Jeremy

Owens is terrible.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Dec 22, 2008 -> 06:35 AM) A few things: *Marquez' peripheral stats from the minors are similar to Garland and Wang, two guys he's compared to. I posted those in this thread. Looking at what they did in the minors, and what Marquez has done, it's not that far from reality that Marquez could put up major league numbers probably not as good as Wang, but maybe better than what Garland has done. When you pair ERA with peripherals you're getting more but still leaving out a lot. The fact that Garland reached the majors at 20 and was adored by scouts (BA's #36 prospect once season) does a ton to distinguish him from Marquez. If Garland pitched in the minors at 23, when he put up a better than league average ERA in the big leagues, he would have obliterated the minor league stats that he and Marquez put up. Wang's peripherals were a good bit better than Marquez's. Both allowed just .5 HR/9 but Wang's K/BB ratio of 3.55 is far better than Marquez's 2.06 K/BB ratio. Again, my point with Wang stands that he wasn't a very good prospect. If we project every prospect of Wang's caliber to have Jon Garland's career, we'll probably have a success rate of something like 5%, because there are plenty of pitching prospects of that caliber in the minors right now. In other words, the fact that Wang exceeded expectations is absolutely no reason to believe Marquez will as well. Admittedly, it's a short cut I used because I didn't want to spend hours posting in this thread. I wasn't trying to look at when pitchers became established major league players though - Marquez may never even do that. I was trying to look at how quickly they advanced through the minors and how old they were for each minor league they played in. We know Garland, Danks, and Floyd were young for their leagues in the minors and that's a big reason they were such big time prospects. Marquez, in contrast, has not advanced through the minors quickly and has not been young for any of the leagues he's pitched in. We know Garland, Floyd, and Danks weren't being pushed particularly aggressively through the minors because they held their own and we know Marquez wasn't being handled too conservatively because he didn't dominate at any level. Grilli reached AAA at 21, Masset at 24, and Glover at 22. Marquez at best was able to advance through the minors as quickly as these players. I never said he won't make it in the majors. The jury is still out on Masset but Grilli has pitched 311 major league innings over 7 seasons while Glover has thrown 516 innings over 8 seasons, so in some sense, they've "made it." All I said is that I doubt Marquez makes substantial contributions next season or has a good major league career. People seem to be arguing against the straw man argument that Marquez can't be good major league player. I thought I was pretty clear at the beginning of my post that I believe that's absolutely possible - just very unlikely. As with Wang, yes, Marquez could beat the odds just like those other prospects who never make top 100 lists, but why should we expect him to? Or even give him, say, a 30% chance? Well, Marquez wasn't a top prospect of the Yankees when we acquired him - I've seen recent top 30 lists he was left off of completely. I don't see why we should emphasize less recent evaluations over more recent evaluations; that's pretty counter intuitive. How much he has in common with Grilli, Glover, and Masset is only so relevant though. What's indisputably clear is that he has next to nothing in common with Floyd, Garland, and Danks, who were consensus top prospects while Marquez is a very average one. He and Garland both rely on inducing ground balls and good control as opposed to missing bats but that's pretty much where the comparisons start and end. No one claims Marquez's stuff is great, his peripherals are mediocre, he can't crack a top 100 list, he can't crack his former team's top 5 - or even their top 30 in some instances - and at 24, he's no spring chicken. He's way too ordinary to merit this much discussion.

