thedoctor

that wouldn't be overly surprising. hopefully kw can turn some of this mess into leverage.

i totally agree another starter is needed. the idea of going into another season of fifth starter roulette makes my stomach turn. however, i also don't advocate spending a bunch of cash on someone just because they're available. cairo and pyrz would be my first two selections, although admittedly i'm not that familiar with the list of potential non-tenders.

looking at the potential non-tenders as well as players who are already out there, who would you like to pursue if the sox don't add another starting pitcher. with the money available, i think it's likely that a move or two will be made before spring training, regardless of whether or not that move centers around a starting pitcher. who do you want to see on the sox?

by next october when rj's pitching for the yankees in the world series this whole rj to the white sox saga will have to go down as one of the biggest wastes of cyberspace ever.

i've gotten more skeptical of prospects as time has gone by. particularly after hearing how the sox had the best system in the bigs throughout the late 90s, a distinction that earned the team one division title and a bunch of second-place finishes in one of the weakest divisions in baseball.

i'd be happy with 50 steals if he boosted his obp and average.

basically the media feels the need to take cheap shots at frank because he's not the most cooperative guy with them, which is bulls*** and totally unprofessional.

he's a jag. oh yeah, he's dillweed's agent, too.

no thanks. i'm tired of us attempting to rebuild the sox with refuse of the teams that have been beating us.

with pedro gone and schilling out until may you have to figure the red sox are going to be a player for one of these guys.

media types should just leave frank the f*** alone. i get so sick of hearing these cheap shots. how many other jagbag athletes have been given carte blanche by writers because they're colorful or a good quote. frank is what he is but the positives he's brought to the white sox far outweigh the negatives, yet he still takes crap from douchebags likes this who probably just arrived in this fair city a few years ago. f*** you chris deluca. rock on frank. *steps off soap box*

the sox could trade their entire roster for a pair of dusty baker's old underpants and i still would not be a cub fan.

that's pretty accurate. although i was a big frank williams fan, his drive never really matched his ability.

not a whole lot of new insight here. just basically says the deals hard to evaluate until kw makes other (expected) moves. also says sox should sign konerko to an extension. here goes: ANAHEIM -- So the White Sox really are serious about breaking up their formula for finishing second—that is, a glut of burly right-handed hitters in the middle of the lineup. Trading Carlos Lee up the road was the result of a round of late meetings between the Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers as the winter meetings were breaking up. The reason the deal wasn't made until Monday, according to at least one source, was because the White Sox were still trying to broker a deal that would send Randy Johnson to the Yankees and bring Javier Vazquez and a carload of cash to Chicago. But the Diamondbacks must not have been convinced that Lee could play right field or move to first base. They already have the surgically repaired Luis Gonzalez in left. Paul Konerko, a consideration in talks between the White Sox and Arizona, no longer seems a fit as the Diamondbacks are prepared to shift Troy Glaus to first base if his shoulder is slow to respond to surgery. Trading Lee is a risky move. He has been a productive hitter since he arrived in the big leagues and has become an adequate left fielder. He could become a star in the National League, where the standard isn't quite as high for run-producers. Talent for talent, Scott Podsednik and Luis Vizcaino for Lee is a mismatch. But there are financial considerations. The White Sox would save more than $6 million in salary for next season, giving general manager Ken Williams more flexibility to add a starting pitcher or join the bidding for Japanese third baseman Norihiro Nakamura. With Podsednik in center, the Sox could shift Aaron Rowand to left and play Jermaine Dye in right. That's a better defensive outfield than they've had in years. The left-handed-hitting Podsednik led the NL with 70 stolen bases last season. But before getting too excited, his on-base percentage was .313, a huge drop from 2003, when he was a runner-up for Rookie of the Year. Podsednik and Vizcaino for Lee is not a plus for the White Sox. But it's a deal that can't really be evaluated without knowing what Williams is going to do with the money he saves. Without Magglio Ordonez, the Sox probably do need a drastic makeover. They had grown stale and it's going to take more than Carl Everett and a healthy Frank Thomas to make them into the team Ozzie Guillen envisions. With Lee gone, Williams' next move should be to sign Konerko to a contract extension. He and Mark Buehrle are the leaders of this team.

if the sox don't sign another starting pitcher i'm going to say bad words very loudly.

i can't see the sox trading konerko now. they can't trade away all their power, can they?

i'm not the world's biggest uribe fan but that's just wrong.

gracias.

ben sheets? j/k would ginter be a third, or is a minor-league more likely in that scenario. how good is vizcaino?

you have to love the way illinois plays team ball. looks like they'll keep that ranking for another week.

the line about kw making a "beeline" to jeff moorad was interesting.

