Are you "toasting" him or are you saying he's "toast"...? ;-) ...

-------------

I hope you got Conwell.

Don't know how well he teaches, but Barnes, IIRC was a favorite in Detroit for a few years in the early 90s after bouncing around in the minors for a long time. Played every position for the Tigers in his time there except catcher. This was especially important considering the defensive ability of some of the Tigers' players in those days.

Yep, me too. Sometimes "cheap" closers are no bargain.

Fortunately, Kohlmeier stunk early enough and lost his job quickly enough that you guys were hopefully able to trash him before he killed your team ERAs.

I'm not going to argue one way or another on how much he has left in the tank, BUT...

This must be why they jettisoned Singleton. Great pickup!

He's probably a 4th outfielder for the Sox. I think he's just playing closer to home. He's about the same price as Singleton. If last year's OBP was due to his injury, he's insurance should another hitter have an awful year.

Ouch! This one double hurts.

A) Rowand's on my DMB league team and he's heading back to AAA now, most likely.

B) The White Sox are my favorite team and I'd much rather they go with Rowand than Lofton. Lofton's D in CF has regressed considerably, and the Sox probably aren't gaining much from Lofton over Rowand (probably a little but not much).

Anybody else remember when the White Sox were a promising young ballclub?

C - Alomar - 36

Voros...

Are you SURE that Alomar will be the starting catcher? And Jose Valentin at 3B? Why would a team want two shortstops in the batting order?

They are still the favorites to win this divison, but I see this one as an "anyone can win" scenario. Is there hope for the Tigers? Who's going to be their centerfielder? Someone worse than Chris Singleton perhaps?

Voros--

What make you think Lofton's range has regressed? Just curious. He was 4th in CF zone rating last year.

White Sox are my favorite team, and this makes no sense to me.... I guess maybe this could mean something will be done with Carlos Lee as well, though that doesnt seem likely with spring training only a couple weeks away. I think it's very odd that nothing was mentioned in the Chicago press about this potentially happening and Mr. Williams himself seemed inclined to go with rowand and or simmons. I also hope they aren't serious about trying to bat Lofton leadoff this year after his .322 obp in 2001 like some of the Chicago press mentioned

I can easily see Lofton playing horribly and becoming a big headache once he's benched.

Does this mean Borchard won't play much this year too? He seems close himself.

Voros, I do think the Sox being young isnt really a misnomar because I believe they still have the youngest pitching in the entire league and as you mentioned have better players set to go.

Sorry if I'm rambling but I hope this might mean that this is the last year of this squad in the field before they finally admit the younger guys are ready and go with something like this next year:

I thought the Tigers were going to give switch-hitting speedster Andres Torres a long look for the centerfield job....he comes off a single tatered season but a sharp .392 OBP in Erie AA.

Robert,

I am positive on both the Alomar and Valentin at 3B scores. Crede's headed for AAA and is not in the White Sox plans (now or in the future) at this point.

Of course with Alomar, if he makes it through March without injuring himself, he's the starter. I'm very worried that the Sox will go with Alomar and Josh Paul, and send Mark Johnson down (I think he still has an option left).

As far as the young pitchers go, they have a bunch less than they used to (I think they've traded 9 pitchers in the last year), and "young" helps a lot more with position players than it does pitchers.

I'm very discouraged. I think they can win the AL Central this year, but considering the quality of the division, and the fact that they're probably not much better than a team in their division desperately trying to commit suicide, I'm a little underhwelmed at Kenny Williams' attempts to build upon 2000.

This is now officially the most clueless division in baseball.

J.P. could probably get Williams to bite on Darrin Fletcher for Crede :)

Is it just me, or does it seem that most good teams that win championships are older teams?

Anyway, I don't know enough about the White Sox young center fielders to say one way or the other. But I am kind of surprised that Lofton couldn't find some dumb GM to give him a multi-year deal. I also think that this COULD turn out to be a good move for the Sox. Someone mentioned that Lofton might make a headache of himself...true. But if he has recovered from his rib cage injury, he might also revert to at least 2000 form or maybe a little better (maybe he'll have a revival season.) It seems to me that an 800 or better OPS is well within reach. On a cheap one year deal, he might help the Sox. Lofton will have plenty of incentive to play up his value with a good season, so he can rip off some Syd Thrift type GM next winter.

