My dad grew up a Brooklyn Dodger fan, so he knows something about disappointment and protective amnesia.  He always says that its been a good year if your team is within five games of the playoffs in September.  Five games is manageable.  If you're within five games that late, it means you've had a competitive Summer and been entertained.  You've had hope.  That's enough pleasure to justify all the countless hours, cold night games and bad food that we invest in our team.  I agree with him and its what I try to teach my girls as the standard for identifying with a team.  My question to you all is, what constitutes a successful season by your standards?

I guess the macho Ricky Bobby answer would be that coming in second just makes you the first loser so the only successful year is one where you win the World Series.  Yankees fans have this attitude which is why its been so pleasant to be around them this decade.  I don't buy that but that's just me.  Anyway, as of right now, what do the Sox have to do in order for you to look back in November and say "that was a decent season"?

(Just to play around with the new stuff, I'll even try to attach a poll to this.)

[Update by The Cheat, 10/06/08 7:48 PM CDT ]: This was originally posted on March 27th. I've bumped it for effect. Comments reopened.

Poll

What is the minimum result you would consider a successful season for the 2008 White Sox?

5%

World Series Champoions or nothing, baby.

27 votes

2%

AL Pennant

11 votes

31%

Make the playoffs

165 votes

39%

Meaninfully contend for the playoffs (within 5 games of a spot in September).

205 votes

5%

A .500 record

31 votes

3%

Improve on last year's disaster.

16 votes

2%

Have a better record than, or win the season series against, the Cubs.

13 votes

10%

Acquire or develop players who you think will make the team appreciably better in 2009-11.

57 votes

525 votes | Poll has closed

I have a sense that there are some number of us who are afflicted with the European malady of caring about football (the real kind) and the English Premier League.  I thought it might be fun to set up a private Friends League to play fantasy football for the coming Premier League season.  The Guardian has set up pretty good looking game that is free to enter and looks a step more sophisticated than the traditional "goals and clean sheets" kind of thing.  It rewards crosses, tackles, interceptions and bunch of other stats that make roster decisions more interesting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fantasyfootball

The league I set up is named South Side Sox and the password is ozzie.

Anyway, if you have any interest in "soccer" at all, check it out.  I know that, for me, having a reason to pay attention to the fixtures on a weekly basis focuses my interest and has helped me get a handle on the game.

I look forward to playing with you.

One thing recent White Sox history has taught us is that you can replace scars with mediocre players and generate significant improvement.  Think Orlando Hernandez over Dan Wright, AJ Pierzynski over Sandy Alomar, etc. Right now, the Sox are fielding a surprisingly decent team with a Juan Uribe shaped scar at second.  Now one could, I suppose, cast longing eyes in the directions of Danny Richar's rehabilitation or engage in wish-casting that Alexei Ramirez is ready to be a major-league player if only he were to play every day.  Neither option looks very promising to me.  So the question for you is, are there any mediocre second basemen out there that are either being under-utilized by their teams or are about to become superfluous as their teams fade from contention?  I'm not looking for a Brian-Roberts-for-Josh-Fields-and-Aaron-Porreda type blockbuster (although I would make that deal).  Rather, I'm looking for a cheaply available, replacement or league average type middle infielder who can do the job better than what we've got.  Would there be any point in bringing back an alumni like Iguchi or Ray Durham?  Does Ronny Beliard have anything left?  For the love of God, isn't there someone who can do this better than Uribe?

Sunday's Tribune had a story (under an unusual joint Gonzalez-Rogers byline) on the Wilder firing: Wilder Story. There's a fair bit of personal stuff on who Wilder was and how hard this is for Williams to take, but there is some hard reporting as well:

Williams and other Sox staffers would not elaborate on details of the investigation because it is ongoing. Williams wouldn't say if financial improprieties were involved, but a source with knowledge of the probe said there were questions regarding the manner in which signing bonuses were distributed to Latin American prospects. Investigators were seeking to determine if Wilder and dismissed scouts Victor Mateo and Domingo Toribio were skimming from those bonus payments.

An MLB investigator confirmed to the Tribune on Saturday that the probe involved skimming and that it currently is limited to the White Sox. 

. . . .

Wilder has been keeping a low profile since rumors of a probe of the Sox's Latin American operations first surfaced. In the statement announcing his dismissal, the Sox said they conducted their own probe before asking Major League Baseball's Department of Investigations to get involved.

The findings, the statement said, have been turned over to federal authorities to see if any federal laws were violated.

When the news first broke, Cheat speculated that the causes were likely to be money, drugs or falsifying immigration documents.  Gonzalez' initial reporting suggested that it was money and now we have a second story confirming the initial speculation. 

