Kenny Hates Prospects

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 13, 2010 -> 12:09 PM) The Cardinals are going to have to pay Pujols close to $30 million a year. Why would they want to get rid of a player making next to nothing and pick up a $14 million a year pitcher, with a rotation fully stocked, signed for 1 season? Rasmus isn't a superstar, but just about every team wouldn't mind having his production and potential in their line up while making next to nothing relatively speaking. And on what planet is Matt Garza available for Carlos Quentin? I do agree with your thought though. It does seem other teams' players are much more highly thought of than White Sox players who are very comparable. Jim Thome put up a .933 OPS as a White Sox. There were a lot more people who thought not having him on the team after they traded him and last year when they didn't sign him was a lot better option than having him on the team, than there were who appreciated what he brought to the table. Now, if Adam Dunn puts up a .933 OPS, something he has done twice in a full season during his career and hasn't done since 2007, even with more strikeouts, he will be a savior. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy they signed Dunn. It will be interesting watching the people who ripped Thome defend Dunn for similar results. I know Dunn at this stage is more valuable than Thome, I am just referring to the criticism he got while putting up huge numbers. Agree on the Rasmus stuff, but on the Garza thing... Quentin alone isn't worth Garza. But Quentin is still worth a lot, and while Garza > CQ in trade value, it's not a landslide. People are underrating the s*** out of him. His defense is terrible, especially in RF, but if you're TB and you can put him in at DH he's a very, very valuable player. The money is similar also, and CQ's upside is far, far higher than Garza's. A CQ + spects for Garza deal is the Sox selling low and buying high. BTW Adam Dunn is going to get lambasted here in due time. That many K's + no defense + plodder + high salary = s*** on. It just won't be now because coming off the Kotsay/Jones DH crapsperiment we can again see the value of a high OBP powerhouse lefty in the middle of the lineup. Right now we're back in post-2005 acquiring Jim Thome excitement mode, but it'll wear off.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 13, 2010 -> 02:04 PM) And don't forget they return to being rockstars once they leave teh Sox. teh Sux IMO

