joeynach

It was one of those moments where KW just said, "trust me guys".

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 5, 2011 -> 10:52 PM) Welcome to sabermetric journalism, lol. I think a dip in BABIP comes naturally to almost every player who comes to the Sox. Mostly because of the park we play in. But they'll also gain a decent amount of home runs. Yeah I posted an article that highlighted that USCF had the lowest of 2nd lower BABIP. Thats natural when you play in a park that really inflates HR. Dunn will have more flyballs/linedrives turn into HR's but less Flyballs/Linedrives turn into singles/double/triples. UM OK seems like a double edged sword, but I think batting in the middle of our order to see more fly balls turn into HR is better than more fly balls turn into singles and doubles becuase we dont exactly have the high OBP high AVG hitters throughout our lineup that can stack runs together without power (cough Twins cough).

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jan 5, 2011 -> 03:12 AM) We should go ahead and sign Soriano then, oh wait, the Sox can't afford it. I think De AZA will do a fine job as a 4th OF. I never thought having Jones and De Aza on our bench are mutually exclusive. Most teams carry two back up OF's and I expect the White Sox to be the same, especially given the fact that CQ will get hurt. So if Jones signs somewhere else then we need two OF back ups, but a backup OF brigade of Jones and De Aza together would be pretty good.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 5, 2011 -> 10:29 AM) If KW traded for EJax with absolutely 0% intention of keeping him, instead of just brokering a 3-way deal with WAS & ARI, then that's a borderline fireable offense. Dont you remember that episode of the club. KW came to his people sitting in the War Room and discussed the trade. He said we have a strong chance of being able to land Jackson for Hudson. They then started discussing are they a better team going forward with Jackson in the rotation instead of Hudson. That was it, there was no talk of flipping Jackson or only acquiring Jackson to get Dunn. Im sure there was some discussion, but I still think the KW and his team came to a consensus that even if Jackson wasn't flipped over to the Nats the sox were still an improved team with Jackson starting over Hudson.

I havent heard much in the way of bringing back Jones, I felt he did an adequate job as a 4th OF and part time DH. He played solid defense and come through with occasional bang. I read the yankees are interested and assume Jones can be had for something like 1 year 1.5M. Question is if we are not interested in retaining his services then who do we have as options for our 4th and 5th OF spots?

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Jan 2, 2011 -> 03:13 PM) Bulls constantly sold out, even when they were horrible. White Sox are spending money for various reason, lead one is JR is 74 and is likely exhausting his budget as far as he can, also, while they are not specifically the White Sox, the deadspin documents from last year show how creative team get with getting all the money they can out of a team, add that with the White Sox favorable lease at the Cell, they have money. This goes with JR being older, but he and his partners paid 19m for the Sox in teh early 80's, Forbes had the team listed in 2010 as worth about 400m. That doesnt mean they have more cash it just means they operate a more valuable product/organization. The 19M investment to 400M+ figure only means more cash in their pockets if they sell the team, or their shares.

Well Chris Capuano is off the market, he signed with the Mets for a base of $1.5M plus incentives. Said that his desire to remain a starter came into play as the Mets offered him a starting opportunity.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 1, 2011 -> 06:46 PM) It better be. You don't spend $120 million+ and lose the division. The Mets seem to be good at that.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Dec 27, 2010 -> 08:41 PM) Capuano's gonna get nowhere near 4 million. Fine by me give him like 1 year 2M plus a few incentives.

I think a lot of us are wondering what our team is going to do with Peavy in limbo for potentially half the season. I know most of us would prefer to find a better alternative than Freddy Garcia again and I think a solution may have just presented itself. The Brewers with a full 5 man rotation after acquiring Grienke and Marcum have broken off talks with Chris Capuano. While he missed the 2008-2009 seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery I think he might be a great fill in candidate and swing man for our team. Last year with the Brewers he compiled 66 IP between a couple spot starts as well as out of the pen and posted a 3.95 ERA with 7.4 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. While far removed from his full seasons of work in the 2005 and 2006 seasons I believe Capuano would be an serviceable and affordable candidate for this swing man role the sox need. He could easily make 10+ starts for the Sox while they wait to see what happens with Peavy's return, and can pitch out of bullpen as our 3rd lefty if/when Peavy returns. I think KW should make a play at him, something like 1 year 4M + Incentives should do it. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/12/brew...th-capuano.html

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 25, 2010 -> 10:08 PM) Buehrle Jackson Danks Pena Sale Gross

