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QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 02:17 AM) Here's a good one. Would yu guys be willing to risk one mere season to finally find out if we have any players in our organization? We go with Getz at second, Lexi at ss and Fields at third and Swish at first. We go with Carlos in left, Owens/Wise in cf and Dye in right. We go with AJP as catcher and Thome as DH. We only trade Paulie to whomever he wants to be traded to. If we can't trade him, then we trade Jimmy to a team he'll go to. Just one trade with one of the big boppers involved if they agree. The trade is for a backup catcher prospect who actually can spell AJP, get some hits and throw people out. We need to rest AJP more. We keep Mark, Floyd, Danks and Clayton as our starters with Poreda No. 5. We move Javy to bullpen. We keep the same bullpen corps. Our speed allegedly would be better if the guys could get on base. We see where it takes us. Would you do it? Guys ... isn't there a chance this team could win? This scenario does intrigue me. Do you suppose we'd go after pitching or a position player with our top 10 pick in 2010?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 01:57 AM) I love Granderson. I'd love to have Bartlett at least the Bartlett that hits against us. I realize Grandy is probably the face of the Tigers and they'd never ship him to us. WHen's he become a free agent? What bout Bartlett. When he a free agent? Right around his 33rd birthday. Yeah, they locked him up.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 11:28 PM) We need to ship him back to the Royals. They actually might take him back as the righty bridge before the Mexicutioner with their lefty set in that guy whose name I forget. Dotel is one of those guys who sounds good during the Hot Stove League and you get him and he's not worth the cash. Dotel was worth the cash. 2008 Octavio Dotel was worth every penny of the 5 million he made, no doubt in my mind.

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 09:58 PM) Vazquez, Owens and Fields to SF for Rowand and Brad Hennessey? Just stop.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 08:58 PM) Because one of these guys have to be traded and Swisher is the only one who can't block a trade. It's not really that complicated. Thome would be the guy I'd want to dump too, but he'll only go to the Indians or Cubs. Cubs don't need him and we're not dealing with the Indians, so Thome is here no matter what. Paulie might go to the West Coast, but only if he feels like it. He doesn't have to go anywhere. Dye can only block a trade to 6 teams.

I love the Real Men of Genius bits, there's something like 60 of them most of which are actually very funny.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 06:11 PM) But why would BB trade Duchscherer now, instead of waiting? #1, he's still on the DL, correct? Or no? Can he even be traded? He would have to clear a ton of physical exams from Sox doctors, and we've been on the other side of this situation with Mike Sirotka once before...it would be like KW trading Konerko, he could get a lot more coming off a normal, healthy, .285, 30+, 100+ RBI season than this one. Especially with the overvaluation of pitchers, he has no reason not to wait it out and rebuild his value. There is no offseason disabled list, that doesn't even make sense. Duch will be a free agent at the 2009 season's end so if he spends some time on the DL or sucks for the first half of the season Beane won't be able to get anything for him. (aside from maybe comp picks) If Billy Beane can find a team that's willing to roll the dice and give up a good prospect or two for Duch in hopes that he'll duplicate he'll come close to duplicating his 2008 production and maybe stay healthy enough to give them 28 starts then he should and likely would jump at it. Hell, just look at what Jim Hendry said today, he'd be happy if Harden gave him 25 starts next year as long as their 25 dominant starts, that's the sort of mindset Billy is banking on.

QUOTE (Baines3 @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 05:35 PM) Toby is ok, he's not an every day catcher but not bad. Actually, dollar for dollar he's been one of the worst backup catchers in the game over the past 2 seasons. Aside from singling off of horrible left handed starters he really does nothing else well.

QUOTE (chisoxt @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 05:32 PM) I wouldn't mind having Maguel back. Problem is, I beleive that KC has a club option on him for next season. Regardless, I would like to see Toby gone. The fact is, AJ is getting older and seems to tail off in the second half offensively, as most catchers do. The key for next year is to bring in a better backup catcher that can handle more games and ideally bring something else to the table like a stronger throwing arm, or decent offense. Henry Blanco would be great as well but I doubt the Cub would be stupid enough to let him get away. I believe it's a mutual option. And when asked if he'd be back with the Royals next year Miguel answered with something along the lines "HELL NO!" Problem is, he wants to be a starter. Actually, he demands to be a starter, that's sort of why he's leaving KC.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 04:15 PM) I don't think he even throws better than AJ. I'm really surprised at how many people want him back. He offers nothing defensively or offensively, to speak of. His only positive traits, as far as I can see, are pitcher handling and clubhouse presence. Over the past 2 seasons: AJ: 41 of 199: 21 CS% Toby 12 of 81: 15 CS%

Toby's thrown out 15% of would be base stealers since joining the Sox in '06. For the sake of comparison, AJ was the worst in baseball at throwing out basestealers this past year at 18%. So yeah, Toby throwing out 12 of 81 baserunners ('07+'08) would be the worst in the game if he qualified.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 03:05 PM) Can you imagine how great it is as a big league hitter to see Boone Logan come in? They are licking their chops ready to bash the ball. MacDougal the same if they want to draw a walk and up their on base percentage. Yet they might get beaned so there's some danger there. And if the bad Dotel shows up?? Wham. The problem there is there's a 40 percent chance the good Dotel might be on the mound. It's actually more like a 74% chance but the bad Dotel is so bad that it seems like he shows up more often than 26% of the time.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 8, 2008 -> 03:18 PM) Josh was actually 8/10 on steals this year with some very bad knees and missing a decent chunk of the year. I can't get my site for his other years to load for some reason right now, but he's at least not anywhere near Konerko level. He'll swipe a few if healthy and can probably score from first on most doubles. In '06 he stole 28 bases out of 32 attempts for Charlotte.

