Tigers Sign Damon - 1 yr, 8 mil; NTC

[hogan873]

I think the gap is narrower then people think. One thing many aren't taking into consideration is how the Twins new ballpark plays. The gap between the Twins home and road record will likely narrow as the Twins are moving outdoors. Whether they took advantage and cheat at the Metrodome, I don't know. And while the Twins have great hitters, it's a lot harder for hitters to find a groove when they are playing home stands in April/May in 40 degree weather with changing wind conditions and not relying on the same 70 degrees every game.

 

Maybe I'm overanalyzing the move to a ballpark, but just having less of a 10th man effect in the fans should make a difference.

 

 

Bob

 

I honestly wasn't even thinking about the fact that the Twins have a new ballpark...an outdoor one at that. There's no doubt that the Metrodome was very favorable to the Twins, and most other teams hated playing there. Who knows how the new park will play, for and/or against the Twins. On paper, the Twins probably have a better team, but the 10th man effect has been removed...or has it? Only time will tell. If the Twins play differently in the new park, this year is when it will be most pronounced as they adapt to the different weather conditions day in and day out.

[ThunderBolt]

You don't seem to be able to see past this Thome or DH thing. Thome is exactly the type of guy who is falling off from injuries and decline, due to age. Of all the areas of Sox management to trust, I trust their training staff. It was made clear when Jim was traded last year, Thome wouldn't be back, because they didn't think he could do it anymore. I don't know why people were surprised when he wasn't brought back.

Decline is an issue that every baseball team needs to deal with. Some players decline slower than others, and still managed to replicate similar valuable statistics they had during their prime year. Some even increase. Like On-Base Percentage. See: Jim Thome. Some players, however, due to injury and age fall off a cliff and should not be counted on to anchor a major league DH rotation in a home-run hitter’s ballpark. For solid examples of this kind of decline please see: Andruw Jones and Mark Kotsay.The Twins seems to understand decline, and embrace it. They sign these players to cheap contracts, and take reasonable risks. Having Mark Kotsay and Andruw Jones as your only options to anchor the most potent offensive position in baseball is not a reasonable risk, it's a ludicrous attempt by Ozzie to cling to a misconstrued opinion on versatile baseball.

[ScottyDo]

Decline is an issue that every baseball team needs to deal with. Some players decline slower than others, and still managed to replicate similar valuable statistics they had during their prime year. Some even increase. Like On-Base Percentage. See: Jim Thome. Some players, however, due to injury and age fall off a cliff and should not be counted on to anchor a major league DH rotation in a home-run hitter’s ballpark. For solid examples of this kind of decline please see: Andruw Jones and Mark Kotsay.The Twins seems to understand decline, and embrace it. They sign these players to cheap contracts, and take reasonable risks. Having Mark Kotsay and Andruw Jones as your only options to anchor the most potent offensive position in baseball is not a reasonable risk, it's a ludicrous attempt by Ozzie to cling to a misconstrued opinion on versatile baseball.

The White Sox have quite a history of doing exactly what you suggest, so I hope this is a criticism of this one, very particular DH instance, rather than an organizational one.

 

I say this because this board seems to have a problem compartmentalizing their frustration over the DH situation, and it's spilling into a hypercritical farce.

 

Seriously, we should just start an "Ozzie's Mom" thread and get it all out of our systems

[ThunderBolt]

The Sox have a pretty mixed history in recognizing decline. In the past, i'd be willing to write off a lot of it on KW taking gambles, and i was fine with that as long as it wasn't for the detriment of the team. I find Jones and Kotsay to be beyond reason. I could potentially see the percentage in starting Jones everyday, if he was in shape and playing the OF, but a straight platoon with Mark Kotsay is unacceptable.

[ptatc]

The Sox have a pretty mixed history in recognizing decline. In the past, i'd be willing to write off a lot of it on KW taking gambles, and i was fine with that as long as it wasn't for the detriment of the team. I find Jones and Kotsay to be beyond reason. I could potentially see the percentage in starting Jones everyday, if he was in shape and playing the OF, but a straight platoon with Mark Kotsay is unacceptable.

 

I still don't see this situation as being that bad. If you look at the splits kotsay had a .290 BA , and a .347 obp against rhp last year and jones had a .367 obp against lhp with a poor ba last year.

