ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(q\/\/3r+y @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 02:47 PM) Red sox fan hyping rice... The guy hit it right on the head, he picked the best year from each of the players and tried to make a comparison with his example. He also used the criterion that you absolutely need to get a home run. That situation is pretty rare. If you set it up like that, Rice should be the pick if you are going to use 1977-1979 and 1983 as your major argument, I simply can't counter it. He was a very good hitter in those years, and if he had about 3 or 4 more seasons like them he'd be a no brainer. However, he didn't do that. He didn't crack 30 homers in any of his other 14 full seasons. Considering that his homers and RBI are his only major selling points (decent but not stellar batting average), that's not a good thing. His comparisons of the players don't mean much to me either. Puckett is somewhat similar, but he was a far superior fielder and hit about 20 points higher on his career. Were it not for a shortened career he almost certainly would have reached 3,000 hits. Even at his peak it would have taken Rice at least 3 more years to reach the magical 500 homer plateau. It's not really fair to compare batting numbers with Carter because he is a catcher and is under entirely different expectations. He might be similar to Winfield (I'm not a huge fan of his either), but Winfield was also a superior fielder and could run in his prime. He also didn't have the problem with a shortened career. He also conveniently left Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson, and Dale Murphy out of the conversation, who are 3 quality sluggers that were more consistent and had similar highs. Plus Rice doesn't have any major postseason exploits to back him up. If Rice had reached either 500 homers or 3,000 hits, he'd probably be in. But without either of those milestones you've got to accomplish a lot more to get in. Rice strikes me as the epitomy of a borderline HOF. He's being compared with the other top OF'ers of all time, and he just doesn't stack up too well with most of them.

I didn't realize it when he mentioned it, but Puckett's career numbers are fairly pedestrian. His batting average is very impressive, but his power numbers certainly aren't. The Gold Gloves probably help too. One wonders if he'd be a first ballot HOF'er with our current obsession with power numbers and OBP. I thought that he was one of those guys that was an instant in because he got 3,000 hits, but apparently I'm confusing my players. I didn't realize that he only played 12 years. I've never been that big on Jim Rice. He had four seasons that I would call very good and a couple more that were pretty good. I'm not sure I'd call that HOF caliber. He kind of fits into the Rafael Palmeiro category with me: consistently above average but rarely elite. I think he's going to have a really tough time getting in because his numbers just aren't that impressive compared to current day numbers, and some people seem to believe that Fenway Park helped him a lot.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 10:54 AM) Northwestern lost to s***ty Penn State, thank God so that stupid "they are undefeated in the Big 10" talk can stop when they were ONLY 2-0 They played Purdue, Minnesota, and Penn State their first 3. There are mid-majors that should be undefeated with that conference start, but it was not to be. Seriously, I don't think anyone had any illusions that they were going to stay near the top of the Big Ten. They seem to do that every year: start out with two wins before reality sets in. NU actually played pretty well, but every time they were about to take control of the game Penn State went on a 3-point barage. They only went like 9-25 from the arc, but they came at the right time. The killer was when NU was down about 6 after a sluggish start to the second half, then took the lead after some improved defensive intensity and some fast break points. Then Luber comes back and hits a 3 from well past NBA range with 4 seconds left on the shot clock. That killed any momentum. It'd be nice if NU actually had any shooters, we can't hit open 3's or even a free throw most of the time. I guess that's what happens when you have one legit Big Ten player. That game killed any chances of a tourney run. NU just can't afford to give away games to the bottom feeders, especially at home. You probably won't hear from me again unless they pull off an upset, which is possible at home.

