Greg Hibbard

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 03:46 PM) We also have the potential to receive contributions from Viciedo, Beckham, Poreda and even Flowers this year...or, at the latest, next. Fields should put up much better overall offensive numbers than the position gave us last year. Ramirez's numbers SHOULD be plenty better at SS than Cabrera. Contreras and Colon have the ability to step up as well. There's no reason to believe that, combined with Marquez, those three can't replicate Vazquez's numbers. There's one more thing...we should have more payroll flexibility and the minor league depth chart to bring in a really good player if we're in at the ASB. Honestly I have no bloody idea what to expect from Fields offensively. I can't even begin to predict this. We do know that defense will be much, much worse. I think it's interesting that Contreras, Colon, even Garcia who's not even signed yet, along with Floyd and Danks and the rest of the young dudes - these aren't guys who are in a position to be evaluated strongly either because of injury (Contreras), age (all), conditioning (Garcia and Colon), or lack of a proven track record (all the young guns). The only pitcher who it seems we can project with any sort of confidence is Buehrle, IMO. I can't recall when we've entered a season as an alleged contender with so many question marks from #2 on down.

QUOTE (scenario @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 03:46 PM) I always find it interesting when people try and project a 25 year old pitcher's future based on his 'career-to-date' MLB stats. So we should throw our hands up and say "we have no clue what's going to happen" with any pitcher 25 or under? How is this useful? Clearly there are some peripherals that are useful to analyze and tend to paint a picture of what's somewhat predictable. I'm not saying it's always correct, but it's certainly useful. Some people think that Floyd's results are because of a somewhat wacky BABIP number and some other things - and I think that's worth noting. for example http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php...orward-or-fluke http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playe...7&type=full

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 02:50 PM) I'm surprised you haven't died of shock already, given how the Sox have outperformed predictions so often. Please - spare me the melodramatics. The fact of the matter is that during the 2000 season, Carlos Lee, Mags Ordonez, Jim Parque, Mike Sirotka and James Baldwin all had career years. Four of those six guys were young and unproven. The next two years (after hitting .301 as a 24 year old in 2000), CLee had years of .264 and .269 respectively - and eventually grew into a superstar. Parque was never the same pitcher again, Sirotka was injured and never made it back to the big leagues. Would you have guessed all of those things would have happened after 2000? Of course not. But it was likely one or two of those things was going to happen in hindsight, given that all players played way above expectations in 2000. If your argument is that they had a breakout season and we can expect similar results, here's my counter: What about Gavin Floyd's peripherals suggest that he's going to be able to sustain success long term? Other than "he won a lot of games despite he peripherals not being very good" - what exactly is your argument for him? He pitched a ton more innings than he ever has before and I'm afraid of dead arm and the fragile psychology that has plagued in every year except the last. I don't see him being quite as bad as he was in philly, but I just can't see him being quite as good given his peripherals and history. Is it more likely that Quentin is going to be the next Frank Thomas at 25, and continue to hit .300/30/100 for the rest of the peak of his career, or is it more likely that he outperformed even slightly and is overdue for a slump at some point? I think he's the real deal, but I think that real deal can be someone who's .280/27/90 or someone who is .300/30/100. I think it's more likely that he's due for a slump at some point, even a minor one. After Buehrle pitched 1,000,000 innings in the 2005 season, he immediately followed with a fairly dreadful 2006 season. I agree that Danks in the WBC is a bad, bad, bad idea and I think even if he pitches the same we are expecting a ton from a young pitcher, just as we expected a ton from him last year. Ramirez is very young, and although I love what I've seen from him, I think penciling him in for the same kind of year is absolutely foolish. Here's what I think is GOING to happen: Danks will be almost as good, Quentin will be almost as good, Ramirez will be almost as good, and Floyd will not be as good. Our pitching staff, thin as it is, will be even thinner and we'll be in it all year but be just short. I don't see disaster, but I can't see how this team has improved and penciling in those four guys for the same years seems utterly ridiculous.

