My stupid but short rant to someone about the 2006 Chicago White Sox with no exact conclusion

[bobbydanks]

i did some accidental research while looking up why morneau won the mvp in 2006 (when they went on a historical run due to him and the white sox a decent collapse) and something that stuck out because the white sox have used almost a historical number of starting lineups and pitchers and etc. this year

in 2006 after the world series they only used 37 different starters including pitchers and the league average was 44 and the second closest was 42
outside of garcia/garland/buehrle/vaqzuez/contreras only two other pitchers started games
and they pitched 2 and 1 games respectively, brandon mccarthy and charlie haegar (this is is the most insane stat imo that no one got hurt) 
and all of them had mid 4 ERAs
while the offense was mashing
still never gave any rest to any of the starters
juan uribe played the least amount of games in 2016 at 132
out of regular starters

4 of our 4 highest played bench players batted between 280 and 330

so is it possible ozzie ran the same group to the ground after the championship and all those extra games and wear and tear of winning the championship?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/2006.shtml

I just thought it was an interesting enough distraction to think about from the rest of this season and recent past and also a bit of odd statistical hindsight on what we thought would be a power house. Having five starters start all of your games with extensive innings seems insane in retrospect and having 4 guys off the bench batting high enough to start for most teams but barely getting playing time or traded for a championship caliber team is also worth talking about. 

I was sure that team was going to win 164 games. If I was off on any statistics feel free to correct me I just was kinda amazed by the topic matter, this was also a year when almost everyone in the ALC had 3-4 mvp candidates but I digress. 

That was a hard year but a weird one too. 

 

[WhiteSox2023]

I couldn’t read through your entire drunk post but I do remember thinking that the 2006 team was way better than the 2005 team and would easily make it to the playoffs.  They ended up with a good record (90 wins?) but the division magically improved that year.  They should have been a WC team at the very least but they missed out.

[bobbydanks]

1 hour ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

I couldn’t read through your entire drunk post but I do remember thinking that the 2006 team was way better than the 2005 team and would easily make it to the playoffs.  They ended up with a good record (90 wins?) but the division magically improved that year.  They should have been a WC team at the very least but they missed out.

well i'm glad you had those other 3000 posts of "this team is poopy" on your record instead of reading like 40 words 

[Falstaff]

2005 had the magical bullpen season with Cotts, Politte, Vizcaino, Marte, and then 3 closers starting off with Shingo then Hermanson and then Jenks. 

Politte and Cotts were lights out. 

2006 added Thome which was huge but CF became a hole with Anderson not panning out.  The 2006 starting pitching and bullpen had a big drop off from 2005.

Only the White Sox would have a gong sound when Shingo came in from the bullpen. Shingo was Japanese not Chinese. 

[WestEddy]

Were you drunk? Your post was good. Thanks for it. 

Greg Maddux talked a lot about the grueling nature of that extra couple of weeks tacked onto the end of a season. It really wears on these guys. Statistical reporting often pointed out the White Sox' propensity to keep their starters on the field, which is a good thing. That didn't seem to end careers of the stars, prematurely. Crede crashed and burned, and Rowand fell of the table abruptly. 

I look at the drafts of the late 90s/early aughts. They were terrible, and the first rounders were snake-bitten. Stumm, Ginter, Honel. They made such a big deal about Kip Wells, and he was...just okay. They just weren't able to establish any reliable wave of talent. 

[Nardiwashere]

8 hours ago, bobbydanks said:

outside of garcia/garland/buehrle/vaqzuez/contreras only two other pitchers started games
and they pitched 2 and 1 games respectively, brandon mccarthy and charlie haegar (this is is the most insane stat imo that no one got hurt) 

 

This is so nuts to see... this year especially. 

[chitownsportsfan]

That team regressed hard on the pitching side. Adding Thome was good and they did win 90 just a bit of bad luck whereas in 2005 they had all the luck in addition to being a solid squad.

[Lip Man 1]

You wonder if starting Brandon McCarthy to the rotation to take some of the load off the regular starters would have made a difference.

I remember reading how it was suggested but I don't think Ozzie was for it. 

[chw42]

5 hours ago, Falstaff said:

2005 had the magical bullpen season with Cotts, Politte, Vizcaino, Marte, and then 3 closers starting off with Shingo then Hermanson and then Jenks. 

Politte and Cotts were lights out. 

2006 added Thome which was huge but CF became a hole with Anderson not panning out.  The 2006 starting pitching and bullpen had a big drop off from 2005.

Only the White Sox would have a gong sound when Shingo came in from the bullpen. Shingo was Japanese not Chinese. 

The Japanese use gongs too, but this would definitely not fly today. Same with all the racist s%*# Cubs fans did for Fukudome. 

