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Guess how many playoff series the Oakland A's have won in the Hudson-Mulder-Zito era. Do I here a none somewhere? Starting pitching obviously isn't everything even in the playoffs, otherwise these guys would have at least one ring. The common denominator during this run is that they have never had a closer stick around for several years, and the only good one they've had for a while was Keith Foulke for one year(got a miracle season from Koch, but was not as good as his saves total).

I won't argue that Lee is underrated, I love him as a player. I'm going to put another player at the top though. This guy gets a ton of credit in baseball circles, but I really think this guy deserves to be mentioned in the same setence with Bonds and Pujols, and it doesn't often happen. I am talking about Vladimir Guerrero. The guy just has so much talent. He hits for average and power, drives in and scores runs, can run well, and has a cannon for an arm. He's really one of my favorite players and I am disappointed that he doesn't really seem to be a household name. I love Lee, but I'd give up any 2 players on the Sox to get Vlad, 3 if they don't take Garcia and Buehrle(would cripple us too much).

That better not happen. He is way overrated and is not worth the $12 mil plus. He never plays a full season, he is bad defensively, his most productive years are well in his past, and does not have the speed or on base percentage we need. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does outside of Fenway without Manny Ramirez batting behind him long term. My theory is he will be mediocre. If we were going to get a SS, I'd much rather get Renteria. The OBP still isn't there, but the average in comparable, he has more speed, and is a better fielder, plus he'd probably be moderately cheaper.

Can we please cut the math out of this thread? It just doesn't really apply to anything. Baseball is not a mathematically predictable phenomena, there are just too many variables that can not be quantified. Things like learning a new pitch, improving pitch selection, learning how to hit to all fields, improving bat speed, and injuries can not be accounted for. This is probably why a good number of statistical study deals with probabilty based phenomena like a deck of cards or a die. Development of a young baseball player is highly unpredictable. If using math could be effectively used to predict success of young players, then there wouldn't be any debacles where young players are dealt before they could develop. The discussion is great, but can we avoid turning this into a math thread?

One problem with that argument: the Cubs are a decent to good team almost entirely because of their starting pitching. Their bullpen and offense have both had major issues the last few years. He had 14 wins last year despite a mostly inconsistent offense and several blown leads by the pen. I don't care where you are, what park you play in, or what league you play in, and ERA under 3.30 is pretty impressive, and he definitely should have had at least 15 wins last year. Prior was ridiculously good last year and only won 18 on the Cubs(missed a couple of starts but a lot of pitchers do. Still had 30). Wood might not be an ace, but he is a well above average pitcher when healthy(yeah, I know that is an issue). As for who is the real ace of that staff, you can debate several guys depending on the year. Prior certainly was the ace last year, Zambrano clearly was this year. That isn't any different than Oakland, with Zito and Mulder having Cy Young awards and Hudson pitching well. I'd gladly take Prior, Wood, or Zambrano, but Clement just seems too inconsistent. Just for comparison, Tim Hudson had 15 and 16 wins in his two best ERA seasons, but won 20 when his ERA was almost 1.5 runs higher.

I voted for the Astros, mainly because I want to see the Cubs finish in 3rd. I'm not really sure I'd want to play the Astros over the Cubs if I were the Braves. The Cubs have more talent and their staff is tough in a short series, but Houston has been awesome recently and the Cubs appear more likely to implode, plus Clemens and Oswalt are probably pitching better right now than any two Cubs starters. I'd REALLY want to play the Giants if I were the Braves. Schmidt has looked human since his injury and the rest of their staff and the pen looks iffy. I'm glad to hear that the Braves aren't going to call it quits until the playoffs though. :fthecubs :fthecubs :fthecubs

How about a couple of more gems that used to be one of our top 5 prospects? Chris Snopek Mike Caruso Aaron Myette Scott Ruffcorn James Baldwin Not saying this has anything to do with the discussion, just wanted to throw out some names I could laugh at when I look back.

