Balta1701

QUOTE(South Side Fireworks Man @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 06:35 PM) I heard he is terrible at SS. As a backup, I'm not sure I care at all. Pablo was terrible in the OF but we tolerated him there because he was decent with the bat as a backup. If Cabrera got hurt, then we'd be screwed no matter who we had on the bench, so for a few games during the year, esp. with Ozuna still around, I'll tolerate it.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 06:22 PM) Who cares, he was one of the worst pitchers in the history of baseball last year (all things considered). I think a lot of people would care. If he had just a 20% chance of turning it around and finding out how to be league average again (Coop will fix him!) then as a payment for Mr. Crede, it might make sense...mainly because we'd be getting something other than, well, nothing for Joe.

QUOTE(max power @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 05:54 PM) Fair enough, its ozzie then. Now I'm a little concerned about if some of the rookie starters might get over used. Danks really seemed to tank in the second half, but who knows if that was an isolated case. I think that's fully expected for Danks, just hitting MLB at what, age 22? Floyd, I don't really worry about him being gassed that much. He has that frame that just looks like a pitcher. Heck, with the 34 on his back, from the Back side he looks like Garcia. Last year, Floyd threw 176 innings between the MLB and AAA, and he's only thrown under 160 innings 1 time since he was drafted (and that was in 2003, and he still threw 140). With Floyd, I think he's almost a guarantee to give us 175+ innings if we want them from him. The question is going to be his performance in those innings. 175+ innings with an ERA of 7 doesn't help much. 4.5 wouldn't be bad at all. Danks has thrown 140 the last 2 years. He's the IP question mark along with Jose, but hopefully we can find a way to push that higher as he gets older. Edit: and 1 more point. It's not just Ozzie. It's also a major matter of having had a couple of innings-eaters in the rotation. Specifically, one named Mark Buehrle. Garland, Vazquez, Garcia have helped too, but Buehrle is almost a guarantee to do 200+ innings on his own.

QUOTE(max power @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 05:38 PM) Isn't that partly a testament to how crappy our bullpen was last year? Ozzie may have been more apprehensive to go to the pen. Ok, if you don't buy that argument, let's look at other years: 2007: Sox #2 in IP as starters 2006: Sox #1 in IP as starters (40 more IP than any other set of starters in MLB) 2005: Sox #1 in IP as starters (36 more IP than any other set of starters) 2004: Sox #2 in IP as starters. The White Sox have had it's starters pitch more than 1000 innings every year Ozzie Guillen has been manager. No other team in MLB can say the same thing about the last 4 years. This covers good bullpens, bad bullpens, great starting pitching, starting pitching without a #5 starter at all, etc. Any way you slice it, "Gassed" is not going to be a word to describe our bullpen next year.

QUOTE(farmteam @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 01:16 PM) At least one Hoosier gets to go.... What year did you graduate, Balta? Winter 02

Well, that would be one hit against next year's cap.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 05:24 PM) The reason for the concern with the middle infield is most assume Uribe is gone, and Ozuna at SS is not something Ozzie likes. They need to get someone who can play SS as a back-up. He goes by the name Bourgeois. Or something like that.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 05:20 PM) I bet they sign one of the veterans recovering from injury. They cannot expect to win with a back end of the rotation Floyd and Danks and/or Gonzalez. The bullpen would be gassed by June. I think that suggestion, that the bullpen would be gassed by June, ignores the actual stats. Last year, despite having a rookie in the rotation, and having a guy in Contreras who blew up, the White Sox were still #2 in the league in most innings pitched by the starters, and had far and away the fewest innings pitched in MLB by its bullpen. If going from Floyd to Garland wound us up having the bullpen throw 75 more innings, we'd still be in teh bottom 3rd in all of MLB in innings pitched by the bullpen, and in the top 3rd of MLB in innings pitched by the starters. Don't forget what we have already; we have 2 excellent innings eaters in the rotation in Buehrle and Vazquez. That alone keeps the pen Fresh. I'd say it makes sense to keep a long man (Masset?) out there for games where one of those 3 blows up early, but to say that the bullpen would be gassed by June going with those 3 guys pretty much means that either 3/4 of MLB has their bullpens gassed by June or you're expecting both Buehrle and Vazquez to get hurt.

QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 05:15 PM) Fathom, No faith in Gavin Floyd? /green ... I have trouble seeing KW spending on anything but bullpen the rest of the off season. Dumping Cred and Uribe for marginal prospects in probably all that I can see happening. None of these guys are going to have faith in Gavin Floyd until Gavin Floyd performs for a team for a full season. And despite being a fan of Floyd, I can't say I disagree with them. He's still a wildcard, he could put up a sub 4 ERA or an ERA greater than 6, we have no idea right now. The 2 things I'll keep harping on are: 1. Even if one of those 3-5 guys fails, then at least we have talented guys who can step in and possibly give us something better, guys like Gio, Broadway, Egbert. Having a line of talented guys helps. 2. We're not going to get better by trading away Fields or Gio for an average starting pitcher or by spending $10 million a year on Kyle Lohse. By far our best bet to improve next year is to wind up being lucky on how Danks, Contreras, and Floyd perform. Yes it's a gamble, but it's at least an intelligent one.

QUOTE(bigruss22 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 05:00 PM) And whats with all the writers claiming we need more mid infielders? We already have Uribe (hopefully hes gone) and JB/Ozuna. We really dont need more, atleast its not a huge priority. I think there's an instinctive mistrust of any rookie who comes up and doesn't immediately win ROY, and therefore Richar must be replaced because he didn't immediately win a world series for us. There seems to be, as far as I can tell, a total lack of faith in these guys developing. Some of this may well stem from Anderson's failure, but it's always seen as "Risky" by someone to go with an "Unproven" rookie even at a position where offense isn't usually the first goal. You see this fairly often around baseball. The Dodgers, for example, blocking guys by signing Pierre and Gonzalez last year. The Halos constantly blocking their young guys for an extra year or two. The Mets and the bashings they took while Reyes developed into a star (he never walks! he can't be good!) Esp. when they have a Mariotti driving htem on begging for the team to not look cheap, they're supposed to sign the highest priced veteran at every position because anything else would be cheap and that's the only way to win. Until of course that veteran gets old, then the GM was stupid for wasting all that money on a guy.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 04:06 PM) Who ends up in jail first, OJ or Elijah? Oj

QUOTE(NCsoxfan @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 04:14 PM) For the second time in six months, Williams has made the kind of move you'd make only if it's really important to compete right now -- that is, trade your best young position player prospect for an older minor-leaguer without such a high ceiling. ortstop and upgrade his bullpen. Is Rogers actually suggesting here that Carter has a higher ceiling that Quentin? I would argue the exact opposite, given the positions they play. As a 1st baseman, compared to a corner OF, I think the guy putting up the high OPS in the OF, with better defense, and actually about 75-100 points higher of OPS, along with more speed based on the stolen base numbers, is more valuable. I might make the same argument for Cunningham/Richar. Yeah, Cunningham might put up 25-30 home runs in the OF, and a .900 OPS, but Richar might well put up a .850 OPS and 20 home runs from 2nd base with solid defense there. Yeah, Carter might be a 35 home run guy at 1b with a >900 OPS, but Quentin might well be a 25-30 home run guy in the OF with a >900 OPS. I think that the positions here make up a lot of the difference; it's a lot harder to find a guy to put up Quentin's numbers in the OF than at 1b, and it's a lot harder to find a 2nd baseman to put up those numbers than it is to find an OF.

One other thing I like about this deal? If Cabrera walks at the end of 08 or gets hurt this year, a healthy Quentin could be a solid option as a #2 hitter. Enough speed to score from 1st on a 2 out double and steal the occasional base, ridiculously high OBP, not a lot of strikeouts, right handed.

I can imagine that there would be other teams willing to offer up more if they put him on the market, just for the gamble. But I think for that same reason, they're likely to hold onto him, because even if they only have a 1/10 shot of a full season from them, if they get it, his value goes back up if he performs.

