Kenny Hates Prospects

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 08:44 PM) Apparently HOU turned down Brown/Singleton/Cosart AND another prospect for Pence. WTF. We'll take that. We'll gladly take that. PLEASE OFFER US THAT FOR QUENTIN! Yeah that's done right this second with KW. That gets them Thornton too. Not sure I believe that though. Could just be junk in the media.

Pence will be dealt. There's no way Houston can not deal him if they're getting offers like what is being reported a full 3 days out from the deadline. It seems the Phils are trying to beat the Braves to the punch. If I'm Kenny, I'm trying to make a deal *before* Pence goes because that may be when the price is highest. The BlowSux like to offer junk, but the Braves and Phils pay premiums... and if one doesn't have to bid against the other, the price may drop IMO. So, if the Astros are turning down high offers now hoping that they can get even more 3 days from now, I'm jumping in and taking what the 'Stros are turning down now. Then we'll see how serious Houston is about unloading Pence.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 08:29 PM) When Nyjer Morgan has a season where he has an .360+ wOBA while playing great defense in a full-time role, call me. As bad as Rios is this year, he still has the talent and potential to be a good player. Nyjer Morgan is what he is, a Juan Pierre duplicate. I'd just like to say that I enjoy your posts. Rios is what others thought he was but what I at one time insisted he wasn't, and that's the CF Javy. And unlike Nyjer Morgan, both of those players, as maddening as they can be, have the ability to do some very nice things on the baseball field when they're not too busy staring at their colons. In theory, someone would want to take a shot at Rios, but right now, we'd have to eat so much money to get someone else interested that there's almost no way we could do anything that makes sense for the Chicago White Sox. We're not here to help out the Brewers with free lottery tickets.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 08:17 PM) And he continues to ignore my questions - for the last 48 hours I've been asking him WHY the brewers would EVER WANT rios. He says nothing. He's trying to play if off. $50 says he'll say something like "Negotiations were very close, deal almost happened, but #Brewers nixed deal, demanded Beckham." And anyone with a brain will know what really happened, and where he stands on the Twitterpole in the Twitterverse.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 08:09 PM) If you get someone with a "bowled over" type offer for Quentin - you take it. Then, you start looking into trading 2 more starters. You DON'T STOP at Quentin if someone knocks down your door to get it. You use that opportunity as a spring board into a true youth movement... and if this is the direction they are truly going - it makes me sad to see us not being able to pick up Colby. However, it's a wait and see game because hell - who knows, we might have had to give up Jackson + Sale + Thornton + Spects to get him and... **** that. Give me Julio Teheran, Randall Delgado, and Carlos Perez from ATL for Quentin and Thornton. Then try to gut Boston or New York by dumping off Danks + Rios + Cash. Too bad STL got Jackson + from TOR - or it'd be prime time to gut them for M56. Bottom line is this - if Quentin goes... sell the ****ing whole lot and stack the house for 2013/2014. Totally not happening.

QUOTE (Real @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 07:31 PM) Kenny might be getting forced to look to the next 3-4 years because of the incredible hand he's holding at the Poker table, this might be his only chance to truly build a contender gut feeling: kenny's getting really good offers and he's using his brain instead of his heart, this isnt a WS team, lets be real Neither were the '06 Cards, or last year's Giants, or the '03 Marlins... I'm sure I could go on. If you have pitching you can win in the postseason, and we have lots of pitching still. And I don't think Kenny is looking 3-4 years down the road. I doubt Kenny is going to deal off CQ unless he is getting some great offers, and the great offer guys are likely going to be those whom Kenny sees in the bigs within a year's time, if not right now.

QUOTE (WHITESOXRANDY @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 07:35 PM) KW does not have the patience for rebuilding. He never has and never will. I think it is more about having a real, intimate respect for the difficulty of building a brand new core from the ground up. Kenny was a farm director here who oversaw a ton of highly-rated busts, and he saw that 2000 team that was supposed to be the start of a new era fade in Bolivian. Furthermore, this is the AL Central. If you run the ship aground totally then you can easily end up like the Royals or the Tigers of '05 and prior, but if you try to keep a solid team together and just swap some pieces out here and there, you can reasonably expect to contend the following season. Also, keeping good vets around keeps the record better and keeps us from constantly having to bring up talented prospects in a losing environment. Furthermore, guys like Paulie, MB, and AJ are terrific mentors who always strive to set the best examples and standards both on and off the field. Compare this to the Royals, for one.

