Jeremy

QUOTE(max power @ Jul 26, 2007 -> 07:07 PM) This thread reeks of 20/20 hindsight bulls***. I'm not convinced it was a bad signing yet either. He might just need the off season or an extended break to heal up. Who really knows? Counting him out for the rest of his career would be foolish. Look at el duque. Certainly, it's possible that that's the case in some instances. However, you really can't imagine that anyone would have been concerned about signing a pitcher coming off the best stretch of his career to a large three year extension through his 37th (40th?!) birthday? If so, that's troubling. I can probably count on one hand the number of pitchers I'd like to pay a large amount of money for their age 35-37 seasons and Jose is not one of them. I guess you'll just have to take my word for it but I can assure you that I for one thought the extension was insane while the ink before the ink had dried and my opinion hasn't changed at all since then. QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Jul 26, 2007 -> 08:58 PM) I'm not a huge fan of Williams, but I don't see how anyone can say he has a bad record minus his World Championship (which is already funny -- let's just disregard a World Series year...). He built competitive teams on a relatively tight budget. Kenny inherited a 95 win team with one of the lowest payrolls in the league and a farm system rated amongst the best by Baseball America so keeping the team above .500 shouldn't be considered a huge feat in my mind. QUOTE(rangercal @ Jul 26, 2007 -> 09:22 PM) I Loved the deal , he was our world series ace and was one of the top 3 pitchers in the game for a long time. Considering many sps pitch until they are 40, I didn't see much risk as it looked like Count found his tools. I guess over half the posters in this thread didn't like the deal at the time. Umm yeah right Huh? A long time? You mean the 2005 season? Because he had an ERA of 5.5 the previous season. Also, by top 3 do you mean top 30? How do you figure that a guy with the 27th best ERA in '05 was one of the three best pitchers in baseball that season? If I had to guess I'd say something like 5% of pitchers are still in the league at 40. A lot of guys don't make it past their 30th birthday because of ineffectiveness and/or injury. Pitching well into your mid and late thirties is extremely difficult.

If JD can only bring a B level prospect then keep him for the draft picks. Trading Contreras becomes a lot less attractive if we have to pay well over half his salary.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jul 26, 2007 -> 09:29 AM) Perhaps I'm being overly-optimistic, but I think it's possible to re-tool this team in the way that I described previously and get 85 wins out of them. If a few things go their way (or against divisional opponents), that could translate into 90 wins and a Wild Card. As bad as the Sox have played this year, I don't think that they're as bad as their record suggests. The entire lineup (minus Thome, who was hurt for a while) slumped horribly from April-June. We would've been better off with Sweeney and Fields at RF and 3B, respectively, on Opening Day (and apparently, we will next year). And despite the glaring lack of talent in our 'pen right now, they've been so historically bad that I don't think that they could repeat this performance if they tried. Sometimes, you have years when nothing goes your way and I think that this is just one of those years. IMO, if we went into next year with this same team, I think that we win 75 games (I don't see DET and CLE being as strong, either). I don't really disagree with much of that, I just look at it in terms of probabilities I guess. Would this team win more games on average if you replayed this season? Yes, but it's important to remember that next season everyone will be a year older and that might cause some issues, especially for the oldest players such as Thome and Contreras. I agree that we can improve substantially by retooling some. We could improve ten wins as the result of retooling but that seems on the high side. I'd probably place the odds of that at something like 15%. Maybe the most likely outcome is that retooling improves the team 5 wins - there's always a chance , albeit a very slim one, that the players we bring in are actually worse than their replacements - and regression to the mean improves an additional two or three wins after you deduct a few wins on account of a veteran team aging another year. In that case the most likely outcome is roughly a .500 team which isn't worth anything. The value you derive out of that situation is the chance that as you suggested the moves work out better than expected, you get a few career years, a few baseball bounces, and land around 90 wins. I'd say that looks like a 5 or 10% chance at the most. Then you have to consider the likelihood of a handful of other teams underachieving a bit so that the wildcard sneaks in with a win total in the low 90s or high 80s. You and I might disagree but either way, we should probably be able to agree that the team's odds of making the playoffs next season isn't high. The issue is how much value to place on that somewhat low chance. In my