caulfield12

Well, we all know Rios was atrocious in 2009. Perhaps there's no point in even revisiting that one...we just will have to wait until October 2010 and see where we stand with him. No doubt KW might re-think that move if given a chance to undo it, but too late for that. It was a big, but calculated risk on his part. No matter what you say about KW, he's never been averse to risk-taking, which is the only way a team like the White Sox can go far into the playoffs. Unfortunately, it seems like he tinkers too much trying to find the right combination. I don't know where to find the statistic, but the roster turnover in this organization the past five years has to be Top 5-7 in the majors if it was ranked from 2006 through the beginning of the 2010 season. The only players still around from that World Series team are AJ, Mark, Konerko and Jenks, and they all have short "shelf lifes" at the moment. Obviously things went downhill after Mark's no-hitter, that was the high water mark last season.

We haven't had a great record with unproven players or rookies being thrown into the heat of the fire of competitive ALCD races. As someone stated, when you're looking to "max out" at 825 or 850 OPS (if everything goes perfectly), that's not a very high ceiling for a 1B or DH. It's okay for a team like KC trying to find the pieces to the puzzle, but the White Sox can't afford to experiment like they did from April-June last season with so many different players and line-ups. Brian Anderson in 2006 comes to mind, if the team's struggling...too much focus from the media comes down on that player not carrying his weight, rookie or not. Now maybe the likes of Fields and Borchard were fatally flawed, but they also failed mightily when they were asked to produce in meaningful games. I'm not a Branyan fan at all, I had been hoping for Matsui or Guerrero. Damon would be fine, but, once again...the budget, the budget, the budget. Don't know if it would take $7 million to get him (one year deal) or if he would be happy DHing most of the time and not playing the outfield. But I guess we have no idea how Quentin will hold up. If he's physically capable, you get the feeling he'd be more productive offensively if he could play the field for 140+ games. Just depends on his health, but you can't have Pierre and Damon in the same outfield with their arms, no matter how good Rios in in CF. Miguel Tejada? I guess I would take Blalock or Tejada because I'm not 100% convinced of Teahen being an everyday player. He's had ONE really solid season, and flashes/glimpses at other times, but then bringing in another big RH bat leaves you really a bit exposed. Dye and Thome are possibilities still, although Thome seems the better fit from a salary standpoint AND the way things "feel," after what's been written and said so far this offseason. Guerrero going to TEX closes one more door for JD, though. You wonder what NL team would take a shot playing him everyday in RF...not more than 2-3, and probably not a true playoff contender.

I think that Mitchell should be higher, based purely on potential. Plus Danks really struggled the second half of the season, I would agree if that #3 rating was based on April-June. Santeliz? He has a great arm, but middle relievers are also rarely on Top 10 lists. I would pick someone like Trayce Thompson over the likes of Retherford or maybe even Morel. In the end, BA usually doesn't pick "utility" types as top prospects, and because of his size, lack of "plus" defensive ability and lack of home run power to play the corners and range/athletic ability to play up the middle, Retherford might become a starter for the Pirates or Royals, but never in Chicago. I know Retherford and Morel both have a lot of backers, we'll just have to wait and see...I was a huge Viciedo fan coming into last season and I'm going to stick with him for at LEAST one more year before I draw any conclusions about where he ends up defensively and whether he can hit 25-35 homers in the majors.

