Princess Dye

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Dec 22, 2010 -> 07:38 PM) I am a fan of his awesome speed, awesome defense, awesome base-stealing ability, and awesome on-base skills. Pretty good reasons to want a 27-year-old CF if you ask me. Speed isn't as important as starting pitching. Not saying other things wouldn't go into such a deal, that's just not enough for me.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 17, 2010 -> 12:07 PM) I don't know how you guys can just capitalize the word "cubs" so carelessly. 7 years of talking baseball on the internet and I still can't do it. Makes me sick It's a proper noun. This point you make matters less to me than almost anything on earth.

Purely guessing here, but I'd bet that Wood got it in his head fairly early that he wanted to live in Chicago even if taking a discount. So the W.Sox probably put in their discounted offer by comparison to say Yankees or whoever. Then the Cubs decided to put in their mega lowball offer, and Wood probably figured if he's discounting his salary anyway, why not go to the familiar preferred location.

Gotta think Wood = revenue for the Cubs. More so than just any old reliever signing, at least.

If Kerry Wood refuses to play for the Sox due to his Cubs roots, I actually think that's kind of good. I wish more players cared about the rivalries a little more. Instead of being check cashers exclusively, etc. It's not the biggest deal to me one way or the other, but just kind of interesting. I also heard AJP say he would not play for the Cubs unless he was broke.

My wife saw Kerry Wood at the western/belmont toys r' us once.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 14, 2010 -> 06:12 PM) $27.5? WTF? lol. Man f*** Cliff Lee. And this is another reason I will NEVER get married. Apparently his wife was a major factor in his decision to go back to Philly. b**** STFU and realize you're pretty worthless and just happen to be married to a professional athlete. So some dumbass Yankee fans were mean to you once. Not saying I wanted him to go to NY. But GMAB. Michael Jordan should really stop posting here.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Dec 13, 2010 -> 10:51 PM) While we like Cliff Lee leaving our League so we dont have to deal with him, if the the Yanks lose out on him they will throw $$ at relievers left on the open market. That will all but end the likelihood that the White Sox are able to sign bullpen help this off season. So which is it exactly that we want. perhaps NYY will just get a high priced reliever (Soriano) and a good lefty...which is $$-wise probably not what we're going to be competing for. If we sign two relievers instead of acquire by trade....I'd see us ending up with a moderately priced decent righty and a shot-in-the-dark lefty.

Am I right that this is most people's guess: Sox shopped Quentin. Offers were underwhelming. They now are leaking this 'not trading CQ' thing pretty fiercely because they know they can't get value. Now deciding whether or not they'll get an OK reliever via FA or move some prospects. And perhaps looking into some deal where they can at least save $1-2M by dumping Teahan + cash on someone?

They wouldn't leak this if they weren't going to go thru with it. Merkin writes for whitesox.com, right?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 11, 2010 -> 03:48 PM) Didn't he first say they were "asking for a lot"? IIRC, Lee went with the premise being some talent coming back, but the Sox took a hit in the talent dept. for the trade to free up salary, and in essence added others because of it, so they were considered part of the trade. He's already contradicted the tweet has spent 4 or 5 tweets defending after KW told someone he was full of s***. He's bound to be correct on one of these guesses sometime, and watch his reaction when he is. Having heard Cowley say this on 670, my take was that he was bringing up the Carlos Lee trade not as an example of what we'd get back, but just in terms of trading an established hitter for need-filling impact. He didn't really use that example to discuss specifics.

