caulfield12

I'm sure he mostly meant the last decade before the new stadium and the Mauer mega-contract. They had to shed the salaries of Torii Hunter/Santana and a couple of seasons ago there was a lot of concern about how they could possibly keep Morneau/Mauer in the fold, along with Joe Nathan. It wasn't so long ago their answers were Livan Hernandez, Mike Lamb and Adam Everett. The days of filling in the final 2-3 roster spots with washed up veterans seem to be behind the Twins for now. Look at this way....the Twins have made very very few errors with personnel. David Ortiz, although they simply couldn't get him in shape and working with their hitting system, their one notable failure. Kyle Lohse has ended up doing well outside MINN, although you could say the same thing for Kip Wells, Josh Fogg, Jon Garland, Clayton Richard and Daniel Hudson when they're all in the NL. They really had patience with Young, and I think they would have traded him away the last two off-seasons had Smith been able to find anything bordering on value for Delmon based on his actual ability. I'm still happy they don't have Garza, but we should have drafted Garza anyway, we went before the Twins that year. The Santana trade would have set back most organizations 2-3 years and the Twins didn't miss a beat, competing the last 3 years, and very narrowly taking down the Sox one year before they were expected to be competitive for the ALCD again.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 12:55 PM) We should place our own team on a pedestal for a change Gordon Beckham was placed on the biggest pedestal that I can remember last year. The White Sox were walking on water after 2008, and almost nobody was disappointed they fizzled in the playoffs. But you have to do SOMETHING to earn that pedestal head-to-head against your biggest rival, instead of wetting the bed.

With Thome, the best theory I've heard (I think it was Fathom's) was that it was going to be very difficult for Thome to come back as one of the lowest paid members of the team after having been the second or third highest player on the team in 2010. Although I don't know if you'll ever come close to hearing Thome say that was an issue, the guy's made so much money in his career, and he doesn't seem like the type to fritter it away, either. No doubt, in some clubhouses, this would be a huge deal for a veteran to be asked to take a $10 million PLUS paycut and still come back to the same team. I'm not sure how many times that has actually happened in modern baseball history, actually. Perhaps that was Ozzie's thinking process, that it would be sad to see a Hall of Famer who meant so much to the Sox in a diminished role where he'd only get 125-150 at-bats or having to release Thome like the Mariners ended up doing with Griffey as it tore their clubhouse apart. Maybe KW and Ozzie feared the repercussions with the veteran leaders of the team (Buehrle, AJ, Konerko) if they brought back Thome/Dye only to cut them lose. Who knows? And part of that wasn't even KW's fault, he inherited a huge contract from the Phillies and wouldn't have dreamed of taking it on without the subsidy to go with it.

QUOTE (Cali @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 01:31 PM) For comparison sake, what's the first half record? From 2000-2011, the White Sox are something like 5 games over .500 against the Twins in the first half. 2000=3-3 2001=2-11 (oops!) 2002=2-2 2003=7-5 2004=7-3 2005=4-1 2006=5-2 2007=5-7/4-2 (interesting, Ozzie's worst team actually played .500 ball against MINN this season) 2008=7-4/1-6 2009=5-4/1-8 2010=2-3/2-5 OVERALL=49-45 Take out that 2-11 in the disastrous 2001 campaign (14-29 start), it's 47-34. Huge, huge difference on a consistent basis.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 01:03 PM) The Twins have won 2 divisional titles, 2006 and 2009. Other than that, I have no idea. It seems as though the Sox have no sense of urgency until it's either forced upon them or it's too late. In regards to the Sox actually realizing that their backs were up against the wall and they were about to be put into a position of potential elimination, I can only think of 3 memories in my history as a Sox fan that the team, in some fashion, actually responded. In chronological order... 1) (Rally) Crede walk-off homer against Cleveland. 2) Pierzynski's strikeout in game 2 of the ALCS 3) Game 163 (and really, that was 3 guys who did most of the dirty work in Thome, Griffey, and Danks). You can argue they did it in game 162 in 2008 too, but they were playing a Tigers team that ultimately finished in last place, so it wasn't stepping up against good competition, it was simply beating a bad team. You could probably add the Iguchi homer off Wells and the El Duque bases loaded situation that Marte brought on himself... Who did the White Sox beat that Sunday? I think it was the Indians, yes? I'm pretty sure the Twins were playing the Royals that final weekend.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 09:02 AM) Older players generally break down faster than younger players do, and it's something that's been highlighted since the banishment of all amphetamines. I don't think Jermaine Dye completely lost his ability to hit a fastball at the end of last season. I think he was simply worn down from the everyday grind of playing baseball for 5 months. It's something Ozzie thought he could help prevent by rotating his DHs, but it hasn't worked to this point, and the pitching has begun to fall off the tracks recently too. So here we have another theory. That Ozzie overplays the veterans and doesn't give them enough rest...and then he doesn't trust the younger/fresher/inexperienced players in the heat of a pennant race (although I've been surprised how quickly he's gone to Sale in critical situations, it perhaps more than anything is an indication of his lack of confidence in Pena and Linebrink). Still, Gardenhire is accused of the same thing, of overplaying Nick Punto year after year when his offensive numbers are abysmal. Punto is Minnesota's version of Mark Kotsay, especially when he's playing 3B and putting up those OPS numbers.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 08:57 AM) In 2000, Ron Schueler threw together a patchwork starting rotation that stayed healthy and performed well for half a season, and began to fall apart in the second half. Meanwhile, the offense gelled early and it stayed relatively strong throughout the season. And Cleveland's rotation fell apart, as they had 13 guys start atleast 2 games for them (including Jamie Navarro, Bobby Witt, and Jason Bere). We started Ginter, Garland, Barcelo, Beirne, Lowe, I remember that Eldred's hot start was one of the main reasons we got off so well in the middle months of that summer after the late April fight with the Tigers that seemed to turn everything around. Sirotka, Baldwin and Parque would all see their Sox careers fall apart not so long after that season, in various ways. Buehrle was one of the few bright spots. Fogg, too. I remember we kept up Bradford and Josh Paul for the playoffs, those were two pretty controversial moves by Manuel that backfired.

