Princess Dye

it's slow here---- any thoughts on acquiring him? Would come cheap for the amount of production he'd give, and you can hide what (if i remember correctly) is an emabarassingly bad glove

http://www.athleticsnation.com/2009/11/29/...n-blueprint-2-0 This was linked on soxmachine....an Oakland blogger who seems to have done some research and turned up Brent Morel as someone who'll have trade value But also while we're at it..........the blogger mentions Jack Cust...what are your thoughts on him EDIT: on second thought, started my own Cust thread. Which seems to be semi-thriving...

Why do people have a higher tolerance for PED use in the other sports? Likely because the individual records were not considered sacred in those sports. Thus, in our eyes ,Shawn Merriman can do whatever he wants and it doesnt affect our enjoyment of the game. I personally have always felt the team achievements should take (far and away) precedence over individual records, so the steroid use doesnt bother me to the level it does others. Many baseball records' legitimacy were affected by things such as changes to the length of season, pro-hitter mound/ball changes..... and yet they persevered. This may be too much to survive though. Perhaps, like in the NBA with the all-time leading scorer, it will soon be the case where no one cares much about the HR king title. PED use obviously does unfairly hurt the team that's not using in the context of a single game..... so in that sense i WOULD have a huge problem with it...........But as far as throwing blame.....you just still dont know exactly where to throw it, so it's kind of tough to get in a huff about. There are unknown things pitchers are doing to cheat, including drug use themselves..... so it's hard to rule in a definitive way on that. What I'd hate to see happen in the long run: Bonds is saddled with tons more blame than is coming the way of Pettitte, Ortiz, Manny, Clemens, A-Rod......simply because he was at the forefront of it earlier. After all, Bonds won no rings, which should be what matters

We'd all agree Linebrink is not great. But managers never do a nonstop shuffling of the deck chairs in their pen. That's something the fans always want but never gets put into practice. More often than not they just ride it out with the losers theyre stuck with.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 08:56 PM) no pity party, just underwhelmed. I know who they were, and even this is an upgrade. I am hoping that we're not going to hear blah blah economics, blah blah, we're excited, opening day LFer, blah blah blah The poverty the Sox are claiming actually makes me think you WILL see exactly what you want to happen a big move...which unfortunately will cost us the top guys in the farm system. But all signs point to it .....the staff is win-now...the positions to be filled are often ones at a surplus..... and also factor in how Hudson/Flowers are right now at peak value.

A theme of these recent posts has been how we're headed for a deep lineup with no one bat that is scary. Look at what we had '06: Absolutely scare-your-soul hitting from three guys. But we were as bad as our weakest links, of which there were several. Now in '05.......it was actually AJ's worst hitting year for us. Dye had power but underwhelming OBP. Really eight of our offensive positions had lower than .352 OBP. However.... almost all the hitters were at least decent. So in short I think I'm going against some of the other things I've said in this thread. Lets get back to being deep and see where it takes us. Sure we all want a big signing, but in a sense we had our expenditures with Peavy and Rios........and now it's time to fill two positions where there are a bevy of options out there (so let them all bid against each other).........and fortifying the bench is a great thing to do while we're waiting.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 06:39 PM) Leads off once a game. If Crisp was a stud or at least could sustain a high OBP and high average, then I would have a slight hesitation. leads off once a game -- always has to be followed with "at a time when building a lead greatly increases your % chance of winning the game overall"

If all our scrap heap guys ( the recent signings, kotsay, rios and whatever future DH-man included) simultaneously turn the clock back some 5 years we'd be the Yankees In all seriousness though-- would help out greatly if just one of these guys had a nice bounceback year

Using 2mil on the bench might mean no more expenditures for backup catcher. Flowers is in?

It comes down to this concern versus the concern of whether or not Flowers/Hudson are each at the last possible point of being a high-end mysterious entity. Flowers will be 24 this coming season.

For those worried about Jones' motivation, it should be a good sign that he signed right away (for cheap) with the team that had the most playing time to offer (at least as we stand) We're not going to be able to call him AJ for short.

Lillibridge might make the team somehow to backup CF

Jayson Nix type bat in the outfield?

