ScottyDo

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 3, 2013 -> 07:11 PM) What if they don't? $12M isn't that much for SP these days. If the Sox can't afford that they really should do a complete tear down. Well, then you do it after your current, cheaper and somewhat promising options fail, not in advance of it. Besides, who's to say there won't be another Lohse-like player next year? It's one thing to stay ahead of your looming problems. It's another to cause more problems by tying up money when you don't need to. Also, the inability to afford $12M doesn't mean you need to rebuild. That's a non-sequitur. You can max out your budget with an awful team or a great one.

Going forward, we got Quintana off the scrap-heap. It's certainly not unimaginable that we could do something similar again, for muuuuuch less than $12M/year

Since I've always been something of a detractor of Quintana's (I won't be convinced he's neo-Buehrle until he's done it for a few years), I'm going with Santiago. However, I will be delighted to be proven wrong. It's really hard to argue that Q doesn't deserve a shot.

QUOTE (knightni @ Feb 2, 2013 -> 01:24 AM) Who's a drummer. Yes, but he's the lead drummer

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 31, 2013 -> 07:00 PM) I agree with Littlehurt, if the Yankees owed him $10M there'd be no talk of voiding his contract. I would not be at all surprised if the Yankees hired their own investigators to see if ARod was involved in anything that could get his contract voided. That's almost certainly true. And not really my point. If they can get out of ARod's contract, then he did something significant enough to void an MLB contract.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Jan 31, 2013 -> 04:14 PM) This all goes back to the basic question; "Is this team interested in trying to compete for the Central Division crown this season?" If they are, then they better not rely on Viciedo suddently learning to hit RHP. Moreover, they better not try to beat the Tigers RH pitchers with the current lineup. I don't care if they decide to rebuild, but I wonder why they resigned Peavy, if that is the plan. They competed last year with Viciedo not hitting RHP. Wanting to compete does not necessitate abandoning all young players who have weaknesses. Not on this team, and not on any other.

You got it!

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 31, 2013 -> 03:03 PM) it probably has more to do with the fact that he is die $114 million over the next 5 seasons. If that number was much lower, the Yankees wouldn't be as concerned about voiding it. No, the reason he's saying a voided A-Rod contract would mean he's untouchable is because he must have done something really, really bad to void the contract. MLB contracts are pretty iron-clad for the players, so there aren't many outs. The only eventuality that could lead to a voided contract is if something truly significant comes to light.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 30, 2013 -> 10:40 AM) I don't think it was pressure as much as injuries and very high workloads. Yeah, I was gonna say something similar. We were just overly reliant on guys who were destined to fade in December, because they were either too young (Sale, Q) or too old (Paulie, AJ, Dunn). That doesn't seem like a pressure problem, just a team makeup problem. Sale, Q, Viciedo and Flowers are a year older now. Unfortunately, so are Konerko and Dunn. Either way, our pitching should be good and perhaps slightly less likely to falter down the stretch this year, unless you believe in the Verducci Correlation (effect is so very the wrong word).

QUOTE (WilburWilhelm @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 05:37 PM) Although I think the Sox will be a decent team and fun to watch this year I don't see but a sliver of a chance to catch Detroit. There are two reasons. First, the obvious is that they have a better more talented roster. Beyond that, their ownership is committed to spending the money to win. They have shown that if the Tigers have injuries or underperform they will spend money to overcome that. The Sox are in an unfortunate position right now where they really have no depth anywhere on the ML roster to trade from, a near barren farm system with few prospect they can afford to trade and are up close to their payroll limit already. That's why it's been an uneventful winter as far as transactions. They really need to wait it out two more years for the Dunn, Rios, Konerko and Peavy contracts to be gone. That's $ 60 mil. per year for those four. Hopefully, they have a good solid young core by then to add some veterans to. I actually think we could afford to trade an outfielder for sure. Whether or not we'd want to do that is another question, but we do have some relative organizational depth there.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 05:34 PM) I know this is a joke, but just for infos sake on the Score they said he's at 181 now. At 6'6. Interestingly (or not), that puts him in the "normal" range on the BMI chart. I'm sure that chart is not calibrated for athletes, though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 04:51 PM) That isn't at all what you said. I think he meant that they were moving from the 'burbs to the city, so a re-branding was in order

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 29, 2013 -> 11:03 AM) If the Sox are going to win the division this year, they're going to need a lot of players on the current roster to step up and improve in a big way anyways. If it gets to the point that the Sox are in contention and they need another bat, they will go out and get one. Worrying about something that is going to be a trivial upgrade at this point is silly. I wanted the Sox to sign Kelly Johnson because I too think another left handed bat could help. They didn't. That move won't win or lose them a division, and neither will another left handed bat in the middle of the lineup. This. At this point, no teams want to move their guys, and very few of them wanted to in the first place, it appears. It was a very slow offseason across the board, unless you wanted Hamilton, and very few middle-of-the-order LH bats traded hands. I don't know if everybody feels like they're in contention or what, but things will loosen up midseason. We're probably just going to have to wait until then.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 28, 2013 -> 12:42 PM) Dunn - 31 Viciedo - 22 Flowers - 13 Why so low on Flowers? Are you thinking he won't finish the season as the starter?

