Phil Watch: Didn't Take Long

The Sox sent John Ely to the Dodgers in the Juan Pierre trade.

Ely was rated the 14th-best prospect in a shallow White Sox farm system.

Where's John Ely from?

Chicago's own Homewood-Flossmoor.

Oh, boy.

I feel a puke-tastic column on the way.

Phil Watch: Second Half Of Double Dose (x 2)

I can't keep up!

Phil has become downright voluminous all of a sudden.

And it's all stream of consciousness in some attempt to capture the landscape of the winter meetings.

Problem is, though, that stream-of-consciousness columns should offer something new. It should, in the end, be greater than the sum of its parts. It's not. So I'm not doing today's offering.

Expect this little nugget:

--Teahen: With Alex Gordon at third base, he was a borderline nontender candidate when the White Sox traded for him last month. His three-year, $14 million contract was a surprise in the chilly financial climate, especially considering he never drove in more than 69 runs in his four full seasons in Kansas City. With widely respected prospect Brent Morel perhaps only a year away from Chicago, Teahen probably will be a first baseman, left fielder or even DH before this deal is up.

I wasn't ga-ga over the Teahen acquisition. Nobody was.

But the contract potentially buys low. With arbitration rules stating that a player can make no less than 80% of his last contract, Teahen would have, IN THE LEAST, in some theoretical world, made $2.86 million this year. He would have, in the real world, made a marginal increase over his $3.575 million salary last year due to the amount of playing time he saw and the fact that he wasn't absolutely brutal. And he most likely would have seen another marginal increase over that next year because Teahen again won't be absolutely brutal.

Just guessing, Teahen without a contract and going year-to-year to arbitration would have garnered a salary of a little over $4 million in 2011 while becoming an unrestricted free agent after that. So...the Sox were, in the least, going to pay Teahen about $8 million anyway. With a bounce-back year more in line with his 2006 and 2007, he could see about $9-9.5 million overall, especially if his power numbers significantly increase because arb judges love that shit. And then he would become a free agent in 2012.

The Sox signed him to a three-year/$14 million contract, averaging $4.67 million a year.

With the Cell's park factor, Teahen should see a moderate tick up in his power numbers and, with some luck and/or big improvement due to the fact that he's right smack in the middle of his prime age years, he has possible upside.

For that possibility, the Sox got three years of Teahen locked in at a fixed, reasonable price while buying out his first free agent year. And maybe more importantly, his contract is absolutely moveable to a contending team at the deadline looking for depth should the Sox need to do that.

This was a good deal for both sides. AND IT WAS A DEAL LESS THAN $15 MILLION!!! FOR THREE YEARS!

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS IRRESPONSIBLE????

RBI's? Really? Lazy, lazy shit.

The Royals offense, every year that Teahen played in Kansas City, was one of the worst offenses in the league. Can't drive in what's not in front of you.

But if we must:

Teahen's overall career line: .269/.331/.419

Teahen's career line with RISP: .285/.366/.440

Mystery player's overall career line: .254/.304/.444

Mystery player's career line with RISP: .278/.337/.455

THAT TOOK ME LESS THAN A MINUTE TO LOOK UP!!!

In 2006, he had a 1.046 OPS with RISP, third-best among third basemen.

In 2007, he had a .964 OPS with RISP, sixth-best among third basemen.

.686 and .628 followed in 2008 and 2009. That's awful.

So...if you believe in things like clutch-hitting and all that crap, the Sox just got a guy who has proven to be a good hitter with RISP in the majors. He's also proven he can suck.

What do these numbers mean to you? .654, .851, .746, .887, .862, .692

Those are Joe Crede's OPS totals with RISP over the last six years and our mystery player.

Oh yeah, and Joe Crede has driven in more than 75 runs exactly once in his eight full-time seasons.

Retort?

Again. Three years. $14 million. Not a bad deal at all.

CUBS FAIL IN EFFORT TO LAND GRANDERSON

INDIANAPOLIS -- Oops, they did it again.

A Britney Spears reference? That's the 45,587th time that's been used in the history of slothful sportswriting.

The Cubs let Curtis Granderson get away, and this time they did it right before our eyes. It didn't seem to bother them too much, and it will not bother their more mathematically inclined fans, but it should.

Phil still hasn't said, in all his blatherings over Granderson, whether Starlin Castro was worth trading. He hasn't said that it should be done. Ever.

And he hasn't addressed how the Cubs were going to match the Tigers' demand for a ML-ready center fielder to replace Granderson now without dealing Castro.

If you can't do that, you shouldn't be writing about it. Worse yet, you shouldn't be getting all uppity about it.

You can scoff if you want. You can point out his troubles against left-handed pitchers. You simply can hide behind the high asking price if it makes you feel better.

Hey, Granderson's worth it in many ways. He was worth $14.3 million, $30.2 million, $17 million and 15.2 million over the last four years in Win Value. He has four years and $36.75 million left on his contract. It's back-loaded, of which the Cubs already have too many, but he'll play over his contract even with moderate regression.

He IS brutal against lefties. And his defense has shown decline the last two years. -9.4 UZR/150 in 2008 and 1.6 in 2009. That's dramatically down from the superlative numbers he put up in '06 and '07.

But he's good. Very good actually, with some concerns.

Granderson isn't Willie Mays, but the reality is he was the most intriguing card on the table for the Cubs this winter -- one of the most intriguing in the last seven years -- and, just like in the 2002 draft, the front office swung and missed.

I love 'intriguing'. You can wiggle out of labeling somebody 'intriguing' if he falls flat on his face pretty easily.

Name a trade, Phil that gets players the quality of Max Scherzer, Austin Jackson and Daniel Schlerth to the Tigers through the Cubs. If you can't, what's to talk about here?

Scherzer is the real deal, not a Randy Wells (average ML pitcher) and Andrew Cashner (hasn't pitched above AA) type.

Austin Jackson is a center fielder that's ready to go, something the Cubs don't have at all and couldn't have went through another team without giving up Castro. Even Castro probably wouldn't have been enough given he hasn't played a full season above A ball yet.

Daniel Schlerth is another real deal the Cubs don't have anything close to. A first-round pick just last year, he saw 39 innings of work in the minors, compiling a 1.13 ERA, giving up 21 hits while striking out 60.

So...here's three guys the Tigers got in return, all major league-ready and the Cubs don't have one guy that's close to any of them.

Castro's 111 at-bats in double A doesn't really equate, does it? And Phil won't say they should trade him!

Barring unforeseen questions about medical reports, the 28-year-old center fielder from the University of Illinois-Chicago and Thornton Fractional South High is going to the Yankees in a three-team trade that also sends Edwin Jackson from the Tigers to the Diamondbacks.

The Yankees didn't need Granderson as badly as the Cubs. They already have Derek Jeter to be their leader and ambassador.

Why in the hell does it matter that the Cubs need him more?

But Brian Cashman nevertheless valued Granderson highly for both his play and his off-the-charts intangibles, so he pulled the trigger on a deal that cost him 22-year-old center-fielder Austin Jackson and pitchers Phil Coke and Ian Kennedy.

Charts are tangible measures of something. Intangibles can't be measured. Just saying.

And unless Phil is ready to say the Yanks aren't re-signing Jeter after next year, this is a non-issue in the world of idiotic 'leadership' discussions.

The Cubs do not appear crushed about losing the chance to land Granderson but had spent almost a month trying to figure out a way to get him.

Would you be more happy if they wept openly?

And with Granderson off the board, they must continue a search for center-field alternatives to overachiever Sam Fuld.

I thought Sam Fuld was the embodiment of the ideal Cub?

This wasn't as bad as passing on Granderson in their disastrous handling of the 2002 draft. Then-scouting director John Stockstill invested $6.94 million in Bobby Brownlie, Luke Hagerty, Chadd Blasko, Matt Clinton, Brian Dopirak and Justin Jones -- all of whom were taken before the Tigers got Granderson with the 80th overall pick.

Ahhh, hindsight. The Cubs took Lavalroe Cash with the 380th pick of the 1999 draft. 22 picks later, the Cardinals took Albert Pujols.

I can play this game all day.

But this might be more painful because Granderson has used four full big-league seasons since to establish himself as one of the brightest voices in the game. He's not a bad player either, with career lines of .272/.344/.484.

Give the Yankees credit for overlooking Granderson's platoon differential (.570 OPS vs. left-handers since 2007, .940 vs. right-handers) and 142 strikeouts a year. He has flaws. But he's a winning player, an all-around player who will become an even more respected face of the game in New York.