If this report is accurate, it may be the best case the Sox could hope for out of this shitty situation.  If the Sox organization had been involved systematically in distributing steroids to prospects (even if done without the knowledge of Williams or Reinsdorf), you have to think that MLB would come down hard and impose penalties on the team.  Similarly, if there were systematic violations of the immigration laws, the Feds would likely want to make the team serve as an example that such hijinks are no longer considered amusing.  However, if what we have here is essentially an embezzlement scam by Wilder and two of his subordinates, that looks like something where the team has been, at least in part, the victim and may not need institutional punishment.

The reports of how this broke are consistent with an embezzlement scheme.  The Sox' spin has been that this is a problem that they turned up internally and then blew the whistle on themselves.  That's usually a pretty smart way to avoid heavy discipline and its the kind of thing I'd expect a clever and experienced lawyer like Reinsdorf to do, especially given his close personal relationship with Selig. 

The timeline seems to have been:  1. Sox develop suspicions and investigate internally; 2. Sox determine they have a serious problem and ask MLB's Department of Investigations to become involved; 3. The Federales are invited to join the party to determine whether any US laws have been violated.  I'm curious to know whose idea it was to get the Feds involved.  Did Reinsdorf and the Sox always see that as a potential end-game or was it something that came as an unpleasant "suggestion" from the MLB guys?

Now, even if I'm right and the team can avoid organizational discipline, this still sucks pretty hard.  At a bare minimum, it looks like the Sox' Dominican operation has been decapitated.  Also, if Wilder really is looking at criminal charges and the Feds start to work him over, there are going to be some very pointed questions about what he knows regarding any skeletons in the Sox closet (and, I guess theoretically, the Brewers or Cubs as well.)  You never know what a guy looking at jail time will suddenly remember in order to cut a deal.  Of course, that's the blindest of speculation and I'm not really worried about it.  What's worse is that guys wearing Sox shirts stole money from a bunch of kids.  You have to think that will be widely discussed throughout the Caribbean and that it could take a long time before our replacement scouts build up any trust in the area.

Pretty much everyone here understands that it is very unlikely the Sox will make the playoffs this year.  That's a given.  But such is the natural state of White Sox fandom.  We're not like the aristocratic Yankees or Cardinals or teams that expect it to be their divine right to contend year after year.  We understand that the universe isn't fair, that the innocent suffer and that we are fundamentally alone and unloved.  Such is the natural order. 

But that doesn't mean we just take it.

Continue reading this post »

Ok, so we've got a pretty good idea of what the roster is going to look like.  We've got some intelligence on the rest of the League.  We know that Nick Swisher is Teh Awesome, that Alexi Ramirez is wildly intriguing and that Javy Vazquez is making us all think that maybe, just maybe, this is the year he cashes in on all the hopes and potential.  Likewise, we know that Jerry Owens is morphing into Scott Podsednik so fast that he's going to marry a Playmate and start wearing #22, that Crede and Uribe are problems not assets, and that left-handed pitchers are going to be like sunlight to a vampire for our black-clad heroes.  But, as Bill James pointed out so many years ago, it all comes down to runs.  Baseball players are only valuable to the extent they create or prevent runs.  Teams ultimately succeed or fail based on runs.  So, all of our speculation comes down to how many runs can we score and how many do we allow.  What's it going to take and how do we get there?

Continue reading this post »

My sense is that among the knowledgeable, statistically literate baseball pundits (exemplefied by the Rob Neyer/Baseball Prospectus crowd), the consensus is that the Sox are not a contending team.  Even if they back down a little from the forecast of a 90 loss season, most of the people I respect are picking the Sox for a non-contender in the very difficult AL Central.  The basic thesis is that the excellent 2006 run production is going to decline because it was based on exceptional performances by a few aging and/or injury prone hitters while the mediocre run prevention is unlikely to improve significantly.  

The way I see it, we are going to need something like 94 wins to make the playoffs.  Even with all the good teams in the Central, someone is going to win a bunch of games so you're not going to steal the Division with 91 wins.  By the same token, the second place team in the East is going to be pretty good, so the Wild Card isn't going to sneak in with a crappy NL-type record.  So make 94 wins the target.  I don't have resources at my fingertips to calculate this, but I'd guess that means a run differential of at least 95 and probably more like 105.  Call it 100 runs better than the enemy as a fair target for the playoffs.  (And, yes, I know that that the Pythagorean predictions aren't perfect but they serve as a pretty good baseline for this purpose.)

The question is, where are you going to get those 100 runs?  