Ricky may speak of himself in third person, but I' pretty sure he uses verbs. He's not Frankenstein, Tonto, or Tarzan.

Eddie: Torres needs at leat part of the year in Triple-A before they bring him up. He missed the entire second half of the Double-A season last year. A little seasoning should help him.

As for Lofton, I was in favor of the Tigers signing him only if they could trade him to some poor schmuck at the trade deadline for a prospect or two. Last year Lofton and Macias put up strikingly similar numbers while Lofton is on the down-side (end) of his career, Macias is in his prime(of course, that prime might not be that great, but hey, it's the Tigers).

Picking up Monroe will be a good move if he can stick and give Macias a little competition. But, as someone else mentioned earlier, Macias will get the job because he's "scrappy."

As for the Sox, Kenny Williams continues to undue all that Schueler did for him. This move strikes me as Wells-Clayton-Alomar all over again. Bring in a veteran with an attitude problem and watch all heck break loose. We shall see.

Perhaps I was a bit pre-mature, or maybe I was just being clairevoyant. THIS should kill the Erstad speculation.

Does anyone have a Brock2 spreadsheet or something similar, set up that would enable you to give an estimate for Lofton for the coming year?

Voros' (park neutral) projection for Lofton can be found on that long Singleton for Harris Clutch Hit.

I think it's a bit optimistic, but on the other hand Lofton was once an excellent centerfielder and is certainly capable of getting on base at a .360+ clip in 2002.

Andy, you're right about giving the White Sox credit where credit is due.

Williams being black, of course, does not compensate for his weaknesses as a GM; and of course, if minorities are in fact underrepresented in executive positions, some very bright team president is going to realise this and start hiring the otherwise-qualified people hand over fist... beating his opponents to the bunch because good candidates are going begging.

The wonderful thing about sports is that in the end, there really is an objective standard by which to measure performance. Yes, petty rivalries and outright bigotry will still play a large role, but it won't fool people who look at the wins and losses. Where most of us work, the performance of minorities might be systematically devalued. It's harder to do that where performance is reduced to numbers.

I think (and hope) that as time goes on, we'll see a lot more minority GMs. One reason (and I'm just throwing up a balloon) might be that black and Hispanic ex-players for a long time tended toward field management because of the longstanding controversy over MLB's inability to hire minority managers. Once that happened, teams may have funneled their top minority management candidates toward field management to cover their shameful record in hiring minorities as coaches and managers... now that the pendulum is swinging the other way, we may see a rush of minority GMs as teams cover their rear ends.

Rey Sanchez has never hit .300 for a season in his major leage career. That's a funny definition of a .300 hitter.

a Glanville veneer

Andrew

In honour of Lloyd Waner, one of the emptiest of .300 hitters, why not say he suffers from "Little Poisoning"?

Crede's EqA the year before was .252. It's dangerous to bank on such things, but he might have been upset at being left at AAA again, a-la Calvin Pickering.

Additionally, Clayton's year looks more like the top of his range than a consistent level of production. His EqA the year before last was .221. Streaky or not, he's not _that_ bad a hitter, and I'd expect him to split the difference this season. None of this speculation matters, of course, since it looks like the Sox have made their decision already.

Andrew wrote,

"A) It's low risk. One year deal, fairly inexpensive barring a huge crowds showing up at Comiskey Park. If Lofton fails the worst that can happen is Joe Borchard takes over in center. Voros, notice the lack of Aaron Rowand in that last sentence. Stats Inc. has Lofton down for a .285/.370/.421 campaign"

Did you notice that they also had Rowand down for a .273/.321/.472 campaign? (Which might be low for Rowand since it doesn't count HBP, which he's consistently drawn in the mid teens in the minors). _And_ Rowand played a terriffic defensive centerfield. I don't know why Rowand did not start in the Sox system as a centerfielder (my guess is that the Sox tend to like to pigeonhole players. Centerfielder == Leadoff Hitter, which Rowand isn't), but he looked outstanding out there last season. In too small of a sample, Rowand had a .962 Zone Rating in Center Field last year in 237.1 innings. Johnny Damon lead the AL last year with a .935 Zone Rating. He looked real good and the numbers were even better. Does that mean he can handle center for sure? No. Has he earned the shot? You would have to think so, wouldn't you?

It seems to me that if Kenny Lofton projects to be a better player than Rowand in 2002, it probably isn't by a lot, and I'd kind of like to think that the 11 years Rowand has on him might count for something in terms of the club building a solid organization.

