ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 01:42 PM) The big line I have seen the last few weeks is "The Sox have 99 million tied into 12 players going into 2007..." I see the Sox with a payroll around $115, but I still think one of the starters has to be moved. That doesn't really make sense unless you don't count the money we're getting to defray the cost of Thome and Vazquez. That would subtract like $8.5 mil from that total, dropping it to like $91 for those guys...

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:29 PM) I'd guess around 110. IIRC we have about 95 tied up already on about 20ish players. It's not just money here with Brandon, if I thought he was just going to be an average pitcher I'd trade him in a heartbeat for Crawford, but I don't, I think he's going to be a 1 or 2 starter in this league(ya I know everyone disagrees). That and with Freddy and Buehrle being free agents after this season we need to have a cheap starter that's locked up for a while and Brandon is. I'm pretty sure our total committed money is higher than that. As I posted a little while ago, we're at $87.8 with just 11 players, and that doesn't count Crede's arbitration total. That will probably push it up by at least $5 mil all on its own. Plus Mack is another $2.75, and you got several other league minimum-types to consider. Our total committed money is probably closer to 100 million with a few open roster spots remaining.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:22 PM) I see lots of money talk, so I am curious exactly where people are thinking the Sox 2007 payroll is going to settle out? My best guess would be somewhere between $100 and $115 mil, and I'd personally prefer that it is closer to $100 mil given the number of contracts that are up over the next 2 years. I can't really see us going that far over that yet. The Sox are a hot ticket now but until we know that we can maintain this type of attendance level for a few years it wouldn't be too smart to go nuts with the salary IMO. ESPN had them at $102,875,667 last year, but IIRC that doesn't include the money we got for Thome or Vazquez, which would drop that by about $6 mil (though there are several built-in raises to consider). I expect a moderate increase this year, which would let us do a lot of things IF we trade Garcia or another starter.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 11:41 AM) He's in the same league, offense wise, as Pierre. Obviously, he'd be a much better LF'er. But, he's better as a 2, than a leadoff. And you can't compare 1998 Yankees with todays Yankees. Tino, O'Neill, Bernie, Brosius don't compare to the ridiculous salaries of A-Rod, Giambi, Sheffield and Damon. They started spending money on big-time names and talents and haven't won since. Pitching wins WS (or this year, pitchers being able to throw to a base that isn't home). Crawford would be great, but not for McCarthy. While I agree with the general premise, Crawford is a much better hitter than Pierre. Crawford is a more efficient runner, actually has some power, drives in significantly more runs (yes, I know Pierre has the pitcher in front of him, but that won't totally account for the difference), and has better contact and OBP numbers the last few years. Plus he will cost less money and his career is on the upswing unlike Pierre. I like Crawford and he'd be a great fit, but the price is probably going to be too high. Trading B-Mac for Crawford and keeping Garcia essentially would cost us $14 mil more than keeping B-Mac and dealing Garcia for prospects. That's a sum we can't really afford.