Edited June 7 by chw42

[Swingandalongonetoleft]

There was a point during the 2006 season that I was certain they would do no less than return to the World Series- it was after they swept the Cardinals. The Sox outscored StL 34-11 (20-6, 13-5, 1-0) and were more than 20 games over .500 after that series. St. Louis won their division with 83 games and went on to win the World Series, Sox made it to 90 wins...good enough to finish third in the division, 6 games out. 

[WhiteSox2023]

8 hours ago, bobbydanks said:

well i'm glad you had those other 3000 posts of "this team is poopy" on your record instead of reading like 40 words 

I was just joking.  The no punctuation was killing me.  You may be right.  But that team also got screwed by bad luck.  How often does 90 wins not win the division or WC?  I wonder what the stats are on that?

Edited June 7 by WhiteSox2023

[waltwilliams]

1 hour ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

I was just joking.  The no punctuation was killing me.  You may be right.  But that team also got screwed by bad luck.  How often does 90 wins not win the division or WC?  I wonder what the stats are on that?

They only had one wild card in 2006 -- the second was added in 2012, I believe. Sox would have made the playoffs with that second wild card in 2006. And I think they would have been really close in 2010 as well.

 

[Lip Man 1]

54 minutes ago, waltwilliams said:

They only had one wild card in 2006 -- the second was added in 2012, I believe. Sox would have made the playoffs with that second wild card in 2006. And I think they would have been really close in 2010 as well.

 

That's been the Sox history, they have good teams, like in the 50's and from 63-65, but no expanded playoffs. 

[bobbydanks]

On 6/7/2024 at 1:42 PM, WhiteSox2023 said:

I was just joking.  The no punctuation was killing me.  You may be right.  But that team also got screwed by bad luck.  How often does 90 wins not win the division or WC?  I wonder what the stats are on that?

not gonna lie i wrote most of that on notepad lol. and yes i was very drunk

[WhiteSox2023]

51 minutes ago, bobbydanks said:

not gonna lie i wrote most of that on notepad lol. and yes i was very drunk

Why do you think I knew?  I was too.  ?

Drunk posts are definitely better than drunk texts, especially to an ex-gf.  Those definitely aren’t fun to wake up and remember.

Edited June 11 by WhiteSox2023

[bmags]

Team was run into the ground because in typical white sox fashion, it's depth wasn't very good.

[WhiteSox2023]

10 minutes ago, bmags said:

Team was run into the ground because in typical white sox fashion, it's depth wasn't very good.

I still can’t be mad about it.  That 2006 offense was a monster and fun to watch.  The Sox had no minor league talent to sustain any sort of run after 2005 but that was a good follow-up season by Kenny Williams.

1st in MLB in team HR (236)

1st in MLB in team SLG (.464)

2nd in MLB in team RBI (839)

3rd in MLB in team Runs Scored (868)

3rd in MLB in team OPS (.806)

4th in MLB in team Hits (1,586)

5th in MLB in team AVG (.280)

8th in MLB in team OBP (.342)

Edited June 11 by WhiteSox2023

[Tony]

That team was defined by a few key things:

 

Neal Cotts 2005: 1.94 ERA in 60 IP

Neal Cotts 2006: 5.17 ERA in 54 IP

Cliff Politte 2005: 2.00 ERA in 67.1 IP

Cliff Politte 2006: 8.70 ERA in 30 IP

Mark Buehrle 2005: 3.12 ERA in 236 IP

Mark Buehrle 2006: 4.99 ERA in 204 IP

I specifically remember Buehrle in 2006 simply could not be counted on, it seemed like every time the Sox had a big game, he just s%*# the bed. That season was a pretty big outlier for him, and the workload from 2005 most likely played a big part in that. 

Cotts and Politte were so valuable for the Sox in 2005, and both were absolute trash for the Sox in 2006.

Those three guys having the seasons they did, IMO, cost the Sox the division.  

[soulfly]

One name.  Brian Anderson.  Keep Rowand on that team along with Big Frank and they are a better team.

[Tony]

39 minutes ago, soulfly said:

One name.  Brian Anderson.  Keep Rowand on that team along with Big Frank and they are a better team.

I don't really buy either of those. 

For one, at best, Brian Anderson and Aaron Rowand put up very similar defensive metrics in 2006 for their respective teams, and everyone agrees Brian Anderson had a good/great glove in CF. Offense wasn't the issue in 2006, it was the pitching staff and defense, specifically when Mackowiak was in CF. 

Second, Obviously at that point Frank was just a DH. 

Thomas in 2006: .270/.381/.545, .926 OPS with 39 HR's

Thome in 2006: .288/.416/.598, 1.014 OPS with 42 HR's, and provided much-needed balance in that lineup hitting from the left side. 