Everything varies depending on your preferences and the league style, but here are some of the basics... Generally a team gets to keep 4-7 players. This can vary depending on the format. If there are more than 10 teams it is advisable to keep the number at 4 or 5, since the talent pool is a little thinner, while if it's 10 teams or fewer you might want to make it more than 5. 4 or 5 players are the generally accepted numbers. The number of years you want to run the league is also an issue. Most are probably 3 or 5 year leagues. That depends highly on whether or not you know the players are going to stick around and be easy to contact. If you know the guys and talk with them regularly, you could consider doing something more like a 10 team keeper. If you don't know some of the players, a 3 or 5 year is better. If it a 3 year league, you should probably not use any restrictions on how long you can keep a player. For a 5 year league or longer, it's probably a good idea to put a 3-year limit on how long you can keep a player. Postseason trades get pretty interesting using that rule. Scoring is a variable thing, but I usually like to do a reverse point total system (meaning last place is worth 1 pt and first place is worth however many teams there are0. You could also just keep track of the top couple of spots and award points however you want, but I like to award points for every spot for the following reason. Draft order is usually determined much like in the NFL, with the worst team getting the first pick post-keeper and so on. Awarding more points for 8th than 10th prevents a team from tanking the last few weeks to get a better pick, since talent is in shorter supply after the keepers are determined. I suppose you could do a lottery for the draft order if you have time to kill, but that seems kind of pointless. Another major thing to consider is how you want to handle the minor leagues. You can chose to manage it like a standard league where a player is placed on waivers when he makes it to the major leagues. It's infinitely more interesting if you have a minor league draft though. You set some kind of eligibility standards (the MLB ROY eligibility rules work well) and select prospects you get control of. You select however many prospects you guys feel like doing (at least 4 or 5, maybe more if you guys are all knowledgeable and have time to kill) and have a different set of MLB keepers (probably 2). Hope this helps a bit. You can adjust things however you want to though.

A lot of wierd things happened/almost happened yesterday and today. Besides the Illinois game, UConn only beat LSU by one, UCLA only beat ASU by one, Oklahoma lost to Nebraska, Maryland lost to Miami, Nova loses to WV, and MSU is getting smoked by Wisconsin (okay, maybe it isn't that weird since WIS is a decent team, but I didn't expect MSU to lay another egg). I guess that is conference play. Pretty much every team in the country is going to end up with a weird loss or two at this rate. As for my Wildcats, for some reason they've been playing better of late. Ever since that horrendous game against UIC their offensive efficiency has gone up and people besides Vukusic are scoring. Some of their 3-pointers have actually started dropping, and Moore is becoming a decent shooter. They have a good chance to start 3-0 in the Big Ten with Penn State up next before they play some real teams (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois are the next three). Who knows, if they knock off one or two of those teams (which is highly possible if they shoot well), they might be able to steal a tourney berth. I know it's a longshot, but here's hoping.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 04:32 PM) Garland was just one example. What if Mark or Freddy get hurt? What if B-mac isn't as good as we think? What if Vaz gives up close to 40 bombs? All I was saying is that no matter who we add on offense, for us to repeat in 2006, the pitching has to be top-flight. You'd need at least two of those what if's to happen to really kill the starting pitching, and any of Mark/Freddy/Jon/Vazquez getting hurt is fairly unlikely given their career histories.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 03:39 PM) The Bills got a 3rd round pick from Tennessee for Travis Henry. Maybe that's just cuz Tom Donahoe was smart and took a draft pick from the 2006 draft instead of the 2005 draft. That being said...Davis is being paid like a starter, not a backup...so I don't see anyway possible for Houston to get a 2nd round pick for him, unless some team decides they need a starting HB next year and are willing to pay it. If so, the Texans could easily get a 2nd round pick. Also, I'm not 100% sure what Davis' contract situation is, but Alexander and James didn't have a lot of value to potential trade partners because both only had one year left on their contract and were/are seeking sizeable long term contracts. Teams didn't want to give up a 1st or 2nd round pick on the chance that they couldn't resign them. Also, if they did decide to sign them, both would be signed to rather large deals that stretched well past 30, something most teams don't want to do with runningbacks. Alexander will be 29 by the start of next season, James will be 28, Davis will be 25. History suggests that although Alexander and James are much better backs, they've probably got 3 or 4 years left of production, while Davis has more like 7, and at a much lower cap price. If you're a major contender with a need for a runningback and have a lot of cap space, James or Alexander would have been a good fit. There aren't too many teams like that however.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 01:00 PM) you make some good points but there are a few things in there i don't understand. you say illinois still needs work on offense. agreed. you also say outside of dee everyone else had a brutal game on offense. also agreed. if those two factors are true, though, then i think it is innacurate to say pretty much everything went right for them in this game. regardless, they just beat the team just about everyone selected as the preseason league champ by 10 points on a night when only one player showed up offensively. not bad in my book. Maybe I exaggerated when I said everything, but certainly more than enough did. I'd say most of the players outside of Augustine, and Smith (not a lot of playing time) gave about their average contributions. It's hard to say things went terribly wrong for everyone else when they don't typically offer much in terms of offensive production. Personally I don't expect much from anyone other Brown or Augustine, and even the latter doesn't get much credit from me when he goes up against a legit post player. One major key for them in every game is going to be how well they hit from outside since they rely on it so heavily and usually don't seem to get a lot of easy baskets inside. They had a huge advantage in that area and it played a huge role in who won the game. We'll see what happens from here on out, but I really don't expect Dee to go nuts every game, or the Illini to hold teams well under 60 on a regular basis. They certainly deserve some credit for right now after getting their first major win, but let's not pencil them into a 2 seed and an Elite 8 appearance just yet.

