L. Ron Paultard

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 02:27 PM) Hawk saying the hitting coach tells them what to do, and once the game starts, they can't do what he told them. 1) Doesn't surprise me. All it means is that Sox hitters may be physically talented, but they are also having problems in selfish attitude, coachability and/or lacking in smarts or the attention-span, to implement Steverson's sage advice in practice. 2) It shows the HUGE difference between Batting-Practice... and real games under unforgiving bright lights in front of 100,000 to- million TV viewers, 40,000 fans in the stands, the media corps.... human psychology at work. Pressure is performance-killer. 3) It still means Steverson is responsible for his part of overall failure. Part of coaches essential job description is to be a PSYCHOLOGIST and to find customized ways to effectively impart his wisdom in each individual player case. Coop to his credit, used to be strong in that aspect of the game, hence his reputation.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 02:16 PM) Avi not even trying to pull the ball Good! Trying to pull (non-hangers) in June-July is what got him in such trouble. That is not his game and never will be. He is not Gary Sheffield-on-roids or even Alexei Ramirez. Now, does it mean Avi is going to magically solve his woes by just letting the ball get deeper on him? No, that's not enough. He still needs to learn to utilize the advance scouting reports and to "think along" with the opposing pitcher. Avi still needs early pitch recognition. Smaller strike-zone. Shorter path to the ball and a more level swing plane. He is so strong, his line-drives oppo will still turn into doubles and HR in July at USCF. In other words, just making (quality) contact, is paramount. Maybe another off-season + ST will get him back on track.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 02:01 PM) Podsednik and Harrelson thinking that Eaton's sore shoulder is impacting his swing. That's because the inmates are running the asylum, and Robin is too much of a coward to tell Eaton to sit his ass for a few days. Just as he is when Chris Sale or Shark want to stay in the game past the point of hanging everything over the heart of the plate. It's reason like #34 why the coaching staff needs to be axed. Eaton also is way too greedy for a lead-off hitter whose reaching base has proven so crucial in Sox winning games during hot streaks. Put it another way: I don't care if Eaton hits another HR the rest of his career, though it's a nice bonus it's not his job. Those 3-2 hacks are WAY too big. Just dumb baseball 101. Especially if his shoulder is hurting. Especially seeing how wild Chris Duffy is as well as how difficult it is for a LH to square Duffy up in recent starts. Dumb dumb dumb.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 01:51 PM) And yet the pitching war (at least for starters) was among the best the majors two weeks ago. Something's up with Sale, physically. That long strikeout streak took something out of him...hasn't been the same since. Flowers an abysmal 5/43 throwing out runners. But, pitch framing! Toronto continues to advance like wheat thresher through the AL. 1) That's because Coop has always had so much sheer TALENT to work with. Vazquez, Buerhle, Garland, Freddy, Colon, Contreras, Edwin Jackson, Liriano, Sale, Samardja, Quintana, Danks, Javy Vazquez, 2005 version of Brandon McCarthy just to name a few off the top of head... are you effin' kidding me! And also because he once upon a time was probably a decent coach, with some strengths, no doubt. Just not the demigodly guru that he is to most Sox fans/commentators. 2) Sale is not necessarily hurt, though he is high risk for it obviously. It's just that as most other Don Cooper proteges, Chris Sale doesn't do well under big pressure. He will overwhelm you with sheer velocity and late movement, but if his back is under a wall, his focus will occasionally wane, his mechanics go out of whack, his breaking ball hangs inside, his change-up is tipped off.... you get the point. It's also why the whole "double-digit strike-out streak" was so friggin' stupid. WHO CARES! All it did was cause Sale to overthrow and over-stress his arm. Even the big innings like the 4th in Minnesota or the 6th in Boston happen because of the usueless trivia pressure to K batters. Fans and even managers care about trivia nonsense way too much IMO. Toronto is not the team Sox are chasing for final WC spot. It's the declining Angels since Pujols juice revival can only take him so far. Trout, too,

