[Putting This One Right Where It Belongs -- On Kenny Williams]

CF is a HUGE improvement from last year. He is actually one of the best hitters on our team this year. That is not saying much, but it's true.

It certainly is not a defensive improvement. And it looks like more of an offensive improvement than it really is because everyone else is hitting so miserably. So we take Erstad and his zero power and .310 OBP, instead of taking a risk on a young player. That's a poor decision, imo, because Erstad is so mediocre that is easily worth the risk to play a young player. As it is, Anderson improved in 2006, outplayed Erstad in the spring - but he isn't an ozzie-style player that hacks away at every pitch.

And it doesn't even have to be Anderson - play Sweeney, play Fields, play Owens...someone with potential. It sure beats the guaranteed mediocrity of erstad.

[Sox have 24% chance make playoffs]

Keep in mind that this is the BP who has the Cubs ranked #4 in their power ratings dated 5/11/07.

[In two more days, fire sale talk will pick up]

Great at identifying undervalued major league players....horrible at finding AA and AAA talent, with the one exception being the slight chance he took on Bobby Jenks and picking up Jerry Owens from the Nationals for Alex Escobar.

 

If you look at 2002, you remember names like Barry/Berry, Felix Diaz, Jon Adkins, Onan Masaoka, Gary Majewski, the immortal Byeon Hak-An and Frank Francisco.

 

The two "stars" were Diaz and Adkins, and they disappointed mightily.

 

Francisco and Majewski would have been nice bullpen pieces had we kept them. In fact, we might have won in 2003 if Francisco was the closer for the entire season, instead of Koch. But he wasn't quite ready then, nor had he thrown any chairs or suffered a major injury.

The most talented AA/AAA players he's given up would have been "bullpen pieces" - that's pretty good.

Dont' forget how Kenny GOT Francisco in the first place....and Cotts....and Danks..... (the exception likely will be Chris Young).

 

We've got some AAA/AA pitchers...we need to package them for AAA/AA hitters

 

The Sox aren't selling off. Our pitching is too good for us NOT to be in the race..

[Couch rips the White Sox for "staying put"]

The success of the A's for many years has been based on maximizing the performance they get out of guys, and then trading them to teams who will overpay for them, only to see the guy they got regress to the means (SEE: Mulder for Calero and Haren for example). In fact, they do it well in cases like Frank Thomas, Chad Bradford, etc as well in cases without trades. That is the true essence of moneyball, far more than on base percentage (although that is important too).

It's like constantly trading down in the draft, trading down in the draft. Ultimately, you'll end up with 32 choices in this and next year's 7th round. Prospects dont' win titles - what prospects become wins titles. So at some point, yoiu have to let them mature and risk perhaps keeping them on the downside.

At some point it's overkill.

And spending 10Mill a year on Jason Kendall, a high proportion of their budget, is a dubious choice..

He's one 1 playoff series, but has a consistently good team. Shapiro is looking for his first playoff club. The guy in LA was a disaster, zip from Toronto.

 

As for a fire sale, people don't pay much for rents of, say, Dye. We could probably move a starter or reliever for something decent. BUt what we really neeed are a couple of bats. We've got good pitching and good defense. And I think our pitching remains the best in the Central, overall, and I therefore think we'll remain in the race, albeit on the fringes.

[Blow This Team Up]

I think we'll be reasonably in the race.

That said, I think our best trade chits are our middle relievers for July deals. We have a lot of pitching depth, these guys are throwing up good numbers, and we should be able to net a premium return.

[Where are all you Erstad haters now?]

Erstad's numbers for the year still blow.

 

Brady Clark would be as silly as Erstad.

 

Erstad is so mediocre (to be kind), I just don't think we lose much with Anderson learning how to hit in that spot.

and for goodness sakes, bat ERstad 7th or 9th.

[Has anyone else notice Sandy Alomar in our dugout?]

As of yesterday he was playing for the Albuquerque Isotopes which I believe is affiliated with the Mets. I'm surprised the Mets would allow him to sit in another ML team's dugout. Did they release him?