QUOTE (joeynach @ Jan 28, 2013 -> 12:05 AM) They can recognize their offensive deficiency and stress what ever they want, but without a change in personnel, Rich Hahn's dept, they are stuck with an abundance of low contact, high K guys. Stressing more contact isn't gonna turn career low contact hitters into high contact hitters, acquiring high contact hitters or drafting and developing them well. It's nice to see mgmt is watching the same game as us so to speak, and sees the same glaring deficiency that we and the media did all last year, team OBP. But as long as Alexi, Dunn, Flowers, Morel (if he plays), Viciedo are part of this lineup contact rate is going to be low and K's high. Heck even Rios, who had a great year last year had a .334 OBP, is that even league average? The thing is, though, I don't think they want to be ONLY high contact, high OBP at the expense of power. Dunn and Viciedo aren't necessarily the guys they need to replace. What they need is for the people who aren't boppers to bring SOMETHING to the table offensively, preferably high OBP followed by contact. This is still U.S. Cellular Field, and you still need to hit the ball out of the park.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Jan 27, 2013 -> 11:08 PM) Great point about Carl. The Sox never did fully replace what he brought to the team. Jim Thome? Or were you referring to his clubhouse presence? Those were some pretty crazy pants to fill.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 27, 2013 -> 08:33 PM) This is pretty amusing. In the past two offseasons, our two best contact hitters, Pierre and AJ, have been let go or weren't affordable. So you're looking for more contact from Flowers, Viciedo, Dunn, Beckham and DeAza? Hmmmpf. I'm not seeing it. Do we want DeAza to turn into Juan Pierre II and cut down his K's and power? We're putting an awful LOT of pressure and expectation on Keppinger to consider him a .300 hitter coming into the season. He's definitely not a proven, everyday, .300 hitter. You'd love to Viciedo, Beckham and DeAza become much more selective...and Alexei as well, but you sort of have the sense he "is what he is" at this point in his career. Count most as cautiously optimistic on this topic. Maybe if they can get Alexei to buy in and stop pull hooking every ball on the infield to the left side...going back more to his style of hitting in 2008, then it will influence the rest of the line-up, just like Pods and Iguchi in 2005. That has to be what they're counting on with Keppinger's presence in the line-up. Well, focus #1 according to Hahn interviews is OBP, and AJ/Pierre were certainly not the best at that. If last year is any indication, Keppinger provides good OBP and better than average contact.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 27, 2013 -> 12:19 PM) While I don't think he was being serious, Keppinger in the three hole would be an epic fail. Yeah I was hoping he meant two-hole. That could be very successful.

Hooray! An article about a player's weight! Spring training must be approaching

QUOTE (PorkChopExpress @ Jan 23, 2013 -> 01:16 PM) OK, wasn't it just a few years ago, when we acquired Flowers, that everyone was down on his defense? He was a potential 1B/DH candidate? Now he could be a top 10 defensive catcher? Don't get me wrong, I am rooting for the kid, and I hope it's true, but where did the terrible defense stuff come from then? Or has he just worked that hard to improve? I remember hearing several reports (on this site) about Flowers working extremely hard on his defense in AAA. The year before he came up, there were some people who were pretty optimistic about his defensive capabilities.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 07:31 PM) I don't know how that thread got revived. I didn't post anything on it today. It's a mystery. Sorry. Hahaha weird! I was really struggling to piece that into the current Soxtalk narrative

Some things go without saying. Bumping this post does not. Please explain?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 18, 2013 -> 04:55 PM) From what I've heard and seen of him, he reminds me a lot of David Murphy. Good hitter, not good enough for a corner (either IF or OF) and not good enough defensively to play up the middle. Hopefully he can improve to the point where he can be an everyday starter defensively somewhere. Well, with the way 3B has been going lately...

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 18, 2013 -> 02:54 PM) That's about 6x what he's worth. FWIW, fangraphs places his performance last year at a value of $3.5M and the year before at $4.5M http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...sition=2B#value

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Jan 18, 2013 -> 02:56 PM) Sox will be wearing the '83 jerseys at home on Sundays this coming season. Like! Did not enjoy the red pinstripes.