Balta1701

If Bobby were willing to take say a 4/5 year, $20-$30 million deal right now to give up all of his arbitration years, get himself a guaranteed contract, but give the Sox a big discount in the process (i.e. the classic Cleveland format), I would be open to that. Even if his arm did give out, that wouldn't be a gigantic financial commitment to work around if he was being paid on the order of Linebrink. But if Bobby wants to be 1 of those $12-$15 mil a year closers, then he needs to get there stepwise.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Nov 23, 2007 -> 11:31 AM) Who says that 5 and 60 gets it done. The dodgers are looking at Rowand as their next move. Plus dont you think any sentimental thoughts that Rowand would of had was lost when Torii was woo'd instead of him. I would say Rowand takes whomever gives him the largest contract. Why is it I feel like the only one in Chicago who remembers those repeated, bad, bad, bad seasons put up by Aaron Rowand? Like the .736 and .746 OPS numbers he put up in 2005 and 2006? I really get the feeling that some team is going to regret paying $13 million a year over 5 years for 2 seasons of >.850 OPS and 3 seasons of

QUOTE(BearSox @ Nov 24, 2007 -> 11:39 AM) a 5 year deal worth 75 million where he can opt out after his second year would be perfect. It doesn't seem like Boras/Jones have been getting any offers the ones they had hoped they would get anyway, and it seems to me more and more teams are unwilling to deal with Boras's BS. I'd be strongly considering this sort of offer if I were the White Sox and I had the money to spend. Boras in terms of Jones sounds like he's clearly on the defensive, rather than on the offensive which is where he wants to be. He's not going out and leaking that "ARod wants 10/$300", he's going out and saying that Jones won't take a 1 year deal.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 24, 2007 -> 02:38 PM) The best Mariotti articles are the ones that are exactly what Sox fans are saying, then they scream that Mariotti is wrong. We also look for articles we agree with and call those writers the most astute around. I always think it's fun with Mariotti articles to go through the records of him. A non-trivial percentage of the time, you can find 2 completely opposed articles on the same issue a few months apart. He just goes after whichever side makes him look correct at the time.

QUOTE(fathom @ Nov 22, 2007 -> 10:54 AM) If we do get Crisp to play CF, we better be trying to find a LF then. What, you mean an OF of Owens, Crisp, Dye doesn't excite you? Think of the speed man, the speed! The speed! Speed!

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Nov 22, 2007 -> 10:36 AM) Does anyone even know what a save opportunity is? I'll give you a hint, you don't have to be a closer or pitch in the 9th inning to pitch in a Save Opp. It certainly is kinda wierd how if you blow a hold, it counts as a blown save, so you wind up with every middle relief guy in the league putting up numbers like that.

So, at least to me, now KW has to jump @ Hunter. But then again, I'm crazy enough to think that he might talk to a Boras guy. The one good bit for the Halos out of this is it gives them a potential 25-30 home run guy to hit behind Vlad, and adds in some of that power they've been so lacking. The bad news for them? Between losing Cabrera and adding Hunter, I actually think the OBP for the Angels is going to go down even more!

So...an Angels question... How many OF's can a team actually play? That is all.

QUOTE(fathom @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 10:11 PM) Yeah, he was bad for them, but Yost also had no clue when to put him in/pull him. Do you expect Ozzie will?

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 07:48 PM) If this signing does become reality, Linebrink will be making more than the rest of the bullpen combined, at least for now. This strikes me as KW taking the Jim Hendry route to fixing problems.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 07:46 PM) This guy is mediocre, but face it, its still a huge improvement. If you can't develop your own guys, the bullpen is going to be expensive these days. With as many kids as we have in our pen, and a couple more hanging around th eminors, this is one of those signings that hopefully actually helps some of those guys develop, just by putting a veteran presence out there.

Well, everyone here seemed to want him in 06 and people were willing to give up Fields to get him...and we really, really needed 1 more RHP, preferably a veteran in the pen, so it's hard to argue the logic.

So, is there any way Linebrink can be thought of as a "Big fish"?

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 07:20 PM) What kind of draft choices do the White Sox give up guys? The White Sox will lose their 2nd round pick for this deal. Unless we sign another Type A Free Agent (Hunter?), at which point we will lose our 3rd round pick to the Brewers most likely, depending on exactly how guys are ranked.

QUOTE(soxfaninpa @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 07:19 PM) I don't believe it. Especially being that it's the poster's first post ever. It's actually on ESPN1000, he's not making it up. Both Tony and I just heard it repeated.

Yes, ESPN 1000 just repeated it. Pending Physical.

QUOTE(rowandrules83 @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 05:02 PM) Plus, what's the point of making another Terminator movie without the Governator? $. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 01:36 PM) Isn't that an answer? Yes. And compared with putting guys in bold...a time saving one.

I'm just not going to bother answering.

Since we don't have a "General election topics" thread, I'll put this here since McCain had his name on the original bill. AP News

QUOTE(fathom @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 11:55 AM) Not sure if this has been discussed on here, but KW said that he thinks his starting 5 will be Buehrle, Vaz, Contreras, Danks, and Floyd. I could have told you that in late August. In fact, I probably did. And it's probably the right call...barring an amazing trade coming along. But you do have to keep the last 3 on a real short leash after April.

QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 11:40 AM) I think that's right -- none of those guys has any trade value at all IMO. You can't just package up a lot of stuff with no value and expect to get something that has value in return. I wouldn't say they have no trade value...I'd say that they have no value to the Red Sox. I can find teams in baseball for which each of those guys might have some value, just not a lot. The Phillies, for example, could use Crede at 3rd, and he'd probably be an upgrade even if he still had some injury problems. The D Rays or Blue Jays would find Uribe to be a fairly big upgrade over what they currently have at SS. But for Boston, they just signed Lowell, they have Lugo for $10 million a year at SS, and the reason they're looking to trade Crisp is that they already have too many OF's, so out of those 3 guys, there are 0 who would actually fill a role for the BoSox.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 11:36 AM) I meant he plays 14-16 games then takes two games off, not two weeks and perhaps combine that with a travel day. Whatever you mean...the key variable is whether or not we get to choose the days off. If we can choose the days off, then we can schedule them when there's a LHP on the mound starting. With Thome's extreme L/R splits, that's really the only thing that matters. I'm willing to sacrifice on the total # of games played by Jim/Swings taken by Jim if it helps maximize the number of AB's he gets against RHP. That's my whole point here; if giving Thome extra time off when there's a LHP on the mound prevents him from having to sit against RHP, it's a major improvement on our overall numbers.

QUOTE(WHITESOXRANDY @ Nov 21, 2007 -> 11:35 AM) Assuming the Sox sign Hunter, I would still like to turn Crede, Uribe and Brian Anderson into Crisp(definitely will be moved)and a good reliever. This seems reasonable. Out of Crede, Uribe, and Anderson, I think I see zero guys that the Red Sox would actually want.