 

The Mets' AAA team is the New Orleans Zephyrs and he's on that roster along with another aging old ML catcher whose name escapes me.

[I pray that Kenny trades Erstad for a $1 bill]

Erstad isn't going to hit .170 all year; but I doubt he does much better than .260 with an OBP of .300 and a miniscule slg percentage (a whopping ONE extra base hit all year). Further, he's been batting at the TOP of the order, protected most of the year by THOME, and he still hits horribly. He clearly belongs at the bottom of the lineup (if anywhere). His upside is so scant, that it doesn't justify not playing a younger player, be it Anderson, or someone else, or trade some of our AAA pitching for someone else's good CF prospect. But ERstad is pitiful offensively.

[No Witty Title]

Do you have any evidence to back this up?

Sure - superior OPS the last 2 years. Not much different, but Crede's is better - at 1/3 of the price. And salary does matter when you have only $X to spend. And Crede's much better defensively - in my opinion.

 

Where's your evidence that stone-feet Blaylock is in Crede's defensive stratosphere?

[No Witty Title]

Seattle made some of the worst FA signings in memory - and Beltre's one of them.

He is assuredly not better than Crede - and he costs, what 13 mill a year?

[No Witty Title]

Trading at low value and buying at peak value, is no way to do business. There's nothing to be gained from trading Anderson.

We seem to have a lot of pitching depth....if some of our middle relievers have great years, I'd trade a couple of them at peak value and replace them with some of our good arms in the minors. Use them or lose them. Actually, it would take some stones, but teams really overpay for middle relievers in July - with the right deal, we might consider sending one packing.

This team desparately needs a leadoff hitter. Even if Erstad is tolerable in CF, that toleration is with him at the 8 spot in the order.

Crede is not a top 5 3B, but he's also better than stiffs like Mike Lowell.

[Erstad/Anderson MEGAThread]

Erstad's hitting has been poor for several seasons - it's not just this year...so even if he reverts to 05 or 06, it still sucks. But it's incredible enough that Ozzie plays this guy, but to lead him off?

I guess Ozzie finally found a way to put a batter who hits in his image at the top of the lineup: swing at everything, little power, incredible number of outs, low obp - just like Ozzie did as a hitter. Last night, Ozzie actually bunted someone so that Erstad could {flailingly attempt to} drive them in from 2nd. It's surreal.

[Eureka! He has seen the LIGHT!]

Erstad should be hitting 10th.

 

Isn't that the truth.

 

Kenny should just use cut his losses and release him. He'll save money on per diems.

[SOX FIRESALE BY JUNE]

FACT! I REALLY DON'T THINK THIS TEAM IS GOING TO BE ANY GOOD THIS SEASON AND I BELIEVE THAT KW WILL TRY AND TRADE DYE, BUEHRLE, IGUCHI, THOME, CREDE, AND EVEN KONERKO BEFORE THE DEADLINE KIND OF LIKE THE MARLINS DID AND PICK UP YOUNG TALENT.

DISCUSS.

1) No matter how bad we were, we'd never do all of that.

2) Those Marlins may have picked up young talent (much of which was from the offseason trade of Pierre) but they aren't winning anything, so they are hardly a team to emulate.

3) It's early and this team should contend...too much pitching not to.

[Super Cool Article on Pitchers from ESPN]

If we are obsessed with velocity, why do we draft control pitchers, not stuff pitchers, with our high draft choices?

[Sox should trade 2 SP's]

First trade I'd make is the Garcia/Crede for Figgins and Santana. It leaves the Sox with 6 starters and adds more speed to the line up. Ozzie wanted more speed on this team last season and now he will have it. It also frees up $10 mill to fill other holes like the stealth bullpen the Sox need.

 

Chone Figgins is a high end utility player. We trade one of the best gloves in the game who also has power for a player who doesn't play good defense and can't get on base. (the pitcher part of this is basically a wash; but the 3B part, we get slaughtered).

Rob M for Figgins would be a fairer deal.

