glangon

I think the main thing that worries me is not the lack of offense but the poor defense and base running. We've lost a lot of close games due to flubbed balls, missed double plays, throws missing the cut off man and runners stealing bases for fun off of us. This combined with the amount of runners we've had thrown out because we can't throw, this is what I can't stomach. I reckon if we had the defence to support the pitching, then we could cope with the lack of offense and we would be sitting on a positive record instead of the garbage that we are watching at the moment. We aren't scoring runs anyway, we should get rid of the guys who are costing us games defensively and build on defense and pitching rather than trying to hit the ball out of the park. It frustrates me when I see Beckham, Ramirez and Eaton fly out every game trying to go for the fences rather than go for the base hit and try and get on base. I'd love to see us get a good defensive catcher (even if it means promoting Brett Austin too early). I'd also love to see La Roche playing at 1st base and Abreu moving to DH permanantly. The focus of the front office has been on power hitting and I think they need to focus on getting players that will strenghten the defense and are focussed on getting on base rather than trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark. I also believe that this type of game is not something that Robin could run with and I'd like to see the front office replace him with Ron Gardenhire who has a proven record of utilising guys who are great defensively and can get on base.

If we're going to Train Wreck the crew, the Hawk with Beltin Bill Melton and Ozzie in the booth. It would be such a train wreck that we'd be tuning in every game to see what they'd say next.

Jose Abreu

Avi Garcia

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jun 26, 2015 -> 11:08 PM) First one was a fastball. Don't know the pitch on the second one. The second one he hung a slider up in the zone

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jun 25, 2015 -> 10:35 PM) So there are no hitters in the minors raking right now? There are a few but it would mean optioning Sanchez or DFA'ing one of the duds and Robin doesn't seem to want to do that just now.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 25, 2015 -> 02:00 PM) Hahaha.....even without your projections of wins needed to get back into contention, you just can't resist the temptation to count SOMETHING. I wonder how long SoxTalk gamethreads and Robin Ventura can survive before everyone just throws their hands up in the air and gives up on discovering some positive indicators for 2016? Last season at this time, we had a better record and Abreu excitement. This year, other than Sale, what is there? The joy and beauty of watching the worst defense in baseball flub easy throws, miss cut off runners and try flashy plays to give us error after error and and unearned run after unearned run. If you sit and watch it expecting every play that Alexei makes to be flubbed in one way or the other, it helps ease the pain. We should have the Alexei zone and put a card with E6 on it in section E6 of the stadium and everytime Alexei flubs one, every holds their E6 card up.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Jun 25, 2015 -> 04:22 AM) Not to s*** on anyone's rib but ... http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/dodg...0623-story.html " Alex Guerrero must be the worst infielder in the history of Baseball" Sounds like a future DH. He'd fit well into our infield then.....

