Frankensteiner

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 26, 2006 -> 07:07 PM) Current Jon Garland + Mark Buehrle every year except 2006 + Jose Contreras from July 05-May 06 + Brandon McCarthy = one of the top starting rotations in baseball. These guys are still not "5.00 ERA" pitchers. You're pretty much cherry picking these guys into a good staff. What about "current" Garland + current Buehrle + current Jose. Or Jon Garland every year except 2005 and a couple of months in 2006 + Jose Contreras from 2004 + ... well, you get my drift.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 26, 2006 -> 07:03 PM) Here's the other side of the token...Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, and Jose Contreras are all significantly better than the numbers they've put up this season. Vastly better. We've seen Garland and Conteras both go through really rough stretches that have hurt their numbers for the season, and we've seen Buehrle be terrible for about 2 months. But these guys are NOT pitchers who put up ERA's between 4.5-5.0. Jon Garland had a terrible start to the season...is there any reason to think that he is guaranteed to have another bad 1st half next year? No. Mark Buehrle can throw up an ERA around 3 for a season, is there any rational reason to believe that he'll put up 5's the rest of his career? I don't think so. At some point, these guys' numbers are going to even out. This season has been so bad for them, that you just have to think they have some good pitching left in them. Javier Vazquez and Freddy Garcia were both significantly better than what they are now. Just because they were better in the past doesn't mean much for the future. For all we know, the league has caught up to Buehrle. Jose Contreras is 47 years old and seems to go hot and cold for now. There's no guarantee he'll be better next year.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 26, 2006 -> 07:01 PM) My hope is we trade Garcia. I'll take my chances next year with the starting 4 and McCarthy. I honestly feel like we have to improve our offense more than our pitching for next season. Current staff - Garcia + McCarthy = average. Not terrible like it is now, but not good either. I'd throw some money at Jason Schmidt although spending money on free agent pitchers is generally a bad idea.

The question is where is our pitching going to come from next year? Since it's so great (as I remember reading that blog quote) that we have these guys signed through 2007/2008.

Minny will be 7-1 against us in the last 8 games. So, are you IN or OUT?

Game over.

I really like this talk from our captain:

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 09:40 PM) Pierre is infinitely better than Podsednik right now. Pods makes Pierre look like Ty Cobb. Uh, no he doesn't. Their stats are very similar.

Who does Minny have left after Crain? Just Rincon and Nathan, right?

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 09:17 PM) Name one worse. Actually John Gibbons is worse, so I'll say Ozzie is the 2nd worst manager in the AL. Still not good. Ok, Buddy Bell, Eric Wedge, Terry Francona, whoever's managing the O's, Hargrove, etc.

QUOTE(stretchstretch @ Aug 24, 2006 -> 07:20 PM) Everyone knows about Mauer and Morneau, but Bartlett hitting 351 and Tyner 317, add Punto's 314 and that's five?? There's almost no sports media coverage of this lineup, just wondering why with these stats, seeing that we have only 2 regulars over 300 (AJ and Crede just under) and the sports media drools over our offense Dye and Konerko are over 300, too. Minny's lineup really puzzles me. I've been saying we should expect a decrease in our run production (and that has happened to an extent) but I can't believe the Twins are hitting like this. Tyner and Punto have to come back to earth at some point.

QUOTE(cgaudin @ Aug 24, 2006 -> 06:01 PM) There's no PHAWKIN' way he will be even mentioned with those pitchers until his ERA gets under 4. He would have to go 22 and 4 AND Halladay would have to end up with 2 or 3 wins fewer to have a shot at it. As far as Dye goes, he's getting the short end of the stick. Do you realize his numbers are where they are and he's been hitting 5th all year. That's unbefreakin'lievable! He's definitely not getting his due. Had he been hitting 3rd in the lineup his numbers would be in the stratosphere. I must admit, Jeter would have to have a sub-par September and Dye would have to go on a huge tare to be given equal consideration. Thome and Konerko are on base more than Pods and Iguchi. And right now, Ortiz is the guy to beat for the MVP, not Jeter.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Aug 24, 2006 -> 02:56 PM) I wouldn't say Sheffield is more obvious, but Giambi may be. Not many people lose a whole bunch of weight the offseason in which a steroid policy is put in place, like Giambi and I-Rod. Giambi probably juiced but he's still putting up MVP numbers. I-Rod hits like Joey Cora.