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 25, 2010 -> 11:00 AM) If they can pawn off Teahen and Pierre on the Yanks in a Floyd for Gardner + prospects deal, I can see an offer being sent. How can we trade Floyd with only 4 Starting Pitchers going to be active on opening day. What would this team be like with only 3 starters if we traded Floyd.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 24, 2010 -> 09:43 PM) It's fine to say we should model ourselves after the Phillies, although with only one team in that market...or even St. Louis, another "model" franchise, I'm not sure that I buy that. I prefer to look at the Angels, because they're the "second tier" team in a major market (like the Sox) and they've won a World Series this decade and have also made some inroads in taking SOME market share back from the Dodgers, and/or creating a new market of fans with marketing/promotions and simply winning. Clearly, the Angels have had a "good to great" minor league system over much of that time, but, as someone pointed out in another thread, 90% of those guys have either failed to live up to the their promise, gotten injured or they're no longer with the team. I remember all the Reggie Willits discussions the last couple of offseasons. Wood has been a disaster. McPherson, Kotchmann, Kendrick is usually hurt, Morales hasn't stayed healthy, Weaver has been very good but Santana regressed, etc. Then Angels have basically had to do the same thing as the White Sox (making shrewd FA acquisitions and trades) while spending more money to do it. More of a cushion. We also were unfortunate with players like Jenks and Crede we couldn't maximize their value and trade them while they still had worth to other organizations that would net us something promising in return. As pointed out, replacing Pierre with DeAza and Quentin with Viciedo or Gartrell wouldn't be the best...but we all know Dayan has a ton of ability IF IF IF he ever puts it all together. Apparently enough that KW held off on pulling the trigger with a trade in 2010 during the season. With Hudson, we'll see if he's another Brandon McCarthy or ends up becoming an All-Star in the NL. Sure, if he pitched the same for the White Sox, it would have been great...just like it would have been great if Kip Wells or Josh Fogg had done the same, but we'll never know. The huge negative with mixing players from so many organizations together is that they don't play together in the minors, bond and learn how to win a couple of minor league championships with 3-4-5 players all coming up at the same time as part of a "wave" of talent. One of the biggest disappointments has been player development and progression at both the major and minor league levels, especially the last 10 years. We've had numerous arguments about Bell and Ozzie and our team's lack of fundamental/small ball skills, and why that has happened. Ozzie focuses on it occasionally with his "mini-camps" and "back to basics" lectures and then it all goes out the window once the season begins. Then he asks players to do things they're simply not confident enough or capable enough to do, like Brian Anderson or Josh Fields being a "small ball" guy and hitting to the right side, etc. Not having a consistent organizational philosophy (The Twins' Way, the Butler Way, the UCLA Way under Wooden) that starts from the time of drafting all the way up to their first rookie at bat or pitch has partially caused some of our disappointments, particularly 2003, 2006 and 2010. Of course, the counter-argument is that the Twins and A's never did anything more than win one first round playoff series, both against each other...for all their organizational development, drafting, trades and acquisitions, best-selling books and "copy cats" and maximization of budgetary outlays. Excellent Post!

QUOTE (bschmaranz @ Dec 24, 2010 -> 02:09 PM) Yeah, definitely no dice on that one. Even if they had the money I don't think he'd be a wise option. I'd sooner look to use those "expendable funds" in other areas then spend 70-80 mil on a guy that only performs in contract years. I heard that Beltre and Company rejected the angles offered which was believed to be 5 years 70M. WTF do they think they are going to get from someone else.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/t...t-lists-so-far/ The Chicago White Sox 2010 MLB Record: 88-74 (2nd in the AL Central) Minor League Power Ranking: 30th (out of 30)

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 09:39 PM) the problem with thisis that you negate any impact of actually coaching a player or player motivation. Coaches can teach and help improve player performance. This was his purpose in saying he looked at a players performance from the current team and other teams for which he played. However, I do agree that should be some input from specific moves in a game and different lineups etc. I think these things are important but in a sport like baseball it's more the mental approach and comfort level where the manager has more of an impact. More often than not the in game strategies are a crapshoot where no one philosophy works all of the time. I believe this managerial impact is taken into account in Bill James Saber model. In the Bill James Handbook there is a whole section on managers where it breaks down number of times a manger calls for a sacrifice, hit and run, steal, pitching change, etc and then statistically shows his success rate. Most importantly, there is a figure called Manager Wins, which is like WAR for manager, or how many wins is the manager worth given his decision making, strategy, and tactics. I do think that's a very telling figure.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 07:08 PM) I thought this was interesting, although pretty basic analysis. Coming into 2011, we'll have Morel, Viciedo (maybe), Beckham, Ramirez, Buehrle, Sale, maybe a reliever like Infante...so maybe just 5 players we drafted ourselves and then Viciedo/Ramirez. nytimes.com (freakonomics) I consider trading for young players before they become establish to be the same as drafting them. Like Paul Konerko, I consider him to be home grown, even though we didnt draft him. We traded for him in like 1999 when he was a virtually unknown. A guy like AJ for example I consider a strict FA acquisition.

