Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 7, 2010 -> 01:21 PM) Caruso was a freaking 20-year-old, slap-hitting A-baller when the Sox traded for him. His minor-league BA and OBP were decent, but nothing special. Calling somebody with that skill set a "gem" makes little sense, and the only reason that he started for the Sox in '98 was their lack of other options. He was also a part of a trade that involved five other players, many with MUCH higher ceilings. As hard as it is to believe, he was the #34 prospect in all of baseball in 1998 (#1 White Sox prospect) according to Baseball America. I'm still blown away how anyone could have thought this. He must of had quite the intangibles, since he was both offensively and defensively challenged.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 7, 2010 -> 01:17 PM) Pierre and Teahen cost about $10M/year combined. They're not constricting payroll. Attendance, parking, and concession revenue is. It's not that Teahen and Pierre restrict the team's payroll where we can't afford new players, it's that they are paid well enough where I think KW will give them starting spots (assuming we can't dump their contracts). This directly affects where we could spend any savings to improve our lineup. Assuming we also keep Beckham, Rios, Quentin, and Ramirez, then we are only looking at C, 1B and RF/DH to fill. If you want to infuse some youth into the lineup, we are looking at Viciedo at 1B and Flowers at C. That leaves RF/DH to fill via trade or free agency. Obviously, there's a possibility we move Quentin or Ramirez in offseason and need money to fill one of their positions, but right now I'm not expecting it.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 7, 2010 -> 12:15 PM) I kind of agree with you, but there's also little point in paying both Peavy and Buehrle when you're selling off the rest of the team and aren't going to compete next year anyway. You'll likely get multiple ML-ready prospects by trading those two, in addition to a ton of salary relief. That's a nice way to rebuild a franchise. That said, it's a moot point because nobody's going to take on Peavy's contract right now. I think we have a shot at retooling and competing next year if we keep the rotation intact. Obviously there would have to be significant changes to the offense and a lot of rebound years (pitching and offense), but I think it's a possibility. If you think you have a chance to compete next season and it doesn't work out, worst case scenario you look to trade Peavy and Buehrle at the deadline and hope their values are higher. Right now, you'd get absolutely nothing in return for them. Also, the salary relief from trading Peavy and Buehrle this season could help, but it totally depends on how effectively KW uses the savings in the offseason. Unfortunately, with Pierre and Teahen locked up already for 2011, I don't see a ton of areas where we could spend the money on offense (assuming we infuse some youth into the lineup). If we end up just overpaying for starting pitching in free agency, then I think it could be counter-productive.

QUOTE (hogan873 @ Jun 7, 2010 -> 11:42 AM) I don't think it would happen, but imagine trading Peavy and Buehrle and freeing up a ton of money for next season. Then you'll be forced to find starting pitching via trade or free agency. I would not want to go into the offseason with two holes in our rotation and no legitimate internal candidates to replace them (assuming Hudson replaces Freddy). We'll end up overpaying with our limited resources (money and talent) as we'll be in a position of need. I think this team really needs to keep Peavy along with Danks, Floyd and Hudson. If you can get back a near MLB-ready starting pitcher in one of our deadline deals, then I'd be open to dumping Buerhle as well. Otherwise, I'd hold onto to him until the offseason when his value may go up (hard to imagine it could get any lower) and there may be a larger market for him.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 6, 2010 -> 11:39 PM) And I think that's the key: reload, not rebuild. We still have a core here for a very good baseball team. I agree completely. Plus rebuilding is a total crapshoot and I'm not sure KW would be the right man for the job anways.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 6, 2010 -> 11:07 AM) Why do you want to watch Flowers and Danks strike out so much? That is what they are doing and what they will do if called up in July. I agree completely on Danks. I think bringing him up this season would be awful for his development. In my opinion, he's going to need another full season in AAA before deciding if he's a long-term fit as starting or backup outfielder. On the other hand, I think Flowers is going to rebound from a terrible May. He had a nice start to the season and I have a feeling he made too many changes to his swing all at once in May. No doubt he strikes out a lot, but he's also had success at every level prior to this year. His average will take a significant hit if he's called up this season, but I think that will improve over-time by slowly implementing small changes to his swing. His power and OBP numbers should still be of some value to the team.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 6, 2010 -> 10:05 AM) The problem is no team is going to give their top prospect for a set up guy, and if you're going to their 7th or 8th prospect or some obscure A ball player, who cares. Why are these the only two options? If a team has a strong farm system, what's wrong with their 2nd or 3rd best prospect plus another guy in the top 10? To be honest, I think a team with a need in their bullpen would give up a ton for Thornton. He's one of the best relievers in the game and can just flat out dominate. In the post-season, I think his value would be incredible, even as a setup man.

