Dick Allen

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:17 PM) I agree with you, but it seems Williams and Co. don't. This francise right now should be at Defcon 4. With Thome having more issues, I think the little get together has become a non issue. They need to start getting ready for 2008. I'm not KW's biggest backer, but I don't think he's stupid.

QUOTE(Big Hurtin @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:09 PM) I don't know what he's talking about. Between the injuries and departures, this team is hardly the same team. The bullpen is almost entirely different. The DH is different. The lead off hitter. Tonight's starting pitcher. He's just as frustrated as all of us. It probably eats at him he has no answers.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:12 PM) I really think tonight is a big turing point in the season. Williams seemed to really do the press circut today, htting the local media, then going national on PTI, stating the Sox battle cry, that they aren't out of it yet. Game starts, and its the same old s***. Few runs early, hits stop, and bullpen blows lead. Same s***, different night. Then you get Ozzie blowing up, throwing his players under the bus, having the players take the blame for the mess. Really though, you have a team where Andy Gonzalez is leading off. He wouldn't lead off for most AA teams. How can you really expect to be an upper echolon team?

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:09 PM) I'm thinking the same thing -- he looks awful. Yeah, he's pissed, and rightfully so. I think at this point even part of Ozzie would want this thing blown up. At least with young guys he could 'expect' the losing and the mistakes, whereas with this group, he's expecting winning (whether he's right to think that really isn't the point). That's a good point. I think KW is making phone calls as we speak. QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:11 PM) You're right about the facial hair, he just doesn't look quite right without that s***ty goatee. He's put on a lot of weight and the bags under his eyes are about the size of a garlic clove right now. He should really just walk away with a few million dollars under his belt and a World Series Ring. I doubt he'd have much trouble finding work that's a little less stressful. ESPN would hire him in a heartbeat, even if nobody could understand him.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:06 PM) The end of his press conference was very interesting. He backed himself, KW and JR while throwing his players under the bus. The losing is starting to get to Ozzie. I'm watching him on Comcast right now, he looks like s***. I really think Ozzie might just end up quiting. Ozzie looks weird without facial hair. Maybe I've seen him for over 20 years with it, but wow. Of course, I used to get freaked out when my grandpa took his glasses offf. Ozzie does appear to be packing on pounds.

This game was the epitome of the 2007 White Sox. Score some runs early don't score for the last 7 innings against relievers. Sure Danks could have been better, he's really struggled lately, but he did leave with the lead. Have the bullpen blow it, and lose again.

QUOTE(South Side Fireworks Man @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:02 PM) Actually, Ozzie is handling this with as much class as anyone could. Ozzie has shocked me lately with a little maturity. Is he taking as much blame for the failure as he accepted for the success?

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 05:30 PM) You have to be kidding me. Kenny Williams has ALWAYS gone cheap with his bullpen. The main six guys in the 2005 bullpen -- Hermanson, Politte, Cotts, Jenks, Marte and Vizcaino -- averaged just a hair over $1 million dollars. Hermanson, Politte -- these guys weren't considered big relievers. Hell, IIRC, people b****ed that Kenny went cheap even when he DID go into the free agent market for relievers like those two. Oh, and BTW, Speier got a four year, $16 million dollar deal from Anahiem. I'm sorry, but it would have been dumb as hell to outbid Anahiem for a very-good-but-not-elite, 33 year old reliever. Actually he paid Hermanson $2 million a year. Politte got $1 million, Vizcaino 1.3 million, Shingo 1 million, Marte 1.25 million. And that was with a payroll a lot lower than it is now. Pitching wins. The bullpen is pathetic and since I'm an idiot and never bought KW's everyone throws 97 the bullpen is awesome BS I'm the fool. Pretty dumb getting a guy who gets people out, while you send pitcher after pitcher out there who either can't throw the ball over the plate or get anyone out. Good argument.

