Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 30, 2010 -> 05:11 AM) Always have been a huge fan of Uribe, can't ever think of saying a bad word about him. He's one of the players I advocated bringing back on a number of occasions. As far as the comparison with Linebrink, it's just different for a starting player (which he was for most of his Sox career) versus a middle reliever or set-up guy. I get it, Linebrink 2008=Uribe 2004/05, but you have to take into account that Uribe made some huge plays for our WS winning team. If nothing else, that buys him permanent folk hero status. I don't think very many care about barely getting in to the playoffs in 2008, and certainly his performance in 09 and 10 was comparatively worse than Uribe because Juan ALSO was one of the most important ingredients at stabilizing the left side of the INF after Crede went down in 08. Basically, that year's OMar Vizquel. Which was a role Uribe had great value for us, but not one worth $5 million. That's what he was looking at for 2009 if we held on to him and I think the fact the Giants got him for $1 million shows we made the right call. Just because people didn't want to overpay for Uribe doesn't mean he wasn't valued or liked. We all know he is a tremendous teammate and a clutch performer. He just wasn't worth what the baseball rules were going to force us to pay him.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 24, 2010 -> 11:26 AM) It's a lot easier to rebuild from within when you have a top 10 pick for ten straight seasons, and a top 4 pick for 8 of 10 seasons. Maybe the White Sox should become the worst team in the league for the next ten years, maybe they can become like the Rays. I will give them credit for making some good moves, but they also were bad for a really long time which helped them get the top talent in draft after draft. Thank you! The people proposing a true "rebuilding" are nuts. It's a total crapshoot and if a huge portion of the players you acquire in trades (from selling off your veterans) and select in the draft don't develop into major league players, then it will be a long and painful process. Furthermore, I'm not even sure if KW and his front office could handle such a task. Also, I don't know how anyone can advocate "rebuilding" when we have a starting rotation like ours. You don't have a 1-5 like ours very often and when you do you go for it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 12:09 PM) While you've spent time tryinga to convince me of something I already believe...that the fangraphs dollar system is complicated but still remains a useful way of looking comparitively at player value if you pay attention to the reasons why it does what it does...you still haven't argued at all about why the Huff deal is a terrible deal. I think the Huff deal is a bad move for the Giants. He's wildly inconsistent and your numbers support that to a certain extent. The Giants better hope they get two good years out of him or it will be a major overpay IMO. Also, let me ask you this, what do you think Adam Dunn is going to get a year? $12 - $13 million? Wouldn't you rather pay the extra couple million a year, even if it's for two or three extra seasons, to get a pretty much guaranteed .900 OPS?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 19, 2010 -> 02:49 PM) I'm kind of surprised that Santeliz was not added to the 40. I thought the club liked him. Also, surprised that Freddy Dolsi still is ON the 40. Santeliz was on the 40 man roster last year, but they DFA'd him in September. I don't recall the reasoning though.

QUOTE (Cali @ Nov 17, 2010 -> 02:07 PM) Yes please... I don't even care what they get back for him... You better get something of value back for him. We don't exactly have a ton of power hitters on the roster at the moment. Plus, if we can't sign/trade for any left-handed bats, Quentin at least hit righties pretty well. I have no problem with him being our DH next season if we can at least get one legit impact bat for RF or 1B.