Actually, I would love to hear (and it will never, even happen, I'm sure, maybe Cowley would try) Thome give his honest appraisal of why...from observing both clubhouses, as well as taking what Crede, Jon Rauch (obviously he has axe to grind against Ozzie) and Orlando Cabrera had to say. Guerrier might be able to provide some insight about the difference between coming up as a pitcher in the Sox minor league system but having found a home in Minnesota with Anderson as his pitching coach. How are the philosophies different between the two organizations? There HAS to be some type of insight to be gleaned from that...it's one of those "off the record" interviews we'll never be privy to, and I don't think Thome would ever disrespect the White Sox directly by providing fuel to the fire even when he has every right to feel vindicated (by his performance in 2010) the way we pushed him out the door. Seems to be the type of article Phil Rogers might write.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 08:46 AM) The 2004 White Sox also had Freddy Garcia for the second half and Jose Contreras from August on. Garcia wasn't anything special and Contreras was bad, however, Loaiza had put up an ERA of 6.04 in his final 11 starts with the Sox, and wound up pitching to the tune of about an ERA of 8.50 with the Yankees. They'd also reacquired Carl Everett, Rowand and Uribe had great years, Lee had his best season as a member of the Sox, Konerko put together a great, full season for the first time in his career, Gload was great...I won't argue that they weren't banged up or anything to nature, just that, even without Thomas or Ordonez, they still weren't a bad team. The 2007 White Sox may have also played their best baseball in September, but they also played their worst baseball in August. During that time frame, they went 9-20. And, just because they were a bad team doesn't mean you can automatically discount their contribution to the White Sox ineptitude during the second half of seasons over the past 6 years. If you can do that, then I can discount the 2005 White Sox second half record simply because they were a good team. Looking further into the 2005 season, the Sox were a worse team in the second half than they were in the first half by 110 points (57-29 for a .663, 42-34 for a .553). Perhaps they played over their head in the first half, but I'd also say that they played worse than their talent (or productivity) level in the second half. Again, just because they were a good team doesn't mean we can suddenly ignore that they were not nearly as good as they were early on. Throughout Ozzie Guillen's tenure as manager, his teams have historically performed worse in the second half than they did in the first half. There is no evidence to the contrary. Going way back to 2000, that season 100% defined slipping and crawling into the playoffs and peaking early. So that's the question, why? What is it that allows other teams, usually the Twins, to peak in the last two months? (Yes, I know, we "peaked" the last week of 2005 and into the playoffs, we "peaked" for 3 days in late September, 2008).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 08:37 AM) Gimme a break on that one. The 2004 Sox losing Thomas and Ordonez is like the 2010 Twins losing Mauer and Morneau. The Sox might have had a shot to survive one of those 2...they had other guys, Lee and Konerko in the lineup who could pick up some of the slack, but there's zero teams in baseball where losing their 2 best players wouldn't murder them. Yankees losing ARod and Tex? Rays losing Longoria and Price? Hamilton and Guerrero for the Rangers? Pujols and Holliday? Votto and (I guess) Phillips? The White Sox were without Quentin, Crede, Contreras and Linebrink in 2008. They're without Peavy, now. The Twins have been without Morneau for 2 years now...not to mention Nathan. Mauer's been hurt all season long, basically.

I'm not talking about the specific OVERALL won/loss record anymore. How can we consistently play the Twins better, year after year, in the first half of the season, then collapse against them in the second half? 2003=2-5 (including the final five in a row) 2004=2-7 2006=4-8 2007=4-2 (you can argue this is the one time when the pressure was totally off, along with 2001) 2008=1-6 2009=1-8 2010=2-5 So looking at 6/7 years, we're 16-41 against the Twins. If you include 2005 (7-6, not exactly amazing), it's 23-47. Basically over that entire time span, we're winning 1 out of every 3 games played after the Break. Yet we're five games OVER .500 before it.

I am concerned for those posters with Fred Manrique or Wayne Tolleson avatars. They're always just a little bit suspicious.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 01:52 AM) I've been watching/following baseball for some time now but can't answer this question and didn't do any research, is baseball a game of stretches? For example, White Sox playing an awful baseball in April-May, but come June-July they had us pinch ourselves with the way they were playing. Let's leave the whole 'playing NL' discussion out of it. Twins were playing an awesome baseball in April and May and while many here already gave up on the season some of you said: Sox will finally start to win games and Twins are playing over their heads and will cool down. My point: Sox are playing bad baseball right now but will turn it around and have a good September while Twins will cool the heck down and are due for some losing. Just my two cents. The problem is that even a "hot" White Sox team is going to have their struggles with some of the teams on our remaining schedule, particularly Boston, Minnesota and New York. Not to mention that we have to play the A's again, they always seem to give us fits (along with the Blue Jays).

QUOTE (Ranger @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 12:55 AM) Eh. Minnesota is good, but I think some people overrate them. Their offense is better than what the Sox have, but their pitching is simply not comparable. It doesn't make sense. It's just hyper-negativity manifesting itself. The idea that another team cannot possibly fail as much as your team can and will. Some of us are forgetting that the Twins weren't very good for a while this season and it's very possible they go through something similar again with 7 weeks to play. If their pitching wasn't comparable, we'd be in first place. You're thinking of the team before the ASB when you're referring to their pitching problems, when Slowey and Blackburn were both on the verge of a demotion to the bullpen and Baker was also struggling...Liriano even went through a rough patch there as well. Pavano and Liriano have been pitching basically the same as Floyd and Danks, Duensing has been much better than Buehrle (6-1 with a 2 ERA), Jackson has been better than Slowey/Baker (although it's hard to beat a no-hitter through 7 innings) but whichever you pick (Slowey/Baker) has been much better than Garcia and likely will be going forward. And you're right, the (relief) pitching isn't comparable. The Twins have a better pen than we do right now, too. Thornton, Santos and Sale look the strongest, but they're not even completely reliable. I don't have the energy to get started on Jenks, Putz and Pena. Sure, the Twins COULD fail. But they've only done it one time head to head against us in a decade, and even that's a bit tainted by the fact that I don't think very many believe we would have gone into Minnesota and actually won a one game playoff. It's easy to say we COULD have now, but I don't think you would be betting your house on that eventuality. So half of our success this decade against Minnesota has been dictated by a coin flip by a little kid that had a 50% chance of going against us. That's not exactly hyper-comforting. Eh. Minnesota is good, but I think some people overrate them. I've heard this every season since 2001. If I had a dolllar for every time someone said Minnesota isn't that good, I'd have more money than the Pohlad family. We obviously underrate/underestimate KC and Cleveland, so what's the answer then? Everyone is afraid of the Twins, from Ozzie/Harrelson to the vendors...I think we should just be blindly overconfident from now on, forget the "healthy respect" which everyone has for their organization and Gardenhire. They suck. They can't win in the playoffs. They're soft. They have no heart now that they're all making mega-millions. Their defense with Cuddyer in the infield and Young/Kubel on the corners is among the worst in the major leagues. That really doesn't make me feel better. The most disheartening thing is that they're without all the players like Hunter and Nathan who used to kick our butts and it's the same old story year after year. It's getting old. Maybe that's why we didn't come close to selling out against the Twins last week.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Aug 16, 2010 -> 04:18 PM) And you can't by being the mythical power that is the Twins either. I could not give 2 s***s how many division titles they have. I will take 2005 and 9 Octobers off 100% of the time over 9 central titles and jack s*** else. Then you believe Kenny Williams is a better GM than Ryan/Smith, yes? And Ditka's a much better football coach than Marv Levy or Marty Schottenheimer..etc.

