caulfield12

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Jan 23, 2009 -> 10:55 AM) even though its a minor league deal, freddy has a chance to make up to 9mil as to where colon would only make up to about 2mil. i know its off subject, but im surprised crede might be siging with the twins. i realize theyre practicly his only option at this point but with his history of back problems, i dont think itd be a good idea to play on turf. I think it's one million guaranteed, and an extra $2 million in incentives possible, raising the total theoretical value to around $3 million. If that's the case, that's really a bargain compared to Garcia's deal I think....better to take a risk with Colon's motivation/weight/back than Garcia's shoulder, FWIW.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2009 -> 12:12 AM) I did that a while back with the top 10's, it was my impression that roughly 1/2 of the top 10 prospects wound up busting. If we were to look back around the time of 1999/00/01, look at the Sox prospects who have made the biggest impact (not counting Garland, who wasn't incubated in our system). Buehrle Josh Fogg Those were two of the lowest rated in our Top 10 list around that time...and then you have Rowand, who many thought might turn out to be more like Aaron Cunningham/Jeremy Reed in terms of a big league career as a 4th OF. You could even argue that Biddle and Majewski were fringe prospects who made a bigger impact than most our top-rated guys. But look at all the busts. Kip Wells, with the Sox...and for most of his MLB career Danny Wright Aaron Myette Jon Rauch Lorenzo Barcelo Jason Stumm Brian West Corwin Malone Joe Borchard Matt Guerrier (well, it's a stretch to refer to him as a "top" prospect) Matt Ginter

[Comment From Hoffmann] Is Heilman enough to get Swisher, or will the M's have to stomach a ridiculous request from Cashman? Perhaps payback for the Washburn nonsense? 3:32 That Washburn stuff wasnt Jack Z, so I doubt there is a grudge. I imagine it would take more than Heilman. mlbtraderumors chat Would any of you prefer Heilman to the package that we got for Swisher? Betemit, Marquez and Nunez? What if you change it around to make it Heilman OR Betemit, Marquez, Nunez and Viciedo? Or do you prefer to think Heilman ($1.625 million)/Viciedo would be better than Betemit, Marquez, Nunez and Viciedo? BTW, did anyone see Ryan Howard is asking for $18 million in arbitration? Wow. Dewon Day cleared waivers and is still with the Rays and Aardsma signed with the Mariners.

Oooops. I guess my Obama Overexuberance got the best of me today...with the sometimes soaring rhetoric, even past salary numbers were inflated, old White Sox greats were raised from the dead, the 2003 season actually ended up in our winning the World Series and Hawk's period as GM never actually happened, with Fisk going into the HOF in a White Sox hat. "Hope and virtue." Sounds like all White Sox fans the last 100 years. Haha. Rosenthal notes that free agents who accept offers of arbitration do not have guaranteed contracts. However, players such as Orlando Cabrera and Jason Varitek would've had to be released for clear baseball reasons, not to save money. Otherwise the teams would be in hot water with the Players Association. mlbtraderumors.com

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 02:33 PM) Unfortunately untl they move out of the dome, I give the title to the Twins. 1.) Minn in a runaway 2.) Detroit. 3. Cleveland. 4.) Sox 5.Royals Could change if we sign Dunn or another starter. Where would we put Dunn if we signed him today, even if it was for only $5 million? Surely not CF? Because Quentin and Dye aren't playing there...we know that much. Or is this predicated on somehow trading Konerko/Thome? I don't think you can guarantee Dunn's results in the NL, but I do think it would be at LEAST interesting to trade Konerko for Figgins, if we could sign Dunn for $5 million stick him at first. That would give us Dunn (although how much would his defense hurt us with an already questionable infield at every position, particularly Fields and Ramirez...we have no idea what they can give us defensively right now), Figgins and a couple of million to play around with in savings for this year and then $15 million more opened up for 2010. So, in essence.... Dunn (1B), Figgins (3B/CF, maybe 2B) and using that savings for Freddy Garcia OR Paul Konerko