QUOTE (scenario @ Jan 1, 2010 -> 10:05 PM) Good article. Thanks for posting it. I found the conclusion particularly interesting. In conclusion, the ranking of a hitting prospect seems to be a good indicator of future value. A pitching prospect’s ranking has not had quite the same effect. There has been no separation in performance between pitching prospects rated in the top 50. In fact, pitching prospects ranked from 11-50 have performed slightly better than top 10 pitching prospects. However, there does appear to be a clear drop off in performance between top 50 pitchers and pitchers ranked from 51-100. Hitters in each sub group perform better than the pitchers in their sub group. In fact, hitters ranked 51-75 have performed better than any group of pitchers in the top 50. An expanded look at the performance of top 100 prospects has further reinforced my belief that teams should be using more of their pitching prospects to trade for established major league players. There is definite profit available for teams that acquire players in their arbitration years for top pitching prospects. Goodbye, Daniel Hudson? KW did a brilliant job getting Danks and Floyd, perhaps he has one more trick up his sleeve...when you consider all the injury possibilities with pitchers PLUS non-performance, it's almost impossible to reliably predict future returns outside the ones that are obvious (and in recent years, look what has happened with the likes of Homer Bailey or Phil Hughes, too). When you look at all the arms that KW has parted with, how many of them are really missed? Gio Gonzalez? Brandon McCarthy? Besides the Ritchie trade, he hasn't given up multiple pitching prospects...and Ritchie was a veteran/journeyman at that time coming off a career year.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Dec 29, 2009 -> 01:26 PM) Can someone explain to me the appeal of James Cameron's last two movies? I mean not that Avatar was terrible but I just don't understand how Titanic and Avatar have been so captivating that they have set box office records. Sure Avatar has impressive visuals, but the movie itself was incredibly predictable and cliched and without the visuals is an average movie at best. A large part of it the "visual" experience of seeing both those movies in a theatre, they don't translate as well to watching on a DVD player or computer. Then, you have "universal" plots that everyone can connect to around the world...the Titanic being the most famous ship to ever sink even though it was now almost 100 years ago, everyone has heard of it. With Avatar, you have these anti-militarism/pro-environment that are resonating with people all around the world. Of course, most posters see things mostly through an "American lens," but from living abroad now for basically 3 1/2 of the last 4 1/2 years, you can begin to understand why Avatar was #1 in 107/108 markets around the world, with India being the exception, where a Bollywood film was 1 and Avatar was 2. It hasn't even opened yet in China, where 2012 is still the #1 movie. When the final story is told, with the swell of international/overseas box office (it's sitting around $650 milllion now overall in less than 2 weeks), it will definitely be one of the top 3-5 (I'm guessing 3) box offices successes in our lifetimes. You have the CGI/action for the men, the beauty/cinematography of the film appeals to almost everyone and then the love story to keep the females interested, too. And the themes relating to the environment (dovetails with Copenhagen and the green movement) AND the fact that MUCH of the world was accusing the US/Bush of being too unilateral and not willing to negotiate, there's obviously that political element as well that is popular outside the US. It's the same reason in 2012 that statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil and the Vatican were the targets of destruction in 2012...instead of Muslim holy sites like Mecca or mosques collapsing....part of it is also "political correctness." As far as hype, Paranormal Activity or the Blair Witch Project or even Twilight got a lot of hype, but Twilight is struggling to make $300 million domestically after starting out with almost double the numbers of Avatar...you have to have some substance to back the hype or word of mouth will kill a picture quickly. I think that's already happening with Sherlock Holmes. There was a lot of critical hype about "The Hurt Locker" and "Up in the Air" but it's still not enough to create a mass audience, or the movie "Precious" would be another example. The reverse is happening with Avatar...people are saying "forget the backlash, forget the hype," you HAVE to go see it in the theatre in 3-D or on an IMAX screen. People don't want to miss out on that opportunity. It's one of those "water cooler" movies that seemingly EVERYONE has an opinion on...where even the biggest critics admire elements of it and the biggest Avatar fangroups acknowledge its limitations. Plus, we love to cheer for the underdog, so while it seems strange to be cheering for 10-12 foot tall blue people instead of Americans/Blackwater types, that's the position you are forced into by Cameron, to empathize with the Na'VI people...especially after their homes and lives are disrupted by a brutal military assault reminiscent of German/Italian planes fighting Africans resisting with bows and arrows during World War II. Whether you call it Pocohontas, Dances with Wolves, LOR: Return of the King (the battle scenes, the uniting of all the world against a common threat of evil), it's a movie that at least makes you think a bit. Is it better than Titanic or Batman/Dark Knight or Shrek 1, well, it doesn't really matter, does it? For that matter, I think Michael Bay could care less how many holes are in Transformers 2, it's profitability that matters most to him. At least with Avatar, you saw a unique director's artistic vision win out over what is normally produced in Hollywood. Sure, the dialogue is campy and the two villains (Stephen Lang and Giovani Ribisi) overact, but Cameron is a little like John Grisham or Dan Brown, an excellent storyteller but not a great writer. However, there are many well-written scripts that come apart at the seams because of the story or the directing, Cameron blends all those things together, which is what sets him apart.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 30, 2009 -> 12:50 AM) I'll bet he would enjoy Land of the Lost Maybe not even Will Ferrell's mother could enjoy that film...actually, from what I've heard, even though it has gone down on many lists as the biggest "bust" of 2009 in the world of cinema, some reviewers actually liked it. The Brendan Fraser movie was enough for me.

