Sox Core Strength/Quality

[caulfield12]

We're getting the same performance out of Noesi we would have gotten out of Peavy.

 

Garcia got hurt. There's nothing you can do about that now, other than the coaching staff working with him on his fielding technique more carefully.

 

Gillaspie's managed (for now) to cover up the (for now) Davidson "mistake." Belisario, Putnam, Petricka and Lindstrom have been about the equivalent of where we'd be with Addison Reed.

 

The problem is that Viciedo and Eaton are both hitting terribly right now, and we don't have the quality in Sierra/DeAza to cover for Garcia's departure.

 

So the question becomes would Rios' right around #40 in the majors oPS production in RF been enough to get the White Sox to a Wild Card? Highly doubtful.

 

 

[Marty34]

.....they wouldn't have been able to afford Abreu?

 

If they drafted better . . . We can play this game, but the lack of talent in the Sox system meant they had to pay up.

[caulfield12]

.....they wouldn't have been able to afford Abreu?

 

 

They surely would have gotten yet another middle infielder without a place to play in Jurickson Profar, lol.

 

Or Odor.

 

With attendance being what it is this year, they were going to lose another $25-30 million spending on Rios and Peavy and have nothing left to show for it but a diminished capacity to spend next off-season.

 

 

 

 

[GGajewski18]

The Peavy trade was good, can't blame Garcia's injury on Hahn. Got two excellent pitching prospects with Avisail. Peavy has been hit pretty hard this year. Rest of post is valid.

 

The Rios trade is looking like its pretty bad, should of gotten more, but that Reed for Davidson trade you still do. Every time you have the potential of acquiring a young 3b with MLB experience already who can play every day, you make that trade 10 out of 10.

 

Yes Davidson is struggling, but I am not upset about the trade. Sure you can say we could of gotten someone else for Reed, but AT THE TIME, Davidson had come off a great year with some success with Arizona. Remind you, Davidson is still only 23, and Reed is your middle of the pack closer. I would still make that trade.

[cabiness42]

If they drafted better . . . We can play this game, but the lack of talent in the Sox system meant they had to pay up.

 

OK fine, they should have drafted better, nobody disagrees with that, but that doesn't change the reality that in July 2013, dumping Rios for Garcia was the best move because it allowed the Sox to get Abreu.

[caulfield12]

OK fine, they should have drafted better, nobody disagrees with that, but that doesn't change the reality that in July 2013, dumping Rios for Garcia was the best move because it allowed the Sox to get Abreu.

 

 

You mean Abreu AND Santana/Jimenez, which would have had almost zero impact on our winning percentage at this point in the season...maybe 2 games above .500 or 2 games below.

[GGajewski18]

The problem is that Viciedo and Eaton are both hitting terribly right now, and we don't have the quality in Sierra/DeAza to cover for Garcia's departure.

 

They were hot at the beginning of the year. Everyone struggles at some point in the year. Its baseball, it happens. Remember when Abreu was in a 1-22 slump and then another 1-18 slump, yeah it happens. Everyone needs to relax.

 

Sox are STILL at 500 and 4 gb of Tigers and 1 gb of the Wild Card.

[Dick Allen]

OK fine, they should have drafted better, nobody disagrees with that, but that doesn't change the reality that in July 2013, dumping Rios for Garcia was the best move because it allowed the Sox to get Abreu.

I don't understand how this could be a conclusion. The Sox would have been in on Abreu regardless. I really don't care Rios is gone, and the return was meh, but that is what a guy with Rios' reputation and contract bring. Besides, if A. Garcia didn't get hurt, where would he play? But, the Sox offered real money to Tanaka. If Rios meant they couldn't sign anyone else, I don't know how they could have bid on him. There was always going to be money for Abreu.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Dick Allen

[harfman77]

If they drafted better . . . We can play this game, but the lack of talent in the Sox system meant they had to pay up.

 

The draft under KW was a totally different animal though. The Sox did not pick BPA, they picked the BPA for the amount of money that we had left in the budget to spend in the draft. Cutting back salaries has allowed the team to be more aggressive in the draft going after top tier talent instead of guys they can sign on the cheap. I totally agree that if the Sox would have built there system they would not have been in that situation, but last years deals were paying for the sins of the past and now we have to move forward with a new approach instead of sinking back into what got us in trouble in the first place.

[GGajewski18]

I don't understand how this could be a conclusion. The Sox would have been in on Abreu regardless. I really don't care Rios is gone, and the return was meh, but that is what a guy with Rios' reputation and contract bring. Besides, if A. Garcia didn't get hurt, where would he play? But, the Sox offered real money to Tanaka. If Rios meant they couldn't sign anyone else, I don't know how they could have bid on him. There was always going to be money for Abreu.

