iamshack

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 11:03 PM) I never said it was a sure fire solution but if there is even a possibility as you stated that firing the hitting coach could get the hitters going even a bit then I don't see the harm in it. As so so so many Walker Backer's have stated: these are professional hitters, Greg Walker isn't really having a huge effect on their production anyway so what's the harm in firing him now? Coincidence or not, at this point I think it's worth the gamble. But it would be a coincidence in definition only if it happened at the same time as Walker's firing. But it is not a result of his firing, and thus, if it is going to occur it will occur whether he is fired or not. I'm not a Walker "backer"- I don't claim to have anywhere near the knowledge or experience to know whether the reason the player's aren't producing is because of something Walker is or is not doing- but I do know this: last year, they hit, and Greg Walker was our hitting coach, so it obviously isn't that our hitters cannot hit with him as our hitting coach. I also know that last year for the majority of the year our starting pitching sucked. We have 4 of those same 5 guys back right now and they all look pretty solid. Should we have fired Cooper?

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:56 PM) Do a search and see if you can find me praising Shapiro about his bullpen. He doesn't have $100 million to spend on the roster though. The funny thing is the board was laughing about the Indians bullpen while posting how dominant the White Sox is, what are their stats? I wasn't claiming you personally praised Shapiro for the bullpen he assembled. I'm pointing out to you that Cleveland's bullpen sucks at the moment, and they have historically sucked, and yet, the Indians are in first place and I doubt there are too many people calling for his head on the Indians' boards. On some level the players have to produce, and ours aren't. And when they don't, the best answer isn't simply to criticize the GM or expect him to be fired.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:54 PM) Yeah, that's his job title. What is his job description. And a better analogy would be Walker is your McDonalds Supervisor and under his watch you and 6 other employees have been taking regular afternoon s***s in the deep fryer. There is no real way for the restaurant to get rid of the lot of you due to cooperate and FDA regulations, so they're stuck with your miserable ass no matter terrible your fries are. In the past when fry cooks had acted up firing the Supervisor would give the whole group a little jolt and brought about some overall acceptable production in the french fry department. Really Walker isn't doing much as your Supervisor just kind of standing around watching his professional fry makers struggle to make a quality french fry so firing him would be no big loss in the grand scheme of things but canning his ass now could get the fry makers going and the McDonald's could once again start performing at the level excellence which is expected of it. That's nonsense. Firing the hitting coach has never been a sure-fire way to get everyone hitting again. At times, it has happened, probably more as a coincidence than anything else, as good hitters will always begin hitting again as a result of the law of averages. i guess Cooper should have been fired last year due to the starting pitching being terrible.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:46 PM) That's 3 guys in the bullpen that you just said we all could of and should have anticipated having problems. And another who has had control and injury problems in the past. That's fine for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays or the KC Royals, but its not a good thing if you are in the business of trying to win a championship. You don't have to buy Aaardsma not being able to handle pressure, but his pitching coach is questioning it. There are a lot of guys who were great in college but were awful professionals, even in lower levels. I suppose we should have signed Joe Borowski and Roberto Hernandez instead. And yet, with the Indians terrible bullpen, they are a first place ballclub. I find it extremely ludicrous to crucify KW about the way this team is performing but praise the job Shapiro has done in Cleveland, considering your barometer is bullpen assemblage.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:46 PM) Wolfe was pretty damn impressive with how hard he was throwing today. Their two young starters also made it through three innings a piece the last two games. Toronto has their own problems....if we could only combine the best players from every other team we would be awesome.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:37 PM) No...what I'm saying is that they have a lot of hard throwers in their organization that they've developed. Meanwhile, we don't. No. They have two. Casey Jannsen and Jeremy Accardo. The grass is always greener. Toronto, prior to heating up over the past week, was eight games under .500.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:32 PM) Actually, I really don't think its that hard, especially with a rotation that is pretty much guaranteed to give you at least 6 innings every night, and a closer who isn't going to be expensive for a few years. Last year he thought he was so smart he signed every 6 year minor league free agent and had them fight for a spot in the defending champions bullpen and they all showed why they were 6 year free agents. This year he looked a radar guns and came to the conclusion that his new bullpen although vastly inexperience, especially in any game of importance, was one of the tops in the league before spring training even started. That by getting a guy with a 7.00 ERA with the Royals and a guy with a 4.00 ERA from the Cubs who both have had a lot of problems with strikes and one a lot of problems keeping the ball in the park. Even Cooper has come to the conclusion Aardsma can't handle pressure. The guy mustn't be too good if he's already been part of a package for a washed up LaTroy Hawkins and part of a package for Neal Cotts, a guy who couldn't get anyone out the last part of last season. The Angels bullpen was vastly superior to the White Sox and they spent money improving it. KW is so impressed with himself he thinks he can judge future performance based on Arizona fall league and a couple of tapes. I'm not buying this bs that Aardsma can't handle pressure. The guy was a top closer in college. He looked awfully good at the beginning of this year in quite a few pressure situations. He obviously is experiencing difficulties right now, but I'm not giving up on the guy yet. Sisco was an obvious project and we all damned well knew that coming in. Macdougal is a complete mystery. Massett has performed extremely inconsistently- but that's what young kids do when they come up- they are inconsistent. Our bullpen problems are being exacerbated right now because the offense isn't performing. Look at Cleveland's bullpen- they have the same number of bullpen guys as us worth a damn- two. But their offense is clicking on all cylinders and so it isn't as big of a deal as ours is at the moment. The difference between things going right personnel-wise and going wrong is incredibly more slight than one would think. That difference is exaggerated exponentially when your personnel isn't performing. That's not Kenny's fault. That the fault of the players.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:18 PM) Good, because obviously Cooper can't. Why pay him for 3 years when he can't throw a strike? BTW, in 2005 KW paid Luis Vicaino and Dustin Hermanson about the same amount he's paying the entire bullpen in 2007. That's before the days of a $100 million payroll. A sea of empty green seats around August may finally get the message through his thick skull that he needs a strong bullpen to win, and picking up Royals and Cubs rejects probably won't get that done. The problem is what constitutes a "strong" bullpen changes from year to year. Ask the Cubs about that one. You can try and sign some of the few guys that have been able to remain effective out of the bullpen on a somewhat consistent basis. But those guys are few and far between and they often end up closing somewhere which makes them even more ridiculously expensive. This really isn't as simple as people try to make it sound.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:07 PM) No, I know they're difficult. But I also know KW made a huge mistake this offseason in thinking that guys throwing hard is the main thing. I've always thought that having relievers with good sinkers is huge, as you can make the opposition put the ball in play and not worry about the long ball as much. The ironic thing is that our bullpen guys really don't throw that hard. Only Jenks and Thornton reach 96 mph. Heck, the Blue Jays had more velocity from their relievers than we do, and that was a bullpen where just about everyone makes the minimum. You act as though we have a high-priced bullpen...

