OmarComing25

QUOTE (raBBit @ Dec 2, 2015 -> 02:31 PM) I think on the hitting side of things you and Vance are correct. As far as pitching, it's almost uniform. The difference is the existence of the DH in the AL means it makes sense why NL pitchers would struggle more in the AL. There's no similar barrier for hitters. If it was a case of being unfamiliar with the pitchers then we should be seeing a lot of AL hitters struggle when going to the NL too.

Great write-up, thanks a lot. I agree that many of the people running out the old complaints and narratives have missed that the White Sox have clearly been trying to address these issues, often for many years, and that it will take a long time to see the results of these changes. One complaint in particular that I want to address is the White Sox being cheap. Yes, for years they clearly went cheap when it came to the draft, but that has thankfully changed now. However, when it comes to payroll this complaint has been pretty much unfounded. Rank in MLB by payroll for the last decade for the Sox: 2015: 15th 2014: 20th 2013: 8th 2012: 11th 2011: 5th 2010: 7th 2009: 12th 2008: 5th 2007: 5th 2006: 4th Only 1 year in the bottom half, which was a rebuilding year. 6 times in the top 10, and 4 times in the top 5. Not bad for a team that struggles with attendance as much as we do. Sox might not give out a lot of huge contracts, but that's mostly a good thing, not a bad thing.

Every time one of these deals is signed you get tons of these types of comments: Got to love the self-proclaimed selfless fans who are just convinced they'd turn down an extra $20-30 million that's never going to actually be offered to them.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 06:47 PM) LOL at Tenn at 25. At least thats a good way to justify Bama at #2 for them. Tennessee's 4 losses are by a combined 17 points. They're a couple plays away from being 10-2 or 11-1, I don't have a problem with where they are.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Dec 2, 2015 -> 07:08 AM) My opinion is this. I am glad his Sox are red and not White. Imo, its too much money annually but I do think Price will pitch well through the first three years and opt out. At that point Price will be 32 and Boston will be free of his salary which will be a blessing. Price will then sign a long term contract with the Yankees to take CC's place in NY as the next big pitching contract gone wrong. Boston should start praying Price doesn't get injured in year three or they will be on the hook for the long haul. Hasn't Cashman said repeatedly that the Yankees weren't going to sign big contracts to 30+ year old pitchers anymore after what happened with CC? I doubt NY would go after him if he opts out.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 11:26 PM) yes, someone like Arenado is how you get fair value on Quintana or Sale (they'd have to throw more in for Sale). Of course, I'm willing to trade Sale for fair value. Quintana looks like someone who can pitch forever, to me. You don't get fair value trading for the much beloved heron career years and declining veterans. And we need to leave our best minor league pitchers alone...trading them is not getting full value. or what about the prospect blocked by Arenado. Do due diligence on him and see if we can get him for EJ or the like. On a side note, Price is worth that contract. He's twice as good as Zimmerman. You harp on endlessly about "hero worship" yet think Price is worth that contract?

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 09:46 PM) They won't trade them because what team is going to pay the required and deservedly so asking price of both? Sox would not get equal value in trade for either of them because it would cost a ton to get them. Exactly. The teams that have the pieces to do it I don't see pulling the trigger on a trade for Sale or Q, especially now that the Red Sox would probably be out of those sweepstakes.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 08:15 PM) According to reports, the cubs didn't make an offer to Price and have been saying they are looking for a second tier pitcher because they only have about 20M to spend. 20M total? I thought they had 30-35M to spend, they need a CF and a SP, 20 won't get you both in today's market. Second tier SPs are still going to get at least 15M/year, and a decent outfielder will probably approach that as well.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 06:19 PM) It's not like we're in a thread about a case clearly showing as obvious as could be how terrible of a deal you're getting for top level FAs any more. I'm not advocating for signing Heyward (too many holes to put it all on one player), but free agents are usually terrible deals because you're getting them after their prime years are over, so there's a lot more risk and you're paying a lot for their declining years. This would not be the case with Heyward.

We all should have expected this once the Red Sox got Dombrowski.

Red Sox overpaid, but the Greinke deal will be more of an overpay. Guy is going to regress hard next year.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 04:28 PM) Except the playoffs last year showed the Cubs need a 1 or 2 SP bad. Lester is a year older and Arietta won't have a ridiculous once in a hundred years season again. Trading for top SP normally isn't 1 for 1 hitter for pitcher either. I guess they can run at Greinke, but have to imagine LAD will just match what ever is thrown at him, unless it's completely absurd. The Cubs scored 8 runs in 4 games in the NLCS. Yeah their SP didn't get it done, but it's not like they got a lot of support that series. Now they'll likely try to trade for Ross/Miller or go after Shark, and then add Gordon or Heyward. Will probably try to trade Baez/Soler/Castro.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 04:12 PM) Cash is king but that's stupid money. I thought they would land him but I didn't think they would be the highest bidder. I only thought the Maddon connection would come into play if the money was even, otherwise Price was going to the highest bidder. People overrate the importance of that kind of stuff.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 09:02 AM) The only way a Miller trade makes sense is if we trade Q 1st and then circle back to help our staff out...Wonder if a starting package of Micah, Avi, and Montas even gets us in the door though? I will say that advanced stats really don't like Miller (big FIP difference in all 3 years) and a move to the AL and our ballpark could be a pretty bad mix for him. I wouldn't sell the farm for 2 years of him. Agreed, peripherals aren't great, and he likely got a bit lucky on HR/FB rate this season. He also pitched in one of the worst offensive divisions in recent memory. Steamer has him pegged for an ERA over 4 next year, and that's without considering a move to the AL.

