Fulmer sent to Charlotte

[caulfield12]

1 minute ago, soxforlife05 said:

Or the player has consistency issues with mechanics? A lot of the fans are idiots. They've never been fans through a rebuild so all they do is crucify players who are learning a major league approach to the game. They think the young superstars they hear about on ESPN grow on trees. The leap from college to the pros is bigger in baseball than in any other sport.

 

I won't be holding my breath. I don't think he will ever have a place on a contending roster. I'd love to be surprised. Fulmer on the other hand is capable of that, with time of course.

Personally, I think the successes of Sale and Q made things look TOO EASY.

The Sox used to be very fortunate in this area.  At any rate, we really need Rodon to return to form or for one of the youngsters like Kopech to lead and for everyone else to get in line and follow.

That’s what happened with the Braves back in the day...Glavine, Smoltz and Avery had their struggles, but then they figured things out and that got the ball rolling towards perennial playoff contention.   Granted, those are two HoF pitchers in the same rotation.   The closest we have in our Sox lifetimes are Buehrle and Sale, with just a tiny overlap.

[soxforlife05]

13 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Personally, I think the successes of Sale and Q made things look TOO EASY.

The Sox used to be very fortunate in this area.  At any rate, we really need Rodon to return to form or for one of the youngsters like Kopech to lead and for everyone else to get in line and follow.

That’s what happened with the Braves back in the day...Glavine, Smoltz and Avery had their struggles, but then they figured things out and that got the ball rolling towards perennial playoff contention.   Granted, those are two HoF pitchers in the same rotation.   The closest we have in our Sox lifetimes are Buehrle and Sale, with just a tiny overlap.

I don't see the rotation being the problem in the coming years. If we take a pitcher in the 1st round this year we may not need to sign any FA SP's once we hit our window. Left side of the infield and whether Zavala/Collins can stick at catcher are the only question marks in my mind. I think we can fill almost everything else within the system as it stands now. I would be taking a shortstop or a SP with our first round pick this year and next year. Then try to bring in Arenado and a couple elite bullpen guys. Not convinced we can get Machado even if we offer the most $$.

Edited May 19, 2018 by soxforlife05

[Heads22]

Man, his postgame interview was tough to watch. Trying to hold off the tears.

[TaylorStSox]

5 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

I’ve never seen a pitching coach criticizing the fans that pay his salary more than Don Cooper.

Who is it?  

Either our talent evaluation/projection sucks...or Cooper is not getting his message through, or a combination thereof.

Besides, Greg has plenty of likes.  But you’d have to be a complete idiot to see our vocabulary, religious beliefs, taste in movies or politics/doomsday scenarios shares absolutely no commonalities.

It will also be pretty hard to pull off since we live 13 hours apart, he in KS, myself in China.  Oh, and I never have referred to myself in the 3rd person, like Dole, Trump and Greg.

Okay, so if a pitching coach doesn't have a 100% success rate, he's ineffective? WTF? You know, you don't need to draw absolutes from every instance. 

[caulfield12]

8 minutes ago, TaylorStSox said:

Okay, so if a pitching coach doesn't have a 100% success rate, he's ineffective? WTF? You know, you don't need to draw absolutes from every instance. 

So that statement I made automatically means he’s “ineffective,” or maybe it is simply that he’s just living off the reputation that he developed mostly from the 2003-2012 teams?

Based on the last 5-6 years, what evidence can be presented that he’s one of the best pitching coaches in the game (still)?

Maybe there’s no point in questioning any coaches or talent developers until after the end of the 2020 season I guess.   And I don’t remember saying that 100% of the pitchers will make it...I’ve consistently maintained 30-40% would be a relatively high success rate (of the better pitching prospects).

Edited May 20, 2018 by caulfield12

[TaylorStSox]

4 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

So that statement I made automatically means he’s “ineffective,” or maybe it is simply that he’s just living off the reputation that he developed mostly from the 2003-2012 teams?

Based on the last 5-6 years, what evidence can be presented that he’s one of the best pitching coaches in the game (still)?

Maybe there’s no point in questioning any coaches or talent developers until after the end of the 2020 season I guess.   And I don’t remember saying that 100% of the pitchers will make it...I’ve consistently maintained 30-40% would be a relatively high success rate (of the better pitching prospects).

Again, you draw some really strange conclusions. I don't really care to debate the effectiveness of Don Cooper as a coach because Carson Fulmer can't throw strikes and Carlos Rodon hurt his shoulder. 

