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Games Finished

According to Jon Heyman via twitter the Yankees are offering Johnny Damon a base salary of "$5M tops" and they "don't seem too optimistic". The $2M figure made no sense, this seems far more realistic.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jan 25, 2010 -> 01:16 PM) good point, but this doesn't factor in his ability to spell PK or play some outfield. I'm not saying I agree with it (yet), but ozzie's trying to give himself more flexibility and kotsay does that, thome doesn't. Kotsay is on the team no matter what, he can still give Konerko the occasional day off or play some poor outfield in a pinch but there's likely to be a tremendous difference in production between Thome and Kotsay. It's not like we're talking about a 28 year old Mark Kotsay either, he's not very good in the outfield anymore and really can't play CF. Just how much is that "flexibility" worth when the "versatile" 34 year old is likely to be a liability both at the plate and in the field (sans 1B)?

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Jan 24, 2010 -> 11:32 PM) Even with his bad years as a Red Sox, Kotsay has stayed good at hitting righties. I like him used selectively. Oh yes, his multi-year splits vs right handed pitching are really quite reassuring: Kotsay's 3 year splits vs RHP: .275/.335/.403/.738, 654 PA, 10 HR Kotsay's 4 year splits vs RHP: .276/.339/.394/.732, 1088 PA, 14 HR Kotsay's 5 year splits vs RHP: .272/.330/.397/.727, 1525 PA, 26 HR Yeah, that's a whole lotta bad right there. Then you look at Jim Thome's AVG/OPS vs RHP in his years with the Sox: 2006: .321/1.203 2007: .315/1.123 2008: .249/.868 2009: .262/.881 I know who I'd rather have as part of a platoon.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Jan 24, 2010 -> 02:30 PM) me. u's act like thome is god or something, hell he may be awful and get hurt. our offense isnt going to suck or be better, just bcuz of thome. and yes ill take jones and kotsay and whoever needs a day off , over thome. im sick of hr or nothing, old base cloggers. just my opinion, and eveyone has their own opinoin and no one is right or wrong. plz no You obviously know nothing about Andruw Jones.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Jan 22, 2010 -> 04:39 PM) According to my information the white sox are also paying 350K for a buyout of Mike MacDougals contract. I didnt see that in the option buyouts section of your sheet. They had to pay him that sum when he was released so it was added to the 2009 payroll.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 20, 2010 -> 02:17 PM) The biggest one of note...the big guy at the back end of the bullpen. Cowley just tweeted the Jenks looks 25 pounds lighter.

QUOTE (PeavyTime @ Jan 22, 2010 -> 02:18 PM) The Phillies pitched lights out in October which is why they won. Don't get me wrong, Thome could hit. We most likely would have won in 2005 if we had him instead of Carl/Frank. But championships are won with pitching and defense. And Thome add nothing to either category. Except you're saying that offense is completely meaningless, if pitching and defense were all it took the Mariners would be the defender champs right now. Believe it or not you do need to bat every once in a while. Perhaps I don't value defense out of the DH position as highly as yourself. Also, Barry Bonds is probably the best defensive LF of all time and Thome was a pretty good 3B/1B in his day

QUOTE (PeavyTime @ Jan 22, 2010 -> 02:05 PM) Anything specifically? He possess all you seem to hate about the "Jim Thome" model (minus the versatility, lower K rate and ~.295 AVG of Thome in his prime) and yet he won a ring hitting cleanup for the team with the 2nd most HR in 2008. Perhaps I'm mistaken but didn't the Yankees hit 244 homeruns last season? Oh and I believe they played the team with the 3rd most HR in the World Series.

