caulfield12

QUOTE (mcgrad70 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 07:17 PM) Reinsdorf is at the crossroads in this town. It's going to cost more than he wants to spend to compete in baseball. He doesn't want to decide between Kenny and Ozzie. Kenny's not getting another GM job so he'll likely do the Paxson thing. The key to all of this is whether Hahn goes along with this charade like Foreman did - which I doubt. So then Rick will be freed up to go to the Cubs or wherever. If Hahn leaves then they'll have to hire another puppet because Kenny and Ozzie working together is out of the question. I also believe that Reinsdorf has no intention of paying Derrick Rose the big bucks over the course of his career. He cried over paying Jordan those 3 years. Paying Rose would cost him all of that easy money he's made on the Bulls since his cabal weaseled their way into the NBA. He'll try to sell before he's forced to pay or do the unthinkable and trade Rose. You're making a big assumption that Hahn will even be in the Top 3 for the Cubs' job. It's the most coveted job in baseball for many...hiring an unproven GM probably won't be the direction the Ricketts family goes in, unless Hahn just simply wows them in the interview stage.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 07:21 PM) I'll take whatever I can get. I've trashed Morel for the last couple months. He's been pretty good since the break. I hope it continues. As bleak as things look right now, there are some bright spots. Morel, Viciedo, De Aza, Sale and Reed. But Ozzie has to f***ing go. If not Ozzie then KW. Or at the very least Walker. We cannot come back with this same coaching/management team. Don't forget Lillibridge and Stewart's had some decent outings, too. Still want to see how he pitches against TEX, DET, NY, BOS, TOR, etc.

Viciedo has, and always will have.....pretty much a line drive/ground ball swing. He's probably never going to put up 35 or 40 homers. 22-28 per season is much more likely. As soon as we "fix" his swing, he'll hit 15 homers, pop up 110 times, strike out 150 times and hit .225. Meanwhile, Morel is all the way up to a 650 OPS and Flowers is something like 1 for his last 25 or 30. Pretty impressed DeAza's still sporting a 900+ OPS after well over 100 AB's.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 07:48 PM) I'm sick of reading the blame going to Ozzie for those two players' pathetic performances. For me it grows as old as Ozzie praise to you. I will shed no tears nor will I be mad if Ozzie goes to Florida. I just comment when I think he's getting an unfair rap. I find it amazing people think he should have benched Rios and Dunn months ago. Benched permanently? Not until recently. Not hitting against LHP. Yes. Not hitting anywhere near 4th-6th in the line-up. Check. Put in positions to succeed where a "positive outcome" could reasonably be expected? Obviously.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 06:54 PM) Caulfield, it was playoffs or bust this season. Save that respectability crap. That's for losers that are easily satisfied (not saying you or anybody here is a loser). Our payroll + this division should've meant a playoff birth. Or at the VERY LEAST meaningful baseball right until the end. We were done two weeks ago. Yes, understood. He's had 3 years with basically the same results. The only question is whether JR sees it like the majority of hardcore Sox fans...and not the casual or disinterested ones in Lawrence, Topeka or Kansas City.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 06:45 PM) Ugh, another thing I said people would be saying back in April as a potential reason to keep this guy around. It's a legitimate question. On one side of the coin are those who say Ozzie has created an environment of complete "non-accountability." So we are to believe the players fought back "just enough" to keep their manager in his position but not enough to win th division? If the entire clubhouse just went completely south...wouldn't we have seen some type of "death spiral" down to 20-25 games below .500, as has happened two times with the Twins this year?

