mmmmmbeeer

The Family Dog, which I believe was a off-shoot of a Tracey Ullman Show cartoon skit.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 06:41 PM) Really quick question, with my new position my company will match 6%. So I take it it is better to put money in my 401K instead of a savings account? I was thinking of putting $250-300 a week in my 401k. That's roughly $1k/ month. If I were you I'd simply deposit the 6% the company will match and then divert your additional savings to a Roth IRA. Once you cap out the Roth then go back to investing more than 6% into the 401k. It shouldn't take you more than 6 months to max out the Roth while saving at that rate. If you think it's a safe assumption that you're in a lower tax bracket now than you'll be when you retire, you want to take advantage of the Roth while you're young. Being the Roth is funded by after-tax dollars, your withdrawals at retirement are tax free. Whereas with the 401k, funded by pre-tax dollars, you will be taxed at the rate determined by the bracket you fall into at retirement. But by all means, you've got to get at least the company match in your 401k whether you want to fund a Roth or not.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jul 24, 2007 -> 02:07 PM) Yes, I do think Kenny is the problem and have thought that since '03. I will be the first to admit I am totally biased in wanting him canned, but I can also evaluate specific accomplishments of his and praise him appropriately. Do I credit him for 2005? No. I credit the players who played their asses off, and the managerial decisions that paid off. Yes, Kenny assembled the team (with LOTS of help from Ozzie), but if not for the chemistry between the players, no way we would have won it all. I don't really understand what you mean about Kenny's "tactics". He does what he does the way he does it and that's that. Sadly that "that" is a lot of times an arrogant jerk, IMO of course. :rolleyes Will he be fired... I have no idea. Should he... I say yes, but I am speaking with my heart as I smell the stentch that has become White Sox baseball this year. So he gets no credit for 2005 but gets to take all the credit for 2007? I really don't doubt that KW is an asshole. He's a Stanford graduate, played pro ball, now a GM of an MLB franchise which won a WS... he's accomplished a lot and a certain element of arrogance can almost be expected. I don't see where that attitude would exempt him from being effective in his job. Is demanding excellence out of your employees, even in a harsh manner, a bad trait to have in a leadership position? Personally, I don't blame the state of our recent drafts/ml system on KW. It's enough of a job just to manage the personnel of a ML club. He, much like other GMs, is forced to lean heavily on his scouting and development heads. KW is now in a position with the big league club that he REALLY needs to be able to pull a couple of kids to contribute but there just isn't anyone there. He HAS to hold someone accountable for that and Shaffer was the scapegoat. I have no problem whatsoever with that decision.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 12:37 PM) Several people on this site had very good feelings about the White Sox going into the 2005 season; if you were to buy into what the media had said, then yes, the team going into the season was mediocre at best. No one did, and that team had virtually no holes to fill at all going into Spring Training. Garland for Renteria is a joke of a trade; you don't trade salary for salary, and if you are in a retooling mode, you are most certainly not looking to take on big contracts. When I hear the word retool, I tend to think about a team shaking the team up and spreading money around the diamond instead of bringing in a ton of huge contracts. At this point, acquiring Renteria does absolutely nothing for the White Sox because they are getting older, not younger, and are adding a bit of payroll. Does that sound like something a retooling team does? So the Marlins strategy would be labeled as re-tooling in your eyes? I guess we just disagree on what it means to re-tool vice rebuild. To me re-tooling means fielding as much of a veteran presence as possible so that you're ready to win. For instance, Uribe is a weakness that is costing us games so we need to replace, or re-tool, at that position. To do so, we take money away from the starting pitching corp and push it towards the SS position. As is evident by ATL, OAK, and MIN, a strong minor league system is imperative to have any success with this strategy...unless you're NY or BOS when money is no object. To rebuild would be to trade all your veteran pieces for cheap, ML-ready prospects...ie. Salty, Milledge, Kemp, etc. You expect to lose for the next couple of seasons as those players develop at the ML level and then become a true competitor as that maturation process begins to yield to success. If you truly believe that we can compete next season, then replacing Uribe with Renteria is not a bad move.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jul 23, 2007 -> 11:53 AM) This team has, what was it, $80 million tied up for next year in just a handful of players, right? We're not going to get better by grabbing other fairly expensive guys in exchange for our fairly expensive guys. That doens't give us any wiggle room. The only way we're going to get better is by grabbing guys who can fill our holes cheaply. We'll get better if we get good players who are making small amounts. That's how we got so good in 05; we filled our holes with guys who were bargains. Dye, AJ, Iguchi, Crede, etc all made less than what their performance would have earned them. Dye, AJ, Iguchi. Would you have traded JG for any of these guys? Hell no. '05 was truly an oddity. On paper, we went into that season with a team that was mediocre at best. I'm not saying that Renteria would have been a good deal, but with KW's apparent intentions of retooling it's not that bad of a deal, or at least not nearly as lopsided and disappointing as many here feel. Personally, we shouldn't be re-tooling. We should dump anyone and everyone of value and start from scratch with a true youth movement. This re-tooling crap will consist of a bunch of gambles that may or may not pay off, paving the way for another 4-5 years of pure mediocrity.