Tell me how a Cubs trade for Granderson works? I can play this game all day as well. And have.

...Having seen Granderson in action, there was little doubt that he quickly would have become a clubhouse leader and a huge favorite with Chicago fans. Assuming he could maintain his level of play -- maybe even improve it after collaborating with new hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo -- Granderson could have been Mr. Cub for the next decade.

This is my favorite part for two reasons.

A: Phil has seen Granderson play! He's in an exclusive, secret club!

B: Rudy Jaramillo reference #485 for Phil in the last two months.

Hendry declined to speak publicly about Granderson Tuesday, calling him "somebody else's player." But sources indicated the Cubs had tried unsuccessfully to make this deal happen.

Sources indicate? This is common knowledge! Phil's been talking about the long-term attempts for months and every Chicago outlet and their mother has reported the short-term attempts.

Not exactly inside info.

A Cubs source said Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski was clear from the start that he wanted a majors-ready center fielder and young pitching. The Cubs had young pitchers of interest in Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner -- although Hendry didn't want to move them -- but Fuld wasn't what Dombrowski had in mind as the center fielder.

Third-to-last paragraph before Phil mentions the Tigers' primary demands.

If Fuld WAS what Dombrowski has in mind for center field, Dave wouldn't have a job about three seconds after pulling the trigger on that deal.

Hendry confirmed he tried to work three-team deals to meet the Tigers' center field need. But to get the guys Dombrowski considered to be of Jackson's quality (tops among them the Pirates' Jose Tabata) would have cost the Cubs shortstop prospect Starlin Castro, and Hendry could not make the puzzle pieces fit.

Still hasn't mentioned if he would trade Castro. So Spineless.

Can't even say Castro's worth trading even as any package involving Castro still wouldn't have gotten it done. Just because the Cubs wanted to trade for Granderson doesn't automatically mean the Cubs should have gotten Granderson. Didn't have the goods. That's the column. Not this. Preuse that minor league system and write about that. Crap. I forgot. That takes real journalistic work. So Phil settles for this. Par for the course.

He walked away from a second chance to put Granderson in the city where he could do the most good. It's a chance that won't come around again, at least not until it's too late for Chicagoans to cheer for him in his prime. That's a shame.

Was there this huge groundswell of emotion among Cub fans desiring to root for Granderson because he grew up here that I missed?

I'll just rewrite this column. Granderson is a good center fielder. The Cubs need a center fielder. The Cubs have a bad minor league system with no ML-ready players. Other teams do. The Cubs did not get Granderson because of this.

There. So much shorter and so less painful.

Phil Watch: Double Dose...Again

This Phil offering is not only classic Phil, it's classic Off-Season Phil.

It's why we exist here at Phil Watch.

Before we get started, I like to say that I'm dubious over whether Phil is actually in Indianapolis. For a national baseball writer to not have one reference to anybody else in the league while everybody else in the league is so conveniently in one area is spectacular.

He's in a hotel room in Hammond. That way, he can get a Skyway receipt to expense the whole thing.

Let's get started.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Take heart, Cubs fans. There's no taking the easy way out under Crane Kenney.

The man accountable for everything from overseeing the baseball staff to raising ticket prices insisted Wednesday the Cubs won't "run away from our problems" on his watch. The determination is nice, of course, but wouldn't it be better if they stopped creating so many of them?

Fine! I'll bite. What problems? The Cubs have many but what does Phil think the problems are?

In the second month of the Tom Ricketts era, there's an odd sense of disconnect between the Cubs and the business of winning baseball. They continue to reel and stumble trying to regain footing lost with the Milton Bradley signing and Mark DeRosa trade a year ago. And, guess what? The situation doesn't seem likely to clear up any time soon.

Oh, Sweet Fancy Moses! DeRosa? This again?

First, what's the hurry? We're only at the dawn of the free agency period right now.

Second, and most importantly, this free agent class isn't really that good.

It's akin to the NBA right now. The 2011 free agent class is infinitely more talented than this one. Here's an example. Randy Wolf was considered to be the fifth-best free agent (not just pitcher) on the market this year before he signed with the Brewers. Randy. Wolf.

John Lackey is far and away the best pitcher in this class. If he were a free agent in 2011, he'd be, at best, the fifth-best pitcher behind Halladay, Lee, Beckett and Webb with Javier Vazquez also in the mix.

Holliday and Bay are shiny, pretty toys to swoon over. Yes. They're good players. But if they were to be free agents in 2011, they'd have to compete with Joe Mauer, Carl Crawford, Victor Martinez, Carlos Peña, Adam Dunn and Jayson Werth to name a few. That doesn't bring into account a number of players with upside like Derrek Lee, Konerko, Lilly, Kuroda and Street while having oodles of players with options that may not be picked up like Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins and Aramis Ramirez.

In short, they have no competition this year. Some teams are going to sit on their hands, clear some payroll and wait for the infinitely better class just around the pike.

The Cubs, having just changed ownership and already have $120 million committed, had better be one of those teams if they're smart business people.

Look at the Cubs payroll commitments for the future. Where is their any wiggle room?

We would like to report Tribune Co. hadn't gotten so much of Ricketts' money that there was enough left over for the new owners to authorize general manager Jim Hendry to ring in the new regime with a signature acquisition.

Name a 'signature acquisition.'

But the Cubs haven't entered the bidding for Roy Halladay and seemed happy to let Curtis Granderson go to the Yankees.

Oh, holy hell! How many columns has Phil wrote extolling the virtues of Starlin Castro and Andrew Cashner. They are their only trade chips.

Both the Blue Jays and Tigers rightly have said they wanted major league-ready talent in return. Both those guys aren't CLOSE to being ready.

Phil is living in Score caller world. Other baseball teams should just give the Cubs what they want for crap in a bag.

They instead have allowed themselves to become laughingstocks of the winter meetings with tireless attempts to trade the unwanted Bradley and appear on the verge of making another decision just as baffling to their fans as the DeRosa trade -- becoming the first team in 20 years to move their spring training base from Arizona to Florida.

I suppose I have to discuss DeRosa.

There's no position where he fielded adequately. He was coming off a career year and the Indians offered something the Cubs didn't have: Organizational pitching depth.

Here's what the Cubs got back:

Chris Archer: 6-4, 2.81 ERA in A ball, giving up 78 hits in 109 innings, striking out 119

John Gaub: 2-2, 2.25 ERA seeing relief time in AA and AAA, allowing 17 hits in 31 innings while striking out 40.

Jeff Stevens: 1-3, 2.03 ERA in AAA, giving up 35 hits in 57 innings while striking out 61.

Pretty nice little haul.

DeRosa had a $7.6 million Win Value this year while being paid $5.5 million. Meh.

More importantly, he put up a .250/.319/.433 line for a .752 OPS, his worst mark since 2004.

Most importantly, he saw his walk rate dramatically decrease (from 12% to 8.4%) and had a strikeout rate nearly equal to his career-high (23.5% with 121 Ks, the most of his career). Wrist injury. Sure. But his numbers in Cleveland before the injury weren't much better.

We here at Phil Watch liked DeRosa, especially as it seemed he was paying more attention to getting on base. But he's 35 now and can't field.

Let's stop talking about Mark DeRosa, shall we?

Nothing's official, and Mesa, Ariz., did agree Wednesday to spend $750,000 to improve the existing facilities, but all signs point to the Cubs soon announcing they have turned down the proposed new complex there to jump to one in Naples, Fla.

People have been bitching about the shittiness of that complex for years and they did nothing.

I talked to Kenney, the president who represents one-stop shopping for Ricketts in his role as adviser on all matters, about the situation Wednesday.

Here's what he said about Mesa building the two 5,000-square foot buildings to house batting cages: Nothing. Nada. Zip. Not a word.

Oooooohhh, now we have the impetus of such vitriol. Kenney was a little short with Phil and Phil didn't like it.

The Cubs will deny this, and I can't say it with 100 percent certainty, but I believe the decision already has been made to abandon the 45-year relationship with Mesa. Carlos Zambrano, Alfonso Soriano and a generation or two of Starlin Castros...

I'm getting queasy. JHC. Castro has one good year in A ball and we're talking about him like he's Derek Jeter (Oh, we'll be getting to terms like Jeteresque...)

