iamshack

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 04:11 PM) That's exactly what I believe as well. We'll find ourselves bad to mediocre the next several seasons, all the while Williams will resist doing the right thing and rebuilding because of his ego and job security. Williams needed to trade someone with value to receive a generous package of young talent. He needed to take a risk. He didn't, and from that, we're no better today than yesterday. Am I supposed to believe the offseason will be any different concerning the value of any of our players? Garland won't magically command more with only one season until free agency. The next several seasons won't be pretty. I look at it like this -- if we're not going to have a legitimate chance of winning a division title (which I don't believe is very reasonable in this division), it won't matter one bit whether the team finishes at .500 or 20 games below. I'm not worried about a season ticket base, either. I'm more concerned with assembling talent form within than being just good enough to draw fans and continue a train of mediocrity such as 2001-2004. At a time when packages of young players have never been more difficult to acquire, you are telling Kenny he must acquire that. It doesn't make any sense. Does it not occur to you that this is the WORST time to try and acquire young talent? Why try and force this rebuild when there could be other alternatives. I'd be far more happy with a rebuild attempt when the price of young talent becomes reasonable again. For now, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to force-feed a rebuild at the worst possible time.

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 04:00 PM) If bad FA pitchers are commanding 10 mill annually then I have to expect we won't resign Garland in 2008 unless the Sox really start opening up their wallets. What information do I need to know where the team is going? -I know the ages of the team -I know their injury history -I know our record -I know we are one game out of last -I know the past is typically the best predictor of the future -I know our minor leagues are crap -I know we did nothing to improve that -I know we did nothing to improve our current team -I know we traded a role playing major leaguer for a player 4 levels below what we originally acquired that player for -I know Jose Contreras was more marketable 3 months ago than he is today...BY A MILE -I know Garland is a FA after 2008, it will be tough to resign him, but if we do we should do it PRIOR to this season ending I personally believe Williams wants to avoid last place and maybe all the moves I want happen then, but until then this season has been wretched. You don't know the offers he received for Garland. You don't know of any early extension talks with Garland. You don't know the budget for next year. How many of our younger pitchers have you actually seen pitch? I am certainly not trying to stifle discussion, or claim your concerns are not valid. I just always get a kick out of the armchair GM's who think the Stanford-educated guy that does this full-time doesn't have any foresight. C'Mon....you've at least got to give him enough credit to concede that he has looked at several different contingency plans. Perhaps they will make some moves in the offseason to make this team more competitive next year, and he feels he'll need Garland for that purpose. There are just so many things we don't know... And honestly...I hate to bring this up, but there is just no reason that the group we have now and could add to in the offseason couldn't achieve what the 05' team did, at least in terms of making the playoffs. You have every right to your opinions. But the guy thinks about more contingency plans than you could dream of. It's his job.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 03:49 PM) Someone say he wouldn't? Trying to cheer him up, Steff!

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 03:44 PM) There is absolutely no foresight in anything Williams is doing. Because he doesn't agree with your opinions? Perhaps he has more foresight than to trade Garland for .70 cents on the dollar while mediocre FA pitchers will be commanding $10 million annually. I appreciate your opinions, honestly. But don't you think that you claiming KW has no foresight is sort of hypocritical when you are not at all privy to enough information to even be qualified to know where this team is going?

QUOTE(Steff @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 03:38 PM) God forbid a player be sentimental about a team he not only worked for, but loved. :rolleyes. Agreed, but Rob will get over it. Soon, he'll be excited about the prospects of entering a pennant race and honestly, there are worst areas to get dealt to than San Diego, CA. He's dissapointed now, but he'll be alright.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 03:24 PM) Yes, but if they re-sign Dye, then they're going to have to clear some payroll. That means Garland is likely gone, and we still have the $20 million albatross in the rotation. I've been saying for two weeks now we should extend Dye, but I'm not so sure he'll "help" us out with the contract we'd try to get him to sign. He's going to want the same deal Frank got from the Blue Jays- 2/$20 million. Not real excited by that deal....

