Dick Allen

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 07:10 PM) I might be wrong...but I'm not sure how well-supported a early 90's to mid 2000's run (like the Braves had) would be supported in terms of attendance. The Braves only had one World Series title, and Braves fans really became bored with those teams falling short or not being built with all the components to win it all...maybe that's expecting too much, perhaps. It did take at least 8-10 years before the attendance really started to fall off, and I think a large part of that was due to the corporatization of the Braves, Ted Turner leaving day-to-day oversight and the fact that the really exciting teams and playoff appearances with that team happened in the early 90's through the mid to late 90's, then fans sort of lost interest and stopped coming in record numbers, and maybe the appeal of the new stadium (it's "okay") also started to wear off, too. Of course, any Sox fan would love to have that type of home-grown dynasty (Glavine, Smoltz by trade, Avery and then acquiring Maddux). My question would be how long White Sox fans would "pack the park" and pay rising prices if the White Sox continually flamed out in the first round of the playoffs, like more consistent franchises such as the Twins (and previously) the A's have done? Would there be diminishing returns with attendance until the White Sox won another World Series again? I think the closest example we can aim for is that of the Angels' sustained success, their fight under Moreno pull up almost even with the Dodgers in that market, consistent playoff appearances, that's setting the bar about as high as you can. If the White Sox ever went on a run like the Braves did, attendance wouldn't be an issue. White Sox fans will never get bored with winning.

Considering how guys like Teahan supposedly will be much improved if he just plays one position and how some guys who haven't DHd much struggle when they DH, I'm starting to wonder if it really is a good idea to be rotating that position very much. At least have one guy DH at least half the time. As for JD vs. Vlad, one big difference is Vlad will DH extensively, JD has already stated he is very much opposed. I also have always wondered if a guy is a good friend of Ozzie, and there are still several active players that fall into this category, does it make no difference to KW, or is it a plus, you probably are guaranteed he won't have a problem with the manager, or could it be a minus, even if it isn't true, he might be perceived to get special treatment and it could divide a clubhouse if things go wrong. I would imagine it probably makes no difference other than Ozzie may have some special insight.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 29, 2009 -> 03:43 PM) 78+17= 105? No. 78 departed. With Jones, Vizquel and Teahan 17 are coming back.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 29, 2009 -> 02:05 PM) Are you guys worried about our team speed heading into next year? Ranger? Others? Yes or no. We'll have to see the other moves. Right now, without Thome and Dye, that's 2 base cloggers gone. However, the Sox had 113 SB last year, and assuming Lillibridge and Nix are both in AAA or elsewhere, 78 of those SB have departed with 17 coming back. So while the team speed might be a little better, I think the baserunners need to be schooled a lot better. Of course you will have Rios for an entire year and if he can get on base he can get you a steal. It doesn't appear the home runs are going to be like they were in the heyday, so moving runners and stealing bases will be important. I know some don't think strikeouts are a big deal, but the Sox are going to have to cut those down and use their outs to get something done.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Nov 29, 2009 -> 12:50 PM) Why should we expect to hand over a role to someone and for them to take less money? If there is a lot of bidding going on wouldn't they take the most money? Maybe there is something about Japanese baseball I don't know-well there are alot of things actually-but money is the lure to signing any free agent IMO. Well, Dotel made $6.5 million last year. Boston declined the $6 million option on this guy this year. Maybe its a rather large assumption, but I don't think he gets $6 million, let alone $6.5 million, which would make him cheaper than Dotel.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Nov 29, 2009 -> 12:35 PM) Cubs also interested. Would be a nice pick up, perhaps the Sox could offer him the closer's spot as incentive to take less money. http://www.npbtracker.com/2009/11/free-age...ishi-kobayashi/ He'd fit right in with the youth movement. Seriously, he wouldn't be a bad pick up. Probably would take Dotel's role for less money.

