Nick Schaefer, Matt Adams and James Fegan squeezed in their most concise podcast ever, discussing the day's news and rumors in an amount of time that listeners might describe as "enough" and "not too long" or "a little too long but not way too long."
Read MoreThere were a lot of little tidbits that punched out of this week’s Winter Meetings chatter. It’ll take a lot of work to get through it all, and it will feel dumb to dedicate a full post to any one because they’re rumors.
Also, roundtables are a good way to mitigate all of us lacking the desire to write on our own.
Read MoreWe’ve posited some free agent ideas, but ever since our legendary offseason plan last year to trade Hector Santiago for Lucas Duda, which would have totally killed, I’ve thought us overdue to concoct some fun trade packages for some of the guys available on the market.
Since inevitably someone is going to be a snot and say “I don’t even like that guy,” let’s do multiple players.
Read MoreThe first two parts of this offseason series have focused on free agency - but that's not the only way to improve a roster. Last winter we saw two major White Sox trades. One worked out gloriously (Adam Eaton!), and one had a very disappointing initial return (Matt Davidson is still young, but 2014 was a huge step backward). Perhaps the White Sox can take advantage of another dysfunctional organization this offseason.
Read MorePeople want Alexei Ramirez. Bruce Levine reports the Sox have been receiving offers from all over the league, including the Yankees, Mets and Dodgers. The most detailed information from Levine comes from the team that should be the least motivated.
Read MoreIt's the best time possible for tossing out roster ideas and seeing if they make sense, and that's what Nick Schaefer, Collin Whitchurch and James Fegan gathered to do, but James mostly crushes everyone's ideas with anxiety.
Read MoreAlthough the conclusion of the World Series is always a drag - winter is here, no more baseball, etc. - for teams like the White Sox, it means they are going to start having activity again after being told they weren't good enough to play in the month of October. We have learned that the "Golden Era Committee" (formerly the Veteran's Committee) may give us some new Hall of Famers, most notably among them for White Sox fans would be Minnie Minoso and Dick Allen. A flurry of other activity has kicked off: Adam Lind being traded to Milwaukee for Marco Estrada, and qualifying offers being extended to various players - including David Robertson, Victor Martinez, Max Scherzer, and Melky Cabrera. Declined options have meant that Billy Butler, Nick Markakis, Chad Billingsley, and Rickie Weeks, among others and now free agents. As of Tuesday, November 4th, free agents can sign anywhere they like. So! What's going to happen? This is only the first in what will be months of speculation and analysis here at the Catbird Seat, but I'm an impatient guy and I want to start talking about roster construction.
Read MoreThe World Series has finally started, meaning we're somewhere around a week or so away from baseball going out to buy some smokes and disappearing for months. But that does at least mean it's finally hot stove season. And when your favorite team has been bad for two years running, hot stove season winds up being far more fun than it actually should be.
Read MoreCompetent shortstops are always rare and in demand, but are they especially in short supply so as to inspire a bidding frenzy for an (All-Star) 33-year-old shortstop with a year left at $10 million and a club option?
Well, what are the free agent options if J.J. Hardy is gone? There are recognizable names, but they may not be good anymore.
Read MoreTypically, August 31 is not a frenzied rush of trades, but when it comes to trading half-useful veterans to contenders with part-time roles to fill, the White Sox were all over it, moving both Alejandro De Aza and Adam Dunn for minor league arms within the same 24-hour period.
The results are rather strange.
Read MoreWell, that didn't take long. The only guy who wasn't going to be around on his current contract with the White Sox next season was traded at the absolute last minute for them to do so. Adam Dunn's contract didn't work out the way the team hoped it would, and he was overpaid over the four years, but that doesn't mean he was terrible. After his historically terrible 2011, Dunn managed an OPS+ of 111 over the next three years. Not great, but playable. Now he goes to Oakland to help revitalize their stuttering offense, and hopefully will succeed with them.
Read MoreDuring Game 2 of the double header last night, Twitter started buzzing about the fact that AAA 1B/DH Andy Wilkins was getting hugs and congratulations, indicating a potential call-up. Which would mean, someone had been cleared off of the major league roster. Given the position Wilkins plays, speculation was that it would be Adam Dunn, but it turned out that Alejandro de Aza had been sent to Baltimore for two minor league pitchers. As I write this, rumors are percolating up to a boil that Adam Dunn will be sent to Oakland, but one thing at a time.
Read MoreThere was probably no getting anything huge in return for Beckham this season. Then he went and removed the "probably." When it's cash considerations or a player to be named later, the player usually winds up being someone fans care about as much as they care about the team getting paid a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Read MoreFor a while there, the sheer madness of the 2014 MLB trade deadline was like watching a heart-pounding segment of international news. It was gripping and compelling, but it would surely never actually affect you. The local news reminded you that your existence was a mundane one. The local news was the Twins debating whether to renew a millage tax, and the Royals announcing that the summer carnival was being postponed to next summer due to unforeseen permit issues.
Then the Tigers got David Price.
Read MoreI’ve been preparing myself for this reality for a while now. I wouldn’t be totally bummed if the White Sox don’t go into complete “fire-sale” mode. If you can’t get anything for Dayan Viciedo or Gordon Beckham, it doesn’t make sense to trade them just for the sake of trading them. And you can always try to make something work in the offseason. But in the case of Adam Dunn, not dealing him would perplex me to no end.
Read MoreThere's a run of half-useful platoon bats and no-hit second basemen* and the Sox are sitting on the sidelines thus far. It feels wrong. If a contending team is willing to trade for Darwin Barney and promise to send a human in return, and pay for most of his salary, what's keeping Gordon Beckham in Chicago? Besides what's likely a higher asking price and millions of dollars more salary for a roster filler-quality player?
Read MoreI keep returning to this subject, because to me it seems so obvious that Dunn should be traded. He's hitting a solid .229/.366/.440 on the year, good for an OPS+ of 124. He's 5th in the majors in pitches seen per plate appearance.* He's also going to be a free agent this offseason, there's no way the White Sox make him a qualifying offer in an attempt to gain a draft pick, and the White Sox probably aren't making the playoffs this year. Despite all of this, I haven't heard as many trade rumblings about Dunn as I might have thought.
Read MoreIn a day of trade news about guys who were better a couple of years ago, Jon Heyman reported that the Yankees and White Sox have had early conversations about trading John Danks. J-O-H-N D-A-N-K-S.
Read MoreLooking to avoid developing and writing my own piece and looking to co-opt the thoughts and quips of my peers, I decided to get the staff of The Catbird Seat to sit down and chat about trade deadline possibilities. It's still mostly theory at this point, but that's half the fun of it.
Read MoreEven as someone who takes sardonic glee in seeing super-protected, nine-figure (at the least) organizations with elastic profits getting the occasional bit egg on the face, I am going to go out on a limb and say it's just wrong to steal proprietary data from a major league franchise. The Astros having their Ground Control system hacked is maybe the 97th most immoral act I read about on Monday, and maybe it's proprietary data about a silly game, but it's their proprietary data and they paid for it. Imagine that if instead of proprietary data, it was donuts, and imagine that instead of being the Astros' donuts, they were your donuts that were stolen. Yeah, not so funny now, you sad, donut-less schlub.
Read MoreThe Catbird Seat is a White Sox blog by White Sox fans that focuses on intelligent and humorous baseball commentary. Brought to you by ESPN's SweetSpot Network.
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