OmarComing25

If we do get him I hope his power from last season stays, that his defense can rate OK in RF, and that he returns to his .360 career OBP. It'd be a fine move if it weren't for that damn QO.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Jan 14, 2016 -> 11:24 AM) Ever consider Cespedes never wanted to leave the Mets in the first place? He has said he really liked it in NY. The Mets were a WS series team and should still be competitors in the weak NLE. I don't doubt he likes the Mets and NY, but if an offer for 5 or 6 years was on the table from another team, he'd have likely jumped on it.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Jan 14, 2016 -> 11:20 AM) raBBit's latest tweet: "Seeing lots of talk about him, received multiple reports that the #WhiteSox could sign Dexter Fowler in the near future." Also this: #WhiteSox are active in both FA and trade market, but Cespedes interest has been moved to the back burner to less pricey alternatives.

https://twitter.com/ring786 This guy is the source for the report.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 14, 2016 -> 10:48 AM) I would be shocked if he signed a 1 year deal. He has no QO attached to him. How is his market going to improve? Right, it doesn't make a lot of sense. A 2 year deal doesn't make a ton of sense either. Unless his current offers are really that low.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 14, 2016 -> 10:30 AM) Some rumors that Cespedes might be close to going back to the Mets http://www.nysportsday.com/2016/01/13/excl...-with-the-mets/ Wow, so he really might end up signing a 1-year deal. I thought Upton might do it but I never expected Cespedes to be open to the idea.

I don't see the Mets going higher than 3/75, and I doubt he would take that.

Not a bad deal for the Marlins. With the glut of OF options likely costing Cespedes and Upton a lot of money this offseason, I expect more guys to agree to extensions like Gordon did before they join the "greatest ever" FA class. Edit: Title got cut off, there's a $14 million vesting option for a 6th year.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jan 13, 2016 -> 07:26 PM) I'd probably fill it out with one of the free agents left. But it would be nice to add a 5 War OFer making minimal money to the team. Alas it's a complete longshot. He's at 3.3 WAR from Fangraphs. He also doesn't get on base a lot or hit for much power. He doesn't have enough of a track record to make me confident enough he'll continue putting up 3-5 WAR. I don't think he's worth what it would take to get him.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jan 13, 2016 -> 06:32 PM) It's not going to happen. But you have to give up talent to get talent. He wont be cheap. Even taking back a garbage contract probably wont bring his price down enough. Our rotation is already suspect, who are you replacing Q with?

Count me in on among those who like the Farmer/DJ combo, I think they have good chemistry together.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Jan 13, 2016 -> 02:30 PM) I think Upton could end up going on a 1-2 year deal. Cespedes will probably still find a way to land 4-5 years. I think the Sox would settle on 4 but at that point, I think a few other teams would, too. 6 is just not worth it with him. If the price drops to 4 years with Cespedes, my bigger concern is the Tigers/Angels/Cardinals being willing to pony up the dough at that point, rather than worrying about the Mets/Red Sox/Braves suddenly jumping in.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Jan 13, 2016 -> 02:26 PM) Everyone has their own theory but mine all along has been the same. The longer they wait, the lower the price. Which is fine but more teams will jump into the race & IMHO, I don't think the Sox are that attractive of a team to be competing for a top FA. Overall, I don't think it's a good thing. I'll gladly be proven wrong but I've already moved on from Upton as a whole & have little hope for Cespedes. Best case at this point may be either a trade or Fowler. I don't see the AAV dropping that much, moreso the years. Obviously a lot of teams would jump in if the price fell to 1 or 2 years, but I don't see a lot of teams jumping in at 4 years, which seems like the limit of how high the Sox will go.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Jan 13, 2016 -> 02:21 PM) When I really look at it, the Sox would have to buck 2 major trends: 1. Raising their payroll up to an all-time high. 2. Giving a franchise record-breaking contract to a player (much less a guy probably over 30). Both those things are going to have to happen at some point.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Jan 13, 2016 -> 11:18 AM) http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-decline...ez-star-player/ De Aza has a 15 wRC+ against LHP over the last two seasons. Didn't realize it was THAT bad, wow.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 13, 2016 -> 10:40 AM) Baseball Essential ‏@BB_Essential 16m16 minutes ago Report: Mets remain in contact with Yoenis Cespedes (@RobertMurrayBBE) http://www.baseballessential.com/news/2016...oenis-cespedes/ … From some light reading it seems a lot of Mets fans doubt they would go longer than 2 years.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 06:34 PM) How do you measure cluster luck? And wouldn't a team that strikes out infrequently be more likely to string hits together frequently? There doesn't seem to be that strong of a correlation between how often a team strikes out and their cluster luck. The Braves struck out the 2nd least behind the Royals and rated poorly. The Orioles and Padres struck out a lot and rated well. The Tigers were by far the worst and they were middle of the pack in strikeouts. Unfortunately it looks like they only have data for 2015, it would have been nice to see multi-year trends on this.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 02:45 PM) Would you be willing to spend $18.5 million Gonzalez over the next two years on the open market? (I don't know why I was under the impression his contract was a lot smaller than this) If yes, would the difference between what you would be willing to give him and what he is getting worth six years of Fulmer? Somehow I feel like Gonzalez return should be more like the return for Todd Frazier, maybe less. Agreed. There's no reason to believe CarGo has more trade value than Frazier did, and in fact should be a decent amount less.

QUOTE (bighurt574 @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 01:06 PM) Yep. I'm skeptical a guy like Cespedes falls into our lap by default. If his price really drops, we're going to have a lot more competition and I doubt we come out ahead at that point. If we're going to land him, we'll need to put a solid offer out there that keeps the competition on the sidelines. We don't seem willing to do that, at this point. Again, who are the teams that are going to jump in? I see a lot of posters claiming more teams will jump in, but few are offering suggestions about which teams actually would. I think it's an overblown fear.

Another opt-out, I'm not sure I can get used to this.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 01:01 PM) Cardinals maybe I've thought from the beginning that they're one of the major players here.

QUOTE (dpd9189 @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 12:53 PM) Just to play Devil's Advocate, if the price for Cespedes/Upton eventually does come down in the 2-3 yr range then there will be teams that aren't interested now jump in the mix. QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 12:54 PM) Yep, which is why you're hearing about the Tigers, Mets and Red Sox possibly getting back into the picture. Ehh I see no reason to really be worried about the Red Sox or Mets though. What other teams would jump in? I don't really see that many.

Doesn't this lower the price for a Colorado OF in a trade too? Teams know they have to trade an OF now.

QUOTE (BigFinn @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 11:13 AM) Denard Span is getting $35M over three years guaranteed ($43M if his fourth year option is picked up). Span is three years older and a better defender than Fowler, but Span is also coming off an injury. Fowler should get a similar contract. That said, I don't see much difference between Dexter Fowler and Jacob May or Adam Engel. May and Engel are probably better defenders, too. I don't really want Fowler, but this is ridiculous.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Jan 12, 2016 -> 11:11 AM) The records of teams in these predictions, even teams they are predicting to win the division, are always awful. Does anyone really think all 5 teams will be separated by 7 games in the standings? Projections are always by their nature going to be conservative. They actually do OK in predicting individual player performance, but there's too many factors at play to really accurately project the records of teams. A team could replay the season 5 times, have all their players put up the exact same numbers each time, but have 5 very different records at the end of each season. That's not including extra stuff like random breakouts, injuries, underperformance, and players from the minors stepping in and contributing.