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 02:21 PM) But...the only reason why those set of trades would make us a better baseball team is that the Rays gave up a very, very valuable piece in exchange for Viciedo. What is your point? Take Garza and Viciedo both out of the equation then. Kenny trades a prospect, or several of them, for a starting pitcher. This starting pitcher in 2011 performs at a level that is close to or better than the level at which Buehrle would be expected to perform in 2011. Funds that went to Buehrle are redistributed and more holes are filled. This is the ideal environment for a Buerhle trade, because we improve the team by reallocating the funds that were initially going to an expensive player and we do it without downgrading much if it all when replacing that player.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 02:19 PM) Longoria gave up 2 FA years as option years worth $11+ million 6 years in the future, and in exchange guaranteed himself nearly $20 million before he'd played a month in the bigs. That's a little bit different than the calculus of a guy taking a 2 year deal rather than a 1 year deal. Yeah, he def. took the most money offered as a safe thing...but I think the only reason he did that was his health. If you disagree, ok, but I bet I'm right. I don't know what you're arguing. The potential for injury is a factor for everyone and always a strong consideration when signing any deal, prior injury history or not. My point was that confidence doesn't have anything to do with it. Putz is probably confident in his ability to stay healthy throughout his deal. He took the money however because he didn't want to gamble on it. Personal confidence and honest risk assessment may intertwine but they are two completely different things.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 01:58 PM) You get the point though...dealing Mark Buehrle does pretty much nothing other than save money...and it's saving money that we really won't be able to spend this offseason. It might free up some money to take on salary at the trade deadline, but either way, that's all we get out of it; money, and that money isn't likely to be spent on anything that would help the team as much as Mark! Keep in mind, a Buehrle deal may not necessarily be as much about "saving money" as *redistributing value.* Back to my Garza dream for a sec. Say we trade Viciedo and specs for Garza. We take on about $5M doing that. Garza > Buehrle. We've made an upgrade at the expense of Viciedo and now we have a guy we can also control for longer at a far cheaper price going forward. This is good. We need relief help, so going off another of my brilliant trade examples, we then deal off Mark's $14M for KRod's $11.5M and Parnell, something like that. We cut $2.5M. In effect, these two moves improve the starting staff while picking up a middle reliever and a closer for $2.5M added to where we currently are. We're not really "saving money" because it appears we're going to stick around this $120M payroll we already have. We're just finding different ways to spend it that makes us a better baseball team.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 01:48 PM) I think we "Could" afford that...I think that in both cases though there's plenty of reason to think that you'd be highly likely to just wind up out $4-$5 million. I think everyone out there understands that if JJ Putz could have stayed healthy, he'd have been better off taking a 1 year deal as the Sox's closer, piling up 30+ saves for a playoff team, and hitting the market one more time next year to try to score a 3/$30 deal as a closer. But...if you're a pitcher with no confidence in your ability to have a full, healthy season, and someone offers you a 2 year deal...you jump at the 2 year deal. I don't necessarily think Putz has a shortage of confidence or anything. He probably just took the most money offered as the safe thing. That happens all the time. Different circumstances, but that would be kind of like saying Longoria had no confidence in his ability to be a superstar and make a quadrillion majillion dollars back when he was still a prospect. There have been many occasions where a player has passed up lots of guaranteed money for a shot at a huge payday and ended up screwing himself. Look at Orlando Hudson, who the DBacks offered a ton of money to. Hudson may not make in 3 years what he'd have made in 1 more year with the DBacks.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 01:31 PM) You'll note...none of the deals you wrote actually make us remotely better next year, considering we'd be losing 200-ish innings of pitching with a 4-ish ERA. The only way that any of those deals make us better is if there's so much money thrown in that we could go and buy a big money player to fill an open spot...which basically means to me we need the money available to sign Rafael Soriano, because he's about the only difference-maker left on the market at a position we could use. That's why I said they'd be dependent upon other moves, duh. No deal we will make involving Buehrle will make us better on its own. We will almost certainly NOT win the deal in the long run, and at the very least, at the time the deal is made it will look like a bad deal for the Sox on paper, even if we get value out of it down the road. But as a whole, alongside other moves, it could make us a lot better depending on what we do. Also, Soriano is coming off a fantastic year and probably isn't worth whatever he is asking. Believing Soriano is the only difference maker we could use left on the market is extremely pessimistic especially considering the volatile nature of relievers. Jose Contreras for example signed for pennies on the dollar last offseason because of his circumstances and the Phils, who did the scouting, got a huge bargain of a difference maker. In order to win our division, we, like every other team in baseball, will need to bank on a few smart "scouting" moves that end up surprising people.

QUOTE (bschmaranz @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 12:36 PM) There's your key there. When is that? His ability to stay healthy for a couple months last season ends with him getting a s***load of money... Just doesn't make sense to me. I think a fair deal is about a $4-5M base with another $3-4M in performance incentives and a team option with a small buyout. It doesn't appear we could afford even that though, since we couldn't bring back JJ.

If we traded him the best we could hope for would be salary relief and maybe some reclamation projects. Like, maybe we eat about $3-4M and send him to the Brewers for Manny Parra and Carlos Gomez. A deal like that could be awesome if we were able to get another starter via trade, because you could send Gomez somewhere for a reliever and use Parra as the starter until Peavy is ready, then put him in the pen as a Coop project. Or maybe you use Mark in another high-salary swap, the Mets being a perfect fit given their terrible SP staff and both KRod and Beltran (who we could use) making lots of cash in the final years of their deals. But then a deal like that doesn't really serve a purpose, unless you're able to throw in Teahen's contract or something and get salary relief that way. Or unless you get another piece or two in the process.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 11:00 AM) Everybody should know that clause that upped Buehrle's contract by $1M and added the option year is no longer in effect since he is now a 5/10 player. Truth. 2008: full no-trade clause 2009 - July 15, 2010: limited no-trade protection allowing Buehrle to block trades to certain unspecified clubs. A trade triggers an escalator paying $1M raise to $15M annually, plus a guaranteed fifth year paying $15M for 2012. July 16, 2010-2011: Buehrle may not be traded without his permission, under right as 10-and-5 player Per Cot's Baseball Contracts

