caulfield12

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 04:03 PM) Your organization should be up for contraction if you can't find a suitable replacement for Mark Teahen. Last time I checked, we were on a 31-11 run with that "unsuitable" replacement. Do the Red Sox have suitable injury replacements across the board? Check on their roster from the last month... Yes, I get the point you're trying to make, but if we're going to compare our situation with the Phillies (brand new ballpark, 10-15 years of being horrible which finally led to better drafting and results, huge payroll, etc.), I give up. The fact of the matter is we've been fighting that label of the worst of the new ballparks for 20 years now. And attendance in Camden Yards, Rogers Centre, Jacobs Field...have you looked at attendance numbers recently? In the 70's and most of the 80's, we were one of the worst franchises in baseball, despite all the colorful characters, uniforms and Bill Veeck. For the last 20 years, clearly we've been one of the 5-10 most successful. That's a huge improvement.

Didn't we manage to beat the Twins when 3-4 of our key players went down in 2008? Let's just see how well the Twins' do in a new ballpark down the stretch, we've never taken into consideration their home field advantage in this discussion with the Metrodome having had a huge effect. And we keep leaving out the year 2000 like it never happened because KW wasn't officially the GM at that time... If the Twins didn't already have 1987 and 1991, would they have taken their "record of success" this decade over ours? Because if memory serves me correctly, they advanced only once (out of the first round), and that was over another small market club in the A's. There's one thing that I will agree with...in terms of the farm system, Gardenhire was asked what was responsible for the Twins changing their organizationtal attitude after struggling for nearly a decade, from 1993-2000...he said it was when all their players (Mientkiewicz, Koskie, Hunter, Jacque Jones) were promoted from AA together, and you saw the same thing in the late 80's with all of our talent coming up together and blossoming in 1993 and 1994. Using the KW system, that minor league "bonding" never takes place in a way that can be used to effectively bolster the major league team with "waves and waves" of players who already have the winning fundamentals drilled into them by the system, with 3-4-5 arriving each and every season together. That might be the single biggest reason our teams have been inconsistent...that "chemistry" issue is always hit and miss because KW does so much tinkering with the roster and most of our major leaugue players haven't come up through our system. It can be overcome with "winning" players from other team backgrounds like Cabrera and Vizquel...but to really get on sustained run like the Twins did from 2002-2004/2006 is very difficult if you're not infusing the MLB roster with players internally. STILL, the fact of the matter is that the Angels and Twins have been pretty gun-shy about dealing their prospects, and it has obviously cost them in the playoffs. I think the Angels are now learning their lessons, not sure if the same can be said about the Twins. And the Twins have the biggest concern of all, what to do about their hometown hero that they just gave $184 million to if he has to be a 3B/1B/DH in that huge ballpark? Going forward, that contract might end up helping the White Sox more than anything KW does this year or next combined.

And AJ's making around $6.5 million this season...right? And I doubt they would try to cut his salary closer to $5 million...it could be one of those times where they ask AJ if he will take less in order to come back (where he'd obviously prefer to be), but he's not one of those guys making $10 million plus per year, not sure how he would take that. Probably not so well. So that would also make bringing back Konerko nearly impossible. Things will be tight enough as is... Unless those miracles happen with being able to trade Linebrink, Pierre and Teahen, not sure where they can go for payroll flexibility.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 09:47 AM) I would if it meant we could keep Hudson and acquire Dunn with the prospect you get from Jenks plus a combo of Flowers/Danks2/Morel/etc. That would be great, if it's actually possible. I really an fearful that trading Viciedo will come back to bite us. I'm not as worried about Flowers/Morel/Danks2 at all...although I have no idea who our catcher would be next year in that case, we'd better maximize our revenues or come up with another version of John Buck/Miguel Olivo on the FA market. The problem is that AJ knows the staff so well, you wonder how much time it will take for a new catcher to gain the trust of the staff, and this is particularly important with Gavin Floyd and Daniel Hudson, IMO.

