chitownsportsfan

Good post Dick, thanks for that info. It confirmed my suspicions that the trade will have to be "ammended" if Duque fails his physical, and that that also precludes him from being traded anywhere else. I think most likely that they like Young enough to just say fine. I hope they do, because if they ask KW for more, he will (rightly) balk. If that happens then fine, we get our best prospect back and we work something out for when Garland leaves.

"then we could flip duque to someone else for prospects or something" Yea, that would be ideal. I don't see anyone wanting him though--he can't pass a physical, and he's owed 4.5 million. I mean, he's garbage. Too bad we can't just cut him and save money like the NFL.

Qwerty: I am ignorant: so the deal is not contingent upon Duque passing his physical? Won't the Dbacks just demand another player? What do we do with Duque then?

Yea, I'm not sure El Duque didn't just fail his physical because the duct tape and Gorilla Glue being used to hold his arm together showed up on the MRI. That would suck. I had just convinced myself that Vasquez' solid DIPS would make this trade worth it. I don't want El Duque and his 19th century arm and his 4.5 million this year at all.

You know, someone should have put odds on this: if the Sox win the World Series in 2005, what are the odds a thread will be made in the offseason ( in earnest) calling him Evil? I would have put it at about 1/500. I should have made that bet. Seriously though, this thread helped me waste an hour of work today. Thanks guys.

Carl Crawford for Garland straight up: yells yea! Crawford is a player I really like, has speed, has a high OBP, and plays good defense. He's young and fairly cheap to boot. Garland's stock is at the highest I think it will ever be. Time to get out while the gettings good with him.

What is the payroll at right now, like 90 million? I gotta give JR credit for keeping his word that increased revenues would lead to increased payroll.

You could care less about Chris Young? I don't know about that. I'm not saying I don't like the deal, but Young could have been our starting CF for the next 10 years.

God this deal makes me want to wretch. Vasquez is overated, he posted a era+ of 96 last year. He's a gopherball pitcher who will be playing in the bandbox of the Cell? No thanks. Screw 2 years from now, this team has a chance to repeat, Vasquez weakens that chance.

Right, it's not groundbreaking, but many pundits have argued that the Sox are the "anti-moneyball" team, when that simply isn't true. KW might not be a Billy Bean acolyte, but he isn't Bull Duram either. The Sox were built on run prevention (pitching + defense) because the market was undervaluing these skills. That is what made the Sox so efficient with their modest payroll in 2005.

I found this interesting quote from the Sox management in an article about judging player value in the New York Times Interesting stuff. I think the "different popular method" used to determine victories is : Pythagorean Winning Percentage RF^2 ------------- RF^2 + RA^2 # RF = runs scored; RA = runs allowed. I'm not a huge proponent of this formula because I think it misjudges how "good" teams find ways to win close games that hasn't yet been determined from statistical analysis and probably never will. The confidence the Sox had in late innings and the calm hand of Ozzie (mostly) helped the White Sox outperform their pythagorean by 8 games. Still, I'm glad that KW is thinking analytically as well as traditionally about player aquisitions. Personally, I predict Thome and BA will be worth more like 30 more runs than Frank and Rowand. I don't have any stats to back that up though!

I'm really sick of the crap that gets thrown at sabremetrics around here sometimes. Nobody is advocating putting Stairs at leadoff. Nobody is "undervaluing" speed. This article seemed like a pretty fair analysis to me. I think when he says "overpaid" for Konerko he is dead wrong. The market was tight this year with lots of teams willing to throw cash around for a slugger. Saying the Furcal deal was a steal and Konerko's is overpaying makes no sense. We as Sox fans tend to assume that Thome will be perfectly healthy not just next year but for the bulk of his contract. Rowand on the other hand is a known commodity and is 5 years younger than Thome. I see where KW is going with this--he wants to win now. It does hurt to give up two promising LH pitchers though, especially when the organization isn't exactly loaded with LH prospects.

I too have heard that about BA Rock, but I'm not willing to say he's going to be as good as Rowand his first year in the bigs defensively. I think he will be a + CF but as good or better than Arow? I'll reserve judgement.

I recently read a very good article from the hard ball times that looked at pitchers HR/rate in 2005 and what we can learn from it. MB had one of the lowest rates of his career, which no doubt helped him to his best season yet. Unfortunetly, HR/rate is highly variable even for the best pitchers. I feel a strike first guy like MB is especially vulnerable to the long ball. Hopefully he proves me wrong with another low HR/rate year, but I would bet on his ERA rising as well as his HR/rate. Not to say he won't have another great year, but I would be surprised to see a repeat performance--he was excellent last year, top 5 pitcher in the league no doubt. That will be tough to repeat, but he is our best pitcher IMO

Deadspin is hilarious, but I always take these stories with a grain of salt. Although, Pods' story is very relatable for myself. I know I've done similiar in a moment of "must get drunk but not let people see it" moment.