QUOTE (Ranger @ Dec 29, 2009 -> 10:07 PM) That is exactly what Getz is. He's a nice complementary player. You can't have too many of him on one team but if you have Morneau and Mauer, Nick Punto/Chris Getz/Brendan Harris is nice to have. If you go back to 2005, Iguchi and Pods were the definition of complementary players on that team, but both rose to the occasion in the post-season, hitting dramatic, momentum-shifting homers. (Not to mention Vizcaino, W. Harris, Blum, El Duque, Hermanson, Cotts, Politte, etc.) I think many were hoping that Getz could "morph" into another Iguchi, but it just wasn't mean to be. I think the biggest question with our line-up now is "who are the stars?" because with Dye and Thome gone, that leaves Konerko and Beckham arguably as the best two hitters, with Quentin and Rios either rediscovering All-Star/MVP form or huge question marks. There's also the uncertainty of Beckham repeating his success or having a "sophomore" slump like he suffered through at the end of the season and Ramirez went through in 09, to an extent. Many of us would be quite happy if we had 2005 Everett/Thomas as our DH instead of Jones/Kotsay. And that's not really a compliment to Crazy Carl, who must be happy he has Avatar to watch now in his retirement.

The funny thing is that the Twins can't have complementary players like Getz if they won't keep Mauer/Morneau/Cuddyer in the middle of that line-up. Because Getz is a lot like a Brendan Harris, Tolbert, Punto type that doesn't really have any "plus" tools. That's why they have been trying to upgrade their offensive output there, as well as hoping for bigger numbers from D. Young and continued excellent all-around play by Span. It will be very interesting to see if they pull the trigger on Mr. Beltre. If they make that move, they have to be the favorites heading into the pre-season, although nobody knows how they'll play in their new stadium, their pitching has a lot more room for improvement coming off 2009. Whereas, the White Sox have to get lights out performances from the Big 4 starters if we go into 2010 with THIS as our offense going forward.

Thanks...Chris (I guess Mr. seems to make everyone feel older, haha...maybe if you work in St. Louis someday, they'll call you that too, because everyone is so polite there) When I said Getz was a gym rat, I was thinking of it more in terms of a player who perhaps "overachieves" or who maybe doesn't light up the scouting scales with numbers off the chart in any of the five areas, but he's just a guy that "gets it done" and usually does the little things to help the team win. Sometimes the words like "heady" and "grinder" get overused as well, especially when used to refer to white players (in the NBA or college basketball)...obviously Beckham and Getz are both talented (hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in any major sport, arguably...look at all the trouble Michael Jordan had in Birmingham), but they certainly weren't considered as talented coming out of high school as uber-athetes like Joe Borchard, Brian Anderson, Jeremy Hermida or JD Drew. Getz was kind of lighning rod last year around here, and so was Nix. Both had their defenders and opponents. Getz was streaky, had some injury problems that caused a few to be concerned about his durability, played average or below average defense, but he came up through our system (a rarity that a position prospect makes an impact, since Rowand/Crede), had proven himself at every level of the minors, had the POTENTIAL to be a high OBP guy from the bottom of the order or possibly a #2 hitter, very good stolen base percentage, etc. Without stating the specifics, perhaps there were some concerns on the part of KW and Ozzie about him as a starter...obviously that must have been the case, because they certainly have to believe they'll now receive "plus" offensive numbers from that position with Beckham there, and at least above-average defense, considering Beckham is a converted SS. With Getz, there was always a question if he could put up a league-average OPS for a 2B or have a high enough OBP (.340?) to make up for his lack of power. He also seemed to have a hard time adjusting to getting busted in on the hands constantly by opposing pitchers.

Speaking of bad 1/4 seasons, Alex Rios anyone? I know he's younger and should be peaking now, compared to Huff...well, let's just hope the clean slate in 2010 will work wonders with him.

