Special K

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Jun 20, 2016 -> 07:40 PM) He's been desperate with the pitching rotation but not the lineup. Crazy Morneau and Anderson both reeked of desperation. It's just not enough.

You're outta your mind if you think Frazier is garbage. Dude has 18 homers and has played solid D. He's struggling as of late but will start hitting again.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 19, 2016 -> 08:03 AM) He should get a pass for last night. That loss clearly is on the front office and the 5th starter they acquired. No manager was going to pull that one out of the loss pile. Agreed. That loss falls squarely on Hahn. Unless Robin secretly forced Hahn to trade for Shields.

Where's all the Shields defenders? Only 4 games he's been atrocious now... Let's give 'em another one to turn it around. If Hahn had any guts he'd DFA this guy tomorrow.

He does not appear to be good anymore. We don't need to debate the personal issues. They need to get a real impact bat anyways. I'm sick of taking all these flyers on washed up or never was anything players. Do whatever it takes to get Jay Bruce short of Anderson.

Why not... I'm down. Slot him in at DH until Morneau comes back. If he's worth anything at that time, rotate him in between DH, 3b, and 2b. Keep in mind it would cost next to nothing. Let's live a little. And it would be keeping in line with our aura of desperation this season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 14, 2016 -> 08:49 PM) Melky has played singles into triples for two nights in a row. Just because Melky is also bad, does that mean we should keep 2 bad outfielders out there? Do something... Schuck is an upgrade over both of them yet he had Schuck DH'ing. There's honestly no excuse for that. It's just the wrong decision. Coats never even got a chance really. These are easy fixes. However way you want to look at it, if you put Shuck out there whether it be for Avi or Melky, we likely save runs. Avi 's blunder resulted in several 2 out runs last night, which may have been the difference between a win and a loss.

Whatever miniscule offense he may or may not offer is clearly offset by his utterly abysmal defense in right field which just cost us a very big inning tonight by missing that easy pop fly. Luckily our brilliant manager decided to DH Schuck tonight instead of playing him in right. It's not open to debate, Garcia would not start on any other team, and Robin is BAD.

Somebody give Renteria his due. His winning percentage is 1.000.

Maybe he did it for Robin.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 14, 2016 -> 03:08 AM) He's 36 years old (or something). Did you expect him to be an ace? Because they wouldn't have gotten an ace for Erik Johnson, Fernando Tatis Jr, and $20+ million. For $10 million a year I expected more than the 8+ ERA he's putting up... there is some ground in between ace and 8+ era

If this season is a miserable failure, which it is obviously turning out to be because the sox play with no guts against teams in their division, you blow up the roster to smithereens. Hold on to Rodon and Anderson, but everyone else must go. A true blow up and just stack the rfarm. This should, of course, be done in the winter under new management or we will end up with a team full of Avis. Let's suck for 4 years and hope all the new talent we just drafted and the talent we get from dealing guys like Sale, Q, Abreu, Robertson, Frazier, Eaton, and anyone else worthwhiile will help us compete in 4-5 years. Rodon and Anderson should be hitting their prime by then. It will suck to have never put a winning team behind Sale, but we can't do that now anyways. Let's get a haul for him and also allow him to play for something meaningful.

Where do we go from here... another impact bat is obviously needed. Catcher / DH is the obvious upgrade. We have Morneau waiting to fill the DH role, but that doesn't mean we can't continue to go after a Bruce-type. But if we could get a Lucroy, that would be amazing. I could stomach a terrible platoon at DH then... but you'd have to figure there's a guy in the minors who can outproduced the clowns we currently have until Morneau comes up (in the scenario we get an upgrade at catcher).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 9, 2016 -> 09:32 PM) The Sox and the Zack Attack!! I hate to do this to everyone, but if we take 2 of 3 from KC, we're back in business.

We will not be in it at that time if we have to wait that long for a bat... They must be really hoping the team rights itself w/out any help.

At least they're trying... I like it. Whatever gets Garcia and Rollins out of the DH role is fine by me. Fat lady should not start singing just yet...

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2016 -> 10:39 AM) Southsider2k5 will enjoy this one from a yahoo board... "I give the White Sox management staff credit for trying to put a winner on the field every day. Truth is, they are not a big market team despite playing in Chicago. They do not get the revenue from ticket sales of a big market team nor do they get the advertising dollars from radio and TV ratings. It will also be 2020 before they can get the kind of TV deal other teams are now getting. What the White Sox really need to do is rebuild instead of retool. It is tough to buy a championship team and there is no consistency from year-to-year trying to win with other team's players. You do not always know what you are getting (Adam LaRoche for example). You can go to Cuba for talent (Jose Abreu) but don't always know what you are getting (Dayan Viciedo). In the last 10+ years, the best position players the White Sox have developed have been Tyler Flowers and Gordon Beckham. That is not good. But Sox fans will never let management rebuild, so they continue to retool and have to do so with limited funds. The White Sox were off to the best start in the AL this year, but their attendance figures were 12th out of 15 teams in the league. Again, the White Sox are not a big market team. They need to rebuild the minor league system. They cannot afford to do it any other way." That positional player comment is not entirely true. Semien is fine, Trayce seems solid. Also De Aza. But I get the point.