Would you trade Jenks today and hand over the reigns with two months left to go to Putz/Thornton/Santos? Risky move...but it's perhaps even riskier to keep Jenks on this ballclub if he's not the official closer. One of many decisions I wouldn't be particularly enjoying to make in KW's shoes.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 09:01 AM) The remarkable thing about the Sox though is that you could have said just as easily that the core of the team was declining/lost in late 2006/all of 2007. We were calling up guys like Andy Gonzalez because we had no depth, for example. I'm as worried as anyone about having to replace 8 guys this offseason (that's why I generally think that moving Hudson, Viciedo, or Santos in a trade is foolish)...but let's look at the roster turnaround from 2007-2008. New starting SS. New starting LF. New starting CF Bust (swisher). 2 youngins who had struggled the previous season sliding into the rotation (Floyd and Danks). 2 new big money guys in the bullpen (Linebrink and Dotel). Bench overhauled/new backup catcher. That's basically 7-9 new guys depending on how you count a guy like D1, and in 1 season, they whipped around from worst to first. Frankly, that overhaul was harder than the one we have to do this year. Not only that, but the transition from 2004 to 2005 was just as, if not more, dramatic. People already forget how bleak 2007, when seemingly the lone bright spots were not trading away Buehrle/Dye (etc.) and the second-half play of Josh Fields, Jerry Owens and Ehren Wasserman. KW struck lightning in a bottle with Danks, Floyd, Ramirez and Quentin, that can't be replicated every season, and Peavy/Rios, while not backfiring, didn't exactly help much to right the ship and get it headed into the playoffs last year. Rios was totally lost and Peavy was injured. What's the major difference between then and now? Maybe two of our best signings in Gordon Beckham and Dayan Viciedo. We're really not THAT far off, compared to how things looked in 2007, second half of 2009 (well, Peavy came back at the end to give some hope) or for much of the first two months of 2010. And, despite Trout's play, I still like Mitchell's upside overall. Of course, the odds of "stealing" a Danks and Floyd from other organizations, that just doesn't happen very often. We even got back Gio Gonzalez, who has quietly turned out to be a nifty little pitcher out on the West Coast. KW's biggest problem MIGHT be tinkering too much, and this season ("Ozzie's season") has somehow got us this far, I think there's a tremendous amount of pressure not to subtract one of the current guys from that clubhouse mix.

Agree with Robertito Walker Clemente, The White Sox have to WIN NOW, meaning in the 2010-12 window, IF it's still open. Trading Quentin would be a huge mistake, despite his injuries and defensive issues, he's shown that he can carry the ballclub and Dunn is simply not the type of player you want to spend $12-15 million for over multiple years, he's the antithesis of everything that Ozzie is trying to accomplish by shedding Thome/Dye, it's like saying not only do we acknowledge that we made a mistake by not signing Thome, we're going to compound it. That's assuming they would be giving up the likes of Beckham, Quentin or Hudson for Dunn. If there's a way to get it done without trading those three players, then it might make sense, but I'm still not 100% sold. I'd rather have Edwin Jackson, in fact, largely because he proved he could pitch successfully in the AL Central last year and Dunn would have only 2 months to adjust to a new league and new pitchers. While Konerko is more easily replaced statistically, there has to be a tremendous amount of discussion back and forth about the future of Tyler Flowers in this organization.

Look at our entire offseason. It was predicated on small(er), in some cases, season-ending, sample sizes for Pierre, Kotsay, Thome and Jermaine Dye (not to mention Vladimir Guerrero declining as well). Of course, there are many other factors (the money Pods wanted, two year contract, Ozzie's personal bias towards Pierre) involved, but it probably wasn't the best way to go about filling the DH spot, that's for sure. Andruw Jones has done exactly as predicted, following his statline from Texas very closely. Almost as predicatable as Alexei Ramirez getting off to slow starts every season.

