max power

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 08:26 PM) YES! I've been waiting for a "pile on" thread. Capuano pitched in 29 games last year. In the first 7 games he pitched in, the Brewers won. After May 7th, Capuano pitched in 22 games and the Brewers lost everyone of them. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7132/g...WRXWLEMWCiFCLcF That is incredible Holy hell that's amazing. Did his dog die or something? He only pitched two games in june. Why?

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 08:22 PM) Who cares, he was one of the worst pitchers in the history of baseball last year (all things considered). I care. How well he did in other years is very important to his future success.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 08:16 PM) I watched most Brewers games last year, and Capuano was just awful. He would just lose his control out of nowhere, and then give up a few extra base hits. The worst part was he was getting a lot of run support early. Well what about the other years? I think we all know he sucked last year.

QUOTE(Dogfood22 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 08:06 PM) I think the scenario would be quite plausible if KW liked those players. I hope he does something similar, but only for the players he is targeting. Where I suggested signing Jose Guillen, Kenny wanted Carlos Quentin. That's fine. What's he going to do with CF since he won't go with Anderson or Sweeney and Owens isn't a CF? I suggested taking on a bad contract and dumping a couple of our own in the process. Maybe he'll do that or maybe he'll trade for someone else or maybe he'll sign a FA. We still need at least one more veteran arm in the pen capable of LR and MR. I suggested two since our #4 and #5 starters are going to have issues eating innings. How is Kenny going to do that? I suggested Torres because he could be had for very little since he's 35 IIRC and Cruz because he's younger and has a better arm. Maybe Kenny wants a couple of other guys, I dunno. I don't care how he gets them, just that he does it. You seem hung up on this idea that X amount of trades = PS2 offseason. That is not necessarily the case. We'll make a lot of moves in general but I doubt we'll be very active on the FA market this year since we missed on Hunter. Most of our activity will come in trades. We have a lot of expendable players; some are out of options and most are MLB-ready. Many of them are not in our plans whatsoever. I don't know how you can not understand this. You can believe me or not, but I guarantee you that there is no way Sox fans will be optimistic about next season unless there is a ton of movement one way or the other. Yes, I am. I understand all that. My problems arise when you start trading what I think is too many/an unprecedented amount, of the people here who are good players, who can easily remain a part of the plan, in addition to those who are not in KW's plans. Maybe sox fans on this board will be upset with too much inactivity. The average fan who watches every few games is going to be upset when you get rid of some of those big names they've come to love. Additionally, some of those people are club house leaders and the backbone of this team. Throw a bunch of guys who don't know each other together and you might lose something in the clubhouse. And I'm sure you could say, the average fan will come around if they win. They might not win.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 07:47 PM) Ok, if you don't buy that argument, let's look at other years: 2007: Sox #2 in IP as starters 2006: Sox #1 in IP as starters (40 more IP than any other set of starters in MLB) 2005: Sox #1 in IP as starters (36 more IP than any other set of starters) 2004: Sox #2 in IP as starters. The White Sox have had it's starters pitch more than 1000 innings every year Ozzie Guillen has been manager. No other team in MLB can say the same thing about the last 4 years. This covers good bullpens, bad bullpens, great starting pitching, starting pitching without a #5 starter at all, etc. Any way you slice it, "Gassed" is not going to be a word to describe our bullpen next year. Fair enough, its ozzie then. Now I'm a little concerned about if some of the rookie starters might get over used. Danks really seemed to tank in the second half, but who knows if that was an isolated case.

What does it matter? I wanted to know how plausible and reasonable your scenario was. I asked. That's all that matters. Instead, I got a lengthy reply about a whole bunch of other ticky tacky bulls*** I don't care about, and it continues . . . until right now.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 07:27 PM) I think that suggestion, that the bullpen would be gassed by June, ignores the actual stats. Last year, despite having a rookie in the rotation, and having a guy in Contreras who blew up, the White Sox were still #2 in the league in most innings pitched by the starters, and had far and away the fewest innings pitched in MLB by its bullpen. If going from Floyd to Garland wound us up having the bullpen throw 75 more innings, we'd still be in teh bottom 3rd in all of MLB in innings pitched by the bullpen, and in the top 3rd of MLB in innings pitched by the starters. Don't forget what we have already; we have 2 excellent innings eaters in the rotation in Buehrle and Vazquez. That alone keeps the pen Fresh. I'd say it makes sense to keep a long man (Masset?) out there for games where one of those 3 blows up early, but to say that the bullpen would be gassed by June going with those 3 guys pretty much means that either 3/4 of MLB has their bullpens gassed by June or you're expecting both Buehrle and Vazquez to get hurt. Isn't that partly a testament to how crappy our bullpen was last year? Ozzie may have been more apprehensive to go to the pen.

