Sox Sign Jose Abreu - 6/$68 million

[hi8is]

You mean the guy who hit .313 with RISP, and .340 with RISP w/2 outs this year?

Ohhhhhh... Burn!

[cabiness42]

I would like to see the Sox front-load this contract heavily in the first two years. They have the money to spend right now without much else worth spending it on, and it frees up more money at the back end for the Sox to spend more when they're more likely to be competitive.

[Eminor3rd]

What gets ME about Viciedo is his career 98 wRC+ and below average defense, lol.

 

What is there to defend about him? He's been pretty consistently bad. You can say he hit 25 homers in a season, but that's where literally everything positive ends.

 

He's clearly got talent, but an entire season of no progress/arguably backward progress in 2013 does NOT bode well for him reaching his upside. He looks like he just isn't capable of recognizing pitches well enough.

[witesoxfan]

Dave Cameron's take: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/betting-big...-abreu-quandry/

 

I think he's overreacting here, but he raises a valid point.

[witesoxfan]

What gets ME about Viciedo is his career 98 wRC+ and below average defense, lol.

 

What is there to defend about him? He's been pretty consistently bad. You can say he hit 25 homers in a season, but that's where literally everything positive ends.

 

He's clearly got talent, but an entire season of no progress/arguably backward progress in 2013 does NOT bode well for him reaching his upside. He looks like he just isn't capable of recognizing pitches well enough.

 

He did look better in the 2nd half.

[Eminor3rd]

He did look better in the 2nd half.

 

Right, but really he looked more like 2012 in the second half, which is better results with the same plan. I think the problem is that his guess approach is simply not something we can trust for predictable success. If balls are falling into his bat, he's going to be good, but more often than not, that isn't going to be the case.

[witesoxfan]

Right, but really he looked more like 2012 in the second half, which is better results with the same plan. I think the problem is that his guess approach is simply not something we can trust for predictable success. If balls are falling into his bat, he's going to be good, but more often than not, that isn't going to be the case.

 

I can honestly say I didn't watch much, so I have no idea what he looked like. When he came off the DL in May, he looked just awesome at the plate, and in a matter of about a week, he was swinging at everything again.

 

Hopefully a new hitting coach as well as having Abreu here can help improve him.

[2nd_city_saint787]

He did look better in the 2nd half.

 

And he did progress against RHP which was his downfall previously. If he keeps that up and goes back to smashing LHP then you're looking at a .270+ BA 20+ HRs and 80+ RBI. For a guy who's not your #1 contributor those are damn good numbers. I know everyone has a hard on for OBP, and rightfully so, but in a guy who hits lower in the lineup I don't think it's that big of a key.

[Eminor3rd]

When a guy swings at so many bad pitches, you wonder if it's his approach or his eye. What I saw out of Viciedo this year was a lot of awkward pitch taking, leading me to believe that he was legitimately working on his approach. Alas, he still ended up taking a bunch of meatballs and swinging at a bunch of crap. This makes me fear that he just doesn't have the ability to recognize pitches fast enough, and he has to be a guess hitter. Guess hitters with good hands are going to look real good for stretches, and real bad for others. Unfortunately, the bad stretches are going to be much longer and much more frequent. The pitchers aren't guessing.

[Jake]

I would argue that he made an extremely important improvement because he became a guy that can actually hit right handed pitching. That is reason for optimism. I don't see any reason why getting back to hitting lefties like he used to should make him lose his progress against lefties.

[TaylorStSox]

I don't think Viciedo guesses as much as he presses. He lacks patience and is easily frustrated. He can be an easy out because he tries to kill everything. It's almost like a macho thing. He also swings at bad pitches because he has good plate coverage. He needs to learn that just because you're capable of hitting it, it doesn't mean you should. As he gets older, he should mature and relax. Based on normal progression, he's probably still slightly ahead of the curve or right on time.

[oldsox]

Back to Abreu. My understanding is that Bosox were in the bidding, bur for quite a bit less. They supposedly told him that they would start him at AAA in 2014 and possibly replace Ortiz in 2015. Who knows, maybe he'll need a year in the minors.

[NCsoxfan]

Jose Abreu should hit with power, but the timing of the White Sox is peculiar.

I'm not surprised at all that Cuban star Jose Abreu received a huge payday, given this year's free-agent class and the increasingly limited ways for MLB teams to spend their money; he's one of the only potential impact bats available this offseason, and signing him won't cost a draft pick. However, the White Sox are a peculiar fit for him given what else is on their roster and where they are in the success cycle at this point.

 

Abreu has enormous raw power, probably a 70 or perhaps higher, on the 20-80 scale. The power is evident in BP and should translate to 25-35 homers a year in the majors. The concerns about him revolve around his bat speed and his conditioning, only one of which can be fixed or improved at this point.

 

The conditioning is a smaller issue; he's not a great athlete and has been heavy when scouts have seen him, although the same was true of Yasiel Puig last summer, and he worked to get his body into shape after signing, resulting in the player we saw this year in Los Angeles. Abreu is a below-average runner with the hands to play first base if he slims down, but otherwise is limited on defense and could end up at DH.

 

The bigger concern scouts have about Abreu is that he might have more of a “slider-speed” bat that will struggle with velocity, especially on the inner half. He's extremely balanced at the plate and very strong, with a setup like a right-handed David Ortiz, and very good follow-through for power to all fields. He hasn't faced many pitchers with plus fastballs, and between his size and the questionable bat speed, several scouts indicated to me that they're concerned that major league pitchers will eat him up with velocity on the inner half.