As Smiling Jack Ross said in A Few Good Men, "These are the facts and they are undisputed:"

2005 741 scored (9th), 645 allowed (3rd), (96 diff.) 99-63 (91-71 Pyth.)
2006 868 scored (3rd), 794 allowed (10th), (74 diff.) 90-72 (88-74 Pyth.)

I don't see us scoring 868 runs again.  It would be a pleasant shock to me if Dye/Thome/Konerko/Crede were as collectively healthy and awesome as they were in 2006.  Could it happen?  Sure, but that's not the safe way to bet.  Plus, I don't see anyplace in the lineup where the slack is going to be made up.  Is Toby Hall going to make up the difference between Dye 2006 and Dye 2007?  No.  Do even the most optimistic of us seen Anderson and Uribe being alot better than they were in '06?  I'm afraid I don't.  

So, we're scoring less and every run we don't score, we're going to have to get back on the prevention side, plus 26 more runs prevented on top of that.  Can we do that?  Well, we did in 2005, but we were much, much worse in 2006 (an increase of 149 runs allowed!).  I can see the bullpen, rotation and defense each getting a little better, if things go right, but I don't see any single factor that is going to dramatically improve our run prevention.  We didn't acquire Johan Santana.  Our bullpen is going to have good and bad patches.  Iguchi is not going to turn into Homer Bush.  But if we get incremental improvement in all phases of run prevention, we can shave the runs down by more than we lose in runs scored.  

And that's what it is going to take, in my view.  So, for example, Buehrle has to pitch more like Buehrle.  Masset and Haeger have to be better than Cotts and Politte.  Anderson and Erstad/Podsednik have to catch the ball better and/or hit enough to stay in the lineup.  If we win on enough of those kinds of bets, we can offset the likely offensive decline and contend.  But that is alot of things that have to go right and anytime you're betting on a series of contingencies, you are betting against the odds.

So, what do you think?  Are my assumptions flawed?  Am I missing a source of likely improvement?  Or do you agree with me that it is unlikely that the Sox will make the playoffs?

Prompted by Cheat-class boredom over all the inactivity and speculation, as well as Bonds' showing up at the Winter Meetings to beg for a job, I pose the following question: Would you support the Sox' signing of Barry Bonds assuming the contract was not an issue (say, 1 year, $5 mm plus incentives with protection for us if he is indicted)?  Note that I'm not saying there is any chance of this happening.  I'm just curious what the community would think of the idea.

On the positive side, he's far and away the best hitter available.  Even in last season's haze of injuries and controversy, he hit .270/.454/.545 in 130 games.  Although he looks slow and fat, he's still a tolerable left-fielder; not good, of course, but he won't kill you.  Plus, since the Giants didn't offer him arbitration, we could acquire him without giving up and draft-picks.  I think signing him would make the Sox the instant favorites to win the Central.

On the negative side, he's Barry Bonds.  He's a flaming jerk who is likely to be unpopular with his teammates and the media.  He would be the number one story about the Sox, everyday, all season.  As he caught and surpassed Aaron, the pontificating and attention would be stiffling.  Plus, he's a rule-breaking cheat.

So, what do you think?  For myself, I'm torn between my contrarian desire to stick a finger in the eye of conventional wisdom (plus, I really like winning) versus my severe distaste for the man and the idea that it just wouldn't be as much fun to be White Sox fan next Summer if we have to deal with the Barry Bonds Show all the time.  

Poll

Should the White Sox sign Barry Bonds?

59%

No.

16 votes

40%

Yes.

11 votes

27 votes | Poll has closed

Here's an interesting quote from ESPN knuckleball afficianado Rob Neyer:

Speaking of the American League Central, it's been said more than a few times that White Sox GM Kenny Williams, flush with starting pitchers, might have more leverage this week than any other general manager. I would agree with that particularly if Williams and his colleagues have some realistic notion of Charlie Haeger's value. I've been promoting this guy since last spring, and I'm going to keep promoting him until he gets the chance he obviously deserves. Nutshell: Haeger looks to me like the best young knuckleball pitcher any of us have seen. He's 23 years old. Over the last two seasons, his ERAs ranging from Class A to MLB: 3.20, 3.78, 3.07 and 3.44. If he threw 90 miles an hour rather than 70, he would be considered one of the dozen or so best pitching prospects in the game. Did I mention that he's 23? And that most knuckleballers don't gain control of their key pitch until their middle or late 20s? If I were Kenny Williams, I would trade one of the guys who throws 90 -- because they have more trade value than the guy who throws 70 -- and give Haeger a slot in the rotation next spring. If I were not Kenny Williams, I would sidle up to him in Florida and try to find out exactly what he thinks about Charlie Haeger.