QUOTE(rcpweiner @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 01:08 PM) Is there a way we can move Crede, Quentin and one of those AAA pitchers to the Rays for Crawford? They'd be smart to get a veteran, short-term 3rd baseman to keep the position warm for Longoria. Iwamura isn't cutting it for you?

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 01:08 PM) Would they dare take just a chance on Anderson? Eventually they may well do so. But right now, until Anderson shows something, or at least puts up decent numbers in AAA again...all they have to do is wait around and expect that eventually the Sox may DFA him so they can grab him for nothing or he'll run out of minor league options and we'll have to give him up for nothing that way.

QUOTE(daa84 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 01:01 PM) not sure why the hate for owings...no he doesn't throw 95 or even 92 for that matter, but for a guy who just turned 25, has a minor league record of 17-3 with a 3.14 ERA with a solid 167 K: 56 BB in 189 innings....and went 8-8 with a 4.30 (yes in the NL West though)......yeah hes 2.5 years older than danks, but im not convinced that hes that much less of a commodity right now than danks Owings has dramatically less value to us than to any team in the NL because he's basically like having a DH on days when he's starting. There's no reason why any sane AL team would give up enough to pry him away from an NL team when he's worth 1.5x as much to any NL team.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 12:48 PM) BTW, I think acquiring Quentin today should end any Miguel Cabrera rumors. But they're so fun!!!

QUOTE(rockren @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 12:12 PM) Writing has gotta be on the wall for Sweeney and Anderson doesn't it? It's probably been on the wall for a while. Amazingly, there's still potentially room for 1 of them. Jim Thome has an option year for 09...if he struggles with injuries this year or shows his age, it's possible that the Sox won't want to pay the $14 million for him, at which point, JD becomes the obvious next candidate for DH (and I'll grant that the Phillies may pick up a small amount of Thome's money). That would create an opening in the OF for either of them. Or a struggling Owens could do the same thing, if we don't pick up another OF this offseason.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 12:03 PM) I agree. I'm not opposed to the DFA but I don't think he is worthless as many seem to think. I think he might be useful to someone as a reliever, but that doesn't mean he had any trade value. Not when out of options. Whatever team picks him up is going to want to do so with the ability to keep him in AAA on a minor league contract just on the off chance that they'll wind up having a bullpen spot for him, and any team that would have traded for him would wind up unable to get him on that minor league contract because of the whole options deal.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 11:52 AM) I still think Phillips will make a decent lefty middle reliever. Nothing special but capable. We have 2 of those already in the big leagues under our control for several years and another potential one in the minors (Sisco) still trying to work through his issues. It'd have been nice if someone would have given us something for him, but if a team didn't have a spot for him on their 25 man roster next year, there'd be no reason to trade for him because they'd just lose him at the end of ST.

QUOTE(AWhiteSoxinNJ @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 11:45 AM) Surprised many aren't upset more about Phillips being DFA'ed. Could of at least got something for him. I would imagine that given that Heath is out of options, if the Sox could have gotten anything for him in the last 2 years, even a minor league reliever somewhere, they would have done exactly that.

QUOTE(heirdog @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 11:43 AM) Chris Young, Aaron Cunningham & Chris Carter for Javier Vasquez, Danny Richar and Carlos Quentin. I would do that trade any day of the week. Of course, replacing BA with CY would make it look like highway robbery but perhaps we couldn't have completed the other two deals if Arizona wasn't happy with the results of the first. And they chipped in about $3.5 million or so, IIRC.

The long, pinned thread on this same topic might have some additional discussion for you.

QUOTE(Jeremy @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 11:21 AM) I know why Quentin is more valuable than Carter for our organization: we're in win now mode and he can step in right away and fill a major hole. Why do people think that the Marlins clearly prefer Quentin over Carter? Quentin has a higher ceiling than Carter, is able to step in right now and play a position where the Marlins are weak (OF), and the Marlins have at least a quality young guy at 1b already in Mike Jacobs.