JR: We've Already Signed our Free Agent, Jake Peavy

[iamshack]

This is probably just more evidence, in my mind anyways, that Thome will be back.

I'll be happy to have him.

[knightni]

Shows up fine on mine.

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...p;#entry2045907

 

Here's one I put together.

[Chisoxfn]

Kenny's quote makes me wonder what he thinks our record will be if the season started tomorrow.

Do we magically become a division champ and WS contender just because of Peavy, Teahen and Hudson being added and Dye, Thome off the team? If we have no glaring holes in the GM's mind, I would think he'd get rid of Ozzie if we play slightly below .500 ball again as next season plods along.

The way Jerry and KW talk, we've got all the talent we need. So we better be way better than a .500 team or it's somebody's fault.

 

I prefer to say they've overrated our talent, including bullpen and lineup's ability to produce runs. But they are paid to judge talent and they think it's great, so let's see it in the W-L column, Kenny and Oz.

Lets not forget full seasons of Beckham, a healthy Quentin, an improved Rios (his career numbers indicate we should expect much more out of Alex Rios next season), Jake Peavy for a full-season, a better 5th starter (Garcia > most of what we ran out last season), a more seasoned Alexei Ramirez.

 

Oh and Jenks should be better than last year (his career numbers indicate such), Pena has the potential to be better, Linebrink should be better (again, his stuff looked fine, control and mind-set were more of the issue...although by no means am I saying he'll be great, but he can't be as bad as he was last year, imo).

 

So ya, I'd say there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic despite some of our obvious holes (no DH, no true top of the order hitter, could use another reliever).

 

Bottom line, while we all focus on the negatives a lot cause we all know how many flaws last years club had, I think we also ignore the extreme positives and as a whole I really like our chances next season (for the above reasons), not to mention the fact that I think Kenny will be able to make some moves that give the club the necessary flexibility to make a few solid moves that fill holes.

[Chisoxfn]

I'd like to think that without the Thome-PK-Dye trio in the middle of the order, the offensive mindset of the guys playing will have to change. To me, having those three guys when they were killing it (2006) was about as good as it could possibly get in the heart of any batting order. The problem is that if even one of those guys begins to disappear (2007, 2008, 2009), the players' mindset doesn't change because they've been used to it a certain way: the rest of the lineup is still waiting on those big boys to get it done, even though one or two of them is struggling. So, essentially, the team will go through stretches where they're waiting on a black hole to drive in their runs. That leads to a LOT of low-scoring games.

 

I know a lot of fans hate the heavy reliance on the HR, but if you can ever have a 3-4-5 and good as those three guys were in '06, you'd be insane not to be happy with that. Now, since it's going to be nearly impossible to duplicate that again, I'm hoping next year's offense is more versatile and 6 guys aren't always waiting on the other 3 to do the heavy-lifting.

 

Teahen was on the show with us this past Saturday (excuse the plug, but here's the link if you want to hear) and I asked him about the approach playing in the Cell and how players are affected subconsciously because of the tendency to be HR-friendly. And he said something telling, I think, that when he was with KC, they viewed the Sox players as waiting for the guys in the middle of the order to hit the HR. I'm wondering if maybe without that "safety net" for the other guys, if the offense as a whole will do a better job of working together to score runs instead of relying on 2 or 3 guys to do all the work.

 

Obviously, I'd rather have 4 badasses in the middle of the order that I know are going to rake every night, but there is more than one way to have a decent offense. And when it comes down to it, presumably with this rotation, the Sox don't have to have a top 5 offense...they just can't afford to have a bottom 5 offense.

Completely agree with you and I'm very curious to see how the clubhouse dynamic changes with Dye and Thome gone. They were clearly the leaders (along with Konerko and Buehrle, who remain) and I know Getz at times questioned the veteran leadership of the club and I really am curious to see a new waive of players step up and lead this club and I want to see the teams attitude change a bit on the field.

 

With that I think we will see the offensive approach change to an extent and I think it might be for the better. Clearly it would be great to have three guys do what the Sox offense did in 2006. However, it is also important to remember that that offense died late in the season.

 

With the rotation the Sox have, they'll need a solid bullpen (Jenks/Thornton is a damn good 8th/9th inning spot) but we'll need to see two more relievers (at a min emerge as being quality 7th inning and beyond guys) and just a solid lineup (having a league avg player at every position will work fine, especially if the team plays good baseball and does the little things) will be okay.

 

Would it be great to have a dominant lineup and bullpen to go with our rotation, absolutely, but we don't need it to win it all and come July if we are missing that one piece, we'll be golden, cause Kenny will go out and get it.

 

 

[elrockinMT]

A lot of people are going to take what JR said he wrong way. He's not saying we're not going to make any moves, he's just saying we already made our biggest commitment to Peavy.

 

 

I think I understand that. I expect we made our moves in 2009 to set ourselves up for a run in 2010. If we look at bargains it might include bringing back Thome and going after some bullpen help, but we will see.

[simba43]

That makes me feel like we can forget about an Adrian Gonzalez/Carl Crawford/Nick Johnson/Adam Dunn pipe dream. Now I know we can make some trades, but wouldn't we have to replace the people we trade with free agents? I got a feeling our line up looks something like this in 2010:

 

Pods

Beckham

Quentin

Konerko

Thome

AJP

Alexei

Teahen

Rios

if thats our lineup we won't even win our division i don't care how good our rotation might be .

