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Yeah because it has nothing to do with 5-15 recrod as a rookie with the Expos.

 

In fact compare another pitcher who has played as many games with the Expos to Javy...

 

Ok, let's discuss Pedro Martinez, for example.

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I just love how everyone making fun of how Wins aren't really a great benchmark of a pitcher's performance probably never mention that ERA is a bogus stat because it needs to be park adjusted, how WHIP is a bogus stat because the defensive range factor of your infielders severely affects how many ground balls are hits, and how wildly erratic strike zones from league to league and umpire to umpire affect your walks and strikeouts night in and night out.

 

Sorry guys, but when a guy is sub .500 over 200 decisions, something is wrong with that pitcher.

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yes, he has the potential to reach that number of wins, congratulations, but to say he's a lock is completely untrue. things can happen, leagues can adjust, he could lose his stuff, 4.99 years dont just happen randomly... look at Z, Santana, Oswalt, Pettitte, numbers like that arent just random and go away.

 

I never said he was a lock. I said he was one of the candidates from his era.

 

He's definitely in the top ten-fifteen pitchers of the last 7-8 years, in terms of career numbers.

 

His sheer durability may end up making him into a guy who has a freakishly long, maddux-like, relatively injury free career.

 

(note: I'm not comparing Buehrle's STYLE to Maddux's)

 

And in any case, the ENTIRE reason to bring him up was to refute the claim that paying 3/33 for vazquez was somehow better than 3/45 for buehrle (yes, we all know it'll probably be 6/100 in actualilty). vaz has very mediocre career numbers compared to buehrle. it's not like you're not getting anything for that extra money.

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No, you're "pretty dumb" for equating an entire state to one of its cities.

What makes you think that Buehrle will automatically knock out NINE good years and hit 225 wins? It's certainly possible and I'd love to see him do it, but you're acting like he's a shoe-in for the HOF. He isn't.

 

Okay, if you want this thread to devolve into personal attacks, I guess we can go down that road.

 

This forum desperately needs a killfile function.

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EXACTLY!!!! they dont come around very often - how hard is that for you to understand!?

 

And my point is that Buehrle is one of those candidates.

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LOL, you're asking somebody to come up with a HOF pitcher over a cherry-picked three-year window. Good one!

 

Ok, name me a pitcher who will win more than 250 besides Santana who started anytime after 1996.

 

There's probably three or four candidates at most.

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I didn't realize that Missouri was considered a "town."

 

Buehrle has thrown something like six straight years of 200+ innings and it began to show last season. His style of pitching will help extend his career somewhat, but it certainly doesn't make him a lock for "at least 9 [more] good years". He doesn't have great stuff as is and if he loses even a few mph off of his fastball when he hits 30, he could go downhill very quickly.

 

Yeah. I guess I'm pretty dumb for assuming you could tell what I meant by "Missouri".

 

What makes you think Buehrle isn't entitled to a bad year? He pitched 300 innings in 2005, and I think the length of that season probably wore on him last year. I think he'll have a great season this year.

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Well then who else do you have in there with your "young rotation"

 

We are talking about a guy who's gotten two shots to pitch in the majors and utterly FAILED in the weaker league, and then moves to the tougher league to pitch after utterly failing in triple A, right? I just want to make sure I have my story straight here.

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you dont think santana could do it? really?

 

Name me another pitcher besides Santana who could get to 250 who started in 1998-2000. He is the best pitcher by a country mile in this era and could be one of very best of all time.

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well theoretically we have contreras around still so lets see:

 

Garland

Contreras

Vazquez

Floyd

Danks

 

hmm... yeah ok i could deal with that i think. so the problem lies where?

 

Floyd has a hard time maintaining a 6.00 era in AAA and you'll saying he'll be our fourth starter in 08? Now that's a half-full glass...

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LOL, he hasn't even won 100 yet. And it's going to take more than 225 wins to guarantee a spot in Cooperstown.

So, you're saying that he signs with the Cubs this winter?

 

I don't put Mark Buehrle on the same level as Santana, Randy Johnson, or Tom Glavine. Those are HOFers. Buehrle is on the really-good-but-not-great tier, along with David Wells, David Cone, and John Smoltz.

 

225-250 is about as many wins as any pitcher from the post 2000 era can hope to accumulate in a career IMO. Besides, Buehrle has one of the best career ERAs in the AL going right now, could you imagine how dominating he'd be with the Cardinals? (the hometown discount - he's from Missouri)

 

He's not even at 100 yet? He's only pitched 6 full years LOL. He's not even 28 yet, is he? He has probably at least 9 good years ahead of him.

 

 

ok, so what fantasy pitcher will we sign for that spot in the rotation and for how much money?

 

Unlike many in this forum, I am onboard with going completely young if it makes sense for a season. I'm saying I would have let Vazquez go and developed if it made sense.

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im not getting you - how can you be against a deal this cheap in a market where Gil Meche got 55 million for 5 years??? Javy is lightyears better than Meche and actually has potential to still put things together. He had the best peripherals on the sox last year meaning he has a greater chance of doing just that - putting together a really good year.

 

Again, what is our plan for 2008? Is our plan to build our team around Garland (which I agree with), and Vazquez (which I don't agree with)? Is Vazquez good enough to be a number 2/3, with a bunch of kids in the rotation? Surely he's not. He hasn't had a good season in four years. And before we trot out all the different league-team-circumstances he's pitched in, there are good pitchers who are able to move leagues and teams and figure it out.

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Actually they don't.

 

I don't have time to do this right now, but I'm willing to bet there are at least a handful of losses where the offense put up 6+ runs of support and Javy went out and blew it for the team in the early months of the season.

