Broadway to start Thursday (8/14)

[maggsmaggs]

And you have won how many World Series rings running an organization???

My main beef with the organizational decision revolve in the minors leagues and drafting, cause clearly at the major league level KW has done a tremendous job. But if you let me make the White Sox first-round selections the last 10 years, I would probably have more success than them. Our first round picks the last decade have produced absolutely nothing and our top-tier farm system in 2001 produced nothing to the ML team. That is my beef with the Sox as the organzational decisions in the minor leagues (signing oversees) and drafting have been downright awful, if not the worst in baseball the last five years.

 

Since 1994, here are the Sox's first-round picks

1994-Mark Johnson and Chris Clemons (both horrible, though Johnson at least played in the majors)

1995-Jeff Liefer (never could hit for average)

1996-Bobby Seay (never signed, granted loop hole FA)

1997-Jason Dellaero, Kyle Kane, Brett Caradonna, Aaron Meyette, Rocky Biddle, Jim Parque (only two of them played in the bigs more than 4 years)

1998-Kip Wells, Aaron Rowand (finally a good player and Wells was a huge dissapointment, but had one solid year in AAA ball aka the NL central)

1999-Jason Stumm, Matt Ginter, Brian West, Rob Purvis (again horrible)

2000-Joe Borchard (again horrible)

2001-Kris Honel, Wyatt Allen (again horrible)

2002-Royce Ring (great idea to draft a middle reliever with the first pick)

2003-Brian Anderson (so far a 4th OF)

2004-Josh Fields, Tyler Lumsden, Gio Gonzalez (finally a great pick, too bad he is with Oakland)

2005-Lance Broadway (again has been dissapointing recently, but has a chance to get back on track in the majors)

2006-Kyle McCulloch (horrible, never will be a major league pitcher, IMO)

2007-Aaron Poreda (not gonna know this result for awhile, but so far, you gotta like what you see)

2008-Gordon Beckham (Slayer seems like a solid bet to be a major league for 10+ years)

Edited August 14, 2008 by maggsmaggs

[Texsox]

I am blindly optimistic about this. Without names, leaving a successful bullpen guy in the bullpen and leaving a starter starting, always seems to make more sense. It only gets messy when names are attached.

 

If we're going anywhere after the regular season ends, there has to be some lightening caught. Here's one chance. With the expansion of teams and the expansion of salaries, no team has the depth to withstand starters going down and not seeing a huge drop off. So for the top 10 or so teams that have a chance, they have to either avoid any major injuries, or have the unexpected happen.

 

Even if every pitching prospect we drafted for the past 10 years was still in the organization, it is still a guess how they will handle the jump from AAA to MLB.

 

Broadway

[thedoctor]

Great point. A lot of us think we know it all. I wonder if all MLB message boards have so many people who know it all. I mean Broadway may suck tomorrow but Richard sucked as well. I see no reason to make Carrasco a starter. Might as well trot out another candidate. We gave Richard 3 shots and he sucked. Hope our bats are alive tomorrow. They should be against another royals righy but youneverknow.

 

i'd say that most message board have a tendency to trot out the know-it-alls. i don't think this board is any different than any other in that regard.

 

probably most teams that have passionate fanbases will have board's that are as reactive as this one (or even more). check out sons of sam horn some time. those guys are brutal on the bosox. it's actually comical to follow their gamethreads sometimes.

[WCSox]

Because Carl Pohlad is the cheapest owner in sports. Don't forget, Washburn who has been mediocre at best the past 2 or 3 seasons, is owed over $10 million for next year. To say Washburn's contract is manageable, maybe, tradeable? They seem to be having a hard time doing it. They didn't claim Paul Byrd and he is owed nothing in 2009. That's more manageable.

 

Why is the $10 million owed to Washburn next year such a big deal to so many people? That's the current market value for an average-to-mediocre veteran starting pitcher. That's what the Royals pay Gil Meche and what we pay Contreras. I'm sure that even "the cheapest owner in sports" could swing that, given that he shelled out a combined $25 million for Santana and Hunter last year and $5 million for a washed-up Livan Hernandez this year.

 

Who knows why the Twins didn't go after Byrd... maybe they want more than a month and a half of services in return for whatever they give up? If I'm not privy to what goes on in their front office, I wouldn't make absolute statement about their plans.

Edited August 14, 2008 by WCSox

[Dick Allen]

Why is the $10 million owed to Washburn next year such a big deal to so many people? That's the current market value for an average-to-mediocre veteran starting pitcher. That's what the Royals pay Gil Meche and what we pay Contreras. I'm sure that even "the cheapest owner in sports" could swing that, given that he shelled out a combined $25 million for Santana and Hunter last year and $5 million for a washed-up Livan Hernandez this year.

