caulfield12

Well, the odds are not looking that great. On paper, we should be better now than last year's team, but we're certainly not proving that on the field of play. It just doesn't "feel" like we have the team to get it done this year, but Minnesota really handed it back to us the last week of the season after we'd been swept up there and things were looking really, really bleak. 11-12, 10-13, 9-14....those look like the three most LIKELY records to come out of this upcoming stretch (the Bataan Death March of games, like Minnesota's road trip during the GOP Convention). Detroit is back close to their high water mark of the season, and they're showing the ability to rally (in two games this week, ironic, because the White Sox were ALSO able to knock out former pitcher Aardsma, our ONLY come from behind victory of the season in late innings, amazing!), at least at home, we're they're winning .667 of their games. They're not a good road team, 25-36. We've play fairly well this season on the road, but it's expecting too much for Peavy to just come in and pitch like an ace and for all the cogs of the machine to suddenly click. We're one of those teams that appears to be better than it really is, the opposite of 2005...a team that just knew how to get it done and had the confidence that nearly every 2 and especially 1 run lead was their game for the taking. Where the team was much better than the sum of all its individual parts but a well-oiled machine that just knew how to get it done. We've had a couple of nice runs since May, but those were followed up by implosions against sub .500 competition when we should have been putting ourselves 10-12 games over .500 and squarely into the thick of things. This mentality of waiting for the Tigers to lose or choke when they're getting such good starting pitching on a consistent basis from Verlander (really the best AL pitcher since the first month of the season), Jackson and Porcello and surprising contributions from rookies like Thomas and Raburn (we've been able to produce one rookie OFer in years to put up an 800+ OPS for the Sox), the Jackson trade (stroke of genius), releasing Sheffield, winning the biggest games of the season against us (particularly the DeWayne Wise out at home, or not, game)... You can't really make ANY argument at this point that we deserve to WIN the division. If we play better the next 35-40 games and beat DET, great, but I don't see them imploding (barring a pitching injury) like MINN did down the stretch, especially at home, where they've had wonderful fan support nearly all season long.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Aug 22, 2009 -> 08:31 AM) Baseball is played on statsheets, not fields, and things like contact, batting average, and a balanced offensive attack do not matter in the real world. Fill a team up with low batting average guys who take walks and hit home runs and you've got yourself a division winner. All those years the Twins beat our asses... well... that never happened. And the dome is cursed. And OPS, etc. The Twins were better than us from 2001-2004 because they: 1) played much better defense, Koskie/Guzman/Rivas/Mientkiewicz were all Gold Glove caliber 2) their bullpen, from Guardado through Romero/Hawkins and on down, was almost automatic 3) execution and fundamentals 4) better starting pitching, particularly because of Johan Santana's presence Not to mention the Stewart/Hunter/Jacque Jones was a very stout OF athletically...they just had better athletes around the diamond. I'm not convinced that we underachieved that much, maybe 2003 a bit, but those Twins' teams back then were so much more balanced, and they ALMOST never beat themselves. This years' Twins' squad has something like 55 errors while we are leading the AL. But the starting pitching, bullpen before Nathan, and disappearances of Casilla/Delmon Young/Buscher/Tolbert/Punto have been the biggest reasons for their downfall and collapse into mediocrity despite possessing two of the three best players in the ALCD (along with Sizemore), and maybe 3 of 5 if you consider Nathan.

I think in June/July of 2009 this year, it would have been possible to get another team to take his contract for 1 1/2 seasons, sure. We wouldn't have gotten much back at all, but salary relief would have been the main issue...you don't spend $12-13 million per season for an 825 ops when you could get that much more cheaply from any number of other sources.

Konerko has returned to "pseudo-goat" status this season after having a very nice and consistent first three months in 2009. He's way way overpaid for the production we're getting out of him now. I'm now wishing we kept Allen and ditched Konerko and just really started over instead of holding onto the past...same thing we did with Carlos Lee, Valentin, Ordonez and Thomas for a bit too long, until we made the right decisions with them for the future of the organization.