I'll always love Mark and I'll defend him to no end, and I really hate the thought of trading him, but if the Sox can acquire a much cheaper SP, dump the salary, then use the $14M in multiple areas, this makes baseball sense. The Sox really, really need to win in 2011. Trade CQ and/or Viciedo for Garza, dump MB while picking up a reliever (Mets for Parnell maybe? Sox have a history of liking him) then spend the cash on whatever we need. Or better yet, offer to take on someone's expensive closer for Mark Teahen's filthy contract that has AIDS all over it.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 06:49 AM) Teahen and Jones worth 2 to 3 times that of Quentin? Really? Quentin mashes RHP. His OPS against RHP blows Teahen's OPS vs. RHP away, and if you saw Mark Teahen play RF, he isn't a big upgrade defensively over Quentin either, in fact, he may be worse. And don't even mention they will make approximately the same amount of money.Jones vs. LHP and defensively is obviously better at least all around, but he's also had 3 or 4 months in a row for 3 straight seasons where he did absolutely nothing. Yep. One thing I generally hate is the automatic assumption people make in regards to platoons, like you can just take one guy's career numbers vs. LHP and another guy's career numbers vs. RHP, take their estimated defensive abilities (and estimating Teahen as an average defensive RF or anything even close to that is a HUGE overestimation IMO) and put them together and get exactly what you expected. Some players NEED everyday playing time to even hit well enough to be serviceable in a platoon, and in the case of that turd Teahen you're assuming he's capable of doing that while playing a level of defense that I personally don't think he's capable of playing. And with Jones you're just looking at the power and the defense, but what good is that defense when he's only out there against LHP? Most of the time Teahen would be out there dragging his s***ty ass all over The Godfather's beautiful field and disgracing the black and white. Besides, Jones' average is usually way down and it makes the OBP suck with it. Jones/Teahen in RF would be a massive failure and waste of money. Instead of assuming the best case scenario for both and then comparing it to underwhelming Carlos Quentin, assume best case scenario Carlos Quentin and then compare that to best case scenario Teahen/Jones. Even if you don't want Carlos in RF you can move him back to left and either pick up another RF while dumping Pierre or even bringing in Jordan Danks. Now I would hate the thought of that on the surface, but if Carlos is mashing like he's capable of then D2's defense in RF is going to work since the only bat he's replacing is Pierre, and the loss in offense from Pierre to D2 would be more than made up by CQ. And the defense advantage of D2 in RF over CQ in RF would be enormous. There are far better and more cost effective solutions than Teahen/Jones, which is pretty much admitting defeat even before you take the field.

QUOTE (bschmaranz @ Dec 11, 2010 -> 09:05 PM) I don't get the Kerry Wood love from some around here. He has a good couple months in New York and all of a sudden he's worth a ton of money. Forget the last two years in Cleveland where he was pretty damn bad. Yeah, he's got a mid-upper 90's fastball with movement along with a wicked slider and a curveball that is usually unhittable. He was actually very good his first year peripherally aside from his BB rate which is always high, and he was more than "good" in his time with New York, he was vicious. His questions are all about his health and his walk rate, but when he's healthy and on the field he is the type of pitcher that could walk the bases loaded and still K the next three guys. When he gets ahead of hitters it's very hard to get him on his slider or curve.

Teahen is garbage. A Jones/Teahen platoon is also garbage. If Jones were capable of playing every day I would get that, but he's not. He's a great 4th OF and a luxury we probably can't afford anymore. Any deal with Carlos needs to either bring back a legitimate starting OF or needs to bring back something we can trade for a legitimate starting OF. And the Rios speculation is stupid. Alex Rios since 2006 and going forward: 2006 .302/.349/.516/.865 15 SB 17 HR Age 25 2007 .297/.354/.498/.852 17 SB 24 HR Age 26 2008 .291/.337/.461/.798 32 SB 15 HR Age 27 2009 .247/.296/.395/.691 24 SB 17 HR Age 28 2010 .284/.334/.457/.791 34 SB 21 HR Age 29 2011 ??? / ??? / ??? / ??? ?? SB ?? HR Age 30 $12M 2012 ??? / ??? / ??? / ??? ?? SB ?? HR Age 31 $12M 2013 ??? / ??? / ??? / ??? ?? SB ?? HR Age 32 $12.5M 2014 ??? / ??? / ??? / ??? ?? SB ?? HR Age 33 $12.5M 2015 ??? / ??? / ??? / ??? ?? SB ?? HR Age 34 $13.5M with $1M buyout Carl Crawford just got paid an average of over $20M per to play LF through the age of 35. Alex is only signed through the age of 33 and he's a CF who can also play RF. Alex Rios also hasn't even scratched the surface of his potential and is definitely capable of developing into more of a HR hitter the way JD did later on in his career. If I were Kenny I'd have to be blown away to trade Alex.