Off the top of my head two of the spots are locks with Torii Hunter and Ichiro(I don't know if I buy Wells as the next best, but I wouldn't be surprised). You guys are right, it is definitely unfair to select more than one CF since they are typically the best fielders(outside of Ichiro) and because of the amount of ground they cover have more opportunities to impress everyone with a great play.

I'd definitely bring back Lee rather than Konerko, even if Lee would bring back more in return. Konerko is way too streaky and is an absolute base clogger. Putting Paulie and Frank on base at the same time is just brutal, and that will probably happen fairly regularly if we keep Paulie. I think the best move is to trade him at the height of his value. We can plug in Gload for now or grab someone like Olerud(I'm not saying get Olerud, I'm saying get someone that is going to hit like .270 that is available and affordable. I'm too lazy to come up with names right now.).

I don't think we should totally blow apart the team, but I don't think bringing everyone back is the answer either. Maggs looks like he's gone, and at a minimum Valentin, Jackson, and Schoenweis should go too. We need to add one of the better SP, although I think our first priority should be a major arm in the pen. If we do both and keep Thomas, Lee, Konerko in the middle of the order with Rowand mixed in somewhere, I think we can fair pretty well. My dream offseason would be adding something like Pavano, Renteria, and Benitez or Percival, however I doubt that would happen.

I'll back up whitesox on this one. Minor league performance is not a quality indicator of major league success. Yes, you would take someone that did well in the minors over someone that didn't (assuming neither has done much in the majors), but there are a ton of players that do very well in the minors that did little or nothing in the pros, despite everyone's belief to the contrary. A prime example is our own Jon Garland. He absolutely dominated in the minors, but has yet to do anything of importance on the Sox. In my book the jury is still out until Reed has a solid full season, and even then he could turn out to be a one year wonder. The idea that Garcia would have signed here in the offseason is possible, but is far from certain. Numerous teams were trying to trade for him, all of which would have signed him long term. If we had stayed put, there is at least a decent chance Seattle deals him to the Yankees(or someone else with money) and he signs long term. Even if he stayed put, we'd have to deal with teams like the Yankees, Orioles, and probably Red Sox in the offseason that have more money to throw around. In that case, it is unlikely he would take less money (one of them certainly would have outbid us) just to play under Ozzie. Plus, at the time we were still in good shape for the playoffs and an above average starter looked like it would put us over the top. If we knew at the time of the trade that Frank and Maggs would be gone, that's another story, but with the pitching upgrade and our explosive offense he took a shot. We had young talent at the positions the Mariners wanted that the Yankees and others didn't, and we took advantage of that instead of waiting until the offseason where we lose a lot of ground. I still don't have a problem with the move. Neither has proven to be a perennial All-star yet, so I'm going to lean toward the pitcher that we need instead of a minor leaguer that we probably would have buried behind Borchard for the moment.

Supposedly Toronto has offered him 3 years 21 mil and they expect him to accept. Saw it on TV, not sure where.

I also did the Braves would not win the NL East bet, I thought the Phillies were going to smoke the rest of that division. Obviously that isn't working out. I also made a few Cubs/Sox bets(Sox make playoffs, Cubs don't, best record, win cross town series), which aren't going so hot. Not my year. I wanted to bet my friend that Wood/Prior wouldn't combine for 35 wins, but he stalled enough that Prior got hurt, making it a non-bet.

