Palehosefan

I can't disagree too much with McCullough this year, due to our draft position and relative lack of power arms in this years draft. We ALMOST got Bard, which would have been great, but McCullough was clearly the best arm available to us at that point. Beato would have been decent, but he was a little too risky for my taste as a 1st round pick. Was a much better deal when he was a draft and follow that you could take a chance with.

To expand on what Soxfan1 said, Randy has been a HOF for almost 20 years now. CC is averaging about 190 innings a year in his career, and is on a similar pace this season. Felix has very nice numbers for a 20 year old and filthy stuff. Penny is averaging over 156 IP every year and is on pace for more than that this year with a career ERA below 4. Mussina is 37 years old and during his 10 year tenure in Baltimore his fastball sat at 94-95 consistently, late in his career he has become a great control pitcher. Both Clemens and Pedro were the ultimate power pitchers for 10+ years. Cain has a very good arm and nice numbers as a 21 year old. Harden is a great power pitcher with over 420 IP as a 24 year old, he has plenty of time to turn it around. Peavy is having a down year, but still has the great arm and the great career numbers as a 25 year old. Schmidt has a career 8 K/9IP, and an era under 3.9, while averaging 197 IP his last 4 seasons, and is on pace for over 200 IP this year with a 3.18 ERA. Contreras has a career 7.2 K/9IP ratio with a 93+mph fastball, if you don't consider him a power pitcher, so be it. Beckett at 26 years old has a 8.7 K/9IP ratio and a career ERA under 3.7, and his IP have been improving each year. Bedard is a very solid 27 year old lefty with a 7.83 K/9IP in his career with an ERA that is dropping each year and less hits than IP.

I disagree about the lack of power pitchers in baseball. Whether it's Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Oswalt, Verlander, Bonderman, Liriano, Santana(both), Zambrano, Kazmir, Mussina, Harden, Felix Hernandez, Lackey, Carpenter, Peavy, Smoltz, Schmidt, Beckett, Bedard, Cain, Sabathia, Penny, Contreras etc etc, you have plenty of guys that have been healthy in their careers for the most part. I can't think of a good power pitcher that we have developed in our system in almost 10 years. Even guys that don't throw real hard get hurt quite often in our system, and in baseball in general. We select guys that throw 90-92 mph but know how to pitch and put up good minor league numbers and become solid trade assets, or 3-4 type starters for us. We have found other ways to acquire aces like Bartolo and Jose, which is ok with me, I just would like to see us take a flyer on a big arm in the 1st-3rd round and actually develop them once in a while. Our scouts seem to have a tendency to miss on the 1-5 round type talents, and develop a gem or two later on in the draft. I'm not quite sure what that says about us, but I do know they do solid scouting of a tremendous amount of players, we just seem to have a problem choosing or developing the correct "can't miss" type talents.

Not sure if posted yet, but the Rangers dealt a minor league pitcher for Kip Wells to try to help the rotation.

Different Oliver Perez. But if it's true, I guess I could see some reasoning. San Diego coaches probably think they can correct Oliver and have a great starter on their hands next year. Not sure why you would deal a dominant bullpen man when you are leading the division by 1.5 games, pretty odd.

Yeah, we have a nice cool front in Tejas right now. 95 with 34% humidity. Much better than the 101's for the last two months.

It just blows my mind how much money unproven rookies in the NFL are getting guaranteed. You have a great college career and decent athletecism at the combine, you are set for life, regardless of your NFL accomplishments. PS. This has nothing to do with Reggie, I'm not saying he's going to bust at all, just rookies in general.

Betemit actually turned 26 today as well. Man, I feel really old, I remember watching him at the hot prospect in the Braves organization when he was 20-21 years old.

Yeah that's right, now they really need a veteran presence that can actually pitch.

Jason, as for Gomes being available. I would think he would be shopped around, as he's one of their most valuable trading assets as they try to search for help for Kazmir in the rotation in the future. They have alot of good pitching talent in their system as you know, but I would be willing to bet they might be looking for a solid RHP 2-4 type starter that they know they can count on to pitch with Kazmir and Hendrickson and eat some innings up, like a Josh Fogg.

lmao, so now Elijah Dukes, BJ Upton, and Delmon Young are Albert Pujols waiting to happen. These guys are far from blowing the minor leagues away. Delmon still has to develop power, Upton has to pull his head out of his ass defensively with his 33 errors, and Dukes has to prove he's not a complete asshole. Dukes fought with a teammate, coaches, and was arrested 3 times from 03-05, while being thrown out of 6 games last year, earning him a suspension for that as well. Gomes, on pace for 31 homers and 85 rbi's, at 25 years old. Wigginton, on pace for 30 homers and 90 rbi's, at 28 years old. Lugo, .309, 12 homers and 27 knocked in, , 30 years old. Why wouldn't Tampa Bay play these guys and showcase them for the trading deadline? Would they rather see Upton's .268 average and 33 errors at the big league level? Or how about watching Delmon try to develop his power at the big league level with 5 homers in 217 at-bats? Maybe they want to see Dukes try to beat the hell out of Crawford first hand?

