Kenny Hates Prospects

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 11, 2010 -> 02:13 PM) I wonder if that explains why they have yet to sign a DH... I imagine if Adrian was going to be traded this winter SD would have done so by now, but at least that's something to hope like hell for. I guess it might make some sense for Hoyer to get situated first, and get a handle on his minor league staff, before looking to make such a big trade. Adrian's name should at least be out there in June though.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 11, 2010 -> 07:21 AM) LOL, I assume this was meant to be green? One could argue that the moves he has made haven't been great. I personally think he's improved the team. But "damage"? You seriously think this is now a worse team than it was? I think this offense on paper, at best, is a very slight improvement over last year's offense, and that's figuring in rebounds from Quentin and Rios against the losses of Dye's 1st half and Thome. The problem is, last year's offense was horrifically bad and Kenny needed to significantly upgrade that, not just marginally upgrade that. Because he didn't do that, and he chose to spend all his money on Mark Teahens and Juan Pierres and bench players instead of getting a real DH to bolster the middle of the order, he has done damage. Aside from the Putz signing, he has spent on luxuries rather than needs. And good lord, I still can't believe we've got $15.25M committed in 2011 to Linebrink, Teahen, and Pierre. For a typically fiscally responsible team, that is absolutely pathetic in this climate, and Pierre and Teahen will combine to make up $9.75M of the $12M Paulie is going to free up after his contract expires. I see no reasonable evidence to assume Pierre is going to even be *as good* as his career numbers (which still aren't very good for a lead-off man) in a tougher league and in a smaller ballpark. I also see no reason to assume that putting Mark Teahen at 3B is going to suddenly turn him into an above-average player. I predict that 1 year from now we'll be sitting here wishing we could unload all 3 of these deals, but we won't be able to since comparable players will all be signing 1-year deals worth half of what these 3 guys are committed.

Another fine night for the WEC. It's a lot easier for me to think of the bad or not-so-good fights than the good ones with the WEC since they deliver so often. Shalorus-Jansen was one of those not-so-good ones, but other than that, another very nice card. Can't wait for Aldo-Faber, but I'm not sure Faber has enough to beat Aldo. What mainly makes this fight interesting to me is that we should get to see quite a bit of Aldo's ground game. BTW you can watch Campuzano vs. Wheeler here: http://www.versus.com/wec

Hopefully not. He's done enough damage as it is.

Voted for Thome. Dye is the guy I'd want back more, but we need a lefty. Thome would be a big upgrade over what we have now (absolutely nothing) and he is one of the better options out there for what we would likely have left to spend, if anything.

I'd have much rather had Pods back at 1 year/$1.75M + $250K in incentives than have Juan Pierre for 2 years at $8M combined. God, I hate that deal. Of course I would have preferred Randy Winn on a deal similar to Pods over either option.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ Jan 4, 2010 -> 12:01 PM) Well here's the list: 1. Jared Mitchell, of 2. Tyler Flowers, c 3. Dan Hudson, rhp 4. Brent Morel, 3b 5. Jordan Danks, of 6. Trayce Thompson, of 7. Dayan Viciedo, 3b 8. David Holmberg, lhp 9. Clevelan Santeliz, rhp 10. Miguel Gonzalez, c Viciedo continues to be underrated. I understand ranking Mitchell so high off upside and specifically walks + power from a premium position, but which numbers are more impressive, a line of .280/.317/.391/.708 from a 20-year-old in AA, or a line of .296/.417/.435/.852 from a 20-year-old in A-? I'm sure Viciedo could have torn up Kannapolis too. And again, because of upside I have no problem with Mitchell being #1 because he does have the higher ceiling, but if ceiling is the most important part, then why in the hell is Brent Morel ranked ahead of Viciedo AGAIN??? Hell, why is Morel even ahead of Miguel Gonzalez who put up an .888 OPS as an 18-year-old C in Bristol? And, most importantly, why the f*** is Morel just one notch below Dan Hudson? We need to trade this guy. Morel is a nice prospect, but he put up a .281/.335/.453/.788 line as a 22-year-old in Winston-Salem, which is very good but certainly not great, plus he's not exactly a toolbox, and on top of that, he plays a power position where the offensive standards in the Major Leagues basically start with his W-S production. I get that because of his defense he is one of the safer bets we have to make the majors, but if you're making a top-10 list of "safe bets" then Jared Mitchell isn't even on there and Hudson is #1. If ceiling is the main issue I have no idea how Morel outranks all these other guys, and if it's production + ceiling + age for level then I still have no idea how Morel outranks these other guys.

