Greg Hibbard

Raines, given that Ventura and his staff have NO experience, on what basis exactly ARE we supposed to evaluate this decision at this point? What about draft picks? They've never played at the ML level before, and management must see something in them, so there's no point in evaluating those either. I'm sure you've taken a "wait and see" attitude with every draft pick the white sox have ever made, right?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 12:43 PM) Posted by someone who has zero idea what it takes to be a bench coach or manager in the major leagues right? Since you also have no experience. In other words, everything put on this board by everyone ever is complete nonsense

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Oct 20, 2011 -> 09:55 AM) The problem is that we haven't produced many impact prospects. Baseball America makes money by touting the Brandon Wood's of the world, not the Chris Getz.' Though Getz might have a longer career. We've produced a ton of organizational filler bit have had to be creative with impact players. Those star quality players haven't lived up to their end and it makes KW look like a moron. If Rios, Dunn, and Peavy play well, he's a genius. The other issue in play is that the Sox just haven't been bad enough recently to hoard high draft picks. Many good farm systems are usually components of teams who cannot field a winner at the major league level for several years running, and thus nab tons of young talent near the top of the draft.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 13, 2011 -> 01:48 PM) Not sure, but I reject that they are sunk costs. Lots of things can change that could make those contracts more movable. I don't believe we'd ever move those whole contracts, but I do believe with luck you can make a move that removes enough to give you a lot more flexibility especially on a rebuilding team. I agree that they are technically not sunk costs, but they are as close to unmovable as they could possibly get.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 13, 2011 -> 01:24 PM) Aware. But it's not guaranteed we need to pay off of those contracts. Those portions of that money could be moved. Somehow the blue jays were able to get out of vernon wells and alex rios. IF they play better, and a big market team needs a bat, there will be a sucker. We were the sucker most of the decade. Really, what do you think is the most likely scenario here?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 13, 2011 -> 01:07 PM) No. Not at all. The only way that happens is if the 2012 team wins about 65 games. I'm talking 2015.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 13, 2011 -> 12:46 PM) They aren't sunk costs, you can rid yourself of them. You'll have to be creative as hell, but if we cloned kenny williams and made his clone the GM of another team, perhaps we'd find ourselves a bidder. I can't imagine a team who would take any part of Dunn or Rios no matter what 2012 they have.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 13, 2011 -> 11:06 AM) I agree with the vast majority of your post, except for the bold part. But man, that is more agreeing with you than I've done in years I exaggerated the numbers, obviously. I could see them paring back to 80 million, couldn't you?

A week later, I still hate this. On paper, it's still one of the worst (if not the single worst) hire in White Sox history, and because he has no experience, paper is all we have to go on. I like his quiet demeanor and personality, and loved him as a player. I can't imagine a scenario where putting a totally inexperienced manager in this particular situation makes any sense. The umpteen million dollars we are committed to is a sunk cost, in economic terms. Whether we win 60 or 100 games in 2012, 2013 and 2014, we pay a ton of money towards funding problematic contracts. A manager doesn't need to be learning coaching ropes while simultaneously making tough day-to-day decisions about whether or not to bench Dunn or Rios, about which pitchers need to be in what roles, and on top of it all, having to deal with a big spotlight in a big market. Oh yeah, all this with a large, ex-teammate World Series-winning shadow. If we were the KC Royals, going young with a 30 million payroll, hiring a man like Ventura makes complete sense. Unless Robin succeeds against all odds, an extremely unlikely event given what we know about how difficult this job is, we are setting a class act of this organization, as well as the organization itself, up to fail, in the name of cutting costs by doing so. It's a raw deal, and frankly, I hate it. What isn't certain is ticket revenue. I don't know of too many people who go to baseball games because they love the manager, and that's not going to change because Robin Ventura is in the dugout. If we compete and are in or near first place, people will start coming. If we're in third, count on 20k per night. I see three middling 79-85 win seasons in our near future, with the national audience and the broader chicago casual fan learning how to forget about the White Sox all over again. People will be as nonplussed as ever, while we blandly play out the string. And the worst thing about that is when we're finally rid of all these contract in 2015, Jerry will simply say "fans didn't come, so we're paring back to $30 million". Then it would make sense to hire Ventura, but we'll have already run him out of town on a rail, and alienated him from an organizational standpoint for years to come. Yeah, I absolutely, positively, f***ing hate this.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 7, 2011 -> 10:06 AM) I really dislike this line of thinking here. This is a gamble with what seems to me to be very poor odds. Poor odd gambles sometimes turn out right. If you went and bout $200k worth of lottery tickets, you still don't have a good shot at winning, but it seems like a great idea in the off chance that it works. Poker pros call it being "results-oriented". One of the worst vices bad poker players have is using results to justify poor gambling decisions.

I know nothing about this man, outside of what he did on the baseball field as a player. What could I have possibly found out about him in the last 24 hours to change that? On paper, it's one of the worst hires in White Sox history.

the real question is: is buddy bell still in the mix?

Why not just see what Terry Bevington is up to?

This is a terrible, terrible, terrible move.

Floyd/Humber/Danks/Peavy/Sale doesn't leave room for Buehrle

It would be nice if someone could consolidate the pros and cons for each potential manager in a relatively unbiased post. I don't know enough about any of these men to make any kind of an assessment.

The comment aside, which smacks of a lack of personal accountability, does not really take away from the fact that KW apparently built a contender going into this season. On the field, they certainly did not compete, but I don't see how you can blame the problems of 2011 on him.

Would someone mind terribly giving this thread some context

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 05:28 AM) Morel in September 2011 7 HR, 17 RBI, 13 BB, .279 BA, .405 OBP, .689 Slg, 1.094 OPS, 12 K Everything but BA easily surpasses his high for any other month indicating a definite change of approach . Jesus, 1.094???? How does he rank among all players in OPS for the month?

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 03:24 PM) All of this, exactly. And it's still not hard to understand. Milkman, based on your easy to understand criteria, how many teams in the majors had successful seasons in 2011? here's my count: successful: philly and NYY only if they win the series. boston or tampa if either makes the playoffs, the other is unsuccessful. detroit, cleveland, texas, milwaukee, arizona, atlanta. unsuccessful: the other 20 some teams seems like 2/3rds of the time we should count on going six months to be disappointed, angry or both, huh

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 12:18 PM) Seeing as how I like teams to win games, a .750 OPS taking up a corner outfield position in the American League is f***ing bad. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos...t/OPS/minpa/375

I would be interested in people defining whether 2006 was a "successful" season, then. I'm not sure how many wins over 90 an organization can reasonably "expect"

Thome vs. Kotsay.

Guys, let's clarify something. I don't think the 2011 White Sox are "successful", nor am I asking if you think they are "successful" I'm asking how you define success, and if they had gotten in as the 6th best record would that be successful, and if baseball's playoff format needs to be revisited.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 12:09 PM) Of course the sox have the 9th best record in the A.L. and are 9 games back of sixth place so I don't see any way you could call this successful. I don't call this successful.