caulfield12

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 16, 2011 -> 07:49 AM) I don't think losing 63 innings should signal a complete firesale. I still believe Williams has done a terrible job this offseason, but I'm sure he went into the Winter Meetings with intentions of trading a lot of pieces for younger pieces but needed the packages to back that up and wasn't receiving what he needed. I'm sure he also targeted players and that one of them was Molina. When he found out that he could acquire Molina by trading a reliever, whose max value to a team really is ~2 WAR, he pulled the trigger. I'm in agreement with the above poster(s) suggesting that they either blow it up completely or pretty much leave the rest in tact. The only guy who I feel is an absolute necessity to move right now is Quentin. I doubt you get any compensation for him as a free agent and he could net a quality prospect or two, plus the Sox can field a full and competent outfield without Quentin right now. You can then make a depth signing or two as well. If they do feel the need to trade Danks, then throughout the course of the season, several other pieces should be dealt as well. Agreed, the problem is that we can net 2X the prospects for Danks as we can for Quentin. Tough position to be in for KW. There's definitely less depth in the starting rotation. You can easily imagine (well, maybe not SO easily) getting Quentin's overall production (especially when you consider games missed due to injuries, HBP, etc.) from either Viciedo or DeAza...maybe 50-75 points lower, but you're also saving $6-7 million in the process. Of course, that money won't be plugged back in anywhere soon. So for the OF and DH position, you have six guys now in DeAza, Rios, Quentin, Viciedo, Dunn and Lillibrige. The odds are seemingly quite high that at least 2 of those guys, if not more, will fail. On the other hand, there's still a MUCH better chance at competing with Danks than with Quentin. And the other concern with trading Danks is that puts a lot more pressure on the organization and KW to promote Molina before he's 100% ready. With a Danks trade, you're forcing every member of the rotation up a spot. Floyd Sale Peavy Humber Stewart/Molina/Axelrod/Santiago Forecasting any of those guys is extremely difficult, except for Floyd. (Another of the unappreciated strengths of a Buehrle in the rotation). Which Humber and Peavy are we going to get? Even if Sale is lights-out and an All-Star, how many innings can he realistically be expected to pitch before they would be forced to shut him down, potentially in the middle of a pennant race if all goes right. Still, looking at it long-term, you almost have to trade Danks at some point this season. The worst-case scenario is you hold onto him and the team's "sort of in contention" around the ASB, they fade again at the end and you get very little of immediate value back in return.

QUOTE (striker @ Dec 16, 2011 -> 08:14 AM) The most interesting ones to me are Medlen and Surkamp. If you could find 2 2.5-3WAR pitchers out of that group then your rotation becomes inexpensive enough to sign/trade for 1 or 2 studs to head the rotation. I see no problem with stocking up with #3-#5 starter prospects. If you get 4 of them and 2 of them pan out as starters then I think you've made progress. The challenge will be finding your #1 and #2 starters. Already tried that with Peavy. They're obviously gambling that BOTH Sale and Molina can be 1-2-3 caliber starters. From just a brief glimpse, still going to predict that Santiago's the dark-horse to compete legitimately for a spot in the rotation...prefer to hope he can be Johan Santana-Lite rather than another Arnie Munoz, Mike Porzio or Josh Stewart. If neither of those guys makes it, and Stewart is merely a 5 or long man in the bullpen, this team is set back another 12-18 months at least (unless some minor miracle occurs and Dunn/Peavy/Rios become tradeable again). Even with the freed up payroll space, there's going to have to be a lot more due diligence before KW acquires any big-time salary through trade or free agency.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Beane hold out for too much with Gonzalez and overshoot the market. Plus, as they've already traded Cahill, they won't be quite as desperate to move Gio as well...especially as they need SOME type of future to project if they're ever to get a stadium/relocation deal approved. For all we know, Darvish might be a victim of collusion (teams deliberately offering a lower posting fee) and past disappointing Japanese pitching results and he'll be taken off the market completely. Then again, the Yankees and Red Sox have hardly made a peep since the season ended, so maybe they're operating in stealth mode on this one...although both teams have been burned numerous times with international pitcher signings in the last 10 years or so.