The Brewers' GM was actually complaining that nobody was interested in acquiring Dave Bush when he was as "serviceable" as many of the other starters available out there. Somewhere, Danny Wright and James Baldwin are warming up.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AreX...uerhealth072710 Mauer playing through pain...the question is how much it will affect him the next 8 years of that contract? Bonderman Considering Retirement By Tim Dierkes [July 28 at 9:16am CST] Jeremy Bonderman is seriously considering retiring at age 28 after the season, reports Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. Bonderman will be a free agent, and he could hang up the spikes if he doesn't get an acceptable offer to return to the Tigers or sign with a team somewhat near his Pasco, Washington home. Bonderman says he's saved a lot of money, so he has the ability to retire. He's earned over $40MM in his career, most of it coming from a four-year deal signed in '06. Bonderman should find interest if he decides to continue pitching. He's shown good health, decent peripherals, and flashes of his former velocity this year.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 10:59 PM) Your company needs to improve its shipping/receiving process but has to funnel money from sales to make that work. Do you do it? IMO, the answer is maybe, depending on what the cost is. The club wants to improve its DH situation, but at what cost? Before the season started, it would have been a cash consideration. Now, it's prospects. Either way, it costs something. It's a risk analysis type of situation: do what you think gives you the best chance of a positive return. I think KW has done a phenomenal job of just that. I don't think, over his tenure, he's ever just ignored holes on the team, but he may have chosen not to plug them at the cost of other facets of the organization. If it were as simple as your example makes it sound, "get players to fill holes", and we had a GM who had his thumb up his butt instead, I would totally agree with you. You'd have to be a fool NOT to agree with that. The fact is, though, that it's not that simple: if you plug all holes at any cost, you're going to wind up with a HUGE deficit somewhere in your system. And most of the moves KW has made have been positive, some overwhelmingly so. Very few of his gambles have had a negative impact on the franchise. That could not be said for drafting during his early tenure, but even talent evaluation, of late, has seemingly improved. And, as someone brought up earlier, you have stats like WAR for players where the value of a standard "replacement-level" guy is taken into account. You could (and should) take that into account for GM's and managers as well, IMO. Sure, KW isn't perfect but where does he compare with a standard, replacement-level GM? Do you really think he's worse than any random GM we'd be likely to end up with? As far as Ozzie goes, I could take him or leave him, but I do think he's got positive WAR-esque value too so I'm not rushing off to the scrap heap to make an exchange. Verdict: Ozzie can stay or go, I vote stay with the utmost lukewarmness. But KW does a fine job and should stay on IMO. And this is where that nightmare scenario for KW and Sox fans comes in. We all lived through 2001-2004, when we had negligible, at best, fifth starters... One of the main points of emphasis after 2005 was to build a rotation with depth...and he accomplished that by adding Javy and having McCarthy ready to go in case of injury. We obviously struggled in that area last year with Colon and Contreras, and KW perhaps got lucky with Garcia's performance the first half...but if we trade Hudson now, that leaves us with Garcia and Torres as the 4th and 5th. With Liriano and Pavano pitching so well recently, and Duensing's record of success out of the pen as well as so far as a starter, the rotation would be my biggest concern, in terms of bringing in a little insurance for both Garcia and Hudson. Two weeks ago, you would have said we might have the advantage over the Twins (they still have a much better offense, despite the loss of Morneau) but with Slowey pitching better again and Baker has the ability and proven track record, then the White Sox seemingly need to maintain their current advantage in the pitching (both starting and relief), defense (since Vizquel took over for Teahen and Alexei morphed into a Gold Glover) and speed areas. I haven't made a comparison with the 2005 offense recently, I think we're 4th in the AL in homers and near the top in stolen bases still...obviously the OBP and OPS numbers are short because of Pierre, Beckham (until a month ago), AJ and the DH position. Maybe KW can pull off a miracle and address both 5th starter and DH, but I think going with Teahen/Viciedo is the move. Unfortunately, Ozzie would seem more likely to keep Lillibridge/Kotsay and send down The Tank, and that's where I disagree...or even playing Kotsay in general so much over Viciedo. I'm sure there are good reasons, I just think Viciedo has a lot more potential to help the offense than TMK.

Well, we have our next Piranha. Danny Valencia hitting .391. Looks like the Twins will be starting out 9-4 after the ASB. Unfortunately, we have only a 1 game lead instead of 4, but that's what happens when Jenks comes unglued.

Unfortunately, this wounded Mariners team gets the consolation of prize of going to Minnesota next. For some reason, though, they've played the Twins very well the last 2-3 seasons...even though they've lost quite a few close ones.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 07:42 PM) Haha, wow. This team is absolutely sensational at home. Which is a feeling we were missing for all of 2009 and the first two months of 2010. Does anyone have a theory what happened during that time stretch? Hard to figure out.

I think KW's answer at DH is going to be Viciedo/Teahen. Just a feeling. KW will be more likely to go after an insurance starter for Hudson rather than overpaying for a bat, unless the acquisition price comes down significantly in the next 4 days.