Tigers really aren't a very patient hitting team.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 24, 2006 -> 02:24 PM) As bad as this freaking roadtrip has gone, if Freddy a-hole coulda beat a guy named Boof, it's a 4-3 trip against 2 damn tough teams. Once you consider how Freddy has pitched this season, that game was really a tossup. If we win this game today, this road trip is pretty good. The travesty was Contreras vs. KC last week. We should have won at least another game against that team.

At this point, if we could get at least one other starter to pitch at Garland's level we would probably make the playoffs.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 23, 2006 -> 08:18 PM) Nothing, and if he went on the DL tonight, we'd be a better team because of it. You can say that about a few players on this team.

How bad did it look? And what was the injury? His back flared up?

I would love to see 7 IP,

Well, I don't think anyone is actually "out" in so far as they'll stop following the team, win or lose. I'll still watch every game but I don't think this team is good enough to make the playoffs, not with this pitching.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Aug 22, 2006 -> 07:28 PM) That should be obvious. You can do that in the off-season, its impossible or nearly impossible to do that at the trade deadline. It's nearly impossible to trade a SP for some spare parts at the deadline to open up a spot for McCarthy? I don't think that's right.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Aug 22, 2006 -> 07:25 PM) There wasn't a f***ing move out there to make the team better. The quicker you get your head out of your ass the quicker you may realize this. I didn't see one team in baseball bolster there starting rotation at the deadline via a trade (sans the Yanks with the Lidle move and thats hardly the type of acquisition that would have made the Sox better). I'm sorry for being a dick but I'm sick of tom and joe douche bag consistently saying we could have traded these guys at the deadline and got more starters. It would have been nice and I know we argued in the past about hte trade value of some of the guys, but bottom line teams weren't giving up starters and even if they did our team has s*** in the farm systems (and thats coming from someone who talks with members of the org and players in the system) to offer to get top notch pitching. We could have dumped one guy and given McCarthy a shot. There's no way McCarthy is putting up a 4.7 ERA in the 2nd half is he's starting.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Aug 22, 2006 -> 07:22 PM) Even if you said they'd be worse, they would still have been the best rotation in the majors (or at least thats what 99% of baseball expected). The fact that they completely fell on there face, well whats to be said. Garland is the only guy I have faith in...thats it. People can show me his ERA but without him we would be done already. He stopped so many losing streaks. Than there is Count who is just mediocre and the rest of the guys SUCK. Our rotation is bloody awful and has really not had any dominant stretch all season and there is no reason to think or expect them to do it. Could they reveret in a year, sure, guys (even Hall of Famers) have the ocassional down season but its just odd that all of our guys decided to suck at the same time. My guess is Kenny may be patient with Mark because of his history, mixed with the fact that he gives innings, actually holds runners (plays d) and is one of the teams leaders. The same can not be said about Javy and Freddy and I'd be stunned if either of htem were around. Javy will be around if this team wins the world series or goes deep into the playoffs. I say that because the only way we do anything is if Javy turns things around and pitches strong for this team down the stretch and in that case he'll be back. See, my problem is why are we waiting these guys out. Freddy and/or Javy should have been off the team mid-season. We're not getting any younger with two of our best players being in their mid 30s (Thome and Count) and our best player this season is having an out of his mind career year (Dye). It's only going to get harder for this same team to win next year, unless KW is already planning a massive overhaul.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Aug 22, 2006 -> 07:19 PM) Exactly. I will not even listen to an argument about Williams not putting this team in the best position to win. Coming into this season, we still had the 4 aces that got us a Championship, along with adding Vaz. These guys all have underachieved,and your a liar if you said "I called them all being worse" Once you something is not working, you can make changes to the team. There is no rule against trading players mid-season.

QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ Aug 22, 2006 -> 07:17 PM) Better than the players that you wanted in your sig... Smoltz and Schmidt are better than anyone on our staff. It's not even close, really.