QUOTE(JDsDirtySox @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:03 PM) You praise Kenny for a 2005 Championship... and I will do the same, but if you want to give him credit you need to put some blame on him for this mess. KW was the one who acted like a cocky bastard in the offseason stating "Trust Me... Trust Me" when it came to the bullpen and the failur to address the need at SS or LF. This is a major problem. One we can't just run and hide from behind our 2005 World Series Trophy. Kenny was absolutely 100% correct in saying trust him. Everyone was going crazy about the McCarthy deal, without knowing a thing about the guys we got back. Now despite Masset's failure today, I think 95% of people on here believe Kenny made the right decision there (as of now, anyways). Kenny's other moves regarding the bullpen were minor moves that most people supported at the time (Sisco, Aardsma and Vazquez). Blaming Kenny for Mike Macdougal and David Aardsma pitching to 15 ERAs over the last three weeks is ridiculously irresponsible. QUOTE(JDsDirtySox @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 10:08 PM) So you are saying you'd do nothing then right? In my posts you will never see me say Fire Ozzie, Fire KW, Trade Buehrle, etc.... I simply want to see something done. Hell, I don't care if that something is bringing back Man Soo Lee. We need an awakening... I don't believe this team in its current makeup is a good team. Hopefully the Bullpen Swap with Charlotte will be a start. Not at all. I'm saying I would send some guys down and bring some other guys up. I'm saying I would continue playing Fields at 3b in Charlotte in anticipation of him being our future third basemen. I'm saying I'd consider dealing Buehrle in July for lot of young talent. I'm saying I would consider moving Dye as well if he hitting reasonably well. I'd try to resign Iguchi on the cheap any chance I get while he is hitting like crap in his FA year. I'd bring up Anderson and start him every day in Center and hope he hits and then trade him away because obviously Ozzie is disgusted by him. There are plenty of things I would do, but firing Ozzie or Kenny wouldn't be one of them. Neither would trading Joe Crede while there are major injury concerns combined with a slumping bat.