QUOTE (b-Rye @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 09:46 PM) The 3 year fail more like it. This team has no depth. When Jackson,c Cabrera were gone last week we had the worst lineup baseball by far. no depth whatsoever. Fulmer might be a bust, Anderson looks like Micah Johnson to me, rodon below average, duke/albers/Latos/avilla/Rollins/shuck/sands/Garcia should be dfa'd and guarantee nobody in MLB would add them. Then it's a nothing but aaaa players in our system. Our cheap ass GM should of got some decent players not a bunch of crap players off scrap pile. Imagine Ian desmond, Dexter Fowler, cespedes on this team This team isn't that bad... We're still only 3.5 out. If we win tonight and take 2 of 3 from KC, we're right 1-2 games back of 1st. We just need Abreu to start hitting and another bat, which I think is coming very soon. Abreu to start hitting and voiding our -0.1 WAR at DH would do wonders. Shields obviously isn't that bad either. I actually think our rotation is fine.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2016 -> 08:28 AM) Hahn deserves the guillotine more than Navarro/Avila/Ventura on this one. A bit of a desperation move. And it's going to be one that will be harder to survive because at least Shark magically disappeared after one year and is now "out of sight, out of mind" on the West Coast. Can't imagine if he was putting up his SF numbers for the Cubs about right now after totally wetting the bed for us. Totally agree. Complete desperation move that just took $10 million out of hands in FA spending next year. Would've had $30 million coming off the books between LaRoche and Danks, which is enough to sign a big FA ... This team is not going anywhere this year, unfortunately. This down spiral has to be historic. In my opinion, the series against KC is a must win (not sweep, but at least 2 of 3). It will put some life in this team.. Oh, and RV should be canned.

Players under achieve. Whether that's the manager's fault for lack of motivation or should be on the players is debatable. But Robin makes a lot of dumb strategic decisions which makes us want to assume everything is his fault. Rollins has no business DH'ing. He otherwise has mishandled many different matchups offensively and defensively, IMO. He also has mishandled the 2 hole... Abreu shouldn't hit there nor should Rollins. he has also missed some obvious challenges this year. And he is "low energy". That's my beef with Robin. Not the under performance of players.

Yeah, no complaints with this move. Both have been serviceable but Sox seem to play well when Latos pitches and we can hold on to both pitchers this way. No brainer. If Latos struggles, yank Him.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 5, 2016 -> 08:36 AM) There are a small but vocal group of posters that only seem to show up to gloat that the team is failing. They represent about 80% of the complaints to mods that we receive. It's anyone's choice to follow a team they hate and which makes them feel horrible (although I wonder why). But when they are trolling other members it gets looked at. And there is a difference between feeling horrible when the team doing poorly and posting that and gloating that the team is doing horrible and that poster feels great that they were proven right about what a horrible team it is. The posters that genuinely seem to feel better when the team is doing worse really bring the site down even further than it naturally would. On the bright side, I think anyone of us would have been happy to be in this position at this point before the start of the season. A winning record. Two games back. And an addition of James Shields. Plus our second half is a much easier schedule. Now let's get some offense.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 5, 2016 -> 07:48 AM) It makes perfect sense to me that if you aren't a fan of the team to not post here. It seems the problem is all the non fans come around to make the fans feel even worse about the team. The gloating that the team is horrible would play better at a division rival site than the Sox fan forum. The fans of the team already feel bad, why should the site allow non fans of the team to show up during the rough times to hate on the team? Trolls are trolls. This is a prime example. You don't post when the team is winning. As soon as they drop from first, you arrive to make the fans feel even worse. Well congratulations you spread your unhappiness. Tex, that's mildly insulting. Like 200 of my posts have been this year. But in any event, we are still only 2 games back after this awful stretch. I think we need offense more than starting pitching. But we are still very much in contention and hopefully Shields can be a contributing factor to doing that.

Why did we just take on a $27 million contract? We're going to be in 4th place in about 2 days. We are the punching bag of the AL Central. The White Sox are where divisional opponents come to feast. Several key divisional players are of have been hurt and the Sox continue to lose ground. Not to mention our record of the last 25 games has to be the worst in all of baseball (without having checked). Now we have a middling starter for $27 million... This contract will obviously hamper us from signing another top tier free agent next year (when we HAD almost $30 million in bad money coming off the books. Plus we still need a bat, which was more urgent than trading for James Shields. Starting to really question if Hahn knows what he's doing...

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 3, 2016 -> 02:38 PM) Can you afford a 780 OPS (that's his 3 year splits away from Coors) out of a guy making that much money who is injury-riddled, no longer a plus defender and will cost you the pitcher projected to fill a rotation spot for the next six years...when just average pitchers on the FA market are now receiving $60-90 million contracts? Can we please stop assuming every "slugger" will just magically come into USCF and light it up with homers like Frazier has done (but many a hitter have failed to do, namely Dunn and LaRoche, Swisher, etc.)??? His WAR is telling a much different story over the last couple of years than his OPS, another key factor. CarGo basically gives KW his "name acquisition" but doesn't provide the flexibility of adding to the rotation in any significant way....maybe one more reliever and a bench player, that's it. Average hitters are going for the same amount, if not more. And none seem interested in signing with the Sox. We need another bat. You gotta give something to get something... If not's Car Go, it's gotta be someone. Because even assuming as you are (and it's far from a sure thing) that Fulmer develops into a serviceable starter for the next 6 years, we're still not going anywhere with this offense.