[Update On Jones]

Pitching is the weakspot of this team, so by all means lets trade away our young pitching, the pitcher that practically every team asks for when the call us to trade - he gave up 2 home runs yesterday, so he must suck. And let's do it for a hard-used Andruw JOnes who, despite the absurd hype around him, is another Carlos Lee/Dye level hitter (power, mediocre obp) of which we have a surplus. Anderson is young, cheap and better defensively.

If it were up to conventional wisdom, we'd never have young players....no Garland, no Crede, no Anderson, but we'd have Joe Randa and Darin Erstad wheezing around the bases.

[Andruw Jones]

We don't need andru jones. Anderson is better defensely and Jones delives power, but nothing else....no obp, no speed.

[Williams: Anderson's our guy]

This team could use another reliable arm or 2. That's about it for real problems.

 

Thank goodness what was rumored to be in the works this time last year never came to fruition. No Contreras, no Crede, no McCarthy.

 

Or the offseason clammoring for Juan Pierre....that would have been a big upgrade.

What problem there is in CF will likely be cured with a year or two more experience, while stellar defense is played gaining that experience.

[Backup Outfielders and now Relievers]

This is a big problem because we have no one else who can come close to hitting a competent lead-off. If anybody can take a walk on this team, you go to the head of the class and hit lead-off.

That was the problem with the Vasquz trade - at the least, we dealt a lot of depth (bullpen; CF) to fill a position that, arguably, wasn't a hole anyway.

[Minaya and Mets seeking Contreras]

Win another world series in 06 vs. getting some prospects for the future. I'll take winning another world series.

 

Unless someone seriously overpays for Count he isn't going anywhere.

 

But that's not exactly the choice. How much does Contreras help us win this year? Some, but how much? And you can never guarantee yourself the world's series.

 

I remember so many wanted to throw in any and all young talent to get the great AJ Burnett for a midseason rental.

 

I have a different philosophy than many. I think you have a much better chance at rings if you give yourself more chances at rings, versus loading up a team for 1 year and trying to force a WS. With our payroll, there's no reason that we don't contend 7/10 years. And young players are a piece of that. It doesn't mean you constantly backtrack like Cleveland does and Montreal did. But with Jose, we are dealing from strength/surplus; the the loot is big enough, I'd take it.

[Minaya and Mets seeking Contreras]

Nothing wrong with trading for prospects. You can load up a team with all stars all you want, but anything can happen - baseball is about odds and percentages - the best teams lose 35% of the time; the best hitters every fail 60+% of the time.

Same with prospects - out of a pool of 10 top prospects, you may get 2 that can play MLB - but those 2 are important, absent an unlimited budget. We'll have 3 rookies playing key roles on the Sox this year - and that's with an upper tier payroll.

Jose certainly will make us a stronger team. But we are a contender withoout him; top prospects will help us contend in the future, which we want to do. We want to be a player 7/10 years.

So, if some team wants to load us up with prospects for JOse, take them. It makes perfect sense. If they want to give us some used spare parts, forget it.

[Re-sign Contreras, trade Vazquez mid-season]

Anderson will get the job this year. But Pods and Dye will be out of here in a couple of years, so there will be plenty of room for young outfielders, if Owens can make the grade.

[A Philly-Mets fight for Contreras?]

What do we want for Jose? Another outfielder? Nah, unless they're great, which wells isn't (another swing at everything player, although he has some power; not as good as C Lee).

 

 

I'd do it for a lefty reliever plus a top prospect(s).

 

I would absolutely NOT trade him to Toronto or any other AL team that could conceivable contend. No use helping our competition get pitching.

 

But even at that, there is a strong argument not to trade him. WE have reasonable chance to repeat. You can't have too much pitching. It's obvious that we won't get the mother-load for Jose, so perhaps we should just keep him.

[Gammons praises Sox - Not Red Sox]

Top 3 GM in the game.  He's not the best trader, or the best when it comes to negotiating, but when the dust settles, he has had a great team on the field going into the season the past 2 years, with virtually no holes.  He has gone the route of putting just enough offense on the field the past two years while overloading with pitching, and it worked extremely well last year, and I see no reason it will not work again next year. 

 

Lots of kudos to KW.

That's kind of how I see him as well.