caulfield12

8:43pm: Ken Davidoff says the Yankees had "extremely preliminary" talks with the Sox regarding Swisher. Something to keep an eye on if the Yanks don't sign Mark Teixeira. Additionally, Davidoff says the White Sox are not anxious to unload Vazquez. 9:42am: According to Dave van Dyck of the Chicago Tribune, the White Sox are aggressively shopping Javier Vazquez and Nick Swisher. Additionally, the Sox reportedly have interest in Rockies center fielder Willy Taveras. GM Ken Williams didn't offer much info regarding possible trade talks. Van Dyck speculates on names like Luis Castillo or Julio Lugo for Vazquez, seemingly suggesting Vazquez has a terrible contract too. Hard to figure out, as he remains a useful mid-rotation starter. Sox Machine wants the abuse of logic to stop. Van Dyck wonders whether the A's or Red Sox would have interest in Swisher, based on some tenuous Moneyball connection. Joel Sherman believes Swisher could be a fit for the Yankees due to his versatility. Williams replied in the negative when asked whether Swisher would play center field for the '09 White Sox, which could be interpreted multiple ways. Van Dyck says the Rockies wouldn't have interest in Vazquez or Swisher, but rather a young pitcher like Lance Broadway for Taveras. from mlbtraderumors.com

That's looks like something out of a Rock football movie or The Longest Yard remake with Adam Sandler, lol.

That KW had the right idea with trading Rowand, just the wrong execution in who he ended up holding on to...

Not disagreeing with the trade at all. Rowand is not worth the kind of money he's getting now, certainly not in the AL. It was the idea that at the time, we had a ton of depth (Reed, Young, Anderson, Rowand) at that position...we just picked the wrong player to hold onto. I guess if KW didn't ask for money back on the Vazquez/Vizcaino deal, we might have been able to get away with giving them Anderson instead of Chris Young. We'll never know.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 08:54 PM) I was talking about trading Marte after the 2003 season. He hadn't played for Ozzie yet and was probably the best left handed set-up man in baseball. As it turns out, he was a guy who was much more comfortable playing for a quiet Manuel than he was with Ozzie. After 2003, Marte was one of the best pitchers on the White Sox. After 2004 ended, Shingo was one of the best pitchers on the White Sox. If they were traded then, it turns out it would not have been a mistake, which is the point I was making. Jenks future success is not promised. I don't think KW will trade Jenks, but it wouldn't be a total shock for the reasons I have stated before. Sure...and we should have traded Cotts and Politte after 2005 as well...and Crede. Marte, at the time, was not only one of the best LH relief pitchers in baseball...he had a great contract. Of course, hindsight being 20/20, it's easy to reach the conclusion that KW should have traded him...or Borchard. Heck, we had so many first round draft picks and pitching prospects go down with injuries...we might have traded the likes of Parque, Barcelo, Danny Wright, Matt Ginter, Jason Stumm, Jon Rauch (who was at one time close to the best pitching prospect in the game), etc. Just think if we had traded both Borchard and Rauch at their peaks? Well, it's impossible to predict the future...just like picking stocks. All we can do is make educated guesses. Apparently, KW's educated guess to hold onto Brian Anderson and dump Aaron Rowand was the wrong one. Not the idea itself, but the player he felt could replace Rowand. Maybe BA will redeem himself, but I doubt it happens in Chicago. We shall see.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 08:35 PM) Is this supposed to say "on fire"? Just curious. let's just go with "en fuego"

QUOTE (Cubano @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 07:09 PM) More teams after Viciedo: The Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics, Cleveland Indians, Seattle Mariners, and Los Angeles Dodgers, among others, have all reportedly expressed interest. As long as Viciedo doesn't become a star with the Indians, Twins or Red Sox, I'm okay if he slips out of KW's grasp. The Indians are really desperate too, after Marte went down (who hasn't hit anyways)...unless they went to move Peralta over and keep him there. I wonder if there's any "smoke" to all those Konerko to Anaheim rumors...? We'll see. Moreno has a ton of money, but even he knows you have to mix in a Kendrick and Morales here and there to keep the payroll down somewhat, as well as keeping the organization from becoming too stagnant/veteran-laden, like our 2006 team I think.

