Jeff Marquez had a 3.60 over five years in the Yankee's farm system.
Ah, the one week in the offseason where the White Sox get consistent coverage—SoxFest week!
Kenny Williams: loves Jeff Marquez.
About a month ago, rumor had it that the White Sox were interested in signing Jon Garland to help fill out the starting rotation, but those were shot down by a report that mentioned a rift between Garland and Ozzie Guillen before Garland's trade in November of 2007.
In the Trbune article, though, Williams says the reasons he did not pursue Garland were A) money and B) he's a similar pitcher to Jeff Marquez.
This brings me to a larger point: perhaps I've underestimated Williams' commitment to Marquez. I've already anointed Clayton Richard and Aaron Poreda as the clear favorites to win the final spot in the starting rotation this Spring, but Williams seems hell-bent on giving Marquez the inside track.
Now, there's not a problem with this because we're about a month away from spring training games beginning. Marquez will get his chance, but so will Richard, Poreda, Lance Broadway, Jack Egbert, and heck, even John Vanbenschoten. However, if Marquez doesn't pitch better than he did in triple-A last year and wins the fifth starter spot, that means one of two things. First, it could mean that Richard, Poreda, and everyone else fell flat on their face in March. Or, secondly, it could mean that Williams will stop at nothing to prove to everybody that the Nick Swisher trade wasn't a bad one.
I still feel like Richard and Poreda will outpitch everyone else in March, but that's not a foregone conclusion. Maybe Don Cooper will work his magic once again and Marquez ends up blossoming into a major league pitcher.
Something I did like from what Williams said was this:
"At some point if you don't show confidence in your scouting system and player development and major-league staff to develop major-league players and always get the veteran for your answer, it's going to catch up to you," Williams said. "And when it catches up to you, you are hurt because the spiral down is quicker."
The San Francisco Giants are a perfect example of what Williams is getting at. They were a veteran-heavy team in the early 2000s, and it paid off with five straight 90-win seasons from 2000-2004. As soon as Barry Bonds began to break down, all of a sudden the Giants went from a contending team of veterans to a slow, old, and costly team of veterans. They didn't have the farm system to back up the veterans, and consequently, they haven't had more than 76 wins since 2004.
It's taken the Giants those four years of bad baseball to finally develop enough talent to possibly make a run at the division again this year (I feel sorry for any team that has to face Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain on back-to-back days).
The White Sox have made an effort in the last year or so to not become the Giants. Getting John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Alexei Ramirez, and Carlos Quentin helped. Drafting better (high-ceiling players like Poreda and Gordon Beckham instead of lower-ceiling players such as Kyle McCulloch) and building up the farm system through trades have at least given the White Sox some reason to be optimistic about the future.
Williams has staked his job in his organization's ability to develop players—something he really wasn't willing to do earlier in the decade. So maybe he knows something we don't here.
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Joe Crede worked out for a few teams in Arizona yesterday and drew some new contract offers—but not from the Minnesota Twins.
For now, it looks like the Twins will go with Brian Buscher or Brendan Harris at third base in 2009. Crede isn't completely written off in Minneapolis, but it's looking more and more unlikely that the Twins will pursue Crede.
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