Now, Neyer is a knuckleball guy and Haeger is one of his pet causes, but I happen to agree with him on this one.  The fact is, Heager's performance has been pretty darn good (http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/H/Charles-Haeger.shtml).  Yes, his walk totals are higher than you'd like, but his ERA is quite nice, his K rate is solid and the HR totals are Jolie-class gorgeous.  By the numbers, he deserves a shot.  

Moreover, don't underestimate his youth.  I think Neyer is correct that knuckleballers develop late.  By way of comparison, Tim Wakefield, didn't even make it to A ball until he was 23 and didn't scratch the majors until he was 26.  He's now 41 and about to throw another year of useful innings for Boston.  Granted, Wakefield's perfomance was a little different than Haeger's.  Wakefield didn't walk as many guys as Charlie has but he gave up alot more homeruns.  Personally, I'd take the guy who can consistently get groundballs, especially in the Cell, but the point is that Haeger has proven himself an effective pitcher years ahead of Wakefield (or Phil Neikro or Charlie Hough, for that matter).

Depsite all this, there seems to be limited enthusiasm for Haeger in the organization, in the media and among the cognoscenti like ourselves.  Is this because of some persuasive scouting evaluation that down-grades him?  Is there something I'm missing?  Maybe it's because of the poor first impression he made during that spot-start at the Cell last Spring (even though he pitched quite well in limited innings out of the bullpen for us in September)?  Or perhaps this comes down to the prejudice against soft-tossers?  If its the later, that's a shame.  I don't want Haeger to go the way of Chad Bradford as a guy whose unorthodox style led to us getting fleeced of a quality pitcher by some sharp organization that can look past convention.  (If Haeger's name turns up as a throw-in with some trade to Oakland or Boston, be concerned.)

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing if Haeger can contribute out of the pen next year.  Most people tend to throw him into the 6th-man in the pen type of conversations and suggest that we need someone else.  I disagree.  Let's give Charlie a fair shot to contribute as a reliever and, if he pitches the way I think he can, let's ticket him for the rotation in 2008.

Thoughts?

This is a diary entirely untethered to any source or substantiation, but how about Williams making one of his patented under-the-radar quick-strike moves and signing J.D. Drew?  Our friend, Criminal Appeal, at the Ron Karkovice Fan Club (http://ronkarkovicefanclub.blogspot.com/) floated this last week and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.  In an inflated market like this, you will get killed bidding for the medium range guys.  Guys like Speier and DeRosa are not sufficiently better than the (almost) freely available replacements to justify the extra cash.  But stars are still scarce and J.D. Drew is a star.  He'd fit in beautifully in left and be able to slide over to right if Dye leaves in 2008.  He's a fine outfielder and gets on base a ton.  His most comparable players are Jim Edmonds and Larry Doby, which is fine company to keep.  Drew just opted out of 3 years and $33 million so we'll have to pay notably more.  Maybe 4 years and $60 million gets it done?

Reasons this won't or shouldn't happen:

Drew is represented by Boras.  I'm sure Boras would be happy to take our money but the Sox hate him and will be reluctant to deal with him at all.

4 years and $60 million may not be enough to get it done.  The Red Sox with their Jamesian management know how good Drew is and are in the bidding.  After dropping $51.1 million for the PSL to Matsuzaka, they may figure why not give Drew a $75 million deal?

Injuries, injuries, injuries.  Drew has a pattern of alternating decently durable seasons (135-145 games played) with clunkers where he puts up 75-100 games.  You could spend a lot of money for a lot of DL time.

No stolen bases.  Drew was a crafty but not prolific base stealer when he was younger but now he doesn't run at all.  Ozzie wants a stolen base guy to "put pressure on the defense" (tm) and Drew isn't that.  Kenny does what he wants to do, but he'll pay attention to what Ozzie thinks and Ozzie will want someone like Pierre.

Attitude.  Drew has had a bad reputation since he held-out after being drafted by the Phillies and he hasn't done much to correct it.  He's an even keeled kind of guy who doesn't display much emotion so hyper-fans get on him.  He's a classic lightning-rod for fan blame.  For a recent examply, check out Bill Simmons latest column where he begs the Red Sox not to sign Drew. (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/061117)  

Despite all these issues, I'd still like to see the Sox take a stab at it.  I think Drew will be a better investment than Soriano or Drew for the life of his contract, assuming he stays healthy.  I'm willing to bet on Herm and luck that Drew has the Edmonds career path, not the Bobby Higginson one.  I don't care about Boras, stolen bases or attitude.  Drew is very good ball-player, he fits a serious hole in our line-up and, compared to the other contracts being handed out, he may be reasonably valued.  He's the place I'd put my chips.

Comments?

