Actually a name on here I was surprised to see was Andy Van Hekken of the Tigers. Weren't they pretty high on this kid, and isn't he still pretty young?

I noticed Van Hekken, too, but thought anyone who wasn't good enough for the Tigers probably shouldn't be signed. Anyway, back to Simon. It doesn't matter if Simon is great in clutch situations in September because the Sox have to get to situations like that first by playing well earlier in the year, and Konerko has a much better capacity to do that. Yes, he was absolutely miserable last year April-June but if you look at his three year splits (even with last year included) he is excellent in June (.981 OPS), very good in April (.877) and below average in May (.624 OPS). So if you disregard last year's stats in 2002 his April-May-June splits were .949-.802-1.151 and his 2001 splits were .974-.533-.1.119. As far as someone saying that Simon is young enough to improve, Konerko is younger and his a higher potential to improve over last year. Somone also said Paul struggles against righties. With the exception of last year he's always hit rights better or at least as well as he's hit lefties. Even if there is an opportunity to unload Paul and sign Simon the Sox shouldn't do it because his market value is so low right now the'd get nothing in return and would live to regret it anyway, since odds are pretty good he's going to rebound and have a another typical, .850+ OPS Paul season, whereas odds are good that Simon will not surpass a .780 OPS, since he's never done that while playing more than 90 games. Paul's also better in the field than Simon.