mind, less than favorable odds like that aren't valuable enough to dictate a terribly strong win now stance. The odds seem neutral enough to me that I'd just let other factors dictate what happens: if you get deals you think are favorable make them, if not stand pat. QUOTE(WCSox @ Jul 26, 2007 -> 09:29 AM) As for Paulie, I think that dealing him right now would be a huge mistake. Unless some GM were to idiotically overwhelm us with a package that "we couldn't refuse", it's just not a good idea to deal a healthy 31-year-old who is basically a lock for 30 HR/100 RBI, a leader in the clubhouse, massively popular among the fans, and very reasonably-priced. Even if KW wanted to rebuild this team from scratch (which he apparently doesn't, after giving Mark an extension), you need a couple of proficient veterans to build around. With Dye as good as gone and Thome probably gone after next year, Paulie and Mark are going to be those guys. I'd much rather see Thome dealt (assuming he'd accept a trade) or JD (although I think that we'd get more out of the draft picks). I wouldn't mind seeing Jenks dealt, as he isn't what he was two years ago and his weight/pitching style suggests that he's an injury waiting to happen. I'd like to see how we're playing next May or June before dealing Jon, although I wouldn't be pulling my hair out in anger if KW could get a good package for him this winter. Unless you're saying that there's a presumption that teams won't offer us near market value for Paully, I don't understand why an offer would need to be overwhelming. A good, fair offer than includes players we like should be worth seriously considering. Paully is a very good hitter but not quite an elite hitter like a healthy Thome or say a Pujolz, ARod, Manny, or Ortiz. His contract is a pretty good value in light of the escalating market but he'll likely decline at least a little bit as he ages at which point the value might become closer to average. He's someone to build around if he can continue to hit very well until he's 35 or 36 the way that Bonds, Frank, and Thome seem to be able to do. However, even though players are better at older ages these days it's still somewhat rare to be effective past 35 and Paully's peak hasn't been as high as those HOF calliber players I just mentioned.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jul 25, 2007 -> 06:14 PM) Jeremy, solid post. Hey, thanks Steff. I feel like it's been a really long time since we've been running in the same circles. QUOTE(WCSox @ Jul 25, 2007 -> 06:24 PM) I agree. But I also think that it's possible to "re-tool" this team with a couple of veteran arms in the 'pen and a reasonably-priced FA with a decent bat somewhere in the lineup... without breaking the bank or mortgaging the future. If it works, great. If we have an April and May like we did this year, get Kenny on the phone and move Garland and Thome to the highest bidder. I guess that I didn't take my own words as literally as I should've. As far as mortgaging the future i.e. trading players promising young players like Fields, Gio, or Danks for veterans, that actually never occurred to me. However, those types of moves would technically be the furthest extreme we could go to as far as a "win now" agenda. I just assumed those types of trades were obviously unacceptable but I shouldn't make assumptions. What I meant was that you weigh the long term and short term benefits of a trade pretty equally before you decide whether or not to pull the trigger. In other words, if you could obtain good assets in a deal for Konerko but the team would take a significant step backwards next season, you don't refuse the deal just for the sake of hanging onto some slight chance we'll improve 20 wins and make the playoffs next season. Basically, you focus on market value: if you're offered a strong prospects package for your veterans you shift closer to a "win later" plan while if you're getting seriously low balled on your vets, you take more of a tweaking approach and take the draft picks for your free agents. I think that a few veteran relievers and a solid free agent position player could be good for something like 8-10 wins. For the other 10-12 I think we'll need good baseball bounces. Again, I think that's possible but unlikely. I think it's very important to emphasize that a "wait and see" approach carries a large risk. I really liked the Shulerholz quote that someone posted stating that it's far better to trade a player too early than a year too late. Garland's value will be lower if for no other reason than the fact that his contract will be shorter. More importantly, there will always be a considerable risk that he has an ineffective season or suffers an injury. Those concerns exist tenfold for Thome considering his age. "Sell high, buy low." QUOTE(iamshack @ Jul 25, 2007 -> 06:53 PM) 1) Cleveland had a very talented group of position players. VMart, Hafner, Peralta, and Sizemore are the core of that team. Meanwhile, they are a little shaky with their pitching staff. I don't know that they will make the postseason because of that pitching. And if they can't resign Sabathia, that rotation gets really iffy. 2) We'll end up being fairly close to .500 this season, IMO. 3) Cleveland has underproduced in Pythagorean wins almost as a matter of practice with this current nucleus, and it has everything to do with that offense beating up on crappy bullpens. Pythagorean wins are normally a fairly solid masure of predicting wins and losses the following year, but Cleveland has consistently shown it can be "fooled." 