QUOTE (Wanne @ Jun 6, 2010 -> 01:32 AM) Depending on the return...why on earth would these guys be on your untouchable list?!?!? I don't consider these guys untouchable. I just don't think you'd get anything of value for them this year. Like I said, I'd rather hold onto them for another season and see what you got with them. Also, we are going to have to keep a couple guys as the starting point for the lineup. Again, the guys I'd hold on to are Rios, Beckham, Quentin and Ramirez. I'd use Pierre and Teahen (assuming you can't move their contracts) as our temporary LF and 3B until Mitchell/Danks and Morel are ready. That leaves 1B, C and DH/RF to fill. I'd make sure to get a serious left-handed power bat for the middle of the order that can play 1B or RF via trade or free agency. I'd probably fill one spot with Viciedo and possibly C with Flowers depending on his turnaround. If not, I'd get a one year stopgap. Pierre LF Beckham 2B Rios CF Free Agent RF Quentin DH Viciedo 1B Ramirez SS Teahen 3B Flowers C I know that lineup is ugly, but we are going to have to add some youth to it in order to cut payroll. I think Viciedo and Flowers are the only guys on the offensive side with a shot of being ready at the beginning of 2011.

If we want any chance of competing in 2011, I'd keep the following players, baring any crazy offers: Peavy Buerhle Danks Floyd Santos Pena Rios Beckham Quentin Ramirez Regardless of the results this season, I still think our rotation (with the addition of Hudson) can be a serious asset for 2011. Plus I don't think we'll get much at all for any of these guys (except Danks who's an automatic keeper) and I don't think that freed salary space will be of much value for us after this diaster of a season. The bullpen is going to need to be addressed, but I'd like to keep Santos and Pena as the starting point. I'd also make my best effort to get a ransom for Thornton, but if that offer isn't out there, I make him my closer for the rest of the season. As for the offense, there is no way in hell you trade Rios. The guy is locked up long-term to a reasonable contract and is the only guy you can really count on to be a productive middle of the lineup hitter. Beckham is also an untouchable. I'd also give Quentin and Ramirez another season before deciding what to do with them. I don't see us losing much value by waiting. Therefore, the guys I would focus on trading would be Putz, Jenks, Garcia, Konerko, A.J. and Jones (and Thornton depending on the return). I don't think anyone else would get us much of anything in return, but obviously I'd be willing to part with some of the other guys if someone wanted them.

I think we should move Putz to the closer role for two reasons. Right now, I think he's our best option in terms of having the most effective overall bullpen. I'd rather keep Thornton available for a variety of high-leverage situations, including the occasional save opportunity. This would also allow us to give Santos some more late-inning work without putting too much pressure on him at once. Also, if you move Putz to closer and he succeeds, it should bump up his trade value quite a bit. As for Jenks, I only want him pitching in low-pressure situations for the time-being. He needs to work on his secondary pitches if he wants to be effective, so let him work through those kinks in games that he can't blow. I'm all for giving Bobby another chance at some point, but something significant has got to change before I throw him out there with a 1 or 2 run lead again.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 18, 2010 -> 06:04 PM) Ozzie's gotten to the point where he's just full of himself and he, like you, is riding it all on 2005. He just does far too many things that don't make sense and he puts his players in a position to fail. That's his fault and he should eventually pay the price for being the way he is. IMO, Guillen's arrogance has been his downfall recently. He believes he knows more than everyone else. He constantly goes against the numbers and he constantly goes against common sense. Guillen shouldn't be fired because of our record, he should be fired because of his decision making. Like chw42 says above, he puts his players in a position to fail. It's really that simple.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 17, 2010 -> 01:54 PM) I agree with Jenks Heat, no more just giving away players and saying "we owed it to them to put them into a better situation". KW has done a miserable job in the past of trading veterans for prospects, so I'm not overly optimistic he'll turn Jenks, AJP, Konerko, Jones, etc. into solid depth for our minors. The biggest positive is likely to come from saved money as well as opportunities for Flowers, Thornton (to close), Santos, Danks 2. Danks 2 is not even close to being ready IMO. If we bring him up this year, we'll be doing him a huge disservice. He needs to cut down those strikeouts and raise his average in AAA before getting any consideration.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 17, 2010 -> 01:39 PM) For 2011, I would say yes. For this season, the Castro money is already out the door, so might as well keep him there for the duration of the season (unless Castro looks awful, then get rid of him and call up Lucy). I guess I just see a benefit to having an experienced backup catcher if your starter is a rookie. I think having a veteran might actually help Flowers' development. Also, I'm not a big Lucy fan. I just don't see his bat holding up over the course of a full season.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 17, 2010 -> 12:55 PM) We need to stop giving Major League deals to crappy veteran players. When guys like J. Gomes are getting Minor League deals, while Kotsay and Vizquel get Major League deals, that shows that we misjudged the market to start last offseason. We can have a cheaper bench with likely better results. No reason to sign Castro for 1.2 mil next year, just let Lucy back-up. If Flowers is the everyday starter, would you still want Lucy backing him up?

