The Alex Rios Mystery

[GREEDY]

The mystery behind Kenny Williams’ acquisition of Alex Rios last summer has grown even more enigmatic with the recent trade for Juan Pierre.

 

I can only see two good reasons and one terrible reason why a general manager would be willing to take on Rios’ 60 million dollar contract:

 

#1 Rios is an above average defensive centerfielder, who has 25+ home run pop. With Rios in CF it would be fairly reasonable to expect 90 home runs out of Sox’outfield in 2010, without any major sacrifices in outfield defense.

#2 Rios is a fantastic rightfielder, who in the past has produced offensive numbers that would be considered acceptable of corner outfielder. Coupled with a good defensive centerfielder, the White Sox could have a very good defensive outfield.

 

- In my opinion, it was worth the risk of claiming a floundering Rios, because of the dangerous offensive or strong defensive lineup that could be created using either of these instances.

 

#3 (The terrible reason) When the news of Rios’ being claimed by the White Sox first leaked, Scott Podsednik was smack dab in the midst of picking up a clutch hit every time he walked into the batter’s box. I wondered if Kenny found himself in a situation where he felt he wouldn’t have any choice but to resign Pods this offseason, and realized that he would need to find a CF that had some pop to make up for starting a horrible defensive corner outfielder, that slapped at the ball like a grandma in a wiffle ball game.

 

Well if this was the plan, it sure seems to have backfired; because Williams is going to upset the average fan by not bringing back their favorite grinder; and in turn Kenny has replaced Podsednik with a faster, healthier, and slightly better anti-grinder in Juan Pierre.

 

Juan Pierre is definitely an upgrade both offensively and defensively in left field, but his acquisition certainly does not help shed any light on why Alex Rios and his sixty million came to US Cellular Field.

Edited December 21, 2009 by GREEDY

[striker]

The three reasons I think we picked up Rios:

 

1. Dewaye Wise

2. Nick Swisher

3. Brian Anderson

 

Now we know who our center fielder is the next 5 years. There is question as to whether he will succeed but the same question lies with everyone else on the field. Rios is above average defensively and above average offensively.

Edited December 21, 2009 by striker

[SoxFan562004]

there's also the fact that he using OPS+ through 06-08 he was at worse 12% better than an average play at the plate and a plus defender and sometimes guys just have career bad years as guys have career best years...

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/riosal01.shtml

 

KW and the scouts must have thought he will be able to turn it around and then looked at Pods and saw a guy who has a history of not staying healthy, is about 5 years older than Rios a far inferior defender and arguably had the 2nd best year of his career at the plate while hitting 22 points above his career average in BABIP.

 

Is the Rios pickup a risk? Sure was, but I'm not ready to call it a failure yet.

Edited December 21, 2009 by SoxFan562004

[G&T]

According to Terry Boers and his people, the Sox did not think they would be stuck with Rios' salary. That was unplanned.

 

 

[striker]

They thought a trade would be worked out instead and the Jays would have picked up part of his salary?

 

According to Terry Boers and his people, the Sox did not think they would be stuck with Rios' salary. That was unplanned.

 

[ChiSox_Sonix]

According to Terry Boers and his people, the Sox did not think they would be stuck with Rios' salary. That was unplanned.

 

What did they think was going to happen when they claimed him then?

[G&T]

They thought a trade would be worked out instead and the Jays would have picked up part of his salary?

 

Partially yes because KW wanted Rios in a trade. But also because they wanted to block the Tigers. Of course, the second part of the explanation makes no sense since the Tigers have no money and couldn't have afforded him.

[Balta1701]

According to Terry Boers and his people, the Sox did not think they would be stuck with Rios' salary. That was unplanned.

And I said then...if that was true, then KW ought to have lost his job, because everyone here knew that it was highly likely the Jays would just let him walk, and a message board shouldn't know more about MLB than a GM.

[GREEDY]

I guess the main point I would like taken from my post is that Rios' strengths are:

 

#1 A good defensive CF with pop.

#2 A great defensive RF.

 

So either pair him with with two mashers in the corners, or a good defensive CF, not a speedy coner outfielder.

 

It seems like Kenny Williams in wasting Rios' strengths and that could not have been the plan.

[ThunderBolt]

Alex Rios is on this team, because he's a good baseball player. One bad year does not make a player bad. Especially, a guy with the tools and track record that Rios has.

[Buehrlesque]

According to Terry Boers and his people, the Sox did not think they would be stuck with Rios' salary. That was unplanned.