QUOTE (Cali @ Nov 17, 2010 -> 01:58 PM) Dallas McPherson...the new Josh Kroeger I don't think that's a fair comparison. McPherson was the #12 prospect in 2005 according Baseball America, while Kroeger never made a top 100 list. Dallas definitely had a significantly higher upside than Josh. Having said that, I doubt McPherson ever does much with the Sox. I do think this is a smart signing however..can't hurt to have some extra depth, especially when we have holes at 1B and DH.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Nov 16, 2010 -> 08:46 PM) That's a killer quote by KW up there. I hope he follows his own advice. I'd love to hear how you are interpreting that quote, because I'm not super excited about it. The way I'm reading it is that KW is considering making Morel our starting 3B, Viciedo our starting 1B or DH, and Flowers our starting C instead of signing veterans to fill these spots. That "in the middle" comment makes me believe KW is implying not just making one of these guys a starter but actually all three of them. IMO, this quote seems like nothing more than some advanced PR spin so we aren't all super pissed if the Sox go the cheap way. Also, what's wrong with going with one young guy, say Morel at 3B, and signing/trading for vets at the other spots? I think a mix is the ideal way to go if you're trying to balance current and long-term success. I really don't see how developing three young position players in the same season is really going to give us a better chance to win next year. Especially if one of them of is Tyler Flowers, who needs another season in AAA before he should even enter into this discussion.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Nov 17, 2010 -> 01:59 AM) very good piece. I agree the Sox should offer AJ the arb after reading that article. And if AJ accepts, then what is stopping Kenny from trading AJ somewhere since $6M isn't a huge commitment to a team, and as long as we get a player or two back, even if they are crappy, we can just consider them our draft picks that we would have done if AJ rejected arb. Either way, if he accepts and we trade him, or he declines, we could earn ourselves 1 or 2 prospects in return that we would otherwise not have gotten if we didn't offer him arb. What's the date we need to offer arbitration by? Isn't there a chance a team desperate for a catcher would sign him before that deadline? I didn't think Buck would move so quickly, but him doing so has thinned out the free agent catching market quite a bit. Maybe a team would be willing to sacrifice a pick (especially if it's a second rounder) and make an offer to A.J. early if they know other teams will be waiting on our arbitration decision.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 17, 2010 -> 07:51 AM) Carter is behind the pace you'd expect for a really good prospect. He started off as a starter, but hung up for a year and a half in high-A ball in 2008 and 2009. Last year, he was moved to the bullpen pretty early in the season, put up a 3.92 ERA in Birmingham which isn't good, but his overall peripherals weren't bad. He doesn't seem to give up a ton of hits, but the 22 walks in 46 innings is the real long-term issue. He'll be 25 this year, so if he made it to the big leagues he'd be on an "Ok" schedule. He could be a middle relief/long relief option this year, but I wouldn't count on him at all this year. I don't know much about Carter, but I thought I remember hearing that his stuff improved significantly when he was moved to the bullpen. If so, then his performance in the AFL could be a better sign of things to come than his totals in AA.

QUOTE (SoxPride56 @ Nov 16, 2010 -> 04:11 PM) Jake Peavy is ahead of schedule. jonmorosi KW says Peavy ahead of schedule. #whitesox 13 minutes ago via txt That makes trading a starter easier, but we'd still need some sort of insurance in case Peavy can't go. We pretty much have nothing in AAA to protect us.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 16, 2010 -> 11:40 AM) At that price level? I'd leave it at a maybe, but if someone else wants him they can have him. If we go through this offseason and we are fully unable to fill the DH role by the end of January, and he's still available, then we can talk, but it's sort of a desperation move at that point. I agree. In a perfect world, we get a strong all-around RF so we can move Quentin to DH. Doing so offers two benefits. First, you have a primary DH that can play in the field if necessary (so Ozzie is happy). Second, you have at least one sure thing in your lineup between RF/DH (in this case RF). If you sign Manny and keep Quentin, you now have question marks offensively at DH and RF. You also have a full-time DH (which Guillen will be against) and a poor defensive regular RF. Like you said, if we're running out of options later in the offseason I'm all for bringing Manny in at that price. For now, I'd rather look at some better options.