QUOTE (WHITESOXRANDY @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 06:37 PM) Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Ozzie and Kenny were both back in the same positions next season. It seems to me that Jerry Reinsdorf is getting too old and too soft to effectively run this organization. If that does happen, it's practically guaranteeing a return to the mid/late 90's and late 80's for White Sox baseball. Not even JR at his age would dare to come back with the same management team (especially Walker) intact....lose Hahn, lose Buehrle and bring back Rios and Dunn as starters. You just can't sell that to the fans. We should ask Brooks Boyer via e-mail his "nightmare/doomsday scenario" for the biggest possible marketing challenge that he could potentially face. It might look something like the above. Even Hahn as GM and Ozzie returning as manager (with Walker) would be easier to sell than ZERO change.

Not as badly as Manuel did...but he's clearly gone through some stretches in the last three years or so where you could have made strong arguments that he had lost the White Sox. For whatever reason, those teams in 2010 and 2011 pulled out of the 9-11 games under .500 area code and got back into those races. Maybe the talent just won out over such putrid play over an extended period of time...but you have to give Guillen some credit for righting the ships in 2008, 2010 and, to some extent, 2011, at the point when we were 11-22 and the entire season could have completely fallen apart. (And yes, I realize in hindsight...even Greg Hibbard backed this up statistically, the year was basically over by the first or second week of May, even if some wouldn't acknowledge it). Let's just say we crawled back to quasi-respectability. Which still isn't a positive benchmark with a $127 million roster in a, what seemed at the time, clearly wide open AL Central.

I think part of the reason for the pop-ups is swinging out of our shoes for home runs at USCF. (Of course, 1/3rd of those outfield pop-ups were followed by Harrelson's patented, "he just missed it by 1/32nd of an inch...") Seems a lot of hitters have come to the White Sox like Swisher and Dunn and regressed. If you look at our home results in 2009, 2010 and 2011....they have to be in the bottom quartile or quintile for home play versus road play in the majors. You can understand watching the basic approaches of Rios, Dunn, Beckham, Ramirez and Quentin...why they either pop up or pull the ball to the left side of the infield so much. Lillibridge, too, for that matter. Flowers, basically the same thing, long swings that deliver power but also tons of groundouts, pop-ups and K's to go with it. And, as noted in the article, the 2 guys who most consistently make contact (AJ and Pierre) aren't usually line drive or gap hitters, they're singles hitters, basically, with OCCASIONAL power. Carlos Quentin was one of the guys lumped in with the likes of Konerko/Thome/Dye as Walker successes...and, based on where he stood as a prospect/suspect, Walker has to get SOME credit for Quentin's 2008 near-MPV season. On the other hand, since that point in time, he's gone from a clear asset to, while not exactly a liability...a shadow of his former self as a hitter, which was a guy who would take you consistently to the RCF gap, hit .275-.295, not quite so streaky, much better line drive rate...etc. Nobody could make arguments that Beckham or Quentin are better hitters than when they arrived in the organization. There's just no argument. Quentin always had hitting ability, he was a high draft pick and then he got injured and fell victim to a numbers game, but it's not like he suddenly "discovered" how to hit when he came to Chicago. Ramirez is in that same category...at best, inconsistent. At worse, he's also regressed greatly from 2008, with the 2010 season being a "solid" season but still not like his rookie year and the Silver Slugger more based on the dearth of offense from other AL shortstops. Not quite like the heyday of Garciaparra/Jeter/Tejada, etc., putting up monster numbers.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Sep 12, 2011 -> 11:29 PM) http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/vbullet...ad.php?t=130309 Some see it differently. There was a thread I was watching for quite some time called Viciedo Ready. Sometimes I wonder if the Dunn signing was premature or there's still some doubt about Viciedo. One way or another, we needed at least one big LH bat that was provided in the past by Thome and not so much by the likes of Borchard or Swisher...Viciedo has a lot more to do with Quentin's eventual destination this offeason (trade or stay) than anything with Dunn. He gives a lot more value playing a competent RF than DH/1B. Of course, the best scenario would have been him sticking at 3B defensively.

