Chris Sale Appreciation Thread (FIRE KEITH LAW)

[Quin]

What the hell? I have no idea where this came from. But I like it. That's easily a top 3 team in the AL. I will say though they better figure out something with Pena. They traded a quality 1B/LF prospect for him. The play he made in LF last night was incredible. I underestimated his athleticism.

 

I think I saw caufield listing off potential players to trade and saw Quentin and my brain just went off.

[daggins]

You won't get anything for Quentin, he's just meat at this point. Danks will net a lot but not Gonzalez since the Pads already have young, cheap pitching that can win in that godawful excuse for a ballpark. That pen is bottom 5 in MLB. Team could probably win 80 games in a good year, 75 or so on average.

[Quin]

You won't get anything for Quentin, he's just meat at this point. Danks will net a lot but not Gonzalez since the Pads already have young, cheap pitching that can win in that godawful excuse for a ballpark. That pen is bottom 5 in MLB.Team could probably win 80 games in a good year, 75 or so on average.

 

I'm pretty sure a Danks-Danks2-Quentin package would net A-Gon. That's a package that could get almost anyone in the game, especially if the Pads can't resign A-Gon. Plus, the Pads will need 2 new starters next year assuming Correia and Garland walk.

 

About the pen, you're really overestimating how good pens are around the MLB.

 

Putz can't be worse than Bobby

Santos is only going to grow as his arm builds up stregnth.

Thornton is Thornton.

Leesman can't be worse than Randy Williams (I'm not sure anyone can...)

Infante has a chance to be next years Santos with his fastball.

Harrell could probably give you what Pena can.

Linebrink is there.

 

Also, no way an offense with Pierre-Crawford-Rios-Gonzalez-Paulie-Beckham-Flowers-Morel-Alexei is bad. You have a high average speedster leading off, 4 above average to elite bats following him, then high on-base guy in Gordon, a slugging catcher who can be no worse than AJ, a guy who gives every indication he'll hit for an average around .280 probably and a good average/sometimes power guy in Alexei

 

A rotation with new and improved Jackson 2.0, Buehrle, Floyd after May, a healthy adapted to AL Peavy and Chris Sale who's given every indication he has good stuff isn't getting pushed around to 75 wins on average.

 

Also, I did some math and figured contracts. Assuming you sign Crawford for 16M a year, A-Gon for 18M the first year, Paulie for 10M, and Putz for 7M, and Vizquel for the same cash you get a payroll of:

 

Rotation: $43M

Lineup: $60.1M

Pen: $15.5M

Bench: $7.45M

 

Total: $126.05M

 

Now, my gut tells me there is no possible way that JR pays that, but my gut also told me we wouldn't absorb Rios', Peavy's, and Manny's contracts in their entirety either. The team has money and I think JR would spend it on those 4 if he could.

Edited September 2, 2010 by Quinarvy

[SoxAce]

Infante has a chance to be next years Santos with his fastball.

 

So could Anthony Carter. (who will pitch in the AFL) Not quite ready to pencil him yet either.

[caulfield12]

Any idea of us signing Crawford is a non-starter...

 

I doubt KW's ready to pull the plug on Pena yet, I think he gets one more year unless Infante really comes on quickly. This is especially true if Sale's going to be in the minors, we don't even know for sure if we'll have Putz back, and it's not clear that overpaying him based on the first four months of 2010 would be a wise idea.

 

Trading Danks and Quentin can get us talent back, but it still doesn't directly deal with the salary "elephant" that is Peavy/Buehrle.

 

I also think the situation with AJ is going to be similar to the one they dealt with Thome...hard to believe AJ would accept a significant salary decrease. You're either going to have to pay him what he's making this year (or close to it) as the starter again or he's gone and you have to make do with Castro/Flowers or find a low-risk/high reward sign like John Buck/Miguel Olivo on the FA market.

Edited September 2, 2010 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

So could Anthony Carter. (who will pitch in the AFL) Not quite ready to pencil him yet either.

 

 

Santos Rodriguez?

 

Wouldn't that be something if we had four lefties in our system who threw 95 plus in Sale, Thornton, Rodriguez and Threets. Even Danks can get it up there at 93 and occasionally 94.

