A Bad Team
Let's face it. This is just a bad team. They cannot seem to get things straightened out and with good reason. The bullpen is terrible, and Jose Contreras has been his typically inconsistent self. When you couple that with offensive injuries and a rookie fifth starter, you have a garbage team that would do well to stay ahead of Kansas City.
The biggest goat, however, is general manager Kenny Williams. Fresh off getting lucky with Matt Thornton, he decided that he could cobble a bullpen together with bad pitchers with good arms. Predictably, it blew up in his face. To make matters worse, he resigned his oldest and losingest pitchers in Contreras and Javier Vazquez while he stands to lose Mark Buehrle at the end of this season and Jon Garland at the end of next. Coming into this season, three youngest, most successful pitchers in the Sox rotation were Buehrle, Garland, and Freddy Garcia. Williams traded Garcia before the season.
If Williams is going to rectify things, he needs to find a way to clear out enough payroll to resign Buehrle and Garland. Neither pitcher if heavily reliant on velocity so they should be effective for several more years. A good place to start would be to forget about resigning Jermaine Dye and Tadahito Iguchi at the end of the season. Of course, some additional cash will need to be freed up. This could be accomplished by trading Vazquez. He has pitched well so far this year, and he should have some good trade value because of his contract extension. However, it is doubtful that he will continue his early season success since he has been inconsistent throughout his career. The Sox should trade him while his value is high.
The biggest goat, however, is general manager Kenny Williams. Fresh off getting lucky with Matt Thornton, he decided that he could cobble a bullpen together with bad pitchers with good arms. Predictably, it blew up in his face. To make matters worse, he resigned his oldest and losingest pitchers in Contreras and Javier Vazquez while he stands to lose Mark Buehrle at the end of this season and Jon Garland at the end of next. Coming into this season, three youngest, most successful pitchers in the Sox rotation were Buehrle, Garland, and Freddy Garcia. Williams traded Garcia before the season.
If Williams is going to rectify things, he needs to find a way to clear out enough payroll to resign Buehrle and Garland. Neither pitcher if heavily reliant on velocity so they should be effective for several more years. A good place to start would be to forget about resigning Jermaine Dye and Tadahito Iguchi at the end of the season. Of course, some additional cash will need to be freed up. This could be accomplished by trading Vazquez. He has pitched well so far this year, and he should have some good trade value because of his contract extension. However, it is doubtful that he will continue his early season success since he has been inconsistent throughout his career. The Sox should trade him while his value is high.
posted by Pat at 10:16 PM
2 Comments:
How much does el duque cost?
Contreras will make 9 million dollars this year. Unfortunately, he has little trade value since he is ancient and inconsistent. KW pretty much threw part of his budget away when he extended Contreras's contract.
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