My mom will be thrilled we've acquired a player she knows of

Extremely cheap zero risk. Can platoon somehow with Kotsay. It looks like a scrap heap offseason unless we can swing a trade. I apparently got online right at the..right time Bernstein says "White Sox are saying it's for outfield depth"

B&B confirms. aieee

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 07:24 PM) If this pitching staff is solid and not great, there is no change that can be made to this roster offensively that will win them the world series next year, and they may as well go with a youth movement on position players. It's that cut-and-dry in the NBA, but not MLB. We can be better than the '06 Cardinals. You at least have a chance when you're in the playoffs.....but once in I'd sure prefer my chances with above-average in BOTH offense and pitching It would take the current staff plus two major offensive acquisitions. Would mean trading our top prospects for one guy, perhaps Matsui signing for the other. Any way you slice it, we're going to be hardpressed to be a top AL team next year. But I just feel it's more possible w/o the scrap heap acquisitions. Definitely easier said than done though. If forced though I would take Crisp over Pods.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 06:58 PM) And an average lineup with a great pitching staff is one way to win a world series, whether the Yankees load up on players or not. In fact, it may wind up being that is one way of building a winning team now that the Yankees have figured out that they shouldn't spend their money on juicers. There's the very real possibility that this pitching staff is just solid, not great. Danks is no dominant pitcher. Mark has been up and down. Ever since his Cy Young, Peavy has been less than dominant considering his pitching at Petco Most people here want to go in with a solid staff and a fully put together lineup.......That's going to require trading some prospects....And I do not fault them for wanting that. It's a win-now pitching staff, yes, but it's not a dominant one. We have two real solid young guys and two veterans that have had great success in the past.

QUOTE (lakervin @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 06:20 PM) i dont care what he hits. Count me in with those who's picky about who gets the most at-bats on the club. Thus the push for Beckham to lead off.

Crisp for Pods.....Rios for Dye........but then also Teahan for Getz .......and then what will in truth replace Thome? There's still a possibility to end up roughly the same power wise and maybe even better BA/OBP wise. As would be the case with Matsui for Thome.

I guess when you frame it in the sense that Hudson/Flowers would have to be moved for a difference maker....... .....picking from a pool of Crisp/Thome/Pods/Matsui isnt the worst thing in the world. It might not be pure insanity to see AJP moved for salary space to get Matsui. KW seems to always make the shocking move. Plus Flowers is of age and one day or another you're going to have to get him familiar with this pitching staff if you're really built for a 3-4 year window as we stand.......and Blanco could be had thru free agency.

I think we started having a little surge late last year when we moved AJP up in the order last year. No, our general OBP wasnt great.....but it took us too long to get the decent OBP guy up higher in the lineup. I wouldnt want to repeat that mistake. Get Gordon and AJP up there. Against lefties AJ can switch with AR...an approach we did for a little bit in 08. AJP is not your prototype 2-hitter, but in 08 it worked one way or another.

I say all the following based on us apparently not willing to go out and get .400 OBP type guys this offseason. Hopefully that's wrong, but i'll proceed as if it's not. We then have to look at are options for increasing power. We have two open offensive positions...and it either comes down to getting A ) two power guys OR B ) a power guy and a classic leadoff man. I guess just in general I have a problem with bringing in a Pods OR a Coco. A .345 OBP singles hitter. Unless they were some kind of SB fiend. Call me crazy but I want Beckham setting the table and AJ/Quentin/Power guy 1/Power guy 2 immediately following. As part of my thinking I'm estimating homer wise what we'll be totaling up (considering how big a part of that our park will be) Beckham (20) AJP (15) Quentin (30) Power guy 1 (25) Power guy 2 (25) Konerko (25) Alexei (20) Rios (18) Teahan (15) Gets you up to nearly 200, which was what this franchise needed to have success year in year out. Then if these estimates are off by 25 or so, due to people underperforming, you're still a potent power team. If you sub out one of the power guys for Crisp, you then you are a few downyears away from being very average in the power department (in a park where you cant afford to be). Obviously HRs arent everything, but since we're apparently not willing to spend on .400 OBP guys, I have to think the Jack Cust's of the world (or Thomes) are what we're planning on using to fill the Power Guy spots.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 03:37 PM) And lose 3 straight playoff games by a score of 1-0. If there's nothing great we can get via trade...the best move is to save up for a big free agent expenditure for 2011. Unless you're bringing in AGonz we're going to have to fill LF/DH with some level of retread or aging guy. Matsui I suppose is the name everyone wants...which tells us somethin.

The thing youre refusing to do is the very thing the Sox did when they signed a low-risk guy for cheap last year....Pods.