Quarantine was one of the worst movies I've ever seen... I would rather watch the bleakly depressing but very strong "Lilya 4-Ever" 10 times than sit through Quarantine again. Sherlock Holmes was "okay," nothing I will remember next week or want to watch again anytime soon. Rachel McAdams was kind of superfluous in her role as well, although she always makes things more interesting when she's on-screen. Although I am sure they will make a sequel, I would prefer a "pre-quel" more along the lines of Batman or Ironman to establish the Sherlock Holmes character for a new moviegoing audience not familiar with the stories.

I think Eli Marrero might be a better option that Christian Marrero.

I think KW and 95% of MLB GM's would get a kick out of this thread. This isn't Doyle Alexander for Smoltz or Bagwell for Larry Andersen, Carter had legit power potential, so did Brandon Allen, but that didn't stop KW from parting with them. Heck, Chris Young had power AND speed potential at a premium position on the diamond. As history has shown, 1B/DH types are a dime a dozen, I just started a thread about DH possibilities and there are roughly 25-30 names alreadly mentioned that, once again 95% of GM's would take as their DH option over Cris Carter heading into 2010 if they were trying to compete for a division title. Once again, there's no patience in this market for development, you either swim (Beckham, eventually Crede and Rowan) or you sink (see Borchard, Joe and Fields, Josh and pretty much every pitching prospect over the last decade since Buehrle, unless you want to count Brandon McCarthy in 2005). The odds of Carter being a Howard/Pujols type of player are 1-2% While the odds of CQ repeating as a Top 5 MVP candidate aren't looking great right now, they're still significantly higher than Carter being a once in a generation hitter, like Frank Thomas, Baines, Ventura or Beckham. Heck, I would take Ordonez/Lee numbers out of Quentin, I think everyone would "settle" for that after the highs and lows of the last two years.

I think we can all pretty much agree that Dunn's out of the question unless we do something with Konerko/Linebrink/Jenks. Choo's one of the the best players on the Indians (after Sizemore), very good all-around athlete, young/affordable and they're not sold on Crowe yet 100%...and they've traded away Fr. Gutierrez and Ben Francisco in the last 12 months, they're not going to hand him over to us (especially a division rival) for any less than Hudson and Jordan Danks. DeJesus MIGHT just be to the point where Dayton Moore's ready to trade him, and there's obviously a willingness to trade with the White Sox, but again you have to shed salary (don't think they're willing to take Konerko/Linebrink/Jenks in return!!!) and talent at the same time. Does David DeJesus put our offense over the top? I don't think so...he's a complementary player IMO, a very good piece to have on a team, but I just don't think he's THAT good. For all of his speed, he's never put up great SB numbers, he's had quite a few injury problems and he's never been a power hitter. Does changing the OF to Pierre/Rios/DeJesus with Quentin as DH make us a better team? Yeah, probably. However, that's an outfield with the potential to wind up with only 20-25-30 homers at USCF too, heading into 2010. Losing Thome and Dye, you have to get some power from another source besides Andruw Jones or Tyler Flowers. It can't all come from Beckham and Quentin.

If I were KC, I would just play the youngsters and forget about recycling players like Mike Jacobs or Ryan Shealy. Actually, it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world to acquire and play Uggla at 1B (he could also play 2B and 3B occasionally)...but he's RH and would cost around $7 million, more or less what Bobby Jenks will make. You could also bring in Orlando Hudson, put him at 2B, Beckham back at 3B and Teahen as the 1B/DH/corner OF back-up (certainly not defensive replacement though). That would also give the team a lot more speed, veteran leadership and even better defense up the middle. If would also make Teahen a PT/bench/situational player instead of an everyday starter, and I'm not sure KW wants to do that after giving up Getz and Fields for him. The other option is Tejada at 3B/DH, alternating him with Teahen depending on the match-ups, with Teahen getting some time at 1B as well (although you hate to give up one of Kotsay's bonuses, that he can play that position so well). It will be interesting to see how far down the price goes for Tejada and Guerrero, as well as Hudson again. FWIW, if Fernando Rodney is only worth $11 million for two years, I think KW is going to have the fingers on the trigger with Jenks at $7 million plus.