 

Unfortunately, Threets won't be throwing in the mid 90's again until 2012 or 2013.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2010 by caulfield12

[daggins]

Danks for Gonzalez would be an overpay, I think, and Quentin has negative trade value, so maybe that would work, but why? Also the Pads are less likely to trade their star hitter, who they don't really have a replacement for, now that they are winning. You're right that they will need starters but not anyone of Danks' caliber and cost. If i'm a pitcher i'm basically begging to pitch for the Padres, no other team will make you look better. They'll re-up Garland and replace Correia on the cheap or something like that.

 

Putz/Santos/Thornton would be pretty good, but you better hope they can all throw 100+ innings because Linebrink/Infante/Leesman/Harrell is garbage time. Bad/Wild Thing/Birmingham-induced mirage/Not an MLB pitcher.

 

Cost aside, (and ignoring the fact that the Pads won't trade Gonzalez) that lineup is quite good, although counting on Morel and Flowers to do anything at the MLB level at this point is a bit hasty. But as mentioned, cost and improbable trades make it a moot issue. Konerko at DH is a waste of Paulie's talents and he is likely to sign elsewhere before limiting himself to DH here. Craw-daddy is going to get a lot of money, like, Torii Hunter kind of deal, maybe a couple mil more per year, and the Sox won't and shouldn't allocate their resources that way. Maybe they can pry Luke Scott to replace Q or, if Jerry REALLY digs in, Jayson Werth.

 

There's nothing in his history to suggest Edwin is going to keep up this string of dominance. Who knows with Peavy, but i'm not counting on much, at least for next year. Sale shouldn't be in the rotation next year. Gavin and Buehrle will probably be themselves, and thats a good thing. Fair amount of uncertainty going forward.

 

I still wouldn't give this team more than 82 wins. That bullpen is so so bad, it'd be like Diamondbacks in 2010 bad. Arizona has the most position players with over 3 WAR and yet they are bottom feeding scrubs because their pen has been horrible all year. You can't build a pen with AA pitchers and AAAA failed starters or else you get the 2007 White Sox.

 

[asmithxc]

That bullpen is nowhere near as bad as the Diamondbacks this year. Not even in the same league. The Diamondbacks have had three guys close games this year. Qualls has a 7.58 ERA. Gutierrez has a 5.96 ERA. Heilman has by far the best ERA from pitching well as a setup man for a while, but he has blown as many games as he has saved.

 

The proposed Sox bullpen would lack depth, but Thornton and Putz are far better pitchers than any RP for the Diamondbacks, and Santos probably is as well. Even Linebrink is much better than Qualls, who was the closer for much of the season.

[RockRaines]

On the logic side, we should be able to use the money saved from Buehrle's contract to improve our CLUB, if KW makes the right moves.

 

The problem with letting Buehrle or Konerko go is that it's also going to adversely affect your season ticket sales going into 2010...so we might save the money from Mark's contract, but end up actually doing more harm than good to incoming revenues. Sure, if we ended up leading the ALCD in April and May next year, we could theoretically make some of it back over the course of the season like our July-July stretch has done for us the last couple of months, but it's a big gamble no matter what KW does.

 

All we can do is go by past history. KW has approached the starters in the past and parted company with the one who wouldn't sign a long-term contract...there's no reason to think he wouldn't do the same thing again with Danks.

 

Danks has a lot of value to the White Sox, obviously...but he has incredible value because of the cost controls over the next two seasons to other clubs as well.

 

Maybe I'm underestimating the Buehrle market, he has run off an impressive string of quality starts in the last 3 months, but what clubs out there are going to take his contract and give us equal talent? It's going to be more of a salary relief move...and maybe it's possible for just one season, but I'm not convinced the cost savings won't be undermined by public relations damage from dealing Mark. It's the classic Catch 22, your head says to try to trade Mark and your heart says to keep him and Konerko.

 

Of course, that's how we ended up signing Jose Contreras to a bad contract, so we have to be careful...every possible move (including standing pat) is fraught with risk.

Season ticket renewals are pretty much 100% locked up in the next week BTW with playoff invoices already out.