QUOTE (PlunketChris @ Dec 11, 2010 -> 11:07 AM) He also went onto say "We won't be trading a piece of the everyday lineup for relief pitching." http://twitter.com/#!/davandyck/status/13638107970674688 That is sooo great to hear. I hope he's not bulls***ting.

QUOTE (chisoxfan09 @ Dec 11, 2010 -> 10:25 AM) KW shoots down CQ trade rumor. http://twitter.com/davandyck/status/13627784962248704 Interesting how that is worded. Saying that there isn't truth to trade rumors out there is different than saying "Carlos is not available."

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 11, 2010 -> 09:51 AM) It's going to take a lot more than Viciedo to get Garza. Who else do we have in the minors that would possibly that deal work? Would you trade Viciedo and Mitchell for him? And then we'd only have Garza for one or two years, right? Other than Carlos Beltran and Vernon Wells, what CFers out there with the type of atrocious contracts that want to take Juan Pierre and Mark Teahen? Even with a bad contract for both those two (or Fukudome), I'm not sure why I would want two players that will have a negligible affect on any rebuilding ballclub. If it's a team like the Mets, they're not going to want to totally demoralize their fanbase by starting Pierre AND Teahen, even if they are saving, let's say, $8-10 million, on Beltran. Why is CoCo Crisp leading off a good idea? Is he a significant upgrade over Pierre? How likely is he actually to stay healthy? If he goes down, we're looking at playing Jordan Danks or our 4th/5th outfielder, whoever that is. Trying to replace a starter during the regular season will be even more expensive....in terms of prospects surrendered or giving up all our remaining minor league prospects. Even if we tried to trade one of our starters, we're not going to get much back unless it's for Floyd/Danks/Garza...and then your strength is a weakness again because you can't count on either Outman or Peavy at this point. And you count Sale and Pena as "starters" on KW's big board of depth, but things still start looking very ugly in 2013. It's like the Twins, even without Pavano, they have Liriano/Duensing/Baker/Blackburn/Slowey and Gibson, so but you're never going to see them trade one of those last three until they're sure what they've got in Gibson at the major league level. Viciedo is good enough to serve as the centerpiece for Garza. The Rays like relievers of Bellamy's ilk, maybe him and a throw-in is enough to beat the unknown Cubs package. Pierre may not be worth $8.5M but he's probably worth $3-4M easily. Teahen is worth at least $2M per, maybe even a bit more to an NL club as a LH PH and interleague DH, so if the Sox throw in cash in 2012 he's a nice addition. The Mets are going to have to send cash to move Beltran and it's always far better to get some value out of a bad contract rather than just eating a bunch of cash. A Beltran deal would probably have to be centered around someone like Thompson, who has a high ceiling but is far away, and another spare part that might contribute, like Leesman or something. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see Beltran bringing in a blue chip prospect at this point. You're not trading for Carlos Beltran the All-Star, you're trading for Carlos Beltran the bounce-back candidate on a bad contract. And at his contract value he's not getting an arb offer, so you're not trading him with the idea of collecting picks after he leaves to FA either. Fukudome is a 4th OF for the Cubs. They have Soriano, Byrd, and Colvin. Pierre can be their 4th OF and Teahen can improve their bench. If the Sox throw in $3-3.5M in 2012 then having Teahen reasonably in 2012 makes this even better for them. This deal would help out both teams. Yes, Coco Crisp is a significant improvement over Juan Pierre. If he gets hurt... you can say that about anyone. But it doesn't take a worldbeater to replace what would have been Juan Pierre's production. You put DeAza there, or grab a Reed Johnson for little to nothing, something like that. You don't have to sell the farm to spot patch that kind of loss. Nobody cares about 2013 right now. If we did we never would have paid Paulie $6.5M that year when Dunn is already here and you know PK is going to be a DH then. It's pretty clear what is going on IMO. Jackson and MB are off the books after 2011 and CQ, Danks, Floyd, and Alexei are going to start getting really expensive. If the Sox can't win in 2011 and position themselves for a high payroll in 2012 then they have basically no other option but firesale.