Whoever gets Xavier Nady gets the best value of the offseason; 5. Are the Pirates still in the league? Updates on nine 1. Troy Glaus, 1B, Braves - A low-risk, high-reward signing, Glaus has tremendous power (five 30-homer seasons - two of 40 - and four 100-RBI seasons), and if he is healthy after back and shoulder injuries diminished his career the past few years, he could be a monster. Glaus is agile enough to be a decent first baseman and a heck of a target for his infielders. The one negative trend for the Braves is the lack of commitment to payroll that the owners are making. They had to pass on their own free agents Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano for cheaper versions in Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito. And they traded a good pitcher (Vazquez) for Melky Cabrera. 2. Kerry Wood, RHP, Indians - The Indians would love to move his $10 million salary and $11 million option for 2011, but with a glut of reliever/closer types out there, there has been no cry for Wood, who still can bring it. Wood might be enticing to the Red Sox if they decide to expand their budget. 3. Fausto Carmona, RHP, Indians - The Tribe would say he’s not available, but baseball executives don’t buy it. Carmona has been an enigma at times, but as one longtime National League talent evaluator said, “He’s got one of the best three sinkers in the game.’’ Not a front-end starter, but if a team needs a middle-to-back-end guy, the rebuilding Indians would have to listen. 4. Dan Uggla, 2B, Marlins - There’s no doubt the Marlins are planning another payroll dump, and Uggla would appear to be at the center of it. There was a lot of early talk about him going to the Giants, but that seems to have quieted down. Some scouts believe Uggla is best suited for the American League as a DH or someone you can move around, like a Mark DeRosa. The Marlins, who receive a ton in revenue-sharing and central-fund money, are looking to keep their profit margin high. 5. Jon Garland, RHP, free agent - A market is beginning to develop, and Texas appears to be the early leader. Another mid-to-back-end rotation guy that is probably better off in the NL, but that doesn’t mean an AL team won’t take the plunge if the price is reasonable. 6. Orlando Hudson, 2B, free agent - Seems he was the hot name for a long time, but that has quieted. The Mets remain the most interested, but until they are able to move Luis Castillo - a big if - the Mets may only be able to dream about a Jose Reyes-Hudson DP combo. 7. Vladimir Guerrero, DH, free agent - His choices are limited by what are seen as diminished skills in the outfield. Suffice to say he will be somewhere. Now that the Rangers have pulled out of the Mike Lowell deal, Guerrero could be a candidate for them. However, Jermaine Dye might interest Texas more (and maybe the Mets), considering he still can play the outfield. 8. Russell Branyan, 1B, free agent - An interesting bat to consider. Seattle may re-sign him if it’s for one year, but Branyan wants to cash in on his career year. So far, it’s not happening. He’s out there with guys like Jack Cust, Adam LaRoche, Aubrey Huff, Carlos Delgado, Jim Thome, and Hank Blalock. So the competition is fierce. 9. Miguel Tejada, 3B/SS, free agent - Still a very good bat who would be more valuable at third base. He may have the Mitchell Report stigma, but he loves to play the game and is a great teammate. Tejada could be a good fit for the Twins, who are trying to come up with a third baseman. He remains a good fit for the Rangers in a modified Lowell role (DH, 3B, and fill-in SS). He would have been a decent fit for Boston had Lowell gone in a deal. from boston.com WHITE SOX DH POSSIBILITIES 1) Andruw Jones/Kotsay platoon 2) Xavier Nady 3) Dan Uggla 4) Orlando Hudson 5) Vlad the Impaler 6) Russell Branyan 7) Jack Cust 8) Adam LaRoche 9) Aubrey Huff 10) Carlos Farmer in the Delgado 11) Jim Thome 12) Hank Blalock 13) Jeremy Hermida 14) Eric Hinske 15) Miggy Tejada I'm voting for Hermida, if KW can pry him loose and the Red Sox get off to a slow start and can't afford to play him if he's struggling.

Jon Rauch was one of the Top 5-10 prospects in the game until his labrum injury. Jon Garland was somewhere around 20-40, too. Before the 2000 season, Kip Wells was expected to be the ace of that staff for at least five years. Wright, Ginter and Myette were all Top 100 prospects. Barcelo was there briefly, too. Arguably, Buehrle and Fogg were the least likely to become anchors of any rotation, heading into 2000. I don't think anyone could compare the likes of Hudson, Holmberg, Hynick and Torres with that group. And none of those pitchers ended up having a huge impact in Chicago, only Buehrle and Garland, unless you want to count Danny Wright as being "huge" in any way besides being more disappointing than Jason Bere, who was awesome until injuries knocked him out. So that's why I never have gotten excited about a "Sox pitching pipeline" or Braves' like dynasty again, I've seen it completely fall apart in a hurry countless times.