QUOTE (Cubano @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 06:54 PM) I root for the Nats for two reasons: 1. They are close to me. I dislike the O's. 2. The Nats were a major player in the cuban market back in the days. I root for the Sox now. I appreciate a lot that The Sox gave a real chance to Ramirez to play straight from Cuba at the MLB level. I think you would appreciate even more the 2nd and 3rd chances they gave to El Gran Titan de Bronze to get his act together. Another thing I found funny...in the new James Bond movie, there's a Bolivian secret service agent being played by a Ukrainian actress, Olga Kurylenko. How the director expects us to believe someone who's half-Bolivian (in the movie) and grew up in Bolivia would speak English with a pronounced Russian English is beyond me (the explanation is that the mother was Russian, the father Bolivian and part of the military junta). In fact, I think her few ventures into Spanish were better than her English pronunciation. I guess they couldn't find any Hispanic actresses!

Marte pitched his way out of Chicago the final months of 2005. Ozzie simply lost confidence in him, and the situation that El Duque had to bail him out of in BOS with the bases loaded and no outs was the final straw. Mackowiak was never meant to be a starting CFer, fwiw. The day the trade was made, I was pretty ecstatic that we managed to get THAT much for Marte...who is/was analagous to Thornton. The main difference is that Thornton throws about 3-4 MPH harder and has that easy, repeatable motion scouts fall in love with. Marte had a better second pitch, that slinging "slurve/offspeed" pitch could be very effective at times. That said, Thornton would be worth twice as much to any other team. Some would definitely consider him as a closer...you couldn't say the same thing for Marte at then end of 2005. He's actually rebounded much more effectively than I thought, based on where he was at the end of our World Series season. I thought he was pitching his way out of the majors the way things were going. And the Marte/Guerrier original trade was one of KW's best, "signature" moves in the early part of his career. Ironic that Guerrier went on to become a very effective set-up guy for our main rivals but didn't impact the Pirates much at all...similar to Josh Rupe, Aaron Myette or Kevin Beirne in that sense.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 05:19 PM) I am thinking we have our own options for a sub OF'er. Not to take anything away from Baldelli, but why spend a few million on a reserve when you have good players at the ML minimum? Well, I think $2.25 million for Baldelli would be a better allocation of resources than the same amount for Toby Hall. At least Baldelli theoretically could get into games more frequently and could be used as a pinch-runner more effectively than Wise or Anderson. Just saying. However, yeah...$2.25 million could be spent a lot of other ways too. So could the money we are spending on MacDougal. But I better there are a lot of teams out there (think LA Dodgers with Pierre and Andruw Jones to start) with exponentially worse contracts on the books than MacDougal and Contreras. Many thought the size of Juan Uribe's contract was sort of a waste until it suddenly wasn't the final two months of the season. That turned out to be one of KW's smartest moves (maybe by accident, maybe intentionally...although I can't think he knew 1) Crede would be reinjured and 2) Fields would dramatically regress) of the offseason, and it looked like the most illogical/ill-considered at the time. Then again, KW probably signed him with the idea of starting at 2B, not having a true gauge for how good Ramirez would become as early as June, 2008.

Well, theoretically, it would make as much sense to look at some of the best Chinese ping pong and badminton players. The mechanics of the smash in badminton are fairly comparable to throwing motion for a pitcher...and the racquet/contact speed for birdies leaving the racquet is the fastest of any sport in the world, 140-180 MPH at initial contact. Ping pong probably uses more hand-eye coordination and agility than most sports I know, although it's more similar to tennis/racquetball than baseball. Or the Pakistani and Indian jai-alai players. Heck, any elite jai-alai players...remember Jeff Conine? He was a world-class racquetball player. The White Sox just need to get creative. I'm not opposed to expending resources in a non-traditional markets if it unearths just a couple of hidden gems.

As the Cubs step up their pursuit of San Diego Padres ace Jake Peavy, they might be playing themselves out of the bidding for one of their top offseason priorities, Baltimore Orioles leadoff hitter Brian Roberts. Sources say the Padres are seeking a three-for-one or four-for-one swap for Peavy, getting a package of young talent that is expected to include at least one major-league-ready pitcher. That could cost the Cubs some of their best trading chips in their pursuit of Roberts. Chicago Sun Times

QUOTE (beck72 @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 10:28 AM) Dotel isn't Vazquez-like. He's coming back from injury and hadn't pitched the number of innings he did this year since IIRC, 2004. Vazquez hasn't had any excuses. Dotel had every reason to wear down like he did at year's end. Yet I don't think I heard word one from Dotel about using that as an excuse. Dotel had Tommy John surgery in the middle of the 2005 season, on June 1st of that season to be exact. Typically, it takes one season to return, and then you should be fully recovered or even stronger the following season, which would have been the second half of the 2007 season. He had a shoulder strain in 2007 and missed about six weeks (August 10th-September 22nd), but I think any recovery we see from Dotel should already have happened 3 1/2 seasons since the surgery. That can't be an excuse any longer IMO. What you see is what you get, pretty much.