I wouldn't get too excited about Reed just yet. As someone said early in the thread, this is a very small sample size. No one knows what he will do for the rest of his career. Yeah, I'd have liked to have kept him, but we desperately needed pitching. Don't use the media as a basis for analysis of this trade, most of them are completely biased. All we heard leading up to the deal was how much of an impact Freddy was going to have when the Yankees got him, and then suddenly Kenny gave up to much for him. Even then, several of them said it was a solid move for the Sox. You can bet that if the Yankees got him they would still be hyping up the trade, even if they gave up Sheffield and Jeter. Remember how many people were scolding us for giving up Loaiza, and how they said the Sox got screwed? I don't buy the whole velocity thing. No matter who the player is, there is always argument of how fast a player's fastball really is. I've watched Freddy pitch at pretty much every stage of his career, and I'm almost certain he never threw more than 96. Even then, it fluctuates so much it's hard to tell what it really is. I've seen guns that have Damaso anywhere from 88-94 on the fastball, or anywhere between 80 and 88 on Shingo. All you need to see to know that most of the guns aren't reliable is to see one of those pitches on TV when it registers like 46 on a Roger Clemens fastball. That happens all the time. That would be the reason that teams often use multiple radars when scouting prospects, so a bunch of guys on a board arguing about Freddy's velocity probably means nothing(just for my 2 cents, Freddy was hitting 94 or 95 most of the time when I was still watching every game). Even assuming he used to throw 98, who cares if he still gets guys out? There are tons of guys that throw in the 90-95 range that are very effective. The only time that seems to matter is when someone is returning from injury(like Freddy right now). How about we use more than half a season for Freddy on the Sox, and more than 50 at bats for Reed before we start judging the deal?

I'm prettty sure we wouldn't have gotten Mota and Perez and a prospect. I'm not 100% sure what potential deals we had in the works for Nomar, but I remember the big debated deal was Mota and Jackson/Miller for Maggs, and they really didn't want to give up Mota, especially with one of their stud prospects. Another potential was Thomas/Konerko/Lee for Perez. I doubt Nomar would have had enough value to get all 3, especially considering what he brought the Red Sox in the other deal(although the Dodgers didn't exactly look too bright giving up Lo Duca, Encarnacion and Mota for Penny. Admittedly it would have looked much better if they had gotten Randy Johnson using the prospects they got). IIRC the Red Sox didn't want to give up Williamson either, and we probably would have had to give up more than Jose for Freddy. Speculating on stuff like this is really pointless, who knows what would have happened with the rest of the league if we made the deals, or if we would have been willing to do all of them?

They had a slam dunk contest in last year's ESPN College Hoops. They used a button combination system. Each dunk had a different set of buttons/directions you had to push to perform it in a certain time(you could move the spot farther back, but the point value would drop). There were more buttons and more difficult combinations for the more spectacular dunks. I normally don't trust how it looks for a basketball game, recent basketball games have been pretty iffy. The only games I've liked are the arcade style games like NBA Street and NBA Ballers. Who knows, it might be good, but I wouldn't run out and buy it just yet.

How do you figure it is even? Check out their stats for the 3 years before this year. A healthy Maggs blows out Beltran at the plate, and is much more consistent from year to year. Maggs has a solid edge in BA and OBP and better RBI numbers in general(Beltran had a career year last year, and Maggs was still better or comparable in pretty much every category), and Beltran just hit 30 homers for the first time this season. I know it's a mute point now that Maggs is hurt, but I'd still rather not add Beltran or Jones for the kind of money it would take. We have guys that are going to produce similar numbers to Beltran at the plate. He's not an on base type player(.370 OBP this year, .354 career) and is not a great BA player(.267 this year). He is faster than anyone other than Willie, but I'm not so sure that he is that much of an upgrade over Rowand(I've seen him really butcher a few plays, and I don't get to see the Astros that often). Jones doesn't exactly thrill me either. If we are going to spend $13 mil or more on a player, he better be a damn good hitter, and I don't think either of these guys warrant a salary that high. Jones hasn't been anywhere near .300 in 4 years and has never had an OBP over .366. Beltran has flashes of brilliance, but isn't really a contact hitter and has really not shown that much power outside of this year. With $14 mil, I'd much rather see us get another starter and a solid bullpen arm or two, or if possible get a speedy leadoff guy that gets on base at a good clip. I'd rather not see us plug in another slugger with a medicore batting average and on base percentage, and a defensive game that may or may not be based more on reputation than actual ability.

I keep saying this in every Chicago sport(especially the Bears) and I take a ton of crap for it. If the team isn't going anywhere, what's the point of winning? The Bears always seem to win two games late to just miss out on the studs in the draft. I have no problem with saying this about the Sox, although the MLB draft is a bit more of a crap shoot.

