hitlesswonder

QUOTE(BearSox @ Jul 24, 2007 -> 09:51 AM) If we are going to bring in Wily Mo why not just give Terrero a shot then? Since both are the same age and both very raw and just need "playingtime". Well Terrero's career OPS is like .670 and Pena's is .780. That's a big difference. Pena's a flawed player, no doubt and I would hat the low OBP. But the Sox will likely be starved for power next season with Uribe, Iguchi, Crede, and Dye all replaced by guys that have decidedly weaker bats. If Pena is cheap, sticking him in LF given the Sox dearth of OF prospects seems reasonable to me. If he plays well, he should be very, very flippable at the 2008 deadline given his low salary.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jul 24, 2007 -> 10:00 AM) One positive about all this is that Kenny kept his mouth and didn't erupt in the media. I noticed that as well. Aside from the "chuckling" remark, his response quoted in the trib was very professional. That was refreshing to see.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Jul 24, 2007 -> 09:53 AM) The whole scouting department sucks. I just hate the fact that the org replaced him with someone they fired before and has had worse drafts! Agreed. Laumann's drafts were worse than Shaffer's. Picking him to head up the "new direction" makes it pretty clear that performance wasn't the issue. Shaffer was replaced because he and KW didn't get along.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jul 24, 2007 -> 08:25 AM) Surprise, surprise.. another Sox employee who has/had issue with Kenny. It's to bad that Kenny is able to continue to hide behind doors about this stuff. Personally, I can't wait till he is canned and all the real dirt is shaken out of the executive rugs. Kudos to Duane for comparing Kenny to Larry Himes. I'm sure Kenny flipped a few tables after reading that one. I would choose Larry Himes over KW as a GM and it's not particularly close. I remember reading that Himes lacked "people skills" but he was the best talent evaluator (or at least hired best talent evaluators) of any Sox GM that I've seen. Speaking of which, Shaffer was the guy that scouted Jack McDowell IIRC. So, I gather the consensus among those that know the Sox organization is that Williams is a jackass that needs to be canned? If it mean Hahn gets to be GM, I'm OK with that...

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:06 PM) If you had to choose one of Erstad or Podsednik to be retained for next season who would you choose? Whoever you pick will start and leadoff, they'll also be paid the same. ($3.25M) Is this like Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon says his father made him choose between the belt and tire iron when he was going to get beaten? I'd take Erstad. That way, the Sox might be able to fill LF with a real over .800 OPS hitter. If Pods is in LF, I doubt the Sox can fill CF with a strong bat. Erstad has a decent glove and putrid on-base percentage. But given Pods legs, all the caught stealings would probably even out the OBP difference. I choose the belt.

QUOTE(Jeremy @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:27 PM) I think a run is overstating it a little bit. Even if Danks ERA was 3.7 in the NL though I still don't think he'd be considered better than any of those players on the first list I rattled off. Some of those guys are in the AL and have ERAs a run lower than Danks. My point was that there are pitchers out there that look like perennial All-Stars such as Bonderman or King Felix and Danks doesn't fit in that group. One recent study had an average drop of 0.85 off an ERA on a move from AL to NL. But I don't how statistically valid that is (sample size, blah,blah,blah). But it was pretty close to one run. Anyway, I do agree with you that Danks, while a fine young pitcher, isn't one of top 20 or whatever young pitchers in the game. He does look like he can be league average AL starter for the minimum, so he's very valuable. But I'd trade him to fill multiple positional holes with guys that project to have all-star skills.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:12 PM) As for your fantasy trade scenarios that you listed, xbox is fun, but its not reality and listing other team's untouchable players is really quite stupid. Xbox?! You're the one that mentioned Young, Jackson, and Quentin for Garland and you start throwing around the XBox label? Look, no one is suggesting Danks should be moved, only that he shouldn't be labeled untouchable. If AZ offered Young, Quentin, and Jackson for Danks I would do that deal every day. If that makes me an idiot, so be it.

