gatnom

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 29, 2011 -> 10:59 AM) That injury to Mitchell really set him back. It will be interesting to see with a full year behind him if he finds another year or not. I think he was talking about Walker.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 07:14 PM) How does it prove it? Maybe the front office really does believe Reed will be both better and cheaper in 2012. It's not like we're trading Floyd and replacing him with Stewart/Axelrod or trading Thornton and replacing him in the 8th with Ohman/Santiago/FA/waiver wire. Both of those moves would have obvious negative consequences for our ability to compete THIS year. You can also make the obvious arguments that Quentin basically HAS TO GO and Viciedo needs to be given everyday playing time. The only reason to keep Carlos is 1) you think you can compete better with him in 2012, 2) you can't get anything at all back in return and 3) there's a strong likelihood you believe that he will quickly be needed as additional depth to replace Rios and/or Dunn in the line-up offensively, playing the corners with Dayan, and DeAza in CF. Or sharing DH time with Dunn/Dayan. Is that worth $6.5-7.25 million to JR and KW? Guess we'll find out soon enough. All you had to do was non tender Frasor, and you would have a spot for Reed in the pen, which would mean a better bullpen from top to bottom for approximately the same price (I think actually less). This sends me a pretty clear message that there are priorities higher than fielding the best team this year. Once again, this doesn't exactly mean they are going to trade people away if they feel they are getting inadequate value. Quentin is the only person I think they HAVE to trade at this point. We need to be able to see what both De Aza and Viciedo can do at the major league level this year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 03:06 PM) Here's my thinking Shack...if we're trying to win this division in 2012, and he puts up a 1.50 WHIP and an ERA in the 5.50-6.00 range, how long are we going to stick with him? We stuck with Danks in 2007 because we were out of the race, we were 8 games under and 12.5 games out by July 1. We were able to give him the chance to slog thorugh his issues. Take a look at Stewart's numbers last year. He put up a 4.2 ERA and a 1.42 WHIP at AA, then followed that up by a 1.5 WHIP and an ERA over 6 at the big league level. Those numbers are pretty darn consistent with what he looked like at the bigs...he has talent, but not a lot of consistency. For him to be a 4.5 ERA pitcher in the bigs, he's going to have to make a huge leap beyond what he did at AA last year. If we're trying to win this division in 2012, are we going to put up with him losing 6 starts in a row, badly? Giving up 8 runs and being pulled in the 3rd inning 4-5 times in a row and taxing the bullpen heavily? If we're going strongly for 2013, then we might just let him pitch through that. If we're trying to win in 2012, hes' going to wind up in AAA or the bullpen and we're going to be throwing someone else into the fire who isn't ready. And worse yet, if we put him in the bullpen, he's very unlikely ever to leave that spot. We cannot expect to win this division if we're putting Zach Stewart in the rotation in April next year. I can't see any way around that conclusion. Therein lies the problem. I really don't think that is the main focus of the organization right now, and I think the Santos trade proves it. "All in" teams don't trade their closer to put a prospect into the role. Obviously, they aren't going to trade Floyd for the sake of trading Floyd, but if a few guys they want become available for him, I doubt they would hesitate to trade him.

Balta, you may be right about Stewart not being ready, but you're also not considering how we are retooling, rebuilding, whatever. Kenny is trying to put together the best roster he can while still positioning himself to be "rebuilt" in a year or two. If we were trying to compete in the sense that we wouldn't want to risk throwing Stewart to the wolves, we wouldn't have traded Sergio.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 23, 2011 -> 06:11 PM) Marty, there are two corner OF spots. There's also the problem of finding playing time for De Aza while paying Rios over $10 million a year.

If I had to guess, I'd say he dumps Quentin, finds a catching prospect to compete with Flowers for AJ's spot after next season, and then acquires a prospect who can hopefully take over for Konerko in 2 years. How he does any of this other than dealing Quentin, I have no idea. He could take a first baseman high in this years draft, but the catching prospect definitely would need to be more seasoned. Now that I think about it, Kenny probably still values Flowers highly enough to have him penciled in as our starter after AJ is gone.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 23, 2011 -> 02:49 PM) It hasn't quite kicked in yet, but starting in July of 2012 there will be a substantial luxury tax applied to international signings, which many believe will wind up leading to the incorporation of international signings into the draft pretty quickly. Clause in the new CBA. It still doesn't seem prudent to invest tens of millions on a single prospect to me.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 23, 2011 -> 02:42 PM) The absolute max they can spend next year on the draft is $11 million. We are talking about way more than that. They could try for other international signings as well.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 23, 2011 -> 02:06 PM) I have read that Detroit does not believe they will have enough to spend to land Cespedes. I'd be perfectly content signing him within a reasonable area, but it would be a lot, lot, lot better to distribute that money throughout the minor league system and draft. I agree, but Kenny seems to operate by the exact opposite mentality: identify one prospect you like and do what it takes to get him.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 6, 2011 -> 01:26 PM) Not sure if I am a fan of hiring Sumlin. What's his record without Case Keenum as quarterback? 5-7, but he was also averaging over 30 points a game with a third string true freshman quarterback.

