witesoxfan

Rockies acquire White Sox killer Jose Morales for some left handed pitcher.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 07:42 AM) The Gonzalez article mentioned the Sox are looking for a left reliever as well. Got me thinking, if the pen is currently this: Thonton Crain Sale Santos Pena Infante ?? long man And if they are looking for a lefty... that tells me they don't want Sale in the pen. They want him starting. And that tells me they are going to trade an SP, most likely. First, I think Pena is the long man. Second, you are making a lot of assumptions. -You are assuming that Infante is going to be on the MLB roster on Opening Day...the Sox may like him and his arm, but saving a year on his service time may be worth more to them, and if they call him up in July, should someone falter, then they save that year. With regards to this, I don't think it is far fetched to believe that either Sale or Thornton could be the closer, and considering Ozzie had Sale closing at the end of the year, I think it could very well be him. -You are assuming this means they need to cut payroll. But, if they are interested in Byrdak, as was mentioned very early in the offseason, that may be a move that only costs $1-2 mill. I think trading a starting pitcher based on the arrival of Tim Byrdak, or the arrival of Tim Byrdak and Jesse Crain, is a bit irresponsible. -You are assuming that they want Sale starting in the majors. It is entirely possible that they do want Sale starting, but it's very, very possible that it is in AAA where he can further develop his arsenal as opposed to the potential rookie problems. And, as I have mentioned earlier, that also leaves open the possibility of him being a bullpen arm come August. I think what you are suggesting is highly plausible, but that we need to let the details come in before such a statement is made.

QUOTE (Ranger @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 11:05 PM) That was true. There were two offseason plans presented to ownership. One was to see how many parts they could dump, the other is what they're doing now. I actually remember seeing the article on that. Chris, you are closer to the action than all of us though perhaps not close enough to know exactly, but I have to imagine that Williams' plan has gone pretty much according to plan at this point, wouldn't you agree?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 09:48 PM) I don't give a damn what Putz signed for this offseason. Then you are missing the point entirely.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 09:40 PM) Putz was on a 1-year deal last year . . . I'm willing to say Crain will not put up a year as good as Putz did in any of the three years of this deal. Because Putz was coming off of an injury plagued year and had bone spurs removed from his elbow. He signed a 1-year "prove it" type contract to cash in, and lo and behold he got a 2 year deal this year with an option for a 3rd that is more expensive per year than the deal the Sox just gave Crain.