QUOTE(spataro51 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 04:26 PM) Why in the heck would we deal danks? He is under are control for 5 more years and he is a damn good lefty that is still developing. If i had to choose i would dump garland because no way in hell is he going to give us a nice hometown discount like Mb did. John is waiting to go pitch out west. I agree dumping Garland is a better idea, but Danks, surprisingly to me, not that highly regarded by a lot baseball analysts. Kevin Goldstein ranks Danks below guys still in the minors like Joba Chamberlain who have top of the rotation stuff. When the McCarthy trade was made, I remember one scout quoted as saying that if both players reach their potential, the rangers win the trade since Danks ceiling is a "#3 starter". In essence, with a mediocre fastball, a lot of people think Danks isn't likely to improve much from where he is right now. I'd like the Sox to keep him, but he's not some untouchable prospect like Phillip Hughes. If someone offers a young all-star-to-be position player the Sox should probably take that deal.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 11:46 AM) There is absolutely nothing wrong with setting up a pitching staff for 08-09 that looks like Buehrle, Garland, Vazquez, Danks, and Haeger/Floyd/eventually Gio. If we got some decent offense out of a few spots, and a bullpen, I'd say that rotation would set us up to compete every year it was around. It's hard to say anything for sure without knowing what the market for Garland is, but here is why I think he should get dealt now: 1) The Sox need to improve the team and the only way to do this is by trading pitching. They need to reallocate their resources. They can't have half their budget tied up in 4 starting pitchers. Plus, starting pitching is the only area in which they have 2 or 3 prospects that might be able to come up and do a competent job. 2) Trading Contreras won't bring in talent. It almost makes sense to hop he turns it around and deal him next season. 3) Vazquez is enigmatic, but he's pitched extremely well for a year now. He's probably a top 15 starter in the AL. He's signed long-term and could potentially be useful by the time the Sox are good again (if that ever happens). Also, he misses bats which will be important when the infield loses Uribe and Crede. 4) Garland's peripherals are trending down and he's signed for only one more year. He's a defense dependent pitcher. As far as I know, he's unlikely to sign a below-market deal. The longer the Sox wait to move him, the less value he has.

QUOTE(Hideaway Lights @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 11:19 AM) Release Podsednik, release Erstad. Erstad will be starting in CF for the 2008 White Sox....

BP confirms that Garland is not available in trade but Vazquez is: That seems idiotic to me because Garland is a FA in 2008 and I really, really doubt that he's going to sign for less than Vazquez did. And I'm not convinced that Garland is a better pitcher at all. Why keep Garland when the team will not contend in 2008? Also, some Dodger stuff that was interesting: the Pirates are willing to trade Ian Snell to LA but LA won't give up Kemp for him. If Snell can't get Kemp, no one in the Sox organization can either. So cross him off the list. Also, LA is considering trading their SS prospect Hu to KC for Dotel. That would make me unhappy, as I'd like the Sox to get Hu and I hate to see the Royals sign a reclamation project and flip him for good young talent. I'm starting to think Moore is a pretty good GM....

QUOTE(striker62704 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 10:13 AM) Alot of people say we shouldn't bring up AA player because it's too soon, or we might ruin them. I think Ozzie even said we might ruin them.... If they come up and do bad, I don't think they are going to kill themselves like everyone else seems to think. I sort of agree with that -- if a player isn't mentally up to the task of handling adversity (like initial failure in the bigs) it seems like the future isn't all that bright anyway. If I were a GM I wouldn't be afraid of that. That being said, I'm about as far away from having played pro baseball as you can get, so what do I know? There are concrete reasons for not bringing up certain players. Maybe the Sox don't want to start Gio's arbitration clock. Egbert would require other moves to made because he isn't on the 40 man roster. Maybe the Sox feel neither is ready to contribute in the bigs yet so there's no point bringing them up. Maybe they want to trade them and don't want to expose them as products of the worst minor league system in baseball -- and so they keep their value artificially high by not promoting them. If the Sox thought they could compete in 2008, it might make sense to bring up some advanced prospects to see if they can fill a hole in 2008. But when you know your team is going to suck anyway (as KW surely does), they might as well wait till next year to bring them up.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 12:17 AM) The only money Boston is kicking in is $3M for the '09 buyout if the team option is not exercised. That team option for '09 is $11M. The Sox can't afford to be paying a SS $9M next year and then $11M in '09, they still have like 13 other holes to fill and adding another near 8 figure player to the payroll is not going to help matters. I thought Boston was kicking in $11M although I don't know how that's distributed. It doesn't really matter, since I think the Sox need to trade Garland for multiple young position players. That part of the story that bugged me was the report Garland was off limits. The makes no sense....maybe it's just posturing.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 22, 2007 -> 08:52 PM) Jenks does not have a guaranteed contract for next season but Pablo Ozuna does, the other 9 you have are correct. Uribe has a $5M team option for next season, so he does not have a guaranteed deal for 2008. The Big Money is all in Buehrle, Garland, Contreras, Vazquez, Konerko, and Thome. It's pretty clear that 2 starters have to go and the Sox have to hope like crazy that 2 of Floyd, Haegar, Gonzalez, and Egbert can step up next season. Oh..I forgot to include Starting Pitcher of the Future ™ Nick Masset in there....