1) Yeah, I wasn't referring to Cleveland in the future so much as using them as a comparison for our current team. My point was that the age of their players suggested major improvement from last season to this season and that's not the case with our players. 2) We've got to wait and see on that one. So far the absolute best bet is probably that we continue to win at a similar clip as we have thus far. 3) Cleveland is actually 3 wins ahead of their Pythagorean this season and fell 4 wins short in '05. Last season, when they finished 12 wins short is really the only major outlier and their performance this season seems to confirm that. If we were 12 wins under instead of 4 wins over our Pythagorean I'd be a lot more confident about next season.

I think the lesson to be taken from the Cards' championship is that any team can win it all if they make the playoffs. QUOTE(WCSox @ Jul 25, 2007 -> 02:38 PM) What makes you so sure that the AL Central is a lock to be ultra-competitive next year? Is it the same logical that predicted that the Indians would win 93 games in '05 or that they'd only win 78 in '06? Or is it the same logic that predicted that the Tigers would win 95 games and the pennant next year? Can the White Sox make the playoffs next season? It's certainly not impossible. As someone mentioned the '99 team improved 20 wins. The starting pitching could hold up, a few acquisitions could improve the offense and the bullpen, we could run across some good luck and the teams currently ahead of us could take a major step backwards. But how much do you want to gamble on that? Something like 6 or 10 teams are going to finish ahead of us but out of the playoffs. It's going to be hard to leapfrog all of them. I'm not saying we need to tear down the team completely but if we make every single move solely towards winning as many games as possible next season, future be damned, coming off what might be a 90 loss season, that's a problem. QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jul 25, 2007 -> 02:33 PM) Yeah, they ripped him for their handling of Bradford and subsequent trade to the A's.... for Miguel Olivo. Tell me how that can be viewed as a loss. As far as the other time they rip on Kenny -- taking Ring over Blanton, a move I despised -- I believe the scouting director had more "pull" in that decision than Kenny. The thing that always struck me about Moneyball's account of the Bradford trade wasn't that we badly lose the deal - Kenny's scouting looks good as far as his interest in Miggy - but how severely he seemed to underappreciate Bradford because he wasn't a "power arm" like the guys who failed us this season. Billy is salivating over Bradford because of his remarkable success in the minors but plays it cool by asking Kenny for something like "a 12th or 13th" pitcher and Kenny eventually suggests Bradford. The thing that's important to remember about the scouts is that Kenny is their boss and decides how much weight to give their opinion. If they're making mistakes, Kenny should can them or at least think twice about making bold, controversial words based solely on their opinions. Kenny is the one responsible for our strategy where we apparently "target" one or two dozen players and send scouts to watch them repeatedly, then fall in love with some of them (e.g. Floyd) and seemingly acquire them instead of players more highly regarded throughout baseball. QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Jul 25, 2007 -> 05:41 PM) I agree with all you said here. And just to add to this, the Indians were a sub .500 team last year, really not all that different from this year's Sox. I think we have a good nucleus of talented players (Konerko, Thome, Buehrle, Garland, Jenks, etc.) comparable to the other good teams. Problem is we also have our share of really awful players (Uribe, CF, Crede, set-up guys) where other teams can fill those gaps with at least average and mediocre talent. So really I'm not that pessimistic about our chances next season. There's gaps to fill but I don't think it's some incredible rebuilding task and we can acquire some competent players through free agency without breaking the bank (you know, sort of what KW did in 2005). I have some issues with that comparison: 1) Cleveland had a very young and talented club. They could expect many of their players to improve the next season. Considering how many players we have that are in or past their primes, in the aggregate, holding steady is probably the most we can ask for from the players already on the major league roster. 2) We're a good ways away from .500. 3) IIRC, Cleveland's runs scored and allowed suggested they were a lot better than their record last season. We might be able to make a similar argument in light of the bullpen's incredible ineptitude but I don't think it'd be as persuasive.

