Kris Benson

[whitesox61382]

1st- If Benson stays healthy he definitely will do better than Schoneweis. He needs a new scenery so that he could get away from a city that hasn't smelled a championship for years. Plus, he could get away from all those expectations that were there in Pitt when he was drafted first overall. This guy has the talent and the stuff to be up there with Prior.

 

2nd- I'd just like to make it clear that I am a loyal whitesox fan, but It just seems that the pitching and the bullpen aren't good enough for them to beat Minnesota. Now without an experienced bench coach to help Ozzie, it makes his job that much more difficult.

IF Benson stays healthy? Do you understand how big of an IF that is? He hasn't pitched more than 130 innings the last 3 years, so how confident are you that he is going to stay healthy and break this trend? Furthermore, how can you be so sure that he will be better than Schoeneweis? His stats the past 2 years are only marginally better. Not to mention the fact that you have to take into consideration the .25-.30 increase in ERA that generally occurs when a pitcher moves from the NL to the AL. If you factor that into the equation, than Benson's ERA the past 2 years is almost identical to Schoeneweis's career ERA as a starter. So how are you so sure that Benson will be better than Schoeneweis? Both have the potential to improve with Benson having mild sucess early in his career, and Schoeneweis adding a cutter and refining his change.

 

The deciding factors for me are the following:

 

1) Lefty - Schoeneweis is a lefty, and through the years lefties have had more sucess than righties. I also like the idea of having 2 lefties in the rotation, especially when you consider that they have different approaches(Buehrle - finesse and Schoeneweis - power).

 

2) Health - Schoeneweis has never had any serious injury concerns, the same can't be said for Benson. He has had major surgury on his arm and hasn't pitched 130 innings since.

 

3) Trade - The Sox already have Schoeneweis, but to get Benson the Sox would probably have to give up a very good prospect, especially if JR were cheap and made Pittsburgh pay some of his contract(which would force him to give up a better prospect)

 

Add those 3 things up, and I am going to give Schoeneweis a shot(with his new pitches) before I come to the premature conclusion that he is a terrible starter and the Sox need to trade for another marginal starter like Benson(another possible Ritchie calibur trade).

 

I am not questioning your pessimism, because it is warranted to some degree and nothing but optimistic opinions from everyone can get old very quickly. I agree with you that on paper the Twins are probably the team to beat this year, but the Sox(and Royals for that matter) aren't far behind and could easily win the division, so counting them out before the 1st pitch is thrown is way to premature, and I think thats what most of the posters are taking offense to.

[YASNY]

Helluva post whitesox61382.

[DBAHO]

Shows how hard it is for a small market team like Pittsburgh to win when a guy like Benson who would easily make more than 10 - 15% of their total payroll, can't even play half a season. I'd only pick him up, if he's shown throughout the 1st half of the season that he can STAY healthy. And even then it's still a risk, just look at a guy like Jeff Suppan, a success in Pittsburgh, a failure in Boston.