ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 04:37 PM) It has been discussed many many times, and if it ever happens, it is decades away. Why? Because MLB's union is vastly more powerful than the unions of the other 2 major sports. The union believes (correctly) that a salary cap will put more money in the hands of ownership by limiting overall salaries. That is something they do not want. They would make sure no world series ever happened again before they allowed a salary cap, as it stands now. They might be able to work something out like in the NBA where the salary cap is variable depending on the amount of money coming in. I realize that the league can fudge their numbers, but it would alleviate the conception that the owners were pocketing all of the money somewhat. It would also help if there were a salary floor of something like $60 mil, which would counteract the loss of money from the top teams a bit. If every team had to have a payroll between $60 and $100 mil, the overall payroll of the players would probably in the worst case scenario be about even because there are more teams at $45 mil and below than teams over $100 mil. I realize the Yankees could make 2 teams and still have each over the cap at this point, but that can be ironed out. The revenue sharing also is important, that's a pretty big factor in the NFL. Teams like the Royals already get like $20 mil in revenue sharing, this could make it even more. Of course you'll have a hell of a time getting Steinbrenner to agree to it, but what else is new.

QUOTE(Adam G @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 04:06 PM) The difference being that Sheets and Santana havent gotten to that magic six year mark yet and their teams still own them. That doesnt apply to Garland. Both would have been free agents after this season anyways unless I'm mistaken (Sheets now has 5 full years in the majors, Santana has 4 and parts of 2 others). They signed earlier than Jon, but they both still got massive deals. How many other people have signed before they were FA? Every one that I can think of signed for less. That's what I'm comparing it to, their extensions that they signed and what Jon was offered now. It's probably going to take at least that much to keep Jon, which doesn't make that much sense to me. Sheets and Johan would probably both get $12-14 mil if they were FA now, and if they were FA some of the other shmucks like Weaver and Morris wouldn't be getting 9 mil because teams would be less desperate to sign mediocre pitchers when there are better options available. However, that doesn't really matter, since they already signed and the difference in money isn't that ridiculous. Edit- Mark is probably going to warrant something like $12 mil (maybe a little more, not entirely sure who'll be there by the time he hits the market. There are some big names, but some might be signed earlier), and I can live with that because he has proven that he is a pretty good starter in the past. Depending on how they pitch in the coming years, Freddy and Jose might be in the same region. Freddy is probably going to have to step up a bit to make quite that much. He'll likely be in the $10-$12 mil range if his numbers are roughly the same as the last two years. Jose's deal won't be as long, but he'll make a lot of money if he keeps pitching like he did in the second half. I don't have a problem with paying pitchers, I have a problem when we are giving average guys with one good season under their belt ace-type money. If we sign Garland for over $10 mil or if we had signed A.J. Burnett, I'd have a problem. If we give Mark 4-48 or sign someone like Oswalt for $14 mil when he hits FA, I don't really have a problem with that. Likewise if Garland had pitched as well as he did last year in 2004 or we signed him after another 15+ win season with a mid-3's ERA, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But that's not the case, and I'd rather get some young talent and take the chance that Jon sustains his performance than sign him to a monster deal and end up overpaying him. I find the latter to be a much more likely scenario, and we've all seen what happens to a teams' payroll when they are stuck with an underachiever like Mo Vaughn or Darren Driefort.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 04:11 PM) the market isn't there anymore. Price's have gone up. Remember you were paying about $1.30 for a gallon of gas then too... Where were you paying $1.30 a gallon last year? When it occurred doesn't change anything. Pitchers got big time money before and they'll get it again. The market hasn't really changed any. Mike Hampton, Darren Driefort, and Denny Neagle are just some of the people that got ridiculously high deals, and none of those came this year. You're still not going to see a whole lot of pitchers making over $12 mil. In fact, there are only a handful getting more than $10 mil on the market right now (IIRC the only starter that has this offseason is Burnett, and Pavano, Colon, and Pedro were the only ones last year).

