Greg Hibbard

Do you guys realize that that article claims we fielded 126 different lineups in 162 games Could that really be true?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 14, 2010 -> 03:12 PM) Decent article. Although the author obviously either has no clue about or chose to ignore our drafts from 2000-2006. The author sort of implied part of our player development has also been by buy-low acquisition, good FA pickups or great trades, such as Quentin, Jenks, Floyd, Alexei, but he did a horrible job of explaining it.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Feb 17, 2010 -> 03:23 PM) It's been reported that Damon's wife is against the idea of living in the Detroit area. If that's true, it's probably not just about money. It could be that Boras leaked that Damon's wife was against the idea of living in the Detroit area. There's just too much smoke at this point. As usual, it seems as though the only facts we can suss are that Detroit is offering more money than we are. We can't we just match the g___damned offer for f**king once?

I'm really trying hard not to get my hopes up. This is about money, and Damon is only holding out for more money from Detroit. They will offer it to him eventually.

QUOTE (The Beast @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 08:30 AM) 20/25, missed Perez, Harris, Cotts, Marte and Vizcaino. Identical result.

Wiki says he did, and some other sources too, although I never thought he actually said either way. I remember the 95% close to retiring statement. Did I miss this? Was an announcement ever made? http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp...d15299a959dbb33

I'm heading down to the cell tonight.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 19, 2009 -> 12:33 PM) Not true. For example, there could be a very minor tear in Mark's labrum or rotator cuff that isn't problematic right now and would heal on its own over the winter, but could be further strained over the course of the next two starts. You never know when something like this might happen. Remember how Freddy coincidentally lost 5 mph off of his fastball after logging 241 innings in 2005, and then coincidentally blew out his shoulder the following spring? Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating benching Mark if the Sox are still trying to win the division. But if Kenny has given up and has instructed Ozzie to give other players some playing time, you absolutely take out Mark at this point. You can take injury risk completely out of the picture and use 2005/2006 as a good example of what added innings can do to Mark's velocity and effectiveness the following season. If you're not playing for anything, why potentially subject your #2 pitcher to that? Because then you are paying the remainder of a high priced contract THIS SEASON just to SIT, and even if they are out of contention, the fans are ostensibly still buying tickets to see those high-caliber players perform. The example you cited with Garcia proves my point - he blew out his shoulder the following spring after 4 months off. Do you really think that had he only pitched 225 he would have avoided this injury, given that four winter months off didn't help him anyway?

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 18, 2009 -> 08:12 PM) Yes, because there's absolutely zero correlation between the repetition of an unnatural arm motion and major arm injuries. So explain to me how 200 more repetitions of that arm this season differs from 600-800 repetitions of his arm next March. His arm has the same number of innings logged throughout the past, and if a major injury is going to happen in his next 15 IP, it's going to happen whether or not we sit him this season, because it means there's something fundamentally physically wrong that's going to give eventually.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 18, 2009 -> 05:17 PM) I can name several reasons: (1) Players can suffer freak injuries at any time (2) Pitchers can suffer major arm injuries at any time (3) Mark has over 2,000 innings of wear and tear on an arm that isn't guaranteed to last forever (4) We still owe Mark $28 million 1) applicable to any player on the white sox roster 2) a major arm injury, if it's going to happen to buehrle, will happen regardless of whether or not we sit him. There's absolutely no way to safeguard against this, and it has nothing necessarily to do with # of IP per season. 3) yeah, and the nominal value of 15 more IP on 2000 IP is nothing. 4) applicable to any similarly valued white sox player in terms of evaluating his sit-ability. We owe lots of people lots of money, why not sit all of them?

This is why I don't get this. He's never shown any particular proneness towards injury, so why would we mess with the regiment when there's nothing about what he does to indicate he'll injure himself? By this logic, we should just remove every potential 2010 starter and play all minor leaguers because all of them are at risk for injury. The one season in which Buehrle arguably had a dead arm (2006) was because he pitched 260 innings the previous season, and obviously through October which is one month longer than usual. At every other point he has been durable, effective, consistent. The past three years he's pitched roughly 200 innings, which is less than he pitched from 01-06, and his ERA has basically been 3.7 all three years. I see no reason why we wouldn't just keep throwing him out there every five days to get him work. You don't have to leave him in through the 8th inning with 130 pitches, but we should just get him work. It's arguable that a particularly long layoff between now and spring training would do just as much harm as good too.