QUOTE (T R U @ Nov 28, 2009 -> 11:40 PM) There is a difference between those sports and golf.. You cant really get your friends together and play 11 on 11 full pad football.. how many times as anyone played 9 on 9 baseball with friends all out, as in the pitcher is throwing hard someone is callin balls and strikes etc.. You can literally go play golf exactly like tiger woods does, the only difference is you arent good.. and good in terms of being on the PGA tour.. Im not trying to bash golf, i just dont think its a sport nor do i think they are athletes especially when people in their 60's or older can play.. There's a little more intensity at a professional golf tournament than there is when 4 hacks get together and the most important thing is the location of the beer cart. I went to college and am friends with a pro golfer who has won one PGA event but has mostly struggled during his career. (Although he has about $2 million in earnings). I've played golf with him. If you ever saw him playing with me and some buddies vs. how he plays on tour, there is absolutely no comparison.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 28, 2009 -> 07:20 PM) Why would they need Jenks to be setup/closer guy when they have Bard, who easily has the ability to excel in either role, for over 6 million dollars less? Not to mention there's no concerns about Bard's weight/conditioning. That's the other thing, Ozzie and KW did themselves no favors calling out Jenks if they plan to trade him. It seems to me they are getting their arbitration ammo in order. Last spring I was shocked when a reporter asked Ozzie about Jenks' weight, he just said he didn't care what he weighed anymore. Maybe they were giving him one shot at doing things his way, and all things considered, he probably had his worst year with the White Sox.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Nov 28, 2009 -> 11:39 PM) Okay, so where did I say that I believed it was absolute fact that anyone would have been better? I posted the numbers of other players on our team who already *were* better. As far as minor league options, it's no guarantee, but I certainly wouldn't bet money on any one of those players coming up and posting numbers worse than Linebrink's in the second half, and it is in no way inconceivable for any of those guys to perform significantly better. You don't know unless you give those guys a shot. And at least if you go to someone else you're sending a message that you won't settle for that kind of performance. Thanks for bringing up the Pena trade again. I only said that I thought we could have gotten something better for Allen than Pena. You can disagree with that all you want, I don't know. I felt Allen was being underrated, and in general I don't like giving up position prospects for middle relievers. Furthermore I repeated about a thousand times over that I had no problem dealing Allen. As bad as Linebrink was, given his history, he probably was a better bet turning it around than throwing the other guys in there. Another reason could be Linebrink could live with the failure, the younger guys sometimes have it ruin them. Also, substituting a minor leaguer for Linebrink wouldn't have been enough to get the Sox in the playoffs anyway, and if it meant a couple more wins, all it would have done is move them down in the draft and possiby make them eligible to surrender a #1 pick if Hell froze over and they signed a type A FA.

QUOTE (longshot7 @ Nov 28, 2009 -> 01:15 PM) I'm done with this argument, as there seems no point in going back and forth, but it bears mentioning-- technically it wasn't against the rules to do steroids for much of baseball's history. You talk about the sliding scale of wrongness - i equate roiding with stealing signs and speeding, not that bad in the scheme of things. You equate it wth manslaughter and the like. That's fine, but I'm not the one who cheered for these guys ten years ago and now wants their records removed. At least I've been consistent. Bring the steroids back as far as I'm concerned. All I care is wins, by any means necessary. But we can agree to disagree as it's clear we're not going to convince each other. The way the players were acquiring and using steroids was against the law. Maybe they had no verbage in MLB' s "rule book", just like I'm sure there is nothing about many other crimes in the "rule book." It doesn't mean technically it wasn't against the rules.

QUOTE (scenario @ Nov 28, 2009 -> 11:59 AM) Whoa there.... Bard has a cannon for an arm, but so did Ricky Vaughn... who Bard, so far in his career, seems to be emulating. 6.0 BB/9 in the minors?? 4.0 BB/9 this year for Boston? That ain't going to cut it in the majors. Bobby had similar numbers in the past and found he had to 'dial it down' to get his walks down... which is critical for a reliever if he wants to survive in MLB. Don't be surprised if Bard figures out he has to do the same. So can Bard be a very good pitcher? Sure. Could he be successful as a major league closer with his current control issues? Doubtful. So, is he better than Jenks right now? Absolutely not. He's probably not better than Jenks right now, although their ERAs were pretty much the same, but he may be by April and he'll be about $6.5 million cheaper for the 2010 season. I do know KW loves this guy but so does Theo. I don't think the Red Sox would make this offer even though Alexei is very cheap for his position and production. For KW it would be a no brainer. Bard doesn't have to close. They can use Thornton to close, and with the financial savings, sign Hudson or Polanco, add a DH and you could seriously talk about the WS again. Its too nice for the Sox. It could never happen.

QUOTE (MattZakrowski @ Nov 28, 2009 -> 08:10 AM) For me, it's not that I condone steroid use, but I do feel that the odds are that every team has guys that have done it. It's not the responsibility of the teams to blackball former juicers, but instead, it's up to the MLB as a whole to improve testing. Also, I'm curious if people want us to release/trade Flowers due to his PED use. Obviously there have been White Sox that have juiced. Some would be no surprise, some probably would stun us. It seems to me, and I'm sure its the same with every fanbase, other teams' juicers are cheats and scumbags, but when they are from your team or then come to your team, what they have done is really no different than jaywalking. But the fact that a 45 year old guy who will be 46 and who hasn't played in two years, and was an obvious juicer, has a thread this long with so many people in favor of signing him is rather bizarre.

