iamshack

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 03:56 PM) Ya, I was specifically talking about our system. Speaking of the Brew Crew...I wonder whether if they might have some interest in Mark if they still believe they can win the NL Central come late July... Would they deal us an oft-injured Rickie Weeks and a few prospects? Perhaps their first round pick who will inevitably be blocked by Fielder, LaPorta?

A nice article written regarding the rarity of a pitcher of Mark's caliber being traded mid-season, followed by some humorous discussion by Cards' fans of what they think Buehrle might be able to be had for.... Check it out if you're bored... http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/story/2007/6/12/95434/6705

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 03:16 PM) He also has the best stuff in the minors and that is based on multiple reports I've gotten as well as another member here has gotten. Well, don't forget about Yovani Gallardo. Watch out for him in Milwaukee...

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 02:19 PM) Yes, he has been pitching better. However, I have it on very good authority that KW thought Gavin Floyd would be our 5th starter this season. If anything, it was Danks' development that made the decision easier. Floyd didn't pitch as we thought he would in ST, but I'm not going to blame Kenny because another of his trades has worked out well enough to not have to place Floyd in the rotation. Floyd's progress in Charlotte may make a Mark Buehrle trade less intolerable than is widely believed.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 02:07 PM) Could you? Why would you assume that Kenny Williams turned down better players in a trade than what he got back from Philly? The guy was, and is, hurt. The whole Sox fan base knew that a starter was getting dealt this fall, and they found someone stupid enough to take Garcia without giving him a physical, while receiving a couple of good prospects in return. Like I said I know that everyone thinks we have to do this RIGHTNOW because in some fantasy world all of these teams are offering all of these awesome players for our broken down pile of s***. It doesn't work that way. If Kenny Williams had gotten some incredible offer that would set the team for 2008 and beyond, he would have done it already. He has already proven that by executing the ballsy McCarthy trade. Dispite the popular opinion he isn't borderline retarded, and he isn't going to make a trade, just to make a trade. He has to wait until he gets a good offer, not just an offer, before he does anything. If he does something stupid the local fan base and media will turn on the Sox, just like they have done many times before. Thank you. QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 02:15 PM) Because KW got fixated on Gavin Floyd, and thought Coop could fix him. Floyd has actually pitched very well recently. Let's not write the guy off as a bust just yet. The kid is all of a whopping 24 years old right now.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 01:01 PM) In 33 plate appearances this season Owens didn't draw a single walk while striking out 6 times. Atleast Ryan Sweeney in his first 33 PA this season managed to walk 4 times while K'ing only 3. I've never cared for Owens as a prospect or as a player on the big league team (from what little I've seen thus far). I like the idea of Terrero in left, a FA centerfielder such as Ichiro, and Sweeney in right. If Kenny would rather spend the money on Mark Buehrle rather than a CF, then I suppose at worst we can throw Terrero in center, and sign a FA left fielder as that would likely be cheaper than center fielders. However, if you're going to go without an impact-type FA outfielder, you're once again (like this year) depending almost entirely on Pauly and Jim to create runs for you. That could be a risk KW does not wish to take considering the offense's performance this year coupled with Thome's age next year.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 11:40 AM) Dan Bernstein is a fantastic analyzer of the White Sox. When they're good, he'll say they're good. When he sucks, he'll say why they suck. He also has a lot of inside information about the team if you pay attention close enough. I respectfully disagree. Dan Bernstein, to me, is an elitist, self-centered know-it-all who comes off as a bandwagon fan. For someone who has been so well-educated, one would think he would be more willing to entertain the thoughts of others rather than simply hanging up on them. I don't know if Boers made him feel like he had to become such a smartass, or if it was his ascension through the ranks of the Score, but whereas he was at one time one of my favorite hosts, he has now become nearly unlistenable.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 11:11 AM) They need to sign Buerhle or risk losing half of their fan base. I believe the season ticket base last year was 24,000. Next year it could be down to 12,000 if they sell everything off. I know a few things about baseball and here they are, pitching wins games, defense wins games, and hitting goes into slumps. We have 5 good starting pitchers right now that should stay here. These are the guys that this team should be built around. I have no faith in Egbert, De Los Santos, Gonzalez, Floyd, or any blue chip prospect coming up and succeeding. Nor do I want prospects from other teams which may or may not pan out. I do not want Buerhle traded for the likes of a Brian Anderson, Ryan Sweeney, or Josh Fields. Iguchi is one of the best hitting second baseman in baseball and will be afforable. His range is not that great but he is a solid hitter and he and Uribe are fine. Dye is old and should be moved. Problem is, nobody is going to risk a prospect worth anything for him unless he gets hotter than s*** real soon. The media will fry this franchise and rightly so if these pieces are sold off for nobody's. I am not sure what is going to happen to Crede as I assume he will not take a pay cut and that situation will get really ugly really quick. Since the end of last season KW traded two pitchers making a combined $10M and added nothing. I understand the other players got raises but that is not what is put in the media. Losing the three free agents and Crede opens about $27M. That is a preceived $37M decrease in two offseasons. The chances of Ichiro hitting the market are very slim especially with the M's making a playoff run. Andrew Jones will not be worth the money and Hunter will be overpaid as well. If KW does not want to overpay the payroll will be under $80M next season and in exchange for the fans coming out for two seasons they will get jobbed. I will not pay the money for a team that is slashing payroll. They increased ticket prices a good amount the last two years and have regressed. Think prices will come down next year....... In closing, they need to resign Buerhle.....and I can't believe I am saying this, Rowand, for simple PR. If not attendance will be back to blue seat pre renovation days. See this is the unfortunate thing about White Sox fans and the way the White Sox are written about and spoken about in this town. I cannot say this enough times. THE BASEBALL WRITERS IN CHICAGO ARE TERRIBLE. With the exception of a few decent articles by Phil Rogers here and there, Sox fans, in general, are NOT informed of the direction the organization is going. They are not informed of what really goes on with the payroll. They are not informed why certain trades have been made or may be made in the future. The average Sox fan gets his information from guys like Jay Marriotti and Dan Bernstein. And then we wonder why the organization has to put puppets like Chris Rongey on the radio. Someone has to fight the ignorance spewed by the writers informing our fanbase. The average fan has to understand the issues facing the organization. They have to know that Mark will like get a contract totalling $80-100 million this year. They have to know that while no prime free agents were added last year, contracts of players like Dye, Iguchi, Crede, Podsednik, etc., were escalating. They must know the truths about Jerry Reinsdorf and his committment to winning. Instead, they are lead to believe things pointed out by the Poster I quoted here. That Mark Buehrle won't be signed (probably because we're just cheap, not because his salary might account for 15% of the the entire payroll for the next six years). That no big name free agents were brought in because Jerry is pocketing the surplus money brought in by the increase in season ticket sales. White Sox fans need to be more inquisitive about what their team is really doing and where the organization is really going. They need to understand things like payroll, know their farm system, understand some other statistical methods of measuring production other than RBI's and wins and losses. Go to a Red Sox game, or even an Athletics game. These fans are very well-informed. It's the same way we all need to be.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 12, 2007 -> 10:55 AM) David Aardsma allowing a two out, two run homer to prevent us from sweeping at Detroit. Bingo. Up until that game, Aardsma had been absolutely amazing. We were about to really get some momentum moving in our favor and then Aardsma lost all his mojo and hasn't been anywhere near the same guy since.

