ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Oct 13, 2005 -> 02:08 PM) Hell, I woulnd't care if he was hitting .050 against lefties...I'd make that deal. a.) The kid's going to hit 40 home runs next year if he doens't get hurt, and maybe for the next decade too. b.) The kid has time to learn to hit lefties. Howard's going to be 26 in a little over a month in his first year as a starter. That's still fairly young, but he's getting a late start.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 13, 2005 -> 01:41 PM) I was also more dealing with the posters who seem to think that we are going to sign a big price tagged #4 hitter from outside of the system, instead of using an inhouse solution. I keep seeing names like Giles and Konerko bantered about, and the combination of those two, or someone like Giles and someone to replace Konerko would end up costing the White Sox about $15 million a season. That little for those two guys? I keep hearing at least $10 mil for Paulie, and I doubt we could get Giles for only $5 mil. I guess if the replacement is along the lines of Overbay, Tracy, Dunn, or Huff they all cost less than Paulie, but guys like Thome/Delgado/Helton/Griffey are big tickets, and someone like Teixeira would be there shortly. I really don't see wholesale changes to this team happening. We're in the ALCS and have a pretty good chance of moving on. Outside of resigning Paulie I'm not sure we splurge much, maybe an outside chance of getting one of the guys in my first list. I really hope if Giles doesn't get offered something ridiculous that we try to get him though. I really don't know what kind of market he is going to have. There seems to be an impression that he isn't the same hitter anymore, and he's already 34. Plus there don't seem to be as many fits for him on the big money teams as there are for Konerko. What would it take to get him? 4/$30? In my book he's well worth that. Granted we probably don't want to be paying him in the $8 mil range in the last year, but I bet he probably has at least two solid seasons left. His power should come back a bit if he leaves Petco Park. I know it might be stretching the payroll a bit if we also bring Paulie back, but the guy could have a big impact. He could DH like 75% of the time and fill in for one of our OF's to give them a rest. It makes even more sense if we were to lose Paulie and move Dye to first. I really hope Giles is on our radar, because I think he's the only serious difference making position player that's a FA outside of Paulie.

QUOTE(Randar68 @ Oct 13, 2005 -> 01:15 PM) This is a "what would you do if you were GM this offseason thread"... not a "what would you do if you are GM and can't make any of the moves you propose to make" thread... Rowand and Uribe should be attractive enough to force someone to take theirs and possibly El Duque's contract. Marte still has value... a bad couple of months doesn't mean squat... Alan Embree still has a job... If you actually do all the math based on my moves, the 2006 salary is right around $85 million, right where I am projecting it. You're trying to deal 4 different players that all make at least $2 mil. I highly doubt anyone wants any of those guys badly enough to eat another $5 mil in El Duque, with the possible exceptions being that we take back a brutal contract or include some major prospects. Granted someone might take El Duque on his own because they are pitching desperate, but it's still going to be hard to find a place for all of those guys. I'm curious to see who the other 11 guys would be that wouldn't put you over $85 million, especially past Cotts, Jenks, Anderson, and Ozuna. It seems that we'd lack depth that way, and I can't say I like depending on a rookie to be an everyday starter on team that is going to compete. The teams that have done it did it out of desperation, not by choice. You're making an awful lot of finanacial commitments that this team probably can't handle. This team has been built on pitching and defense, and you moves will make it very difficult to retain any of the pitchers once their contracts are up. Part of being a GM is dealing with your financial restraints, otherwise we might as well put Paulie back at first, Damon in center, Giles as a DH, and Billy Wagner as a closer.

QUOTE(Randar68 @ Oct 13, 2005 -> 12:58 PM) I projected an 85 million dollar payroll. Do the math on the other 9 players and then tell me I'm being unrealistic based on an 85 million dollar payroll. Did you miss the "at least" part? That total can easily be over $80 mil with Konerko/Furcal's contracts, plus Garland, A.J., and Crede's contracts, and whether or not Philly/Florida eats that much of their contract. And with the massive number of guys you want to trade (Rowand, Uribe, Hernandez, Marte at least by my count), you're probably going to have to take on another iffy contract, or end up stuck with one or more of them, and Anderson might have to be part of the deal to get one of your DH's. As I said, Rowand is $3.25, Hernandez is $5, Marte is $2.25, and Uribe is $3.15. Any one of those guys still being on the roster puts a major hurt on your projections. Even assuming all of those things break the right way, the other 11 players aren't all going to be at the minimum. Plus we'd have at least $30 mil for the next three years committed to just 3 players, not counting at least one, probably two of our starters that we're going to have to retain in the coming years. Financial flexibility goes out the window. Paulie was the highest payed guy on our roster this year at $8.75 mil, and you suddenly think we're going to have 5 guys making more than that? I've got a theme song for your plan: "Dream On" by Aerosmith.

