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I don't get the dues thing. He's managed 5 years in the minors and there are quite a few managers who have had more success and managed far more years. If paying dues is a factor, why does Ryno vault ahead of those managers?

It would be tough for us to win a Danks trade battle without including BJax, I agree. I'm just really concerned about wear and tear on Darvish's arm and how high that posting fee might go. If we're going to miss on a high end talent this offseason, I'd rather we make sure to get one of the first basemen. For that reason, I'd want to ensure that a posting fee in the neighborhood of Daisuke's wouldn't interfere with the pursuit of Pujols/Prince.

I guess this is as good a place as any to put this. No idea what kind of credibility Alex Speier has, but he's a WEEI reporter who says the Sox will not pursue any high priced pitching this offseason. If true, this is one high-payroll bidder out of the CJ Wilson hunt.

My plan is to go for Pujols, Wilson, and Chen primarily, so the high end pitcher would be taken care of. If we were to miss on Wilson, I'd shoot for Danks as well as Chen. I'd also look to pick up Jeff Francis on a cheap, one year deal.

I'm looking for clear evidence from people who support him as manager as to why he would be one. I'm not saying he would or would not make a good manager, but the clear small ball leanings he has concern me and I'm not reassured by his in-game decisions nor his minimal minor league success. The only reasons I've heard that he would make a good manager is that he was a really good player, he managed five years in the minors and had a barely above .500 record, and he believes in fundamentals. This is a resume I'm looking for in a minor league manager, not a major league one.

I guess it depends on why his average velo has dropped. If it's due to injury, that's troubling. If it's by design, then it might help save his arm a bit. The blurb from Patrick on Mopupduty seemed to indicate that he was working with slower speeds, but with more pinpoint accuracy. It also sounded like the movement on his fastball was picking up the second time Patrick saw him, which is encouraging. The thing that troubles me a bit is the wide array of injuries. Hadn't realized he'd been hurt that often.

Works for me.

Thanks, I've not looked too deeply into Japanese league pitchers coming to the states in the past so this is interesting information. The thing that really intrigues me about Chen is the youth, lack of mileage on his arm, and that he'd likely come pretty cheap. The stats I'm seeing have him at 486 innings in 4 seasons prior to 2011 and no 200 inning seasons (188 is the max) and since Daisuke's actual contract was just $8.7 million in AAV, Chen may come even more cheaply than that. He's a gamble, but one that doesn't come with much commitment and that's good if we end up making major commitments to Pujols/Prince and Wilson.

Wow, didn't realize he had been worked that hard. I've not been a big fan of pouring that much cash into Darvish from the start (despite his ceiling), but this really makes me concerned about it. I'll be plenty happy if we can net Wilson instead. On a side note, you may have no idea on this, but is there any kind of movement in Japan to lessen the pitch counts and innings pitched on these guys? It seems like they'd have access to some of the more advanced research that's been done state-side.

It could well be lip service and PR, but it seems that Wilken was a lot more positive about it than he needed to be. It would have been pretty easy for him to give some canned response, but since he didn't appear to I'm a lot more optimistic that we might keep him beyond this year. Though I still think it's pretty unlikely.

Good job JR, I had forgotten about that thread. For those questioning whether Ryno is a small ball advocate, here's a Bruce Miles interview that confirms it. Ryno on statistical analysis: This doesn't sound like a Theo type of guy.

Very much so. 7.4% walk rate, 12% K rate. Career .331 OBP and career .056 IsoD.

Thanks, I was taking the ball issue as a pretty significant thing. It sounded like the ball issue alone would have the potential to drop his fastball from low 90s to high 80s, which seems pretty significant to me. I'd like to see the Cubs pursue him, though, as it seems you could find some decent value poaching young pitchers who don't require posting fees and basically get supplements to the minor league system.

It might be my bias since he played at Tennessee, but I've been intrigued with Headley for a while. I've been waiting for him to develop some more power, which he still hasn't, but the OBP might be coming around (his two highest OBPs came in two of the past three seasons) and his IsoD improved last year. I also like that Hoyer was talking about building around him in San Diego, though that could be more because he's cheap and offers some upside rather and the Padres need cheap production. I wouldn't target him as a cornerstone or long term solution and I certainly wouldn't even consider Brett Jackson for him, but he'd interest me as a cheap bridge to Vitters/Flaherty/Lake/whoever becoming ready to take over third.

Is the transition to the states and the different ball something that Theo and co could predict with any certainty? For instance, could they watch him workout and have him use an American ball and gauge that against what the scouts are saying? I have no idea what processes are allowed in pursuing Japanese players, so I don't know if anything like that would be useful or allowed. And I wouldn't pursue him that hard. The main point of interest with Chen is that he wouldn't cost prospects and he might get overlooked due to many factors (big name Japanese pitchers bombing, more under the radar than Darvish or maybe even Wada and Iwakuma). I wouldn't get into a bidding war over him.

Yeah, if Wilken is cool with reporting to McLeod we could have two really good guys at the top of the scouting/player development department.

Ryne Sandberg minor league winning percentage: .516 Mike Quade minor league winning percentage: .509 Ryno's been better in the minors than Quade, but it's not a particularly significant difference. And Quade had at least one winning season at every level he managed at as well. Both managers have overall losing records at the A-ball level as well. Is a .007 better winning percentage in the minors the difference between a poor MLB manager and a good MLB manager?

What benefit does the Japanese team have to allow multiple payments? Given the process, let's say the Cubs win with a bid of $60 million. The Cubs are on the hook to pay that amount no matter what, unless they don't agree to terms with Darvish. I guess the Cubs could threaten to not sign Darvish unless his team allowed them to make multiple payments, but then you make yourself some enemies and the team just says no and waits until next year to allow bidding again. $60 million is worth more as a lump sum paid tomorrow than it is as payments of $10 million each over six years to the Japanese club, so I don't see the motive for them to agree to that, even if it's possible.

That answers that. Thanks Kyle!

That's a good question. I would assume so since the money is going to a Japanese ballclub and they'd probably want the money up front, but I guess it could be part of the deal that the Cubs pay them a few extra million and they allow the Cubs to spread the payments out. Hadn't really thought about that question until now, to be honest.

Wouldn't Chen be closer, though? Struck may be two years away from being a productive major leaguer, much less hitting his ceiling. Chen could be a major leaguer next season and hit his ceiling (hopefully) within a couple years. Considering Daisuke only got less than $9 million AAV, it seems we could potentially get Chen in the $5-8 range over, say, 5-6 years and potentially have a pretty good bargain. If we had the prospects ready right now, I might oppose going for Chen. But since McNutt's the closest starter and it's unlikely he'll be up sooner than mid-season next year, it would seem to make sense to shoot for a young lefty with upside who can contribute now.

You read what I wrote right, but I said it wrong. What I meant was that Wilson's contract (which I think is likely to end up in the $80-90 range) will be spread out over 4-5 years, whereas Darvish would have a large lump sum up front that might hinder pursuing the elite bat we need most. On the posting fee, I think they'll start above the $50 million the Sox paid for Daisuke and teams will start out well below it. They may end up right around that $50 million, just above, or just below but I think we almost have to assume more until we know otherwise. And I think to back off from Darvish simply because Daisuke failed is jumping the gun. They're two different pitchers, as Darvish is younger, bigger, more projectable, and doesn't have the massive workload Daisuke had. I remember Daisuke was proud of the fact that he could pitch a massive amount of innings and not get injured. What happened? He shortly had injury and ineffectiveness problems. Darvish doesn't have the same workload risk that Daisuke had.

Posting fee included Daisuke basically got a 6 year/$103 million contract ($51 million posting fee, $52 million contract over six years). Darvish is younger and, I believe, more productive than Daisuke was so it would make sense that they would base their demand on that deal and then raise it. Would a $60-70 million posting fee + say, a 7/70 ($10 AAV) sound about right? So between $130-140 total dollars. The problem you get into here is twofold. One, going with Wilson over Darvish gives you a similar payout, but allows you to spread the posting fee out over 5 years or so. There's also more certainty with Wilson than there is Darvish. Wilson's a pretty good bet at this point to be a 4-5+ WAR guy. What are the chances Darvish comes over and is better than that? The second problem you face is how that $60-70 million posting fee is factored in. Would giving out that posting fee keep Ricketts from being able to commit money to Pujols/Prince this year when he otherwise would have? That leads to asking whether Wilson/Pujols is better than Darvish/somebody (Butler maybe, but then you have to subtract the prospects given up). The point to all of this rambling is that I'd be interested in Darvish and I'm very intrigued by the idea, but there's some big questions that need to be answered before I think it's the right move to make.

I trust you and Raisin at this stuff more than myself, but my first impression was a 5th starter his first year or two, but with the upside of a 3 starter. At 26 he has time to develop some of the secondary pitches and adjust to the American game. Am I off base in thinking that?

Right, that's why I referred to him as a secondary arm to go along with Wilson. I like the relative lack of innings on both Wilson and Chen's arms and if Theo's next great competitive edge is pitcher health, these two would be pretty good guys to target. I wouldn't make Chen the primary SP acquisition, though. Now if we miss on Wilson, I'd be fine with targeting Danks and Chen together. The Wilson/Chen route is preferable, though, since we'd keep our prospects in that scenario.