Today the offense, defense and pen screw over Rodon.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jun 19, 2015 -> 03:35 PM) Chris Sale throws a perfect game, strikes out the side in the 10th, Flowers drops the ball. Strikes out fourth batter, Flowers again drops it. Line drive to Alexei, Alexei throws it away at home. Winning run scores. The sad thing is, I wouldn't be surprised if this happened.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 16, 2015 -> 01:53 PM) Derek Norris is a really good defensive catcher, but the Pads just acquired him this year. Jason Castro has been mentioned a LOT over the last two or three years around here. Nick Hundley would be another one who grades out very well this year. However, it's almost like you're forced to take a AAA/AA high level prospect, because the cost for major league catching talent is usually so high...and our offense right now is so limited that it's hard to make just incremental improvements if you're going with "defense first" personnel. That said, I would love to hear a reporter ask Robin Ventura why he feels the defense played so well for most of the 2012 season, and then fell apart the following year. Why did guys like DeAza, Viciedo and Alexei play so much better? It seems like Abreu was improving a lot in the second half last year and now he's gone backwards. Eaton, backwards. Alexei, fading. Cabrera is just so-so at best and Avi hasn't made much progress in this area, along with Conor and Flowers. It's almost a team-wide malaise, other than Beckham and Sanchez, who obviously have their offensive limitations. Even LaRoche hasn't been up to par compared to what he showed the last couple of seasons in Washington. With Wieters returning to the Orioles, a trade for Caleb Joseph would be a good thing, a good defensive catcher who hits better than Flowers and Soto. He's batting .250 with 5 homers and 20 RBI's and allows 66% of runners to steal on him which is better than anything we have in the majors or AAA and with the Orioles in contention we could maybe offload Shark to them for Joesph and a couple of prospects.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 16, 2015 -> 11:19 AM) Baseball-reference.com ranks the White Sox last in the majors in Defensive Efficiency while Fangraphs.com has them 29th of 30 in Defensive Runs Saved. The White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies are both nearly double the New York Yankees, who rank 28th in the majors with minus-22 Defensive Runs Saved. The White Sox are minus-43 and Phillies are minus-45. The Kansas City Royals are first overall with 42 Defensive Runs Saved. “Defense is always going to be something that you need to be able to win,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “But there are also momentum swings with defense. Defense can help you help the pitchers. Teams that play good defense get momentum because you don’t need to do as much offensively to be able to cover it. When we get better at that, and we get some hits with some guys on, it looks better. When you stub your toe in one area of the game, it can cost you.” So what is the plan for getting better at that, exactly? Obviously, they sent down Micah and are playing Beckham over Conor at 3B, but that's only a half solution at best if those particular moves don't move the needle at all offensively. http://www.csnchicago.com/white-sox/poor-d...haunt-white-sox Surely one glaringly obvious move would be to consistantly play La Roche at First Base and have Abreu at DH. La Roche's defense is head and shoulders above Abreu's. We also need a defensive catcher. Teams are running for fun against Flowers and Soto. Its all very nice to say that Flowers calls a game well but he isn't hitting and can't shut down the running game and neither is Soto. Teams against us have stolen bases for fun and we are second in the majors with 79% of runners stealing bases on Soto and Flowers, only the Marlins are higher with 82%, if you compare that to the Blue Jays who have only allowed 56% of runners to steal. We are the worst in the American League at allowing stolen bases and we have 4 lefties in the rotation with Sale and Danks having good pick off moves.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 16, 2015 -> 10:34 AM) As for Noesi/Carroll, I guess it's not a priority for the organization at the moment. It will be when they reach Rodon's innings limit, but right now he's only at 54.3 IP and has at least 100 innings more to go this season. In fact, if he averaged only five innings per start, he could pitch until the very end of the season, theoretically, but he's probably going to be limited to 15-16, no more than 17, starts the remainder of the year (because even though his total innings pitched aren't SO high, his pitch counts per inning are, to say it in the most positive way, elevated.) That would give him 24-26 starts, which is about in the area he needs to comfortably get to 190-215 innings next year. Thinking about the 2016 and beyond teams, though....they might want to give Beck or Erik Johnson some experience in that "Carroll role" and see how well they respond over a 1-2 month period. It's probably not a priority for them at the moment but Noesi is a train wreck and Carroll wasn't, Carroll has seemed to settle well into the long relief role and done well there, Carroll on a regular basis seemed to steady the ship without giving up a lot of runs and give our offense a chance of getting back into the game (which they didn't take) whereas Noesi seemed to ship runs everytime he enters a game. Rodon's innings will probably be picked up by the likes of Beck and Johnson in the last month. I think they see the likes of Beck and Johnson more as starters than long relievers and when Shark is traded and Rodon runs out of innings, these guys and possibly Montas and Danish could come more to the fore. With the trading of relievers, all of them bar Duke and Robertson are probably on the block with Hahn knowing that he has Jones and Crain ready to come back near the All-Star break and Albers rehabbing soon with Lindstrom still in AAA. I'm thinking that 2016 could see a very settled pen with Crain, Jones, Carroll, Duke, Jennings, Albers and Robertson with the option of Lindstrom, Petricka, Putnam and Webb depending on who gets traded / released.