FWIW, Brandon Allen...ala Tyler Flowers, has officially returned back to earth. 301 OBP, 726 OPS http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/_/id/30070/brandon-allen

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 12, 2011 -> 10:26 PM) I guess the same problems could surface immediately in Florida with him in charge. I haven't studied Florida's roster, but I find it hard to believe any team has worse team speed than the White Sox. That is a good point, though. If Florida starts playing dysfunctional baseball like we play next season, I guess it could be more than coincidence and the argument that Ozzie sucks would have more clout to it. Weren't we 2nd in the AL in stolen bases in 2010? That didn't change much coming into this year, Lillibridge has been added (occasionally) to the lineup, and he has plus speed. Then you have DeAza as well. It's because of the huge dropoffs from Pierre (nowhere close to leading the league in SB's), Rios (not on base enough) and Alexei Ramirez (mystifyingly hitting into so many DP's...although it's not surprising with his array of pull-hook grounders to the left side) that are stolen bases numbers are way down. Viciedo and Flowers actually run better than average for their size. It's always going to be Konerko/Dunn/AJ that slow the team down, but before that, you had to add the likes of Thome/Thomas/Dye/Ordonez/C-Lee. Quentin, Beckham and Morel are average or slightly below for their positions in terms of speed...particularly Carlos after all of his foot problems. Bottom line, in a hitter's park, you need more power than speed-based players....although it's nice to sprinkle 2-3 in among the line-up to "create" runs when the big boppers are slumping or facing dominant starting pitching.

Morel is surging, almost up to 640 OPS. Unfortunately, none of it came in meaningful games, but better than nothing. If we could only see SOME glimmer of hope from Beckham. Unfortunately, it's only likely to happen with a change in hitting coaches...if he believes the only problem is swinging at balls out of the strikezone or high fastballs he can't ever seem to catch up with.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Sep 12, 2011 -> 10:17 PM) I guess there is a better chance to over achieve there were under achieving is more common. There really is no reason to retain any of these coaches. Cooper seems to only have short term success. Realistically, what long-term success could Cooper have with half a Jake Peavy? He's (seemingly) gotten the most he could out of Humber and Stewart. Jackson wasn't as good this year, but his overall numbers were better for us than they were for any team he's pitched for, and that's not even taking park factors into consideration. I guess the main criticism will be directed at the enigmatic performances of Floyd and Danks for the last couple of seasons. Both have seemingly regressed. Until recently, Buehrle has pitched as well as he ever has for a sustained stretch. Same thing with Contreras....hard to have sustained success with an injured/aging pitcher there.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 12, 2011 -> 08:58 PM) 2.) Fair enough. Good post. 1.) I think it's a tough call for Jerry on Ozzie. I think unless there's something known behind the scenes (like Ozzie doesn't work hard; comes to work late; is rude to people; stuff like that) I would keep Ozzie and reassign Kenny. It's obvious the two can't work together and because of their dual stubborness, either both have to go or one has to go. They did it to themselves and they are grown men, not dummies, and even they certainly realize both have committed fireable offenses with their inability to put the team first. Now if Ozzie does work hard, does care, is a good employee in those regards (which we are not privy to that information), then I would keep him as manager because of my stated reasons. He is young and frankly probably going to be a better candidate than anybody the Sox bring in. There is a danger in bringing Ozzie back, however. And this is what JR must think about. He could come back and we could have the exact same scenario next season. Get off to a rotten start, play horribly at home, be an instant buzzkill team again. That will mean NO FANS. If Ozzie is gone in favor of another manager and hitting coach, in theory there will be hope that Dunn, Rios and Beckham can rebound. The stories in the winter and ST will be about how these hitters like the new hitting coach, etc., and expect a full turnaround. The Sox will be in the news a lot and a FRESH START might translate to optimism and ticket sales. Tough call. I'd prefer keeping Ozzie cause he's still young and learning. But I can see why they'd want a fresh start. Greg's call, which you asked for: Keep Ozzie. You really don't think Ozzie is rude to people, especially/including White Sox fans and season ticket holders? I know your defense of him...he's refreshing, "telling it like it is," not cliched or boring, he's taking the pressure off the players by drawing so much attention to himself, etc. But don't you think Ozzie himself believes he is BIGGER than the White Sox, that he's the public face of the team, that he represents (to the outside world) their image of Chicago baseball? Is that really a good thing? Does Ozzie's presence (at this point in his regime) help draw fans to the ballpark? Or does it actually keep a significant number of frustrated fans away? And what about all of the unprofessional allegations/distractions caused by Oney's official and now underground tweeting and social networking?