 

Buehrle makes more money than he is worth to the Sox and Danks is worth more to the Sox than on the trade market. You wont get an A-gon which is ridiculously been mentioned, but you could probably get a prospect and an MLB role player. If you let Konerko go and trade Buehrle's 14 million dollar salary you literally have enough money to sign a superstar free agent and possibly a 5th starter or a good bullpen arm. Not to mention you WILL get value back for Buehrle, especially if he is traded to the NL.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

Season ticket renewals are pretty much 100% locked up in the next week BTW with playoff invoices already out.

 

Buehrle makes more money than he is worth to the Sox and Danks is worth more to the Sox than on the trade market. You wont get an A-gon which is ridiculously been mentioned, but you could probably get a prospect and an MLB role player. If you let Konerko go and trade Buehrle's 14 million dollar salary you literally have enough money to sign a superstar free agent and possibly a 5th starter or a good bullpen arm. Not to mention you WILL get value back for Buehrle, especially if he is traded to the NL.

 

Do you seriously think all the Sox could get for Danks is a prospect and a ML role player?

[daggins]

They should be able to get something like two A prospects on the Sickel scale (or a prospect and a decent MLB player) plus a couple B/C prospects. Young, under team control for 2 more years, very good, left handed. We should get more than Seattle got for half a season of Lee anyways.

[caulfield12]

I don't see how Danks can go from Lester/Sabathia to netting us something so insignificant...

 

Or how Buehrle being traded is going to get us anything back in return but a team possibly willing to take on his salary commitment and maybe a fringe prospect of the Felix Diaz/Jon Adkins/Nick Masset/Sean Tracey variety.

[WHITESOXRANDY]

I can't think of a better way for the Sox to start the 2011 season than with Danks, Floyd, Peavy, Buehrle, Jackson and Sale.

 

It would be dumb to trade any of them. The Sox have no one else close to acceptable to replace them with and every team needs at leats 6 starters per season.

 

Besides, the Sox don't have many holes in the lineup. As we saw last winter bats are cheap and easy to sign. The bullpen make up will be very important.

[ScottyDo]

I don't see how Danks can go from Lester/Sabathia to netting us something so insignificant...

 

Or how Buehrle being traded is going to get us anything back in return but a team possibly willing to take on his salary commitment and maybe a fringe prospect of the Felix Diaz/Jon Adkins/Nick Masset/Sean Tracey variety.

I dunno, the Dodgers paid more for half a season of Lilly.

[Rowand44]

I can't think of a better way for the Sox to start the 2011 season than with Danks, Floyd, Peavy, Buehrle, Jackson and Sale.

I'd bet that if one of those guys are traded we'll at least get a competent mlb starter back as part of the deal. Kenny loves to have 6 capable sp's around it seems and I highly doubt we rush Sale to the rotation.

[Balta1701]

I'd bet that if one of those guys are traded we'll at least get a competent mlb starter back as part of the deal. Kenny loves to have 6 capable sp's around it seems and I highly doubt we rush Sale to the rotation.

Hence the dilemma for both teams...what team is going to give up a non-overpaid competent back of the rotation starter for any of those guys except Floyd (Buehrle, D1, and Jackson already have looming FA's/retirements, Peavy injury issue) in addition to giving up another reasonably valuable piece...and why would the Sox make a move to make their rotation worse if it doesn't make the lineup significantly better?

[kitekrazy]

His scouting report said plus fastball, plus change, plus control, average slider that's tough on lefties. The slider seems better and the control seems worse than that, but I think a large part of the control is that he went from college to MLB hitters in a few months. Maybe he's having trouble consistently finding his slot coming out of the bullpen. There are so many factors that could be messing with his control. I think it's reasonable to expect that improves for next season with more work.

 

I wonder what it's like to be in the mind of a kid who had little time in the minors and every time he goes to the mound, one mistake can put a team in a race further behind.

 

[Steve9347]

I wonder what it's like to be in the mind of a kid who had little time in the minors and every time he goes to the mound, one mistake can put a team in a race further behind.

Some guys are mentally built for this s***, and Chris Sale seems to be one of them.

[RockRaines]

They should be able to get something like two A prospects on the Sickel scale (or a prospect and a decent MLB player) plus a couple B/C prospects. Young, under team control for 2 more years, very good, left handed. We should get more than Seattle got for half a season of Lee anyways.