Why would you worry about preserving Buehrle when he may not even desire to keep playing baseball past his current contract?

Forget about Beckham or Podsednik, who were huge unexpected boons that no one could have reasonably predicted or expected anything from on opening day. Given the roster we had on April 1, why were we put in a position where the only way we could've gotten to this point - 4 games under .500 - was to HAVE a huge unexpected boon from Beckham and Pods? Without them, this team was initially built to be 72-90. If the central argument is the Dye and Linebrink let this team down to the tune of 10 wins, give me a break. The vast majority of the major pieces produced at their expected levels, and Beckham and Podsednik more than made up for the disappointments of Dye, Linebrink, Pena, etc. This team was really not constructed to contend. We ended up "contending" because of our s***ty division, but come on.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 03:22 PM) If you honestly think that the Sox can realistically field a team with five starters with WHIPs all under 1.33, you have a lot to learn about baseball. Ok, you can have four starters with those numbers or very close to those numbers (as the Sox have done several times in the past few seasons) and a 5th starter who is around 1.36-1.40. The big four in 05 were obviously way low on WHIP, and I think even in 2008 they were all 1.34 or lower. McCarthy/Hernandez in 05 averages out to 1.36. Going into this season, what did you expect from Contreras and Colon?

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 03:10 PM) I fail to see why you're blaming Kenny for not stocking the rotation with #4 and #5 pitchers with 1.25 WHIPs. Ok, fine, a 1.33 WHIP. I overestimated one statistic in this thread. I concede this point. If you honestly think that Colon and Contreras could have excelled in the roles they were expected to fill given their recent injuries and ages, I want some of what you are smoking.

still IMPLODE THAT f***ER!

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 03:04 PM) You're whining about four positions out of 25. Do you think the #4 starter has the same value as a long reliever?

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 03:04 PM) You're whining about four positions out of 25. Also, a WHIP of 1.25 is ABOVE average for a starting pitcher, not below. Especially in the AL. You need a reality check. The problem this year wasn't Contreras, Garcia, Richard, Getz, Nix, Anderson, or Wise. It was Dye, Konerko, Quentin, Linebrink, Dotel, Alexei, and other veterans not playing well consistently and/or suffering injuries. When has Konerko ever played consistently over the course of an entire season in his career? Konerko's career OPS and season OPS are a single point away. I fail to see why you are lumping him in with the disappointments you have listed.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:56 PM) We were in contention, and in my opinion, arguably placed with the most talent to win this division as last as 4 weeks ago. Then the middle of our lineup decided to stop hitting and our bullpen decided to stop getting outs. There was little or nothing to be done at that point. I'm not sure what you expected to be done. If the players just completely drop off a cliff, after the trade deadline, what is the GM supposed to do? The point is that the GM did not construct this team such that instead of chasing a mediocre team, we were far in front of them when we hit a cold streak. Yes, we were "in contention" but playing about as hot as you could expect with the roster the way it was constructed, and getting just off-the-charts numbers from players like Beckham, who was not even part of this team going into April. We were never even really in first all season. I think the "contention" is a mirage, similar to Toronto's "run" atop the AL east. The principal question I keep asking is: why did we enter this season in April with the roster constructed the way that it was, where we relied too much on players who could not deliver in the roles they were assigned? If we had run-of-the-mill average ML veterans in those roles we'd be ten games up right now. On that point, I totally agree with Ozzie. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter about this season. I think we have a great chance to contend in 2010, and we should be the favorites to win the division. My entire issue is why we entered this season with this roster filled not only with "holes" but GAPING holes.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:54 PM) So if the vast majority of the players played relatively well, why are you trashing Kenny for putting a bad product on the field? That makes no sense. I hate to break this to you, but you can't have All-Stars at every position. The Sox were below-average at CF and 2B for the vast majority of this season. Oh, and they had below-average #4 and #5 pitchers. Big freaking deal - EVERY team has holes. The rest of the lineup was far from bad on paper. I'm not looking for all-stars on paper. I'm looking for major league players at CF, 2B. You know, guys capable of hitting .250 with a .750 OPS. Average MLB players. Guys like that simply aren't that hard to acquire. A guy like Wise had no business being on a MLB roster for an entire season. I'm not looking for #4 and #5 starters who have 15-20 wins. I'm looking for guys capable of pitching 200 innings with an era around 4.50-4.75 and a WHIP around 1.25. Again, average MLB players. Colon and Contreras were the antithesis of this. Their most recent escapades predicted that they would be injury plagued anti-innings eaters and we would have 2004 rotating AAA 5th starter, and we did!