QUOTE(dasox24 @ Jul 22, 2007 -> 10:36 PM) That would be an awful trade. I mean, Renteria isn't a bad SS, but he's not worth a SP of Garland's quality straight up. If they really want Garland, they can offer us Salty and a couple of their other young studs. Then we'd have a deal. In the Sox situation, that's probably true. But Edgar is hitting .335 this season with a .390 OBP and almost .900 OPS and is signed with a team option through 2009. For a contending team with a hole at SS, Garland for Renteria would probably be OK. Perhaps I don't rate Garland as highly as some, I don't know.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jul 22, 2007 -> 07:23 PM) Haeger will be fine. Floyd, won't. The smart money is to bet against all White Sox prospects.

QUOTE(AWhiteSoxinNJ @ Jul 22, 2007 -> 10:12 PM) According to Peter Gammons on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. The Braves made a trade offer of Édgar Rentería for Jon Garland. The White Sox rejected the trade according to Gammons because the White Sox have no interest in trading Garland. What do you guys make of this deal? Would Urbie be offered in the deal in return? If that's all true then Williams...well, I only have unkind words for him. If the Sox think a 31 year old Renteria (lifetime .290 hitter with a .350 OBP) is too old I could understand that. Or maybe ATL won't pass along the cash from Boston and so he's too pricey, But the Sox should be trying to trade Garland every chance they can get. He's basically a league average pitcher in terms of ERA who eats a lot of innings and will cost a ton of money to re-sign. Since he's not signed long-term he should get moved now before his value erodes. No interest in trading Garland? That would be stupid.

QUOTE(GreenSox @ Jul 22, 2007 -> 09:04 PM) Ozzie didn't like harris, so he got Williams to trade for the woeful Cintron. If Harris could have played SS he might still be here. The Sox decided the needed sombody besides Uribe on the roster that could play SS passably. Harris' spot was really taken by Ozuna, I would say (alhtough Ozzie thinks Pablo can "play" 3B). Anyway, just to continue the hijack, Harris was a good defensive 2B (very good actually) and a decent CF. And he posted decent OBPs. He just didn't get many hits and I think he wasn't aggressive enough for Ozzie. He was a useful player. Some guys just turn into big league players later than others. Hopefully that's what happened with Harris.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 21, 2007 -> 10:02 PM) The scary thing about Rowand is, he's still not slowing down. Since the break (34 AB) he has 9 2B, 2 HR and a .500/.553/.941/1.494 line. I thought he was going to drop off at the start of May, then again at the beginning of June but he's still going strong through July, with only 2 months to go there's a damn good chance he finishes with a .900+ OPS and if that happens I have no idea what kind of deal some desperate team could offer him. Well, he did it before in 2004 -- that was great year for him. Excellent D and .900 OPS in CF. This year is actually more impressive in that his BB rate has skyrocketed. He's one away from matching his career high. I wonder what the difference is...Anyway, I still can't dismiss the 05-06 seasons which made him look like a career .740ish OPS guy in good hitters parks. I'm still pretty sure that's the level of performance to expect. Maybe he is better than that but I wouldn't put money on another OPS over .800. Anyway, I'm happy for him. He obviously works hard at his job & he's going to get greatly rewarded for that.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jul 21, 2007 -> 10:35 PM) There is no way KW will wind up with that line-up. They re-signed Buerhle, he will play to win. They will free up money to spend someway. If no one takes Contreras, Garland or Vazquez will be gone. I think you're wrong. It's a virtual lock that the 2008 OF will be the worst in baseball. The OF will likely have 2 young players plus a vet CF: Young players (choose 2): Sweeney, Owens, Fields CF: Erstad or Rowand I'm starting to think Rowand is unlikely. He has a .900 OPS this season and will probably want GMJr type money. And KW won't shell that out. Keep in mind that I think KW and Ozzie think they are playing to win when they trot Erstad out there. They fall in love with flawed players. Owens is clearly playing his way into their hearts with his rampant foot speed. The problem isn't not playing to win. It's talent evaluation.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 21, 2007 -> 08:50 PM) Then shouldn't you be emailing like half the teams in baseball? I expect Brooks Boyer to have an email from you on his desk by Monday morning. $50 to sit down the 3rd base line and watch one of the absolute worst teams in baseball? That's outrageous! Yeah...at least the Jays have the excuse that they have to support socialized medicine! Plus, was that Jays ticket price in Canadian dollars? You gotta figure in the exchange rate...