The Marlins moves were more about slashing salary and positioning about the stadium issue. While trading Konerko or Vazquez might be "salary-based" moves in a way, trading Jenks, Dye and Swisher (all reasonably priced, I'll wait to see Swisher's next season to say he's overpaid) aren't as much as they are recalibrating the White Sox engine? Interesting discussion, but highly unlikely. Maybe a couple of pitchers, but we'll never get 3-4. Although I have no doubt that KW would like to get to a position of strength again when he had the luxury of McCarthy and El Duque and then added Vazquez to the mix. Right now, our fifth starters candidates: Richard, Poreda (doubtful for 09 as a starter), Broadway...I guess you can add DJ Carrasco and Horacio Ramirez as options 4/5 to that list as well.

Delmon Young and Perkins/Blackburn... They could also make the deal Cuddyer and Perkins/Blackburn. If the Braves wanted another player, maybe someone like Brendan Harris or Nick Punto (if they make an offer to him)...if they don't, I can actually see KW swooping in to put him in the utility role. As long as he promises to stop sliding headfirst into 1B when he's out by about 10-15 feet on routine grounders. Finally, they have a lot of depth in LH relievers with the emergence of Breslow and Mijares...then again, they'll probably let Reyes and Guardado both walk. Will be interesting to see if they offer arbitration to either player, and if either player accepts it. I just thank the Twins for trading Garza and Bartlett. I think they would have had us if they didn't make that deal, and holding Liriano another 4-6 weeks in favor of Livan Hernandez.

QUOTE (mmmmmbeeer @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 08:45 AM) We should have traded Bobby at the same time we should have traded MB.....but we didn't trade either of them. So yes, although it's a year or two too late, I'm in favor of trading Jenks. He'll command more than he's actually worth and his return can be used to fill atleast one of our holes with a stud everyday player. Mark Buehrle, if we actually wished to trade him, is probably worth more than he was a year ago...not less. Jenks, as has been mentioned, if you find the right deal KW, go ahead and pull the trigger and roll the dice. I'm up for it.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 08:32 AM) Very misleading considering he's been a set-up guy most of his career. If you want to look at it that way Thornton has 5 career saves and 16 blown. I think he'd be a good bet to convert more than 25%. Linebrink has 5 career saves and 29 blown. Dotel was a primary closer for really 1+ season after his phenomenal run as a Houston set-up guy and converted about 80%, and his ERA with Oakland was higher than it was with the White Sox last year. We don't know the circumstances of his appearances so it would be hard to judge exactly what to expect, but to say his career rate is 69.7% and say he's lost a lot of his fastball, so expect worse is wrong. Its amazing how a guy with a .208 BAA averaging 12.36 k/9 innings gets so much grief. Granted he had several bad outings, but he must of been pretty good sometimes. I look at Dotel in almost the same way I view Vazquez. Both look really good on paper, but the reality finds something lacking. Now Dotel pitched well in the post-season, but I think you'll find a noticeable downtrend when Linebrink went down and Dotel had to pitch more often in the 8th, rather than just the 7th. In other words, and I don't have the statistic to prove it, whenever he had a really clutch or important game situation, it feels like he failed about 50% of the time. He always pitched great when he was just getting some work in or the lead was more than 2-3 runs, but he really struggled many times in either tie games or when we only had a lead of a couple of runs. In August, he had a 5.56 ERA and FIVE (YES, 5) homers surrendered in only 11 1/3 IP. This is back to my point about Dotel pitching WORSE when Linebrink went down (around July 22nd) and he had to be the 8th inning guy, not just the 7th. September, a so-so 4.32 ERA and two homers in 8 1/3 IP. All told, he gave up 7 HOMERS in less than 20 IP over two plus months. That's something Arnie Munoz and Charlie Haeger might struggle to do if they tried. I lost count of how many walk-off or game "losing" homers Linebrink and Dotel accounted for. His ERA went from 2.85 to 3.76 during this critical time period when the SOX were dying out there in the bullpen (The DJ Carrasco Wilderness, I like to think of it as).

Dotel career save numbers...most of them prior to surgery when he had a 94-97 MPH fastball with the Astros and A's. 83 saves 36 blown saves Conversion rate=69.7% I don't expect anything higher than 70% out of Dotel, not after the way he pitched last season for us in many critical situations.