To put the price we'd have to end up paying for Garland in prospective (either signing and extension now or after the season), Ben Sheets and Johan Santana both signed for 4 years and 40 mil before last season. We offered Jon $24 mil over 3 years, and he obviously wasn't happy with that offer. Those guys are both light-years better than Jon, and if that's what it'll take to keep him I'd rather deal him for some cheap young talent and move on. I seriously doubt that Jon is ever going to be worth that kind of money. Buehrle is an entirely different story, and so are Freddy and Jose if they pitch well again this year. I'm more than happy with those 3 leading the rotation and filling it out with Javier and B-Mac, assuming we can work out deals for the first 3 when it is necessary.

I fail to see exactly how Garland is going to get much better than he was last year. Virtually everything went right for Garland and he finished with 18 wins and a 3.50 ERA. Those are pretty good numbers, but it's far from a guarantee that he will do that again. We're not exactly talking about Pedro Martinez or Johan Santana. He got very good run support for most of the year and obviously got very good defensive support. Even on our team, Buehrle managed to get tagged for quite a few unearned runs when we were in our funk (17 unearned runs for Mark, only 7 for Jon), not to mention some other plays that weren't considered errors that we'd normally make. Garland simply isn't an elite pitcher that can succeed regardless of what's going on around him. He doesn't have elite stuff and is not a strikeout pitcher. He relies heavily on the defense to make plays on the large number of balls that are put in play. Also, his walk totals were the lowest they've been in his entire career. He was over 70 the previous few years, and this year was in the 40's. That absolutely has to stay constant, because he can't afford to give guys free passes with the amount of hits that he allows. It would not surprise me at all if he had an ERA of about 4.10 next year with 14 wins. Until he puts up at least one more season like this past one, he's going to be a one-year wonder in my mind. Right now I look at last year much like Brad Radke's last year. He has been an average to slightly above average pitcher for most of his career. He's one of those guys that doesn't blow you away with the velocity of his pitches, although he does have pretty good movement on his curve and has an effective changeup. He had a very solid season last year, posting a 3.48 ERA with 11 wins, a total that would have been higher if not for poor support from the Twins' offense. This year he wasn't as good, posting an ERA over 4 and only winning 9 games. There aren't that many pitchers that are consistently well above average pitchers with a pitching style like Jon's. The only guys that immediately come to mind are Buehrle, Mulder, Wells (I'm being a little generous in including him), and Maddux, the last of those still put up some pretty impressive strikeout numbers in his prime. I'm not convinced that Jon is going to consistently win 15 games and have an ERA under 4 from here on out, and because of that paying him more than about $9 mil a year because of one good season is a bit asanine. If we could get a good collection of talent back now, I'm all for it. If we just hang on to him and let him walk at the end of the season, we're going to get two draft picks with the highest of them being in the first-second round sandwich area that probably won't be on the major league club for 3 years. If we deal him now, we can get guys that can help us now while still possibly netting a player that can help us a couple of years down the road. Kenny isn't going to trade him for a couple of mediocre relievers, let's give him some credit since he did build a World Series winner. All reports say that is asking price is too high at the moment, which is a good sign. He's obviously going to try to get guys he think can be dominant, and preferrably be young and cheap. Odds are high that he's probably going to try to get a decent pitching prospect included, since we all know he likes starting pitchers. I highly doubt he'd deal him for less than Brazoban, Braxton, and someone from the Jackson/Miller/Elbert group, or something like Scott Shields and a couple of prospects. He's not just going to give Garland away. We're probably in a better position now than we would be at the deadline for three reasons: 1) we're probably not going to get more than one good reliever or one top prospect for half a season of Jon Garland, especially if his production dips, 2) the teams that have the type of package we're looking for are very few in number, and 3) there's a decent chance that LA and Texas will be out of the running by the deadline, and few of the probable contenders have what we are looking for (best I can tell it looks like just the Cardinals, Astros, Angels and Giants, and they probably won't deal some of those guys). It'd be nice to have 6 quality starting pitchers, but that's a luxury that only the Yankees can afford, and they can't seem to get the right guys. We might as well get as good a package as we can while Garland is still under our control and has some value. I don't think his trade value can get much higher.