 

I agree.

[GGajewski18]

The draft under KW was a totally different animal though. The Sox did not pick BPA, they picked the BPA for the amount of money that we had left in the budget to spend in the draft. Cutting back salaries has allowed the team to be more aggressive in the draft going after top tier talent instead of guys they can sign on the cheap. I totally agree that if the Sox would have built there system they would not have been in that situation, but last years deals were paying for the sins of the past and now we have to move forward with a new approach instead of sinking back into what got us in trouble in the first place.

 

Yet, when you look at it. When KW traded our "good" prospects for MLB proven talent, none of which has come back to bite us. There isn't a single prospect that we traded that I can say that dang we should of kept him.

[harfman77]

Yet, when you look at it. When KW traded our "good" prospects for MLB proven talent, none of which has come back to bite us. There isn't a single prospect that we traded that I can say that dang we should of kept him.

 

Sure, but when you look at some of the selections that were made in the draft, when the team clearly went for signability over talent, that contributed to a void of talent in the system. Just because all of the prospects that they selected failed, does not make it any better, only illustrates the problem more in depth.

[Eminor3rd]

I expect the GM to make better use of his trading chips, Jury is still out, but the return Hahn received so far is underwhelming.

 

I don't see any evidence to suggest that Han didn't squeeze everything he could out of the guys he's traded. I agree with you that I thought Peavy/Rios would have been worth more, but the way he dragged both trades out to the absolute limit tells me that we overestimated the market as fans and that Hahn got the most he could.

[witesoxfan]

I don't understand how this could be a conclusion. The Sox would have been in on Abreu regardless. I really don't care Rios is gone, and the return was meh, but that is what a guy with Rios' reputation and contract bring. Besides, if A. Garcia didn't get hurt, where would he play? But, the Sox offered real money to Tanaka. If Rios meant they couldn't sign anyone else, I don't know how they could have bid on him. There was always going to be money for Abreu.

 

I agree with this entirely. Really, the only thing more you could have asked for out of Rios was a low minors guy, and you're not talking about Frank Montas here, who has a 100 MPH fastball and had semblance of command (it's been much better this year), but more along the lines of Keenyn Walker.

[harfman77]

I don't understand how this could be a conclusion. The Sox would have been in on Abreu regardless. I really don't care Rios is gone, and the return was meh, but that is what a guy with Rios' reputation and contract bring. Besides, if A. Garcia didn't get hurt, where would he play? But, the Sox offered real money to Tanaka. If Rios meant they couldn't sign anyone else, I don't know how they could have bid on him. There was always going to be money for Abreu.

 

There was no way to know what Abreu was going to sign for in October. The Sox got a deal on him, but he could have received something much closer to what Tanaka received and that would have kept the Sox out of the bidding. They cleared the payroll space that they needed to make a run at Tanaka and Abreu, and if not for some contractual shenanigans by the Yanks, I think they certainly could have pulled in both. If they would have, your rebuild is virtually over. You can't fault the plan, it didn't work, but they did every thing they could to get it to work.

[caulfield12]

The White Sox were wise to get out from under the Rios contract.

 

That said, Leury Garcia's not every going to be a major contributor. It's nice to "spin" every trade in a positive fashion, or try to connect all the dots together (we didn't really need Davidson this year because of Conor's performance, acquiring Molina actually saved us money on the "bad" Santos deal, around $8.25 million that we could allocate to Abreu's signing bonus or other bad contracts like Keppinger/Dunn/Paulino/Downs, etc.)

 

You can go around and around and around in circles.

 

The pursuit of Tanaka is always going to stand as evidence that the money's there....when/if they want to spend it. And you'd have a real interesting argument about how much he would have helped THIS season, and what the cost to the team eventually would be if he breaks down in say, 2016-2018, when they're supposed to be right in the epicenter of their competitive window.

 

With all the TJ surgeries this year, I'm still not convinced that giving Tanaka $175 million would be the best long-term move for the White Sox, despite his being one of the top five pitchers in baseball the first 2 months of the season.

Edited June 4, 2014 by caulfield12

[SCCWS]

We're getting the same performance out of Noesi we would have gotten out of Peavy.

 

Garcia got hurt. There's nothing you can do about that now, other than the coaching staff working with him on his fielding technique more carefully.

 

Gillaspie's managed (for now) to cover up the (for now) Davidson "mistake." Belisario, Putnam, Petricka and Lindstrom have been about the equivalent of where we'd be with Addison Reed.

 

The problem is that Viciedo and Eaton are both hitting terribly right now, and we don't have the quality in Sierra/DeAza to cover for Garcia's departure.