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 16, 2010 -> 07:42 AM) And yet in general...just about everyone would agree we did a much better job from 2008-2010 in the draft than we did the years beforehand, and we supplemented that with a couple major signings from elsewhere. That's true, the 2008 - 2010 drafts have been much better than years past. However, the main reason for this improvement is due to our new scouting director and a new draft strategy based on selecting riskier players with higher upsides. Avoiding those 'safe' picks we had been making in the past has been instrumental to this improvement. A willingness to sign players above slot (outside the exception here and there) and adding to the draft budget would only make things better. We're probably missing out on a lot of guys our scouting department have identified as potential impact players simply because we have a policy of not going above slot. I can guarantee you there are many occasions in each draft where Laumann can't select the highest ranked player (according to his scouts) at a given draft position because of bonus demands. Obviously, signability concerns must be factored into the selection process. You can't completely ignore this element or you'll end up drafting a bunch of Scott Boras clients with absurd demands that will be too expensive to sign in the first place. However, if you can get a 3rd round talent in the 4th round for low 3rd round money you should never pass that up. The extra money to go over slot in this case is practically meaningless in the larger scheme of things. Unfortunately, JR has a policy of not going over slot due to ethical reasons. As a result, we'll continue to lose out on talent by avoiding many players with signability concerns and wasting draft picks on guys who won't budge from their above slot demands. Until MLB creates a hard slot policy, the Sox will be at a disadvantage to many of their competitors.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 02:19 PM) Until we start allocating legitimate funds towards the draft, will continue to flounder. Though I will concede that at least regards to first round picks, and only first round picks, we seem to have turned a corner. The White Sox definitely need to allocate more funds to the draft, but they first have to change their philosophy of not paying over slot. With the state of our current minor league system, we can't afford to be throwing away top 10 round draft picks. We failed to sign our fourth round pick in 2010 (Matthew Grimes) and our seventh round pick in 2009 (Justin Jones). Both of these guys were high-upside high school pitchers that would have been great additions to our system. I don't know what their specific demands were, but I doubt they were that outrageous. The slot rates for these draft positions are relatively low, so paying these guys over slot wouldn't have made a huge dent in the draft budget. I honestly believe a minor change in our draft philosophy (a willingness to pay over slot for picks like these two) along with a slight increase in funding (to support these above slot bonuses) could give our minor league system a huge boost in the long-run.

Interesting note about Alexei's contract: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,3099502.story

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 04:19 PM) I am an insider and I hadn't seen this. I'm calling total bulls***. Braun had what could be classified a 'down' season in '10 and still sported a .380 wOBA and 4.2 WAR, which was all offensively driven (he's a horrible defender). And as LH mentioned, he's ridiculous cheap through 2013 and not really even that expensive in 2014. It would take a minimum of three premium prospects to acquire him. And the Brewers might as well go into full rebuilding mode, because if they trade Braun on top of losing Fielder at the end of next year, they won't be competing for a very long time.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 02:46 PM) THe best MLB hitters are those who keep their slumps minimal. Are you serious? It was his second full season of professional baseball and his first full year in the majors. All this talk about Beckham being a mental midget is completely absurd. The kid had some difficulty handling failure for the first time in his baseball career, but he rebounded nicely in the second half. Trading him because of those struggles would be a huge mistake.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Nov 9, 2010 -> 06:00 PM) I'd bet the Pads would bite at a package of Linebrink and Ozzie Guillen. So you're implying the only two offers are either our most valuable pitcher, most valuable position player, and a top 3 minor leaguer or arguably the most worthless asshole on the roster and our manager. The only point I was trying to make is that the trade you proposed was completely lopsided in the Padres favor and should never be offered. Whether the Padres would bite on a lesser offer is irrelevant.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Nov 8, 2010 -> 08:50 PM) Danks, Danks, Beckham, Mitchell to San Diego - Gonzalez, Ludwick to Chicago. + 8 Million? This is an absolutely terrible trade. Our best young starting pitcher, our young/cheap/talented starting 2B, and one of our top 3-4 prospects for one year of Gonzalez and Ludwick? This trade would completely destroy our organization in the long-run.