QUOTE (PeavyTime @ Jan 22, 2010 -> 01:49 PM) I was thinking more along the lines of his wife . No but seriously I hate Jim Thome as a player and I don't think its any coincidence he has never been on a team to win it all. Same goes for Bonds, Sosa, McGwire etc. Home runs don't win championships, but hey that's just my opinion. And please don't get my started on his strikeouts and ground outs to second. I heard he spiked Jose Mesa's Gatorade with LSD on October 26th, 1997. I'm also curious what you think about Ryan Howard.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jan 22, 2010 -> 01:48 PM) The scary thing is to think of how in game strategy is going to be affected by this new approach. Hopefully Beckham is as far away from the 2 hole as possible. Because Ozzie will have him bunting until he is blue in the face to advance his 2003 Marlins model. The amount of wasted outs bunting and caught stealing this year are going to be amazing. In 07 Ozzie has his pocket picked on plays all the time when he pretty much had a standard steal from first when there was 2 outs to help get a guy into scoring position. I remember Soscia calling pitch outs and having our runner get pegged a few times in the series because everyone knew it was coming. The rotating DH can work if you have hitters not rotating bench guys. Except that would suggest that Juan Pierre somehow reached base, something you won't be seeing much of in 2010. Oh yeah, Ozzie sat down with Alex Rios and told him to steal 50 bases and his 3 home runs. True f***ing story. I haven't been paying close enough attention over the past few months, apparently we've swapped leagues and stadiums with the f***ing Padres.

QUOTE (PeavyTime @ Jan 22, 2010 -> 01:24 PM) Kotsay @ 34>>>>>>>>>Thome @ 39/40 and its not even close in my opinion Even despite the fact that Mark Kotsay hasn't had a good offensive season since 2004 and is no longer capable of playing good defense at any position except perhaps first base?

Don't forget Sergio Santos and his lack of option years.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Jan 22, 2010 -> 07:34 AM) I was one who wanted Dotel back and would of offered him arbitration. Call me nut's I don't care, I've been called much worse. It's not my money and I would love a little more certainty in the pen. Correct me if I'm wrong but there is a lot of question marks in the Sox Bullpen. I think that the only "near" sure thing is Thornton and he's no certainty either. I just hope that we don't blow our chances this year due to a weak pen when a few extra million (sounds trite doesn't it) would of nailed things down a little better. I guess if all else fails, we can be the team that acquires Dotel in July. JMHO It's not your money but if you're going to play armchair GM then you're gonna have to play with the same budgetary limitations as the real general manager. Offering Dotel arbitration would have netted him $3.5M to $4M more than what Putz was signed for, can you find that in the budget? Vastly overpaying for bullpen arms is rarely a good way to sure up your bullpen, it's usually the fastest way to eviscerate your payroll flexibility, paying a good middle reliever twice what he's worth, with this team's budgetary concerns, in this market is in no way a good idea. Bullpens are going to be finicky from year to year, throwing gobs of money at the problem isn't going to solve anything. Uncertainty is the nature of the middle reliever, that's why they're a middle reliever in the first place.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 21, 2010 -> 03:33 AM) Didn't Jones drop like 20-30 pounds before his contract season at the advice of Boras because he thought it would turn him into a great player, and Jones went on to have the worst season of his career (up to that point)? http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...sp&c_id=atl

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2010 -> 01:42 PM) The larger question is would you rather have Dotel for $3m or Putz for $3m (and probably more, because if he pitches like Dotel will the incentives will probably escalate his salary a bit)? You'd have to shell out more for Dotel, he's not going to accept the same amount to be a setup man as he would to be a closer. The opportunity to prove him self as a closer once again -- even if it is for the Pirates -- could improve his worth on next year's free agent market. Also: in order for Putz to reach his maximum incentives (an additional $3M) he'd have to close, there's only $250K in incentives for appearances. If he's closing long enough to earn the full $3M then he must be doing a damn good job in Bobby's wake.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 21, 2010 -> 12:16 PM) Dotel may have found himself a closers job for 2010 And for about $4M less than some on here were willing to pay him 2 months ago. Anyone still have any doubts that he'd have accepted arbitration?

