Vance Law

QUOTE(RudyLawRules @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 03:44 PM) They sure like to celebrate HRs. celebrate indeed. translation of the note from the poster of the vid "Big home run from Alexi Ramirez…..months after putting up this video, I edit the information to add that this wound up being the last home run for “Piri” (his nickname) en Cuba. Until Sept 18 nobody imagined it. Good luck “PIri”, from Cuba I hope to see you soon in the MLB."

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 02:21 PM) Actually was looking for a comparison to Hunter. Basically Hunter and Rowand's career numbers are very comparable. Career OPS+ (which accounts for park effects) 100 is league average Hunter 104 Rowand 106 A. Jones 113 (with career low 88 last year) Cameron 106 Bradley 110 just for the hell of it Thome 150

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 01:21 PM) so, I'm going to expound upon this; do you hate him because he cheated and he broke the record, or just because he cheated? I do just want to clear this up, and I'm not trying to start anything; the only reason I'm really asking is because if you hate Bonds because he cheated, then you also hate Robert Valido, Alex Sanchez, Jorge Piedra, and many others. If you do, that's perfectly fine and I have no beef with it at all. and Jose Guillen and Jason Giambi and Sammy Sosa (corking, if you don't want to believe 'roids) and lots of other players we'll find out about in a few weeks

QUOTE(scenario @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 01:49 PM) In the "loose lips" article yesterday in the Trib, there was one sentence that kind of threw a foreshadowing of this. It said that KW and Rick Hahn were having lunch with Jaime Torres. Why would you have both the GM and contracts guy meeting with an agent, except to talk about a possible deal? And since Torres is the agent for both Contreras and Ramirez, I imagine his familiarity with the Sox might help us. Interesting, yes, I read that too. Why have lunch with Contreras' agent?

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 12:04 PM) From ESPN (and why Bora$$ is a jackass): QUOTE • There are rumblings in Nashville that the $36.2 million deal for Andruw Jones was Scott Boras' way of making sure that Jones' contract exceeds Torii Hunter's contract in average annual value. Jones will make $18.1 million a season compared to Hunter's $18 million per year with the Angels. Rotoworld said it better: "According to FOXSports.com's Ken Rosenthal, Andruw Jones' deal with the Dodgers is actually worth $36.2 million and contains a no-trade clause. That's just a little pathetic, Scott. With the extra $200,000, Jones and Boras can say they got a better deal than Torii Hunter, even though no one was touching Jones at four or five years."

QUOTE(WHITESOXRANDY @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 10:52 AM) Andruw Jones will have a better season defensively and offensively than Hunter,Rowand, Fukudome, Cameron or any other CF free agent. Make that your signature, Guesstimator.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 09:04 AM) ROWAND IS MEDIOCRE!!!! It's unfortunate that most White Sox fans believe he's great. It's also unfortunate that the FO of the White Sox thinks he's great. The Sox really ought to sign Fukudome. Actually Rowand has been both GREAT and mediocre. 2 great seasons out of the last 4, and 2 not great. Maybe it would be great to get Fukudome. Maybe it will be mediocre. We'd like to think that his Japanese numbers will translate, but who knows? I read where the Royals new manager (who spent the last 5 years in Japan) was asked about Fukudome. He said he was great in Japan. Second best left handed hitter in the league while he was there. The best? Iwamura who is now on the Rays. Iwamura once hit 44 homers in Japan. He hit 7 for Tampa last year. Put up a .770 OPS which is a notch above league average- not bad at all for the $1.8 million he's making. Iguchi came over here and wasn't the star with power and speed that he was in Japan, but he put up league average numbers or a notch above. Not bad for as little as we were paying him. Fukudome, however looks to get 10, 12, 13, 14 million a year. Nobody f***ing knows how his numbers will translate. Nobody knows if his .400 OBPs will go to .360. Or if his career .537 SLG will drop significantly. Iwamura had a .544 SLG in 2006, which went to .411 in Tampa last year. Fukudome seems like a savior because nobody's seen him play. Nobody's seen him play badly. Nobody knows yet how he'll play here. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, his shiny numbers from Japan give people false certainty that he'll be great. I hope we get one of the centerfielders. Nobody knows whether Fukudome, or Rowand, or Cameron (leaving Petco and coming to the Cell), or Milton Bradley will have a better year next year. It's a crapshoot. I do know that $90 million for Torri Hunter is a retarded joke, though.