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 01:49 PM) Lol - Hawk, the only broadcaster in history to perfect the art of invoking the word "sphincter" into a broadcast!! 'Boner', too. To be fair, Hawkaroo is easily the greatest broadcaster of all time. Beyond hilarious, even when he is riled up or pouting. Or should I say, especially when he is riled up or pouting. Granted, 90% of fun is probably unintended, but who cares I like it anyway. Let the h8rs h8. Podsednik is awful but so are most if not all robothons, it's just a nature of the job. Hawk and Stone actually work well perhaps because they are so seemingly incompatible; I miss their awkward silences.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 01:32 PM) No way KW, RV and Hahn can all return in 2016. If they all return JR deserves 5,000 a night at the game. Shame on front office for being so stupid at trade deadline. Shock the went on a losing streak......NOT! ya know, interesting to see that the Sox haven't changed much. Awful at fundamentals under Ozzie (2005 uber-fluke only highlights that); not much changed under Robin Ventura even though rosters have turned over since then. The problem is truly systemic in nature, obvi I bet the Sox could have an absolute All-Star studded team up and down, led by -Chuck Norris -Vladimir Putin -Carl Yaztremski -the Dos Equis Man and still somehow lose 95+ games.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 01:29 PM) They've been pitching away from the defensive positioning all series This was a supremely all-around DUMB team for years. A supremely all-around DUMB team coming out of '15 Spring Training. A supremely all-around DUMB team whenever it was actually expected to play like a playoff-caliber team. The only saving grace has always been that overall level of talent was above-average, lots of big names.... but the tsunami of Dumb would just overwhelm in the end. The bizarre pitch-sequences and shifting alone should have gotten Mark Parent or Coop fired like 2 years ago, haha, while KC seems to pitch to their advance-scouting reports, our dunces prefer to almost pitch TO the KC hitters strengths. So bizarre and hilar, haha!

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 01:28 PM) These Sox pitchers are throwing like garbage You've never seen the (usually overhyped) Sox starters fall apart out of the stretch before? Really? No matter how dominant Javy Vazquez, Gavin Floyd, Jose Quintana, Shark, et al are.... a meltdown is only a baserunner or 2 away. And yet, to say anything against Don Cooper has always been blasphemy.

Is this going to be a typical Sox game where if things go well in the first inning, they easily win. But if Quintana gives up a bleeder or a blooper or defensive lets him down, he falls apart pitching out of the stretch? Oh and Mr. Ventura, Please no more wire-bunting ever!, outs are kinda important in baseball. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 08:53 PM) Didn't realize he was a Scientologist/libertarian. Not sure who you're talking about exactly, but a a 'Libertarian-Scientologist' or whatever? Not sure if ever been call that before. Sometimes I do like to be a Slavic mail-bride, tho. Help me out here, brah, how should the ad start exactly: "Have gazongas, will travel" "Turn-ons: shiny things. Krokodil Turnoffs: middle-aged American beergut on Sealis"?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 06:53 PM) Somehow I question your sincerity. ....which is of course par for the course for 'The Deal'-pologists across the board. Question the very sincerity & impugn the motives of the opponent. In fact the worst the Deal looks on the merits -- and the "hits" just keep on coming with all the hidden side-deals, non-disclosures, time-worn obfuscatory tactics..... the more bizarre the accusations. btw, been on campus much lately?