These threads kill me. Everyone insists that retooling is the route KW needs to take and then when a true "retooling" trade offer comes about, it's "oh hell no, we need young unproven kids, multiple prospects!!!". How exactly do you retool with unproven talent? Trading from a strength (SP) to fill a weakness (SS) with a proven commodity is the epitome of retooling. If you're going to trade Garland for 3 unproven kids, that's rebuilding. This franchise is such a clusterf>>> right now. Blow it up, trade 'em all. Let's freakin' decide whether we're going to rebuild or retool, not teeter-totter inbetween.

QUOTE(NYSox35 @ Jul 10, 2007 -> 09:54 PM) Why can't the "re-tooling crap" work? With our strength in starting pitching it's not as bleak as you make it out to be. Should Kenny be criticized for signing Mark to a well below market deal? Should he have traded him for less than he's worth - b/c the top prospects you want him to rebuild with weren't being offered. This season was KW's inaugural "re-tooling" season. How'd it treat ya? Get ready for more of the same.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 9, 2007 -> 01:54 PM) Buehrle, Garland and Vazquez = $37.5M for 2008 Buehrle, Glarland, Vazquez, Konerko, Thome = $58M for 2008 Buehrle, Garland and Vazquez = $40M for 2009 and beyond. Buehrle, Garland, Vazquez and Konerko = $52M for 2009 and beyond I guess if the Sox are willing to go to a $115-$120M payroll in the near future, things could work out because I don't know where any cheap alternatives at other positions are going to come from considering the Sox' lack of position prospects and trading chips. Which we both know their payroll won't go that high. I know it's an unpopular opinion around here, but I'm really disappointed with Kenny's decision to retain Mark. Because of the fact that you can't have a $14M pitcher on a team in midst of a complete rebuild, KW will now move forward with this re-tooling crap that he is somehow convinced will work. If a month ago KW would have just pulled the trigger and traded Mark we could then have admitted we were rebuilding (while also getting max return on him). With that, KW could have dealt the rest of the rotation (minus Danks) along with anyone else on the roster. Now he'll look like a fool if he trades JG or Javy because he will all but eliminate any last glimmer of hope for next season. I was one of KW's biggest supporters but I'll tell ya, his work since the championship has really been horrible.

If you're seriously talking about doing this this week I'd recommend getting an email out to all the members or you're going to be facing major headaches when people keep contacting you because they can't log in and/or lost PMs, avatars, etc. I think this is kind of unfortunate in a way. When I try to log on and experience major delays I usually get a bit excited because I know that there was big news of some type. Oh well, I'll find a way to adapt.