QUOTE(BobDylan @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:44 AM) Let me ask you this...would you trade Brandon McCarthy for Ichiro? (Nobody else can answer this question) I don't see how this is relevant, but whatever. In our situation no, I wouldn't trade McCarthy for Ichiro. Obviously he is the more talented player, but that's even worse financially. You're adding $11 mil to the payroll AND preventing us from moving a starter. He's also only signed for one more year, so he'd end up costing us more than $11 mil in the future. That move would ultimately cost us probably 2 major pieces from our team, maybe more. Since you're not seeing this big picture, I'll spell it out: Buehrle- 9.5 in 07, unknown 08 and beyond (best guess 12 mil) Contreras- 9 in 07, 10 in 08 and 09 Crede- arbitration in 07 and 08, unknown in 09 and beyond (best guess 10 mil) Dye- 6.5 in 07, unknown 08 and beyond (at least 8 mil) Garcia- 10 in 07, unknown 08 and beyond (at least 10 mil) Garland- 10 in 07, 12 in 08, unknown after Iguchi- 3.25 in 07, unknown 08 and beyond (at least 5 mil) Konerko- 12 in 07 and each year through 2010 Pierzynski- 5.5 in 07 and 08, unknown 09 and beyond Thome- about 8 mil in 07 and 08, 14 team option in 09 Uribe- 4.15 in 07, 5 team option in 08 Vazquez- about 9.5 in 07, uncertain after that That's $87.8 mil committed to 11 players for next year (didn't include Crede's arbitration), which means it's probably pushing $120 for 25 guys. In 2008 we already have $45.5 mil tied up in Jose, Garland, Paulie, AJ, and Thome, and could spend another 5 to keep Uribe. Even assuming you let Garcia walk, you'd need to add at least another $25 mil for Buehrle, Dye and Iguchi, and you'd have to find another starting pitcher since you traded McCarthy (for my purposes, I'm assuming those guys are retained, since finding a comparable replacement would probably cost us more money or cost us significant talent in trade). So that's probably at least another $75 mil tied up in 9 players without counting what Crede and Vazquez would make, or what another potential starter would make. That would probably push the payroll over $120 mil, maybe more. And that doesn't include ANY players added to improve the team. Then the year after that you need to worry about Crede, Garland, Uribe, and AJ, plus you need to decide if you want to pick up Thome's option. That's probably about $48 mil if you keep all of them, or an awful lot of replacements. Plus you're really hampered from previous contracts. It's pretty simple: one of the starters has to be moved if we want to even have a chance to keep any of our key guys over the next few years. You simply can't do that if you trade McCarthy, unless you want to seriously hurt the team's rotation that was already shaky going into 2007. That doesn't sound like something Kenny would do to me. McCarthy gives you a lot more flexibilty. It saves you about $9.5 mil for next year and gives you a low cost alternative for the next several years instead of forcing you to find another starter somewhere. So instead of shelling out $6 mil or more to get someone like Jason Marquis or Vincente Padilla (who he would probably outpitch), you can put it towards keeping Buerhle, Crede, Dye, or Garland, and you still have the young talent to work with that you got for Garcia (or for arguments sake Vazquez or Buehrle) that might allow you to do the same thing at another spot.

QUOTE(BobDylan @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:27 AM) I'm not sure why you're worried about changes. The Sox made quite a few going into the 2005 season. I'd also say they made quite a few changes into the 2006 season. Aside from that, if a Brandon McCarthy for Carl Crawford deal is on the table, I HIGHLY doubt Kenny hasn't noticed the financial risk. That said, you don't think he has plans in order to weaken that financial blow? It's as if the thoughts around here are that the Sox will be in financial ruin if they make this trade. I don't know the ins and outs around the league and I don't know much about who's available, who wants what, etc, but I do know that Kenny Williams has gone against A LOT of the "knowledge" of this message board and has proved people wrong time and time again. If Williams makes a trade like this, there isn't much in his tenure here that says to me that he can't figure a way around the financial issue. He's earned my trust. That said, if he doesn't make this trade, I trust him there too. Because we wouldn't have anywhere near as much money to work with this time around. We added about $20 mil in players each of those off-seasons. That simply would not be feasible this time around. Because of the money we have tied up in guys like Konerko, Thome, Contreras, Garland and Vazquez, we'd probably have to let at least two (more likely 3) of Buehrle, Garcia, Dye, Crede and Iguchi go in the near future, and you wouldn't have a whole lot of money to find replacements with. It'd also seriously hamper our chances of filling other holes. Where exactly is he going to shed money if he deals McCarthy? It's highly unlikely that he deals Konerko or Thome, and we wouldn't have the flexibility to deal a starter anymore. That means Dye or Crede would probably have to go, and then we'd have to be replacing at least one of Buehrle and Garcia the next year. That's not exactly an intriguing proposal either. That would seriously limit his options and probably result in weakening the team. Kenny is good, but he's no magician. It'd be difficult to retain our key players and fill any future holes with a good chunck of our payroll tied up in only a few players. QUOTE(BobDylan @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:30 AM) In any regard, many of those players KW acquired were the "b-plans". Now you can read Kenny's mind? I don't see how you can really say that given when that occurred. Yes, I know at one point he was after Vizquel and Clement at one point, but that feel through well before the Lee trade. QUOTE(redandwhite @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:31 AM) If teams could just flip there prospects to get Crawford they would do that rather than pick up Freddy Garcia. Unless Crawford pitches now too those are two entirely different markets. More teams need pitchers than leftfielders, and more teams are willing to overpay for pitchers as well.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:19 AM) That was $16 million - $8 million to Garcia, $6 million to Contreras, and $2 mill for various other raises. The money spent in the 04-05 offseason was money from revenues and the savings of the Carlos Lee deal, by and large. And I still see no reasoning against trading McCarthy and Sweeney for Crawford, and then trading one of the other starters for pitching prospects. It can very easily be done. I'd rather trade one of the starters and flip the prospects to Tampa personally, depending on who we get of course. I can't think of too many other young pitchers that I would rather have as our 5th starter next year in that situation, and we couldn't get most of them. If we could deal Garcia and get someone like Danks, Pelfrey, or Humber I'd love to see us work out something with those guys and Sweeney. However, I don't know how feasible that really is. I wouldn't be quite as comfortable with our pitching if we dealt B-Mac and kept a pitching prospect of that ilk either.