This isn't a White Sox post, but since everyone here cares about baseball, I'm curious to know what you all think about Bonds and this week's revelations.  My question is, if you were Commissioner, what, if anything would you do in light of the evidence in the forthcoming book?  

Here are a series of statements I'd consider as facts:

It is now essentially established that Bonds did use steroids and other performance enhancers in order to gain a competitive advantage.  There may be room to argue about how effective such substances are in baseball but clearly Bonds and others thought that they were gaining an edge by shooting up.  There does not seem to be any room to seriously deny that he did it.  (Note that this is different from saying that there is enough evidence to obtain a criminal conviction for perjury.  That's a whole different standard of evidence.)

Pre-steroids, Bonds was a wonderful, HOF-worthy player.  From 1990-98 he was quite possibly the best player in the game.  Post-steroids, he was other-worldly.  From 2000-04, Bonds was easily the best hitter I've ever seen.

Bonds is a narcissistic jerk, but so what?  Many elite athletes are jerks and, if Bonds seems to stand out even in that unappealing group, that is probably because he has drawn so much more attention than most.  I consider his personality to be irrelevant to the question.

So, if you're Selig, what do you do?  Suspend him now based on his past actions?  I don't think you can do that.  The CBA doesn't give the Commissioner the authority to suspend a player for steroids absent a positive test and Bonds has always tested clean.  There is also the unpleasant likelihood that Bonds' actions were not technically against MLB rules in place at the time.  Sure, Selig could announce a suspension and force the Union to fight it out in arbitration.  The Union would win and Selig could score some cheap points while making the players look bad.  I don't think that helps the game or serves Selig's long term interests.  While my preference would be for Bonds to disappear, I don't think anyone can force him to do so.

Do you somehow alter the record books?  (Assuming that there is an "official MLB record" of any meaning in this era of dispersed information.)  Can you engage in some kind of Soviet-style expunging of Bonds' achievements?  I say no.  The simple truth is that Bonds did hit all those home runs and won all those games.  We can't pretend otherwise and some kind of asterisk notation strikes me as silly.

What about the Hall of Fame?  This is where I'd draw the line.  The Hall is an honor.  No one is automatically entitled to it.  While there is no doubt that Bonds' accomplishments are worthy of the Hall, even without the steroids, the fact that he cheated in the way he did makes him dishonorable.  I think what Selig should do is announce that, while he'd like to suspend Bonds, he cannot, but that he can urge (or even require?) the electors of the HOF to exclude Bonds from the ranks of the anointed.  A public shaming of the man by denying him an honor that he would have otherwise earned seems like a step towards justice.   (Incidentally, if I were a voter, I would similarly deny enshrinement to Palmeiro, McGuire and Sosa.)

Anyway, what do you think?  

Baseball Prospectus has released their PECOTA projections along with some fancy new metrics to measure prospects.  Essentially, the system is a purely objective one of comparables (no scouting or subjective assessments), where their database compares the performance of a given player to all other players, finds the ones most similar and assesses the probable career paths based on what the comparables did.  There's lots of number crunching and charts to flesh out the basic concept.  

One of the bottom-line numbers is something they call PEAK, which focusses on the possibility that the player will become an above average Major Leaguer.  I don't really have a handle on the scale but by way of some calibration here that PEAK scores of some elite prospects:  BJ Upton 307, Felix Hernandez 292, Delmon Young 247, Chris Young 213, Andy Marte 205.  The basic article explaining the prospect evalution tools is here.  (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4750)

PECOTA seems to like Brian Anderson's chances to become a decent ML center-fielder - the kind of guy who hits .275/.340/.480 with an average glove.  That's as good as it gets.  After Anderson, PECOTA hates our prospects:

Brian Anderson 104.4 Casey Rogowski 38.7 Robert Valido 36.8 Josh Fields 32.7 Joe Borchard 27.5 Francisco Hernandez 21.3 Jeff Bajenaru 20.0 Arnie Munoz 15.1 Ray Liotta 11.5 Chris Stewart 10.3 Lance Broadway 9.3 Micah Schnurstein 9.1 Pedro Lopez 7.1 Ryan Sweeney 3.2 Ryan McCarthy 2.1 Jerry Owens 2.0 Sean Tracey 1.7 Kris Honel 1.5 Charlie Haeger 1.3 Corwin Malone 0.5 To put it kindly, yuck.  PECOTA hates Ryan Sweeney and Jerry Owens even more than I do.  

Now, before you jump all over me, realize that I'm just the messenger here, not the author.  I don't even understand the nuts-and-bolts of how PECOTA works, much less know it enough to actively defend it.  What I do know is that the system is the work of some smart, thoughtful guys who have put in alot of time trying to improve it.  Just glancing at the top prospects, it does seem to successfully identify the consensus elite guys.  Can you quibble with it?  Sure (for example, a system like this really can't tell us much about guys like Broadway with such limited professional experience).  Is it always right?  By no means, but no prospect forecast is.  