As Hawk would say. Where are they going to play them? Lugo and Wigginton have the SS/2B locked up. Crawford and Baldelli have two of the OF spots locked up, and the other OF spot has Branyan, Hollins, and Norton vying for time. Young should have kept his mouth shut until after the trade deadline to see if guys like Lugo, Wigginton, Branyan, and Gomes are moved like they should be.

Broadway pitches at 90-91, which is a soft tosser to me. I've seen him touch 93-94 a few times, but it's nothing consistent. Here's a couple of scouting reports from the 05 draft about Broadway and Carillo. Also, it's not really about how hard a pitcher throws, it's the motion of which he's throwing. If you can find a guy with a smooth delivery, you can throw them out there for 200 innings a year, whether it's Mark or Jose Contreras. Power pitchers can be had all up and down the 1st round of the draft, and not neccessarily wild ones either. Bard was taken at #28 this year and has a nice easy motion with a 96-98 mph fastball. Chad Billingsley was taken at #24 in 04 by the Dodgers, Adam Miller as a 1st supplemental in 04 to the Indians, Scott Kazmir in 2002 with the 15th pick in 02, Matt Cain at #25 in 02, etc etc. You can't be afraid of drafting power pitchers because of injury concerns, if that's the case, develop a new system wide pitching approach.

It's not so much the numbers they are putting up in the minors, as we have had tons of soft tossers put up great minor league seasons and not do much in the majors for us or other teams. Take Chad Billingsley vs. Yusmerio Petit or Brandon McCarthy. Both Brandon and Yusmerio put up better season in the minors than Chad, but in my opinion nobody in their right mind would take either Petit or Brandon over Billingsley. Brandon should develop into a nice #3 type start, possibly a #2, but we seem to have minors full of these type of pitchers. Gio was the last person in our system that I can remember that you could picture as a possible ace down the line, and I can't even name a handful of pitchers in our system since 2000 that had ace potential. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact we have traded alot of these guys for good peices on the MLB squad, and even some aces like Bartolo when dealing Biddle away. We almost had a chance at Daniel Bard this year, but Boston took him right before us, and we went with our usual style of pitcher being drafted, which was frustrating. But maybe we can turn him or Broadway into a big piece on the MLB squad, we will see.

Nice assesment Misplaced. We really haven't gone after power arms since the Dan Wright, Brian West, Jason Stumm, Wyatt Allen days. I'm not even convinced we would develop the power arms in our system even after being drafted. Most of our power arms seem to lose velocity in our system, and/or have serious injuries occuring. We seem to prefer the pitchers with low ceilings, but that can get the job done in the minors and be used as trade bait. It's hard to fault alot of the trades we have made, but it does get frustrating seeing the pitchers we keep get called up and shelled with their mediocre stuff. Drafting Lance Broadway over hometown guy Cesar Carillo was really the icing on the cake. Cesar had better numbers, better stuff, and was still passed over for "pitchable" Lance Broadway.

Agree, what would they be thinking? OH MY GOD THE SOX WILL LOSE 9-8 EVERY NIGHT INSTEAD OF 4-2.

Rowand44 That would feel better . Seriously, I just distance myself from the team when it's like this. It's useless for me to be pissy in real life because of the White Sox.

Well of course not, but it's not like MacDougal is going to make or break our season. Giving up two top 20 prospects for a Royals 29 year old MR with a mysterious shoulder injury is a bit much.

Odd situation right now, here's another thread about it. http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=52809

Agree 100%. That's the part of the deal that made me want to puke. I could have gotten over losing Lumsden for MacDougal straight up, but throwing in a prospect like Cortes really makes me sick. I wouldn't be suprised to see Lumsden get a shot with the Royals out of spring training next year, or even as a September call-up this year. Cortes should continue developing into a very nice pitcher as well. We have to hope MacDougal is healthy and pitches well, and in my opinion, only then will we be able to call this deal fair.

I have to say, if we gave up Lumsden and Cortes for MacDougal, that will make me want to puke. Cortes is far from a throw in and is a very good pitching prospect in his own right.

Well, that and the whole getting arrested part, as well as the not getting a qualifying SAT score.

That's a very risky but great risk to take. If he keeps screwing up, then you let him go, if he gets his act together, he's a dominant DT to fill a huge need. Great pick-up if true.

"Interesting" comment from Torrey about the commitment.

I'm hoping it's Tyler Lumsden. He would be a solid lefty addition to the rotation. I'm just somewhat perplexed by his relatively low K numbers. He has better stuff than that.