Regardless of how well he has performed at his job, it's just a sign that they are planning on increasing their efforts to bring in Latin talent, or at the very least they understand that it is a problem. So, I think we should have been excited about this regardless of how slow our offseason has been.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 26, 2011 -> 06:37 AM) Naturally, you would say something like this I see what you did there.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 07:16 PM) There are so many other worse words that start with "def-", and each time I see the thread on the front page I think it's one of them for a second. Defecates?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 18, 2011 -> 08:27 AM) SI_JonHeyman Jon Heyman There will be no hard slot (caps) for baseball draft choices but wll be "recommended' slots w/ tax implications for teams way over One side views cba as "done," other side says hopefully done today. In any case, monday announcement likely. #greatjob, #mazeltov Yes, that's the solution to the drafting problem. Only make sure the poor/cheap teams don't do it, so the high spending teams can still keep gaming the system. It will be interesting to see how they define "way over."

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 11, 2011 -> 12:29 PM) I think you missed the very first post in this thread. Fair enough. It seemed like we were going on a less extreme tangent, though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 11, 2011 -> 07:46 AM) I could care sell about our BA rankings. I don't want to go through a 60 win season, just so we can be at the top of a prospect list. I also don't want to go through having a million fans in the stands again, and having no expectations of being good for years. We don't actually have to become the Kansas City Royals to have some decent prospects in our system outside of a reliever and a couple guys with strikeout issues. If we smartly trade off a couple of our more expensive players and then stop pretending that farm systems are worthless, we'd be just fine. And, there is certainly something more substantive in having a good farm than just being at the top of a prospect list. You know, the actual prospects within our system.

QUOTE (God Loves The Infantry @ Nov 6, 2011 -> 06:26 PM) Occupy LA doucher and self-professed commie calls for the end of America "and everything it stands for". Because communism brought so much awesome s*** to people of the world in the past. This is why the left gets a bad reputation for anti-Americanism. Haha, man you are something else. I hope for your sake that you're actually a troll because I'd feel bad for you if you are actually this angry and bull-headed in real life. But go on and keep overgeneralizing, insulting, and yelling your way through threads. I'm sure that'll incite some serious and mentally stimulating discussions.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Nov 4, 2011 -> 12:04 PM) http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/Tim-Teb...hate-him-110211 LEAVE TEBOW ALONE Why the heck does Jen Floyd Engel have a Job?

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 05:25 PM) Southern Chicago, with the palm trees and white, sandy beaches. Except for the infamous "Armour Square" where it is constantly below freezing. No wonder the baseball team there never has any offense.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 22, 2011 -> 08:16 AM) Revisionist history will fix everything@!! Obviously, no sane person saw Dunn having the year that he did, but he's not really wrong here.

Exactly, since proven players never fail, it makes no sense to invest less risky amounts into unproven prospects when you can just throw millions at proven players. Surefire way to get to the playoffs more than once every three years.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:41 PM) http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writ...ml?eref=writers I understand if you have Ventura as your frontrunner, but not even interviewing any other candidates is really really stupid. This organization just keeps finding ways to piss me off, and I didn't even mind the Ventura hire.

Call me crazy, but I think that normal human beings are responsible for the pyramids and whatever else is being discussed. People tend to forget that humans who lived just a few thousand years ago are virtually identical to those who live today. The only differences are the physical sizes and the fact that they don't have the past research and experience of the people who lived in between then and now. People didn't just get magically smarter a few hundred years ago. And, had we not essentially gone backwards after the fall of the Roman Empire, ancient people probably wouldn't have seemed as magical as they do now.

I think more to the point is this:

I don't think I like this direction they seem to be going in with the hitting coaches. Having three people telling our hitters what to do at one time is not a good thing, in my opinion.