The Ultimate Champion

QUOTE (PolishPrince34 @ Dec 25, 2013 -> 08:37 AM) Let the madness begin on this bidding war. Sox will stay on the sideline and that will be the smart thing to do. My prediction Tanaka will get a contract over $120-$135 million plus the $20 million posting fee. I believe it will go down to the Cubs and Yankees getting Tanaka in the end. For every Darvish their around 5 who don't even come close to fulfilling their expectations (Dice K, Irabu, Kaz Matsui, Fujikawa, the list goes on). This is when Theo gets way over his head and starts making decisions that isn't best for the organization. Before Theo left Boston, he signed the past 5-7 years and left them some of the worst contracts (Crawford, Beckett, Lugo, JD. Drew, Lackey, Dice K, Adrian Gonzalez, and Edgar Renteria) those are just off the top of my head. The common theme to all those deals is the ridiculous amount of years and dollars giving to these players. I do hope Cubs get Tanaka and again have another Soriano contract on their hands. Theo needs to learn and stick by what he's good at and that's player development. All of these long term deals that have been going out for the past 7 years have never panned out. Hahn has really impressed me this offseason and I'm sure he will continue his smarts by taking a seat on the sidelines to the crazy bidding war between the Yankees and Cubs. This, to a point. His "player development" was more of the same, throwing tons of over slot money at players in the draft and buying a farm system more or less. It's the same thing they're doing in Chicago save for the Rizzo-Cashner deal and probably a couple other moves which were much smaller at the time. I still remember when Varitek had a bad year in his walk season. There was no way any team should have offered him salary arbitration, yet the Red Sox did, Varitek stupidly listened to Borass and Varitek declined it, and the Red Sox ended up getting Varitek back on a much lesser deal. But the fact that they would risk paying an old backup quality catcher the type of wage an above average much younger catcher would normally get, just to try to buy a comp pick, shows what kind of mentality they operated under. The best thing the Cubs have with their new regime is the fact that everyone wants to go in the same direction. If you have as much as they do in resources, you don't need a bunch of geniuses to get good again, you just need to set a course of action and take it, and stay on the same page as an organization. To that end they are doing it, and they will be much better eventually, but they're certainly no geniuses & as you've pointed out, they'll probably make a few nasty mistakes when they start handing out FA contracts again.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Dec 24, 2013 -> 05:24 PM) Alexei is a -30 offensive player. Keppinger is a -36 offensive player. Nick Punto is a -76 offensive player. Another term for s***ty is 'middle infielder'. It's not being arbitrarily selective to say Beckham clearly had is best year last year since he was a rookie. It's also not being arbitrarily selective to say that he clearly played differently before and after his quad injury. Beckham's merely been an below average starting second baseman since his second year. Valuable with the glove, subpar with the bat, all for no money. Fans' hyperbole about him being "atrocious" is 100% an emotional reaction to him not achieving their hopes for him based on his exceptional rookie year. Any stat that says Alexei has been a negative offensive contributor out of the SS positions gets a nice gob of sloppy brown and swirls down to meet the rest of its family in the septic tank.

QUOTE (Andy the Clown @ Dec 24, 2013 -> 03:55 PM) Surkamp is probably just as good as Danks at this point. ....no