Thome/Rowand was a good move and still is today. Was pretty well documented Ozzie didn't like Anderson, but his bat wasn't hurting them with a stacked lineup around him. 

[chitownsportsfan]

29 minutes ago, Tony said:

I don't really buy either of those. 

For one, at best, Brian Anderson and Aaron Rowand put up very similar defensive metrics in 2006 for their respective teams, and everyone agrees Brian Anderson had a good/great glove in CF. Offense wasn't the issue in 2006, it was the pitching staff and defense, specifically when Mackowiak was in CF. 

Second, Obviously at that point Frank was just a DH. 

Thomas in 2006: .270/.381/.545, .926 OPS with 39 HR's

Thome in 2006: .288/.416/.598, 1.014 OPS with 42 HR's, and provided much-needed balance in that lineup hitting from the left side. 

Thome/Rowand was a good move and still is today. Was pretty well documented Ozzie didn't like Anderson, but his bat wasn't hurting them with a stacked lineup around him. 

The offense on that team was very good and borderline elite. Frank wouldn't have really helped. The pitching just regressed almost to a man and as was noted above it was one of MBs worst seasons. It seemed everytime we needed him to have a solid start he wasn't able to get it done, especially down the stretch.

[Stinky Stanky]

17 hours ago, soulfly said:

One name.  Brian Anderson.  Keep Rowand on that team along with Big Frank and they are a better team.

The difference was the pitching as it was the previous year. Lost their three best players and won it because of their pitching. (Frank, Maggs, Lee). It’s always the pitching. 

[soulfly]

22 hours ago, Tony said:

I don't really buy either of those. 

For one, at best, Brian Anderson and Aaron Rowand put up very similar defensive metrics in 2006 for their respective teams, and everyone agrees Brian Anderson had a good/great glove in CF. Offense wasn't the issue in 2006, it was the pitching staff and defense, specifically when Mackowiak was in CF. 

Second, Obviously at that point Frank was just a DH. 

Thomas in 2006: .270/.381/.545, .926 OPS with 39 HR's

Thome in 2006: .288/.416/.598, 1.014 OPS with 42 HR's, and provided much-needed balance in that lineup hitting from the left side. 

Thome/Rowand was a good move and still is today. Was pretty well documented Ozzie didn't like Anderson, but his bat wasn't hurting them with a stacked lineup around him. 

Rowand also got hurt that year smashing into a fence making a catch.  Why was Mackowiak in CF anyways?  Because the Sox traded their CF and Anderson sucked at the plate.  Sure, he glove was great, so was Rowands.  My point was, they created a hole to bring in Thome that could have still been filled by Big Franks production at the plate for the next two years. 

But yes, pitching was a big issue in 2006.  I remember sitting behind home plate that year and Mark Buehrle's wife was sitting next to me.  It was a week night game and if I remember correctly Mark had just pitched a few days before and got shelled.  Anyways, guess the fans at that game were pretty shitty and she couldn't believe how they reacted to him having another bad game.  You do wonder if they had given some of those guys more rest early in the year if that would have made any difference.

[bobbydanks]

On 6/7/2024 at 11:06 AM, WestEddy said:

Were you drunk? Your post was good. Thanks for it. 

Greg Maddux talked a lot about the grueling nature of that extra couple of weeks tacked onto the end of a season. It really wears on these guys. Statistical reporting often pointed out the White Sox' propensity to keep their starters on the field, which is a good thing. That didn't seem to end careers of the stars, prematurely. Crede crashed and burned, and Rowand fell of the table abruptly. 

I look at the drafts of the late 90s/early aughts. They were terrible, and the first rounders were snake-bitten. Stumm, Ginter, Honel. They made such a big deal about Kip Wells, and he was...just okay. They just weren't able to establish any reliable wave of talent. 

 

On 6/11/2024 at 12:54 PM, Tony said:

That team was defined by a few key things:

 

Neal Cotts 2005: 1.94 ERA in 60 IP

Neal Cotts 2006: 5.17 ERA in 54 IP

Cliff Politte 2005: 2.00 ERA in 67.1 IP

Cliff Politte 2006: 8.70 ERA in 30 IP

Mark Buehrle 2005: 3.12 ERA in 236 IP

Mark Buehrle 2006: 4.99 ERA in 204 IP

I specifically remember Buehrle in 2006 simply could not be counted on, it seemed like every time the Sox had a big game, he just s%*# the bed. That season was a pretty big outlier for him, and the workload from 2005 most likely played a big part in that. 

Cotts and Politte were so valuable for the Sox in 2005, and both were absolute trash for the Sox in 2006.

Those three guys having the seasons they did, IMO, cost the Sox the division.  

i'm glad you took the reigns of my premise