Greg Hibbard

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 5, 2011 -> 03:51 PM) Didn't Boston start out 0-6 this season and no team had ever made the playoffs with that start? If you're saying the season was over at 11-22, that's a bigger indictment against KW and OG as they made it a point in spring training this year that a good start was a must. The way Ozzie used guys in spring training was supposed to make them as ready as can be to start the year as slow starts have hurt this team in the standings before and at the gate. I guess when they were a couple games out a few weeks ago, it really didn't matter that Adam Dunn was batting clean up or that Alex Rios was playing everyday. The research is nice, but the Sox play in a lousy division with a payroll much higher than most teams with that start. Whatever the problem is, the OG/KW fued needs to go away, and the best way for it to go away is not declare one the winner, that would make the future worse. Make them both losers, and cue up Nancy Faust with a na, na, na , na. My point is that anything that happened after 11-22 is moot because 11-22 was only recoverable from if the division winner won 84 or less games, a notion I think is mostly out of our control ( although still something I thought was possible until the Tigs got really hot recently) I'd say three things are indictable during 4-18: 1) The idea of using Juan Pierre as a leadoff hitter in 2010 and 2011 (we got exactly the offensive production we expected of him both years, ultimately, but he cost us some games during that stretch defensively). 2) The idea of using Thornton as a closer that led to so many bullpen problems, specifically going into this season with a left handed setup man who had never closed as a closer. 3) The overall composition of the team, specifically adding a bunch of problematic second-tier players who have glaring holes in their game (Peavy's AL allergy, Rios' baggage, Dunn's propensity for slumptitude).

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 5, 2011 -> 02:59 PM) To say Ozzie and Kenny played no part in the awful start is just wrong. There were numerous decisions by KW in the offseason (trusting Thornton to close, for example) and Ozzie (pulling Buehrle before the 9th inning in the home game against the A's) that contributed to the awful start. I don't get the purpose of your post, to be honest. Up until a week ago, you were saying the Sox were in great shape. Now, you're making it sound like they never had a chance. I never said they were in "great shape", I said that one team every year comes out of nowhere to win their division, and the white sox might as well be that team. I added that they certainly had to win 4 of 6 against the tigs. Halfway down, I also indicated that the research I just did illuminated some things that I did not know, which is to say that I did not know that no team that started like this ever made the playoffs.

