ScottyDo

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 02:29 PM) They seem to be perfectly happy with 2 draft picks if they can't resign him. Don't they have to offer him a deal/offer arb. to get that? They're not doing that.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 01:46 PM) He publicly questioned Rizzo and his tactics. There was no need to air that in my opinion. I think he did the entirety of MLB, and maybe Rizzo himself, a favor by doing that. Rizzo is clearly behaving irrationally, and somewhat deceptively. He probably needs to know he can't do that and succeed as a GM.

Hahaha for some reason, this Harrell outing has been one of my favorite Sox moments of the season.

Lucas "Quality Start" Harrell! Great job, kid, even if you were lucky as crap!

Ha! How you gonna GIDP NOW, jones???

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 10:11 PM) He gets him. If Lucas can give us one, maybe two more, I'll be happy. Heck, he might get us a quality start! Haha remember when we were "giving away the game" tonight by pitching Harrell?

QUOTE (wsgdf_2 @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 09:59 PM) Buster_ESPN Heard this:Other teams say that in recent weeks,the Nationals had told other teams that a key piece to anyone who wanted Adam (more)#trades 4 minutes ago via web Dunn was Edwin Jackson. This caused a number of teams to try to pry Jackson away from the D-Backs, with the White Sox (more)#trades 3 minutes ago via web finally landing Jackson today--and as of 7 p.m. Eastern, the Nats are indicating they're not sure if they want Jackson anymore.(more)#trades 2 minutes ago via web So as of tonight, teams are pulling their hair out over the Nats' machinations. We'll see if the White Sox can finish a Dunn deal.#trades Wow, if that's true...eff the Nats till that GM is gone. Wow.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 09:29 PM) It'd be swell to have an Adam Dunn or something on deck after Q here..... Would you settle for an Edwin Jackson?

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 09:14 PM) Two things; 1) who are some new GMs that have came into baseball the last year or so? That may give us insight in to who the surprise player may be. 2) I have a feeling, Harrell would be part of a Dunn deal. I think the Nats wanted to see him in the bigs to see what he has. I have a feeling that Harrell was just the best option for us at the moment. People were saying Harrell would be called up if Huddy was traded WAAAAY before the trade went down because he was the only AAA pitcher that made sense for this timeline.

QUOTE (MattZakrowski @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 08:56 PM) I think I figured out who Cowley's WOW player is! He loves those guys!

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 08:54 PM) Yeah, he is the player I think would fit the bill the best... Makes $17 million though over the next two years, 5 million deferred annually. I am an unabashed, completely biased fan of Ichiro and I would buy an Ichiro jersey the MOMENT the trade was announced. That said, if his cost was prohibitive, we could EASILY flip him again this offseason, no question. God, if ONLY it was Ichiro....

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 03:56 PM) Who the hell is Harrell and is he Hawk's father? I definitely lawled. well played, mauer

QUOTE (Cali @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 08:44 PM) BREAKING NEWS!: Adam Dunn likes our uniforms, big fan of the color black.... What's his opinion on the color gray?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 08:41 PM) I sure hope he wasn't the WOW player... Cowley said the "wow" player wasn't one of the most mentioned names, and specifically ruled Berkman out. It's Cowley, and there's a good chance that he's talking out his butt to some degree, but his "wow" guy wasn't Berkman.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 08:13 PM) My initial reaction is that Cowley could be totally talking out of his ass, and that there's nothing big or new to report other than the rumors that every other national writer is speculating on, and then tomorrow when this "mystery trade" doesn't happen, Cowley just says that it didn't piece together. How could he know that Williams is working on something "huge" without having any idea of what it is? He's said all along that his source told him that something that will make him say "wow" was in the works and that it wasn't a guy on the radar, but cowley maintains that he has no idea who at all. He also mentioned it with the caveat that "wow" could mean "wow, that's dumb". Who knows.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 04:45 PM) Jax was not Good nor great last year. Edwin Jackson put up a spectacular set of numbers in the first half of last season based on putting up a .249 BABIP. His BABIP, as we always say it does, regressed towards his career mean of .315 in the 2nd half. In the first half of last season he put up an ERA around 2.5, in the 2nd half he put up an ERA of 5.07. Edwin Jackson's terrible 2nd half was key to the Twins taking the division from the Tigers last year. Hell, he was on the mound for Game 162 and the White Sox shelled him. He's putting up an ERA >5 this season in the National League for a reason. And it's not because of his BABIP. I thought it was you who put his xFIP and FIP up at sub-5? Maybe not. Anyway, I was referring to his brief period of greatness as the first half of last year. A half-season ain't chump change, it's definitely enough to firmly declare that he has the ability to succeed. He also had some phenomenal periods in TB. I think our pitching coach is superior to either of those two guys, and I think there's a decent chance that he succeeds with us. Yes, it's still a chance, and that's what makes it a gamble. But it's a gamble I think could pay huge dividends if it succeeds. Much bigger dividends than keeping Hudson in our system. I'll put it this way: you have Coop in a room with one young player. Would you rather have him sit down with the guy with great stuff and mediocre command or mediocre stuff and great command? You can't make a middle-of-the-road arm a great arm. You can make crap control good control sometimes.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 30, 2010 -> 04:41 PM) So what happens when the Sox cant afford to keep some combination of AJ, Paulie, Putz, Jenks, etc because they are paying a mediocre-bad starter in EJax? Then all of a sudden they have holes they cant fill, and were back to middling. Somehow, I feel like the next 2 months are not going to change EJax's trade value all that much, and he can be traded again in the offseason if we need to. There were other teams interested in him, not just us.

