The White Sox will select 13th in next year's draft after finishing the 2011 season with a 79-83 record. Here's the latest as they begin an offseason that will include their first managerial search since the 2003 season ended…
- GM Kenny Williams told Peter Gammons of MLB Network that the White Sox are "going to let the kids play" next season (Twitter link). Gammons expects the White Sox to be younger in 2012.
- Doug Padilla of ESPNChicago.com wonders if Williams' comments signals that the White Sox would trade Carlos Quentin in the right deal. They could get by without Quentin if they play Brent Morel at third, Dayan Viciedo in right and Adam Dunn at DH.
- Addison Reed, the 22-year-old right-hander who posted a 12K/1BB ratio in six relief appearances this year, could begin the 2012 season in the Major League bullpen, according to Padilla.
- Williams told MLB.com's Scott Merkin that Chris Sale will "be given every opportunity in the rotation" next year (Twitter link).
Williams should be fired
Ozzie was the one that needed to go. The attitude, the dysfunctional relationship between him and the franchise as a whole, the bad lineups, lashing out at critics, players, and fans, using every cuss in the English language in post game conferences, and refusing to bench Adam Dunn and Alex Rios.
Kenny on the other hand, wanted to bring up Dayan Viciedo, who was one of the best hitters in the minor leagues. Ozzie didn’t want him up. I know he made a few bad trades such as Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Sweeney, and Nick Swisher, but who doesn’t make some bad trades? He’s the one that acquired Quentin, Konerko, Pierre, Rios, Jenks, Santos, Thornton, Danks, and Floyd for nothing. I don’t know how this post provokes you to say Williams should be fired, with all due respect. Quentin isn’t even that good of a player, his defense is bad, he has a low average, and most importantly he can’t stay healthy. And in his last arbitration year, he’s going to cost a little less than 10 million. This is the perfect time for the White Sox to rebuild. Quentin and Buehrle have probably played their last games in a White Sox uniform. I don’t think Buehrle will be back, and Viciedo will play right field. I just have a hard time seeing Quentin fit in the 2012 season.
That just isn’t the case. First off the dysfunctional relationship was just as much Kenny’s fault as Ozzie’s. Second, Nick Swisher wasn’t a bad trade. Third, we didn’t acquire Rios for nothing. He is costing us a ton of money for a long time which hurts our payroll flexibility. The same with Peavy. Pierre was just bad. Forth, Quentin had 24 HRs and 77 RBIs in 118 games. That seems pretty good for a team that seemed to have problems scoring runs. Batting average means nothing nowadays. What is more important is that he had a .340 OBP and a .499 SLG which computes to an .838 OPS. I’ll take that any day of the week. Now that I think about it have you been watching the same White Sox team as the rest of us? Kenny has awful drafts year after year, and the White Sox are consistently one of the lowest spending teams on the draft every year. That’s bad and no fault to Ozzie.
Aweful drafts? Beckham? Prior to this year… Sale? Remember how he was the second best pitcher in that draft and slipped to the sox due to singability issues. Mitchell, injury, Jordan danks. Not bad drafts. Yea no strasburgs or longorias and that’s because the sox have not been last place teams while under kennys direction. Also peavy was not a bad pickup. He had a freak injury not anyones fault.
Sox have an awful farm system. It’s not that we suck at evaluating draft picks, it’s that we suck a spending money on draft picks.
They have a weak farm system because they traded “prospects” to win at the major league level. If you take their young players who are making an impact at the major league level (Beckham, Morel, Sale, Flowers, Vicideo), they would be equal if not better than most teams. Your farm system is as good as how other organizations view it. Two players the Sox miss are Gio and possibly Hudson.
that’s kind of laughable . . . Sale’s pretty good, but hardly a testimony to the Sox farm system, as he spent about 6 weeks there. None of the others have really proven anything, yet, and Beckham’s starting to look like a flop. True enough, the Sox have traded some successes: Hudson, Gio Gonzalez, er- Clayton Richard . . .