[caulfield12]

6 minutes ago, TaylorStSox said:

Again, you draw some really strange conclusions. I don't really care to debate the effectiveness of Don Cooper as a coach because Carson Fulmer can't throw strikes and Carlos Rodon hurt his shoulder. 

So what should we judge his effectiveness on then?

Neither the scouts that drafted him nor the coaches who work with Fulmer...it’s just “bad luck” that projections haven’t matched up with reality?

We heard the story over and over again how he took Matt Thornton and “fixed him” after one day (actually knew the fix that was needed before they traded Borchard to get him)...but we haven’t “fixed” many pitchers recently.   The only examples that Sox fans can point to are Swarzak and Kahnle in the last few years, basically.

So we fall back to the old argument that the talent level is just bad...which somehow isn’t blamed on the front office or scouting staff and the conversation just goes around and around in circles and we end up with the same owner, same GM’s, (and usually the) same coaches year after year.

Edited May 20, 2018 by caulfield12

[GreenSox]

15 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Based on the last 5-6 years, what evidence can be presented that he’s one of the best pitching coaches in the game (still)?

 

Not much that I see.
I hope Fulmer can get can some work with Zaleski - he fixed Fry.

Edited May 20, 2018 by GreenSox

[ptatc]

22 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

So that statement I made automatically means he’s “ineffective,” or maybe it is simply that he’s just living off the reputation that he developed mostly from the 2003-2012 teams?

Based on the last 5-6 years, what evidence can be presented that he’s one of the best pitching coaches in the game (still)?

Maybe there’s no point in questioning any coaches or talent developers until after the end of the 2020 season I guess.   And I don’t remember saying that 100% of the pitchers will make it...I’ve consistently maintained 30-40% would be a relatively high success rate (of the better pitching prospects).

Kahnle, Clippard, Gonzalez, and Swarzak just from last year. All had good enough years to get traded.

[Buehrle>Wood]

Anyone want to guess the largest starting pitching contract we've given out in Don Coopers tenure?

[Heads22]

5 minutes ago, Buehrle>Wood said:

Anyone want to guess the largest starting pitching contract we've given out in Don Coopers tenure?

I feel like Buehrle's deal is probably up there.

 

[Buehrle>Wood]

1 minute ago, Tony said:

I believe it’s Holland.

Yep. In 16 seasons Cooper has been here, the largest free agent starting pitching contract we've given out is 1 year 6 million for Derek Holland.

There's been large extensions, but credit those to Cooper for putting those pitchers in line to succeed. 

The Sox do not give a lot to Cooper to work with at all. Every year hes turning out his miracles, and even this year that may happen with a couple guys in the pen. 

[Dick Allen]

3 minutes ago, Buehrle>Wood said:

Yep. In 16 seasons Cooper has been here, the largest free agent starting pitching contract we've given out is 1 year 6 million for Derek Holland.

There's been large extensions, but credit those to Cooper for putting those pitchers in line to succeed. 

The Sox do not give a lot to Cooper to work with at all. Every year hes turning out his miracles, and even this year that may happen with a couple guys in the pen. 

They have given him plenty to work with. They traded  for Danks, Garcia, Garland, Peavy, Vazquez, Colon.  Drafted Bepuehrle and Sale, acquires Quintana.

They don’t sign big name free agent staring pitchers, because at one time they wouldn’t go more than 3 years, but to say he hasn’t had anything to work with because of it is not accurate.

[Buehrle>Wood]

2 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

They have given him plenty to work with. They traded  for Danks, Garcia, Garland, Peavy, Vazquez, Colon.  Drafted Bepuehrle and Sale, acquires Quintana.

They don’t sign big name free agent staring pitchers, because at one time they wouldn’t go more than 3 years, but to say he hasn’t had anything to work with because of it is not accurate.

They traded for Garland 4 years before Cooper took over as pitching coach. Mark Buehrle was drafted in the 38th round, also 4 years before Cooper took over. They both greatly succeeded under Cooper though.

 

Ignoring Quintana, (I'm not going to define that a minor league free agent was acquired as major help), the last person acquired via trade or free agency on that list was Jake Peavy 9 years ago. So yeah, I think that adds to the point.

[Jake]

56 minutes ago, Buehrle>Wood said:

Yep. In 16 seasons Cooper has been here, the largest free agent starting pitching contract we've given out is 1 year 6 million for Derek Holland.

There's been large extensions, but credit those to Cooper for putting those pitchers in line to succeed. 