QUOTE (Elgin Slim @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 05:56 PM) This is my view about competing, you all may think I'm crazy, but here it goes. If you don't want to read the details skip to the last sentence. Since the sox are in the AL, every year as spring training opens the FO should ask themselves 3 questions:1. Do we believe, given the moves and talent of the teams in the AL central, that we will win the division by at least 5 games. 2. If a contributing player goes down to injury for the season, do we have enough talented players in our farm system to either A: replace that player adequately from within or B: acquire a replacement player close to the talent of the injured player. This should be determined by the amount of players opposing GMs covet(the key word) from the farm as well as the evaluation of our own scouts. 3. Does this team have at least a 40% chance of beating the Yankees in a 7 game series? If the answer to all 3 questions is yes, then we have done an excellent job. If the answer to all 3 questions is no, then there needs to be a 5 year plan to make the answer to all 3 questions yes. If the answer to question 1 is yes but the answer to questions 2 and 3 is no, then revert to the same plan as if the answer to all 3 questions is no. If the answer to questions 1&2 is yes, but question 3 is no, there needs to be a plan to make the answer to question 3 yes by next year's spring training. In short, the ultimate question should be Do we have a 40% chance of beating the Yankees in a 7 game series. The next question should be Do we have a great farm system that allows us to acquire elite talent from a non contending team, while still supplementing the major league roster to keep us within our budget. We are in the 4th biggest market in the AL behind NY Boston and LA. I consider this because I believe Chicago is 70% Cubs. As a top 4 market in the AL, ideally we should pretend we are in the AL East and and we should say "Can we compete with the Yankees over a 162 game schedule?" and strive for that goal. Also, unless it is announced that we are in the 5 year plan and the answer to all questions is no, I expect at least an $80 million Payroll. If we are in the 1 year plan or better I expect at least a $100 million dollar payroll, ideally in the $110-125 million range. This is how I'd run the team if I was JR One more thing-Boras clients that make bank are among the top 5 players at their position in baseball, or top 15 Starters. I'd like to see the FO pay up for one of these guys for a change. I wouldn't go more than 5 years for him though. I wouldn't be opposed to trading for Fielder and giving him a 5/$100 million contract extension, but with the first 3 years being at $25 million and the 4th being $15 million and the 5th being $10 million This is kind of like a software company in the US pretending they're going to operate in China. It's not like the Yankees have guaranteed anything with their huge payrolls, either. They've won just as many as the Sox since 2000. If we want to emulate anyone, it should be the Twins, Cardinals, Braves or Angels...because we simply don't have the ability to put all of our eggs in the basket of a FA superstar contract like the top 7-8 payroll teams do. Boras would never have his player sign that kind of "reverse" back-loaded contract...and KW/JR would certainly never approve, because their goal has always been to avoid the most expensive implications of any contract. Yes, we should do a much better job in international talent procurement (especially Dominican and Venezuela), the draft and development...no doubt. Still, what's the biggest lesson of 2005? Subtract Valentin and especially Ordonez and Carlos Lee from the payroll and that gives you the flexibility to bring in Pods, Iguchi, AJ, El Duque, Dye, Hermanson, Vizcaino, etc. Ironic, but we won that year with our lowest payroll, $65 million. Ever since then, we've spent MORE money but obviously not as efficiently or as wisely. It's also the main reason we're not making a Fielder, Oswalt or Haren acquisition, and those guys don't come close to $25 million per year, although Fielder certainly might in the future. Now of course...your chances to compete are increased (although not exponentially) at each $10 million payroll tier you reach, but somebody quoted the fact that only about 37.5% of teams who have spent $100+ million ended up making the playoffs. There's simply no guarantee. And you say the Cubs control 70% of the market, then proceed to say we're a Top 4 market...that really doesn't make sense. In some ways we are, but our attendance definitely has not been since 2006. Each market like SF/OAK, LA/Orange County, Balt/Washington, Chicago and NYC/Queens is unique. With the new Twins ballpark and the Tigers'/Illitch's continued willingness to outspend the Sox, we will undoubtedly continue to act like a "stealth" middle market team in a large market.

Jorge De La Rosa? Aaron Cook? The pickings are pretty slim...not sure if Marcum's really on the market for the Blue Jays, either. Jeremy Guthrie was getting a lot of mentions (threw 97 his last time out) and he did pitch pretty well, so maybe he'll get dealt.