saturdays trib: ANAHEIM -- Ken Kendrick, the managing partner of the "new Diamondbacks," as he calls his team, doesn't know if Randy Johnson will be around for the 2005 season in Arizona. But he plans on contending for a division title, with him or without him. Given that the Diamondbacks have gone from world champs in 2001 to 111-game losers last season, and that they did that with Johnson, to think they could win without Johnson … that takes chutzpah. But strange things are happening in baseball, as they usually do. Not so long ago, Arizona exhausted its lines of credit and only loans from Major League Baseball's central fund kept it solvent. Then in a period of about 24 hours, it committed a combined $78 million to sign third baseman Troy Glaus and pitcher Russ Ortiz to four-year contracts. On the surface, it looks like the Diamondbacks are putting a full-court press on Johnson, trying to convince him to play out the string in Arizona. But the bet here is that Kendrick and his club president, former agent Jeff Moorad, are preparing for life after the Big Unit. This could be a very good thing for the White Sox. It is unlikely they will trade for Johnson—although agent Alan Nero hints Johnson would consider approving a deal with them, contrary to Ken Williams' stance—but quite plausible they could broker the deal that sends him to the Yankees. According to sources, the White Sox are in love with the idea of adding right-hander Javier Vazquez, especially with the Yankees picking up much of the $34.5 million he's owed over the next three years. They just might be able to get Johnson from Arizona (Carlos Lee or Paul Konerko, Jon Garland and prospects) and pass him along to the Yankees. While Vazquez is coming off a poor season (14-10, 4.91 ERA in 32 starts), Williams and manager Ozzie Guillen are convinced he can join Mark Buehrle and Freddy Garcia to give them three guys who could win 18-to-20 games. Perhaps that's why Williams made a beeline to Moorad after he pulled up to the hotel at baseball's winter meetings Friday. But Vazquez is not the only front-line starting pitcher on Williams' radar screen. He also is interested in Oakland's Tim Hudson, who is being shopped because the A's can't afford his demands for a four-year, $50-million contract. Like Arizona, Oakland needs a run-producing outfielder. Lee and prospects would get the attention of A's general manager Billy Beane. I would take Hudson (92-39 with a 3.30 career ERA) over Vazquez for 2005, but for the White Sox, he probably would be like Bartolo Colon in 2003, a one-year proposition. The addition of Vazquez would mean the Sox have control of all four of their top starters (counting Jose Contreras) through 2007. That's a better way to go. Johnson-to-the-Yankees, supposed killed by the Yankees because of Arizona's high demands, is picking up momentum. It could be a done deal by Monday, based on the stance taken by Johnson's agents (Nero and Barry Meister) at a Saturday night meeting with Moorad and Arizona GM Joe Garagiola Jr. Kendrick stressed Friday the team is not in as dire financial straits as believed, although it's clear he wishes Jerry Colangelo never had embraced the idea of deferred compensation. He said he and his partners have cobbled together more than $100 million from Phoenix investors to give them $250 million in capital. Kendrick said the club has not ruled out an extension for Johnson, who can be a free agent after 2005, but Nero made it sound like all Johnson wants is out. "Randy always has had a positive outlook," Nero said. "He just feels determined that he needs to be elsewhere." Kendrick said there's no timetable to resolve the Johnson situation. But this is the time for the Diamondbacks to deal him. With Glaus and Ortiz aboard, they have established they aren't just about dumping contracts and running 2001 highlights on the Bank One Ballpark video board. If Moorad and Garagiola can make a good trade, getting prospects from the Yankees and White Sox along with a 100-RBI guy in Lee or Konerko, they might have the Diamondbacks headed back toward the first division. The White Sox never left that neighborhood. But with a rotation of Buehrle, Garcia, Contreras and either Vazquez or Hudson, they might get their upgrade too.

mike downey, from the trib: 1 Magglio Ordonez has got a lot of … uh, those things he hits with a bat. The nerve of this guy, saying he left the White Sox because they never made him feel "comfortable they really wanted me." They paid him $14 million last year! Ordonez deserves this week's Latrell Sprewell award for "comfortable" never being comfortable enough. White Sox fans treated him like a god. They bought and wore his No. 30 uniform when no one else in America did. They sang "Oh-ee-oh!" to him. He has turned his back on each and every one. He even says, "Why not the Cubs? I think it would be a good place for me"—the ultimate insult to Sox fans. Ordonez says the Sox insulted him by nearly trading him to Boston. Yes, they nearly did … and why? Because he wouldn't agree to a new deal, which meant if he left as a free agent he could leave the Sox with nothing. Which is exactly what happened. GM Ken Williams did not trade Ordonez in midseason—for Andruw Jones or anyone else—when he could have. Ordonez paid him back by going to a doctor the Sox didn't know without even notifying the team. He fired his agent and hired one with whom Williams is known to be uneasy doing business. Why? Because the GM said he wasn't sure how well Ordonez's knee surgery had gone … because Ordonez hadn't bothered to let the Sox in on it. You say he got a lot of big hits for you, the fan? Hey, that was his job. That's why the Sox paid him all that money. He also led the Sox to just one playoff … and hit .182 in it. But the Sox were proud of him. They found him 13 years ago. In the minors, when he hit .180 (1992), .216 (1993), .238 (1995) and .263 (1996), they stuck by him. When he sought a contract extension in 2001, he got it. When he sought donations for Venezuela flood relief in 1999, club Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf kicked in $10,000. This is how he paid them back—by abandoning the Sox and saying he would be happy to be a Cub. Oh-ee-oh, go ahead and go.

thanks.

did gordon play at all tonight? i'm at work and the game was on with no sound across the room so i didn't get to watch closely. it didn't seem like he played at all, though.