within one game of 11-22 (10-23, 11-22 or 12-21) 1996 Boston Red Sox - 12-21, finished 85-77, third place AL East (11th highest payroll) 1996 Detroit Tigers - 10-23, finished 53-108, last place AL Central (25th highest payroll) 1998 Detroit Tigers - 10-23, finished 65-97, last place AL Central (24th highest payroll) 1999 Baltimore Orioles - 12-21, finished 78-84, 4th place AL East (8th highest payroll) 1999 Minnesota Twins - 12-21, finished 63-99, last place AL Central (28th highest payroll) 2000 Tampa Bay Devil Rays - 12-21, finished 69-92, last place AL East (15th highest payroll) 2000 Detroit Tigers - 10-23, finished 79-83, third place AL Central (11th highest payroll) 2001 Tampa Bay Devil Rays - 10-23, finished 62-100, last place AL East (18th highest payroll) 2001 Kansas City Royals - 11-22, finished 65-97, last place AL Central (26th highest payroll) 2001 Texas Rangers - 12-21, finished 79-83, last place AL West (7th highest payroll) 2002 Toronto Blue Jays - 11-22, finished 78-84, 3rd place AL East (11th highest payroll) 2002 Kansas City Royals - 11-22, finished 62-100, 4th place AL Central (22nd highest payroll) 2002 Detroit Tigers - 11-22, finished 55-106, last place AL Central (20th highest payroll) 2003 Tampa Bay Devil Rays - 12-21, finished 63-99, last place AL East (lowest mlb payroll) 2004 Tampa Bay Devil Rays - 10-23, finished 70-91, 4th place AL East (2nd lowest payroll) 2004 Kansas City Royals - 11-22, finished 58-104, 5th place AL Central (22nd highest payroll) 2004 Seattle Mariners - 12-21, finished 63-99, last place Al West (10th highest payroll) 2005 Tampa Bay Devil Rays - 12-21, finished 67-95, last place AL East (29th highest payroll) 2006 Kansas City Royls - 10-23, finished 62-100, last place AL Central (26th highest payroll) (I have verified that no 07-10 team that won more than 80 games or finished higher than 3rd place started worse than 13-20, but will add in the data for the teams later from those years) * The 2002 Tampa team started 9-24 and finished with a 55-106 record. The 2003 Indians started 9-24 and won 68 games. The worst 33 game start is the 03 Tigers, who started 7-26 on their way to a 43-119 season. The '05 Royals started out 8-25. Why am I posting this? I'm posting this because there are a host of teams that start 13-20, 14-19, and 15-18 that advance to the postseason and win their division. The most incredible example of this is the 2001 Oakland Athletics, who started off 13-20, and then posted a miraculous rest of their 102-win season where they simply could not lose for five months (well, until the postseason). This 2011 season's Boston Red Sox started 14-18 and are coasting towards either a wild card berth or a divisional title. The 2005 New York Yankees sputtered to 15-19 before straightening their season out to accumulate 95 wins. The 2006 Twins started out 14-19 as well. There has never been a playoff team from the AL that has started 10-23, 11-22 or 12-21 in the Wild Card Era. Never. I posted all of them because I wanted to illustrate that there are PLENTY of examples. In fact, no team has won more than 85 games, and no team has finished higher than third place. The lone team that won 85 games started out a game better than this season's White Sox at 12-21. Sure, there are many dogs in there that had no business competing on any level for anything because they were low-payroll also-rans in the thick of a long rebuilding process (the 2001-2004 tigs, the Rays for a lot of years). It stands to reason that empirically speaking, the data suggests this team could not have won more than 84 games in their season after May 6th, and could not have finished higher than third place or advanced to the postseason. I did not know this, and I believed otherwise up until now, obviously. Of course, there is one caveat to that empirical analysis: that the rest of the division could play so badly that the title could have ended up falling into their laps, and that obviously the White Sox could have had a hand in that (for example at Detroit this weekend). 84 wins seems to be an outlier of a possibility, considering this data. Because of their payroll, I think this team finishing between 75 and 81 wins was/is extraordinarily likely. Most of the higher payroll teams that scuffled at that level finished with about that many wins. However, as we see from the 2004 Blue Jays, it is possible for a high payroll team to simply mail it in after such a start. Their fate was sealed by May 6th. If you want to discuss how terrible a GM Kenny Williams is for the non-decisions made in-season, and how terrible a manager Ozzie Guillen is for making poor in-game decisions, and how those two people somehow had a hand in costing this team their season, well, the data suggests that you are wrong. That 4-18 stretch and the players on the field cost this team this season. Let me be clear: both Ozzie and Kenny should absolutely go, in my opinion, because this organization needs a shakeup, and because those two are accountable for this failure of this organization to execute on some level (Kenny for the building process, but we can also improve on a manager who no longer seems to care enough). I am grateful to both for what they did for this organization, and think that their legacy is a mixed bag. I would not trade that mixed bag for anything else, because the price of their legacy is a championship. This division was theirs for the taking ONLY if Detroit and everyone else played down to a level commensurate with the number of possible wins the team could have had. In mid-August, when the White Sox rattled off a 16-8 stretch, it seemed as though they were poised to go on a run. However, this is baseball. Teams do not play .667 ball for extended portions of the season, and losing streaks, even unpredictable maddening ones, happen. It surprised me greatly when people would treat routine 3-4 game losing streaks as if it was the absolute end of the universe, as if they had never watch professional baseball before in their lifetime or followed any team for an extended stretch. It is utterly unrealistic to expect any team, even a high payroll one, to rattle off an extended stretch of 129 games of baseball where they play .590 baseball, somewhere between 20 and 25 games above .500. That's what it would have taken to win 86 or 87 or 88 games, seemingly a number it will now take to win the division. The above numbers back up that teams that start particularly poorly, particularly 12-21 or worse, cannot recover from such a start, it's simply impossible. 13-20 seems to be the cutoff point. I hope I never have to watch an 11-22 start again.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Sep 4, 2011 -> 11:47 AM) C'mon Hibbard, you're better than that. A race they had no business being in? Even the Twins after being 20 games under .500 were legitimately back into the race before falling off again. The White Sox had 3-4 months to put together a run and they didn't manage it. They had no business NOT being in it. For most of the second half, they were 2 1/2 to 6 1/2 games back. I'm pretty sure we were only 11-7 in interleague play this year. Change that to 15-3...which came in the midst of that 26-5 run in 2010...and we're legitmately a part of the playoff conversation, even at this late point. We went 57-43 over the next 100 games after May 6th. That middle 100 games was as good a record as I think this team could have posted with Dunn, Rios, the pitching staff, Konerko, the bullpen, posting the projected numbers I would have expected, and facing the schedule we were facing. The entire pitching staff (Humber in particular, but Buehrle too) seemed to excel beyond expectations, but that's never noted. Obviously Konerko is having a career year, probably the best he's ever likely to have, and it won't be close. I would have never thought it was realistic to go something like 65-35 over 100 games with this team, and even 60-40 seemed like a stretch for this team, but it might have been doable. 57-43 is a very impressive 100 game run that seemed to get them back into a race. I would take a 92-win pace over 100 games every time without complaint. I can't say the same for most people on this site, obviously; 57-43 was nowhere near what they wanted from that team over that stretch, and the nightly comments illustrating their refusal to take into account the overall picture was nothing short of dumbfounding. We were out of this thing on May 6th. We started out too poorly for this team over 33 games to recover - that is the lesson of 2011. If we had exceptional offensive talent and a couple of superstars like New York and Boston perennially does, I could have seen a comeback. However, even the Red Sox had righted the ship to 4 games under by then, after starting 0-8. 33 games is just too f***ing many games to be that bad over for this organization. We may actually end up having a winning September. It wouldn't surprise me. It would be kind of hilarious if 2011 was the best August-September run since the 1990s. People would say it was meaningless (even if they squeaked into the playoffs miraculously). Certainly 16-12 in August should have surprised a few people. J4L, I sincerely hope you do stop watching this team, for the most part. I can't see how watching something you absolutely don't believe in or care for would be of any benefit to you. Nonetheless, cheers.

