dmbjeff

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 30, 2010 -> 01:20 PM) I certainly don't think Linebrink is a lock to be on the team next year. He only has one year left (I believe) on his contract, so I'm sure someone would be willing to take a chance on him. well liney is otechnically the only one under contract for next season. if we deal him, it will be for another bad contract. if the numbers were ok, i wouldnt mind a fukudome for liney swap. fukudome can at least plat some D and get on base.

Huge offseason for KW. 1B-Franchise's 2nd best player in my eyes, PK is a FA. If he leaves, alot of fans will be upset, but if he wants a long term deal or big time money one last time, I am not for the Sox doing that. 2 year deal at the max with an option for a 3rd in the 10 million range. There will also be other FA's or trade candidates the Sox can explore. Also the possibility of going cheap and giving Viciedo the job is a slight possibility. Dunn, LaRoche, DLee, Huff, Pena, Overbay lead the list of 1B FA's. 2B-SHould be Beckham, but the possibility of a trade of Beckham along with someone like Teahen or Linebrink to give financial flexibility can't be ignored. The only way to get rid of one of our bad contracts is to also give up something of value. I don't think it would be Beckham personally, but seeing a similar player go is a decent probability. SS-Alexei has had a fine season. He will be back. Defense much improved and outside is usual slow start, was a solid hitter all season. 3B-Another huge hole for this team. We have in house candidates in Morel,Viciedo,Teahen. We could resign Vizquel, but I'd rather him be back as a super IF sub. FA options include Beltre and that's about it. C-Is Flowers ready? Why isn't he starting down the stretch to see what we have. AJ has been a staple on the Sox, but his production has slipped. He would be nice to have back at a cheap 1 year deal. FA options include VMart, Buck, Olivo. OF-Rios and Pierre will both be back I assume. What about Q? He has looked lost nearly all year. His 2008 self has been gone for a while. Also his D in RF is atrocious. If he is brought back it would seem to be surely as a DH. FA options include Crawford and Werth but after that, the options are very limited. A trade is another possible option. DH-The problem area of 2010. Any of those 1B options could be a possibility along with Thome,Manny,Ortiz,Matsui,Burrell. SP-Our area of strength. One of these guys will almost surely be dealt for financial reasons. Danks,Floyd or Jax seem most likely to go. Buehrle should be back and hopefully Peavy will be back from his injury. We also have Sale as a possible 5th starter. RP- Thornton and Linebrink are the only sure things to be back. Sale too, depending on how the Sox want to use him. Jenks should be gone. Putz could be brought back along with Pena, but inevitably, we will also have another cheap arm or 2 back there for financial reasons. Bench- Teahen looks to be the super sub and I think Vizquel will be back as well. That leaves a backup C and OF to be needed. These could be taken care of by just bringing back Castro and Jones. Financially KW has a tough offseason ahead. 15 guys under contract for about 83million or so. That leaves about 20-25 mil to play with to address C,1B,3B,DH,RP, a 3-4 bench spots. He has never been a let the kids play type of GM so I anticipate alot of deals this offseason. 3 huge offensive positions need to be addressed and will he trust kids to fill them out? It will be an exciting offseason for sure.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 29, 2010 -> 09:15 PM) Is Kotsay still hitless vs LHP this season? It's really incredible how scared Ozzie is to use Viciedo. just wait next year when viciedo is our 1B/DH and ozzie constantly benches him in favor of some aging vet who has no business taking his ab's.

QUOTE (elgonzo4sox @ Sep 29, 2010 -> 09:05 PM) DH: sign an aging preferably LH slugger, or put Viciedo on the 25 man roster and use him primarily as DH, with some rotation. 1B: sign Paulie at $10M to $12M 3B: Morel for his glove, and live with his bat as it develops (the Crede approach) RF: Give Quentin another chance. Even with the subpar year this year, his slugging numbers were good overall, although he's very streaky. even with CQ at a small raise in arb, lets say 4 and paulie at 10, we are up to another 14 mil of the 20 or so million you had to play with. signing a vet for dh will still cost a few million or go cheaper with viciedo who you are already paying a million to. havent addressed catcher yet, i assume flowers then right? that puts us with 3 rookies in the lineup in morel, flowers and viciedo. that is about the only way we can hang on to paulie too. those are 3 huge question marks. i think they all have potential, no doubt, but if they fail, we are in some real trouble. we need to free up money somewhere. jackson or danks i think are sure to be traded this offseason. the other big contracts will be nearly impossible to move.

