Monday, November 19, 2007 - Posts

Jon Garland traded to Angels

On the wire:

The Chicago White Sox have acquired shortstop Orlando Cabrera and cash considerations from the Los Angeles Angels for pitcher Jon Garland. A story will be moving shortly.

More to come.
posted Monday, November 19, 2007 12:32 PM by Jim with 8 Comments

Previewing the previews

Evidently, the Royals and Yasuhiko Yabuta aren't that close after all.  Per Mark Gonzalez:

The White Sox are among five teams in the running for Japanese reliever Yasuhiko Yabuta.

The Sox are looking for bullpen help, and Yabuta has told Japanese media the Sox, Royals, Indians, Rays and Pirates are the finalists for his services.

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I was going to look back at my projections for the 2007 season, but these are the only ones that turned out worth a damn:

John Danks
 G
 W-L
 IP
 H
 HR BB K ERA
 WHIP
2007 JCM
 20 5-8 125 140 23 52 89 5.68 1.54
2007 Actual 26 6-13 139 160 28 54 109 5.50 1.54

Jim Thome
 AB HR RBI
 BA
 OBP SLG OPS
2007 JCM
 472
 37
 96 .275 .401 .575 .976
2007 Actual
 432 35 96 .275 .410 .563 .973

Rob Mackowiak
 AB HR RBI
 BA
 OBP SLG OPS
2007 JCM 240 6 31 .272 .349 .411 .760
2007 Actual 237 6 36 .278 .354 .418 772

Yup, three of 25 resembled "accurate."  Even Sandy Alomar can scoff at that batting average -- he went 3-for-22 with the Mets last year.

At any rate, I bring these up because I'm starting to lay out the game plan for the 2008 edition of Meet the Sox (thanks, no-trade clauses!), and I'm pondering the template I've used the past two seasons.  The current roster isn't a playoff contender, so previews similar to the ones I've done the last two years may be a bit too backwards-looking to make it worth the time.

Here's a vague outline:
  1. Essentials -- stats, contract info.
  2. 2007 recap -- A more concise summary of what they did in the previous year, offense, defense and baserunning.
  3. Good signs/Bad signs -- Identifying positive and negative trends.
  4. Nagging questions -- For gray area not captured by positive and negative trends.
  5. "It'll be a successful season if..."  -- Open question.
  6. Projections -- I'm not opposed to running a contest, should there be enough contestants.
Furthermore, I'd like the previews to have more voices, since I have my own biases and analytical soft spots.  Ideally, everybody here would add their own thoughts to Nos. 2-6 and the previews would be a lot more comprehensive.  C'mon, it's not like there's going to be much else to talk about for the next two and a half months!

If anybody has any suggestions about how to improve the previews, I'm all ears.
posted Monday, November 19, 2007 2:01 AM by Jim with 1 Comments