White Sox: Kelly Johnson The White Sox seem to be focused on a basher, but it's not really what they need. They need a table-setter. Chicago hits plenty of home runs. The problem is outs; White Sox hitters just don't get on base nearly enough, so they end up hitting solo homer after solo homer. Thus, Johnson fits the Sox in just about every way. For most of his career -- not just in this, a career season he's having for the D-backs -- he's gotten on base at a good clip -- save for his disastrous '09 season that ended his tenure in Atlanta. His left-handed bat would provide much-needed balance in a heavily right-handed Chicago lineup. The Sox's current second baseman, Gordon Beckham, just isn't getting the job done offensively. And it's hard to imagine the Snakes, who traded Haren on Sunday, won't continue to be sellers over the next few days. If in fact the Diamondbacks are going to be sellers between now and Saturday, they have a number of intriguing players to offer. Shortstop Stephen Drew could be a great fit in St. Louis, catcher Miguel Montero has drawn a great deal of interest in the past, and there's reportedly even some interest in reliever Chad Qualls. But Johnson looks like the best fit for the White Sox -- even if it means buying high on a player enjoying a career year. He'd be a significant upgrade at a position of weakness, while also addressing Chicago's largest club-wide offensive issue. In fairness, a player such as Prince Fielder or Adam Dunn would also address the OBP issue for the Sox while simultaneously providing even more power. But Johnson might come cheaper than those players, and his defensive versatility would be a plus as well. Still, it seems the Sox aren't looking at table-setters, but instead at thumpers. "Same list. Same targets," general manager Ken Williams told reporters recently. MLB.COM Pretty sad that they're about 2-3 weeks late in noticing that Gordon Beckham finally heated up...and was playing at a level not requiring a replacement.

I thought it was about the Russian spies, Anna "Aroldis" Chapman, and their sleeper cells embedded somewhat poorly in the US. Other possibilities were the Sealy Posturepedic Sleeper and the infamous "Sleeper Hold."

The same things (or arguments) were said and made in 2008. Maybe we've all gotten a little bit spoiled, to the point where we "don't want to make the playoffs, if we don't have a team capable of winning it all..." and then we're making snap judgments that we don't have the team to win it all. Clearly, in 2008, that team was probably not well set up to win on the turf, we were missing Quentin and some other key components like Crede, Contreras and Linebrink still wasn't the same, but ANYTHING can happen in the playoffs. Yes, about 50% of the time the Yankees or Red Sox will get there, but for every example like that, there's the DiamondBacks, Marlins, Cardinals in 2006, Rays, Rockies, Astros, etc. I still think betting professionals would be picking the Twins over the White Sox at this point, but I don't quite understand why everyone's freaking out, we've gotten this far...and while I am not surprised Konerko is saying the same thing he said in 2006, 2008, 2009 and now this year, about not tinkering, making changes to the composition of the ballclub can have unintended consequences in the chemistry...KW will do what he thinks is best, and it's HIS choice, not Ozzie's. Unless KW has less power than any GM in the game today except for Jerry DiPoto, he's not going to cut off his nose to spite his face if he doesn't believe the current roster make-up has what it takes to get to the finish line, just to prove a point to Ozzie that he was right and Guillen was wrong.

Yes, but can we count on THAT Mark Teahen showing up in the last 2 months? He's never been in the heat of a pennant race, and obviously the heat will be on him to produce because clearly the team was struggling before he got injured and no doubt many in that clubhouse can draw a straight line to the infield defense improving with Vizquel's insertion into the line-up. Fortunately, he only has the expected "standard" of doing better than Mark Kotsay, which right now is around a 650 OPS, and theoretically this SHOULDN'T be too difficult for him to accomplish. (Fingers crossed.)

