SB Nation - Chicago White Sox

White Sox Make "News" at GM Meetings

The Cheat — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:38:00 -0000

More photos » by M. Spencer Green - AP

Kenny Williams: The Newsmaker

Not much happens at the GM meetings. But this year those meetings are taking place in Chicago -- an unnamed hotel near O'hare, actually -- which means the local Chicago rags can afford to send their writers to cover the relative non-event. So we've got a lot to link to for a week after the World Series ended:

There was a reason I refused to put Scott Podsednik in the See Ya Later group and called him a cock-a-roach (in my best Tony Montana voice) on Facebook, he's not going to go away that easily. Those talks that seemed to be dead last week, have, according to the ubiquitous sources, "heated up."
One player who will be gone, is Jermaine Dye. Some speculated that he might be brought back on the cheap to play DH, but JD, while not specifically ruling out the Sox, insists on ruining some as-yet-to-be-determined team's defense.

"There are a number of teams I've heard already that would love to have me,'' Dye said. "I know one thing, I will not be DHing. You can put that down. If a team wants to try me out at first base on an every day basis I'll do that. That's something I feel will be easy to learn. But as far as DHing that's not for me. Teams shouldn't call if that's their plan.''
Bruce Levine seems to think the Sox are going to hang on to Bobby Jenks, and gets the Chicago GMs on the record about instant replay.
Kenny Williams echoed my sentiment about Alexei Ramirez:

"I personally thought it was terribly unfair, the criticism (Ramirez) got," Williams said. "Of course, the lapses are somewhat frustrating, but I expect those as a young player. I expect those coming from young players. That's part of the development."
Williams also joined in raising concerns about the leaking of players names who've been placed on the waiver wire.
And Joe Crede still wants to play for half a season.

SB Nation Awards: 2009 American League Rookie of the Year

Jesse — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:16:21 -0000

Next round of the year's awards!

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Elvis Andrus	Texas Rangers	6	9	6	63
2	Andrew Bailey	Oakland Athletics	11	1	3	61
3	Jeff Niemann	Tampa Bay Rays	3	5	3	33
4	Rick Porcello	Detroit Tigers	2	7	2	33
5	Brett Anderson	Oakland Athletics	5	1	3	31
6	Gordon Beckham	Chicago White Sox	1	2	8	19
7	Nolan Reimold	Baltimore Orioles	1	-	1	6
8	Matt Wieters	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	3	6
9	Brad Bergesen	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	-	3
10	Ricky Romero	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3
11	Travis Snider	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3

I feel pretty good about these results too because, if I remember correctly, I voted pretty closely here too. I want to say I went Andrus-Bailey-Porcello. Beckham's year was underwhelming, Wieters was disappointing considering the hype and, as the tally shows, there were really only two choices for top pick.

My only question: RICK PORCELLO IS JUST 20 YEARS OLD!

Okay, so it's not a question...

Poll

Of the top five, who would get your vote for AL Rookie of the Year?

Cubs Baseball In Vegas... Stays In Vegas

Al — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:09:20 -0000

While the entire Cubs' spring training schedule has not yet been made public, today the Cubs announced that again in 2010, they and the White Sox will travel to Las Vegas during the spring campaign to play a pair of exhibition games. From the press release:

The Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox will play two exhibition games in Las Vegas next March for the 2010 Big League Weekend at Cashman Field, home of the Las Vegas 51s. The clubs will play on Friday, March 12, 2010 and Saturday, March 13, 2010. Games times are to be determined. The Cubs and White Sox will both feature split squads.

Ticket information is available by calling the Las Vegas 51s at 702-798-7825 or visiting www.lv51.com. The Cubs and White Sox will play a pair of spring training games in Las Vegas for the second year in a row.

2009 SBN Baseball Awards: AL Rookie of the Year

Ian Casselberry — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:00:23 -0000

This week, we're posting the results for each of Major League Baseball's regular season awards, as voted upon by the SB Nation baseball bloggers. (Each site gets two ballots; Mack Avenue Tigers' Kurt Mensching helped me out with a vote.)

Today's announcement is for the 2009 Rookie of the Year balloting. This is the one award a Tigers player may have had his best chance with. How did Detroit's Kid Rick do?