Some of the posts on this thread are hysterical. I wonder why no one sticks up for Sammy Sosa. Anyway, one post sarcastically said why not sign Albert Belle too, he's about Bonds' age. Actually, Albert is a couple years younger. He's Omar Vizquel's age. Bonds' is the same age as Ozzie Guillen. I think we all know there's a better chance the Sox payroll is higher than the Yankees' in 2010 than Barry Bonds ever becoming a White Sox. He's done. No one will touch him.

Linebrink has been very good at times in each of his two seasons with the Sox. He's also been about as bad as a pitcher can be in each of his two seasons with the White Sox. The thing is, if he's bad, the Sox, at least in 2009 weren't going anywhere anyway. They might as well have thrown him out there to see if he could get the feel on his breaking pitch and maybe gain some confidence. People like to use the risk/reward a lot. Well the risk was Linebrink got lit up, the Sox lose and they don't make the playoffs, which, if they just sat him down, the don't make the playoffs anyway. The reward was he finds himself and is lights out again.There was really only one choice. If I were the GM, I definitely would trade Linebrink if someone wanted to eat his entire contract, but if a team wanted to give back an undesirable contact back, just basically swap headaches, I wouldn't do it. I like Linebrink's chances of a bounce back a lot more than most.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 07:26 AM) I like the talk of Blanco as back up C because it would mean having Flowers start in AAA getting regular AB's and working on his overall game. I agree with you, I think not having Flowers catch everyday isn't wise, but the White Sox might think Flowers' bat is too valuable not to have in the line-up, so they can make him the DH, maybe let him catch some and have AJ DH more and have Blanco or whoever catch once or twice a week. If you have 3 guys who can catch, you can DH one of them, or if they had C.J. on the roster, he supposedly could catch in a pinch, so theoretically you could have Flowers on the roster as the back-up catcher but get him ABs as the DH. As long as the Sox are signing fossils maybe they should look at Brian Giles. He was about as awful as you can be last year, but before that has always been a solid OBP with lots of production. He said he may have to sign a minor league contract. The wife or girlfriend beater accusations I suppose may scare teams away, and I wouldn't blame them, plus he will be 39. But that will be about the average age of the White Sox bench. Or Flowers may be trade bait. If Adrian Gonzalez or BJ Upton or someone of that ilk become White Sox, I would think Tyler Flowers would become an ex-White Sox.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 11:38 PM) Wow, this article makes it sound like the Sox will be rotating the DH spot between bench players. Awful news if that's truly the case. http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/artic...sp&c_id=cws It would be awful news, I just don't see how it can be true. KW said he wanted the team OBP to be .350. Swapping out Thome for a mix of guys like Jones, Kotsay maybe Nix isn't going to help it. I think they either sign or trade for enough guys that if they have 13 non-pitchers on the roster they have 9 regular-types, Kotsay, Vizquel, Jones, and a catcher. Who knows, maybe they will pencil Flowers in as a DH, and try to get him regular AB. The bench guys are OK if not overly exposed. It was one criticism of how Jones was handled in Texas. Chances are if Kotsay, Vizquel and Jones get 300 or more AB apiece, Soxtalk is going to need an upgrade to handle all the fire Walker stuff that will be posted.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 07:26 PM) .338 wOBA last year from Jones. Fields put up a .336 in '07 and a .287 last season. Chances are you're getting an upgrade here. Even if you could get Jones's .317 from '07 that's a substantial upgrade from Fields. I don't think Andruw Jones is anywhere near as bad as he was in 2008, all his peripherals were way off from his career norms, those corrected last year and he produced nicely. After April he hit below .200 the rest of the year. I really wonder why Texas didn't want him back. As long as he doesn't play too much, its fine, they can always release him if he struggles and JR won't have a heart attack. I just hope Quentin and either Pods or Crisp or whoever else they get to play in the OF can stay healthy. I really don't think Danks will be ready to play regularly in the big leagues in 2010. It is a total shift from the "we have to show the minor leaguers they will get a shot" position they had last year. It looks like Rutherford, Nix, Liillibridge, De Aza, if they aren't throw ins for other moves, will all be fighting for one spot, maybe, although there will probably be injuries at some point. Ozzie likes 12 pitchers, so its usually the 9 regulars and 4 bench guys, but if they rotate the DH its like 5 bench guys. The rotating DH thing I like if its an everyday-quality player that's being rotated. If its just guys like Kotsay and Jones being worked in, as much as Thome was hated around here, he's going to be thought of fondly pretty quickly into the season. I don't mind a veteran bench, even though I think they overpaid for Vizquel. Most of the minor leaguers the Sox have called up the past few years have appeared almost clueless. I am really looking forward to the real acquistions, the regular players and the bullpen.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 06:55 PM) a "slight upgrade over Josh Fields" is a backhand slap to the face of Jones and you know it. Maybe you should check the numbers. The last 3 years he's 220 for 1062 a .207 AVG. with 46 homers and 286 strikeouts. Over the sam period, Fields was 149-644 with 30 homers and 218 strikeouts. Sorry he's not a huge upgrade. He's a slight upgrade, and that might be optimistic. I certainly wasn't complaining.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 06:40 PM) LMAO, there is just no pleasing you LMAO who is complaining?

