holy **** Hawk Harrelson is a horrible announcer.

no wonder the White Sox don't have any fans, listening to him for six months straight would drive me to suicide.

SMOAK would have hit a game tying bomb there in valencia's place. i'd bet my life on it.

ffs another very frustrating loss.

Listen. I have read you posts. You are really knowledgeable about many organizational and statistical things. Me, not so much. I played organized and competitive baseball from 6 to 18. My knowledge is more around the fundamentals of the game than it is around the organizational aspects. I learn lots from you and Gary Wise et al about organizational and contract matters, etc..

As for your comment about talk of an EE trade tarding up the thread, get real. We all remember Wells getting traded when everyone on this thread felt strongly that he was literally untradeable. I know this is different, but his contract was seen to be unmoveable. Yet, it happened. Anything can happen. Hell, we could even land Donaldson for Lawrie in some strange world!!

The team is aging, that is clear. Other than probably Martin and Donaldson, there is no Jay who is untradeable, so talking that EE is tradeable is a perfectly acceptable opinion. The Dickey trade proved that even the best prospects are on the table if the deal is right.

It would be helpful if you shared a list of Jays along with EE who you think would not be traded this year under any circumstances. I am sincere. You seem to have a handle on these dealings.

Who would be on such a list along with EE?

PS. You say trading EE is bad, without even knowing what could come our way. How is that comment even logical?

AK, he's not getting traded for a few reasons:

- His 5/10 rights just kicked in, meaning he can veto. He likes it here and is in a pennant race.
- Unlike Vernon, he's a tremendously good value when healthy, meaning the prospect cost would be incredibly high, in a way most teams just won't/can't discuss.
- His value is depressed right now because of the shoulder issues he's been having. We'd have to take two nickels for our quarter.

Throw in that guys like Edwin are hard to find and the lack of track records on Cola/Smoak make them hard to gameplan around going forward and it just doesn't add up.

List of guys who we 100% won't trade this year:

Dosh
Russell
EE
JBats
Pillar
Osuna

99+%
Reyes (contract is tough to move, we can't take on money, Goins is not a full-time option)
Travis
Buehrle

I love him. Growing up as a Sox fan in Oregon, I didn't know a single other Sox fan, and Hawk was just like having a superfan watching every game with me.

Yeah, hes old, and far from perfect, but goddamnit he loves the hell out of the Chicago White Sox, and for that I will always love him.

I think Pillar could be moved in theory, depending on whichever team has a pitcher's desire for CF.

Add Cecil, Loup to Gary's lists.

The tarding comment was in reference not to it being a stupid idea, but to the fact that we've discussed itt already a few times and the only scenario I see that has Edwin going anywhere is getting a hamels or sale or whatever, so there's no point discussing it

hope i wont have to bust out the "****ing quintana, that creep can roll, man" youtube vid tonight

May as well do it anyway. That's a good movie.

Let's do a hypothetical:

You're a GM of a team that is having a very bad season (let's say last in your division in the NL) and you are approached by the Blue Jays for a trade involving Kevin Pillar.

What would you give up?

Let's also add to this hypothetical that you have an ace starting pitcher (could be anyone in the league). What do you think a fair trade would be for him?

Thx Gary Wise. Appreciate your views on who is untouchable.

Only Pillar? Or as a piece? Pillar on his own is rating to be something like a 3.5-4 WAR player this year and is controllable through like 2095 or something, so the obvious answer is a 3.5-4 WAR player controllable also through 2095, but at a different position.

Are we looking strictly at pitchers? Yeah, OK. Let's look at pitchers with similar WAR totals in 2015. Basically anyone with 2-3 WAR to this point (FG has Pillar at 2.3, BRef 2.8), but people that might actually maybe get traded.

Hamels, Cueto and Miller are all 2.2, Samardzija and Tyson Ross** 2.0 per FG. Does Pillar for Hamels work? Haha, of course not. Cueto? Doubt it.

I think the big issue is that Pillar probably isn't actually as good a hitter as he's been this year, though there is actually a minor league track record of hitting at literally every level. He has 0 plate discipline, and there are a scant few good offensive players with a walk rate <4%. And of course, we're looking at a pretty big chunk of his value coming from defence. I'd not be surprised if 2015 was Pillar's best season of his career from a WAR perspective.

So basically I dunno.

** Lol me, thought Ross was a FA at the end of the year for some reason.

welp



hope king felix doubront has 4-5 more shutout innings in him

osuna and donaldson gonna win co-mvp

We actually won a game where we scored only 2runs

Goins is better than Reyes right now. A great glove vs a terrible glove at SS, and Reyes isnt hitting that well anyways, he's usually the lowest OPS in the lineup. WAR agrees with me.

No. And bWAR agrees with you by slight degrees, but fWAR points a finger and laughs.

rWAR overrates defence imo, and let's not act like Reyes isn't an infinitely better hitter than goins, regardless of what WAR is saying after less than half a season of plate appearances

Fwiw zips ros has Reyes .326/.405 and ~neutral defence, and steamer is practically the same. Goins .270/.321 and slightly above average d, again, with steamer agreeing but slightly less optimistic for whatever that's worth.

But by all means if the 4 runs of defence is worth the -12 runs of offence and defensive flexibility then by all means

The reason I bring up pillar is because I strongly believe that this will likely be the best season he ever has in his career. He's also relatively young (kinda), and has a very team friendly contract of 500k.

When you watch him play, you see him make insane plays in the outfield and a guy that hits well and runs the bases well. His trade value will never be higher. I think the only way a trade works is some sort of package deal. I was looking at the Padres and thinking to myself that they might be a good candidate as they could use an upgrade in the outfield and have James shields on their roster.

Meh, the problem is that we don't have anyone to take his place in CF. I'm sure not trusting Saunders' knee when he comes back and there's pretty much no one else (re Pompey: No.).

I'm also not entirely certain Pillar's at an unsustainable peak. He's learned to hit at every level and we've seen him improve off a refined approach. I don't know that there's much more upward potential there, but I wouldn't be shocked if we saw the average of April, May and June (which have produced 2.2 fWAR sepite that horrible May run) for the next 4 years.

I would guess that a lot of other teams would view it the same way. I still don't expect him to hit as well as he has, and defensive stats are pretty volatile. Going forward, I think he's proven that he's a CF defensively, which is good for him because his bat plays there, but I'd doubt that other teams view him as the 4WAR CF that he's on pace to be, and therefore aren't going to try to acquire as such.

I think I said this in my wall of text above, but he's outWARred both Hamels and Cueto to this point this season, he makes a fraction of the salary, and he's controlled through 2020, but there's no way in hell that even RAJ agrees to straight up trade Hamels for Pillar.

I guess the thing I consider is how smart do we expect certain managers to be?

Pillar passes the eye test insanely well (and tbf most other metrics).

However I understand he has no track record which obviously hurts if you're trying to trade for an ace even if that's his true value.