Relax guys. Any of us that play sports games knows that retard crap that makes no sense happens all the time when you try to do computer simulations. You simply can't accuractely reproduce real game situations. I know whenever I'm playing NCAA Football all kinds of stupid upsets happen. NU seems to beat Michigan 2 times out of 3 and Ohio State about half the time, often times by two touchdowns. Temple beats LSU. Baylor beats Texas. Computer simulations of sporting events rarely makes sense. We all know that a Japanese team gets 2 games from us tops, and that's if they get some great pitching performances and some timely hits. Who really gives a damn what some schmucks at some website come up with as a simulation for a hypothetical series?

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 05:16 PM) Texas is still getting a top flight lineman in the country coming in next year and Bush is not returning to USC. He's made that known already. If Young is back, Texas is #1 without a doubt. Who gives a damn if Texas is bringing in a top offensive lineman in the next recruiting class (I'm not even sure who you are referring too, they only have one 4-star O-lineman and he's ranked #65 by rivals)? If you want to use that line of argument Florida, ND, and USC have much better committments at this point. There are very few freshmen lineman that can play at a top level in any major conference, in fact I can't think of any. There aren't that many players that are impact players as freshmen, and Texas has guys coming back at the two positions that you usually find those guys: RB and WR. Secondly, Reggie Bush himself hasn't announced that he is definitely coming out unless I missed something since the bowl game. It was reported a while ago by 'inside sources" that he was going pro, but it wasn't Bush himself saying it. In fact, he did an interview shortly before the Rose Bowl that said something to the effect "you guys are all assuming that I'm leaving, but I haven't made my decision yet." More importantly, it doesn't really matter since I said that both running backs would have to leave to drop them, and I haven't heard anything stating that White is even considering going yet. The articles I've read seem to assume that both RB's are going while Vince Young is going, which is simply asanine. I'd be very surprised if Young comes back after winning the title and having that kind of fabulous season. If he goes, Texas is in full rebuilding mode. Even if he comes back, I don't know if they have the kind of team that can go back to the title game. Maybe they can make it back to a BCS game, but their D is going to have to be at least decent to do that, and they lost pretty much every impact player they had. USC on the other hand still brings back an awful lot of good players even if Bush leaves.

