caulfield12

Is he really going to be making $8 million? I thought most were projecting him between $6.25-7.75 million, probably somewhere in the middle of that range.

It would probably be Alexei Ramirez, although I wouldn't be totally shocked by Morel or Beckham if he ever gets his confidence back. Rios is the other possibility. Really, four candidates if DeAza's not a starter, and Cespedes could do it as well, although I highly doubt Ventura would want to put that type of pressure on him right away until he got his feet set under him and built up some confidence. But we're a LONG ways from signing Cespedes, it's all just conjecture and speculation.

759-790 OPS would seem to be pretty realistic...although I'm sure most would prefer to project 800-850. To have real value, he has to be well over the 800 mark, to offset his defensive liabilities. But he's still very very young, we keep forgetting that. We'll have him for years 23, 24, 25 and 26, correct?

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jan 2, 2012 -> 08:17 PM) If you're into spoofs/parody of the murder/slasher genre, check out Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. My roommate and I watched it as a joke on Netflix then were cracking up throughout the movie. It's like the direct opposite of that "human croc" movie or the "shark attack" flick....from 2011. The main actor was a cross between Jack Black, John Daly and Seth Rogen. The blonde was a hottie too, the one who falls into the water and is "rescued/kidnapped." Had seen the other lead actor in a number of low-budget roles, the name doesn't come to mind but he looked familiar. Better than 90% of the spoof movies made in the last 2-3 years, that's for sure.

Eddie Williams, old Sox 3B....mixed in with Sandoval, Bobby Bonilla and Prince Fielder, lol.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 2, 2012 -> 11:57 PM) Isn't Rodriguez under contract too? Wilson's contract is for five-years, $77.50 million (AAV=$15.5 million). Buehrle's is for five years, $58 million (AAV=$11 million). Remember how Astros fans (author included) verbally slaughtered former GM Ed Wade for extending Wandy Rodriguez, who has three years and $36 million left on his deal? All of a sudden, Rodriguez has a comparatively favorable contract, a list of suitors who missed out on Wilson and Buehrle, is in some ways a better pitcher than both, is left-handed, and the Astros have incentive to move him. The Astros are publicly shopping Wandy Rodriguez, and this may be our first glimpse at new GM Jeff Lunhow's trading savvy. The market has spoken, and a soft-tossing 33-year old left hander has been deemed worth as much money as Wandy. A 31-year-old converted reliever with only two seasons starting in the major leagues has been proclaimed worth almost twice as much as the money remaining on Wandy's contract. The statistics paint Wandy as a similar pitcher to Wilson over the past three years, and a superior pitcher to Buehrle. Below are some rate stats for all three pitchers, with a simple Roto-style ranking for comparison purposes. I found two different calculations for FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), so I used them both. So according to this guy, Wandy Rodriguez for $36 million and 3 years is a great bargain. Not so sure about that one...or that he was superior to Buehlre. Comparing AL and NL numbers is apples to oranges. That contract is almost the same as what Danks got (average per year), and a lot more than Gavin Floyd. Plus we already have 2 lefties in the rotation already. So cross Rodriguez off the list. When you think of #2 guys, someone who's pitched for one of the worst teams in the majors the last couple of seasons doesn't jump right to one's mind immediately...certainly not for the NY Yankees. More like an Oliver Perez feel to it. That leaves Kuroda and Oswalt.

Closer to a star than a stiff....we'll find out this season what we really have with Viciedo. He should easily beat Quentin's RBI numbers and equal his doubles total (from 2011)...not sure if he can best the homer totals. He also should hit for a higher average. And hopefully stay healthy for a full season.

Okay, in that case, they'd have to trade for him, so it doesn't make as much sense....too risky, giving up talent and committing to an uncertain pitcher who has never pitched in the AL before. He's in that Danks/Quentin/Jenks/Crede delicate year-to-year arbitration no man's land. And surely the Braves won't try to extend him unless they're 100% certain about his long-term viability and injury prognosis. So that leaves Kuroda, Rodriguez and Oswalt (that it could be realistically argued would be able to outperform Floyd).