QUOTE(South Side Fireworks Man @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 04:56 PM) Tonight's Lineup Gonzalez, LF; Iguchi, 2B; PK, 1B; Dye, RF; Fields, 3B; Terrero, CF; Uribe, SS; Cintron, DH; Hall, C. Danks pitching No Thome. I hope its because lefties have no chance against Willis. Thome was running pretty gingerly after his homer last night. Gonzalez leading off is a joke.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 03:20 PM) Ok, so Justin Speier. You can name one guy. If we'd have only signed Justin Speier, we would be well on our way to another division title right now. I agree, bullpen's are incredibly volatile. But the only thing you can do is hope that guys who succeeded in critical innings last season maintain some semblance of what they did last year. I suppose maybe it's getting to the point where it might be advisable to trade your solid pen guys for prospects each year because the odds of them repeating are not good. I also liked Otsuka from Texas. He was available, but makes over the minimum so no dice. How can anyone possibly think the White Sox bullpen coming into this season was anything but a question mark? As I said in the winter, at least KW didn't do what he did the previous season, and just totally ignore it when he had the pitch off of crap in Tucson. If you are going to compete for a championship, you better have a decent bullpen, and relying on a bunch of guys used to losing is playing with fire.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 02:55 PM) So in the current marketplace for pitching, which the White Sox unintentionally contributed to by having such a great staff in 05' and winning with it, what pitchers would you have brought in this year? Look at what's happened to MOST of the big money relievers that teams signed in the past few years. BJ Ryan, was great, but now he's out for the year. The guy makes what, $8 million? Flash Gordon...been out much of the year, makes $7 million? Look at Scott Eyre. He's as bad as Aardsma or Mac have been. Or you could do what the Indians have done- signing old fart has beens and watching them suck terribly. I guess I just keep seeing you complain and complain and complain about the bullpen and yet you offer absolutely no alternative plan besides throwing more payroll and fantom relievers that don't exist. Lead us all to this "marginally cheap yet consistently effective" reliever tree you have found. Can you imagine where we might be had we signed the relievers that pitched so well in 05' for us to extensions? Look at where all those guys are right now. If that doesn't show you how volatile bullpens are than I don't know what will. I'll tell you what, I agree that KW's bullpen has failed us this year. But I'm amazingly thankful that what has failed has accounted for only 3% of the payroll. Imagine the situation we'd have been in had we been shelling out big money to our relievers over the past several years. Additionally, it's very easy to see how things have fallen apart when they might not have had to. Had Mac and Thornton pitched as we all thought they would this season, there aren't a whole lot of other critical innings needed by guys like Aardsma or anyone else. And yet Mac has been horrible and Thornton amazingly inconsistent. That's just more proof of how volatile bullpens are from year to year. As another poster has said, our offense has let us down more than the bullpen. The bullpen has not been anywhere close to acceptable, but it doesn't have to be very good if the offense had been scoring runs as they should be. And if they were, we'd be looking extremely similar to Cleveland right now. Well for one, if you've been watching me complain I have mentioned Justin Speier about 10,000 times. I know he's on the DL, but its an intestinal infection, not an arm injury, and its probably debatable whether or not he would have had the infection in a different environment. But his $4 million a year was deemed too much, so a team with a bullpen far superior to the White Sox signed him. If they had pitched like you thought, you say about MacDougal Thornton and Aaardsma. How, if you are of the opinion relievers are a crapshoot can you have any reasonable expectation as to how they will perform with such little track record. MacDougal is an injury waiting to happen, Thornton was nice last year, but sucked so much previously he wasn't going to make the Mariners and Aardsma was horrible until he had a little success in meaningless games for the Cubs. If bullpens are such a crapshoot why is it when I said trade Politte right after the 2005 season, because it was so far and away better than his norm and he was almost a lock to fall apart, was I laughed at by the guys who say bullpens are volatile? If you really believe that, you can never say a bullpen is solid coming into the season. And there were plenty of people on this site that thought the Sox had one of the best bullpens in baseball coming into this season. Building a bullpen from within would be ideal, but the White Sox don't have the pitchers to do it.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 02:01 PM) Danks alone is giving me a reason to be excited about this game. He has sort of struggled recently. Hasn't made it through the 6th in any of his last 4 starts. I hope he will cut down on walks and pitch count tonight. Turning the game over to the White Sox bullpen early is just asking for trouble.

