Jeremy

QUOTE(Stan Bahnsen @ Aug 28, 2007 -> 04:20 PM) I believe that Garland will be the trade bait that KW uses to try and get Furcal, Edgar Renteria (or is he a FA?), or possibly Lastings Milledge. It's wishful that prospects like Broadway/Sweeney could land one of these guys. I wouldn't lump Furcal and Renteria together like that. After exercising the Braves exercise their option, Renteria will have two seasons left at $20 million while Furcal has just one year left at $13 million. Also, Renteria (.336/.392/.487) will be coming off a far better season than Furcal (.283/.350/.374). Finally, the Dodgers have an elite SS prospect in AAA while the Braves have merely an above average one. I'd be shocked to see Renteria moved in the off season while I think Furcal should be available and there's even a slight chance that he could be had at a discount.

This discussion about Kenny should be about how much success he will having going forward. The only way his past success is relevant is to the extent that it's predictive and if people are suggesting Kenny's track record indicates he has a championship in him every 7 or 10 years, I'd have to disagree. If you take GM A who has a .500 winning percentage, a world series, and two playoff births in the past decade and GM B who has a .600 winning percentage, eight playoff births, and no championships over the same time period, I'd argue that GM B will win more championships than GM A in the next decade. Personally, I just don't believe that Kenny is an exceptional GM so I don't think the fact that he's "shown he can win a world series" will get him that far in the future. QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 28, 2007 -> 05:35 PM) Actually the Indians were sold then, and I'm pretty sure that's why Hart bailed. The new owner paid a premium. He bought high. In fact, he probably couldn't have bought higher. I think he then started having other financial issues. Right. IIRC the team decided to slash payroll around the time Shapiro took over. It's pretty shocking to me as though people are talking as though Shapiro inherited a star studded team and a huge payroll and decided to tear it to pieces just for fun our out of stupidity.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Aug 28, 2007 -> 01:19 PM) I thought about it A lot last night at work, and if the Sox were able to get Furcal and Rowand this off-season, and only lose Contreras(along with some B- prospects,) this team can compete next season. Furcal would be such an upgrade over what we have now, and his value to this team skyrockets as he would fill not only a hole at SS, but the huge hole at SS is also filled. I'm not a huge Row fan boy, but I would still be suggesting the Sox sign Rowand even if he had never worn Black and White. We need a CF badly, he has had a fantastic season, and to top it off, we know there would be no problems in the clubhouse, and a hometown discount would probably be in order. Makes too much sense. Furcal would be a huge coup and with only a year left on his deal and Hu waiting in the wings, it doesn't seem like a complete pipe dream. My biggest concern is how high the asking price will be. I realize we're committed to sticking with some variation of this team instead of tearing it down and rebuilding. However, if things don't work out next year and we do have to ultimately tear it down, it'll be nice not to have parted with guys like Charlie, Gio, Egbert, DLS, and Carter. At the same time, you're going to have to give up something and a package built around Broadway and Sweeney is probably wishful thinking. Especially if we can land someone like Furcal to hit leadoff, I'd rather go with Owens/Sweeney/Anderson-Fields-Dunn than Rowand-Fields-Crede. We have to see how the market will shake out for those two free agents but Dunn's edge in hitting over Rowand more than makes up for the difference between Crede and whoever plays CF, particularly when you consider that Crede will likely only be around for one more year.

