Leonard Washington

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Dec 6, 2010 -> 05:57 PM) Bullpens can't win divisions, but they can lose them. Right now, we have one guy who I am completely sold on: Thornton. After the All-Star break, Santos posted: 4.18 ERA with a 1.77 WHIP. Once teams figured him out, he didn't pitch well. Sale is young, so who knows how he will be with teams getting a second look at him. Our guys in the system are minor league relievers for a reason because their stuff is not good enough to stay as starters. The pen is a huge issue right now. This is why I'm a lot less confident in Santos than most...I think he's going to have a rough sophomore season.

mlbtr

Dodgers willing to listen to offers for Broxton after all... I wonder what they'd be looking for?

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Dec 6, 2010 -> 04:07 PM) #mlb #whitesox #redsox The Chicago White Sox were runner-up in the Adrian Gonzalez derby, offering IF Gordon Beckham and prospects. - Nightangale I'll consider it a blessing the Red Sox won out.

I wonder what it would take to get Broxton.... is Colletti dumb enough to sell low on him?

"Also from Tomase, both Chicago teams were "finalists" for Gonzalez and were offering at least one major league player in their trade packages. Ultimately, San Diego decided that it preferred the prospects in Boston's offer." MLBTR

Damn...missed it. Anyone feel like recapping it for me?

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Dec 6, 2010 -> 03:11 PM) For those who said they would welcome Bobby Jenks back on a lot smaller deal, would you be confident with him closing? Ozzie has said if Bobby were to come back he would NOT be guaranteed the closer's job. EDIT: fixed I don't think Bobby would come unless he had the closer label. If he doesn't get it here he'll get it somewhere else. He seems too proud to come back for less money AND a lesser role.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Dec 6, 2010 -> 03:01 PM) Sox players I've spoken to are still hearing that PK deal will happen. It better happen soon, because KW now has a Plan B in case. - Cowley Interesting...

QUOTE (chw42 @ Dec 6, 2010 -> 02:53 PM) He already has since he's gonna bat Rios 4th! Yeah Rios 4th is just silly. Batting him 5th makes some sense, as I believe the 5-hole guy is the most common hitter leading off the second. But even then...Rios isn't exactly an OBP machine. I think I'd go with this Pierre Beckham Dunn Konerko Quentin Rios Pierzysnki Ramirez Morel

This is getting a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

I don't think it's as simple as best hitter = run producer. Ichiro's a much better hitter than Ryan Howard, for example. But I think in general you put your most complete hitter in the 3-hole. Dunn doesn't quite fit that criteria, but I think his OBP makes him the best fit there.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Dec 6, 2010 -> 02:17 PM) That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. lol, yeah you want Dunn to bat in the first inning where he'll take his .400 OBP with nobody on base and two outs like 40% of the time. Great idea. And batting Rios 4th when you have Konerko and Dunn? Ewww I don't see the problem batting Dunn 3rd. Wouldn't you want the slugger with the higher OBP batting 3rd? Batting Rios 4th makes less sense.

This is from Rosenthal's article about the Dunn signing. It's a quote that hasn't really got much attention, but from a reliable source like Rosenthal I find it interesting. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Chicago...-million-120210 I can't help but think Quentin's involved, and I HIGHLY doubt this was about the Linebrink trade.

Werth is a little expensive as a "plan B" I'd target Luke Scott.

I can see the Sox throwing a 4/60 Dunn's direction. All indications are they love him, and rightfully so. My ideal world has us signing Dunn, trading for Luke Scott (I don't care what...we're obviously in 'win now' situation) and trading Quentin for something of value. That's my best guess.

If we can replace Paulie, I'm OK with seeing him go. It hurts....but there's an end for everything. As Sox fans we should be used to bitter separations, so I'd almost be fine with seeing Konerko leave to long as we don't end up hating him in the process. This reminds me of last offseason. I would like to have Konerko back. But if he's replaced adequately, I'm fine with his exit. I'm more than happy with a Dunn/LaRoche combo for example than I am a Konerko/? for example. I'm a big Luke Scott fan, so he'd really be the icing on the cake... but for as much as I love Paulie..we have some options.

Troy Renck, who's a pretty highly regarded columnist for the Denver Post, reiterated that the Sox like Ian Stewart when talking about the trade for Gavin Floyd. Makes no sense to me why we could consider trading Floyd for him, and I doubt there's much truth to it.

Yeah we'll see. It's hard to predict what relievers get. Hopefully that ridiculous Benoit deal doesn't totally screw up the market. Truth be told, I can't see Jenks coming back here after being non-tendered. I suspect there's too much pride involved for that to happen.

That's true...but I can't see it being that high again.

I would look to resign him after he's non-tendered. Pretty much every one of his peripheral's point to bad luck. He was striking out a ton of guys, keeping his walks relatively low, getting more ground balls than ever in his career, etc. The .368 BABIP is bound to come down. His FIP was the second lowest of his career.

I have no problem with this signing, especially if reports are true and they're going to use him primarily as a DH. A good chunk of his value was positional, and if he's DHing, there isn't much room left for Dunn. Also, for what it's worth, Martinez has a career .241/.318/.405 line in 116 AB's as a DH (small sample size, I know) so it's possible he's one of those types that struggles when he's not playing defense.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Nov 19, 2010 -> 04:17 AM) Dude that is awesome. I hope Kenny has read all my hatred directed at Mark Teahen, every single bit of it. I hated that deal the moment it was made and I hate it more by the day. Ditto with the Pierre deal, although I've softened on that. But I still hate it. I really hope he reads some of the s*** that gets posted here. Except that anti-AJ BS. I hope he reads none of that, but every bit of the stuff I've gone on about like how Tyler Flowers blows and would be a joke as our starting C. Although maybe he reads nothing because like every Sox fan on the planet was pissed about opening 2009 with Dewayne Wise as our starting CF and he didn't do jack about that. But that's pretty cool about Morrow though. At the time that was seen as a fairly even swap with maybe even an edge to the Ms since Morrow wasn't making strides. But Morrow showed this year that he's starting to get it, and he may be in for a big 2012. AA did pretty well for himself there. That has to be pretty sweet knowing you had a little bit of involvement there. I can't say for KW, but AA reads the blogs. That's a major part of his appeal. He's a fan-friendly GM. He's essentially the anti-KW. But don't ever doubt his baseball smarts. He's an absolute best in terms of baseball smarts. LOL I do take some satisfaction, but realistically, the deal would have likely happened either way. there was a TON of deals that didn't happen (some of which involved the white sox) and my goal is to have more influence than i've had. there's deals that almost happened involving the sox.

The difference between Lee finishing 7th and Jeter winning the Gold Glove is simple. The people that finsihed ahead of Lee were all at least arguably deserving of recognition.. The people that finished behind Jeter were all flagrantly MORE deserving.

If you're trying to break into baseball...being Canadian does suck. No offense taken. And I agree about League. It's not often you find a guy that throws a 97mph sinker. But in AA's exact words after the deal..."we f***ing stole that guy" If it's any credit to the influence of online chatter...he was genuinely concerned that internet criticism would cause Jack Z to back out of the deal. Trust me....they read this stuff.