I always love hearing Cubs' fans propose trades. They always get the two best players in the deal (well, Prior's better than Zito, but you get the point) and at least one team gets absolute crap. Yeah, the A's are really going to deal Zito for Hamels and Murton. That deal doesn't even mention the problems with getting Abreu to accept the trade or figuring out who pays what out of his salary. I bet that person thought it was a good trade idea too. Well, I guess at least it's better than the one where the Cubs get Manny and Tejada.

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Dec 22, 2005 -> 12:09 PM) Levine is jumping on these rumors while cohosting with Silvy. However, he is stressing that it will take more than just Prior to get this done. I find that amazing since most Cubs' fans don't seem to grasp that. Apparently the Cubs don't either if they think they'll get Bedard back in the deal.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Dec 21, 2005 -> 01:12 PM) I disagree. I think any team that's in contention that needs a SP will go after him. Look at us and Freddy. Reed was considered a top prospect, Olivo a nice catcher, and Morse a throw-in. On paper at the time, it was a great deal for Seattle. Cubs did it with Nomar knowing he was a FA at the end of the season. The difference is that Freddy was having a hell of a year when we dealt for him. I agree with the other posters, there's a definite chance that Jon could go back to being his old self, which would seriously drop his value, and even if he keeps up his performance like last year, we'd probably be more inclined to keep him and just take the draft picks as opposed to dealing him to another contender. The only way we could possibly gain from keeping Jon until the deadline and dealing him is if some fringe contender gets desperate and tries to bolster their staff, like the Marlins getting Villone or the Mets getting Zambrano. There aren't a whole lot of teams with more than one of the type of prospect we want to acquire, and we clearly seem to be after two or more guys (seems like just the Dodgers and Rangers have the ammo, maybe the Angels for position players but they don't seem to want to deal them. I will admit that I'm not the greatest with prospects however). I seriously doubt that we would be able to get anything like the Mulder and Hudson deals if we wait until mid-season, while we might get something like that now.

Seems a bit wierd that Brown goes but not Ogunleye (he of the 10 sacks, which is usually all that matters). One thing to remember though is that voting occurred a while ago, probably a lot of votes coming before Brown got hurt.

QUOTE(Felix @ Dec 20, 2005 -> 03:45 PM) Church had a damn good year last year while hitting in the biggest pitching park in the majors.. I disagree with the fact that you think he's not a special player. The same goes for Vidro, who has a career .831 OPS and is a .300 hitter. He doesn't strikeout much, and walks a decent amount as well. He doesn't have much power, but can hit for a good amount of doubles, and 10-20 homeruns a year. I would take both of those two over Kerry Wood, who gets hurt every year at least once, in a second. The problem is that Vidro has had his own problems with injuries, albiet not as serious as Wood's, and considering that he hasn't posted 80 runs, 80 RBI, or 20 homers in the last 3 years, I'd say his best days are gone. He can still hit okay and get on base, but he's really only had two really good years. His days of being an impact player are gone. Church is far from a stellar player. He has little power and less speed, plus he doesn't have a whole lot of experience. His average and OBP last year could easily have been a fluke considering that he only had 268 at bats. I guess whether or not it's a good deal for either team depends on your opinion of Wood. If you think he's a chronically injured starter that will never be a better than average pitcher again, then getting Vidro is a good move for the Cubs. If you think that pitching is a rare commodity and that the Nationals are acquiring a potential mid-rotation starter for an aging player past his prime that is expendable (like me), then it's a good move for the Nationals. Neither team is getting a flat out bargain because both Wood and Vidro are question marks.

That does seem like a really high price to pay for a mediocre starter and a fairly old relief pitcher that wasn't that good this year. Gonzalez is obviously thought of as a stud prospect, Young is a decent young starter, and Sledge might be a half-decent OF. Maybe the Rangers are getting a prospect of some note back, otherwise it looks somewhat iffy.