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Elvis Andrus	Texas Rangers	6	9	6	63
2	Andrew Bailey	Oakland Athletics	11	1	3	61
3	Jeff Niemann	Tampa Bay Rays	3	5	3	33
4	Rick Porcello	Detroit Tigers	2	7	2	33
5	Brett Anderson	Oakland Athletics	5	1	3	31
6	Gordon Beckham	Chicago White Sox	1	2	8	19
7	Nolan Reimold	Baltimore Orioles	1	-	1	6
8	Matt Wieters	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	3	6
9	Brad Bergesen	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	-	3
10	Ricky Romero	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3
11	Travis Snider	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3

I have to say, this one surprises me. I'm not surprised Rick Porcello didn't win. Everyday position players usually (and should) get more consideration. But I didn't think Kid Rick would finish behind two other pitchers. I'm biased, of course. Guess who my first-place vote went to?

Elvis Andrus got the second-place vote on my ballot, with Gordon Beckham in third. There was probably some AL Central bias there, as I saw Beckham play more than the other candidates. I suppose that gave him the edge over Andrew Bailey for me.

How would you have voted?

Tomorrow, we'll have SBN's Cy Young winners, and we'll conclude with the Most Valuable Players on Thursday.

The National League ballot is after the jump:

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Tommy Hanson	Atlanta Braves	9	9	6	78
2	J.A. Happ	Philadelphia Phillies	6	9	7	64
3	Andrew McCutchen	Pittsburgh Pirates	8	3	5	54
4	Chris Coghlan	Florida Marlins	7	5	4	54
5	Dexter Fowler	Colorado Rockies	-	3	1	10
6	Randy Wells	Chicago Cubs	-	-	6	6
7	Garrett Jones	Pittsburgh Pirates	1	-	-	5
8	Casey McGehee	Milwaukee Brewers	-	1	2	5
9	Seth Smith	Colorado Rockies	-	1	-	3

Throwback Uniforms: A's and White Sox (1929)

ZombieMonta — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:00:21 -0000

On August 16th, the Oakland Athletics celebrated the 80th anniversary of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics, who won the World Series, by dressing up in their old uniforms from the '29 season. $18 outfield tickets were dropped to $9.29, $30 box seats were dropped to $19.29, and 10,000 fans walked away with retro A's jerseys. A's manager Bob Geren came out in a suit and tie, a nod to the legendary skipper of the 1929 team, Connie Mack. There was also a pregame parade of Model A cars, music was played from that era, and the public address announcer called the game from an old-time microphone near the playing field.

The Chicago White Sox, who were the A's opponents that day, even played along by wearing their duds from the '29 season. Overall, the amount of attention the Athletics put into the promotion was terrific, worthy of an A+. But what about those A's and Sox uniforms? Were they good enough to be worn on a regular basis or should they have been left in the past? Find out after the jump...

The 1929 Athletics went 104-46 and beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series in five games. That team featured four Hall of Famers: Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane, and Lefty Grove. Other excellent players on the roster included Mule Hass, Bing Miller, and George Ershaw, who led the team with a 24-8 record. Also in this game, the grandchildren of Jimmie Foxx and Connie Mack threw out the ceremonial first pitches.

The A's won it again in 1930, which was their last championship before moving to Kansas City in 1955. After 13 terrible seasons in Missouri, where they finished no higher than sixth in the American League, the Athletics moved to Oakland where they've been ever since. The White Sox have stayed in Chicago since they joined the American League in 1900.

The White Sox uniforms looked okay. The gray and dark blue went well with each other, and I dig the SOX logo on the baseball cap. But the giant SOX on the left side of the shirt could use some improvement. The current SOX logo that the team wears, which has a Gothic spin to it, looks much better and doesn't stick out as much.

Okay, see here's the problem with the '29 A's uniforms: they are completely blank except for a stripe on the pants, a blue A, and an exaggerated neck line. And I'm sure a neckline that goes down to the buttons was a good idea at the time, however, it looks a little... phallic, if you know what I mean.

Poor Bob Geren, no wonder he got ejected in the ninth inning. An umpire isn't going to take you seriously when your shirt looks like that.

The highlight of the game came in the bottom of the ninth, when A's second baseman Mark Ellis hit the game-winning, walk-off homer with two outs. Here we see him celebrating with his teammates. The blue helmet with the white A looks solid -- just so you know I don't totally hate the jerseys.

Overall:

I have to come down kind of hard on the Athletics uniforms. I'm not against retro promotions, especially when it lowers the ticket prices, and I think it's cool that the A's were respectful enough to honor the '29 team. That being said, if you gave these to the current A's and you told them that they'd being wearing them full-time, I guarantee they'd recoil in horror. I'm sure they looked great in black and white photographs in 1929, but they don't look good today. Chicago's isn't much better, though at least theirs could blend into a later decade.