I want Milton Bradley, too.

QUOTE(scenario @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 01:50 AM) Exactly. It's the 28 homeruns in 350 at-bats this year, 132 walks vs. only 54 strikeouts, .440 OBP, and 1.000+ OPS that caught my attention. Hard to imagine a free agent outfielder with those offensive skills (who could be had on a one-year contract) would be ignored by a team that finished near the bottom of baseball in runs scored... and is looking for a power hitting outfielder. And a few weeks from now he'll be appear no dirtier than the dozens of people mentioned in the Mitchell report. The only snag is that the Sox won't deal with his agent, Borris.

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 10:42 PM) This is what the winter meetings has come to...discussing the cancerous prima donna known as Bonds. No one's discussing his cancerousness or prima donna-ness. More that he's one of the top few hitters in baseball and a free agent.

QUOTE(SoxFanForever @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 12:06 AM) Looks like someone is a little crabby after he blew a few chances. These are the types of comments I find so bizarre coming from a Sox fan. I'm all for honest to goodness criticism of moves the GM makes, like"I don't think we got enough for Jon Garland,"or whatever the hell. But "he blew his chances"? What chances? What the hell are people talking about? What chances? For Cabrera? Florida didn't say "we'll give you Cabrera for this and this and this" and Williams said "no. " What the f*** are people talking about? He made his best offer, offered up our top prospects, apparently was in the running before the Detroit offer, but not surprisingly, the team with a better offer got him. The team that was losing 100 or 90 games while we were winning the World Series had more stockpiled. Hunter? Are you f***ing kidding? Our offer was more than Hunter was worth, but if you're going to sign a free agent, you're going to have to give him more than he's worth. The Angels offer is a ridiculous joke. From the people who paid too much for Sarge Jr. last year. They upped ours by 20%. I call complete and total bulls*** if there is any sane person here who is complaining now that Kenny "swung and missed" on Hunter, as the papers like to say, and who also would have said 2 weeks ago, "we should offer Hunter $95 or $100 million for 5 years." While there are 3 or 4 comparable center fielders still on the market. Moronic.

Tigers possibly looking to deal Dontrelle per Rotoworld. Your complaints that Williams should have done that will be dumb emotional ones as we couldn't compete with Maybin and Miller. "According to Sweeney Murti on WFAN, the Tigers have approached the Mets about Dontrelle Willis, with Ivan Rodriguez also perhaps being involved. It appears that the Tigers would like to shed some salary after picking up Miguel Cabrera, and this would be a creative way of doing it. The Mets have long been interested in Willis, but the Marlins didn't want to trade him in the division. If they took on both Willis and Pudge, they'd be adding $20 million to the payroll -- or maybe $15 million if they threw back Brian Schneider -- and they might have to extend Rodriguez in order to get him to waive his no-trade protection." But $20 mil for Willis and Pudge and you have to sign Pudge for an extra year and give up the catcher they just traded Milledge for? I can't see that happening, not worth it for the Mets.

QUOTE(False Alarm @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 03:01 PM) from will carroll at 1 pm ET: QUOTE The teams involved on Kosuke Fukudome are all cursing the Royals today. Jose Guillen's signing his three-year, $36 million deal raised the price for Fukudome, and left several teams looking for a Plan B. Both Chicago teams are in on the bidding, including a strong move from the White Sox, who don't want to miss out on yet another off-season target. I do not see this quote in Will Carroll's chat. Am I right that this is a paraphrase? I see "both Chicago teams bidding" in the chat, but not "ncluding a strong move from the White Sox, who don't want to miss out on yet another off-season target."