Yes, it is almost certainly over. This is not even close to a bad team, just a disappointing and frustrating one. I commend the team for clawing back into a race they had no business being in. However, they will finish probably 10 games worse than they should.

Can someone give me the backstory on Cowley? I don't really pay much attention to the reporters in this town anymore.

Far be it from me to rain on anyone's parade, but the loss column means less than it normally does because we're playing two doubleheaders in September to "make up" some of those games we haven't played that Detroit has.

Unless they pull out a miracle, it has to happen.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Sep 1, 2011 -> 11:27 AM) BALTA can you pull the following information Sox team projected WAR at the start of the season The current White Sox WAR This will give us an indication as to what kind of job guillen is doing and what kind of job he should have been doing. Many players have cost this organization games when it was appropriate for Ozzie to be starting those players.

I did just realize we face Verlander on Friday. Yeah, I guess it's the one "can-lose" game, but we must take 2/3 somehow.

For the record: Ozzie made a number of gutsy calls in the '05 postseason that other managers may not have made. Buehrle to close out game 3 at Houston bringing in El Duque in Boston leaving starters in for the duration instead of Manuel-ing the game by insisting on maintaining bullpen roles

I missed the play in question (I had resigned that we were losing this game in the 5th inning), but given everything it's one of the worst in-game moves of his career. I won't disagree that Ozzie makes terrible in-game decisions in general. I just don't know how many other managers make good ones. The sad thing is that the team couldn't really be playing much better right now in terms of W/L over the past three weeks. Det just can't lose enough for us right now. In a vacuum, all of us would obviously take 2/3 from any series (and certainly 16 of 24) If we lose friday the season is over.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 30, 2011 -> 01:54 PM) Check KC's record in four game road series. They drop 4 and 3 like nothing. This is a bad baseball team playing a team that wants to win a division and is at home. They also split @Boston.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 30, 2011 -> 01:23 PM) I get that people are excited about the kids(who the hell wouldn't be) but it's still not a good enough team to make up 5 games in the last month of the season. You don't need to have a good team to make up 5 games the last month of the season. You don't even necessarily need to play all that well to make up 5 games the last month of the season, if the other team completely collapses.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 30, 2011 -> 11:56 AM) Last time I checked, neither the Tigers or White Sox were known for their second half runs. I get that we just swept a god awful Mariners team and won last night against a Twins team that I don't even recognize. But we've seen this movie before. They're going to HAVE to beat Detroit. And when I say that I'm talking a minimum of 5-1 against them and play pretty much lights out against everybody else. 4-2 would be fine, but anything less and the Sox are done. 2 against Verlander is going to make it extremely tough.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Aug 30, 2011 -> 11:43 AM) Including a .500 finish just like how they've played all season with .... with Dunn and Rios as everyday players in the middle of their lineup, which fans like you never fail to point out has been the biggest problem in putting together anything consistent.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Aug 30, 2011 -> 11:39 AM) Oh, Im sorry, were these teams built just like the Sox, along with all the same external factors? Do they have better, worse, or the same talent/leadership/management/coaches? Given this, any team is utterly incomparable to any other team. What is the point? This is a game that relies about trends to make comparisons. The Sox have been trending upward since May, and finally gave up on their two biggest offensive liabilities.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Aug 30, 2011 -> 11:34 AM) I spent two seconds and thought about the Sox this year and their inability to win consistently after getting to .500. Which applies to every team from 2006-2009 I mentioned Funny how those teams still went to the playoffs and everything I looked back and tried to make them non-playoff teams but I just couldn't get it to work