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 01:58 PM) I know we need a firesale, but I want to resign Buehrle. He wants to remain in Chicago, he is home grown, he helped bring home a Title, he is a rock, a stud, he eats innings, he wins, he battles. He is the face of this franchise (w/ PK). I want a boatload of spects, but I want this kid in our rotation for the next decade more. Trade him, and go after him when he becomes a free agent.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 01:49 PM) Well there is one problem with the example you just sited... The Sox have been lambasted for signing guys with injury histories, and if you look at that pen, that is pretty much what it is. Vizcaino is the only guy who has stuck around and been healthy. Shingo was a fluke, as much as I liked him, and the other three have had major injury problems. The only reason we got any of those last three guys was because of their injury histories. If those guys had been healthy and/or good, they wouldn't have been here in the first place. It was blind luck that they came together how they did, and that is bore out by their results since then. Kenny caught lightning in a bottle that year, and he has been trying to do it ever since. He paid Hermanson and Gordon almost what he's paying the entire bullpen. He didn't want to sign Justin Speier for $4 mill a year because it was too much. Speier was great so far this year, but he's been on the DL with an intestinal infection. Maybe he doesn't get that if he's on the Sox. Maybe he blows his elbow out if he's on the Sox. The thing is MacDougal is a guy with an injury history who wouldn't have been available if he hadn't had one. Aaarsdma wouldn't have been available if he could throw strikes and keep the ball in the park. Sisco wouldn't have been available if he could throw the ball within 5 feet of home plate. Thornton, the same. If the Sox can't develop them, they must go out and pay for them. No one should be shocked at the bullpen's ineptness. I just hope Jenks doesn't have a post ASB meltdown like last season. He probably won't, he's had a ton of rest.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 01:33 PM) You've been saying this forever now, and so I am just curious. How do you think good bullpens are built? Do you think they are built by signing expensive guys that performed well last year? Do you think that is how solid bullpens are built? The vast majority of effective pitchers coming out of the pen are closers. The rest are so volatile from year to year that they end up being disasters for the club over the life of the deal. The very few that are relatively inexpensive and consistently effective are so valuable to their clubs that you can't get them unless you are willing to give up a boatload of talent in return. I'm just curious. How do you believe a good bullpen can/should be assembled other than trying to find quality young arms? Lets go back to when the Sox had some reliable guys in the bullpen. Flash Gordon, Hermanson, Shingo for a while, Vizcaino, Politte the 1 season, they all were making well above minimum. We've seen KW and apparently your method of building a bullpen in 2006 and 2007 now. If you can't see it doesn't work to throw a bunch of crap out there by now, especially when you have no one in the minor leagues you can plug in, than you will never see it. The entire bullpen is being paid $3.6 million this season. The White Sox payroll is $109 million which includes the money they are being given by other clubs. They have budgeted 3% of their payroll to the entire bullpen, and they wonder why they suck. Hawk made a comment last night that shocked me, but I sort of agree with it now. He said its getting to the point where its more important to have a dominant bullpen than a dominant rotation. The Sox spend all this money on the rotation and what kind of consistent results have they gotten from them?

