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[EDITOR'S NOTE: The house cleaning continues with Billy Beane trading one his supposed "favorites". This does make sense in the fact that Swisher is 27 years old and Beane is apparently instituting a rule that no one over 24 can play for the team this year. - Blez]
BP had him and Gonzalez as #1 and #2 in the CWS system back in November. Upside is "star-level starter or closer"
Fautino de los Santos.
I think A's fans are going to be very happy with this trade in a couple of years. Beane did an excellent job of maximizing Swisher's value.
I'd never heard of de los Santos, but BPro certainly likes him a whole bunch.
Street...but he'll be traded soon.
Fat Joe? Probably he's going somewhere.
Maybe I'll pick Suzuki or something...god freaking damn it.
Personally, I like Landon Powell, but to each his own.
121.2/69/8/43/153 between A/A+ last year (mostly A). Nice numbers, but it's early, and I couldn't tell you a thing about his stuff.
OK, Sox fans, fill me in on the rest. Is Ryan Sweeney the Two Buck Chuck of this deal?
60-102, 1.08MM attendance
DLS pitched in the Future's Game last year. Allowed the long HR to Justin Upton but was otherwise very impressive for someone in low-A. At this stage, he's a much better "prospect" than Gio.
It's a stretch to say that Swish can handle CF. I love the guy, but he ain't no CF.
I'm going with Daric Barton as long as he keeps the mohawk.
Sweeney's a tweener - not enough power for a corner position, not enough defensive ability to really handle center. He has shown decent on-base skills, though, and he's still young - the power may still come.
As a throw-in, the A's could certainly do worse.
Barton? He's already got three weeks of service time! He'll be traded next week, no doubt.
This is true. It's a lot more interesting than last year when the big moves were signing Piazza and Embree.
Not to mention that the idea of Barry Bonds in green and yellow is now officially deader than Elvis, whatever tripe Jeff Borris may want to anonymously throw out there.
Broadway, Egbert, Russell, McCulloch, Shelby, F. Hernandez, Poreda...
Screw it I can't even do that.
Who cares about Ryan Sweeney? De Los Santos has a sky high ceiling, Gio non-optimistically projects as a nearly ready league average starter.
I love Swish, but I love this trade too.
Exactly. The White Sox are making a furious charge at 86 wins (probably their upside if their old guys all rally) with no real chance at the playoffs. They will be putrid in 2 years, or sooner, and have zero young prospects.
At least the Astros have some glimmer of hope to their strategy b/c of the weak NL Central (it's still stupid), but Williams is delusional.
GMs who aren't afraid to go balls to the wall make baseball more interesting.
Its not that ballsy, he does own part of the team!
I don't know how accurate any of those rumors are, but I get the sense that these A's deals are more about stockpiling talent than cutting payroll, necessarily. If Bonds costs valuable draft picks, I could see them not signing him, but if what's holding them back is money, I don't think this deal is evidence that they wouldn't do it.
Crede has to be on the block now, unless they think Swisher is a regular CFer. Who's the frontrunner? The Phillies? The Brewers?
I don't know how accurate any of those rumors are, but I get the sense that these A's deals are more about stockpiling talent than cutting payroll, necessarily. If Bonds costs valuable draft picks, I could see them not signing him, but if what's holding them back is money, I don't think this deal is evidence that they wouldn't do it.
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I agree. In fact, signing Bonds might make more sense now. No reason to start service time clocks for all the youngsters if you're not going to contend for a couple of seasons. And Bonds would fill seats, even if they were full of people wanting to boo him.
The question is, would Bonds be interested in playing for a team that is going to finish in last place by a comfortable margin?
FWIW, I'm pretty sure the 'knock' on DLS is that he only has two pitches right now. The Cheat has mentioned on several occasions that he could probably come to the big leagues right now and be a pretty damn good reliever, but the jury is still out on whether he can develop a third pitch (changeup, presumably).
And no, Gio doesn't project to as a league average starter right now. Dan's ZiPS projects a 6.20 ERA for Gio pitching at US Cellular -- that would only improve marginally moving to Oakland. He's still a year away, I'd say...