As was mentioned WRT Joe Crede, young players often don't respond well to not getting jobs they full well know they earned and having to repeat leagues they've mastered. Rowand was called up in August of last year and was asked to play centerfield and contribute a little with the bat. He did both beyond anyone's expectations, and threw in Shawon Dunston style hustle while he was at it. He's got Power and He has some speed, and has shown an ability to handle AAA at the age of 23. He has risen to every challenge the club's thrown at him, his reward? Repeat AAA while we give a 35 year old outfielder from another organization coming off the worst year of his career a million more dollars to do the job you had just earned with your play. And people accuse statheads of treating players like robots and machines.

Does everybody have to be Adam Dunn at age 23 to warrant a job opportunity in this league?

Aaron Rowand looks so much like Magglio Ordonez at his age it isn't funny. Right down to the good major league trial in limited at bats. I can't fathom why they wouldn't want to fish the same spot after such a big catch.

Between Borchard and Rowand, the one less likely to be able to handle CF defensively at this point is almost certainly Borchard.

I don't even want to talk abour Joe Crede. If people truly believe the White Sox are better off playing Royce Clayton than Crede, that's their perogative. And as for Crede's .220 he hit in 50 at bats last year, Royce Clayton was hitting a _ton_ less than .220 well into June of last year (Near 200 at bats).

This is not a system bursting with position players at this point. Other than Borchard, Crede and Rowand are by far the best they have and both are "top 100" guys. The players blocking them are not great players, and at this stage of their careers not really even good players. Just average players at best.

If it wasn't for the bizarre contagious cluelessness that is chokeholding their division, the White Sox future wouldn't look so great right about now.

Voros...The reason the ChiSox did not start Rowand in CF in the first place was/is because of his RF's arm....His arm was rated the best in the Southern League while with the Birm.Barons in 1999.

Probably not. Reinsdorf is very loyal to his management people, providing they show loyalty back to him. Williams is likely on very thick ice.

Oops, my bad. I could've sworn Birmingham was a AAA club.

The White Sox saw a window of opportunity for winning the AL Central this year, and were uncomfortable going into the season with only Kelly Wunsch as a LHP in the bullpen. Marte was out of options and was not going to make the Pirates' staff.

Guerrier doesn't have much of a fastball (throws in the upper 80s), although he does have good breaking stuff. He's not likely to be much more than a back-end-of-the-rotation starter, and might need a year or two to fit into that role.

It's a decent deal for both teams. The White Sox fill a need with a pretty good candidate for the role, and the Pirates get another potential arm for the rotation later on. The Pale Hose also picked up minor-league SS Edwin Yan, who led the SAL in stolen bases last year. Yan looks like a slightly more disciplined version of Tony Womack.

-- MWE

As a White Sox fan, I find the Kenny Williams tenure as GM to be an unmitigated disaster so far. First off, in the Ritchie deal, I'm not entirely convinced that Ritchie is a much better pitcher than Sean Lowe, much less worth Lowe and Fogg and the Kipper.

And then, as long as guys Tim Young and Kevin Tolar are more than happy to take minor league invites, it makes zero sense to give anybody anything of value for Damaso Marte.

And this "must clear waivers" stuff, while often important, is starting to get overused. Pitchers twice as good as Marte have cleared waivers over the past year. It's gotten to the point, where last week I read the Orioles were worried about sending Fernando Lunar down because he was out of options and they'd have to expose him to waivers. Fernando Lunar? He could possibly be the worst hitting position player to appear in the Major Leagues in the last three years.

Soory, got off track. So far Williams has shown an affinity for acquiring veterans (Sandy Alomar, Royce Clayton and Kenny Lofton) that could easily be replaced by more promising young players (Mark Johnson, Joe Crede and Aaron Rowand) with very little cost to the present quality of the team. Now he's developed a fetish for trading young pitchers to the Pirates for fairly unremarkable talent.

It took Schueler a while to get his act together as he spent the first five years of his reign obliterating the great young club Himes had built for him (George Bell for Sammy Sosa). Maybe Kenny will grow into his job eventually...

How far is Corwin Malone off the radar now with that drubbing?

Geez, these guys are 23 and 26 coming off shoulder surgeries, and they are 'destroyed'? Gimme a break. Let them build their arm strength back up in AAA before you write them off.