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 03:03 PM) Honestly I have no bloody idea what to expect from Fields offensively. I can't even begin to predict this. We do know that defense will be much, much worse. I think it's interesting that Contreras, Colon, even Garcia who's not even signed yet, along with Floyd and Danks and the rest of the young dudes - these aren't guys who are in a position to be evaluated strongly either because of injury (Contreras), age (all), conditioning (Garcia and Colon), or lack of a proven track record (all the young guns). The only pitcher who it seems we can project with any sort of confidence is Buehrle, IMO. I can't recall when we've entered a season as an alleged contender with so many question marks from #2 on down. Well, look at the 2005 season, when we weren't even an alleged contender (I know this is yet further condemnation of the idea of judging a season before spring training starts, as I tried to do in another thread). 1) Nobody knew anything about Iguchi, besides the fact that KW had scouted him through tape and what he got/expected to get in terms of a contract were very divergent....maybe because of K. Matsui's failure with the Mets. 2) Takatsu was already suspected to be a one-trick pony, and nobody had a clue of the emergence of Hermanson (especially), Cotts or Politte. 3) Nobody knew how AJ would do in a "crazy" clubhouse coming off the gossip/innuendo of that SF year. 4) Did El Duque have anything left (similar to concerns about Colon, Contreras and maybe Garcia) 5) Pods was coming off a season when he hit around .240 in the NL 6) We'd lost Valentin, Ordonez and Carlos Lee, three of our best power hitters....we're replacing much less in the line-up this year (Swisher, Cabrera, Uribe/Crede and Griffey) 7) Nobody knew what we could get out of Frank Thomas at that point... 8) Garland and Contreras, especially, had never proven themselves to be "big game" or anything but average MLB pitchers...especially Jose, who would morph/evolve into the best in the game for a period of almost one year 9) Brandon McCarthy was another Sox prospect/suspect with high expectations and no clear idea what he'd produce 10) Jermaine Dye...nobody had an idea what he would do for the next four seasons either, coming off injuries and signing for less with Chicago than he could have gotten elsewhere, he was just seen as a "high reward/low risk" signing, but anyone who predicted MVP numbers consistently, I would like to see that thread/post/message.

I'm going to say 2 years, $13-16 million. I can't imagine the top of the guaranteed market for Ben Sheets is 2/$18 and that Garland will get MORE. Compare Sheets and Burnett and most comparisons career-wise come out in favor of Sheets, and yet he's been relegating to begging status now.

Supposedly Sheets is considering 2 years and $18 million somewhere. To put it in its proper perspective, Jon Garland made $15 million last year. Some feel this is a sign that Sheets might have some concerns about his health and wants the guaranteed money instead of the ability to make $10+ million in just one year and wait for the "economic crisis" to lift. From what you see on the Net, there are a lot of offers out there similar to the Penny or Smoltz one with higher base salaries and the ability through meeting all incentives to get into the $13-16 million range.

We also have the potential to receive contributions from Viciedo, Beckham, Poreda and even Flowers this year...or, at the latest, next. Fields should put up much better overall offensive numbers than the position gave us last year. Ramirez's numbers SHOULD be plenty better at SS than Cabrera. Contreras and Colon have the ability to step up as well. There's no reason to believe that, combined with Marquez, those three can't replicate Vazquez's numbers. There's one more thing...we should have more payroll flexibility and the minor league depth chart to bring in a really good player if we're in at the ASB.

The main reason for hope is that no team in the AL Central is clearly better today than they were at the end of the 2008 season...someone might argue CLE, with DeRosa and Wood, but CLE is without Westbrook, Franklin Gutierrez and it looks like Travis Hafner's career might be coming to an end. DeRosa will be hard pressed to repeat his career year of 2008 in a transition to the more challenging AL, and he's ready for a decline...while Wood could go to the DL just about any day of the season. Minnesota has done nothing, as is their custom, standing pat...adding Eric Gagne to replace Jesse Crain/Guerrier might actually cost them 3-5 games instead of adding them to the win column.

Usually 3 full seasons (six total) but there are some "Super2" players...there's a formula for determining that which I don't care to look up amidst all the euphoria of Inauguration Day.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 11:17 AM) I was looking over the rosters recently and I came to the conclusion that this division is really, really bad. Just two years ago it looked like the strongest division in all of baseball (just about), but now it's full of mediocre teams and the Kansas City Royals. Personally I can't see any way in which the Twins will be able to hit .313 (or whatever ridiculously high number it was) with RISP again and therefore they are set to fall back to earth, the Tigers' pitching still isn't strong enough, we have holes all over the place and the Royals are the Royals... the Tribe win it by default. Well, let's discuss the Tribe weaknesses. 1) Absolutely no clarity after Lee and Carmona, and Lee is going to have trouble repeating...just like Danks. They don't even have a clear 3rd starter yet...they have Reyes, Lewis, Pavano, Jackson, Laffey and Sowers. Westbrook will probably be out as long as Contreras. 2) Their INF defense is absolutely brutal. DeRosa, Peralta and Victor Martinez if he is playing 1st. I guess Garko will get most of the time, with Martinez DHing eventually and Shoppach. 3) The defense of Victor Martinez if he is catching. 4) Travis Hafner? Will this be his last season or comeback of the year? Went from most dangerous hitter in Central to Luis Terrero. QUICKLY. 5) Their bullpen is chock full of holes everywhere you look...and health has never been a strong point of Kerry Wood. He goes down, the entire bullpen collpases around him in one giant implosion. 6) They weakened their outfield by trading Franklin Gutierrez in one of the stranger moves of the offseason. They have Ben Francisco, Sizemore and two platoon players that don't fit together (Delluci) and Shin-Soo Choo...although maybe Choo will finally have a breakthrough season as a full-time player. 7) Why do they still have Marte and Barfield on their roster? 8) Ryan Garko doesn't have enough power for 1B. Just kidding. He's a heckuva player in an underrated/underappreciated way, but very streaky.