Okay, some math on next year's payroll then, as you project it... Konerko- $11 mil Furcal- $9 mil Thome/Delgado - $12 mil, variable depending on how much their team eats Garcia- $9 mil Buehrle- $7.75 mil Contreras- $9 mil Iguchi- $2.4 mil Rowand- $3.25 mil Hermanson- $3 mil Dye- $5 mil Pods- $1.9 mil Politte- $1.2 mil Garland- ~$5 mil depending on deal/arbitration AJ- ~$3 mil, maybe more Crede- ~$1 mil, again depending on deal/arbitration Vizcaino- not entirely sure, made $1.3 mil last year Even assuming their team eats half of the DH's contract that's $77.5 mil, not counting Vizcaino, or the other 9 players on the roster. $77.5 mil on 15 players, and it might be more. Tell me how likely that really is.

QUOTE(Randar68 @ Oct 13, 2005 -> 12:21 PM) 1) We lose a significant chunk of contracts this offseason which is how Pauly's 2 million dollar rasie doesn't add payroll when other things are considered. Shingo's salary (2.5 million) Carl's salary ( 4 million) Frank's salary (8 million) Timo + Blum = ~ 1.55 million Ben Davis something like 1-2 million have you read this thread where that has been detailed? Now, if you trade Marte, El Duque and Uribe, you clear another El Duque's 2006 salary will be about 5 million based on escalator based on incentive with another 2 million in possible incentive... for this, we'll just call it 5, and the team may have to eat some of it to deal him (or include him with prospects or exchanging money in a deal)... Marte will make 2.25 million in 2006. Uribe will make 3.15M in 2006 and 4.15M in 2007 with a 5M option for 2008. That's over 10 million dollars in additional salary clearance, in addition to what I am projecting as 10 million in increased payroll (based on KW statements that JR had given him additional money that he had available on the order of ~ 5 million plus playoff revenues and projected increases in season ticket sales. So, my plan is based on resigning Pauly and giving the slated raises and ending up where we are today. Then signing Furcal, trading Marte/ElDuque/Uribe to acquire that DH... in one or multiple deals that may also have to include prospects... Why is this so far-fetched in your mind? What part doesn't mesh with reality? (I understand El Duque's salary isn't all that attractive to a team to take it on, but it's all short-term money, not long-term commitment) You keep bringing up only the subtractions without factoring in the additions. You come up with this magical $10 million without adding in the necessary raises to the team. Besides Konerko's new contract which will go from $8.75 mil to at least $10 mil, Mark and Freddy have built in raises in their contract, which is an extra $2.75 mil. Garland and Pierzynski are also going to be getting raises from $3.4 mil and $2.25 mil, probably of at least another $3 mil, maybe more. Rowand will get an extra $1.25 mil this year. Hermanson will get an extra million. Dye will get an extra million. Pods gets an extra $1.2 mil. Contreras gets an extra million. Crede is going to be more expensive to keep. Plus I believe that Cotts and Jenks will probably be getting more money. That's an awful lot of raises, and you expect us to add a $10 mil player in Furcal and trade for another player probably in the $10 mil range? I'm not sure what the exact numbers are (sure someone posted them in this thread), but if we bring everyone back that we want, we're already going to be a few mil over last year's total. Like half of our team is getting a raise, much more than the minimal total you make it out to be.

