chitownsportsfan

Yea, he could hit 20 homers, but I'm hoping he does that in the 2 hole, and just stops bunting pods and uribe over so damn much, and stops giving away outs. Especially when the Sox are behind by more than 2 runs.

Good, now this team has absolutely NO need to trade for Juan Pierre. The offense is already vastly improved over last season, basically taking out Jurassic and Rowand, two of our worst run producers, and replacing them with Thome and Brian Anderson. Now anderson has no pressure on him and he can have a splits of 265/350/705 and if he plays good defense he's golden. If you want to argue about Pierre, please feel free, but I already answered alot I feel on the "Juan Pierre Dossier" thread, I know many here are in agreement that BA should be the CF next year. The Konerko signing only cements that in my mind, because now Thome is def the almost full time DH. Guch is fine in the number 2 spot, I don't know what all the fuss is. He's not going to magically hit 30 bombs if he moves down to 6 or 7.

Timo and Gload gone? Hells yea, sounds like a plan to me. Gload does nothing above average, and for his position, he's a terrible run producer. Timo's shortcomings have been well documented, and we have other guys (Willie or Ozona) that can fill the role of versatile speedster off the bench. I think were stuck with El Duque, which might not be a bad thing if he's willing to except being a spot starter and/or long man. I hope he realized that we're counting on him to show up big time at least a few times next year, (hopefully in October again) and that he's making 4.5 million, so he won't complain too much.

Yea, whoops, he had over 200 hits in 2004 I believe. Obviously I was looking at his stats for awile today, must have gotten that one a bit jumbled up!

The best part about trading Rowand: perhaps the endless dicussion about CF in 2006. Juan Pierre is a name often throwed around as a possible replacement. Here is the 411 on Juan. Juan made 3.6 million last year, and is set to make over 4 million after arbitration this winter. Pierre had over 200 hits last year, but his OBP was a measly .326. His OPS was only .680. He did steal 57 bases, and had a nice success rate of .77. He also struck out (45) more times than he walked (41). His numbers last year indicate a player who has good speed but rarely gets on base to use it. Don't let his batting average fool you: Pierre has poor plate discipline. His "equivalent average", which is a good measure of a players total offensive output (much better than BA, regardless of what you think of Moneyball and the like) was only .257. Before you go crazy and yell about stat geeks, realize that Arow's EQA was .267, which they consider, for his plus defense, a nice enough number. Juan's career numbers aren't much better. He is 28 and has a career ops of .730, having a career avg of .305. Note that in the prime of his career, at 28, 2005 was actually a down year for Juan--he regressed. He hit only .276 in 2005. He wasn't getting on base nearly enough to take full advantage of his speed. In fact, from 2003 to 2005, Juan's offensive indicators have taken a nosedive: BB/SO: 2003: 1.57 2004: 1.29 2005: .91 BB/PA 2003: .71 2004: .61 2005: .58 Somehow, he is seeing more P/PA in the last three years: 2003: 3.44 2004: 3.51 2005: 3.69 For easy comparison, Uribe averaged 3.83 in 2004, and 3.54 in 2005. Both are impatient hitters. Offensively, Juan is not what any team needs in CF, at least not the free swinging, light hitting Juan of 2005. If he can somehow return to hsi 2003-2004 numbers, then he might be a decent enough option, but that is a big stretch. Juan's stats from those years are nice, but his plate discipline has not improved since 2003, and it appears his 2005 numbers, (which are much closer to his career numbers) are the real Juan Pierre. Granted, he could bust it up next year, stranger things have happened, but I wouldn't bet on it. Coming from the inferior NL will make it even harder. For his career, it has been noted be stat geeks and "old school" scouts that Pierre is at best an average defensive centerfielder with a an average arm. I really don't see what the fuss is about Juan. IMO, it is in no way worth it to trade any prospect for him, when a better option in B.A. already exists. The Sox offense needs to get better, not worse, Pierre was worse than Rowand offensively, both for his career and in 2005. I believe Anderson has to be at least on par with the Rowand of 2005, with slightly worse batting being offset by slightly better defense. Throw in the fact that his is going to be over 3.5 million dollars cheaper than Pierre, and it's a no brainer.

"That being said, the Sox have had a very difficult time producing productive major league pitchers the last 10 years, especially during the KW regime." Huh? Buerhe, Garland, Wells, Cotts, Foulke...the list goes on. I wouldn't say the Sox have been "A+++ smiley face" about developing pitchers, but I wouldn't say they have had "a very difficult time" either. Developing Buehrle and Garland into top flight pitchers, (albeit only this year for Garland) does a lot for me.

"I bet there's 2 or 3 players on every team in baseball whose fans think the same way. Stats prior to the 2005 season shouldn't be used when evaluating players, sadly." Huh? You just argued that only stats from the previous season should be used to evaulate players? That makes no sense at all for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being small sample size. I won't bother to highlight the other deficiences with that way of thinking.

As a side note, my father, who is way more knowledgable about stadiums than I am, has said that his trip to Pacbell was the best stadium he's every experienced. I'm curious to here if anyone else has been there, and what they have to say about it.