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 08:58 PM) Cooper has not done a good job with the starting pitching. Fathom, as has been said before, when push comes the shove --- pitching out of the stretch... facing opposing line-up for 3rd time .... important, hyped, pressure-packed series later in the season Don Cooper boys no matter how big their name or their track record... seem to falter more often than one would like. Peavy could be 1-hitting the other team through 5 innings, but god forbid the umpire didn't give him a close call on 1-1 pitch....or a Sox fielder failed to make a play, not an error necessarily..... and Jake-meinster had to go to the stretch --- bye bye ballgame, LOL. I believe Don Cooper is naked. He is not elite of the elite, certainly not since 2008, nevermind 2005. Maybe a good buddy to the pitchers, maybe keeps them healthier than most of their peers, but all that accolades? I have my doubts. Coop is also so sensitive when asked anything that can remotely misconstrued as criticism.... makes me wonder if his fragile personality at some point doesn't affect the pitchers. Watch them pitch out of the stretch VS. full wind-up next time and tell me what you think.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 09:03 PM) Avi Garcia's mechanics have changed? No one who has watched 2 games of White Sox baseball since 2013 would say that. he's 100% the exact same player he was in 2013 and 2014. He flips the ball constantly the other way. Pitchers aren't used to that from guys who come up so it took a while for his scouting report to get out, but he doesn't pull the ball and therefore he can be beat as long as you don't give him the pitch high and away. His batting average will always stay positive, but it will be a completely empty batting average. Opposite field HR are all he can do - he deserves no credit for those if he's not pulling the ball. He has no way to exploit his own power using his approach. He's the exact same player he was in August 2013 when he piled up bloop hits to right field. He wasn't rushed, but counting on him to contribute as a 23 year old was as dumb as trading away Phegley because he wasn't ready right now or counting on Rodon as a rookie. It's baseball stupid. The same people who said that Avi Garcia is a MLB center fielder said that Josh Phegley could not learn to hit big league pitching or field big league pitching. You indict them for calling Avi a CF and then assume they're right about Phegley being a failure when he's already outperforming what you say he could do. Not so much the mechanics or the batting stance, but the APPROACH itself. He is getting blown away on 88 mph fastballs that he used to hit to RF because his stance is now stiff; his timing & confidence have gone to s***; there is a pronounced hitch, then his head comes off the ball when it's barely half-way to home plate + the plane of the swing is less level. If you notice, on some swings it looks like Avi doesn't even start his swing until the ball already hits the catcher's mitt. Incidentally, Gordon Beckham has had that problem for years, as have many other flame-outs. It's a subtle difference, but in a sport where famously less than 50 milliseconds are the difference between a HR and just a loud out.... any unnatural hitch or hesitation or change in swing plane ---- and boom, you fail. Perhaps you are not sure what you are looking for in a swing. I OTOH, am pretty sure. Avi Garcia at his best, doesn't just slap the ball to opposite field, but he effortless drives the ball. The operating logic by Sox scouts was that one he completely filled out through his early-mid 20s' + built up sufficient knowledge of opposing pitchers to be able to "sit" on pitches ala every elite slugger knows how to "zone" the ball..... then we would see Avi truly blossom into Miguel Cabrera Lite. And since there are enough hangers thrown in a course of a long baseball season by bad-to-mediocre pitchers, Garcia would still be able to turn on enough of them to become a 30 HR guy ----- even without having elite kind of reaction-time/batspeed. We may laugh at the logic now, but it wasn't entirely baseless at the time. Hell, now that Avi has been thoroughly humbled by reality, he may go back to a shorter, more level stroke, and keeps his head on the ball all the way through. Again, his natural strength is such that he can hit 20+ HR with his eyes closed if only he could make consistent contact again. Then again, same things were said about Viciedo, who had a more explosive swing, so easier said than done, LOL

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 08:38 PM) And the end result of the thinking that "We must compete this year and we can't field a below .500 team multiple years in a row" is going to be 4 years below .500 in a row and a team that isn't nearly competitive the next year wihtout a huge FA splurge, again. Because we must compete every year, we've been uncompetitive 3 years in a row. You can't tell me "This team can't afford to be uncompetitive 2 years in a row" when they've been an utter failure 4 of 5 years. They're going to be worse next year in attendance because the foolish fans that bought into the 2015 BS are going to be even more angry because of the 2015 failure. They bought into this bullcrap and the team took advantage of them - how on Earth do we expect them to repeat that mistake next year? We're now going to be in Cleveland Indians attendance territory because we took the people who were interested and flicked them off with the 2015 season. Balta, White Sox while they are technically profitable.... are in big-big trouble overall. You know it and I know it, so why pretend otherwise? We are not the Cubs (thank Allah!), we are not the pre-2004 Red Sox. It's the Land of Bad Options, as it were. I understand that nuance is like cryptonite to an average sports fan, but you seem way smarter than that. You know that even smart GM make bad gambles; you know that things don't work even under ideal circumstances in elite organizations like the St. Louis Cardinals ---- let alone, in a lose-lose situation that a White Sox GM often finds himself in (look back at history going back to 19th century, FCOL) It's either/or, black and white proposition. Multiple seemingly conflicting things can be true at the same time. Was Rick Hahn justified in having hopes for 2015? Almost unanimously baseball experts deemed "yes". I agree. Should Rick Hahn be blamed for this impending disaster regardless of good intentions & solid reasoning? Also yes. Is Rick Hahn alone to blame? Hell no! Kenny's interferring ass should have been gone ages ago. Same for Buddy Bell clown. Same for Doug Laumann, Dwaybe ShaFfer good old-boy "lifer" types sitting on their fat asses. Same for Robin and Mark Parent atrocious excuses for major-league coaches. Same for Todd Steverson who took a team with a fluky 2014 April offensive miracle and managed to only a year later to make it a HISTORICALLY bad offense drawing comparisons with 1964 NY Mets, ZOMG!

