I can already imagine the laughter and tears.

• Garland and Konerko are going for the best possible packages.
• Try and bring Furcal over.  He's set to make $13 million, so if the Sox took on the whole contract, I don't think they'd have to give up a heckuva lot in the way of players and prospects.  Ideally a scenario would work itself out where the Sox can swap Contreras + 'spects for Furcal.  I'd also look to extend Furcal for a couple more seasons (two-to-four years at reasonable money), as he just turned 30.
• No big contracts to any of Rowand, Hunter or Jones.  Go out and find an undervalued CFer.  I'd be supportive of the following:  A Crisp trade or something similar to it or even giving Anderson one more shot with Owens getting a reasonable amount of spot starts.
• Bring in one of the former Sox starting pitchers who are free agents, Colon or Garcia.  I think you can get both cheaply, and, while Garcia may not pitch a whole lot in 2008, I'd bank on a bounceback from him in 2009 (of course, the price has to be right).

If my scenario played out, I can't see the Sox competing, but I could see them being an average-to-slightly-above-average team.  And I know we're not aiming to be that team that hangs around .500 but never sniffs the playoffs, but I'd be supportive of such a season if it meant a lot of young players (Richar, Fields, Gio, Danks, Egbert, etc etc) were part of the cause.

link

All of you are fired. The Sox slink to 1.1 million in attendance for the next 5 years - 7 years falling into the abyss and behind God forbid the Blackhawks as Chicago's least watched team .

In the process Ozzie is arrested for arson, (he tried to burn down your house) and in a furious attempt to attract fans disco demolition revisited is 1 of many old time promos designed to bring them back. My favorite will be the throwback uniforms of the softball shorts.

worth?

just curious

MLBTR:

Expect the Sox to bring back Torpedo Boat and also add a backup SS to compete with him for the starting job.

Torii Hunter is Kenny's #1 free agent target.  If Kenny fails to land Hunter, he will then jump all over Grinder Rowand.

I need to outline my goals/plan.  I think I like the plan KW is apparently going for: be decent now, plan for 2010.  So we need to figure out who's going to be on that 2010 team.

Of the current team, AJ, Paulie are under contract and JD will have a team option.  JD's bat looked slow last year and I don't think he's going to be a contributor, so I'm declining that option.  Paulie was basically an average 1B this year, so it's hard to imagine him being that three years hence.  I'm going to hope he's willing to platoon and I'm also going to be looking for a trade.  

As for prospects who's best case is contributor on that team:

C Francisco Hernandez - .277/.362/.413 is a pretty nice like for a 21 year old catcher and his peripherals are really nice (very small k-rate, good walk rate, good LD%).  With a solid approach, it'll be all about whether he can hack it physically.  Possible.

1B Chris Carter - Rare power for his age group, though not elite.  Has yet to show K rate issues like most minor league power guys which also bodes well.  He could definitely be an above average 1B, but that'll depend on maintaining his walk rates and propping up his power.  

2B Danny Richar - I like him to rebound and become a solid 2B.  If not him, then maybe Getz

3B Josh Fields - Hopefully he can stick it at 3B and cut his k rate.  Not optimistic on the latter, but his power is obvious.  Wouldn't take much for him to make the jump, so let's hope his football time set back his learning curve and he hasn't peaked physically/mentally.

SS Sergio Miranda - Far from a sure thing, but is supposedly a good SS despite struggles this year and hit .282/.384/.349.  If he doesn't hit for more power, his OBP isn't going to stay that high because pitchers will just challenge him instead of feeling like he'll hurt them.  

LF/RF - We've got a number of interesting guys coming out of the rookie ball, but by and large their number/age combos aren't that encouraging.  A power hitting OF should be a target in the draft this year.  Jose Martinez would go here, but he won't be ready by '10, imo.

CF John Shelby - Not a lot of 22 year old CF who post a .500+ SLG w/ a .200 ISO.  The elite ones are in AA or better though, so he's still just a good prospect.  Still very encouraging though.

DH Christian Marrero - Same age but a level behind Chris Carter.  Had a comparable year and clearly broke out physically I think, but his actual prospect status is contingent upon scout approval and further success this year.  Could be the lefty side of the Paulie '10 platoon.  Is actually older that Chris Carter by 6 months.

I'm far from saying any of these guys are untouchable, but I would be looking to protect all of these guys, especially Shelby and Carter, who could both be above average at their positions.

So how are we going to go about fixing holes if I'm saying that basically all our decent minor league talent should be protected?  I'm aiming for .500 with some chance to be 5-10 games better and we were 10 games under last year.  That's a sizable turnaround.

Identifying exactly what went wrong offensively:

VORP by Position (if my math doesn't suck):

C:  5.4
1B: 25.4
2B: 3.2
3B: -3.8
SS: -7.1
LF: 0.5
CF: -2.9
RF: 12.2
DH: 47.4

Okay, so the amount we sucked in LF is by far the most offensive aspect of this, since filling left shouldn't be any harder than it is to nab an aging free agent who can still hit or go the freely available talent route.  But damnit did Uribe suck ass.

