jackie hayes Posted September 20, 2004 Share Posted September 20, 2004 I thought about calling this thread "why everyone is wrong", but I thought some might not take it as tongue in cheek as I meant it. There has been a lot of admiration here towards the Marlins style of play. In particular, many people have said that they would prefer a "smallball" style of play. I have a hard time seeing any advantage in that approach. My first instinct is to look at the overall numbers, which show the Sox with 132 more runs on the season, or 20% more than the Marlins. That's a huge number, but the answer is often that the Sox score 10+ runs in one game and then only scratch out one or two the next day, whereas the Marlins are more consistent with their 4-5 runs per game. If that's true, then perhaps the Marlins lineup is more useful than the Sox lineup. But it's not. Just look at the number of times the Sox have scored very few runs, compared to the Marlins: 0 runs or fewer: Sox 8, Marlins 7 1 runs or fewer: Sox 21, Marlins 23 2 runs or fewer: Sox 42, Marlins 45 3 runs or fewer: Sox 54, Marlins 65 4 runs or fewer: Sox 76, Marlins 83 5 runs or fewer: Sox 87, Marlins 99 The Marlins are only better in shutouts, and then only by 1 game. In every other low-scoring bracket, they are worse than the Sox. The Marlins do somewhat better (relatively) towards the end of the season (when Frank and Maggs are out), but it's hardly notable. The last 50 games: 0 runs or fewer: Sox 4, Marlins 5 1 runs or fewer: Sox 7, Marlins 8 2 runs or fewer: Sox 14, Marlins 13 3 runs or fewer: Sox 19, Marlins 17 4 runs or fewer: Sox 23, Marlins 23 5 runs or fewer: Sox 30, Marlins 30 The Marlins are not any more consistent than the Sox at scoring runs. The reason the Marlins are competing (though after today, that may be in the past tense) is their phenomenal pitching. Florida's team era is 3.99 on the year, 6th best in the ml. The Sox team era is 4.97, 7th worst. And what's worse, it hasn't gotten better since the shakeup. As a number of posters have pointed out, Freddy Garcia has not been an ace, with a 4.65 era since joining the Sox. Jose Contreras has a 6.18 era since the trade that brought him here. As a whole, the Sox team era has been worse since the All-Star break, while the Marlins have improved. The Marlins win b/c of pitching, and their weak hitting is really the team albatross. (The Twins, btw, are not much different -- a 3.98 era in the AL is astonishing, but their hitting is a little better than Florida's, with a .430 slg compared to Florida's .409.) With such a massive disparity in pitching results, why does everyone think that the real difference between the 2 teams is Paul Konerko's speed, or not having a classical slap-hitting leadoff hitter? If the Sox want to be like Florida, they need the arms first. Smallball is not going to help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowand44 Posted September 20, 2004 Share Posted September 20, 2004 I thought about calling this thread "why everyone is wrong", but I thought some might not take it as tongue in cheek as I meant it. There has been a lot of admiration here towards the Marlins style of play. In particular, many people have said that they would prefer a "smallball" style of play. I have a hard time seeing any advantage in that approach. My first instinct is to look at the overall numbers, which show the Sox with 132 more runs on the season, or 20% more than the Marlins. That's a huge number, but the answer is often that the Sox score 10+ runs in one game and then only scratch out one or two the next day, whereas the Marlins are more consistent with their 4-5 runs per game. If that's true, then perhaps the Marlins lineup is more useful than the Sox lineup. But it's not. Just look at the number of times the Sox have scored very few runs, compared to the Marlins: 0 runs or fewer: Sox 8, Marlins 7 1 runs or fewer: Sox 21, Marlins 23 2 runs or fewer: Sox 42, Marlins 45 3 runs or fewer: Sox 54, Marlins 65 4 runs or fewer: Sox 76, Marlins 83 5 runs or fewer: Sox 87, Marlins 99 The Marlins are only better in shutouts, and then only by 1 game. In every other low-scoring bracket, they are worse than the Sox. The Marlins do somewhat better (relatively) towards the end of the season (when Frank and Maggs are out), but it's hardly notable. The last 50 games: 0 runs or fewer: Sox 4, Marlins 5 1 runs or fewer: Sox 7, Marlins 8 2 runs or fewer: Sox 14, Marlins 13 3 runs or fewer: Sox 19, Marlins 17 4 runs or fewer: Sox 23, Marlins 23 5 runs or fewer: Sox 30, Marlins 30 The Marlins are not any more consistent than the Sox at scoring runs. The reason the Marlins are competing (though after today, that may be in the past tense) is their phenomenal pitching. Florida's team era is 3.99 on the year, 6th best in the ml. The Sox team era is 4.97, 7th worst. And what's worse, it hasn't gotten better since the shakeup. As a number of posters have pointed out, Freddy Garcia has not been an ace, with a 4.65 era since joining the Sox. Jose Contreras has a 6.18 era since the trade that brought him here. As a whole, the Sox team era has been worse since the All-Star break, while the Marlins have improved. The Marlins win b/c of pitching, and their weak hitting is really the team albatross. (The Twins, btw, are not much different -- a 3.98 era in the AL is astonishing, but their hitting is a little better than Florida's, with a .430 slg compared to Florida's .409.) With such a massive disparity in pitching results, why does everyone think that the real difference between the 2 teams is Paul Konerko's speed, or not having