...are about to find their rear ends on buses headed across Alligator Alley and in heavy traffic on Interstate Highway 75 headed to Tampa or quaint places like Lakeland and Kissimmee.

The 30 worst traffic cities in America. Phoenix is #14. Tampa isn't on the list. Just saying.

Kenney insisted it is Ricketts' intention to do what is best for his team.

But no matter how many justifications you hear about the Florida move -- heavier air for pitchers, a short hop to the Dominican Republic and elsewhere in Latin America, etc. -- the reason will be that Ricketts wanted his base of operations in Florida, not Arizona.

So?

Oh, and the developers driving the Naples deal, the Chicago-based Esmark Inc. and the Florida-based Fifth Avenue Advisors, will be sure to add plenty of sweeteners to their offer, including some specifically targeted for the owners. I understand this isn't criminal activity; it's business.

SO?

But, please. Don't sell a sweetheart land deal as progress for the Lovable Losers.

Who has said it's progress? Nobody! Just that they might be moving.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the move. I have Marco Island connections. But I'm not a 28-year-old free agent with a .295 career batting average and six teams interested in signing me. If I was that guy, I'd be far more likely to have attachments to the Phoenix area than the southwest tip of Florida. Those things matter when you are recruiting players.

Who's he talking about?

The only guy that would fit the mold that I can find is Carl Crawford, a 28 year-old guy and a free agent in 2011 with a .295 career average and he just spent the last eight years of his life IN TAMPA!

Really? Who's he talking about? Is it hypothetical?

When I asked Hendry for his Arizona-Florida preference Wednesday, he gave as noncommittal answer as possible -- no doubt the wise one when your owner is leaning to the remote location that fits his needs, if not those of the fans who flock to see games in the Cactus League.

So Cubs fans will now see them in the Grapefruit League and in a better facility to boot.

What's the real problem here? It's a month and a half of fake baseball. A glorified stretching session. Who cares?

What's with the pissy attitude?

"There are a lot of intangibles that as a general manager I don't have a right to weigh in on," Hendry said. "There's going to be a huge commitment of dollars, land. Those things are way out of my area of expertise, and they should be. Tom has to do what's best for the organization."

Based on the 83-78 record in 2009, a little better roster might be "best for the organization." But Ricketts didn't bring fresh payroll capital to give Hendry back the flexibility he sacrificed signing Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome and Bradley for $214 million over 15 seasons in his first three off-seasons under manager Lou Piniella's spell.

Holy Crap! He's all over the map! First it was Bradley and DeRosa and now it's Soriano, Fukudome and Bradley.

What a freaking stream of consciousness with absolutely no direction!

After allowing Rich Harden, Reed Johnson and Kevin Gregg to leave as free agents, Hendry has added only reliever Jeff Gray thus far. It's early, sure, but the lukewarm pursuit of Granderson and free-agent starting pitchers speaks volumes about the internal expectations for a big move.

Reed Johnson? Kevin Gregg! Did Phil watch Cub games last year?

Again, please tell me, Phil. What did the Cubs have to offer up for Granderson?

Kenney stressed the Ricketts ownership is looking at the long haul, not the 2010 season. He insisted it's too early to draw conclusions.

"Jim hasn't stopped working," he said. "Put it that way."

Too much of Hendry's time has been spent trying to get a 25-cent return on the dollar for Bradley. The Cubs simply should have released him last August, after he said he "prayed" games would go nine innings so he could go home.

Or they could try to get something for him. If they can't, THEN dump him.

"And eat $21 million?" asked Kenney. "I have 21 million reasons why we're not releasing him. If there's any prospect we can get back, players who can help us, or save some of the money (to do other things with), why wouldn't we explore that? ... We don't have an unlimited budget."

So the Bradley watch goes on.

Now that's a limp response to a legitimate question.

"We don't run away from our problems," Kenney said. "The fact it's painful doesn't change anything."

Sort of has to a ring to it, doesn't it?

Maybe Soriano will have his 40-40 season in 2010. Maybe Zambrano will win 20 games. But somebody ought to start printing the T-shirts:

Cubs in 2010 -- the fact it's painful doesn't change anything.

What just happened? I'm confused. What was Phil's point?

Personally, I like counting how many questions were posited without once giving an answer to any of them.

Classic Phil. Just classic.

Phil Watch: Double Dose

First, The Chicago Tribune's national baseball writer should really be covering the winter meetings wall to wall in my world.

But alas, the Tribune believes in holding onto their 80 year-old clientele instead of looking five years into the future (or ten years into the past - six of one...) by offering little outside of bland, boring and thoroughly uninformed opinion.

So we get this from Phil during the first two days of the winter meetings (seven of the ten tweets):

Essentially, we readers are supposed to lament along with Phil on the loss of Granderson. It's about him. And thanks for "admit"ting it. Nobody could tell by the eight columns you wrote on Granderson, offering little legitimate evidence that the Cubs are looking to trade for him outside of the fact that Granderson played baseball in Chicago and is a neat guy.

Read the fourth one down. "Granderson would be a good fit for Safeco." Why? To further knock down his power numbers? Can't move Gutierrez off center with the defensive numbers he put up in center. What? Move Granderson to left? That makes him a good fit?

Mostly, Phil WILL be doing a Granderson/Scherzer/Jackson trade evaluation and he WILL mention how Granderson will be a "good fit" for the bandbox that is Yankee Stadium. I want, nay, need to see how he reconciles these two points.

And then we get a Phil column on Monday. The winter meetings open and Phil writes a piece based on one observation/meandering that's rolling around in his head and could have been written anytime over the last two months while backing it up with filler that he's mentioned 12,000 other times. And it's still wrong filler.

Let's get started.

Ken Williams admits he's working on being more patient. He denies, however, that the effort is related to the $60 million waiver claim he made in August on Alex Rios.

It's reasonable to think that the soon-to-be 29 year-old Rios, a guy who put up Win Values of $12.1 million, $18.9 million and $24.6 million over the three years before 2009 was seeing an outlier year, an uncharacteristic season that you don't count in evaluating a guy considering his age.

It was a high risk move on many fronts. His attitude has been called into question. There's been little progress w/r/t OBP. But he plays stellar defense by all accounts and is now in a ballpark more catered to his power output. Nobody in their right mind spends $60 million just to stop a possible waiver claim by the Tigers, which is what Phil is alluding to here (he's done it many times).

Rios responded to Williams' aggressiveness -- or impulsiveness -- by hitting .199 over 41 games. J.P. Ricciardi was on his way out as the Toronto Blue Jays' general manager, but White Sox box scores had to brighten his final days in office.

Are you joking? Ricciardi got fired because of a bevy of stupid moves, mainly Vernon Wells' contract. Phil thinks Rios' $60 million is somehow bad comparatively?

Vernon Wells' contract:

2010: $12.5 million (plus $8.5 million, $25.5 million spread over three years, 2008-10)

2011: $23 million

2012: $21 million

2013: $21 million

2014: $21 million

FULL NO-TRADE CLAUSE

Since Wells signed his big contract before the 2008 season, he's had a total Win Value of $5 million. He's been paid $19 million. Rios signed an extension before the 2008 season. He's been paid $10.135 million. He's been worth $24 million in Win Value. Rios is a little over two years younger than Wells.

You do the math.

Rios' contract is pennies compared to this. Good for Ricciardi. He got rid of a comparatively minor contract when the big elephant is still in the room.

Who is Phil writing for? Morons? People who don't know this shit? Nice target audience.

And now we're taking a 41-game sample to judge a player?

Consider this. Ryan Theriot OPSed .560 from August 20th to the end of the season, a period comprising 38 games.

DUMP HIS ASS!!!!

Four months after the Rios move, Williams was among the last general managers to arrive in Indianapolis for the winter meetings. He took his time driving from Chicago on Monday afternoon, a leisurely journey that apparently was not interrupted by many phone calls from player agents.

Read the newspaper, Phil. Kenny said on every occasion he could that his off-season was in August when he acquired Peavy and Rios. I know Peavy and Rios aren't shiny new toys like the over-priced free agents at the winter meetings but his big moves are done. Sorry if it's not pretty and new.

Williams has let it be known he has limited resources to finish assembling his roster. That's not because he added Mark Teahen, Omar Vizquel and Andruw Jones in recent weeks, while retaining Mark Kotsay, but because he gambled about $115 million on Jake Peavy and Rios over the summer.

Where's the gamble on Peavy again? $49 million over three years left on his contract. He's been worth that exact amount over the last three years...and that's not taking into account a Win Value dollar amount that has been regressively less each year you go back. And the fact that last year was injury-plagued (still had an $11.5 million value last year).

He'll, in the least, be better than league-average in the AL and make back his contract in value. How's that a gamble? If Phil thinks he is, he HAS to make a case. He hasn't.

What about Chone Figgins?

Manager Ozzie Guillen has long lamented a need for both speed and a leadoff hitter. The Angels igniter, a career .291 hitter who has averaged 46 stolen bases the last five seasons, had been the subject of recurring trade talks between Williams and his counterparts in Anaheim.

Because a Chicago team wanted Figgins, that means he should sign here.

Yet Williams took a knee throughout Figgins' brief time on the free agent market, unable to do anything except wish him well after he agreed to a four-year, $36 million deal with the Mariners.

"I don't have any money," said Williams, who projects the Sox's payroll to wind up near $100 million. "I would have loved to (add him), but it didn't work."

Asked and answered. His money was spent in August. Apparently that's not good enough. Not shiny enough.

In a perfect world, Figgins would have played left field for the White Sox. That appears to be the outfield spot they are targeting for an inexpensive addition, with Guillen saying Monday that Carlos Quentin is likely to move to right field, his natural position.

OH MY FUCKING GOLLY!!!!!

Geesh!!!! How many times do we have to go over this?

Figgins is one of the best third baseman in the league. His defensive numbers over the last two seasons have been better than any season Joe Crede (Phil's continuous masturbation material) has ever put up over a full season. Crede's best UZR/150 was 13.6 in 2006. Figgins, over the last two seasons, has put up 13.8 and 18.8.

HE'S!!!! NOT!!!! MOVING!!! OFF!!!! THIRD!!!!!

Sox played their hand when they signed Teahen. Blame that, if anything.

Had Williams not made the Rios waiver claim, he could have turned to prospect Jordan Danks to fill the center field void the Sox have felt since trading Aaron Rowand after the 2005 World Series. That would have left him the flexibility to pursue Figgins or even a run producer like Jason Bay or Matt Holliday.

Danks has exactly 330 at-bats above double A. He's Ready!

Sly Rowand slip-in there. Still catering to meatball Sox fans I see. Since leaving the Sox, Rowand has been worth $44.7 million over four years while playing progressively worse defense. He's also 32 years old.

Rios has been worth $54 million over the last four years while playing much steadier defense and is a little over three years younger.

Take out the outlier years for both (best and worst years over their careers) and Rios has averaged a little over $10 million in Win Value. Rowand? A little over $11 million (full seasons). Rios is still in the heart of his prime. Rowand...not.

Bay's overrated (if the Angels sign him for more than $13 million per for four years, they got ripped off) and Holliday has yet to prove he can hit in the AL while being a Boras client (read: WAY too expensive for what you get).

But Williams believes the 28-year-old Rios will prove to be just as valuable as any of those bird-in-the-bush options.

"We wanted that player," Williams said. "We don't look at (the situation) as a hindrance. We look at him as an answer to one problem we've had for a long time. This guy is a career .280 hitter with power, with speed, with defense. We're happy to have him."

Dispute it...you know...with numbers...or opinions...or something.

Guillen was among those shocked by the limited impact Rios had after coming to Chicago. He says Rios' biggest problem was "everything," specifically citing the pressure Rios put on himself after he was cast aside by Toronto, landing in a tricky situation with a .500 team that somehow pictured itself as a potential force.

JHC! Who? Who pictured itself as a potential force? Every report said this and the Peavy move were building toward the future. Cripes! This is bullshit newspaper writing that only serves as filler. It's crap that made me not waste a paltry 75 cents on a physical paper just on principle. It's just so...revisionist.

Stealing a very winnable division would only have been a bonus. Rios played his first game as a Sox on August 12. The Sox were two games back. Insurmountable!

At the time, it was a move with a double bonus. Win the division and great. Don't and you still have a good, moderately young guy that will play to his contract in value.

The Sox believe mechanical problems with his swing undercut Rios' confidence, putting him in a hole he could never escape.

Guillen said Rios has the potential to deliver 30 homers and steal 30 bases, maybe even 40-40 -- never mind that he has hit those levels only once, stealing 32 bases in 2008. He finished '09 with 17 homers and 24 stolen bases, with his batting average sliding to .247.

So...he's hit those levels and is only 29. Bad thing?

And so...Phil thinks he'll regress even further. Why? Tell. Me. Why?

Can he turn it around?

For Williams' sake, he had better.

The White Sox have the starting pitching to win in the next two or three seasons, but the lineup is an iffy proposition. This would have been a good winter to make an impact move or two had Ricciardi not let Williams solve one of the Blue Jays' problems.

Now the Blue Jays are ready to contend now they've rid themselves of Rios.

We'll be coming back to this. Oh yes! We'll be revisiting this on multiple occasions here at Phil Watch.

Phil Watch: Bring Back Ortman!

I went old school on the Phil pic today.

Feeling nostalgic.

Today, Phil channels his inner Score caller.

"I think the Sox should trade some prospects for Pujols!"

To preface today's Whispers, remember that Phil told Hendry three weeks ago that he "must pursue Ganderson." And in that piece, he said:

"If Dombrowski wants to talk about Carlos Marmol, potentially a closer for the next two or three years, and Starlin Castro, who could have a Shawon Dunston impact and tenure at shortstop, Hendry should be willing. Granderson -- at this point in his career -- is worth paying a huge price to get."

Let's get started.

The Tigers continue to have trade talks involving Edwin Jackson and Granderson, with both situations likely to come to a conclusion at the winter meetings in Indianapolis. The Cubs are serious about Granderson but have made it known they won't give up Carlos Marmol or Starlin Castro. The Tigers instead could ask for right-hander Andrew Cashner and third baseman Josh Vitters. ...

The Tigers could also ask for a Cuisinart rotisserie cooker, a Kindle and a tiger-striped Snuggie as well, all hot holiday presents this year.

First, the Yankees and Angels are in on Granderson as well, two teams with a million more trading chips than the Cubs.

Second, it would have to be SO MUCH more than Cashner and Vitters, the latter proving this year that he's a rather ordinary prospect that doesn't add much to a trade involving a player of Granderson's ability, payroll commitment and age.

Phil will not question Hendry. Never has.

Callis over at Baseball America couldn't have foreseen the stupidity that would ensue in this town when he ranked Castro #1 on this year's top 10 organizational list. Well, he probably did. He's writing from Chicago.

But until Castro shows he can be something other than a bit of a slap-hitting shortstop with a potentially good glove and a terrible walk rate, he shouldn't be untouchable. Not if you can get a guy like Granderson, proven to be one of the best center fielders in the game rather than keeping a possibly decent little shortstop in three years.

Granderson, 28, is owed $5.5 million next year ($8.25M in 2011 and $10M in 2012 with a 2013 club option). In the last four years, he's averaged $19.4M in win value and a 4.9 UZR/150.

I have no idea why the Tigers let Ordoñez's $18M option vest and then turn around and shop Granderson and his $5.5M for next year. But this is a team that has $47.5M committed to Nate Robertson, Jeremy Bonderman, Dontrelle Willis and Carlos Guillen in 2010. They will win no awards for Most Responsible Spending. True. By benching Ordoñez sufficiently enough in 2009, they did avoid the 270-start, two-year trigger (he started 102 games) for the 2011 option of $15 million to be guaranteed, so good for them.

But it's still inexplicable to me why dumping $5.5M Granderson is some sort of priority. Given that, if they deal him, they won't be taking a package with the likes of Cashner and Vitters included. Dombrowski was probably seeing if anyone would blow him away with a ridiculous package. Phil's Cubs package is not one of those.

Scouts from the Tigers and other AL teams are looking at Jake Fox in the Dominican Republic. He hit a combined .326-28-97 between Triple A and the Cubs last season but has nowhere to play. ...

Oh, but hell! If you throw in a 27 year-old guy who can't play the field and had basically one good year, DEAL DONE!

It's absolutely imperative, if you're going to be a national baseball writer, to offer up something that seems plausible, not just possible. If you give simply possibilities, then you're a reporter. And not a good one.

If you think Cashner, Vitters and Fox get you Granderson, you would be mistaken. Dombrowski is still getting killed for the Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez for Edgar Renteria trade.

This is not analysis. This is wishful thinking. It's Score caller thinking.

According to figures published by Baseball America, the two best fastballs in the Arizona Fall League belong to Nationals No. 1 pick Stephen Strasburg and White Sox reliever Sergio Santos, the latter a former first-round pick of the Diamondbacks who played infield until 2009.

Sigh. It's not the best fastballs. It's fastballs with maximum velocity. HUGE difference.

Best fastballs would be something combining velocity with effectiveness. This is not that.

Why did the Astros give Carlos Lee a no-trade clause in his deal two years ago? Without it, he could be shopped to the Red Sox, among others. ...

Because they probably had to, kind sir. Lee wouldn't have signed it.

Question why a team would give Lee six years and $100 million. That's legit. He plays bad defense in left, doesn't walk and generally has a crappy attitude about everything. Lee gets his numbers and seems to be fine with that, kind of like a poor man's Albert Belle.

But if anybody is paying a player $100 million, in what world would that player not also demand a no-trade clause? In a weird way, the Astros should be commended for backloading the contract and getting the no-trade clause to expire in 2010. They're not going to be locked into the last two years of Carlos Lee at $18.5 million per year if they don't want to.

So, signing Lee was the original sin. He's been paid $41.5 million by the Astros in the last three years and has played to a $39.6 million value. Pretty much a push in pure dollars. You want more out of Lee, sure. His last three years are at $18.5 million per year so the Astros gave the last three years to Lee at a value he's never reached in Win Values. That's pretty stupid given those last three years are for Lee's 34-36 age years. But again, they're only really exposed to one real bad year and that's next year. 2011 and 2012 are entirely open to the "Trade Lee's Ass" banner at Minute Maid because they can.

See...opinion. That's surprisingly easy. Give it a go sometime.

Brent Morel has shot past Dayan Viciedo as the White Sox's third baseman of the future. He's a natural hitter, which he showed when he joined the Arizona Fall League at midseason and hit .372 in his first 12 games, including an 8-for-11 showing in three games last week. ...

Morel led the AFL with a .435 average in 62 ABs (half-season). That's good.

But is this what we're doing now? We're taking the already stupid projection of a prospect after an AFL performance done in an already short fall season comprised of typically 120 ABs and we're now projecting a prospect who played in half of an already short fall season?

Morel seems like someone to keep an eye on but let's see how he does above class A ball before crowning him the Third Baseman Of The Future. How 'about it? Sound good? Viciedo doesn't look like anything special but at least his numbers were compiled in Double A and it was in his first season in American ball. I think the jury might still be out on any usurping.

I'm sure Phil saw Morel's 25 stolen bases and wet himself but consider this. Adam Dunn stole 24 bases in class A ball in 2000. Let's see how Morel does when he's not facing a 55th round draft pick from Assfuck, Iowa before lavishing praise upon him.

Just some measured praise. Just some.

A's GM Billy Beane is encouraged by pitcher Fautino de los Santos' recovery from Tommy John surgery. De los Santos, a headliner in the deal that sent Nick Swisher to the White Sox, was throwing 95 mph in the Instructional League, according to Beane.

Phil is going to be right about Fautino if it kills him.

Remember. When Phil had an accident in his pants for the hard-throwing righty, he was just a pup who hadn't pitched above A ball.

He's now 24, coming off TJS and has thrown 33 innings in the last two years, none above A ball and 2009's 11 innings were in rookie ball.

And let's look at that "headliner" claim.

Four players were involved: Swisher, Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Sweeney and De Los Santos.

Swisher was THE headliner because he was, you know, a major league player with a track record.

Gonzalez was the original Phil lament and we were offered copious amounts of updates on Gio's progress by Phil. And then it stopped...because Gio was bad. 6.24 ERA and a 1.71 WHIP since arriving in Oakland. He strikes out a lot of guys only when he finds the strike zone. His 5.1 walks/9 would have been the worst in baseball among players with 90 innings or more pitched if Ian Snell wasn't just a tick (.04) worse. His WHIP was the 7th most. With Peavy, Buehrle, Danks, Floyd and Hudson, Gio is no longer part of the discussion in any way, shape or form.

We were told as well by Phil in June, 2008 that if Ryan Sweeney would have been on the White Sox, he would have made the White Sox a better team by helping supplement an aging core. You know, the team that won the division.

Now Fautino is 'a headliner' in Phil's strange recollection. Is everyone a headliner? Seems like a player can't really be a headliner if everyone's a headliner. It's like the Monday Night Football crew calling everyone "Great!" If everyone's great, then the definition of 'great' is no longer valid.

Nice job, Phil. Channel your inner Larry King.

Phil Watch: Off-Season Phil Is Back!

It's my favorite time of year.

Phil doesn't have games to passively watch and wax wrongly on so we get Phil letting his brain wander.

Wonderful thing, that - a wandering Phil brain.

It's similar in ways to letting your dog do whatever the hell she wants. Terrible things tend to happen.

Like Phil's Whispers...ear to the ground, all that crap.

Many in the Cubs' front office think they would be foolish to give up Starlin Castro to get Curtis Granderson, but there are a lot of other ways to do the deal.

Alright! Starlin Castro better be the second coming of Hanley Ramirez because I'm sick of hearing about a guy with 122 plate appearances above A ball and, though only 19, seems to be a bit of slap hitter with a 6.7% walk rate.

It might be different if Castro was in a real minor league system with...you know...real prospects. He's not. The Cubs' system was ranked 27th last year in all of baseball. Expect that to drop this year as noboby in the system particularly shined.

But that's what Chicago does. They blow their wad over the faintest flicker of hope.

General manager Jim Hendry appreciates all Granderson brings to the table, even though he has had trouble hitting left-handers in two of the last three seasons. Perhaps Granderson would benefit from working with new Cubs hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo.

Jaramillo's a guru, you know. He takes good hitters and makes them great.

We'll overlook last year when Rangers' left-handed hitters OPSed .663 off left-handed pitching. In 520 at-bats, Rangers' left-handers were the collective embodiment of David Eckstein in 2009 (okay, that's unfair - Eckstein OPSed .657).

To the larger point - which is exhausting even writing it - hitting coaches cannot take a 29 year-old guy who has had, well, 29 years to learn to hit a lefty curve and suddenly teach an old-ish dog new tricks. He can maybe mitigate catastrophic damage but he can't remake a guy.

(In reference to signing Cuban free agents) The White Sox gave third baseman Dayan Viciedo a $10 million deal last winter that could make it tough for them to spend heavily again.

First, the vitals. Viciedo's salary:

2010: $1.25 million

2011: $1.25 million

2012: $2.5 million

$4 million signing bonus when he signed (could be pro-rated)

Ever buy a car? Of course, you have. Ever buy a car that costs half of your year's salary?

Well, I posit a question to you. After you buy said car, do you consider the purchase as a halving of your salary for that year? No...no, you don't. Because you're not a moron.

You're probably on a 3-5 year payment plan which, HOLY CRAP!, is just like baseball salaries!

Who knew? It's not like the Sox are paying Viciedo $10 million this year. It's spread out.

Also, the White Sox spent in the bottom half of all teams (19th) last year on their first 10 round picks. They're fine.

It's ridiculous for anyone to paint Tim Lincecum as the "sabermetrics candidate" in the NL Cy Young race. He's a great pitcher, as are the Cardinals' Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter. If I had been voting, I would have had it Wainwright, Lincecum and Carpenter.

Who is holy hell painted Lincecum a sabermetrics candidate?

Is this a reference to Greinke? Seriously, I don't get it.

I want someone to argue against Greinke. Go here, see the "traditional" statistics and argue against Greinke.

Can't be done. Sabermetrically, it can't be done times infinity.

Lincecum's award was mentioned in sabermetric circles because, like Greinke's Cy Young, it was marginally astonishing that the Algonquin Round Table known as the BBWAA actually decided to recognize the fact that win totals mean very little.

If it did, Jon Garland would be a perennial candidate for baseball's bestest of the bestest pitcher.

We won't discuss all of Phil's predictions on where free agents will land this off-season except for one.

Guerrero, Nationals: Washington has enough money to bring back the eight-time All-Star to his original franchise, making it more acceptable to trade Adam Dunn for some badly needed pitching.

Right there with Phil-isms like Phil-Math, using words like "poised" or "good fit" and tracking former White Sox prospects that were traded years ago, Phil LOVES players signing with their original franchise (or guys like DeRosa, who played football at Penn, signing with the Phillies...or Harden signing with the Twins because he's Canadian and Justin Morneau's Canadian! - you know, stuff like that).