QUOTE(BobDylan @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:12 AM) Don't be ridiculous. We also parted ways with Magglio Ordonez and Jose Valentin. That was basically what happened, although on further analysis, my math was a little off. Lee made $8.5 mil in 2005. Pods made 700k, Iguchi made 2.35 mil, and El Duque made $3.5 mil. I can't find what AJ or Vizcaino made right now, but those salaries weren't a whole lot more than the remaining $2 mil difference between Lee and those other 3 players. All of those acquisitions came with or after the Lee trade. $10 mil can easily be 3 players that will play a major role on the team if you spend the money wisely.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Nov 1, 2006 -> 06:25 PM) As for people saying "no" to such a deal, that's insanity. In the real scheme of things, what is $10 million dollars used for other pieces on the team? Are you saying you shouldn't go out and acquire a Carl Crawford because you'd rather have a year of Dave Roberts, another arm in the pen, and a bench player? That's ridiculous. If you can go out and acquire Carl Crawford for Brandon McCarthy, you do it. Also BobDylan, thanks for the lesson in responding to nonsensical arguments. We basically got Scott Podsednik, Luis Vizcaino, Tadahito Iguchi, A.J. Pierzynski, and Orlando Hernandez with the money we saved on Carlos Lee. That was pretty similar. This time it could be the difference between keeping one of Buehrle, Dye or Crede and letting them walk. I'd say that's a pretty major difference. If we had a $40 or $50 million dollar payroll, yes, you take that deal in a heartbeat. However, our payroll has gotten kind of bloated and we have a lot of money committed, with several other players up for new contracts over the next two years. Unless you are going to blow up the team in two years, you need to start mixing in some cheaper players, especially in the pitching staff. QUOTE(BobDylan @ Nov 1, 2006 -> 11:53 PM) You don't have it straight at all. And has everyone (or a lot, at least)on this message board forgotten that we have perhaps the most aggressive GM in the league? KW has managed to do many "impossible" things with this White Sox team already. I'm sure he can figure a smart way around a little "money problem". Not many people here are willing enough to look at THE BIG PICTURE if McCarthy is traded but instead, oh s***, there goes the cheap guy...now we're f***ED. Many, MANY, MANY things can happen this off-season. How exactly is he going to find a way to get around paying $70 mil to 5 guys with raises in the near future for Buehrle, Garcia, Dye, and Crede? We're not the Yankees, and KW is not a magician. You're also taking away a lot of his flexibility because he no longer has an extra starting pitcher to work with. If you trade B-Mac, you're going to end up making massive changes to this team, because they simply can't afford to keep everyone around...

If we trade B-mac for Crawford, we're stuck paying our rotation, Konerko, and Thome about $70 mil next year, plus then we could lose Buehrle and Garcia after next year. That's not going to cut it. we have to keep B-Mac, that gives us a lot more financial flexibility. It'd be hard for him to pitch worse than a few of our guys did last year, and he'll do it at a much cheaper price. I'd love to have Crawford, but B-Mac is a must. I don't see how we'd get him without Brandon being involved unfortunately.

I had to add this one from the abstinence for adults thread... QUOTE(The Critic @ Oct 31, 2006 -> 02:29 PM) They already have abstinence-for-adults programs. They're called Star Trek Fan Conventions.

QUOTE(Brian @ Oct 31, 2006 -> 11:04 AM) Sweetness. 5 years at 47 mil seems below NBA market value for him, considering some of the hacks that get max deals. Most of those hacks are at least 6'10"... Still, pretty solid deal on both sides. Good to see him stick around.