1. Padres 2. Rangers being technically bankrupt but finally winning the AL West, making huge trades like the one for Cliff Lee and all their July 31st moves, team sold to Nolan Ryan over Cuban 3. Strasburg while he was healthy 4. Cincy Reds 5. Mike Stanton

QUOTE (stretchstretch @ Aug 16, 2010 -> 10:46 PM) too many people are straying from the original question and replying about this year--DH, Thome, Peavy, bullpen, etc. The question is about the Sox tendency to have a weak 2nd half, and the Twins completely predictable 2nd half rise. I would like to hear more from the knowledgeable, fact-holders more about why every late summer in memory feels like a replay of the one before. I think there are two posts in here with data on Sox second halves, not one countering with MN numbers. And no one is asking if the Yankees have MN's number. Does a single person here, in their heart, really feel the Sox are capable to passing and keeping MN down for the remaining stretch? Doesn't almost everyone hear feel like we've been here over and over and over again? When we were 3+ games up, and had numerous opportunities to get it to 6, each miss felt like blowing a 10 ten game lead because I KNEW the twins were going to do the annual mult-game leapfrog in a week's time....and here we are....and I would bet a week's pay we'll finish 8-9 games back, without hesitation Yes, that was pretty much the point of my OP. One theory that certainly makes sense this year is our farm system was too depleted to make major trades for a bat. I get that. But from 2006 and beyond, this has really become an ALARMING trend. With the exception of one miraculous 3 game stretch at the end of 2008, we're talking about total Twins' dominance. Let's clear up a couple of misconceptions: 1) We had a winning record in August in every year from 2000 to 2003. ( Yes, but those years encompass some of the better White Sox teams talent-wise, and the 2003 team was 7 game behind KC at the ASB, so they had to start playing better eventually...and of course they picked late August and September to do a fade-out 2) We had a winning record in September in every year from 2000 to 2005. Choose any statistics with those 2000/2003/2005 teams and they'll look pretty good 3) From 2000 to 2009, we had a winning record in 6 augusts, and a losing record in 4 augusts. We had a winning record in 7 septembers, 1 .500 record, and a losing record in 2 septembers. Playing barely above .500 doesn't get it done, it's the same as our "championships" for having the 3rd/4th/5th best record in baseball since the early 90's behind the Braves/Yankees/Red Sox for most of those random stretches 4) From 2000 to 2009, the White Sox' winning percentage over August and September is .513. The aggregate winning percentage for the club over those ten seasons is .529. see point 3 It's not that we don't play well enough percentage-wise, it's that a certain team beats us almost every year, head-to-head. And therein lies the question, we're 5 games over .500 for the last 10-11 years before the All-Star Break (head-to-head vs. MINN) and 20-something games under .500 after it, including 4-19 the past three years, you can understand a team being 5 games under .500 against the same opponent over that long of a stretch of history, but the White Sox seemingly fall apart against the Twins, they just don't get beat 2/3, it's always sweeps or 3/4 EDIT: I'm including October games in September where applicable.

Another example was having made no improvement over LHP Williams in the offseason. Yes, I know somebody will say "no team has quality depth at every position," but wasn't there a better option out there available? I guess they felt all along that Threets COULD be the guy, but he was dealing with injury and command problems in the first half. Whatever happens, the DH debacle will be the focus of this offseason. Yes, logically you can say that if Quentin/Beckham/Pierre/AJ/Teahen hit would have hit consistently all season, it would have taken some of the spotlight off the DH spot, sure. By the way, what's Vladimir Guerrero's WAR value at the current moment? There's absolutely no way that I'll believe we would be trailing the Twins with him as our everyday DH this season, or Aubrey Huff. (Someone will next say that everyone thought Guerrero, Huff and Thome were cooked, right?)

Don, I think you're going to have to wait another 33 hours before you can destroy your t.v. No game today.

But that bullpen, how do they rank since the ASB? Jenks had the two blown saves right after the break (Minn and Seattle), there was the game we almost lost against DET that we were fortunate to recover, the Sunday Orioles game, now the last two against DET. That's a minimum of six bullpen letdowns in the span of a month. You can definitely make an argument we SHOULD be 18 games over .500, but that's not the way it works, of course.

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 05:32 PM) Liriano did not pitch in the playoffs in 2006. In fact, he pitched a total of 6 innings in August and September. I meant in the sense that they had two of the arguably 3-5 best pitchers in baseball (when healthy) that season. There's they charge back into the race without Liriano's dominant stretch of pitching.

