caulfield12

But we spent $12-13 million USD to do it....unfortunately. Looking at the cost of Andruw Jones in 2009 versus Thome's portion of the payroll, there's no comparison in overall value. And Jones' decline would have dovetailed nicely with the funk we went through the final two months of the season.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 02:08 PM) Um, huh? Dunn's averaged 41 HR and 101 RBI the last 6 years. That definitely would excite me if he were available. I was saying this more from the standpoint of watching the same kind of 3 run home run and a cloud of dust offense the last decade. It's just that the names have changed from Valentin, Ordonez, Thomas and C-Lee to what's left, Konerko and Co. Guess I'd be okay with Dunn, much moreso than Johnson, knowing Johnson is ten times more likely at this point. Certainly, you'd have to pick him over Thome, but then again, that's arguing apples to oranges with payroll being the most important number, not who's better or younger. 2005 proved we could win with a very different offensive mix, although I think the missing presence of Dye will be understood more fully this season. He was so underrated around the baseball world, but not by die-hard White Sox fans. It's just that with Dye and Thome seemingly gone, it would be a nice change to have a different offensive approach take hold in this organization. Of course, 100%, homers will always be important at USCF. That said, finding the equivalent of the next Chone Figgins (but NOT him or Pods) would excite me a lot more. NOTE: AJ will not be our catcher for 3 more seasons...maybe 2, but three is hard to imagine at this point, unless Flowers is really gone. Also, Thome has averaged 32+ homers and 90+ RBI's (not even adjusting for missing 2 months with us this year) in a much more difficult league, but nobody's exactly clamoring to bring him back.

Williams' job is more secure than Guillen's, of course, but the Peavy and Rios acquisitions were his riskiest yet, since the Todd Ritchie and David Wells moves in 2001/2002. Both have the potential to pay off big, and both could be seen as huge albatrosses, but would have to be considered legit risks (based on cost/benefit analysis at the time of those moves). As someone said earlier, those pesky Twins have made KW look silly consistently winning with lower payrolls and a much better farm system, not to mention teams that simply don't beat themselves very often. For that matter, Dombrowski has looked bad, too. Then again, the White Sox and Tigers both went to the World Series, and the Twins have now lost 10+ playoff games in a row. But you really would be hard-pressed to argue how KW was better than Terry Ryan, except for that 2005 season. On a consistent basis, and especially taking into consideration payroll, Ryan beats him hands-down. Then again, the biggest move for that franchise was a non-move, them "lucking" into Mauer when the Cubs took Prior. Thanks to that move, they inherited the best young player in the game at the most important position. Even without Morneau, they were able to make the playoffs, and with Scott Baker as their "ace." Very impressive, although Smith has been a pretty lousy GM, comparatively. It's amazing (that Hahn's son guessing right) has turned the comparison to 3 White Sox division titles versus 5 for the Twins to what just could just as easily have been an unforgiveable 6 to 2 ratio for the Twins over the White Sox (with 2002 and 2007 going to the Indians and their underachieving Shapiro/Wedge combo). Then again, that WS title in 2005 makes a lot of give both KW and Ozzie Guillen a TON of slack/rope.

JJ PUTZ is a "gap" signing? REALLY? Are we now the NY YANKEES? Maybe bringing back LH RP Williams or Sean Tracey, lol. Carl Everett...might as well add Mark Mulder, Penny or John Smoltz to the list, haha. Those would be gap signings. Byrd, Crisp, Matsui, Damon...we speculated all last off-season about Bobby Abreu and also O-Dog, Abreu in particular became uber-cheap, and we still didn't get him. God forbid, Milton Bradley if the Cubs eat 80% of that salary, or Soriano. That can't happen though, it would be too embarassing for them to send Fukudome/Bradley/Soriano, PAY for either one of them, then watch him lead the White Sox to the post-season. Same problem with DET eating the contract of Ordonez, Carlos Guillen, etc. What would be incredibly awesome would be getting Edwin Jackson for a cheap price from the Tigers, but even DD isn't that stupid. They would try to dump Robertson, Bonderman or Dontrelle Willis and KW would have none of it...well, maybe he would be intrigued by Bonderman or Willis with the right amount of money to subsidize either deal, say 85-90%!!! For some reason, having Adam Dunn or Nick Johnson here isn't very exciting. Perhaps we'll keep hearing some "newer" old names arise, besides Upton, like Cody Ross, Francouer or Hermida.