 

So the question becomes would Rios' right around #40 in the majors oPS production in RF been enough to get the White Sox to a Wild Card? Highly doubtful.

 

It is tough to judge trades after 2 months. Funny, I was watching Peavy last night and thought hopefully we got the better of that deal. Even if Avi is hurt, he is certainly a player that should become the regular RF for the long term.

I think Gillaspie and Abreu cover up Davidson. If Abreu is going to be a 40+ HR guy , you can live w a 3rd baseman who hits for average. Neither Davidson or Gillaspie overwhelms w their glove.

Disagree on Reed. The White Sox only have 12 saves as a team and Reed alone has 15 on a worse team. The 4 you mention are probably making 8Mil+ and Reed still gets $550,000. I don't think the Sox will be in any position to compete for a wildcard but if they are, not having a closer will become a hot topic. Hopefully someone emerges out of the assembled multitude by season end so next year we have an established closer.

[Dick Allen]

There was no way to know what Abreu was going to sign for in October. The Sox got a deal on him, but he could have received something much closer to what Tanaka received and that would have kept the Sox out of the bidding. They cleared the payroll space that they needed to make a run at Tanaka and Abreu, and if not for some contractual shenanigans by the Yanks, I think they certainly could have pulled in both. If they would have, your rebuild is virtually over. You can't fault the plan, it didn't work, but they did every thing they could to get it to work.

You don't see me complaining about trading Rios for basically utility player. I actually think Leury does bring some things to the table. But even if they had not traded Rios, unless he totally fell apart, they could have signed Abreu and Tanaka, and traded Rios afterward. The Sox were going to bid on Abreu. That is just a fact. If it got into 9 figures, whether they cleared even more payroll, they probably wouldn't have signed him, but the perfect storm of teams that jack up prices not having a need for a firstbaseman/ DH helped keep the price reasonable. I doubt they would have been willing to go where they were willing to go with Tanaka regarding Abreu, although at this moment, it seems it would have at least been close to reasonable. Being lucky isn't an insult. The Sox were lucky back in 2005 that Kaz Matsui was such a bust that they were able to sign Iguchi. Had Matsui been anywhere near what he was hyped, Iguchi probably doesn't fit into the budget and maybe the Sox don't win. He did have a very key HR in the first round of the playoffs. Not having the Yankees or Angels or Cubs going to crazy levels with Abreu when the Sox clearly had a need for this particular player was a break as well. It's not an insult. They got the players signed. Under different circumstances, they probably sign elsewhere and no one gives a second thought.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Dick Allen

[Kyyle23]

If the Sox had kicked in more money . . .

 

If the Sox kicked in more money? What does this even mean? You have no idea what any offer or counter offer was.

[Marty34]

If the Sox kicked in more money? What does this even mean? You have no idea what any offer or counter offer was.

 

Tell us what the offers and counteroffers were.

[witesoxfan]

Tell us what the offers and counteroffers were.

 

YOU are the one who believes the Sox could get more, so YOU provide the offers and counter offers.

[Marty34]

YOU are the one who believes the Sox could get more, so YOU provide the offers and counter offers.

 

It's all speculation. What is taken for a fact around here is that dealing Rios and his contract enabled the Sox to sign Abreu.

 

[Dick Allen]

This core though to me is nowhere near the core they had in the early 90s with Thomas, Ventura, Guillen, One Dog, Raines, Cora, Karko, McDowell, Fernandez, Alvarez , Roberto Hernandez. Then they would sign rentals like Franco, DJ, Burks, even Tartabull was good his one season.

 

Before he got ultra-conservate, even though that seemed to work out, Schueler did put up an impressive piece of work. Granted he started with a pretty nice core, but his additions, until he sent Black Jack packing, where usually really good.

[Kyyle23]

It's all speculation. What is taken for a fact around here is that dealing Rios and his contract enabled the Sox to sign Abreu.

 

by you. You just intimated that if the Sox kicked in more money, than a bigger prospect/player than Eaton could have been acquired.

[chitownsportsfan]

This core though to me is nowhere near the core they had in the early 90s with Thomas, Ventura, Guillen, One Dog, Raines, Cora, Karko, McDowell, Fernandez, Alvarez , Roberto Hernandez. Then they would sign rentals like Franco, DJ, Burks, even Tartabull was good his one season.

 

Before he got ultra-conservate, even though that seemed to work out, Schueler did put up an impressive piece of work. Granted he started with a pretty nice core, but his additions, until he sent Black Jack packing, where usually really good.

 

Don't forget Ray Durham. Some real stars and scrubs teams from that decade.