a classical slap-hitting leadoff hitter? If the Sox want to be like Florida, they need the arms first. Smallball is not going to help. They had no true catcher for the majority of the season, their ss is a great defender but can't hit, they have no dh of course they're not going to score a ton of runs. I think people mean we need to get the two guys at the top of the order that can get on base and run, not imitate their whole lineup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackie hayes Posted September 20, 2004 Author Share Posted September 20, 2004 They had no true catcher for the majority of the season, their ss is a great defender but can't hit, they have no dh of course they're not going to score a ton of runs. I think people mean we need to get the two guys at the top of the order that can get on base and run, not imitate their whole lineup. The NL difference is part of it, but not much -- it's about a 7% bump. And it'd be great to get a fast, high-obp guy to lead off. But it won't help us win if our pitching doesn't improve drastically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowand44 Posted September 20, 2004 Share Posted September 20, 2004 The NL difference is part of it, but not much -- it's about a 7% bump. And it'd be great to get a fast, high-obp guy to lead off. But it won't help us win if our pitching doesn't improve drastically. One more starter to bump contreras and garland down would make our rotation very, very solid. Now the bullpen has to improve, hopefully we can add two arms to the bullpen. What I'm saying about the offense is we need a true leadoff hitter and we need to make it more solid from top to bottom-no easy outs, the marlins basically have had 3 easy outs for the majority of the year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackie hayes Posted September 20, 2004 Author Share Posted September 20, 2004 One more starter to bump contreras and garland down would make our rotation very, very solid. Now the bullpen has to improve, hopefully we can add two arms to the bullpen. What I'm saying about the offense is we need a true leadoff hitter and we need to make it more solid from top to bottom-no easy outs, the marlins basically have had 3 easy outs for the majority of the year. Why are you so sure the rotation would become very solid? The 4 that are probably set (Buehrle, Garcia, Contreras, Garland) haven't shown much over the 2nd half. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowand44 Posted September 20, 2004 Share Posted September 20, 2004 Why are you so sure the rotation would become very solid? The 4 that are probably set (Buehrle, Garcia, Contreras, Garland) haven't shown much over the 2nd half. Garcia's number aren't great but he'll be absolutely fine. His injury was effecting his velocity and he got knocked around a bit but he'll be fine. Contreras has had 2 really bad starts but in his last start he really started using his fastball a lot more which is huge for him. His numbers weren't great that start but it was a very solid start and I think he made a lot of progress in that start, I really believe Contreras is going to impress a lot of people next year but that's jmo. Garland is a good 5th starter and Buehrle is Buehrle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwerty Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 They had no true catcher for the majority of the season. Mike redmond is a damn good catcher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowand44 Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 Mike redmond is a damn good catcher. Him and his .309 obp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwerty Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 Him and his .309 obp Coming into this year his obp was over .350 and batting average was either.287 or .288. Also pitchers love to pitch to him because he calls an excellent game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowand44 Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 Coming into this year his obp was over .350 and batting average was either.287 or .288. Also pitchers love to pitch to him because he calls an excellent game. That's fine, I was talking offensively not defensively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwerty Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 That's fine, I was talking offensively not defensively. How can you say his offense through out his career is not good. He can and will hit better in a full season that burke or davis ever will imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowand44 Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 How can you say his offense through out his career is not good. He can and will hit better in a full season that burke or davis ever will imo. I didn't but he wasn't producing this year offensively and he basically was an automatic out. That's all I was saying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshPR Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 I thought about calling this thread "why everyone is wrong", but I thought some might not take it as tongue in cheek as I meant it. There has been a lot of admiration here towards the Marlins style of play. In particular, many people have said that they would prefer a "smallball" style of play. I have a hard time seeing any advantage in that approach. My first instinct is to look at the overall numbers, which show the Sox with 132 more runs on the season, or 20% more than the Marlins. That's a huge number, but the answer is often that the Sox score 10+ runs in one game and then