It's a shame that Kenny wasn't smart enough to come to this conclusion in the offseason. Can't say I understand people taking Crede's best season and counting on him to repeatedly reproduce those numbers at the drop of a dime. Basically, Fields' season is on par with Crede's career averages despite the fact that he's a 24 year old rookie. You have to consider Josh the better bet going forwards.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Jul 24, 2007 -> 05:07 PM) You wouldn't get that impression from the last several years. Teams may be desperate at a certain point near August 1st, but they're probably not going to give up too much for a rent-a-player. If we're looking to receive anything of value, someone with more than two months on their contract should be traded. Garland has to go. I didn't mean that teams will necessarily overpay in deadline deals. I'm not concerned about getting assets, we just need to rid ourselves of Jose's contract if we're capable of doing so. If anyone will take his contract off his hands at the deadline, we need to pull the trigger because we might not have that opportunity again if we pass it up now.

QUOTE(dasox24 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 08:14 PM) In regards to Contreras, he's not owed too much more for the rest of the year since we've already paid a hefty portion of that contract, so unless we're offered a good deal for him, there's no reason to move him. We can hope he'll improve later in the year, and then get more in return in the off-season. And if he doesn't improve at all, then we'll still be able to get what we'd get for him now even if we wait till the off-season b/c his value is so low. Either way, I want Contreras off this team by Spring Training '08, but I don't see why we need to move Contreras if we won't get much in return. I think it's entirely possible that we might be able to trade Contreras at the deadline but not in the offseason. First of all, teams are a lot more desperate at the deadline than in the offseason. Also, if recent trends on continue his numbers might be substantially worse at the end of the season than at the deadline.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 11:15 PM) Wily Mo Pena doesn't excite me at all. He has good power potential, but thats all. If he give up anything real good for him, I won't be very pleased. I guess I generally agree but it would be satisfying to have someone who remotely possesses the characteristics of a major league corner outfielder, especially once JD is gone.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:36 PM) wow your overpost successfully deterred me from wanting to respond. We wont agree on this, ever. I don't really understand what that means but okay. QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:39 PM) One recent study had an average drop of 0.85 off an ERA on a move from AL to NL. But I don't how statistically valid that is (sample size, blah,blah,blah). But it was pretty close to one run. Anyway, I do agree with you that Danks, while a fine young pitcher, isn't one of top 20 or whatever young pitchers in the game. He does look like he can be league average AL starter for the minimum, so he's very valuable. But I'd trade him to fill multiple positional holes with guys that project to have all-star skills. My off the top of my head guess was .75 so that sounds reasonable. We seem to be on the exact same page.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:12 PM) Consider me wrong then. I didnt know that most ratings of pitchers should be based soley on lists made by scouts. Nah. I listed three things: top prospect lists, minor league statistics, and major league statistics. Also, I didn't intend to limit top prospects lists to only those done by scouting outfits like Baseball America. I'd count more stat driven lists like those by Baseball Prospectus also. QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:12 PM) A young 22 year old pitcher, who was a top draft pick, who is in the majors before he is supposed to and enjoys moderate success in his first season is not going to be traded at the deadline. Well, we can agree that he won't be traded at the deadline then. I'd still probably trade him in a package for Young or a similar player though. QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:12 PM) KW needs to find players that can stay on this team and add payroll flexibility while also bringing results. John Danks is A#1 on that list, hence the reason he is untouchable. I'm not sure