The Sox do not give a lot to Cooper to work with at all. Every year hes turning out his miracles, and even this year that may happen with a couple guys in the pen. 

I'll take this opportunity to re-post this:

Sox pitching staff MLB rank by WAR and RA9-WAR:

2002: 16 / 15

2003: 5 / 5

2004: 18 / 15

2005: 1 / 1

2006: 4 / 8

2007: 9 / 18

2008: 1 / 6

2009: 4 / 7

2010: 1 / 10

2011: 2 / 8

2012: 12 / 6

2013: 16 / 18

2014: 25 / 25

2015: 9 / 16

2016: 13 / 11

2017: 29 / 23

There certainly isn't much *under*achievement in there.

Combined, the Sox are 3rd in MLB in fWAR (7th in RA9-WAR) since Coop took over. While maybe the bit about free agent acquisitions doesn't tell the whole story, I don't think the Sox have had anything like the 3rd most talent over that time.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Jake

[caulfield12]

If you look at how much we spent on our 2006 rotation, it was the most expensive in the majors at that time with Garcia, Contreras, Buehrle, Javy and Garland.

We also developed (and traded) Gio/Hudson/McCarthy.

Traded for Danks and Floyd, although you can certainly put Gavin into “Cooper’s success” checklist, overall.

Spent a ton of money adding Linebrink and Dotel to limited success.

In general, our set guys and closers have been mostly inexpensive guys like Jenks, Sergio Santos, Howry/Foulke, Marte, Thornton, Crain, etc., that were acquired cheaply, with the two exceptions above and Robertson.   Besides Sale and Buehrle, if there’s ONE area he has done extremely well (other than years like 2007 when we threw a bunch of garbage at the wall and hoped some would stick), it’s the bullpen.

2003-2012, there’s no doubt that Cooper was one of the best.

The question is how “great” he has been since 2013, and how much of it is just lack of talent.   That 2012 team used what, about 12-13 rookies (mostly in the bullpen, along with Q) and somehow hung in there with the Tigers until the final two weeks.

Recently, it’s a story of health struggles like Danks and Rodon (obviously we let Buehrle walk due to cost)...discovering Q...and trying to make water out of wine from 2013-2018.   Before, you could easily argue he was a Top 5 pitching coach (based on criteria like that listed above), right now it’s very difficult to say how effective he is based on a lot of factors that are out of control, such as Rodon’s health and Fulmer’s mechanics and Giolito’s “missing stuff.”   For example, I don’t know if anyone made a mistake letting Junior Guerra go and not noticing his potential, but that happens with every organization from time to time (now we can give unlimited starting time for 1 1/2 years to nearly anyone, we weren’t in that position previously).

[Dick Allen]

Payroll has something to do with it, but the White Sox have focus more on pitching as an organization for a long time. Maybe that has recently changed.

 

One  thing I did notice, when Ozzie was here, the White Sox has an above average MLB payroll every season. Since, even when signing free agents and “going for it”, their payroll has been above average once, in 2013 when they lost 99 games.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Dick Allen

[GreenSox]

On 5/19/2018 at 8:27 AM, Dick Allen said:

Maybe so, but he is nowhere near the zone. Division 1 hitters aren’t major leaguers, but would have no problem laying off his offerings now. Something has gone totally south with him. Hopefully it is just confidence, but the more he performs like he is performing the lesser it appears there is a decent chance at recovery.

I went back and looked at some of his college video, and you are correct.  His delivery is much more herky-jerky now than it was then; and he didn't do the glove pump in the middle of his windup like he does now.  How/why in the world did he start doing that?

Edited May 20, 2018 by GreenSox

[Lip Man 1]

Speaking of Fulmer, this is a bizarre line tonight for him in Charlotte:

5IP, 6BB, 5Ks, only 1 ER.

 

[Ducksnort]

7 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Speaking of Fulmer, this is a bizarre line tonight for him in Charlotte:

5IP, 6BB, 5Ks, only 1 ER.

 

There's the difference between AAA hitters and mlb hitters...you can't get away with those walks in the mlb. He needs to figure out his control. That is his main issue.

[southsider2k5]

39 minutes ago, Scoots said:

There's the difference between AAA hitters and mlb hitters...you can't get away with those walks in the mlb. He needs to figure out his control. That is his main issue.

Exactly. 

[SoxAce]

8 hours ago, Scoots said:

There's the difference between AAA hitters and mlb hitters...you can't get away with those walks in the mlb. He needs to figure out his control. That is his main issue.

Don't tell a certain poster that though.. ☺