QUOTE (SouthsideDon48 @ Dec 24, 2013 -> 04:55 PM) Eric Surkamp is a great claim by the white sox. I've been watching Surkamp for 2 or 3 years now. He will be like Quintana 2.0, as in another nondescript low-level signing/claim that pans out, I honestly believe that. When the Sox first got Quintana, I had a feeling that he'd be a good pitcher for the Sox, and now I'm getting the same vibes with Surkamp as well. Surkamp will be eons better than Humber and Axelrod, and I believe he'll be better than Santiago but not as good as Quintana. Just my predictions. Rienzo is meh. I would not be at all surprised if the 2014 rotation turns out to be Sale/Quintana/Danks/Johnson/Surkamp. The difference between Q and Surkamp is that Q was a MiLB FA who could negotiate with any team. He just happened to sign with us thankfully, but there's no reason to believe other teams weren't as interested as we were. With Surkamp, he passed through the entire National League on waivers and still got past the Astros. When a write-up says 2 plus offspeed pitches and excellent command of a fastball from the left side, that to me sure doesn't sound like a pitcher that would get through half the league and still pass Houston. It sounds like someone that would get taken pretty quickly. I take these scouting reports with a grain of salt, he may be nothing like that at all. Someone mentioned Jeff Marquez on here, that guy threw garbage, definitely *not* a Major League arm despite scouting reports comparing him to Jon Garland and talking him up as a #4 in rotation. We'll see. If Surkamp can at least be a lefty specialist for us then Hahn's done a great job with this claim. I say this all the time, but specialists shouldn't get crapped on/marginalized as much as they do by the fans, because often when the specialists come in they are coming in at key points of the game where you either win it or you lose it, or you drop so far behind that you can't come back. Having 2 lefties in the pen that can get outs would be huge for us right now, and if Surkamp/Leesman/Veal results in a solid second option behind Downs then Hahn has done an excellent job. But I wouldn't look for more than that, although it would obviously be great if we could get something even more valuable.

^That's Buddy Bell. I took a pic of this, these posters are lining the walls of the Sox FO.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 23, 2013 -> 04:18 PM) While I think Davidson will be our opening day 3B, it's not silly at all for him to start 2014 in AAA. Quite frankly, he wasn't that good last year in AAA when you account for league & park adjustments. A brief AAA asignment similar to what we had Asivail do after we acquired him would make some sense, especially if it helps delay his service time. His promotion needs to be much more "we think you're ready" than "you need a challenge."

Sounds like a challenge for Veal and Leesman. That's always good. I doubt we're aiming this low for another starter though.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 21, 2013 -> 05:11 PM) If Hahn got Castro for Dunn I'd give him a big fat kiss on the lips!!! Loved Castro and stanford and would love him on the sox. Obviously would mean so sent cash plus something good along with dunn...pinch me...I am delusional. Dunn + all his salary is the 4th player we add to that deal because our FO would rather keep Montas. Without Q we'd have to give them a haul. I'd do it though, I'd love to see that guy here. Hahn would extend him for like 8 years $35M total or something completely ridiculous, and all of our dreams would come true.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Dec 21, 2013 -> 07:31 PM) At this point I'd just keep Dunn, relegate him to a rather strict platoon with Paulie and see if you can regain some value before the trade deadline. I would have preferred not to have signed Konerko but at this point you might as well try and make use of his roster spot by spotting Dunn against LHP. This assumes of course that De Aza is getting moved and that Viciedo is in their plans for every LF. I agree with everything you have posted in this thread save for this paragraph here. I think you've shown just how fruitless and (IMO) backwards it would be to try to bleed a little value out of Dunn at this point. Beating a dead horse is one thing, but breeding a dead horse is another. Sox shouldn't try to breed their dead horses. Dunn is going to eat up PA for no reason. And honestly, I can't see how there will be another position player on our active roster coming out of ST who doesn't deserve the PA over Dunn. Even Jordan Danks, Connor Gillaspie, Leury Garcia, etc. can be valuable bench players for us. If Flowers/Phegley/Nieto are going to full-out bust then it's better to let them prove it, and you can give some of those PA to one of those guys. Keppinger, if he's here, at least plays multiple positions so the PA for him are important as at least he can keep our defenders fresh. Even Paulie, who will be on his farewell tour, is better off standing up there a couple times a week and taking an ovation than Dunn in standing up there with his donkey ass getting ready to strike out again. I also can think of about 3 guys at least who should/likely will be in Charlotte to start the year that could do more with those PA once they are called up. I can see trying to milk DeAza a little bit, that's fine. Then dump Dunn and give those AB to DeAza. No matter what happens the Sox are going to have to eat almost all, of not all, of his salary to move him, and when they do it they're not getting jack in return. Might as well do it sooner rather than later and open up the playing time. God I hope that guy is next on the chopping block. I'll be easily 3-4 times happier to see him gone than Linebrink, and holy s*** was that Linebrink dump an incredible day to be a Sox fan.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 21, 2013 -> 01:54 PM) I would guess Dunn is sent packing. His presence represents the recent failures of the team, and without his departure, I feel like the FO can't truly sell this team as a fresh look...to the majority of the fanbase. Please be right. And I completely agree. Fans hate Dunn.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Dec 21, 2013 -> 01:57 PM) I love how folks assume these sign-and-flips always work. Those who've fallen in love with Theo's return for Feldman need to take a look at the totality of his flipping scheme - more miss than hit, and not inexpensive. I wanted Arrieta forever! I made threads about it. Hahn needs to listen to me more, he could have gotten Arrieta for a song. In general though the flips return prospects. You are right though, often you get nothing, but it's a nice little way to take a chance at something and maybe deepen the farm a little while taking virtually no risk. If the player fails you waive him if you can, DFA him & eat the money nif you have to, you're not committed to much of anything, and if things work out you can buy a prospect from someone.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 21, 2013 -> 01:43 PM) Signing Ryan Madson and dealing him at the deadline would be best option. If it's a low base on a work-your-way-back type of deal then that's a great move, especially if there's a second year option of some sort. But then I'd make him a setup man to get Jones his reps, and I wouldn't bother bringing him in without a 2nd year potentially attached. While a 1/2 season of a rehabbed closer can bring back substantial value ala the Gagne from Texas to Boston deal, I don't think we could count on it enough to take a 1/2 year from Jones, who actually would bring in a healthy return if he worked out. In general I would doubt that a 1/2 season of a rehabbed closer gets us much more than we could get from Lindstrom already, maybe not even that much if Lindstrom is having a nice year. I like the idea a lot though if he'd give us a deal that offers us some real potential to improve the club beyond his short tenure.