Its good to have Rocky back. We many alums of Temple City (CA) High School can watch one of our own pitch in the majors. And since he's the only one of our own to pitch in the majors, well, it just makes it that much more special.

Go Get 'em, Rocky.

But the graduate of my high school, John F. Kennedy of Granada Hills, CA, stays with the White Sox. One Mr. Jon Garland.

There's only been one guy from Temple City to make it to the majors? Wow, that's a relatively old school.

Too much football for you ex-Rams.

We did win a ton of football games in the '70s, a bit before my time, but I think Steve Busick of the Broncos was our only NFL guy. His brother Warren almost got to the majors with the Rangers, but I don't think he ever made the big club. Hard to explain, because Arcadia (right next door), while bigger and wealthier, has had a bunch of guys in the majors. I think the Worrells were Apaches.

The Worrell brothers I believe attended a very tiny Christian school called Maranatha, which I believe is in Sierra Madre. They then both went to a tiny Christian college called Biola.

Hey, if we can have inside discussions of Boston and where to pee outside Wrigley Field, I think we can have a brief discussion of San Gabriel Valley cities.

Hail Temple City, the City of Camelias!

I guess maybe the Worrells were just from Arcadia. I thought were Arcadia High guys, but so be it. Didn't know they were Minutemen. Yeah, home of Camelias (and they are all over the place, just about every house in my neighborhood has Camelia bushes). At least we were original, unlike Rosemead. Uhh, there's already a pretty big city about 10 minutes away that has sort of laid claim to roses.

Its never a bad time for an in depth discussion of the San Gabriel Valley. It's the *real* valley, quite frankly. I mean, I've never hear anyone talk about the "San Fernando Mountains." Is there even a San Fernando mountain range? Screw the San Fernando Valley.

Sorry, just getting a bit territorial.

Greg Luzinski is the big Kahuna at my Alma Matter.

In addition to Garland, my alma mater produced Garret Anderson, Jim Anderson, Darrel Cias, Bob Moore, Phil Lombardi, and Jeff Wetherby.

There is a notable drop off in quality after Garret Anderson.

The best my high school could do for athletes was a third-string quarterback for the Steelers.

On the other hand, we also had General Ridgeway, and he was pretty good in the clutch.

Malone is struggling (again) with his control at Birmingham. It'll be late-2003 before he'll be any help at all.

Wunsch has thrown well at Charlotte, but there's no telling how he's feeling. Another week or so of good outings for him and we'll be able to punt Porzio back down.

I don't understand the call-up of Ginter. He wasn't getting anyone out at AAA, so what makes Kenny Williams think he can get AL hitters out? He used that logic with Parque, and all it did was help Mike Cameron get into the record books.

Rauch will be fine once he finds his pinpoint control again. His velocity is down 2-3 mph, but that is to be expected after labrum surgery. If he can regain his command, he will contribute, maybe even this year.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Joe Valentine, Edwin Almonte, or Corey Lee get a shot if Ginter performs as I expect or Marte doesn't straighten up. Valentine is a minor-league closer (bad sign) who was taken by the Togers in the Rule 5 draft. He walked everyone in sight (another bad sign) and was returned. He has since resumed his career at Birmingham where, for the first time, he is throwing strikes consistently (18-1 K/BB ratio in 13+ innings). While I'm not too high on minor league closers (especially veterans), Valentine has succeeded at every level and is getting people out this year, something that Parque, Ginter, and Barcelo can't say. Almonte has a pretty similar career to that of Valentine, except that he is 3 years older and already on the 40-man roster. Both are right-handed and don't throw as hard as you'd like, but they might be able to get the job done, if given the chance. Who knows, maybe they could turn into another Al Levine (the Angels version).

Corey Lee is left-handed and thus might be considered the ideal replacement for Marte. Lee is a former firs-round pick for Texas and was acquired in the Herbert Perry deal. While he has never had much success, he always has posted high strikeout numbers, a sign of potential. At Charlotte, he has a 17-4 K/BB ratio and a WHIP of 1.056.

FYI--Chad Bradford now has a career WHIP of 1.243, ERA 3.24, and Opp OPS. of 0.702. He sure would look good in the middle of our bullpen right now. But hey, why complain when Miguel Olivo is slugging 0.386 at Birmingham.