The corner OF position is traditionally a position where the player hits for relatively solid power. The corner OF positions, along with the corner infield positions are traditional power positions. This has changed somewhat with middle infielders now starting to showcase more power because of better conditioning and weight training, however. It is not required that your corner OF have solid power, as we were able to win in 05' with Pods in left obvously. And if you can get power from other areas such as ss, 2b, and obviously the dh, you can get away with a corner outfielder who doesn't have a lot of pop. However, traditionally, that spot is a position where teams try to place someone with power. The idea behind this is many of the larger hitters with power have to play the field somewhere- so you play them at the "easier" positions in the field. You play your best defensive players up the middle (ss, 2b, cf). These players often do not possess the best power on the team.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jun 11, 2007 -> 04:44 PM) The second one. Next! Fair enough....Hey, I guess you've got to cheer for something now that the "handsome Neal Cotts" is no longer in black pinstripes.

In my opinion Jon Garland is actually this team's most valuable player to date. Unfortunately, our offense and bullpen have let him down repeatedly (in the W column).

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 11, 2007 -> 01:15 PM) Too bad they will base his performance on this year and not last. His knee problem isn't going to help much either. Well probably so, but not entirely. Plenty of vets get dealt at the deadline with the hope that they might recapture their performances from the year before. His value obviously isn't what it once was, but let's not pretend that some major thievery doesn't happen at the deadline all the time under this exact same scenario. The question for me will not be whether Kenny can get reasonable value for JD; but rather, whether he is willing to roll the dice and move him with the impression that we can still be competitive this season. No one really knows, as we've never really seen Kenny make this sort of deal (in-season) before.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jun 10, 2007 -> 02:07 PM) Kind of. If he's going to beat us -- and he is -- I hope it's in style. Pratt, Do you love Cole Hamels the player, or do you love Cole Hamels in the way that I love Erin Andrews? Just a suspicion....