QUOTE (La Marr Hoyt HOF @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 08:46 PM) With the Crain signing, think it's all the more likely we are dumping Edwin to the Yankees. Bring on Brett..... I don't see how Crain's status is at all relevant to Edwin Jackson. It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the Yankees to deal Brett Gardner for a pitcher who has been an enigma his entire career and is a free agent at the end of the year. The Yankees don't have an overflow of outfielders that they really need to trade at this point in time.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 06:41 PM) PTBNL. I would really like to see the precedence for this. There's the technicality of it all, but I don't think this has ever actually been done. QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 07:51 PM) Success at AA/AAA doesn't mean he's going to be a good MLB player. They are indicators. Just like an indicator is if CQ is healthy he can be a league MVP candidate. Brown got called up and scuffled. Sale came up and thrived. There are penty of top 10 prospects around who have failed miserably at MLB level. Of course, but consider the financials of it too. Carlos Quentin is going to make $5 million this year, $7-9 million next year, and then he's a free agent. They get Chris Sale for 6 years, but he's going to be a reliever on that team. OR they get 6 years of a cost controlled player who is one of the best prospects in the game who they can break in slowly considering they still have some pretty solid pieces around the diamond, though it's obviously not nearly what it once was. I try to consider why other teams would make moves. What legitimate reason would Philadelphia give up Dominic Brown? They have a hole in RF, they are well beyond their budgetary constraints, and they don't have many needs elsewhere on their team for which they would be willing to deal Brown. The Phillies wouldn't give him up for Halladay - that says enough to me. Because Carlos Beltran is going to cost $18.5 million this year and he put up a .768 OPS last year. I know he was coming back from an injury, but that's part of it too - he isn't the most durable of players. Especially with the Sox just signing Crain, they don't have $18.5 million to shell out, and to get the Mets to eat any of that money, the Sox would have to include more players, so you are talking about quite a few key pieces of the minor league system, including Viciedo. Beyond that, it's the last year of Beltran's deal and he almost certainly wouldn't resign with the Sox unless it was a huge deal (or he absolutely loved playing for the White Sox). So you'd be giving all of that up for 1 year of Carlos Beltran, a guy who had a .768 OPS last year and missed about 180 games between 2009 and 2010. Casey Kelly was BA's 24th rated prospect going into the 2010 season, Anthony Rizzo had 50 XBHs and showed a decent eye at the plate in AA as a 20 year old (and played OK in the 30 games or so he had in A ball before he was promoted), Raymond Fuentes was the Red Sox first round pick in 2009, and in A-ball as a 19 year old showed great speed, a little bit of power, and the ability to hit for a good average. The Padres are going to get another player out of the deal too. I would say they got a pretty damn good package. Beyond that, they were not going to sign him to an extension, so they either had to keep him and take 2 draft picks or trade him for the best package they could. They had no leverage in trade negotiations, whereas last year they did, considering they still had him signed for 2 years and they hadn't come out and admitted that they weren't going to resign him (though the rest of the baseball world assumed they wouldn't). Not only that, but had they traded him last offseason as opposed to this offseason, the receiving team would have gotten 2 years out of him, not just 1. That adds value as well. --- I'm not trying to come off as a pompous ass, but a lot of this stuff can be reasoned through without merely looking at it on the surface. I'm just trying to point out why things would work and why they won't. Making 4 separate, semi-blockbuster deals at this point in time isn't likely, nor is trading Carlos Quentin along with pretty much anybody in the Sox system for Brown, nor is trading for Carlos Beltran.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 07:34 PM) I am not a fan of players who yell and scream and showboat. You must really hate Pierzynski then.

On second thought, one more lefty would be nice, especially if they want to use Sale as a starter early on (which appears to be a real possibility). But seriously, Thornton, Santos, Crain, Pena, Infante, and then maybe Sale too...that's the makeup of a good bullpen. I think Brian Bruney has a chance to make it as the 7th reliever too. KW done good.

Here's to hoping this is the last move of the offseason, unless it's dumping Teahen's entire contract on someone else. This looks like a team that could win the division.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 06:17 PM) He would be a luxury for anyone, but considering they have CC, Hughes, and Burnett as the base of their rotation, and they can't really bring back Pavano, they do need to address their SP. That's true, I suppose I was thinking more of Texas when in reality he chose the most "luxurious" place of all, considering he's going to be in the middle of that rotation. Still, they have time and the resources to ride the storm out. QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 06:18 PM) Philly would take that deal in a second and that's way too much to give for Brown. KW, I doubt would even consider that. Yeah, OK, a top 10 prospect in the game who just put up a .980 OPS in AAA as a 22 year old isn't going to be traded for an outfielder who is terrible defensively, is coming off a solid but very streaky season, and is injury prone along with a pitcher who has so-so mechanics while questions loom as to whether or not he is actually going to be able to start. I doubt Ruben Amaro would even consider that deal. I guarantee you Williams does.

I don't think the Yankees are really that desperate. They're still a playoff team in all likelihood, and they're still going to sign a few players. If something comes up in the middle of the season, they can make the move then. Cliff Lee is the kind of pitcher that goes on the market once every 2-3 years, and the Yankees wanted to get him. He was a luxury as opposed to a necessity.

What has Balfour done that makes him a douchebag? Yelling at Orlando Cabrera? If there is something, I hope someone else points it out. I'm also not worried about Balfour's FB%. 45.1% isn't bad, especially with a career 10.4% IFFB. I'm more concerned with his line drive rate of about 20% the past 3 years, but when he strikes out quite a bit as he does, he can get away with that so long as he isn't walking anybody.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 04:55 PM) It was a dumb idea in the first place. 4 feet of snow in a stadium that has been shut down for weeks. Move it to Chicago morons. You can't have it in Chicago, giving the Bears an extra home game all together is completely unfair to the Vikings.