 

While these numbers aren't great they aren't awful in light of two reasons. 1. they spent their money and off season moves on peavy and rios, so the sox were going to down grade somewhere. I, personally would rather have peavy and rios than a thome type at dh. 2. the sox want a more athletic defensive oriented team and kotsay provides this with backing up 1B and jones provides this with backing up the of.

 

I think ozzie and kw got tired of seeing dye konerko, thome and aj getting on base but not scoring because it took 3 hits to get them home. The replacements may not get on base as much but have a chance to score on fewer hits. The sox are counting on the lineup working as a team as opposed to the fanasy stats of thome only scoring if he hits the homerun. It will be quite the different team built along the same lines of boston, angels and seattle all of whom shed power for pitching and defense this year.

 

 

[dyuen]

I still don't see this situation as being that bad. If you look at the splits kotsay had a .290 BA , and a .347 obp against rhp last year and jones had a .367 obp against lhp with a poor ba last year.

 

While these numbers aren't great they aren't awful in light of two reasons. 1. they spent their money and off season moves on peavy and rios, so the sox were going to down grade somewhere. I, personally would rather have peavy and rios than a thome type at dh. 2. the sox want a more athletic defensive oriented team and kotsay provides this with backing up 1B and jones provides this with backing up the of.

 

I think ozzie and kw got tired of seeing dye konerko, thome and aj getting on base but not scoring because it took 3 hits to get them home. The replacements may not get on base as much but have a chance to score on fewer hits. The sox are counting on the lineup working as a team as opposed to the fanasy stats of thome only scoring if he hits the homerun. It will be quite the different team built along the same lines of boston, angels and seattle all of whom shed power for pitching and defense this year.

 

I certainly got tired of seeing this too. Though I don't think Kotsay and Jones are the answer. We are only talking 155 ABs for Kotsay with minimal power. He is not a productive hitter.

[JorgeFabregas]

Duensing's numbers in AAA - 57 games, 56 starts, 330.2 IP, 4.00 ERA (4.60 RA/9), 1.32 WHIP, 2.3 BB/9, 5.6 K/9, 2.5 K/BB, 0.8 HR/9. Looking at his peripherals from last season - 1.37 WHIP, 0.8 HR/9, 3.3 BB/9, 5.7 K/9 - I would say it's a near impossibility for him to repeat his 3.64 ERA from last season. Give the league a second time around on him, and he'll be back in the bullpen or AAA in no time.

 

 

 

I understand that depth is nice, but if he (Pavano) puts up an ERA of 5 again, I won't have any problems with it.

Why look at Duensing's peripherals and not Pavano's? Pavano's peripherals were very good last year. He had a FIP of 4.13 and a very good K/BB ratio. It looks like he may have made a change in his pitching philosophy, too, with increased use of his changeup, which is one of his two plus pitches.

[ThunderBolt]

I have no idea what Damon and Boras are playing at. They're making fools of themselves with their continued efforts to land a two year deal while publically whoring themselves to the media.

[caulfield12]

I still don't see this situation as being that bad. If you look at the splits kotsay had a .290 BA , and a .347 obp against rhp last year and jones had a .367 obp against lhp with a poor ba last year.

 

While these numbers aren't great they aren't awful in light of two reasons. 1. they spent their money and off season moves on peavy and rios, so the sox were going to down grade somewhere. I, personally would rather have peavy and rios than a thome type at dh. 2. the sox want a more athletic defensive oriented team and kotsay provides this with backing up 1B and jones provides this with backing up the of.

 

I think ozzie and kw got tired of seeing dye konerko, thome and aj getting on base but not scoring because it took 3 hits to get them home. The replacements may not get on base as much but have a chance to score on fewer hits. The sox are counting on the lineup working as a team as opposed to the fanasy stats of thome only scoring if he hits the homerun. It will be quite the different team built along the same lines of boston, angels and seattle all of whom shed power for pitching and defense this year.

 

 

Yes, but the Mariners are playing to the strengths of that ballpark, and they have exceptional defenders (they did lose Beltre) at multiple positions.

 

We have one starter on our team that you know is going to be better than league average in Rios. You could include Pierre in LF, although that arm's obviously a weakness. Sure, Ramirez, Beckham and Quentin COULD theoretically be improvements at their respective positions, but you're going from abysmal to average, which is an improvement but I'm not sure we could call it a philosphical change like in Seattle.