I think all-time low (for the last decade) was probably that 11-22 mark in early MAY. The 2007 team was actually fairly decent in the first half. This one hit us with a 2 X 4 right off the bat. Coming off an offseason with nearly sky-high expectations...certainly the highest since 2005-06, and greater than coming into 09. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_leagu...urn=mlb-wp19271 Meanwhile, Manny Being Manny has been arrested again for DV. Nice signing there, KW.

Thanks for increasing your offseason trade value, Mr. Danks. Even fathom is bored with our current stretch of play against DET at this point...don't see him here. Maybe watching football or babysitting instead.

Greg, with that response, you should be a speechwriter for Romney. If you were JR, at the end of this season, whether we're in 2nd or 3rd place, do you fire Ozzie Guillen? Or do you look to trade his rights to the Marlins for talent...and, failing that, bring him back to finish his contract without providing an extension beyond the 2012 season (making him a lame duck)?

LOL. We can't keep all of our valuable "resources," and yet everyone's saying how Danks isn't worth much. So therefore, no matter what we do, we're screwed. We're not going to get the HUGE return for a one-year rental that some were expecting, and overpaying a 2nd/3rd starter like a quasi-ace doesn't get you very far with the upcoming predicted payroll deductions of around 20-25%. Who was it that said Porcello wouldn't be in our rotation? Granted, the Tigers' current line-up is 5-10X more dangerous than the Sox...especially when Dunn/Rios/Beckham are all in there together.

Rios really has 40 RBI's? And we have Morel in the 30 RBI club, too. Yay! Seems like the last couple of games, all of our runs have scored on fielder's choice outs. At least we're consistent in not executing well with RISP.

Finishing with a mini-run (although an illusion and typical of Sox "non-competitive" teams this decade after tanking in Aug/early September) would be more beneficial (albeit limited!) for selling season ticket packages in 2012 compared to the nominal value of a slightly #11-18 1st round draft pick.

This Braves vs. White Sox prediction for 2012 has to be one of the most... Well, let's just let things play out. Nobody predicted the White Sox would be very good in 2005 or 2008, either.

The story was always that KW wanted Gaston originally and finally was "won over" by Ozzie's interview/s and JR's backing of Guillen.

But Crede usually averaged 16-24 homers and around 65-80 RBI's. Respectable, Uribe-esque numbers. His walk totals kept his OBP down, and OPS down, but he was at least dangerous up there. And he quickly gained a reputation for being "clutch," something many of our young players have yet to establish.

QUOTE (Tex @ Sep 12, 2011 -> 04:54 AM) I think it's time to break up the KW / Oz tandem, they are not working together I think Oz is the one to go I do not believe another manager would have this team in first I think KW had the right mix this season, but no one could reliably predicted Dunn's season, Peavy Problems, etc The solution to big contracts is never sign a quality veteran. I think you mean hyper-expensive, non White Sox retention "quality" veteran. Because Jermaine Dye, AJ Pierzynski, Tadahito Iguchi, El Duque, Freddy Garcia, Paul Konerko and Mark Buehrle, etc., would all disagree with you. Rios and Peavy weren't signed by the Sox. Before Dunn, the last really big busts were David Wells (one year deal), Alberte Belle (not statistically bad at all, many "junk" numbers when the team was out of contention, but still not a good move overall for the team chemistry) and Jaime Navarro.