He probably is a slight upgrade over Josh Fields offensively for slightly more money, but nothing that can't be eaten. I'm shocked the Sox signed a Boras guy in November and Boras took it at this time. I do agree he appears to have had some help putting up numbers in the past. If anything he could be exhibit A to Bobby Jenks about what happens to guys who don't take their fitness seriously. Its a blah signing. I'm looking forward to the real moves. I'm just curious as to why the Rangers didn't want to bring him back.

QUOTE (bschmaranz @ Nov 23, 2009 -> 03:23 PM) Unless your offensive numbers were out of this world I don't see how a guy who played over 1500 games as a DH gets in. That's the rub. People will point to Harold's number of hits, and it was a lot, but where would he rank all time if the DH was in the NL and had been around since the beginning? Without the DH, and I know its a legit position now, Harold wouldn't have nearly the numbers he had. Like has been posted above, he was a very good player, the article saying he was a butcher in the field was wrong, he actually was not a bad defender and had a decent arm before his legs started failing. He made a lot of money, has a statue at USCF and a job as long as he wants one in the White Sox organization. But he's not a HOFer.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 07:23 PM) Yeah, that Giambi contract had nothing at all to do with the fact that the Yankees lost in the 9th inning of the last game of the World Series the season before Giambi arrived and won it the first season after he was gone. I think the blame goes to Mike Mussina. They won three in a row. Then he comes, they don't win. He retires, they win.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 07:48 AM) I don't understand the philosophy some folks here have with the bullpen. I don't see any reason to add any more than one new arm to the pen, tops. And I think that concern is secondary to the fact that the team is short an OF and a DH right now, which are much more glaring holes. The Sox bullpen, despite its struggles last year, put up a 4.08 ERA, good for the middle of the pack in the AL. Save percentage was also mid-pack. This despite the fact that Linebrink (the main setup guy originally) imploded beyond anything he's done in his career, Jenks has his weakest season as a closer, Dotel (7th inning guy originally) had a down year career-wise, and Tony Pena failed to live up to expecations. Carrasco had basically the same year he had in 2008. The only bullpen arm of significant innings who actually pitched better than his career typically would indicate, was Matt Thornton. Given the fact that the above pitchers were relatively healthy, and none are particularly old as far as relievers go, I think there is a very good chance that most or all other than Thornton will improve in 2010. Add to that we have Dan Hudson, a high end pitching prospect by any measure, who will probably be added to that pen. And guys like Nunez, who look to have the talent, in the wings. If you can find a serious upgrade arm somewhere, somehow, without seriously denting the major league roster, then you do it. But barring that, I'd be in no hurry to upgrade the pen. I'd be focusing on those OF and DH slots. Dotel is gone and the bullpen was horrible last year. If the Sox picked up Pujols to DH and Holliday to play RF, if the bullpen performs like it did in 2009, they wouldn't win.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 07:46 AM) Why? As far as I can tell, there isn't a single reliever that has even been signed yet this off season. I was shocked at the giddyness of the Teahan and Vizquel acquisitions, not that the bullpen hasn't been addressed yet. Before anyone gets too excited about this team, that needs to be straightened out.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Nov 23, 2009 -> 11:22 PM) What are some alternatives you suggest the Sox could have spent $5M on this off-season instead then? It all depends on how Teahen does, to decide whether those moves will be worthwhile. Too early to pass judgement IMO, until you see how Teahen. Same sort of thing as the Rios waiver claim, albeit a lot more people including myself were critical of the move because of Rios's contract and his declining offensive output. I read where Orlando Hudson would be hard pressed to get the guarantee of a little over $3 million he received last year. Put him at 2B, leave Beckham at 3B, and I think the infield everyday defense is better than with Teahan, the offense is most likely better and you still have money left over. I keep reading about bargains. As giddy as people are about Teahan and Vizquel, and I find it shocking, the bullpen has yet to be addressed. There are plenty of reasons the Sox lost a lot in 2009. Having Omar Vizquel play 3B in the 8th and 9th, addresses only an extremely small percentage. As for waiting before commenting, if that's the case, why have a message board? KW said he was doing some projection with Teahan, why can't we? IMO the White Sox have spent $5 million that could have been spent on more pressing issues. Sure Vizquel is one of the greatest defensive players ever, but not only is he now 43, he's not going to play much. He had a little over 1 chance a game last year if you consider the 162 game schedule.