QUOTE(Randar68 @ Oct 13, 2005 -> 11:52 AM) So home/away splits don't carry over? They wouldn't benefit the Sox the same way? What is it about Turner Field that makes it unlikely that moving to a MORE hitter-friendly park is going to negate? Obviously they would have to trade Uribe if they signed Furcal, but Uribe has legit value in the market, is a good commodity if you wish to make a trade. You also have to look beyond 1-year payroll bubbles and consider the fact that Contreras and Dye have expiring contracts after 2006 (IIRC). Frank would also likely only be resigned if it is short-term and-or incentive-laden... trade El Duque and Marte, more money freed up... You can commit to some long-term money here, especially if guys you acquire have slightly back-loaded deals... (could structure Pauly's deal that way if need be)... In short, I don't think it's unreasonable to consider adding Furcal and a DH in addition to Pauly, or at the very least, the equivalent in that salary total. And remember, if you're swapping Uribe for a 9 million dollar Furcal, you're making ~5 million a year in additional investment to turn a #8 or #9 hitter into a legit #2 hitter who is a sparkplug. (also allows you to trade Pods in a year or 2 if Jerry Owens is ready to assume that role, easing that transition) US Cellular Field is only a more hitter friendly park for power hitters. In terms of hits, it's one of the worst. So is Turner Field, but Furcal has consistently hit much better in that park than on the road, which means there is clearly something that Furcal likes about that park. The stats don't provide the evidence, but it seems to me that whatever team comes in doesn't have Andruw Jones in center to cover all that ground, meaning it's easier for him to drop in hits. You keep mentioning guys coming off the payroll and guys we could deal, but don't you think that we might want to keep some of these guys? Wouldn't we probably want to keep Contreras and Dye beyond the coming season? While we're at it, don't you think we'd want to try to keep Buehrle, Garcia, and Garland when their contracts are up? None of them will be cheap, and I'd probably only want to keep Furcal over Dye for sure. Plus these players that you keep mentioning us trading for with all of the newly expendable players are going to result in fairly large committments, especially if it's Delgado and Thome. Plus, what if guys like Anderson, Young, Owens, or whoever else don't pan out? A very small percentage of minor leaguers become solid contributors at the major league level. If one or all of these guys pull a Borchard and don't perform like we think they will, that's another major hole we'd have to fill. Remember how much more flexibility we had when we dealt Lee for Pods? It's the same kind of thing with Furcal, only in reverse. Yes, Lee would have a bigger impact on our lineup than Pods does. But does Lee have a bigger impact than Pods, Iguchi, and Pierzynski? I don't think so. Furcal is a large financial commitment that simply wouldn't have as big an impact on our team as some other guys we could get. There's simply no way we can keep Paulie and add two more expensive players without a much larger committment to our payroll.

QUOTE(Randar68 @ Oct 13, 2005 -> 11:47 AM) Unless the Sox sign him before he hits the open market. Also, please stop posting about Furcal being 10 million dollars straight up. Uribe has a considerable amount of cash coming his way in the next 2-3 years as well, and signing Furcal would surely lead to trading Uribe, who has real value, could probably really help you land a guy like Delgado (Fla is short a SS next year) or possibly Thome. Guys can be good home/away players because of their surroundings at those places, and there's certainly nothing about Turner field that would seem to indicate it giving him some Coors' Field-like advantage. Freddie or Mark B's home and away splits for example... does that make them not worth what they are making? All the raises, resigning Pauly, and resigning Frank to something reasonable would put us back to where we are at today, approximately... You trade El Duque, Marte, Uribe, and now you have another 10 million to mess with, in addition to whatever payroll increase you're willing commit (which I think we'll be around 85 million next year)... Why would Philly have any need for Uribe? They already have Rollins and Utley up the middle, and Uribe doesn't fit that well as a 3B. The point with Furcal's home/away splits is that there is a vast difference between them, and when you're changing the park where a player is going to play half of their games, you have to take it into consideration. Mark and Freddy aren't changing parks, so it isn't an issue. If Furcal were a slugger that was going to be hitting a ton of balls over the fence, then our park would be a benefit. However, he's more of a slap hitter with occasional power, meaning he could use as much space to drop in hits as he could get. There isn't as much room in our park. Even assuming there were no dropoff in his average, which the splits indicate there could be, he's still a career .284 hitter. That's not exactly what we need from what would be our key FA acquisition. You're also assuming all of those deals at the end when they won't necessarily happen, and you're doing the math without factoring in how much Furcal will make. You're also state that resigning Paulie wouldn't increase our payroll beyond it's current point, which is obviously not the case. How would it stay the same if he goes from making $8.75 mil to $11 or $12 mil, even without adding in raises for the other guys on our roster? Unless our payroll increases dramatically, we're not going to be able to keep Paulie, improve at DH, and get Furcal. Spending that much money on a guy that is basically going to be Scott Podsednik with a little more pop just doesn't make sense, especially when there probably wouldn't be anyone to drive him in the 3 and 4 holes. We need another legit RBI guy, not another speedy player that depends on others to drive him in.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Oct 12, 2005 -> 10:45 PM) Cabrera has never been the offensive player Furcal is and while he can steal some bases not nearly as much as Furcal....Also Cabrera is older 2 and has been "potential" the whole time. So he's worth $10 mil a year because he's better than Cabrera? That's not exactly the greatest logic. I know he's better than Cabrera, I didn't argue that. I argued that he wasn't worth what he was going to get. As I said a while ago, he's had 24, 27, and 31 errors the 3 years before this, and only once in the last 4 seasons has he hit over .270 on the road (.246 this year). If he were getting 7 or 8 million or we had a massive hole at SS, I wouldn't be against it. But he's going to get at least $9 mil and Uribe is decent. I'd much rather spend that extra $6 mil in an effort to resign Paulie, or towards getting a real impact hitter like Thome, Delgado, Giles, or some of the numerous others we've mentioned.