It's also telling that two guys who got a lot of pub around here, Doyle and Tyler Kuhn, seemingly never figured in the organization's long-term plans. Maybe Tyler is a victim of the CJ Retherford/Shelby, Jr., curse of not having one position he's really adept at.

Soptic sounds like another Nathan Jones in the making. Interesting that Gilmore and Santos Rodriguez now seem to be totally off the radar. Josh Phegley, as well. Remenowsky has also disappeared. Axelrod, Petricka, Santiago, Leesman, Infante, Marinez, Snodgress and Soptic provide...at the very least, some competition for the 5/6 bullpen slots, especially if Thornton and Frasor/Crain are both traded. Oswaldo Martinez and Eduardo Escobar seem poised to duke it out for the final utility spot on the roster that Vizquel is vacating.

1. Danks 2. Quentin 3. Thornton 4. Floyd (but definitely the most likely of the four to stay, and the most comfortable with the Sox and Cooper) 5. AJ 6. Crain or Frasor (a bit superfluous to have both these guys on the roster, but perhaps they want some insurance for Reed, especially with Thornton looking to be traded and the added responsibility going to Ohman/Santiago/trade addition). 7. Lillibridge (if we can get a sweet offer for him, although probably better to hold on as insurance for Beckham, Morel, DeAza, SS, CF, 1B, DH) 8. Konerko/Ramirez/Beckham

QUOTE (sin city sox fan @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 10:05 PM) I don't think we can post copyright information....can we? You can't directly post or copy, but you can probably get by "characterizing/summarizing" in your own words. Although some would probably disagree with that idea as well.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Dec 14, 2011 -> 09:06 PM) I have a really hard time believing they go as dark as the original movie did. You kind of have to, but I'm hesitant to believe an American film could turn out like that. Kinda like how the original Let the Right One In was better than the American version, Let Me In. Mara previously explained her transformation for the role, revealing she had her hair dyed and cut, her eyebrows bleached, her lip, brow, nose, and nipple pierced, along with her ears pierced several times. Agreed, Let the Right One In was definitely much better. In this match-up, from all the reviews, the American version is much better. BTW, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is raking in tons of positive reviews...73 positives, only 5 negatives. Will see Christian Bale's "Flowers of War" about the Nanjing Massacre tmrw in the theatres.

QUOTE (Andrew @ Dec 16, 2011 -> 12:53 AM) But that's just it - Gio is clearly not the better player. Billy is also a master at selling inflated value pitchers (because they pitch in Oakland). Is Gio just going into arbitration this year? 2012 Contract Status: 1st Year Arb Eligible (Super 2), 1 yr/$420k (11) (details) [*] Service Time (01/2012): 2.162, Arb Eligible: 2012, Free Agent: 2016

QUOTE (Andrew @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 09:30 PM) Absolutely. Cowley isn't fit to sniff Mark's jock. Forgot about Gonzo, yeah....that makes a lot more sense than aiming arrows at Phil Rogers. Although Rogers has been a target for Cowley as well on a number of occasions in the past.