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It's his fault the offense didn't score for him in August and September?

 

Again, let's take a look at his run support in April and May, shall we?

 

How quickly they forget...

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He's right. When you can pitch as well as Javy did in his final 8 outings last season and not have a single win to show for it something it very wrong. A pitcher's W/L record has become a nearly irrelevant stat, as most people who work with stats and follow the game closely will agree.

 

 

And yet he was getting 15 runs of support in those wins AND losses early in the season. Funny how those things tend to even out, now isn't it?

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best meaning? Top 5? What?

 

I can tell you what to tell me. What is the problem with signing a pitcher, less than market price, less years than the market dictates, basically less money than he would get in arbitration, with a high talent level.

 

You wont find someone who knows the baseball market and player talent levels that thinks this is a bad deal. When it comes down to it, you should pay attention to one thing: They know more than you.

 

Because I would rather go with younger pitchers who EVERYONE is tauting in this McCarthy deal, who will put up .500 numbers at a circa-5.00 era for about 8 million per annum less. How hard is this to understand?

 

Vazquez has great stuff. He's also a loser.

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Haw, haw! You tell em Rob Neyer!

 

Thank god wins and losses aren't that relevant to the game of baseball. Honestly, what are people thinking?

 

So, you think that Mark will be a HOFer? I don't.

 

Yes I do. He will win 225-250 easy, especially if he moves to the NL for the next 10 years, takes a hometown discount, settles in comfortably and is dominating the worst division in the weaker league of baseball.

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Honestly, I think I'd go the other way; if Mark would have taken 3/45, I'd rather spend that on him than on Javy. I doubt Mark will take less than 5-6 years though.

 

When it's all said and done, Buehrle may be the one of the best left handed pitchers of his era.

 

Vazquez is and will always be a coulda-shoulda guy

 

If you can't look at his career and see that, I don't know what to tell you.

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No matter what he does this year, if the White Sox were to have offered him arbitration...Javier Vazquez's salary would not have decreased in 2008. The only way that Vazquez's salary could have gone down, other than this deal, would have been for the White Sox to not offer him arbitration, at which point the Sox could lose him as a FA with no compensation.

 

losing his as a FA with no compensation? Sounds good to me.

 

I thought we were stockpiling young arms for a reason

 

I guess this is another nail in Buehrle's coffin

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Yep it may sound like a-lot but at 29 he just took a 20% pay cut, I think. Good for Javy.

 

He would have gotten more in arbitration after this season.

 

If he goes 9-13 with a 5.50 ERA he gets more than 11 mil in arbitration? Or is this based on your perception of Vazquez succeeding?

 

Again, everyone, this is a high risk move in some ways. Like it or not, there is a chance this guy could psychologically fall off the cliff he seems to teeter on and put up ridiculously bad numbers.

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3 years 34 million reported.

 

A GREAT deal by KW.

 

If Vazquez tanks, this will look like one of the stupidest deals in Sox history. I don't understand why people are convinced this guy is moveable if he fails again.

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He hasn't gotten the job done in his 2 years in the AL, he hasn't spent 2 consecutive years with the same team since '02-'03 let alone the same league. Give him back to back season in the same league with the same team and he'll flourish, this is mine and KW's thinking obviously. Of course if you wait until the end of the season to give him an extension and he does kick ass this year it's going to cost you insane money to keep him around. This way you sign him to a potential bargain price in hopes that a second year with the team will do him some good. He could anchor this staff for years to come if they could just get him in a comfort zone. And IMO like I said before I really don't think a 3 year deal worth around $35M guaranteed is that much of a risk.

 

If we got him for $24-27 million, I could live with that. $35 million for a guy who may never perform in the AL is not only potentially disasterous, but then we are locked into "sticking with this guy" because we gave him all this money which could cost us big-time down the road. If he puts up a slightly better 2007 to his 2006 year (say a wildly inconsistent 4.70 ERA, 12-11 record), his apologists will be saying "just give him ONE MORE YEAR"....GAH!!! Could you imagine that?

 

Guy has a losing record, a below average ERA, a proven headcase, and by all accounts had a pretty bad year, and we are considering giving him 10 mil a year through 2010. What a world we live in.

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Funny that you mention injuries as one of the risks of a long term deal when they guy has never been injured before. By that logic any deal given to any player ever is a huge risk because of injury, so why even mention it?

 

As for his record and ERA, take a look at his other stats from last season and just the raw stuff that he has. He's the type of guy who could pay off in a major way if you keep him around and since he's always healthy, has great stuff and solid peripherals you could always move him a year or 2 from now.

 

Fair enough, but I mentioned the injury more as an aside, not as a huge part of the risk.

 

The huge part of the risk is that the guy has great peripherals but has not gotten the job f***ing done for an entire season in the AL, and that he's coming off of a season with a ton of ups and downs.

 

Again, why are we doing this NOW?!?!?!? This is the loose-aggressive gambler aspect of Kenny that I just cannot fathom at times.

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sub .500 2006 record?

s***ty 2006 ERA?

inconsistencies galore?

proven headcase?

mediocre overall performance in the AL?

 

I don't need to see anything else!

 

Just hand him a blank check!

 

Whoo-hooo!

 

You guys might be right about Vazquez being better this year.

 

But this is a VERY high-risk move to do this NOW, that is for sure.

 

If he bombs this year, or gets injured, and we are stuck paying this contract, this will be worse than Navarro.

 

Can I really be saying that?

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I f***ing love it.

 

Without even knowing the terms of the deal?

 

I love it if it's three more years for a few bags of peanuts