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 08:48 PM) Doesn't seem to have affected Eaton too adversely that he went on a homer binge... Who said anything about Eaton? I was talking about Garcia. Every situation is different, every player has his/her own challenges. besides, Eaten is like 3 years older; didn't lose a year of development; plus it helps that Spank-meister has a quicker swing thus more room for error than Garcia. Why not invoke Mike Trout or Bryce Harper while you're at it, Caulfield?

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 08:33 PM) We're sports fans. We want it and we want it now. haha, don't I know it. I can be that myself as a kid in particular, but since then grew up and prefer to avoid everything sports-related like a plague (Soxtalk excepted every few years, and even then I am only here until Monday, so better enjoy my infinite know-it-all swag

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 08:23 PM) Josh Phegley has been worth 1.3 bWAR this season. Soto has been worth 1.3 bWAR this season. Yes I'm defending Josh Phegley. Giving up on him because the org decides they didn't like him was stupid and it's exactly the kind of mistake this organization has been making for years - we don't like a guy even if they're talented so we assume they will never learn anything at the big league level. We then give them away because we don't like them. Then we assume guys we like will learn a ton at the big league level, like Avi, then they are slow to do so and somehow we are surprised when we're a below .500 team as a consequence. As long as we're ok with being a below .500 team permanently, it's a successful plan. Josh Phegley is playing in a zero-pressure environment and even at his peak, he's a 1-WAR player (not that S-metrics can't be useless in a smaller sample size or can capture the true suckage that is his defense... mind you) As for Avi, again you're mixing everything up. Avi wasn't rushed to the big at all. At a quick glance, Mister Garcia's problems are 2-fold: 1) aformentioned Terrible scouting. Apparently someone told Rick Hahn that Garcia is a top-flight defensive CF.... who can also steal 30 bases with ease... and has Miguel Cabrera's HOF-caliber combination of poise, early pitch-recognition, hand-eye coordination & batspeed. I feel sorry for Hahn, haha. 2) And even with limited upside, Avi could still hit 20-25 HR in the majors because of his natural strength & an all-field line-drive swing. Which is what seem to happen before he tore his shoulder at age 22. When he came back, his mechanics were different. Still got off to a good start in 2015, including an impressive oppo HR against David Price no less. Sure he still needed to learn a lot in terms of plate-discipline & how to "think along with the pitcher".... but he was trending in a positive direction at 23 yo. Then everyone, including the media and fans began to whine how Avi need to pull more of those majestic Gio Stanton type HR to LF. Evidently Garcia took heed. And has been in pull-n-uppercut loopy off-balance swing mode for a couple of months. Numbers tanked big-time. Sure some responsibility is on Avi himself, got greedy, got out of his element.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 08:11 PM) For team that can't rebuild, we haven't made the playoffs since '08. What I am saying is that Sox FO is in a UNIQUELY DIFFICULT position year-in and year-out. Almost lose-lose. Sure it's one of those chicken-egg dilemmas. Some of the short-sighted executive decisions only compounded & perpetuated the existing (systemic) problems. But it is what it is. They can't just tear it all down and risk going the Royals or Pirates "route" (read: almost 20 years of ineptitude). PS. And also to be fair, Sox fielded competitive and semi-competitive teams in 2009, 2010, 2012 and even the pre-season favoured 2011, 2015 incarnations. Easy to forget that 2011 as horribly disappointing as it was, Sox were within only 3 games of Detroit juggernaut in early September. Like I said, many Sox fans it's impossible to please, period.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:47 PM) And congrats on defending Melky. I'll continue to be proud of those defending him until his next suspension comes down. FFS, what is it with you? How on earth did you construe my post as DEFENDING Melky Cabrera???!!! LMAO! I am only pointing out that he was one of many -- and far less paid than many of them. **coughTroutcough**