BECKHAM! BOBBY! IMPLODE THAT f***ER!

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:29 PM) Did they not contend this year? Seriously, if your players are going to go out and s*** the field, there is nothing you can do. The players did not play well. It is as simple as that. There are plenty of teams out there that are competitive and are worse than we are on paper. What players exactly s*** the filed that we didn't expect to s*** the field? Fields/Wise/BA/Count/etc - expected to s*** the bed, and did. All players had been going through significant rough patches and all did not perform and were counted on for more than a lot. Yes, Dye had a down year, but it's not like you just plug in veterans and they hit .311 every year. IMO, a .260 year isn't great, but it's not totally unacceptable. I was told Konerko would never hit .280 again last season by many, and oops...he's hitting .280. Thome had an .864 OPS, nearly .900 for most of the season. With the jacks, I'm not sure how much more you could have expected from him. Beckham and Pods obviously exceeded expectations. AJ hit .312 Ramirez -.280 is certainly not s***ting the field Quentin was injured - is this s***ting the field? The top three starters were all fine - Buehrle gave us ERA/WHIP as expected, Floyd exceeded my expectations and met a lot of other peoples, Danks was fine. We had no major league solutions for #4 and #5 going into this season and it was a disaster waiting to happen. Again, that is not on anyone but the GM. The bullpen didn't perform well, but there were players in that bullpen that again were problematic. As far as most of the lineup and starters - nobody was that bad. The team was not built by spring training to win this season.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:28 PM) I think the main issue was Kenny spinning the ole company line for the last few years. Despite the rather incomplete parts at 2B, 3B, and CF...the sox still had big proven producers in Dye/Thome/Konerko/AJ. Which allowed KW to have a certain amount of faith and trust in being a contender, albeit its obvious to us all now that our aging, run producing, lift and pull, baseclogging core, should and does provide no resemblance of a "real" contender. This is exactly what I'm saying. Talking about us "contending" with our opening day roster is like touting that Toronto actually had a chance to win the east. As built in spring training, this team was obviously no contender.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:11 PM) The players let us down. Not our GM. I realize that most people think we had no other options, but it seems pretty obvious to me that Ozzie is saying here he had nothing to work with in the beginning of the season. When you have the kind of averages that Wise and Fields sported this year, ANYTHING would have been better, particularly with Wise. They started behind the eight ball but sputtering to a 15-22 start and even despite the recent slide, they've been over .500 ever since they made some fundamental changes and got the roster closer to where it is today. When you have a contending team, starting out behind the eight-ball like that is just too big of an obstacle to overcome if you don't have a lot of pieces you can rely on. I was fine with it being a rebuilding year. I had the sox pencilled in for 77-81 wins this season, but it was clearly billed early on as "we expect to contend and win". I don't have exact quotes in front of me, but jettisoning players earlier and getting more for them, evaluating Hudson earlier, I dunno. Seems like the Sox were just in between on just about everything and it pisses me off.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:03 PM) Honestly, the trashing of Williams is ridiculous. Every team goes through a down period. EVERY team. We pretty much managed to limit that to 1 year because of the work Williams did. Of course there were holes. You don't think the Twins have holes? They have Nick Punto and Brendan Harris and Manship and Duensing and Jon Rauch. The difference is their key players don't go run and hide during important games because they have no spine. For the record, I don't really trash Williams in general, as I think he is a premier GM, but I am pissed at the way this season was handled. I am stating the truth - either he was disingenuous about the players like Wise and Fields that he put on this roster or he evaluated them poorly. There simply aren't other possibilities.