Good win for the Illini, although it was pretty ugly. Michigan State was brutal offensively. Some of that can be attributed to Illinois' defense, but MSU was still throwing the ball away with consistency, mishandling a lot of passes on the catch, and Ager missed a few open shots that he normally doesn't. Before anyone jumps on me, I did say that Illinois would be tough to beat if they hit their 3's, and that if any of MSU's big 3 had a major off-night they were in trouble, and both did happen. But Illinois still needs some work on offense. You can't expect to get this kind of offensive ineptitude to happen on a regular basis, even if the Illini do play good defense and have such a massive homecourt advantage. Dee had a career game where he was consistently pulling shots out of his ass with a man in his face and they were still going down. That doesn't happen every game. Every other player had a brutal game on the offensive, but they managed to get by. Despite pretty much everything going right for Illinois in this game, they still didn't exactly crush an MSU team that was obviously off their game in a hostile environment. Illinois came up with a good game, but I'm still not sold on them being a high seed in March.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 04:42 PM) It's all about the defense with Illinois. They can win games with Augustine and Brown being the only main contributors with the defense they play. They're still going to have to score a decent number of points to beat the better teams in the conference, probably at least in the high 60's, more likely in the 70's. The only team in the conference averaging under 67 a game is NU, and some of that can be attributed to their offensive style. You can't count on holding teams under 60 every night, that won't work against better teams. Even assuming Dee and Augustine hit their averages regularly, that means they have to get 30-40 points per game from everyone else. They're only averaging about 75 points per game even with all of the cupcakes on their schedule, and who knows whether they can keep that rate up or not. They had some close calls in their games where they struggled to score, and not everyone is a horrible shooting team like Georgetown or UNC. This is a team that was successful largely because they had so many scoring options last year. They had 4 players well into double figures in points last year and Augustine was right around 10 a game. Suddenly they're down to 3 double-figure scorers, and Smith can be above or below that depending on what kind of night he has. It's harder to compensate for off-nights when you rely so heavily on two guys. They'll beat up on the bottom half of the league, but if they want more than a 4-5 seed, they'll have to win at least 2 out of 3 against the likes of MSU, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Michigan. We'll see what happens. It's hard to judge teams at this point of the year because many of them don't face the most daunting schedule, the Illini included. However, even looking at the games they played I think they have to step it up a bit if they want to have a good year. Sorry to sound so glum. If it makes you feel any better, this is my attitude towards pretty much everyone but about 10 teams.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 04:34 PM) Yah but personally I think Calhoun is the best RB Wisconsin has had in the last 7 years, and that includes Dayne, Bennet, and Anthony Davis. I also would say that Sutton and Maroney are better than Hart. Maroney is entering the draft, so he's out. Calhoun definitely gets my vote for best back in the Big Ten, that guy can play. Sutton is an interesting argument. Hart might have more polish, but Sutton is definitely a more electrifying runner and is a capable receiver. If he can actually hold onto the ball next year, he'll be a force to be reckoned with.

My quick assessment of the top few teams for next year (not necessarily in order, things may change between now and next year)... Texas- top 3 if Vince comes back, but I don't think they're the undisputed #1 that people are making them out to be. They lose two fabulous offensive lineman and pretty much all of their impact defensive players. Young can do a lot on his own, but they'll have to win more shootouts next year if some defensive players don't show up. USC- definitely top 3, but part of it depends on who stays and goes. If Bush or White come back, they should probably be the #1 team pre-season. Their offensive line will still be very good, their receiving core will be solid even if Smith goes (haven't heard anything supporting that), and Booty is a very talented QB that can step in fairly easily. The defense should be better despite losing a few starters thanks to a lot of gifted underclassmen on the roster. OSU- The offense obviously should be pretty good. Smith, Ginn, and Pittman should do a lot of damage, although another receiver will have to step up without Holmes. The defense has to fill some major holes in the front 7, although the secondary returns a few pretty good players. Notre Dame- The offense looks like it will be very good, although the line probably won't be quite as good. The defense still needs some work. Their secondary is not very good outside of Zbikowski, they will have some new LB's to break in, and their line is only decent (Abiamari and Landri are pretty good, need some others to step up). I'm not sure they have the horses to make a major improvement on defense like USC does. West Virginia- Do they even have a defense? All I saw anytime I watched them was White and Slaton running wild. I can't imagine that'll work for another entire season, especially if they make it to another major bowl game. Their schedule does work in their favor, however. LSU- I don't know about that one. The offense looks like it has some talent, but the defense loses several valuable players. I don't think their offense has anywhere near as much punch as some of these other teams, so their defense better find some replacements for Wroten, Williams, and Vaughn. Florida- I would have felt better about their offense if Jackson were back. That leaves Caldwell as the only proven receiver, and he's coming off an ACL injury. I'm also not entirely sold on their defense. They did fairly well this year, but they don't seem to have any star power. Auburn- They bring back Cox and Irons, and McClover and Groves are beasts at the end spots. They need some tackles and linebackers though. Also, I wouldn't necessarily list them as a top 10 team right now, but I still like Penn State. Morelli was a very talented passer coming out of high school and he's had some time to develop and learn the offense. He's got some weapons coming back around him. Derrick Williams is going to have a big year. Pozluzny will probably be back because of his knee injury, and he should reek some havok along with Connor. King will probably move to corner, which gives them some major talent at that spot. They need to shore up the line in order for those guys to matter however.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 01:59 PM) going to be a tough, tough game. i'd give illinois a slight edge primarily due to home-court advantage. but msu was my pick to win the league this year and i think they are formidable. will be interested to see the "illinois is overrated" crowd re-emerge from it's slumber if they lose, though. I haven't gone anywhere. A lot of teams are overrated right now, and I happen to think Illinois is one of them. They're really only consistently getting contributions from Brown and Augustine, which probably won't be enough in conference play. Someone else is going to have to step up, like maybe Smith playing a bigger role or McBride or Randle stepping up. Michigan State has a few very good players, but they aren't all that deep. They've got enough talent to beat a lot of teams, including the Illini. However, if one of the big 3 for MSU has an off-night, they can be beat, and Illinois can be tough if they're hitting their outside shots. It should be an interesting game.