•The Yankees “desperately seek” a number two starter, according to Heyman. Edwin Jackson and Matt Garza may be more likely targets than Hiroki Kuroda, Jair Jurrjens, Wandy Rodriguez, Gavin Floyd and Roy Oswalt. The Yankees like Jackson’s arm, potential and durability, though they wonder about his consistency. However, they would like to keep new contracts to one or two years and Jackson seeks a five-year deal in the $60MM range. Shouldn't we just trade Floyd for prospects and get Kuroda, Jurrjens, Rodriguez or Oswalt on a three year deal? Interesting question. Maybe it would even be possible to get one of those guys to sign a one-year, incentive-laden deal so they could go back out on the market in 2013, but you'd have to think there are still clubs circling their prey willing to give at least 2 and probably three year deals to those four. Jurrjens has the injury concern, Kuroda has never pitched in the AL, same with Rodriguez (plus we'd consquently have three lefties in the rotation)...Oswalt has clearly seen a deterioration in his stuff in the last 2-3 seasons. Is keeping Floyd a better option than trading him and bringing in one of those four? Would Williams and Reinsdorf be willing to sign Jackson or Garza to long-term deals (4-5 years) after everything that's gone wrong with Peavy, Dunn and Rios, and just after having signed Danks and letting Mark Buehrle walk without making a legitimate offer? Pretty doubtful. If you could trade Floyd (for prospects) and sign one of those six pitchers OR sign Cespedes and keep Floyd, I would imagine most would prefer to roll the dice with a potential superstar impact bat in Cespedes rather than investing so much money into the staff... Or option #3, you trade Floyd and use that money to go after Cespedes....leaving Zach Stewart, Axelrod, Santiago or Castro as your #5 going into the regular season...with the possibility of adding another or pitcher or two back in return for Gavin Floyd (a catcher would be nice too)

The Iranian film A SEPARATION is undoubtedly the best movie I've seen this past year (2011).

Probably the same people in "flyover territory" like Lawrence, KS and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who are often mocked in movies like Bucky Larson, Up in the Air, and any movie starring Christina Aguilera... Huge Clooney fan, so pretty sure I'll still like The Descendants.

The Angels won their World Championship the year before Moreno took over. I think he would trade the last decade of White Sox baseball for his own period of ownership in LA because of that...one elusive trophy he's missing, despite all his business and marketing success. The McCourt Fiasco has been a gift for his franchise, any owner of another franchise in the same market would look like Mother Teresa or Lady Diana compared to that kooky duo. And the fallout over MannyLand collapsing in a heap of rubbish, along with Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre, didn't help matters any.

