Sox re-sign Pods for '07

by RME JICO on Dec 1, 2006 12:13 PM CST Comment 11 comments

Disdaining the high-priced free agent market, the White Sox re-signed left fielder Scott Podsednik to a one year, $2.9 million contract.

Update [2006-12-1 14:4:39 by thewizardsofoz]:

Kenny on Pods being hard on himself:

[Scott Merkin]

"I'm the team's general manager, not the team's psychologist, and each player has to deal with success and failures in his own way. Is Scotty hard on himself? Well, he was no harder on himself when he stole how many bases and hit [.290 in 2005] and hit a home run to help win a World Series. Sometimes, the same things that make us succeed make us fail. You better be very careful of trying to change your overall makeup because you might find yourself in a worse position."

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WTF

This is a move bad clubs make. The Sox have Gload, who they just signed for under a million, and any number of guys in the minors that are capable of putting up about the same production as Pods for the league minimum.

Now, instead of having an extra 3 million to throw at a good player, the Sox have essentially sunk 3 million into a player that will not help them.

Color me pissed.

by madvillian on Dec 1, 2006 12:30 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Repeated Soxtalk thoughts...

If Scott Podsednik is on this team in anything more than a 4th OFer role, this offseason will be a failed one. There's a reason this guy wasn't getting full-time ABs till age 27. He's a bad baseball player who is still, somehow living off of his 2003 season.

I'm not going to jump to conclusions. I don't think Podsednik's chances of being our starting LFer in 2007 were made any worse/better because of today's signing. If anything, it could mean that KW believes there's a market for Podsednik, and that he doesn't have to ditch him for nothing.

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BTW, Wizard of Oz, if you see this, move this diary to the front page.

by CWSKeith on Dec 1, 2006 12:37 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

done!

I just "trimmed" it a bit because it was the entire article there...

HEY THIS IS JI
JIM THOME
THE PEORIA POUNDER

by The Wizard on Dec 1, 2006 12:53 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

If there is a market for Pods

Then Adam Smith and his "rational market" theories can be thrown out the window.

If GM's are realy stupid enough to think Pods is worth trading for I pity them.

by madvillian on Dec 1, 2006 12:43 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I just cant understand this

Maybe someone smarter can spin this for me. Why give 3 mill to a Pods? There is no assurance you can trade him and his greatest asset, speed, he sucks at.

"The slowest - fastest mf i ever seen....!

by Tdogg on Dec 1, 2006 1:18 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

cadillac bud to retire in '09

link

HEY THIS IS JI
JIM THOME
THE PEORIA POUNDER

by The Wizard on Dec 1, 2006 1:23 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Its Worst Than You Think

General Manager Ken Williams, however, has continued to say he doesn't plan wholesale changes for 2007, citing the high cost of players on the market as one reason.

"Obviously what this signing says is I support him as our leadoff man and our primary left fielder," Williams said on a conference call Friday.

"Right now we feel like we had a club last year that was a 90-win club that underachieved by some eight to 10 ballgames," he said. "With the additional respite our pitching staff is going to have, we feel like we can get back to that area."

Basically, Kenny is endorsing the theory that the 2005 record of 99 wins is the "real" level of our talent while the 2006 record of 90 wins was a 9 game underachievment. By Pythagorean performance, at least, that's exactly backwards. It also assumes that the 2005 high-water mark peformances of guys like Pods, Uribe, Buehrle, Contreras and Garland are their expected going-forward levels rather than the happy high-lights of their careers. I hope he's right, but I think he's dead wrong.

The truth about the 2005 Sox was that we were a very good team that also got very lucky, especially in the post-season. The really admirable thing that Williams did after we won was recognize that the team needed to get better not stand pat, and made a series of aggressive moves trying to improve. Some worked, some didn't but I appreciated the analysis and effort that said changes needed to be made even though we were the champions.