Is there a San Fernando River? I'm serious, I've just never heard of it. There is a San Gabriel River. There's even a San Gabriel River Freeway. Sure, they may not be any water in the San Gabriel River most of the time, but hey, there's definitely a San Gabriel Riverbed.

Sure, they may not be

That should say "there may not..." Sorry.

As far as White Sox pitchers with a shot to help now, Barcelo, Kyle Kane and Mitch Wylie look like the best bets to me. I don't agree that Ginter was a bad callup as he really probably shouldn't have been at Charlotte to begin with.

The Sox should use Sean Lowe in the rotation or the pen.

Oh wait sorry. Nevermind, instead they should use Kip Wells.

Oh nevermind. I think Josh Fogg could help them.

Well, at least Guerrier will help shortly...

There is no San Fernando River FWIW. The San Fernando Valley is named for Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana.

The San Fernando Valley is threatening to secede from Los Angeles. There may be a pitched battle over this fought at a mini-mall on Ventura Boulevard.

Who ever controls the most El Pollo Loco restaurants will be the winner.

King Ferdinand of Spain is the CLUTCH GOD.

I'm an alma mater of my high school.

Josh, You are an alum (or alumnus) or your high school. Your high school itself is your alma mater.

By the way, another fine effort by Rocky the (Temple City) Ram. Unfortunately, the rest of the pen couldn't hold ot for him.

Hail Temple City!! All Hail! All Hail!

In one of my semi-annual baeball weekends with my dad we went to Cooperstown one day then to Yankee Stadium to see the Rangers play the Yanks... well between the time we left the house (about two hours) and we got to the Hall...Canseco had been traded to Texas. We found out about the trade b/c all Canseco/A's and Sierra/Rangers gear was 75% off at the gift shop... and then I got to see one of his first games as a Ranger... pretty neat stuff.

Good list. I'd add Joe Girardi, Terry Forster and Hideki Irabu, also.

I know this team is now practically a division's worth of players but let me add Pascual and Carlos Perez , Carl Everett and Joe Charboneau

Ray Knight and Rich Garces.

Does Pete Rose qualify?

Jeffrey,

You forgot to give Jeffrey Hammonds his "honorary slot" on the disabled list... ;-) ...

--------------

How about Al Martin?

And Bobby Valentine could manage. Except, he'd be disguised as Billy Martin.

Jason Dellaero at least hits like a pitcher. The wonderful Paul Borchard is hitting .254, Joe Crede .315, both with walks and power. Crede with lots of walks.

He's 5-for-24 with no extra base hits...and 22 walks.

Dan,

His "complete" season line at Memphis is even more profound than that:

Chad Meyers in 30 games at Memphis has 16 hits in 82 at bats, with 21 runs, 1 hr, 5 rbi, 34 bb, 16 k, 4 hbp, 6 sb and 0 cs.

Why isn't Crede getting a call-up? Free Joe Crede!

Seems like the Harris callup is mostly for the NL games, flexibility in double-switching. I'd bet he gets sent back down in 2 weeks unless he hits the cover off the ball in the 10 at bats he'll get over the next 9 games.

Very good dig, diggerp.

That thread became the first ever Primer in-joke, I reckon. It won't make the HOF on the first ballot, but I like its chances on the (Proven) Veterans Committee.

P.S. The MLB.com minor league sites stink with respect to advanced stats. Here's what I found on the Charlotte Knights HP:

Harris was batting .295/4/16 in 261 AB, 23/49 BB/SO, 23/9 SB/CS.

By comparison Crede was .319/11/36 in 204 AB, 18/31 BB/SO.

If we had to explain 'em, they wouldn't be "in" jokes.

Chris Singleton:

246/274/379

Try here.

Jimenez played SS exclusively for the Knights.

-- MWE

Clayton is dumped.

Smith or Guillen?

Smith or Guillen?

Osborne. He's reportedly gotten into baseball after Kimm hired him as his dialogue coach last month.

Oh. I thought it was Ozzie Canseco.

Jim, the actual quote is this, from last week's Baltimore Sun:

<I> Bordick is in the final season of his two-year, $9.5 million contract,

Perez may have worn out his welcome after this little incident last night.

-- MWE

I don't know what Pena was so upset about. I think Neifi Perez refusing to play for the Royals is absolutely HI-larious!!

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Schueler has every right to be pissed. He put together a nice team, and Williams went out and f***ed it up.