I spent 5 minutes looking at data and came up with a team in every year from 2006-2009.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Aug 30, 2011 -> 11:18 AM) I'm not discounting that, but all this guy does is scrap and scratch for optimism. And taking 4 of 5 is always a hard thing to do. No, that's not all I do. Look back on my post history prior to this season. I happen to think this team is unusually poised to succeed because of its pitching. If they had a .300 team BA and a 4.5 team ERA I would be way less optimistic. I think a 23-17 record since the break (and a 15-7 record over the past 22), as well as the first winning August in forever are reasons not to QUITE throw in the towel yet (after the Det series next week we'll know everything) A team with a mediocre record at the end of August comes from behind and steals the division almost every year. If we assume that it happens in most years, wouldn't it be a safe assumption that either Cleveland or the White Sox are the most likely candidates to pull if off this season?

1) The 2007 Colorado Rockies. 68-65 on August 29th, the Rockies went on to win an astonishing 22 of their last 30 games to finish with a 90-73 record, a wildcard berth, and ultimately, a trip to the world series. 2) The 2008 LA Dodgers. 65-70 on August 29th, the Dodgers overcame a 4.5 game deficit to stun the Diamondbacks, finishing their season with a 19-8 record and the NL west crown. 3) The 2009 Minnesota Twins. 64-65 on August 29th, the Twins overcame another 4.5 game deficit to overtake the Tigers by one game, posting a 23-11 record over their last 4 weeks. 4) The 2006 San Diego Padres. 67-65 on August 29th, and in the thick of a 5-way scrum for the NL wild card that separated teams by one game, the Padres posted a 21-9 record over their final 30 games to finish in a dead heat for the division (ultimately they were assigned the wildcard by tiebreaker) 5) The 2003 Chicago Cubs. 69-64 on August 29th, and in the thick of a three way race for the division, the Cubs put it together when it counted the most and reeled off 19 of their last 31 to win the division by 1 game over Houston. It happens virtually every year, guys. A team gets hot in September and pulls off a come from behind division victory. With our pitching, WHY NOT US?

QUOTE (SI1020 @ Aug 29, 2011 -> 12:14 PM) Outside of Steve Blass, who was a pitcher, I've never seen or been aware of a productive player falling as far and fast as Adam Dunn. Rios, while not quite as abysmal as Dunn, allowed his struggles at the plate to affect his fielding, which had been a strong point for him. The failures of these two guys is epic. Who was the St. Louis pitcher who lost it and ended up in the outfield after reconfiguring his game?

Let me be clear: I'm not rationalizing away the decisions that were made or excusing accountability. I think this organization was presented with a very bad set of choices this season and that it made some poor decisions when presented with those choices. However, the greatest impact on the season seems to be the 4-18 stretch that put us 11 games out and in last place, perpetually crawling back at a snail's pace. How much of Ozzie and Kenny was that stretch? In my mind it was the bullpen problems for most games, a little Pierre and a little Dunn and Rios.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 29, 2011 -> 12:03 PM) Optimizing starting lineups and batting order usually increases your chances of winning. That's baseball 101 in case you're just starting to follow the game. You don't think it's revisionist to assume that De Aza and Viciedo would have necessarily had a positive impact in our lineup at any time you wanted to insert them? You don't think it's also revisionist to assume that moving another player up in the order would have only had a positive effect? My point was that this team is 12 over .500 over its last 98 games. Not good enough for most, I realize, but I couldn't have imagined them realistically winning too many more games than 55 out of 98. It's also possible that more time in the minors actually led to De Aza and Viciedo being more prepared for the majors, hence translating into their recent production.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 29, 2011 -> 11:44 AM) Again, we had options this year to lessen the blow (i.e., start batting Dunn lower in the lineup, bring up De Aza & Viciedo, etc.) And those things, of course, magically translate into instant wins.