Well then I think you also have to look on the economic impact it would have on the midwest as well. I have to believe that the Vikings are a huge source of revenue for Minneapolis-St. Paul and the surrounding areas too. Add to that the secondary revenue that places like South Dakota, North Dakota, and to some extent, Nebraska, Iowa, and western Wisconsin get from bars, restaurants, and local shops too. For the Twin Cities, it would be a relatively devastating loss, and for the surrounding areas it would be big too, though not nearly to the same level. I think, when it comes down to it, Minnesota will cave again, just as they did when the Twins were threatened with contraction. The Vikings mean far too much for the people here for Minnesota to lose them.

QUOTE (Pale Sox @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 04:34 PM) The downside to Balfour is he'll cost us our 2nd rounder. Which will actually bring down his price compared to the rest of the league, and really, it might re-allocate some funds that the Sox were planning to use early on towards the later portion of the draft where they might be able to sign some guys who fall for whatever reason. I think Balfour is a guy the Sox should definitely look at...maybe something like 2 years, $8 mill with an option for the 3rd.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 04:01 PM) I really think he could, although I'd want him limited to 180-ish innings, which would mean giving him some extra rest at some point. I think 180 is even too much. The most he's ever thrown in a year was 154 in 2009 between Florida Gulf Coast and the Cape Cod league. Last year he threw 136 innings, but 103 of those innings came at Florida Gulf Coast where he is on a different regiment for starting than he is professionally. Given that he only gets 4-5 days in between starts, as opposed to a full week, I think he'd be better off getting 130-150 innings if the Sox were to commit to him as a starting pitcher next year. In fact, I wouldn't be opposed to him starting from April through August and then calling him up at that point to use as a reliever for the stretch run. To use the often overused phrase, it would be like trading for a good left handed reliever without having to give anything up.

$1.5 mill If you say his last name and then his first name, it sounds like "hard and rich"

And to those people who are unemployed and want to work for the Vikings in any form, signing up for something like that is a great way to get your name into their database.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 03:42 PM) Santana will probably give you just as many doubles/OBP and MUCH more HR pop (save Mauer's fluke 2009 HR total). Maybe much more weren't the right words to use. But he has the potential to be better. This is also not including his defensive ability, where Mauer is regarded to be a pretty good defensive catcher. I've seen the word adequate used to describe Santana. I'm sure he will improve and isn't just another Victor Martinez in the making, but he has a lot to do to even match Mauer. Assuming Santana fills out to his potential, I think a good analogy is something like Mauer to Pujols as Santana to Cabrera. Cabrera may be as good offensively as Pujols (or pretty damn close), but that difference in defense is absolutely huge.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 12:17 PM) So then what the hell does "All In" mean? If you're going for it all this year, as their marketing campaign suggests, why would you let $4M prevent you from having a serviceable bullpen? Williams and company haven't finished making moves yet, and it's entirely possible that they didn't like Matt Guerrier. Relievers' performances from year to year fluctuate greatly, and there will be years that they are simply not worth that much money. Giving $4 million to Matt Guerrier over 3 years could have been a huge mistake and, even further, could have crippled what the White Sox can do on the open market between now and July 31st. It's certainly possible that Williams won't add a reliever - I didn't think there was any way he'd go into next year with Mark Kotsay DHing, but woe is me. However, at this point in time, I don't think that we should be worrying about that.

