The Chicago White Sox have signed right-hander Octavio Dotel to a 2-year, $11 million deal. On the heels of their November signing of Scott Linebrink, the White Sox appear to have adopted the same strategy that worked so well for the Orioles last winter.
Like Linebrink, Dotel was a dominant reliever several years ago. Now he’s mostly just hurt. Here’s what Dotel has done recently:

Octavio Dotel, 2005 – 2007

IP
ERA
H/9
BB/9
SO/9
HR/9

Statistics are courtesy of David Pinto’s Day by Day Database.

56
5.14
9.16
5.46
10.29
1.29

You’ll notice in the caption that this is Dotel’s record for the past 3 years. Last season he worked 30 2/3 innings, which was …read more

   Photo by TomGazpacho   some rights reserved
I’ve been thinking about ways to bring you stuff that just isn’t available anywhere else. News and analysis is great, and I’ll certainly continue to do my share of that, but one thing I thought might be fun is to use Baseball-Reference’s “random” function and highlight whoever happens to appear when I give it a spin. We’ll do this every Wednesday because, well, in keeping with the spirit of things, I actually chose the day at random.
Anyway, our first player is Harry Lord, a left-handed hitting third baseman who played for the Boston Americans/Red Sox, Chicago …read more

Baseball Digest Daily (disclosure: I am now part of the BDD staff) is reporting that the Oakland A’s have shipped outfielder Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox for Gio Gonzalez, Faustino Fautino De Los Santos and outfielder Ryan Sweeney. BDD has more info on the prospects headed to Oakland, but I’ll make a few quick observations here:

I’m a big Swisher fan. I love his skill set and the way he plays the game. The White Sox have been searching for a center fielder; is Swisher the answer? I know he played there quite a bit in ‘07, but can …read more

The Arizona Diamondbacks have traded disappointing outfielder Carlos Quentin to the Chicago White Sox for first-base prospect Chris Carter. The 26-year-old Quentin, a former first-round pick with excellent minor-league credentials (.313/.413/.527 in nearly 1600 PA), never got his career rolling in Phoenix (.230/.316/.425 in about 450 PA), due in part to injuries.

I’ll have more to say on the trend of overpaying relievers in another venue, but for now it’s enough to know that 4 years for $19 million is an insane amount to give a guy like Scott Linebrink, which is what the Chicago White Sox will be paying for the right-hander’s services.
I happen to be a big fan of Linebrink. I saw his California League debut with San Jose back in ‘97, when he fanned 10 Stockton batters over 6 innings. I’ve followed him closely since then and was ecstatic when the Padres picked him up off waivers from Houston …read more

Sometimes I get lucky and write something that makes me look smart 9 years later. Back in October 1998, after Paul Konerko’s first extended trial in the big leagues and just before the Cincinnati Reds traded him to the Chicago White Sox for outfielder Mike Cameron, I’d defended Konerko as a prospect. Here’s my favorite part:
Realistically, assuming Konerko is given the opportunity to play every day, and assuming he is able to make the adjustments all young players must make when they step up to a higher level (and there’s no reason based on his past history to believe he …read more

I forgot to mention that Jim Thome knocked his 500th career home run over the weekend. In light of Thome’s homer, the inevitable question of whether he is a Hall of Famer has surfaced. My first reaction was that he’s an absolute no-brainer, but then I looked at his numbers, which tell a different story.
The homers are nice, as is the career OPS+ of 149. But the fact that he has fewer than 2000 hits will work against Thome, as will the fact that he’s turned into a full-time DH toward the backside of his career.
That said, the guy just …read more

With the season winding down, I thought it might be fun to look back at some of the bigger surprises this year. In no particular order, here are nine things that have blown my mind:

When in doubt, turn on your players. That seems to be the modus operandi of Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who had a few choice words after a loss at Texas. Speaking of his team’s offense, Guillen indulged in a particularly ridiculous form of hyperbole:
Well, they’re killing me. They’re killing my family. They’re killing my coaching staff, killing the White Sox fans. They kill the owner. They kill everyone. I hope they feel the same way we feel.
Dude, I realize your team is looking up at the Royals, but get a grip. Is this baseball or genocide? Geez, I’m …read more

Ozzie Guillen manages the Chicago White Sox. Miguel Cabrera plays (very well, I might add) for the Florida Marlins. Both hail from Venezuela.
Now Guillen is telling Cabrera to lose weight. Quoth the Chicago skipper:
When you’re getting older and you go down, they say you’re fat. Right now it’s, “Oh, he’s a little chubby. He likes to eat.” When you’re not hitting .340 with 40 home runs, they’re going to call you a fat boy from Venezuela. You’d better lose some weight.
This is sort of touching, but it’s also sort of weird. Like, it’s nice to see Guillen concerned about his …read more