First, another question. Don't check. How many games do you think Guerrero played in the field last year?

If you said 80, you'd be wrong.

If you said 40, you'd be wrong again.

If you said two...yes...two games, please proceed to the front desk and collect your prize.

Two. He was so bad in right that Scioscia thought BOBBY ABREU was a better option.

Now, the Nationals took some heat for signing Dunn because he's a brutal fielder and what he offers offensively, which is much, is reduced dramatically by his brutal defense. In fact, Dunn just won the Worst UZR Award for 2007-2009 over at Fangraphs. Congratulations, Adam.

So...Phil thinks they should trade Adam Dunn and replace him with a lumbering refrigerator version of Adam Dunn with bad knees and is five years older than Adam Dunn. Oh, and isn't nowhere near the offensive talent of Adam Dunn at 35 years old.

I call that brilliant!

Okay, Vlad didn't touch Dunn's prodigious -108.1 runs against average over a three-year period. He was only -46.3 runs against average from 2006-2008 (not counting two games in 2009).

That's still really bad.

Guerrero is not going to play in the National League. If someone signs him to play the field, that is a team with bad baseball thinking at the helm.

Cripes! The Nationals just made a superlatively great move last year in acquiring Nyjer Morgan, a guy who just might be the best defensive outfielder in baseball. Let's flush half of that away and sign Guerrero to play right.

Phil Watch: Lil Nugget

Today's offering will be like a tweet.

That becomes more relevant now that Phil tweets.

In Phil's mid-week column that follows the GM meetings near O'Hare, he brags a bit about talking to "at least half of MLB's 30 teams" regarding the salary cap. Don't know why he couldn't have just counted up the number in his notes and come up with something exact but he didn't. So...Phil stood in the grand ballroom at some hotel in Schaumburg and did something resembling speed dating, replacing 'salary cap' for 'what do you do?'

Figure in a 40 minute roundtrip on the Kennedy and poof! Two hours worth of work and he has a column.

The finished product is the usual lamentation over the absence of the salary cap. Nothing new. Feels a bit like a journalism class assignment where you have a two-hour gap between classes and decide to do a 'word on the street' reaction piece. Ask only five people, meeting the minimum level of sources for a reaction piece, use all five, come up with some shallow angle and go about your day.

But that's not why we're here.

We're here for Phil-Math.

Baseball, the one uncapped sport, has produced eight different champions over the last decade, with 14 different teams going to a World Series. The NFL has had six champions in this time, with only 10 going to a Super Bowl. The NBA has had five champions, with 11 going to the Finals.

Some parameters - Decade = Ten years. Always has, I believe.

The NFL:

I count seven champions with 14 going the Super Bowl.

Oh, Christo. You're being nit-picky. Phil means the aughts, or nine seasons starting at 2000.

Okay. I count six champions with 13 going to the Super Bowl, "not six champions with only 10..."

Remember that we're comparing it to baseball's "eight different champions with 14 different teams going to the World Series."

Problem = it's with 10 World Series being played in baseball compared to nine Super Bowls being played. Even with Phil getting the math wrong. Wrong. Twice.

So...we have 6-10, which is really 6-13 in nine seasons compared to 8-14 in ten seasons.

Where's this dramatic disparity again?

But hey...he got the NBA math right.

Phil Watch: Mark Teahen's Supposed Wonderfulness

Hello!

It's been awhile. Again.

So...Mark Teahen is now on the South Side, traded for Josh Fields and Chris Getz. Or Chris Getz and Josh Fields. JHC! Does it really matter?

Phil, once the rumors became less-than-unsubstantiated or something, offered a quick national baseball columnist reaction; a reaction that barely involves an assessment of Teahen while offering a drooly coda over Chris Getz along with a weird Paul Konerko prediction.

I can barely type this next sentence because it feels so freakin' trite. If you have taken the time to read all the Mark Teahen articles at the Tribune over the last two days, you know why people don't bother to read the newspaper. Get more lazy and old.

Seriously, is it that difficult to hire a guy that offers something sabermetrically-inclined a couple of times a week? Or even someone who doesn't pepper their articles with 'leadership' and 'passion'-type tropes?

Let's get started.

Mark Teahen might be Kenny Williams' perfect player.

A hair below Major League average? The Sox were 79-83 this year. That's a collective hair-below Major League average. If Kenny Williams values 79-83, then Phil is 100% correct.

He's a good hitter and he can move all over the field, making him a candidate for playing time at third base, second base, first base, left field, right field and DH.

(Glurp) Well...I suppose I should type this stuff just for posterity.

Mark Teahen's UZR/150 at each position:

First base: A grand total of 34 games played = 6.0. Fine.

Second base: The experiment lasted all of three games before Gordon went down = -32.1

Third base: This is where he saw the most ML time = -10.1 (-10.9 last year)

Right field: Second-most time, known for his strong arm and lack of range = -2.0

I don't hate Mark Teahen. In many ways, it's a fine enough swap. Not like the Sox gave up anything.

Something that hasn't been mentioned anywhere, though, about the deal - which is soooo Chicago - is that Teahen's a free agent in 2011 and will only see an arbitration-eligible raise that should max out at $4-5 million. It's one year and he'll probably become a Cub because Hendry also has a hard-on for his MLB averageness.

Even Steve Stone inexplicably sung his praises, saying his line drives will become home runs in U.S. Cellular. To what? From 10 to 15 homers? He also said Teahen is a good defensive player, which he's not by any and all metrics available.

BUT...it's only one year and he's at his prime production year at the age of 28. When it comes to the 'gonna git paid!' world, 2010 is Teahen's watershed moment. Motivation is there. He's playing for the unrestricted free agent paradise.

Like the signing of first baseman-outfielder Mark Kotsay, Teahen's arrival -- not yet official, although widely reported -- would position the White Sox to deal Paul Konerko this winter, assuming Konerko is willing to waive his no-trade rights.

Geesh. Who's picking up the $12 million contract for His Slowness?

Konerko has one year left on his contract and isn't believed to have received overtures about staying past 2010. He could be attractive to teams looking for leadership and run-production, with San Francisco, Arizona, Boston and the Angels among the possibilities. Shedding his $12-million salary would make it easier to pursue a top free agent, such as the long rumored Chone Figgins.

Consistency! I demand it!

Arizona? They're going nowhere. And what happens to Phil's man-crush Brandon Allen?

Cripes. If you kept up on Arizona baseball things, you would know they're trying to shed payroll.

Boston? Fine, whatever. Won't happen, but fine.

San Francisco? I can see it, oddly. This is a mildly solid suggestion. A move to the NL could easily prolong his career and I think he should seriously consider any NL team that wants him.

Angels! WHAT THE MOTHER FUCK!!!!!

Who hit .306/.355/.569 with 34 homers and 108 RsBi for the Angels at first base?

Who? I mean, what does Morales have to do? And he's a better defensive first baseman than Konerko.

What? For DH? They can re-sign Guerrero for $5 million (mark my words) and save $7 million!

Angels are fine, kind sir, in the dumbass Leadership department.

And here we go on the Figgins thing. Figgins is one of the best third basemen in the league. He's. Not. Moving. Off. Third! God!

(BTW, Bernstein said Figgins is getting $15 million per for five years. BAH! No fucking way he touches that!)

No one is saying the White Sox are going to trade Konerko.

Didn't Phil just make that point?

Unless someone pays a premium for him, they shouldn't.

But...but....but....Phil. You just gave reasons.

He and Mark Buehrle are still the cornerstones this team is built upon.

People age in life. Read the inside of the boxtop.

But with Williams' perpetual need to do something, you never know.

He hasn't made more moves than other GMs. Look it up.

Like Clayton Richard, who was sent to San Diego in the Jake Peavy trade, Chris Getz will be missed.

Are we really lamenting the loss of Clayton Richard still? News to me.

He's a good young player who was a pleasure for everyone he encountered around U.S. Cellular Field. The questions with him are his bat and his health.

Chipper attitude wins baseball games in Phil's world. Let's see. Can't stay healthy and can't hit. That's a recipe for awesomeness!

Yes, those are big drawbacks.

Do you feel it? Phil thinks whenever a player leaves town, it's his job to give a glowing parting shot, like it's part of some historical record or something. Let's continue, I guess.

Getz's instincts and speed make him an exciting player, the kind the Sox consistently lacked in the Konerko- Jermaine Dye- Jim Thome era.