Japan has had exactly 3 players that I can think of that did/could have made a major impact in the MLB: Ichiro, Matsui, and Sadaharu Oh. Outside of that they aren't that impressive. All you have to do is look at the stats for all of the washed up scrubs or MLB journeyman that go over there and dominate. I can't remember who, but some MLB reject broke/would have broken their homerun record if they would have pitched to him.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 10:33 PM) Wow...A lot of people were putting UConn on top of Duke. UConn goes down big to Marquette 94-79. Ugly game overall, both teams shot under 40%. Steve Novak was the story for Marquette. He had the game of his life, hitting 6 3's and finishing with 41 points and 16 rebounds. UConn could have been closer with better FT shooting (17-34), but they just had an off night. Rudy Gay was in foul trouble most of the game and finished with 8 points and 7 boards, shooting 3-12. Brown was also off, shooting only 2-11 and finishing with 7 points. Marcus Williams was a little rusty. He played 23 minutes off the bench, finishing with 7 assists but only 4 points on 1-5 shooting. Give this team about a month and they will be the best team in the country. They need Williams to get back up to speed and get everyone on the team back in sync now that they have a new PG. They might have shot poorly, but their turnovers were down significantly (14, they're usually at or above 20), something that Williams helps with dramatically. They ran into a career night from a decent player and had an off night themselves. They'll recover and be a real force by March.

I don't know if some of these points have been posted or not since I didn't feel like reading the entire thread, but I have no interest in getting Taveras whatsoever. One of my major problems with acquiring him is that we don't need another fast leadoff type player with no power and little propensity for driving in runs. Pods is a useful player when he leads off an inning, but he's the last guy I want at the plate with men on. Batting Taveras in front of or behind Pods makes this situation even worse, especially since Crede and Uribe can do some damage in front of those guys. I really don't want to see two guys back-to-back in the order that drove in less than 60 runs combined strolling to the plate with one out after Crede or Uribe hits a double. I didn't like the idea when it was Juan Pierre being discussed, and I like it less with Taveras. He had only 20 extra base hits on the year and only took 25 walks. That's not what I want to see out of a potential #2 hitter. He's a pretty good defensive player, but his contributions to the offense are somewhat dubious. He wasn't a huge factor offensively with a .291 average, imagine what his contributions will be if he hits more like .260. We still don't really know what we're getting with him, so it's definitely a possibility. A similar issue arises if he has a hamstring injury and can't run as efficiently. On the other hand, Brian Anderson can be a productive player hitting .260 because he has at least some power and can be a much more proficient RBI guy. He's a question mark, but we need a lot less in the average department in order for him to contribute. Unless Taveras suddenly develops his plate discipline or adds a little more pop, he's basically a less proficient version of Pods, which doesn't really help us. I don't have a problem with adding guys with speed, but I'd rather have that player be an established verteran with at least some power that can take a walk here and there. Taveras simply isn't that strong a player, and isn't a player that I want on our team until he shows that he can consistently hit above .280, and even then there are other guys I'd want. If we're giving up a talented starting pitcher, I definitely don't want Taveras as the centerpiece to the deal. We'd have to get some other valuable pieces, because Taveras just doesn't offer that much to the lineup.