QUOTE(Wedge @ Oct 30, 2006 -> 09:53 PM) ND SUX LOLOLOLOLOL Brady Quinn might suck, but when operating under 2 minutes left in a half: 44-55, 511 yards, 6 TD, 0 INT, 195.9 rating 14 rushes for 72 yards, 1 TD, 7 First downs (kneel downs removed from rushing stats) I'd say he's about as overhyped as the OSU QB. Yeah, but Smith has better stats when the moon is in its second phase against teams who's name falls in the second half of the alphabet. There are kind of more than 4 minutes in a game. Smith has better stats in every area expect yards (which has a lot to do with the play-calling), including almost a 30-point passer rating difference. Plus has a 169 to -7 rushing edge, and happens to play for the #1 ranked team in the country. But yeah, I can't see why anyone would hype him up...

LOL, it blurred out f**g. Does it do that for Randall Gay too?

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Oct 30, 2006 -> 04:24 PM) Also, everyone keeps touting OSU-Michigan for good reason, but watching U of M have such trouble with some crappy teams makes me very skeptical of their talent. Their defense is very good, but their offense can be inconsistent at times, especially without Manningham. They're nowhere near as explosive without him. Arrington is still decent, but Breaston has never lived up to the hype, so their passing game really loses a lot of punch without Mario. They can still win plenty of games with Hart grinding it out, but to beat OSU they're going to need more big plays in the passing game.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Oct 30, 2006 -> 12:23 PM) Christensen is going to have a lot of weapons and apparently the school has a couple more good QB recruits on there way as well. USC has played like garbage all season, squeaking out some shoddy wins. And lets not rave about there win over Arkansas. Arkansas wasn't playing good football at the time and didn't bring in there stud Mitch Mustain till the 4th quarter of that game. Oh and a loss to OSU is far worse than a blowout loss to the 2nd best team in the country (Michigan). I'll agree with you on this one, USC has not looked too good. A lot of turnovers against Oregon State (I refuse to refer to them or Oklahoma State as OSU). If they keep playing like that Cal is going to kill them, and I think ND will be closer than I originally thought. Neither team has looked consistently dominant, with ND generally looking better on offense and USC generally looking better on defense. USC needs to manage the turnovers, they can't get over those kind of mistakes without Bush and Leinart...

I totally forgot about this thing. Oh well, I didn't get screwed too bad...

