Are the Sox too Cheap to Win Bidding Wars?

[elrockinMT]

There is an article in the Sun-Times that I saw on the on-line version where Jay Marioti claims that the Sox are too cheap to engage in a true effort to acquire the high priced FA's such as Torii Hunter plus their efforts are amatueristic at best. He questions the Garland trade and says that Reinsdorf will never really spend the money for impact players regrdless of Kenny's bluster. He also doesn't think the Sox will make a serious effort to get Rowand back and that Aaron will end up with the Dodgers. We will probably trade for Crisp because he is cheaper. The 2005 championship is seen as an anomaly at best and we won't have the guns to win or compete. I know he doesn't much like Ozzie, KW or Reinsdorf, but I also wonder about some moves that have been made. Brings up past efforts/years in my mind and I wonder what others think?

Edited November 23, 2007 by elrockinMT

[SkokieSox]

Mariotti will do whatever it takes to make a good situation look bad, and a bad situation look worse. Its his life mission against the Sox, and its disgusting that he makes a good living off of it.

[Kalapse]

You really shouldn't read Mariotti, it really has no positive long lasting effects while the side effects are quite scary. But seriously though, the Sox really should have thrown 6 years or $110M at Torii Hunter I mean it would be a terrible contract and would really hurt the team in the long run but at least JR couldn't be called cheap anymore. Didn't the Sox just outbid everyone else for the top reliever on the free agent market?

[iamshack]

Mariotti will do whatever it takes to make a good situation look bad, and a bad situation look worse. Its his life mission against the Sox, and its disgusting that he makes a good living off of it.

 

Agreed. Mariotti is generally a good writer, however, I just don't believe he is a very good columnist in regards to Chicago sports. He has a fundamental misunderstanding about the baseball industry as a whole; while the industry is flush with money, it is not so flush that all teams can operate with the reactionary philosophy he seems to personally hold. Couple that with his ridiculous level of bias against the White Sox as an organization, and his articles are simply vindictive and repetitive rants. I am shocked he continues to be allowed to even cover the White Sox, given how his attitude concerning the current regime eliminates all possibilities of him commenting responsibly or accurately on their state of affairs.

Edited November 23, 2007 by iamshack

[SkokieSox]

Didn't the Sox just outbid everyone else for the top reliever on the free agent market?

 

Mariotti will either conveniently ignore it, or make a claim it's irresponsible spending. Stuff like - The guy isn't that good or it's a diversion to not spend elsewhere and that they were still cheap because it was only a reliever and the Blizzard of Oz will screw everything up - the end.

[infohawk]

There is an article in the Sun-Times that I saw on the on-line version where Jay Marioti claims that the Sox are too cheap to engage in a true effort to acquire the high priced FA's such as Torii Hunter plus their efforts are amatueristic at best. He questions the Garland trade and says that Reinsdorf will never really spend the money for impact players regrdless of Kenny's bluster. He also doesn't think the Sox will make a serious effort to get Rowand back and that Aaron will end up with the Dodgers. We will probably trade for Crisp because he is cheaper. The 2005 championship is seen as an anomaly at best and we won't have the guns to win or compete. I know he doesn't much like Ozzie, KW or Reinsdorf, but I also wonder about some moves that have been made. Brings up past efforts/years in my mind and I wonder what others think?

If the Sox had signed hunter for $15 million a year, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Mariotti argue that KW and Jerry Reinsdorf had a chance to make a big free agent splash and foolishly threw the money at Torii Hunter. He might have then argued that the Sox weren't really committed to winning and believed that, by bringing in Hunter, they could fool the fanbase into thinking they were serious about competing with the Indians and Tigers despite the remaining problems with the team for which they "weren't going to spend serious money to fix." He then would have praised the Cubs for going on a spending spree for several players after an historically bad season in 2006. He would have talked about how Hendry and ownership somehow gets it (despite years of evidence to the contrary) and Reinsdorf and Williams don't (despite a World Series championship). He would likely have somehow turned the acquisition of Hunter into evidence that the Sox are...surprise, surprise...cheap.

 

Bottom line -- if the Sox won the World Series in 7 games, Mariotti would argue that a failure to sweep shows just how short-sighted Reinsdorf and Williams were. The man is a disingenuous and bitter shock-jock sportswriter. His act was tired about five years ago.