QUOTE(iWiN4PreP @ Dec 20, 2005 -> 10:33 AM) i wud take chavez, deffinitly over blalock. IMO. Chavez is due considerably more money, making him a far less attractive option for a guy that arguably isn't that much better. Chavez hits lefties a bit better and probably has more power, but doesn't have as high an average, just about takes the first two months of the season off, and typically hits about 30 points better at home than on the road (more like 50 this year, kind of wierd since Network Associates isn't the greatest hitters' park). Yes, I'd rather have Chavez if the money were even, but Chavez has 5 years and $52 mil left on his deal plus a $12.5 mil option or $3 mil buyout for 2011 , while Blalock has 3 years and $13.7 mil left on his deal, not counting a 2009 option or $550k buyout.

I'm done. I'm sorry, I can't see all the love for a guy that is a career .255 hitter with a .303 OBP. I can buy loyalty or defense as an argument, but not when comparing him to another player that's better than him in almost every way imaginable. We keep arguing home/away and lefty/righty, but what's the point when the guy you are trying to defend doesn't hit anyone particularly well? Is Crede's .250-ish average with an OBP barely over .300 on the road, or his mid-.270-ish average with hardly any power against lefties that big a deal that we have to worry about losing it? During the year many of us were clamoring to get someone that could crush right-handed pitching, and Blalock does that. Personally, I'd rather take a guy that hits righties pretty well, especially at home and hope he irons it out (he only needs semi-respectable numbers to put up good totals) as opposed to a guy that is decidedly mediocre in pretty much every aspect of hitting, especially when there is little to no dropoff defensively, the new guy is locked up to a reasonable contract for a while, and we don't have to worry about the new guy's back acting up in his mid to late 20's.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Dec 20, 2005 -> 02:12 PM) You want a player that is successful in one quarter of the opportunites in which he comes to the plate. I don't, nor will I, so you can just drop it. How do you figure it's one quarter of his plate opportunities? Even assuming that he hits poorly in every single road game (which he doesn't), 80% or more of the pitchers in the league are right handed. That already screws up your statement because it's more like 40% are home versus righties. Since when is Crede successful in more than about 30% of his at bats? He rarely hits over .250, and his career OBP is .303. I'll admit that Blalock isn't the greatest player in the world, but Crede isn't exactly Mike Schmidt over at 3B.

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Dec 20, 2005 -> 02:09 PM) are you insane? they have the best offensive 2B in all of baseball now with alfonso soriano. sure, his defense is bad, but he's a speedy, power hitting 2B who hits 30 homers a year easily. in the national league, he's going to run wild as well. now, vidro is injured as often as kerry wood, so i dont see why this trade hurts the nats, since they have a 2B to spare anyway. Don't expect Soriano to put up those ridiculous offensive numbers anymore. He's been on a bit of a slide since his last year in New York, and Texas has helped his power numbers considerably. The switch to a seriously pitcher's friendly park will seriously hurt his power, and considering he is not a contact hitter and rarely takes walks, that's definitely a problem. He's probably due for something like a .260 average with 24 homers, and about 85 runs and RBI, and he'll be pretty expensive after arbitration. His stolen bases could go down too because he'll probably be on base less. Chase Utley will probably be a much better offensive threat at 2B, and his only potential hole is hitting lefties. As for the trade, Vidro is constantly hurt and is starting to age. They could use some pitching, so if they could get someone with as much upside for Vidro as Wood, that should work well for them.

QUOTE(S720 @ Dec 20, 2005 -> 02:07 PM) If Washburn gets $9.375 mil, how much do you think the White Sox should pay Contreras? Pitchers are becoming so expensive now! Somewhere around the same, probably a little less. Contreras has had a much more checkered past and is several years older. If he keeps pitching like he did in the second half however, at the end of the year he could get a 3 year deal for A.J. Burnett type money.

QUOTE(ChWRoCk2 @ Dec 20, 2005 -> 02:04 PM) Good point, washburn deserves the money he had an awesome year He definitely helps this mariners team who needed pitching, mariners seem like they are going to try to make a run at the playoffs this year with some of the additions they have made, new catcher from japan, carl everett, a lefty bat that they desperately needed their rotation should now be: Moyer, if he didnt retire Washburn Pineiro Hernandez Franklin THey still could use another starter, because their staff is still a little weak but their hitting should make up for it King Felix is the key to their rotation. That kid looks like an absolute stud, somewhat like Mark Prior when he came up. If he has the kind of year people think he can have, he ends up being their ace, making that a much stronger rotation. Moyer and Washburn are then serviceable middle of the rotation guys, and if Piniero gets anywhere close to his old self that's a fairly good rotation.