The first is to keep Andy Gonzalez off the MLB team.  He was so so so bad.  It's really impressive just how terrible he was.  We need to keep him far far away from Ozzie.

If Crede's healthy, he's going to be a huge step toward making this a good team again.  His defense on the left side of the infield is huge for a team that, as someone cited here, strikes out the 4th least per 9.  And because he's not going to be a negative VORP with the bat unless he's unhealthy.  And I just posited that he was.  I really don't know what the precedent is here.  I know that back injuries don't get better, they're just either tolerable or they aren't.  If the team looks like it can win 90, I'll hang onto him for fan loyalty purposes, but if it'll be lucky to crack 85, they'll understand.

1B Paulie
2B Richar
3B Crede
SS ???Uribe
LF Fields
CF ???
RF JD
DH Thome

I want to be able to take out Thome against lefties, fill CF and if there's a SS option that isn't David Eckstein, think long and hard about it.  Inquire about:

Since it's already been brought up, I'd like to see what Ed Wade thought of Luke Scott for Contreras and Uribe to get Adam Everett too?  That sounds like a pipe dream.  Or maybe for Crede?  I'm not sure what an exact value should be there, but he's in the very least the lefty half of an LF platoon after we ditch Crede and a power bat off the bat before.  If he really doesn't think much of Scott though, we should definitely see what he thinks of Contreras or something.

Alexei Ramirez is definitely something to look into and someone, if the scouts determine that he's legit (re: average), that I would spend a good deal for a 26 year old.  Does 10 mil/yr sound right?  His WBC stats look good, but there were only 16 at bats.  If it turns out he's more like Coco Crisp, then I'd still take that since I'd go after Coco if it didn't mean a 2010 guy.  

If he'll take a 3-4 year deal, I'm in for Fukudome over Ramirez, since translating Japanese baseball is a lot easier.  According to Clay Davenport it's slightly better than AAA.  We can stick Fukudome in center and get above average  production (say .270/.350/.440) instantly without paying too much (4/40-50M?).

Unless the Bill Hall for Garland deal goes through, I really don't see an alternative to Uribe at this point unless we try sliding Richar over and look for a 2B.  I don't think that's a good idea.

So:

C AJ
1B Paulie
2B Richar
3B Crede
SS Uribe
LF Fields
CF Fukudome
RF Dye
DH Thome

once Crede gets flipped for an A-ball reliever, we look like:

C AJ
1B Paulie
2B Richar
3B Fields
SS Uribe
LF Scott
CF Fukudome
DH Thome

...Since I'll presume the Scott-for-Contreras went through, though I really have no idea how likely that is.  Hall-for-Garland is probably more likely.

That gives us a good chance to be average everywhere on the diamond except wherever Fields plays and at short.  Thome is still an above average DH and having Scott to play left so Fields can DH will make our production from that spot even higher.  That can be an average offense, all told.

Having not traded Garland in this scenario, we go

1)Buehrle
2)Vazquez
3)Garland
4)Danks
5)Gio

That's a solid rotation, if not outstanding.  Again, I think we can hit 80-85 wins with this rotation.

Bullpen: I dn.  Assume some regression to the mean (since so many pitchers can't really be that bad) plus having Bobby means that we have a chance at an above average bullpen if we add a couple relievers.  Supposedly there are some Japanese relievers on the market and they seem to pitch well for at least half a season before they get figured out, so let's do that?  Okay.

With some patented Ozzie-luck, that can be an overly costly 87 win team that doesn't cost us minor leaguers.

Oh, since it seems like the Dodgers might be going into Acquire Veterans mode at the cost of their young talent (hired Torre, plus rumors), I'd see if I couldn't swing a Paulie-for-Hu deal.  That would make us so much better at short and we could stick Luke Scott at first.  Unlikely, but it's Ned Coletti, so I'm asking.

And I would think about trading John Danks.  Egbert can probably come in and match his VORP this year and I'm betting that DLS moves quickly through the system and is ready for '09.  Meanwhile, we'd get another position prospect.  Like the McCarthy trade.

That's everything.

Link:

A buddy who is well placed in DET says Tiggers are after both Mo Rivera and Schilling.  Looks like Mr. Catholic can't wait to see Heaven in the afterlife and wants to experience it here.

Steve Stone was on with "Murph" at noon and said (take it with a grain of salt) that the likely 2008 Sox outfielders may include:

Hunter
Rowand
Coco Crisp (my kids love his cereal)
and/or Japanese prospect Kosuke Fukudome

Possible shortstops (while possibly moving Uribe to 2nd if he sticks around):

Eckstein
Jack Wilson (Pirates)

As mentioned in other posts, he said that it would be no surprise if Joe Crede is dealt to the Yankees, giving Josh Fields full-time 3B responsibilities.

My question is...what would the Sox expect in return from the Yanks? Pitching, I hope.

What? No Juan Uribe? Wouldn't it be great to have the cameras there when the next "shoot'em up" takes place in the DR?