Although this is just hearsay and could be complete BS, I *could* believe it. KW's M.O. is to have other teams pick up a bunch of salary in cases just like Rios- Contreras, Thome, Vazquez, Pierre, etc. It's more risky in a waiver claim, but I imagine KW thought Ricciardi would have too much pride to dump Rios without getting anything back.

 

Put it this way, I'm sure KW would have preferred to trade something like Ely and Link (for example) for Rios + $3 or 4 million per year. But KW may have underestimated Ricciardi's desperation to shed salary. I'm not saying the Sox weren't prepared for it, just they didn't expect it.

 

In any case, most of this is over-thinking anyway. It had nothign to do with Pods' defense or anything like that. KW had some money to play with, saw something he liked, and bought it.

[Eminor3rd]

I would have picked up Rios too. KW had the opportunity to add an extremely athletic all-star to his midseason club and give up nothing because he was having an off year. Is he expensive? Yeah, but if he plays like we should be able to expect him to play, he's worth it. especially considering how much we needed to fill CF.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

 

Rios had a bad year. There's no reason to think he won't bounce back.

[GREEDY]

Alex Rios is on this team, because he's a good baseball player. One bad year does not make a player bad. Especially, a guy with the tools and track record that Rios has.

 

 

I would have picked up Rios too. KW had the opportunity to add an extremely athletic all-star to his midseason club and give up nothing because he was having an off year. Is he expensive? Yeah, but if he plays like we should be able to expect him to play, he's worth it. especially considering how much we needed to fill CF.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

 

Rios had a bad year. There's no reason to think he won't bounce back.

 

 

Please do not turn this thread into whether or not Alex Rios is any good.... if you bothered to read my post you would clearly see that is not what I am discussing.

Edited December 21, 2009 by GREEDY

[spiderman]

According to Terry Boers and his people, the Sox did not think they would be stuck with Rios' salary. That was unplanned.

 

I don't believe the White Sox, based on Williams repeated comments regarding the budget, are the type of team that makes claims on struggling players with long-term deals. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Williams has reportedly liked Rios for awhile, and they had Dotel, Thome and Dye coming off the books after the season. They had the room to add payroll in light of who was coming off of it, and along with Peavy, Williams simply acuqired two players that he coveted during the season.

[jphat007]

I'm not ready to call it a failure either, but there is a strong chance that his contract hurts us over the next several years. It has obviously already hurt us for this year and getting a DH.

Edited December 21, 2009 by jphat007

[Fingish]

I think that the "terrible" reason has pretty much no basis in reality whatsoever, given what we know about KW.

 

1. Even as Pods was hitting tons of clutch hits, I don't think that KW was worried about having to pay massive amounts of money if he did feel "forced" to take Scottie back. First, Kenny would never let himself feel forced to resign a borderline talent like Pods to an overpriced contract no matter what the fans thought. And the reality was that no matter how good of a season he had, he was never going to command 50mil over 5 years or something crazy like that. All his season was doing was bumping him up the ladder a few rungs, not turning him into a superstar.

 

2. Pods was an add-on, and afterthought. A brilliant move on Kenny's part to pick up a player they had some good knowledge of, cheap as all get out, and filled a hole where we needed it. But, I doubt that KW went into the season thinking that he was hoping an aging OF would fall in his lap, have an amazingly productive season and become our answer in CF for years to come. That just doesn't strike me as how Kenny works. I'd say that he was thinking about long-term CF and other OF options long before the season even started, before he even knew that Scottie Pods would be available.

 

3. Going with the simplest explanation is probably the most likely, the main reason that KW picked up Rios was probably just a risk/reward call on the waiver claim, combined with enough confidence on the part of the club that Rios wouldn't have Zero value if they ended up with him.

 

Even if Rios never plays up to his full potential again, this isn't a guy that is worth league minimum. It may even come to pass that if they want or need to trade him in the future that they will have to eat some of that salary. Again, this is a calculated risk, they weren't putting it all on Black and hoping they got a good spin of the wheel. Based on the talent he has and his past production, odds are highly likely that he will have some value. (We aren't going to end up having to release him outright and eat the whole contract or anything)

 

So, all in all, I'd say that KW knew he was gambling a bit when he put in the claim. I don't think that there is that much mystery in Kenny's move. Sometimes you gamble on a big upside guy, and I think he did it with the right kind of player. One who has upside, but whose downside is at least limited. I don't think that he thinks he knows something more about Rios than anyone else, he just knows when to put some chips out on the table.

[G&T]

Interestingly, this was KW's quote to the Sun-Times:

 

"We've been in trade discussion with Toronto before the deadline to try to get this guy,'' Williams explained of how the whole thing came together. "And the way the waiver claim was made was to A: hopefully resurrect talks. B: in the event someone else claimed him, we didn't want him going elsewhere because we targeted him not only as a guy who not only would help us in our quest for the division but future seasons as well.''