QUOTE(michelangelosmonkey @ Jul 9, 2007 -> 10:07 AM) Maybe $8 mill is high...but drunk? Carlos Lee has the same career OPS as Dye, is 1 year younger and just signed for $15 mill per. If you say we have some guy in our system that can put up an .800 OPS in left field and will be cheap. Great. Who is he? IF there is some free agent we can get INSTEAD of JD for $8 mill that will put up an .800 OPS for left field...who's that guy? I should have specified that $8M/year from the Sox is drunk thinking. The Sox have too many holes to fill to gamble that amount of money on a player like JD. Now a team who just has a couple of holes, namely DH and LF, yeah, they may take a flyer at $8M/per. Let me put it to you this way...if you're KW would you rather pay JD $8M next season or would you rather get 2 decent relievers to fill out the pen? I don't know, man. There are so many holes on this team that it's tough to even speculate what will happen. Like you said, if we spend the money elsewhere, ie. relief pitching, then we've still got a gaping hole in LF with no one in the ml system to fill it.

If he doesn't improve this season and thinks he's going to get $8M from someone, he's drunk. If he got his true market value (no defense, low average, moderate power) of somewhere between $4-5M/per for 2 years I'd keep him on in LF.

KW, just yesterday, committed to retooling instead of rebuilding. If he trades Javy or Jon then he is essentially changing his mind again and looking at rebuilding. He has to trade Contreras obviously. He's worth nowhere near $10M. The other pitchers are all worth their contracts and are arguably worth more than their contracts. There's no way you deal any of them. With KW's failure this past offseason in filling the LF, CF, SS, and BP holes, there's no way, imo, we're going to contend next season. Now he's looking at having to fill all of the above plus 2B, 3B, and RF. I mean the only positions he's really got locked up with good talent are 4/5 of the rotation, 1B, and C. Looking at it from that perspective then, yes, Javy and Jon would both be traded to fill some of those holes. But now we're trying to "re-tool" again. This is a real mess and it all goes back to this past offseason.

What a crazy game when you have to praise a guy for "settling" for $14 MILLION dollars for 7 months of work.

QUOTE(chisox72 @ Jul 8, 2007 -> 08:10 AM) What is also disheartening is the White Sox handling of this entire situation. It was all a charade, so that once again JR, KW, and co. can stand in the background, throw their hands up, and say "We tried." They never had any intention of resigning him. Obviously the thought of resigning him did occur or they wouldn't have ever opened negotiations....I mean, unless you believe their intentions all along were to completely destroy his trade value and piss off a bunch of fans just so they could say "we tried". As I posted earlier, if you follow the sequence of events, there were obvious changes in direction on the part of KW over the course of the past year, but moreso over the past 2 weeks.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Jul 8, 2007 -> 07:46 AM) Ok, where would you rate Buehrle as a pitcher since his first full year (2001)? What is your definition of elite? He might not meet the criteria for an "Ace" because he doesn't strike out a lot of batters. However, since 2001, he is 6th in wins, 15th in ERA, 5th in Complete Games, 2nd in Innings Pitched, and 6th in Shutouts with 1 no-hitter. When people rate pitchers over an era, Buerhle has arguably been one of the best pitchers in baseball since 2001. Your argument about 20 wins if funny. Is 20 some magical barrier? Him not being a 20 game winner makes the fact that he is 6th in wins since 2001 even stronger. That means he is very consistent. Loaiza won 20+ games for the Sox, I guess he is better than Buehrle. If you are not going to spend $14 million on quality starting pitching because you are rebuilding, then where are you spending it? The fastest way back to the top, even when rebuilding is by locking up your quality starters, and Buehrle would be one. You also say he is far from irreplaceable. So you are saying there are players available for $14 million that can take over his production? Please name those players that are available, because I could not find one that was even close in price or production. This argument has been rehashed numerous times no this site so I really don't want to get into it. Again, Mark is a good pitcher and $14M, for a team planning on competing, is a good deal. The Sox aren't competing for at least another 3-4 years (based on the young, cheap rosters in DET and CLE). So why in the hell would we want to drop $14M a year on a pitcher that might help us lose less? I think our biggest difference comes down to you believing this team can re-tool and continue to compete and my belief that this team is done and needs to completely rebuild. In my scenario Mark is nothing but a waste of money, in your scenario he's an important piece in continuity of strong pitching. KW seems to be waffling between these two scenarios as well.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jul 8, 2007 -> 07:05 AM) JR is just as responsible for the they way this has been handled as KW. KW has pretty good job security no matter how bad the Sox play this season, or probably the next several. Obviously JR was involved at some point being a 4 year deal was on the table. If JR wanted MB on this team, he'd be on this team (like Kong). If JR didn't want MB on this team, MB wouldn't have been offered a 4 year deal. Logic leads me to believe that this was completely in Kenny's hands to do what he felt was best for the franchise with JR supporting whatever decision was made.