Yeah, but we've also ditched Fields, Getz and a number of busts like Broadway, Anderson....and crafted a very veteran bench, like 2006. First of all, to quote JR, "Peavy and Rios" were our big splashes. Second, KW's style has almost always been to wait until mid-season to make adjustments, although he should have learned from the LH RP debacle and the Owens/Wise/Lillibridge/Miller/Anderson/Fields one not to start the season with 25% of the roster in chaos or fill-ins. Third, Pods/AJ/El Duque/Hermanson/Vizcaino/Iguchi/Dye...none of those guys were SPLASHY additions, in fact, most were bemoaning the "idiocy" of KW letting Valentin, C-Lee/El Caballo and Ordonez go and replacing them with speculative players at that time. Dye was definitely a typical White Sox rehabilitation on the fly type of signing, far from a sure-thing. Can you tell me that any of those names are MORE exciting than Peavy or even Rios (based on his age and potential return to mean?) Fourth, we've probably reached the tipping point with our payroll...certainly you don't see them adding more than another $3-5 million unless they can somehow subtract creatively Linebrink/Konerko/Jenks. Fifth, we're not going to trade away our captain going into this season, it won't happen.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 06:19 PM) He probably is a slight upgrade over Josh Fields offensively for slightly more money, but nothing that can't be eaten. I'm shocked the Sox signed a Boras guy in November and Boras took it at this time. I do agree he appears to have had some help putting up numbers in the past. If anything he could be exhibit A to Bobby Jenks about what happens to guys who don't take their fitness seriously. Its a blah signing. I'm looking forward to the real moves. I'm just curious as to why the Rangers didn't want to bring him back. The Josh Fields of ST 2009 (he of the better vision and quick bat, and numerous doubles) MIGHT be comparable to the way Andruw Jones laced the ball the first half of the season. MAYBE. But, no matter how out of shape and malcontented and difficult Andruw Jones might be...even shaped like Richard Simmons, he can still patrol his position defensively as a back-up 10X better than Josh Fields could ever defend (I'll take that back, Josh made one nice play on Opening Day, 2009).

To sign Crisp as the starting LFer, with Jones and Kotsay as your back-ups, that's not bad. That's assuming we get expected production from Rios and Quentin, 775-800 OPS from Rios and 875-925 for Quentin. If neither one of those eventualities occur, then we're in big trouble. Everyone would feel much better if we knew who our DH (Vlad. Guerrero, Damon/Matsui) and leadoff hitter would be. It's a lot easier to tolerate Crisp as the starter and leadoff guy with a quality DH in the fold...and for those imagining Jordan Danks playing CF in Chicago in 2010, that's about as close to happening as Viciedo playing 3B or DHing. Still, the bench is dramatically improved from 2008/09. Then again, we had, on paper at least, a very good bench coming into 2006 and look what happened, there are no guarantees (and that team went down the drain more due to the pitching hitting the wall, although the offense also faded and Jenks was battling injury problems as well, all 3 things hit simultaneously). As someone mentioned, Andruw Jones wouldn't be bad at all as a platoon DH against LHP if Thome was brought back. We can't compare Jones, even at this stage in his career, to playing Erstad, Mackowiak or Brian Daubach in CF. There have been questions about his age ever since the first time I saw him play for the Macon Braves in the mid 90's, nobody believed he was really 19 then either. He might actually be closer to 34-36.