Give Kenny credit for getting value back from a low-value farm system. But give him the blame for drafting guys just to trade later, rather than to develop into major leaguers.
I agree with everything you said except Pierre….his defensive was awful at times but other times he made some good plays and towards the end of the season he really came on…with that being said he’s gotta gode aza needs played time and we can;t forget about Mitchell
It’s tough to be a gm when you’re team doesn’t spend any money on the draft. Year after year Kenny has to go out and roll the dice on trades, usually with former failed top prospects. Yes, he has made some bad trades, but he’s made some good ones as well. Also, I don’t think it would be fair to any incoming gm to have to deal with the team in this state, realistically it’s not going to change much from 2011. After next year at least they get rid of Peavy’s contract and their may be a bit of financial flexibility.
Or they could get rid of Morel the space-waster and put Viciedo at third where he belongs…
I would rather have decent defense at right field with amazing offense and decent offense and amazing defense at third. Vicedio can’t play 3rd. He SHOULD be playing 1st. But they clearly can’t do that.
Viciedo made a few outfield assists in right field in his brief time this year. He clearly has a strong arm. Not that he’s a good defender, but his offence makes up for it.
Morel, like you said, has fantastic defense and i’d say his ceiling is pretty high. Didn’t he hit like .330 in AAA last year? And he could be a 30 home run guy if he can be a little more consistent.
morel a 30 HR guy? what in the world is that based on?
8 home runs in 85 at bats for Morel in September. A few of those home runs he’s hit really far too, not that it matters.
Earth has a better shot getting hit by a meteor than Morel hitting 30 bombs. Morel, needs to learn how to take a goddamn walk. I haven’t looked at any stats but I would bet that rios, dunn, viciedo, and god darn tyler flowers had better OBP. If remember correctly Morel had 4 walks the entire first half of the season. However, I think Morel is the best choice for a 3rd basemen for the White Sox next season because he saves runs and makes good plays defensively.
Earth gets hit by asteroids and meteors everyday. Do some research. He could be a 30 hr guy. More likely a 20-25 hr Joe crede type.
Yeah, Morel projects to be a Joe Crede-lite, or Joe Randa as lots of people have said. You can count on gold glove defense, a .280+ AVG and 20 HR when Morel finally gets settled in to the big leagues. I’d certainly take that.
Joe Crede never won a gold glove.
link me to a scout that says morel could be a 30 HR guy
“8 home runs in 85 at bats for Morel in September.”
sigh
pfffttt Randy Ruiz hit 10 HR’s in 115 AB’s in September 2 years ago.. he’s now the Adam Dunn of Japanese baseball
The White Sox had some of the best infield defense in the AL this past year. Why would you ruin that by putting someone who can’t field there position there. All the scouts and analysts are saying Viciedo is a much better RF than he was as at 3B. If you play him in RF, Rios in LF, and De Aza in CF then our defense across the whole field is better.
Ya Morel is going to be good. He has excellent defense and if you go look at his minor league stats you’ll see that he hit his way through the minors. Everywhere he went he hit for 300 or better. In the month of September his average wasn’t high but he hit 7 homers. Thats pretty good considering how few homers he hit throughout the other part of the season.
as for Viciedo, he needs to rotate first and right while Konerko rotates first and DH, with Dunn rotating between DH and the bench. I hope the new manager makes Dunn hit his way into the lineup instead of giving it to him because “what he’s done in the past”
ever since the trade deadline of 10′ Dunn hasn’t done anything. He may be done for good but I hope he’s not
I would start rebuilding what is possible. Let Pierre walk. Offer arb to Buehrle and see what happens. Trade Floyd AND Danks, it appears they’ve reached their ceilings here. You can probably get some interesting pieces back for them, especially given the weak starter market. Trade Quentin; some one will take his bat. Trade AJ to get some more prospects. See what you can get for Thornton. Exercise Frasor’s option then flip him to a team at some point. Have to bite the bullet with Dunn and Rios and cross your fingers that they figure it out. See what the kids can do.