Am I wrong? I missed more than a few games this year but did Getz ever create a body of work that jettisoned him into the realm of exciting? He was pretty much just a guy. Perfect Royal in that respect.

But take a good look at his line from the 107 games he played last season: a ,261 batting average, .324 on-base percentage and .408 slugging average.

Yes. Let's take a look. .261 = meh. .324 = bad. .408 = WRONG!!!

Phil, you took Nix's slugging and attributed it to Getz. Getz's slugging was .347 in 2009, which is absolutely horrendous. Getz had an OPS+ of 73. MY. GOD! That's horrible.

Now look at the same numbers for Jayson Nix.

Okay. Nix's OPS = .716. Getz's OPS = .670. Nix plays a superlative second (14.5 UZR/150 in 2009). Getz doesn't (-6.7). Right there. Add it up. Nix was a two win improvement over Getz in just defensive ability.

There. Done.

Nix, not a sure thing himself, put up his numbers in a tougher role –off the bench. He is a more productive hitter than Getz at this point. His fielding skills have been underrated in Chicago.

This is the point where Phil found out that Nix plays good defense. Probably accidentally turned to the Nix page in the Bill James Handbook and was shocked by what he saw. Therefore, Nix is underrated by all of Chicago because Phil didn't previously know it.

And prospect C.J. Retherford, who hit .297 with 10 home runs included in his 60 extra-base hits last year for Double-A Birmingham, is on essentially the same level as Getz and Nix.

Heard good things about Retherford. BUT. He'll need to play in the Major League baseball games before we declare him on par with both Getz and Nix.

Point is, Getz was almost as expendable as Josh Fields, who failed when given his big-league shots.

The Teahen trade, like the Kotsay re-signing, isn't a huge move. But it makes sense.

The question, as always with Williams, is what comes next?

Phil does love the phrase 'it makes sense'. Covers all the bases and leaves him accountable for nothing.

Phil Watch: Hitting Coach? Really?

Let's get right to it.

The Cubs have run-scoring issues. They can not simply throw money at the problem, at least not in the usual ways. This does not mean they don't have options, however.

That seems right. The Cubs will have to get creative this off-season to fix a putrid offense. They're old, expensive and have nothing in the system right now. I'm with you, kind sir. What's an option?

One of them may be to fill their vacancy for a hitting coach with the best guy in that position, Rudy Jaramillo. If the Rangers allow him to become a free agent when his contract ends at the end of the month, as it appears they might, the Cubs should go above the usual hitting coach pay scale to bring him to Wrigley Field.

A hitting coach? Really. That's an answer?

Fine. I'll bite. Why is Rudy Jaramillo such a good hitting coach - please tell me because I'm dyyyyiiiinnnnngggg to know?

Jaramillo is the absolute perfect man for the Cubs' situation.

I think a Red Rider BB gun is the perfect Christmas present. I don't think a football is a very good Christmas present.

He has worked successfully in the past with both Alfonso Soriano and Milton Bradley...

Soriano's average for the three-year period before Texas in New York: .287/.326/.506 for an OPS + of 116 in a less hitter-friendly park than Arlington.

Soriano's averages in Texas: .274/.316/.498 for an OPS + of 105 during his prime hitting ages of 28 and 29.

Year after leaving Texas for Washington: .277/.351/.560 for an OPS + of 135.

Just saying. Jaramillo's probably a good hitting coach - if that matters to you - but Phil's gonna have to tell me why first.

...the latter of whom is no guarantee to be eliminated over the offseason (unless general manager Jim Hendry releases him at a cost of $21 million). And he is well acquainted with manager Lou Piniella from the years Piniella spent in Seattle and Tampa.

BULLSHIT! Milton will not be a Cub next year and I'll bet a box of Pudding Pops on that. If you know me, I'm sure you gasped...because that's like promising my first-born child.

This marriage should be a slam dunk, even if the Cubs offend other teams by paying Jaramillo at a premium.

Why is it a slam dunk? Because he coached Soriano and Pinella was in the opposing dugout a few times a year?

The Rangers have paid heavily in the past for coaches, digging deep to keep Jaramillo when his last contract expired and then reportedly giving Mike Maddux an extra $100,000 to convince him to leave the Brewers last winter. If you don't think coaches can make a difference, then you didn't notice how much the Rangers' pitching improved this season while the Brewers' declined.

WHHAAAA???

Maddux had Sabathia and a healthy Ben Sheets in 2008! This year, the Brewers had Gallardo and four Price Is Right contestants. Yes. Allllll Maddux. Cripes! You wrote an entire column talking about this very fact just three months ago!

Jaramillo is the same kind of difference-maker. He has spent 19 seasons as a major league hitting coach with the Rangers and Astros, and his teams always have been near the top in run production. As a minor league hitting coach, he worked with players such as Sammy Sosa, Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez, and he was an influence on Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell in Houston.

Sosa - juiced

Gonzalez - juiced

Rodriguez - juiced

Biggio - not juiced

Bagwell - juiced

4 for 5! He is a good hitting coach!

Phil on Sosa after the shocking steroid revelation:

Phil Rogers: NO Flip flop. Flop flip. Sosa would have gotten a qualified vote from me before the report of his positive steroid test in 2003. But the voting today is no way, no how. Sosa's Hall of Fame qualifications were all about his power. Don't vote for Mark McGwire; won't vote for Sosa

Why include this? Steroids were rampant on the Texas Rangers for years. Heck, Canseco's book focused extensively on his time in Texas. I'm not blaming Jaramillo but sounds like a lot of people turned a blind eye down there and Jaramillo, being a hitting coach, pretty much was one of them.

He helped Mark Teixeira establish himself as a presence in Texas...

What the hell does that mean? And Teixeira was a sure thing right out of college.

played a role in Josh Hamilton's late-arriving success...

Played a role? Huh? He was Cincinnati's reclamation project in so many ways. His numbers in Cincy extrapolated out to a full season are identical to his numbers in Texas last year.

...and made Ian Kinsler and Michael Young better hitters.

How? Tell. Me. How!

Under Jaramillo, Rangers players have won 16 Silver Slugger awards and four MVPs.

Six Silver Slugger Awards were from Ivan Rodriguez at the notoriously hitter-challenged position of catcher...and a juicer. Five were from Juan Gonzalez...also a juicer.

I can keep going.

Four MVPs? Two from Juan Gonzalez and one each from Ivan and Alex Rodriguez.

All together now!! J-U-I-C-E-R-S!

"Rudy is unbelievably good," Alex Rodriguez said. "He understands hitting, how to work with all kinds of hitters, and he busts his butt to get the best from hitters. He helped me get better when I was in Texas, sometimes making me work when I wouldn't have if he hadn't been on me. I've seen him do it with other guys too."

Ya know.

Can the Cubs get Jaramillo? Not if he decides he's too comfortable in Texas. If he decides to leave, the primitive work conditions at Wrigley could become an issue. So, too, could the question of what happens if Piniella leaves after 2010 and the next manager wants to bring in his own guy.

Mets and Astros are reportedly in on Jaramillo. He's coached in Houston, lives three hours away from Houston right now, Pinella IS leaving after 2010 meaning his future could be entirely up in the air after one only year and the Cubs just fired two hitting coaches in one season so we know what heads roll when the heat is on over at Addison and Clark. Shitty working conditions are the icing. Have you heard the stories about the batting cages under the stands at Wrigley? Rats as big as a pick!

Sounds like the absolute perfect fit to me!

But Hendry should do everything he can to answer any questions Jaramillo has. He would be the best thing to happen to the Cubs since the Derrek Lee trade.

If hiring a hitting coach would be the best thing to happen in six years for any team (and I'm including the Pirates here), your team has bigger issues than I initially thought.

Phil Watch: Making Up For My Own Laziness

'Spose I should get this done. It's been in reserve for a couple weeks now.

We here at Phil Watch have Phil's end of the year and postseason crap to get it to so let's clear some stuff off the docket.

And don't forget the Phil Rogers All-Star team, coming soon to Phil Watch.

Ryne Sandberg has added to his managerial portfolio by guiding Double-A Tennessee into the Southern League playoffs. He's making a compelling case for himself as the eventual replacement for Lou Piniella. ...

(loooong sigh) Even if minor league managerial records mattered, which they don't, but let's say they do (even when they don't). Tennessee didn't exactly light the league on fire with their well-managed baseball goodness.

