The fact that some "analyst" has the Minnesota Twins winning the 2009 World Series, or the fact that Peter Gammons has Gordan Beckham winning the AL Rookie of the year, the same Beckham that is in AA Birmingham.  Does he forsee us tanking quickly and brining him up in late May?  He also has Josh Fields as his Breakout Player (as does homer Chris Singleton), so where's all of this love coming from?  (Alexei is also picked as a Breakout Player by 2 people, 1 person picked the Sox as a dark-horse team, & only 2 people picked the Sox to win the Central - ESPN Fantasy Analyst Matthew Berry & homer Chris Singleton)

Continue reading this post »

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/02/mlb-to-lend-a-h.html

There have been rumblings that Major League Baseball, which is aware that Type A free agents like Juan Cruz and infielders Orlando Hudson and Orlando Cabrera have been hindered by the compensation rules, are willing to make it easier for teams to sign then trade those free agents. For example, Arizona could sign Cruz to a contract that the Twins are willing to take on. The Twins and Diamondbacks would then work out a trade for Cruz. The Twins could land Cruz without losing a draft pick.

Continue reading this post »

Matt Bush doing his best to rank among baseball's biggest busts

By David Brown

Continue reading this post »

[NY Daily News]

Bobby Abreu was offered a one-year deal worth $8 million from the White Sox, the Daily News has learned. Abreu made $16 million as the Bombers' starting right fielder last season. He anticipated being able to sign a three-year deal as a free agent this offseason but has mostly received only one-year offers.

[Note by The Cheat, 02/03/09 1:00 PM CST]:Redirected to original source, and promoted to the front page.

[Update by The Cheat, 02/03/09 2:51 PM CST]: Scott Gregor uses a little common sense, and a "White Sox source," to deny the rumor. Meanwhile, Jerry Crasnik seems to have more detail.

Negotiations between the Chicago White Sox and free-agent outfielder Bobby Abreu stalled early this week after the team floated the possibility of a one-year, $8 million contract, said a baseball source.

The source disputed a New York Daily News report that said the White Sox had made Abreu an $8 million offer but confirmed that the team has been in contact with Abreu's agent, Peter Greenberg, in an effort to gauge the outfielder's asking price.

"He is a great player and can help any club," said Williams via e-mail to MLB.com, not confirming or denying the Abreu offer, staying consistent with his offseason policy. "But I just have stopped responding to every blogger's post."

The always-secretive White Sox have been working hard in baseball's underground trying to obtain a top-of-the order hitter for their lineup. According to American League sources, the White Sox have had talks with the Texas Rangers about the availability of shortstop Michael Young. Young, multi-talented infielder and 5-time All-Star, is in the final year of a contract and will be a free agent at the end of the 2009 season. Texas has interest in Jermaine Dye, as a suitable replacement for Milton Bradley, who officially signed with the Cubs on January 8. Dye has one more year remaining on his contract before becoming a free agent.

In addition to Dye the Rangers have asked for former #1 pick, and Sox pitching prospect, Aaron Poreda. Poreda is considered the best young arm in the organization. And any trade involving Poreda would be a deal-breaker for White Sox. A White Sox source told me on Friday that at this time there are no legs to the proposed deal with Texas, however the Rangers are very interested in Dye and a reworking of this deal could happen sometime in the near future.

Continue reading this post »

MLBTraderumors.com was asking where Jon Garland might end up and I was wondering that as well.  Are we content with the starting 5 of Buehrle, Danks, Vazquez, Floyd, & Richard?  Could we give Garland a "hometown discount" and bring him back in and have Richard as long relief?  Are we going after another starter and not automatically inserting Richard as the #5?  I know Garland wasn't a part of the Angels' playoff plans and it seems somewhat comical with last year's trade becoming a moot point with Garland and Cabrera as free agents, but I guess we could get some draft picks out of Cabrera.  Thoughts on Garland returning to the Sox or where else he might end up?

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/10/odds-and-end-15.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AlYtMqoK8EM8prvr8HRTsh45nYcB?slug=jp-playoffpulse090808&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Playoff Pulse: Do-or-Dye play costs White Sox

By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports 12 hours, 8 minutes ago

CHICAGO – He tried not to second-guess himself. Jermaine Dye believed he made the right decision, and manager Ozzie Guillen backed him up, and that was good enough for the Chicago White Sox, even though the truth wasn’t nearly that easy.

Every September, there are seminal moments that define a team, decisions that determine if a team spends October in a ballpark or on a couch...

He's listed on Milb.com as being on the Kannapolis roster:

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Gordon%20Beckham&pos=SS&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=493596

This is a great thing considering a fair amount of rookies start out in short-season rookie ball.  Kannapolis has only 17 games left, which isn't bad considering how late in the season we are and the MILB Playoffs being just around the corner.  Anyone have any idea on when he'll get his first taste of Minor League Baseball?

I believe the Bears can become exhibit #1 for this question as it is clear that timing has affected their roster and offense of the future. 

Cedric Benson conveniently got in trouble with the law for the 1st time on May 3rd & the 2nd time this summer in early June.  Consequently he was released from the team.

Now, had Benson gotten in trouble PRIOR to the draft, we may be sitting with a different running back.  I'm not saying I'm unhappy with Forte as we have yet to see him even practice, BUT one cannot help but wonder how much differently the draft might have gone with Benson gone.  Would we have moved up for McFadden?  Would we have been trading down for more picks targeting Forte still?  Would we have taken Mendenhall over OL Williams? Would we have done the draft the same exact way?