QUOTE(JDsDirtySox @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 09:57 PM) Then tell me sir... what do you have in mind for fixing this mess? You see, that's the difference between me and alot of others on here. I don't claim to have a damn clue why the players aren't producing. All I know is that acting in a rash, ignorant, and irresponsible manner due to anger and frustration usually doesn't produce very good results either. I've made suggestions in other threads on what I think the best course of action is. But honestly, at some point, the players simply have to produce. And when they don't, you lose. It's that simple. But the best long term answer isn't to fire everyone in sight or trade away players at their historical low value points. Should we have traded Buehrle last year when he was struggling to the Red Sox for Coco Crisp?

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 09:58 PM) It's not...I had a delightful day today, despite the Sox game. But when someone says that KW did an awesome job at putting together this team this offseason or that the Sox had the best offense in 2006, I'm going to laugh at that. You act as though bullpen's are a simple thing to assemble. I know you're smart enough to know they aren't. Ask the resident genius in Cleveland about that last season. I can only imagine if we kept track of what everyone's great moves around here would be how incredibly laughable it would be.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 09:41 PM) I can't tell if this is supposed to be sarcastic or not. If so, then well done. If not....well, Go Sox! Honestly fathom, if everything is so terrible all the time, why do you even get out of bed in the morning?

QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 09:46 PM) Kenny Williams is the 5th best GM in the Central division and has overseen the "construction" of the worst farm system in major league baseball. If Kenny wants to be really proactive here, his next move might be to fire himself. First of all, we don't have the worst farm system in major league baseball. Secondly, when your team is a perennial contender, you tend to have to trade players from your farm system to take a shot at winning the division. His moves have resulted in a World Championship and several teams that had every bit of talent they needed to win countless more divisions and they didn't get it done on the field. Terry Ryan is a great GM. Mark Shapiro is a very intelligent young man. Dave Dombrowski has done some good things in Detroit. Dayton Moore has made some curious moves in his short time as KC's GM, and the book is still out on him. Only one AL Central GM has put together a team which has won a World Series, and that's Kenny. How that makes him the fifth best GM in the division is just more reactionary BS. Just remember, it's really easy to sit on your ass and second guess when everything is in hindsight. QUOTE(JDsDirtySox @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 09:51 PM) I find it insulting that you think I am reacting like this because I am influenced by Moronotti. Get a clue. Then stop mirroring his personal philosophies.

QUOTE(striker62704 @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 09:38 PM) I just wanted to point out to all the nay sayers of Guillen, Williams and Walker that this is one of the most talented Whitesox teams I have ever seen take the field. Williams did an AWESOME job this offseason to field a team that had the capability to win. That is his job. That is all he can do. Its up to the player to perform and win. The problem is that every player, with the exception of Jenks and the starting pitching, has just plain sucked. For some reason or another they just aren't good. No manager or general manager could have ever predicted this. Could Williams predict that Aardsma and MacDougal would suck this bad after finishing their 2006 seasons complete studs? No. Could Williams predict that the best offensive MLB team in 2006 would be batting .232 after 52 games? No. Williams found the right players for the job, but the players haven't been doing their job. It's not Williams fault. Can you blame Guillen? Why? Because of the lineup he chooses? Because of the timing of the reliever he brings in? No. Because no matter what the lineup is right now, they aren't going to hit. No matter who the reliever is he brings in, they are going to suck. Can you blame Walker? Yes you can. Its all his fault our team is hitting .232. Because he taught them to suck. No, you can't blame Walker. The hitters just aren't doing their jobs. And they are all VERY VERY capable of hitting. So what's the point of this post? Stop blaming Williams, Guillen and Walker. And stop whining. Despite being 7.5 games out of our division lead and 5 games back of the wildcard, we are still a VERY VERY talented team and we are very capable of making the playoffs. If it takes 95 wins to make the playoffs who care which 95 games we win?? I'm sure you were a lot happier Whitesox fan this time last year, but how did we finish? LETS GO SOX! Amen Brother.