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 15, 2015 -> 02:32 PM) In reality, it doesn't matter what anyone in Charlotte does, unless they're serious about Kevan Smith (which is doubtful, simply because the idea of a rookie catcher with his background leading a staff to the pennant is pretty implausible, this year or next). Thompson is currently being projected as a 4th/5th outfielder. That only leaves you Leury Garcia, Micah Johnson and Saladino they'll look at when/if they trade Ramirez. I honestly think Beckham's better off in another organization where he doesn't carry the weight of the 2008 draft spot/Golden Spikes Award and 2009 rookie season around with him. Too much water under the bridge with believing in him, only to end up disappointed over and over and over again (yet we never learn our lesson). It shouldn't matter what anyone in Charlotte does but other organisations seem to benefit from having options and some decent AAA players. If you look at the other franchises out there such as the Scrubs, the Mets, the Red Sox and the Yankees. Every one of these teams has rookies with options to go with their veterans, they have a balance and a mix. We don't, so when things go bad and you need to make a move to bring up a guy to freshen up the line up, we can't do it without eating money or sticking someone on the DL. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 15, 2015 -> 02:32 PM) What they REALLY need to do is move on from Ramirez (it's already one year too late), DFA Bonifacio (which they won't do, they'll desperately attempt to get something back for him in July or August)...and give up on Beckham. Conor can go back to playing most of the time at 3B until they find an everyday replacement at that position and SS with projected trades of Samardzija, Ramirez, maybe Quintana and Putnam/Petricka/Duke (if anyone will bite) This, I agree with this. Ramirez should have went last year when his stock was high, we should never have signed Boneyfishio and although it was nice to see Beckham hit well for a few weeks, it looks like he's back to his old ways. I think once this losing streak is out of the way (and I reckon it could go beyond the Rangers series) and we are over 10 games out of the lead, then I think you'll see Shark, Ramirez and anyone else we think we can get value for traded (especially bullpen pieces) You also neglected to mention that we should have DFA'd Noesi who has been much poorer than Carroll in the long-relief role.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 15, 2015 -> 12:54 PM) You forgot to add poor base running. And, let's face it, Game 2 was as much or more about Alexei Ramirez not making two plays he normally makes in his sleep. To put that loss/blown save on Putnam and Petricka isn't really accurate. Unfortunately, we aren't benching Gordon Beckham, Tyler Flowers and Alexei Ramirez. While Gordon finally broke his 0/25 slide, he also committed an error. This is merely things evening out again, it's baseball. We just went 5-1 against a first place team in the Houston Astros. We could play them 25 times in six game sets and probably would go 5-1 only once or twice. Remember, we had 4-5 huge comeback wins early in the season that didn't fit with our pythagorean numbers, suggesting our "real" record should actually be the worst in the American League. The fact is, even with Abreu, LaRoche, Melky, Avisail and Eaton, we're on a pace to score less runs than the horrendous 2013 team. That takes some doing. I was going to mention poor base running but the Tampa Bay base running was as bad as ours. As for Game 2, yes there was some defensive issues, but neither Putnam nor Petricka could complete the three outs. Samardzija had worked his way out a few jams for the previous 7 innings. It was 3 outs and we get to D-Rob and they couldn't get them. I agree that we aren't benching Beckham, Flowers and Ramirez but we're also not benching La Roche and Sanchez's offense has just disappeared. Outwith Abreu and Garcia, we have nothing. Boneyfishio sits on his hands most games and when he does come in, he grounds out. Soto doesn't hit much better than Flowers and when Gillaspie does pull a pinch hit home run, rather than stick with the hot bat, we bring in a cold bat. I'm frustrated because I see three games that we should have won and instead of winning them and sweeping the Rays, we're 0-3 and facing a very hot Pirates team after another frustrating series. Part of the issue is the lack of flexibilty, we have Beckham and Boneyfishio on contracts without options, most other teams would have rookies with options who they could option down and replace them if they are struggling. If we want to freshen up our line up, we can only option down Sanchez or a pen arm or eat the money for Beckham, Soto, Flowers, Bonafacio or anyone else who is struggling, which means that the guys hitting in Charlotte can get as hot as they want, they know that barring injury, they are going nowhere.

