Gene Honda Civic

Yeah giving up thier top pitching prospect for a guy who couldn't hit the strike zone with a beach ball didn't help either.

Back in June KW got raked over hot coals in the media, and by many here, for acquiring Freddy Garcia from the M's for the cost of a streaky, poor-hitting, catcher with a reputation for poor play-calling in '04, their top prospect and and a project of a minor league infielder...He also got a similarly poor catcher in return. A few days later FG signed to a 3-year $27M contract extension. Fast forward 6 months, and pitchers are getting handed incredibly rich contracts for seemingly no reason. 3yr AVG WARP Salary/yr $$$/WARP Benson 2.03 $7.5 $3.69M Wright 1.37 $7.0 $5.12 Wilson 3.03 $4.1 $1.35 Bradke 5.00 $9.0 $1.80 I talked a little bit about game theory and the Winner's Curse in a couple of other threads, but I won't get into it here. Pay attention to the last column, over the past few season's the Major league owners have been paying about $1M-1.25M for each Win Above Replacement. (In theory a team made up of purely AAA players will win about 60 games, WARP is a stat that approximates how many more wins above that of a AAA player that a player provides a team) For those wondering Garcia averaged 5.43WARP the last three seasons, and garnered an extension at $9M per, meaning KW paid $1.65M per win above replacement, well under the current market value. Given the current market, we see that not only is FG a bargain, so too is Paul Wilson!!!! I would imagine that the opening figure to land FG would he have been a FA would have been about $11-12M/yr....

By the very nature of free-agency, isn't every player a castoff?

The Problem is Kubel and Restovich both went down.

Grilli even won two games... /Nice stats. :rolly

Not gonna happen with Bradke taking up $9M on the payroll this season.

Of course everything could just be a product of him being on, the subsequently off, the juice.

See we agree on that -- The problem is he was "worth" only $5M to us, the Yankee$ have no ceiling, they will end up paying almost $50M in luxury tax this season. That's in addition to their $200+M payroll... We can't compete with that, and until that is fixed there will be no WS on the southside.

I should add that I believe that is what the sox have been doing... Before the off-season got in to full swing, I thought that Vizquel was going to be one of the best "Values" out there... He may still have been, But I know I wouldn't have given him that 3rd year at any cost. I believed Wright was going to be one of the best values out there too. So much so that I didn't even bother mentioning him in the blog. I just assumed that he would be resigned for a couple years in ATL, and at less than half of what he got in NY.

Yeah I can find faults with every player out there, but we aren't in the financial position to be taking huge gambles, which is exactly what Wright is. I've posted before about the winner's curse, it's a theory based in actions, which is essentially what free agency is. The sox have to succeed in the "moneyball" philosophy. That's not to say that they have to value OBP above all else. It means they have to suceed by aquiring a skill that the market inherently undervalues. I don't know what exactly that is, but I can tell you that mediocre right handed starters are highly over valued.

Beck had a thread a few weeks ago about Cairo -- I THink little Egypt would be a good fit.

Within the week Milton will sign with the Yankees. Lieber will be available. The Yankees also are gonna get the deal done with Zona for Vazquez. We will be the most likely destination for Vazquez, in what is likely to turn into a 3-way deal. Oh, and if Lieber is available, he's worth more than Wright and Benson... I'd be willing to shell out $8M per

Dear Mr. Koskie, Enjoy Toronto. Sincerely, Terry Ryan

Here is a bridge for all of you to jump off. This is not the end of the world. And frankly, pinning your hopes on a often-injured starter, coming off a fluke season under the tutledge of Leo Mazzone is a little scary. Here's a study that shows Mazzone takes .5 to .85 ERA off of a pitcher's ERA -- Add the .3 difference between the NL and the AL, and the 15% more runs given up at Comiskey compared to the Ted, and Wright would be looking at a Garlandesque ERA here in Chicago.

nah they'll offer him arb -- THough the deadline just passed -- It just means he'll cost a pick on the open market

Biggest.Ass.Evar

:headshake

Milton is also likely to sign before the meetings open up -- That either makes Lieber or Vazquez available

Yeah he is on the block, he might end up in Houston. I would like him though. very underrated.

Did Lugo get non-tendered -- If so, he would be a solid pick up

that was last year

That would be my #1 wish, if I could change anything about myself -- I wish I could be a great public speaker, a great story teller.

As I recall, Paulie was one of the players, along with frank, who wanted to skip the mandatory testing in order to recieve a false positive, and help force further mandatory testing.

I think Willaims has this team set up to compete for 2 more years -- (MB,FG,JC,JG) all around for 2 seasons from the rotation, FT,AR,JC,CL,JU,WH, all here for at least 2 more season from the line-up NC,JA,DM from the pen here for at least 2 more seasons add a few parts here and there and I think KW gets 2 more trys