Stuff like this gives me a lot of white liberal guilt. I honestly beleive that there should be members of minority classes in important positions in industry, and MLB is no exception. That said, I look around baseball, and it's tough to root for most of the specific minority executives out there. From Williams to Dave Stewart to Lloyd McClendon to Don Baylor, it just gets worse and worse. Beyond Frank Robinson, the most successful one is probably Tony Pena or Davey Lopes, and if that isn't damning with faint praise, I don't know what is. It's like there's been a gypsy curse on the whole industry since Bill White left. What in the name of Louis Sockalexis going on? Is this just a sample-size issue, or is there some sort of artificial selection weeding out the best candidates?

Re: TigerTears

Yup. Forgot about Dusty Baker. He's the only competent current one I can think of, though. I didn't include Alou because he's retired, and including retired execs doesn't really change the proportion by much. For every Kim Ng or Oscar Acosta, it seems like there are dozens of Wendell Kims.

Admittedly, there are stupid white executives. I was just surprised because, in my internal listing, the proportions were so badly skewed. I mean, at least half of the current execs on a purely definitional basis have to be average or better, right?

Re: Robert Smith

It's tough for me to believe that there aren't qualified minority candidates (off the top of my head, Chris Chambliss and Willie Randolph seem like good ones). I'm just wondering whether the candidate-selection process contains an artificial preference for incompetent minority executives over competent ones, or whether the current odd collection is merely a reflection of sample size issues.

Don't forget that Roland Hemond came back to the White Sox organization a couple years ago ago. So after Schueler goes to the Orioles, he'll be back in Chicago to be buried.

Hmmm...I think Kenny did a nice job here.

Pretty significant signing of a pretty good player. But after five days posting on the Transaction Oracle there is only one comment. Am I seeing a lack of breadth of White Sox-dom out there?? If the Red Sox changed assistant clubhouse attendants, there would be 42 Discussion items here.

Dear Cubs fan: am not a White Sox rooter, alas. Live in Sonoma County and root for Oakland. Along with some others here though, do experience some shadenfreude for Chicago as regards the 1: weather and 2: quality of professional baseball.

Well, I am a White Sox fan have have been for thirty years.

Either way, I'm not very excited about this signing. Konerko's walk rate went in the toilet last year after making a small stride forward relative to the league in 2001. While Carlos Lee made huge leaps this year (from 11 walks in April and May combined to at least 14 every month subsequent), Konerko trolled along at 9 walks a month for the whole season. And he hit like hog dung for most of the second half of the season. His fielding is improved but only to approximately the league average. This is a team that is stocked with RH talent and they chose to sign the RH hitter that plays a position where it would be fairly easy to acquire a LH slugger. He's only entering his age 27 year, so Konerko could still make good on some of his promise. But the real reason that Konerko was locked up is that he's a "team player," a "clubhouse leader," and a media darling.

But Konerko is essentially Eric Karros with a bit more potential upside given his earlier playing time. Konerko has been consistent (although I'd call it stagnant given his age), but has yet to turn in a year as good as Karro's age-27 1999.

If this was the '95 Thomas, Thome wouldn't come close to challenging him for the big contract.

Don't remember about the securitizing, but his need for cash on hand may be related to his divorce settlement and to the failure of several of his other business investments. This comment appeared today in one of Chicago's fish wrappers. "[A]ttorneys for Thomas' ex-wife, Elise, recently voiced legal concerns about the effect of a dramatically reduced annual salary on the divorce settlement."

This is total speculation, for what it's worth.

Why's they sign Frank, isnt he dead yet??

I first heard about this on FanHome, and I assumed that it was another troll joke post. A tip of the cap to Kenny Williams, who really helped his team here.

I find it hard that Minyana couldn't have gotten at least ONE good prospect from someone for Colon.

Well the Yankees win because the Red Sox don't get Colon. If you believe the Theo Epstien chair throwing incident I am confident that the rest of the furniture is in danger

I'll say here what I said over on Clutch Hits -- if the Yankees have to justify the deal by noting that "at least the Red Sox don't get Colon," that's not very meaningful. (Also, what's to prevent Kenny Williams from dealing Colon to the Red Sox anyway?)

For once, the White Sox made good, plus they get $2MM from the Yankees (although they give up undisclosed cash to the Expos).

I think their goal to reduce payroll is stupid.