I'm really starting to think maybe we have something here in Terrero. I am not at all opposed to the thought of possibly sticking with him as our starting LF in 08'. That allows you to move Dye this season, regardless of whether he starts hitting or not. If Billingsly is actually available, I'm making a deal for him whether Dye is hitting or not, whether the team starts winning or not. That leaves you with one OF to sign for 08 (the CF), and Sweeney in RF.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 12:11 PM) I think what DA and myself are saying is that Vazquez just isn't that good of a pitcher, especially for how much money he makes. There were quite a few of us that hated the trade when it would made, especially due to Young's huge potential and not seeing what McCarthy could do as a starter. I am aware of that. Personally, I thought it was a good gamble at the time. I just think it's ridiculously easy to complain about things now that it hasn't worked out the way it was envisioned to. Needless to say, one can't say it couldn't have ever worked out. As I said earlier, the Cardinals won 83 games and won the World Series. Few thought the Tigers would emerge as they did. Had they not, we probably make the postseason. Anyways, I don't want to argue about the trade anymore. And I certainly don't want to hear about Chris Young until the end of eternity either. It's over. There is nothing that can be done.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 12:04 PM) With the way this team was hitting during the first half of the year, the Sox could have been 10 games up on the WC at the ASB if Vazquez was pitching better. Don't forget Vazquez's knack for being a momentum killer. There were quite a few times where we had a nice winning streak going, and he went out and s*** the bed. Once again, that didn't make it a bad trade to make at the time it was made.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 12:02 PM) He wasn't even .500. I also doubt it was a coincidence he picked it up as soon as the White Sox postseason chances went to approximately 0. You're starting to sound exactly like the woman in your avatar.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 11:57 AM) It takes a fortune teller to conclude Vazquez is hopelessly mediocre? See his 2004 and 2005 seasons and get back to me. Then his 2006 season which the team wins 90 games, he has the lead in all but 3 or 4 starts and doesn't finish .500. He is not very good. He strikes out a lot of guys, but he's not very good. Giving him an extension just compounds the mistake. So if Buerhle and Jose would have pitched anywhere near the way they did the prior season, Javy couldn't have been some help to us? Especially the way he was pitching down the stretch?

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 11:37 AM) Then it's probably time to just gut this team and start over, once it reaches the point where the Manager is having no effect on the team's play at all it's probably for the best to just start over from scratch. If the team continues to play this way until mid-July, then I'm all for making some major changes. Firing Ozzie or Kenny is not one of them.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 11:45 AM) Why can't you fault him? Because you say so? He also gave up El Duque and Vizcaino and relied on Politte and Cotts and an injured Hermanson to repeat their 2005 performances. It was a dumb trade. Now 2 years before he loses control of Vazquez he signs him to an extension. This isn't some 25 year old kid that just needs a couple of breaks and he'll find himself. He's hopelessly around .500 just about every season. You can't fault him because you are using everything that's happened in hindsight as evidence of why it shouldn't have been done. I try to look at what evidence was available at the time the trade was made as evidence of whether it should have been done or not. I want a good GM, which Kenny is. You want a fortune teller. Good luck. The team didn't win last year because of the starting pitching. The starting pitching Kenny went out and fortified prior to the season. What the hell do you want? At some point, it comes down to the damn players not performing.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 11:23 AM) No, it would have been a fine trade then, as KW was clearly making that trade to try and repeat. The problem was that Vazquez was a big part of the problem, especially for the first 80 pct of the season. I tend to think Mark and Jose were the biggest let downs in the second half. They were two guys we heavily counted on, and perhaps Javy was brought in because of the possibility that Jose would break down. Javy certainly could have stepped up and helped us out in July and August when Jose and Mark were time bombs. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. Nonetheless, you can't blame KW for making the trade at the time he made it. And holding it against Javy for the rest of his White Sox career because he was 1 of 4 guys who weren't getting the job done when we needed them doesn't seem quite fair to me either. QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 11:30 AM) Isn't Guillen's #1 asset as a manager player motivation? Which is probably what led him to react that way. He probably has tried damn near everything and is running out of answers. There comes a point when nothing else can be done.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 11:07 AM) I will still go to my grave saying that the 06 white sox make the playoffs if Rob Mackowiak never, ever starts a game in CF after July 1st last year. The numbers don't back me up well, but thats' what my eyes told me about that team. I don't know either, but I know we would have had a better shot. I still believe we would have a better shot currently if Brian were starting in center field as he should have following ST. That is one area where I wish Kenny would have put his foot down and overruled Ozzie.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 11:01 AM) I also thought that Anderson should have kept playing in CF last year and been given the chance to start the year out there as well. But he never went out and MADE Ozzie put him in CF last season with his production. When we traded Rowand and Young, we left our franchise with only one possible CF.....and he's underachieved. No doubt, no doubt. But had we made a run deep into the playoffs last year, would people continue to be moaning about that trade? Or would it have been worth it then? We won 90 games. So many things are outside of Kenny's control. The damn Cardinals won 83 games and won the World Series. Isn't it obvious how speculative his job is?

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 10:56 AM) No...it would be great if someone from our minors actually overachieved based on their expectations. The last person to do that has to be Buehrle. I've just always thought of Gio as more of a #4 or 5 guys. There's nothing about his numbers, while repeating AA in a pitcher's park, that makes me think he's going to be a standout starter. If Danks can be a 2/3 and Gio can be a 4/5 though, we have the makings of a competitive staff. Well, for one, isn't he near the top of the Southern league in strikeouts? I really don't care what park he is in, if he's striking people out at a high rate, they can play in a softball field for all I care.