QUOTE (Karko's Throat Skin @ Jan 19, 2009 -> 04:04 PM) With all the chicken littles around here...can someone tell me how we have gotten worse? We lost Swisher, Vazquez, Crede, Uribe, Griffey....I have no doubt that Owens/Anderson, Fields, Getz, and Colon/Marquez can match or damn near match what those players offered to this team last year. I also expect Konerko to come back very strong, as is his MO. While I don't think this is a 90 win team, I do believe it is a 84-86 win team and a competitor in the division. Because just like after 2000 heading into 2001, we have at least four young players who had absolutely off-the-charts career years in terms of expectations vs. results. All are young and thus, prone to variance much more than vets. I don't care if you think Quentin and Ramirez and Danks and Floyd are all the real deal, and think are all capable of doing what they did in 2008 in 2009, the likelihood of all four of them having years that good again is just infinitessemily small given what we've seen in 110 years of the modern era of baseball. What's likely is that 2 or 3 of the four will have comparable years - and 1 or 2 of them will have mediocre to bad years in comparison, or there will be an injury. Do I expect Konerko to hit .240/25 again? No, but I don't expect much more from him than .265/32, which is not going to make too much of a difference, honestly. Therefore, I would have expected KW to factor in the fact that all things considered, the stars sort of aligned for the White Sox in terms getting great years unexpectedly - and they won the division by the hair of their chinny chin chin - and didn't even win 90 games given all those great years. Even if I call Vazquez vs. Colon a wash, and Swisher vs. Anderson a wash (which it's clearly not - Anderson as-is is a significant offensive downgrade), where have the White Sox vastly improved? They haven't, and they've certainly lost major league depth, especially in the infield and centerfield.

If the White Sox do give him 7-8 starts, it still could cost us something in terms of intangibles/development/time/wins if he really performs poorly. Maybe others don't see him getting that much rope, but if our options are colon vs. CR/AP I'm not really sure why they wouldn't give Colon more rope than some might think.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jan 15, 2009 -> 12:35 PM) It did get them to the playoffs for about five years straight. What's your definition of worked? Winning a world series. Who cares about division titles?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 15, 2009 -> 12:29 PM) Well, on the other hand...I'd say that since the moment the Yankees genuinely started trying to buy everyone rather than developing their own key guys (the Giambi deal is a good starting point) they haven't been able to do so. The Red Sox have won with the #2 payroll, but it's worth noting IMO that a huge number of their key guys have been people they developed (Youkilis, Ellsbury, Pedroia, Lester, Papelbon) or guys that they acquired in trades, sometimes with the talent they developed (Lowell, Beckett) or guys they absolutely stole from the FA market (Ortiz). Let's just say there's no magic formula either way, obviously. Moneyball hasn't exactly worked out for the A's either.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 15, 2009 -> 12:22 PM) The remarkable thing about baseball (not sure it works the same way in hockey) is that the teams who lose out on the high priced FA and have to get creative are invariably the ones who make the better decisions. Sometimes. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees haven't exactly gone 0-fer in the past 15 years of their attempting to buy championships.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jan 15, 2009 -> 11:13 AM) I just don't think it's possible that Colon could have a 5.30 ERA and pitch 200 innings. Ok, let's call it 5.15. Bear in mind that in 2006 Javy Vazquez had a 5.44 ERA on July 30th.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 15, 2009 -> 12:16 PM) I don't think I agree with that last paragraph, he clearly went after high priced talent last offseason though it didn't work out. I think he clearly just has a mandate to lower some payroll this year and is doing that. Call me results oriented, but as a blackhawks fan who suffered through the 90s, I'm developing an annoying allergy to teams who tell me they went after all these FAs and it just didn't work out for whatever reason.