Now, Williams is saying that changes don't need to be made. Its like Angels' stand-patism with a 12-month fuse. Williams seems to be pinning his hopes on the idea that, since we failed to make the post-season, our pitchers will be better rested and will return to 2005 levels of performance. At best, that seems like a hopeful stretch to me. Is there any evidence that post-season pitchers struggle the next year? Never seemed to happen to the Braves, but I'm just cherry-picking. Can anyone support the assertion that more off-season rest equals better pitching, because it sounds like an excuse rather than rational analysis to me.

Moreover, our outstanding run-prevention in 2005 was based in large part on our great defense, including outstanding years from Pods, Rowand, Uribe and even Konerko. Unsurprisingly, we regressed in 2006 and I don't see any discussion or changes being made that are likely to move us back to the top of the heap in 2007.

What all this says to me is that Kenny is letting everyone know that he isn't planning any major changes. If that is true, I don't think we're good enough to win next year. We'll struggle to score as many runs as we did in 2006 (do you really think Dye will do that again?) and I don't see any reason to think the run prevention is going to be alot better. By rights, we were an 88-90 win team in 2006 and, absent some significant improvement, that's what we look like to me in 2007.

My hope is that this is all posturing by Williams. He's going to make McCarthy a starter. He's not going to trade McCarthy. He's telling everyone that he doesn't have to trade a starter, just because, well, because he doesn't. He's perfectly happy to trot Pods out there again. All of this noise is, maybe, intended to let the other GMs know they can't lowball the Sox. If that is the plan, and it works, great. I'll be happy to endorse it. But I am beginning to fear that Williams is telling us the truth, that he isn't going to make any major moves aimed at making us better in 2007, and that as a result, we are going to fail.

by Landfill on Dec 1, 2006 2:14 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Great post -- my feelings too

I want to believe it's posturing as well. But I find the Sox lack of movement on a backup C (noises that Alomar will be back) and not offering Riske arbitration troubling. Those things makes it seem that like the payroll is capped out. Neither of those options would have involved a huge outlay of money or years to any player, yet the Sox are opting to not improve in order to save $5M next year on a C and (possibly) Riske. It's not a good sign.

by hitlesswonder on Dec 1, 2006 2:29 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

or they're saving payroll for other moves

and it's a good sign.

everyone is getting a little overanxious about the lack of activity and is dissecting into minutiae what is said/rumored. KW is doing the smart thing - wait it out until people are desperate. have a little confidence in our man.

by larry on Dec 1, 2006 2:32 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I hope you're right . . .

But I don't see it. Signing Pods for $3 mm can't be characterized as "saving payroll." If the point is to take a strong rhetorical position for purposes of negotiating with other clubs, than you say "We are committed to Ryan Sweeney and Brian Anderson. They are fine young players who are a significant part of our future. Plus, we think Jerry Owens could very well be the next Scott Podsednik and he's earned a chance." That's at least as plausible as saying that Pods is a ML caliber left-fielder and lead-off hitter and it really does add to your budget flexibility. By contrast, locking down Pods ties up cash.

As far as getting anxious too early, again, I hope you're right. However, by this time last Winter, Williams had traded for Thome, re-signed Konerko, cut ties with Thomas and was only a few days from trading for Vazquez. He signalled early and often, both in what he said and what he did, that the 2006 team was going to be substantially different than the 2005 team. Now he's signalling, through word and deed, that 2007 is going to look like 2006. Could it be a head-fake? Sure, but recognize that is not the history.

by Landfill on Dec 1, 2006 2:55 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

over-analyzing again

if you're a smart GM, you don't stick to one strategy. that way, when you do say things like "we're happy with what we have right now" and don't make moves like you did last year, the other GMs think you're legit.

so he made early moves last year. that was smart then - e.g., thome was traded for early to ensure that konerko re-signed with us. the market wasn't ridiculous last year, either.

KW knows better than us whether scotty is viable trade bait. i think he's going to make a move for an OFer. but i don't think it's unwise to lock pods down as a worst case scenario or, more likely, as a piece of trade bait.

by larry on Dec 1, 2006 3:04 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs