Like Linebrink, Dotel was a dominant reliever several years ago. Now he’s mostly just hurt. Here’s what Dotel has done recently:

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 the most he’d pitched since 2004. Dotel is 34 years old. Yep, better lock him up to a 2-year deal.

Meanwhile, the White Sox designated an intriguing arm for assignment in the process, right-hander David Aardsma. The latter hasn’t enjoyed much success at the big-league level but has good stuff, is young, and probably won’t cost a whole lot. Someone should give Aardsma a shot. For grins, here’s what he’s done over the past 3 years:

Huh, that looks kind of familiar…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

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 White Sox, and Buffalo Blues (of the old Federal League). His career spanned from 1907 to 1915, and he posted a career line of .277/.326/.356. Those numbers might appear anemic to us now, but back then it was good enough for an OPS+ of 104.

In 1909, Lord placed fifth in the AL with a .311 batting average. The only players ahead of him that season were Sam Crawford, Nap Lajoie, Eddie Collins, and Ty Cobb. You may recognize those names — they are all in the Hall of Fame.

Although Lord spent most of his time at the hot corner, he also saw some action in the outfield while playing for the White Sox in 1912. He finished seventh in the American League with five home runs that year. (Philadelphia’s Frank Baker and Boston’s Tris Speaker tied for the league lead, with 10 homers. Like I said, it was a different era.)

Not surprisingly, Lord’s list of most comparable players is littered with guys who played before WWII. There is one name, however, from more recent years. Some of you may remember Alan Bannister, a utility player from the ’70s and ’80s.

And that, my friends, is an all-too-brief look at Harry Lord. Until next time…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

• 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 he legitimately spend an entire season in center?
• What’s up with Gonzalez? He’s got the killer minor-league strikeout numbers, but this guy has now been traded for Jim Thome, Freddy Garcia, and Swisher in separate deals. Gonzalez may well be worth the fuss, I don’t know; but that’s a lot of moving around for a kid who hasn’t advanced beyond Double-A.

Meanwhile, the A’s are going through one of their periodic “Who Am I?” phases. They’re pretty good at this sort of thing, so I expect they’ll come out of it okay, but it’s got to be tough to watch (or be part of) in real time.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

On the other side, Carter hit .291/.383/.522 in 2007 (his first full pro season) as a 20-year-old in the South Atlantic League. Good power, good plate discipline. Sort of like Quentin, but without the failed prospect tag.

With Chris Young in center, and youngsters Carlos Gonzalez and Justin Upton on the rise, Quentin faced stiff competition in Arizona. With a fresh start, and assuming he can stay healthy, maybe he will finally live up to his promise. If so, Chicago will have picked itself up a pretty useful player.

For the Diamondbacks, the addition of Carter, ranked #11 among White Sox prospects by Baseball America prior to the 2007 season, presumably buys them some insurance in case Conor Jackson stalls. Jackson, a fellow first-rounder in the 2003 draft (taken at #19, 10 slots ahead of Quentin), has played fairly well since arriving in the big leagues, but it’s always good to have a back-up plan.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

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 in 2003. He had some good years in San Diego, and for a time, it looked like he might one day replace Trevor Hoffman as the team’s closer.

The main problem with Linebrink now is that most of his numbers are trending in the wrong direction. He’s still a valuable reliever because he’s durable and probably will give a team 70 innings or so of above-average work, but this is not the lights-out setup man we saw in ‘04 and ‘05. I guess nobody told the White Sox.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

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 cannot), Konerko should consistently put up numbers on the order of .280/.370/.550 for the next 8-12 years, numbers which Karros once approached, at age 27. Konerko’s ceiling is more along the lines of Jeff Bagwell. If he doesn’t develop as expected, he could settle into another Eric Karros, which would certainly be disappointing but by no means embarrassing.

Well, Bagwell was probably a bit of a stretch. Entering 2007, though, Konerko’s list of similar players through age 30 includes guys like Carlos Lee and Derrek Lee — no shame in that. As for the .280/.370/.550 line? Since he’s been in Chicago, Konerko is batting .284/.356/.502. That’s not quite what I predicted, but it’s not too far off either.

Anyway, I’d better go soak in the hot tub for a while. I think I pulled a muscle patting myself on the back.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

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 turned 37 and doesn’t appear to be in decline. I mean, he’s not dominating pitchers the way he did from, say, 1995 to 2004, but Thome is still a productive hitter with some mileage left in the tank.

In my humble estimation, Thome is just on the edge of serious HOF consideration. If his career ended right now, I could see it going either way. Assuming he can maintain anywhere near his current levels for another 2-3 years, he’ll be a mortal lock by the time he hangs up his spikes.