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 02:54 PM) We did trade a left-handed MAJOR LEAGUE reliever for him a year and a half ago. So, adjusted for deflation I'd think we could get maybe a AA starter...a single A relief pitcher? May as well have kept Mack on the team, he's better than several of the bums we have. Well believe me, you won't get any argument from me, I hated that trade since the day it happened. Unfortunately, KW just got tired of hearing Ozzie complain about Marte and used him to acquire a guy he had been targetting for a while. But to expect us to get a stud LH relief pitcher back for Mack, at this point. That's just not reality.

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 02:51 PM) Good lord. Williams is just giving players away now. What in the hell is the point of this trade? What on earth would you expect for Mackowiak?

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 01:36 PM) SOSH posters saying ESPN and a radio show there are saying the Dye deal is happening now. They mentioned Hansen, Wily Mo and maybe Murphy (I don't know who Murphy is). UGHHHH. Damn that Theo. Wait him out, Kenny. Wait him out.

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 01:22 PM) hey, nothing's happened yet with Dye! shocker! If they've got a deal done for Gagne, it probably will.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 01:07 PM) And we still have 20 bajillion holes for next season. Dye needs to go, I'm sorry but I don't want just two draft picks that will end up being busts because we can't draft. We need to find the best package for Jermaine and let him go. No, we might not get superstar players in return but I guarantee you we could at least get two players back who can fill some of these empty spots for next season. Garland needs to be traded as well because he CAN bring back some heavy talent but Kenny is too damn stubborn to trade him. In conclusion, we're not going to make any deal and we're going to hear Kenny's bullcrap that it takes two to tango or what not and we're going to be f***ed next season. But we have a solid starting rotation. Fix that bullpen up a little and patch the remaining holes. At least you have a chance then. I agree that the best move would probably be to move Garland now, rather than next year. I hope Kenny at least has some sort of idea of what it would take to resign Jon. If he does, than I trust he will do the right thing. And people need to stop comparing his situation to Mark's, because last year Mark laid an egg after June and ruined any chance of us getting a solid return for him basically until June of this year. But honestly, how many seasons do the A's and Twins have to win for us to believe a team with a solid pitching staff can win even with other holes?

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 01:01 PM) Well if thats the case, welcome to the late 80s. Or the early and mid-90's. The White Sox have done as good a job as any of finding struggling vets still capable of producing and winning with them...Ellis Burks/Bo Jackson/Jermaine Dye just to name a few. I am not extremely excited about the prospects of the next few years either, but better to sit on the few solid guys you have and try to find other ways to supplement the team than to trade them for .30 cents on the dollar. It just reaches a point where it is nonsensical.

QUOTE(vandy125 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 12:18 PM) It is not BS when that is what everyone is looking for right now. Seriously, name one team that is not looking for/holding on to prospects. Everyone is looking for them right now because of the price of all other players. You get ridiculous Zito contracts and they realize they cannot afford to pay for all of these players. So, everyone goes and looks for the cheap, magical, cure. They have to now find those wonders that suddenly pop up and can play because they have priced themselves out of everything else by making the contracts too large. Just wait though....wait until 3/4 of these prospects turn into absolutely nothing. The pendulum will start swinging back the other way. Right now, we've seen it swing completely from veteran certainty to cost certainty, but once that cost certainty fails to produce any sort of performance whatsoever, we'll see it start swinging back to veteran certainty. I love what Schulerholz has done. Classic case of selling high. Look at what has happened to the Angels system. Stoneman has held onto these kids forever, and now the value in most of them has decreased significantly. Dallas McPherson/Kendry Morales/Erick Aybar/Ervin Santana- even Brandon Wood. Imagine the proven vets they could have on that team had they dealt some of those kids prior to them struggling. The key is to identify the few that you really believe in, and sell the others high, before they are exposed. It's actually been something Kenny has done well, whether those were his intentions or not. I understand you guys want to get this team rebuilt....but the price of these kids is almost making that prohibitive right now. We picked an absolute terrible time to be sellers....and the more and more I think about it, we are picking an absolute terrible time to need an overhaul. Unfortunately, the Marlins did it too well after the 05' offseason. The best thing to do might be to just hold on to the solid production we have, try to squirm out of our one bad contract (Contreras), and pray that some patch jobs can keep us competitive until the price of quality pre-arb players reaches reasonable levels again. Otherwise, we might find ourselves without any of our good vets OR any good young kids.