I'm sure it's been brought up (I don't have time to read ~65 pages of stuff), but Jax was good (great, even) as recently as last year. There are a billion reasons a young pitcher can regress that don't include him being bad. I'm amazed that people view his CEILING as a 4th or 5th starter when he has pitched like a #2 not long ago. Jax is exactly the type of pitcher I want to see working with Coop: loads of talent which has not been harnessed reliably, but which has shown extended periods of effectiveness. All he really has to do is figure out what made him great last year, get it back, and keep it consistent. And consistency is one of the things I feel like Coop excels at finding. I don't know what type of rock the rest of you were smoking but I was certainly underwhelmed by the little I saw out of Hudson. Stuff-wise, what separated him from Rowland-Smith? They're both kind of flat and lacking a measure of control. The comparison is not wonderful, but based on how the two pitchers LOOKED, I'd say it's not terribly far off, stuff-wise. And sample size, sure...but I really didn't see anything more than a future #4. Money-wise, that's another story. It's a gamble, to be sure, but if Coop does, in fact, do his thing, then we've got a stud at $8.5M and nobody's complaining. I don't love it, but I would never use the word "abominable" to describe this trade. Holy eff, people.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 02:34 AM) I don't think that makes much sense. I don't see teams that were targeting the inferior (this year) and right-handed Lee rather than Dunn, now instead going after the more expensive Dunn. I think he was referring to the Angels, who reportedly wanted Lee. Since Lee's a non-option, it's assumed they'll up their bid for Dunn.

Slightly off-topic, but I'm surprised nobody's considering Mitchell a big part of any deal. I think he's a better 'spect than Danks, even with the injury. I'd rather have him if I'm the Nats, considering they're more than a year away anyway.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 12:05 AM) Apparently people think its bad for a team to improve in areas in which they are lacking and that could really help the team. The company I work for does a lot of things well, and in some areas excellent. Does that mean the company should overlook some areas that would help the business overall because the other areas are doing well in the business? No, not at all. The organization should be continually trying to improve all facets, even if they are doing well in some of them. Your company needs to improve its shipping/receiving process but has to funnel money from sales to make that work. Do you do it? IMO, the answer is maybe, depending on what the cost is. The club wants to improve its DH situation, but at what cost? Before the season started, it would have been a cash consideration. Now, it's prospects. Either way, it costs something. It's a risk analysis type of situation: do what you think gives you the best chance of a positive return. I think KW has done a phenomenal job of just that. I don't think, over his tenure, he's ever just ignored holes on the team, but he may have chosen not to plug them at the cost of other facets of the organization. If it were as simple as your example makes it sound, "get players to fill holes", and we had a GM who had his thumb up his butt instead, I would totally agree with you. You'd have to be a fool NOT to agree with that. The fact is, though, that it's not that simple: if you plug all holes at any cost, you're going to wind up with a HUGE deficit somewhere in your system. And most of the moves KW has made have been positive, some overwhelmingly so. Very few of his gambles have had a negative impact on the franchise. That could not be said for drafting during his early tenure, but even talent evaluation, of late, has seemingly improved. And, as someone brought up earlier, you have stats like WAR for players where the value of a standard "replacement-level" guy is taken into account. You could (and should) take that into account for GM's and managers as well, IMO. Sure, KW isn't perfect but where does he compare with a standard, replacement-level GM? Do you really think he's worse than any random GM we'd be likely to end up with? As far as Ozzie goes, I could take him or leave him, but I do think he's got positive WAR-esque value too so I'm not rushing off to the scrap heap to make an exchange. Verdict: Ozzie can stay or go, I vote stay with the utmost lukewarmness. But KW does a fine job and should stay on IMO.

So stoked for closer-by-committee! I'm pretty convinced that the only (or, main) reason CBC has failed in the past is because teams only try it when they have exclusively horrible bullpen options. Our bullpen options are great, and I think this is destined to succeed with flying colors.

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 05:32 PM) I actually like the top 10, though Torres would not have been near my list. I don't consider him a prospect anymore. I also see someone really likes Jacob as well. I'm on Team Jacob!

QUOTE (Real @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 03:11 PM) Keep in mind with all your alexei koolaid that he takes the first month and a half of the season chasing butterflies and not hitting I actually don't think that 3 years is enough of a trend to believe that firmly. I don't even count the first year in the trend because he had freshly immigrated at that point and would likely have struggled no matter what. And 2 years is not enough of a trend to convince me. If he does it again next year, I'll start scratching my head.

The closer role is a stupid one. We're better off with Jenks being relegated to one inning and using our 3 terminators (Putz, Thornton, Santos) in a mobile fashion (assuming there has to be a "closer" at all). Greg is spot-on with the closer-by-committee idea, especially with our lethal bullpen.