Nick Johnson

[elrockinMT]

We need to look at players who can stay healthy and contribute all season. Nick Johnson doesn't fit in at least one of those two categories

[elrockinMT]

I would like to see the Sox go after Kerry Wood though. He can help fill that 7th and 8th inning set up role

[chw42]

What I don't get is that some people seem to think that even if we pay the guy league minimum and he gets hurt, it's still somehow a bad move.

 

When Nick Johnson's healthy, he's a very good offensive player. So what the hell is there to lose?

[chw42]

I would like to see the Sox go after Kerry Wood though. He can help fill that 7th and 8th inning set up role

 

And Kerry Wood has never been hurt...

[southsider2k5]

What I don't get is that some people seem to think that even if we pay the guy league minimum and he gets hurt, it's still somehow a bad move.

 

When Nick Johnson's healthy, he's a very good offensive player. So what the hell is there to lose?

 

I really doubt Nick Johnson gets the league minimum.

[klaus kinski]

I would like to see the Sox go after Kerry Wood though. He can help fill that 7th and 8th inning set up role

 

 

I agree-unload Linebrink and eat part of his salary and have Wood as poss replacement for Jenks

[JorgeFabregas]

Hearing Farmer pronounce the name as "Jone-son" (as he does for everyone with that name) would drive me nuts.

[chw42]

I really doubt Nick Johnson gets the league minimum.

 

He'll get something close to it.

 

If the Sox got Andruw Jones for $550 k, Johnson can't cost more than a million. The deal will probably be a cheap base with lots of incentives.

[southsider2k5]

He'll get something close to it.

 

If the Sox got Andruw Jones for $550 k, Johnson can't cost more than a million. The deal will probably be a cheap base with lots of incentives.

 

No one thought he would get $5.5 million last year either.

[bigruss]

No one thought he would get $5.5 million last year either.

It's pretty obvious, if he comes cheap (as in a Jones like deal) than he is worth looking at, anything greater than that and you just walk away content.

[Balta1701]

I really doubt Nick Johnson gets the league minimum.

I'm not confident he'll get a major league contract. If a team wants to give him that, more power to them, see if you can get an insurance company to cover that.

[chw42]

No one thought he would get $5.5 million last year either.

 

He just came off a season with a .400+ OBP and he also had a career year in 07. It's a bit different this time around since he played like 25 games last year.

[Jerksticks]

Ok, so where is the BIG offensive upgrade though? We need more than Nick Johnson. It seems we have RF 1B DH and C to address, so where do Quentin, PK, Viciedo fit in next year if we add Johnson? The same team plus Johnson is not good enough and I hate that we don't have a spot for Viciedo's bat.

[Balta1701]

Ok, so where is the BIG offensive upgrade though? We need more than Nick Johnson. It seems we have RF 1B DH and C to address, so where do Quentin, PK, Viciedo fit in next year if we add Johnson? The same team plus Johnson is not good enough and I hate that we don't have a spot for Viciedo's bat.

Let's ask it this way...what positions have we probably downgraded at? If we've lost Konerko, that's 1. Losing AJ could be a downgrade from last year but honestly, he was awful for most of the season. His run production from last year is replaceable. 3b, we might consider a downgrade since Vizquel was decent, but that's not a huge downgrade. DH...whatever you put there is not a downgrade. Pierre and Rios aren't significant downgrades from Pierre and Rios.

 

The 2 positions we have to replace to make up for last year's offensive output are; Paul Konerko and what we got from backup OF Andruw Jones. The rest of the guys...really didn't have good seasons. Plus a little since Castro isn't likely to repeat his last year.

 

If Beckham puts togehter a solid season, Ramirez ever has a good start, Quentin finds some of his 08 form, or (at least as it stands now) Morel or Flowers have good starts to their careers, that makes up a chunk of the offense lost. If you went into last season with the same offense...but had a closer who performed well and solidified that bullpen, and had Jake Peavy not get hurt, that team would have had a shot.

 

I still expect a KW overhaul though.

[Buehrlesque]

Let's ask it this way...what positions have we probably downgraded at? If we've lost Konerko, that's 1. Losing AJ could be a downgrade from last year but honestly, he was awful for most of the season. His run production from last year is replaceable. 3b, we might consider a downgrade since Vizquel was decent, but that's not a huge downgrade. DH...whatever you put there is not a downgrade. Pierre and Rios aren't significant downgrades from Pierre and Rios.

 

The 2 positions we have to replace to make up for last year's offensive output are; Paul Konerko and what we got from backup OF Andruw Jones. The rest of the guys...really didn't have good seasons. Plus a little since Castro isn't likely to repeat his last year.

 

If Beckham puts togehter a solid season, Ramirez ever has a good start, Quentin finds some of his 08 form, or (at least as it stands now) Morel or Flowers have good starts to their careers, that makes up a chunk of the offense lost. If you went into last season with the same offense...but had a closer who performed well and solidified that bullpen, and had Jake Peavy not get hurt, that team would have had a shot.

 

I still expect a KW overhaul though.

This might sound harsh and I don't mean it to, but I think 1B would be a downgrade even if Paulie comes back. I don't expect near the same stat line from Konerko in 2011 as in 2010. And what you do get from Konerko in 2011, stat-wise, you could probably get for less salary at 1B elsewhere.

 

This team has to improve somewhere, and basically you are taking $12 million that could be used for improvements and spending it on a player that is likely to regress a little- forcing elsewhere improvements to be even more important and come from less money. Of course, at the same time, you could just as easily say losing your Likely-Top-5-MVP player is the surest way to make the team worse.

 

That Konerko decision is going to a tough one for KW.