Personally I think that unless you get an MLB-proven young player (who would of course be very expensive) the C situation is pretty much addressed. Loabton excites me like cauliflower in my food. I'd rather we get no MLB backup guy than get someone like that. I'm not sure there's anything left to do there if you can't land a big fish. Then there's the IF sitaution/bench. This would sort itself out pretty well with a trade of Alexei and/or Gordon, but there are other smaller options like dumping Dunn to keep Kepp, dumping Kepp, etc. that could happen if the Sox eat cash. Maybe Gillaspie goes, but I think the Sox would rather keep him as a 1B/3B/LH PH type, and I'd say he makes more sense than Kepp does at this point. Also I'm not sure anyone should be penciling Davidson in for the Opening Day roster at this point. There's there's the SP situation which looks like 3 lefties plus Johnson and some sort of battle between Paulino and Rienzo, but I don't think it would be shocking if the Sox brought in someone else. Rienzo = bleh IMO, Paulino may not be ready, and the Sox might want to use those guys more to push Johnson than anything else. Then there's the DeAza situation with Viciedo looking like he'll take that PT from him. Currently with the bench Jordan Danks doesn't have a spot, which on the surface isn't much of a problem however it is nice to have a true CF and OF on the bench, not just a UT IF being your only real OF bench option. Lastly, the Downs signing pushes Leesman and Veal into a competion with Rodriguez and others, but a small move for another LH project ala Borchard for Thornton/Gload for Sisco/Guerrier for Marte would still make a lot of sense even with Veal out of options. There are probably some other things I'm missing too. So what happens next?

They need to look at as many guys as possible. I have no problem with a "reach" either so long as it's the guy they really want. First order of business in the next CBA should be the trading of draft picks. They did some nice work in the last CBA negotiations laying groundwork for it so hopefully that happens. If a team (like say the Sox next draft) saw a deep draft ahead and would rather trade the #3 and a player for a #10, #12 and a #60 or something along those lines, with the bonus pools coming in the trade, then that would be a great option to have. But since the Sox can't trade them I say take a large pool of players, try not to fall in love with any one guy, try to keep things as fluid as possible heading into the draft, and then take the guy who you think is BPA one week out.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Dec 21, 2013 -> 10:41 AM) Jones, Petricka and Webb should be competing for the spot and let the best man have the job. I think Tyler Danish should be being groomed for a fast track to MLB closer anyway. Obviously not 2014, but I also don't think he should need a ton of time to develop as a closer either. Especially not with the type of stuff he has from an odd arm angle. I got pooped on for saying something similar last year re: Danish, but I honestly believe he can get MLB right handers out right now. If they're going to go slow with him then it's a pretty good indication they think he can and will be a starter. I like that pick a lot, actually my favorite pitching prospect in the Sox system & should be very fun to watch develop if he can stay healthy. Re: Petricka and Webb I guess it wouldn't be surprising to see them competing with Jones since they did put Hector there out of ST a couple years ago brought Boone Logan with them out of A ball several years ago, but I think that's kind of stupid for them to do. Lindstrom, Jones, and Belisario should be the competition with Lindstrom and Belisario needing to basically beat Jones down and rip the job away from him to take the closers role. Anything even remotely close & Jones should get it. Petricka and Webb need to be competing with others, invites and so on, for any role possible in the pen.