QUOTE (elgonzo4sox @ Sep 29, 2010 -> 08:16 PM) Why not just let Ozzie and Kenny fix the DH mistake they made this year, and see what happens next year? If that's all it would take to contend, then we're real close and only need to make that incremental improvement, plus deal with a few other issues such as closer (where we have multiple options in-house already) and the timing of Peavy's return to the rotation. Why clean house? The Twins never clean house - they have more stability than the White Sox... financially heading into the offseason we have 68 mil tied up in only 10 players. assuming the thornton option is picked up and what danks will get in ARB, i see that being about 80 mil for 12 guys. throw in beckham, sale and another bullpen guy who are pre arb, we are at about 83mil for 15 guys. 10 more spots filled with about 20 million more? it is going to be very hard to fix the problems. i didnt even include quentins arb if we offer it. there is no way aj and pk both come back. we are going to see flowers,viciedo and/or morel all get a chance to play. next year could be a really brutal season.

QUOTE (elgonzo4sox @ Sep 29, 2010 -> 08:16 PM) Why not just let Ozzie and Kenny fix the DH mistake they made this year, and see what happens next year? If that's all it would take to contend, then we're real close and only need to make that incremental improvement, plus deal with a few other issues such as closer (where we have multiple options in-house already) and the timing of Peavy's return to the rotation. Why clean house? The Twins never clean house - they have more stability than the White Sox... But every year it is something that goes wrong basically. Last year it was Wise as an everyday guy, along with Fields. Then we have the Erstad, Mackowiak year. We have had bullpen issues in years past. My point is, as soon as we fix one problem, another one opens up. It is like having 2 wounds and only 1 bandaid. Next year we may solve the DH problem and then have an issue with SP, bullpen, OF, IF etc. Right now looking into the near future, we have very good SP. That is the one huge plus at the moment. We have some other positives, Alexei and Beckham will continue to grow into next year and Rios reestabilished himself. Pierre proved to be what we expected, but nothing great in terms of baseball value.(OPS, WAR etc) We have huge gaping holes at DH, 1B,3B,RF heading into the offseason. I say RF cause CQ has been mediocre for 2 seasons now. That is alot to fix in my opinion.

QUOTE (elgonzo4sox @ Sep 29, 2010 -> 07:53 PM) We'll have to agree to disagree there. The Sox will finish this year with 5 to 10 more wins than last year, and in 5th or 6th place overall in the AL. You don't do a major housecleaning after a season like this one, regardless of how painful it was to get swept at home by the Twins this month. Instead, you try to do incremental improvements. I am of the believe that the organization right now is not very solid. I think letting your manager dictate your offseason moves(Thome or other DH bat) is a bad idea. KW should have known better. Ozzie ran a bad team this season. His lineups, his idea that Kotsay was a fine part of a platoon. The 2 of them have been in position together since 2004. That is 7 seasons and we only made the playoffs 2 times. If you take into account the payroll, which the past 5 seasons have been over $100 million, we have only made the playoffs once during that span. If you look at the other team's in our division, they have lower payroll but still manage to make the playoffs, because they have deep farms and competent GM's and manager's in place for the most part. I just think it is time for a change. I blame Ozzie more than KW, but KW's decision to listen to Ozzie instead of making the decision by himself like he should have, makes me want him gone. The makeup of the roster is completely on the GM and those decisions are his. I just don't think he did the job and I wouldn't keep a guy who can't make his own decisions in such a large job as a GM.

QUOTE (elgonzo4sox @ Sep 29, 2010 -> 07:43 PM) Don't know. I was a huge Joe Crede fan too, but unfortunately Joe can no longer win games for the Sox. You need to get a "Rally Rios"...or maybe create a "Rally Morel"... id rather have a "fire Ozzie and Kenny and get fresh ideas and people in place"