I wasn't really a big fan of getting him anyways. That's my problem with the massive desire to get a starter, I don't see any bonafide studs. If the A's had to give up Hudson or Mulder or the Marlins had to give up Burnett or Beckett(I know they have been hurt or struggling but they are definitely ace type guys) that would be one thing, but none of those guys are there.

I definitely agree on Ortiz, I've been saying that ever since the rumored Maggs for Ortiz & Jones deal. He's just not that good. I'm thinking somewhat along the same lines for Perez and Pavano. You have two NL guys that don't strike out a ton of players and performing in decent pitchers' parks moving to a monster hitters' park and not getting to face the pitcher anymore. I really think if we get one of those guys there's a good chance they don't pitch nearly as well as their salary(I don't know their groundball to flyball ratio, if one of them is ridiculously groundball it might work. Then again, that's what Colorado thought with Hampton). I think Pedro is the best option for our park, but he is getting old and is injury prone, next I'd probably say Clement, but he is inconsistent and will probably give up a ton of longballs.

I kind of thought that, but I have two issues. First, Izzo doesn't seem to want to give massive roles to freshmen, even when he has studs like Marcus Taylor, Zach Randolph, or Jason Richardson. Two, their lineup seemed to work last year toward the end of the season. At least to me, it seems that a lineup of Hill, Torbert, Ager/Brown, Anderson, and Davis works at times, although he would probably have to switch it around a bit to match up with other team's post players.

Look at how the Sox hitters have really done the past few years. We like to think that they are good, but outside of 2000 Lee, Konerko, and Thomas have been pretty inconsistent. Lee hit .269 in 01 and .264 in 02, and really came on at the end last season to get those numbers. Konerko was absolutely terrible last season, and hit virtually nothing after the All-star break in 2002. He had a decent but not stellar year in 01(.282 with 32 homers). Frank only played 20 games in 2001, and hit only .252 and .267 in 02 and 03, with 28 and 42 HR respectively. Also, he's only driven in 100 runs twice in the last 6 years due to in part to injury and in part to a drop in average from his better years(hasn't been close to .300 since 2000), and his much touted on base percentage was .316 in that short 2001 and .361 in 2002(returned to form a bit the last two years at .390 and .434). Those kind of averages will severely hurt the number of runs you can score. Plus the guys in front of Maggs have been absolute garbage, while Berroa was a monster last season and often batted in front of Beltran(big reason he killed his previous highs in just about everything). That greatly affects their RBI numbers. Say what you want about Sweeney, but he consistently hits around .300 when he is healthy. His career numbers are not close to Frank's, but most of when Frank was a stud was before Magglio's time. He hit .304, .340, and .293 in the past 3 years and drove in 99(147), 86(126), and 83(108) in short years the past few. He really helps Beltran's run numbers when he is in the lineup. So what if he never hit more than 30 homers(he had 29 twice)? There's a lot more to baseball than homers. You were so quick to dismiss average, but which is more important, something that will happen between 30 and 50 times in an entire season for a good player, or something that happens roughly between 180 and 200 times? Beltran doesn't really have much to do with the Astro's cold/hot streak. He's only hit 2 homers and had 5 RBI in September, although he was hot during a two series stretch right at the beginning of the streak(he basically just crushed the Phillies and the Cubs with 6 homers in a 5 game stretch). I'll agree that power doesn't win games, but average is usually a good sign(look at the Red Sox and Braves recently). Clearly pitching has been suspect the last few years, and Beltran doesn't solve that.