It's absolutely great when you have a guy acting like a douche publicly in papers,online or radio, instead of having to hang out with a douche. That way you can monitor what they're doing from afar and be entertained by it. This is how I can find B&B entertaining as well. Then when you realize that these professionals, each with their own douche personality thing, is more a ratings/clicks-deriving plan of theirs, the heavens can open up for you and you can stop taking things so personally from afar.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 11:39 AM) Which is why they should let him try out a corner OF spot in Charlotte this year. Don't half-ass it and move him all around either. I love his bat and think it justifies giving this a shot. Yeah, major league LF in 2012 would be a great goal. A wonderfully Juan Pierre-less goal indeed.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 11:35 AM) Do you really think he can play a legitimate 3B? Look at him. Cmon, now. Don't be naive. Aramis Ramirez is big and made huge midcareer strides defensively. Viciedo has the arm. He's 21. I'm not promising anything but I'm also not seeing minor league time as rotting just b/c i'm impatient.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 11:31 AM) So he rots in the minors? Makes no sense. Or he kills in the minors and expands trade options for him. He's young. He also could go to the minors, work on his fielding and replace OV/Morel in 2012. Or mid-2011. Ozzie seemed willing to play him there a bunch. Another option is he's a major league bench bat spelling people frequently at several positions. PK needs to be preserved.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 11:29 AM) Its been noted that Flowers got some hitting advice going into 2010 that conflicted with there the org had him going before that, and its screwed him up. I have every reason to believe he's going to hit again in 2011 like he did in 2009. He's not some throw-in, he has a lot of value with that bat and playing catcher even if only somewhat well defensively. Encouraging. Yeah, I mean even though I'm willing to deal him, I think he could net substantial relief help as a principle in the deal. As long as we're thinking about moves now and not waiting a year.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 11:23 AM) You're going to rule Flowers out simply based on the parameter that he is in our system? C'mon now. Yeah I've never gotten this. People would rather blame our org than the player. Especially with a player having such spotty history as Flowers (failed drug test) I think we have to look directly at the player as responsible.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 11:22 AM) That was last year. Different set of circumstances now. Mainly the giant anaconda in the room named Adam Dunn. Maybe. But Viciedo is the insurance policy at OF/3B/1B, especially long term 1B with Paulie being here 3 years. It just seems like with his current contract, Viciedo is not the type of guy KW would trade off, b/c DV's not a drafted farmhand and instead more like one of KW's crafty acquisitions.

Based on how tightly they held onto Viciedo last trade deadline (when they were desperate enough to even pay Manny tons per game)...there's no way they trade him now for a reliever.

Would it really be "sell low" right now with Flowers? Sure, he had a down year. But also some of the mystery evaporates once he's this age (25 shortly) Interesting parallel is Lillibridge. Had some impressive years as a youngun in Atlanta's farm system. Then at age 24 he had his first bad year. Was traded the next year for pitching while there was still some value to him. Now he's 26 and you wouldn't be able to get a bucket of balls for him.

If you're reading his work, commenting on him and clicking his page, then he is not only doing his job but succeeding at it. There's some kind of misconception that his "job" is to correctly predict every FA transaction.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 01:43 PM) Jerry Reinsdorf is not a crazy rich old guy. "crazy" meant more for exaggeration purposes.

This is kind of on a tangent, but lets discuss JR and how he runs the team. For years my Cub fan friends wanted a crazy, old rich guy to own their team. JR definitely fits that bill. Last year we see he's willing to throw millions from out of nowhere at the last second to get Damon. But then we don't see that money get put into the team somewhere else before spring training. This year, they seem to be setting us up for one thing, and then suddenly they hike payroll up to record setting levels. Yes maybe some of that was emotion-driven, but it was still for a player coming off MVP candidacy. Maybe I'm naive but I basically don't worry about 2013 because we have one of those owners who (yes, sporadically) will just throw a bunch more $ at the problem. And this time it comes off a down year in attendance. What needs to improve is how KW sometimes spends that money, and thats an entirely different problem. Maybe that's why I don't care enough about 2013's $6M. That, and the fact that I can't (unlike others) assume D-Lee is going to find that pop he used to have. A lot of what you guys say makes sense, but that part of it you have to admit is hope-based. That he returns to '09 form. His 19 HR from '10: not enough.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 01:23 PM) Did you see DLees great 2009?? You're paying more for a lesser player with defense in consideration. If you're fine with an obvious fan bias getting in your way I guess this discussion is lost. I saw Lee's '09 but with older players I'm sure a FO doesn't like seeing a sign of deterioriation, be it injury related or not. I actually am not this huge Paulie fan, either. I wanted Lee for 2yr/16M. We'll see what he gets and if it's giant savings or not.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 01:16 PM) Unless, of course, they target the wrong player and it comes back to screw them. Than no, I don't want my team to be like that. I guess. But it's funny that this debate crops up regarding Konerko vs. D-Lee, two guys who are the same age and very simliar stat-wise. I like the one with the more recent great year, i'd pay extra if i'm sure my owner is willing to keep payroll high... but that is I guess me.