BlackBetsy

Nice feature article about Leo Daigle on MiLB.com http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/new..._milb&fext=.jsp He's killing the Carolina League - time for a promotion.

FYI - Omar is in the 1st year of a multi-year deal and can only be traded with his permission

QUOTE(Mplssoxfan @ Jun 11, 2005 -> 05:07 PM) Delenda Minnesota Est? Minnesota Twins delenda est. Good knowledge of the Punic Wars, there! (It's also the tag line to my blog)

Although I wouldn't mind a tight race to keep the Sox at the top of their game.... F*** the Twins. I want them to collapse so bad and so humiliatingly that their fans BEG to be contracted. I want Aaron Gleeman to close down his blog, for Bat-Girl to pledge allegiance to Frank Thomas, and for Twins Geek to go back to getting Atomic Wedgies from the bigger kids at school. The Minnesota Twins must be destroyed.

I have thought the schedule is biased against the White Sox for a while now. A couple of reasons. First, the Sox v. Cubs "rivalry" series is, more or less, costing the Sox 1 game more per season than the Twins vs. Brewers "rivalry" series. I'm not saying end it, but 6 games per year is a lot vs. a really good team like the Cubs. Second, have you ever noticed that the Sox tend to play night road games in LA, SEA or OAK and then have to TRAVEL the same night to a midwest/east coast city. This happened last year at least twice (and the Sox lost the first game of the next series) and has already happened this year with the LA to TEX flight. I thought the MLBPA negotiated that this couldn't happen, but it does. Check the Twinkies' schedule. This doesn't happen. Every time they travel from the west coast, they have a day-game getaway day. Luckily for us, the next two times the Twinkies come to the Cell, they will have had games the day before in Oakland and will have had to fly cross country.

Just me, or have the Sox been taking an extraordinary number of college seniors? I mean, this is an OLD draft class (signability issues should be low, though).

Re: Wade Townsend I don't see how you can spend the 15th overall pick on a guy whose fastball sits between 85-89 and whose temperament projects him as a reliever. Total waste of a pick. Would love to see the Sox get a great catcher out of the draft, but there's no way that Clement makes it to 15. Why in the hell would they be announcing, essentially, that they want him? Very un-KW like.

I voted Sweeney. He's more upside (risk) than performance at this point. He might bite you in the ass, but he also might not develop any power and become a .290/.340/.400 guy that isn't worth wasting a corner outfield spot on. Anderson, I think, is a major league ready player. I'd personally rather have him on the roster than Dye, but that's not going to happen. McCarthy just needs to resolve his dinger problem - not sure what that relates to - and he's a top of the rotation starter. Those are rare and must be preserved at all costs. Gio Gonzalez is just too incredible at this point to even think about trading. He could be better than McCarthy. You can't even think about trading him until you see what he does in AA to know what he's got. Speaking of which, wasn't McCarthy moved up to Winston-Salem by about this point last year?

I note looking at the schedule that Peavy and Eaton will be pitching against Cleveland, meaning that they will miss the series against the Sox. With Garland, Buehrle and Garcia going against San Diego, that makes me feel a lot better. It's a bummer that we have our three fly ball pitchers (Garcia, Contreras and El Duque) going in Colorado, though. If you gave me two of three from the Rockies right now....I'd take it.

WHOOPS...I did have them reversed. Now I remember - Teixera was drafted as a HIGHLY touted third baseman. But Blalock came up first and kicked ass at third base and they moved Tex. Blalock must be better defensively. So I can see trading for Blalock more than Teixera. Teixera is a Bora$ client, though, so that probably has an impact as well.

Well, I think it's an interesting concept. I like picking up Teixera for third base...but I'm not sure where we would play Blaylock. I love the idea of some power from the LH side of the plate, but we have a huge logjam (like we always do) of 1B/DH types, which will get worse when the Big Hurt returns. And Rowand is a very tradeable guy given his CF ability...but he's at relatively low value right now. I don't think they should trade him while he's down. But I do think that Anderson could step in and do a very nice job if he's traded. Upgrading 3B is definitely the way to think, though. The problem is that there is not a lot of 3B talent out there. (Although Hinske might be available, even though he is playing 1B right now).

Whether its cheating by blowing the air conditioning fans in the Metrodome or ingesting performance-enhancing drugs, it's time to give the Twins a new nickname that describes their team character. The Cheaters. Or the Dirty Cheaters. Or the Lousy Cheaters. Either way, it must be done. They are cheaters, and they should not prosper. (No offense to you, the Cheat. I'm buying you a pizza.)

I agree - I'd try to acquire Ryan Howard. Cheaper and likely to be about 90% as good as Konerko, and the way it is going, he'd likely not be eligible for free agency until he is 31...meaning the Sox get all of his prime years. In addition, Howard is a lefty hitter, which would add some much needed balance to the lineup. I'm all for acquiring Howard by any means necessary and letting Paulie walk after the season. I love Paulie, but unless he's willing to take $7-$8 million per year, the $10 million per he is going to demand could be better spent elsewhere.

Great point about breaking up Contreras and El Duque from a bullpen standpoint. I do like them together from a matchup standpoint. One night, the Sox have a flame-throwing starter on the mound with a potentially dominant splitter. The next night (as the rotation goes), they put out a junkballer who knows how to pitch and change speeds. I think there is some advantage to that. Maybe the rotation should be (for mixing up the opposition) Garcia (fastball/curve), Buehrle (cut fastball, sinker), Contreras (fastball, splitter), El Duque (everything), Garland (power sinker, curveball).