[simba43]

I think that it would be such a shame to waste a starting pitching like we have going in to this year. I really hope we strengthen the offense to balance out the team.

 

What do you guys think about Marlon Byrd? I read that the Rangers let him become a free agent.

i like byrd but his numbers are probably a little inflated from playing in Texas

[simba43]

Trading for Peavy and picking up Rios and then not goign for it all this year...that strikes me as a poor plan. This rotation...you get into the playoffs and you could have 4 straight guys pitch CG Shutouts. We've got the fancy rotation, let's ride it before people get hurt or before they hit FA.

Agreed

[Balta1701]

i like byrd but his numbers are probably a little inflated from playing in Texas

He's put up OPS+ numbers of 112, 121, and 106 since he became a regular in Texas, and those are ballpark adjusted, although IIRC it slightly overweights the HR numbers. He's hit .281 and put up a .742 OPS away from Texas over the past 3 years (and remember, most people tend to perform a little worse on the road anyway).

 

He's not likely to give us a 30 HR year. But We can probably expect an OPS of .750-.800 out of him with, you know, 15 home runs or so, maybe a few more because of our park. He'd basically be an average OF, and I have little problem putting an average OF out there in the 7th/8th spot in the batting order.

[iamshack]

He's put up OPS+ numbers of 112, 121, and 106 since he became a regular in Texas, and those are ballpark adjusted, although IIRC it slightly overweights the HR numbers. He's hit .281 and put up a .742 OPS away from Texas over the past 3 years (and remember, most people tend to perform a little worse on the road anyway).

 

He's not likely to give us a 30 HR year. But We can probably expect an OPS of .750-.800 out of him with, you know, 15 home runs or so, maybe a few more because of our park. He'd basically be an average OF, and I have little problem putting an average OF out there in the 7th/8th spot in the batting order.

Texas has said he wants more than they are really able to give him, so I imagine he is trying to cash in on a couple solid years just as Scottie is trying to cash in on his year here last year.

 

My guess is he is hoping for a 2 or 3 year deal worth $14-20 million.

 

Probably not in our price range.

[elrockinMT]

We need bullpen help. Plus Joe Crede B)

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

With one more big bat , not even as big as Adrian Gonzalez, the Sox should be in the thick of things. We're replacing the Contreras, Colon. Richard trio with Peavy and Garcia which in itself is a monster upgrade. I'd hate to see Beckham leading off. He's a run producer plain and simple and if we don't get another decent bat he better be in the middle of the order. Kotsay shouldn't be in the outfield any more at this point in his career . We really need a LH run producing above average defensive outfielder badly. Moving Konerko should be #1 priority even if it means paying a chunk of his salary.

[Quin]

We need bullpen help. Plus Joe Crede B)

 

I'd love to see Crede at 3rd and have Teahen take Nix's role of super sub, but it won't happen sadly.

[Balta1701]

I'd love to see Crede at 3rd and have Teahen take Nix's role of super sub, but it won't happen sadly.

Crede put up a .703 OPS last year.

[Kalapse]

Crede put up a .703 OPS last year.

Over the last 3 seasons he's averaged 78 games played, 306 plate appearances and a .293 OBP. People need to seriously let him go already.

[bmags]

He´s pretty good looking though.

[caulfield12]

It will be interesting to see what happens. With AJ, Ramirez, Beckham and Rios up the middle, we're about as strong as we have ever been (assuming Rios hits) from an overall (offensive/defensive) standpoint.

 

While it's entertaining to think of Figgins, Aroldis Chapman, Crawford, Gonzalez...even Nick Johnson, Damon/Matsui (the Yankees will keep only one) or Vladimir Guerrero seem like impossibilities. Although I do wonder if there's an outside (10%) chance that KW and Ozzie can convince Vald the Impaler to come here as the starting RFer (not DH)? Of course, having Guerrero, AJ, Teahen and possibly Pods all on the field at the same time is a BIT scary.

 

If you're KW, you still have to be very worried about that infield defense...we keep saying we "think/hope/believe" it will be better...but that same finger-crossing applies to Quentin and Rios offensively, too.

 

KW is an interesting position this offseason. He can wait on Pods and Thome, having both as fallback options...while he considers other players that might improve the team. You'd have to think Kotsay and Nix are strictly looked at as back-up players. In an ideal world, so would Mark Teahen, on a championship-caliber team.

 

So we essentially have Tyler Flowers, Daniel Hudson and Paul Konerko to dangle around as trade-bait (although trading Flowers, with AJ one year away from leaving the team, seems a dubious move)...KW's style has usually been to trade young pitchers in the past, but he's obviously traded about 60-75% of our Top 10 prospects over the last decade, so he's never been afraid to pull the trigger.

 

With the starting four we have right now, you have to believe KW and Ozzie are in a "go for it" mode. It's hard not to be optimistic, but it's hard not to spend a few nights worrying about Carrasco, Linebrink, Pena and the likes of Randy Williams comprising the back half of our pen...even Jenks is far from certain at this point, and his return trade value is pretty small, too. Difficult position for KW to be in with that pen...certainly there has to be 1-2 more additions from off the waiver wire/scrap heap. We tried that approach before with disastrous results.

Edited November 20, 2009 by caulfield12

[southsider2k5]

Over the last 3 seasons he's averaged 78 games played, 306 plate appearances and a .293 OBP. People need to seriously let him go already.

 

I am one of Joe's biggest fans, but he is done. Let him go.