QUOTE (scenario @ Dec 21, 2008 -> 10:41 PM) Let's see... Players/Round selected/Minor league ERA and # of seasons in the minors Garland 1st round (3.55 in 5 minor league seasons) Danks 1st round (4.20 in 4 seasons) Floyd 1st round (3.69 in 6 seasons) Masset 8th round (4.57 in 7 minor league seasons) Grilli 24th round (4.51 in 8 seasons) Glover 15th round (4.75 in 12 seasons) And Marquez....... 1st round (supplemental) The 41st player picked in the entire 2004 draft Minor league career ERA... 3.60 in 5 minor league seasons The round a player was drafted is a terrible way of comparing (advanced) prospects because it doesn't account for anything they've done in the minor leagues. Here we're talking about players with several minor league seasons apiece so we don't need to give much weight to what scouts thought of them before they had the opportunity to watch them pitch many times against more advanced competition. Your analysis of prospects is grossly oversimplified for one primary reason: you appear to look solely at ERA. First, ERA is a small piece of the puzzle when all is said and done because the player's age relative to his level, the quality of his stuff, and his peripheral stats, are at least as important as ERA. Marquez doesn't come out very well on any of those accounts: he's never been young for his level, he doesn't have nasty stuff (as evidenced by his low K-rate and his absence from top prospect lists), and his peripheral stats are decent at best. Take Masset for instance: he was easily considered roughly as good a prospect than Marquez (BA ranked him 8th in a solid Rangers system in 2006). Yeah, his career minor league ERA was not as good as Marquez's but scouts liked him because he could hit the high 90's with his fastball. I didn't really cite Masset, Grilli, and Glover because I think they're highly similar prospects to Marquez, I did it because people seem to be caught up in the notion that Kenny acquired an unheralded prospect who could fit into the rotation. My point is that if we really want to compare Marquez to other pitchers Kenny has tried that with, we should look at Grilli, Glover, and Masset before Garland, Floyd, and Danks. We can break it down more meaningfully than you did: Age at time of major league debut: Garland - 20 Floyd - 21 Danks - 22 Glover - 22 Grilli - 23 Masset - 24 Marquez - 24 (?) Peak Top 100 Prospects Ranking (Baseball America): Floyd - 9 Garland - 32 Grilli - 44 Danks - 56 Glover - N/A Masset - N/A Marquez - N/A

Is it impossible that Marquez contributes to the team next season or that he has a good career? Of course not, it's just unlikely. We're looking at a pitcher without great numbers, who's never been considered better than a solid prospect, and who's not particularly young, so I see no reason to be excited about him. Most teams have middling prospects like this in their system (I don't see a huge difference between Marquez and Broadway either). Sometimes a pitcher like this defies the odds and becomes good, so you will be able to find comparisons like Wang. It's just important to remember that it happens infrequently. Comparisons to guys like Garland, Floyd, and Danks are misguided because all those pitchers were considered excellent prospects at one point for clear reasons. If the idea here is to look at Kenny's past moves as precedents, then turning Marquez into a successful starter will be a failure. We whiffed when we tried that with mediocre prospects like Masset, Grilli, and Glover. If we get something out of Marquez, I'm guessing it will be out of the pen.

