So the White Sox announced some big news yesterday; they had signed Adam Dunn for four years/$56 million dollars. The Sox also announced that they had re-signed AJ Pierzynski to a two year/$8 million deal. Recently, Alexei Ramirez opted out of his option and signed for $2.75 million. The White Sox are also the front runners in the Paul Konerko sweepstakes, and many fans would love nothing more than to see him come back.
This leads to my idea that the 2011 White Sox would be their best if they were just the 2010 White Sox plus one big name addition. At first this offseason, this seemed almost impossible. Many fans wondered where the money would come from to re-sign Konerko, or sign any big free agent names. We had a lot of money tied up in just a few players. It didn't look good.
However, apparently Kenny has worked his magic again. He managed to get Jerry Reinsdorf to open the wallet, and allow the White Sox to sign Adam Dunn who is a Type A free agent name that many teams had coveted. I am not the biggest fan of Adam Dunn, but when really thinking about this for a while, who else were the Sox supposed to get? At four years/$56 million, that almost seems like a steal for a guy who will hit 40 home runs and have 100 RBIs, even if he does strike out at a higher rate than any other player in baseball(36% of his at bats last season).
With Jake Peavy on the shelf to start the season, Chris Sale will slide into the rotation. Chris Sale lead all of NCAA in strike outs in his last college season, and came up very quickly last year while posting solid numbers for us. The kid looks good. The rotation, if no moves are made, to start the season would be Danks, Buehrle, Jackson, Floyd, Sale. Gavin's name has been floated around in trade talks with teams interested. However, none of these talks have gone beyond, well, talks.
I think this rotation to start the season can be good enough until Peavy gets back. If they can keep us a few games over .500 until June, we should hit our favorite part of the year in stride. Alexei Ramirez has really stepped up, now becoming one of the premiere short stops in the major leagues. He put up a very solid season last year, hitting .282 with 18 home runs and 70 RBI. He also won the Fielding Bible Award for Short Stop, which is often considered better than a Gold Glove.
Carlos Quentin's name has come up in trade rumors recently. He has been rumored to be traded for Colby Rasmus. As much as I don't like Rasmus' attitude, he would be an instant upgrade in the field. He is younger by four years, and has a similar OPS in his short career compared with Quentin's last two seasons. Quentin has really fallen since 08, not putting up anything close to that MVP calibur season. If Quentin is really done, it would at least be a good idea to try to get something for him now, while he still has perceived value. It would help out a lot if that player we got in return were younger, like Rasmus. I would just hope his attitude would be better playing for us than it was playing for the Cardinals.
I like how we look around the horn if Konerko comes back. I know Konerko is not the best 1B, but he at least makes plays and catches about any half way decent throw from the 3B/SS that comes to him. He is also one of the best at turning a 3-4-3 double play in the business. If Konerko comes back, the project to build the 2010 White Sox "+1" would be complete. If not, Viciedo would be thrown into a starting role, and hopefully perform well enough to not hurt the team. I sure hope he learns how to take a walk before next season.
Closer is one of the positions on the team which is up in the air as of right now. Closer could go to Matt Thornton, as he has done it a few times and has an electric fastball. The Sox are also toying with the idea of signing JJ Putz back and he would maybe have a shot at closer if he could prove consistency. He had a pretty good streak of consistency for a point last season, when he put up 27 consecutive scoreless appearances, which was a White Sox team record.
I think that with our situation, and a few injuries that plagued last season, if the Sox just came back this year with 95% of the same players as last year that we could win. We just needed one thing that we didn't have. I am not even sure what it was, but KW thinks it was a power left-handed bat. I guess we'll see if that was it. It is a good start for sure. The Donkey is ours, and coupled with Rios, Quentin(if not traded) and hopefully Konerko, that would make for a great 3-6 in the lineup.
The White Sox won 88 games despite all of the things that went wrong. A terrible start to the season saw us go on an amazing run in June and July. Then we had a very ordinary to below average August/September that saw us fall out of contention and finish second in the AL Central. If the Sox can get it together, stay healthy, and close out games, we should be looking at a team that can win 92-95 games. Hopefully we can win a lot more games against the Twins next season, and the Sox should be walking away with an AL Central title.
The Tigers have made some moves this offseason too, picking up Joaquin Benoit and Victor Martinez for big money. V-Mart really struggles on defense, so the Tigers will have to figure out what to do with him, where to slot him into the lineup. The Tigers are really gambling on Benoit, signing him to a big contract after only one great season(2010) in his career and one good season(2007). I am not convinced, having seen him have six below average or bad seasons.
The Twins have paid $5 million to be able to negotiate with Japanese IF Tsuyoshi Nishioka. After looking up his Japanese statistics, I have determined that he could possibly be another Ichiro type. He hit .346 last year while hitting 11 home runs and driving in 59 RBI. He is not as great a base stealer, swiping 22 bases but does have that part to his game. Despite only hitting 11 HR, he posted a .905 OPS. He got 206 hits, which means he is a proficient contact hitter. This guy is good and would be absolutely perfect for the Twins, which scares me. He does everything Gardenhire loves. He makes me nervous, but we don't know how he will do making the jump from Japan to America. We'll have to see. The Twins have also not brought back Jim Thome yet, so we don't really know what their team will look like exactly, although it will be much of the same cast that won 94 games last season. Joe Nathan will be back at closer as well at some point. As always, the Twins scare me the most in the division.
With the Indians and Royals fighting for last place, it still looks like a two team race this year for the AL Central. The Twins will be tough as always, and fight us for the division up to the last day. I have felt and still feel that last year's team was better than they played, and maybe this year, hopefully they will show it. With the addition of the one key free agent, I think they have what it takes. Alot of this does, though, rely on the hope that Konerko is re-signed. If he is not, then the addition of Dunn would just look like a straight across the board move. At least we have that and are not left with that massive hole in the lineup. At any rate, go Sox. 2011 at least has the chance of being a year we can all get behind, when all hope looked lost at the end of 2010.
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