Vance Law

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 03:53 PM) I think Hitless' underlying point is that the Sox still -- for whatever reason -- believe that they have to have a "leadoff hitter" on the team. They've made "leadoff hitter" a need even though it shouldn't really be one. Improving the team OBP is one thing, but forcing yourself to get a "leadoff man" is dumb. To apply that to the Sox, they should be trying to get the best possible players at SS/LF/CF. They shouldn't pigeon-hole it by saying that one of those spots have to be occupied by a true leadoff hitter. And that's why I'll be uber-pissed if Josh Fields opens the year in AAA because the organization is too f***ing stupid and has Jerry Owens in LF. I don't care if that means Fields has to open the year in LF with Crede at third, Uribe at short and Hunter in CF. Even if that group is a little low on OBP (they're a lot of low), it wouldn't be a whole lot different from the groups we've seen for the past six-seven years -- lots of homers (good), lots of Ks (bad), relatively low OBP (bad). But the homers themselves will carry the offense to be, at the very least, league average, and probably a little bit better. I can't possibly imagine Fields starting at AAA with Owens starting in LF. I feel relatively certain that's not going to happen.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 01:52 PM) As far as I'm concerned...no, I do not trade any of our young bats for young pitching unless the deal is an absolute steal (Kershaw for Fields or something like that) My reasoning is very simple...our system has pitchers. They're not necessarily Johan, but we all know what kind of crapshoot pitching prospects can be. Even the top prospect pitchers often fall apart (Gavin Floyd?) or come down with an injury. But starting pitching is one thing our system does have. We may not have anyone as good as Garza or Slowey, but it's also entirely possible that when everyone hits the big leagues, we may wind up with guys who are their better, their equal, or who are at least close enough. We have an awful lot of depth of young starting pitching. So much so that I still think it makes a lot of sense to move Garland, Contreras, or both of them to try to fill in our position player holes. Floyd, Broadway, Haeger, Gio, Sisco, Masset, Danks, all of them at least have it within them to come out and within the next year or two put up average numbers, and with guys like Buehrle and Vazquez in the rotation already, that might be all we need. On the other hand, look at our position player prospects. At the top levels, well, we had Fields who came up last year, Richar who we traded for, we had Owens who did ok and might be able to be counted on as a leadoff guy, we've got a pair of strugglers in Anderson and Sweeney, and maybe a couple of backups. You hardly find a guy in our system who we might count on in the next couple years to come up and fill any hole, let alone fill the specific holes we'd expect to see (SS, C, OF). Carter's several years away and in terms of a position player, if Sweeney can't step it up, he might be our only shot. We're already dumping money on guys like AJ, Uribe, and Dye because we simply have no one who can replace them. Now, you want me to trade one of my only quality position players for a pitcher? That's fine if it's a steal, but what are the odds of that? Let's say we move Fields for a pitcher and then Crede's back flares up again. Are you ready for a full season of Andy Gonzalez and Pablo Ozuna at 3rd base? You could give me Santana in the rotation and that still wouldn't make up for that disaster. Less intelligent, reasoned posts like this. More "I need this on the team right now and if Kenny does this I'm gonna show him by not watching any games next season" posts, please.

QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 03:08 PM) Well, picking up a guy that has a .350 OBP shouldn't be that damn hard. Luke Scott shouldn't cost much. If the Nats sign a CF Church should be available. Mark Loretta is old as rock but should be good for a .350 OBP (although not much else). Same with Iguchi. How many more times do you think a guy with a .350 OBP gets on base compared to a guy with a .330 OBP? In 600 plate appearances.......12 more times in the whole season. That is 2 more times per month. So with Thome hitting home runs in, let's give him, 6% of his plate appearances. How many solo shots is Thome expected to hit with the .330 OBP guy leading off that would have been 2-run shots with the .350 guy? 1.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 08:43 AM) He mentions Shoenweis but fails to mention that Jerry Hariston Jr and Gary Matthews Jr both played for the cubs. What info on Hairston came out? Went to high school with him.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 12:14 PM) LOL, seriously, how the Hell could both teams not try jumping at that. It does exactly what both of them need. Gives the Yankees a dominant #1, gives the Padres more youth, saves them money, fills that CF hole. This is what I'm talking about when I start talking about how teams have begun overvaluing prospects. When even the Yankees won't trade guys they really don't need for Jake Peavy, you know that the prospect value system has gotten out of whack. or that the free agent pitching market has gotten out of whack. Remember that Barry Zito guy? What will Peavy cost? 40 gatrillion dollars.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 12:53 PM) No it's not. Your scenario has Jerry Owens in LF, and there's not a chance in hell Owens hits well enough for a LFer. It's already looking like we're going to be carrying one offensive black hole in Uribe, you can't carry another, especially in LF. Gotta get somebody who can hit the f***ing ball in LF, no more of this slap-hitter crap. Interestingly the average OPS for American League CFs this year was .753. For LFs it was .758. It doesn't matter where you get the offense from. If you have plus-offense at CF, that makes it less necessary that you have it at LF. Also, LF still might be Fields. I contended throughout the Damon speculation and continue to (as have many others here), you won't get anything of value for Crede if he's traded before he actually plays some baseball.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 03:07 PM) Jon Garland is a much better pitcher at the Cell than he is on the road. So it's not like USCF is inflating his ERA. Yeah, obviously I was exaggerating. Just taking a swipe at the Heyman's "so-so" classification of a 112 ERA+ for 200 innings in the AL Central. Please.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 01:07 PM) KW voted yes, and Jim Hendry voted no, based on the "slippery slope" fallacy of logic. fixed the Hendry part

QUOTE(Linnwood @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 12:13 AM) Because human error is part of the game. Because the game doesn't need to be slowed down anymore. If you can review one type of call why not another? Why not balls and strikes? Why not just eliminate the umpires all together and put some fancy RFID/GPS tag in the ball? Damn correct home run calls! Speeding up the game with managers no longer arguing on the field for no reason for 5 minutes! I want my human error! Just like football with their instant replay of the spot of the ball after every single play.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 04:01 PM) he's also double the baseball player... Now that would be worth the money. $9 million for a 1.350 OPS, 40 homers 140 rbi

QUOTE(BearSox @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 03:30 PM) 4.5 million is too much for Uribe. ...but it doesn't begin to even touch the tip of the iceberg of players who make more, much more than they're worth.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 03:46 PM) So, for every Adrian Beltre or Carl Pavano, there's a Livan Hernandez or Frank Thomas who either suck or get hurt during their contract year. Yes. How about Andruw Jones.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 02:45 PM) Heh . . . I'm not saying the two situations are necessarily comparable but it is pretty funny that I can so easily plug Uribe's name into some of the posts from the Pods Signs thread from Dec. 1st of '06. Yes, and you could do the same thing for the other 29 teams where screaming/whining fans are demanding an upgrade over xyz underperforming/less than ideal player, often without an accurate understanding of the costs in dollars or in trades of a legitimately expected substantial upgrade.

4.23 ERA at the Cell = 1.65 at Petco and in the NL.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 02:31 PM) Personally, I still kinda like the Furcal one. But that depends a lot on if he's healthy...and perhaps more importantly, what else, if anything, the Dodgers threw in (either some money or players based on the value of a pitcher). I like Furcal more than Uribe, obviously. Any sane person would. But what is a reasonable estimate as to the extra number of runs the pitching gives up with Garland gone and his replacement in there? Not a Soxtalk, "I can see this guy playing his ideal best which, then makes my trade idea make sense right now in November," estimate. Is Furcal that many runs better than Uribe? On top of that, a pitcher keeping those runs off the board is more valuable than the offense scoring those runs.

QUOTE(BMac Attack @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 01:50 PM) there were and are better options than giving him $4.5 million dollars to eat/strike out a whole lot. Would love to hear any of those.