QUOTE (beautox @ Nov 9, 2008 -> 04:37 AM) That would be epic, move Che to CF S Reyes SS L Murphy 2B R Quentin RF L Thome DH R Konerko 1B S Swisher LF R Ramirez CF L AJP C R Fields 3B Going into '10, either fields busts out or he busts; going around the diamond. DH - Konerko C - AJP 1B - Fields/Swisher 2B - Murphy SS - Reyes 3B - Beckham LF - Swisher/Danks/Ramirez CF - Ramirez/Danks RF - Quentin That would be great, but there's no way they will take Vazquez instead of Danks/Floyd. You have to begin with Jenks, Floyd and then one more piece (not Alexei Ramirez)

Who the heck is Lisa Winston?

Morales simply hasn't hit yet in his limited big league opportunities...when he has hit, he hasn't hit for nearly the power (20-25 homers with lots of doubles) projected for him and finally, his body type lends itself to being overweight.

I think with Dotel, we'd have a 65-75% conversion rate, as opposed to Jenks at 85%. The question is will the player we get back in return for Jenks allow us to make up those 3-5 "lost" victories and blown games in other ways? I'll let the VORP and Bill James statistics types analyze that one. Historically, it has been better to invest money in other areas than in relief pitchers...and the White Sox have gotten away with not paying any big-time closers. The one we did bring in, Koch, was the biggest disaster of all our closers over the last decade.

Sounds like D'Angelo Jimenez. Well, everyone is the next Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky or Joe Montana/Jerry Rice until they are not, lol. If you read all the scouting reports available on Ramirez, you would have thought he was something of a combination of Craig Grebeck, Paco Martin, Esteban Beltre, Warren Newson and Mike Caruso...with a large dose of Andy Gonzalez thrown in for good measure. They say the same types of things about Manny Ramirez and all he does is hit, hit, hit. Of course, he has his limitations...but I think if you had Viciedo around Guillen, Alexei and Jose, that work ethic question would disappear rather quickly...or he would be shipped out and become a footnote. KW always does his due diligence...he's not going to sign this guy unless he's talked to our Cubans extensively through Ozzie and/or one of the Guillens to find out more about his reputation as a teammate, work ethic questions, diet/nutrition/motivation, etc.

The question is, what do the Cardinals ask us for...you know it's going to start with pitching, and we can offer Jenks/Vazquez but they will want Buehrle, Danks and Floyd. "I'm not only proud of my country for the first time in many years, but I also can publicly be an Iowa Hawkeye football fan again...and also laugh once again at Ron Zook."

Well, let's hope KW can get the deal done with Viciedo. Obviously, this won't be a "low visibility" signing, and there will be more interest in the wake of the success of Alexei...not to mention Viciedo's age and international experience/seasoning makes him more attractive. As mentioned above, while I pretty much agree and have been arguing here, at WSI and even before that at chisox.com for a rebuild of the team, KW has obviously never listened (LOL) and I doubt he will now. He always does what is best for putting the most competitive team out there on a season-by-season basis. At least that has been his modus operandi. I'm just a little skeptical because getting so many pitching prospects that have ceilings of 3 or above...well, it's just not that easy to do. And other GM's will certainly catch on after the first or second trade. You don't think that Daniels or Wade look a little silly for the deals that gave us Danks and Floyd and half of Swisher? (Of course, Gillick probably doesn't care, and has never been the type to look back TOO much). Of course, there are a lot of variables with our bullpen...you don't know what impact, if any, Contreras will have out there. Do we hold onto Dotel hoping for Type A compensation only to see him go down to injury again and lose the window of opportunity to trade a setup guy being paid like some MLB closers in their arbitration years? Maybe the names mentioned before will have a breakout, Logan type of performance and vault from A ball to the majors, but that's only happened twice in my lifetime, with Logan and previously with Scott Radinsky, who was 10X the pitcher Logan was/is. Best-case scenario, if we did make 3-4 of these rebuilding the rotation moves...is that we would mirror the Minnesota Twins' lack of depth and experience in their rotation coming into this season. I guess we'd be better off...in general, because Baker and Liriano were their two most experienced starters. But they ended up getting solid seasons (overall) from Slowey, Blackburn and Perkins until near the end. Then again, the probability of "slippage" with Danks and/or Floyd is pretty high, and you never know when the wear and tear on Mark's arm/should with all those IP will end up in a trip to the DL, or worse, a Cris Carpenter type of situation. Of course, you PLAN on MB being healthy, but I don't think KW is 100% confident that Floyd can repeat his success/impact. I feel better about Danks, especially based on the last weeks of the season...heck, just the Minnesota one game playoff alone. GO HAWKEYES!!!!