Edited November 23, 2007 by infohawk

[southsider2k5]

Agreed. Mariotti is generally a good writer, however, I just don't believe he is a very good columnist in regards to Chicago sports. He has a fundamental misunderstanding about the baseball industry as a whole; while the industry is flush with money, it is not so flush that all teams can operate with the reactionary philosophy he seems to personally hold. Couple that with his ridiculous level of bias against the White Sox as an organization, and his articles are simply vindictive and repetitive rants. I am shocked he continues to be allowed to even cover the White Sox, given how his attitude concerning the current regime eliminates all possibilities of him commenting responsibly or accurately on their state of affairs.

 

You lost me at this point. He is a horrible writer. Facts do not matter to him. He exsists on hyperbole and exaggeration. He often contradicts himself within the same article, if not at other times on the exact same subject. He without a doubt the worst writer in Chicago, bar none.

[fathom]

His article on Monday bashing Rex for stating that the Bears have a chance still might be the worst article I've ever seen. I could only imagine what his article would have been if the Bears QB had said that the team had no chance. He's a piece of s***, and it's too bad Ozzie never kicked his ass.

[SkokieSox]

and it's too bad Ozzie never kicked his ass.

 

Its never too late... Of course Mariotti chooses not to go Sox games, yet write about the clubhouse and interactions as if it were first hand knowledge. If he ever had the balls, which I'm confident he doesn't, maybe there will be a slight chance. What a wonderful day that would be.

[Gregory Pratt]

His article on Monday bashing Rex for stating that the Bears have a chance still might be the worst article I've ever seen. I could only imagine what his article would have been if the Bears QB had said that the team had no chance. He's a piece of s***, and it's too bad Ozzie never kicked his ass.

 

Only because you'd like to see it get Ozzie fired.

[iamshack]

You lost me at this point. He is a horrible writer. Facts do not matter to him. He exsists on hyperbole and exaggeration. He often contradicts himself within the same article, if not at other times on the exact same subject. He without a doubt the worst writer in Chicago, bar none.

 

Well I disagree with you about that. I think he is a very talented writer, but that his position as a columnist for a newspaper that mandates he write columns to "sell papers" forces him to take positions designed simply to attract attention. When he covers certain other topics, usually something non-Chicago related, he writes with skill and uncommon thoughtfulness. However, the hot water he has gotten himself into with representatives of Chicago sports organizations has caused him to lash out at them via his column. Thus, he is often taking positions which are repetitive, ridiculous, and inaccurate. Anytime one is forced to argue such positions, one will be forced to exist on hyperbole and exaggeration. One will often contradict himself, due to the ridiculousness of the position taken. One will often seem like a fool.

 

However, Mariotti is not a fool; he's quite intelligent, actually. But he's also immature, vindictive, and arrogant. Those latter qualities are what ruin his columns, especially those regarding the White Sox organization.

[santo=dorf]

I'd rather be cheap and have common sense than be stupid with money.

[greg775]

His article on Monday bashing Rex for stating that the Bears have a chance still might be the worst article I've ever seen. I could only imagine what his article would have been if the Bears QB had said that the team had no chance. He's a piece of s***, and it's too bad Ozzie never kicked his ass.

 

Great take. He'd have fried Rex for that.

IamShack and infohawk also had excellent takes I thought.

This thread was worth reading.

[winninguglyin83]

How many multi-million payrolls has Marriotti managed?

 

How many contracts has he negotiated?

 

How many payrolls has he met?

 

It's easy to spend another man's money and talk about $90 million as if it's $90.

 

I'm disappointed not to have Hunter -- but not at that price. In three or four years, when Hunter's productivity is dropping and he's still getting $18 million, let's see how the deal looks then.

 

Take the money and get another CF and a pitcher -- which is what we need.

[Soxbadger]

Im sorry but how can the White Sox be cheap when they have a payroll in the upper half of all baseball teams?

 

There is a difference between being cheap and being prudent. I was getting nervous about Hunter being on the Sox and having some of those years be 13 mil, let alone 15.

 

The risk was to high in my opinion, and there was almost no way to get the necessary reward.

