WCSox

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Aug 18, 2009 -> 04:01 PM) Thornton will be working the 8th, with room for the 7th depending on matchups. Good. Linebrink's been nothing short of awful this year. I'm sorry that we have to carry his albatross of a contract for the next two seasons.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 18, 2009 -> 03:39 PM) The timing of this move is interesting and I have no idea how serious Wise injury is. But the speculator in me wonders whether this has more to do with roster management. QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 18, 2009 -> 03:40 PM) Hurray for fake injuries!

I disagree that an injury to any player is a good thing. Especially considering that Getz was hitting the ball well right before his trip to the DL. The problem with both Getz and Nix is that neither has the OBP to be a solid leadoff hitter, which is what this team really needs. Nix takes the walks, but doesn't hit enough singles. Getz is a good contact hitter, but doesn't take enough walks (and has zero power). Being a left-handed hitter with good base-stealing ability, Getz would probably have the edge for hitting leadoff but, again, his OBP is just too low right now. I always thought that Nix would be a really good utility infielder, but he's sucked so badly at SS that I'm beginning to rethink that. The whole Nix vs. Getz debate is going to determined by the makeup of the rest of the 2010 team. If the Sox keep either Thome or Dye (or sign a power-hitting FA), Getz would probably have the upper hand (but may have to bat 9th). If the Sox lose both Dye and Thome, and don't come up with a replacement through FA, they're going to need Nix's power.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 18, 2009 -> 09:03 AM) Factor in inflation and get back to us before you laugh. To be fair, you also need to factor in the deflation from last year's economic collapse. Free agents weren't getting nearly as much money last winter as they were in previous years. I think that $15 million was about right. If this were the Yankees and Strasburg didn't have an egomaniac douche of an agent starting negotiations at $50 million, he may have gotten closer to $20 million. Realistically, guaranteed money is going to have to plateau at some point. GMs aren't going to pay $30 million 5 years from now for some 22-year-old "phenom" who's never done anything at the major league level. My guess is that MLB imposes a rookie salary cap at some point.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Aug 18, 2009 -> 12:55 PM) Nix is a prolific defender But not at SS. He's made Alexei look like Ozzie smith this year.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 18, 2009 -> 09:02 AM) Beckham's poor range at 3rd doesn't seem to translate well to SS. Range at 3B is more about reaction time than speed.

I'd move Alexei back to 2B next season and find a free agent SS or 3B this winter. One potential in-house solution would be Nix at 3B and Beckham at SS, although I'm not sure if Nix can play the hot corner that well (he's been a disaster at SS).

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 02:47 PM) Ever heard of Matt Harrington? Pretty much a textbook example of what not to do. Ouch...

QUOTE (WhiteSoxfan1986 @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 02:20 PM) The Sox are right about where I thought they would be, I expected them to win 83-85 games. s***, we won 88 games last year, how could everyone expect us to win more than that this year? We lost Vazquez (i'm not saying I didn't like the trade, but we would be a better team THIS year with Javy), gave away Swisher and decided to go with Dewayne f***ing wise in CF. We also lost the really good bullpen that we had for the first 2/3 of last season.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 12:21 PM) Strasburg's value declines if he doesn't sign. Can he still go back and pitch at SD State? If that's what happens, he'd better hope that he doesn't have a down season, lose velocity, or suffer an arm injury. He's seriously stupid if he doesn't sign. His value is likely higher now than it'll ever be.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 11:31 AM) Although it's gonna be all the rage next offseason to get something for the Cuban Miss-SS-ill, as in his misses at SS make me ill. I'd move him back to 2B before I put him on the trading block. He's lost a lot of value over the past 5 months and we're going to need to keep these young-ish guys around.