 

Of cousre, we don't have many reasons (besides what seems like the blip/anomaly on the back of his baseball card in 2009) to feel confident that Pierre's offensive game will translate well to USCF.

 

Once again, if they were playing at PetCo or Safeco or similar parks that play big, their changes would make a lot more sense.

 

But it's hard to argue they're not putting themselves behind the 8 ball with all the things that have to go right offensively, which would put us somewhere around 7th-10th in the AL if EVERYTHING breaks right.

 

2005 showed we can win a championship with dominant pitching, but the timely/situational hitting and bullpen were also outstanding that season...

 

We can and should do better. We keep hearing that Pierre was pretty good in 2009 or that Rios was good 2-3 years ago or Andruw Jones or Mark Kotsay or Omar Vizquel was an impact player offensively 10 years ago, but it's not like Jim Thome was bad last year. There's absolutely no reason a Jones/Thome platoon wouldn't have worked, and they wouldn't have needed to give him more than $2-3 million. It's not like it would have broken the team payroll.

 

[gatnom]

We can and should do better. We keep hearing that Pierre was pretty good in 2009 or that Rios was good 2-3 years ago or Andruw Jones or Mark Kotsay or Omar Vizquel was an impact player offensively 10 years ago, but it's not like Jim Thome was bad last year. There's absolutely no reason a Jones/Thome platoon wouldn't have worked, and they wouldn't have needed to give him more than $2-3 million. It's not like it would have broken the team payroll.

 

I believe he was rumored to be willing to sign for $1 million, less than kotsay is making himself.

[dmbjeff]

I still don't see this situation as being that bad. If you look at the splits kotsay had a .290 BA , and a .347 obp against rhp last year and jones had a .367 obp against lhp with a poor ba last year.

 

While these numbers aren't great they aren't awful in light of two reasons. 1. they spent their money and off season moves on peavy and rios, so the sox were going to down grade somewhere. I, personally would rather have peavy and rios than a thome type at dh. 2. the sox want a more athletic defensive oriented team and kotsay provides this with backing up 1B and jones provides this with backing up the of.

 

I think ozzie and kw got tired of seeing dye konerko, thome and aj getting on base but not scoring because it took 3 hits to get them home. The replacements may not get on base as much but have a chance to score on fewer hits. The sox are counting on the lineup working as a team as opposed to the fanasy stats of thome only scoring if he hits the homerun. It will be quite the different team built along the same lines of boston, angels and seattle all of whom shed power for pitching and defense this year.

 

In a true platoon, Kotsay will play 4 or 5 days a week. That is unreal. He should be starting once a week or once every two weeks at most as a 4th or 5th OF/backup 1B. He should be a late inning defensive replacement if needed and not be counted on for 60-70% of the AB's that come with a true platoon. If he were the Andruw Jones of a platoon, getting the other 30-40% of the AB's I'd still be upset with it. He is not someone who should be trusted with such a huge role on a contending ball club.

 

KW must have some sort of deal in place for Gonzalez or Dunn or some other lefthanded power hitter and whatever club that is, doesnt want to deal right now and wants to wait until May or June and tell their fanbase, hey we gave it a try but now we need to move player X. We won't see this platoon past June or at least I hope so.

[ptatc]

Yes, but the Mariners are playing to the strengths of that ballpark, and they have exceptional defenders (they did lose Beltre) at multiple positions.

 

We have one starter on our team that you know is going to be better than league average in Rios. You could include Pierre in LF, although that arm's obviously a weakness. Sure, Ramirez, Beckham and Quentin COULD theoretically be improvements at their respective positions, but you're going from abysmal to average, which is an improvement but I'm not sure we could call it a philosphical change like in Seattle.

 

Of cousre, we don't have many reasons (besides what seems like the blip/anomaly on the back of his baseball card in 2009) to feel confident that Pierre's offensive game will translate well to USCF.

 

Once again, if they were playing at PetCo or Safeco or similar parks that play big, their changes would make a lot more sense.

 

But it's hard to argue they're not putting themselves behind the 8 ball with all the things that have to go right offensively, which would put us somewhere around 7th-10th in the AL if EVERYTHING breaks right.