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 08:07 PM) You're right, the structural problem with the White sox is "Terrible scouts + terrible decisions associated with that scouting." Problem is - giving up on Phegley, Semien, Bassitt - is exactly the "terrible decisions associated with that scouting." Josh Phegley is a backup C - like you say - and catchers never learn anything with additional work right? Players never learn better defense when given the opportunity. That's buried into the White Sox system. Rush guys up to the big leagues and make decisions on them as fast as you can because they never learn anything and never get better. So why not deal them for a pitcher 1 year from free agency, because Phegley will never do better in the next 5 years than he did in 2014. The reality is...if your players rush up to the big leagues and never develop...that's an indictment of your organization and your development more than anything else, because Phegley is already doing more than any other catcher in our Org is. Balta please you're defending John freakin Phegley. A guy with long-term health defect. An absolutely horrrific defender at an elite defensive position. Someone who cannot hit a breaking ball even in the minors to save his life by all accounts. Could he improve and become a respectable back-up catcher? Sure. Just like there are washed-up 40 year old LOOGY's sticking around the bigs simply because. That doesn't mean anything. Do I look like someone who is a Jeff Samardja cheerleader? Not even close. But as of 2014, he WAS an elite starter if not in terms of actual results, then certainly in terms of UPSIDE. And like it or not, you always pay extra for 'upside'. In retrospect, I think Billy Beane pantsed the White Sox GM yet again. I don't believe Shark is 100% healthy and if he weren't in a critically important pre-FA period or in a middle of a pennant race... I bet we would hear some rumours of "fore-arm tightness" or a prolonged "dead-arm". IMHO.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:42 PM) Cubs were a similar way two years ago, and now they are so much better managed despite 4 rookies. Fathom, To be fair, even before Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, Jason McLoud, you cannot compare the Cubs and Sox. Anymore than you could legitimately compare the White Sox to the Red Sox (during the latter franchise's 86-year WS drought, that is). White Sox have possibly pro sports' worst fans, plus a few other impediments so they can never afford to truly REBUILD properly since another win-less decade might completely decimate the fanbase. Whereas Boston and Cubs even losing 120 games a year for 10 years a row ... know that they will survive. So of course it's much easier to make big bets on raw young talent and rebuild the franchise groundup in a textbook way. Knowing full well that once they pay off, they will have a dynasty going.\\