The only thing dumber than trading a player at his lowest point possible is eating almost all of a player's salary and then trading him at his lowest point possible. Throwing Thornton and Escobar in the deal too? Come on. This is total bulls***. As bad as Rios has been, we've seen this movie before after he came over from Toronto. The following season he was amazing in the first half, and although he fell off in the second half, the overall numbers were there. If Rios is just decent for the first half in 2012 then we should probably be able to move him without having to eat half of what we'd have to eat right now, which I imagine would be about 75% of that deal. Now I could see including talent to get another team to absorb Rios for nothing just to cut the 2012 payroll, but I really fail to see what such a deal as this would accomplish. It would be a terrible reactionary move that would probably just hurt us further. But yeah, total bulls***. Now if the rumor was Rios + Sale + prospects for junk, then I could see the Brewers having interest because then there is a very good chance they're getting $12M kind of value. But Thornton? They're going to take on an old highly paid reliever to offset a bad contract? That doesn't make any f***ing sense. And Escobar is nowhere near the kind of prospect that you take on a very bad deal to acquire. Mr. FantasyExpert really is an expert in fantasy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 12:51 PM) If you're taking Dayan Viciedo's career minor league walk rate to mean anything then you flat out haven't paid any attention to his development. And if he hits in the Majors like he is capable of, pitchers are going to stay away from him more, meaning either his overall numbers go down or his walks go up. I think he's good enough for the latter to be the case, and that's what we'd be betting on. But no matter what, CQ isn't any sure thing himself, and even if he were to tear it up for the rest of this year and all of next, we'd still have to be pretty skeptical about signing him to the massive 4+ year deal that he'd command afterwards under those conditions. We'd be crazy not to sell on him if we could really clean up here.

Even though Q is our #2 bat, losing him and plugging in a couple of young, exciting players may not actually hurt us at all. There's so much talent here already, maybe letting a few pups run around would reinvigorate some of the big dogs lazily wasting away in the shade. Also, let's trade Humber. I'm still not buying this guy long-term.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 11:54 AM) The only way I don't trade him now (assuming you get the "rape" package, which sounds painful btw) is if we go on a run this weekend and do an OF of Vic/Pierre/Q. I'll take the defensive downgrade of Pierre in CF (and honestly don't remember Rios's arm throwing anyone out) to have 2 mashers on the corners for the rest of this season. Hell no. That's a massively weak defensive OF, especially when pitching is supposed to be your strength and your ticket into the postseason and beyond. At best that's treading water I think.

I would fully support a Quentin to the Phils deal if they'll give up a ton. I'm not sure what they need, but could we make them take on Ohman too instead of Thornton? Get out of that 2012 commitment to him and bring back Santiago to take his spot.

I'm sure this has been mentioned on here, but re: the Rasmus deal, what about the Pujols perspective? If Rasmus is pissing off Albert then dealing Rasmus off is a no brainer. Maybe the thinking there was this deal makes the Cards a bit likelier to make the playoffs while appeasing TLR and Albert? If so, good job Cards. I love how some idiotic know-it-all fans try to judge every single move in a talent vacuum. Does anyone really think that the heads of that multi-million dollar professional baseball factory over there in St. Louis unilaterally believe that Colby Rasmus is a mediocre player with little to no future? Or that this deal is a great deal from a talent-for-talent standpoint? Derr, I'm so smarte I reed Bassbol Perspecter n I no wen derr deels r badd. Derr.

