Greg Hibbard

Issue #1-50 is Adam Dunn. Where he's batting, why he isn't noticeably changing his approach, what he's eating, how he's sleeping. If you could get him close to right, so many friggin' problems would solve themselves.

I can understand people's frustrations with almost every player, but I think everyone has just hit a cold streak at once, similar to other points over the last two seasons. I'm not sure Viciedo would help, but Dunn HAS to be dropped in the order. It makes absolutely no sense to bat him third. He needs to drop to at least 6th, probably 7th or 8th. Him batting 3rd has cost us at least two games recently.

I just don't understand why Kenny or Ozzie or both haven't had a closed-door meeting. Or why Ozzie hasn't blown up at the media. Or why some players haven't started infighting. There's just nothing but this dull malaise.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 03:40 PM) His numbers across the board have trended downward for 3 seasons now. He's not 20 or 21. He'll be 25 soon and he was supposed to be this "advanced" hitter with a natural "feel" for the game. He's basically an fundamentally-challenged, mental midget. He hasn't even played 324 games (2 complete seasons worth of games) yet. Across the board trending downward? He had his best half of baseball in terms of AVG/OBP in the 2nd half of last season. Over his past 365 days, he's hitting just below his career average. I don't evaluate him until the end of this season. I think it's premature to write him off now.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 03:36 PM) We got one fabulous post-season run and about 5 months of '06 out of him. Thus far, he's had a bad first half in '10, and a bad first half in '11. Are you prepared to evaluate this on 2 bad half-seasons?

Beckham is not a bust yet. If Beckham is a bust, then Crede is a bust. They have nearly identical stats through the same number of games.

Morel took a get me over curve/cookie for strike two that was certainly right there, I think he had one foul from an out of the zone pitch, and then swung at a head high pitch to strikeout.

I wish anyone in that dugout would take a bat to a gatorade cooler, or start screaming at teammates. Anything.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 01:45 PM) 47 pitches to record 7 outs. How many of those were thrown with 0 outs in the first, though?

I am usually very positive, but if we lose this game I might completely flip.

I don't know if there's a more underrated Williams acquisition than Pierzynski, for how crucial it has been in so many respects. If it was up to me, he'd have a statue when it was all said and done, along with Buehrle and Konerko, but I realize I'm a bigger fan than most.

QUOTE (Real @ Jul 5, 2011 -> 12:20 PM) IMO, with the fluctuation/unpredictability of the Sox across different opponents win% (Sox will struggle against low win% teams, win against high win% teams, and then float around .500 against teams with similar records), its hard for me to put any weight into the point you're trying to make. It's a valid arguement I suppose, however the Sox have proven to me that on a day to day standpoint, it doesn't matter how good or bad their opponent is...i've seen this team lose a lot of games against bad teams and then beat the crap out of a healthy Red Sox team Predicting outcomes based on opp. win% with the Sox is as unpredictable as their chances of winning I think the surge from last season was somewhat predictable, in hindsight. Maybe not as hot as they were, but certainly I expected a team with that talent to clobber awful competition, particularly in the NL. Look at this season-long distribution compared to 2010: 2011 .442 or less 15-11 .443-.499 7-10 (7-7 since May 6th) .500-.519 1-2 .520+ 20-20 (12-7 since May 6th) The Sox have played almost half of their games to this point against teams that currently sport a .520+ winning percentage. 38 of our last 75 games (that makeup in minny has never been scheduled, has it?) are against below .500 teams. Of the games against above .500 opponents, we only have 14 road games left this season against above .500 teams. Hard to believe isn't it? 2010 .442 or less 37-22 .443-.499 13-5 .500-.519 12-15 .520+ 26-32 Last year's team beat the snot out of terrible teams, did pretty well against other below .500 teams, and couldn't beat good teams consistently.