 

Who knows why the Twins didn't go after Byrd... maybe they want more than a month and a half of services in return for whatever they give up? If I'm not privy to what goes on in their front office, I wouldn't make absolute statement about their plans.

You were right, the Twins did claim him. I bet they would have thrown up if Seattle just let them have him.

[ptatc]

This reminds me of 2006 all over again.

 

Everything KW did was "magical" and the past (Ritchie trade, trading for the wrong "Barry/Berry" with the Dodgers, dumping Durham for Adkins and getting no draft picks back, "Moneyball," etc.) was forgotten.

 

I think KW is an average to above average GM, somewhere between 12-18 in the majors.

 

I try to be pretty objective about the guy...last year, I didn't think he was the worst GM in baseball by a long stretch. I don't think "KW won a World Series, have/did you?" makes every move he has made perfect and unquestionable. I just really hate that kind of logic or argument. Eventually, even the Bulls had to part with Krause, as most realized that it was MJ and Pippen and not the "wizard" GM who was responsible for the team's success.

 

He's a good GM, but not a great one. He's made some super acquisitions, but he's done almost nothing in Latin America or the Pacific Rim, and the White Sox drafting history/success rate has been horrible, especially first rounders. OTOH, the White Sox, I think, are behind only the Yankees and Braves (maybe the Red Sox now too) if you go back and look at organizational winning percentage since around 1990 or 91.

 

Of course, this leads to the other main point for Sox fans....until 2005, lack of success in the playoffs, and letting the Twins, with a much lower budget, get the better of him year after year after year.

 

i think it's also a matter of perspective. My criteria for a good GM is "does his major league team win." Period. I don't care how he attains his players. I don't care if it's in the draft from Latin America or from Mars. Some people like to analyze or over analyze all of the minutia. All that truly matters is how the major league team does under his watch.

 

So far he has 1 world series win, 1 losing season, and a few good seasons along with them. To me that's puts him at least in the top 10.

 

[greg775]

That was an amazing list of our top draft picks. Man did we whiff on so many. How could scouts miss on so many guys. I guess it's totally an inexact science. You never know how high schoolers will develop and you never know how the aluminum bats influence college stats. Amazing.

[WCSox]

You were right, the Twins did claim him. I bet they would have thrown up if Seattle just let them have him.

 

No doubt that it was a blocking move. But I honestly feel that with the lack of playoff general starting pitching experience (and dependability, in Liriano's case), the Twins could've used a guy like Washburn down the stretch. His contract is far from prohibitive.

 

[Kyyle23]

That was an amazing list of our top draft picks. Man did we whiff on so many. How could scouts miss on so many guys. I guess it's totally an inexact science. You never know how high schoolers will develop and you never know how the aluminum bats influence college stats. Amazing.

 

Look at draft picks from all teams in the same period of time. The entire draft is a crapshoot, tons of players never work out for teams. Its not just the Sox, but we are close to the Sox so we see everything as a failure compared to other teams

[scenario]

Look at draft picks from all teams in the same period of time. The entire draft is a crapshoot, tons of players never work out for teams. Its not just the Sox, but we are close to the Sox so we see everything as a failure compared to other teams

 

Exactly. And it's particularly true when you don't have any picks in the top 15 players each year. After the top 15 it is REALLY a crap shoot. There just aren't too many slam dunk players in the draft.

 

What is really sad is to look at teams who draft high and screw it up.

 

Anybody who wants to amuse themselves should look at the draft history on www.thebaseballcube.com and just click through the year-by-year draft results. It's pretty interesting. It's got a nice summary so you can see which guys made it to MLB. When you look at some of the picks and think about the guys some teams passed up, it's hard to imagine what some of these GMs were thinking.

 

 

[Princess Dye]

just a thought but this could use a thread title change since now we're past Thursday but it's still going strong. Kind of misleads since he's demoted now and there's no other thread indicating that.

[ptatc]

Exactly. And it's particularly true when you don't have any picks in the top 15 players each year. After the top 15 it is REALLY a crap shoot. There just aren't too many slam dunk players in the draft.

 

What is really sad is to look at teams who draft high and screw it up.

 

Anybody who wants to amuse themselves should look at the draft history on www.thebaseballcube.com and just click through the year-by-year draft results. It's pretty interesting. It's got a nice summary so you can see which guys made it to MLB. When you look at some of the picks and think about the guys some teams passed up, it's hard to imagine what some of these GMs were thinking.

 

 

This is so true. Look at the NFL draft which is so much more accurate than the MLB draft and see where the bottom half of the draft stand for success.

 

When you say see what our first round success is, look at where we drafted. Compare our drafts to the Yankees and Red Sox and other teams who are always in the top 2 in the division. Now you may have a more valid comparison.

Edited August 15, 2008 by ptatc