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Jul 27, 2011 -> 11:31 AM) Which shows you how weak TOR system was at that time and nothing more. Their #1 prospect wasn't even a top 100 prospect. None of that s*** matters. Someone put up a link of a Sickels ranking where Sickels says Stewart's stuff is "slightly better than Drabek's." I know nothing about Stewart, but if that is even remotely true, Kenny has just fornicated. And also (not referring to this specific post, just speaking generally) Hudson DOES NOT MATTER at this point, neither does Getz/Fields or the salary of the Teahen deal. If Kenny could go back in time to last July/December with the knowledge that we weren't going to win last year and were also going to suck ass this year, neither of these deals would have happened. Kenny made them to take a shot at winning. Teahen was a terrible idea from the get-go, but Jackson was a ballsy win-now move that didn't work out. Instead of (as some posters seem to advocate) crying about everything and acting like pansies and lamenting the past, Kenny got a good deal for Jackson and dumped a bad deal. It takes sac to make the first Jackson deal, and it also takes sac to dump a Linebrink/Teahen when you have to. Kenny deserves props for that. My only complaint ATM is Kenny needs to stick this sac of his in Ozzie's face and tell him to live with it or take his talents to South Beach. If Kenny did what *HE* wanted to do more of the time we'd be better off for it.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 11:33 PM) Is it too much to ask KW and Ozzie to do some research about how a guy would fit in, in the locker room, before spending a ton of resources to acquire them (ie: OC and Swisher). They supposedly did in both cases, didn't they? And besides, these guys all hang out on the field before games. Swisher is a bit of a dainty little dickhead, but he's somewhat affable, and OC has been around a long time. I'm sure the key Sox players and coaches knew enough about them not to worry. And really, the only issues were Swisher's crappy hitting. OC was a FA to be and a brilliant Type A-for-Type B swap. He could have been Oney's plaything and he still wasn't going to get a long-term deal to come back here after the season.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 11:18 PM) As Kalapse perfectly said above, Kenny Williams is just terrible at his job now. If you go into a season with philosophy of "All In", and then you have to start trading some of your starting players when you're 4.5 games out for lesser players to cover up for your previous failures, then you need to go become the GM of the Windy City Thunderbolts. This clown has f***ed with this organization for far too long lately. People don't bash his transactions enough because they're just as infatuated with the "big name" players the Sox have brought in as Kenny was. For the love of God, what has happened to this board? Kenny can't hit for Adam Dunn. You guys all saw what the REAL Alex Rios looks like. Everyone here has seen what Edwin Jackson can do on the mound. Kenny has acquired a lot of legitimate talent and has gotten burned by it. But guess what? It happens. We ran out Jerry Owens and Dewayne Wise for how long? Erstad as an Opening Day CF? Listening to Ozzie and deciding NOT to bring back Thome basically for a song just because the manager is a moron, and having Jones/Kotsay at DH? Kenny has made far, far worse moves than any of these here being b****ed about, only no one is b****ing about them because both the risk and reward were very low in those cases. The Teahen deal and signing has been far dumber than Rios; Rios wasn't even dumb, it was RISKY just like the Peavy deal. Same thing with Swisher the first time. You can rip the second deal all you want, but Kenny gave up good talent to get good talent. There is nothing wrong with that. Basically what has happened is Kenny got a couple bad ends of good deals on paper, just like what happened to Texas in the Danks-McCarthy deal and what hapopened to the Phillies in the Freddy deal, or the Mariners in the other Freddy deal. You can't judge everything in hindsight. This board is being f***ing stupid about Kenny. You can't expect a GM to outright rape the competition again and again, because that's not reality. Hudson and Gio Gonzalez are the only young players worth a s*** that Kenny lost, and he traded both of those guys to try to win a division, and in each case his own players let him down on the field. I can see getting upset about the team this year, but WTF are your expectations?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 11:07 PM) It would be absolutely foolish to waste Jackson's value (or at least what I believe to be his value right now) to shed Teahen's salary. Foolish foolish foolish. Teahen is owed about $10 million over the next two years. Truly a waste of money indeed. But certainly not enough to miss an opportunity to get a very good prospect out of Jackson due to the pitching market. It's not just Teahen. It's Dunn, Rios, and Peavy too. If we rebuild next year then those guys are going to be taking up a whole lot of what JR is going to greenlight. And even now, those guys aren't going anywhere, so the money has to come from somewhere if we need to add another high salary guy. I mean, who else can we trade that makes money and doesn't turn us into a pure seller? Also, I'm not sure we would get a player for Edwin that the board here would think is worth it. We'd probably get a couple guys who are far away and can't help right now. Getting Frasor to help now, plus the possible comp, plus dumping Teahen, plus a prospect? In my eyes this is a great move, especially if there is another one coming. I hate losing the SP depth and that could really, really hurt us, although we definitely need the other arm in the pen. And no matter what, our offense is going to have to get us into the playoffs since the pitching is already doing its job, and this move does not detract from the offense. I like it if true.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 10:55 PM) Only way you make this deal now is if the spect is an absolute stud. And given that we haven't heard his name yet, I highly doubt that. Mark Teahen is an inverse stud weighing down the value of Jackson. If Jackson = Frasor + very good prospect OR Jackson = Frasor + Teahen's deal off the books + halfway decent prospect, then I'll take that second deal 7 days per week. It's much, much, much easier to buy a prospect that BA will slurp all over than it is to dump a terrible contract.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 10:51 PM) Dotel has better numbers than Frasor this year why not just get him back. Maybe Kenny thinks he can pull a Freddy Garcia kind of thing where he makes a deal and then extends a player shortly thereafter? I hate to see the SP depth gone, but if we pull our heads out of our asses and make a real run at this thing, and then get in the playoffs, having the extra reliever could be huge. I think (if true) this move definitely means we're going for it this year still, even if we're rearranging some deck chairs in the process.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 10:47 PM) If this trade happened or was happening, they would have announced it after the game. It's bulls***. No. They'll announce it at 3am and Teahen & EJax will know about it tomorrow morning when they wake up in the lawn outside the hotel.

