Frankensteiner

QUOTE(fathom @ May 2, 2007 -> 05:28 PM) I know Walker will be the fall guy, but we just have too many easy outs in our lineup (as we did during the 2nd half last season). I hope we're not relying on Thome to be full strength for the rest of the year once he returns. I guarantee he'll be back on the DL again this season. If our offense performed like the 2nd half of last season, that wouldn't be a problem, imo. The problem was our pitching during the 2nd half was horrendous, for the most part. It's pretty good right now.

QUOTE(fathom @ May 2, 2007 -> 05:15 PM) Bingo! There's so many more problems with this team than just it's hitting coach. He'll be the fall guy, but this roster was doomed from the minute we tried to make Toby Hall into Steve Lyons. We should DL Cintron and find someone with a little more pop that can play SS in an emergency. So you think finding a SS w/ "a little more pop" would be a bigger problem solver than firing Walker? I find that hard to believe. We can talk about Tejada in a couple of weeks. Our talent level is fine for what we need right now. It might not be God's gift to hitting, but it should be good enough to be average until Thome returns, at which point it can be slightly above average. And there's a big difference between average and pathetic, which is where it's at right now. If hitting coaches have no effect on team hitting, as you are seemingly suggesting, how would you explain our improved performance after firing Von Joshua and later Gary Ward, or the Indians when they fired Eddie Murray?

QUOTE(fathom @ May 2, 2007 -> 04:54 PM) Look at our lineup....even a good hitting coach couldn't get this offense to be average. That might be true. But if all these guys were hitting at their career averages, we'd probably be in 1st place by now, even without Thome.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Apr 28, 2007 -> 09:14 PM) The pitching of this current team is no where near as good as the '05 team. It's not even close. The pitching, up until this point, is pretty comparable. 2005: 3.61 ERA (2nd), .707 OPS against, 1.25 WHIP 2007: 3.98 ERA (4th), .674 OPS against , 1.21 WHIP They'll have to keep it up of course, but it's premature to make a judgement one way or another at this point. Saying it's "not even close" is a joke.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Apr 28, 2007 -> 09:24 PM) He's 39, has major injury concerns and makes $5M this year. Fun. Got any better ideas for hitters on short-term contracts who don't cost an arm and a leg?

I say let's get Reggie Sanders. The guy has a good season every other year, and he's due for a good year this season.

I said this last year (and was disagreed with) but this is the problem with having a 36 year old as your best player. Still, I don't see a reason to panic at this point. It's not as if he's done for the season. Hopefully Anderson gets sent down and we re-sign Perez.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Apr 25, 2007 -> 10:23 PM) That was honestly the worst offensive game I think I've ever seen us have, and I've been watching since 1993. When you consider who was pitching, just mind boggling. That covers a lot of territory so I can't agree. I can think back to those Frank-Maggs-Konerko-Lee-Valentin teams where AAA scrubs would routinely shut us down provided it was their first appearance against us (we're still sorta pathetic at this, BTW).

Nice!

Seriously though, of our 19 games, only 3 of them haven't been close. That's pretty amazing, and taxing on the bullpen.

Another thing with this bullpen is that we've played many close games. If you're trying to protect a lead in every game, naturally you're just going to have more blown saves.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 24, 2007 -> 11:40 PM) People have the book on him though. He's not throwing his offspeed stuff at all, so they can sit on the first pitch fastball. A lot of damage has been done on him vs first pitch fastball this year already. Well, he's shown he could throw an off-speed pitch last year. He's not throwing it so far but could that be because it's not working for him at the moment? That's why I think we might need to give him a couple non-pressure situation appearances.

QUOTE(Wanne @ Apr 24, 2007 -> 11:38 PM) Or Sisco. Thornton hasn't pitched nearly enough. You're saying as an 7th-8th inning guy? I don't know, his lack of control scares me a little at this point, although I guess he was the main set up guy in KC.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Apr 24, 2007 -> 11:36 PM) The stats may show 6 blown saves but as a whole this pen has pitched pretty darn good. It didn't work out great the past two games but the pen has done very good, especially compared to last year. And everyone should have realized you will have ocassional down games considering the lack of command/experience some of these guys have. I think the bullpen is better than what they've shown statistically.

If Thornton still has his usual velocity he should be fine. We might need to give him some appeareances to get straightened out, and give him a full innning instead of using him as a LOOGY (which has been the case lately).

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Apr 23, 2007 -> 11:12 PM) You won't hear that Konerko sucks out of me. Baseball is a long season and guys go through the motions. Paulie has proven he's not only one of the best Sox players of the last 10-20 years but that he's also one of the best run producers in baseball (no, he's not the best nor does he rank amongst the top 5 or so) but he's in the group right behind that) and when you do that you deserve the benefit of the doubt. I don't expect Konerko to get hits or homers everytime he's at the plate, but things like yesterday at Detroit where he's grounding into a DP with runners on 1st and 3rd and less than 2 out in the 9th, there's just no excuse for, especially given his approach at the time.

Nice to see Konerko have a good game (finally!). Pitching was very good again. Hopefully we beat up these Royals just like Detroit and Minny did last year.

On the other hand, the Tigers don't look that good to me. I think we should beat them out this year: we have a better lineup (and hopefully we get our heads out of our asses and start showing it), a better bullpen, and comparable starting pitching. Cleveland scares the crap out of me when we play them, but they don't do as well against the rest of the league as they do against us.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 22, 2007 -> 04:04 PM) Which means the usual August/September tank. Maybe. Then again, maybe KW won't stand pat at the deadline this year.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 22, 2007 -> 03:59 PM) Absolutely....play for today, worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. It's too bad Aardsma overthrew that fastball. Time to start hitting more consistently. I wish we still had Gload on the roster to back-up PK. So you want another lefty on the bench?

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Apr 22, 2007 -> 03:57 PM) I just want to know when this team will hit something outside of a homer to score. It did happen this weekend. But its not happening enough. Its warm out, unless they think 70 degrees is cold. Now I know that usually means lift and pull is back into full production, but our sitatuional hitting sucks. If we are still hitting like this come May 1st, and we are homer or nothing and most of our lineup is lost. Hopefully KW will have the balls to fire Walker, and get someone in here who can teach them out to level their swing out, and maybe help with a long looping swing. What will happen at some point pretty soon is that I anticipate the Sox going on a 3-4 game HR explosion where they put up a bunch of runs, then Walker's job is safe, then we'll go back to the same all or nothing approach and the cycle will start over again.

Seriously, when he's on his death spiral, is there a more frustrating player to watch than Konerko?

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 22, 2007 -> 03:51 PM) Classy Hey, that's how it is. I'd never do it, of course.

Is this one of those magical "other 40" games that Hawk always talks about? You know, win 60, lose 60... Just thinking about Paul Konerko right now makes me sick..

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 20, 2007 -> 06:35 PM) Honest question here: since the 4th game of the season, has anyone ever seen a more pathetic stretch of hitting from one player than we've seen from Erstad? We've had a lot of players with exclusively home run swings and a terrible approach over the last few years. So this covers a lot of ground. I would say Brian Anderson was the worst stretch I've seen last season, simply for the longevity factor.