QUOTE(WCSox @ Oct 27, 2006 -> 03:40 PM) (1) Tonight is a must-win situation for them. They can't think about Game 6 or Game 7 at this point. They have to put their best lineup on the field tonight and win. (2) Rogers is their ace and it's his turn in the rotation to start anyway. (3) Rogers' home/road splits are essentially the same in terms of WHIP (1.25 vs. 1.26). (4) Rogers on the mound tonight takes the pressure of pitching on the road off of the rest of the younger staff. (5) Verlander was awful in Game 1 and was throwing about 4-5 mph slower than usual (most likely a "dead arm"). Why not give him another two days to rest it? I have a lot of respect for Leyland as a manager but unless he knows something that he's not sharing with the rest of us, I think that his decision to pitch Verlander tonight is bone-headed. 1) Every game from here on out is a must win situation, so realistically that's pretty irrelevant. Rogers can't pitch in all of them, so you have to pick which must win game he is going to pitch in. You're going to need Verlander to win a game anyways, so you need to decide where he has the best shot. I'm going to assume that Leyland felt that this was his best shot, otherwise he wouldn't have done it. 2) That might be the case, but having MORE rest in the playoffs isn't really a concern. In fact you said that it would benefit Verlander in a later point, which is contradicting yourself. 3) Home/Road shouldn't really matter at this point at all, and I never brought that up. If Leyland felt that it was a deciding factor, I'd tend to trust his judgement, though I personally wouldn't consider it. 4) That one I can buy, and I mentioned that. 5) If pitching on 9 DAYS of rest in his last start didn't help, I don't see how it suddenly would now. In this particular case, I can see the logic because I could see why you wouldn't start a rookie on the road. However, that's the conventional wisdom, and I don't really why you'd pitch Rogers in the first potential elimination game automatically. Most of the time you're going to end up screwing yourself down the road. For instance, Gardenhire said before game 3 that Santana would be his guy in game 4, which made no sense to me. If he had done that, he would have been stuck with Boof Bonser going against Barry Zito in game 5 (assuming that they won game 4 of course), which gives you a lower probability of winning than pitching Bonser against Harden in game 4, who hadn't gone a full start in a while. In the end Verlander pitched pretty well. You're not going to win too many games when you only score 2 runs, especially when you also commit 2 errors. If they had won this game, they would have been in pretty good shape to win the series with Rogers and Bonderman going in the last two, which is your ultimate goal. Winning game 5 at all costs doesn't really get you anywhere in the long run, that's kind of like using your closer in the 7th inning.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Oct 27, 2006 -> 10:52 AM) And if Leyland doesn't start Rogers tonight, he's making a big mistake. I never got the whole point of that logic. You gotta win all three game anyways, who cares what order your starters go in? Does it really matter if they lose game 5 or game 6? I suppose in this case it'd be big to get the series back to Detroit, but that's somewhat unrelated.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Oct 27, 2006 -> 09:11 AM) Booerns, guess we're just going to have to fight our way into the top 25. EDIT: Some quick thoughts on this before I head to class: Pitt is beyond overrated. Gtech and Memphis are going to be very dangerous come tourny time. Duke will be more dangerous this year come tourny time than last. Creighton is better than 23 in the nation and Nevada better than 25th. I agree with you on all those points. Pitt belongs somewhere in the 12 to 15 range at best IMO. I don't see how they're THAT much better than Illinois. Aaron Gray is the only major difference I see, and there is no way he's worth 500+ points in the polls. In fact, I like Illinois's guys better than the rest of Pitt's team. Much as I hate to say it, Duke should probably be higher. Once Paulus gets back they'll be pretty dangerous. McRoberts is probably the runaway favorite for most improved player, and Henderson should have an impact right away as well. Tech and Memphis are both really talented, the question will be how they gel. The MVC should be loaded again, Creighton, Witchita State, and Southern Illinois all look pretty strong. One team out of the top-25 that I expect to make an appearance before long is Louisville. I know they underacheived last year, but they were banged up most of the year and are still very talented. They should get a boost from a pretty solid freshmen class too.

QUOTE(Jimbo @ Oct 27, 2006 -> 12:54 PM) is the draft still saturday night......thats tough for a lush, like myself Yeah, not a whole lot of good slots left if you want to get it in before the season.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Oct 26, 2006 -> 11:43 PM) I'll just say the best team wins over 162, which is why the best 8 get to October, but the best team often times doesn't win in a best of 5 or 7 series, which is why the best team doesn't always (or even usually) survive October. Thus is how a 116 win Mariner team doesn't win the pennant, but an 83 win Cardinal team (probably) wins it all. That's because that Mariners' pitching wasn't anywhere near as good as the stats indicated. Aaron Sele and Paul Abbott were both major pieces of their rotation, that should tell you something. The Yankees had better and more experienced pitching, led by Clemens, Mussina, Pettitte and Rivera. That negated the edge the Mariners had in offensive firepower.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Oct 26, 2006 -> 03:32 PM) If cal doesn't get em, UCLA will. I love UCLA's new QB. I wouldn't count on that latter one. Only putting up 17 on ND and 20 on Oregon doesn't exactly bode well...

I've got kind of a hybrid TalkBulls/Soxtalk League that is drafting Saturday night that only has 5 people in it so far. I'd really like to get it up to 10 people, so I'd appreciate some interested players. League ID: 145728 password: dabulls Hope to beat, I mean see you guys there.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 02:38 PM) USC is hurting now that they don't have a QB who worked with Chow and knew all of the intracacies of his system. Quarterback isn't really their problem, Booty has actually been fairly solid. His completion percentage is over 63%, his TD/INT ratio is 13/4, and his passer rating is 135.2 (compared to 140 for the great Brady Quinn). The one major difference is that his yards are down, probably because they aren't throwing deep as much. The bigger difference is that their running game is nowhere near as dynamic. It's down about 100 yards per game from last year, and their yards per carry is down almost 2 yards a crack. Moody is still pretty solid, but he can't touch the effectiveness of Bush/White (of course few can). However, they also have a much better defense than last season. They often won in spite of it last year. They are very deep in the front seven, and they force turnovers in the secondary. They're not the run-away #1 like last year, but they're still a pretty solid team, and I'd expect their offense to start clicking a bit more towards the end of the year.