Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2010 -> 09:14 AM) I wouldn't get your hopes up. We haven't heard anything about talks during this time period, which can't be good. What I will say is that there wasn't much movement on Pk last time until about the week before he actually signed. Both the Sox and Pk were pretty clear that he was going to test the waters, and the Sox would probably come in with a competitive offer at some point.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2010 -> 12:23 PM) I remember the numbers from us, Anaheim, and Baltimore floating around before he signed. They weren't just rumors. Dude visited the ballpark in Anaheim a couple days before the Sox made their final offer to match.

QUOTE (knightni @ Nov 7, 2010 -> 10:55 AM) They don't have many better options. Both AJ and Paulie will be good for at least 1 more year, maybe two. I wouldn't exactly say that AJ was good last year. Anwyay...like it or not, tehy fill roster spots that we don't have obvious replacements for.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 05:45 PM) That was pre-almost depression. We are in a different state of economy now. With 10% unemployment, versus 5, it has a different effect on people. It's always different

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 03:45 PM) Yep that's the issue right now. 2 options I see, wait for Brewer to get healthy and have him start for Bogans. He's not a great 3 PT shooter, but he attacks the rim well and plays pretty good defense for a SG. Or the Bulls can try and trade for an upgrade (hence why I suggested Pietrus yesterday, but he might be more of a 3 nowadays). Bah, I don't know if either of those are 100% necessary. really, the only solution for the Bulls in the backcourt is for Rose to learn better defensive positioning. He doesn't have to win DPOY here, but so many of those open 3's and open passes come because he turns his back and his man floats away, or because he gets blown up on the pick and roll...if he can just turn a chunk of those "Oh crap how did he get open!" 3's into contested shots, or deny the shooter the ball, then that covers it.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 05:13 PM) If you don't think they had a bad draft based on the number of high selections they had, who they selected and who they passed up, I suppose if you were running an organinzation, you would spend little to no money on scouting and just do your draft off a subscription to BP or BA. There wasn't one guy of the 6 in the first 2 rounds that has a career WAR at least 0.0. That's a fascinating way of minimizing Gio.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 05:38 PM) Rios was great the first half, but if he starts playing like he played the second half, we will start counting the days before his contract is off the books. With another $12 million a year freed up, the Sox wouldn't have to rely on in-house options to replace him. Seriously, go look at the list of FA outfielders. Outside of Werth and Crawford who should get significantly more than $12 mil, who would actually interest you? Melky Cabrera? Jerry Hairston? Outside of those 2, I don't see anyone on the market who got 400+ AB's last year. Going by at bats, the next 3 down are David Dejesus, Coco Crisp, Jim Edmonds, and Andruw Jones. Those guys put up OPS's close to .800 or even above, but there's a reason they didn't finish off a full season. Rick Ankiel? Willy tavares? Willy Bloomquist? Basically, if you want a full time CF, you're bidding on Werth or Crawford, or you better have a platoon partner for the guy.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 04:05 PM) Understatement. That IU WR is lucky he plays for a s***ty team at a basketball school. If he is a WR at a school like Bama he wouldn't be able to leave his home today. I hate being fans of so many teams that I just know are going to lose at the end...

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 04:58 PM) So what you are saying is except for the obvious top picks, the entire draft is a crapshoot of epic proportions and really you shouldn't give anyone any credit for drafting a guywhere the Sox usually select who becomes successful, nor should you really hammer anyone for picking someone after the top 10 or so who doesn't make it because its more luck than good talent evaluation and projection? In no way am I suggesting Donny Lucy is the worst pick ever. Wes Whisler was picked ahead of him and at least Lucy helped the Sox a tiny bit. But the Sox had ample opportunity that draft to really aid their team for a long time and failed miserably. I would say that outside of a handful of picks, the draft is a weighted lottery, with only small weightings. If you're exceptional on scouting, that will help some, but you will still have an enormous number of busts even on guys that look like sure things on day 1, and you'll totally miss guys who wind up being all stars. I'd wager that on the whole, player development within your minors correlates more strongly with major league performance than the quality of your pre-draft scouting. If you play out enough seasons, some teams are going to have streaks where they nail 3-4 drafts in a row and have dynamite systems. It'll be especially helped if they spend a lot on the draft and lose a lot of MLB games/lose a lot of free agents to get extra picks. Then, those same teams will suddenly stop producing players, and everyone will wonder what happened.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 04:51 PM) The year Lucy got drafted, which is the draft this entire conversion began around as many were mentioning names of players who were available when they took Lucy off the board, there is no mention that Lucy happened to be the 5th White Sox selection. They had already chosen Fields, Lundsen, Gio Gonzlez and Wes Whisler. They also took Ray Liotta in round 2. That is a very weak haul with 6 draft picks that high. Really, no it isn't. By my count, with 0 picks in the top 15, The Sox got 4 guys in the first 2 rounds who made appearances in the big leagues, one guy who looks to be a long term solid starting pitcher, another guy who had promise but blew out his knee. Out of their top 19 picks, 10 of them have made it to the big leagues in some form. I don't care if you're just filling up your bench, your bullpen, players 25-30 on your roster, or trade-bait, that is not terrible performance in the overall draft.

Taibbi:

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 03:25 PM) Are you serious? You're including a 13th round draft pick as one of the worst in White Sox history? We selected 16 players before Rogowski in the 1999 draft, which means we passed on Pujols a total of 17 times. We had 6 picks in the first two rounds of that draft and practically have nothing to show for them. Maybe you should be bringing up Rob Purvis' name instead. All things considered, Rogowski was a pretty solid 13th round pick. He had a couple good seasons in the minors and was supposed to be included in the original Ken Griffey Jr. trade. It shouldn't be held against him that we and every other team in baseball passed on Pujols 10 times or more. Exactly why pointing at the people we passed over in any particular draft is a silly way to judge the worst draft pick ever.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 04:16 PM) I absolutely agree with this. Why would you handicap yourself by spending $3 mill more or getting a worse bat simply because they hit from the left side? I think a left handed bat is preferable, but priority number one is getting a good hitter. The Sox had quite a few left handed bats available at all times last year, but that doesn't do a hell of a lot of good when they all suck. Um, hence the need for a quality LH Bat?