I place that much value in continuity as far as the roster goes. I don't think Kenny does either or he would've kept BMac over Danks since Brian had been in the organization for a while. As far as good young players signed to their rookie deals, I agree that's a priority. That's why I'm discussing players like Young and not players who make $10 million a season or are on the verge of free agency. QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:12 PM) As for your fantasy trade scenarios that you listed, xbox is fun, but its not reality and listing other team's untouchable players is really quite stupid. Sorry. I'm just trying to clarify what you mean by "untouchable." Frankly, I think it's a silly term because almost everyone is available if you can get enough talent in return. Who is and isn't untouchable is somewhat speculative. I wouldn't have thought the DBacks would discuss players like Jackson, Quentin, and Young but according to one rumor they're willing to do so. QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 09:12 PM) As far as NL vs AL. Most pitchers enjoy a nice ERA dip when shifting leagues usually about a run. Going from the toughest to the worst division, I was spot on. I think a run is overstating it a little bit. Even if Danks ERA was 3.7 in the NL though I still don't think he'd be considered better than any of those players on the first list I rattled off. Some of those guys are in the AL and have ERAs a run lower than Danks. My point was that there are pitchers out there that look like perennial All-Stars such as Bonderman or King Felix and Danks doesn't fit in that group.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 07:52 PM) I hope you are kidding. a 22 year old who is up a year before he should be ready has shown not only can he pitch in the toughest division in baseball, but he is able to pitch aggresively way before his time. Put him in the NL central and he may have a 4 or sub 4 era no problem. Danks and Buehrle are the only two pitchers that wont even be in the discussion for trades, and for good reason. And saying that he was never highly regarded just shows you never looked at him before this year. You kinda just repeated what you said before. There are a substantial number of pitchers who have been better regarded by scouts than Danks, put up better numbers in the minors than Danks, and have put up as good or better numbers in the majors than Danks. I never said Danks wasn't highly regarded but I think you'd struggle to find many (any?) lists where he was ever rated one of the top 20 prospects in baseball. That makes me think he's not destined to be a superstar, a #1 pitcher, or maybe not even someone who makes multiple All-Star teams. Obviously Danks is not one of the top 10 or top 30 or top 50 assets in baseball so I don't see how you can call him untouchable unless you're being far from literal. I mean, you're not arguing that you'd turn down a trade of Danks for David Wright or Hanley Ramirez, are you? Felix Hernandez or Jared Weaver? Just because you like a player and he's shown promise doesn't mean he should never be traded under any circumstances. Sure, it's harder to pitch in the AL than the NL but you don't want to take that to unreasonable extremes. It's nice that Danks is a smart pitcher with a good head on his shoulders but it'd probably be even better if he had once in a lifetime stuff.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 05:41 PM) thank god you arentthe GM. Dealing Danks would be one of the dumbest moves we could make. He is a 22 year old that is having pretty decent success in the toughest division in baseball. He is untouchable. I just don't understand what about a 22 year old with an ERA near 5 and good but not great stuff screams untouchable. He has definite promise but I don't think it's a stretch to say there may be 20 or more young pitchers under 25 more promising than Danks. It's hard to consider him on par with guys like Lincecum, Bonderman, Miller, King Felix, Hughes, Bonderman, Hamels, Kazmir, Liriano, Cain, or Weaver. Then there's another group of players who you might be able to make a case for: Carmona, Gaudin, Garza, Olson, Lowen, and Capps. And those are just the pitchers who have already reached the majors. As hitlesswonder pointed out, while Danks likely carries lower risk since he's held his own in the majors, the very top echelon of pitching prospects in the minor leagues will be more highly regarded than him since he was never regarded that highly himself. Danks is