Ozzie is what? 43? Can't he just get his chubby ass out there and play SS for 6 games?

I want to go on the record and say I don't care that much.

That article in the other thread says he made this before arriving. You guys are wrong so far, assuming that asshat rogers is right.

QUOTE(Dogfood22 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 04:20 PM) I never said it would happen, I was only showing that some creativity here by our GM could actually make our team better. In fact, based on the Quentin acquistion and the Konerko rumors, with Miguel Cabrera available, Kenny might do something very similar to what I've noted. It won't necessarily be the same players, but it could be another of the endless possibilities that involve a whole lot of activity. He'd still have to make double the amount of trades. This all started with me asking if its ever been done before, and you STILL haven't answered that. You didn't. I didn't say you did. I said half of the pitching staff. You look at it in a strange light. Yes, I think a GM would be looked at pretty strangely if he did something: 1. Completely without precedent(as far as I know). 2. That second guessed his previous strategy. This is getting tiresome. You said he would be looked at as laughing stock if he lost 90 games and expected to contend without trading away dead weight. So what the hell are you saying? Obviously he isn't going to hold onto the entire team but he isn't going to trade half of them away, either. You think half of this team is dead weight apparently? He just doesn't have to make as many moves as you think and if he did, people would wonder why the hell he did it, especially the more common fan, and other GMs. You are just trading to trade at some point and it might even hurt the team.

Ownings? Our new pinch hitter?

QUOTE(Dogfood22 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 01:31 PM) All the trades over the '06-'07 offseason were minor? The Freddy and McCarthy trades were big trades around baseball. The proposed Garland and Crede trades, which were both nixed by KW, would have been major trades as well. Secondly, the major thing I proposed was dealing for Miguel Cabrera. It doesn't make sense not to because he's far and away the best hitter available. The only way we could afford to land an offensive talent like him is through trade and later an extension. If he hits FA we'll get outbid. The ONLY reason a future HOF talent like him is available is because the team he plays for has the cheapest ownership of all 30 teams in baseball. Instead of talking about signing Aaron Rowand who is going to want $12 million plus, let's pick Miguel up and see if we can extend him for $20. The Konerko trade that would follow is obvious. There's no way around it. If the Sox landed Cabrera then Konerko would be gone. You have to trade a big contract to take on a big salary, and no one wants Contreras + Uribe, and we'd be stupid to deal Vazquez in the same year the Twins are looking to deal Santana, the A's are looking to deal Haren, and the O's are trying to trade Bedard. There won't be any prospects out there to make it worthwhile. So, the only guy left to trade is Paulie. The Angels or Dodgers make the most sense for us, but given the fact that the Angels have young veterans we need who can contribute right away to a contender as well as prospects, the Angels make the most sense. Aside from those two deals, which are actually logical, we'd be making one more big trade for Jon Rauch. After that, we'd be picking up two middle relievers who will be in their thirties next year, assuming a bad contract as part of a salary dump, salary dumping Pablo, and dealing for a journeyman defensive SS that we probably wouldn't even have to surrender a player for since he might not make the Dodgers' bench out of ST. Your last comment makes no sense at all. An active GM becomes a laughing stock for improving his team? Huh? So what if we trade a bunch of relievers who won't make our roster out of ST anyway. We still would have Adam Russell who alone, despite his struggles in Birmingham, has already surpassed most of what we have on the 40-man roster. And it's not like we couldn't sign a couple journeymen relievers to minor league contracts to fill out Charlotte's bullpen. You say "everyday players," but I've only proposed dealing two of them: Konerko and Fields+Crede, which counts as one really because they won't both be on our team next year. Pitchers are not everyday players because they don't play every day. You know what really makes a GM a laughing stock around baseball? Coming off of a 90-loss season expecting to contend with a bunch of dead weight on your roster. That and handing out bad contracts to guys off career years or giving out big money to unproven Japanese players. Why would someone rather spend more money on Rowand or Fukudome when he could get Jose Guillen at a discount? Because the steroids thing? At least he has injury problems as an excuse. He's not Palmeiro or Sosa or Bonds, so take advantage of the price cut because he'd be a $14 million plus player without it. Kenny's plan so far looks like it sucks, and the best part of it is the one that failed. If we had given $15 mil/year to Hunter we'd already be worse off. Ok so two major trades. That still leaves 6 more. Why is it so hard for you to admit your scenario is highly unlikely? Its not that the trades are bad, its that I can't get over how many of them there are. Like I said, you are trading away half or more of your starting staff. GMs don't do that to my knowledge, unless its a fire sale, which doesn't fit, as we are trying to win now. The GM becomes a laughing stock because he completely second guesses his previous plan. It makes a lot of sense. Kenny is highly respected from what I gather, so what you think makes him a laughing stock among people who actually matter in the business(not you) is wrong, I'm afraid.

