Do we need a philosophical change?

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, and he created an even larger hole in the middle of the rotation. JMO, but Uribe at SS is a lesser evil than Floyd in the rotation.

Was it worth paying $4.5 million for a utility player that can't hit? Not sure about that.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like Cabrera a lot. But I don't see how adding him and losing Jon makes the Sox a better team. And Jon is going to be worth a lot more than Cabrera in June and July.

 

That sums up the way I feel about that trade. You significantly improved the SS position, but left a huge hole in your starting rotation and have 4.5M of dead weight.

 

and a lot less confindent

 

and a lot less delusional. If I go into a Honda dealership, they're not going to tell me "Ferrari is finally catching up to us!"

Edited December 8, 2007 by StrangeSox

[max power]

That sums up the way I feel about that trade. You significantly improved the SS position, but left a huge hole in your starting rotation and have 4.5M of dead weight.

and a lot less delusional. If I go into a Honda dealership, they're not going to tell me "Ferrari is finally catching up to us!"

Nice analogy. Who is exaggerating now?

[StrangeSox]

Nice analogy. Who is exaggerating now?

 

KW!

Edited December 8, 2007 by StrangeSox

[YASNY]

He was released because he refused to go to the minors.

 

I don't see how that changes the main point. In 2005, Shingo sucked.

[Kid Gleason]

Well, the original point was that the original poster said going into 2005 we had Hermanson as a closer and basically made it sound like the closer spot was questionable. This wasn't true. Heading into 2005 the closer role was not a question since we had Shingo and he was so lights out the year before.

[CWSGuy406]

I'd like to hear someone explain why they believe the roster, as currently constructed, can make up the 28+ wins necessary to reach the playoffs.

 

I'm glad you had the 'plus sign' there, because according to Pythag, the Sox were actually lucky to win 72 games.

 

As far as where those wins will come from, I'll try my darndest (?) and put my black-and-white shades on for a second:

 

+2-3 wins from Quentin upgrade over pile-of-crap from last season.

+1 win from one-year-older Fields over bad-month-of Crede and one-year-younger Fields of 2007.

+3-5 wins from Cabrera over Uribe.

+1 win from Konerko bouncing back from a semi-down year (I'm only doing this because I have the shades on -- I'd argue that Konerko's 2007 season will be closer to his next three seasons than his 2005-06 years).

+1 win from Dye bouncing back.

+3-5 wins from bullpen upgrade (this isn't attributed to Linebrink, either, but regression to the mean -- it's just difficult for me to believe, statistically speaking, for the Sox bullpen to be as bad as it was last season).

-(minus)2-3 wins from Garland downgrade.

 

Optimistically that's +13 wins right there, with the glaring omission of CF. Our CF spot won't be any worse than it was last year. Even in a worst case scenario where the Sox have to platoon Owens and Anderson, the Sox won't be any worse -- if they grab Cameron, Fukodome or Rowand, that's anywhere from a 2-5 win upgrade.

 

So anymore improvement would have to come from the rotation, assuming nobody does something super-extraordinary (and hey, it could happen -- for example, I think there's a somewhat reasonable chance Quentin goes off for a .260/.350/.460 line, which would be a what, .150 point OPS improvement over last year's group of crap in LF?). Danks is going to have to take a step forward into that 5.00ish ERA range and the same will be needed from Floyd (and Contreras for that matter).

 

So putting a bow on this, I'd say the slightly optimistic scenario has the Sox playing meaningful games in September but ultimately falling several games short (think 83-89 wins). And at this point, I think that should be pretty realistic goal -- play the young guys who have shown some amount of promise (Richar, Fields, Quentin, Danks, Floyd), don't sign anyone to a long-term contract, don't sign a SP to a contract that will ultimately block Gio or DLS (I'd say this about position players but we have none in AA or AAA) and do your best to keep some asses in the seats (that's where winning around 85 games will help) so we can keep this $100 million dollar payroll (even if it will ultimately go to waste on guys like Linebrink).

 

Disclaimer: The wins are in no way a statistical calculation of any kind, just moderately educated guesses. Go ahead and give me some guff for them if need be, I'll be around.

[Hatchetman]

Just thought I'd bump this up so we could pile on KW a little more.