Bat-girl is good people. Believe it or not, fans of other teams can really and truly be dedicated to their teams and be contemptuous of their other teams. There are folks who wave the Sox flag and wave it well at Bat-Girl, not to worry.

I'd like to hear thoughts on the chain reaction. Gio has been utterly dominant in Kanny in two stints now (end of '04, beginning of '05). Note - Gonzalez had 32 2/3 innings at Kanny in '04 and has 22 innings at Kanny in '05 for a total of 54 2/3 innings. Brandon McCarthy had only 52 innings at W-S before getting promoted to B'Ham last year. This is not necessarily too early to promote him, and the low-A/high-A leap is not as big as the high-A, AA leap.

I just don't understand keeping Widger. Widger is (1) new to the team and to the Sox pitching staff; (2) the worst hitter of Davis, Burke and Widger; and (3) the oldest. It doesn't make any sense. Jamie Burke has done nothing but hit and play well for the White Sox. Buehrle loves throwing to him. Ben Davis has had a decent spring, albeit with injuries, and makes $1 million per year. Chris Widger?? It just doesn't make sense. There has to be more to this story.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Feb 11, 2005 -> 12:58 PM) I don't think Shingo will be as good as he was in the middle of the season. But he'll still be pretty good this year. There are still going to be a lot of players that haven't seen him play yet, or can't figure him out. By definition, he can't be as good. Shingo actually retired more than 27 batters in a row over like 8 appearances in the middle of the year - he threw the equivalent of a perfect game!

Note how deep the Twins' prospects go....Justin Jones is down on their list and he'd probably be #3 on the Sox's list. Bartlett would probably be #1 on our list. Durbin would be right up there with McCarthy. Kubel would probably be #1 as well. Crain would be in the top 2 in our list. Ugh. Depressing to see just how deep the Twins' farm system is.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Jan 25, 2005 -> 05:13 PM) I read a study, (I've lost the data now because I wiped my HD) that was basically about this same thing(with much less mainstream media Yankee fellating) -- I'll see if I can find it... Basically the gist of it was that teams whose pitchers get more strikeouts do better than teams that don't (I know it's revolutionary) -- From what I can remember, I would say about 90% of all playoff teams from the past 25 years recorded about 1000 strikeouts. That's a pretty healthy correlation. Actually, da Chort, I just did a regression on HR differential, BB differential and K differential vs. games above five hundred. The strongest correlation was between HR differential and Games above .500 (r squared of .59. Next highest correlation was BB differential and games above .500 (r squared of .53). Lowest correlation was K differential and games above .500 (r squared of .09). It's an interesting spreadsheet, which I'll probably post to either Black Betsy or Nats Blog.

QUOTE(LDF @ Jan 25, 2005 -> 06:58 AM) you may be right, i read as much as the next guy and i don't remember reading such a thing. i will give way to you on this. Baseball Prospectus did a pretty in depth analysis after 2001 and found that the Japanese leagues were half way in between AAA and MLB. If AAA is 85% of MLB, JPL are like 93-95%. So better than triple A, but worse than the major leagues. Let's put it this way- if a 2B in the Sox organization hit .340/.400/.550 in AAA in a decent pitcher's park, Soxtalk.com posters would be all over KW to bring him to Chicago.

I think Reynoso is the clear choice. I mean, I've never even heard of the guy until this thread. Matt Smith is a marginal prospect, and could be claimed. He put up solid numbers last year. Sean Tracey is the second best pitching prospect (assuming Honel is hurt) in the Sox system. Those kind of strikeout rates indicate a good pitcher, and pitchers generally gain control over time. Sean Tracey strikes me as a guy with a higher ceiling than McCarthy even, but with a lower probability of success. Lopez may make it through waivers (position players are more likely to make it), but Reynoso seems to be the clear choice.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Jan 24, 2005 -> 06:19 PM) He's gonna struggle .262/.343/.365 -- 11HR, 45 RBI, 31SB, countless balls not played because the backhanded scoop is shameful. I don't get the .103 ISOp, da Chort. Why would you think his ISOp would be even lower than Kaz Matsui's? Matsui went from hitter's park in Japan to pitcher's park in the US. Iguchi is doing the opposite. I see an ISOp in the .140-.170 range - short of his .220+ in Japan, but much better than Matsui's. You may be giving him too much credit in terms of walking. If he hits .262, his OBP will be .325-.330. My guess is .285/.350/.440, which is probably on the low end of what he is capable. I wouldn't be surprised with a .310/.390/.480 line, either, but that's probably in the 90th percentile of expectations for him.

I think this is a great signing by Kenny - especially at this price - and I think that Iguchi would be fabulous if he hit .290/.350/.440. In fact, he'd be one of the better 2B in the American League, and probably the best in the AL Central if he put up those kind of numbers. Although he's going to have a decline in production, one should remember that he played in one of the better pitcher's parks in the Japanese league....and he's going to the best hitter's park in the American League. That will probably help some of the Japan-US decline. I'm giving Kenny an A+ for the offseason. He met every need the White Sox had - and did it within a modest $75 milion budget. The Twins are the favorites until they are beaten, but I am fairly energized about the chances for this White Sox team.