Cabrera was very good against lefties last year. Not so in 05 and 06. Good against them in 03 and 04. These things can tend to fluctuate for a lot of players, especially with such a sample size of at bats.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 05:13 PM) I'd prefer to deal with the best players. Sometimes it seems like we're a college team that can only recruit players that aren't just academically qualified, put also would be accepted into the school if they were a normal student (like Stanford used to be). Did you read the Neyer article from a couple of weeks ago where something like 3 out of the last 10 big Boras free agents even played up to reasonable expectations- not even stating whether or not they were WORTH their huge contracts. Just whether or not they played reasonably well for the life of the contracts. And one of those 3 was when Maddux surprisingly accepted arbitration and got like a one year $15 mil deal and he pitched pretty well. One of those 3 was Al-Rodri where he's certainly played well, but not worth the $252 million

QUOTE(max power @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 04:49 PM) I don't see how 4/55 is worse for him than 5/60 as someone mentioned earlier. I'm sure(well I hope) rowand's agents know something about the time value of money. Yes, that was me. Maybe his agents don't. Let's offer him 5/54.

QUOTE(EvilJester99 @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 04:20 PM) IIRC Gooch said he doesn't want to play 3rd and thats one of the reasons he opted for FA. He changed his mind a day or two ago. They were possibly going to look into getting a waiver to allow him to negotiate with the Phillies again, because the rules stated that they could not talk again until May.

Look out, Sox might get Gooched over on this one. from Rotoworld "Agent Rocky Hall said he's expecting the Brewers to extend a two-year offer to Tadahito Iguchi. Iguchi would likely take over as the Brewers' third baseman, with Ryan Braun getting shifted to left. That's not the kind of upgrade the Brewers first seemed to be shooting for when they entertained the idea of moving Braun, but it might work out OK."

From Rotoworld: Guillen trying to negotiate a less stringent 'roids penalty "The MLBPA is negotiating with MLB officials on a possible 10- to 15-day suspension for Jose Guillen for his reported involvement in the purchase of steroids and human growth hormone, sources told ESPN's Buster Olney. Guillen, whose three-year deal with the Royals still isn't official, apparently is admitting to some wrongdoing. "We told the commissioner's office my version of this whole affair, which in some ways has been handled with some errors in the media," Guillen told ESPNdeportes.com when asked about the situation. The San Francisco Chronicle reported last month that Guillen bought nearly $20,000 worth of steroids and human growth hormone from 2003 through 2005"

If the Cubs get Fukdome, I will turn off this website for a day or 2 because the crying and complaining here will be so lame and unbearable.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 02:50 PM) Thome doesn't hit into too many double plays (you have to make contact for that to happen). While we're all certain it isn't actually going to happen (it would likely be the first time in the history of baseball that a prototypical "slugger" [i wouldn't call Soriano that, exactly] was a leadoff man), it wouldn't be that hard to determine or give a good estimate of an expected increase in solo home runs. How many of his 35 were solo last year while hitting third? What percentage of a lead off man's plate appearances are the first appearance of the game? What is the difference in expected OBP of our 8 and 9 hitter as compared to our 1 and 2? Again, I'm certain Thome isn't going to lead off, but what is a legitimate, mathematically worked estimate of the comparison between "runs lost by Thome hitting more solo homers" vs. "runs gained by having lead off hitter with .400 OBP"?

QUOTE(Jimbo's Drinker @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 11:43 AM) What a pathetic fan base we are begging for Kenny Lofton. Why dont we just put Rock Raines at the lead off spot? That made me laugh. Dan Schatzeder to sure up the bullpen, too.

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 11:35 AM) Just adding Rios, Hunter, Jones, etc...won't make us competitive in the AL next year. We should have begun retooling after 2006. Crede and Dye were at their peak value, Garland was still 2 years from free agency Dude, you are Reggie Hindsight.

I still don't get the obsession specifically with Hunter. Any or all of Rowand, Jones, Fukudome, and Cameron are likely to put up better numbers than him and they are all still available (Jones is in theory, anyway).

QUOTE(iamshack @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 11:15 AM) As for Fields being an "athlete," he isn't athletic enough to play left field But Manny Ramirez and Adam Dunn are?