Anyone Remember Much about the 2000 White Sox?

[Chisoxfn]

On 7/8/2020 at 7:37 PM, Soxbadger said:

Not sure if the memory is accurate but I remember the Sox had a bunch of day games in the playoffs and their splits stats for hitting were much better at night.

Im not going to look it up because its a sad memory.

This is exactly what happened.  The Sox were a bad day team and they were stuck quite often in a really bad environment for a team driven by its offense.  I remember my heart sunk when Keith Foulke blew the one game they were winning. I was hoping that would turn the momentum the Sox way but no go.  

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

17 hours ago, NWINFan said:

For a time, it looked like this team was going to the Series. In mid-June, they had a seven game road trip when they first went to Cleveland and then New York. The Sox won all seven. They returned home to a crowd of over 40,000. But came the deflating playoffs. 

Big blowhard David Wells came the next year and things went south. 2001 was nothing but a bad memory. It was great when Iguchi homered off of fat ass Wells in the '05 playoffs.

No one's mentioned it but Wells pissed us all off by suggesting Big Frank was a big baby by not playing through injury. Then a few days after all that Thomas's father died after a long illness so he was dealing with that too.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/news/2001/0504/1191141.html

It was shortly after that when Frank got shut down for the rest of the season.

https://tht.fangraphs.com/tht-live/10th-anniversary-of-david-wells-most-asinine-moment-5-3-11/

Edited July 10, 2020 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[palehose1]

I remember the slogan for 1999 and into the 2000 season was "The Kids can Play". The 2000 season was a surprising, fun team to watch after the disappointing seasons of 1994 (strike) through 1999. All the young talent started to come together- Carlos Lee, Magglio, Chris Singleton, Konerko, Buehrle, etc. Some of that group would comprise the core of the 2005 Championship team

Frank Thomas had an MVP season but was robbed of the award by steroid boy Giambi.

I also remember Lou Pinella, Seattle Manager, absolutely schooling Jerry Manuel in the playoffs. It was like a man fighting a boy.

 

[NWINFan]

6 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

No one's mentioned it but Wells pissed us all off by suggesting Big Frank was a big baby by not playing through injury. Then a few days after all that Thomas's father died after a long illness so he was dealing with that too.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/news/2001/0504/1191141.html

It was shortly after that when Frank got shut down for the rest of the season.

https://tht.fangraphs.com/tht-live/10th-anniversary-of-david-wells-most-asinine-moment-5-3-11/

Not to mention that Wells hurt his back and missed a great deal of the season himself. Wells came here thinking he was a godsend before he threw even one pitch for the team. Maybe he wouldn't have hurt his back if he wasn't such a out-of-shape fat ass. Even with the Sirotka stuff, this was a horrible trade for a horrible individual.

[Chicago White Sox]

11 hours ago, bmags said:

Hard to overemphasize how important stuff like this was to teenage me.

 

What a fucking amazing moment.

[IWokeUpLikeThis]

Wouldn’t Hawk always take shots at Manuel’s playoff management whenever the 2000 team would come up in subsequent years?

I vaguely remember a newspaper cover depicting Kenny as a cheater after the Sirotka trade. Kind of amazing he got away with that. 

[ChiSox1917]

Loved that team but never thought they were a legit contender. Their pitching staff was weak and we just got lucky they all had career years.  

[Soxsi75]

3 hours ago, ChiSox1917 said:

Loved that team but never thought they were a legit contender. Their pitching staff was weak and we just got lucky they all had career years.  

You are completely incorrect, however everyone is entitled to their opinion. 

[ChiSox1917]

On 7/11/2020 at 2:49 PM, Soxsi75 said:

You are completely incorrect, however everyone is entitled to their opinion. 

What pitcher on that staff didn’t have their career year in 2000?  Baldwin, sirotka, and parque just weren’t that talented.

[Soxsi75]

1 hour ago, ChiSox1917 said:

What pitcher on that staff didn’t have their career year in 2000?  Baldwin, sirotka, and parque just weren’t that talented.