I actually think Richar has the higher ceiling. He has a much better eye, the potential for as much power, which he showed last year and in AAA, and much more speed. Uribe's only benefit over richar, imo, is that he can play SS. If we can't get rid of him, I'd still rather see most of the playing time favoring richar.

A move for crisp could still happen too.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 12:46 PM) Jerry Owens, who if this goes down we pencil in to CF. If they make another move for a CF, then I'd say it's possible that we'll see a 1-2 of Cabrera, Quentin. If only jerry owens had an arm, I'd be comfortable with this. Any chance he might find one this offseason?

If we get rowand or jones, I'm pretty happy with this offense at this point. A lot of kids have to step up still in fields, richar, and quentin but I think they have the talent to do it.

QUOTE(Dogfood22 @ Dec 3, 2007 -> 09:57 AM) Your comments contribute nothing, but I will respond to them anyway. As far as making a lot of deal in an offseason, we made 5 last year... Garcia for Gio and Floyd McCarthy and a rookie level prospect for Danks, Masset, and Rasner Stewart for Lujan Cotts for Aardsma and Vasquez Gload for Sisco And we turned down at least 2 more that we should have made... Garland for Hirsch, Taveras, and Buccholz Crede for Figgins + So yeah, it can be done. And really, if Kenny doesn't want to rebuild he's going to have to make a lot of moves. On our 40-man roster, we have 2 third baseman when we only need one. In our pen, if we go with 6 arms, then Thornton, Jenks, Wassermann, Linebrink, and Logan already pretty much have 5 spots locked up. This leaves 10 pitchers (MacDougal, Phillips, Masset, Russell, Vasquez, Aardsma, Day, MacDougal, Oneli Perez, and Sisco) fighting for one spot. If we got to a seven man bullpen that is 2 spots for those guys to fight for. And this of course is under the assumption that KW doesn't trade a position player for another reliever or sign another one off the FA market. Then, as far as starters, we have 7 guys (Danks, Gio, Egbert, Broadway, Masset, Phillips, and Haeger) for 2 jobs. Some of the starting candidates, if they lose out on a starting job, may join the bullpen competition as well. Out of all of those players mentioned, most are ready but do not have a shot with us at all. There are other teams though that may take a flyer on some of these guys because of their arms, so we should deal off as many as we can if we can get something that is going to help us. The Sox are in a situation where, if they want to have a good offseason, they will have to sell low on a ton of players. Kenny should do that because if he is serious about contending he will have to. I don't think any single trade proposal I've made is ridiculous at all. If we can pull off one huge deal for a guy like Cabrera, sign a low risk/high reward pitcher like Colon on a one year deal, and take advantage of what will be one of very few FA bargains in Jose Guillen, then everything else would fall into place. Yet, some of Kenny's thinking really doesn't make any sense to me at all. He's targeting expensive CF's and willing to overpay for them instead of reaching out for bargains at positions of greater need. And no, offensive production out of CF is NOT as important as offense out of the OF corners or the starting staff. Also, as far as your comments about the "grass is greener" elsewhere, you are right. The grass on the South Side is all f***in' brown and s***. It's dead. We need one of two things here from KW: either he has to sell off most of his veterans to rebuild a new core (which he is not going to do) or he has to have a very productive offseason which means giving up on a ton of players with potential who do not have a real shot at making our club. I asked a question, albeit a snide one, so I contributed to my knowledge and maybe someone else was wondering the same thing. How touchy. There is one major difference between your scenario and the 5(well two actually). All 5 trades were pretty minor in comparison to yours. Yours trade everyday players(mostly). The second thing is there was only 5 of them. I said 8. So has anyone ever made 8 trades involving 4.5/9(.5 because of the pitchers) of their everyday players? My guess is still that they would be the laughing stock of baseball for completely reversing their position on their team.