I do know this, if Kristin Kreuk was in the Sox Pride Club and dancing around the stadium in a skimpy outfit, it would lower the pitchers' WAR or whatever that statistical anomaly is.

What are your predicted AL Central standings at this point? 1. Minnesota Twins, 92-70 2. Chicago White Sox, 85-77 3. Cleveland Indians, 84-78 4. Detroit Tigers, 80-82 5. KC Royals, 77-85

The recent talk is Dunn's contract might go lower than Swisher's, and Nick's is guaranteed at that salary for longer. 09:$5.3M, 10:$6.75M, 11:$9M, 12:$10.25M club option ($1M buyout) cot's baseball contracts 2008 Gerrit Cole RHP Orange (Calif.) Lutheran H.S. 28 2007 Andrew Brackman RHP North Carolina State 30 2006 Ian Kennedy RHP Southern California 21 2005 Carl Henry SS Putnam City HS (OK) 17 2004 Philip Hughes RHP Foothill HS, Santa Ana, CA 23 2003 Eric Duncan 3B Seton Hall Prep (NJ) 27 2001 John-Ford Griffin OF Florida State U 23 2000 David Parrish C Yorba Linda, CA 28 1999 David Walling RHP U. of Arkansas 27 1998 Andrew Brown OF Richmond, IN 24 1997 *Tyrell Godwin OF Elizabethtown, NC 24 However, the Yankees have drafted Eric Milton, Jeter and Carl Everett, to name a few. The big bust was Brien Taylor at #1. Look where they are drafting, though. What do you expect? On the other hand, they've been able to develop Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera, Alphonso Soriano, Matsui, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Contreras, Chien Ming Wang, Pettitte, Hughes, Kennedy, Bernie Williams, etc. Their farm system and international talent pool has been huge....I guess Hideki Irabu, Contreras and Kei Igawa are among the biggest disasters. What have the White Sox produced in the last ten years? Rowand Crede (Carlos Lee, Durham and Ordonez don't count anymore) Buehrle Frank Francisco (that's a major exaggeration to credit us, we had him less than a year I think) Chris B. Young Garland (once again, the Cubs drafted him) Brandon McCarthy Ryan Sweeney Miguel Olivo Jeremy Reed Josh Fields Chris Singleton (another big stretch) I'm really struggling to name any more from the past decade that had a huge impact. You can expand a little to Kip Wells, Josh Fogg, Jon Rauch maybe...Willie Harris, he was Baltimore property.

I've made this argument before (that I was annoyed with Vazquez trade), but unless he changes his career path dramatically, he's (Young) always going to have his share of limitations. He still has a chance to be a better overall player in his career than Mike Cameron, but there are quite a few parallels, besides the fact they both came up through the White Sox as "toolsy," high profile prospects. We all know what he needs to improve upon. Strikeouts/contact. OBP. His arm is never going to be a "plus" weapon. Batting average. So I don't think you could say he has "limitless" potential at this point. Maybe you could also compare him to another player that never quite became the superstar he was supposed to be, Eric Davis. Although I don't think Young quite matches either Davis' raw power or his overall speed either. Maybe our anger about this trade is not as much anymore about Young's potential (and it can still backfire with that long-term deal he might have prematurely signed from the DBacks' perspective) but with the lack of cojonoes that Vazquez showed in 2008 AND the fact that we've never found a permanent CF...as KW had always believed it was going to be Anderson, and that simply hasn't worked out (no new Anderson thread here please!)

If you went by KW's comments, you'd have to insert Marquez at #5 (as the favorite), Owens starting in CF and Fields starting at 3B. As of today.

This really doesn't make much sense. How can Marquez be off the board, and Contreras won't even pitch until May in the big leagues, if not June? How can anyone be behind Lance Broadway? Contreras shouldn't be listed at all until he's ready to pitch...as he's not relevant yet. As Ozzie said about Joe Crede last year, talk about players on the roster that can help today, not maybe, not in the future. Jerry Owens will never, ever play RF for the White Sox, that's too funny. Shows the RF depth we have....which is really Carlos Quentin. I don't think Nix should be ahead of Lillibridge at 2B either...this must simply be because Lillibridge hasn't played there very much recently, as he's perceived at this point in his career as more of a SS. I would think that Link/Nunez/Wasserman/Russell/Jimenez are all about even for the last bullpen spot. It shows you the ? surrounding the back-up catching position. Armstrong? Miller? Stewart? Flowers? (Of course Flowers will be in minors, but it would be interesting to see who KW felt was the favorite at this point in the offseason there). And then Beckham hasn't been listed either, but that's certainly not a surprise.