One final question is whether or not the Bears feel comfortable with Peterson, Wolfe, and the ROOKIE Forte as the RB corps for '08?  Might they go after a Shaun Alexander or a Kevin Jones?  Maybe only TIME will tell...

How much longer can the Sox go with Q being the only offense?  He single-handedly won us the only game in the 3-game series with the Angels, and the rest of the offense is showing no signs of waking up.  The always insightful Joe Morgan said they should just accept that they don't have much of an offense and rely on their great pitching.  I know McPhail asked the Cubs for a lot for Roberts, but a lot of that was on the Owner as well.  What would it take for us to get Roberts to the South Side?  Please for the Love of God Kenny, get us another bat other than Q's to help this offense!

I recently moved for the summer and do not get Comcast Sportsnet in the area.  Is there a website online that allows you to watch the games live?  I don't want to have to wait for the game to be over to watch them because of blackout scheduling.  Is there a website that uses another zip code/area in order to watch the games live?  I can't go with only watching the Sox on TV once a week on WGN all summer.  Please help!

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/05/dodgers-looking.html

Dodgers Looking For Emergency Shortstop

The Dodgers placed shortstop Rafael Furcal on the DL today, and MLB.com's Ken Gurnick says they're trying to acquire an emergency replacement.  Furcal will be eligible to return on May 21st.  He's been perhaps the game's best hitting shortstop to date.

Perhaps the Rays' Andy Cannizaro would make sense?  The Dodgers have been using Chin-lung Hu at short; despite his lack of offense it may be best to just stick with him.

Another stellar performance tonight on the road in 7 Innings, 1 Hit (No Hitter into the 6th), 1 ER, 1 BB, & 7 K's.

His ERA is down to 2.72 after a rough 1st outing (that hasn't been made up yet due to ANOTHER suspended game), he's given up only 1 HR in 36.1 innings, batters are hitting only .234 against him, while walking only 5 and striking out 25.  He's absolutely on a TEAR.

I was skeptical of the naysayers last year when they said the Sox lineup was getting old and starting to underachieve.  Then, 2007 ended and I thought it couldn't get any worse.  After tonight's 2-0 loss to Toronto, I'm starting to think the Sox just might be a lineup that's getting old and underachieve too consistently.  Sure, we knew Crede and AJ were going to come back down to earth, but no one has picked it up in their place since the opening game of the Yankees series where they stranded 13 runners.  I can handle a couple games here and there where pitchers have our number, but when we start calling these games similar to Greg Smith, Sonnanstine, Burres, and Marcum, where do the Sox draw the line?  The first month saw a game get taken from us in Cleveland, a blown save with 1 strike to go get away from us, and a dumb squeeze play take 3 wins away from us.  The Sox could've easily been 17-10 in the month of April.  But it seems the team is regressing more and more and not backing what has been a very solid rotation and decent bullpen up to date.  If this offense doesn't "bounce back" like it was supposed to all last year, a fire sale could be imminent even before July 31st gets here.  This is not White Sox hitting we're seeing, and if it continues, the season may be gone by the end of the 10 game west coast road trip...

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=baseballpowerpolldbackss&prov=tsn&type=lgns

After 2 weeks, someone is giving us props.  Not sure how this translates as it IS only after 2 weeks, but good to see some recognition.  Also, I heard Peter Gammons and Buster Olney are starting to give us props as well today on ESPN.  Before the Tigers series, ESPN had us as #12:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/powerranking

Interesting week ahead with 3 different teams to  play...

Similar to Joba Chamberlain for the Yankees last season.  I know right now our bullpen looks set, but imagine if he could pull a Jenks '05?  Someone might get injured along the way and it'd be terrible to waste his talent in the minors.  He's in Class A Advanced right now in Winston Salem, but I'm sure he'll move up as the season progresses.  The Mariners used Brandon Morrow right out of the draft, so it's not completely unheard of to use a pitcher that quickly.  He DID give up 3 runs early on before the Warthogs' game got suspended because of a power outage, but I'm hoping those are just 1st game jitters. 

So what does everyone think?  Will Poreda pitch for the White Sox in 2008?

I was a member last season and the tickets for the next month's games went on sale the 1st of the month before.  So, April's games will go on sale March 1st, if it goes by how it worked last season.  Does anyone know if this is still how it works?  I want to get April Tigers tickets, but I want to make sure  I have the opportunity to do so on March 1st.  Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXfGhtG3Rk0

It took me over 2 months, but I finally have gotten the video up on Youtube. There are some parts I had to leave out to uphold the 10 minute time limit, but I did my best. So, enjoy.

Also, does anyone have an idea of where I can put the file online at for people to download the original file that is MUCH better quality than the Youtube video?

We could have Willy Taveras, Taylor Buchholz, and Jason Hirsh right now if it weren't for Bucholz "failing a physical" that he claims he never took.  Does this mean Orlando Cabrera is the equivalent of these 3 players? Or had Garland regressed that much after the '07 campaign? Good thing Sox fans still want Taveras, but we're stuck looking for CF options hopefully OTHER than Brian Anderson as the current poll suggests...

Here's the link:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2007/12/mailbag-bedar-1.html

And here's the link to his quote:

http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071206&content_id=2319397&vkey=news_c ws&fext=.jsp&c_id=cws

"There are too many executives in Major League Baseball offices that have loose lips," Williams said. "If they didn't have loose lips, then you guys wouldn't know about it and the rumors wouldn't get out.

"Of course, they effect how you do business and if you're able to do business. It's a lot easier to do business when you don't have to deal with the public debate."