this is the first game i have watched since the minnesota massacre. whats up with CQ standing practically straight up in the box. walker talk him out of the crouch?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 29, 2010 -> 05:08 PM) He has 8 at bats in the cleanup spot this year. and why shouldn't he? hahaha. it's ok, i need a win from beckett tonight for fantasy purposes.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 08:03 AM) By my count...there are 30 baseball teams right now, am I right? 8 teams make the playoffs each year. Therefore, every year, you have approximately a 1/4 shot at making the playoffs and a 1/30 shot in winning the world series...if everything was equal (it's not, but for the sake of argument let's assume that it is). Therefore...simply by probability alone...every 10 years, an average team should make the playoffs 3 times and win the world series 1/3 of a time. Now...take a moment and realize that the Sox are in the same league as the Yankees...who it is safe to say will make the playoffs almost every year...and that distorts the probability somewhat. The sox would then have a 3/13 shot of making the playoffs in a given year. Therefore...over a 13 year period assuming the Yankees exist...an average team should make the playoffs 3 times, and win the W.S. maybe 1/4 of the time. I liked this post. Unfortunately for so many teams, payroll's half of ours is just the way it is. That limits those teams in a huge way. Those type of teams have to continue to build through the farm in order for one day to be a competetive team. The Rays are a perfect example of one of these teams. Struggled for their first 15 years and eventually, the draft choices started to pan out. They built a good offense and pitching team. It is difficult for alot of these teams to build both. Let's look at the Orioles. They have been bad for the last 10 years. They haven't drafted well. The talent coming up through the farm, while highly hyped by guys like Steve Stone, just aren't good enough. That falls on the head of the GM, scouting department, etc. The Sox are fortunate that they can afford a $100 million payroll. That can help cover up a deficient farm. Unfortunately, our GM has been bad the past few years overall. Bringing in Peavy, Rios, Teahen and then giving him an extension, Linebrink, Pierre just keeps adding to the payroll, but when most of these guys don't work out. Rios is the only one who really has been good and Pierre and Peavy average at best, it straps the organization. The only way to overcome bad high money deals is by eating the money and going with talented, cheap, young talent. I really think JR needs to clean house and start fresh with a smart mind at GM and clean house on the field with management, Ozzie, Walker, Cora can all go. Hold on to Coop, he has some special talents. He can't fix them all, but he has proven to be very helpful. I would love to have a GM and Manager who see eye to eye in philosophy. KW and Oz never really have. Things hit the fan when KW let Oz determine if Thome could come back this year. Who is running the organization exactly? Shouldn't all personnel decisions be up to the GM? I would love to get a young, smart, Harvard type guy in the mold of Epstein, Hoyer, Daniels. These guys are smart and make sound decisions. They take sabremetrics seriously and field a team to the best way one can. High OBP. High UZR ratings. Solid pitching. Farm systems that can plug guys in and still have a solid team. Epstein's Red Sox are a great example of a GM who does things right. Look at all the injuries they had this season. Can you imagine that happening to us? They have been competetive all season even though they were without Pedroia,Youk, Ellsbury, Cameron, VMart and Beckett for parts of the season. They just gave their kids a chance and they knew they could perform. We would have been screwed. Can you imagine Danks2, De Aza, Retherford, Flowers all being able to step in and fill positions and still win at the MLB level this season? Never would have happened. I appreciate what KW did for us in 2005. I actually like the guy and some of his ideas. He has always tried to build a solid SP staff and has been pretty successful with that. I just think we need a fresh person in the organization. Someone to fix and reshape this team in the minors as well as the majors. I know Reinsdorf will probably never do it, he is just too loyal, to a fault.

i think a fresh start for the organization is in order. in KW's 10 years on the job, 2 playoff appearances. that is 20 % with a large market team playing against small market teams. that is unacceptable. i think we need new, fresh ideas. Ozzie should go too. he has been downright horrible the past few seasons. i think we need to shake it up.

we have a nice september finish, last games with minny are sept 5-7th. gives us a chance to play the rest of the AL central down the stretch

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 07:23 PM) http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/schedule/i...;m=4&y=2011 interesting starting the season on a weekend instead of the traditional monday. must be a way to finish the season a bit earlier. arizona and colorado NL road games. maybe ill take a trip out west.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 10, 2010 -> 10:06 AM) It doesnt feel that way. It is that way. well sweeping the twins next week is pretty much mandatory for any hopes coming true. that could shave off 3 games and then we might be able to shave off the other 3 in the remaining 19. long shot for sure, but we shall see.

feels like we need to sweep every series the way minny has been playing. let's start it tonight boys.

QUOTE (Cerbaho-WG @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 08:56 PM) Thanks for your expert analysis based off of 1 AB, bro. easy guy. he looks like he has a real presence at the plate. not off of the 1 AB. he is aggressive, goes the other way. he will be the best hitter of those 3.

viciedo looks to be the only real hitter out of the last 3 i think. morel and flowers i think will be bad.

and a Flowers sighting

and the AAA revolving door continues

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 08:16 PM) Is Kotsay and his .175 batting average still the worst in baseball with RISP? amazing he didnt get DFA'd months ago and while we are in a pennant chase, he gets the start. viciedo could have played instead...ugh, such a painful season.

teahen should be selling tbones and ribeyes. he is more of a butcher than a 3B

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 07:06 PM) why? don kelly has been hitting the ball well, miggy hasn't. miggy is the best hitter in the american league. i easily pitch around him to get to a hot journeyman any day of the week. i blast ozzie all the time, but not on that move there.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 06:59 PM) called on to get 4 outs. Don't know if i agree with walking miggy - Kelly can crush it. im ok walking miggy to get to anyone else, especially if it is don kelly

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 06:55 PM) and kotsay boots it he sucks