I guess everyone else has already clarified this point, but Jim Thome has been an infinitely more productive hitter than Josh Fields this season. Comparing a .400 OBP player and a .300 OBP player is unthinkable. The Sox have had a problem the last few years of creating huge holes in the offense because they've needed to bring in a lead off hitter (Pods as a corner outfielder). If we're truly going with Crede at 3B and Fields at LF, which I consider to be a pretty mediocre and very short term solution, then SS becomes our #1 priority. If we can get someone who can hit leadoff to play SS such as Furcal, that'd be ideal. If that doesn't happen though, we shouldn't expend more resources signing a CF to hit leadoff than to patch the massive hole at SS. This team needs fewer bad hitters period. QUOTE(greg775 @ Aug 27, 2007 -> 10:50 PM) One of the reasons we won the WS was our pitching and defense. Fields is going to probably be the worst leftfielder in the league. Then trade or non-tender Crede and spend most of our free agent money (plus the $5 million we save by dumping Crede) on LF. QUOTE(greg775 @ Aug 28, 2007 -> 12:06 AM) I did pull a Mariotti there. Him botching that pop up the other day concerned me I guess. I just can see where the poster is coming from. I like Thome but the LOVE for Thome sort of amazes me. And he's injury prone big time at this stage of his career. I think it's time to move on. Thome you have to admit is going to miss more and more games via injury as he continues to age. Those are all valid concerns but what is the solution? I don't think trading our best hitter for peanuts or cutting him is going to improve the team, especially when he has a very reasonable salary.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Aug 27, 2007 -> 08:24 PM) Here's what angers me -- why aren't other general managers "desperate" to acquire our players? Where are the pseudo Kenny Williams willing to have a deal haunt to acquire a certain player? I'm sick of these weak trade deals from our end. If your answer is, "what players have value," whose fault is it for holding onto players long enough for defencies to mount? Garland, for example. Why is he still here? Any idiot could have forcasted an evitable drop in production. Or the contract negotiations which will be mentioned ALL offseason and over the 2008 season. And, to address the main point of your post, while teams may be more reluctant to trade their talented prospects, that's just too bad for Williams. It's this position he put himself in by dealing Young, watching Anderson struggle, and having few -- if any -- elite prospects of our own above A ball. He needs to acquire elite prospects this offseason. I don't care how. It needs to happen. What other avenues are there for us to build the ballclub? The free agent market? Perhaps, but we're not spending enough to improve every poor position. The draft? Until we develop talent, or I know more about upcoming players in the draft, I'm not going to rely on it as our savior. That's a pretty good post. I wish I had more answers to your questions (though maybe some of them are rhetorical). I guess one answer to the reason our players aren't fetching more is that we're very rarely looking to sell. Clearly, the plan to rebuild while we continue to win has gone poorly. Trading Freddy was a wise move but swapping out BMac for Danks only made us a couple years younger and none of the other veterans have brought back strong returns. I think maybe you're right to suggest that Kenny is reactive instead of proactive in most cases when it comes to dealing players. I suppose it's an oft raised critique of Kenny but he seems to be veteran happy which has always surprised people since he was previously the head of player development. It's as though we were operating on the old Yankees model even after the Yankees had decided to abandon it. It seems like maybe Kenny was a bit late to the party or just had unlucky timing when it came to how to deal with young players. He waited until the value of young players seemed to be increasing around the league to start acquiring them. I also wonder sometimes if he tries to hard to build the team in the mold of its manager. Maybe if he wasn't worried about building a team for Ozzie he'd be less enamored with non-power guys like Sweeney and Owens and would've acquired some position players in addition to pitchers when he traded BMac and Freddy.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Aug 27, 2007 -> 01:56 AM) The topic of Young vs Vazquez is always quite interesting. Vazquez is more valuable in that it's harder to find starting pitcher's of his quality for his price (I'll qualify this saying if he gives the Sox 600 innings of a ~4.00 ERA over the life of his three year deal), but Young, in my mind, projects to be more valuable in the 'on-field' value sense -- he's a CFer who gives you plus defense, plus baserunning and a league average bat, all for the league minimum. I didn't RTFA, but it seems to me like Rogers is missing the point. Having Young instead of Vazquez would make the Sox marginally better over the next couple years, even if the Sox had that extra $30 million. The trade itself isn't the problem. The problem is that there haven't been more Chris Young's or Josh Fields' in the system to replace CY himself. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but has anyone in the media called out just how awful Sox player (minor league) development has been or how poorly they've (seemingly) drafed? I'm not talking about the Marrioti "the Sox are cheap scumbags!" hogwash either -- has anybody gone beyond the Scott Podsednik's and Darin Erstad's of the world? I'm going off on another tangent here, but damn do the beat writers for the Sox suck. I would trade every writer in this town for Joe Posnanski in KC... Hmm. I think that unless you believe you couldn't sign remotely as valuable as Javy for a similar amount of money then the $30 million and Young makes the team more than marginally better. You'd essentially be able to have Young and use that money to sign a pitcher who's not much worse than Javy. Your point about the farm system is well taken but I also feel that some teams who evaluate players differently wouldn't have parted with a Chris Young nearly as easily and that's interesting to me. I could be wrong, for e.g. Oakland shocked a lot of people when they moved Carlos Pena who people assumed they'd be really high on. Generally though, teams aren't trading their elite level prospects. Kenny was either really desperate to land Vazquez, didn't regard Chris as highly as others, or both.