BTW I think "Go with Jones" should be a single option, as he's pretty much the shoe-in isn't he?

Due to salary and years control, you'd probably get a lot more flipping Jones if he's successful. IMO you make Jones the closer (but make him earn it in ST) and if you sign a former closer you try to do it while making him a setup man. Then teams could look at the setup guy as one of the cheaper closers on the market & deal a decent but not great prospect for him, and in the offseason you shop Jones for a bigger package if he gets the job done. I don't think we're into a money former closer, maybe if there's someone out there to be had coming back from arm troubles ala Flash Gordon or JJ Putz and you get him on an incentive-laden deal with a TO. That potential second year is important as far as trade value goes.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 08:33 PM) Separate deals. Either way, Holmberg is the most valuable of all those guys. Edwin Jackson has started 235 games in MLB with 1444 total innings and his earnings to this point = $40.355M Dan Hudson has started 62 games in MLB with 381 innings and has earned $1.441M Holmberg has started 1 game in MLB with 3.2 total innings pitched and has earned what, a prorated league minimum for being on the roster? Yes, if the Sox could take any 1 of the 3 right now, given their situation as a rebuilding club wanting to dump salary, they'd take Holmberg. But Holmberg may not be worth anything at all a few months from now for all we know, and if there's any one of the three pitching for me in a game that actually matters and a game that I want to see my team win, then that's a slam dunk who I want pitching it and it's certainly not Holmberg.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jacksed01.shtml Look at Jackson's numbers trending upwards from 2007-2009. Look at that BB/9 just drop. Watch it raise way up to 4.0 with AZ after having fallen to 2.9 in Detroit, and then see how with the Sox under Coop his BB/9 immediately drops from 4.0 to 2.2. Look I liked Hudson too but come on, that guy still is the most overrated pitching prospect we've had that I can remember on these boards. I think it was just the dearth of pitching we'd had coming through in general as so many of our starters were coming out of other organizations, but man was that Hudson s*** unbearable. If he was so great Kenny wouldn't have been laughed at by Rizzo when he tried to deal him for a 1/2 season of Dunn. And the Milwaukee people who were shopping Prince and the Padres people who were shopping Gonzalez probably would have bitten if they thought he was an ace. Or if nothing else they would have done better in the deal.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 08:21 PM) How is that hindsight? I hated the deal when it happened and Edwin was extremely mediocre through out his career when we got him. He was just as much of a wild card as Hudson with out the remaining years and once again we gave up an extra good arm. You said Hudson outproduced Jackson. EJax was a Major Leaguer, Hudson was a prospect. EJax was a MASSIVE prospect coming up with the Dodgers while the write-up on Hudson was a #4/#5 in most of what was out there (which BTW I completely disagreed with as well after seeing him pitch). Going back in time and saying that Hudson would perform as well or better would have been a leap at best IMO. Jackson at that point had gotten better and better ever since getting traded to the Rays, then had a real bad 1st half with AZ. He had also pitched 214IP the year prior with Detroit & 183 the year before. To say that Hudson could equal what Jackson was trending towards, back then, would have been a leap, unless you of course believed that the ever-improving Jackson of the previous 2-3 years was a fluke & the real EJ was the guy in AZ.

