Greg Hibbard

at the very least, why aren't beckham and kotsay swapped in the order?

if Danks ends up at $15 million territory, I could see the White Sox going 5-6 years to make a play for him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 2, 2010 -> 05:34 PM) The average player salary has not declined year over year since 2004. The rate of increase slowed this year, probably recession related. The only thing that is going to cut the amount spent on contracts is the Yankees deciding to pull back...but...the luxury tax level goes up every seaosn, so the Yankees are penalized less every year. I wonder about the variance/standard deviation, though? I would think that a few bad apples (huge contracts) would spoil the bunch, and teams like Yanks/Mets/Flubs/Sawks would be mostly to blame.

Contracts also seemed to peak around the time Santana signed his deal. Doesn't anyone else believe that contract values will actually slightly (not much, but slightly) regress?

Is he really in that elite category? with a 1.29 career WHIP? I love me some Danks, but I don't think he's quite top-tier yet...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 2, 2010 -> 10:35 AM) The highest amount ever for a first year arbitration player was $10 million for Ryan Howard. Unless D1 finishes the season by breaking Herschiser's scoreless innings record, he's not likely to beat that. The Sox are very likely to sign a contract of some sort with D1 before the actual arbitration hearing, because that's how they always do it, and there were only 3 arbitration hearings in all of MLB last year. Here's a list of last year's Arbitration numbers, what each side submitted, and the final signed contract. For a first year guy, I think a plausible comparison might be Papelbon, who got upwards of $6 million in his first arbitration year. Joe Saunders was a first year arbitration starting LHP last year, and he wound up at $3.7 million, and he's no where near D1's caliber right now. I could see anywhere in the range from $5-$8 million being plausible and I think they'll wind up somewhere around $7. Thanks. That makes sense.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Aug 2, 2010 -> 10:33 AM) http://baseball.suite101.com/article.cfm/h...bitration_works Am I missing something? I'm seeing that the club may not offer less than 80%/70% but I can't figure out if there's a benchmark for what the player asks for.

Does anyone have an idea as to what a likely salary will end up being? I have no idea how to even gauge this.

probably been answered a million times...but with Detroit and the Sox both having tomorrow off why aren't we playing the first half of the DH tomorrow?

Gavin Lillibridge Jenks

If Ozzie chose to play Viciedo and Teahan over Kotsay at DH, I think we would be fine as-is. The team as-is is 7th/8th/7th/6th/8th in the AL in BA/OPS/OBP/SLG/Runs. Truly middle of the pack, and that's despite a disgustingly cold first 60 games.

The only thing I would disagree with is evaluating Hudson's value based on his ML stats thus far. He makes a good case as to why Jackson will help us more than Hudson would have in this particular stretch run.

Let's give him a sellout, boys.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 12:16 PM) Not saying they weren't talented, but they definitely had very good years that season. That 04 Sox team only scored 3 less runs than the 06 Sox team and Kenny made some very good moves to help the pitching staff at the deadline. They tried, they just didn't get there. Right, but our two best offensive players were injured for most of the year in 2004, and I really think that's impossible to overlook. As for the "90 million plus payroll should get you more than 79 wins" comment, I agree with the literal obviously, but the spirit of it really is "not making the playoffs is disappointing with that payroll", because I sincerely doubt that 79 vs. 85 wins matters much to you in that scenario. Bear in mind that since the beginning of the 06 season just 18/47 teams with a 90 million+ payroll (38.3%) have made the playoffs, so it's not as if it's realistic to count on making the playoffs even half the time with a payroll in that class.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 12:11 PM) You're supposed to win more than 79 games with a $90 something million payroll. That 04 team still had an incredible offense without Maggs and Frank. Rowand had a near career year, as did Uribe. Along with Freddy in that pitching staff, they should have been better than an 83 win team. You just said given the talent, money and therein implied expectations, and then you cite two guys that had "career years"... If Frank and Mags are healthy for even most of the year, we probably win that division. I just don't know how you can put 2004 on Ozzie, but to each his own.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 11:00 AM) Other than 2005 and maybe 2008, this team has UNDERACHIEVED every single year that he has been the manager given the amount of money we've put into the team and the talent that was on it. When you've had $95-$110 million payrolls these past 5 years, you expect to win every year. Kenny's right, 2007 and 2009 were embarrassments. In 2004, when the team payroll was $65 million (15th of 30 teams in MLB), we lost Ordonez for 2/3rds of the season, and Frank Thomas only played 75 games. I'm sorry...but winning 83 games was a freaking miracle in retrospect. In 2006, winning 90 games put us short, but I'm not sure I'd consider it a categorical disappointment. In 2009, our payroll was 12th in MLB, fwiw.

The first six years that KW was general manager he did not post a losing record. As for Ozzie, when you put up a .530 managerial record over 1100 games you are doing something right.

hey guys

Jayson Nix gahhhhh

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 01:14 PM) Bobby's peripherals look good, his problem is consistency. 80% of the time he is a great closer 10% of the time he is a mediocre closer 10% of the time he is the most awful pitcher on the f***ing planet and he has pretty much always been that way, IMO

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 01:12 PM) That's great and all, and your detailed analysis was interesting, but that doesnt change the fact that for the most part this season, he has not looked all that impressive or intimidating. And if you or anyone can say that you are perfectly comfortable with him protecting a 1 run lead down the stretch or in the playoffs, you either are lieing, are unaware of what true shut down closers look like, or don't care. That's not a knock on Jenks, it's just a statement of how he has looked this year. I think people are forgetting that even when he was "overpowering," he still blew the save in game 2 of the world series. It's easy to overlook because of the result.

The argument is whether Jenks looks better in the grey top or the black top. Choose a side or get out of this thread.

The interesting thing about Jenks is that he almost ALWAYS sucks in July. Jenks had 6 blown saves in 2009, but was particularly bad in July posting an 8.59 ERA and 2.32 WHIP. He only accumulated 2 blown saves, but overall this way by far worse than his performance in any other month. I think in 2008 Jenks was injured in July and only pitched in 5 games. In July of 2007 Jenks posted a 4.61 ERA and blew 3 of his 6 season blown saves that month. In July of 2006 Jenks posted a 7.94 ERA and a robust 2.12 WHIP.

Also, is it worth noting to the detractors that even with the blowup, Jenks' ERA since June 1st is 3.00 and his WHIP is 1.00, with nearly a 5.00 K/BB?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 12:34 PM) Ok, fine, I'll bite...if Mariano had an outing like that and it was swamping his numbers the WHIP wouldn't tell us much. Simple reply. Would you describe Bobby Jenks's WHIP and ERA numbers as inflated by "1 bad outing", "2 bad outings", or by "Consistently mediocre at best in April and May along with a terrible outing in July". I describe it as a guy who was pretty bad through May 11th and pretty good since. I think Jenks is a passable closer. I think it's worth pointing out that even using wite's stringent rubric (which basically puts an 8 run lead against the Angels where Bobby gives up a run in the "bad outing" category), Jenks has had 16/20 great appearances (1 hit/walk or nothing) since June 1. Of the four "bad" appearances, 1 was with an 8 run lead, and one was the 1.1 IP with 2 hits and a run against minny.