From Ranking the Ballparks article on ESPN 7. U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago White Sox): If you're looking for homer heaven, look no further. Since the White Sox's decision to bring in their outfield fences following the 2000 season, most notably shrinking the distance to the left-field foul pole from 347 to 330 feet and the right-field foul pole from 347 to 335 feet, U.S. Cellular has ranked no lower than 11th in Park Factor calculations in home runs, or registered a number beneath 1.193, which happened in 2009 yet still ranked the ballpark fourth in the category. If there's any knock on this park, it's that it tends to curtail doubles and triples and has a BABIP of .288 the past five seasons combined, the third-lowest mark in baseball. My question is this, in a stadium where routine fly balls or at least deep fly balls turn into HRs probably more than any other park why do we see a trend of low BABIP in our ballpark. Its it our hitters, too all or nothing, lack of line drive hitters? Is it our dimensions? Does the rather cozy dimensions, short fences, small outfield, create extra difficulty in generating hits and allowing line drives to fall? But all that being said, can anything be done to improve the BABIP at our park

QUOTE (Lillian @ Dec 17, 2010 -> 06:34 PM) We shouldn't forget that the Metrodome had a lot to do with their prior dominance. Thankfully, at least the Sox don't have to contend with that obstacle anymore. I guess another possibility is to just compile such a better record than theirs, against every other team we play, so that even if they have a dominant record versus the Sox, they still can't catch us. At least we know that we wouldn't have to face them in the post season, if we can get there. No one has mentioned any player that has had an especially successful career vs the Twins, whom the Sox might try to acquire. Maybe they need to create a new position; "Designated Player vs. Twins". If the Sox do acquire another starting pitcher, I hope that he's really good against them. Then they should make sure that he gets a start in every series with Minnesota. The metrodome has a ton to do with this. Remember for years and years the Twins had at least 7 out of their 9 hitters be able to score from 2nd on a single or go from 1st or 3rd on a single. Something very difficult to do with the speed of balls hit on that turf. The balls get to the outfielders on the ground much faster and if you had a team of big lumberjack sluggers unless u hit balls out of park you could have just as many base hits if not more than the twins and not score as many runs. The Twins team was tailored to that athletic groundball/line drive hitting squad, both offensively and defensively. They had guys in the outfield that could cover ground quickly and their lineup was stacked with hard ground ball and gap hitters. Hell even their best hitter, Joe Mauer, was hitting like 12 HR per year for a while and celebrated for it.

You want to know how to beat the twins. There are only two ways. Either let free agency swallow up the core of their pitching staff, as this years offseason has done. Or either pound them so hard with offense early in the game that coming back is simply to big a hurdle. I mean like in the 3rd inning make it 9-0 and the feisty twins will not come back, they dont have enough power in their lineup to erase those kinds of deficits. We saw this over and over again in 2010, espeically the 2nd half, anytime the twins were either tied or down by just 1 or 2 runs in the 6th inning or later, you could usually pencil them in for a win, especially against weaker opponents without a shut down pen. So instead be up by 8 or 9 runs and u got it.

QUOTE (dpd9189 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 07:56 PM) As I said in earlier posts, I like 1 year deals for relief pitchers so I think this is a great deal for the Cubs. That being said the salary thing is fishy. I wonder if the Cubs and Wood came to a gentlemen's agreement where if Wood pitches good this year, they'll reward him next offseason when they have 50 mil coming off the books. This has to be a giant PR ploy for the cubs. Their roster is in total rebuild mode and their hired a rookie manager. I bet their hoping if they sign some names like Wood and Pena they can still give people a reason to come out and buy tickets. Little do they know all they have to do is have the sun shine and beer taps turned on. This deal makes no baseball sense for the cubs beside the fact its cheap. Why would u even waste the 60IP or whatever on Wood at this point when you are in internal talent evaluation mode, leaps and bounds behind the cards/reds, and essentially "letting the kids play" while waiting for that 50M to come off the books. I seriously think someone in marketing told Rickets that they need to give a reason for the people to continue the work outings, bday parties, summer get togethers, and annual family chicago trips from Iowa or he wont make any money......and then K Wood said he would play for $1.5M on a 90 loss team.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 01:07 PM) Which is just what KW said he wanted to do. People chiming in about a salary dump might see Teahan leaving. Teahan is the odd man out in my opinion. He has lost his starting job at 3B and RF is not his strong point. Just because he is a lefty bat is not a good reason to keep him over the talent CQ brings. If these folks think CQ is a bad defender they need to think about Teahan in RF. Teahan might be the insurance though in case Morel doersn't make it this spring or Viciedo can't step in at3B. Interesting to see what happens with those guys. Who on earth is going to take Teahen for 2 Years and 9M. Who I ask you.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 05:16 PM) You are right there. These salary number are huge differences Where there is smoke....there is fire!

QUOTE (chw42 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 01:21 PM) This has to be the highest payroll in team history. I think 08 was pretty close to this figure, but wasn't that around $121 million with money from the Phillies for Thome and some other stuff? My spreadsheet goes back to 2007. For 2008 I had total Guaranteed Payroll of about $117.3M. I believe Philly was paying us about 22M for Thome which was broken up for 7.3M in 06, 07, 08. So that would put 08 payroll at about $110M. My projections show this year is going to be about $123 so about $13M more than 2008. Record payroll indeed!

Sox reportedly offered 1 Year 3.5M, but originally he told the Yanks he was seeking 2 Years and 12M. Something doesnt seem right here, you dont go from demanding 12M to settling for 1.5M for no reason. Me thinks there is more to this story.