QUOTE(JDsDirtySox @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 03:20 PM) A week of HORRID Baseball and everything is still the same. FIRE SOMEONE. TRADE SOMEONE. RELEASE SOMEONE. We Suck! This is the sort of crap that people start believing because of the crap coming off the keyboard and tongue of Jay Marriotti. What is it with all this reactionism? Kenny is one of the most proactive GM"s in all of sports. He'll address things as he sees fit. But a knee jerk firing or silly trade will get this team nowhere.

QUOTE(diegotony06 @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 08:06 PM) I really don't care how many wins we have had the last 5 or 6 seasons. I judge a team on if they made it to the playoffs. You know what 90 wins a year gets you, but you don't make the playoffs?? A s***ty draft pick!! I judge a season on whether you get to the playoffs. My point is they are a better orginazation than us. Period. I think we need to model ourselves after them, as we did in 2005. KW and Ozzie have said that numerous times. Believe me I'd never buy a Twins anything, unless they were palying the Cubs in the World series. I was thrilled we won the World series in 05. Would trade it for anything. But I'm not one those fans where I will say, "well they get a pass for a few years cause they won". f*** that!! I want to win every year. Plain and simple. And they have won the central 5 out of the last 6 years. So I would try to do anything I could to build a club like they do. On that same note, winning division titles is nice too, but you know what it gets you in the end? Jack. We've been an extremely competitive baseball team for the past 13-14 years. Unfortunately, we've made a habit of coming up short in the second halves of seasons. Why? I'm not sure anyone can say for certain. But if you want to take anything from the Twins, please take how they develop young pitchers, and leave their Nick Punto's and Christian Guzman's in Minnesota. They win because of great pitching, and that's all. Let's not turn ourselves into the Minnesota Twins South.

QUOTE(diegotony06 @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 07:19 PM) That's even more emabarssing. We spend 100 milion on a team and a team that doesnt come close to what we spend wins the division 5 out of 6 years. The reason Minnesota wins every year is because they are fundamentally a better club than we are year in and year out. Pitching, defense, situational hitting eberything they do an a ballfield is superior to what we do, except of course THE LONG BALL!! They develop players that play the game right and play the game hard. Like I said, they won the division 5 out of 6 years, they gotta be doing something right. I don't doubt that they play fundamentally better than the White Sox. In fact, they do so probably better than anyone in Major League baseball. And they have to, considering their financial constraints. I certainly wish some of our players were more polished in laying down bunts or moving runners over, etc. However, the fact is, we've won a lot of games over the past 5 or 6 years ourselves and the reason we have is because of the home runs. Unfortunately, we haven't had the bullpens the Twins have had over the years either. However, before you go out and buy your Twins jersey, they also haven't won many playoff series' under that philosphy. In the current era where $ spent is drastically different from team to team (the last 10 years or so?), we have 1 world championship to their 0, despite all those division titles. I don't know about you, but I'll take our result over theirs.

QUOTE(diegotony06 @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 07:10 PM) Like I said, of course we need homerun hitters, but not every f***ing player in the lineup swinging from their heals. We played smallball in the first half of 2005 and look how good we did, and I think we stillplayed in the same park as we do now?? Yep I checked we still do!! We won with smallball in 05' because our bullpen was lights out, not because it magically makes your team win. Granted, there is something to be said for scoring some runs all the time rather than alot of runs sometimes but no runs other times when you have a great staff. Unfortunately right now, we do not have any semblance of a bullpen.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 07:08 PM) We need guys who can hit over 20 homers and still have good enough speed to steal 15 bases and be able to score from 2nd on a single. You know....guys like Chris Young. This Chris Young nonsense is so f'ing overblown. As if he were here instead of Javy all of our problems would be rectified.

