Not by more than 5-10, maybe 15 million, which still gives them some breathing room. They have Everett, Thomas, Aaron Rowand, Timo Perez, and Ben Davis coming off the books for a total of 20+ million.

So if they stand pat now, they might even lose payroll, depending on arbitration eligible players like Pierzynski, Garland, and Crede get. Actually, that’s unlikely. But it shouldn’t increase by much.

That said, all that money is newly theirs since they got the government to give them the stadium last winter.

And they’re owned by a media conglomerate…

To simply call Giles 15-HR hitter, when he’s a pull-hitting lefty in Petco Park, is ridiculous. He’d have hit 25 HRs in Safeco. And I didn’t just make that number up. Check out the percentage of Giles’ extra base hits that were HR compared to anyone else in baseball. Giles is at about 24%. The rest of baseball is at 35-40%… To get to 35-40%, Giles would have had to hit about 10 more HR.

Giles is a nice player and given this off season, his contract is probably ok but he wasn’t going to do all that much for Seattle’s needs. He hit 15 homeruns last year and played 11 games in Denver. I think Bavasi would have liked to think he’d get a few more homers for $10 mil. I mean, Ichiro can hit 15 excuse-me-homers and is not considered a “lefthandedbopper” like Bavasi said he was after.

I expect a Millwood/Burnett signing + a trade or two.

no, because everyone can see Giles took fewer years & less money to stay in San Diego, and they will write it off as an exception.

Konerko is a WARP 4 player who had ONE big year. I don’t think Giles will get back to his WARP 10 level, but he’s WARP 6 or 7 and was better than Konerko last year. Even though he’s five years older, I expect Giles will be better (and paid much less) than Konerko in each of the next two years. Maybe in 2008 when Giles is 37 and Konerko is 32, Konerko will be better.

Does anyone know if the White Sox are raising their payroll significantly? They just added Thome and Konerko at ~$20M next year and the only significant salary cut was Frank Thomas, who I think they still paid $3M NOT to play for them.

I think that baseball is the sport where “chemistry” has the LEAST importance.

There are clear examples in football (offensive line play, QB/receiver teamwork) and basketball (again, defense, offensive set plays, etc.) where coordination has interaction effects that you can’t derive from individual play alone.

In baseball, it’s the pitcher vs. batter that dominates all. And there are lineup construction efficiencies that have to be considered (to maximize offense and defense simultaneously). But chemistry? I just don’t see it.

This sounds like a “calls a good game” type of claim. Please back this up, because from where I sit, “chemistry” is something to which you attribute success after the fact. If a team was successful, it had “chemistry”. If it wasn’t, it didn’t. And, as I’ve said before, you can’t exactly plan for it in roster construction anyway, unless you just decide to sign “good guys” and hope for the best. We can see where this strategy has gotten the M’s in recent years.

There are plenty of examples of teams where the players reportedly didn’t get along, but won. Give me a few examples of this chemistry you speak of.

I’d argue that baseball requires the least amount of whatever it is. In baseball, each guy is doing his individual job, and isn’t very relieant on teammates. In basketball, it’s all about teamwork, passing, setting picks, rebounding, etc. What you do has a direct impact on the other guys. Look at the 2004-05 Sonics vs the 2005-06 version for a glaring example of chemistry gone wrong.