Now, the idea that the Sox system is pretty lean is not controversial.  I think most of us would agree that, after the Winter's trades, we don't have one of the top farm systems.  What the PECOTA list suggests is that our system may be worse than mediocre.  Rather, after Anderson, we don't have ANY players who are likely to become good major leaguers.  Is that too pessimistic?  Maybe, but it is not crazy.

I draw three conclusions from this:

1.  We better damn well win in 2006-07, because it could get ugly after that unless we grow in revenue sufficient to buy our way into sustained contention.
2.  The next draft or two are really important.  We need to restock the system or face some serious long-term problems.  
3.  I hate the Vazquez-Young trade more and more.  He was our best prospect by a lot, the kind of player who could have been a centerpiece of a championship team.  We gave him up for a good pitcher but one that does not, in my opinion, substantially improve our chances of winning in 2006.  Are we more likely to win in 2006 with Vazquez and McCarthy than just McCarthy?  Yes, but not enough to give up such a great prospect.  If you are going to trade Young, you have to get someone who really makes us more likely to win this year.  Vazquez doesn't do that.

Ok, fire away.

Based on my best guesses, here is the updated roster and salary information after the Vazquez trade.  (My source for the contract information was the very valuable hardballdollars.com site.)

                      2006  /  2007       
Konerko        12.0  /  12.0
Garcia        9.0  /  10.0       
Contreras     8.0  /  -
Thome        7.0  /  7.0       
Vazquez      7.5  /  8.5       
Buehrle        7.75  /  9.5
Garland       (8.0)  /  -
Dye                5.0  /  5.0
Pierzynski    (4.5)  /  (4.5)
Uribe          3.15  /  4.15
Hermanson       3.0  /  3.5
Iguchi          2.4  /  3.25
Crede         (2.0)  /  (arb)
Mackoviak     (1.6)  /  (arb?)
Podsednik       1.9  /  (arb?)
Politte         1.2  /  -
Widger         0.65  /  -
Ozuna           0.5  /  (0.6)
Cotts           0.4  /  0.5
Jenks          0.33  /  0.4
McCarthy       0.33  /  0.4
Anderson       0.33  /  0.4
Bajenaru       0.33  /  0.4
Gload? Owens?   0.4  /  0.5
12th Pitcher?   0.5  /  
Buyouts        4.0
TOTAL         91.77  /  ~71+arb

That's 25 players for almost $92 million, which has to be near, or even above, our ceiling.  It assumes that Bajenaru gets a bullpen slot.  There are open slots for a fourth outfielder type (Jerry Owens is the current leader for that slot) and a useless 12th pitcher.  Personally, I think 11 pitchers is plenty with our rotation and I'd rather carry Harris or Gload to give some more bench flexibility.

More to the point, of the 11 committed pitchers, 6 are starters.  If the speculation is correct and Kenny is letting Contreras and Garland bid for a three-year extension and then trade the other this Winter, that makes sense.  If you trade Garland for a shiny prospect that doesn't take an ML roster spot, the payroll is down to $84 mm which is quite manageable and gives Williams room to take on someone else if he wants to.  (Personally, I'd be tempted to plow the money into a Buehrle extension.)  

Assuming a trade of Garland or Contreras, we'd be down to 5 starters and 5 relievers.  I'd be willing to give Arnie Munoz a shot at the 6th man in the pen/secondary lefty slot and play around with NRI guys to find depth.  Kenny has been good at that sort of thing.

What does this tell us about the Tejada rumors?  Tejada makes $10 mm in '06 and $12 mm in '07.  Trading Garland and Uribe for Tejada is revenue neutral (or a slight savings) in '06, so there is nothing that stops that from happening.

What about '07?  What has happened is that Williams has put the pieces together for a competitive '07 team that we can still afford.  Assuming you lock up Garland or Contreras for ~$10 mm, the '07 payroll, including the entire rotation and lineup, is ~$81 mm plus the cost of some new bullpen arms and the Crede and Podsednik (or replacements) arbitration cases.  That is a manageable nut for us.  

I don't like every move Williams has made.  I think he has overpaid in young, cheap talent for some of his acquisitions.  But he is acting boldly and with a plan to make the team both competitive and affordable over the next two years.  That is very much to his credit and, coming off the success of '05, is very impressive indeed.

Bringing back Konerko is probably the right move but it means that Frank Thomas' career with us is over, and that's sad.  He's the greatest player in White Sox history and I'm sorry that he goes out like this.