They always said about Quentin that those kind of hand injuries typically took one full season to heal...not unlike Tommy John, and that the second year was the bounceback year. Of course, there's no guarantee that the rest of CQ will be healthy and durable, but numbers in the mid-range between 2008 and 2009 would be great.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 06:29 PM) Another idea if we could get Adrian for prospects: Konerko ($12M) + Linebrink ($5M in 10, $5.5M in 11) for Affeldt ($4M in 10) + Rowand ($12M in 10-12) + cash in 2012 Sox would cut $1M off the payroll. Affeldt would be the lefty setup man if Thornton becomes the closer, or else Affeldt would be the 2nd lefty. Rowand becomes our RF in 2011 for basically $6.5M if you consider Linebrink a sunk cost. In 2012, the Sox get about $5-6M cash from the Giants to make Rowand's deal worth it. The Giants OTOH would get out of about $12M in commitments to Rowand while upgrading 1B in 2010. S Crisp LF (if we do sign him) R Beckham 2B L Gonzalez 1B R Quentin DH L Pierzynski C R Rios CF L Teahen 3B R Rowand RF R Ramirez SS The problem is that the way bullpen numbers always fluctuate, Linebrink might end up having another great year...losing Dotel, Jenks and Linebrink, it's scary to think of the RH side of the bullpen, and the bargain-basement approach just doesn't work on a consistent basis. We have Carrasco and Pena, but I'd shudder to think what would happen if we had to fill those 2 spots with the likes of Santeliz, Jh. Nunez, Link, etc, or even worse, a veteran along the lines of Ed. Sierra, Jeff Nelson or Jose Paniagua. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, the former stud prospect with the Tigers and A's that we had at Charlotte last year, but we don't need any more reclamation projects. It's amazing to think of the confluence of events that saw Shingo out the door, Hermanson/Politte/Cotts are dominating and then an impact arm in rookie Bobby Jenks arriving in the back end of the season. We've learned since 2005 that the stars and galaxy don't line up that way very often.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 11:38 AM) I don't necessarily disagree with that. If they are thinking of trading Jenks that would leave a big hole in your bullpen that you would most likely wind up overpaying for someone anyway. I think that if your going to overpay someone Dotel is probably a better bet to have a good season than anybody else I've heard mentioned as available and you would still be paying Dotel less than what Jenks would make in arbitration. If Dotel doesn't accept than you have the draft picks. As always JMHO. They simply can't afford to bring back Dotel at $6 million (his salary last year), let alone the $6-7.5 million he would be sure to get in arbitration if the White Sox tried to cut his salary from down to $4.8 to $6.0 million. Dotel also has a horrific history of injuries going back to his Oakland and Houston days. I think we were relatively lucky to get what we got out of him...of course, not so with Linebrink, although you can argue Scott was one of the key reasons that we won the ALCD in 2008, based on his first four months of near perfection. An arbitrator would look at those seemingly wonderful numbers of OD's and end up giving him north of $7 million, almost the same as what Jenks will get. We cut lose David Riske without making the offer, I'm 98% sure KW won't take the risk. In these market conditions, there's no team in baseball that will pay OD over $6 million per year to be a 7th inning pitcher. Sure, his stats are great on paper (like Javy Vazquez), but the reality is that he just can't do it in the 8th or 9th inning consistently. We're also stuck with Linebrink and Pena (because KW won't cut him lose until at least mid-2010, if then), so Dotel is the logical choice to go, even if Jenks is also gone, Dotel can't be slotted into the 8th inning...just as I don't believe that Thornton would make much more than an average closer, at best. If you could make an argument that cutting Jenks lose and allocating that $7.5 million in savings to another player (DH/leadoff/OF) would happen, you'd have to at least consider it. The surprise performances of Iguchi, Pods, AJ, Hermanson, Dye, Vizcaino and El Duque (well, 3 outs and some decent stats before B-Mac showed up the last 6 weeks) would seem to argue that a combination of CoCo Crisp and 1-2 more players in that $2-3 million range (similar to what the Red Sox tried this past offseason with their bargain basement FA moves) just might work.