If this team is serious about contending in 2011, then we need to get Flowers some experience with the pitching staff this season. We're going to have several big holes to fill this off-season and have a couple bad contracts that will limit our financial flexibility to fill them. Therefore, we need a couple guys in the minors to step up and fill some spots cheaply while being at least semi-productive. Hudson should replace Freddy, but that won't give us huge cost savings. Santos can hopefully take on Putz or Jenks' role, which will save us some money even if we have to replace one or both of them. What we really need is someone to help on offense. IMO, the only guy close to being ready is Flowers. If he can just give us average production for a catcher, we're in a lot better position to afford the middle-of-the-order bat this offense desperately needs. Unfortunately, as much as I love what A.J. provides, I feel like we have to trade him (before he gets his 10/5 rights) to open up a spot for Flowers. If you can get something back for him of value or at least save some money then great, but the last thing I want to see is Flowers experiencing significant growing pains while handling the pitching staff in 2011.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 14, 2010 -> 09:52 PM) Good question. I can't imagine any fans who do not already have tickets heading out to the Cell to watch this. I mean, baseball is fantastic, but it is kinda expensive to go to a game. Minor leagues might be a better bang for the buck until we turn the team around. I'm more than happy to pay money to watch the Sox in a down year, but not if I have to watch players like Kotsay and Omar. At some point in the near future, we'll need to throw a young guy or two into the lineup. Unfortunately, the Sox face two serious problems. First, we have several well-paid veterans playing terrible, which makes creating openings in the lineup much more difficult. Second, the only minor leaguer IMO who deserves a call-up right now is Flowers. I have no idea what KW is going to do with this team, but I'm sure it'll be interesting.

So who's the first minor leaguer called up from AAA/AA to help this god forsaken offense?

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 10:38 PM) the amount of god damn times i've heard this the past decade is embarrassing. I'm not saying I think it's likely, but I think it's still a possibility. I take it you're already writing off the season then?

QUOTE (Real @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 10:07 PM) Seriously, so many knee-jerkers on this site. Patience is a virtue. The team sucks now, it's hard to watch as a fan. But can we seriously end the "FIRE OZZIE" among other ridiculous comments until the team is 10+ games out in June/July? Almost half the roster are guys who were either acquired mid-season last year, have never played for the Sox prior to this year, or were acquired at the beginning of 2009. This is, for the most part, a team of guys who haven't really clicked 'as a team' yet. I think it'll happen sooner rather than later. And no, I don't think Kenny will blow this up, or fire anybody prior to the Sox going above .500 in 2010. It's hard for people like me who still largely believes in this team, to read some of the s*** on this site. I don't believe in putting people on ignore unless they are truly annoying, but sometimes I just shake my head in doubt I'm not saying we'll win the division, but I'm not making my prediction based on what I'm seeing in the month of April. Is there anyone else on this site that agrees with me? Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by a pack of rabid monkeys Good post. I agree with you about the negativity. I think people are going a little overboard with the "season is over" predictions. A lot of our guys are going to bounce back and there's still time to make up for this terrible start. However, I think the "fire Ozzie" claims are legitimate. He's simply making a lot of bad decisions. I won't go into the specifics here, but IMO, he is a detriment to the team. We need radical changes in terms of game-day decision making and I'm not sure Ozzie is willing to make those changes.