Nice! Now let's draft wisely.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Nov 18, 2008 -> 03:02 PM) Stop. You're embarassing yourself. Yeah, not properly cherishing a mediocre performance. I'll resign my Sox fandom in shame pronto. QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Nov 18, 2008 -> 04:05 PM) I'm 25, I've seen the White Sox win one World Series in my lifetime... and chances are I'll see that and maybe a few others... if I'm lucky a handful, if I'm really lucky, they'll win a ton. I'll be damned if I won't worship every player on that team, the team that did something I wasn't sure I'd ever see. Something many folks on the North Side may never see. Carl Everett was a big piece of the best White Sox team probably in franchise history. I'll be damned if I'm going to ignore his contributions, or the contributions of a player such as Willie Harris, or Orlando Hernandez. Guess what? El Duque had a 5.12 era in 2005, but I'll be damned if he didn't make 3 of the biggest outs that entire season. Should I not worship him, either? Well, there's a difference between having fond memories of certain contributions and claiming a player was a fantastic performer when he wasn't. I'll let people choose their own emotions about the players on that team, that's not my place. Personally, I love that Geoff Blum hit that home run but in general I feel pretty indifferent about a career utility player who had about 100 plate appearances for my team and didn't perform spectacularly on the whole. But everyone looks for different things in their players. There's the objective and the subjective. The claim that Everett was a crux in that World Series when he probably wasn't one of the top 15 contributors fails on an objective level. If people want to adore him because he made some contributions during a great season that's perfectly fine with me.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 03:15 AM) Any time a player walks out on a team, they are going to have problems with management/FO. KW was basically forced to deal him because of the situation that Rauch created. Its not like he was so talented that the Sox had to keep him to compete, no, he was a prospect that wasnt even bluechip. Rauch is the culprit here, not KW. If the player has the balls to take the whipping that the opposing team did to him,then theres no problem. Who wants a pitcher who leaves early from the game because he cant handle the loss or his failure. I like emotion, I think its integral for the game, but you have to keep it in check, and Rauch presented himself as a mental midget to the extreme. I don't see what would have been so catastrophic about keeping him around. The Nats acquired a "mental midget" and he performed just fine for them. If he'd pitched quality innings for us out of the pen, why would it have mattered if he's an idiot? This is precisely what I mean when I talk about people overly romanticizing every last member of that team. Virtually every member of a World Series team makes some sort of contribution in the regular season or the playoffs. That doesn't make all of them good. That doesn't mean any deal to acquire one of them will always be justifiable. Everett was mediocre at best - as I said I believe he was the worst regular on that team. I don't see why we need to worship him simply because as a somewhat competent starter on a World Series team he inevitably made some good plays at times. I'd rather just call a spade a spade and instead cherish the best players on that team, who were the true heros. QUOTE (santo=dorf @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 05:42 AM) It's pretty obvious Jeremy was paying more attention to the box score than watching the actual games. I agree we may have overpaid for Carl the second time in the sense that perhaps we could've offered less but not because it appears he didn't do anything for us, but because he wasn't having a good year and he was out of shape. Seriously how could you forget him off the 2005 team? Not completely forget the fact that he was on the team at all, but view him as a huge afterthought. My memory is cluttered of memories of things like clutch home runs by Paully, JD, and Tad, some stellar defensive plays by Crede and Uribe, and tremendous pitching by the starters and Jenks. Thankfully, when I think of that team, I'm overwhelmed with these positive memories, not the thought of Everett ambling around in CF and performing unspectacularly at the plate.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 15, 2008 -> 03:43 PM) If by giving away you mean for one of the key components of the 2005 championship team, then yeah I agree. Really? People think of Everett as a crucial part of that team? I forget he was even on it. I'd say there's no way he was one of the dozen most important players on the team. He was probably the worst regular on the team. That year was one of the highlights of my life but I sometimes resent the fact that every single player on the team is now beloved. I disagree on another account too. My recollection is that Everett's value was quite low, the second time we acquired him. That's consistent with the fact that the Expos covered $800,000 of his salary in the deal. That suggests Kenny viewed Rauch as a throw-in and probably could've included any number of middling prospects in the deal. We traded Rauch just two months after he infamously left the clubhouse early after a bad start and Kenny flipped out so may take has always been that Kenny let his emotions get the best of him and was eager to sell low on Jon after that incident.

Evaluating GMs is really subjective. I strongly disagree with the idea that Kenny is a top three executive in baseball, let alone all of sports. I just don't see eye to eye with the guy. I vehemently disagree with many of his moves, probably due to his distaste for players that come through his own minor league system. I'd without question rather have all the following guys as a GM: Beane, Epstein, Cashman, Josh Byrnes, Andrew Friedman, Doug Melvin, Mark Shapiro, and Shuerholz. Kenny hasn't given up a superstar yet in one of the deals where he moved a young player but that doesn't mean he hasn't made obvious mistakes in those types of deals. Kip Wells put up consecutive 200 IP seasons with ERAs well below the league average after we traded him for a guy who contributed absolutely nothing to the team. Chris Young hasn't really broken out yet but he's been a lot better than anyone we've had in CF the last two seasons and he's still just 25 years old. We pretty much gave Jon Rauch away and he's been a pretty useful reliever the past several seasons.

Uribe has a career OBP below .300. I find it astonishing that anyone would want to keep him around, especially when Ozzie's proven time and again that he can't resist putting Uribe in the starting lineup. Also, what's with so many people wanting to get rid of Toby Hall? The guy's a backup catcher, he's not exactly supposed to be setting the league on fire.