QUOTE (GO CHI SOX! @ Dec 28, 2009 -> 11:53 AM) Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder, Brad Hawpe, Lyle Overbay, David DeJesus, Carlos Delgado. In that order. I would definitely be in favor of this depending on the price. If we won't go for a power hitter who is actually good, might as well go for batting average and OBP at the top and just move everyone else down. I doubt it's very realistic though since I imagine Kenny would have checked in on the price for DeJesus before picking up Pierre (or at least I hope). I'll mention this once again as well: Luke Scott. He shouldn't be extremely expensive and would fill a need, although I wonder what the Orioles would ask for out of our system.

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Dec 28, 2009 -> 12:18 AM) Fight of the Year: Big Nog/Couture, I'd also give a nod to Sanchez/Guida or Torres/Mizugaki Fighter of the Year: Machida. Took out 2 big guns in the toughest division in maybe MMA as a whole (IMO) GSP & Aldo are also up there. Story of the Year: GreaseGate Event: UFC 100 MI Fight of the Year: Lesnar/Mir II or Penn/Sanchez or GSP/Alves I'm going to change my mind and take Nog-Randy as the fight of the year too, as it was probably the fight I had the most fun watching. It was one of those "you had to be there" moments with two legends who were pretty much counted out beforehand. Years from now people who weren't fans at the time will be able to watch that fight and say it was a great fight, but you really have to see a fight like that live and know the backstory to truly appreciate it. The last similar UFC fight that I can think of was Chuck-Wandy.

QUOTE (striker @ Dec 28, 2009 -> 10:47 AM) I'm fine with the Jones/Kotsay platoon. I'd re-address the situation during Spring Training. Give them the opportunity to win it. If they suck in Spring Training then you sign someone off the scrap heap or you trade for someone. I think a Jones/Kotsay combination can hit .250 with .340 OBP 25HR and 85RBI. And that's about what you'd get from most of the remaining DH's available. IMO Last year Kotsay hit .278/.327/.390/.717 in 206 PA. Jones hit .214/.323/.459/.792. All of this BTW came in hitters parks. Jones hasn't hit above .222 since 2006 (.262) and hasn't posted an OBP above .323 since the same season (.363). Kotsay does hit for decent average (career .281 hitter) but he hasn't posted an OBP above .332 since 2004 (.370, and a product of his .314 AVG). Both are also another year older and Jones especially is still a shell of his former shelf not just in terms of statistics but in terms of actual physical ability. Too many people are hoping for the impossible from this guy. We should all expect a Kotsay/Jones platoon to be just as bad as it looks, and it looks pretty freaking bad. Combined we might realistically get a line of about .255/.325/.420/.745 out of the DH slot in a hitters park. And when you look at each individual part and not the sum of the parts - because looking at the sum of the parts is the wrong way to look at this - you see one average hitter with very little power who doesn't get on base, and one low average hitter who also doesn't get on base but will hit some Jayson Nix/Juan Uribe-style home runs every now and then in between his typical series of garbage ABs. Neither player should be a starter in the Major Leagues, and putting their numbers together and calling them one medicore hitter doesn't change that.

Linebrink + halfway decent prospect + cash in 2011 for Overbay, if we can afford a $2M payroll increase this season.