So why would you trade a young, cheap, left handed pitcher under control for 2 more seasons for prospects? Why wouldnt you trade an overpaid, older left handed pitcher who can net us some players and free up cash for signings? If you are rebuilding you dont trade cheap young good pitching, if you are contending you dont trade young cheap good pitching.

 

Its just making a move to make a move, the Sox are a MUCH better team with Danks on it. Even if you give him Jon Lester-type money he is still a bargain. 5 years/30 million is a steal for a pitcher of his caliber. They should be focusing on giving him that offer instead of dealing him because you think you can. Out of all the rotation he is by far the last guy I trade. I trade Peavy, Buehrle, and Floyd in that order before I unload Danks. If I told you that you could get Mark Buehrle at age 25 for the next 5 years at a total cost of 30 million, you take it. Thats what we could have with Danks IMO.

 

Did everyone just go blind after a few rough starts by Danks? He is STILL the best guy in the rotation after those hiccups (save for the short time Jackson has been here). He's been our Ace all season.

Edited September 2, 2010 by RockRaines

[daggins]

I'm not saying they should trade him, merely refuting the idea that the Sox would get crap for him, which someone upthread seemed to think. They'd get a good return but it'd be a huge gamble to deal a proven starter.

[caulfield12]

So why would you trade a young, cheap, left handed pitcher under control for 2 more seasons for prospects? Why wouldnt you trade an overpaid, older left handed pitcher who can net us some players and free up cash for signings? If you are rebuilding you dont trade cheap young good pitching, if you are contending you dont trade young cheap good pitching.

 

Its just making a move to make a move, the Sox are a MUCH better team with Danks on it. Even if you give him Jon Lester-type money he is still a bargain. 5 years/30 million is a steal for a pitcher of his caliber. They should be focusing on giving him that offer instead of dealing him because you think you can. Out of all the rotation he is by far the last guy I trade. I trade Peavy, Buehrle, and Floyd in that order before I unload Danks. If I told you that you could get Mark Buehrle at age 25 for the next 5 years at a total cost of 30 million, you take it. Thats what we could have with Danks IMO.

 

Did everyone just go blind after a few rough starts by Danks? He is STILL the best guy in the rotation after those hiccups (save for the short time Jackson has been here). He's been our Ace all season.

 

Why would Danks take that money now, when he only has to wait two years to become a FA?

 

If you could go back in time 2 years and offer Danks that deal again...but that's not realistic. He can easily make $15 million the next two seasons just from going to arbitration or year-by-year (like Crede and Jenks), so he would be only receiving $15 million for his first four years of free agency? No way.

 

Danks is going to get a HUGE payday from someone. That eventual number will be closer to $150 million than $15 million.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Why would Danks take that money now, when he only has to wait two years to become a FA?

 

If you could go back in time 2 years and offer Danks that deal again...but that's not realistic. He can easily make $15 million the next two seasons just from going to arbitration or year-by-year (like Crede and Jenks), so he would be only receiving $15 million for his first four years of free agency? No way.

 

Danks is going to get a HUGE payday from someone. That eventual number will be closer to $150 million than $15 million.

 

I agree. Danks is going to make major dollars in a couple years.

[WHITESOXRANDY]

I'd bet that if one of those guys are traded we'll at least get a competent mlb starter back as part of the deal. Kenny loves to have 6 capable sp's around it seems and I highly doubt we rush Sale to the rotation.

 

I'm not saying we rush Sale into the rotation. I'm saying that we keep them all and he'll be the 6th option. There's no need to trade Danks. It doesn't make sense. If Peavy, Thornton and Putz were healthy right now the Sox would have a decent chance to go all the way - with or without Manny.

 

The pitching is the biggest component by far. The Sox rotation is set for next year. They are in a good position. They set up their bullpen very well for 2010 and if they do it again in 2011 they will have a great shot.

 

Don't trade the starting pitching. Bats they can get. They could have gotten Aubrey Huff for $ 3 mil. investment and no prospects. Players are available.

 

How did you like giving up Gio Gonzalez for Swisher ?

Edited September 3, 2010 by WHITESOXRANDY

[hitlesswonder]

How did you like giving up Gio Gonzalez for Swisher ?

 

Better than giving up Swisher for Marquez.

[Soxfest]

Sale is the real deal ..KW do NOT trade him!