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 01:19 PM) you've moved from insightful to humorous. It's too bad. Tiger fans root for the Sox to lose, as do Twins fans. You're in good company. I don't have to root for the Sox to lose. They're just not very good. I'd love to see a miraculous resurgence and I will continue to root for it but I wouldn't bet a nickel on it happening. If they do turn it around (your nightmare) then I would be most happy. And something tells me you would be too, despite your statements to the contrary. Its the middle ground thats maddening. I'm sure fathom would be as happy as anyone here if the Sox turned it around and made the playoffs. But if they turned it around and missed by 5 games, it would have been a wasted opportunity to get something for someone you are going to lose. These moral victories are old. Last year when the Sox came back against Houston I think and scored 8 runs or something like that in the 9th only to lose in extra innings, people were giddy. They lost. Its black and white, no gray area. Playoffs or bust. KW would be a fool to hold onto Buerhle, Dye and whoever else isn't in the plans just to pad a win total that won't be good enough to play on after 162 games.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 01:24 PM) Anything in the city is going to be expensive for Sox stuff, but you will definately find the best selection at Grandstand, which is west of the ballpark on 35th street. personally I wouldn't recommend that you go to the taste on the 4th, that late in the day. It is going to be SOOO crowded. Like others have said, there will literally be one million people in Grant Park and the surrounding areas. it is miserable. Not to mention, you could go to one of the restaurants thats at the Taste, sit in air conditioning, actually be served, have breathing room and have it be cheaper. The Taste of Chicago has long been my enemy so I am a little prejudice, but how can people enjoy it when its that crowded?

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 01:00 PM) Fixed Half of this team's payroll was devoted to its starting rotation last year. Is that unreasonable as well? Yes. Especially if it means you are going to have to have a bunch of guys making minimum in the bullpen. You pay all this money to the starters then turn it over to the likes of Bukvich or Prinz or Aaardsma or Masset or whoever. Its like giving your 16 year old who just got his license yesterday, the keys to your Bentley. I still think a guy who is going to probably be below .500 with an ERA in the mid to high 4's is a #5 starter on a contending team.

QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Jun 18, 2007 -> 01:14 PM) I'd rather not see the Sox deal for Collaspo. But I'd also like to think that the Sox aren't projecting Richar as their starting 2B in 2008. Isn't Collaspo the wife beater?

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 12:39 PM) Well, yes. My point was that we're pretty much at our ceiling right now. How could Javy Vazquez's $11.5 million salary be reasonable on a team whose ceiling for the team is $96 million? He's a #5 starter. QUOTE(iamshack @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 12:31 PM) We thought we did receive ml-ready talent in Gavin Floyd. So maybe they were off a few months... Or maybe they were just off.

Giving Vazquez a 3 year extension before the final year of his previous contract was the equivalent of a 4 year deal. Buerhle's been a much better pitcher unless you base everything on what you see in the bullpen warming up. The policy has been fine, its worked out time and time again. I do remember JR stating the one guy they would have gone longer on was Alex Fernandez because of his mechanics. That wouldn't have worked either. It depends on what Buerhle wants per season, but I think I would take a chance on a 5 year with him if I was KW. He doesn't throw hard, and doesn't walk guys. I think he's as good of bet as anyone to be able to make it through without catasrophe

If what he said yesterday was just a smokescreen, it would be pretty well known if he was shopping Buerhle. He obviously has not yet. He should go public and try and make it a bidding war. Talk it up, its the way the Sox will be able to cash in at the end.

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 10:29 AM) Didn't Jerry approach Mark and ask him that before he signed somewhere this off season that he give the sox a chance to consider matching the offer? And Mark agreed to it, IIRC. Yes, but that's just a PR move. Buerhle will get 5 years minimum. The Sox aren't going 5 years. Its the "oh well we tried, we just couldn't match it" routine. There were reports the Sox were pissed at Dye because he didn't appear to be attached to the White Sox, and appeared that he wasn't going to give them a big discount. This was after KW said he wanted the Sox free agents to explore the market, that they owed it to their families. I would be absolutely shocked if either are back next year, and I think JR, KW, MB, JD and OG feel the same way.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 08:43 AM) Wow their ace's ERA is a quarter run higher than our 5th starter, and that is without any AL/NL differential factored in There's been a lot of talk about Dontrelle not being what he used to be.

If any recalls, KW called Thome, Konerko and Dye in at about the deadline point last year and asked them if they needed any more help. They said no, and we know how that turned out. KW is not being a GM by doing this IMO. The team will fail and he'll look like a great guy going to his players and discussing it, but in reality he's a fool who if he wanted to win would have done something about it a while ago.