Kalapse

YES Scutaro Betancourt Valverde M. Gonzalez R. Soriano Holliday NO Dye Dotel Gregg Polanco Tejada Hawkins Cabrera (can't) Damon Wolf O. Hudson Soriano and Gonzalez were both offered arb

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 05:10 PM) The problem with Freddy in '06 wasn't that he was "worthless." The problem was that he had a "tired arm", because of the amount of innings that he pitched in the '05 regular and postseason and the '06 WBC. The guy pitched himself into fatigue, ineffectiveness and eventually, surgery. People were mostly frustrated with his lack of effectiveness in '06, without realizing that he was pitching in pain and possibly pitching injured. He pitched much of the '06 season with a torn labrum, thank god the Phillies didn't give him a physical when they acquired him.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 05:06 PM) Ranger is talking about how people were jumping off of bridges saying that the Sox got ripped off for Garcia. Those past threads have to be pretty comical. I know that there were only a handful of us in support of the Floyd acquisition. I think in the future the Brandon Allen trade will be sort of like this. After Allen was traded there were people on this board saying that Allen was a future All-Star. Personally, I loved the deal. It got an obviously injured Freddy Garcia out of town for a couple young pitchers, what's not to like?

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 04:46 PM) Vlad Guerreo over J Dye? Not at this point in VG's career, but read the story... he is loved by Ozzie. I just hope that is worthless scribe tripe. What exactly is the difference between the current points in their careers? Neither has any business playing the outfield everyday but one is willing to accept a full time DH position and the other is not. They've also put up nearly identical production over the past 2 years with the only real difference being that Vlad missed some time last year. I'd say Vlad has considerably more upside as a hitter.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 04:25 PM) As I said in the original post, the scenario makes sense if you already have a new closer ready for next year. Before jumping all over me people should read what I actually wrote. The reason I bring this up is an organization with large reserves of farm pitching talent can do things like this. Keeping Dotel over Jenks frees up a million and arguably gives you the reliever of greater worth. Arguably--as in it would create a ton of arguments here. But if the Sox really are on a tight budget this offseason, they could use that extra million. Dotel has a live arm and has been steadily what he is. Jenks has been changing as a reliever every year, less Ks at first........ and last year,frankly, less outs. I think Dotel is the kind of reliever we'll only miss once he's gone..but that's me. Oh, I read it, you mentioned some player in the system that would be capable of closing, sounds like a huge question mark to me. There are very few teams that would trade an established closer and give the job to a prospect with no real big league experience, regardless of his talent. If we had a young relief pitcher that pitched and succeeded in a major league setup role last year that would be a different story and also a rather pointless hypothetical. 1 million dollars isn't going to change anything, this isn't a hard cap. It's a self imposed budget with considerable leeway.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 04:11 PM) If there was someone on the farm who could close, it would've been fun to do the following: Offer Dotel arb. If he gets paid elsewhere, take the compensation pick and keep Jenks If he does not get picked up by another team, you keep him and then trade Jenks for a prospect. Except you couldn't do that because Dotel wouldn't hesitate to accept. There's absolutely no way in hell he'd decline arbitration. With most teams hurting financially, a supply of arms on the free agent market and relief pitcher salaries trending downward in recent years he's not going to get a sweeter deal than 1 year, $6.5M anywhere else. I'd also take Jenks closing for $7.5M and a kid taking Dotel's job for the minimum than Dotel at $6.5M, some huge question mark at closer and an extra half-assed prospect you got for Jenks.

Type A's: YES Scutaro Betancourt Valverde NO Dye Dotel Gregg Polanco Tejada Hawkins Cabrera (can't) Damon Wolf O. Hudson Almost no one is being offered arbitration.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 03:21 PM) Just curious... we have some minor league free agents in the system, i.e. Ehren Wassermann, the infamous David Cook, Restovich, etc. For minor league FA's, is there a deadline for when they need to be signed by current team? Any good source of info on where they go? Also, guys like Wassermann who have played in the majors (like Williams last year), are you considering them on the list? I don't think there's a deadline, once they're minor league free agents they're free to sign with any team, if you don't think they can re-sign them and don't want to risk losing them then you can add the player to the 40 man roster but other than that they can sign where ever they want at any time once they file. As for the second part: no, players like Wassermann are of little to no consequence, these are mostly Major League free agents. The list would be ridiculously long if I included minor league free agents with a cup of coffee on their resume.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 02:29 PM) Which Type A's will be offered arbitration? So far: YES Scutaro Betancourt Valverde NO Dye Dotel Gregg Polanco Tejada Hawkins Cabrera (can't)

Rotoworld continues to confuse: I'm also almost positive that Hawkins is a Type A.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 02:31 PM) Harden is a no. He's also not a type A. I've been crossing out the Type B's on the free agent list, they're of far less significance than the Type A's.

