Trades Won't Do

[BlackBetsy]

I've seen a number of posts on Soxtalk.com as well as a number of newspaper articles noting the Sox's intent to improve through trades...including through trading for Miguel Cabrera, Coco Crisp, Jason Bay, whoever.

 

The idea of improving the Sox short term through trades (unless they are absurdly one sided) is dumb. D-U-M-B.

 

Right now, the Sox are an old team with a poor farm system. At most, the Sox have two major-league ready pitchers without MLB service time (Gio Gonzalez, Jack Egbert) and not a single major-league ready position player without service time. The young position players the Sox do have - Richar, Fields, Sweeney, Owens - each have severe questions about their ability to be major league regulars at their positions (with Fields having mostly fielding questions, although his ability to hit for average is in question). The farm system, for all intents and purposes, is bare.

 

So to improve through trades, the Sox would need to give up what young talent they have. Fields is the only position prospect with any appreciable trade value. Gonzalez, Egbert, Danks, Floyd, Broadway and Oneli Perez have some value on the pitching side (probably in declining order of the way I have listed them). But with Garland traded away and Contreras perhaps on his last legs.....the Sox absolutely need to keep 4 quality starting pitching prospects for 2-3 spots and hope they work out.

 

For the Sox to compete over the next 3-5 years as the farm system is (hopefully) replenished, they can only improve via free agency. Otherwise, trades of youth for veteran players will leave the Sox with two choices in 2010/2011: go to a Red Sox-sized payroll to be competitive, or engage in a total rebuilding process that will leave the Sox as a 90-95 loss team for 4-5 years.

 

So the Sox would be much better off both now and in the future at spending free agent dollars now on Fukudome (my first choice) and Rowand, etc. and not giving up any talent. That's not always true, as teams are sometimes much better trading than signing free agents, especially if they have a surplus of young talent. For the Sox, I think free agency is the ONLY realistic option.

[rockren]

The idea of improving the Sox short term through trades (unless they are absurdly one sided) is dumb. D-U-M-B.

 

What? You mean you don't think the Pirates will deal Bay for Mac?

What logic is this??

[kapkomet]

I agree, and the free agent splash is something that Kenny Williams apparently cannot get done. We are a .500 team in a division where any of the teams can finish above .500 or well above next season.

[BlackBetsy]

I agree, and the free agent splash is something that Kenny Williams apparently cannot get done. We are a .500 team in a division where any of the teams can finish above .500 or well above next season.

 

It's not just Kenny Williams' problem. The Sox have signed three significant free agents during the entirety of the modern free agency period:

 

(1) Carlton Fisk

(2) Tom Seaver

(3) Albert Belle

 

All of the other free agents have been second tier / Type B guys like Jermaine Dye, Jaime Navarro, Tadahito Iguchi, Bo Jackson, Danny Tartabull, Julio Franco...etc. And, actually, the Sox have done pretty well with those second tier guys. The problem is that the second tier is so bad right now, that a Type A guy is going to have to be the priority.

 

Fukudome, Fukudome, Fukudome.

[kapkomet]

Right. I didn't mean to rip on Kenny specifically, but the reality is, he has to get it done NOW, because he's the one that's on the clock, so to speak.

[Dick Allen]

It's not just Kenny Williams' problem. The Sox have signed three significant free agents during the entirety of the modern free agency period:

 

(1) Carlton Fisk

(2) Tom Seaver

(3) Albert Belle

 

All of the other free agents have been second tier / Type B guys like Jermaine Dye, Jaime Navarro, Tadahito Iguchi, Bo Jackson, Danny Tartabull, Julio Franco...etc. And, actually, the Sox have done pretty well with those second tier guys. The problem is that the second tier is so bad right now, that a Type A guy is going to have to be the priority.

 

Fukudome, Fukudome, Fukudome.

Seaver wasn't a free agent. He was a compensation pick for a lost free agent. Floyd Bannister was a top guy they did get, but you are right, its been a long time since they have signed one of the top guys.

[BlackBetsy]

Seaver wasn't a free agent. He was a compensation pick for a lost free agent. Floyd Bannister was a top guy they did get, but you are right, its been a long time since they have signed one of the top guys.

Wow...that's right about Seaver. I forgot the specifics of it (I thought he was mistakenly left off something to become a free agent...but, wow, totally weird occurrence).

 

But swap out Bannister with Seaver (Bannister was a very high profile free agent when the Sox signed him) and the list stays at three.

[winninguglyin83]

we needed to fix the farm system three years ago.

 

we need to fix it today.

 

We need to fix it tomorrow.

 

KW needs to get lucky with some B level free agents.

 

 

But I don't want to see the Sox trade any of the top minor league guys we have now.

 

 

The problem we have in CF is because we guessed wrong and thought that Brian Anderson could play there and then we traded Young.

 

Anderson bombed. We trashed him. Now he has no value and no interest in playing for the Sox.

 

I'm willing to take a rough year or two -- but we gotta fix the farm system.

[fathom]

Another problem is we tried to add young arms to the organization with some moves last year, but almost all of the arms we acquired were really disappointing last year.

[GoodAsGould]

I think Cabrera is out of reach. But if we can put together a package that will bring Jason Bay over I would be a big supporter. Ideally I would love to trade for Bay, dumb Crede/Uribe, and than sign Andruw Jones and Alexi Ramirez. Worse case, Ramirez is a super sub and Richar starts at 2nd or best case he can be a top of the order guy for us and a very solid player. The only problem with this scenario would be the question of who would be at the top of the order with cabrera... but the middle of our order would be very imposing with Thome, Konerko, Bay, Jones, and Dye. Than, hopefully Fields takes the next step and also becomes a very dangerous hitter.