QUOTE (chisoxfan09 @ Dec 28, 2009 -> 08:48 AM) I am a little confused about this one and wanted to pose this topic on the FutureSox board as a general topic but with specific reference to our farm system. It has been generally concluded that all three of an Hudson, Tyler Flowers, and Jordan Danks our among our top 5 farm prospects. But my confusion lies as to how an external supposedly objective site like "Baseball America" or "Baseball Prospectus" come up with their farm system ranking and ratings. Is it a combination of the overall system and then each individual rating for each prospect? I mean I visit other forums as do the majority of us to occasionally make fantasy trade proposals but lately other posters or knowledgeable people rebut the Sox farm and say neither Hudson or Flowers are 5 star prospects. Hence my question. I used to think if either cracked the BA top 50 then they were automatically 5 star prospects but I guess not. Can someone help me understand, Kenny Hates Prospects maybe? I'm no expert but I think the main thing seems to be that 5-star prospects are pretty close to being ready and are expected to be impact-type players when they get to the Majors, but it's pretty subjective. For example, Desmond Jennings would be a 5-star type of prospect and he can do just about everything, while Jesus Montero could also be called that even though he may end up as a DH. I guess it's all up to how much you like a player. Also, just because we don't have any consensus 5-star prospects in our system right now doesn't mean it will stay that way. A guy like Mitchell could definitely climb those ranks. As for baseball publications and the way they come up with rankings, grades, etc. they use the same criteria everyone else does: stats, scouting reports, video, conversations with teammates, managers, scouts, and various league officials, as well as their personal feelings about a player they've seen for themselves. These rankings are all subjective too, and some of them are based on very little information which may not even be current or entirely accurate. None of this stuff really matters though concerning trades and so forth, because each organization has different personnel involved in decision making, and it all comes down to what the trusted people in each organization think about a given player. No GM is going to make a trade based upon BA rankings or whatever, and there are always surprising deals where a team seems to give up far too little or far too much based upon the prospects involved and their rankings in publications, but a lot of these deals end up as fair deals or even lopsided in favor of the team that at first glance appeared to be ripped off. Case in point: the Aubrey Huff to Houston trade that at the time looked like a steal for Houston and had people talking about what a mistake TB had made by not lowering their asking price well before when Huff was a more valuable commodity. So in short, I really wouldn't put that much stock into these things. Just because a couple of writers with enormous influence say so-and-so is a better prospect than some other guy doesn't mean someone like Kenny William or Rick Hahn would agree.

When I first read about this I started laughing my ass off. As soon as I read he was Nigerian I thought he's probably a Nigerian businessman, and then a couple paragraphs down it said the kid's father is a Nigerian businessman! L-O-f***ing-L! Seriously, these people can't do anything right. I wonder how that new Nigerian Disney World is going?

Wow, just read this. This is the dumbest thing Phil Rogers has ever written, and that is pretty amazing in itself. LOL at the Colorado Rockies, the Braves at 11, Sox at 12, Red Sox at 6, etc. My latest statistical analysis tells me Phil Rogers should have been fired last year.

We need another proven workhorse like Brandon McCarthy if we even want to think about becoming a top rotation. BTW I can't wait until Juan Silverio and Stefan Gartrell get here to teach our guys how to hit.

So, how does everyone vote on these following categories: Fight of the Year Fighter of the Year Story/Headline of the Year Event/Card of the Year Most Impactful (not necessarily competitive) Fight of the Year My picks: Fight of the Year: Joe Benavidez vs. Dominick Cruz, but a long list to choose from Fighter of the Year: Aldo (no-brainer given his rise) with a VERRRRRRY close 2nd to Shogun for not only completing his comeback, but coming back as a better fighter than he had been before (IMO) Story/Headline of the Year: Strikeforce purchases ProElite's assets Event/Card of the Year: WEC 42 Most Impactful (not necessarily competitive) Fight of the Year: tie between Lesnar-Mir 2 and GSP-Penn 2, for different reasons

