Dojji

make no mistake, CP, Sale would cost us Eddie +, not just pieces like Moncada, Travis, Benitendi or Espinoza. We will need to be sending them a cost controlled SP back in any trade for Sale, and they will have the leverage to insist on Eduardo Rodriquez being in the package. I think that Eddie plus Swihart and Moncada is close to what they'd ask for -- they may request additional B list pieces but those three would headline the trade. It might still be worth it. Sale is that good. But it's certainly not going to cost us nothing but prospects to pull an arm like that onto the team in trade.

In other words right in line with the salary inflation the entire league has been experiencing since the media money started really pouring in. Some of you guys are stuck in a salary paradigm that's 2 decades old by now.

Sam Travis probably isn't the leading piece Chicago wants back when they have Jose Abreu. They could make it work of course, but it would be hardly ideal. My reading of the situation is that any deal for Sale starts by sending them Eddie to replace him, and following that up with probably other high value pieces such as Swihart and Moncada, both of whom CWS would have reason to be interested in If you think dealing Eddie and Swihart plus a couple promising minor leaguers for Sale is worth it I'm not entirely prepared to disagree with that assessment, but my sense is that that's more like what the price would be, and it's certainly not small..

yes we got super lucky in 2013 but there was plenty of evidence that 2013 was not sustainable. We're trying for sustainable success here

15 mil a year is half what the top starting position players and SP's are making. Many closers are worth half the going rate for position and and rotation all stars. When top stars made $20M, you paid top closers $8-12M. Now top stars go for 30M, the same ratio applies. Salary inflation is a thing, Revenues are up across the board and that will have an impact in what you pay your talent when contract time comes along. Holding to an old paradigm without taking the time to rationally consider whether it may be oudated, will just set you up for sticker shock.

We're trying to climb out of the basement. you don't accomplish that in a single offseason.

Of course he will. he has Made Up His Mind.

Even if the White Sox would be willing to move Sale, they'd ask for the sun, moon and sky. I agree we need a better upper middle of the rotation but I don't think the price is going to be reasonable for Chris Sale.

it's a lot easier to say "we need a starter" than it is to pick up a #3 or better starter without getting bent over at this point in the season. Let the depth play out, it might surprise you.

you think? A lot of people are very VERY sour on Hanley for not succeeding in left field last year, and for things that are basically a consequence of him getting hurt. It doesn't help that he gets lumped in with Fatso Sandoval who may have legitimate off field issues that are going to hurt him again this year (namely his diet).

Starters are more important over the long season, the bullpen can be critical over a short sprint if it gets hot, and an even more critical problem if, as with Familia last year, it gets cold.

Which two pitchers? Name the other one we should and could have acquired. It's easy to say "get a pitcher." The devil is very much in the details.

No, sometimes you can know. I think we all knew that 2005 wasn't the year, and the smoking by the White Sox was not a great surprise. Honestly I was more disappointed by 2008 and 2003 than by 05 or 11, and there's a reason for that.

No adoration here. I just wish the man got half the respect he earned.

Well it's not that they need a SP, our depth is frankly impressive, if not particularly reliable, so they need a particularly high quality SP, and that's a problem because there are few of those available at the best of times. We did pretty well to bag Price. And I thought we discussed that Hanley wasn't really a 3b anymore. They got a DH when they already had one, which was silly.

Sometimes even when the need is there, the right deal isn't. you can't force other teams to give up the starters you want to fill your need. At the deadline new opportunities may arise that DD will pounce on.

here's the question I have about this Hanley-to-first stuff. Let's say Panda does get hurt, or bounce out of the lineup due to bad performance, and Shaw has to play every day. Are you really going to play Shaw at third and Hanley at first when Hanley has far more experience at third between the two of them, and Shaw the most experience at first? In what universe does that make any sense at all?

I have a hard time blaming Papelbon for the culmination of a whole month's epic failure in 2011 that took a team effort to achieve, we should have never been in that position to begin with and it's a laughable concept to suggest we would have gotten very far in that postseason to begin with with the state of the team at the time. His blown save was the nail in the coffin, but it wasn't the reason we didn't advance into the playoffs in 2011, not by a longshot. Daniel Bard and the rotation both had far more to do with what went wrong that year. As for 2009, that was literally the first time he ever got beaten in a critical moment, I'm fine with that track record personally, the greatest closer that ever lived had more and more heartbreaking letdown moments for his team than Papelbon ever could have had, and that doesn't take away from his legacy one little bit. let's start with the world series Mo literally blew in 2001 and the ALCS he sure helped blow in 2004, do those moments far far far worse than anything Papelbon did to hurt us, take away from his overall excellence? No. And the same to a lesser extent applies to Papelbon's few failures.

i could get behind the idea of Alex Cora.

Then they really should be doing it right the now, and get the new manager in here to start working with people and getting his feet under him. The only way this way of doing things makes sense is if they already know exactly who would be the next manager and he's already in-house. Hmm... that said, anyone know what Jason varitek is doing this Spring?

I think they'll juggle personnel at least once before firing the manager, but if we're bad by the end of may the ownership is going to give the guy they bring in to turn things around a chance to squeeze a comeback in if possible

Tampa bay is led by an excellent general manager who may be the single best GM in the game today, has a very good nose for talent and the ability to do more with less money than just about anyone in the game, so these picks are not representative of what an unexceptional GM could acquire off the dumpster to close for him. Furthermore the Rays sacrifice more offense for infield defense than the Red Sox have ever been prepared to do, which is one of the reasons the Rays pitching is able to do more with less. We know from our own disasters over the years that you can NOT just pick any shmo off the street and close with them so your argument is not based in reality.

That's because WAR is about wins added, and closing is about wins not lost. bit of a lighthouse fallacy problem using WAR to judge closers in particular and to a certain extent relief pitching in general

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/soriaal01.shtml

Sandoval is the island