Well, two things. One I misunderstood you. You wrote "Their pitching staff was weak and we just got lucky they all had career years." Because you said "and" after you said the pitching staff was weak, made me believe you meant you had finished your thoughts about the pitchers and had moved on to other thoughts, and therefore when you said "careers years" I thought you were referring to our hitters. And saying they all had career years IS completely incorrect. So if that's not what you meant, then my bad if I interpreted it wrong. 

And second, those pitchers ALL got hurt. So yeah, I guess you could say they had "career years" but they never had a chance to prove themselves any further. Sirotka never pitched again because of his injury. Baldwin and Parque both never recovered from their injuries either and weren't effective again. So we'll never be able to know how good they could have been.  Now did any of them have overpowering, lights out stuff? No, I'm not saying that. But they were all serviceable major league starters. And so let's compare them to our competition from that era, that Twin staff. Baldwin and Parque both had just as much stuff as Kyle Lohse or Joe Mays.  And Sirotka knew how to pitch. He pitched inside, changed speeds and threw strikes. So if he hadn't gotten hurt, he most certainly could have been a left-handed Brad Radtke. And the Twins won multiple division titles with guys like that in their rotation and our offense was FAR superior to there's.  

It's too easy to look at what happened afterwards to these guys, meaning they were never effective again, and say they weren't that good. They all got hurt. 

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Soxsi75

[GreenSox]

I remember 2000 as a blast, sort of out of nowhere, of which the prospects totally changed when we dumped Navarro for 2 productive players right before spring training.

It was also my first year on message boards and my introduction to message boards.  In what I thought was a ridiculous thread on some Sox board, I posted something like 'Yall are acting like a bunch of 13 year olds,"  to which I received a series of replies along the lines of "what's wrong with being 13?"   Sometimes one forgets... 

 

[Richie]

On 7/12/2020 at 10:39 PM, Soxsi75 said:

Well, two things. One I misunderstood you. You wrote "Their pitching staff was weak and we just got lucky they all had career years." Because you said "and" after you said the pitching staff was weak, made me believe you meant you had finished your thoughts about the pitchers and had moved on to other thoughts, and therefore when you said "careers years" I thought you were referring to our hitters. And saying they all had career years IS completely incorrect. So if that's not what you meant, then my bad if I interpreted it wrong. 

And second, those pitchers ALL got hurt. So yeah, I guess you could say they had "career years" but they never had a chance to prove themselves any further. Sirotka never pitched again because of his injury. Baldwin and Parque both never recovered from their injuries either and weren't effective again. So we'll never be able to know how good they could have been.  Now did any of them have overpowering, lights out stuff? No, I'm not saying that. But they were all serviceable major league starters. And so let's compare them to our competition from that era, that Twin staff. Baldwin and Parque both had just as much stuff as Kyle Lohse or Joe Mays.  And Sirotka knew how to pitch. He pitched inside, changed speeds and threw strikes. So if he hadn't gotten hurt, he most certainly could have been a left-handed Brad Radtke. And the Twins won multiple division titles with guys like that in their rotation and our offense was FAR superior to there's.  

It's too easy to look at what happened afterwards to these guys, meaning they were never effective again, and say they weren't that good. They all got hurt. 

 

I mean, none of them were very good BEFORE 2000 and Parque was the youngest at 25. Had two full seasons under his belt. The rest were 29 or older. It's not like these were kids who had their careers taken away after a promising start in the 2000 season. 

That starting staff wasn't good. He makes some very real points. I mean, league average ERA in 2000 was 4.77. The White Sox staff was 4.66. Even in career years, that rotation was quite unimpressive. 

[flavum]

Mark Buehrle made his major league debut 20 years ago today. You can watch his first inning (9th inning) on the Sox YouTube page. 

[Soxsi75]

On 7/15/2020 at 9:00 AM, Richie said:

I mean, none of them were very good BEFORE 2000 and Parque was the youngest at 25. Had two full seasons under his belt. The rest were 29 or older. It's not like these were kids who had their careers taken away after a promising start in the 2000 season. 