He ends as the Sox all-time leader in:

OBA (.427)
SLG (.568)
OPS (.995)
Runs (1327)
Total Bases (3949)
Doubles (447)
Home Runs (448)
RBI (1465)
Walks (1466)
OPS+ (161)
Runs Created (1700)
Extra Base Hits (906)

Those are simply staggering numbers.

He was prickly at times.  He did and said some stupid things.  But he was the greatest player ever to wear a White Sox uniform and I'll say this: in his prime, Frank Thomas was the best hitter I ever saw, including Bonds, Pujols or anyone else you care to name.  If you didn't see Williams or Ruth play, then I don't think you've seen better.  

Good bye, Frank.  I hope you have a few more great years somewhere.  I'll think fondly of you when they open the doors to Cooperstown.

Ok, this is going to be long.  In fact, the topic probably belongs as a front-page entry by Cheat but, since he's still brushing confetti out of his hair, I thought I'd take a first crack.

The parade's over and the champagne is dry.  I'm not suggesting we move off the elation of winning the Series just yet (or ever) but it's time to start thinking about next year.  The Sox have some significant challenges this Winter but they also have some strong cards to play with.  What Williams and his staff do between now and February will determine whether the Sox are realistic contenders to repeat or whether we go down as (glorious) one-year wonders.

Any discussion of roster construction has to begin with money.  Dave van Dyck has a decent, if somewhat superficial, article in the 10/28 Tribune.  Williams is quoted as saying intelligent things about having to work in Anderson and McCarthy but also mouths platitudes about loyalty.  I recommend the article as background for the discussion:

 http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/cs-051027sox,1,5492660.story?coll=c s-home-headlines

So the first thing we have to do is figure out our budget.  I'll take van Dyck's estimate of $85 million.  This year's payroll was ~$75 mm and, between increased revenues and a emotional attachment to the team that won, I'm guessing Reinsdorf goes up $10 mm.  Anyone who thinks $85 mm is too much or too little should tell me why.

Second, we need to get a handle on the likely `06 salaries of the `05 Sox.  In the following chart (please forgive crappy formating), I list the salary in millions of our current roster.  In the `06 column, I put the fixed number if it exists and a parenthetical number if I'm estimating.  If you disagree with my estimates, let me know.

PLAYER            05 / 06 (est)
Thomas            10.0 / 3.5 buyout + (5.0)
Konerko           8.75 / (12.0)
Garcia             9.0 / 10.0
Contreras        7.0 / 8.0
Buehrle           5.75 / 7.75
Everett           5.0 / 5.0 or 0.5 buyout
Dye              4.0 / 5.0
Hernandez       3.5 / 4.5
Garland            3.4 / (7.0)
Iguchi            2.3 / 2.4
Pierzynski      2.25 / (4.5)
Uribe            2.15 / 3.15
Rowand            2.0 / 3.25
Hermanson       2.0 / 3.0
Vizcaino        1.3 / (1.5)
Marte            1.25 / 2.25
Perez            1.0 / (1.2)
Politte            0.9 / 1.2
Blum            0.575 / (0.6)
Podsednik       0.550 / 1.9
Widger            0.5 / (0.5)
Crede            0.4 / (2.0)
Harris            0.365 / (0.5)
Cotts            0.33 / 0.4
Ozuna            0.33 / 0.6
Jenks        -   / 0.33
TOTAL            74.6 / 97.0

So there it is.  If you want to bring back this year's team to defend the title, you're at least $10mm over budget.  I don't see it happening.  So what do we do?  Well, if you let Konerko go and replace him with a minimum wage guy like Ross Gload, that solves your problem right there.  Except, of course, that dumping the best hitter on a mediocre offensive team is excellent way for us to fall to third place.  I reject that option.  If we are not going to re-sign Konerko (and there are some good reasons not to), we have to do better than just bringing back everyone else.   

The two greatest assets that Williams has to control his payroll are McCarthy and Anderson.  Both are ready to be major league regulars and, better yet for this exercise, both are really cheap (0.33 for `06).  They have to be on the roster and Williams knows it.  If you slot McCarthy for El Duque and Anderson for Everett, you cut almost $8.5 mm off the payroll.  (Van Dyke asserts that Hernandez is untradeable unless we eat a lot of his salary.  I'm not convinced of that.  I think we could trade El Duque and his mystique for a grade C prospect from some team that was looking for post-season mojo and has money.  (Yankees?  Angels?  Mets?  Phillies?)) If you let Thomas go as well and replace him with Gload, you can re-sign Konerko and your payroll is right on budget at ~$85 mm.  That means our DH becomes a rotation of Gload and whichever of our 4 main outfielders isn't playing. This option is pretty conservative and would probably play well with media and call-in radio yahoos since you're bringing back Konerko and everyone seems prepared to cut loose Thomas, the best player in franchise history.  