QUOTE(Brian @ Aug 26, 2007 -> 10:30 PM) I'm with you. The kid K's a lot and doesn't hit for average. Pitchers could figure him out next year and show that he can not adjust. Huh? Kinda like how pitchers have figured out Jim Thome, Adam Dunn, Mike Cameron and will soon figure out Josh Fields? QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Aug 26, 2007 -> 10:39 PM) And thats not a knock on Josh. I just have to laugh at those pilling on the Sox, getting on them for the Young trade, will also be critical of Fields, when he has been more productive than Young(over 500 projected AB's) I love Josh and I'm pretty consistent in my evaluations, so you won't see my pilling on him any time soon. Their rate numbers are virtually identical though and Chris probably has the edge in defense and certainly base running so I don't see Josh as more productive. I sure wish we had both guys.

QUOTE(jasonxctf @ Aug 26, 2007 -> 07:43 PM) yeah i don't get it. people around here seem to have a big stiffy for Chris Young. Don't quite understand why. He nad Juan Uribe seem to be having a contest on who can be a worse hitter. Chris Young is a 23 year old rookie hitting .236/.288/.476 while Uribe is a 28 year old veteran hitting .219/.271/.363. I'm not seeing it.

QUOTE(jasonxctf @ Aug 26, 2007 -> 07:37 PM) personally i dont think chris young for Vazquez was such a bad deal. The sox were coming off a WS year knowing that Freddy Garcia was due to break down at any time, after El Duque broke down during the prior season. Hell Chris Young is hitting all of .233 with a .286 OBP. (21 SB in 117 Games) Jerry Owens is hitting .245 with a .295 OBP. (21 SB in 62 Games) Yes, Chris has more power than Jerry, but Jerry has more speed. Right now the Sox don't need power hitters. We need OBP guys with some speed. Vazquez by the way is 11-6 with a 3.66ERA. I don't think an extra 10 SB's by Owens does much to close the massive gap created by the additional 30 home runs Young will hit. Owens would have to steal about 120 bases more than Young to do that. Vazquez is outproducing Young this season but that's only part of the puzzle. Young is under the DBacks control for five seasons after this one and will make less than a million dollars for the next two seasons. It's really more like Young plus a $10 million a year free agent v. Javy. Also, Vazquez is 31 so his production will probably drop off over the course of the next few seasons while Young figures to improve substantially. In two years, Young might be hitting .280/.360/.580 while Javy's ERA is 4.8.

QUOTE(3 BeWareTheNewSox 5 @ Aug 26, 2007 -> 07:01 PM) The worst part for me was also throwing in Young though, and it hurts to see all the multi HR games and the promising articles. The .avg/obp is bad, but it's still his rookie year, already close to 30/30, and he'd be good in the outfield. And Ari has plenty of young talent, yet they don't give up on him, wish we would've been as patient with some of our guys Yeah. I think the bottom line for me is that you just can't trade a blue chip prospect for a veteran unless you're getting great value. I guess part of the argument is that we were in win now mode but it's not like Young was that far away. Maybe some of it is just an issue of philosophy because mine is that you always have to be at least a little bit forward looking.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...cs-home-utility I bring this up not to bash Kenny yet again for trading Young but because it provides some insight into what I see as some flaws in the team's thinking. Kenny often gets credit for being bold. When the price is right as it was for Colon and Thome, his willingness to make big moves works well. The problem is that sometimes when the price is high as it was with Vazquez and Ritchie, he's overly aggressive. I guess what I'm saying is that the boldness can be a good thing but it definitely needs to be taken down a few notches. I think we've had some struggles evaluating players in our own organization. Apparently, I was wrong about Jeremy Reed and the verdict is still out on BMac. However, I think we clearly made mistakes evaluating the quartet of Young, Sweeney, Anderson, and Owens. I find it problematic that the organization seems to place such a strong emphasis on the opinions of its scouts and as a result has a tendency to fall in love with players. It troubled me that our apparent strategy for acquiring young pitchers (the Danks and Freddy trades) was to hand pick a number of minor league pitchers, send out scouts to watch them repeatedly, and then acquire the pitchers the scouts liked most. It seemed as though we didn't consider pitchers that weren't in the original group picked to focus on and it seems unwise to me to limit your scope like that. It seemed we maybe gave the scouts' opinions too much credit, particularly when we acquired Floyd. Based on quotes from Kenny or whatever other reason, I wondered whether we could've gotten players more highly regarded than Floyd but our scouts were particularly high on him so that's the deal we went with. I think Young is right about Anderson: it was hard to predict he'd fall off the way that he has after he had back to back strong seasons in AA and AAA. Still, you have to keep in mind that some prospects will surprise you like that; you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket if you can avoid it. It's harder for me to forgive the team for putting so much faith in Sweeney and Owens. Owens hasn't drawn walks or hit for power at any level and was always old for his level. Sweeney obviously had potential but was always a big question mark because there was no telling whether or not he'd ever develop power. Kenny was willing to trade Reed and then Young because we had Owens, Sweeney, and Anderson and I've always thought it was a huge mistake to trade the A level prospects in the group because the team was infatuated with some of its B level prospects. Going forward, I think it's really important to hold onto the elite prospects in the system unless we're getting solid value in a prospect for prospect swap.