QUOTE(JUGGERNAUT @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 05:15 PM) Some of you are COMPLETELY ignoring what Kenny has done & what he was rumored to be doing with young, cheap, starters. Perhaps the Garland for Eckstein trade rumor rings a bell? Kenny has shown no hesitancy at all to trading young cheap pitchers if he can get the PLAYER he wants. Is Crawford that player? Time will tell. Ozzie made a proclamation before the confetti has been swept away from the celebration: I want a new #2 hitter to take the pressure off Pods & to move up to #1 when Pods can't play. Uribe is not a proven player to fill that role. The problem is that said deal didn't happen, thank God (although I'm pretty sure it was Erstad). Did he trade Mark? Jon? Crede? Paulie? Brandon? Obviously not. Until this year he hadn't touched his top couple of prospects and let them develop. Reed, Gio, and Young were the only ones with any serious promise that we traded. Reed was the only one that was even close to major league ready, and he was considered expendable because of our major league OF's and the other prospects we had. The vast majority of the prospects he dealt were not major league ready, and certainly not major league ready starting pitchers. He could have had some solid players that would have helped us in the past two years for B-Mac, and he didn't do it. That should tell you something.

QUOTE(Steff @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 05:10 PM) For the right piece to the puzzle, no one is untouchable. I didn't say he was untouchable, I said he was about as close as you could get.

QUOTE(JUGGERNAUT @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 05:04 PM) It's true were not the NYY's. We do not sign pitchers to $10M+ a year for 5-6 yrs. We are more like NYY-lite. We will sign pitchers to $10M+ a year for 2-3 yrs. Are we capable of supporting a $50M rotation for the next 5 yrs? Yes. The White Sox have a much better TV contract now that should double the revenue of the old one. They have quickly moved to the top of the list in national merchandise sales. Sure the World Series has something to do with that but only Boston outsold them in comparison to previous champions. They are far outperforming what the Marlins, Angels, & D-Backs did. They should see at least a $30M boost in gate revenue next year. So yes I think Kenny is planning for the future with the intent of stretching the payroll to the $100 million mark. We're not going to have a $50 mil in the long run because we also have Paulie and Thome signed to rather large contacts for a while. That puts us around $70 mil for 7 players, which isn't going to work for us. That leaves us about $30 mil for the other 18 players, some of which is already committed or will have to be committed for guys like AJ, Dye, and Uribe. That means we're either laden with young players or cheap castoffs from elsewhere unless we kick the payroll well past $100 mil. It's also probably not going to be a $50 mil rotation when we extent Freddy and Mark, it'll be closer to $60. There's no telling right now if the enormously high ticket sales and merchandise sales stay put. At least some of those season ticket sales came from the World Series ticket offer, and some of them probably won't stick (it seems like a lot of them are Cubs' fans that cashed in, check E-bay or stubhub for people selling the whole season. There are several), and a lot of that merchandise money comes from playoff related stuff. One injury plagued or underachieving season where we come up short can cost us a lot of that, or possibly even a first round loss. Our future revenue is far from a sure thing, so I seriously doubt they are going to put us past $100 mil in the long run. It makes a lot more sense financially to give a talented young guy a shot than to spend $9 mil more on a starter that we probably don't need.