I was at the do or die game we played at the Metrodome at the end of '03 season, when I was living in the Twin Cities, so I said a few times last night "At least I'm not at the game tonight." I am surprised people were harassing you though. After that game, no one confronted me in any way. It was just a bunch of fans chanting "White Sox suck" to no one in particular. More than anything, I just felt humiliated to be a Sox fan.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone is arguing that Griffey should be benched, only that he shouldn't be playing a lot of CF due to his poor range.

I mostly agree. With Paully, Thome, Griffey, Dye, and Cabrera we have a lot of older players out there right now. I'd like to get a bit younger and athletic, especially in the outfield. With Griffey, Uribe, and Cabrera all free agents it shouldn't be too hard if Kenny plays his cards right. We may want to look into moving one of Dye, Paully, and Thome though so that we can put Swish at 1B or a corner spot and get a more traditional CF.

QUOTE (scenario @ Sep 10, 2008 -> 09:42 AM) I'm not sure what you have a problem with in my comment. As I mentioned, I didn't care for the notion that anyone who values Haeger more than most other pitching prospects in the system must be uninformed. It's my opinion and while I understand it's not shared by many, I don't think it's unreasonable or unfounded. I believe he'll contribute more at the major league level than all but a few guys we have in the system. If you disagree that's fine but obviously, there's not one definitive answer when it comes to evaluating prospects. Aren't Ely and Poreda the only two pitchers from the past two drafts above low A ball? The other guys aren't high picks, haven't dominated at the low levels, and won't be in the majors any time soon so they don't seem as useful to me. They certainly don't make Haeger expendable when they're that far away. Yeah, I'm not too familiar with teams cutting players they consider to be amongst their best prospects, so I'll agree with you that determining how much the Sox valued Haeger is simple. Whether they valued him correctly is more complicated.

Whether you work Owens in or not, if you make a change in CF, it should involve Anderson playing against lefties. Owens is the better offensive player but Anderson more than makes up the gap with his defense and that's especially true against lefties, where the offensive gap is far smaller. I don't really think Owens is what the offense is missing right now. Also I don't think he's our best lead off hitter. To think either or both of those things are true, you have to place a lot of value on stolen bases. If the issue is how to place Paully, I think we should go with someone like Fields to try to replace the power bat we'll be losing, or improve our poor outfield defense.

I'm pretty sure they said MCL, not ACL. QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 08:44 PM) Swish at 1st, Grif in left? I think Swish is definitely the better outfielder between the two. Of course, he's also the better 1B, so if Griffey can't play 1B very well, I guess Swish should be at 1B.