I tried to watch it and turned it off quickly (Happy-Go-Lucky). Very annoying. Saw The House Bunny and Frost/Nixon (quite the contrast in movies!). Really liked Frost/Nixon, but the box office for that movie has been a disappointment...maybe political fatigue. Frank Langella was awesome though, much better than Anthony Hopkins I think in the Oliver Stone movie.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 18, 2009 -> 02:26 PM) Sox pitchers, namely Mark Buehrle, never perform well in these types of simulations or predictions because they use several sabermetric statistics in making their standings and Buehrle, like most Sox pitchers, never holds up well in these. Vazquez was always considered the Sox best pitcher using just raw numbers, but that never works. That's probably one of the biggest reasons why. How could you project a team coming off a 110-64 stretch to be an 82-80 squad in 2006? Did the computers not watch that season's playoff games? Guess not. Apparently the computers automatically predicted our pitching staff would regress, but with all the talent/money added to payroll, I would have a hard time imagining any HUMAN BEING picking the White Sox for less than 88-90 wins coming off that World Series championship.

But he (Hudson) does cost a #1 draft pick. I'm not so sure KW wouldn't rather get Konerko's money off the book AND add Figgins (leaving the possibility of netting another #1 draft pick after 2009 or re-signing Figgins, like the Cabrera situation). All things being equal, I think you're right, signing Hudson would be more helpful in the short-term, but trading Konerko for Figgins seems to be more of a "long term" foundational move that KW has been making now. I would much prefer to give up Konerko than Dye, because I think it would be easier to find a replacement at cheaper numbers at that position. Furthermore, you could always gamble that you would get better production with Abreu or Dunn at $10 million than Konerko, and also have Hudson probably. Interesting scenarios, neither which is likely to play out in all likelihood. The Nationals seem to be the ticket destination for Hudson at this point in the proceedings. The Orioles have their ears open Brian Roberts, whose trade value has diminished as he nears free agency. The White Sox can't afford him, the Braves are reluctant to give up talent, and the Cubs didn't discuss him in the Felix Pie talks. The Roberts market may improve once Orlando Hudson signs. Rosenthal's source says the Michael Young-Jermaine Dye discussions did take place. If you read Dave van Dyck's article, Ken Williams never specifically denied talks with the Rangers. mlttraderumors.com This whole thing about the White Sox not being able to afford him is getting irritating. I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security as a White Sox fan by our payrolls over the last 3 years and thought we were on our way to being a legitimate "big market" and not mid-market club. Oh, well. Supposedly Dunn will be signing a contract for $5 million!!! Yet the number you keep hearing is that he's looking for $56 million and 4 years. It will be very interesting to see what the final numbers and length (if it's longer than one year) are.

Hopefully his power numbers and NOT his weight/caloric intake!!! I'm guardedly/cautiously optimistic that Herm and Alan Regier can really work hard with Viciedo, Contreras and Colon to get the best out of each of them.

I just can't see signing Hudson. Trading would have to get rid of Konerko/Dye and getting rid of Dye/Konerko. There would be no way to remain revenue-neutral if we traded Floyd and even were asked to bring in someone else like Mora as part of a larger deal. The only way would be to trade Dye/Konerko for younger pitching and/or Top 25 level minor league prospect in High A/AA ball. Then you could flip flop salaries and bring in someone like Hudson/Roberts and especially Figgins (cheapest option). Although from all the talk around the Net, Hudson might be forced to take $7-9 million for one season, maybe even a tick less. This argument keeps going around in circles....Lillibridge, Owens, Getz. It seems we're stuck with the idea that if we don't add a leadoff hitter, Owens has to play, bat first and leadoff. Therefore, Anderson is SOL. At least for now. Maybe he can finally take the job in ST or Owens will be hampered by lingering injuries again. It will be interesting, to say the least. I don't think most posters here expected to see BA still around here after the conclusion of the 2006 season. Here we are 2 years later.

I would expect he was at least 85-88, maybe 89 sometimes...is there a tape/replay of that game with the radar readings anywhere?

We would have to trade two Jenks(es)....because he will only make around $5 million or so in arbitration, Garland is looking for at least double that. Garland won't be coming here, I'm fairly certain of that. Garcia, maybe.