Oh yeah, and congrats. Hall of Fame speculation notwithstanding, 500 homers is a terrific accomplishment.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

• Chicago White Sox – These guys won the World Series in 2005 and 90 games last year; now they’ve fallen behind perennial cellar dweller Kansas City in the AL Central and are fighting the Devil Rays for worst record in all of baseball. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen has taken to critiquing Miguel Cabrera’s physique (Cabrera, it should be noted, doesn’t play for Guillen’s team) and accusing his players of mass murder. Really, who could have seen this coming?
• Houston Astros – This is the team that lost to the White Sox in the ‘05 World Series. At least Guillen and his boss, Kenny Williams, have survived the season. Phil Garner and Tim Purpura weren’t so lucky. The Astros won just 82 games last year, so their fall hasn’t been quite as precipitous as that of the White Sox, but still, this is a franchise that has grown accustomed to winning. I’m not sure that anyone expected Houston to be a serious playoff contender, but I’m also not sure they expected to see the Astros struggling to stay ahead of Pittsburgh in the NL Central.
• Washington Nationals – Yeah, they’re on pace to lose 89 games, but several experts thought the Nats would threaten the ‘62 New York Mets all-time record of 120 losses in a season. The team is unbelievably anonymous outside of Ryan Zimmerman and maybe Chad Cordero. But Manny Acta has gotten a terrific performance from a resurgent Dmitri Young, and his young pitching staff has shown improvement in the second half of the season. I don’t think most pundits had this team coming anywhere near 70 wins; that a team with such a lack of identifiable talent should remain reasonably competitive into September (or at least as competitive as a certain team from San Francisco that shelled out $126 million for a mid-rotation starter) is enough to get Acta consideration for Manager of the Year in my book.
• Magglio Ordonez – He’s having a career year at age 33. After a brilliant run from 2000 to 2003, Ordonez saw his game deteriorate due to injuries. He signed a big contract with Detroit that smelled “like summer armpits” and got into just 82 games in his first season with the Tigers. Last year Ordonez remained healthy but didn’t perform at his previous levels. No surprise, really; the guy was 32 years old and coming off two injury-marred seasons. So the natural next step is, what, MVP candidate? Go figure.
• Carlos Pena – We’ve already talked about him. Pena is up to 37 homers with 22 games remaining. He has an outside shot to finish the season with more home runs than he hit in the big leagues from 2004 to 2006 combined (46). I would say that Pena just needed the opportunity, but he’d had plenty of ‘em and done nothing to suggest that this was possible.
• Jack Cust – Fun story. The former first-round pick had sipped cups of coffee in Arizona, Colorado, Baltimore, and San Diego before finding himself in Oakland. Again. Cust actually spent the 2005 season playing for Oakland’s Triple-A affiliate but at age 26, never reached the big leagues that year. This season, when Mike Piazza landed on the DL, the A’s needed a guy with Cust’s skills — the ability to mash a baseball — and acquired him from the Padres for next to nothing. Cust, whose defensive shortcomings make him a liability in the National League, responded to the opportunity and became Oakland’s most productive player.
• Fausto Carmona – Nothing says “Cy Young candidate” like a 1-10 record and 5.42 ERA. That’s what Carmona did in 2006 at age 22, and now he is one of the best starting pitchers in the American League. His strikeout totals are a tad low, but with the number of ground balls he serves up, it may not matter.
• Josh Hamilton – Taken as a Rule V pick this winter despite having played just 15 games over the previous three seasons, Hamilton stuck with the big club in Cincinnati and is hitting .288/.367/.547 for the Reds in just over 300 plate appearances. The kid still has work to do, but given where he’s been and how far the former #1 pick overall has come to get back to this point in his career, I have a feeling that won’t be a problem.
• Rick Ankiel – Brian Gunn has written a nice article about Ankiel’s success over at Hardball Times (disclosure: I contribute to THT). The Ankiel story truly is amazing. As Brian wrote when Ankiel converted to the outfield, “It’s best to consider Rick Ankiel retired from baseball.” It was very difficult, at the time, to imagine any other outcome. Unless, of course, you were Ankiel, in which case you went out and did the impossible.

That’s the great thing about baseball. No matter what you might have seen, you can be sure you haven’t seen it all…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

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 glad nobody asked him about Dave Kingman…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

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 fellow countryman, but the guy plays for the Marlins.

Guillen and Cabrera had their little chat over dinner Sunday night. No word on what they ate.

Post from: Knuckle Curve