QUOTE (scenario @ Sep 6, 2008 -> 06:42 PM) I think your knowledge of our farm system is about 2 years out of date. I don't think the fact that you disagree with me about how good Haeger is gives you the right to claim I'm ignorant when it comes to the farm system. What was factually inaccurate about my statement? Also, now that Richard is up, I'm really curious who the good or even decent starting pitchers in the system are outside of Poreda, Egbert, and maybe Ely. Broadway, Whisler, McCulloch, Harrell...these guys are execrable prospects. Haeger has one very good minor league season under his belt and, as a knuckleballer who's way ahead of the curve, has legit upside. I'm don't think you can say either of those things, let alone both, about any of those guys. QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 01:16 AM) and deservedly so It brings up a few points, notably that the White Sox pitching depth within the system was terrible (and still is, though it's improving) and that Haeger was also more of a wild card than he was a surefire prospect. If Haeger has a career in the bigs, I wouldn't be surprised if it's closer to Steve Sparks than Tim Wakefield Well, he's accomplished a lot more than Wakefield had at his age. Wakefield was about as good at 25 as Charlie was at 22. Then, after that, Wakefield regressed far worse than Charlie has the last two seasons, getting torched in both the majors and minors before he finally put it together at 28. If Charlie's career is similar to Sparks, which is possible, I still think this move is incredibly stupid. Who are these alleged pitching prospects you guys are speaking of? It saddens me if people have any hopes for the guys I mentioned above, who IMO are fringe-prospects at best. Sparks was good enough to eat up 1300+ major league innings. I don't think we have five, let alone ten, guys in the minors good enough to do that. I'd expect all but a few of our current "pitching prospects" to throw fewer than 75 innings at the major league level. Charlie on the other hand, should at least pitch several seasons in the majors, even if it's as a long reliever or a mop up guy. I just don't see the upside to guys like Whisler, who have never had a good season in the minors (he's never even posted a 2:1 K:BB ratio), or the downside to keeping Charlie on the 40 man when we have next to no minor league talent to speak of. In a well stocked organization, he's the odd man out but here I don't think you can DFA him without undervaluing him or overvaluing some pretty worthless prospects in this system. QUOTE (JPN366 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 03:45 PM) Just because Haeger was DFA'd doesn't mean he's gone. He most likely will just be outrighted to Charlotte. That'd be great if Charlie likes the team enough to stick around. I gotta say though, if I were him, I think I'd go to a more progressive organization that's more likely to value him. The White Sox are pretty scouting oriented so they'll likely allow Haeger to be passed on the depth chart by an unimpressive pitcher like Whisler because he apparently has a good arm, whereas an organization like Oakland would value Charlie much higher and give him more opportunities as a result.

If Paully's out long term - and I agree it looks awfully bad - we really ought to try Griffey at 1B, Swish in LF, and some combination of Anderson/Owens/Wise in CF. I'd also be down with playing Fields at 1B every day for a week or two to see if he can nail down the job.

Griffey is beyond brutal in CF. I don't think considerations about his comfort and familiarity with the position can justify playing him there over Swish.

Well, I disagree that calling up Bourgeois is the big story here. Cutting lose one of the best pitching prospects in our (admittedly horrible) farm system seems like a pretty big deal to me. Charlie is more accomplished at his age than all but a few other knuckle ball pitchers in the history of the game; he'll stick with a major league club eventually. It blows my mind that we'd DFA him to free up a spot on the 40 man while holding on to garbage like Lucas Harrell.

I'm all about protecting the young guys' arms but how many additional starts would it add it we skip the fifth starter when an off day allows us to do so? I'm guessing it's one to two additional starts. If we pull away down the stretch, you can give them more rest.

QUOTE (Al Lopez's Ghost @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 09:39 AM) I understand not wanting to gamble on a long term contract - but what about the other question - what do you pay him next year, when you have the right to determine the amount. With the exception of one player (was it Buehrle?) the Sox seem to handle that thing fine. If you give the player a couple hundred thousand more than you must, that generally makes the player happy and doesn't break the bank.

I thought you need to have 6+ years of service time to hit free agency, in which case Quentin would be four seasons away, right? Regardless, you're looking for savings when you sign a player to an extension who's several seasons away from free agency. I don't think you'd want to go tons higher than an average of $7 or 8 million during his arbitration years or you're just not saving a ton of money, even if he continues to be one of the best hitters in the league. Also, with CQ, you have to consider his injury history and the fact that this is his best season by a long shot. I think I'd feel more comfortable talking about a big extension after he has another season with the team under his belt.

I'd take Haeger over Broadway if we're not considering Richard. Charlie's arguably had the better season of the two down in Charlotte and if I were the GM, he'd fit more into our future plans (though I guess that could create concerns about needlessly using up an option). My only concern about going with Charlie is that he's pitched pretty terribly in August. People seem to like Broadway because he had a successful start this season. Based on the bulk of his work, we shouldn't expect that to continue, unless his stuff somehow translates extremely well to the major league level for some indecipherable reason. Whisler doesn't excite me. The only thing he does very well is keep the ball in the park. His strikeout rates have always been alarmingly low.

I don't know why we don't just throw him in the pen and let him dial it up and throw one other pitch. We needs help there and he's a better option than some of the other guys we throw out there.