QUOTE(3E8 @ Aug 26, 2007 -> 11:57 AM) I would love to have Dunn in LF, but that's not really the argument. I'm just saying the OPS difference in an average 3B and LF/RF now is not very far off. Your first post made it seem like a move to the outfield really diminishes his offensive value. Well, the numbers aren't that conclusive so I'm not sure we can say definitely either way. I meant to use Dunn more as an example than an argument. Crede's a lifetime .259/.305/.446 hitter and A-Rod is the only notable free agent third basemen so I think it's a good bet that we can plug a better hitter into a corner OF spot that into 3B. I guess whether or not that's cost effective is pretty speculative right now.

QUOTE(3E8 @ Aug 26, 2007 -> 11:23 AM) The offensive gap between your average 3B and corner OF is decreasing, something like ~15 OPS points. It's not like he's going from catcher to first base. This year the gap between a 3B and RF is 56 points in the AL by my count, though 3B is actually as good as LF and in the NL, 3B has phenomenal bats. If you go back a few years though that's not at all the case so the strength of 3B right now is probably a bit of an aberration. My thinking was along the lines of Adam Dunn and Josh Fields is a lot better than Josh Fields and Joe Crede. Obviously, one pair costs you a lot more but at the same time, A-Rod/Fields, Zimmerman/Fields, and Cabrera/Fields probably aren't options.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Aug 26, 2007 -> 11:23 AM) What metrics? My eyes say he's got WAY below average instincts/reaction at third. The only play he's above average at is charging on a bunt/slow roller. Everything else makes him look like a statue. I haven't seen him make a single play laterally that made me think he'll ever have above average range. If he had enough innings to qualify, he'd have the lowest Zone Rating of any full-time 3rd baseman in baseball. Though Ryan Bruan, who's in the same boat, is actually worse... Interesting. I was looking at Baseball Prospectus' ratings which have him at a strong 3 FRAA (fielding runs above average).

Wow, I've never really thought about Kenny getting fired. Even if it takes several years, that would make me really happy. Unfortunately, his replacement would probably be sub par enough to dull most of my excitement.

Doesn't hurt to try anything this season but this is the first I've heard about concerns with Fields' defense at 3B. His metrics are good. His bat won't translate nearly as well to a corner outfield spot (though it will be an improvement on Pods).

QUOTE(Yossarian @ Aug 25, 2007 -> 02:40 PM) A poster was banned on another White Sox site for saying essentially the same thing. By the way, I agree with you. The next 3-4 seasons look dreadful unless KW can pull multiple rabbits out of a hat. Heh. Probably the same one I got banned from a few years back. I like that people are allowed to express their opinions here. QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 25, 2007 -> 03:37 PM) It started with the first batter of the season, shockingly enough. At least Buehrle re-signed. Amen. At least with Buehrle around we'll have a beloved player as the face of the franchise even if we do have some rough seasons and ultimately rebuild.

A 36 year old Torii Hunter in CF? Yikes.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Aug 19, 2007 -> 04:12 PM) Welcome to 2007-2009. I think you hit the nail on the head and I'm not saying that out of frustration. Looking at things, not emotionally but rationally, I think it will be hard for a team on pace for 71 wins to improve the necessary 10 games to finish .500 in any of the next three or so seasons when there's such little help available in the minors.