QUOTE (chunk23 @ Dec 20, 2009 -> 08:00 PM) Chris Carter has put up some absolutely beastly numbers though. Also Sweeney is looking to be a fine outfielder. Decent bat (good OBP, but still no power) and excellent defensive skills. Pretty much what we're getting with Juan Pierre but cheaper and younger with room for improvement. Sweeney in the second half last year: .319/.378/.463/.841. He had the same amount of HR as in the first half, but he went from 11 doubles and 1 triple to 20 doubles and 2 triples. Could it be happening? He'll only be 25 in 2010... Gio also showed some flashes last year including a 10 K, no walk performance in his last start of the season. DLS is healthy now too.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 08:24 AM) I'm sure we could have also come up with someone comparable to what the D-Rays took for Edwin Jackson. That move alone would have swung the division in our favor...although it seems to me at the time the majority were arguing against him, maybe 60/40 against, if I remember correctly. Yeah, a lot of us wanted Jackson but then some others thought he sucked and Sonnancrap was better (even though Jackson was still young, extremely talented, gaining experience, and his numbers were trending upwards, pointing towards a possible breakout). Speaking of moves we could have made in hindsight, imagine if we'd been able to land Jackson and Zobrist (who was only a bench player at that point) for Dye and Getz? If I had a time machine I'd probably use it only for baseball purposes. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 08:24 AM) As far as adding those contracts, it was always 2010-12 that was more the concern than anything else...it's sort of a shame that we had been waiting so long to get rid of Thome's deal (at least at last year's prices, before it was quite reasonable), Konerko's deal, Contreras, MacDougal, etc. It's even crazier to think that with Cabrera still around, we might not even have seen Beckham last year. KW really lucked out there, as many posters pointed out, he won that game of chicken but he wasn't going to go to well twice with the likes of Dotel this time around. Agree, but Kenny only won that game of chicken because the FA market hadn't crashed yet. Agree that 2010 is supposed to be the start of the next era of truly meaningful Sox baseball (shooting for the WS). QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 08:24 AM) Nevertheless, we are still/again in financial constraints to an extent because of Jenks, Konerko, Linebrink and the Rios/Peavy deals, with Rios being far and away the riskiest move KW has ever made in terms of the impact on future budgeting and putting us in a difficult position like the Tigers got into (although they have 5-7 large/questionable contracts, not just a couple, with Willis/Sheffield/Guillen/Ordonez/Robertson/Bonderman coming to mind right away, off the top of my head). Disagree on the Rios deal being Kenny's riskiest move. I wanted this guy before and IMO this is going to be a brilliant acquisition. I mean, any long-term contract is risky (look at Dye with the A's for an example) but in terms of what Rios can be expected to give you, along with his age and the fact that his contract takes him into his prime and not beyond it, plus the salaries that even average all-around CF'ers get, I think he'll be at least worth his deal if nothing else. Kenny's riskiest moves IMO have been the ones like the Tony Pena trade, the Mike MacDougal trade, the Ritchie deal, etc. where he gave up prospects with higher ceilings than the players he was acquiring, and the players he was acquiring weren't exactly models of consistency either. He hasn't been burned yet, but those types of moves eventually will burn him (and any other GM) the same way the Cubs got burned by the Garland-for-Karchner deal. Moves like the first Javy deal, the first Freddy deal, the Thome deal, etc. are usually considered the riskiest, but IMO they aren't all that risky because you pretty much know you'll be winning that trade, and if one of your former prospects does break out, at least you got a proven star/borderline star in return. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 08:24 AM) No doubt something was awry with our chemistry last year, and it's strange considering we shed Cabrera and Swisher, who quite a few argued were a large part of the problem. Of course, some will say the "presence/moxie" of Rowand in the past or Joe Crede is what made the difference....Carl Everett, for that matter. There was something missing last year, you could never quite put your finger on it. Agree, but more than anything I think the problem is that they sucked. The back of the rotation was a mess; the bullpen always had some s***ty, unreliable pitchers; the offense had nothing much at the top to begin the season, and nothing much at the bottom all year long; and the guys in the middle were not doing what guys in the middle need to be doing. Oh, and the team defense was atrocious, as was pretty much every other element of fundamental baseball. Had the Sox been a better team I think they would have clicked just fine. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 08:24 AM) I'm sure after Konerko is gone that many will be saying we're missing a "leader" in the clubhouse to go along with the likes of Buerhle and AJ....Dye and Thome were always very "quiet" leaders, not very vocal. It's going to have to come from Ozzie and that starting pitching staff, because we have so many players like Quentin, Ramirez and Rios that are, at best, enigmatic. I'm wondering how soon Beckham will make his presence felt? Going into the season, he very well might be our best offensive player, especially if Quentin doesn't return to form. We'll always have some veteran leaders, and as far as I'm concerned, there's no better leadership than that by example, and there's no better example than solid play. And really, if AJ, Buehrle, and Peavy were the main veteran leaders of this club then I can't see that being anything but a good thing. Agree with all the rest too. How come you're not around here as much anymore, Caulfield?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 07:20 AM) Read KW's quote on July 7. He said he couldn't make a big trade because of money, couple that with the fact KW traded for Peavy earlier in the season, but was refused. They had the money then, no? The Sox had money. His quote said their projections were off, which would indicate they had even less than they budgeted. So if they didn't have money in April and May, they had even less in July and August. Even if they had traded for Peavy in June they still wouldn't have assumed more than about $4.4M or so since Peavy had already been paid for the first week in June and 2 months in April and May, which is pretty much the same figure they took on with Rios and Peavy. I know what Kenny said because some of his comments pissed me off, but he doesn't always tell the truth. The point is, the Sox didn't add much, so we can't assume they had much to add. We don't get to see their books, and we don't know what all they spend on, so it's very hard to speculate. It's much easier to argue about how they spend the money we do know they have, and in that department, I think they have had a god awful offseason. I agree on what you said about Wise opening in CF too, that was absolutely horrid, and trades could have been made for league minimum players with at least *some* potential even if they had not wanted to add salary. A bunch of people here were arguing for Josh Anderson for example. That wouldn't have worked out, but if they would have made at least *some* kind of actual effort to *not* run Dewayne Wise out there, that would have been much appreciated by yours truly.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 21, 2009 -> 09:07 PM) True, but the White Sox have advantages some other teams do not, they have a sweatheart lease deal and pay nothing for ballpark upkeep. In fact, if their full price ticket attendance falls below a certain threshold, they don't even pay rent. Those half priced Mondays killed two birds with one stone. They increased the attendance on a normally slow night and those tickets didn't count towards their rent, at least not fully.They also make more than most for local TV and radio rights. I can call them cheap last off season. They obviously had money. They spent more than they ever had in June and July. There is no way Dewayne Wise should have been leading off on opening day. There is no way Brent Lillibridge should have been playing in MLB in 2009 and especially not leading off occassionally. There were bargains available and the Sox said they had no money to spend. Read Forbes. They claim the White Sox make a decent amount of money, and that's after paying all these salaries. Peavy was acquired on July 31st, so the Sox were only paying for 2 months out of 6. At $8M that means they were paying him something like $2.67M. Alex Rios was acquired on August 10th, 1/3 of the way through August. That's 1 2/3 months of Rios at $5.9M for the season. The Sox paid him something like $1.64M. In total, that's about an extra $4.31M. Not exactly a lot of money in baseball terms. It is very possible that the Sox had this small amount left over going into the season, but they didn't make another signing because they couldn't get much for it. Rather, since the Sox had so many veterans in the last years of their contracts (i.e. so many tradable pieces), they decided to wait and see how they were doing first, and then either dump some veterans if they were out of it or use the little extra cash to make an acquisition that would help the team in 2009 and beyond. Or maybe the Sox really were at their budget like they said, and Uncle Jerry and the rest of the crew decided to take on that whopping $4.31M extra as a means to improve the organization for the next several years afterwards. The Sox DID NOT take on a lot of money this season. All that money starts coming in 2010.