 

link

 

So he wanted to make a trade, and he didn't want another team getting him. The only missing piece that Boer's guy fills in is who that other team was: the Tigers.

 

[GREEDY]

So, all in all, I'd say that KW knew he was gambling a bit when he put in the claim. I don't think that there is that much mystery in Kenny's move. Sometimes you gamble on a big upside guy, and I think he did it with the right kind of player. One who has upside, but whose downside is at least limited. I don't think that he thinks he knows something more about Rios than anyone else, he just knows when to put some chips out on the table.

 

But doesn't Rios' value lie in the fact that he is a CF with corner outfielder pop?

 

So why trade for a corner outfielder that offensively is a prototypical CF?

Edited December 21, 2009 by GREEDY

[Buehrlesque]

But doesn't Rios' value lie in the fact that he is a CF with corner outfielder pop?

 

So why trade for a corner outfielder that offensively is a prototypical CF?

While I don't entirely agree with your premise, doesn't your question answer itself? If your CF has "corner outfield pop", then, theoretically, you wouldn't need as much pop out of your corner OF, right?

 

However, in general I would say the Sox are in need of a little more pop right now however you slice it.

[Fingish]

But doesn't Rios' value lie in the fact that he is a CF with corner outfielder pop?

 

So why trade for a corner outfielder that offensively is a prototypical CF?

 

I think that it you can't really pin down his value that easily. If he plays like he did in basically 4 of his 6 seasons in the Majors, he is much more valuable than your prototypical CF. If he doesn't then he does lose some value. I believe that was probably part of the calculation.

 

That I think is where they weighed the risk/reward. The upside of him producing up to his potential at the CF position makes his contract more than worth it, the downside to him ending up as an above-average OF'er or even slightly above-average OF'er was probably the worst case scenario that they were looking at. So while it would have been nice to see the Jays eat a few million off that deal, even if Rios disappoints, it probably wouldn't be to the extent that he is worthless, just worth less than we paid for him.

 

Unless I'm misunderstand your thoughts, my thought is this is indeed a gamble, but it really had nothing to do with what Pods was doing last year or in '05-'06 or what he'll do next year, he was never a potential long-term piece. Rios is. That is where they choose to gamble their money, but it is a controlled gamble.

 

Do you not believe that a Rios producing up to his potential isn't more than a prototypical CF'er, both in offensive and glove? (and especially having the combination of the two)

 

If a better option comes along, Rios shouldn't be so horrible that he won't be able to be traded at any price. I honestly think the Jays look a bit dumb here. What we now know is that if they had pulled Rios back and negotiated with Kenny, they probably could have pried a low-level prospect or two from him instead of letting him go for nada.

 

Just my thoughts, FWIW. I love talking baseball in winter. Especially on the shortest day of the year, that means that summer will be closer with every day from here on out.

 

 

[Buehrlesque]

Just my thoughts, FWIW. I love talking baseball in winter. Especially on the shortest day of the year, that means that summer will be closer with every day from here on out.

Is that today already?!?! Best news of the day!!

 

[macsandz]

I don't believe the White Sox, based on Williams repeated comments regarding the budget, are the type of team that makes claims on struggling players with long-term deals. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Williams has reportedly liked Rios for awhile, and they had Dotel, Thome and Dye coming off the books after the season. They had the room to add payroll in light of who was coming off of it, and along with Peavy, Williams simply acuqired two players that he coveted during the season.

 

Yep. Good post.

[scotty22hotty]

I bet kenny looked at this WAR and couldn't resist

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...amp;position=OF

5.6 in '08, 4.8 in '07?

Hes comparable to Ichiro

[WHITESOXRANDY]

Before last season every Sox fan on here would've have been thrilled at a Rios acquisition. He was considered a star already and likely to get better.

 

But, even with that his contract was large. So, he would never be a steal but if he continued at that level then this Sox would have a great player at market price.

 

However, he had a bad year last year. That's what all of this hand wringing is all about. If he plays next year like he always had prior to 2009 then all will be good. The Sox will have a great player that costs a lot of money. Oh, well.

 

They've been paying Dye, Konerko and Thome $ 10-13 mil. per season and he could be more valuable than any of them. We'll have to wait and see.

 

It could still turn out very well for the Sox.

[macsandz]

I bet kenny looked at this WAR and couldn't resist

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...amp;position=OF

5.6 in '08, 4.8 in '07?

Hes comparable to Ichiro

 

Those WARs are off the charts. Wow.