I don't think the guys at Rotoworld totally grasp how free agent compensation works, a lot of their explanations don't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. Especially this one:

Which Type A's will be offered arbitration? So far: YES Scutaro Betancourt NO Dye Dotel Gregg Polanco

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 02:00 PM) Kalapse, I am going to specifically ask you about what I posted earlier. What are your thoughts on Murphy? Probably not. During his peak he was very good given the horrendous error of offense in which he played but he had only 6 exceptional seasons and outside of his prime years he did next to nothing. I'd have a tough time putting someone with his underwhelming career numbers in the hall but given that Jim Rice went in last year and Murphy does have 2 MVPs I wouldn't get too worked up about it if he were elected. He wouldn't get my vote. Though personally, I have higher standards for the Hall of Fame, there are more than a few players that I'd love to kick out. Do you want to put in Mattingly? Keith Hernandez? Because I sure as hell don't. I don't think Murphy is significantly better than either.

The team pays them whatever they see fit as long as it's at or above the league minimum of $400K and coincides with wage reduction rules (you can lower a player's salary only so much from the previous season). For example: Quentin made $550K last season in his final year before arbitration as did Jenks in '08 while John Danks made $520K and Brent Lillibridge $0.4025M. So the Sox felt Quentin was worth 38% over the minimum, Jenks 41% (the minimum was $390K in '08), Danks 30% and Lillibridge .625%.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 01:34 PM) The Sox have been pretty consistent about being one of the respectable payroll teams each year. I'm glad they're waiting this offseason out. When Konerko comes off the books then you'll have enough money to address the middle-of-the-order problem in a legitimate free agency way. You can tell when Kenny sets his mind on filling a spot during an offseason. He made plays for Torii and Fukudome before settling on Swisher. This year is a wait-and-see, and part of that will be seeing if they can get by a year with scrap heap guys that could pan out. But with Peavy in place I think they're seeing '10 as a maybe-we'll-contend year...with '11 as an aim-at-contention year. I don't think that's true at all, I find it strange that anyone would jump to such a conclusion before we even hit the Winter Meetings. Kenny's moves this offseason haven't hinted that way at all, if anything they're hinting in the opposite direction with the veteran bench he's putting together, it's the sort of thing teams with Championship aspirations tend to do.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 01:32 PM) Once again, I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but we are looking at potential here. There are probably a hundred or more options out there that can "potentially do" what Dotel does. Dotel is not a lock to perform as his usual self either, but I believe that he is a much safer bet than most any other name that I've heard is available. I would hate to miss the playoffs next season mainly because our bullpen sucked when we had a piece in our grasp and let him go. I think that we tremendously under value what Dotel has done the last couple of seasons. You may well be correct, I just don't know. I only hope that K. W. and his scouting staff make the right decision here. You seriously believe he's worth $6.5M? Even if it means we'd have to go cheap in filling one of our other holes? You can sign guys for next to the minimum and get similar odds to that of Dotel that they'll help your pen in 2009. For $6.5M you can sign 10 guys and odds are one or two of them will have a very good year, that's how bullpens work. Somehow I doubt we'll miss the playoffs due to the absence of Octavio Dotel and I've been one of his biggest defenders over the past 2 years, even before it became fashionable to do so.

The Phillies signed Brian Schneider to a 2 year, $2.75M deal Masa Kobayashi is headed back to Japan, he was quite a bust. I remember there being more than a few angry posters when we didn't even make an attempt to sign him 2 years ago. He turned out to be a tremendous waste of money for the Indians. People wondered why the Rockies declined their '10 team option on Rafael Betancourt, well he's a type A free agent and one of the most desirable middle relievers in free agency so they will be offering him arbitration. They obviously feel that 2 draft picks > 1 year of Betancourt at $5.4M. I find it hard to disagree with them.

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 12:04 PM) McGwire was named in a FBI investigation as a user before the BALCO and Congress stuff. http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/sports...bi_informa.html He wasn't pursued because the focus of the investigation was on the dealers, not users. Another interesting point in the investigation is that Reggie Jackson is good friends with the guy said to have supplied/injected McGwire several times. Who knows how far back steroid use in baseball really goes? I totally forgot about this. There's your smoking gun.

December 7th-10th in Indianapolis

QUOTE (balfanman @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 09:53 AM) That's all well and good, and I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but you do risk losing him that way. Would Dotels value be replaced by whoever replaces him in the bullpen? I'm not talking about financial value, I'm referring to performance. Takashi Saito could potentially do what Dotel does, you can find that kind of production. It's not worth paying him 2+ times what he's worth just because you don't want to risk losing him. For no team in baseball is Octavio Dotel worth ~$6.5M a year let alone one that bumping up against their budgetary ceiling. And just because they're not going to offer him arbitration doesn't mean they won't at least attempt to bring him back at a more palatable price.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 12:24 PM) When do we find out how much, the arbitration eligible players on the Sox roster, are going to make next year? Mid-January. The arbitration filing period is the second week in January, they exchange figures on on the 19th and the hearings are held the first 3 weeks of February so you'll see 1 year deals handed out after the filing period.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 30, 2009 -> 11:39 PM) I don't want any part of his bat. What? A sub .300 OBP from a largely offensive position doesn't excite you?

Alex Cora signed with the Mets; 1 year, $2M Jason Larue re-signed with the Cardinals The shortstops are dropping like flies.