Great article, Balta. The Sox are spending $8M on Juan Pierre for 2 years. Even if Gardner cost a good prospect, that move would still have represented a savings of $7.2M. Kenny didn't even unload Linebrink in the deal, which would have made the deal defensible assuming the Dodgers ate the remaining salary. The Sox got hosed and the Dodgers made out like bandits, clearing $8M of a bad deal off the books, which is more than enough to fill the 4th OF spot with a capable veteran and still have lots left over to address other needs, and in making this deal the Dodgers *also* picked up a couple potentially useful players in Link and especially Ely. This offseason is the worst offseason Kenny has had since the early years of his GM career. I'm so glad we've now got $15.25M in 2011 committed to Linebrink, Pierre, and Teahen. Boy, that's soooo much better than only having $5.5M committed to Linebrink. It's an absolute waste of money, especially in this market. If I knew the Sox were going to trade for Mark Teahen and give him 3 years guaranteed I'd have never argued against giving Figgins 4. BTW it's also funny how Kenny is emphasizing defense and then not following through. Our LF has no arm, our RF is for some reason extremely overrated on this board for his defense when if you watch him he actually sucks, and our new 3B is probably average at best. It's not like we got worlds better over what we already had, and the major improvements we'll see on D this year will have more to do with a full year of Rios in CF and Alexei being in his sophomore year as a SS. If the Sox offense tanks this year like it should be expected to, then someone needs to get fired.

