Actually, he had 22 stolen bases. Either way, it's not enough for me to trade David Dellucci (even if he's coming off an injury-marred season) to start him. Francisco's 26 and he put those numbers up in his second full season in AAA. He's not that good, and I've been a Francisco fan for awhile.

Or, to hear Andrew tell it, Lofgren/Snyder/Jesus on a Brontasaurus.

Not that Law is necessarily wrong it's just...groan.

Lofgren or Laffey/Jeff Stevens or maybe someone like Sipp/Weglarz or Mills as a PTBNL/and a high ceiling low level guy like Roasario.

That, to me, is insane. Of course, there's no good way for me to create equivalent value because I don't really think we have an equivalent players. We have other good players but not exactly the same kind of players.

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a great New Year's holiday!  :-)

Regarding this trade, I think it's a sizable gamble by the White Sox to win within the next few years - Thome will be pushing 40, and combined with his injury history, could really affect his production.  Dye will be pushing his late-30s, and again, with his injury history, along with a severe dropoff in production in 2007, could really make him a liability offensively as well.  

Other guys like Konerko and Pierzynski will be pushing their mid-30s, so the nucleus they won the 2005 WS with will likely not be able to push them towards a playoff appearance by themselves.  I'm not sure Swisher and Quentin combined with that former nucleus will be enough to propel them into the postseason past 2009.  Combine that with a razor-thin farm system after this trade, and the White Sox could be looking at a sizable rebuild that will probably take them 3-5 years to complete, and that's presuming that everything goes right.  It could take 6+ years to do it as their farm system is more like our farm system back in the 1980s; our farm system in the late 1990s after Hart had made trades like Rincon-Giles arguably still had a little more in it than the White Sox's system currently does.  And unlike the late 1990s Indians, these White Sox have a more challenging division to compete with, making this trade and "go for it now" approach that much riskier for them as they might lengthen the eventual rebuilding process by a few years due to their razor-thin system.

As was implied in the corresponding MinorLeagueBall thread on the Swisher trade, Williams may not be around that long, which is probably why he's going for it all now, but when you look at the current strength of the AL Central, the White Sox likely would need 8-9 things out of 10 to go right for the White Sox to even emerge from this division as a postseason participant.  The Indians and Tigers are still a few notches above the White Sox in my opinion, and even the Twins and Royals are pretty comparable to the White Sox, especially if Liriano comes back close to a comparable level as before (a sizable IF) and the Royals continue to progress as a team and get a nice return from their signing of Jose Guillen and other FAs.

Therefore, I think it's a very large gamble by the White Sox - while Swisher is a solid player, I'm not sure the White Sox are close enough to contending for the postseason with their question marks in the rotation (Danks, the 5th spot, Contreras - is he still there - not sure?) and the bullpen (which faltered greatly in 2007, and only Linebrink, who was inconsistent himself in 2007, added to it if I recall correctly,) to pay such a high price for a player who probably won't put them over the top.  

Arguably, they were closer to a postseason appearance when they acquired Podsednik and other pieces going into 2005 (the White Sox won 80+ games in both 2003 and 2004, plus, the Twins were really the only sure bet to excel in the division at that time.)

I agree with Ryan that the Indians are in a better position to make a move such as this, though I don't think I'd be willing to pay such a high price like Miller, Laffey, Mills/Hodges, and Crowe for Swisher - I'd probably look for a cheaper alternative, as Swisher is prone to hot and cold streaks; for that price, I'd look for someone who is more consistent and not prone to such hot and cold streaks.  Plus, I believe Swisher has been injury-prone at times as well, so I probably would not be willing to pay that price for him.

Just my 2 cents - no offense.