C AJ
1b Konerko
2b ?
SS Cabrera
3B Fields
LF Quentin
CF Swisher
RF Dye
DH Thome
That's an excellent lineup. A ton better than last year for them. It gives them a chance if they can get any pitching after Javy and Buehrle.
He had no problem playing for the Giants.
Perhaps the commitment to winning mode will come once their current phase of the commitment to relocation mode is complete, and the tarpaulins are no longer needed.
I am absolutely fascinated by the White Sox and Astro "strategies" this off-season.
It seems so assinine and delusional, that maybe it's briliant. Nahhh.
Crede was on the block before this, although I don't think he gets dealt before Spring Training starts. What this might do is open the door to trade away Paul Konerko.
I'm not sure what the Sox plan to do with Swisher - I hope it's not to play him in center every day. Between him and Dye, that's a lot of triples in the right-center-field gap.
see zips 2008. only thome is above average at his position.
I'll take the over on that. In fact, I would not be surprised if the A's, as presently constituted, win 80 games. They still have decent players at almost every position; and their pitching staff, while not great at the top of the rotation, is still quite deep.... I do agree, though, that their attendance is going to be hurt by the Haren and Swisher trades. It's hard for the fanbase to get excited about the upcoming season when the best everyday player and best pitcher are dealt for prospects.
You would rather they kept Haren and Swisher, committed money to boneheaded free agent signings, missed the playoffs by 5 wins in '08, and had a barren farm system for the next 3 years? Typical snark without sense.
Nearly ready; it's semantics whether you want to say that a year away is nearly ready.
Swisher is 3 years away from free agency and will be 27 next season. The White Sox have money to extend him. He could be part of White Sox teams for the next decade. I don't know much about the prospects so I can't say they overpaid but I wouldn't say the Sox gave uo the farm to compete in 2008.
And he's still "the best looking GM in baseball" (TM).
The question now is, what's the A's lineup in 2008?
they're going to be relegated.
Swish is singed through 2012, so this move wasn't just made for this year. And considering the acquisition of Quentin and Richar as well as holding onto Fields, Kenny realizes that the Sox need some good, young hitters in the system.
And while the Sox no longer have a farm system to speak of, IIRC they will be getting the 8th pick in this year's draft, so that's a plus. And I don't think they lost any picks in signing Linebrink.
I think this trade shows that Kenny has faith his young pitchers in the higher levels of the Sox organization. I'm talking about Egbert, Broadway, Russell, Haeger, Danks, and Floyd. Plus, they've still got Buehrle and Vazquez for a while, and they make a fine 1-2 combo at the top of the rotation.
Jeremy Reed was a better prospect than any of these three at the time of the Garcia trade and that one worked out pretty well for the Sox.
This is what I would go with as of now:
C Suzuki/Bowen
1b Barton
2b Ellis
3b Chavvy
SS Crosby
LF Cust or Sweeney or Kotsay
CF Denorfia or Sweeney or Kotsay
RF Buck
DH Dan Johnson or Cust
Most likely Cust will be DH and Kotsay in left. Even more likely is there are more deals to come. Hold onto your butts.
Blanton
Gaudin (when healthy)
DiNardo
Harden (hahahahahahaha!)
Gio or Dan Meyer or Dallas Braden or Brad Halsey or Duke or somebody picked off the scrap heap
Don't feed the troll, people.
Well, he did spend last season with the Giants...
They lost their second-round pick, I think.
I think they have a chance. It all depends on Adam Jones being as good as advertised and Sexson not being as horrible. Brandon Morrow could be a good one, too.
Any chance Carlos Gonzalez will be ready?
Any chance Carlos Gonzalez will be ready?
I wish they'd just eat the money and release him.
As much as I've hammered the guy, I'll agree. When he commits to rebuilding with youth he really means it, unlike Brian Sabean, who can talk the talk but just can't walk the walk.