MB is very overrated on this site, always has been. He's referred to as "elite" or as an "ace" way too often. It's like people think that we're dealing with Peavy or Santana here. This franchise will survive without MB. You think $14M in today's market is a steal, but would you freak out if they gave Garland $14M? They're the same pitcher. If our payroll drops dramatically next season, which it will, we're not going to compete. Why, if we're not going to compete, would you want $14M of the payroll to go towards one player who pitches once every 5 days. He's never even won 20 games in his career, it's not like every 5th day you're practically guaranteed a victory. He's a good pitcher, no doubt, but far from irreplaceable. No player should be making $14M/yr on a team in its first year of a rebuilding process. Although I certainly won't shed a tear when he's gone and will be happy when we realize the payroll flexibility his release offers next season, I really don't like the way the Sox handled this. 2 weeks ago KW should have said MB is on the table and any team can have the 72hr negotiation window. It's almost as if KW got caught inbetween on this, like he changed his mind in the middle of negotiations. This is not something a GM should do. He should have a plan and stick with it. Instead of going full bore ahead with the decision to trade MB and get maximum value in return, he instead considered resigning him and went ahead with negotiations. The negotiations start, are made public, potential trade partners get discouraged, the public gets their hopes up. Then KW changes his mind again and decides MB isn't in his plans. So now he's got a pissed off fan base. MB's agent, as a negotiation play, has now declared that MB will hit the FA market, killing his trade value. Just horribly played by KW, I mean absolutely butchered job of managing the situation and his team. You couldn't have scripted a worse scenario. Again, it just really proves that a GM MUST have a plan in place and execute on that plan. He's got a chance to redeem himself and get some value back, but it will now be a VERY difficult task to do so. Edited to add: For those of you wanting KW gone after this, don't think JR isn't noticing how badly KW handled this. JR is a good business man who understands the importance of strong management. This wishy-washy, non-committal mode of "management" that KW just displayed couldn't have gone unnoticed. This is the type of situation that can cost someone their job. I don't think JR gives a s*** about losing MB, that's not why KW would be canned as many of you imply. He does give a s*** about incompetence.

Olly Perez was just placed on the DL for back troubles. If it turns long term Mets are that much more desparate.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jul 2, 2007 -> 04:54 PM) It's not a pardon. The dude is still basically ruined. With the GOP/big business/energy buddies this guy has you believe he's ruined!?!? That's gold. The deal is now complete. Libby helps Bush and Cheney stay out of the line of fire, Bush returns the favor. Bush/Cheney continue business as normal and Libby will get some cush job as a consultant with an energy firm making hundreds of thousands dollars a year while avoiding the prison ass-rapes.