They played Huntsville in the first round of the playoffs, a team that won the first half, and then destroyed all comers in the second half with an impressive 25-44 record. And then Tennessee lost in the Championship 3-1.

But hey, it wasn't against right-handed starters. That's new in Cubbie world.

Sandberg may one day be a good Major League manager. How 'about letting him, you know, at least be in the same universe as Major League players and get some experience at least near locations where Major League games are played before we anoint him Cubbie Savior. Say like a manager's position at the Banana Republic next to AT & T Park.

In the end, though, using minor league baseball records as an indicator? Really? That's your thesis statement?

Hanley Ramirez's stroll to a batting title is overshadowing his improved fielding. The Marlins shortstop entered the weekend with eight errors after committing 26 as a rookie in 2006. National League managers ranked the Phillies' Jimmy Rollins, the Rockies' Troy Tulowitzki and Ramirez as the best defensive shortstops in a survey by Baseball America. ...

I posit something. I'm just going to pull this out of my ass. I doubt anyone has ever thought of this...you know...ever. I warn you, this is deep thinking that will probably be understood by maybe three human beings currently alive today. Something akin to a quantum physics of quantum physics.

Brace yourself. What if a guy commits eight errors on the season? But along with that, he doesn't get to 25-30 other balls on the season that an average major league shortstop does get to? Why if?

Same result for the most part, right? Guy hits a groundball, Hanley boots it, he's on first. Guy hits a groundball that Hanley can't get to but Johnny Average does, he's on first. Same thing.

Mind. Blown!!!! Right?

Hanley essentially had one bad year in the field in 2007. That year, he had a hamstring injury that limited his mobility and it lingered. Every statistical category that monitors fielding shows Ramirez has pretty much been the same fielder since he arrived in the league and he's Johnny Average. This year, he was exactly Johnny Average with a 0.0 UZR/150. Heck, every other one of Hanley's fielding metrics were actually down a bit over last year except for Error Runs.

Errors are a pretty useless way to compare shortstops. But let's posit something that's not completely out of my ass. 8-10 errors a year could be attributed to a bad first baseman for a shortstop. Not completely out of the question. One every three weeks seems at least in the ballpark. Hanley's first basemen this year were Cantu, Gload and Johnson, all played just above average defense at first. In 2007, Hanley's first basemen were Jacobs and Boone. Both played pretty woeful defense at first. Throw in a dash of luck with the scorekeeper for 3-4 more, maybe some pitching tendencies that emphasized pitching inside more, thereby jamming more righties and you see a possible anomaly.

Even if judging a fielder on number of errors is stupid in the first, second and third place, we would need another year or two to see if Hanley's taking care of the ball more. And then we could make yet another stupid argument based on errors, but at least it would be a stupid based on more solid ground.

Which is entirely better than what this was.

And there was this taken from a column telling us the Rangers are a dangerous playoff team:

The teams that are the toughest to beat in October are ones with balance, especially when any imbalance is tilted toward pitching and defense. They are also teams that have played their best later in the season, not the ones holding on after fast starts.

Um, this is what Phil said about the Diamondbacks on May 1 of last year:

It's over

The remaining five months of baseball will be played, but Arizona's 20-8 April took any suspense out of what figured to be a very good race in the National League West

Just wanted to remind everyone.

And we can't forget that Phil along passed the buck on that one. It wasn't his fault even though it was in his column with his name attached. It was "The Tribune."

Those premises identify the Rockies and Cardinals, respectively, as the National League teams best set for the postseason, not the Phillies and Dodgers.

Bah! How'd that work out?

They point to the Yankees and Rangers -- yes, the Rangers -- as the AL teams capable of having the longest runs.

1-4.

When the regular season ends, we will seed the playoff teams 1 through 8, using a system devised in 2007. It quantifies teams' run production and run prevention abilities, with extra weight given to clubs that pitch and defend and have done their best work after the All-Star break.

Phil's so proprietary. It's the KFC recipe under lock and key with armed guards. Just vague references. I want the formula!

That formula revealed the Rockies as the best NL team in 2007 before they even had beaten the Padres in a one-game playoff for the wild-card spot. It correctly predicted the outcome of six of seven playoff series. The results didn't hold up quite as well in 2008, but the system did identify the Rays as the second-strongest AL playoff team, a tick behind the Red Sox (whom the Rays beat in a seven-game ALCS).

So. Good one year and bad the next in a two-year sample. Flawless!

BTW, Cubs were #1 last year, Red Sox #2.

1. Why do White Sox fans always blame the players who leave Chicago instead of the management that picks and chooses who stays and who goes?

Oh, boy. Here we go. More ex-Chicago player All-Star team nonsense. It's been running rampant in Chicago lately. David Haugh did it the best. He made an offensive list of Ex-Bears which is positively teeming with shitty players and then bitched about all the Ex-Bear talk the VERY NEXT DAY! We had Morrissey following Orton during the bye week, a check in on Cedric Bensen and piece on Khabibulin.

Why? I can't even begin to psychoanalyze that.

They loved Magglio Ordonez but considered him a bum as soon as he was in Detroit. Same thing with Joe Crede -- lesser degree, maybe -- when he went to Minnesota. The numbers of the veterans that the White Sox discarded after winning the AL Central in 2008 --

Javier Vazquez -- 12-9, 3.06 in 28 starts for Atlanta.

Good pitcher. Has always pitched below his peripherals but good pitcher. Economy crapped out and he had $23 million remaining over two years on his deal. Had the best year of his career but he moved to the National League. Rewrite that. Because of his move to the NL, Vazquez had the best year of his career.

Vazquez had 32 starts this year, 17 were against the bottom half of the majors in terms of runs.

Did that figure in? Me thinks so.

Nick Swisher -- .254-26-77 with 87 walks and an .884 OPS in 131 games for the Yankees, including 111 in right field (OK, he didn't have a position in Chicago, not with Jermaine Dye in right, Carlos Quentin in left and Paul Konerko at first base).

Answered your own question, Phil.

Juan Uribe -- .281-12-40 with an .812 OPS in 100 games as a utility infielder for the Giants.

Where's Uribe playing for the Sox this year? And every Sox fan I know still likes Uribe.

Orlando Cabrera -- .274-5-56 in 135 games between Oakland and Minnesota (OK, his OPS is an underwhelming .671, and his departure opened a hole for Chris Getz, who is fun to watch).

Jesus! Did you stop and think this list is getting kinda stupid?

You think Alexei was brutal this year in the field, Cabrera was the worst shortstop in baseball this year. Yuniesky Betancourt doesn't count because he wins the Worst Shortstop In The History Of Man award, thereby disqualifying him from year-to-year tributes.

Bad hitting + bad fielding = bad player in my world. Yours?

If these guys were ex-Cubs, the bitterness would flow. Somehow it doesn't on the South Side. If Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen decide they don't want a guy, their fans don't, either. Innaresting phenomenon, as Neil Young would say.

What? No Crede numbers, something you wrote 85 columns on? I'll do it.

2009 Crede: .225/.289 (!)/.414 for a .703 OPS. Played great defense as usual, threw out his back three different times and only played 84 games. Sound familiar?

MLB's allowing TV to dictate its post-season schedule hits a new all-time low this year. The World Series will end in November this season, with Game 7 set for Nov. 5. It will be later if weather is an issue, as it almost certainly will be if it's anything except a Dodgers-Angels World Series.

The schedule was pushed back one week to accommodate the World Baseball Classic...

We can stop right there. WBC fucked this up. Not what Phil's about to say.

...and MLB snuck extra off days into the post-season format in 2007. It said it was being done because FOX wanted fewer weekend games, presenting the new schedule as a one-year thing. But it bypasses chances to eliminate days off, which means that its TV partners like the new format.

And why? Because FOX is posting ratings numbers through the roof for the NFL. The first three weeks saw a 11.2 rating and a 24 share, up 23% from last year. Remember, this is for regular season games.

The World Series, by contrast, saw ratings of 11.1, 10.1, 10.6 and 8.4 over the last four years for FOX, they never approached a 24 share and the key demographics compared to the NFL have been positively geriatric. And this is for the best games of the year for the sport! The same number of people watched Criminal Minds last night that watched the World Series on average last year. And that's a really crappy show, people.

It's a money loser. Far be it for me to defend FOX but you find a way to go with your NFL cash cow.

The current format extends 32 days past the end of the regular season. It could be wrapped up in 27.

Or ended on the same date without the WBC. Just a thought.