Final Grades:

Classic Athletics home uniform: D

Classic White Sox road uniform: C

Photos taken by Ben Margot, Associated Press

SB Nation Awards: 2009 American League Manager of the Year

Jesse — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:42:08 -0000

Just like every year, the site managers of SB Nation get together and cast votes for the season's four biggest awards: Manager of the Year, Rookie of the Year, MVP and Cy Young. Today, the results are in for MoY.

Rk	Manager	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Mike Scioscia	Los Angeles Angels	9	8	3	72
2	Ron Gardenhire	Minnesota Twins	9	5	1	61
3	Don Wakamatsu	Seattle Mariners	6	3	8	47
4	Joe Girardi	New York Yankees	2	4	2	24
5	Ron Washington	Texas Rangers	1	4	4	21
6	Terry Francona	Boston Red Sox	1	1	3	11
7	Jim Leyland	Detroit Tigers	-	2	4	10
8	Joe Maddon	Tampa Bay Rays	-	1	1	4
9	Ozzie Guillen	Chicago White Sox	-	-	1	1
10	Trey Hillman	Kansas City Royals	-	-	1	1

I have a hard time arguing the findings on this list, because if I recall correctly the top three coaches are the ones I actually voted for. (It was either that, or Gardenhire-Wakamatsu-Washington...it was a while ago.) Even if Don Wakamatsu had won, I wouldn't complain--he got one hell of a performance from a team that probably shouldn't have had the kind of season they had.

Poll

Of the top three choices, who gets your vote for AL Manager of the Year?

Mike Scioscia: SBN Manager of the Year

Rev Halofan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:30:33 -0000

More photos » by Mark J. Terrill - AP

SBNations's 2009 AL Manager of the year. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Browse more photos »

The bloggers at SBNation have voted for the American League Manager of the year - and the skipper of the Angels, "The Soth," Mike Scioscia was elected AL Manager of the year. 2 bloggers per blog voted - our own RGHAN and WIHALOFAN took part in the voting to represent Halos Heaven on the final day of 2009 season.

Rk	Manager	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Mike Scioscia	Los Angeles Angels	9	8	3	72
2	Ron Gardenhire	Minnesota Twins	9	5	1	61
3	Don Wakamatsu	Seattle Mariners	6	3	8	47
4	Joe Girardi	New York Yankees	2	4	2	24
5	Ron Washington	Texas Rangers	1	4	4	21
6	Terry Francona	Boston Red Sox	1	1	3	11
7	Jim Leyland	Detroit Tigers	-	2	4	10
8	Joe Maddon	Tampa Bay Rays	-	1	1	4
9	Ozzie Guillen	Chicago White Sox	-	-	1	1
10	Trey Hillman	Kansas City Royals	-	-	1	1

In the National League, Colorado Rockies Manager Jim Tracy took the honors. Sucks to be the Dodgers right now.

Monday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:01:31 -0000

by Ann Heisenfelt - AP

Carlos Gomez makes the wrong kind of contact.

View full size photo »

Some things to read while realizing you left your credit card in your other armor.

Thanks to Dan, Tyler and Rubie for filling in for me last week while I took a quick break to experience life in New York for a few days. Writing the Mug is no small feat, and all three of them did admirable work in my place, so be sure to stop by their sites today to thank them. It's good to be home. With that said, I'm going in for oral surgery in roughly an hour so I'm off again tomorrow, and I've lined up another of my favorite Brewer bloggers to fill in. I'm hoping to return on Wednesday but that will depend on how I bounce back and how coherent I am on Vicodin.

The Brewers, of course, saw fit to ruin a perfectly good day of my vacation by trading J.J. Hardy for Carlos Gomez. If you weren't around the site this weekend, you missed a lot of great content on the trade: Jordan weighed in with his disappointment, Jeff made the case for keeping Mike Cameron anyway, and Noah, writing his first weekend roundup, had a great collection of thoughts on the deal from around the web. With that said, there's still a bunch more out there:

The Transaction Oracle compared Gomez to Tom Goodwin and said, "Gomez's version of selectivity is staring blankly at a random pitch and then flailing at the next one."
Tom Powers of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press called Gomez "clueless" and said he "has the baseball instincts of an Icelandic grade-schooler." (h/t BBTF)
The Grand National Championships called Gomez "a Juan Pierre without all that incessant singles hitting."
TheJay has a look at the career paths of players who have made as many PAs as Gomez has at such a young age with such a low OBP. Not exceptionally pretty.
Aaron Gleeman says Gomez has gotten a bum rap, but also likes the deal for the Twins.
Miller Park Drunk has a roundup of other things people are saying about Gomez.
Meanwhile, despite Jeff's objections, Doug Melvin confirmed that the Brewers' decision to acquire Gomez means they won't make a push to retain Mike Cameron for 2010.
Nick's Twins Blog has an overview of the deal, including my scouting report for Hardy.
Twinkie Town has some questions about Hardy's defense (based largely on the comments of some frequent BCB'ers), and whether or not it's as good as advertised.
FanGraphs has a look at Hardy's defense, and rated him the third most valuable defensive player in baseball since 2007.
Along with the Red Sox (and presumably some others), the Reds confirmed interest in Hardy. Melvin didn't want to deal Hardy in the division, so he was forced to accept less from someone else.
The Ghost of Moonlight Graham called the deal a steal for the Twins.
Rubie Q called the deal "worst nightmare stuff."
Baseball-Intellect says the Twins got Hardy for "pennies on the dollar."
Sabernomics is having a hard time choosing a winner in the deal.
Jorge Says No! says this deal has the potential to be win-win.

As of this writing, 54% of voters in the poll on your right think the Twins won the trade, with just 13% picking the Brewers. Gomez is walking in the door with a large portion of the fans believing he's not worth much, and it can be tough to overcome that when you're carrying a sub-.300 OBP. This could be the deal that sinks Doug Melvin.

Now, the Brewers have to find a way to wisely spend the financial windfall. MLB Trade Rumors has the likely landing spots for this winter's top 50 free agents, and lists both Doug Davis and Jarrod Washburn as likely Brewers, and also lists the Crew as a potential interested party regarding Jon Garland. Meanwhile, they have Felipe Lopez as a Dodger, Mike Cameron as a Padre and Ben Sheets as a Ranger.

Beyond that, there's not a lot of Brewer news, unless you wanted to talk about the decision to decline David Weathers' option.

Around baseball:

D-Backs: Exercised Brandon Webb's option for 2010.
Dodgers: Declined Jon Garland's option for 2010.
Nationals: Declined Austin Kearns' option for 2010.
Phillies: Exercised Cliff Lee's option for 2010 and declined Pedro Feliz's.
Pirates: Designated pitchers Virgil Vazquez and Eric Hacker and catcher Steve Lerud for assignment.
Red Sox: Declined their option for 2010 on Alex Gonzalez.
Reds: Outrighted outfielder Danny Richar and first baseman Kevin Barker to AAA. Both will be minor league free agents.
Rockies: Declined options on catcher Yorvit Torrealba and Alan Embree.
Royals: Declined 2010 options for Coco Crisp, Miguel Olivo and Yasuhiko Yabuta.
Tigers: Removed outfielder Marcus Thames and catcher Matt Treanor from their 40-man roster.
White Sox: Bought out the final year of Jermaine Dye's contract.

I'm going to wrap this up quickly, because my pre-surgery meds are starting to kick in:

Miguel Olivo has been mentioned as a potential option for the Brewers next season. Beyond the Box Score has a comprehensive list of things he does well.
Phil Birnbaum looks at the possibility that younger umpires have more accurate strike zones.
Baseball Reference wants your thoughts to help improve their site.
Seventeen congressmen voted no on a resolution congratulating the Yankees for winning the World Series. One of them was Wisconsin rep Jim Sensenbrenner. (h/t Baseball Musings)

On this day in 1982, Robin Yount was the unanimous choice to win the AL MVP after leading the AL in hits, doubles, slugging, OPS, OPS+ and total bases, while playing shortstop for the AL Champion Brewers.

It's also a big day for Brewer birthdays:

Dave Bush turns 30.
Angel Miranda, who appeared in 116 games as a Brewer between 1993 and 1997, turns 40.
Dion James, who was the Brewers' first round pick in the 1980 draft, turns 47.
Teddy Higuera, arguably the greatest pitcher in Brewer history, turns 51. You should celebrate his birthday by purchasing the sponsorship on his Bref page, which is available for $10.

Drink up.

SBN Awards: Mike Scioscia & Jim Tracy win Manager of the Year

Stacey — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:34 -0000

More photos » by Jae C. Hong - AP

Manager of the Year? You don't say! (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

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The SBN baseball writers have voted on Manager of the Year for the National and American Leagues. The AL award goes to Mike Scioscia of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the NL award to Jim Tracy of the Colorado Rockies. Each blog was given two ballots for the awards that correspond with the league of the team it writes for. Votes were placed this year by myself and duck for the AL.

Whenever I'm asked about managers I'm never entirely sure the criteria on which I should judge them. I'm always capable of noticing the things I dislike about managers (especially Orioles managers), but it's harder to detect what makes a good manager, especially when the talent on the teams varies so greatly.