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:41 PM) You're underselling all of them IMO. Lower end major leaguers, if they are 1-2 WAR players, means that in 1 season they are more valuable to us than Samardzija would be and they control them for 6 years. And there's a nonzero chance of each of them winding up as all star players, we just didn't want to develop them. We wanted to win right now instead of developing people and now we see how well it worked. The A's wanted to develop people and they're going to get more out of thsoe player this year than we get out of Samardzija. Then they have those 3 for 2 more years pre-arb, 3 Arb years, and then Ravelo on top of that. If we were a deep roster, ready to compete right now, that would make sense. We are not. The fact that our front office thought we were means that we'll be rebuilding again in 2016. That trade and our fail to trade Samardzija at the deadline has delayed our move back to competition by 2 years. You are right, to a point. A deep farm system is indeed an asset overall --- it certainly beats a depleted one, as Sox have unfortunately found out the hard way a few years back. However, since overwhelming majority of prospects end up being big busts.... quantity only takes you so far. You need QUALITY. You need STARS. And since you're paying for future performance/upside, Jeff Samardja seemed to offer that in the eyes of Rich Hahn. It doesn't always work out in reality, but his reasoning was solid. This is where you are confusing the 2 things: contrary to the common media wisdom, the Sox problem is NOT that they traded away too many non-prospects like Semien or Ravelo. It may appear that way on the surface, but trust me it's NOT. No, the real, long-running, STRUCTURAL problem for the Sox has always been: terrible scouts + terrible "loyalty hire" coaches + lack of unified professional philosophy. Yes bright spots like Frank Thomas or luck-outs like Chris Sale aside... those many years of organization ineptitude add up to poison even the few good things that this franchise used to have going for it. If not for 2005 semi-fluke World Series... White Sox might have been contracted or relocated by now. True story. So unless this fundamental, structural ownership issue is addressed... don't expect Rick Hahn or anyone else to magically make beautiful trades. PS. Now, with that being said, baseball is one WEIRD-ASS game. Which is one of the reason we all love it. So if Sox were somehow to back into the playoff this year... they may just win the World Series again, hahah October is total crapshoot with Chris Sale on the bump!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 06:58 PM) Cabreroid Oh yeah, about that. It's hilarious poking fun at old Melky-pants, but Balta I like to point out that probably like 3/4 of big names we all know are or were on some sort of juice, HGH, greenies, designer stuff, the whole bizangle haha. For instance, oh say....Carlos Quentin circa 2008.... Jose Batista.... A-Rod/Texeira/Pujols types probably even this year....Manny, Big Papi of course....or Mike "Mantle" Trout or Puig circa 2013, for that matter are legit.... you'll prolly be very disappointed. It's crazy. One of the things I always felt proud to be a Sox fan is because it's a relatively clean organization --- emphasis on relatively. /end OT

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:26 PM) Fire this manager immediately after season ends. Entire team plays like idiots Like I said, I rarely get a chance to watch the Sox -- but in a strange way that helps to make panoramic, comparative observations. And it's the one thing that almost instantly, constantly jumped at me: just how stupid, horribly prepared this team is virtually in every aspect of the game. It is noticeable not just in every series, we're talking about practically every inning -- if not even single pitch/play! Just speechless.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:26 PM) They didn't. They got 4 "close to big league players" for him. I've been saying this the whole year - the comp pick for Samardzija has a ~75% chance of being "just about as good as 1 of the 4 players we gave up for Samardzija". When we complain about having no depth to replace players, we gave up our depth to get Samardzija. When he complain about not developing a catcher or so many other positions, we gave up those positions to get Samardzija. We didn't give up immediate all stars for him, but we gave up players who could be really good with some work. The fact that people buy into people saying "we didn't give up much for Samardzija" is a big part of the problem with this team - the organization is obsessed with big names and is willing to sacrifice a deep, solid roster in exchange for it. Even if a big name doens't make up for weaknesses at other spots. It's not quantity of prospects but their QUALITY/pedigree. Chris Bassett is not a long-term major league starter, don't let early run fool you. Dylan Axelrod had some nice innings early on, too. Semian hit a few April homers, and since then absolutely nothing special. And that catcher who can't catch? Haha, are you kidding? Do you know what relatively, seemingly low-miliage, hard-throwing, "charismatic" starters like Samardja have historically commanded? Basset who?

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:16 PM) I cannot believe there are Sox fans that want to sign Samardzija. I'm counting the days until his departure. I don't think it's matter of what Sox fans want or don't want. Truth of the matter is: Sox could never afford Samardja in a long-term deal. If he had a top-5 Cy Young kind of 2015, then he someone would have paid upwards of 150 mill for his services which is just crazy even for rich organizations. But now with this mediocre season? The asking price is going to drop to "only" 100 million. But that's an even worse deal because I am seriously question how good Shark's elbow is feeling after all those notoriously elbow-stressful splitters & sliders. I'll take my chances on Erik Johnson reclamation project, and hopefully on Montas, Spencer Adams longer term.... at league minimum. Plus draft compensation pick. No offense, Jeff.