I hate to make this into a discussion about Detroit, but I will anway. I live in Michigan, have my whole life. Do I want to move, hell yes. But is Detroit as bad as it's rep--I don't think so. The City sucks, I would never live there, but I know many great people from the Detroit Suburbs, yes, I'm white and middle class, but whatever. Detroit is a symptom of greater economic and social change in America: away from manufacturing and towards conservatism. Wage cuts due to pressure abroad has gutted the middle class blue collar worker, which used to a symbol of Detroit's luxury. "White Flight", has gutted the cities tax revenue, not to mention taken many of it's best minds (not being racist, this is just a fact, I don't think minorities are "inherently" less smart) away. All that being said, the Detroit downtown is way, way better than 5 years ago. Yea, there is still crime, still very grey, very abandoned buildings, but improved is the operative word here. The NYTIMES recently ran a piece on the rising cost of real esate in the metro area, while the next day a piece ran lamenting other problems the city faces. I think, to care about Detroit, and to accurately face it's problems is a major step in realizing that big cities across the country are failing, many for the same reasons as Detroit. I don't think the problem is terminal, as the rebirth of downtown D-town shows. wow, off my drunk soapbox

Thanks to my dad, I've been able to experience a few ballparks: Old Comiskey The Cell Yankeee Stadium Tiger Stadium Comerica HHH Metrodome The Skydome The Stadium the Fish play in (which sucks, football facility, it feels all wrong) Of those, the HHH Metrodome is by far the worst. It feels all wrong, from the roof to the turf to the food. The skydome is much better, the best dome I've experienced for baseball. The parking is easy, despite being right downtown in beautiful Toronto, the night my dad took me we got to see the roof recede, which was sweet when it was all the open. It almost felt just like an outdoor park, except the turf of course. The food and beer are pricey, but very good as well. I saw Cubs/Yankees at Yankee Stadium this year, an amazing experience. The subway on the way to the game was a great experience in itself, packed with Cubs and Yankees fans. Tiger Stadium isn't as bad as it gets reps for. I remember having outfield seats and it felt like we were right next to Griffey in center. Like talking distance away. Comerica is great, I don't know what people are complaining about. Downtown Detroit is much improved in the last 5 years, and the ballpark has an amazing field and turf, as well as great seating along the first base line (where we had tix both nights last year) The Cell is average in my opinion, although I haven't been since the recent renovations.

No kidding, good old ESPN. I mean come on, they must be going by games 3 and 4 of the world series only. Do they even look at career or season stats? Marte and Viz were our two WORST relievers, not 2nd and 3rd best. ESPN is so bad.

"But the sox team isn't exactly filled with overachievers, who had career yrs. They have plenty of room for improvement, esp offensively." huh? Career Year: Contreras, Buehrle, Garland, Konerko, Politte, AJ... I mean, not everyone had a career year, though they certainly had their share of overachievers, but as you note, the offense can still get much better.

Kong has had one bad season out of 7 in the Al, and that came in 2003. Look at the stats, Kong has been very consistent in slugging .500 and having an OBP of .350. I think we can predict at least that out of him the next 3 seasons. Last season he had an ops of over .900. He is essential to this lineup. I favor a frontloaded contract that pays him less in the final two years. 6 years 70 million seems about right, paying him 13, 14, 13, 12, 9, 9 He can slide to DH in the last year or so of the contract. I really don't think it's that bad of a deal for either side. Kong gets his big deal, the sox get their slugger, and everyone goes home happy.

Yea, this team did have injuries, but it had injuries where there was depth, which is a credit to KW. The bullpen had plenty of depth to make up for hermie, and Carl was an adequate stop-gap when big frank went down. The pods injury hurt, but overall I think we were relatively healthy. As for the BP prediction, I don't think anyone could have predicted a career year out of contreras and Garland, but hey, s*** happens as they say. Incredibly awesome s***.

I'm not sure If I can do this, but here goes. I'll post portions of some premium content from Baseball Prospectus. "So it seems that part of the White Sox' success that needs to be emulated by potential copycats is the capacity to remain healthy, which is always a goal, regardless of the "-ism" fueling the roster construction. Don't misinterpret what's being presented here. This isn't a dig at a team that "shouldn't have won," or some such thing. The White Sox (and Ken Williams) built a winner, and no amount of Pythagorean reshuffling will take that away... Tip your cap to Herm Schneider, Brian Ball, Allen Thomas and the rest of the training and medical staffs, who haven't gotten much press, but who performed absolutely crucial roles for the championship team. Compared to the rest of the league, the White Sox did an amazing job of protecting the investments they made. That's Smartball." And another one about Juan Uribe and the rest of the Sox Defense: "Peralta had the best single-season numbers, but he’s a rookie (well, no, not really; everyone forgets 2003). Cabrera came back from an off-year to post reasonably good numbers, although I’d probably pick Jeter if forced to choose between them. I think Uribe is probably the best fielder of the lot, and that he probably deserves some of the RAA that wound up in Konerko’s column." Overall, Konerko placed 2nd in their rankings of AL 1B, Uribe came in 4th in the AL SS, Crede, 4th at AL 3B, Pods and Rowand top 5 AL outfielders. AJ, dye, and the Gooch didn't rank, although the Sox took the top team honor.