QUOTE (stretchstretch @ Aug 21, 2009 -> 09:16 PM) playing a 49-72 team with a 5.4 ERA guy on the hill, at home, with by far our best home park pitcher, and we get embarrassed, offensively at least. teams like this don't win divisions, and if by some miracle DET totally folds to allow our .500 play to eek a playoff spot, this heartless group is an easy 1st round exit for those of us out of town watching the game on gamecast, and seeing "insert player name grounds out shortstop, pops out to second base, etc" with runners in position, inning after inning, game after game, it becomes factually clear what this group is made of. Well...except for King Felix pitching, it certainly LOOKED like SEA should have easily lost those other 2 games in the DET series and they REALLY should have SWEPT the Tigers....easily. I've given up looking at match-ups, like when you think Contreras will finally get released, he pitches a masterful game.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 21, 2009 -> 09:10 PM) The Tigers schedule isn't exactly easy next week either. Time to be rescued by a GIO shutout? Oops....Tigers already leading 1-0. Consistency-wise, Jackson, Verlander and Porcello have been very calming to that rotation. The Tigers could do some damage in the playoffs too if their hitters (like Inge and Granderson, they have Huff now too) all got hot together like we did in 2005. Nice play by Beckham that he usually doesn't make, but it doesn't really matter at this point in the game...

Jeff Cox is like the crazy uncle or the Randy Quaid character from "Vacation." He's not funny anymore...let him do some community relations work with Melton and Skowron, just keep him away from the 3B coaching box. I wouldn't mind replacing Cox, Baines and Walker, but I can't be confident any of those 3 things will happen.

FIRE GREG WALKER...don't respond Dick Allen, lol. Seriously, I think maybe with the fading of the Thome/Dye/AJ/Konerko days...we need a change in the coaching staff, new ideas, new approach, fresh start and approach....how could it POSSIBLY hurt?

Easy prediction of the year.... Intentional walk to Jones, the reliever comes in and gives up those two (maybe a homer or bases-clearing 2B) and Floyd looks in the end like he had a pretty awful night when he pitched well enough to win if our offense and execution hadn't totally disappeared. Getz is proving to be injury-prone, we need to move Beckham over there and give the job to Viciedo or find a veteran to plug in. Nix is fine as a super-utility player.

Game, set and match.... We just don't deserve this division...the Tigers just want it more. Probably 3 1/2 games back after tonight now, and MINN threatening to be 7 1/2 games back.

#17: Chicago White Sox (from fangraphs.com) Ownership: B Jerry Reinsdorf has a reputation for being a lot of things, but most of those are leftover from his more aggressive days in the 1990s. Of late, he’s settled into more of a bankroll position, handing the White Sox enough cash to be an upper echelon team in payroll over the last five years. While they built the worst of the new stadiums, it still generates a solid amount of revenue, and the White Sox shouldn’t have too many problems maintaining a high level of payroll for the foreseeable future. Front Office: B- What can you say about Kenny Williams. He gets into public feuds with his manager, former players, media members, scouts… let’s just say he’s a challenge to work with. And, early in his career as a GM, he did some really dumb things. But he’s grown, he’s adapted, and now he’s more like that obsessive fantasy league owner who won’t stop trading until he has a good team again. He stole Carlos Quentin from the D’Backs and John Danks from the Rangers. He built a bullpen out of waiver claims like Bobby Jenks and Matt Thornton. He got bargains with veteran sluggers Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye (the first contract, not the second one). He’s always making moves to try and make the club better, and while he misses some, he’s shown a knack for snagging talent at the right time and putting together consistently good squads. Plus, he’s stayed somewhat sane while dealing with Ozzie Guillen on a daily basis, so he gets a few extra credit points. Major League Talent: C+ Are they contending with an aging core (Thome, Dye, Konerko, Pierzynski, Contreras, Colon, even Buehrle to an extent) or rebuilding with a youth movement (Ramirez, Fields, Quentin, Danks, and Floyd)? Leave it to Kenny Williams to try both simultaneously. There’s some good young players in place, but the teams fortunes are still heavily tied to the aging stars of yesterday. On the positive side, most of those players are still contributors, and the White Sox should have enough firepower to keep up in the AL Central this year, providing they can fix their two gaping holes – center field and second base. With competent major league players in those spots, they’ll be a quality team this year, and the future salary obligations take a huge dive after the year ends, which should allow Williams to surround the young talent with some more productive high paid players. Minor League Talent: C Gordon Beckham’s move to second base gives him a quick path to the major leagues, and the offense is there for him to be an all-star caliber player at the keystone for years to come. Aaron Poreda is actually one of the more underrated arms in the minors, I think – his secondary stuff needs work, but his combination of velocity, sink, and command can get him through while his slider catches up to his fastball. After those two, it gets a little more tricky – Brandon Allen and Dayan Viciedo both offer intriguing power bats, but neither of them are much defensively, so where they fit into a future line-up is in question. Tyler Flowers was a nice pickup in the Javier Vazquez trade, and Jordan Danks and John Shelby provide some position player depth. It’s not a great system, but it’s not nearly as bad as most people think. Overall: C+ Hard to believe that Jerry Reinsdorf is the strength of the organization, but there you go. The team has enough resources to consistently compete for high salaried players, and Kenny Williams has shown an aptitude for picking up enough good, cheap role players to surround his core and make consistent runs at playoff spots. The roster is in transition, but they should be able to avoid a total rebuild and win while reloading. They make some strange moves, but overall, the package mostly works. It could improved upon, but it’s not a bad time to be a White Sox fan. Down to a 35-36% chance to win the ALCD, with DET in the 53-54% range now (www.coolstandings.com)....these last three weeks have put a huge dent in our chances.