Yay! We have Game 163 and the World Series. Other than that, a record of complete and utter failure against the Twins, lol. Rick Hahn's kid is the reason half of the White Sox fanbase isn't pulling their remaining hairs out, because that coinflip goes the other way...before they changed the rules...and it's even more depressing if the Twins have 7 ALCD titles to our 1 since 2002.

We beat them in 2005. What is it about this organization that we make up excuses before we even play a team? We used to really struggle in Oakland and Seattle, we got over that... OTOH, there are some teams that don't match up well. Seemingly every season, the Yankees COMPLETELY dominate the Twins, setting the tone for the post-season. I wonder if the White Sox don't believe they can beat the Twins, just like the Twins don't believe they can beat the Yankees? It seems silly, but Ozzie plays into it, and seemingly has made it worse over time, instead of better. Harrelson does the same thing, whether it's Brad Radke, Carlos Gomez, Santana, Torii Hunter, Mauer, Morneau, Nathan, etc. You would have thought with Joe Nathan on the shelf this entire season we'd have had some more confidence in being able to beat them late, but it simply hasn't happened. Doesn't matter whether it's Rauch or Capps.

Especially since knowledgeable Twins fans would always respond with, "Jamie Burke, run over and trampled to death." It was bad enough when we were taunting the Orioles' starters and counting automatic victories there. However, I don't think ANYONE is going to be overconfident coming into this one... And the problem is that Liriano ISN'T DEAD. Were he close to dead, like 2007 and 2008 and 2009, he wouldn't have ripped the hearts out of our season by getting out of those bases loaded situations with that nasty slider.

I can't figure this out. I was trying to get to sleep (it's 624 am in Thailand and I'm still aggravated), so I was trying to do something productive, like figure out why we can't play well in the last 6-8 weeks of a season. Is it the Chicago heat/weather? That's always the excuse in Texas/Houston, but can we legitimately use it? In 2000, we played a notch above .500 for most of the last couple of months and our pitchers went down or struggled to be held together with duct tape and baling wire. 2001, we actually played better in the second half, but we were already buried after starting out 14-29 and a number of injuries, particularly Thomas and David Wells. 2002, MEH. 2003, played well after the ASB but then ended up losing five in a row to Minnesota to finish the season. 2004, faded down the stretch. 2005, faded, almost choked the whole thing away and then recovered the final week. 2006, faded, played 8 games under .500 the second half and limped into 3rd place after having the best offense in baseball the first half. 2007, MEH. 2008, seemingly peaked early in the season when Linebrink was pitching well and Quentin/Ramirez were on a tear, then held on for dear life down the stretch with both teams trying to give the division away to each other through the final weeks. 2009, MEH. 2010, seemingly headed in the same direction. What is it with this franchise? How can we be 4-19 against the Twins in the second half of 2008/09/10? How is that even possible? How can the Twins play so well in the second halves of seasons, most notably 2002-2004, 2006, 2009 and 2010. Do we need a team psychologist? Even without the looming spectre of the MetroDoom, we lost three in a row up there, with Jenks blowing what might turn out to be (at least looking back on the entire season) the most crucial game of the season, the finale of the four game series after the ASB. At that point, our lead would have been 3 1/2 games instead of 1 1/2. Since beating the Twins the first game after the ASBreak, we're at .500. The Twins are 15 games over .500 without Morneau. I don't think we can blame it all on the loss of Jake Peavy, either, since the Twins have been without Morneau both in 2009 and 2010. Are we really a team that's mentally weak? Are we choking? Or is Minnesota just head and shoulders above the Sox and we're "returning to norm" after playing over our heads for 2 months? Is there anything that Ozzie and KW could do differently, besides not listening to aging veterans year after year tell the FO that "they have the team to win it, no need to make any additional moves." Is it because we don't have enough leadership or fire in our clubhouse (the theory that losing Everett and Rowand set us back in this area)? Are we too passive? (Winning creates chemistry, it's not the chemistry that creates the winning, right?) Well, I'm not sure about that one either, almost all of the Twins' players have pretty laid back attitudes, too. Mauer and Morneau, in particular, have been under fire for not playing with enough fire or passion. Is it simply that the White Sox don't play well when they're favorites or more talented, that we underachieve and play better when we're the underdogs or counted out by everyone? I still don't get it. I wish that I believed that Ozzie or KW had the answer/s, but I'm not feeling too confident in that regard at this particular moment in time.