DOUBLE POST, DELETE PLEASE

I don't know if they've ever done a study of their revenues from half-price nights or not...how much their concessions and souvenir sales are down versus "full paying" nights, and how much the core value of the ticket price is eroded. I'm sure they have studied this. (One other thing that always rankled me living in Iowa was that the White Sox never had a TOLL-FREE out of state number for calling the ballpark to buy tickets like quite a few clubs do...this was when long-distance toll calls were expensive, now it doesn't matter so much, but I thought it would be an easy "fan friendly" change to make...then there's that saying, an empty seat isn't making any money. OTOH, there's also the adage in sports marketing that 80% of your fans are the same 20% who go regularly, and MANY professional sports franchises make the mistake of trying to bring out new fans or casual fans when they should be concentrating just as much, if not more, on keeping their biggest customers happy and renewing.) It's a Catch-22 with half price nights, you want more fans in the seats, but then you get a lot of fans who won't come out to the ballpark if not for the discount. Would those fans be purchasing season tickets or Ozzie Plans if not for this? Maybe, maybe not. One thing it also does is make season ticket holders question holding those packages, but with White Sox fans, the market is fairly inelastic (apparently) in terms of their season ticket holders/corporate box seats, at least that's my guess. I think the Front Office also realizes there are enough fans out there willing to pay "full price" when the team is playing really well...they also learned last year the damage that premium pricing (I think it was the Dodgers series in 2009 or 2008) can do to the casual fans when the team isn't playing very well and the opponent for that night is the main attraction (like when the Yankees or Red Sox come to town). Another promotion that was popular was the family days on Sunday...I can't remember the exact discount, but I think fans understand that the Sox need to do what they can to promote kids coming out to the park and making it more affordable for fans to attend the games, somehow. I've been out of the country for much of the last five years (and lived in KC before that), so I'm not sure how many half-price nights they still have. There used to be the Pepsi nights and maybe there was one other game (Monday-Thursday) that was heavily discounted, especially in April/May/September.

For the White Sox to have acquired Haren, we would have had to give up more than Hudson. It would have been Floyd...undoubtedly, after DiPoto asking for Danks and getting shot down summarily. The other package of players at the back end of the deal wouldn't have mattered as much (for 2010) as losing Floyd from the rotation, and POSSIBLY getting better results from Haren, but also an even more bloated payroll with less flexibility. From the DiamondBacks' beat writer, AZ Republic With about a half hour before my connecting flight to Philadelphia departs, I figured I should weigh in on the collective online bashing interim GM Jerry Dipoto is receiving for using LHP Joe Saunders’ winning percentage as justification for acquiring him in yesterday’s Dan Haren deal. I’m not going to defend it, exactly, but I think I know where he was coming from and what he was trying to express. First, if I were sitting up at that podium yesterday, that’s not the approach I would have taken. Dipoto could have focused on Saunders being an innings eater, durable, proven, talked about his left-handedness and how that helps match up with some of the division’s better hitters, like Adrian Gonzalez and Andre Ethier. He could have talked about Saunders being two years away from free agency, about the Diamondbacks getting him out of the American League and into the National League, where they believe he will have a chance to post better numbers. He said some of those things, but the thing he seemed to keep coming back to was winning games, something he mentioned again when talking about LHP Pat Corbin, who he said leads the minors in wins. Having known Dipoto for several years now and having talked to him a lot recently about the state of the organization, I can tell you he seems focused on trying to create a winning atmosphere with this team. He talks about getting winning players, guys who hate to lose. I take it as being his way of indirectly indicting the current group of players and/or of a general malaise that he believes has set in around this club. I don’t think Dipoto needs anyone to explain to him that winning percentage maybe isn’t the best way to statistically evaluate a pitcher’s performance. What Dipoto wants to do is create a culture around this club that’s similar to that of consistently strong organizations like, say, the Los Angeles Angels. He wants everyone to feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves, like they’re all building something together, like winning is expected when they arrive to the ballpark, etc. Say what you want about that mind-set and whether it matters as much as just simply getting better players. That’s a whole ‘nother debate. But I’m pretty sure Dipoto knows a pitcher who goes 7-13 with a 3.00 ERA on a losing team is probably pitching better than the one who goes 15-5 with a 5.00 ERA for a winning team. Again, not a great tack to take at the press conference yesterday, but, for what it’s worth, that’s what I think he thinks.

The most exciting pitcher out there is Scott Downs right now, apparently. And the Twins would have to give up quite a bit to get Marcum. NL West teams are bombarding the Royals with interest in Scott Podsednik, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (via Twitter). Rosenthal suggests the Giants, Padres and Dodgers could be fits. The Giants and Padres have been linked to outfielders for weeks now and Dodgers GM Ned Colletti recently said he wants to add outfield depth. Podsednik, 34, has a .309/.353/.399 line with 29 steals in 41 attempts. It's a carbon copy of the season he put together last year, when he batted .304/.353/.412 with 30 steals in 43 attempts. Teams know what they're getting in Podsednik: a speedy left fielder who can play center and get on base. The Royals signed Podsednik to a team-friendly deal that guarantees the outfielder $1.65MM this season (about $580K remains). The team has an option for 2011 worth $2MM, but Podsednik will likely be able to void it. He had 421 plate appearances entering today's action and needs just 525 to neutralize the option.