2nd time we completely BLEW at the first and second, no outs situation... Beckham had a great chance to score a run but hit into DP and Nix had runners on with 2 outs and FAIL FAIL FAIL I just wonder if this knack for hitting with RISP will ever come to the White Sox this year, like we had in the first 90 games in 2006 and also in 2005, the belief we would/could always come back (especially at home) and that we could beat any team's closer and bullpen as well

yep, after every series this year, we'll say, we went 2-3 but it should have been 4-1 or 3-2 at the worst... or we should have swept... just can't seem to get that big, clutch hit....Rios almost went yard but the wind knocked it down....this against a pitcher with a 6+ ERA on the road we're making look like Joe Cy Mays at least Gavin got Markakis, that guy is hitting 440 against us this season, and, along with Izturis, has really beaten and battered Sox pitching

The thing is, the club last year had that desperation to win, at least at the end of the season? Why is this year's team different? Was it really because of the presence of Griffey? Uribe? Was/is Cabrera more missed than we thought? Vazquez and Swisher weren't ever confused with being leaders....Crede was on the shelf down the stretch. You'd think with Beckham, Nix and Getz, there would be more hunger/desire to win coming from the young players pushing for playing time, compared to a veteran team. This team is perplexing....not to have the ability to come back at all, and not playing well at home for most of the season, whereas the Tigers are 40-20 at home and 24-36 on the road. What happened to Konerko and Dye, BTW? And can Gio Gonzalez ACTUALLY beat Edwin Jackson later tonight?

At least Floyd is on a roll, but this seems like one of those games we lose 2-1 after Gavin gives up another homer... Beckham really struggling now (well, he's human) and Pods and Ramirez are fighting an ongoing battle for worst mental preparation or careless mistakes on a day-to-day basis. Have a feeling the Orioles will come back to score at least one here after the GIDP.

If you're Freidman, would you really take two years of Bobby Jenks at $8 million and $10 million...knowing he's not close to the same pitcher he was from 2005-2006, and swap him for the most identifiable and popular Rays' player over the last five years? Isn't the point with retaining Crawford the high price tag?? How would bringing in a pitcher with a questionable future and ALMOST as high a salary benefit them? I think they would be much more likely to want us to take Burrell off their hands for Jenks. No way, and no way do you trade an everyday LF/CFer with leadoff capabilities for a closer. Never.

QUOTE (GO CHI SOX! @ Aug 19, 2009 -> 11:30 PM) DeWayne Wise of course. GQCQ last year of course.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/beanecount Thought this was interesting...evidence of underachieving, I'm not sure. Of course, if you go by the Pythagorean theory of runs scored versus runs allowed, we're around +14-16 over the entire season....which is exactly where we are now in the standings, 3 games over .500. It does seem that if we come up short, we'll look at this 15 game stretch after the Buehrle no-hitter and say this is where we really needed to go 10-5 and get to ten games over .500 and pass the Tigers in order to survive the following 23 games (21 against tough teams, 17 of them on the road)...of course, DET could always do like Minnesota did last year and come back to us in the end. The way we've been playing 2-1 against BALT seems most likely....you can never expect a sweep with this ballclub. That would put us at 4 games over .500...if we can go 11-12 over the next 23 (I think 10-13 or 9-14 is just as easily possible, but you never know with this team, and mental lift from the addition of Peavy should really help to give us some momentum, too) then we should still be in the thick of it heading into the final 2-3 weeks of the season when we start playing MN and the Tigers in the final week.