QUOTE (hogan873 @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 10:35 AM) Underachievers for sure. Taking 3 of 4 from the Yankees and 2 of 3 from the Angels was great, and the team showed that they can play and beat the big boys. But losing 3 of 4 to Oakland at home and losing many other series where they should have played better... This team still relies too heavily on the HR (thankfully, less so than earlier this year), Dotel and Linebrink have killed the bullpen, and the defense is embarrassingly bad. I'd love to predict 89 wins and a division title, but I'm thinking that it's going to be more like second place and 86 wins. That said, 2010 is already looking pretty promising.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 10:00 AM) With no other move, we're way too righthanded at that point. Perhaps we can convince Kotsay to come back with a semi-platoon offer. I figure if the Sox traded Rowand for Thome, they were willing to look past his uselessness in IL and WS games. So if they cut ties with him now, it'll be solely due to age and his HR/walk predictability. My best-case scenario is Kenny signing Hank Blalock and letting both Thome and Dye leave as FAs. But with the recent financial commitments to Peavy and Rios, I don't see it happening. They need to spend on the bullpen before anything else. Having Thome's left-handed bat for one more year would be nice, but this lineup desperately needs to get younger.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 04:28 AM) Fifty years from now none of this will matter. Yep, just as the Black Sox scandal and the throwing of countless other games prior to the 1919 WS is just an afterthought now. In the sagely words of John Popper, "It won't mean a thing in a hundred years."

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 09:15 AM) Strasberg's a tool to pass on $17 million if he does. That's so much damn money. Especially considering that he plays a position that puts a ton of strain on one's elbow and shoulder. If I'm a highly-touted pitching prospect, I ask for about $5 million more that was previously given out, and settle for maybe $2.5 million more. But I make sure that I come to terms and get my hands on that money, as my entire family stands to benefit from it.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 07:03 AM) Sure this is most likely very minor but another reason I worry about signing him over Dye next season. The guy is on the field a total of about 5 cumulative minutes per game and still gets injured. Yeah, I agree. He's also nothing more than a late-inning pinch hitter in interleague games.

QUOTE (son of a rude @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 12:04 PM) If we consistently got 30k+ crowds, we would be right behind Boston in spending imo. What some people forget is that Jerry makes a buttload of cash off of parking. Teams like the Cubs don't have that luxury. And concessions. There are relatively few highly-frequented food and drink joints around the ballpark (compared to other franchises).

With the rosters expanding in a couple of weeks, there's no reason to DFA Jose. If there's no roster space, put him on the 15-day DL with a fabricated injury until then. DFAing Jose would not only not help that Sox all that much, but could also be interpreted as disrespectful. Keep in mind that players and their agents watch the way that Kenny treats his players.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 01:55 AM) I like this post a lot I agree with everything you said. Though you should note that this train of thought is oriented for WIN NOW mode. Which obviously Kenny is in, espeically considering his decision to hold onto Dotel. Valuable arms in the pen are a huge commodity if ur in a pennant race and Kenny knows that. If the sox are in win now mode they dont move around/remove Jenks or Thorton, including next year. If the Sox were going into rebuilding mode next year, moving Jenks would make a ton of sense. But that's not the case. QUOTE (son of a rude @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 02:35 AM) I don't see how this is a big deal. He dominates in 1 inning all the time. So because that inning is changed to the 9th inning means he won't succeed? That makes no sense. Closing is a different mentality than setup. Some players handle it well, some don't. LaTroy Hawkins couldn't handle it. Dotel couldn't handle the move from 7th inning guy to setup man last year. You just never know. Plus, Thornton was awful just a year and a half ago, so I'm not confident that he'll an effective closer for years down the road. He's a guy who lives and dies with his fastball, and gets shelled when his command isn't there. I really don't care what roles they take. I don't even care if Jenks is in a Sox uniform next year, so long as he's replaced with equal talent. I'm more concerned with maintaining a talented bullpen. Jenks and Thornton are the only two relievers on the Sox (with an appreciable number of appearances) who have a WHIP below 1.43. (For comparison's sake, they had five in 2008.) Losing Jenks and not replacing him with a proven closer would essentially put the Sox in a position where they have one or two reliable relievers. That's 2007 all over again.