I read earlier today that Strikeforce wants to do at least 20 shows in 2010 and match whatever the UFC does, including hitting PPV. LOL, they don't have the roster for that, not anything close to that. They may have a few top fighters, but nobody's going to buy their PPV's. They're planning on giving away Henderson-Shields on CBS and that's a fight they should try to sell since there are only so many top guys they can put together. IMO it's looking like Coker isn't some great businessman, rather he's more of a middle man between Strikeforce ownership (the arena people), CBS, Showtime, M-1, and Dream. It appears that *right now* he's able to satisfy these other interests, but everyone is going to want his piece of the pie at some point. Strikeforce has been pretty tight-lipped about details from what I can tell, but you know CBS and Showtime have got to have some massive power over the company, and who knows what M-1 is demanding for their "promotional services?" The Dream thing I understand though. But still, 20+ shows including PPV plans? There's probably going to be some pushing and shoving behind the scenes because Strikeforce doesn't have that many main events to satisfy everyone, and IIRC, Fedor only has like 2 fights left on his deal.

Sox Sunday lineup time... L Pierre CF R Vizquel 2B L Teahen 3B R Quentin RF R Rios DH L Kotsay 1B R Ramirez SS R Jones LF R Random Sucky Guy C Woo Hoo!

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Dec 17, 2009 -> 12:01 AM) I figure that AJ will be our 3 hole hitter so Ozzie can get his lefty/righty break. Not that I would do that, but Ozzie loves to break up the righties and Ozzie has hit him there before. You're probably right. It's still pathetic though.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 16, 2009 -> 11:42 PM) I'm assuming Rios will be better Pierre Beckham Quentin Konerko Rios AJ Lexi Teahen Jones could be a lot of strikeouts in my eight and nine hole if Teahen doesn't get his act together. he's a non RBI guy who whiffs a lot; he has some talent; he needs to revamp his game a bit You really think Ozzie is going to put 4 righties in a row like that? BTW Teahen is going to be a stud here. Something is in the water here (or perhaps not in the case of flouride) but this is clearly the place hitters who have never lived up to expectations go to when they want restore their precious bodily fluids back to their natural states and thusly live up to those prior expectations which everyone on the planet except Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen believe are now impossible to reach. Don't stop believin.'