The Royals aren't close to giving up on Gordon yet...not by a longshot. Next, I really thought yesterday was a season-changer, but we say that nearly everyday. Our 1 GB morphed quickly to 3 GB in 30 minutes. Seattle made TWO very uncustomary errors (by the SS and then allowing a runner to score from 3B when the runner was picked off at first for the second insurance run...) But looks like (KNOCK ON WOOD) the M's might be able to hold them off today. Kudos to Tigers' fans, I think they have a sellout against the M's tonight again. Lowe and White were very very good against us...but Lowe got rocked...that young rookie catcher hit a bomb (Avila) that sparked things, but the errors killed them. I guess we came back once against Aardsma, so we're even with the Tigers in that category. When you consider that the Tigers are 39-19 at home, it's pretty amazing we're still within hailing distance...and with how well Jackson, Verlander and Porcello have pitched this year. Key inning now, bottom of the 8th...the inning everything fell apart for Sox/M's fans yesterday, 4 runs scored.

Royce had ZERO range by the time he played with us and never dove for the ball...fewer errors are not more than 33% of the picture here. Look at TC comparing Valentin in 2000/2001 compared to what Clayton did during his time in Chicago...not even close.

Valentin >>> Clayton OR Cabrera (2008 version)

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 18, 2009 -> 11:44 AM) The Sox say that they don't mix FA money with minor league money. But KW said 2-3 times that Viciedo's contract was essentially, long-term replacing the sunk costs for Swisher's long-term deal. That's pretty close.

Where would we be right now if KW hadn't scraped Nix and Pods off the scrap heap? If Freddy brings it somehow, that would be three basically 'free' transactions that had a huge impact on this season.

This is like Charles Dickens so far...the Tale of Three Seasons. First season with Owens/Anderson/Lillibridge/Wise/Miller/Fields and multiple pitchers getting PT but a very solid bullpen held things together. -7 games Second seasn when we played really well and got back into the division race with a hot offense and very solid starting pitching...+5 over .500 And now we're basically "treading" water and heading into the most dangerous, elimination stage of the 2009 baseball season. We have 21 really difficult games out of 23, and almost all of them are on the road. If we can somehow go 11-12 or 10-13, we can stay in the division race, unless DET plays equally bad or suffers an injury to Jackson, Porcello or Verlander (although I can't conceive of us passing them before the end of that brutal 23 game stretch). This team has been such a tease, and the comparisons to 2003 are appropriate, although that team got well above .500 (if memory serves me correctly, somewhere in the 12-16 games over vicinity) and played like the best team in the AL, although we did that (too) recently against the Yankees and Angels. We have so many weaknesses and so many strengths on this ballclub...but with the additions of Castro, Pena, Kotsay, Peavy and Rios, we're a significantly better team (on paper) than we were in 2008 and in the first two months of 2009. At the VERY least, the season has become very, very interesting. We have so many players out of position on the infield or learning new positions...a bullpen almost in tatters...one of the worst defenses and fundamentally sound teams in the league, we have virtually no identity besides being the most talented team (now) in the ALCD. Before the last month, you would have had to argue for DET or MIN, but we've surpassed both those clubs IMO. As soon as you count this team out, they surprise. When you think they've turned the corner, they go 5-7 against VERY pedestrian competition when they should be leading the Central (as KW noted). We don't play exceptionally well at home or have many clutch hitters with RISP...are we last in that category, or does it just seem that way? Our execution with runners in scoring position and less than 2 outs...pathetic? The mental lapses of Pods and Ramirez have been noted, and Nix and Beckham have had plenty of struggles (mentally) of their own, ALTHOUGH NOBODY would have imagined either player could/would/should have such a huge impact on the 2009 White Sox season. You just don't ever know with this team....a couple of months ago, DJ and Farmer called 86 and 89 wins to take the division, and it seems like 90 will be an impossible barrier for any team now but the Tigers. I just hope the season does go down to the final week and we continue to have great fan support like the team has enjoyed recently.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 09:26 PM) I'm very confident Thornton was not hurt. Why else would he come out, warm up at the beginning of the 8th...and then be mysteriously pulled before the inning begins? Can you explain that? Obviously, there's no need to even put extra wear and tear on Thornton at this point in the season if you don't want to use him for the 8th...doesn't make any sense, he's CLEARLY the best reliever in the bullpen right now.