DBAHO

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Oct 4, 2007 -> 10:41 AM) Picking up Uribe's $5M option is not the only way to bring him back. You use the $300K buyout then offer him a 1 year deal worth $1.7M + a s*** load of offensive incentives and a $5M-$6M team option for 2009 (along with a $500K buyout). He gets $2.5M guaranteed in the deal with incentives that can add on another $3M and he gets another contract year to prove he's worthwhile long term investment.. Hey if you can sign him for that, then by all means do it. However, I'd think some other team would other him more than that, because the FA market for SS's is so bad, and Uribe usually gives you good defense and he does have that scary word in "potential". If Eckstein left the Cards for instance, they would possibly target Uribe as a replacement. But the way KW was talking, I'm thinking if he's coming back, it's for the 5M guaranteed, and I think that's really a big overpayment. Vizquel for 2M > Uribe for 5M, IMHO, but if can sign Uribe for less, then do that.

QUOTE(fathom @ Oct 4, 2007 -> 09:48 AM) We just went 72 and 90....why do we need to sign a dinosaur to a one year deal? I'd rather have Andy Gonzalez at SS next year than Vizquel. Because IMHO, if KW wants to win next season, Vizquel will give us a better chance of doing that than Juan Uribe. We're not going into a major rebuilding phase, hence it's stupid to say Andy Gonzalez will be our SS next season, when he frankly shouldn't be in the majors. Besides, if the Sox say picked up a young SS in a deal for Garland in the off-season, they could use him in 2009, or in 2008 if Vizquel fails to improve offensively. I honestly don't think Juan Uribe will put up an OPS better than .650 next season. Is it worth paying 5M for that kind of production?

If Omar Vizquel would come for about 2M for 1 season, I'm going down that route. Yes he's very old, and yes he just had his worst offensive season on record. BUT, his RZR was around .888, Uribe's was at .797 this season, that shows the difference the defense b/w the 2. And he will give you a better OBP down the order, which IMHO is more important than the .670 or so OPS that Uribe will give you with around a .260 OBP. Making this move would save the White Sox 3M from picking up Uribe's option, and that money could become very handy in signing a reliever, a bench guy, or towards signing a Rowand or Hunter. It's all good to say, Juan should be motivated because it's a contract year etc. Well it was basically a contract year for him this season, and he's regressed offensively for the past 4 seasons with the White Sox. He's not getting any better in my mind, and his defense was the worst we've seen since he's been here. To pay him more money than we've paid him over the past 3 seasons, well that's not good enough. Of course if we traded for Rafael Furcal, well problem solved.

Anything that helps us down in the D.R I'm all for. Let's hope Rafael can use some of his connections down there to help us in getting some better prospects to develop down there in the future.

Ya I'll prob be in. I'm in quite a few leagues already though.

Ok I'll ask a couple of questions in here. Does Gavin Floyd's emergence give him a spot in the rotation next season, at the expense of Garland or Contreras? And would you rather trade Garland for prospects e.g to the Dodgers for Hu and one of their young outfielders, or for someone who can help right now e.g Rafael Furcal.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Oct 1, 2007 -> 11:17 AM) His down year defensively still netted him second in the AL in fielding pct. at SS according to the USCF scoreboard,and he has lots of range. Uribe is going to have a big year some year offensively I just know it. The problem is I have no idea when, I was hoping 2007, and if he's just his usual self he doesn't get on base enough and if you are going to have Richar and Fields and to a certain extent Crede in the line-up, it could be really taxing on the offense. The question probably will be does the upgrade on his replacement's OBP compared to his justify the almost certain downgrade in defense, not to mention cost. I'm known as a negative on this board, but 2 guys I have always stuck with are Contreras and Uribe. Right now, I would trade Contreras if some team ate the entire contract, nothing less, and I would only cut Uribe loose if it was a true upgrade at the position. Someone like Renteria or Furcal or Tejada. No way I would replace him with Vizquel or Eckstein. Uribe's RZR decreased from .841 in 2006 to .798 in 2007, that was his worst number in the 3 seasons he's been here. His OPS has decreased to .678 in 2007. The funny thing is though, Eckstein's RZR also decreased from .841 in 2006 to .781 in 2007, and yet he's the best FA out there. And I mean people complain about Vizquel's offense no doubt (.613 OPS, but a better OBP than Uribe), but his defense was top notch this season, a RZR of .888. So I guess my point is, although Vizquel is getting older and older, if he could be signed cheaply, for say 2M for a season, I would rather pay him that, than to pay Juan Uribe 5M for a season, because Vizquel based on the numbers will give you better defense, and a little better on base percentage, which is what we need at the bottom of the lineup, compared to the all or nothing approach from Uribe. My concern with Uribe is that he's decreased both offensively over the past 3 seasons, and defensively this season, and yet we want to spend 5M on him next season. Is he going to turn it around? Well don't we ask this same question every off-season, and yet we're back at square one? Sign Vizquel for a season, trade for a young SS who can contribute from 2009, and let Uribe go, that's an option. It gives us another 2-3M that could be used on a reliever possibly. Yes Uribe is younger than Vizquel, but is he ever going to get any better? We hear about the potential etc. I don't think we're ever going to see it, certainly nothing close to what he put up in the 1st half of 2004 for us.

Can we ask questions in here to get you guys to answer tonight?