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jan 20, 2010 -> 07:52 PM) There are 2 reasons why i don't think this is just a "fluff piece" 1) It's from Jon Heyman, not a Sox beat writer or someone who has stake or ties to the Sox. 2) Of all the types of fluff pieces, "In great shape" are the best because we can literally see if he has changed or not. All the "He said he feels healthy" or "Has changed his focus" or "Is more determined than ever" is pointless because we can't judge that. But the physically fit one at least we can see immediately. Remember Contreras? He was half the person in size. He also wouldn't be the first national reporter to include a 1 line positive mention (or "POS-MEN") in a column in order to appease a good source within an organization. I also don't doubt that it's true, it's just hard to get excited about something that dozens of players do each offseason with little success, this is just the first of 100 or so snippets lauding a ball player for dropping weight over the offseason. It's good to see such dedication out of him but it's become a cliche and something teams float this time of year to get fans excited about certain players.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 20, 2010 -> 05:24 PM) Sabermetrics are having more and more impact on performance evaluation every passing year. I don't think will see another 2005 AL CY Young or 2006 NL MVP farce anytime soon. There's a reason why Franklin Gutierrez got 4 years, $20.5M with only 3 years of service time under his belt and pedestrian career offensive production (Tom Tango's presence in the front office for one). As the teams start using more and more of these advanced metrics in player evaluation the media will catch up as well.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Jan 20, 2010 -> 01:33 PM) Take a look at the last line of my post im all for bringing in thome. I think the only way we see a DH brought in is if its a few weeks into spring training and Jones looks like hes looked the last few years. I see no reason why Jones can hit 30+ HR and hover around .250 How about this for a reason: the last time he came close to doing either he was still in his 20's. It's been 4 years. Perhaps he's just not that damn good anymore, it tends to happen especially when you start getting into your mid 30's and have nearly 2000 career major league games under you belt. Oddly enough spring training cliches that were likely leaked by club sources as part of a growing campaign to sell us on the rotating DH featuring Jones and Kotsay as primary players and perhaps a week or 2 of beating up on Single A pitchers in late February/early March isn't going to go a long way to ease my concerns over the DH situation.

UPDATED VERSION [01.20.10] (CLICK FOR FULL SIZE) Added Pierre, Castro and Dolsi Removed Armstrong Added salaries of newly signed arbitration eligible players Updated a couple service time numbers

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Jan 20, 2010 -> 11:58 AM) Andruw jones is in the best shape of the last decade.....Last year Jim hit under .250 with 23 HR, yes there's gonna be a huge drop off in OBP but I believe AJ can easily match that .250 23 and above if he truly is in the best shape in a decade, a decade in which he averaged 33 HR......Id love to have Thome back because hes a lefty but i have a strong feeling were going into next year with jones as rotating DH with CQ and there will be days where Kotsays at 1B and PKs the DH. Christ, he hit .249. He was also limited to 417 PA with the Sox and still hit 23 HR or about 1 HR every 18 PA, approximately the same rate he showed in '07. If it were as simple as just getting in shape Andruw Jones would have turned his career around by now. It's humorous that we get this standard pre-spring training fare talking about people being in the best shape of their lives or taking up Yoga/Pilates/Balet or getting laser eye surgery or discovering some new training technique that's going to turn them into a superstar and every year people just gobble it up and of course every year it amounts to jack s***. Andruw Jones hits the StairMaster and suddenly it's the year 2000 again.

A site wide announcement wouldn't hurt. I hadn't even seen this thread until just now.

The biggest question with Rios has been his passion and dedication to the game. There's a belief that his ridiculous nightlife habits were beginning to catch up with him on the field that and he gained the reputation for being one of those guys who got the big pay day and just stopped caring about the game.

QUOTE (Springfield SoxFan @ Jan 19, 2010 -> 06:17 PM) Randy Williams last year at Yankee Stadium was the worst ever, I hope he does not make this team. Take away his 2 outings at Yankee Stadium and his seasonal numbers are: 1.08 WHIP, 1.08 ERA and 11.3 K/9 in 16.2 IP. He did have a .162/.279/.270/.549 line against lefties overall.