QUOTE (rockren @ Aug 12, 2009 -> 03:30 PM) As far as saying "oh if Jeter juiced then I'm done"...that's just stupid. No kidding. This articles goes to show how obnoxiously provincial ESPN is. Does anybody not living in the Northeast think that Cardinals fans, Cubs fans, Astros fans, Dodgers fans, or Mariners fans would stop watching baseball if Jeter was found guilty of using PEDs? Do they not realize that we don't really give a crap about the overrated players that they put on a pedestal? And, hey, I like Jeter and all, but he represents the game to me about as much as Bud Selig does. FWIW, I've also heard rumors that Jeter indeed did use PEDs. Yet, I have no plans to boycott MLB.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 09:11 PM) I may be mistaken, but I recall Freddy's stats are either great or terrible against the Royals. Given that Freddy had a history of pitching to the level of his competition, my guess is that his numbers against the Royals were less than spectacular. Of course, he wasn't trying to salvage his career back then. "Junkball Freddy" had some pretty solid outings back in 2006 and had an overall WHIP of 1.28. That ain't bad for a #5, and I think there's a pretty good chance that he could take Jose's place in the rotation.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 10:49 AM) And I've heard an inkling that it might be because throwing the curve bothers his shoulder. Source? QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 10:50 AM) There's really no way he should be brought back next year. Thornton's ready for the closer spot, and you could save a lot of money by trying to acquire a lefty set-up man and getting some players back for Jenks. Good luck finding a setup man as effective as Thornton. I'm also not convinced that Thornton would excel in the closer role, given that he can only throw two pitches for strikes and throws about 80% fastballs. I don't know if Jenks will be worth his arbitration value. But if you deal him, you'd damn well better make sure that you get a quality reliever to replace him. Because Linebrink and "T-Pain" ain't gonna get it done. The Sox bullpen is pretty freaking bad after Thornton and Jenks. The people who make the "Jenks will be overpaid next year, and we need to trade him NOW for maximum value" argument miss the same point that the Yahoo Sports writers missed about the Alex Rios acquisition. Just as CF was recently, the bullpen is a point of weakness for the Sox now (and will be even more when Dotel leaves next year). The Sox are going to have to ADD talent to the pen this winter, and trading away Jenks is going in the opposite direction. Because of that, overpaying for a stabilizing player at that position for one year is probably worth it in the end (and much less of a financial burden than over-paying Rios for the next five years). Considering the arbitration due to Danks and Floyd next year, they're looking at paying over $40 million to those two plus Peavy and Buehrle. What's the point in shelling out all of that money if you're going to field a 2007-esque bullpen of crap that will blow their leads? You're better off over-paying Jenks a few million for one more year and putting yourself in a position to win than taking talent away from your bullpen and rolling the dice with lesser players. If Kenny can find two more bullpen arms that are as or more effective than Jenks, then dealing Bobby would be fine. But, as we've seen both Linebrink and Dotel fall apart since last August and we're seeing now with "T-Pain," I don't think it'll be nearly as easy as some people think.

QUOTE (son of a rude @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 12:06 PM) Seriously, growing up listening to Hawk, you begin to think that all the umpires are against the White Sox. He really isn't somebody you want to learn the game from. Apparently you never listened to Harry Caray or Jimmy Piersall back in the day. They rode the umps a hell of a lot harder than Hawk does. Hawk is basically the mouthpiece of the Sox front office, but not everything that he says is ridiculously biased or completely worthless. Agreed that Stone is the guy who gives much better baseball insight.

I like this move. Freddy's no long-term option, but he was still able to get guys out with his junkball stuff in late '06. He could be a halfway decent #5 option for the next month and a half.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 10:32 AM) And rightfully so. The guy has done nothing to earn that job. At the very least, he's done nothing to keep it. He had an open checkbook for free agents, his best young players were developed under Phillips and Duquette, his team got punked an by inferior Cardinals squad in the '06 NLCS, and the way that he dangled Willie Randolph in front of the NY media to deflect attention away from himself was classless.