Am I crazy or does our worst reliever lead our team in appearances? How can Ozzie get away with these stupid-f***ing decisions? I'm not giving up on this team, but I hope KW gives up on Ozzie soon.

There's no excuse for sitting Quentin and Jones on the same day. Unless there are injuries I'm unaware of, Ozzie is a complete f***ing joke. The best part is that the Sox will probably score enough runs to win this game, but only because of the contributions from the players who actually deserve to be in the starting lineup.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Apr 13, 2010 -> 02:14 AM) And DH Juan Pierre? He might be the WORST full-time DH ever then, lol. I mean seriously DH = designated hitter. Isn't it kind of ironic that we would have a guy who can't hit, but does nothing but go up to bat as our DH? At this point in the season, it's irrelevent if Juan Pierre is our DH. Guillen is going to bat him leadoff everyday for the near future. If another player, i.e. Jones, gives you better defense then he should be getting the playing time in the outfield. IMO, the DH spot should be rotated between Pierre, Quentin, Jones, and Konerko predominantly. Against really tough righties, I'd DH Konerko and play Kotsay at 1B. For those games, Jones would sit on the bench. Otherwise, I'd DH Pierre and Quentin each once or twice a week and let Jones fill in at their respective spot in the OF. I don't like the idea of moving Carlos around between LF and RF. I'd probably DH Jones once a week as well to give him a little rest. I do not want to see Kotsay DHing ever. His value to the team is being our left-handed pinch hitter. When he is in the starting lineup, the only other sort-of option we have is Vizquel and I don't like that. I'm fine with Kotsay starting once a week at 1B, but otherwise, he should be sitting on the bench and available to PH in the late innings like we saw last night.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Mar 9, 2010 -> 06:51 PM) Who is Brent Lillibridge going to replace for defensive purposes late in a ballgame? Jayson Nix when he starts, which will happen more frequently if he's your primary backup infielder. You could also take Teahen out of a game and move Vizquel to 3B, assuming he's the new starter at 2B/SS, and put Lillibridge at either of those positiions. He can also play some CF if you want to use him as a pinch-runner for an outfielder. In a perfect world, your second backup infielder shouldn't be getting a lot of playing time anyways. I guess my question would be what's a better internal option at the moment for the 2nd backup infielder in the event of an injury? I don't think Retherford is quite ready yet and I'd rather give him a little more time to develop with regular playing time.

I don't even see this as a competition. Unless another GM offers KW something of value for Nix, which is extremely unlikely, he will be the extra infielder on the opening day roster. Nix has no options left, so you might as well start the season with him and see what you have. That way if someone gets hurt early on, you at least have Lillibridge in AAA to take on Nix's role. As horrible as that sounds, he at least has some value as a late innning defensive replacement and pinch runner.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Feb 25, 2010 -> 02:37 PM) MLBTradeRumors has a link up saying the Blue Jays may be close to signing Cuban 1B Jose Julio Ruiz. If the Jays sign Ruiz, then Overbay, who IMO is already a realistic option for us, should become even more available. What about a Kotsay + prospect for Overbay deal? Overbay has one year remaining at $7M and the Sox were rumored to have offered at least $6M for Damon, so there's money available. I imagine just sending Kotsay and offering to pick up the $5.5M difference would be enough for the Jays to make a deal without getting anyone too significant in return as far as prospects go. If we picked up Overbay, we'd get a lefty stick to break up all those righties in the middle, plus we'd improve defensively at 1B over Paulie, who could DH most of the time. Andruw Jones would still get playing time as a 4th OF and occasional DH. If we weren't willing to spend the money on Nick Johnson, we aren't going to trade Kotsay and a prosepct for the right to spend the same amount of money on Overbay. I just don't see KW and Guillen wanting and/or willing to do this for several reasons. Also, they aren't just going to throw their remaining funds at just any player that upgrades the team, they are going to spend this money on a difference-maker. Whether we agree with him or not, KW probably viewed Damon as a difference maker in the lineup.