WCSox

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 06:23 PM) If the vast majority of your players play up to reaonable expectations and your team is still below average in a terrible division, the guy putting the team together who claims he has a WS contender deserves some grief. No? Quentin, Dye, Linebrink, and Dotel played up to reasonable expectations? Not really. The middle of the Sox lineup didn't hit at all during August. Is that an example of playing up to expectations?

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:36 PM) Ok, you can have four starters with those numbers or very close to those numbers (as the Sox have done several times in the past few seasons) and a 5th starter who is around 1.36-1.40. The big four in 05 were obviously way low on WHIP, and I think even in 2008 they were all 1.34 or lower. McCarthy/Hernandez in 05 averages out to 1.36. Going into this season, what did you expect from Contreras and Colon? I expected Colon to eventually flame out, Richard or Poreda to take over the #4 spot, and Contreras to be up and down (mostly the latter) at the #5 spot. I also expected Buehrle, Floyd, and Danks to pitch well enough to keep this team in contention. And I was more or less correct about that. What did you expect the Sox to do when they're in the bottom half of the league in attendance and are losing advertising and luxury suite revenue due to the recession? Spend $50 million on starting pitching? You can't expect the Sox to have 2005-like rotation every season. Even when they spend their asses off (2006), the results don't always materialize. The depth that the Sox had last year is also the exception for the good teams, not the norm. Most of the big-spending teams have four solid starters and an unknown at the back. Some of the lower-payroll teams only have two solid starters. I don't think that the Sox having "only" three in a re-tooling year is unreasonable. Especially with the offense and bullpen that they had last season that was supposed to continue through this year.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:29 PM) One thing that irks me about how we've spent money this year -- and i dont dislike Peavy and Rios either.... This is a valid point. The Sox are paying Peavy market value, but picking up Rios' contract was a huge gamble on Kenny's part. Both of these deals will also handicap us this winter.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:26 PM) He should of got us Holliday. Now that was an acquisition. Rios has sucked; Peavy? Are you serious? He hasn't done a thing. That's all about next year hopefully. And Castro has been average at best. Pena has been awful. Simply awful. Randy Williams? Was he a minor leaguer in our system or another horrid pickup? I like KW but his acquisitions have sucked this year. Way to look at the big picture with large sample sizes.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:14 PM) Ok, fine, a 1.33 WHIP. I overestimated one statistic in this thread. I concede this point. If you honestly think that Colon and Contreras could have excelled in the roles they were expected to fill given their recent injuries and ages, I want some of what you are smoking. If you honestly think that the Sox can realistically field a team with five starters with WHIPs all under 1.33, position players that are statistically average or above at each position, and have no holes in their bullpen every single year, you have a lot to learn about baseball.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:07 PM) When has Konerko ever played consistently over the course of an entire season in his career? Konerko's career OPS and season OPS are a single point away. I fail to see why you are lumping him in with the disappointments you have listed. I fail to see why you're blaming Kenny for not stocking the rotation with #4 and #5 pitchers with 1.25 WHIPs.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 12:59 PM) I'm not looking for all-stars on paper. I'm looking for major league players at CF, 2B. You know, guys capable of hitting .250 with a .750 OPS. Average MLB players. Guys like that simply aren't that hard to acquire. A guy like Wise had no business being on a MLB roster for an entire season. I'm not looking for #4 and #5 starters who have 15-20 wins. I'm looking for guys capable of pitching 200 innings with an era around 4.50-4.75 and a WHIP around 1.25. Again, average MLB players. Colon and Contreras were the antithesis of this. Their most recent escapades predicted that they would be injury plagued anti-innings eaters and we would have 2004 rotating AAA 5th starter, and we did! You're whining about four positions out of 25. Also, a WHIP of 1.25 is ABOVE average for a starting pitcher, not below. Especially in the AL. You need a reality check. The problem this year wasn't Contreras, Garcia, Richard, Getz, Nix, Anderson, or Wise. It was Dye, Konerko, Quentin, Linebrink, Dotel, Alexei, and other veterans not playing well consistently and/or suffering injuries.

Outside of Mark's perfect game, this may have been the most impressive effort I've seen this season. They had absolutely nothing to play for, but they kept fighting. I had thought that they'd given up, but today they showed that they didn't. Even if they suck this year, I can respect a team that tries.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 12:50 PM) What players exactly s*** the filed that we didn't expect to s*** the field? Fields/Wise/BA/Count/etc - expected to s*** the bed, and did. All players had been going through significant rough patches and all did not perform and were counted on for more than a lot. Yes, Dye had a down year, but it's not like you just plug in veterans and they hit .311 every year. IMO, a .260 year isn't great, but it's not totally unacceptable. I was told Konerko would never hit .280 again last season by many, and oops...he's hitting .280. Thome had an .864 OPS, nearly .900 for most of the season. With the jacks, I'm not sure how much more you could have expected from him. Beckham and Pods obviously exceeded expectations. AJ hit .312 Ramirez -.280 is certainly not s***ting the field Quentin was injured - is this s***ting the field? The top three starters were all fine - Buehrle gave us ERA/WHIP as expected, Floyd exceeded my expectations and met a lot of other peoples, Danks was fine. We had no major league solutions for #4 and #5 going into this season and it was a disaster waiting to happen. Again, that is not on anyone but the GM. The bullpen didn't perform well, but there were players in that bullpen that again were problematic. As far as most of the lineup and starters - nobody was that bad. The team was not built by spring training to win this season. So if the vast majority of the players played relatively well, why are you trashing Kenny for putting a bad product on the field? That makes no sense. I hate to break this to you, but you can't have All-Stars at every position. The Sox were below-average at CF and 2B for the vast majority of this season. Oh, and they had below-average #4 and #5 pitchers. Big freaking deal - EVERY team has holes. The rest of the lineup was far from bad on paper.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 12:45 PM) Alexei is better than OCab at SS at this point in his career. He is subpar. I meant a general veteran who can hit reasonably well and play SS competently. I also think that Cabrera was better at SS last season than Alexei is now.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 11:59 AM) This quote says it all to me. Ozzie is basically stating that the White Sox could simply not contend this season with their opening day roster. So, a little speculation is in order: Does Williams believe the same thing, and did he believe it at the beginning of the season? If the answer is YES, he is disingenuous for what he sold us as a "contending team", What's Kenny supposed to tell the public? "This team isn't a contender, so don't bother coming out to see them."? So is Kenny supposed to know exactly when Dye and Konerko are going to decline into merely above-average players? Or he's supposed to foresee Quentin injuring his foot or Alexei hitting near the Mendoza Line at the beginning of the season?