I would much rather take a risk on a younger Crisp at one year for less than Pods for two (even if the numbers are similar to what W. Taveras got last year from the Reds). Before the season started, I argued for adding Crisp and Blake, two former Indians. Crisp wouldn't have worked out because of his injury, but I still would have preferred Blake to what happened (and now to Teahen, but you can argue it, especially with Blake being more expensive). Then again, at the time, there was Josh Fields at 3B and I can't even remember if Viciedo was in the picture. It seems there is serious consideration being given to improving the defense this offseason, with the notable exception of the Teahen move, although you could HOPE that Ramirez with one year under his belt and Beckham at 2B would lead to a better overall defense, especially with Rios now up the middle. As far as the outfield, you'd have to play it Crisp in LF, Rios in CF and Quentin in RF to make it work, with Kotsay as the primary back-up and also taking some time from Konerko...De Aza, we'll see, I won't get excited about him until he actually makes the team. Signing Matsui/Damon (whichever the Yankees let go) or Vladimir Guerrero would be the logical route for DH, but it seems we're about $5 million or so short in terms of being able to make a competitive bid for either, leading to the belief that Thome will come back, since his options are even more limited (not having a position) than Vlad the Impaler, Damon or Matsui. It's an interesting question...if cutting Jenks lose would mean Vlad Guerrero or Hideki Matsui would be part of the 2010 White Sox, I'd have to give it serious consideration if I were KW. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as getting rid of Linebrink, because nobody would take him off our hands. Still, the possibility of Thornton as the closer doesn't overwhelm me, and moving Matt back weakens our pen even further.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2009 -> 08:55 PM) Brandon McCarthy for John Danks and Nick Massett? that was more of a prospect for prospect trade....although McCarthy was certainly at the time seen as more "big league ready" i meant, a package of prospects being traded for a Top 10-20 in the minors type, like Joe Borchard at the peak of his career with us, on Jon Rauch before the labrum injury

KW really has never gone for that kind of a move, a Brandon Jennings. As great as his potential might be, KW always errors on the side of finding undervalued/underperforming talent. I can't think of one instance in his history where's overpaid for an unproven prospect, trading away the likes of Flowers/Hudson/Mitchell, etc. and a couple of other pieces to get him. In fact, his track record is just the opposite, trading overvalued prospects for proven talent. Yes, there are always going to be players in hindsight that you would have traded for (like an Evan Longoria), but 80-90% of the time those elite prospects never produce as expected, at least enough to justify their massive price tag in terms of talent surrendered.

I don't think TB would be too interested in D2, certainly not as an option for 2010. Hudson and Flowers would definitely be the starting place...it would be a huge gamble to give up cost-controlled starting pitching and a catcher to replace AJ for 6 years, if that's really where the club sees him sticking. If KW knows Flowers or Viciedo is ticked for 1B, then I would make this trade. Including Jenks in the deal means we would have to take back another contract from them. I'm not such how motivated they would be to take Jenks, it would be a huge gamble...and some of Jenks' biggest implosions last season came against TB, so maybe they're skeptical about him retaining his elite closer status. Of course, overspending for someone like Jose Valverde is risky too, but you don't have to give up any major league talent...and there's 4-5 other interesting guys out there on the closer's market that low payroll tier teams like TB would look at first IMO.