Which is ironic, because Thornton's career was on the ropes when he was dumped for Borchard after underachieving for so long in SEA. Cooper is almost singlehandedly responsible for Matt being set for life financially. Mentally, the guy just wasn't the right one to be the closer...and perhaps he still holds some grudges against some of the coaches?? Which is, once again, why Danks/Thornton being traded would surprise absolutely nobody in baseball.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 15, 2011 -> 04:56 PM) The story is at least one pitcher on the staff last year thought Coop was looking out for himself in the last year of his contract and wasn't the 'same old Coop' until he got his extension. Like it or not, that perception is a legit story. Then why make it seem like one of those two pitchers are Peavy or Danks? Why isn't the pitcher who actually said those things on the record? Compared to the Boston Red Sox situation, this is very much a fairly insignificant story. Everyone knows that Danks is on the way out, anyway. It was clever/cute that you made quite a few people get the impression (even an English major) that it was Danks who has an axe to grind with Don Cooper and the organization, but that's not quite the case, is it? As everyone has pointed out numerous times, the anti-Cowley/KW slant/bias shines through in every opinion column. Unfortunately in life, things are much more grey. So why isn't Joe capable of writing any type of article that demonstrates he has EVER looked at both sides of an issue and weighed the evidence carefully and with thoughtful consideration? If he wants to write for CCTV/China Daily here in China or TASS in Russia, his one-sidedness and agenda would be predictable if not ignored by the masses. I suppose, in the end, as long as you are controversial or Gossip Girl, you get more "page views" than someone who merely reports the facts. Certainly, no baseball columnist should just print word for word what the club says or act as the club's PR agent in proxy, that's for Reifert or Merkin to do at mlb.com or chisox.com. Or Chris Rongey. And while Phil Rogers does have a bit of a bias AGAINST KW, and favors Ozzie more (what reporter wouldn't, Ozzie made their jobs 100X easier)....he at least is willing to praise or extol something that Williams does which he agrees with, which hasn't been much at all recently. But the ability to recognize and analzye given situations is still there, more or less.

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 14, 2011 -> 11:27 PM) You don't think that you dehumanize someone by laughing at them because of their size? Intrigued isn't necessarily the same as laughing. Maybe the notion that people who are overweight but willingly choose to make a spectacle of themselves (are they being laughed at or is the audience/crowd laughing "with them," it seems pretty clear)...what would motivate someone to do that? It's more of a psychology question. Certainly African-American fans at White Sox games (the few that still go), would probably never dream of dancing on the dugout tops and "performing" for a predominantly caucasian White Sox crowd, would they? Certainly not as a group, where all the contestants were black, grouped together. Just like you MIGHT have the kids from Special Olympics doing that...but it would be part of a fundraiser/charity/make-a-wish type program where NOBODY would be laughing consciously AT THE KIDS, at least one would hope not, although some fans have gotten reputations for being quite cruel when they're drinking.

The new GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (CRAIG/ROONEY MARA version) got a sterling "A" review from EW.com. Seems like it will be a can't miss movie, despite it's obviously dark topics/issues/undertones.

As long as they don't end up with another AL Central team, I don't care what happens with Cuddyer and Kubel. It's when there is a direct exchange (Thome to Minnesota, or choosing Dunn versus Victor Martinez, Cabrera to DET because they had better prospects at the time) and we come out on the losing end that our team is most directly impacted. In a way, their losing Crain to us really did show up with the results last year...their bullpen was a total trainwreck. It's just that we couldn't leverage it because of our horrid offense.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 14, 2011 -> 07:22 AM) Quite the contrary. You can be sure that he WON'T be healthy. Now you just jinxed Konerko's health, lol.

QUOTE (Andrew @ Dec 14, 2011 -> 12:52 AM) Oh this.... Ok, let's play this out. Quentin was really really relevant (really) to make that kind of statement...one year, 08. Where he hit where in the order? And before you answer, where was Paulie? Now, let's look at the 2012 linuep in the context of the assertion that Quentin can equal the OPS at 1/2 the price. Are you sure you want to pitch that? You're putting Quentin in Paulie's place without ...well Quentin (at his best) in front. I'm not a Paulie meat-head type fan, but...duder produces with what he's got (that includes more sucky/absent Quentins than good ones). I'll hang up and wait for your answer. It's all a hypothetical, and we're extrapolating performance lines for a player (almost everyone believes) who's never used steroids yet has clearly improved as a hitter in his mid 30's. What precedent is there in baseball history for that? Can you count on it for another 2 years? It's an emotional argument depending on your feelings for Konerko and how important he still is to the fanbase and JR. To me, I'd rather have Mark Buehrle for $56 million and 4 years than John Danks for the same contract terms (if I had to choose one over the other). But if I could pick two Carlos Quentins to fill out the roster or one Paul Konerko (1B), and I was only working with a $105-110 million budget, I'd gamble that the two Quentins would combined give more bang for the buck than one Konerko in his mid 30's, not to mention getting something decent back for Paulie with 7 teams reportedly still looking for a high-quality 1B. To me, Quentin in LF, Quentin 2 in RF, Viciedo at 1B, DeAza in CF, gives the team the best chance to win. If Dunn fails, you can use DeAza/Quentin 2 as your DH. Of course, there's no such thing as Quentin 2, just the idea of a similar player making between $6-7 million in 2012.