You can tinker a little by letting guys like Perez and Vizcaino go and replacing them with cheaper, younger players (i.e., Borchard, Bajenaru) who will probably give you the same value.  Actually, I'd really like that but I'm guessing that risk aversion and loyalty will cause Kenny to bring them back.  It'll be a good sign if he doesn't.

There is another factor at work here.  The Sox payroll really blows up in 2007, especially if we re-sign Konerko.  Contreras, Buehrle, Iguchi and Dye all become free agents and many of the others will either be free agents or will have arbitration crank up their salaries.  So Williams has to consider not only `06 but also how to keep the team competitive long term.  It is not an easy balancing act.

My thinking on all this is still evolving but generally, I favor bold action over standing pat.  I also agree with Branch Rickey's tenet that you should trade players a year early instead of a year late.  In any business, sell high is a good guideline.  With that in mind, I think what the Sox should do is trade one of their stud starters and an outfielder for maximum value.  Trade Garcia or Garland now before they become too expensive.  Replace with McCarthy.  Trade Podsednik, whose value will never be higher.  Replace him with Anderson.  Get rid of Everett, Perez, Vizcaino, Hernandez and Hermanson or Marte.  You can find equivalent replacements cheaper.  Re-sign Konerko for all the warm, fuzzy intangibles and, more importantly, because we need the big bat and there isn't going to be a comparable one on the market.  Bring back Thomas as the DH on a make-good contract and pray really hart that he has an Edgar Martinez-like kick to end his career.  Here's what the roster would look like:

PLAYER    06 (est)
Thomas    (8.5)
Konerko    (12.0)
Contreras    8.0
Buehrle    7.75
Dye        5.0
Garland    (7.0)
Iguchi        2.4
Pierzynski    (4.5)
Uribe        3.15
Rowand    3.25
Marte        2.25
Politte        1.2
Blum        (0.6)
Widger    (0.5)
Crede        (2.0)
Harris        (0.5)
Cotts        0.4
Ozuna        0.6
Gload        (0.5)
Jenks        0.33
McCarthy    0.33
Anderson    0.33
Borchard    0.33
Bajenaru    0.33       
[Everett    0.5 buyout]
TOTAL    76.25

This radical roster leaves us looking for 2 players (a fifth starter and a reliever).  We've got almost $9 mm in the budget left in the budget to do it.  I'd use some of the money to try to lock Buehrle up on a long term contract.  We also have some serious chips to trade: Garcia, Podsednik, Hernandez, Hermanson and Vizcaino.  I think Kenny could turn those chips into some pretty good looking loot, either in the form of prospects or a big-time bat (though you have to tell me where we'd play that bat).  I don't think there's a chance that Kenny will actually do anything like this but it's my current best play.

Look, there are a lot of moving parts here.  You could do a very long string just on whether or not to re-sign Pauley or whether Thomas is a good risk.  But none of the parts can be considered in a vacuum.  I've tried to lay out the essential data and the analytical framework.  Now, let's have at it.

Ok, I'm not a superstitious person.  I don't believe in magic, crystals, hoodoo or anything else for which there is no evidence.  But, although I recognize rationally that nothing I do has the slightest impact on whether the Sox win or lose, it is very, very difficult to care so much about something while also firmly accepting that there is nothing I can do about it.  So, I create these little superstitions to trick myself into thinking I have some little influence over the Sox.  Of course, I couldn't ever talk about these tics before we won because that would destroy the magic.  Now, however, the Series is ours so it is safe to admit my irrationalities.  I know several Sox fans who had the same kind of weird tics and I suspect many of you are the same.  So, now that we are safely home, tell me about your completely ineffective, but nonetheless sincere superstitions that contributed to the victory.

So here we are in the still moment before the plunge.  It feels a little like the break between games of a double-header (where we won game one and have a good match-up coming in the nightcap).  You know, killing time, looking at the out-of-town scores and eagerly anticipating the game to come.  I don't know about you, but I often find myself swapping stories in that pause so, in honor of the new AL Manager of The Year, I thought I'd suggest we swap a few stories about Ozzie Guillen.

Yeah, I know it's a gimmick that the Boston fans used last year, but it's a good gimmick and our tortured memories are just as long as theirs.  So I'd like to know who you want the Sox to win this thing for.  

For friends and family, present and gone.  For all the people who learned to love baseball in the glorious dump of old Comiskey Park.  For the players who never made it this far.  For all the people who have cared about this beloved but misbegotton franchise.  Win it for them.