upnorthsox

It sucks being on the other end of a Colon for Liefer\Biddle type trade aye.

To make their budget and still make an appearance at improving the team they'll have to move either Maggs or multiple other players, any way they are going to take a PR hit. But then they knew this when they set the budget so low.

Interesting, then you believe the deal was never offered to KW? I'm under the same impression as this deal would've worked for the Sox at so many levels that it woulda been impossible for KW to dismiss it so quickly.

Right CSF, with that trade you could've gotten your 5th starter plus with King in the pen you could then easily non-tender Schoney which along with Maggs salary frees up about $13 mil of payroll. That gives you $8-10 mil to either go after Maddux, or Garcia plus another BP arm\OFer. On top of that you get a young stud for late '04 or '05. The question I had is was that offered to KW for Maggs and did he turn it down holding out for more? I would also probably prefer Maggs for Soriano but while that would clear about the same amount of payroll, you'd still probably turn around and trade him for more pitching.

Not sure why this would make a Kong\Perez trade any more likely, as like the Juan E trade would make it any less. IMO y'all holding out for that deal to go down are having as big a pipe dream as me holding out for a Maddux signing. But hey nothing wrong toking on a pipe from time to time.

Don't bet on it, if Maggs was such the hot commodity he'd be the talk of the winter meetings, which he's not. That $14 mil in his walk yr turns off most everyone, we may have to settle for Garcia or Washburn\Ortiz straight up.

The question is was that a Maggs deal? We can probably do little better than Marquis as a starter, but do we get a steady reliever and a #1 pitching prospect to boot? Either answer, we can scratch Atlanta of the list for Maggs suitors

Tex the breakdown is as such Maggs $14 mil Kong 8 mil Koch 6.25 mil Frank 6 mil Jose 5 mil Elo 4 mil Burly 3.5 mil Gar 2.3 mil Sandy .75 mil That's a firm $ 49.8 mil, then there are the 3 arb guys and their estimated salaries. CLee 6.5 mil Schoney 1.8 mil Wunsch 1 mil that's about $9.3 mil more for a total of $59.1 mil Then there's your expected roster fill of non arb guys and the minimum they can get. Marte $400k Uribe 400k Wright 375k ARow 375k Crede 375k Olivo 330k Harris 330k Joe B 325k Ginter 325k Sanders 310k Rauch 310k Gload 300k Cotts 300k Obviously(hopefully) some of these names can change but the amounts will only most likely go up so at a minimum you're looking at another $4.7 mil. That's a total of about $63.8 mil to fill out the roster as of right now.

As of now with estimates for Lee, Schoney, and Wunsch the payroll is about $64 mil or about $6 mil over the $58 mil budget. Any serious trade talk should take into account this overage.

Agree, agree, agree, agree, and unfortunately agree. A trade of Maggs for Soriano though would put all bets off as KW would all of a sudden have $8-10 mil to spend. Still doubtful but at least the dream would be possible.

Ok, I've reread that twice now and no where does it say he can go higher, just that as of now he doesn't feel the need to(this makes sense since he hasn't yet written a check) meet it. This will change though by Feb. when he will have to meet it or at least be close. It's important to note that KW is a seller and as such his best deal will most likely come earlier not later when others are bargain shopping. Time is not his friend this yr(just like it wasn't for Minaya last yr) and on top of that he has a big decision coming up on the 20th when he must decide whether to non-tender Schoenweis and Wunsch. Without any budget cleared he may be forced into non-tendering both and saving $2.5-3 mil but leaving us with no vet lefties in the pen but Marte(how does a pen of Koch, Marte, Wright, Munoz, Sanders, and Ginter grab ya?).

Wow, think you guys are being a little hard on Gammons, with the way KW feels about Frank it would surprise me if he even asked for a mid level prospect in return. I don't want Weaver but I could definitely see a trade here.

Nice to see people still can keep the dream alive. Dream on!!!!

Hard to say Rex, but we are talking about an institutional problem here not a current state of affairs. I can go back to '01 when we didn't pursue Mussina but instead went with the one yr and bust commit to D. Wells. That in turn led to the cheaper is better bust of Wells and Fogg for Ritchie. The Foulke for Koch trade was all about money as is the fact we are going to arb with Burly. Then there's the Maggs contract, the epitamy of play today and pay tommorrow, now that tommorrow is here does JR suck it up and pay or do we get the cry poor and inevitable salary dump of our best player. This even leads into stupid money tricks like picking up a Jose option instead of pursuing Tejada. Then there's the slow bleed on the minor league system as everything has to be a trade of rent-a-players instead of FA signings. There's more I'm sure I'm forgetting at the moment including the cheap manager syndrome but I hope you get the point. No our current state of affairs is exactly what will happen from time to time the way JR goes about his business, sometimes you get stuck in the numbers movements and then you either suck it up for a yr or cry poor and restart the cycle all over again. And which one are we going to do? You got it, let the cycle begin again!!! One more trend in JR's business plan I'd like to point out, that's the once every 10 yrs when enough of the cheap homegrown pitching and players converge to make a competitive team, '83, '93, '03.......and our next winning window of opportunity in 2013!!!!!!!!!

But last yr the Colon trade was out there from the start, everybody knew it and it was just a matter of waiting. This yr Schilling and Vazquez are already gone, what's left out to trade? I can live with the youth movement lineup and waiting to fill out the pen but neither of those can be addressed to the top of the rotation has been set. There's the anxiety.

But rumors were swirling as early as October that KW was in the hunt, plus we had alot of payroll space freed up. There's nothing like that this yr and we're faced with the irony off dumping our best player to have a chance at getting better. Last yr was a much easier off season. I have no intention of jumping off any bridges but if JR is wanting to play Clarence.............

I remember that well, that's when he said he doesn't pay for pitching and didn't sign Clemens. I've hated his guts ever since.

Curious CSF but who do you think all these players are going to be? I know you think Garcia is but I disagree. So if I'm right then who else? What big time pitchers were non-tenders last yr? And if this flood of players does materialize won't that mean that our players will be there too? Schoneweis and Wunsch? How about the two that'll really cost us in arb, CLee and Burly?

Also the chances of him being non-tendered are slim to nil, I think y'all are getting suckered into another clubs pressure tactics to get a player to avoid arb.

And yet the Sox have the 5th richest Local TVRadio contract in the majors And yet the Sox after getting $9 mil more in National TV money cuts payroll by $6 mil And yet Minny has the same attendance as us but outspends us in payroll And yet Minny who gets about $25 mil less in local TV\Radio outspends us And yet the Expos with no TV\Radio outspends us And yet the Expos with half our attendance outspends us And yet.....and yet...... attendance matters? It's All the Sox Fans Fault!!!!!!!!!!!

Ummm....I did the math and even the high end of 51 to 60 is 14%. That said, last yrs projected payroll was in the 56-58 mil range, if we end up at 51 mil then we missed our projections by 5-7 mil. Project that to this yr and we'll come in at 53-55 mil which at the high end is a 7% increase. Season tickets this yr have gone up 29%.

Urine????? Freudian slip?

I expect the the scrubs to go after Brent Mayne.

Colon will pitch Tuesday's game, Buehrle will pitch Wednesday.

CY's usually goes to the guy with the most wins unless it's really close which would rule out Schmidt, Ortiz is way out in front with Nomo next and having the best all around stats. Loaiza wins with the most wins in the AL. EOS!! Delgado? Not a chance.