[Balta1701]

This team has to improve somewhere, and basically you are taking $12 million that could be used for improvements and spending it on a player that is likely to regress a little- forcing elsewhere improvements to be even more important and come from less money. Of course, at the same time, you could just as easily say losing your Likely-Top-5-MVP player is the surest way to make the team worse.

 

That Konerko decision is going to a tough one for KW.

I'm going to be in the minority here, but I think that if you replay the 2010 season, the Sox would be better than what they were 8 of 10 times. The real thing that hurt the Sox is that their pitching didn't perform the way it was supposed to. By far the biggest bullseye there is Jake Peavy. We were supposed to have an ace at the top, and instead he was a bottom of the rotation pitcher and he missed 2/3 of the year. If you replay this season and Peavy doesn't deal with tightness in his shoulder in April and May and then blow his shoulder out in June, this is a different season.

 

On top of that, even though I can pick out 2 guys who had really good seasons with the bats, I can pick out a number of guys who didn't, and in particular, who started off ridiculously slow. AJ, Beckham, Alexei, Carlos Quentin all had down years, and that was on top of going into the season weak at 3b and pretending that DH didn't exist.

 

I don't know what all that means for next year, but its going to mean something. If Peavy doesn't come back and perform, we're in trouble next year and the couple years after that just because of the magnitude of the investment in him. If Peavy comes back, and we solve the obvious, blatantly stupid decision making regarding one particular position...that is a different team.

 

[Buehrlesque]

I'm going to be in the minority here, but I think that if you replay the 2010 season, the Sox would be better than what they were 8 of 10 times. The real thing that hurt the Sox is that their pitching didn't perform the way it was supposed to. By far the biggest bullseye there is Jake Peavy. We were supposed to have an ace at the top, and instead he was a bottom of the rotation pitcher and he missed 2/3 of the year. If you replay this season and Peavy doesn't deal with tightness in his shoulder in April and May and then blow his shoulder out in June, this is a different season.

 

On top of that, even though I can pick out 2 guys who had really good seasons with the bats, I can pick out a number of guys who didn't, and in particular, who started off ridiculously slow. AJ, Beckham, Alexei, Carlos Quentin all had down years, and that was on top of going into the season weak at 3b and pretending that DH didn't exist.

 

I don't know what all that means for next year, but its going to mean something. If Peavy doesn't come back and perform, we're in trouble next year and the couple years after that just because of the magnitude of the investment in him. If Peavy comes back, and we solve the obvious, blatantly stupid decision making regarding one particular position...that is a different team.

I see your point, and maybe if you replayed the season over in 2010 again the Sox would be better. But if you replay the season in 2011, I don't think they improve enough. Konerko is a year older and due for a regression, as mentioned. And I don't expect anything much out of Jake Peavy post-injury. You can't "replay" the season with pre-injury Peavy- that will affect all future expectations for the guy and mine are relatively low. I hope he surprises me and looks like Padres Peavy, but I'm not counting on it.

Edited October 28, 2010 by Buehrlesque

[Balta1701]

I see your point, and maybe if you replayed the season over in 2010 again the Sox would be better. But if you replay the season in 2011, I don't think they improve enough. Konerko is a year older and due for a regression, as mentioned. And I don't expect anything much out of Jake Peavy post-injury. You can't "replay" the season with pre-injury Peavy- that will affect all future expectations for the guy and mine are relatively low. I hope he surprises me and looks like Padres Peavy, but I'm not counting on it.

If Jake Peavy can't come back and be a very good pitcher...with the salary we have committed to him, I don't see how we can be a winning team without miracle performances from some of the young guys like Flowers and Morel, in 2011 or in the following years.

[soxrwhite]

Wood, Berkman, Johnson. Do we really want any of them at any price?

[Buehrlesque]

Wood, Berkman, Johnson. Do we really want any of them at any price?

I wouldn't be against checking into Berkman as a DH platoon partner for Quentin, if the price is right of course.

[Balta1701]

I wouldn't be against checking into Berkman as a DH platoon partner for Quentin, if the price is right of course.

Depends on the physical.

[witesoxfan]

I wouldn't be against checking into Berkman as a DH platoon partner for Quentin, if the price is right of course.

 

I'm not about to spend $5.5 million on Carlos Quentin to have him face lefties when, in fact, he hits lefties worse than he does righties.

[soxrwhite]

Yeah, I think Berkman can still hit. Also we will need a backup firstbaseman. It's just that we are always getting guys off the scrap heap. Another washed up star.

[Balta1701]

Yeah, I think Berkman can still hit. Also we will need a backup firstbaseman. It's just that we are always getting guys off the scrap heap. Another washed up star.

Outside of 5 pitchers and 1 catcher....doesn't that basically describe the entire San Francisco Giants lineup?

[greg775]

This might sound harsh and I don't mean it to, but I think 1B would be a downgrade even if Paulie comes back. I don't expect near the same stat line from Konerko in 2011 as in 2010. And what you do get from Konerko in 2011, stat-wise, you could probably get for less salary at 1B elsewhere.

 

This team has to improve somewhere, and basically you are taking $12 million that could be used for improvements and spending it on a player that is likely to regress a little- forcing elsewhere improvements to be even more important and come from less money. Of course, at the same time, you could just as easily say losing your Likely-Top-5-MVP player is the surest way to make the team worse.

 

That Konerko decision is going to a tough one for KW.

 

It's a chicken and egg thing with Paulie.

The Sox fans may expect a regression, but do you assume a regression and get somebody else and not assume the player you acquire will have a similar regression?

We're paying Edwin Fricking Jackson big bucks. We just need to suck it up and pay Paulie and adjust from there. And yes, he could regress. But he's coming off a helluva year and is no statue at first base defensively. He's OK there.