You're Hahn, who are you looking to trade first?

[ChiSox59]

That is what people are suggestimg. Thinking drafting in the top 10 is a guarantee to get good players is hogwash. The Sox drafted Aaron Poreda 25th in the first round in 2007. Do you know that 4 of the first 8 players selected in that draft have lower career WARS than Poreda?

 

Many here think Gordon Beckham is a bust. He was the Sox pick in 2008. Did you know of the first 46 selections of that draft only Buster Posey and Brett Lawrie have highrt career WARS than Beckham. Losing really sucks. To think it pays off down the line is a hope not anywhere near a guarantee.

 

Hell of a post. Even though I am at the point in which I want to say f*** it, trade what we can, and get ready for a good run at it in 2015. But you're right, unless you're getting a top 3-4 pick, it is still a crapshoot.

[ShandyMan]

The only argument might be fans would prefer to see offense compared to pitching.

 

Now, we all know you need pitching and defense...but if you're looking at it from a revenue/business standpoint, it's difficult to prove a huge bump in attendance for Sale starts. (The other argument would be health, that Sale's more likely to go down to major surgery at some point than an everyday player, but nobody can be sure or project with 100% accuracy).

 

For example, in Kansas City, there was always a jump of 3-5000 for Greinke starts...or, another example, Halladay in his prime for the Blue Jays when they were consistently finishing at the bottom of the standings.

 

True. A player that plays everyday compared to once every 5 games. You also have to think about contract situations though. We have Sale cheap for a long time, Stanton won't be as easy to extend and will be $$$

[caulfield12]

True. A player that plays everyday compared to once every 5 games. You also have to think about contract situations though. We have Sale cheap for a long time, Stanton won't be as easy to extend and will be $$$

 

 

Yeah, I wouldn't trade Sale for Stanton for that reason.

 

Of course, you might be kicking yourself a year or two from now when/if he goes down to injury, not unlike everyone now being exasperated by the prospect of John Danks stuck on the roster as dead weight for 3 1/2 more years if he can't come back and be productive.

[macsandz]

If the Cardinals want to give you Taveras, Adams, Carlos Martinez, Wong and Rosenthal for Sale and Alexei, I would say yes

 

OMG, Yes please. That deal would transform the franchise potentially...

[Jordan4life_2007]

If the Cardinals want to give you Taveras, Adams, Carlos Martinez, Wong and Rosenthal for Sale and Alexei, I would say yes

 

Unfortunately, the Cardinals are the best-run franchise in baseball and don't do stuff like this.

[fathom]

Unfortunately, the Cardinals are the best-run franchise in baseball and don't do stuff like this.

 

Of course not, I was just trying to show a package of prospects that would be more than fair value for Sale.

[witesoxfan]

I know, but Reed and Crain would.

 

No, they wouldn't.

[Balta1701]

Of course not, I was just trying to show a package of prospects that would be more than fair value for Sale.

The reason I would never make a move with Sale is that I don't think any package where the Sox get back "Fair value" for trading him would actually make the team better in the long run when you factor in the likelihood of some failures from every group of prospects.

[LittleHurt05]

Unfortunately, the Cardinals are the best-run franchise in baseball and don't do stuff like this.

 

Or if they do, they probably know something about those players and want to get rid of them.

[Harry Chappas]

That is what people are suggestimg. Thinking drafting in the top 10 is a guarantee to get good players is hogwash. The Sox drafted Aaron Poreda 25th in the first round in 2007. Do you know that 4 of the first 8 players selected in that draft have lower career WARS than Poreda?

 

Many here think Gordon Beckham is a bust. He was the Sox pick in 2008. Did you know of the first 46 selections of that draft only Buster Posey and Brett Lawrie have highrt career WARS than Beckham. Losing really sucks. To think it pays off down the line is a hope not anywhere near a guarantee.

 

Shut your mouth the top of the draft is rebuilding utopia.

 

Just ask Jed, Theo and that scout that came over that is on the radio weekly to tell everyone how great the the cub farm system is.

 

Baseball is a crap shoot.

 

ACES ARE LIKE PRO BOWL QB'S YOU DO NOT TRADE THEM!!!!!!

 

Sale is a building block and what you trade for, not what you trade. He is a proven ace. An ace allows you to get 4 .500 pitchers and still be competitive, if you hae average hitting

[The Ultimate Champion]

Imagine who the Royals would have been able to land 2 years ago if they offered Montgomery, Moose, Hosmer & Hochevar. Everyone would have been like OMGWTFHOLYs*** & now it's like, well, maybe a couple of those guys can rebound and become average players. And if you had traded your Sale for that you'd be calling for the head of your GM & rightfully so. And that's IF he's still employed.

[The Ultimate Champion]

Shut your mouth the top of the draft is rebuilding utopia.

 

Just ask Jed, Theo and that scout that came over that is on the radio weekly to tell everyone how great the the cub farm system is.

 

Baseball is a crap shoot.

 

ACES ARE LIKE PRO BOWL QB'S YOU DO NOT TRADE THEM!!!!!!