That sounds semi-reasonable in this market. Washburn is actually much more established than a good chunk of the guys getting this kind of money, and he has some playoff experience. For his career he is almost 20 games over .500 and has a career ERA of 3.93 in the AL. He's a pretty decent #3 starter, although he's gone downhill a bit since his excellent 2002 season. Makes you wonder what guys will be getting next year when some real pitchers are on the market like Pettitte, Schmidt, Mulder, Zito, and our two guys. Will the salaries keep escalating or will they calm down a bit because there is more talent available? Somewhere in between sounds about right. I can't imagine too many pitchers getting $12 mil or more per year.

Also, I'm honestly not sure how much better Jon can get. He just doesn't seem to be the kind of guy that's going to get 20 wins or an ERA around 3 in my book. He's an innings eater that is going to keep you in games, but he isn't exactly the staff ace type. His stuff is good but not elite, and he isn't exactly a strikeout pitcher. He put up 18 wins with a 3.50 ERA with a good defense and decent run support (at least in the first half). He's the kind of guy that is going to need some defensive help to really be on top of his game because so many balls get put in play. I see this year as kind of like Brad Radke's last year. It was a solid year, but everything went right for Jon, much like Brad. Radke didn't have as good a year this year, something that might happen for Jon. If he keeps his walks down like he did this year, he'll be an above average pitcher from here on out. However, I just don't see him consistently winning more than 15 games in the future. That's why I'd like to see him get dealt while his value is high. I just don't see him being worth more than about $9 mil a year in the long run. Maybe he'll keep improving and he'll prove me wrong, but I'm not exactly expecting that.

You're taking the worst portion of one player's game and trying to compare it to the other player's entire career. That's not really an even comparison, and is a horrible form of statistical analysis. By totally ignoring half of his stats, you're distorting the reality. What's funny is that Crede doesn't exactly blow those splits out of the water. His overall numbers are better, but not significantly so. You keep using that one argument, we're using several. What's worse is that we've come up with arguments to counter that one line of debate, such as that moving from Ameriquest to the Cell isn't that big a dropoff, especially considering that the Sox offense and pitching staff dragged them down a bit last year, or that by switching divisions his road trips are going to change, dropping 22 games at unfavorable parks down to about 9 and gaining games at more neutral parks. Those 3 parks make up more than a quarter of his road trips, and he only hits well at Safeco, and even those numbers came down this year. The Sox could potentially acquire a player with a high level of talent who is coming off a down year. That down year was still better than Crede's best year, and you're still trying to argue against it. Blalock is also signed longer for a reasonable amount of injuries and has no injury concerns at all. It's not like the Sox haven't had guys with bad splits in the past. Hell, our team hit ten points higher on the road last year, maybe we need someone that can only hit well in hitter's parks. In the proposed trade, we'd get a solid 3B, a decent OF, and possibly a top prospect for two guys that will probably be gone in the near future anyways. I've seen much worse trades.

While I'm not really aversed to this trade, I'd rather try to get two really good prospects back in the deal, preferrably a starter and a bullpen arm that are somewhat close to the majors. We don't really have any glaring needs on the major league team. An upgrade over Uribe or Crede would be nice, but that would be both tough to find and acquire. Another proven bullpen arm (preferrably lefty) to go with Jenks/Cotts/Politte/Hermanson would also be good, but there aren't a whole lot of options out there. A proven centerfielder would also be a possible place to upgrade, but I can live with Anderson, and the possible fill-ins are either not that good or highly expensive. Unless we can somehow swing a deal for Tejada or Crawford, both of which seem highly unlikely, I'd like to see us replenish our farm system a bit. If nothing else it give us more ammo to deal for a veteran in the next year or two.