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 21, 2007 -> 09:38 PM) Nothing is going to change next year, Eric Byrnes and Aaron Rowand will demand Matthews money and some one will pay up, Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones will get larger contracts than Johnny Damon did 2 years ago and all will be merry until the first injury of '08. I pretty much agree. Rowand is playing himself out of the Sox price range. And that might not be bad -- I think he's probably a lot closer to a .750 OPS player from here on out than .900. The wild card is how much Rowand wants to a be a Sox. If he's willing to take 4yr/$28M deal, the Sox might do it (just don't get picky about a NTC Aaaron...). I think he probably won't give the needed discount will end up back in PHI.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Jul 18, 2007 -> 02:28 PM) anyhow, i disagree on richmond. i still think he'll end up at illinois (i do agree he will re-open at some point) and i still think weber will be the coach at that point. talk of him being fired at this point is just not reality. anyone who has followed the way guenther and his bosses do business know that weber will have a long leash. for him to get fired he's first going to have to post a losing season, and despite the negatives in recruiting i don't see that happening this year or next. that gets you to 2010. I don't have a particular NCAA team I like. I just like basketball -- although I feel guilty about that in the case of college hoops because it's such a screwed up system. What I don't like about Illinois is a series of DUIs and other crimes that put people in the community in danger with relatively no penalties to the guilty parties because they are on the basketball team. Obviously, my dislike of the Illinois basketball program bugs you. All I can is that my disappointment with UI is magnified because I want to like the institution and the basketball team. Really, a Northwestern like performance would be fine with me if the off-the-court problems went away (and the AD didn't embarass UI by publicly berating players and officials at games). Anyway, I think UI could get a one man class of Suggs and roll the other scholarship over to 2009 and it really wouldn't be that bad of a recruiting season at all. Supposedly the class of 2008 is pretty weak, so missing out on some guys isn't the end of the world. Unfortunately, the media and a lot of fans would still portray it as a failure for Weber. It's clear that's a story the media like to write about. Jereme Richmond was obviously asked a very leading question about his commitment to UI in hopes of just the sort of response he gave. Speaking of Richmond, if you agree he will reopen his recruitment, do you think he will recommit to UI? I'm told that usually never happens -- if the recruit breaks the commit its because they are no longer happy with their choice. Obviously I could be wrong, but I think at some point, Richmond will realize that he could go to UCLA, Kentucky, Florida, or UNC.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 18, 2007 -> 03:08 PM) A split would be awful if it means KW thinks we can still compete. Either sweep the series or get swept. With Contreras and Danks going, it's going to be hard to win more than 2 games that series. I don't think KW is naive enough for that. If there were decent moves to be made I think he would do it. The lack of trades i simply a testament to teams not wanting to trade young, cheap players (Rosenthal has a column about that up now I think...).

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 18, 2007 -> 11:57 AM) And of course Richmond probably won't end up at Illinois, he can't sign until November of 2009 and I have doubts as to if Weber will even be our coach then, and if he is, his recruiting will have more than haunted the program by then. There's no doubt that Richmond is going to reopen his recruitment. He will not be going to UI and I think it would be in his best interest not to.