Regardless of the controversial nature of the play, they didn't lose the game directly because of the call. It's a lot like the whole Bartman thing. Yeah, it sucked, but if you would just make the damn play, or in this case, make a pitch to get a guy out when you already have two strikes on him, it wouldn't have mattered. As for the call itself, I'm not sure about the official technical rule, but that isn't necessarily the be all and end all anyways. I can't think of an ump in the league that calls that strike zone like the rule book says, which is that it is supposed to range from the knees to just under the armpits. Plus, we all know that the signals from umps can vary a bit. I seriously doubt they'd be able to make an official protest and try to get it replayed, if for no other reason that the MLB wouldn't do that in the playoffs. They'd never hear the end of it if the league reversed the result of the play. Theoretically the same thing probably could have been done in New York when Jeffrey Mayer (think that was the kid's name) reached over the outfield wall to catch a deep fly ball. It stood as a homerun despite the interference, and I would expect the same thing to happen. I think the ball might have bounced in. On one of the angles, it looked like the ball skipped a bit before it even reached the glove, although it wasn't evident on the others. Secondly, on the straight on close up angle, it looked like the ball clearly bounced up at the end of the play, meaning it had to hit either the ground or the lip of Paul's glove. Regardless, I'm not going to complain. The way our offense has played, we should be going to Anaheim down 2-0, but Mark and that break has bailed us out. Hopefully our offense can wake up a bit and get us into the series.

Your quiz is still pretty tough, even for guys that follow the Sox as much as I do. Plus, I don't always pay attention to some of the stuff that closely, like the opening song or the photo montage.

I still say that the whole Furcal situation looks an awful lot like the Cabrera situation last year. Is he a solid player? Yes. Is he an upgrade over Uribe? Yes. Is he worth more than $8 mil a year? No way. Check out my post a while back concerning Furcal's hitting outside of Turner Field and his defense before this season. I've probably posted it twice, but no one seems to care or respond to the points. Spending that kind of money at SS would also seriously hinder our ability to upgrade elsewhere, and might hinder our ability to resign Paulie. Unloading roughly $6 mil (I think?) in Hernandez and Marte would help, as will buying out Frank, but the raises we'll need will cut into that. There's no way we can afford to resign Paulie, upgrade at DH, and sign Furcal. The last of those should clearly be the lowest priority of the group. Plus, we'd have to do something with Uribe, since he'd be a fairly expensive backup.

If you get desperate for people towards the end, I'll join this league too. Otherwise, I'll let someone else take the spot.

I just can't give that much credit to Byrd. I can only think of a couple of good pitches he made, the rest was us swinging at crap or missing hittable junk. We clearly suffered from poor exectution tonight. There were just so many plays where we couldn't come through. Dye and Paulie both stranded two runners to end an inning, Pods getting a bunt down would have meant Uribe scores on Dye's single, plus there were numerous other moments that were mentioned. We just looked a bit rusty, and hopefully we can get out of it. I don't think the Angels can beat us if we execute. Lackey should really be the only guy that can shut us down. We just didn't execute in the first game.

Happy Birthday to all, especially Blacksox. Still love the sig!

QUOTE(Wedge @ Oct 11, 2005 -> 11:47 AM) OK, this has been pissing me off for a bit. What about 5 1/3 IP 3 ER is an incredible outing? It's definitely not even a quality start. Not sure if that was directed at me, but I was referring to his monstrous start against us earlier in the year, when he threw a complete game shutout. His ERA on the year is 4.65, so I'm personally not too worried about that happening again.