 

Sale is a building block and what you trade for, not what you trade. He is a proven ace. An ace allows you to get 4 .500 pitchers and still be competitive, if you hae average hitting

Yeah, Sale is best case scenario every time you draft a player in the first couple rounds with a pretty high ceiling & a lot of question marks. We've had it seems like thousands of those players, Borchard, Anderson, Sweeney who on paper was probably the best bet of them all but the power never came, Fields, Trayce, Mitchell, tons of them just in the last 10 or so years, and we've got like 1 guy to show for it. And people would trade him?

[southsider2k5]

Imagine who the Royals would have been able to land 2 years ago if they offered Montgomery, Moose, Hosmer & Hochevar. Everyone would have been like OMGWTFHOLYs*** & now it's like, well, maybe a couple of those guys can rebound and become average players. And if you had traded your Sale for that you'd be calling for the head of your GM & rightfully so. And that's IF he's still employed.

 

Yep. The prospect game isn't as easy a OOTP makes it out to be.

[Balta1701]

Imagine who the Royals would have been able to land 2 years ago if they offered Montgomery, Moose, Hosmer & Hochevar. Everyone would have been like OMGWTFHOLYs*** & now it's like, well, maybe a couple of those guys can rebound and become average players. And if you had traded your Sale for that you'd be calling for the head of your GM & rightfully so. And that's IF he's still employed.

I believe there were people calling that the greatest minor league system ever.

[Eminor3rd]

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/06/whit...n-veterans.html

 

White Sox Getting Calls On Veterans

By Steve Adams [June 21, 2013 at 1:42pm CST]

We learned earlier today that the Cubs are "open for business" and ready to sell, and it sounds like Chicago's other team may not be far behind. Jon Heyman of CBS Sports spoke with White Sox GM Rick Hahn recently, who confirmed that other teams have begun to express interest in his players:

 

"We are getting phone calls, and they will probably become a little bit more voluminous if we don't turn it around pretty quickly," White Sox general manager Rick Hahn said.

Heyman's sources indicate that Alex Rios and Alexei Ramirez will at least be discussed, with one rival general manager telling him that Rios will draw more interest. Rios,32, is owed $12.5MM in 2014, the final guaranteed year of his contract, though his deal contains a club option as well. Ramirez, 31, is controlled through 2015 and owed $9.5MM in 2014, $10MM in 2015 and has a $1MM buyout on his $10MM club option for 2016.

 

Heyman also speculates that names such as Jake Peavy, Jesse Crain, Matt Thornton, Matt Lindstrom and perhaps even Gordon Beckham will become available if the White Sox do indeed take the position of sellers this July. Crain, of course, is on a historic run, having fired 28 shutout innings over his past 28 appearances with a 37-to-7 K/BB ratio in that time.

[Eminor3rd]

It's absolutely fallacy to act like prospect trades can be evaluated in hindsight. You're trading for probabilities. You're trading for guys who do NOT have the skills to be successful and hoping that they develop those skills. It's the FO job to pick guys that they have reason to believe will flourish in its own system, but sometimes guys just bust for no good reason. If a FO gets them wrong too much, the FO gets fired. If you traded Sale for all those guys at the time it would have been a haul, and looking back it would still be a haul. Eric Hosmer in 2010 is NOT the same thing as Eric Hosmer in 2013.

[Eminor3rd]

@JonHeymanCBS: potential #chisox sale could potentially include best SP (peavy), pen arm (crain) & OF (rios) http://cbsprt.co/107sQ2x

11:10 AM - 21 Jun 2013

 

That's a good point. Double wild card has reduced supply and increased demand. If the Phillies really do refuse to trade Lee, even fresh-off-the-DL Peavy might be too good an option to pass up for someone.

[southsider2k5]

It's absolutely fallacy to act like prospect trades can be evaluated in hindsight. You're trading for probabilities. You're trading for guys who do NOT have the skills to be successful and hoping that they develop those skills. It's the FO job to pick guys that they have reason to believe will flourish in its own system, but sometimes guys just bust for no good reason. If a FO gets them wrong too much, the FO gets fired. If you traded Sale for all those guys at the time it would have been a haul, and looking back it would still be a haul. Eric Hosmer in 2010 is NOT the same thing as Eric Hosmer in 2013.

 

Actually that is how they should be evaluated. It doesn't matter one bit what the trade looked like when you made it, it matters what the players turned into. It would be like saying that Adam Dunn was a great signing for the Sox in 2011, no matter what happened after that, because the move made sense at the time.

[Donny Lucy's Avocado Farm]

The good news about trading Rios is that we literally gave up NOTHING to get him except for taking on his contract (during the years he wasn't earning it).

 

So whatever value the Sox are able to get out of trading him is ALL bonus.... boom!