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 2, 2007 -> 03:09 PM) Bah, I disagree completely. You mistake muslim countries with muslim extremist groups. What does Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah or any other terrorist group care if we need their regions oil? They don't. They could careless. Even if tomorrow the government flips a switch and we never need another drop of oil again it's not like terrorists will stop and say 'well gosh, I guess we no longer have what they want, I guess we better stop attacking them.' I think he was implying that if we diverted war funds to alternative energy exploration, became successful at utilizing those alternative energies, we would then have no reason to use their homelands as military staging grounds. If we have no interest in the oil, there's nothing else there but desert. If they want to blow one another up, have at it. We'll be out of the mess. It really comes down to having a belief that our government's involvement in that region, due to oil concerns, played a large role in the viciousness with which the radicals look at us. If we no longer have any involvement then the strains in the relationship must soften.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 1, 2007 -> 06:24 PM) Read the boards, a ton of people want to trade him, and it completely bewilders me. And as much as I love Bobby, he's not bringing 3 quality prospects back. No way. A top notch closer who makes $450k/year.....and you don't think that he's fetch 3 quality prospects?!?!? I brought this up in trade winds weeks ago; he's the most valuable asset on this team who, if we enter a complete rebuilding mode, is worthless to us. What do you think Boston would command for Papelbon, another top notch closer making league minimum? If the Sox didn't have a closer and were in the playoff hunt, would you be willing to give up Gio, Sweeney, and Floyd for Papelbon, who hasn't even hit his arbitration years yet? Of course you would. Jenks is in the same tier of elite closers as Papelbon but, even more important, is playoff/pressure tested. I'd go as far to say that if we deal off 2-3 SP, Dye, Thome, and Gooch while Jenks is still on this team I'll actually be very upset and cite it as a complete failure on KW's part. Edit: I wouldn't deal him if we got the equivalent of Gio, Sweeney, and Floyd...it was just an example using our weak system and trying to pick the top 3 'spects.

From Mark's perspective I completely understand why he wants the NTC. You give a hometown discount to stay in Chicago, they supposedly negotiated with family because the family wants the uncertainty of moving removed from the equation. Then the team says that they want the right to trade you, I'd run too. From KW's vantage point, this is a good move. Giving Mark a full NTC is dealing with your heart instead of your mind. As a GM of a pro franchise, his heart should be left out of any and all negotiations. I have no doubt in my mind that he just dramatically increased Mark's value. He can now allow any team a negotiation window being the Sox now "officially" have no interest in signing him at the end of the year. From a purely intellectual business perspective, KW couldn't have played this any better. Now there is no doubt in my mind that a large scale fire sale is about to begin. The only way KW can screw this up is if we've still got Contreras and Jim Thome on this team by August 1st. They both need to be gone as they have no role to play on a team in a rebuilding mode. And I'm with others who have thrown Jenks name out there, he needs to be dealt too.

QUOTE(BobDylan @ Jun 26, 2007 -> 11:09 PM) Kenny hasn't considered any of this. He has no idea how much his players are making, how many years they're signed for and it has yet to occur to him that he has a lot of money already locked up in a certain group of players. He has no idea that he has a lot of holes to fill and very little room to work with. He doesn't know that Buehrle is a FA next year and he doesn't know yet that Crede is on the DL. He doesn't know that the bullpen is a complete mess and he doesn't know Dye isn't putting up numbers close to last year. He still thinks Thome will slug them to a World Series because he's the left handed power hitter the team has needed for so many years. He doesn't know that Jose Contreras is old. He doesn't know why french fries are called "french" fries. He doesn't know who Razor Shines or Ozzie Guillen are. He doesn't even know who he is. Why do I keep seeing these kind of threads? Kenny Williams isn't a moron. He understands what's going on--it's just a matter of whether he can work through all these restrictions in a timely matter. I don't think that he was insinuating that KW doesn't understand his position, I think he's mentioning that there are two courses of action KW can take. I'm in complete agreement, it's time for a complete overhaul of this team. I would trade jenks, garland, vazquez, anyone who we can something for. KW tried to rebuild while competing this season (his words) and we see how well that's worked.

posturing.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Jun 14, 2007 -> 06:11 AM) The sox aren't going to be in complete rebuilding mode in '08. With some salaries coming off the books, the sox can add a few key pieces. Not to mention if the sox get near ready prospects in deals this year. Jenks isn't going anywhere. So you think that with a guaranteed reduction in ST sales we're going to have the money to acquire via FA: LF CF RF 2B SP x 1 an entire bullpen (minus boone and bobby) and that's assuming that Crede will be able to play and that you don't want to upgrade Uribe. Face it, this team isn't going to contend next season unless KW is able to work some MAJOR magic and JR increases the payroll despite lower revenue streams. To say we aren't in complete rebuilding mode is to fool yourself, imo.