There's no way Philadelphia would make that trade. I can imagine they do like Carlos Quentin, but probably more as a replacement for Raul Ibanez. If you want to include another player to get Dominic Brown, you are pretty much limited to Chris Sale and any other minor leaguers the Phillies may want.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 04:02 AM) Quentin to the Yankees or Phillies, for a good left handed hitting outfielder would work for me. I still like the idea of Dominic Brown and Blanton for Quentin and someone who will not be counted on to contribute this year. The Phillies are obviously going for it with all of that terrific, expensive pitching. They still need a solid right handed hitting outfielder to replace Werth, and they need to dump Blanton's salary. We could use Blanton to fill out the rotation if we can find a taker for Floyd, or one of the other aforementioned starters. My question is whether Brown is really ready to contribute. As has been mentioned, the Phillies are in love with Dominic Brown. BA had him as the 15th best prospect in the game going into the season and he only helped his stock by putting up a .327/.391/.589/.980 line between AA and AAA this year. They would be insane to include him in a deal as compensation for salary relief when they aren't getting that much salary relief in the first place. On top of that, there will be suitors for solely Joe Blanton. They won't get a lot for him, but he's a solid middle of the rotation starter, and that has plenty of value on the trade market. Granderson plays good defense in CF, as you mentioned; Carlos Quentin plays terrible defense in LF or RF. Considering that, at their peaks, Granderson really isn't that much worse than Quentin offensively, that defense alone makes him a much, much better player than Quentin. If anything, it would be the Sox giving (much) more in a deal along with Quentin for Granderson. Replacing one of the faces of the franchise with Joe Blanton would be pretty awful. And, as mentioned above, there is pretty much no way that Philly would trade Dominic Brown, like, at all. And then as you mention, Buehrle probably wouldn't wave his no-trade clause to go to New York. There are a lot of things in this world that I would love to have. A Porsche 911, a bottle of 25 year single malt scotch, an ocean named after me - but these things aren't realistic, are they? Neither is that outfield. The Twins stack the lineup with good bats, period. The White Sox don't have a lot of pop from the left side of the plate, but they generally never have. They shouldn't go out of their way to try and accommodate that, because they have quite a few good hitters in the lineup as is. The main two reasons you want to specifically have left handed bats in the lineup are when you need to hit righties better and to cause matchup problems late in a game. Adam Dunn has accomplished the first goal pretty well by himself, and quite honestly, Mark Teahen off the bench is OK too. With regard to the second reason, a team isn't going to bring in a LOOGY to get Juan Pierre out. However, they probably will do so if Pierzynski comes up in a big spot - he's not an incredible hitter, but he's competent, gets base hits, and does hit for a little bit of power. Oh, and Dallas McPherson really doesn't mean anything. He's got light tower power, but he's never been able to translate that to anything significant and is merely there for the Charlotte Knight's viewing pleasure.

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 02:35 AM) The trade I'd like to see would be a different combo than you mentioned. I would like to see Pierre and prospects go to the Mets for Beltran. You could move Quentin to LF and have an CF/RF combo of Rios and Beltran. I know there wouldn't br a coventional lead off hitter but so what. That would be a loaded lineup : Beckham Alexei Dunn PK Beltran Rios CQ AJ Morel And Sandy Alderson is going to hang up the phone when you mention the name Pierre. Beyond that, the White Sox are already up against their budget, or have exceeded it. There's no room to bring in an additional $10 million, and the Mets aren't going to simply kick in money. If the Mets are going to go into a semi-rebuilding phase, then they are going to trade Beltran for young, cost controlled players. That's the exact opposite of Juan Pierre. They have absolutely no use for Pierre whatsoever, and there will be other teams who are more willing to trade good prospects than the White Sox are. The lineup isn't perfect, but it's not a big problem at this point in time. The only two small problem areas are the bench and bullpen, and those can be effectively handled rather cheaply. I could see the Sox signing another veteran bat and bullpen arm, and going with younger players otherwise. If the Sox add payroll at this point, it's not going to be very much, and I still think the Sox are probably going to be looking to shed some salary in a few other spots around the team too. Can we please, please put this Beltran talk to rest?

2/$9 seems about right for Jesse Crain. I don't think he good enough that the Sox need to spend that money for him. I still think the Sox can go into the season with the current relievers and fill in the rest through the minors and minor league free agents, and then if and when the time comes that they need a big change, they can make that change by trading someone.