QUOTE (SI1020 @ Jan 1, 2012 -> 08:20 PM) I hope so but he disappointed greatly last September. He was never quite the same after that hand injury and perhaps not getting promoted when he was the hottest hitter in the minors distracted him... So we'll see what we actually have for the first time this year, both offensively and defensively. I certainly wouldn't put more precedence or emphasis on his 2011 MLB stats and throw out the progress (especially plate patience/walks) he made the last 2 years in AAA. Going off a brief set of AB's, we might be clamoring for Tyler Flowers as the starting catcher, too. And DeAza still needs to prove himself over a full season.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jan 1, 2012 -> 07:52 PM) I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here...but I think it's fairly reasonable to say that Cuban players who have never set foot in the United States might feel most comfortable with a manager fluent in Spanish, and an iconic Latino as well. Just that Ozzie seems to play favorites and never got along very well with the likes of Ordonez, Orlando Cabrera (from neighboring/rival country), Carlos Lee, Alex Rodriguez (yeah, I know he's Dominican-NYC)...but all the time Ozzie was manager, we were never really able to lure a player to the Sox because of that one factor, specifically, a Venezuelan. Except for F. Garcia and I guess Omar Vizquel ten years too late. The Sox Venezuelan baseball academy hasn't produced much, if anything, at all. I would have expected more in 8 years..although I guess we did "almost" get Cabrera...we didn't go hard after Victor Martinez, either. Wonder if Ozzie told KW he didn't want him? Supposedly we offered him a decent contract, or maybe it was just a smokescreen from the agent because that deal came together in just a couple of days, seemingly out of nowhere. No way of knowing what really happened behind the scenes. On the other hand, El Duque, Contreras and Alexei have all had success under Ozzie...but Guillen never really warmed to Viciedo either.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jan 1, 2012 -> 07:37 PM) a) He started in CF for Cuba in the WBC in 2009 b) I have no idea, I'm not sure how we'd get a good sample size, but he does appear to have a plus arm, good range and athleticism based on video footage. Of course, none of that matters if you get bad jumps or take bad angles, so I can't say. c) Looks like he has power to all fields from the right side, but no clue about his eye. He had some decent clutch hits for Cuba in the WBC. I don't know who his comp would be. I've never seen a guy with his build before. He literally looks like a running back with the athleticism of an NBA player but he's playing the wrong sport. I guess he mostly reminds me of Soriano in his prime? That's a terrible comp, ignore that. No idea about his eye, by the way. d) To me, he looks about as can't-miss as a player can be, in that he has obvious upside in every regard. Of course, there's no such thing as a "can't miss" prospect, especially a hitter. Hitters of all scouting grades fail to make the adjustment to major league pitching. e) If it's the Sox vs. the field, I'd say no. But, I think the Sox have the best chance of everyone based on cleared salary and the established Cuban presence on the team. That may change without Ozzie. (There's some fuel for you, Greg!) Or why we've added four Venezuelan players to our organization when basically the last 2-3 seasons it was only Infante, Clevland Santeliz, Omar Vizquel and Freddy Garcia.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 1, 2012 -> 07:28 PM) Well, I haven't completely given up on the idea we might be able to contend in the s***ty Central if all goes exceedingly well (though loss of Mark and CQ make me think we'll be way worse than last year) so I'd be against dealing Floyd at this time. I'm not all that high on Zach and KW is the guy who brought in Teahen in the first place so getting rid of him, while nice, is not a feather in KW cap. But Viciedo is pretty likely to be just as productive as Quentin was last season....since Carlos missed 40 games roughly and only had 77 RBI's. Plus you're saving a bit of money. DeAza >> Pierre Buehrle, you're right...that's been the key loss. (You can clearly blame that on Dunn/Rios and Peavy to a lesser extent). And if Reed doesn't put up an 80% conversion rate as closer, that move could look disastrous as well, depending on how Sergio does night in and night out against tougher competition in the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays. Once again, the toughest losses to absorb SHOULD BE Buehrle and Thornton/Crain/Floyd. If Floyd goes, we're pretty much writing off competing in 2012 unless he's replaced by a pitcher with an even longer term deal like Edwin Jackson or Oswalt (and I wouldn't give him what he's asking for with all the wear and tear on that arm).

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 1, 2012 -> 07:24 PM) Anybody want to answer these questions about Cespedes for me? a.) what position does he play? b.) rate his defense. c.) describe his hitting prowess and who he reminds you of at the plate. d.) Is he a can't miss prospect? e.) Do you think Sox will get him? I have a good feeling we're going to get this guy. I just can't see KW and Jerry not adding somebody to the roster who will draw some positive buzz. Or have they forgotten there are 2 teams in town and they have to remain better than those assholes on the northside? Now that Christmas is over Sox management should have a pretty good idea about how much attendance is set to fall. Season ticket Christmas gifts have been unwrapped. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article....articleid=15469 RF probably with Viciedo in LF...he's more athletic by far (50 inch vertical) but still not a true CFer. Best hitting prospect in Cuba of his generation...perhaps the best since Omar Linares. Definitely more "can't miss" than Viciedo and Alexei Ramirez were described when they came out, although the frenzy over Cespedes is closer to what happened with Viciedo (an open bidding war) than with the unheralded/underappreciated Ramirez. Sox getting him? Makes a ton of sense...especially if we eventually trade Konerko and stick Dayan at 1B. For 2012, he would cut into the playing time of DeAza, Viciedo and/or Dunn. But he is projected to start in High A ball or AA (or advanced to AA after 6-8 weeks getting his feet wet and growing confidence) and make an impact in the majors in August/September at the earliest. We were pretty aggressive thinking Viciedo might be ready (because of the price tag) coming into 2009 or 2010 and clearly that wasn't the case. But we're talking about the best player in Cuba, along with Gourriel at SS.

