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November 8, 2007

Transaction of the Day

The Lidge Deal, and a Re-signed Sock

by Christina Kahrl

CHICAGO WHITE SOX Team Audit | Team DT Cards | Team Articles | Team Statistics

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Re-signed SS-R Juan Uribe to a one-year, $4.5 million contract. [11/7]

As much as the market for shortstops is more than a little thin, this is exactly the sort of the thing that the White Sox should not be doing. If you want to settle for a glove guy who might pop a couple down the lines because he's in Comiskellular Field, that's all well and good, but Uribe's production was all park effect—he hit an adequate .257/.300/.457 at home, and an execrable .225/.278/.355 elsewhere. Some defensive metrics also reflect that he may not be the shortstop that he used to be; Ozzie Guillen's in-season sniping about Uribe's conditioning might be seen as a pointed reference. The problems are the same as those the Jays had to confront in their decision to pay a premium to keep John McDonald—there aren't a lot of experienced shortstops floating around, and where the Royals and perhaps the Orioles have figured out that fishing a no-hit glove guy out of the minors is a cheaper if similar solution, the Sox still fancy themselves a team with possibilities. Keeping Uribe should help squelch such thinking; for what he does at the price he does it, he could have been replaced by some other variation on the Tony Pena Jr. theme for a tenth of the cost, and the money spent is that much less than the Sox can add to their bids on free agent outfield help.