Jenks, Dye and Vazquez are all rumored to be being shopped by Kenny. My best guess it that Kenny figures Jenks will want more than a three year contract, which the Sox won’t give to any power pitcher. But the drop off from Jenks to Dotel and/or Thornton is precipitous in the closer role. My guess here is that Kenny’s thinking “closer by committee” until Poreda is ready.

I get why Kenny’s likely shopping Dye too, and it has everything I’m willing to bet with the Sox not wanting to put Josh Fields at 3B full time. So you slide Quinten to RF and limit your defensive liabilities by moving Fields to LF, and free up a big chunk of change to perhaps pursue Orlando Hudson, and you don’t have a resulting big power drop off with Fields playing every day.

And Vazquez DOES have good trade value, simply because he eats up a lot of innings and never goes on the DL. But the domino’s have to first start fallilng as to where Sabathia, Lowe and Burnett land first.

And Konerko DOES have good trade value too, but of course would have to waive his “5 and 10″ no trade rights. Poster “Reality”, what you’re overlooking is that Kobnerko had a painful soft tissue injury to his right hand the first half of last season that limited his power and bat speed.

Word out here on the West Coast is that Angels owner Arte Moreno is balking at giving Texeira any more than a 7 year deal (Bor-ass wants 10); that would leave the Angels without a first baseman and short a power bat to protect Vlade in the lineup. So a Konerko for Matthews Jr. deal would be pretty much a wash money wise and would solve a problem for both teams.

Konerko and Kenny though are golfing buddies and of course Paulie’s a huge favorite. I would think that if Kenny had ANY intention of shopping Paulie, he wouldn’t have given up on Swisher so quickly.

we will answer your questions in the next couple of days.

Reality, and So Cal Jack,

good to have you here. welcome. please feel free to voice your plans for fixing the Sox

What about the starting pitching then? If we trade Javy to Colorodo, and with the career threatening injury to Contreras, there are big 2 holes. Do the Sox trade for another SP? Do they sign a pitcher via free agency? Not only do we need to give up some of our power for speed, but for at least 1 more starting pitcher. Guys like Matt Cain and Jake Peavy are currently being offered… stay tuned.

So there are three deals I can see happening, all involving Konerko. Konerko is on record as saying that he’d be open to a trade to either a Southern California team or of course Phoenix (which is home), but if a team on the west coast like the Giants were to offer a contract extension, I think he’d go there as well. So here are the three possible deals:

1) Konerko to the Dodgers for Juan Pierre, a good pitching prospect and cash (the difference between Konerko’s and Pierre’s remaining contracts);

2) Konerko and Mac Dougal (bad contract), to the Angels for Figgins and Gary Matthews Jr. (bad contract going back the other way offsetting Konerko’s contract); and

3) Konerko to the Giants for SP Matt Cain (Giants have money to spend and are seeking a clean up hitter).

Swisher obviously is a defensive liabiility in CF so it just makes the most amount of sense to move him full time to IB. Pierre’s a mediocre center fielder (girly arm like Jerry Owens), but he’s a legit leadoff hitter. Matthews Jr. is a former gold glove center fielder, but since he (alledgedly), went off the juice he can’t get up over the .250 bar (making him expendable), and the Vlad Guerreo is up for a big contract extension (I would think making it enticing for them to include Figgins just to dump Matthews).

Wise up Sox fans, and u 2 Sportsbank…

http://www.thesportsbank.net/2008/07/22/a-night-at-the-ballpark-with-soxman/

And I told someone else the Chris Getz thing last week. They were like oh my God yes, totally. Theresa thought so too.