 

He's got a quiet approach at the plate, like Puig's, but he doesn't explode to the ball in the same way as Puig or current Cubs prospect Jorge Soler do, and Abreu's pitch recognition and plate discipline are largely unknown, putting a wide variance on his potential production in the majors. The fact that the swing is good is a strong positive, but he's coming to face the best pitching in the world and it would be disingenuous to forecast a big batting average based on all of these other question marks.

 

Peter G. Aiken/USA Today Sports

By signing Abreu, the White Sox have essentially replaced Paul Konerko.

 

Chicago's angle in this is harder to see. On the one hand, MLB teams with extra cash lying around -- that is, all of them -- don't have many places left to spend it thanks to the Rule 4 draft caps and the caps on July 2 players (amateurs from outside the United States). Cuban, Japanese, and Korean professional free agents have already started to cash in because spending on those players is unlimited. And with the early success of Yoenis Cespedes and Puig, MLB teams are going to be even more willing to spend on Cuban players who look like they can make an immediate impact. In fact, the excess demand and limited supply almost guarantees teams will overpay for these guys, because they're underpaying for talent in the two amateur arenas.

 

However, for the White Sox, a rebuilding team that looks to be a few years away from contention, Abreu is a dubious fit. At 27, Abreu looks like his biggest impact will come now, not when the rest of the roster is strong enough to push this team toward 90-plus wins, which might be 2016 or 2017 depending on how fast the team can acquire some starting pitching to back up staff ace Chris Sale. Abreu replaces Paul Konerko on the roster, but doesn't free them up to trade any position player assets to fill any areas of need.

 

Abreu might also relegate Adam Dunn to bench duty or to waivers -- not that he hasn't earned either of those demotions. Even if Abreu meets or exceeds all expectations, adding four wins of talent to this roster doesn't make the White Sox a contender this year or next, and given his body type and marginal bat speed, he's the type of player who could lose value quickly once he hits 30.

[southsider2k5]

Starting pitching? Does this guy watch baseball?

[Quin]

Starting pitching? Does this guy watch baseball?

 

That was an awful write up.

 

 

[lostfan]

Starting pitching? Does this guy watch baseball?

I keep hearing people saying "now they need to work on their pitching" and I'm kinda baffled. The Sox had a playoff-caliber rotation last year but nobody seemed to notice because the offense was some of the worst seen on either side of Chicago in like 20 years.

[2nd_city_saint787]

I keep hearing people saying "now they need to work on their pitching" and I'm kinda baffled. The Sox had a playoff-caliber rotation last year but nobody seemed to notice because the offense was some of the worst seen on either side of Chicago in like 20 years.

 

Ya, I had to school a buddy of mine yesterday who said that. He said they were probably close to the bottom of the league in quality starts, which is just not true. They were actually 5 QS away from 3rd most in the league, and that included 43 starts from Axelrod, Leesman, and a recovering John Danks. The first 2 probably won't see another start and Danks should be better in 2014.

[NCsoxfan]

That was Keith Law's ESPN insider write up FWIW

[chw42]

Starting pitching? Does this guy watch baseball?

 

lol, it's not like the White Sox had the 8th most valuable pitching staff last year or anything (according to fWAR).

[TaylorStSox]

Law was a part of the Jays during the Sirotka deal, right?

[Quin]

Law was a part of the Jays during the Sirotka deal, right?

 

Yes.

 

But he is also just a bad analyst.

[TaylorStSox]

Yes.

 

But he is also just a bad analyst.

He's comically biased too. "Never forget!"

[caulfield12]

All I know is that Hahn better be right on this guy.

 

They were already "half wrong" about Viciedo.

 

Now nobody has proven that Cespedes and Puig and Soler are going to be the better, more dynamic players...but when you play a position like 1B/LF/DH, you absolutely have to hit.

 

It's not like he can build extra value for the team anywhere else (yes, I know Puig had two errors in game six and overthrew another cutoff man so it could have been three actually)...

 

But, in general, a toolsy OF can at least provide defensive value and something on the basepaths.

 

This is "all in," all or nothing.

 

It also just goes to show you how difficult in these offense-starved times we're in that it is to find an excellent LF/1B/DH for anything less than $10 milllion.

 

 

 

"...and if the Dodgers don't do anything else next spring, they need to teach Puig how to field smarter.

 

"That's kind of what we're playing with, with Yasiel," A.J. Ellis said. "He's got that great arm, the ability to throw everybody out, that aggressiveness and passion, and 95% of the time that plays through. But this was one of those times when restraint was needed."

For those who want to pile on Puig (latimes.com/sports)

Edited October 19, 2013 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

http://www.baseballamerica.com/internation...agrees-to-deal/

 

 

The most interesting thing to watch is going to be his coverage of inside fastballs.

 

Are they going to have him back off the plate? How will that affect him?

 

 

It's scary when they start comparing his bat speed and out of the world statistics with Frank Thomas. Nobody can live up to that kind of hype machine.

 

Who will have the better career, Abreu or Despaigne? Who has seen both of these guys hit? It seems like Abreu is more disciplined and Despaigne has the raw tools/bat speed/light tower power.

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/cuba...ying-in-mexico/

Edited October 19, 2013 by caulfield12

[SoxAce]

That's so Merkin...

 

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/391252009338171392

 

Hey, if they want to find a way to move Dunn out of Chicago, and bring back PK as a part-timer, fine.

 

I don't think people know how much of a hard-on JR has for Konerko. Even Rock has stated before if Konerko wants to stay, then he will stay and will figure out what to do with Dunn later.