probably the most valuable of our pitchers because we have his rights for five more seasons but if this organization has a strength, it's starting pitching. I'd rather have a potential All-Star position player for five years than a potential All-Star starter in Danks. As I posted before, I don't think that Danks has as much All-Star potential as Young, especially when you consider the injury risks for young pitchers. QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 05:41 PM) Garland for young, jackson and Quentin would be a coup for KW however. We might as well just get them to throw in Webb while they're at it. Seriously, I think even talking about landing two out of three is probably wishful thinking. I can't see how we'd ever get more than that.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 10:49 AM) Seriously, folks, he's a rookie. He barely has any at bats in the major leagues, and overall, there are high school kids who have probably played more baseball than he has. He may well stink. Or he may well turn into something useful. Long term, I don't have a clue. His numbers in the minors do give reason for hope, but you never know how that'll translate to the big leagues. So, we may as well give him the chance to learn the league, because if he could turn into a decent leadoff hitter, which I don't think anyone here can possibly rule completely out, then he solves an awful lot of the Sox's problems for the next 5 years. The problem is that he'll be 27 next season. QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 10:52 AM) His last 3 seasons in the minors, he has put up walk rates that are almost exactly what Podsednik has put up in the big leagues, and Pods has always struck me as a fairly patient leadoff hitter (which was one of his actual strengths). And Owens did that with fewer k's than Pods, but of course, against less talented competition. The walk rate is by no means terrible. It's just that if you don't hit for power, pitchers usually challenge you more at the major league level so your walk rate drops. Pods walk rate didn't drop much when he graduated to the majors but he's just one player.

Other than starting a player's arbitration clock I'm not sure why we don't want to bring up any of the AA pitchers. I'm pretty confident Gio and Egbert can outperform some of the relievers we've had around. I would've called one or both of them up a couple months ago.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 04:19 PM) Phillips yeah, but why would we move Broadway for the sake of moving him? Don't get my wrong, I wouldn't move him for anything entirely for the sake of moving him. However, his peripherals are so poor (almost as many walks as strikeouts) that I see his ceiling as that of a long reliever or maybe a mediocre fifth starter. QUOTE(spataro51 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 04:26 PM) Why in the heck would we deal danks? He is under are control for 5 more years and he is a damn good lefty that is still developing. If i had to choose i would dump garland because no way in hell is he going to give us a nice hometown discount like Mb did. John is waiting to go pitch out west. Maybe the sentence was a little convoluted but I intended to indicate that I'd be considerably more willing to move Garland than Danks. However, I'm not sure the odds are that great that Danks will ever be much better than a #3 starter and I still envision Young as an All-Star caliber player in CF though his skill set might be such that he rarely gets the credit he deserves.

QUOTE(Jimbo's Drinker @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 04:09 PM) 35 yeah right Hehe. Exactly.

I'd probably deal Danks or even more so Garland if we could get a package including Young, certainly if we could get Quentin or Jackson in the deal also. We'll probably come out looking like idiots if we deal Charlie. Move Broadway and Phillips for pretty much anything of value.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 02:32 PM) I'm just saying Jose's value is at an all time low. If the sox keep him after the 31st--if no team offers a deent deal--Jose could improve his value by having a good August or Sept. Starting pitching is still a very valuable commodity. The sox shouldn't just look to dump Jose but get some talent as well. Yeah, I'm just not willing to wager $20 million that he will improve; if he doesn't he might be completely unmovable for the duration of his contract. Gambling on a a 35 year old's ability to return to form is very risky.