 

2005 showed we can win a championship with dominant pitching, but the timely/situational hitting and bullpen were also outstanding that season...

 

We can and should do better. We keep hearing that Pierre was pretty good in 2009 or that Rios was good 2-3 years ago or Andruw Jones or Mark Kotsay or Omar Vizquel was an impact player offensively 10 years ago, but it's not like Jim Thome was bad last year. There's absolutely no reason a Jones/Thome platoon wouldn't have worked, and they wouldn't have needed to give him more than $2-3 million. It's not like it would have broken the team payroll.

 

I don't disagree with most of the post. However, the team does not want a guy like Thome on the team. 1. He has shown to be a poor pinch hitter/part time player and the sox want to rotate the players, 2. They want to rotate the players to keep them fresh while still maintaining some consitency, so they weren't going to sign a DH only player.

 

While the team plays 1/2 of the games at home, they are also going to play 1/2 of the games on the road. If you tailor your game too much to your own park you may do well at home but then have difficulty on the road. Take the Twins, they have had the best home field advantage in hte last decade. This has helped them to division tiltes but they have gotten nowhere in the playoffs. I believe (I'm sure someone will check this) that even when they won the Wrold Series titles in the 90's they never won a road game.

 

I would rather go with the better overall team and to me that's pitching and defense, than to tailor it strictly to the ballpark. Ideally, you would blend both but under budget contraints I'm not sure that's possible. I'm not sure if this plan will work this year but I do think it's a good plan and a good way to continue building the team with guys like flowers, hudson and Morel on the way. Those players seem to fit the mold of this plan.

[witesoxfan]

Why look at Duensing's peripherals and not Pavano's? Pavano's peripherals were very good last year. He had a FIP of 4.13 and a very good K/BB ratio. It looks like he may have made a change in his pitching philosophy, too, with increased use of his changeup, which is one of his two plus pitches.

 

He still put up a H/9 of greater than 10, and since coming to the AL in 2005, he's put up a H/9 of 10.9 in 345 innings. Not all of that can be blamed on poor defense. He doesn't walk a lot of hitters and he strikes out a decent amount, but he doesn't strike out enough to compensate for his very hittable stuff. Looking at his PitchFx numbers, he looks very much like he's become a junk or finesse pitcher.

 

If he does get great defense this year in Minnesota - and it's possible with Harris/Punto-Hardy-Hudson-Morneau from 3B-1B though his outfield defense won't be as good - he could put up good numbers, but he's going to have to put up a H/9 of less than 10. That is obviously dependent upon his defense, but that comes with the territory of a guy pitching to his defense.

Edited February 10, 2010 by witesoxfan

[caulfield12]

I don't disagree with most of the post. However, the team does not want a guy like Thome on the team. 1. He has shown to be a poor pinch hitter/part time player and the sox want to rotate the players, 2. They want to rotate the players to keep them fresh while still maintaining some consitency, so they weren't going to sign a DH only player.

 

While the team plays 1/2 of the games at home, they are also going to play 1/2 of the games on the road. If you tailor your game too much to your own park you may do well at home but then have difficulty on the road. Take the Twins, they have had the best home field advantage in hte last decade. This has helped them to division tiltes but they have gotten nowhere in the playoffs. I believe (I'm sure someone will check this) that even when they won the Wrold Series titles in the 90's they never won a road game.

 

I would rather go with the better overall team and to me that's pitching and defense, than to tailor it strictly to the ballpark. Ideally, you would blend both but under budget contraints I'm not sure that's possible. I'm not sure if this plan will work this year but I do think it's a good plan and a good way to continue building the team with guys like flowers, hudson and Morel on the way. Those players seem to fit the mold of this plan.

 

 

Fair enough. Yeah, when they beat the Cardinals (I think it was them) and Braves in 1987 and 1991, it was 4-3 both times, with the home teams all holding serve.

 

Flowers makes a lot of sense for USCF if he stays at catcher especially....if not, he fits into "others" fighting to replace Konerko at 1B or for at-bats at DH. Viciedo, hopefully, will figure in there was well by the beginning of 2011.

 

I personally don't see Morel ever making it as a regular with the big league club, but then I've watched Chris Snopek and Greg Norton as starters over there. I'm more optimistic about Danks or Mitchell having breakthroughs than relying on Morel to play at close to maximum potential.

