I'm Sorry Jake Peavy For All Those Hurtful Words, Can We Please Make Up?

Jake Peavy is now officially a Chicago White Sock. Man this feels good to say. I'm extremely excited and happy about this deal and am a bit ticked off that my fellow Sox fans don't agree with me. Here is my reasoning for why I like this Peavy deal:

You didn't give up much: Say this with me White Sox fans, the team did not give up much. The team gave up four pitching prospects including Aaron Poreda and Clayton Richard. This deal did not include Bacon (Gordon Beckam), Gavin Floyd, or John Danks. That means the rotation for the next three years will be: Mark Buehrle, Jake Peavy, John Danks, and Gavin Floyd. That's a damn fine rotation that the Sox will have for a long time. Any pitchers the Sox gave up are either not needed because we now have Peavy or would just be bullpen guys anyway. And why, as an organization, would a desperately want to hold onto to bullpen guys? Plus the Sox still have good young PROVEN guys like Bobby Jenks and my boy Matt Thorton. Bullpen guys are a dime a dozen and inconsistent year to year. Trust me White Sox nation, the future is not tarnished.

Peavy is young and awesome: I know there's concerns that Peavy is moving from the NL to the much harder AL and from the best pitchers parks to a home run friendly field. So I'm sure Peavy won't look AS dominant, but he still will be damn fucking good. Peavy has amazing stuff and is a strikeout pitcher, things the pitcher can control. Great pitchers will be good no matter where they go. I don't have time to look at Peavy's away stats, but I'm sure their fine. Listen, I'm not expecting and ERA under 3, but I am expecting Peavy to be a top 5 AL pitcher and there's reason why he can't be. That, and Peavy is only 28 years old. It's not like the Sox are getting a guy at the end of his career. Jake Peavy also does not give up a whole lot of HRs and it's pretty overrated how much of a hitters park Comickey is.

Let me now address some concerns White Sox fans may have

1) Won't Peavy coast the club a lot? Sure, Peavy comes with a very hefty price tag, but this isn't like fantasy baseball where you can pass on Peavy to get Dan Haren a round later. Peavy has proven to be an amazing pitcher and you should expect very good things from him. And when you get the kind of production that Peavy will probably produce, you have to pay for it. And it's not like there's a salary cap in baseball where a team can ONLY spend x amount, Jerry Reinsdorf can spend all he wants. And if he wants to pay for Peavy, let him, it's no skin off your back. Plus, soon the club is going to get rid of a lot of salary over the next year or two when huge contract guys like Jim Thome and Octavio Dotel gets off the books after this year and when AJ, Konerko, and JD are gone within the next year or two.
2) I don't want to get rid of Clayton Richard, without him the White Sox would be 0-7 and not 1-6 on this road trip! (A legit concern a caller on Carmen, Yurko, and Harry said). 1) Clayton Richard sucks, fuck him. He'd be nothing more than a 5th starter at best 2) Give me the proven All-Star any day of the week. Why do you love the Jay Cutler trade and hate on the Jake Peavy one? It's the same thing and both are awesome.
3) This Peavy deal doesn't help the Sox win this year. True, but what player would help the Sox win this year? Let's face it, unless the Sox made multiple blockbuster deals, they weren't making it to the playoffs. And even so, they wouldn't make it far. Ideally, the goal of every team is to win the World Series and the ChiSox would not even come close this year. But this deal DOES give the team a legitimate chance to go within the next three years. With that beastly rotation, why don't they have a chance? This deal helps the Sox for the long term and not the short term, and that's good because the White Sox don't have a chance is the short term to begin with.

Yes, in order for the White Sox to be a legitimate contender, they will need to get an offense outside of Bacon and maybe CQ, but that's completely independent of this Peavy deal. The Sox still have PLENTY, you hear me PLENTY, of pitchers already on the team or with the minors to help the club in the future. And frankly, I'm just happy Matt Thorton isn't included in this Peavy deal like he was in the original deal. THANK YOU KENNY WILLIAMS, you're moving out of my cynical, hatred pile into my liking pile.