I think Boston will crack. It's pretty clear that they want Dye so they can put Ortiz under the knife to get him healthy for the playoffs. Wait him out, Kenny.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 11:25 PM) That suggests Garland was their first option. If Blanton is traded to the Dodgers and the "starting pitching prospect" referenced by Rotoworld is Kershaw, that'll be about it with my confidence in Williams. Well, that's until he meets the high expectations I've set for Garland and his departure by midafternoon tomorrow. I think if a deal for Blanton would have been close, they wouldn't have let him go as long as they did...6 2/3, 108 pitches, 5 earned.....you think they would have yanked him...

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 11:10 PM) I'd do Dye for Bourn, assuming of course that he's alright which he appears to be. I'd also do Podsednik for Dubee part II or Erstad for half a Philly cheese steak sandwich. I want the entire sandwich, and it had better be from Pat's. How funny would it be if we traded them both Dye and Podsednik, thus putting in place our entire 05' OF and 4/9 of our starting lineup? Oh, how I would have to cheer for them...

Well guess who's going to be calling up Pat Gillick again tomorrow? Shane Victorino will undergo an MRI Tuesday after injuring his right calf during Monday's victory. The Phillies' right fielder said he heard a pop, which makes a DL stint fairly likely. Sounds like deja vu to me....maybe we can get Iguchi back...

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 06:30 PM) SI Weird. In all honesty, I think Schulerholz is doing a very intelligent thing. Playing on the ridiculous value of prospects right now and acquiring some veteran certainty in exchange for cost certainty. He's basically going against the grain of the market right now, selling high before the market corrects itself after some of these prospects flame out and teams realize they've traded proven veterans for squat.

And now Bruuuuuuce Levine is claiming we are trying to sign him to an extension...could that be what the meeting with Rick Hahn, KW, and OG was about yesterday before the game?

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 02:29 PM) With prancer, not catching flyballs, and heading balls instead of catching him, how much worse can he be. At least when he hits the ball it goes far. I hate strikeout guys as much as the next guy, but we have prospects that strikeout a lot and not hit a lot of homers. At least if you are going to swing hard for the fences, hit a dong from time to time. So because we have a poor defensive OF'er now, we should strive to replace him with another? Let's get on the right track here, not replace our current inefficiencies with new inefficiencies.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 02:19 PM) Where are you getting Hansen from? From all reports it's either Delcarmen or Masterson. Masterson would rank in the top ten prospects in the Sox farm system, and Wily Mo would rank right now as the best OFer we have heading into 2008 (sad as that may seem). WMP is also one year removed from a very good season. I'd much rather have that than two draft picks, neither of which would be in the 30 (I think it's more likely that Dye signs his last big contract with a 'winning' team). I have no problem if it is Masterson. But from the most recent report, they refuse to include either DelCarmen or Masterson....so I am going off the assumption that it may be Hansen.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 02:11 PM) You have a hell of a lot more confidence in our ability to draft than I do then. Also, if we have a few compensation picks, then it will cut down on the money we can possibly spend on the first pick we have. Don't forget with Dye, it's very possible he signs with Texas. If that's the case, it's a sandwich pick, and not a legit first rounder. Even if we did get just a sandwich pick, what would we be losing out of from WMP and Hansen?

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 01:55 PM) Like someone said, you get WMP and take a chance on him the rest of the year to prove if he can start. Anyone complaining about the names being thrown around in trade rumors today must have forgotten the amazing packages we received last time we were dealing guys at the deadline. I disagree. I'd rather take the picks than two schleps.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 01:01 PM) Pick up Pena. See what he can do in the line-up every day the rest of the season. If he blows, you still save money on the deal and Bowden will take him in a trade. Isn't there a reason two teams have not given him a chance to play every day?

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 30, 2007 -> 12:51 PM) I'd take the slow-pitch softball players over grinders. And BTW, Pena is one of the fastest players in all of baseball. He might not know how to steal, but he can at least go 1st to 3rd or score on a single from 2nd. Oh YAY! He can run the bases! The guy is an absolute piece of sh*t. There is nothing else to it. I don't care how hard he can hit the ball. We had that guy- his name was Joe Borchard. Why reacquire him? I understand Dye isn't worth a ton right now. But let's at least get players that can help us for next year, instead of players that are entirely useless for our future. I want no part of WMP.