I do think it will be interesting to see what other current White Sox players KW is willing to trade to the Marlins to play for Guillen... Never saw Danks as being in the pro-Ozzie or anti-Ozzie group...seems more like another innocent bystander who was stung by the dysunction but did his best to work around and ignore it.

I wouldn't say LOTS. Go back to the thread signing posts that week. You won't find many. Why did Dunn sign the contract in the first place, if he and his agent had these concerns about transitioning to the AL/DH role?

Danks has, to my knowledge, never had any sort of quotes attributed to him in such a manner...directly attacking a member of the coaching staff. I don't doubt there's fire behind all that smoke. And Cowley gets quotes from AJ Pierzynski all the time. And there's no way AJ would give him the "inside info" about Danks' and Peavy's feelings toward Cooper and just stick Danks' name on it. Let me be clear. I think Cooper is a very good pitching coach. But he's also quick to make "enemies" with pitchers he doesn't get along with or see eye to eye with. Daniel Hudson, for example. MacDougal/Aardsma/Sisco/Masset...all of those guys tuned Cooper out and were quickly traded OR ended up out of baseball altogether.

QUOTE (Andrew @ Dec 14, 2011 -> 12:50 AM) LOL.... Hey I know - Let's just trade Dunn for Soriano. We can DH Soriano, they can put Dunn at 1B when they don't get Fielder. Each team still eats s*** for signing dumb ass contracts, everyone wins (unless you expected quality baseball out of either team, in which case...you are dreaming). There's certainly a logical argument for DeAza/Rios/Viciedo/Soriano/Konerko, especially from a selling tickets/marketing standpoint. But I'd still prefer Viciedo at 1B, DeAza in LF, Quentin in RF and Soriano as DH to what we're actually going to do. That would mean trading Konerko, but what are the odds we're going to be competitive the next 2 seasons? It's just a guess, but I think Quentin's OPS the next two seasons will probably equal Konerko's and at 1/2 the price. Of course, you never know if the guy can stay healthy, he only played 119 games last year.

QUOTE (Andrew @ Dec 14, 2011 -> 01:17 AM) Direct quotes to who? Cowley doesn't claim Danks spoke to him...he does his usual s***. "In an interview".... They weren't just made up...they had to come from SOMEWHERE, and not even Cowley would be stupid enough to use direct quotes in a story if he was just characterizing or backgrounding something....summarizing the general "feeling" of an off-the-record conversation. The question is if Cowley didn't interview Danks, where exactly did those quotes come from? According to the article, it was a telephone interview directly between Cowley and Danks...unless Danks' agent is feeding that "interview" to selected media outlets because he wants his pitcher off the Sox and traded to another team ASAP...so he can start the process of bargaining for a long-term deal with his new organization.