Something like this for opening day
CF De Aza
SS Ramirez
1b Konerko
DH Dunn
RF Viciedo
CF Rios
3b Morel
C Flowers
2b Beckham
Bench
Lillibridge- hopefully a quick version of a good Mark Derosa
Resign Ramon Castro for backup or maybe some other vet who can mentor flowers
Jordan Danks?
Acquire Mark Kotsay (yeah i know he was bad, but in a part time role he’s still useful
Rotation (tentative depending on trade return)
Peavy
Sale
Humber
Stewart
Axelrod
Bullpen
LRP Infante
MRP Ohman
MRP Reed
MRP free agent or trade pickup or minor leaguer
SU Thornton
SU Crain
CP Santos
It probably won’t be pretty, but hopefully KW can clear costs and get some good prospects back and make a splash in 2013-2014.
Worst case you get a very high draft pick.
First off, why would you trade Floyd and Danks? Even if they have reached their ceilings (which I would disagree with about Danks) you still have team control of both of them next year. Floyd is locked into a very team friendly contract. No one is going to take AJ for much more then maybe one mid-level prospect. Trading Thornton and Fresor at some point isn’t smart right now because one of the big strengths of the team after the month of April was the bullpen. Also you have both Rios and De Aza in CF and no one playing LF in your little lineup. You also said trade Thornton and then have him in your bullpen so which is it? At no point would I ever want Mark Kotsay back. You would spend money that isn’t worth it when you could have someone from the minors do the same job for less. Stewart hasn’t shown very much yet and we don’t know if Sale will transition back to the rotation that well. According to you, we would deal away all of our strength for really nothing good. Realistically if you play De Aza and Viciedo in CF and RF respectively and Rios and Dunn go back to their career norms then the team will be better. The clearing of costs comes from getting rid of Pierre, Quentin, and Buehrle.
Danks is only under team control for next year before becoming a free agent and Floyd is only guaranteed one year plus that 9.5 million option. if your trying to go even younger and cheaper with some return trading those two would get something. After Sabathia (almost a lock to resign with New York) CJ Wilson, Buehrle and Ejax are there any other starters with any possible upside at a reasonable financial cost. I’d be looking for a return a notch or two above what KW got back from Atlanta for Javy Vazquez (Flowers, Lillibridge, two minor leaguers). Regarding Kotsay, i should have said someone with a similar skill set, not to play everyday, but to help out in the outfield. Thornton, I would listen to offers, but not necessarily trade him. Frasor struggled so far, and he only has one possible year left, so why not see what you can get for him? AJ may make more sense as a midseason trade. If you do trade Floyd and Danks, you’d be sure to get some real talent back. If people are gripping about a terrible farm season, what better way to quickly replenish it to some extent then trade your most valuable chips (Floyd, Danks, Quentin).
I dunno. I kinda like the two CF option. Then you could declare “left field out” . . . though that would have been a much better strategy when Pierre was in the lineup.
If that is our starting rotation, we are FUDGED big time.
The sox are still confident in adam dunn? Man i can understand the belief he’ll bounce back, but if im the sox GM, im not confident in him
What is he supposed to say, that he doesn’t have any confidence in his slugger and he needs to replace him? That’s not going to help anyone.
I think they should trade Floyd to free up some cash to resign Buerhle. Not sure what kind of prospects you could get for him but I think a team like the Mets that always need SP would be in on him. Put De Aza in CF, move Viciedo to LF and Rios back to RF where he played in Toronto. Keep the infield the same since they were very good all year. Bring back Ohman and use him right which Ozzie didnt the beginning of the year. Play Flowers more and start easing AJ into a split time/mentor role. No way in hell should they bring back Kotsay even if he paid for his own airfare. Absolutely worthless. He was an Ozzie slurpfest anyways. I would try and move Dunn, Rios and Peavy but I wouldnt dump them for nothing.
I would