 

 

[LittleHurt05]

It's absolutely fallacy to act like prospect trades can be evaluated in hindsight. You're trading for probabilities. You're trading for guys who do NOT have the skills to be successful and hoping that they develop those skills. It's the FO job to pick guys that they have reason to believe will flourish in its own system, but sometimes guys just bust for no good reason. If a FO gets them wrong too much, the FO gets fired. If you traded Sale for all those guys at the time it would have been a haul, and looking back it would still be a haul. Eric Hosmer in 2010 is NOT the same thing as Eric Hosmer in 2013.

 

Looking back it would be a haul of garbage.

 

If you traded for Hosmer in 2010 thinking you had the 1B of the baseman of the future, you set that position back several years because he sucks. No one will care that he was highly rated at the time, a bust is a bust.

[Eminor3rd]

Actually that is how they should be evaluated. It doesn't matter one bit what the trade looked like when you made it, it matters what the players turned into. It would be like saying that Adam Dunn was a great signing for the Sox in 2011, no matter what happened after that, because the move made sense at the time.

 

I disagree strongly. Hindsight is only valuable if you can identify factors that will apply to future decisions. If there was something about Adam Dunn that would have been a reliable red flag that the Sox overlooked, that's their fault. If his descent was truly unpredictable, however, it's a waste of time to blame people for it. There was ALWAYS a chance that he turned into a pumpkin and always chance he turned into a HOF player -- neither were likely outcomes. The White Sox FO is responsible for taking the calculated risk that they did. In Dunn's case, it was much more likely he would be good than bad (from the information WE have as fans, anyway. It is reasonable to expect the team to have a better set of data, but not reasonable to expect them to have a crystal ball). Since that is all the information that was available at the time, that's all the information that can be used to evaluate the decision. Hindsight is now valuable if it can provide better information for the future, which it sometimes cannot.

 

The White Sox FO is responsible for the consequences because they made the call to roll the dice. But they didn't do something stupid, they made a gamble that looked safe at the time. If you want to evaluate the deal, evaluate the probabilities that were on the table at the time.

[LittleHurt05]

It's absolutely fallacy to act like prospect trades can be evaluated in hindsight. You're trading for probabilities. You're trading for guys who do NOT have the skills to be successful and hoping that they develop those skills. It's the FO job to pick guys that they have reason to believe will flourish in its own system, but sometimes guys just bust for no good reason. If a FO gets them wrong too much, the FO gets fired. If you traded Sale for all those guys at the time it would have been a haul, and looking back it would still be a haul. Eric Hosmer in 2010 is NOT the same thing as Eric Hosmer in 2013.

 

By your logic, you can't evaluate draft picks in hindsight either. You draft a guy on probability, if he doesn't flourish in your system, it happens sometimes, oh well.

[Balta1701]

That KW pickup rarely gets the credit it deserves. He picked up an adequate #3 hitter for absolutely nothing but the contract. And that same contract could be argued to be team friendly at this point.

The problem is that he was so, so, so bad in 2011 that basically it has taken him performing well for the last 2 years to offset it and make him close to worth the amount paid to him.

 

Counting this year, the sox have paid him ~$41 million. In WAR terms, he's been worth $13 million, -$5 million, $18 million, and finally $11.5 million so far this year. It has taken until this season for him to be worth the money paid to him in WAR terms.

[Eminor3rd]

Looking back it would be a haul of garbage.

 

If you traded for Hosmer in 2010 thinking you had the 1B of the baseman of the future, you set that position back several years because he sucks. No one will care that he was highly rated at the time, a bust is a bust.

 

That's surface-level, factual information, but it's useless for any type of decision-making. If you could tell me WHY he was a bust and how you could have known, then it's useful. Otherwise, it's random happenstance. You make a deal for prospects that have a good chance to succeed and a good chance to fail because you HAVE to. It's the only way to acquire affordable talent. You take a risk. Just because Hosmer busted doesn't mean it was LIKELY he'd bust. People thought he was among the safest prospects around. Even if you have an 80% chance to win, you're going to lose 20% of the time.

 

You can cherry-pick busts all you want, but for every horrible trade there's a great one too. The Indians traded Bartolo Colon for Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips, and Grady Sizemore. They all had a chance to bust or hit, and it turned out that they all hit. You don't evaluate their decision to trade an aging star player for three lottery tickets based on whether or not the lottery tickets hit. If I buy a f***ing scratch off ticket today and win $50,000, that doesn't make me a financial genius. Judge me on the fact I decided to spend a dollar on a 1 in a million chance to win more.

[Eminor3rd]

By your logic, you can't evaluate draft picks in hindsight either. You draft a guy on probability, if he doesn't flourish in your system, it happens sometimes, oh well.

 

No. Please read everything I've said. If you can use hindsight to find reliable predictors of future events, you are finding something worthwhile. But if you can deduce nothing, you have no choice but to consider the events to have occurred randomly or by something undetectable. Example: If no one can tell you why Adam Dunn sucks, it's not fair to fault someone for not predicting that Adam Dunn sucks when he didn't suck before. Same thing with prospects. Why has Hosmer busted? If you can find a good reason, you should go work for a baseball team. Otherwise, you can't say you wouldn't have loved him too because EVERYONE thought he was exhibiting the signs of a stud.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Eminor3rd