I'm willing to believe that Cooper actually acted in his own self-interest for most of this season, as did Ozzie. Obviously there was the Cooper/KW side of it, and the Ozzie/Walker/Cora clique with Cox and Baines somewhere in the middle of it all. The thing is...with a pitcher we have that much invested in, Cooper HAS to find a way to work with the guy. It's almost sounding like another Swisher case where Jake basically feels Cooper (and Ozzie) gave up on him and he had to go outside the organization for answers. (Too bad the same thing didn't happen with Beckham, where he perhaps trusted Walker too much because of their friendship?) Yet one more piece of evidence of all the factors of dysfunction and chaos being lined up against the team's success last year. It's no surprise the season turned out to be such a disaster. As far as criticizing the Sox for not protecting his brother or negotiating a long-term deal, it's a business and it's not in their long-term interest to placate Danks if they're going to trade him, but they darn sure should create a "nurturing" work environment because no doubt all of that turmoil in the coach staff rubbed off on the coaching/front office performances as well, and vice-versa. Seems like John is really painting himself and the team into a tough position. Probably they would be better off trading him before Spring Training, letting Jordan go and moving on. They keep Konerko, Floyd, Alexei and let Danks/Thornton/Quentin go....and perhaps deal AJ and Peavy at mid-season (and/or eat their contracts at the end of July if no suitors are available and the team's out of the race). Maybe that's not going into "full rebuild," but I'm guessing some market survey guru has determined that trading Konerko and Alexei to a lesser extent would fully signal a surrender of competitiveness for at least 2 seasons.

QUOTE (CyAcosta41 @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 07:53 PM) I can't remember the details of the particular network broadcast analyst or the barely adequate Methuselah LOOGY in question (it might have been Ray Searage), but when the LOOGY took the mound the analyst said: "This is LOOGY's 18th (or 20th or whatever) year in the Major Leagues and his longevity is a testament to his continuing ability to be left-handed." I couldn't stop laughing at that one. Yet, so much truth in that. If you can't raise your kid to be a left-handed hitting catcher (most certain route to the bigs), then at least make certain he/she is a left-handed pitcher! Yeah, my best friend and I had a nickname for him back in the day, "Oh no, they're bringing in Ray Sewage!!" They've given up on the game for sure.

QUOTE (CyAcosta41 @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 06:24 PM) Thanks for the well thought-out reply. I wasn't at all saying that the Twins have so much success with their pitching staff, but was merely using them (since we all know them so well) as the foil for the Sox sometimes over-emphasis on "stuff." It always fascinates me how lefty after lefty can be prospects throwing 88-92, but righties in that range are always HUGE suspects. To be drafted today, it seems right-handed pitchers need to be 6'5", 240lbs, with tree-trunk legs, throwing 93-96 mph. Like a few other posters have intimated, I also think that Axelrod actually has much better "stuff" than most people think he has -- velocity, movement, and bite. Plus, he's got some of that deception and short-arming that makes him difficult to "see." I don't think he's nearly the "pure guile" pitcher that some see him as; I think his minor and major league swing-and-miss numbers provide decent evidence of that. Yeah, his stature is going to make people doubt him -- kind of the white wide receiver syndrome that every NFL white wide receiver battles (no matter his published 40 time). But this guy has performed VERY well at the minor league level and in a limited sampling has shown the ability to get big league hitters out too. Sure he'll have to be on his game, but the same can be said for pretty much all the #4 and #5 style pitchers out there. Personally, I think those who instantly classify him as garbage aren't looking at the advanced numbers and using their eyes. We've seen awful #4's and #5's on the South Side and at least in my opinion Dylan Axelrod has a decent chance of being a LOT better pitcher than many of them. Definitely agree about the lefty/right thing. Hector Santiago wouldn't even be mentioned in our plans for 2012 were he not a lefty. And it seems every team has those lefties like Wil Ohman who hang on into their late 30's/early 40's as loogy's...the Arthur Rhodes/Darren Olivers of the baseball world who will continue to sign decent-sized contracts as FA's. And it's also the reason we SHOULD be able to get a decent-sized haul for Danks, despite his off year in 2010. On a team with average or above-average run support, he's the type of guy you definitely count on for 14-17 wins (if not more) per season. But still don't think that ability is worth $100 million+ to the White Sox at this juncture.