I don't think there's any way to start making judgements on Viciedo until AT LEAST the end of this season...and, even then, the kid will only be 20 or 21 years old. With the success of Contreras and Alexei in our organization (and Alexei morphing from a Ramon Santiago utility player into a ROY candidate), we probably overestimated his overall readiness for playing in the States. You have to remember that he experienced so much early success and hype in Cuba when he was 15-16-17, then he kind of hit a lull and perhaps developed some bad habits and frustration with being "stuck" in the Cuban system where seniority is so important. Ramirez was a seasoned veteran in terms of Cuban ball and already 26 and married with kids. Potential doesn't always translate into performance, nobody's a better example of that than GM's KW and Billy Beane, who both had all the baseball "tools" in the world. It could be that Viciedo merely becomes an average 1B (offensively/defensively), but if you're the White Sox, you roll the dice on six Viciedos instead of one Aroldis Chapman. It's kind of like picking stocks...the White Sox aren't ever in a position to make huge bets, they have to allocate/spread their risk around. Taking on both the Peavy and Rios contracts, those are two of the riskiest/gutsiest moves KW has ever made. If either of those backfire, they will be remembered by all, before names like Viciedo, Anderson Gomes and Luis Silverio hit our tongues. Whatever happens eventually with Mitchell and Thompson, that we're attempting to get more athletic and multi-tooled baseball players on the farm is a good sign, better than our money going to Dave Wilder's bar in Phoenix.

It will be interesting to see what happens. With AJ, Ramirez, Beckham and Rios up the middle, we're about as strong as we have ever been (assuming Rios hits) from an overall (offensive/defensive) standpoint. While it's entertaining to think of Figgins, Aroldis Chapman, Crawford, Gonzalez...even Nick Johnson, Damon/Matsui (the Yankees will keep only one) or Vladimir Guerrero seem like impossibilities. Although I do wonder if there's an outside (10%) chance that KW and Ozzie can convince Vald the Impaler to come here as the starting RFer (not DH)? Of course, having Guerrero, AJ, Teahen and possibly Pods all on the field at the same time is a BIT scary. If you're KW, you still have to be very worried about that infield defense...we keep saying we "think/hope/believe" it will be better...but that same finger-crossing applies to Quentin and Rios offensively, too. KW is an interesting position this offseason. He can wait on Pods and Thome, having both as fallback options...while he considers other players that might improve the team. You'd have to think Kotsay and Nix are strictly looked at as back-up players. In an ideal world, so would Mark Teahen, on a championship-caliber team. So we essentially have Tyler Flowers, Daniel Hudson and Paul Konerko to dangle around as trade-bait (although trading Flowers, with AJ one year away from leaving the team, seems a dubious move)...KW's style has usually been to trade young pitchers in the past, but he's obviously traded about 60-75% of our Top 10 prospects over the last decade, so he's never been afraid to pull the trigger. With the starting four we have right now, you have to believe KW and Ozzie are in a "go for it" mode. It's hard not to be optimistic, but it's hard not to spend a few nights worrying about Carrasco, Linebrink, Pena and the likes of Randy Williams comprising the back half of our pen...even Jenks is far from certain at this point, and his return trade value is pretty small, too. Difficult position for KW to be in with that pen...certainly there has to be 1-2 more additions from off the waiver wire/scrap heap. We tried that approach before with disastrous results.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Mariners in this thread. They were another team that exemplified the "defense/pitching first" approach with their new GM, and it wasn't incredibly expensive. Players like Endy Chavez and Franklyn Gutierrez made a huge difference for that team's outfield defense, especially in the first half of the season. That trade by the Indians' overrated Shapiro was one of the dumbest in a long time, by the way. Gutierrez is an incredible defender. You're almost tempted to go for broke gambling on Adrian Beltre at 3B, with Beckham moved to 2B and Alexei/Beckham manning the middle infield. That certainly would get you some big-time improvement across the board, but Belte still will PROBABLY be too expensive and take too many years, although I wouldn't count it out completely, especially if Jenks is non-tendered. Trading Buehrle won't happen. I like Polanco or Hudson as secondary options, and I think Ozzie would feel more comfortable with either at the top of the line-up...Getz was just a little too fragile to pencil in for an entire season of play, just like it's almost impossible to do the same thing with Quentin. Heck, it's really scary to project Alex Rios to have anything above a 700 OPS at this point, but you'd have to think he could hopefully get back to 750 or 775 if we're to be a contender. Other names that will be floated about include the likes of Juan Pierre and CoCo Crisp...because they're more likely than names like Ross, Kemp, McLouth or Hermida, for example. Or even Nyjer Morgan. We all know Scotty Pods and defense don't go together, although he was remarkably better this year than he was in the past, once again, hard to count on him to repeat 2009. I also think it's a lot easier to find a decent RF who can out-field JD than to find a stellar CF. Kotsay at RF/1B might be the "low budget" option, unfortunately. Someone like Matt Holliday simply isn't happening. It's more likely we'd see M. Gatrell than Matt Holliday in RF, for that matter.