only scratch out one or two the next day, whereas the Marlins are more consistent with their 4-5 runs per game. If that's true, then perhaps the Marlins lineup is more useful than the Sox lineup. But it's not. Just look at the number of times the Sox have scored very few runs, compared to the Marlins: 0 runs or fewer: Sox 8, Marlins 7 1 runs or fewer: Sox 21, Marlins 23 2 runs or fewer: Sox 42, Marlins 45 3 runs or fewer: Sox 54, Marlins 65 4 runs or fewer: Sox 76, Marlins 83 5 runs or fewer: Sox 87, Marlins 99 The Marlins are only better in shutouts, and then only by 1 game. In every other low-scoring bracket, they are worse than the Sox. The Marlins do somewhat better (relatively) towards the end of the season (when Frank and Maggs are out), but it's hardly notable. The last 50 games: 0 runs or fewer: Sox 4, Marlins 5 1 runs or fewer: Sox 7, Marlins 8 2 runs or fewer: Sox 14, Marlins 13 3 runs or fewer: Sox 19, Marlins 17 4 runs or fewer: Sox 23, Marlins 23 5 runs or fewer: Sox 30, Marlins 30 The Marlins are not any more consistent than the Sox at scoring runs. The reason the Marlins are competing (though after today, that may be in the past tense) is their phenomenal pitching. Florida's team era is 3.99 on the year, 6th best in the ml. The Sox team era is 4.97, 7th worst. And what's worse, it hasn't gotten better since the shakeup. As a number of posters have pointed out, Freddy Garcia has not been an ace, with a 4.65 era since joining the Sox. Jose Contreras has a 6.18 era since the trade that brought him here. As a whole, the Sox team era has been worse since the All-Star break, while the Marlins have improved. The Marlins win b/c of pitching, and their weak hitting is really the team albatross. (The Twins, btw, are not much different -- a 3.98 era in the AL is astonishing, but their hitting is a little better than Florida's, with a .430 slg compared to Florida's .409.) With such a massive disparity in pitching results, why does everyone think that the real difference between the 2 teams is Paul Konerko's speed, or not having a classical slap-hitting leadoff hitter? If the Sox want to be like Florida, they need the arms first. Smallball is not going to help. Good Post. But still we need a more agressive lineup people who know to win and play the game like it sould. To be truthfull I love Frank Thomas and as a long time fan apreciate what he did for this team but i feel it's time to move on. Build around Lee, Konerko and Rowand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
witesoxfan Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 I don't think the intention was to ever imitate the Marlins lineup. I always thought it was to imitate the Twins lineup, playing small ball, playing good fundamental baseball, hitting the homer when we need to, stealing the base when we need to, having a solid rotation(and with Santana, I suppose you can say a very good rotation), having good depth throughout the lineup, having a good bullpen, having a good bench, having a good coaching staff, having a good minor league system, need I go on? We'd be better off starting with the major league team doing that and working our way down. We do that, and we become very close to what the Twins are Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YASNY Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 Part of the theory of going with a "smallball" type lineup is the increase in defensive ability. Which in turn, makes your pitching that much better which means you don't have to score as many runs to win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackie hayes Posted September 21, 2004 Author Share Posted September 21, 2004 I don't think the intention was to ever imitate the Marlins lineup. I always thought it was to imitate the Twins lineup, playing small ball, playing good fundamental baseball, hitting the homer when we need to, stealing the base when we need to, having a solid rotation(and with Santana, I suppose you can say a very good rotation), having good depth throughout the lineup, having a good bullpen, having a good bench, having a good coaching staff, having a good minor league system, need I go on? We'd be better off starting with the major league team doing that and working our way down. We do that, and we become very close to what the Twins are My question is really about the lineup. Why is there so much emphasis on the Sox lineup? The most obvious failure this year was the pitchers -- our team era is a full run higher than the Twins'. We scored at least as well as the Twins, but our starters and bullpen were pummelled. I'm not sure that "small ball" describes the Twins. They steal bases well, but the Sox have more sacrifices. And I find it hard to believe that the stolen base difference is anywhere near as important as the runs allowed difference. But I agree w/ you about the minor league system. Something is not working there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackie hayes Posted September 21, 2004 Author Share Posted September 21, 2004 Part of the theory of going with a "smallball" type lineup is the increase in defensive ability. Which in turn, makes your pitching that much better which means you don't have to score as many runs to win. How bad have the Sox been this year defensively? Obviously there are some problems, but I haven't seen huge deficiencies (on the field or in the numbers) -- Jose's hands aren't very good, but he compensates for that in range and arm strength. Crede's struggled. But I'm willing to be convinced. Where else have the Sox had big defensive problems? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchetman Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 i don't really see defense as being that big of an issue either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZoomSlowik Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 The Twins' rotation hasn't really been that stellar. If you look at the numbers only Santana, Radke, and Silva have even been respectable(under 4.50), and there is a good chance that Radke leaves. The place where they kill us is in the pen. Nathan, Rincon, Romero, and Roa(actual order in terms of innings pitcher are Rincon, Roa, Romero, Nathan) are their 4 most used relievers, sporting ERA's of 1.61, 2.23, 2.63, and 4.39, all over 65 innings pitched, . Our 5 most used(a little off because Cotts got a start or two) relievers are Marte, Cotts, Adkins, Shingo, and Politte. Only Marte has logged over 65 innings. Their ERA's are 3.41, 5.40, 4.94, 2.47, and 4.38. There is obviously a huge difference there which it seems we need to rectify. The Twins always seem to be winning close games because of their solid back end of the pen, while we seem to blow a bunch of games. This seems to be something we desperately need to rectify with one, preferrably two stud relievers. To me, it seems that would have the greatest possible impact on wins and loses. Another on base guy does seem to be needed however. Of our regular players, only Thomas and Burke have/had OBP over 3.70 this year, which is pretty weak(interestingly the Twins only have Lew Ford at about .390 and Stewart at around 3.75). So to summarize, to me it seems that there two biggest advantages over us are their bullpen and the fact that Johan Santana is on their team. Since no one of Santana's caliber is available(Martinez is the only proven stud I see out there and he is a little old. Perez and Pavano just aren't the dominant ace types, nowhere near enough K's, although I'd gladly take Pavano if that is the best we could get), I really think our top priority should be to get someone that can pitch a solid 70 innings in the pen that can get an ERA under 3, and go after someone that can get us close to a .400 OBP, and if it is financially feasible get Pedro or Pavano. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZoomSlowik Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 Just a comment on the starting pitching. I think we do really need to add a #1 or #2 type starter, but as I just said, I really only see two potential guys out there, and they will be pretty expensive. I'm still not sure that would give us a great rotation, but it would be pretty solid for an AL team. Pedro or Pavano fit the #2 pitcher role in my book at this point in their careers(although I think it is possible that Pavano will become a #1 in the next two years, I just wouldn't really count on it.) Garcia and Buehrle both seem to fit in that #3 slot. They are both usually pretty good but get shelled every once in a while and don't seem to have enough stellar starts. I am encouraged however because Garcia has awesome stuff, I just hope he can realize how to use it soon. Conteras is another guy that has very good stuff but can't seem to use it regularly. However, as a #4 he's okay. Same with Garland at #5. He seems to have talent but can't do anything with it. I don't really think this would be a stellar rotation, but I think it would be more than enough if we can bolster the bullpen. FYI- Did you know that Buehrle's ERA is actually better than Mark Mulder's right now(4.12 compared with 4.13)? That blew my mind when I saw that. Statswise the AL only has 3 guys I would call absolute studs(Santana, Hudson, Schilling with Pedro being borderline, and Mulder normally fits here but has been struggling at times). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chisoxfan79 Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 I think the whole problem with the pitching is the AL Coors field that the Sox play in after all of these renovations routine flyballs are turning into homeruns where as Florida plays in one of the biggest parks in Baseball so their pitchers can keep the ball up in the zone and get away with it more often. So for the future you better hope the sox can do a better job of developing pitchers because they sure as hell will not attract any free agents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
witesoxfan Posted September 21, 2004 Share Posted September 21, 2004 they sure as hell will not attract any free agents. Money talks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwerty Posted September 22, 2004 Share Posted September 22, 2004 Money talks I am afraid that they will actually make a big pick-up but over pay mightily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowand44 Posted September 22, 2004 Share Posted September 22, 2004 I am afraid that they will actually make a big pick-up but over pay mightily. Who do you think that's going to be, I'm afraid their "big" pickup might be Russ Ortiz. :puke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwerty Posted September 22, 2004 Share Posted September 22, 2004 Who do you think that's going to be, I'm afraid their "big" pickup might be Russ Ortiz. :puke I really don't have a clue who it will be but just a gut feeling. I think kw feels he has to make it up for the previous years of not doing much fee agent signing and just offer a bad contract. But i agree russ would have an era over 5 in the a.l. let alone in the american leagues coors field Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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