Favorite Offseason Move?

[CWSGuy406]

Which of the ones above have been your favorite offseason move, and why? Did you like the player that we signed/acquired, or did you simply like the move because it shored up a hole?

 

I'll say my favorite move has been the signing of El Duque. I really like it now, because we have five starters who, on any given night, can go out and absolutely dominate a game. We have the two mental midgets at the end of the rotation, but I think with four out of our five starters (providing Hernandez stays fairly healthy), we basically know what we're going to get out of them. Contreras being the obvious wild card -- but I think we'll get just about half-and-half from him, ten starts or so where he absolutely dominates, and then ten starts where he really loses it -- the rest, somewhere in between.

 

I also put the hypothetical's up there, because I know a lot of you would have a really happy New Year if one of Pierz/Zaun/Cora/Cairo were wearing a White Sox jersey in the near future...

 

Tell me, whatta ya think?

[Jake]

filling a two or three year hole

[whitesox91403]

Has to be El Duque, hopefully an end to the 5th starter roulette wheel.

[A.J.]

Where is the Hypothetical signing of Carlos Beltran option ?

[qwerty]

Where is the Hypothetical signing of Carlos Beltran option ?

Better yet, where is the option for babe ruth? :rolly

[Jake]

Better yet where is the option for babe ruth? :rolly

about the same likeliness

[AngelasDaddy0427]

Gotta go with El Duque...

Anything that keeps Jason Grilli out of the rotation next year is the top offseason move in my book :rolly

[SoxAce]

filling a two or three year hole

[Rowand44]

Definitely el duque, the number one thing I wanted the sox to do was obviously fill that void in the 5th spot and Kenny definitely did that. I've also warmed up to the spod trade a lot, I think it can have great benefits for the sox this year. Not one move but I love what has happened to our bullpen also, the best way to compete with the big boy when you don't have the resources to match them salary wise is to get a shutdown bullpen and I believe we have one. Hope that answers your question.

[Pods70Rowand33]

I would have to say the El Duque signing is my favorite. We finally have 5 starters that are veterans, and nobody that is shaky because they say El Duque is good to go. The 5th starter is one of the reasons why we lost the division, and now having Jon Garland as our 5th starter we have someone that could win 14 games at the end of the rotation. Also by having Shingo, Marte, and Hermanson being able to close instead of Billy Koch.

[farmteam]

For me, it's El Duque. We really needed someone as a 5th starter. It will be way better than Diaz/Grilli/Satan. I hope his arm doesn't fall off though.

[fattyguy78]

For me, i would have to say Jemaine Dye...just because he decided to play here even after receiving an offer from another team for more money at the last minute just because he had given his word. He is a class act an a great addition to this team

[nitetrain8601]

El Duque

[greasywheels121]

Getting rid of Jose...

 

Probably the Carlos trade, b/c it allowed all the others to happen.

[Heads22]

To me, one move doesn't stand out as "Hey, that kicks ass." The combination of the first four with a possibility of the fifth seems like they will jive nicely.

[lvjeremylv]

I haven't read through the other posts, so I hope I'm not repeating stuff here, but I wanted to toss my two cents into the ring.

 

I don't have a favorite move that the Sox have made - I've liked them all equally, and for different reasons. I think every move the Sox have made thus far have helped this team get better, and therefore as a Sox fan I've obviously liked them all.

 

- The acquisition of Podsednik and Vizcaino got us our lead-off hitter and CF at the same time, and we got more help in our already solid bullpen. In the process, we got rid of a player that I feel is a mental midget who's being paid $8M a year.

 

- The signing of Dustin Hermanson gives us a very versatile pitcher who can be used in long relief, middle relief, or as a starter should one of our 5 guys struggle or get injured. He's not going to put up great numbers, but his versaitility alone makes him a valuable asset - plus, he's got good stuff.

 

- The signing of Jermaine Dye fills our hole in RF, and if he can stay healthy, he's not much of a step down from Magglio. He's better defensively than Magglio (like I said, if he's healthy), and offensively, take a look at what he did when he was with the Royals. Granted, that was a few seasons ago, but if he can return to similar form, we not only upgraded defensively, we also saved about $10M a season. True, we lose something offensively, but certainly not $10M worth of production.

 

- The signing of Orlando Hernandez could turn out to be a bust, but it could just as easily turn out to be a steal. According to KW, he passed his physical with shining colors, so hopefully that is accurate and true. If El Duque can stay healthy for a majority of the season, he should win somewhere in the teens and have an ERA in probably the low 4's. If that comes to fruition, he will have earned every penny the Sox gave him. Plus, if we make it to the post season, his experience could prove to be invaluable. We all know how the Sox tend to choke in clutch games. Hopefully his experience with the Yankees will help him teach our guys how to perform under pressure.

 

So I think all these moves, for the reasons I mentioned, are going to help us become a much better all-around team. We've added bullpen help, speed to our lineup, a proven winner (when healthy) to our starting rotation, and a recently injured OF who, if healthy, can put up .280/30/100 quite easily.

[Heads22]

Does the thought of Hermanson remind anyoen of Sean Lowe?

[lvjeremylv]

Does the thought of Hermanson remind anyoen of Sean Lowe?

Yup. And as all of us recall, Sean Lowe was a key part of the Sox pitching staff when we had him. I actually think Dustin Hermanson has a good chance of being better for us than Lowe was - and if that happens, we'll be tough to beat.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Signing Duque. Without the 5th starter any of the other moves would have been for naught.

[mmmmmbeeer]

I like the Dye move the most. Granted we needed the 5th starter, but I thought there were better options out there so that shortcoming prevents El Duque from being the best move. Dye on the other hand is a good, potentially great addition, at a great price. He shored up a hole where we were throwing guys like Gload and Perez at last season.

[BaseballNick]

I like the Duke. I'm not sure what I'm getting with JErmaine Dye. He posted some terrific numbers about 4-5 years ago but has been consitently on the DL since. Let's pray for a healthy team and see what happens.

[qwerty]

Signing hernandez is the best move we have made this off-season by far. I only see us getting about twenty starts from him before he gets injured one way or another. But that is twenty more starts that we feel comfortable with. If we were starting grilli/ diaz we would feel comfortable about zero starts. Also, when hernandez is on, he looks like one of the best pitchers in the league for strecthes. Which is always nice to have.