Unless Omar Minaya has a brain explosion, sadly no. I'd give up anything to get him though.

No investment advice today Alex? Those war bonds were a great bet last time.

Right now something that KW talked about that I am really worried about is bringing Juan Uribe back. He thinks that's just because he has so much offensive potential, it's ok that his OPS has decreased over the past 3 seasons? He'd had a down year defensively, and I can't understand why you would want to pay $5M for someone with a terrible OBP and a high propensity to strike and can only hit around .230.

Well the Cowboys juggernaut keeps on rolling. Tony Romo's going to be very rich soon, will probably get a Marc Bulger like deal in the off-season. Jason Garrett will be a head coach next season, our offense is just plain sick right now. And 99, I'm very glad we didn't hire Norv Turner over Wade Phillips. We're improving defensively in Wade's system with every game, and the Chargers look disjointed on offense. Today the running game was good, but Rivers couldn't get it going. And the Bears are in trouble if they can't get their main guys back on defense. Because you'd expect anytime the Bears score 27 points, they will win 90% of the time.

Well 8th isn't ideal by any means considering the season we had, and what we did in the past week, but that's in the past now, and we've still got a top 10 pick. We should get a very good player from that spot hopefully.

I'm off to Australia's version of the superbowl today. Hopefully my team does better than the Bears did last season.

Well tonight certainly gave us a bit of a welcome problem to have. Tonight helped put Broadway on the map when it comes to 5th starters. Obviously it's only 1 start, but it was still very promising nonetheless, he certainly gets a lot of movement on his pitches. It does give us that option or trading both Garland and Contreras, even though I think the Sox will only trade 1, and Lance will be back in AAA to start next season.

If the Dodgers would include LaRoche, that would certainly get a deal done on the Twins side, considering Nick Punto's output this season. Ned Colletti's probably in desperation mode right now. Really he should be on thin ice. DePodesta got 2 seasons, and at least in their 1st season they were pretty good. Colletti's signings in Pierre, Schmidt, Furcal etc. have been failures so far.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Sep 26, 2007 -> 06:31 PM) Who cares about a no name draft pick. Well if you look at it from that point of view. But if say we finished 1 spot higher a couple of seasons ago, and missed out on drafting Josh Fields, say we took a pitcher and he was a decent prospect, Lance Broadway similar sort of pitcher and he was still in the minors. So that shows how 1 spot can make a difference in the draft. And what do we have to play for right now. To win 70 games? Are the players going to feel better if they won 70 games instead of 69? Hell no they shouldn't, a losing season is a losing season. Hell a couple of years back, when it was Tracy McGrady's last season with the Orlando Magic (going down a different path here), when the Magic went 21-61, he missed the last 10 games and he said, "What's the point in me playing, we've got nothing to play for". They ended with Dwight Howard in that draft instead of Emeka Okafor. Not saying that's going to happen to us, but the draft is becoming less and less of a crapshoot with each passing season, and if we're having a losing season, you want to get the best pick you can get, to help you move forward and win games in the FUTURE, not for the rest of this meaningless season.

Someone's definitely had a trip to the barbers.

Wow, now that is a shock. I didn't really hear anything about him being "that" sick, although I'm not really in the loop here. There's not you can say really, as you guys have said previously. Wonder what impact this has on the franchise going forward.

And Tony Pena Jr's 4-4 tonight. Only against the White Sox.

So major disappointments so far? Obviously teams such as the Saints and Bears etc., but I'm going with the St. Louis Rams. I thought Scott Linehan was going to be a real good coach, he ran some very good offenses in Minnesota and Miami. For whatever reason, it hasn't worked in St. Louis. And they should have a great offense, Bulger, Jackson, Holt etc. although Orlando Pace going down has probably really hurt. They just haven't made any progress with the defense whatsoever in the past 5 or so years. And I think they've got us this weekend without Steven Jackson, so they could very well be 0 and 4.

Will be interesting to see how Broadway does in his 1st start, and how patient they are with him.

Sean Payton lost his mojo.

Well 10 pages of thread since I last posted on my lunch break. Certainly a fantastic result for us, and perhaps a changing of the guard when it came to the NFC. First of all, hopefully this performance will shut up the Tony Romo doubters for a while. Reading the smug Chicago Media last night, it was all "Romo ain't nothing until he does it against an elite defense". Well he did it tonight alright. Bad start, but over 300 yards passing in 2 quarters approx. He's got some fantastic weapons for sure (Owens and Witten easily top 3 in their spots in the NFL), but the guy knows how to scramble and create plays. Marion Barber keeps outproducing Julis Jones. Give this guy the ball against a tiring defense in the 4th quarter and he's money. The Bears are really missing Thomas Jones now, they need that 2 back system again IMHO no matter how good they may think Benson is. Unless you have an elite RB, you need 2. As for the Bears, well they're certainly in a spot of trouble. They could manage games if they can get the running game going, but when that doesn't happen as per tonight, then it puts all of the pressure on Rex, and with his lack of weapons, he can't do it. That defense will certainly get them into the playoffs, but I don't see them anything better than 9-7, 10-6 right now. They've got plenty of time to prove me wrong though.

I actually think if the Bears were looking at a new offensive co-ordinator, you could do a lot worse than Tony Sparano who ran our offense last season.