QUOTE(JUGGERNAUT @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 04:36 PM) If by long term you mean 3 yrs then yes I think Kenny is trying to lock up Contreras for another 3 yrs. The guy is at the top of his game right now & if he continues to pitch the way he did for the 2nd 1/2 of 2005 there are few that can measure up to him. BMac wasn't traded up til now because the rotation was not solidified for 2 yrs like it is now. If Jose signs an extension then applying your logic that both Freddy & Mark are near locks to be re-signed then only Javier drops out of the equation in 2008. By 2008 you don't believe the White Sox will have another young pitcher ready to crack the rotation? I'm sorry, I don't see there being any chance that we sign Contreras for 3 years. He'd be 38 by the end of that (maybe more, you know the ages on Latin players is iffy), and it would probably cost us the same as Jon. That's not going to happen. BMac wasn't traded because you can't deal good young pitchers unless you get top talent back. We had 5 starters last year with all of them signed for 06, so nothing has changed on that front. You're missing the point on rotation spots on your last comment. You're assuming Jose signs an extension, which seems like a longshot. In all likelyhood Jose is either going now, or at the end of the year and netting us two prospects. That would leave us with Jon through 08, Javier through 08, BMac for a while, and extensions needed for Mark and Freddy after 07. Right now it doesn't look like there are any starters in the minors that are going to be ready for a while. Gio was probably the closest after BMac, and he's gone. Most if not all of our better pitchers now are at AA or lower, meaning they are probably at least 2 years off, maybe more. Even then they might not be ready to be a full time starter. Someone would really have to step it up to be ready to take a rotation spot by 2008 the way it looks right now. If someone does come out of nowhere to be as polished and ready for the majors, we could consider letting Mark or Freddy go. The Jose/Bmac situation is a lot different right now because Jose is our oldest starter by several years, he's the only one who's contract is up right now, and a guy who appears to be the best pitching prospect we've had since at least Garland is getting close to being ready to contribute. It would take a drastic reversal of philosophy and a major contradiction of past actions to sign an older starter to an expensive deal while dealing a promising young starter at the same time. I don't see any chance of it happening, and if by some miracle it does one of our other 4 current starters is probably gone. BMac seems about as untouchable as you can get.

QUOTE(JUGGERNAUT @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 04:22 PM) Put it this way. No one would trade a pitcher who just signed a below market contract to remain with his team. It's a PR nightmare. It matters not what a team offers. It's not going to happen. The NYY's wouldn't even do that. Now I won't put it past Kenny to think about moving Javier or Jose with Jon signed but no way is he moving Jon in 2006. I'm guessing Jose is going to sign an extension. That leaves BMac & Crede as the highest trade value for the White Sox. The White Sox will try to avoid arbitration with Crede but if that's not possible I would not put it past Kenny to trade Crede to the Jays for a pkg including Koskie. As for BMac I think he will be traded to Tampa Bay for Crawford & change. One of the league's best run producers signed to a $30M/5 deal is something hard to pass on. You really think we're going to pony up the cash to keep Jose long term? Come on. He's at least 34 right now, and we already have 5 starters. It's obvious that Kenny thinks ahead and tries to set up this team for the future. Locking up a 35 year old starter to a big time contract would be highly out of character.

QUOTE(JUGGERNAUT @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 04:10 PM) When you add all that up BMac's opportunities to start will be few & far between. If Contreras is going to be here past 2006 I think you have to trade BMac this year. A year in the pen is not going to enhance his trade value any more than what it is right now. That's not going to happen though. We could have traded B-Mac several times by now, so why would we suddenly do it now? We'd have a hard time getting back the type of player we'd want anyways. The Sox payroll is already very high, so we'd almost have to get back a young, cheap, productive player, which most teams aren't going to give us. B-Mac is not going to stay in the bullpen in the long run. We all know this. It seems highly unlikely that we are going to sign Contreras long term since our other 4 starters are here through 2007, and we all know that we are going to eventually try to work out deals with Mark and Freddy. We're not going to spend $10 mil plus to sign a 35 year old pitcher when we have a guy like B-Mac so close to being a solid starter. Most of the posters on this board would go ballistic if we traded B-Mac, especially to keep someone more than 10 years his senior at a much higher price. Kenny has not lost his mind, so it's fairly pointless to discuss this possibility.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 03:54 PM) You hit the nail on the head on that one. Jon is only 26!!!!!!! He eats innings, was consistent pretty much all year, and was good in the playoffs, especially at anaheim. But of course he will be under .500 for the next 3 years right? His ERA will probably go up to somewhere in the 3.65-4.15 range next year, but he should still be able to win at least 14 with those kind of numbers. Suppan and Marquis aren't exactly studs, and they've had some nice win totals for St. Louis. We'll have to see what happens. He's making $7 mil next year, so even an old Jon performance is probably worth that. We'll see how he develops. I'm not sold yet that he can consistently win 16-20 games with a mid-3 ERA, but we'll see what happens. Mark doesn't exactly have the greatest stuff either, and he's been pretty damn good.