When smart people are asked about good managers, Mike Scioscia is usually near the top of the list. Scioscia, as has been noted by several people here, tends to get the best out of his teams. He effectively uses "small ball" and consistently runs fundamentally sound teams.

I didn't vote for him, though. Well, not for first place. I think that Mike Scioscia is a very good manager, don't get me wrong. But it's hard to determine how much of an affect a manager does or doesn't have on his team. The Angels are a well funded team with talented, high-paid players. I don't hold that against Mike Scioscia, certainly, but it does make his job easier. There's no way to know what he'd do with a different team, which is one of the things that makes choosing a MoY so tricky. My heart and head said to vote for a manager who took a team with less than optimal resources kept his team going strong throughout the year and got them to do things they didn't seem capable of. That's why my first place vote when to Rod Gardenhire.

On August 15th the Minnesota Twins were 56-60, in third place, and 6 games behind the first place Tigers. A good offense couldn't keep up with the ineffectiveness and injuries of the starting rotation, and it looked like 2009 wouldn't be the Twins year. But from August 15th to the end of the season the Twins buckled down and went 31-16, including a tie-breaking game against the Detroit Tigers the day before the Division Series started. What did Ron Gardenhire have to do with this? Who knows for sure. But the Twins didn't fade down the stretch and didn't lose their motivation, despite a rotation being filled with rookies, despite losing Justin Morneau on September 12th, when they were still 5.5 games out of first. Without Morneau, their 2nd best hitter, they'd lose just four more games over the final 21 games of the year.

Picking the best manager is hardly a science. The Twins weren't the most talented and they didn't have much luck, and Ron Gardenhire kept them going over 163 games and got them into the postseason. I think there's something to be said for that.

Rk	Manager	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Mike Scioscia	Los Angeles Angels	9	8	3	72
2	Ron Gardenhire	Minnesota Twins	9	5	1	61
3	Don Wakamatsu	Seattle Mariners	6	3	8	47
4	Joe Girardi	New York Yankees	2	4	2	24
5	Ron Washington	Texas Rangers	1	4	4	21
6	Terry Francona	Boston Red Sox	1	1	3	11
7	Jim Leyland	Detroit Tigers	-	2	4	10
8	Joe Maddon	Tampa Bay Rays	-	1	1	4
9	Ozzie Guillen	Chicago White Sox	-	-	1	1
10	Trey Hillman	Kansas City Royals	-	-	1	1

My second place vote went to Mike Scioscia and my third place vote went to Jim Leyland (although I don't really know why I voted for Leyland). Strangely enough, duck voted exactly the same way. I didn't vote for the NL Manager of the year, but check out the results below the jump. And keep an eye out over the next few days for the SBN Rookie of the Year, MVP, and Cy Young.

Rk	Manager	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Jim Tracy	Colorado Rockies	24	1	2	125
2	Tony LaRussa	St. Louis Cardinals	3	7	10	46
3	Fredi Gonzalez	Florida Marlins	2	6	5	33
4	Joe Torre	Los Angeles Dodgers	-	9	2	29
5	Charlie Manuel	Philadelphia Phillies	-	3	5	14
6	Bruce Bochy	San Francisco Giants	1	1	1	9
7	Bobby Cox	Atlanta Braves	-	1	4	7
8	Bud Black	San Diego Padres	-	1	1	4
9	John Russell	Pittsburgh Pirates	-	1	-	3

MLB Trade Rumors: On the Beat with John Perrotto Version

raygu — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:37 -0000

by Eric Risberg - AP

about 1 month ago: Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Chad Billingsley takes a break on the mound after the San Francisco Giants scored their third run in the fourth inning of a baseball game in San Francisco, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009. San Francisco won the game 7-2; Billingsley was the losing pitcher. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

View full size photo »

Every Sunday, John Perrotto from Baseball Prospectus puts out an article talking about possible trade rumors and signings, along with analysis of the goings on around baseball. Yesterday's article was chock full of names who could be available in trade talks this offseason, with some suprise names.

Let's take a look after the jump:

Here is a list of names who could be available in trade talks per Perrotto:

Chad Billingsley Kerry Wood

Dave Bush Bobby Jenks

Jeremy Guthrie Pat Burrell

Adrian Gonzalez Nelson Cruz

Heath Bell Ryan Ludwick

Glen Perkins Dan Uggla

Kenshin Kawakami Juan Pierre

Derek Lowe Ryan Doumit

Javier Vazquez Dioner Navarro

Carlos Zambrano Jarrod Saltalamacchia