It seems like Morel is going to go to ST and have to play himself OUT of the starting 3B job. No one is going to tell a rookie he doesn't have to fight for a spot, but...

The A's need offense. I like Josh Outman but he's had surgery and has missed a LOT of time. OTOH he's supposedly healthy going into this year and would be a great buy low candidate, and he's expendable with the staff the A's have. I'm also a fan of Henry Rodriguez. A Quentin for Outman + Rodriguez deal could potentially net us a lefty reliever for 2011 and lefty starter beyond, with Rodriguez a potential closer. I'd want more though because of all the uncertainty around Outman. I'd be extremely happy with Quentin + Infante for Crisp + Rodriguez + Outman, although I'm sure not Beane would touch that. Back that deal up with Viciedo + prospects for Garza, then package Pierre and Teahen ($13.25M combined) for an OF on a bad contract. Send prospects depending on the player. Beltran and cash would rule, but I'd be happy with Fukudome too. This replaces Pierre and gives us an OF of Crisp (leading off) in LF, Rios in CF, actual RF playing RF. The bullpen gains its third lefty and a righty setup man/potential closer. Then take all 6 starters and make them all available, and take whichever deal makes the most baseball sense. Or, maybe we keep all 6 until Peavy comes back. Someone may get hurt/stay hurt and we'll need the extra depth. We'd technically have 8 starters at that point, 9 if you're including Pena.

QUOTE (beautox @ Dec 11, 2010 -> 12:56 AM) I realize the rays have lost a lot this offseason but quite frankly they are not that far off from competing again in '11. They need to trade Garza for a cost controlled DH and 1B and sign someone like Jenks. The rays and marlins have a propensity for turning figurative s*** into gold in their respective bullpens, I'm actually very curious as too what Russell and Ramos can do for them in Tampa. The Rays are always going to be competitive with that kind of pitching and defense. I still maintain Crawford was one of the most overrated players in baseball and I don't think losing him is the end of the world at all. And Pena? A smart deal or two around what they already have may make them just as good if not better. Garza for prospects doesn't make sense at all though, I agree.