Supposedly the Yankees are going to go hard after McLouth FWIW.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 11:54 PM) I definitely get the point. Good line about the pregnant turtle. Paulie's pop ups certainly are annoying. When he gets his pitch and drives it like that beautiful homer in the final game vs. the Rays, he's a thing of beauty. They're annoying but I think Joe Crede's popups annoy me a bit more than PK's. After all only 42% of Konerko's contact outs last year came via the flyout, compare that to Crede's 63% and Pauly's lookin' pretty good.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 09:54 PM) I've become very intrigued with the thought of Alexei in CF to be quite honest. He seems quick enough to cover a ton of ground, has the bat to play it, a strong arm...he'd be a pretty solid choice. The question then is, can you find 3 players for 2B, 3B, and SS? C: Pierzynski 1B: Konerko/Swisher 2B: Roberts/Hudson 3B: Beltre SS: Furcal LF: Quentin CF: Ramirez RF: Swisher/Dye DH: Thome/Dye

Gavin is the obvious choice but I'll also say Quentin just because it's going to be awful hard for him to duplicate the magnificence that was 2008.

QUOTE (BlackBetsy @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 08:52 PM) 2004 was the last year of his original deal with the Expos. I think the Expos locked him in for one post-arbitration year (2003 would have been his 6th year of service - he spent the entire 1998 season on the Expos' roster). So it was a free agent deal with the Yankees all the way, I believe. It couldn't have been, he was traded for Nick Johnson and Juan Rivera in December of '03. And the first year of his deal with the Yankees covered the '04 season so either he wasn't under contract when he arrived with the Yankees (but still Arb eligible) or the new deal superseded the old one he received from Montreal. Javy spent over a month in the minors in June and July of 1999 so he only earned 141 days of service for the season, 31 days short of the 172 required to earn a full year. So as of January 2004 he was at 5.141 years of service and a year short of free agency.

QUOTE (ChisoxFurrious9 @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 08:52 PM) I was baseing my starting lineup off of people who are already on the team, which is why it looks bad. I'm just assuming that we don't pick up anyone (highly unlikely) and are forced to make a lineup based on this year's roster. (Excluding FA like OC). And sorry for the butchered spelling. Didn't think it was such a big deal It isn't, ignore him. Welcome to Soxtalk.

Owens is out of options so they're gonna have to do something with him whether it be adding him to a trade or sticking him on the bench because he would not clear waivers even though he sucks at baseball.

Ok, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I was off. A player can demand a trade if he has 5 years of service time at the time of the trade (Swish had 3, I couldn't remember the requirement, thought it was 3), the contract had to have been signed before October 23 a year before the trade (it was) and the demand must be made at the conclusion of the season following the trade. So no, Swish couldn't formally demand a trade. When Javy was dealt to the Yankees he had 5.141 years of service, he signed his new deal before playing a game with the Yankees, the deal bought out his final year of arbitration and 3 free agent seasons. He was traded 1 year into the deal and demanded a trade after playing a full season with the Diamondbacks.

QUOTE (MO2005 @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 07:37 PM) Who thought Swisher would be leading off in 2008? Anything can or will happen with Kenny. Except it makes sense to put a high OBP player like 2007 Nick Swisher at the top of a lineup. Mark Kotsay is a bottom of the order hitter who is perpetually injured and Jack Wilson just sucks at hitting, he's what you'd call a #8 or #9 guy. Kenny is unpredictable, not retarded. Also, hitting your second best hitter 9th is just moronic. Your #9 hitter will typically get about 140 fewer PA than your leadoff hitter over the course of a season, that's sort of the reason why you put your best hitters at the top, so they get the most opportunities to do damage.

QUOTE (robinventura23 @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 06:58 PM) Swisher will be staying. It said in the paper that KW even gave him a hug and encouraged him for 2009. They'll need him as an option anyway in case they trade Konerko. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../SP38128UGR.DTL Never say never when Kenny Williams is involved.

QUOTE (santo=dorf @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 05:45 PM) Really? Not a single team would offer something for a OF or 1B despite his down year? Does Swisher have the right to demand a trade because he was traded in a multiyear deal, or is it something with his arbitration years? I think it's worth talking about since the Sox have a logjam. He can absolutely demand a trade.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 03:14 PM) FWIW Cowley said this morning he believes the phillies will pay roughly 5 mil of Thome's contract God damn I hope that's true. It was speculated at the time of the deal that Gillick made a hand shake deal with Kenny where he would kick in some cash if the option vested. George Offman actually alluded to this a few weeks ago as well which gives me hope. Jim thome at $8M is more than reasonable.