^I was just commenting on the 0 sense part only. In hindsight we'd keep Hudson, let him pitch well, then send him to the Blue Jays right before he gets hurt like we usually do. But then again, the first thing we do in hindsight is change all our draft picks, not sign Linebrink or Dunn, fire Ozzie a long time ago, etc. I think it's only fair to judge Kenny and any other GM by the logic of the moves. For example, look at Dayton Moore. He's going to continue to be ripped on for the Shields trade, but there was real logic there. Winning baseball in KC was like snow in hell, no prospect is worth all that futility. Building a winner by taking some chances and trading some prospects isn't necessarily a bad thing to do at all. However, making that deal and then following it up with *absolutely nothing* of significance in over a year since is so illogical, so uncommitted, so stupid on every level that it makes the Jason Vargas signing look par for the course. You evaluate that guy and it doesn't seem like he makes many good baseball moves at all. There's little logic anywhere over there. When it comes to Hahn, likewise I think he should be evaluated based on the conditions of the time. Hector Santiago hasn't been getting a lot of love, but if he turns into a solid #3 for the Angels while Eaton is a 4th OF/complete bust then what are the fans going to say about Hahn? The move made sense when it happened, was a good baseball move, fit into the current team direction nicely ala the EJax deal in win now mode, and regardless what happens I think it's unfair for anyone to go back in time and rip him for it if things don't work out in our favor.

^OOOh Jermaine Dye coming here on a sweet deal, that was really nice. What a player he was for us.

Best KW move is hard to say, there were so many good ones. My favorites are probably the AJ signing, picking up Iguchi out of Japan, the Alexei signing, the Uribe trade, Thornton coming here, dumping Nick Swisher in that 2nd deal (wish that could have been Ozzie), Loaiza for Contreras with NY paying Jose for us (that was nice), Thome for Gio, Haigwood, Rowand and cash as a buy-low thumper who produced well above what we had to pay him, obviously both Freddy deals were fantastic, McCarthy for Danks was wonderful, lots of great moves. Can't name a single favorite.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 07:51 PM) We got them in the Jason Frasor trade and gave up Holmberg along with Huddy. Even if you just look at the 1.5 years that Jackson was here, Huddy out produced him. Enter into the equation the amount of years Huddy was under contract(yes I know he's been hurt), the fact that Hudson had to have had a ton of value at that point and we gave up another good arm in the deal? Yuck. 1) This was in the NL 2) You are using hindsight There have been posters here making it out like Coop didn't like Hudson, which would make sense for the deal. If that's true then you trade your guy before he gets hurt. But back to the above 2 points, there's no guarantee he would have done that here and also, going back in time to when that deal was made, it would have been a leap at best to say that during the 1.5 seasons Jackson was contracted to the Sox that Hudson would have been the better bet for both making the postseason (high IP) and going deep into it. Kenny wanted Jackson for the same reason the Cards wanted him to complete the Rasmus deal.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 07:43 PM) I probably hated the BMac-Danks trade more than anyone when it happened but that ended up being lopsided in our favor. The Huddy-Jackson trade to this day still makes 0 sense to me. We were trying to win. Jackson, even as a 3/4, has the stuff to completely dominate a game. Kenny was thinking playoffs & if you get a guy like Jackson hot at the right time you can do damage in the postseason. Hudson was a rookie who of course ended up getting hurt. It's ridiculous that that trade was b****ed about so much back then & it's confusing to me how any knowledgeable Sox fan wouldn't understand the reasoning for the deal. The worst move Kenny Williams ever made was the Mark Teahen trade and then extension. He was a non-tender candidate on one of the very worst franchises in baseball, and not only did he give up 2 players, he also extended the guy for 2 more years at an annual value more than what he would have commanded as a free agent. The Dunn signing didn't work, nor did the first Swisher deal where he gave up Gio, nor did flyers on Sisco and Aardsma, etc. but all those moves were good, logical baseball moves that went bad. There was never any excuse for that Teahen deal. The worst *pure move* the Sox made during KW's tenure was opting not to bring back Jim Thome for $1M and going with a Kotsay-Jones platoon at DH, and the close second worst pure move was not firing Ozzie when he needed to go. But I give KW a free pass on both of those because that was obviously all Jerry letting Ozzie have input and hoping that Ozzie would still work out.