This is a low-risk high reward move in some ways, but in other it could be disasterous. The worst case scenario is not that Colon's an outright bust, it's if he's healthy enough to pitch 200 innings and just good enough to come in with an ERA around 5.3, a WHIP of 1.45 and something resembling a 9-15 record with a team record in his starts of like 12-21. In that case, we get no player development out of that slot and we get pretty much one of the worst expected performances out of a formerly talented vet imaginable (yes there are worse examples with worse stats, but that's not the point of this post). The exact same above point could be made about JC, or Garcia, etc. Getting "veteran" production out of the 5th pitching slot, while still getting awful stats, is just wasting development IMO. At this point, with this team, it has to be built with more sure pieces, especially in the pitching staff. IMO, the expected value of this pitching staff is not looking good right now. I realize Danks and Floyd were very solid last year, but Gavin Floyd's peripherals are still not great and I could easily see either him or Danks somewhat reverting. Why are we penciling them in automatically for the kinds of seasons they both had exactly once? I don't get it. History tells us that very often players don't have back to back years in which they sustain improvement far above and beyond their projections or expectations. What irks me the most about this offseason in general is that KW has seemed to obsessively fall in love with utilizing just one method for improving the team: continually unloading who he perceives as overvalued players and hoarding ones he perceives as undervalued. The trouble with that philosophy is that you're not always going to have offseasons in which you discover the next wave of superstars, and occasionally you have to pay market value or even above market value for the right piece to add to your team. I don't understand the Sox's continual reluctance to bring in higher priced FAs, and I don't think KW understands the value of paying market price or even above market price to get the right fit for the team.

I'm not sure what exactly the downside is to offering this dude 1 million MLB contract with a ton of incentives.

Baldelli was misdiagnosed last year with "mitochondrial abnormalities" but a Cleveland clinic apparently re-diagnosed this as Channelopathy, which is apparently highly treatable. This guy is a free agent, and if healthy, is the kind of bargain KW would scoop up for value. He could play CF and hit second. links: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?...;name=Neyer_Rob http://www.abc6.com/news/36301134.html

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 3, 2008 -> 04:27 PM) Yes, next year is the last year on his contract. Beyond that, it's all a question of rehab/healing from that injury. It's plausible that he might be able to pitch at some point mid season, but that depends on his recovery rate (which of course depends on his actual age) and his physical conditioning afterwards. It's possible he could see some action from the bullpen also. We really don't know. He may just not pitch at all next year as well. That's what I thought - as long as we can somehow keep him completely off the mound I don't care about the $10 million. Sunk cost and all that.

really dumb question - what's going on with jose contreras? is he still under contract for next year?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 21, 2008 -> 12:22 PM) because, frankly we have been lucky with JD, especially with injuries. This is a good time to sell high. So explain how acquiring Edwin Jackson selling JD "high"

QUOTE (BearSox @ Nov 7, 2008 -> 11:25 AM) Javy might not do much in pressure games, but at least he helps us get to the point where we can actually be in the playoffs. Could imagine where we would have been this past season with Javy and either Broadway or Richard in his place? I guarantee we would not have made the playoffs if that was the case. Empty division titles no longer mean anything to this fan League Championships and World Series are all I really care about I used to hang my hat on division crowns, but honestly who the hell cares anymore if you don't go any further.

here's the point Vazquez starts a playoff game and it's an auto-loss think that will get us another title?

yeah can someone break down the financial implications of the possibilities at this point

For me, 2000 was a way more fun season, but 2008 was ultimately more satisfying. I've never had more fun than I had during the 2000 season as a White Sox fan, period (yes, including 2005 - which was gut wrenching at times but ultimately the MOST satisfyinging season as a fan). We had seen Cleveland absolutely steamroll us for 5 straight seasons and to see dudes like James Baldwin, Jim Parque and Mike Sirotka pull it together was really awesome. I savored literally every moment and I didn't care if we didn't win a single playoff game - MY team was in first place and MY guys were pulling it off. 1995-1999 seemed like utter hell. In 2008, the regular season was difficult with wild, emotional swings by the fans. People were really wearing their hearts on their sleeves for whatever reason all year and it really made the season less fun for me. Maybe it's because the internet is so ubiquitous now compared to 2000. Ultimately there are probably more bright spots though, with the emergence of 2 sure-fire stars in Quentin and Ramirez and seemingly the future of the franchise much brighter.

Has this topic been done yet? I was gone for 2.5 weeks so apologies if this comparison has already been made. Both teams won their respective division and lost in the divisional series.

what in the hell is going on

wtf?

OH OH URREEEEEEEBI

OH OH URREEEEEEEBI