That starting staff wasn't good. He makes some very real points. I mean, league average ERA in 2000 was 4.77. The White Sox staff was 4.66. Even in career years, that rotation was quite unimpressive. 

Sometimes it takes pitchers longer to develop. Sirotka and Parque were only in their 3rd full seasons in 2000, so actually they were still young and early in their careers. Sirotka, because as I said, threw inside, changed speeds and threw strikes, I do think he found it that year. Baldwin.....he had been around a while longer so your argument best fits him, I'll admit. Best way I can describe him as very hot and cold. Almost even to the point of being a head case. He could be lights out for half a season and absolutely brutal the other half. 

And by the way, for the record, the league average ERA in 2000 was 4.91 not 4.77. 

I'm not saying this was a "lights out" staff. But they were serviceable enough if healthy. And what about their bullpen? With Foulke, Howry, Simas and Wunsch they had the DEEPEST bullpen in the AL that year. 

 

[Kyyle23]

49 minutes ago, Soxsi75 said:

Sometimes it takes pitchers longer to develop. Sirotka and Parque were only in their 3rd full seasons in 2000, so actually they were still young and early in their careers. Sirotka, because as I said, threw inside, changed speeds and threw strikes, I do think he found it that year. Baldwin.....he had been around a while longer so your argument best fits him, I'll admit. Best way I can describe him as very hot and cold. Almost even to the point of being a head case. He could be lights out for half a season and absolutely brutal the other half. 

And by the way, for the record, the league average ERA in 2000 was 4.91 not 4.77. 

I'm not saying this was a "lights out" staff. But they were serviceable enough if healthy. And what about their bullpen? With Foulke, Howry, Simas and Wunsch they had the DEEPEST bullpen in the AL that year. 

 

Nah man, this is revisionist.  They were good but even Seattle was better with Sasaki, Rhodes, Paniagua, and Jose Mesa.

but let's be real, the Yankees were running prime Rivera out there along with Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton, Randy Choate, Jason Grimsley, Ramiro Mendoza etc.  hell, they had guys like Dwight Golden, Denny Neagle and Ted Lilly and Jake Westbrook just hanging around in case they needed them

they were really fun that season but they ran out of gas and Starting pitching injuries killed them.

[Soxsi75]

5 hours ago, Kyyle23 said:

Nah man, this is revisionist.  They were good but even Seattle was better with Sasaki, Rhodes, Paniagua, and Jose Mesa.

but let's be real, the Yankees were running prime Rivera out there along with Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton, Randy Choate, Jason Grimsley, Ramiro Mendoza etc.  hell, they had guys like Dwight Golden, Denny Neagle and Ted Lilly and Jake Westbrook just hanging around in case they needed them

they were really fun that season but they ran out of gas and Starting pitching injuries killed them.

OK, fair enough. THAT YEAR ONLY I think it was the deepest, but over the course of their careers of everyone you mentioned, you're right about NY and Seattle. 

Edited July 18, 2020 by Soxsi75

[The Grinder]

After 20 yrs so much memory is lost but didnt Jose V such a strong arm and great range it actually worked against him, as in he could get to any ball hit between 2nd and 3rd, the problem is he would fire the ball over to first base and nail the runner or hit the guy sitting behind the dugout in the 1st row???

[KillahPriest]

Had a lot of fun watching this team, from the brawl with Detroit to the 7 game sweep of NYY & CLE, it was the first time in my White Sox fandom that they were actually good.  The trade for Charles Johnson was a head scratcher at first, but damn was he AMAZING in his stint with the Sox.  It really goes under the radar how good he was.  I see a lot of people talking about the pitching, but lets be honest, the only way they were going to win anything was by hitting.  Unfortunately, against the Mariners, they failed miserably at that and that was that.  Off season brought in that idiot Wells, Clayton(unnecessary, but I do remember a ton of fans/media complaining about Valentin's errors), Alomar and it just never clicked.  Started off 2001 like shit through May, but after that were solid. 

I hated Wells so much that one of my favorite memories of the 05' Sox WS team will forever be Iguchi hitting a grand slam off that crumb!