QUOTE(poorme @ Dec 17, 2005 -> 08:01 PM) in the past 5-7 years i can't think of too many position players that didn't pan out. mostly i guess because most of our prospects were pitchers. Borchard's about the only one i can think of. I forgot where I saw it, but our top prospect lists for about the last 10 years was posted, and that's not the case. There were a lot of really bad position players. Two major ones that I remember were Mike Caruso and Chris Snopek. Technically we traded for Caruso, but he was still in our minor league system for a while.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Dec 17, 2005 -> 11:44 PM) What a fraud Texas turned out to be. It shows yet again that Duke isn't the clear #1 everybody thinks they are. I just wonder how long it takes everybody to figure out that America's best team (by far) plays in Storrs, Connecticut. While I will agree with you about Connecticut, especially when Williams get back, I wouldn't be so quick to bash Texas yet. Just because they lost two games, one of them to Duke, doesn't mean that they suck and won't do anything this year. Their major problem is that they have 4 players that they rely on heavily and they don't have a good bench (although Paulino played better in the two losses and Abrams shot well against Tennessee). Now Buckman got hurt 7 minutes into the Duke game and Gibson got hurt 9 minutes into the Tennessee game. They're going to struggle against Duke with Buckman, and once Gibson was out they were not going to beat Tennessee the way they were shooting. It's always going to be tough to win against a team that hits 12 3's while shooting at a 50% clip, much less without your star PG and a solid big man. I'm not sure how bad those two injuries are, but they'll struggle mightily without Gibson and Buckman, and even with one of them they'll have a tough time beating anyone good. They have to hope that one or two of their other players step up so that their team has more options once everyone is healthy. As the year goes on they'll have to improve their defense and ball-handling in order to make a serious run. However, once everyone is healthy there is no reason they can't be a borderline top 10 team, or better if Paulino develops into a reliable outside shooter. They're not going to go undefeated with their rate of turning the ball over and lackluster defense, but few teams do.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 16, 2005 -> 03:56 PM) All that list tells me is that we have been damned good at making these deals, and we should trust the GM here, as he has one hell of a track record. Another thing to consider is how many times has the guy traded in a deal like this turned into a guy that made more than 1 All-star team? I can think of only a few, and to be honest I think some of these were after they'd already hit the major league roster: -Red Sox deal Bagwell -Tigers (I think) deal John Smoltz -Cubs deal Willis (personally I think the jury is still out on him) -Sox deal Sosa -Tribe move Sexon -Tribe move Giles -Astros move Abreu -Gary Sheffield moved several times -Braves traded someone good when they were young, name escapes me I'm sure there are more that I am missing, but it'd still probably be a stretch to say that there are 20 such deals in major league history where a prospect or young underachieving player was dealt that later turned into a star. One thing I will say is that Gio and Young seem to be the best quality of prospects he's dealt, the only ones that are close being Reed (who seems to have a lower ceiling and was one of several OF prospects), Kip Wells (we know how that turned out, and he was in the majors when dealt), Fogg in that same deal (same as Wells), and Rauch (who was on his way down as a prospect).

Considering that Young was the only player of real value in the deal, I can live with it. In fact, I'd consider the other players we threw in as detractors to the deal. El Duque has very little value. He gets hurt a lot, makes $4.5 mil, and isn't even that good when he plays. Vizcaino was one of our worst guys out of the pen, so losing him doesn't hurt a whole lot. We got a potential front end of the rotation starter and dumped two bad players for the price of a prospect, albiet a good one. He might be a star, but so might a lot of other guys. I'd be interested to see if he can consistently make contact against better pitching while keeping his walks high. For a supposedly elite prospect, the only time he's hit over .280 in the minors was his second year of rookie ball. He may have a ton of power and speed, but it doesn't matter if he can't find the ball with the bat or lay off the tough pitches from better pitchers. He could be another Corey Patterson if he doesn't straighten things out at the higher levels. Of course he could also be Carlos Beltran if he does. That's the problem with prospects, you just don't know how they'll respond against stronger competition, no matter how good they appear to be. I'll say the same thing I said with Jeremy Reed, let's wait about 3 years and then worry about it. Us arguing about what he might do when he hasn't played above AA yet doesn't really mean anything.