 

The rumor was alway that KW felt offense was what helped to draw bigger crowds, and that he'd rather error on the side of building offensively-minded clubs both for the fanbase and to tailor it to the stadium itself...of course, die-hard Sox fans know that winning trumps everything else in terms of attendance. It's only fun if you have a Wisconsin, Butler or Iowa style of team (the baseball equivalent being us offensively unless Quentin returns to MVP form) if you actually win games with it, otherwise it really sucks for the fans.

 

I think a lot of the frustration is with the idea of having only a two year window for this team...and the fact that we're starting out at a competitive disadvantage because of the DH situation, just as we limped out of the gate last year in CF, 3B and with Lillibridge getting many important at bats.

Edited February 10, 2010 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

He still put up a H/9 of greater than 10, and since coming to the AL in 2005, he's put up a H/9 of 10.9 in 345 innings. Not all of that can be blamed on poor defense. He doesn't walk a lot of hitters and he strikes out a decent amount, but he doesn't strike out enough to compensate for his very hittable stuff. Looking at his PitchFx numbers, he looks very much like he's become a junk or finesse pitcher.

 

If he does get great defense this year in Minnesota - and it's possible with Harris/Punto-Hardy-Hudson-Morneau from 3B-1B though his outfield defense won't be as good - he could put up good numbers, but he's going to have to put up a H/9 of less than 10. That is obviously dependent upon his defense, but that comes with the territory of a guy pitching to his defense.

 

 

If he could put up Mark Buehrle-esque IP/H and BB/K ratios, then he'd be in very good shape with that offense.

 

 

[witesoxfan]

I think a lot of the frustration is with the idea of having only a two year window for this team...and the fact that we're starting out at a competitive disadvantage because of the DH situation, just as we limped out of the gate last year in CF, 3B and with Lillibridge getting many important at bats.

 

I don't understand why everyone thinks the Sox only ever have like a 1-2 year window. Sure, there will be other guys leaving, but there will be others coming in at the exact same time. People thought the window was closing after 2007 and the Sox would need a massive overhaul, and they won the division in 2008. With the way the Central is currently set up, no team is set up to consistently win the division for years and years, and the Sox are young enough with enough core talent at the right age that they have a window of about 5 years to compete with this core of players, and they will be plugging new guys into holes all the time.

[clyons]

KW must have some sort of deal in place for Gonzalez or Dunn or some other lefthanded power hitter and whatever club that is, doesnt want to deal right now and wants to wait until May or June and tell their fanbase, hey we gave it a try but now we need to move player X. We won't see this platoon past June or at least I hope so.

 

I thought the same thing last year about CF, when we started the year with Wise and BA. Then we got stuck with them until the deadline.

 

 

[Balta1701]

I don't understand why everyone thinks the Sox only ever have like a 1-2 year window. Sure, there will be other guys leaving, but there will be others coming in at the exact same time. People thought the window was closing after 2007 and the Sox would need a massive overhaul, and they won the division in 2008. With the way the Central is currently set up, no team is set up to consistently win the division for years and years, and the Sox are young enough with enough core talent at the right age that they have a window of about 5 years to compete with this core of players, and they will be plugging new guys into holes all the time.

The logic I see in thinking that way is to look at the pitching staff. If MB departs after 2011 as he's discussed, D1 and Peavy a year later, that's a key block of 3 spots we might really struggle to fill. Floyd then is a FA 1 year after that. Even if Huddy is a success story, rebuilding the starting rotation is the hardest part, and aside from Hudson, right now we don't have obvious candidates to step in. But yea, when does KW ever not see things like that coming. But really, if MB packs his bags, that's the kind of thing that could literally close our window, with the effects he has on the whole pitching staff.

[caulfield12]

I don't understand why everyone thinks the Sox only ever have like a 1-2 year window. Sure, there will be other guys leaving, but there will be others coming in at the exact same time. People thought the window was closing after 2007 and the Sox would need a massive overhaul, and they won the division in 2008. With the way the Central is currently set up, no team is set up to consistently win the division for years and years, and the Sox are young enough with enough core talent at the right age that they have a window of about 5 years to compete with this core of players, and they will be plugging new guys into holes all the time.