Greg, what would your reaction be to trading Gavin Floyd today and signing Edwin Jackson tomorrow? Would the gain of 2 minor league pitchers, Zach Stewart, $10 million of savings on Teahen and bringing back a pitcher who seems more likely to be dominant with the Sox/Cooper be a "good move" or not for KW? And can we really worry about giving up draft pick/s since nobody thinks we'll use them correctly, anyway? Win now, baby!!! Right? Keep in mind the prospects we might be able to get for Floyd would probably be better than Molina alone for Santos...

This is like all the back-and-forth we had over Cabrera being offered arbitration or not being offered... In the end, we got two "sort of decent/possibly promising" pitching prospects another team signed for $700,000 back...and erased Frasor's presence from the payroll. You can't have it both ways...we need Frasor, he's an important piece to the pen, experienced veteran, etc., and then look back at the thread where he signed and claimed to have been against bringing him back. Now those who are against KW for whatever reasons are just using it as another excuse to say "KW has no plan, look at the return for other relievers, we got screwed again, Kenny has no idea what he's doing." 75% of this board was probably against Frasor coming back at that salary, based on his performance in 2011 with us. Maybe even 80 or 85%. Now, because we don't have Frasor, we're consigned to a decade of irrelevance in Chicago? We can all agree the Hudson move wasn't a very good one...what would be the most amusing future development has been pointed out already, bringing back Edwin Jackson and trading Floyd and ending up with 2 decent prospects, Zach Stewart and saving $10 million on Teahen. And we'd get a very nice haul for FLOYD in return as well. The only question is what type of compensation in the draft we'd have to give up, Balta?

QUOTE (Lillian @ Jan 1, 2012 -> 02:25 PM) The only thing I don't like about aggresively pursuing Cespedes is that he is another right handed hitter. If Dunn flops again, this team still lacks a left handed presence in the lineup. I don't know how mangagement has overlooked this glaring shortcoming. We don't have a potent left handed bat anywhere in the organization. Oh well, at this point we may not have a potent right handed bat, save Konerko. He is a 5 tool player, but is he really good enough defensively to play CF? Can he steal bases? If he can do those two things, he might be worth the money, even if he doesn't fulfill the promise of a huge bat in the middle of the order. It's hard to imagine him not being at least a productive offensive player, with the way he has been dominating Cuban Leagues. I mean the guy averaged over an RBI per game last year!!! Borchard fail Thome canned too early by Ozzie Swisher fail

Greg, is it really going to be like this all season long? I hope you give Ventura a fair shake for managing in what one would imagine will be a very trying period of White Sox history. Makes one almost miss the days of arguing about Pierre and Jenks, moreso than the off the field nonsense.

Even if we sign Cespedes, quite a few will be whining about it when he doesn't make the club out of Spring Training...saying it's another Rios/Dunn/Peavy/Beckham bust. OTOH, at least we'd lead the majors in one category, "best highlight/training/batting practice showcase videos" to go along with Viciedo and Harper.

Don't follow up with MELANCHOLIA, MARLEY & ME or WAR HORSE, lol. Try HUGO instead, even WE BOUGHT A ZOO.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Jan 1, 2012 -> 03:59 PM) HAHAHA!!! AJ's the second best base runner on the Sox in the last 20 years? Surely you jest. Do you work for Hawk or something? Jesus. Clearly not the fastest or anything resembling a basestealer. Smartest/best (based on getting the most out of his God-given abilities), definitely.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/statistics/...ers/cards/87051 Has mostly been a starter throughout his minor league career, 12 starts in High A last year...18 relief appearances. Throw him into the LHR mix with Santos Rodriguez, Hector Santiago, Hernandez, etc. Probably at least 1 1/2 seasons away, although we've been known to jump lefties quickly, like Radinsky/Logan/Corwin Malone.