Just a comment on the starting pitching. I think we do really need to add a #1 or #2 type starter, but as I just said, I really only see two potential guys out there, and they will be pretty expensive. I'm still not sure that would give us a great rotation, but it would be pretty solid for an AL team. Pedro or Pavano fit the #2 pitcher role in my book at this point in their careers(although I think it is possible that Pavano will become a #1 in the next two years, I just wouldn't really count on it.) Garcia and Buehrle both seem to fit in that #3 slot. They are both usually pretty good but get shelled every once in a while and don't seem to have enough stellar starts. I am encouraged however because Garcia has awesome stuff, I just hope he can realize how to use it soon. Conteras is another guy that has very good stuff but can't seem to use it regularly. However, as a #4 he's okay. Same with Garland at #5. He seems to have talent but can't do anything with it. I don't really think this would be a stellar rotation, but I think it would be more than enough if we can bolster the bullpen. FYI- Did you know that Buehrle's ERA is actually better than Mark Mulder's right now(4.12 compared with 4.13)? That blew my mind when I saw that. Statswise the AL only has 3 guys I would call absolute studs(Santana, Hudson, Schilling with Pedro being borderline, and Mulder normally fits here but has been struggling at times).

The Twins' rotation hasn't really been that stellar. If you look at the numbers only Santana, Radke, and Silva have even been respectable(under 4.50), and there is a good chance that Radke leaves. The place where they kill us is in the pen. Nathan, Rincon, Romero, and Roa(actual order in terms of innings pitcher are Rincon, Roa, Romero, Nathan) are their 4 most used relievers, sporting ERA's of 1.61, 2.23, 2.63, and 4.39, all over 65 innings pitched, . Our 5 most used(a little off because Cotts got a start or two) relievers are Marte, Cotts, Adkins, Shingo, and Politte. Only Marte has logged over 65 innings. Their ERA's are 3.41, 5.40, 4.94, 2.47, and 4.38. There is obviously a huge difference there which it seems we need to rectify. The Twins always seem to be winning close games because of their solid back end of the pen, while we seem to blow a bunch of games. This seems to be something we desperately need to rectify with one, preferrably two stud relievers. To me, it seems that would have the greatest possible impact on wins and loses. Another on base guy does seem to be needed however. Of our regular players, only Thomas and Burke have/had OBP over 3.70 this year, which is pretty weak(interestingly the Twins only have Lew Ford at about .390 and Stewart at around 3.75). So to summarize, to me it seems that there two biggest advantages over us are their bullpen and the fact that Johan Santana is on their team. Since no one of Santana's caliber is available(Martinez is the only proven stud I see out there and he is a little old. Perez and Pavano just aren't the dominant ace types, nowhere near enough K's, although I'd gladly take Pavano if that is the best we could get), I really think our top priority should be to get someone that can pitch a solid 70 innings in the pen that can get an ERA under 3, and go after someone that can get us close to a .400 OBP, and if it is financially feasible get Pedro or Pavano.

You're actually counting this season as a fair comparison between Maggs and Beltran? The previous 3 years are much better comparisons. Beltran has been playing the whole year, the first part in front of Sweeney, the second part in a good hitters park in a loaded lineup. As for the hitter's park thing, Maggs hasn't really benefitted from it that much since the Cell only got ridiculously hitter friendly this season, when he has been hurt. He didn't exactly get a ton of support in the lineup either outside of 2000(Lee and Konerko are wildly inconsistent, Thomas is either good, hurt, or hitting about .260 recently), and usually seemed to be hitting at his best when the other guys were in their slumps. A typical healthy Maggs year is around .310 and .380, you could just about write that down before the season when he was healthy. That .380 isn't even that stellar(solid, but not elite) and Beltran has only been better than that once(last year), and has a career OBP of .354 :puke . What we really need is someone like Abreu, Kendall, or Ichiro; a guy that is around .400 OBP while still being able to run and get a hit when we need it. Beltran just seems to be a faster more expensive Carlos Lee. I'd still take him, but I'd hesitate to give him what he wants in terms of money. Guess what, he won't be getting only $9 mil next year. Those guys(Bonds, Manny, ect.) have gotten their big deals already, Beltran will this year. Clearly you expect that kind of offensive production when you make that kind of financial commitment, you don't want a $14 Mil man to merely contribute to the offense, he should carry it for a good chunk of the year. As for the "more runs, we win" part, Beltran has yet to make the playoffs and wasn't helping the Astros most of the year(not even that big a part on their recent hot streak, getting on base more often, but not hitting any better), so I wouldn't say that just yet.