QUOTE (beautox @ Dec 10, 2010 -> 11:58 PM) I would love to see this happen. Personally if we do land Garza i'm not very keen on turning around and moving a starter, I don't think Peavy will be back till June. If we're really "all in" I would love too see the four following things happen for this offseason. 1.) Trade Quentin and Viciedo for Garza and a prospect 2.) Burn down the farm to go get Soria 3.) Trade for Beltran(18.5m) with a swap of bad contracts for Teahen(4.75m + 5.5m) and some $(6m?) coming from the mets {thats a saving of 2.25m for them) 4.) Sign LHP Andrew Miller L Pierre LF R Beckham 2B S Beltran RF R Konerko 1B L Dunn DH R Rios CF R Ramirez SS L AJ C R Morel 3B SP - Danks, Jackson, Buehrle, Floyd, Garza BP - Soria, Thornton, Sale, Santos, Infante, Miller, Pena Bench - Castro, Lillibridge, Vizquel, DeAza win. It would be a lot to burden for this season; but going into 2012 we shed a ton of payroll: Beltran(18.5), Jackson(8.35), Buehrle(14), Pierre(8.5), Thornton(3m), Vizquel(1.75) and Castro(1.2) would all be coming off the books(55.3m). Going into that offseason the FA market looks pretty thin outside of Prince and Albert the outfield options look something like this Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, Carlos Beltran and J.D. Drew. Our rotation going into '12 is still in tact with Sale and hopefully a healthy Peavy. We could also re-sign Threets, by that time he should be healthy. I also imagine going into that offseason we would be offering ARB to Thornton & Jackson and possibly Buehrle depending on Peavy's health and how he performs this year. I think the Rays would have to at least entertain that first deal. If I were them I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I don't know if Kenny would offer that much. I think the prospect coming back would have to be pretty good, that's for sure. The Soria deal would scare me. If we deal prospects for him then Mitchell is in that one and there's more to go along with it. Plus he's making money. I'd rather see us go after the type of reliever we could pull in cheaper. Mentioning the Mets, maybe we could work something out where we'd send Teahen and someone NOT named Mitchell (i.e. a couple useful arms or something) for KRod and cash. Or, maybe we could do Pierre + Teahen + prospects for KRod and send enough of the Dodgers cash to make it an even trade at $11.5M. KRod's 2012 buyout is $3.5M and Teahen is making $5.5M that year, so that's just like us sending them a year of Teahen for $2M. Beltran would be great and they're going to have to eat cash to deal him, but the best I think we could do is like the above, send Teahen + Pierre + prospects for Beltran and cash, and eat some of Teahen's contract in 2012. He just makes too much money. Andrew Miller has lots of suitors and probably is going to get paid. Let's just bring in some cheap arms to challenge Leesman. I think we should try to stretch the few remaining amounts of cash we have to cover up holes with proven players.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 10, 2010 -> 07:12 PM) Again, why would the Rays want Carlos Quentin, especially for Garza? If they are going to bring in a guy who plays no defense, they'll bring him in from outside the organization and they'll almost certainly do it for less than $5 million. I also don't know why the Rangers would give up prospects for Matt Garza when #1 - they are still very much in the running for Cliff Lee #2 - if they trade for a starting pitcher, I think it's much more likely to be Greinke than Garza Because the Rays DH situation is so bad they're looking at maybe adding Edwin Encarnacion to help out Dan Johnson. And Leslie Anderson is probably the favorite for 1B. Adding Quentin and Viciedo in a deal is an even cash swap and fills two holes while giving them insurance. Anderson is a very capable OF. He could rotate around from OF to 1B with Viciedo also at 1B and Quentin the regular DH. Johnson becomes a backup 1B/DH. If the Rays just sign Encarnacion outright it'll cost them probably half what CQ is going to make in arb, maybe a bit more, i.e. $2.5-3M. Keep in mind that Pena and Crawford are off the books as is a bunch of money tied up in relief. It makes a ton of sense for them to look to us. What doesn't make sense from their standpoint is trading Garza to the Cubs for prospects.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 10, 2010 -> 06:18 PM) In trying to think of teams that will be spending atleast a little bit, need a ton of help offensively, and might have a piece or two the Sox like, I come up with Pittsburgh, and specifically Hanrahan and Morton. I speculated about Hanrahan in another thread. The problem there is that he's only been really good once (last season) and he's arb-eligible now. But his stuff is undeniable and he certainly could have turned the corner. But we'd be buying way high and selling way low.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Dec 10, 2010 -> 05:57 PM) You don't even know that; out of the 18 pitchers above only 4 of them were any damn good in the first year of their deal (Uehara, Affelfdt, Linebrink, Dotel). Man, looking at that list is scary. I forgot about some of those. That Kobayashi deal was obscenely bad. You could actually go back quite a bit further also, when the Mets gave all that money to Schoenweis and Bradford and the O's gave out all that money to Jamie Walker the mediocre lefty specialist and whats-his-name, who pitched like a year in his whole contract, Baez. s***, just think about the best relievers we've had here in recent years. We've ended up hating just about all of them. Thornton is the one notable exception aside from guys on 1-year deals.

If Kenny has his mind set on trading Carlos then Carlos is already gone and there's nothing anyone can do about it. BUT there is no way he should ever enter these discussions with the "goal" of getting relief in return. Get a starting pitcher or a starting position player, and if you want relief then expand the deal if you have to. Or at least dump Teahen's contract and free up a bunch of cash (CQ in arb + Teahen is nearly $10M). But don't go around calling GM's telling them you're looking for relief.