In 2000, we could have said we were set for 10 years with Kip Wells, Parque, Mike Sirotka, James Baldwin, Jon Rauch, Jon Garland, Josh Fogg, Aaron Myette, Mark Buehrle, Lorenzo Barcelo, Danny Wright, Matt Ginter, Kevin Beirne, etc. Things change in a heartbeat with pitching prospects...actually, we're still not very deep at all in this area, and the chances we sign Maya are 10-15% at best. To project Holmberg into a future rotation is just a bit more relevant now than projecting Jordan Danks or Mitchell as our 2011/2012 starting CFer. Remember last year at this time? Names being speculated about were Clayton Richard/Aaron Poreda (C.R.A.P.) and Jeff Marquez...only one of those guys came close to making an impact on the starting rotation.

Or he simply realized with Hudson and Flowers in 2011 and going forward, that gives him a lot more payroll flexibility. Considering Hudson, Viciedo, Flowers, Beckham and Ramirez will all be making relatively TINY salaries still, it makes for a very good situation if you're a GM (of course, I'm assuming three very big if's/maybe's about three of those players panning out). It seems that Jordan Danks and/or John Shelby III (a favorite of scenario's) would be the first to go with the way things are set up for now, and with Mitchell looking to be a late 2011 or 2012 arrival.

Mr. Rongey, Can you give us a little more "behind-the-scenes" on Mike Gellinger and his role with the club. If there's anyone who seems like they would be into this "stats world" in the White Sox organization, it might be him. On the other hand, if you look at players like Iguchi (video-scouted but never actually seen in-person by KW), Ramirez, Viciedo, etc., it still seems the White Sox are more traditionalist in their approach to scouting. I would call them Moneyballers in quite a different regard, they find undervalued players with potential/ability and/or injury concerns (Jenks, Thornton, Dye, Rios, Quentin, Ramirez, etc.) and maximize their talent/performance output. This "buy cheap" philosophy goes back to the 80's and 90's when seemingly every year we found corner outfielders (like Ellis Burks, Mike Devereaux, Dave Martinez, Cory Snyder, Ivan Bubbling Calderon, Lyle Mouton, Shawn Lil Abner, etc.) in the same way. I think Beckham and Chris Getz would be the two players who would be "gym-rats" if they were basketball players...contrasting with some of the higher round draft choices the White Sox made over the last decade, where they alternated between "projectable" athletes and "MLB-ready" pitchers like Ginter, Wright, Royce Ring, Broadway, McCulloch, etc. Whatever has been said about Beckham's physical limitations (speed/range/throwing arm), the guy is just a baseball player, hopefully with a career-track similar to another one we grew up with in Robin Ventura. On a scale or spectrum of 1-100 (with 90-100 being teams like the Red Sox and A's that use a blurrying amount of statistics to analyze players), how much do KW/Hahn rely on this for their analysis of both players for the draft and potential trade/FA acquisitions? If you look at this offseason, you have the typical KW "special" in Putz and then it seems you have Vizquel, Jones, Kotsay and Pierre who feel more like "Ozzie picks" than KW ones. Well, I'll amend that, Jones and Kotsay feel like players that KW and Ozzie both wanted over time, whereas Vizquel and Pierre will be more like "Joey Coras" both on and off the field for the organization, serving as teachers/mentors/role models for everyone about how to approach the game.

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 28, 2009 -> 01:14 AM) McCourt and the Dodgers should sue Park for failure to compete. Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre wouldn't be too far behind, maybe along with Darren Dreifort and Kevin Brown.

http://mlbsecrets.com/baseball/salary/Kreuter/Chad/kreutch01 What's most interesting about this case is that here's your average MLB "journeyman" catcher who played 16+ seasons and made over $8 million dollars in his career, yet even that apparently wasn't enough. It would be interesting to see where things went awry, as it would be instructive to former and especially future players to understand more about investments and finding the right accountants/agents to manage their finances...or perhaps this was just a case of getting caught up in the real estate market like the rest of America around 2000-2008?