"I just see absolutely no reason to be worrying about the lack of a lefthander or the health of Hermie. The outfield defense is much more suspect at this point if we're speaking about concerns, as of course the point of the offseason is too quibble about matters like this. Outfield defense, problem #1. Relief Pitching, problem #2. But neither of these are problems worth worrying about, at least not until Spring Training hits." Outfield defense? 2 of the 3 pieces remain the same, BA is projected to roughly the same of Rowand--less range, better arm. How is that a huge problem? A 24 year old closer with a history of arm trouble, a 22 year old Bmac, and legit concerns about repeat performances from Contreras, Buehrle and Garland seems much more pressing than outfield defense. I'm not saying that any of the players I've mentioned won't play well, just that outfield defense is a long way away from importance and concern compared to the performance of the pitching staff.

These are legitmate worries. On the first part, yea, a starter could go down, probably will go down at some point in the year. The good news is that MB, JG, FG and Contreras have never shown any shoulder or other arm trouble in their careers. The innings are always a concern, but these guys aren't coming off major surgery or even seasons in which they had to sit because of soreness or dead-arm. El Duque is the only injury concern, but his injuries seem to be the "take a month off" type--other than that he seems to have a rubber arm. Everything I've heard has suggested that Hermie's rehab is going better than can be expected. My main worry with him is some regression back to his career numbers. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised is the entire pitching staff sees some regression to the mean. If MB has as good a ERA as he did last year I'd be surprised, very surprised actually. Contreras has nasty stuff, always has, but his deal we mental, and that seems to be straightened out, so I actually think he'll pitch better throughout the whole season than last year. I think Garland ERA will be around 3.90 and I think FG's will be around 3.90 as well. Not terrible numbers, but not as good as last year. Luckily, this regression should be more than made up for by the extra 30+ runs that Thome is going to give us over what Frank and Crazy Carl gave. At least I'm praying he stays healthy enough to get 500 AB's. Jenks is really my biggest concern. How will he respond to being the number 1 guy out in the bullpen spring training on? It's alot of pressure and I think he's going to go through some wildness at some point next year. At that point, does Ozzie go back to closer by commitee? The LH out of the bullpen, I'm not worried about. KW will bring someone in to an already strong bullpen and they can be a the 2nd left behind Cotts. As was mentioned, any team in MLB, save perhaps the Indians, would trade staffs straight up for the Whitesox. We have the best staff in the bigs, our worries are nothing compared to teams like the Yankees, Angels, Red Sox, etc.

Well, as another poster noticed, TB is desperate for pitching. Does this make them consider El Duque? Maybe not, probably not. But if they ask for Brandon, then we say, "no", and move on. Getting Crawford without giving up a major prospect and/or starter would be a coup for KW.

I have to disagree with you Juggernaut, I think the D-rays will be looking for much more than you suggested. Maybe Duque and Fields for Crawford. I don't think the are going to give up a quality young player just to dump a little salary. They aren't that broke.

Yea, Marte for Milton (Sox trade) is a bad idea, while Marte for Milton (Pirates Trade) is a good idea.

Wow, I'd trade Marte for Milton in a heartbeat.

Well "prospects" have helped net us Jon G and Freddy, so I'd say they "developed" in that regard. As for position players in the infield, I agree, this team hasn't developed an everyday shorstop, 2nd baseman, C, or 1B in years. Ever since I've been a fan (I'm 22 now) it seems like the Sox have focused on drafting and developing pitchers, for better or worse.

Well it's our job as fans to doubt the moves of the team, otherwise what fun could we have!... Anyways, I think it's a risky move to put him there, but hell, I don't know what Uribe is going to show up--the disciplined and dangerous Uribe that we saw in late August through October, or the hacking, free-swining Juan we saw for most of 2005, and throughout his career? I'd have to bet Juan falls somewhere in the middle, unless he really works hard to become more disciplined and take more walks while striking out less.

Sports talk radio is even further down the evolutionary telephone pole than ATH and Cold Pizza. Colin is a retard, as is Eric Kasillyass.

Will someone please remind people that we already have our starting CF in house next year? One of the rookies is going to get a shot, I just can't see KW giving up any value for anyone when cheap and decent options already exist in house