Whatever you may think of Alexei at SS, I'm pretty sure that he'll still be our starting SS in April. Beckham will most likely stay at 3B (where he's adjusted nicely) and Nix has made Alexei look like Ozzie Smith in comparison. There aren't very many in-house options and Kenny doesn't have enough financial flexibility (or prospects) to go after another Orlando Cabrera this winter.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 06:22 PM) His UZR on fangraphs so far is 1.8 whereas last year at 2nd it was -8.3 . So even though you hear people clamoring for him to be put back at 2nd base overall (according to UZR) he's much better at SS, though overall that 1.8 means he's rather mediocre. There's no reason why Alexei should have better range at SS than at 2B. This is why defensive ratings like UZR need to be taken with a grain of salt. Anybody who actually watched Alexei at 2B last season could tell that he was more than competent at the position.

Good analysis by Phillips.

We traded him because (1) we're not going to contend and (2) the Dodgers are. What better way to help Thome finally get a ring than to trade him to a team that has a good shot? Dye's contract apparently stipulates that his $12 million option for next year becomes automatic if he's dealt.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 01:00 PM) The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to believe that Flowers and AJ might just be rotated between DH and Catcher next season. It's obviously not the best idea in the world for Flowers progression as a catcher but it gives AJ some extra rest and with not a whole lot of money to work with, it's something that could possibly happen. This idea has been floated here before, and it's not a bad one. A potential limiting factor to playing one of them at C and one at DH simultaneously means that another backup catcher would be needed if the one playing catcher were injured and forced to leave the game. This would take away a roster spot from a bullpen arm or utility player. But if taking a bullpen arm out of the mix is possible, I'm all for breaking in Flowers at C by DHing him. He could catch against LHPs, giving A.J. rest.

QUOTE (longshot7 @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 01:58 PM) The economy isn't as bad as it was last year, and Kenny is mad. That's why. The economy is arguably in worse shape than it was last fall, especially with inflation predicted to hit late next year. The national unemployment rate is at 9.5% and rising. If businesses can't afford to hire workers, what makes you think that they'll purchase luxury suites or advertising space? How many people do you suppose will be purchasing season ticket packages while they're worried about their job security? Do you think that this year's choke job will increase or decrease attendance next year?

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 01:52 PM) Whats Dunn's contract status? Owed about $10 million for 2010.

QUOTE (longshot7 @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 01:45 PM) At 92M (and I don't think Danks will get that much), they still have about 20M more to add. Another bullpen arm, Chone Figgins, and a RF/DH type should about do it. Why are people assuming that the Sox will spend $110+ million in 2010, when they purposely dumped salary last winter to get down under $100 million?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 01:42 PM) Considering Floyd is locked up and part of the guaranteed contracts we're talking about, your numbers are off. But my point is still on.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 01:41 PM) Don't forget Floyd signed a deal before the season started so he's one of the 9 players that under contract for next year leaving only Quentin, Danks, Jenks, Wise, Carrasco and Pena as the arbitration eligible players in '10. Right, my bad. So, the Sox are roughly somewhere between $82 and $87 million for 13 players.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 12:55 PM) We have about 68 million locked up next year. So unless Jenks, Danks, and Q's arb gets to a sum of 30 million (protip: it won't), we still have money to spend. Should be just over 10 million actually. Jenks, Danks, Floyd, and Quentin will cost us well over $20 million in arbitration next year (probably closer to $25 million). Not true... QUOTE (Kalapse @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 01:13 PM) $67.05M guaranteed to 9 players (Buehrle, Floyd, Konerko, Linebrink, Peavy, Pierzynski, Ramirez, Rios, Viciedo) That's a lot of money concentrated into 9/25 of the roster. Throw in the arbitration salaries and now we're at a minimum of $87 million (probably closer to $92 million) for 13 players. I wouldn't be surprised at all of Paulie and Jenks were dealt this winter, just for sake of salary relief.

Thanks for the memories, JT. Please consider us again when you're a free agent this winter.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 12:39 PM) By my count, we have 44 million dollars off the books this offseason. Uh, yeah, we have a ton of money to offer. You forgot about the $25+ million going to Peavy and Rios next year, the raises that Jenks, Floyd, Danks, and Quentin will command via arbitration, and the money that the Sox are losing due to economy-driven losses in advertising and luxury suite sales. The Sox have less to spend next season than a lot of people think.

Keep in mind that Kenny is going to have to spend on the bullpen this off-season. Even if Kenny pays Jenks arbitration, the middle relief is still an absolute mess.