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.