QUOTE(spiderman @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 12:09 PM) I was hoping that SS may be a position where they could find more of a contact hitter....Nope. Still have a lineup of all or nothing (mostly) home run hitters. In roughly one week's time? Work out a trade along the lines of various fantasy joke trades suggested here? Not even any of those were upgrades for us? One year of Garland for one year of Furcal? That's retarded. Jack Wilson? After Vizquel signs for $5.5 million the only remotely possible solution was Eckstein which would have been a disaster. Too many years, too much money per year for a singles hitter who can hit .300 in the NL Central, has been breaking down physically, and who is a gigantic downgrade defensively at ss. I haven't seen one plausible OR ridiculous biased soxfan invented trade idea that clearly works out better for the sox than simply keeping Uribe. It's not even close. The choice, by the end of the day, was to either sign Uribe, or bend over and go into the rest of the off season with no shortstop. If you can afford to have a bad hitter on your team, your #9 hitter for $4.5 million who still manages to hit 20 homers and knock in 70 runs and can give you plus defense at, oh yeah, shortstop isn't a bad place for him to be.

from Fox Sports Ken Rosenthal says that: "Yankees GM Brian Cashman says he doesn't expect the third-base market to develop quickly — and he figures to end up with better options than Crede for one year."

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Nov 6, 2007 -> 10:57 AM) Holy crap, I just looked, and he's actually right. Greene's OPS last year was .759, and his career best is .795. Wilson put up a .790 last year, and has a career high of .794. Greene has kept his above .700 most years, and yeah there's the Petco difference, but yowza. Greene did put up a .841 away from Petco last year, which is something, but the quesiton is how much you trust home/away splits to determine what a guy will do when you move him. OPS+ adjusts for park effects. 100 is league average Jack Wilson career OPS+ 79 since 01 (40, 67, 70, 104, 74, 77, 105) Khalil Greene career OPS+ 101 since 04 (114, 95, 97, 100)

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 07:57 PM) The problem of course...that Tony Gwynn kid might well do for the Brewers exactly the job Anderson would do. Anderson and Gwynn could platoon at CF. 2 x Anderson 2006/2 = Anderson 2006 = Anderson + Gwynn platoon 2008

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 04:17 PM) So, either they will sign him or they won't sign him...is that what you are saying? I'd say that's pretty accurate, but don't quote me on that.

Bruce Levine reports from GM meetings that White Sox have made Torii Hunter their #1 priority. This means either that: 1) This info was disseminated to Levine in order to help negotiations in acquiring a different CF (Rowand, Damon, Crisp, Jones, Cameron). or 2) Getting Torii Hunter is their #1 priority.

I didn't understand until recently why the Brewers moved to the NL. It's because you need to have an even number of teams in each league (16 and 14) or else one team would have to not play each day (or would have to be playing an interleague game). Kansas City was offered the opportunity to switch to the NL and they declined, leaving it to the Brewers to move. Bad call, Royals (at least right now).

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 09:34 AM) You're talking about an organziation that signed Jaret Wright after he failed an intial physical. I think the Yankees see Crede as a stop gap for 3B and need to dump one of their high priced OF's. The Yankees need to pay Crede, let's say, 4.5 million for one year and give the Sox, let's say, $4 million a year to take Damon for 2 years. So the Yankees need to pay about $12.5 million for one year of Crede (who may or may not be able to play/play a full year uninjured) so as to not pay $26 million for 2 years of Damon? Seems to me, at this moment, they can get more for Damon. And why don't they just get Tejada from Baltimore and put him at 3rd?

QUOTE(GreatScott82 @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 10:59 AM) ESPN 1000 says the Sox have contacted Tampa Bay in regards to Carl Crawford.. How many times do you guys think KW has tried to swing a deal for Crawford? Do we even have a decent package to offer them? Levine says Cubs talked to Rays too. Rays seeking young pitching.