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Another Off-Season Article


DBAHO
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I know, I know, another friggin article talkin about the moves in the off-season that KW and the Sox have made, you're probably all sick of em by now. But since it's from the Hardball Times which is definitely one of the better baseball sites out there, I'd thought I'd post it anyways. This guy, Ben Jacobs gave us the 14th best off-season, just ahead of San Francisco (giving you some ammo here Cheat);

 

Trading Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik wasn't real smart because Podsednik's just not as good an offensive player. But Podsednik shouldn't be terrible either. He only had a .313 OBP last year, but it was .379 the year before. I think he'll regain some of the lost ground this season. And while stealing bases isn't tremendously important, Podsednik is very good at it, with an 83 percent success rate in his career.

 

Other than that trade, the White Sox made pretty much only smart or low-risk moves. They gave about $10 million over two years to Jermaine Dye, who's not that good a hitter any more, but will at least give them some power to help offset the loss of Lee.

 

They gave $5.5 million over two years to Dustin Hermanson. Hermanson isn't a great pitcher, but that's not much money for a pitcher who could be above average either as a reliever or a starter.

 

They picked up A.J. Pierzynski for $2.25 million, which is a pretty good deal for a catcher who should be in the top half of the league offensively.

 

They gave two years and $8 million plus incentives to Orlando Hernandez, who should be a solid starter if he's healthy and won't cost them a ton of money if he's not.

 

And they took a two-year, $5-million flier on Japanese import Tadahito Iguchi, who should team with Juan Uribe to give Chicago a pretty solid middle infield.

 

If all of their signings work out, the White Sox will have a shot at winning the division. If none of the signings work out, they'll probably finish fourth, but at least they didn't spend a ton of money doing it and they gave themselves a chance to contend. It wasn't a great offseason by any means, but it wasn't bad either.

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I may be a broken record here but if we don't trade CLee for Pods we would not have signed AJ, Tadahito, or Orlando Hernandez. Why is this so freaking hard for these backwards glue sniffing columnists around the country to understand? They seem to understand it in basketball when similar things are done all the time. The CLee trade not only brought us Pods but gave us salary room to sign players that filled other voids.

 

It's not rocket science. Why can't one god damn columnist mention this when they evaluate our off-season?!?!?!?

Edited by thomsonmi
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QUOTE:

If all of their signings work out, the White Sox will have a shot at winning the division. If none of the signings work out, they'll probably finish fourth.

 

At least they frame the Sox as real contenders. A pattern is emerging over all this reports: The Sox got fleeced in the Lee for Pods trade. We the fans can point to Vizcaino & the PTBNL but the nation will see this as Lee for Pods. I can't argue with that. I'm sorry but Lee was not making so much $ to where it justifies a salary purge. If that was the primary motive then Koney should have been moved instead. 16M/2yr for Lee after his breakout year is not unreasonable. He was the team's best road warrior.

Considering the Sox were 7gms under on the road that only amplifys his importance. Lee was a big reason why the Sox were still in contention

after Maggs & Thomas went down.

 

We can't recover the past so we have to move on. Pods hit 328 on the road in 2003 & 274 on the road in 2004. That leads me to believe the glass is 1/2 full with this player. I look at the numbers & I see a player who has great potential to hit 300+ at the Cell this year. Maybe these analysts should look at his hit chart. He's going to hit the ball deep in the gaps many times & at the Cell with his speed he might be able to stretch those to triples. On the road I expect him to hit 280-290 because he's a rookie in the AL. That should give him a slight advantage.

 

Right now I'm more concerned about Contreras. He still looks clueless on the mound. So much talent & so little upstairs. Sounds an awful lot like Garland.

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