When will people stop tripping in TWD? It'll never not annoy me, especially when someone like Carol does it. Have you ever tripped and fell while running in your entire life? Such a lazy and overdone trope at this point.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/katohs-top-...-list-for-2016/ "I know you probably know this, but I’d like to reiterate that you shouldn’t think of this as “Chris Mitchell’s Top 100 List,” and certainly not “FanGraphs’ Top 100 List.” This is simply the output from a flawed statistical model that fails to take into account many of the factors that go into evaluating a prospect. As always, you should never choose between stats and scouting — or beer and tacos — if you don’t have to." Not sure how this thing is calculated or how reliable it is, but we only have Montas at #88 and Adams at #93. Anderson not even in the Top 100.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 30, 2015 -> 11:04 AM) I doubt UNC was expecting to be in this position when they made their schedule. Didn't a couple teams back out, and that's why UNC had to schedule FCS? I don't think they wanted this schedule.

Honestly I thought Zimmerman would get a lot more (closer to $150 million than $100 million), so not a bad deal for the Tigers.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Nov 29, 2015 -> 10:57 AM) At least Detroit tries. Can't fault them for that. We keep talking about well they'll regret it later, meanwhile they'll continue to own us. The last two years Detroit has gone 20-18 against us, that's not "owning us".

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Nov 26, 2015 -> 08:50 PM) I'll just throw in that as pointed out in SSS someone like Soto got only 4 pinch hitting appearances which seems odd since he was the only RH power off the bench. Plus Robin didn't play him much while he was doing well. The second half Soto was bad but the 1st half he could've been used more. Also LaRoche played a lot in the 1st half even though he never really got untracked all season. Now with a club as offensively challenged as the Sox you'd think Robin would play a hot hand more even though there weren't very many hot hands to be found. I know they got him for a reason and they made every possible effort to play him to get him to hit to try to get some positive return on their investment but at some point it had to stop and in my mind it wasn't early enough. Pinch-hitting your backup catcher is generally not a good idea. LaRoche's numbers were fine up until about mid-June, and in August when Thompson came up Robin did stop playing LaRoche a lot, I didn't really have a problem with how Robin handled him this year. Conor only had 15 PA against LHP this season so let's not pretend Robin doesn't know how to platoon someone. He also stopped playing Conor once Saladino came up, and I think he utilized Soto and Shuck well for the most part.

QUOTE (Baron @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 09:16 PM) 2011 was 4 years ago.He had a few little life signs last year but not alot. We had a better backup catcher last year who got signed for a few hundred thousand more than he got. Plus your going to have to be smart about platooning these two guys. That's great...we got Robin though. I just see alot of bad matchups with pitchers and plenty of missed opportunities. If there was someone else managing I would be fine with it. But we dont. Ok I'll bite, where has Robin failed with platooning in the past? Who should he have used differently?

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 09:59 PM) So what has he done lately to give me confidence? Nothing. He's a guy. That's it. Outside of 2015 he's always hit RHP well, and it was clear he wasn't healthy this year. If he's healthy he's a much better option against RHP than Flowers. Even if he doesn't hit his defense is pretty good. Despite hitting under .200 this year he still had a solid OBP.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 10:13 AM) ND's best wins would be @Stanford, vs Navy, @Temple, @Pitt OU's best wins would be @OSU, @Baylor, vs TCU, @Tennessee OU's wins are slightly better, but not by a lot, and also OU's loss is to a team that ND beat (by a lot). Honestly, both of them have better wins than Alabama. There only team in this week's playoff rankings that they've beaten is #21 Mississippi St., who drops out of the rankings if they lose to Mississippi, and by the time Florida loses to FSU and then Alabama, they'll barely be ranked. Committee doesn't have the balls to leave the SEC out of the playoff though. People focus too much on just the top 25 teams. It's an arbitrary cutoff. Alabama has pretty much dominated all their games with a couple exceptions, and if you go by, say, top 40 or top 50 wins, their ranking makes sense. I think there's little difference between #25 and #40. The Baylor win was good for OU, but barely scraping by a TCU team missing half their starters and on their 3rd string QB at home is not an impressive win at all.

I liked Almonte, and although Kahnle's walks are a bit frightening, he's had some success at the ML level, which Almonte is still likely to never see. Still way more than you'd expect to get for 2 months of Beckham.

Steamer projects him for 1.4 WAR next year, for that low a cost it's hard not to like this move.