I'm really not that big a fan of getting Furcal (by the way, I might have posted this before). Frankly, some less than stellar players at SS are getting too much money of late (ie Cabrera, Renteria). Granted Furcal is better than those two, but I don't want him at $10 mil a year, especially since that kind of contract might cost us Paulie. He's probably a .280 hitter tops in a park with a less spacious outfield than the one in Atlanta, although he might be able to push towards 20 homers. Only once in the last 4 years has he hit over .270 on the road, and it's an abysmal .246 this year. Also, this is the best year defensively he's had in some time. He's been well over 20 errors each of the past 3 years. I think the money could be better spent elsewhere. I really like the idea of Brian Giles as a DH/utility OF. In our park he could be an absolute beast again. If not for Petco Park, he'd probably be getting a much bigger payday this offseason. My only concern is that he is already 34, meaning I'd be cautious if signing him for more than 3 years. Billy Wagner seems way too expensive relative to his value to the team. While an elite LHRP could be a major boost to our bullpen, if he is going to cost $9 mil a year that's just too much. B.J. Ryan would fill a similar role, and might actually be a better fit since he would be willing to be a setup man. However, he probably wouldn't be cheap either. It seems like we have some quality trade ammo, with two expendable pitchers on the major league roster in El Duque (if he keeps performing in the playoffs, his value might go up) and Marte, plus some pretty good prospects at AA or higher. Hopefully that can net us a decent hitter.

We're probably going to end up getting Byrd and Washburn twice. Neither has exactly been stellar against us and only got wins because of good run support. Plus they're both probably going to be off their game the first time, with Byrd on short rest and Washburn fighting an infection. Santana's start was one of those fluke outings when we were seeing a guy for the first time. If they were really that confident in him being a factor, he would have been in their rotation. He won't do as well as he did last time. The only way we should lose this series is if our rotation absolutely falls apart, which I doubt.

The Angels were already in deep s*** with Byrd and Washburn probably going in the first two games, now it's even worse with Colon's status up in the air. There's no way you can win a 7 game series with Byrd/Washburn/Lackey/Santana.

What a brutal division. No one has distinguished themselves yet, so it's really hard to say. The Lions lack a quarterback and have only a mediocre defense, the Packers are basically nothing but an aging Brett Favre, the Bears have an abysmal offense outside of Thomas Jones and Mushin Muhammad, and clearly the Vikings aren't the same without Moss. My vote is the Vikings suck the least, but who knows. I certainly can't say it's the Bears when you can't beat Washington or Cleveland.

QUOTE(AnthraxFan93 @ Oct 10, 2005 -> 10:59 PM) Pauly .283/40/100 Matsui .305/23/116 I said in our lineup genius. You think having Jeter, A-Rod, Giambi, and Sheffield ahead of him might have had a slight impact on his RBI total? Maggs was a much better hitter than Matsui is and he was right around 115 most years even in our stronger offense.

QUOTE(AnthraxFan93 @ Oct 10, 2005 -> 10:51 PM) learning this new bit of information I am all for letting Pauly go as well as Carla.. Use that money to sign H matsui stick him at DH have Anderson play RF and Dye plays 1b.. Lineup LF Pods 2b Guchi CF Rowand DH Matsui 1b Dye C AJ RF Anderson 3b Crede SS Uribe So.. Lets here how this is bad idea... How about the fact that Anderson is a rookie and Konerko to Matsui loses us about 15 homers and 20 RBI in our lineup? Granted there are worse moves, but that looks like quite a dropoff to me. Putting Anderson in RF is not the way to upgrade our offense. I'd be very surprised if he hit over .260, and his runs and RBI's would probably be less than spectacular.

Anthrax arguing in a post and the Orlando Cabrera fiasco hasn't been mentioned yet?

I'm starting to lean towards the Angels, despite my previous desire to play the Yankees. The whole rainout/game 5 situation has really screwed up their rotation. We probably won't see Colon OR Lackey until game 3. I seriously doubt that they would start Lackey in game two with only 2 days rest, especially with all the flying. That would mean we'll get Paul Byrd, and probably Jarrod Washburn, although suposedly he is pretty sick, meaning it could be someone else. Those two against Jose and Mark gives us a strong chance to go up 2-0. Their lineup isn't as imposing if either Vlad is cold or we pitch around him. They can scratch together a few runs if he isn't much of a factor, but it'll be similar to Boston with a cold Ramirez and Ortiz if he has some off games. The one major difference is the Angels' pen is better than Boston, but I don't see their starters being much better.

Okay, this argument is getting ridiculous. Does anyone know where we can find Spring Training home to first times? Every player runs them in Spring Training. That's about the only way the argument can be settled. My personal vote is Molina is far slower. I've never seen that guy go first to third on any hit, whereas I saw Paulie do that twice in one game.