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 11:01 AM) You're going to miss on players. I think what it shows is that its a total myth the Sox draft position is what keeps them from developing great players. There are plenty available every season. They just haven't been very good at recognizing them over the years. Sure they haven't had the top pick slam dunk selection for years, but even when they had that incredible run with Himes, they were eyeing other players. They really wanted Harkey instead of McDowell but the Cubs picked him. They really wanted Jeff Jackson but the Phillies picked him and they had to take Frank Thomas. For some reason the Cubs selecting in front of the Sox and looking for a 3B for decades pass on Robin Ventura, and Alex Fernandez was a no brainer but Milwaukee drafted him in the first round 2 years earlier and didn't sign him. I disagree wholeheartedly. If you take a look at the top 10 spots in the draft historically, there is a significantly higher percentage of impact players selected there than anywhere else in the draft just like there should be. Drafting in those spots doesn't guarantee you anything, but it does greatly improve your odds of drafting an impact player. Therefore, if you don't ever have a chance to draft in the top 10 spots, like the White Sox missed out on for a long period of time, you've greatly reduced your chances of getting such a player. Of course there are impact guys later in the first round and the rest of the draft, but it's exactly like Balta said, it becomes much more of a lottery. To be honest with you, I think the Sox have done an ok job with their later picks. Chris Young, Brandon McCarthy, and Chris Carter are just several that come to mind. It's the early picks that have killed us and I'm certain we'd have a few less misses if we were picking in the top 10 on a regular basis.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 6, 2010 -> 12:49 PM) Casey Rogowski a few picks before that Pujols dude? Are you serious? You're including a 13th round draft pick as one of the worst in White Sox history? We selected 16 players before Rogowski in the 1999 draft, which means we passed on Pujols a total of 17 times. We had 6 picks in the first two rounds of that draft and practically have nothing to show for them. Maybe you should be bringing up Rob Purvis' name instead. All things considered, Rogowski was a pretty solid 13th round pick. He had a couple good seasons in the minors and was supposed to be included in the original Ken Griffey Jr. trade. It shouldn't be held against him that we and every other team in baseball passed on Pujols 10 times or more.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 5, 2010 -> 09:12 AM) I can tell you with 100% certainty that I have never, in the hundreds of games I have been to in my lifetime, bought a ticket because of who the manager was. Never. I'd love to hear from anyone else who has, but I have never heard anyone say that "Hey I want to get up and see the Twins and Sox so that I can see that Ron Gardenhire in action!" I just said people wouldn't buy tickets to directly watch Guillen manage, but his hiring may bring a level of excitement to the team and generate more fan interest, which could indirectly sell tickets. I don't know why that seems so far-fetched. Teams go after "big name" managers all the time. Why do you think guys like Guillen and Sandberg have been legit candidates for major league manager positions without a lot of experience?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 5, 2010 -> 08:49 AM) Who in the hell buys tickets because of the manager? You're telling me fan interest in the White Sox didn't increase by hiring Guillen? I'm not saying a fan would buy tickets just to watch Guillen manage, but a big name manager can drive interest in the team and get more people to the games. If I had to guess, the Marlins are pretty low on the sports team totem pole in Miami. Hiring Guillen could help change that, especially with the size of the Latino community in Miami. Let me ask you this. Do you honestly believe that Loria wanted Guillen strictly because he thinks Guillen is an elite manager?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 5, 2010 -> 08:06 AM) I think he works like any savvy investor - he makes the best decision available at the time (extending Danks is probably that), but after the fact, he does not hold onto that asset out of anything other than continuing value proposition. If trading him a month later makes sense at that time, he won't hesitate. But really, if he's extended, he'd have to be blown away by an offer to trade Danks. But he would hesitate and hopefully never make such a move. Signing a player to an extension and then trading him a month later would be horrible for KW's reputation. It would also make future extensions much more difficult. Players would be less willing to sign extensions in general and would never accept a home-team discount. More players would also request no-trade clauses. I don't see how you can think KW would be able to treat a baseball player like a stock and not face repercussions.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 5, 2010 -> 12:28 AM) You don't bring in a manager because of name value. You bring in a manager because you think he's good. Unless you're moving into a new stadium and are trying to sell tickets. I'm not saying that's a good reason to hire a manager, but everything I've read is that Loria is the one that wants Guillen. I've got to think that's for marketing purposes. He'd be a pretty popular figure in Miami and would bring a lot of interest to the team.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Nov 4, 2010 -> 09:28 PM) Yeah, I think that would be a bargain. I'm not sure about double, but I would have expected $7 to $8 million per year. If they can lock him up for 4/$20 mil, I'd be quite happy with that. I'd be very happy with a four year $30 million extension.