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 26, 2009 -> 08:54 AM) Chris if you could tell me how Dye, Podsednik and Quentin were not a bad defensive outfield trio, I'll concede the point. I don't know if it's possible to really quantify what did the most damage....certainly, if you deconstructed all the earned runs, you'd find 75-80% of them were caused by the infield errors, both physical and mental ones that didn't show up in the box scores, or double plays that often weren't completed as well. We could probably point out at least 10 significant areas of weakness in last year's team, and you could have legit arguments about which areas were most debilitating overall. I don't think it's a coincidence that one of our better defensive years ever (2005) was the year we won it all...and it's not a coincidence that the Twins teams that have been the most dangerous this decade were the ones that played superior defense as well (actually, it's interesting they traded Gomez because he was certainly their best overall defender, but they must have reached the conclusion he wasn't as valuable on grass going forward as on that carpet). Dye has always been a myth defensively, he has horrible set-up mechanics on throws (usually throwing flat-footed or from his heels going backwards instead of charging into the ball like you're taught from Little League on) and very rarely threw out anyone while with the White Sox. His height allowed him to snag some balls that would have gone over the fence, but he was barely adequate out there the last 2-3 seasons. He probably had the worst range of any RF in the majors as well, I'm hard-pressed to think of someone any more limited in this area. How many balls have we seen drop down the line or over 1B or into foul territory that would have been caught by a "normal" MLB RFer? That said, there's no argument he earned his money until the final two months of 2009 and that he was perhaps the best "value" sign ever by KW (after the frigid start in 2005). Pods was better than in the past, Quentin was obviously much more limited physically...overall, it was close to a disaster everywhere on the field except for 1B. Even the highly-touted Nix was never GREAT at 2B, and he was barely adequate at SS and 3B. Except for Teahen, at least going into this year they have the potential to be league-average or better at every position except for 3B and C, and AJ brings so much to the table, it's not reflected in CS/SBA numbers, not to mention our history of pitchers like Contreras, Floyd, Jenks and Garcia that let opposing baserunners run at will on them.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ Dec 26, 2009 -> 04:08 AM) But at the same time just because someone is paid to put a team together doesn't mean that his opinion is superior to the opinion of the well informed fan. As has been previously mentioned, there are many terrible GM's. Is it just a coincidence that teams are leaning towards sabermetrics more and more? I don't think so. People are starting to look at the Oakland A's and Billy Beane as an example of why sabermetrics don't work, but these people are failing to see the whole picture. The A's were able to put great teams together on a small budget because their methods of evaluation were different to everyone else, they were able to sign the underrated, unappreciated player on the cheap who in turn gave them great value. Now, however, these players are no longer underrated (or at least not to the previous extent), now you have Boston and New York swooping in and snapping these players up. That is why the A's haven't been as competitive of late, it's not because sabermetrics don't work, but rather, because the rest of the field has caught up. Hmmm....always thought it was 75% Hudson, Zito and Mulder. Well, there's some other interesting things that the A's did that other teams have tried to model....like going pretty cheap on closers, changing them quite frequently and trying to get value back in trade whenever possible (Koch, Street, Dotel, etc.) Everyone in baseball has pretty much caught on to the Dan Johnson/Scott Hatteberg theory that you can pay corner outfielders, 1B and DH's significantly less money and still get a benefit investing your money elsewhere on the diamond, namely in the pitching staff, 3B (Chavez), SS (Tejada), CF and also catcher. The biggest problem was making a huge bet on Chavez....and over time, they had to let Giambi, Carlos Hernandez, Swisher, Tejada, Dye, Damon and Beltran, to name just a few, go. After awhile, the Braves' syndrome set in, where they had good enough pitching to get them to the playoffs but not quite enough offense to do any significant damage against the bigger budget teams that were more balanced.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 09:03 PM) With all these names being thrown around (LaRoche, Thome, Huff, Delgado, et al.) how can people be panicking? We'll end up with a bargain-basement DH but with legitimate power. I said it in the Delgado thread, but I think it merits repeating: anyone remember Carl Everett? Same thing. Not perfection, but I didn't cry myself to sleep at night either. It will be Winn or Hinske, just because KW wants to drive us crazy putting together a team with Vizquel, Winn and Pierre at USCF.