 

 

This is mostly based on the starting rotation staying intact, particularly Peavy and Buehrle, but also holding onto Floyd and Danks. (And also the questions surrounding how long Mark will be wearing a White Sox uniform in general.)

 

If Flowers can make it at catcher, we're set for the near future with Beckham and Ramirez up the middle, Rios and Quentin...that's a pretty solid foundation. If Danks, Viciedo, Hudson and Mitchell (3 of those 4) can become regular contributors, along with Flowers, that would be amazing. Of course, we know that's unlikely to happen (see Kennyhatesprospects).

 

The other thing is that 2008 was more of a transition year where nobody ever felt that team had enough to win it all, certainly not after Quentin went down.

 

However, I'm sure if you look at the favorites for every year from 2000 until 2009 in the AL Central, only about 2 times have the "favorites" won. The closest to a "mini-dynasty" was the 2002-2004/06 Twins, and those teams were obviously lacking in offensive firepower.

 

The more I think about the future of our franchise, the more it seems to revolve around Carlos Quentin being the 2008 version and Gordon Beckham being a legit All-Star player at 2B with an 850 OPS. If not, it's hard to see us getting very far.

Edited February 10, 2010 by caulfield12

[witesoxfan]

I agree pretty much completely, and I think if there's one key to the White Sox 2010 season, it's the health and production of Carlos Quentin. He's really the only bat that I have no idea what I am getting out of right now that has the ability to change the complexion of an offense.

[caulfield12]

The logic I see in thinking that way is to look at the pitching staff. If MB departs after 2011 as he's discussed, D1 and Peavy a year later, that's a key block of 3 spots we might really struggle to fill. Floyd then is a FA 1 year after that. Even if Huddy is a success story, rebuilding the starting rotation is the hardest part, and aside from Hudson, right now we don't have obvious candidates to step in. But yea, when does KW ever not see things like that coming. But really, if MB packs his bags, that's the kind of thing that could literally close our window, with the effects he has on the whole pitching staff.

 

 

Agreed. Buehrle to me has always been the main key to the franchise being competitive on a yearly basis, at least 50% because of his leadership qualities and the respect everyone for him has throughout the organization. Losing Buehrle, AJ and Konerko...Quentin and Beckham will have to become THE GUYS.

 

Is that Megan Fox's thumb, lol?

[shakes]

Umm, what? When was this made clear? I seem to remember it being very possible all along that Thome could be brought back?

 

Secondly, you're basing the fact that Jim Thome, a DH who admits he can no longer play the field, signed a contract in January as proof that every other GM agrees with the assessment that Thome can no longer produce? I'm sorry, but given the fact that Johnny Damon is still unsigned makes that deduction seem a bit loose to me. There are all sorts of factors at play here, and if you base your conclusion all on the fact that Thome signed late and cheap, you're clearly ignoring those other factors, considering there are other productive players still on the market.

 

 

I remember the talk when Thome was traded to the Dodgers that he wouldn't be back. The training staff doesn't think he can do it for another year. He went through a 6 hour therapy and stretching session before every game to get his back ready to play. He can't keep it up forever. Also, with his long swing that relies heavily on his timing, he wouldn't be very effective with a limited role. Regardless, of the fluff going around at Soxfest, they weren't bringing him back.

 

And he took a small contract to be a bench player. I think that defined his market. He isn't Damon holding out for a two year contract and misplaying his market. That's all he could get if he wanted to continue to play.

 

 

[witesoxfan]

I remember the talk when Thome was traded to the Dodgers that he wouldn't be back. The training staff doesn't think he can do it for another year. He went through a 6 hour therapy and stretching session before every game to get his back ready to play. He can't keep it up forever. Also, with his long swing that relies heavily on his timing, he wouldn't be very effective with a limited role. Regardless, of the fluff going around at Soxfest, they weren't bringing him back.

 

And he took a small contract to be a bench player. I think that defined his market. He isn't Damon holding out for a two year contract and misplaying his market. That's all he could get if he wanted to continue to play.

 

I still don't think Thome's a bench player in Minnesota.

[ptatc]

I still don't think Thome's a bench player in Minnesota.

 

They aren't going to bench Kubel, who also cannot play the field. With Young, Span and Cuddyer there's no room in the outfield anyway.

[Balta1701]

Is that Megan Fox's thumb, lol?

Stephen Colbert, writing notes on his hand to remind him of things.