The Yanks turned a good, but surplus, starter into a good, and needed, reliever. Makes sense to me. I don't understand the criticism. Whatever the difference, if any, is between $2M plus Osuna's salary on the one hand, and El Duque's salary on the other, is not material to the Yanks.

As for the Expos, either Minaya completely overplayed his hands or the rumors as to what deals had been offered him were BS.

This is not such a bad deal for the Yankees. Really, what were they going to get for El Duque? An oven mitt, a bottle of Thunderbird and a PTBNL? Osuna's ERA+ (excluding 1999 and 2001, which saw him pitch 5 and 4 games, respectively):

1995 86

You think you're smarter than me, Dan? I know what's good for the game. I've told the Expos to reduce payroll and stop playing so hard. They finished second in their division last year, and that's not good for baseball. They had three terrific starters, I ordered Minaya to dump one, for the good of all baseball. And when I give an order, I expect it to be followed.

"I think their goal to reduce payroll is stupid."

Of course it is. Did it ever occur to anyone that if the Expos competed this year (which is hardly impossible given their talent and the chaos in the division), that they might generate more revenues to offset the payroll? They seem to have forgotten the initial surge of enthusiasm last year after the Floyd deal.

Surge of enthusiasm? Oh, darn, I had forgotten that. Bill, who's side are you on, Dan's? The Expos will be torn asunder, under my direction, and anyone who stands in my way will be subjected to mealy-mouthed lies and much shoulder shrugging.

I think there is a distinction between what is good for the Expos and what is a good move by Minaya.

Agreed, it is not asinine for the Expos to cut salary in this manner. That is wholly out of Minaya's control.

Given that he has this stupid mandate, Minaya could've done worse than cutting $8 million and receiving a solid, if injury-prone starter, a solid AAAA 1B/LF type and a 5th starter.

Expos did a pretty good job here. Selig showed everyone Minaya's hand at the card table, and he still ended up with El Duque for cheap, Biddle to be #5 starter, and Liefer to play first. No one was going to give him their farm jewels, and any major leaguers needed to be cheap. Minaya did well.

WhiteSox replace Biddle in the rotation with Bartolo Colon, nice job. They'll miss Osuna, for sure. But they get Colon. Liefer was never getting a chance with them, no loss for Chicago. And they also get AAA middle infielder, in case Jimenez or Harris not work out so good.

Yankees trade a SP with no spot for Osuna, who is happy to be in bullpen. Solves a problem for them.

And the Red Sox? They would be closer to World Series this year with Colon than White Sox are. But instead they will move Hillenbrand to 1B, keep Fossum for a couple more years, and keep running sabermetric simulations through Big Blue in search of a way out of second place.

It is asinine for the Expos to cut salary. I can't write.

I was under the impression that a team could not perform a physical on another team's player until a trade, conditioned on the exam, was agreed upon. Who examined Colon and under what circumstances?

"Hasta La Vista, Abey. You're next, Chester A. Arthur."

-Bart Simpson, as John Wilkes Boothe

The White Sox will still need an awful lot of young pitchers to come around to contend.

Come now, this is silly. Last year, the Sox had a greater run differential than the Twins. They lost Durham, but having Crede around all year and Valentin at SS should make up for that. Even if Frank doesn't rebound, this is still a good offensive team (barring injuries). With Colon and Buehrle I think they've got the best two starters in the division. Garland ended up league average and Wright was greatly improved in the 2nd half. It's pretty common for young pitchers, even good ones, to stink for a while, so I'd say there's a good chance at least one of these guys will improve.

So, without the benefit of fancy simulations or anything, looks to me like the Sox offense is the same and their pitching has improved. Since they were already in a virtual tie with Minnesota as the best team in the division, seems to me they have to be predicted to contend. I think I'll be making them slight favorites.

I don't think that it's possible to really evaluate this trade yet, because it hinges on two things that we don't yet know:

1) Colon's condition. If the reports of just how out of shape he's let himself get are accurate, Colon could end up as a major disappointment. I'll concede to being worried when he showed up last year.

2) El Duque's psyche. While he's not a great pitcher, I've been left with the impression that Hernandez had motivational problems the last few years. If this trade provides a kick in the ass to take pitching seriously for a full season, he could be better than expected. Besides, he wasn't that bad last year.

If both these things break the right way, this might not turn out as such a bad deal.