my initial take.

QUOTE (Saufley @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 05:11 PM) Well, we couldn't be worse than what they have done over the last few years. We drafted Sale and Rodon and Fullmer. We stole Quintana for nothing. We unloaded Jake Peavy for something in return. We got rid of Alex Rios. We signed Jose Abreu on a very reasonable contract. We extended Sale and Quintana on very team-friendly deals. There are a lot of things the Sox have done right. The worst move in my mind was hiring Robin Ventura, then extending him. And it's fair to hang that on Kenny Williams. I used to like KW, and was glad we had him. Now I would tend to agree with those who would be fine if he left. But for my money I'd rather the team lose Ventura and get a real manager. I think that will have more impact on the field than what Williams does.

Last time I wrote something like this, the Sox went on a tailspin. Hopefully, it won't happen again. But when you look at the standings and the loss column, the Sox only have one team with fewer losses (Baltimore at 49-49) between them and the Minnesota Twins for the second wild card spot. The Tigers are tied with us in the standings, and Toronto, who everyone thinks we should ship the Shark to, is tied with us at 50 losses. Tampa Bay has 51 losses, but two more wins. So why should the Sox sell at the trade deadline? Shouldn't we consider trying to add a bat instead? This latest streak has been fueled by a suddenly alive offense. But the starting pitching has also been excellent (outside of the games Danks pitches on the road). And the bullpen looks very good. Albers is a nice addition at this point, and Nate Jones still might make it back this year. You don't get many chances at the playoffs. Why not go for them when you have an opportunity? We've always felt like we could be a matchup nightmare for some teams with our rotation. Who wants to go up against Chris Sale, the Shark, Quintana, and even Rodon? We don't need to squander the future here. At the least, we could get a righty platoon partner for LaRoche. Beyond that, just probe for good deals, if they can be had. The only guy we're losing at the end of the year is Shark, and we'll get something back for him if we don't sign him. Seems like a small price to pay to have a chance at the postseason.

Last offseason, I was firmly of the view that Brian Anderson espouses here -- you can't trade Alexei, because it opens up a NEW hole that you then have to fill. Fill the holes you have -- Alexei isn't one of them. Now, I'm not so sure. If you look at his numbers over the last 4 years -- http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ramiral03.shtml -- what it looks like is a guy on a pretty steady decline with one good year thrown in -- 2014. Take out 2014, and you have HRs going from 15, to 9, to 6, to 3 this year. So, I think the Sox need to re-calibrate the expectation of keeping Ramirez, and use the money he was slotted to make somewhere else. And if you aren't going to tender him in the offseason, there's no reason to keep him now. Trade him for whatever you can get.

Roy Oswalt. 6' 190. Discuss.