I think the rotation will be:
Blanton
Gaudin
Eveland
Dinardo
Harden (Smith/Meyer)
To be fair, ZiPS is extremely harsh on a lot of the Sox 'core' offensive players, most likely because they're above 30. It projects both Thome and Konerko for rather steep offensive declines and doesn't think much of the guy the Sox have at second base, Danny Richar. CHONE and Bill James' systems seem to be much kinder.
That's not to say the Sox offense will be great, but Swisher provides is a gigantic improvement to wherever he ends up at. Seeing that the Sox got replacement level or below production at FOUR (!) spots last season (SS, LF, CF, 3B), the Sox figure to be vastly improved heading into next year. Unfortunately for them, "vastly improved" looks like 80-85 wins which is at least 10 wins short of where they need to be to even start thinking about the playoffs.
Release Gonzalez? That's crazy talk!
Pirates have lots of CFs and need a catcher. Think there's a deal to be made there?
I think he meant release Kotsay, which they should do.
Kotsay can catch.
Did the A's get a better package for Swisher than the O's got for Tejada? It looks that way to me, if only because I have at least heard of Gio and DLS.
That's the rumor and yes.
'Cause Swisher is young, cheap, steroid-free and, you know, actually good?
He's good and my guess is that the boost his #'s will get from moving to the Cell will make this trade look ok for the Sox.
(I mean superficially look good.)
I would say so. Tejada does have the added burden of his age and large contract bringing his trade value down, though, to say nothing of a 4-year decline in SLG.
Yes, he is. He's underrated in a lot of circles, but Nick Swisher is a fine ballplayer - unlikely to be a lot more than he is now, but a damn good player. He would make a lot of sense for a team on the rise that needs a corner OF/1B signed cheaply for the next several years. That team is not the White Sox.
Bonds may not have much of a choice outside of Oakland.
If they're putrid right now, and had only 2 good prospects in the farm system, why not make a furious charge at 86 wins?
Value-wise I'd say the trade looks fine for both sides. The Sox are getting a player just entering his prime years who figures to be a 130-140 OPS+ player. For that they gave up two top prospects and a third guy who scouts have always been fond of (Sweeney) -- that's pretty decent for a throw-in.
That doesn't seem to be the pertinent question, though. The question is if the rest of the Sox team is good enough to where adding Swisher makes them competitors in the AL. Like most everyone else I'd guess 'no', although I could see a scenario in which the Sox win 86(ish) games in 2008 and are competing for much of the season before falling a good 5-10 games short. That doesn't seem terribly far-fetched...
EDIT: At the same time, I should add that a goal of being slightly above .500 isn't a very good one.
I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but did you really think this, even after it's been explained numerous times that Tejada did not have a tremendous amount of trade value because he's signed to a fairly expensive contract (even if reasonable in the current market), declining, over 30, and tainted b/c of steroids?
In any event, this package is better than what the Orioles got, but not by leaps and bounds IMO.
Well they could have traded their older players, Vasquez, Thome, Konerko, Dye, and gotten some more prospects, saved money etc.
Now, they're going to pay these guys a lot of money to dissipate their remaining value with no real chance at they playoffs.
That said, I like Swisher A LOT. It just makes no sense for Chi to give up their 2 best prospects for him.
I sure hope the A's got more.
Or even better, if Dombrowski says: "All this does is put the White Sox in a better position to contend with the Royals."
And if you shoot him into space, he'll be an astronaut. Just like Bobby Bonilla.
Well, they could still do that, and I bet one of Konerko, Thome, Dye, or Crede will be gone by Opening Day 2008.
It's not like the Sox acquired a 30-something expensive player at a futile attempt at competing in 2008. Swisher should be entering the prime of his career and could be a very good player for the next 4 or 5 years.
And who knows what Kenny has been trying to do. Maybe he's been offering vets like PK and Thome to teams with no takers. Don't you think it's better to hold onto quality players rather than trade them for C-grade prospects?
Well, the White Sox are probably better than the Twins right now (and they definitely will be better if Santana gets dealt). But, of course, that doesn't really matter, does it?
Would they still have to pay him?
My sources say yes.
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