Uribe has no value at second base. Its an easy position to play and the guy simply sucks at the plate.

I was pretty furious with the way damaso got treated at home, I guess I still am. It surprised me to see the home crowd acting like a bunch of cub fans.

QUOTE(Chombi @ Dec 2, 2007 -> 10:40 PM) K. Let's see. Uribe in 05' was coming off a 23 homer campaign with an .833 OPS. I'd say that is much better looking then any of the 3-4 young guys in our lineup. So to say Uribe didn't look much better at this point in 04' is incorrect. Everett was a proven 20+ homer guy who we were hoping would just remain healthy until Frank got back. We figured him playing DH would keep him healthy after a disappointing 04'. Again, something I was comfortable with. Much more comfortable then I am with Richar, Fields or Owens. Iguchi in my eyes was the only real question mark but all we ever heard was he was a contact hitter that played good 2nd base. To me, I was all for it after. Again, he wasn't expected to do much outside of bunt or move Pods over. Not expected to roam CF and hit leadoff. MB and Garcia were our front of the rotation guys. Both good. Garland we thought could do well as a 3 starter. Contreras was a huge ? and I remember being nervous with him but I also recall being so optimistic that he was out of NY and also formerly known as "The Titan of Bronze". Orlando Hernadez had played very well in NY the year prior to coming here and all of the concerns only were with his health. BMac had similar hype to Gio, maybe more. Difference was we had good pitchers at the top. Garland and Duque we considered mediocre but not bad for 3-4 and Contreras/Bmac were wild cards in the 5 slot. This was how I remember looking at it when the season started. I'll give you we had question marks but 5 of our starters had been in the majors for a while, not the same as this year. And I have seen lots of optimistic things on here. Be it the Garland trade, the Linebrink signing, trade winds section or the fact we think we can win by signign Fukudome and something else. And yea, your hopes are up if you expect people to have "career years" and other nonsense. I hate to belittle that train of thought but I say you're much safer betting everyone to put up their average years. If they do, it isn't a winning team. Not expecting them to "step up" and perform above expectations because then why not expect all our rivals to do the same and their players having "Career years" or "stepping up" will produce much greater results. It's illogical and optimistic. As I said. Lets go a little further into the optimism. Juan Uribe should've been our least concern this offseason. He is a decent SS. One of few who have had 20+ homers the last few years and X amount of Rbi's. He does it hitting low in our order and while playing solid defense. Sure his OBP/AVG are low but we had much bigger problems/holes then getting rid of him (although I was pro-new SS). So what do we do. We deal one of our best chips for a SS, after we re-sign him. If you can honestly say Garland couldn't have landed a no.2 hitter in the form of an OF, or 2nd baseman then so be it. To me, a leadoff hitter would've been more important. Followed by any OF that can get on base at like a .340-.360 clip. Instead we land an aging SS who we hope will repeat last years first half, since thats what carried him through the season. Don't act like there isn't optimism on here. There is enough. There should be more people frowning on this board right now because we just finished nearly in last place. We are 24 games behind teams who are GETTING BETTER. Meanwhile, we aren't. We are touching up sore spots on the team and hope the bandaid's hold over, and they won't. Don't mistake some people who dream of landing a bigger name for guys who think this season will be bad. For further optimism, why don't you just go look into the thread of our projected 08 lineup. If that is optimistic, I don't know what is...So I guess if you haven't seen those things, maybe we aren't on the same board. And I didn't mean to single anyone out or anythign like that. I was simply asking what you guys were seeing that I didnt or how you could say 2 moves fix this team when the two moves could be signing a Jose Guillen and like Bartolo Colon. Lol, juan uribe is a decent SS. He just isn't. So in a round about way, you are still admitting that we had a lot of question marks going into '05. I don't care to argue about, especially when I can't fully discern, YOUR assessment of the degree to which the aggregate question marks from each respective years differ, and I'm too tired to go through each one by one. Lets just say I disagree in most cases. More importantly, its December, and we are comparing an April '05 roster to a December one. Every team has question marks, even in spring training, and that doesn't keep them from winning championships or competing. I never said the board was entirely pessimistic, especially in regard to those moves. The board is pessimistic when looking at our ability to compete next year. I just think its too early to say we can't compete, and I've read it here a lot. Try to read what I write and not put words in my mouth. BTW, I like your av. Is someone f***ing with my post?