QUOTE (harkness @ Jun 14, 2015 -> 09:47 PM) You can say whatever the F*** you want... but when we win 3 in a row and then the manager takes 3 games off and we lose them all. It doesn't look good... makes the white sox look like a joke... Am I saying it would have mattered if Robin was here? Nah I'm not making that conclusion But boy does it look bad now. We lost each game due to the 3 reasons that we've sucked this season. We lost Game 1 due to the Defense. We lost Game 2 due to the Bullpen. We lost Game 3 due to the Putrid Offense. All 3 of those games we could have won. All three of these games we blew due to these areas. If the defense has supported Danks properly then we'd have won game one. If Putnam and Petricka could have just gotten 3 outs, we'd have won Game 2 and if the Offense could have hit a single with any of the numerous runners in scoring position in Game 3, we'd have won that one. The Parent call on Eaton worked as he went on a tear when he was used after the benching. Now they need to do the same with Ramirez and they need to stop messing about with the pen.

QUOTE (Yoda @ Jun 13, 2015 -> 08:51 PM) Archer has surrendered just one run in the last 25 innings. Shark and his struggles in the 1st inning to go along with our offensive struggles...this game may have been over before it even started. Thats what the Astros fans thought last night before facing King Felix and look what happened last night

QUOTE (LDF @ Jun 2, 2015 -> 02:32 PM) while you are pointing June as the tell tale month, i will say this, this team with the players on it, can rattle of a nice winning streak and catch many team unaware. this team, in my gut can put a quick set of number quickly. so for me, i will wait until the ASG weekend. maybe it me being a die hard fan the its not over until mathematically proven. I agree that I think this set of players can do this. But whilst treading .500 if we have another 2-10 or 3-10 streak in June like we have done for the last couple of years, then the effectiveness of when they do rattle off this winning streak could get reduced. I think the signs are there for us to go on that streak, La Roche is starting to hit, Eaton is starting to hit, Sale and Samardzija are finding their groove and even Johnny Danks pitched a complete game shut-out. We've even seen teams like the A's and the Astros gift us outs with poor baserunning. I just thought I'd put out there that we've been in similar positions the last two years and found a way in June to kill the rest of the season.

As bad as we've been and we've been bad from the bad base-running to the bad infield defence to the bad hitting and the bad catchers, the strange thing is that we're only 3 games off .500, 3.5 games off the Wild Card and 7 games off the division lead. This is doable. All it takes is for the players to tighten up, two or three of the hitters to start to find their bat again, a few series wins and we're there. We've already beaten the Astros and the A's on the road, so we see how this team can perform and so far against the terrible AL East, we've only played the Orioles and the Blue Jays on the road. The last couple of season's, it was June that defined our season. Last season we had a series of games where we went 0-3 to the Royals, 1-1 against the Giants, 0-4 to the Twins, 1-2 to the Orioles. 2-10 in the space of 14 days and we never recovered from it. We were treading water around .500 before that happened. The season before last week in May and Early June it was 0-3 to the Cubs, 0-3 to the A's, 1-2 to the Mariners, 2-2 against the A's. 3-10 in the space of 14 days and we never recovered from it. We were treading water around .500 before that happened. This season if we can stay around .500 in June, we can push on after the All-Star break but the fear is that another collapse similar to the last two seasons would kill us.

Scott Carroll gets optioned to AAA Unlucky for him, I thought he'd pitched well in the long relief role, I guess that role is Noesi's now.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2015 -> 03:17 PM) That means a roster move is needed to make room for Chris Beck starting game 2. Avi to DL? Conor to DL? Carroll to AAA? Avi to the DL would be the logical move. Although it could be Conor as he is also not in today's lineup and hasn't been for the Toronto Series either. Rodon has options, so it could be that Rodon is optioned to AAA and then recalled once Beck is optioned back to AAA. Or we could be DFA'ing away Noesi or trading Danks.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 28, 2015 -> 01:11 AM) Robertson pro-positioned by Shark, blows save but bravely Venturas into uncharted multiple inning waters. Sounds like some weird engagement reading that. So from that headline, Robertson is marrying a shark, they get into some weird sex games and then head off to sea to celebrate.

I'd like us to try and break out of this by using our utility guys and try and manufacture runs and use the speed that we have. (not drugs) With Avi looking as if he might hit the DL and everyone else struggling, I'd go for a new approach and look for the Could Go Sox 2015. Line Up Eaton L - CF Sanchez S - SS Abreu R - 1B Gillaspie L - DH Cabrera S LF Soto R - C Shuck L - RF Bonafacio S - 2B Beckham R - 3B Bench T-Flo - R La Roche - L Alexei - R You have some speed and the ability to to eek out bunts and infield hits for Eatonb and Sanchez. Sanchez's defence at SS can't be any worse than Lexi's has. You have Abreu, Gillaspie and Cabrera, whose job is to simply get on base and move the runners over. You have Shuck whose job is not to strike out and then you would have Shuck, Boney and Beckham who could all use their speed and ability to get base hits whilst sitting the three coldest bats in baseball. You could bring on La Roche as a Pinch Hitter or Lexi as a pinch runner. Its not ideal but without calling anyone up, it can't be any worse than the rot we're watching just now.

This is awful.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 23, 2015 -> 11:26 PM) Great final 5 innings from Sale Indeed it was. 11 strikeouts for Sale and he's just not had the run support tonight.