I've heard a lot of people recently say that they won't be fooled by this year's resurgence, because the resurgence last year ended up in a typical late-season fade. I thought it would be prudent at this point to compare the two streaks and illustrate why I think they are so different. It's especially apt because this recent surge is on game number 53, and that number is very relevant when looking at the 2010 data. The 2011 Sox are now 32-21 in their last 53 games, a .604 winning percentage. Last season, the White Sox were 24-33 on June 8th. Over their next 53 games they went 39-14, a .750 winning percentage, surging to the top of the AL central with a 63-47 record. On the very next day, they would begin a 7-13 slide that would ultimately cost them the division. So can we expect a similar fade starting today? I don't think so. Although both streaks contain roughly the same number of road and home games, 31 road/22 home during 2010 and 30 road/21 home during 2011, there are many differences that are worth emphasizing. Overall, the weighted winning percentage of the teams faced are quite different (I used the last day of each "streak" for the winning percentages calculated for each team, and then weighted the total winning percentage by calculating the proportion of games played vs. the respective winning percentages and summing the totals. For example, Baltimore had a .370 winning percentage on August 8th, 2010, so for the 2010 data I used that percentage. For the 2011 data, I used today's winning percentages. I felt this was the only fair way to extrapolate each, since there was no way of "knowing" the winning percentages past the last day of each streak at the time each would have been calculated). 2010 weighted winning percentage during the 39-14 streak: .459849 2011 weighted winning percentage during the 32-21 streak: .484472 This is a gigantic difference, almost 25 percentage points. What accounts for it? The 2010 team played 27 of those 53 in their streak against teams sporting a .442 winning percentage or less (a 71 win season on a 162 game schedule). They won those games at a 21-6 clip. They were 5-1 against teams from .443-.500, 7-3 against teams with a .500-.510 winning percentage, and just 6-4 vs. teams over .510. 6-4 is a good mark, but it's not a particularly large number of games played vs. an above-mediocre percentage during a 53-game segment. This season, the White Sox have played just 17 of the 53 games against such teams with a .442 or worse winning percentage, sporting a healthy 12-5 record in those games (as we would expect). They are 7-7 against teams from .443-.500 (not great), 1-2 vs. teams from .500-.510, but they are 12-7 against teams above .510, and to this point all those teams are actually above a .523 winning percentage. So a much greater proportion of this streak has been played against teams with a healthier winning percentage, and the greatest proportion of games has been played against teams with a +.523 winning percentage than any other category. What's more, most of those games have been on the road, where the White Sox are 8-4 against good teams during this streak. This is why I'd expect the 2011 edition of the White Sox to do better than the 2010 one did. It's one thing to wallop teams that are headed for 90-100 losses at a .800 clip. It's quite another to win road series against playoff-bound teams. Moreover, the sample size against the division is still particularly small, and we all know the danger of small sample sizes. Here's to a win in game 54...

QUOTE (Cali @ Jul 3, 2011 -> 02:46 PM) No one in the history of baseball has had to Tip Their Cap to Rodrigo Lopez....Until Today. Maybe not recently, but this guy did put up two complete seasons of 14-9 and 15-9 in the AL East with a sub 4.00 era a few years ago.

Dunn is now 2 for his last 30 with 19 strikeouts. It's time to do SOMETHING. Bench him, make up an injury, anything.

I don't get why they make it easily spammable. What's the point? To see whose fans have the most free time? I'm not sure if I want Konerko on or off the team, but I'm leaning off. The only good reason for him to be an allstar in my opinion is it lends strength to his "borderline hall of famer" argument. I actually couldn't believe Eric Karros said that on broadcast yesterday. It's pretty amazing people are even talking about Paulie in that light, but here we are, and the talk is becoming more valid. Pre-2005, I used to wear the Sox all-stars as a badge of honor, because it was one of those finer points during arguments with Cubs fans. I also used to think of it as a showcase for Sox players in front of a national audience. It's clear to me that despite the Sox's recent success, very few people will ever care about the Sox one way or another outside of our fanbase, and we'll never have that larger national presence that is seemingly reserved only for the Yanks, Red Sox and Cubs, so having the Sox have allstars is meaningless to me in that respect anymore.

That's the one AB I missed. I'm not usually one for saying any game is a must-win, but we need to step on the jugular today as we head into 19 straight games against the AL central. We need every cheap win we can get and the Cubs are easy pickins

I wish I saw anything in Dunn's swing that made me think he was even close.

I think .275-.280 is a likely season for Pierre at this point, given his start. He's never been below .275.

With Juan, it might just be that a .296 career hitter is reverting to norm. It will be interesting to see if anyone bothers to give guillen any credit for sticking with him should he continue to climb

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 04:30 PM) Sox win 6 in a row Greg Hibbard will start a thread about how these White Sox aren't so bad after all Sox lose 9 of the next 13 I don't understand why I've become some unwitting beacon of foolish, blind optimism in some people's eyes I think I've started 3, maybe 4 threads over the past three weeks The White Sox haven't come close to playing their best ball and despite that, they have the third best record in the AL since May 6th

did he really just walk the leadoff hitter

Pierre groundout to tie, we exhaust the bullpen, lose on an infield single in the bottom of 15

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 12:39 PM) I think you can go back and add one if you wanted to. Aha! Poll added! Thanks!

sorry for not making this a poll, guys. Was up very early in the AM.