QUOTE(Chombi @ Dec 2, 2007 -> 09:22 PM) Huge difference in 05. We had a good leadoff man for one. Our bats all had near career years offensively. We didn't really have anyone I can think of like we'd have this season. Jenks really is about it. BMac we all were high on and as a 5th starter, he pitched well. Offensively we had several battle tested bats. Not 3 guys with under a seasons worth of at-bats mixed with a potential 4th. We had Uribe and Carl Everett for the majority of the season. Timo on the bench. That's crap. Joe Crede was no prized piece at that point either. He was a question mark as much as fields is now, even his defense was not of any notoriety. Tad Iguchi was a huge question mark at second. Much more so than you are making Fukudome out to be further down in your post. QUOTE(Chombi @ Dec 2, 2007 -> 09:22 PM) One other huge thing. We had 6 starters, not 2. 6 starters are you kidding me? Going in to '05, Count wasn't anymore reliable than he is right now. El duque was a giant question mark. Bmac wasn't a starter or someone who was proven. He was also a question mark. So basically we had what we have now, plus freddy. Also I think Vas is better than garland and we don't know if kenny is going to add anything else. QUOTE(Chombi @ Dec 2, 2007 -> 09:22 PM) I don't think everyone has to be good but in the AL, in our division you need either lots of pitching...Which we don't have. Or you need a lot of offense, which we don't have. I don't know how we can all pencil Fukudome in as some kind of stud or assume Jones will bounce back. I think they will probably be studs, though I never said that before. They will almost definitely be solid number 6 hitters, probably better. QUOTE(Chombi @ Dec 2, 2007 -> 09:22 PM) My whole thing is a lot of people on here are getting their hopes waaaay up and just assuming all of our guys will return to 05' form. Look outside of the box and realize we are at best the 3rd team in this division. I'd say worse w/o another couple moves. It'll be tough to compete with how good the AL is. People will need to step up into their roles. 05' we had past performances to gauge expectations. We hardly have enough with some guys and others had bad seasons. It's tough to judge right now and that is what scares someone like me. I think with so many uncertainties it is very dangerous. We have 4 guys on offense who we are uncertain about, not counting the vets. And our staff has 2-3 holes. Same with the bullpen. Just dangerous at this point. Lets hope things shape out over the next couple weeks. Who on this board is getting their hopes up? I think we are on two different boards. The overwhelming majority of post here are from people who think we are going to suck ass, and when I so much as suggest that we could possibly compete if certain people step up and we get another piece or two, you start saying people are getting their hopes up? Gimme a break.

Some of you give the impression that you think every single player on your team has to be solid to win a championship. You don't, we didn't in '05, and we won't next year. All we can hope for is a good group, some progress from the young guys and a little luck. In my opinion we need one more big bat, Fukudome or Jones, and we can compete if our young kids play well. Will we win a championship? Probably not but I would have said the same thing before the 2005 season too. Its much more about people stepping up to a role than how good your team is on paper.

Has any GM ever even thought of making 8 trades in a single offseason? God I hope not. At some point you are trading talent for talent just because the grass is greener.

The thread starter is right. Some of the same people complaining about our depleted farm system are the ones suggesting we further deplete it. We should at least leave ourselves with something to begin with if we don't win it all this year*. *Not that I think that's going to happen, but it is Kenny's goal.