QUOTE(klaus kinski @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 07:05 PM) We were no fluke in 2005 Then WHY did the GM get rid of one third of that team in the immediate off season? If you recall, he brought back the same bullpen. Two members of that bullpen sucked, and one was injured nearly the entire year. He also brought back the same starters, even adding one. Unfortunately, those same starters didn't come close to replicating their performances of the year before. It had nothing to do with getting rid of anyone. It had everything to do with the same guys not producing.

QUOTE(diegotony06 @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 06:58 PM) The whole orginazation needs to be restructured, from A ball to the big leagues. The whole philosiphy needs to be changed and geared more toward like the Twins. We have been a homerun or nothing franchise for too long now. We need to structure our teams like the Minnesota. Starting pitching, relief pitching, defense and slap hitters and bunting. Sure you need homeruns, but not to the point where it's homerum or nothing. You have to be able to score whether you hit homeruns or not. The Twins have won the Central 5 out of the last 6 years. We need to follow what they are doing they gotta be doing something right. Alot of that has to do with 1) their ballpark; and 2) their financial constraints. Say what you want about the offensive philosophies of the two organizations, but the reason Minnesota wins this division consistently is because of their ability to develop solid, cheap young pitching. The reason they win is because of starting pitching and their bullpen far more than them having "slap" hitters. Certainly they encourage some players to hit down on the ball and leg out singles, but that's because of their ballpark and the fact that they cannot normally afford to sign players who have been great run producers through free agency.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 06:25 PM) Ozzie not bringing in Logan to face Lind was his worst managerial move of the week (high praise after how poorly he coached on this road trip). When you have Rios on deck there, you have to try and get their weakest hitter against LHP out. There's one thing that Logan can do, and it's get lefty hitters out. Now, I'm sure someone will say: how do you know he would have got Lind out? YOU DON'T! However, you have to play the match-up in that situation when someone is basically twice as good of a hitter against righty pitchers as he is lefties. Agreed, however, I think he was trying to get out of the inning so he could still use Masset for another inning or two. The way things have been going, had he made the move to get Logan, someone else would have come in and blown the game anyway- I doubt he brings in Day if we still have the lead in the 7th. As I said earlier though, you've got to do what you've got to do to get the critical outs- I don't care what inning it is anymore.

Ozzie basically has no chance at this point. He's going to have to adjust his use of Jenks and Thornton for the time being IMO (though he won't) by using them in critical situations earlier in games when we have a lead. That's basically the only chance we have. Otherwise, Jenks will never get any work anyways the way things are going now. Blaming this all on Kenny is a bit harsh IMO. Bottom line, players have to perform. How Kenny is expected to know that Macdougal would become completely useless and that Aardsma would have such opposite fortunes as he had at the end of last season is BS. Building bullpens in the AL especially is speculative and volatile in the first place, let alone when a guy like Macdougal (who has been historically effective when healthy) implodes as he has. While the Twins and the Angels have managed to consistently build solid pens in the AL, not too many other clubs have been able to do it with any certainty. The manager and GM absolutely get more credit when things are going well and more blame when things are not, but this comes down to our players not getting it done, and the majority of the blame must lie with them. Kenny has built a team that should be performing at a much higher level than it is, and Ozzie has done all he can to try and get these guys going. It just isn't happening. Unfortunately, at some point things have to be shaken up for the sheer sake of change, but there is absolutely NO POINT in dealing guys away at their lowest historical trade value (unless they never really had much). Dealing Crede at this point would be giving him away. Trading Dye at this point would be a collosal mistake. The best thing Kenny and Ozzie can do at this point is try to find someone who can do a reasonable job out of the pen in critical situations such as Jenks/Thornton/Logan/Day? and possibly some of the other kids down in Charlotte. Perhaps it would be the best move to deal Dye/Crede/Buehrle eventually this year, but IMO you have to at least allow Dye and Crede to heat up a bit and let teams get more desperate as the deadline approaches. Mark is probably the one guy who could be moved whenever, but unfortunately his value will be hindered somewhat by his impending FA status in this ridiculous market for starting pitching. In the mean time, continue giving Fields starts at 3b at Charlotte and try to find who the hell is going to play OF for this team in the future.

I'd sign him just to face Frank.