I don't really have an opinion on A.J.'s game calling one way or the other, though I generally believe that the importance of game calling by catchers is overrated. My one thought is that people erroneously consider the staff's struggles in '06 and '07 and not its success in '05 to be the fluke. Buerhle's pretty much been the one consistently good pitcher this team has had (except for the second half of last season). Freddy is gone and Jose is a shell of his former self. Big Jon is perhaps my favorite ChiSox player but his peripherals have always been lacking and it seems to have caught up with him again. Javy is probably exceeding (or finally meeting) expectations and if he falls off again next season, people will be calling for his head. This team needs to be carried by starting pitching to be a contender and I doubt that this team will be able to do that again.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 10:08 AM) Richar see's a lot of pitches, can take a walk and makes contact with the ball. His OBP is over .300 with his batting average so low. His glove is damn slick. He just needs more ABs and more experience. He will hit fine. ... I would like to see him moved into the number 2 spot and move Fields down the order. Richar looks to project as a number 2 hitter type. He has speed, makes contact. If he keeps walking at this rate, he should hit leadoff. Clearly, he'll hit better than .200 with more at bats. QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 10:19 AM) This isn't, generally, an organization that values drag bunts. This is an organization that is teaching you POWER at every level. Don't get your hopes up. It's an organization that has some power hitters, especially at the major league level, but I think you're wrong to infer from that that the organization emphasizes power. It's awfully hard to explain their fondness of Owens and Sweeney, repeated willingness to play a guy with a career slugging percentage under .400 in a corner outfield spot, and decision to trade away the best power hitting CF prospect in the majors for pitching if they're completely power crazed. QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 01:51 PM) Maybe he will get better, but paycheck aside, if Uribe's performance is "garbage", the same can be said about Fields. I don't think either have been garbage, but I do think while he's not the greatest, Uribe is way undervalued around here, and Fields at this point is overrated because he's hit some homers. I would have no problem with Uribe being replaced if it were someone who actually was better. Greene is not better. Furcal may be, but is he $8 million better? Tejada is better, but Eckstein? QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 02:04 PM) Uribe is a SS. His replacement's OPS probably won't be that high either. While one would think Fields would improve there is no guarantee. I'm not arguing Fields vs. Uribe per se, I just have a hard time figuring out why one is a lock to be a star while the other one is garbage. Look at Uribe's first 275 abs Fields is posting a (below average) .299 OBP as a rookie; Uribe has topped that mark in only 3 of his 7 seasons. He's far below that mark this season at .277 and was much farther below that mark last season at .257. Discussing the early highs in Uribe's career makes for interesting discussion (Coors played a pretty big factor) but regardless, it's starting to look unlikely that he'll ever approach a .300 OBP ever again and his inability to get on base the last couple seasons really kills a team's offense. Your point about the quality of offense at 3B v. SS is well taken but at the same time, Fields VORP is 3.0 while Uribe's is -9.9. Your average rookie in his mid or lower twenties will make substantial strides forward. I don't see enough similarities between Uribe and Fields to suggest that Uribe's inability to show consistent improvement throughout his career means that Josh will suffer the same fate. I think Josh has a solid shot to hit .260 next season and get on base at a .320 clip. Sophomore slumps happen so it's certainly possible that he'll stagnate or regress but I don't see any strong reasons to believe that will be the case.

The decline in power is obviously disconcerting but I don't see falling from .288/.416/.598 to .263/.409/.508 as a massive drop off in production. As far as the quest for 500, I don't see 7 home runs in five weeks as a huge stretch.

I don't really think his hip is much of an issue. The problems are that he's not someone who hits 45 home runs a year and even if he plays the rest of his career with the Sox, extremely few players have the durability to be hitting even 20 HRs a year at 40 years old.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 05:32 PM) Some good discussion in here. Depending on the cost, Dunn is a guy I have thought about as well. Aside from Bailey(who all the sudden isn't a sure thing) I believe Cinny is thin in pitching. If you could get some nice prospects back for Thome, then turn Gio and someone else for Dunn, I would be all over it. The Reds have a $13 million option for Dunn and I don't get the impression they're expected to pick it up so all we'd likely have to due is pony up the $$$. Edit: This article makes it sound pretty up in the air:

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 04:40 PM) A .260/.320/.475 line from LF would be the best LF production we've seen since 2004. Relative to other LFers around the league, you're right, those numbers are barely average, but I'd be extremely pleased with those numbers from Fields next season, even if it was with him playing a corner OF spot. Haha. Point taken. If we can save $5 million by dumping Crede and then sign Jose Guillen for something like 3 years at $24 million - he might get a lot more - I'd rather do that. QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 04:40 PM) I'll leave the actual numbers-and-scouting reasoning to somebody else -- I'm heading to work in a few -- but you're greatly underselling DLS. From watching his short stint in the futures game as well as hearing first-hand reports (Baseball America, folks from this site), I'd say there's only a couple of pitchers in the whole organization -- big league club included -- with stuff as good or better than DLS's. I'd suspected that maybe tremendous scouting reports is what I've been missing out on but on paper, I have a hard time seeing how he's clearly a better prospect than Gio.