Ok, a typo doesn't negate the rest of my argument. Jesus.

The backlash against sabretrics is understandable, as it threatens old ways of thinking, but many of the claims against it are simply false. The stat geeks don't argue that their methods are infallible, but they do give a often accurate prediction for teams and players. And if you look at it closely, the stat geeks actually like the white sox. They have our defense ranked number 1 in effeciency in 2005. Jermaine Dye was top 5 in VORP for left fielders in the AL. Our pitchers have great whip's and excellent groundball to fly ball ratio's. Hitting wise, we have a bunch of average hitters, a few good ones, but everyone plays + defense, which undoubtable helped Contreras and Garland and the bullpen to career years. It's dissapointing to see such knee-jerk reactions to Billy Beane and his disciples, all they are doing is looking at the game in a new way, in an attempt to figure it all out. They don't claim to know it all, and you would be laughed out of the room if you suggested they wanted to do away with traditional scouting.

Um, ESPN reads the same articles we all about this stuff. Paulie's had some quotes about how hard it would be to leave and how he loves playing for the sox, but blah, blah, blah. He says this now, but I doubt it means much come negotiatiaton time. Of course, I'd love to be pleasantly surprised. I don't think we can't afford Konerko, and I want him back, but I expect to pay for it.

I don't think people are worrying about just Frank's ankle. He's entering his upper 30's and he's put a lot of mileage on his entire body. It isn't likely that he can give us more than 300-400 AB's next year. Of course, I don't think anybody would complain about that. The problem with the DH spot right now is that a healthy frank is more than likely the best and cheapest option. But this plan needs to be backed up with something else, a contingency plan is definetly needed. If Brian Anderson is the answer coming out of spring training next season, he can play right on days dye is off or playing 1st, and split time with Frank at DH, and provide possibly a stop-gap if Frank is injured. I'm really worried that Frank comes back, plays great, and then Kenny is forced to make yet another mid-season trade for Carl, and the position is still a weakness.

Furcal, you have got to be kidding me. Why would we want to move Uribe to 2nd and Tad to dh? A healthy Frank likely puts up a higher ops than Iguchi, easily. Furthermore, Uribe's VORP next season will probably be about 1/2 to 1/3 of Furcal's (it was almost 3 times Uribe's this season) , furcal doesn't get on base often enough for the contracit he is going to sign, whereas Uribe is a cheap contract, average hitter with a little speed and possibly the best defensive shortstop in the league--which VORP does not factor in to its equations. He's under 27 to boot. Likely to improve on all his career number in the upcoming seasons. If we could get Furcal for 8 million, wich makes him a bit more than twice as expensive as Uribe, then I would say go for it. But I think he's likely to get more than that, maybe 10 or 11 million, which is almost 3 times Uribe's salary. If Furcal 3 times the player? I doubt it. I don't see how we can afford to sign Furcal, especially when shortop and 2nd base are not positions of weakness for the team. And all this sabremetric crap doesn't even acount for how much it could possibly screw team chemistry to move the whole infield around for a player coming in with a huge contract from free agency. NO way should Kenny pursue Furcal, unless JR suddenly desides a 110+ million dollar payroll is realistic for the next 3 years.

"Boston looks on there way to becoming a perennial playoff team" What? Perhaps because they are playing in what has turned into the easiest division in the league, but that is the only reason I can think for them being "a perenial playoff team." They have serious holes in their starting pitching, bullpen, and infield, Theo Epstein just resigned, Manny is threatening to go AWOL (that's just manny being manny), and they have an aging centerfielder who might leave town, and isn't a great option at the price if he does stay in town. Compared to teams like the Sox, Indians, Twins, Angels and A's, the Red Sox have a ton of questions. I mean, their GM just resigned and their (arguably) best player is demanding a trade out of town. Not exactly a great way to start the offseason coming off a sweep out of the playoffs in a year they barely made the playoffs in the last series of the season.

Yea, they could provide much needed depth, especially Gload, as he is left handed, relatively cheap and more ready than Rogowski most likely. I think frank will be brought back, but there needs to be a plan a, b, and c at first base and dh next year. Perhaps dye could get some time there, and if Anderson shows enough in spring training then he could come in and play right on days Konerko sits. Just an idea. Considering 1st base could go from a team strength, to black hole, I think the balance rests on signing Konerko and going from there.

Gload is not the answer at 1st. Konerko must be resigned. Frank will be back, hopefully healthy and productive either as a platoon DH or otherwise.

It wasn't a great performance, but it got the job done. I'm starting to think though, that if the starters can at least make a game of it, the bullpen and bats will come through enough as well.

Yea, well despite what Jay Mariotti says, hyperbole is not the way.