QUOTE(VAfan @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 03:44 PM) Yes, it may be a lot to pay the top end of the rotation, but I would ask, without solid starting pitching, how the hell do you expect the Sox to compete with Detroit, Cleveland, or Minnesota? I have ZERO confidence at the moment that any pitcher in our minor league system is going to amount to an above-average major league starter. They might, but I have to see it to believe it. We don't even seem to have anyone who can be trusted to pitch in the worst bullpen in baseball. Well we certainly don't have much in the way of hitters in the minors so if we can't rely on the pitchers either that's pretty much game over. The only real alternatives are acquiring more players along the lines of the minor leaguers who can't be trusted or standing pat which looks like a pretty awful idea right now. Also, I think viewing KW's refusal to call up players like Floyd, Gio, Egbert, and De Los Santos to pitch in the pen as a complete indictment of our minor league pitching is a bit over the top.

QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 12:18 PM) 2) Trading Contreras won't bring in talent. It almost makes sense to hop he turns it around and deal him next season. Trading Contreras brings in $10 million each of the next two seasons which brings in talent.

You have to dump Contreras' contract if the opportunity presents itself. $10 million a year buys a lot, even in this inflated market. Otherwise, I have no problem keeping players for draft picks if we're not getting offered all that much for them. QUOTE(michelangelosmonkey @ Jul 9, 2007 -> 09:35 PM) Gold? I think we as fans constantly over rate prospects. Here is Baseball Prospectus...the scientists of Baseball...top 40 for 2002. That means that roughly this is the #1 prospect for each team And I used 2002 because these guys should now be in their primes... Strange. I was actually quite impressed. I counted over 10 players on the list that are well above average major leaguers. Most of the pitching failures blew their arms out and that's just a fact of life. QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Jul 11, 2007 -> 12:18 AM) I doubt it's true, but you also have to be smart and realize you are not going to get a team's 2 top prospects for 2 and a half months of Jermaine Dye. You expect something reasonable in return, and you'll get something reasonable in return. Or he can accept his offer of arbitration of $7 mill and then leave the club with a contract they don't want on the books. It's entirely possible. Or he can get hurt, be considered damaged goods, and then he either accepts that offer of arbitration or the Sox don't get anything for him. I don't think those are very legitimate concerns. First of all, the window during which Dye would have our arbitration offer on the table would be around a month in the offseason. How is he going to hurt himself then? I can't ever recall hearing about something like that happening. Dye might get more than $7 million if he accepts the offer and then goes to arbitration but I doubt he'd do that. The track record of free agents accepting arbitration is pretty thin. In JD's case, this is likely the last long term deal he'll be able to sign so he'll want to cash in. He can't do that with a one year deal even if it's for a high salary. He can probably get a deal for something like three years at $20 million. That means that even if he could get $10 million from us in arbitration, he risks leaving a ton of money on the table if he's ineffective or suffers a serious injury next season.

He's never hit for much power or drawn many walks in the minors so his average might continue to come up but otherwise, what you see is what you get.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Jul 22, 2007 -> 06:17 PM) I like the thought of seeing Wilson instead of Uribe as well. But instead of trading bad contracts [though the Sox will probably have to eat as much of Jose's contract as the Pirates cover Wilson's--I'm thinking like $3-4 mill] the sox could net more in return for Jose than just Wilson. If Contreras really started showing some life to his FB the last two starts and isn't hurt [after the break which could be he's pretty fatigued], the sox should hold onto him and deal him in the offseason. Shut him down and get some rest for a few starts, get a look at Floyd some more, or Egbert, and hope Jose has a Freddy like 2nd half. Unless some team is willing to offer a decent prospect before the trade deadline, hold onto Jose. I have a hard time thinking he's completely toast--though he's pitched like it. And though getting rid of Jose's contract would be nice, the sox should be able to get something of value for him. I guarantee you that we can get a better player than Jose with the $9 or $10 million in salary relief we'd get by trading him. He's (at least) 35 and sports an ERA near 6, dumping his contract at all costs is the right move.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 25, 2007 -> 05:15 PM) Dye is hitting .220. Has an injury, is making $7 million this year, and will only be around a couple of months. He won't get you much. Think Jon Adkins. Then offer arbitration. Worst case scenario is that he accepts and gets $9 or $10 million in a one year deal. Two top 40 draft picks is an awful lot better than Jon Adkins...