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Jul 11, 2011 -> 08:44 PM) I didn't tell my father that I suffered from depression and almost shot myself in the head because I didn't want to bring shame to him. That's not fear; that's respect for your elders. If my kid's gay, I'd rather he not tell me so I never have to know. It'd be the respectful thing to do. I'd say apples and oranges, but this response is more like weather balloons and tacos. Being depressed is nothing to be ashamed about. It's happened to me, tons of people I've known, etc. It happens all the time, especially to teens, young adults, and people struggling with hitting 40, 50, retirement, etc. Why would anyone who actually cares about someone be ashamed to learn of that person's depression? I've known several people who have committed suicide, and in every single case, if something had been said before hand, everyone around those people would have stopped whatever they were doing and found that person help. As for being gay, there's no reason to be ashamed of that either, at least as an adult. As a teen or young adult, that's one thing, but part of becoming an adult is becoming comfortable with who you are in virtually every facet and learning to accept those things which cannot be changed, and sexual preference falls under that category. And why would anyone rather spend decades hiding their whole lives from loved ones? Basically, if you are a well-developed adult, then you are comfortable with who you are as a person, and if you're comfortable with that, then it is up to you to be forthright and others to accept you for it. So if a father won't accept his son being gay, then that's pretty much tough s*** and he can go f*** off then.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jul 11, 2011 -> 08:54 PM) When did you get that sexual preference questionnaire where you checked off your sexual preference "choice" as heterosexual? When did you consciously make that "choice"? I think this is probably sarcasm or trolling. JMO. No one is that dumb.... right?

lol David Cross has a great bit on the choosing to be gay thing, I'm too lazy to find it and post it though. But basically, if you choose to be gay then you're also choosing humiliation and depression for a good chunk of your life. Also, homophobic is the most misused term I can think of. Just because someone doesn't want to associate with homosexuals or jokes around with other straight people calling them gay doesn't mean that that individual is actually scared of homosexuals or believes they are lesser human beings. And I hate those goddamn commercials that tell you not to say the word "gay." f*** that. But, it is pretty gay to hate on gays or think they're lesser in any way because they happen to be very different. I've never actually met a gay dude or a gay girl that I'd call gay/f**/etc. but I've met all kinds of straight people that I've said that about. And I know about some of the reason why (there's a good Louis CK bit on that which I am also too lazy to post) but IMO there's nothing wrong with calling a straight person gay as an insult, or a gay person gay in a matter-of-fact kind of way. It's all about how you say it and who you say it to.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 12:25 PM) Wow, that's crazy. I assumed you were posting from the park, wouldn't expect a banner like that out there. Serious? This is the burbs dude. Paulie is a king out here. In fact, if he wanted to, I'm sure Paulie could spend every day from May 1 through October, for the rest of his life, going from barbeque to barbeque filling up on beer and meat products without spending a dime. And I know he's got a 16,000 square foot house in Scottsdale, but if he ever wanted to move out to Plainfield, we've got a couple Targets that are bigger and he can just have one of those. Seriously, there may be more Sox fans out here than practicing Christians, so you can draw your own conclusions. I think it was probably just a hobbyist from the field over here out enjoying the day. I just wanted to post this in here to see if anyone else saw too it since I had to take the time out to cast some more votes.

QUOTE (Uman85 @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 12:12 PM) That's awesome. Where was this? Plainfield area. There is a service (forget out where) called like Chicago Skydiving or Dive Chicago or maybe it's totally different, but its not anywhere near Chicago yet they have Chicago in the name, and lots of people go sky diving out that way. Those people go around with banners all the time, so it is probably from there - at least my best guess. Though, there is an airfield right over here so maybe it is just a fan. I just thought it was pretty cool. I've never seen that done before.