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 02:09 PM) "I think neither will be more than average offensive players." Average offensive player being the best case scenario. The Average OPS of a 3b in the AL last year was .729, FWIW.

A couple of farsighted, newly elected Republican Governors seem ready to turn down 100% funding from the government for a couple of high-speed rail projects in their states.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 01:57 PM) Well, according to my offseason plan, Viciedo goes to AAA, Quentin goes to DH. So what we would need to fill would be 1B, RF, and C. And only if Kenny fails to bring in Konerko, Berkman, Lee, or someone else to play 1B, then Viciedo is plugged in, but I want Viciedo at AAA to work on some thing, and playing 1B to learn how to play it. I can buy that plan...but I don't think I have any urge to see Berkman at 1b full time. I think if we try that, Viciedo's our 1b by May. I'd add the same thing about Derek Lee as well, I think he's probably going to be pretty good defensively there, but I think his bat will continue to disappoint because he's at the "nagging injury" phase of his career.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 11:16 AM) So in other words, it isn't going to set off anything except inflating commodity prices in the immediate term. I could be mistaken, but I believe it was you a few months/years ago who said that we're basically letting China destroy themselves...overheating their economy while dumping all their money into propping up the dollar, when eventually the value of those assets is going to drop significantly.

Try a different variety perhaps?

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 01:48 PM) I am saying for the sake of the 2011 season, I think Vizquel and Morel could put up similar offensive numbers. I'm the biggest Morel fan around here, and I fully think he will improve offensively in his career, but for the sake of argument and being realistic to the 2011 season, I think neither will be more than average offensive players. From 2012 and beyond, I would have to think Morel would be improved offensively and be pretty decent. I don't see how I'd say "Meh" at average performance out of a rookie 3b.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 01:49 PM) 1B, unless you are suggesting that Berkman can't play 1B anymore. I would think that is the case. If the Sox signed Berkman alone, I'd expect Viciedo to get most of the playing time at 1b, and Berkman might show up there occasionally with Quentin at DH that day, or something like that.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 12:01 PM) You're going to miss on players. I think what it shows is that its a total myth the Sox draft position is what keeps them from developing great players. There are plenty available every season. They just haven't been very good at recognizing them over the years. Sure they haven't had the top pick slam dunk selection for years, but even when they had that incredible run with Himes, they were eyeing other players. They really wanted Harkey instead of McDowell but the Cubs picked him. They really wanted Jeff Jackson but the Phillies picked him and they had to take Frank Thomas. For some reason the Cubs selecting in front of the Sox and looking for a 3B for decades pass on Robin Ventura, and Alex Fernandez was a no brainer but Milwaukee drafted him in the first round 2 years earlier and didn't sign him. There's a different way to look at that...it can also be that the draft, outside of a couple of picks, is basically playing the lottery with slightly weighted odds, and even if you make every pick 100% correct based on your scouting, you're going to miss. A lot. And then you're going to pick draft and follow guys in teh 38th round and have them turn into the most reliable LH closer in WS history (100%!), and you're going to draft a guy in the 19th round, have him look really good for his first year, then trade him for your best starting pitcher. Or you're going to draft a guy in round 3 that no one likes and pencil him in as your starting 3b when no one in the minors can get him out. You can make a case that the Sox are too cheap and I'll listen to that...but saying "How did we miss this all star in the late 1st round" always sounds so silly to me when 15-20 other teams passed on the same guy.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 11:40 AM) Kurt Brown (pick before Bonds) Jason Dellaero (pick before Berkman) are worse, but Lucy eight picks ahead of Pedroia is one of the Sox worst picks. Casey Rogowski a few picks before that Pujols dude?

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 01:45 PM) I am starting to think now if the Sox don't get Konerko, Kenny will make a run at Berkman. Going with that "Kenny eventually gets his man" type of thing. I don't know why those 2 moves would be mutually exclusive.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 12:02 PM) I think the Sox trade Alex Rios. He had decent numbers overall, but his second half was worse than the numbers he had with Toronto when they gave him away. The Sox might be able to sell the entire line of work and might get some decent parts back for him, and free up cash money. The biggest argument why that won't happen is that CF is the one position where we can say the Sox legitimately have no one who could be pressed into service. You might not like Flowers at C, Morel at 3b, Viciedo at 1b, Quentin in RF, Santos or Sale at closer...but if we don't sign or trade for someone to fill those positions, we can field a lineup there. If the Sox trade Rios...who steps in? Either they're forced to outbid the Yankees and Halos for Crawford/Werth, which will make Rios's contract seem cheap, or we have some combination of De Aza/D2/Gartrell playing there. May as well go for the full rebuild if you're not holding Rios.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 12:44 PM) Which is exactly what happened against the Knicks the other night. Rose has been closer to Ben Gordon than an all-star this year. if you go by "PER", Rose is quite a bit ahead of gordon and is right behind one "Lebron James" so far this season. He absolutely needs to work on his defense. There's no question. But let's not go overboard here. If nothing else, that appears to be the real issue to watch when we're evaluating Thibs. The frontcourt looks better all around, noah's 2nd in the league in rebounds, Gibson's in the top 5 in FG %age, Rose is in the top 5 in scoring and assists, but the backcourt defense is the weakness right now.