Yes, quite the conundrum. Buehrle means more to the franchise than any player since Thomas/Ventura/Fisk and certainly more than Konerko. On the other hand, you simply can't pay a #4 guy $14 million...that's where KW got into trouble, sinking so much money into Vazquez, Garland and Contreras the last 2-3 seasons, which impacted our ability to improve the ballclub sufficiently in other areas. As some have argued, winning trumps all arguments, that almost NOBODY cared that Valentin/Lee/Ordonez weren't part of the 2005 championship and Frank Thomas was really kind of an afterthought as well. The risk, as KHP...is that trading Buehrle not only backfires on the talent received end (and a pitcher like Buehrle in his 30's with that contract and wear and tear can't be considered a huge bargain exactly) but also the public relations/marketing front, it will cost the franchise immensely in terms of good will. Also, as noted, Danks, Floyd and Peavy (not to mention Garcia and Hudson) all have question marks surrouding them to different degrees...almost nothing is a certainty, even though arguments have been made we have somewhere between the #1 and #7-8 starting rotation in all of MLB. Buehrle has been the most consistent performer, as close to a "given" as you get in today's game, even though not consistent on a month by month basis. I'm of the opinion that no team will give up in return what losing him would cost the franchise...but I'm not KW, either. Only he and JR can make those judgements.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 11, 2009 -> 05:42 PM) Seriously, it's game 3 of the ALDS and the pitchers the Twins have thrown out so far are Duensing, Blackburn, and now THE Carl Pavano. How the Hell did these guys win the division with that as their starting rotation? In all fairness, Baker (despite the relatively high ERA), was their ace the back half of this season. Blackburn, as we know from the Blackout Game, is a very clutch pitcher. Losing Slowey to injury and Liriano to injury/ineffectiveness, those have been huge hits...there's no way (and without Morneau) that Gardenhire shouldn't be the manager of the year. That effort was a bit similar to the White Sox in 2008 (Ozzie), and you can still make a case with Span, Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer and Kubel that the Twins' offense was a lot better and more talented than our recent post-season team.

Amazing...Yankees are kryptonite to the Twins, like the Twins at home playing against us. And consistently, the Yankees have absolutely owned the Twins this decade. Twins, if Rivera holds the game, will have lost 9 post-season games in a row and gone 0 for the season against NY. Despite winning 5 ALCD titles in 8 years (White Sox 3 in 10), they have ONLY managed to beat the Oakland A's (5 losses out of 6 possible series chances)...and will be 6-18 for the decade in the post-season. And the ONLY time they won more than one game in a series was a 3-2 series victory over those same A's in 2002, when they had perhaps their best team, along with the 2006 Twins (IMO). White Sox=12-7, of course, 11 of those came in the one magical year of 2005.

Baldwin for Masaoka (that also went as badly as Berry/Barry) was a throw-away trade.... As far as the 2% goes.... Odds of NOT replacing Thome/Thome=15-20% Odds of replacing Pods with another leadoff hitter=30-50% Odds of going into season without a significant bullpen addition and hoping Pena and Linebrink get it figured out=75% Odds of the infield defense improving=60-75% Odds of KW adding a veteran 3B or 2B=10-20%