[fathom]

I think Cabrera is out of reach. But if we can put together a package that will bring Jason Bay over I would be a big supporter. Ideally I would love to trade for Bay, dumb Crede/Uribe, and than sign Andruw Jones and Alexi Ramirez. Worse case, Ramirez is a super sub and Richar starts at 2nd or best case he can be a top of the order guy for us and a very solid player. The only problem with this scenario would be the question of who would be at the top of the order with cabrera... but the middle of our order would be very imposing with Thome, Konerko, Bay, Jones, and Dye. Than, hopefully Fields takes the next step and also becomes a very dangerous hitter.

 

Jason Bay looked just awful last season, and the Pirates are asking for a ton for him.

[max power]

The thread starter is right. Some of the same people complaining about our depleted farm system are the ones suggesting we further deplete it. We should at least leave ourselves with something to begin with if we don't win it all this year*.

 

 

*Not that I think that's going to happen, but it is Kenny's goal.

[Chombi]

We'll the people that support it do not buy into our prospects. I'd rather have a depleted farm with younger guys like Cabrera, Crawford, in the majors, then having C prospects who will not do enough to ever help us.

[GoodAsGould]

Jason Bay looked just awful last season, and the Pirates are asking for a ton for him.

 

Yeah but because of that awful year it could lessen his trade value greatly. We should be able to keep atleast 2 of the 3 of our best prospects(Gio, Santos, Carter). Depending on how the organization views Danks he could be the centerpiece of a deal. I dont know how much it would cost for Bay, obviously more than just Danks...but I think if we can get a deal without overpaying immensely Bay will be very good for us and trade value never be lower.

[WHITESOXRANDY]

I don't know why you guys are so negative ? All the Sox have to do is trade:

 

Fields, Gio, and DLS to Minny for Santana then,

 

Fields, Gio and DLS to Fla. for Cabrera then,

 

Fields, Gio and DLS to Cle. for Sizemore.

 

No FA's. Problem solved.

[BlackBetsy]

I don't know why you guys are so negative ? All the Sox have to do is trade:

 

Fields, Gio, and DLS to Minny for Santana then,

 

Fields, Gio and DLS to Fla. for Cabrera then,

 

Fields, Gio and DLS to Cle. for Sizemore.

 

No FA's. Problem solved.

The sad part of this joke is that Fields, Gio and DLS wouldn't get any of those three guys. And they are the Sox's 1,2 and 3 prospects (with Carter 4).

[kapkomet]

The sad part of this joke is that Fields, Gio and DLS wouldn't get any of those three guys. And they are the Sox's 1,2 and 3 prospects (with Carter 4).

And Carter just left. Nice.

 

[Colorado Sox Fan]

Good plan. I'm all for it. Get as many FAs as possible.

[RX Bandits]

You can't be serious about being mad the sox are not signing FA's. The Market so inflated it's a joke. Besides, in the modern era of baseball, the long term/high dollar free agent contacts almost always don't work out. Nowadays teams give bad players 5 years and get maybe one or two good years out of them. I really have no problem with the white sox not dealing with Boras or giving bad contracts for that matter. But KW can't win here anyway, because people would complain about him spending too much money on player X (the Linbrink deal is a great example).

[gosox41]

You can't be serious about being mad the sox are not signing FA's. The Market so inflated it's a joke. Besides, in the modern era of baseball, the long term/high dollar free agent contacts almost always don't work out. Nowadays teams give bad players 5 years and get maybe one or two good years out of them. I really have no problem with the white sox not dealing with Boras or giving bad contracts for that matter. But KW can't win here anyway, because people would complain about him spending too much money on player X (the Linbrink deal is a great example).

 

 

This goes back to what I've been saying the last 7 years about KW. I'm all for not dealing with Boras and not going overboard on free agents, but if you expect to compete and eliminate the above options, then you damn well better have a good farm system.

 

 

 

Bob

[Chombi]

You can't be serious about being mad the sox are not signing FA's. The Market so inflated it's a joke. Besides, in the modern era of baseball, the long term/high dollar free agent contacts almost always don't work out. Nowadays teams give bad players 5 years and get maybe one or two good years out of them. I really have no problem with the white sox not dealing with Boras or giving bad contracts for that matter. But KW can't win here anyway, because people would complain about him spending too much money on player X (the Linbrink deal is a great example).

 

Yea. The guys I wanted to eyeball this FA were Ichiro, Arod and Andruw Jones. I thought they'd fit in well for us.

 

Ichiro signed. Arod we had no shot at. Jones I wasn't expecting to fall off a cliff like he did offensively.

 

That said, when those things occured, it was almost not worth it. As much as I would've settled for a Hunter signing, I would've been upset as well because we would be overpaying for an aging OF who won't repeat 07' success.

 

Sometimes it makes sense to be players on big names. Othertimes names like Hunter are the big name and not worth it. We can't just sign people to sign people.

 

I do agree the Sox need to land at least one big name soon but maybe it will all pan out when a true star, who is young and proven, that we realistically can afford (not Arod) hits FA again. Vladdy was the last one I can think of off the top of my head. Maybe I am missing someone. Until that comes along again, I'd say leave it...perhaps next season with some of the arms out there???