 

 

[BaseballNick]

Marriotti complains when KW and JR don't overspend for a guy like Hunter, but in 3 years when you realize just how bad the contract is, and it handcuffs the team from making other significant moves, he'd be the first one to say it was a bad signing. I think he's a talented writer, but more often than not, he's writing something that will get your blood boiling in order to sell papers and be controversial. It's his job to be a conversation piece so I don't put a whole lot of stock into what he writes...plus it's no secret that he dislikes the White Sox and will bash them every chance he gets.

[iamshack]

Im sorry but how can the White Sox be cheap when they have a payroll in the upper half of all baseball teams?

 

There is a difference between being cheap and being prudent. I was getting nervous about Hunter being on the Sox and having some of those years be 13 mil, let alone 15.

 

The risk was to high in my opinion, and there was almost no way to get the necessary reward.

 

The thing with Mariotti is, he wants to compare the White Sox to the Dodgers, Angels, Mets, Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs because we are the other major market team...but if you look at those teams' attendance figures compared to ours, they dwarf us. We simply cannot have the payroll those teams are capable of having.

[Soxbadger]

http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/sa....aspx?year=2007

 

Well the facts are the Sox outspent the Dodgers and the Cubs.

 

So even if you compare the Sox to every other team in the league only 3 significantly outspent the Sox, and 2 of them significantly outspent every other team by over $25mil.

 

The thing with Mariotti is he does not do research. He is a lazy writer and in less than 1 minute I was able to find figures that basically disprove his entire premise. He is a bitter little man who has an axe to grind with the White Sox.

 

Jay has a great job, a job many of us would do for free, so it sickens me when some one being paid to do it cant even do a remotely decent job.

 

Throwing money away at old players will not do anything for the White Sox.

 

Last year had the Tribe not blown their chances, the World Series would have been comprised of 2 teams that payroll combined was less than the White Sox.

 

But the White Sox are to cheap to win.

Edited November 23, 2007 by Soxbadger

[bschmaranz]

So instead of the Angels making Torii baseball's 4th highest paid player the White Sox should have made him the 3rd highest? I think we should perhaps make a rule around here to refrain from even mentioning something Marioti writes because all it does is rile folks up over nothing.

[Gene Honda Civic]

Is the Sun-Times too [fill in the blank] to [fill in the blank]?

[CanOfCorn]

Mariotti is maddening AND popular because he is reactionary. He writes what he thinks Chicago sports fans are thinking, not the actual situation. I, for one, wanted Hunter, but NOT for $18 mil a year. That's just dumb.

[Whitewashed in '05]

Mariotti is good at what he does... causing a stir. If he brings attention his employer is happy.

 

I don't really see why anyone in Chicago reads his stuff anymore. He bashes everyone.

 

Plain and simple, he's an ass.

[southsider2k5]

Is the Sun-Times too [fill in the blank] to [fill in the blank]?

 

[Cheap] [to hire decent writers]

[Dick Allen]

Marriotti complains when KW and JR don't overspend for a guy like Hunter, but in 3 years when you realize just how bad the contract is, and it handcuffs the team from making other significant moves, he'd be the first one to say it was a bad signing. I think he's a talented writer, but more often than not, he's writing something that will get your blood boiling in order to sell papers and be controversial. It's his job to be a conversation piece so I don't put a whole lot of stock into what he writes...plus it's no secret that he dislikes the White Sox and will bash them every chance he gets.

He was crying before the Bears drafted McNown that he had to be the one they drafted. A couple years later he's wondering how anyone could be stupid enough to have drafted him. You are right, he constantly plays both ends and is never held accountable. Sort of like in 2005 when he proclaimed the White Sox season over after 2 games. After they had won them both. Hawk makes a mistake IMO everytime he mentions him, but he is correct about one thing. Marriotti has it out for JR, and probably has columns already written complaining about him to use when he has nothing else. The other day he was b****ing about JR being in a photo with the 6 championship trophies in the Bulls media guide, trying to make him out to be an egomaniac. I'm pretty sure it wasn't JR's idea to have that photo taken, but Marriotti has never let truth get in the way of his garbage.

[TimTebow15]

It's MORONOTTI. just thought I should clear things up..... he is a clown. worst writer in America. he hates the Sox. Nothing the Sox do will ever please him.