I'm not being pessimistic with this thread, per se...actually, KW's moves have normally worked out quite, well, especially over the short-term. I guess if someone wants to read into as unfairly criticizing him, that's fine. But if you look at all my posts since I've been here, I've never come close to saying he should be fired, he's stupid, he's a bad G.M., etc. That's why I started it, I couldn't remember one that almost had disastrous results. Now if we don't make any changes to the bullpen at all (besides internally), we don't have a replacement for Thome/Dye, Pods is a starter AND our leadoff hitter and our infield defense is STILL a mess in 2010...then there SHOULD be some serious questions, the same questions we were asking the first two months of the 2009 season. Because I have a feeling that the Rios and Peavy acquisitions will be used as the primary reasons why payroll can't be added...and you can put me on record as saying I'm fine with Garcia/Hynick/Torres/Hudson as our fifth starter candidates, I don't expect the type of money that we spent on the likes of Garland and Vazquez to be spent on the back end of the rotation in these days of financial austerity, as 05/06 is now well in the rearview mirror. For whatever reason, the "mix/chemistry" was never good this season, and that's ironic, because we eliminated Uribe/Crede/Vazquez/Swisher/Cabrera and also Griffey from the roster. Three of those six were "perceived" as strong leaders, Cabrera had many many fans (as many as detractors) because of his propensity for playing on winning teams...Swisher and Vazquez, their issues/problems are well-documented. With the void being left by the possible departures of Thome/Dye, with Konerko on the way out...new leaders (along with Buehrle) will have to emerge. The obvious answer is Beckham, but he can't do it all by himself. Alexei Ramirez returning to 2008 form might be the key to the whole thing, if he can get his head 100% back on baseball. With Quentin and Rios, you have no idea what you're going to get, but it's hard to count on them to put up their past "peak" numbers, that's for sure. If KW does...he will also forever become victim of the Rios "talent tease." Maybe the same will eventually be said about CQ, too. I hope not.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Sep 13, 2009 -> 08:16 AM) The Angels just have great balance in their lineup. They don't have a true #4 cleanup hitter IMO but that's about all they're missing. They have contact, power, speed, patience, guys who can handle the bat, etc. They don't really have any holes because each player brings something that can either help you beat really good pitching (via slap hits, bunt hits, sacrifices, SB, solo home runs, etc.) or average to bad pitching (OBP and slugging). When the little guys get on base you almost always have to think about them running, and this can distract pitchers or at least force them to constantly throw over to first. Throws to first don't count in the pitch count, but they can easily take a pitcher out of his rhythm, extend the length of the inning in terms of time, make the innings more stressful so that the pitcher has to work harder, etc. And then the big boys behind the little guys all have pop, and some of them, especially Abreu who they'd be nuts to let go, can further run up pitch counts and wait for mistakes to swing at and hit hard. That offense just has so many ways to win. Put that around pitching and defense and you can see why they play so well no matter if they're on the road or not. I personally hate the Angels but it's hard to overlook how well their system works. And yet we were 23-15 against the Angels coming into this last series of the year against them (since the post-season of 05)...only AL team with a winning record against TLAAoA during that time span.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 13, 2009 -> 05:11 PM) Awesome line...KW for 2009 gets a big fat F for his trades. At least his non-roster FA signings in Pods and Garcia were excellent. Not to mention Nix. He's been a lifesaver with all the injuries to Getz this year. The question is, and I think I know the answer already...would/could Uribe/Ramirez/Beckham as an infield been more "effective" offensively and defensively than what we actually fielded in 2009? (including Fields and Getz into the equation) Well, hindsight is 20/20, and MOST of the fanbase was ready to let Juan leave because it didn't make sense to pay him $4-6 million to be a back-up, although he DEFINITELY came in handy the last two months of the 2008 season.

Izturis, Aybar and Figgins have been pains for everyone this year...of course, you can't avoid having to attack them (compared to the "big guns" of Morales, Rivera, Hunter, Guerrero, Abreu and Napoli) as they're the Piranha-esque players who end up beating you with 100,000 paper slices rather than the big 3 run homers, via the bunting, stolen bases, wild pitches, lack of (defensive) execution because of the additional pressure on the opposing teams' defense and pitchers and catchers.