4 "rookies" in the bullpen?

[Harry Chappas]

What is keeping Brandon McCarthy from being Joe Nathan or Keith Foulke? He has more talent than both and seems to have the poise and knowledge.

 

Both failed as starters. Brandon has had success as a starter. He needs to learn how to pitch out of the pen. Like Jenks last year, Cotts the year before that, etc.

[SSH2005]

What is keeping Brandon McCarthy from being Joe Nathan or Keith Foulke?  He has more talent than both and seems to have the poise and knowledge.

 

Both failed as starters.  Brandon has had success as a starter.  He needs to learn how to pitch out of the pen.  Like Jenks last year, Cotts the year before that, etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If McCarthy could = Scot Shields out of the pen this season, I would be giddy.

[RME JICO]

I think that everyone is forgetting that Boone Logan is the greatest baseball player to every walk on god's green earth.

Next to the new Matt Thornton!

[GoSox05]

all this pitching stuff, makes me wish the Sox just played teeball

[Rowand44]

I think we're all a bit worried about the bullpen. At the same time, I don't think Kenny did anything to destroy the pen. He got rid of an awful(ya, I'm calling him awful) pitcher in Damaso, I'm sorry but as long as he was here there was a risk he'd be run out there in tight situations and the guy is a mental midget, he's toast. Viz, I would have liked to keep, he's nothing special but he is decent, that being said there is a decent possibility Thornton could fill that role some what. The only way to really go about this is wait and see, it's a young pen with a lot of talent, there is a possibility the bullpen will be just fine and like others have mentioned, the 5 and 6 guys in the pen aren't going to be used much unless Ozzie has faith in them.

[NorthSideSox72]

Well if we look at it closely, we have McCarthy in the Hermanson role.

 

Boone Logan is in the Marte role.

 

Thornton is in the Vizcaino role.

 

Jenks, Cotts, and Politte have the same roles.

 

No denying they are pretty green in the pen.

I think this post covers it - and it tells me that the pen isn't all that bad. Thornton seems to be making progress and I like his chances of being better than Viz. Logan is of course a question mark, but so far, he looks one heck of a lot better than Marte. And McCarthy is better than the semi-healthy Hermanson.

 

Plus, as was pointed out, our 5th starter will eat more innings, we have great coaches and catchers, and Thornton and Logan have a lot of raw talent.

 

So... seems to me the pen looks about as good as it did last year. I am more worried about Pods' health than I am about this bullpen.

[beck72]

I hate to say it but that rumored Dye + Contreras for Abreu + Gavin Floyd trade wouldn't look too bad right now either, minus Abreu's salary of course.  Gavin Floyd had a great spring and is now the Phillies' 5th starter.  They pushed Ryan Franklin to the pen because they think Gavin Floyd has finally "found it."

 

[

Can you imagine the uproar if one of the SP's were hurt, and KW had traded Jose? This board would be going crazy. As it is, a lot of people are upset that KW didn't have a back up plan for Hermanson

[beck72]

Not a soul would have complained if we would have just replaced them with legit major league pitchers.  Also, I think that the crapiness that has been Bobby Jenks so far is showing how uncertain our bullpen is.

 

If Jenks is throwing like this at the start of May, then it might be time to worry about a replacement. But I think 29 other teams would take the "crappy" Bobby Jenks and his 300K salary in a heart beat.

[ZoomSlowik]

Like everyone else, I'm a bit worried about the pen, but it isn't exactly a team-killer. Boston's pen was horrendous for most of last year and they still made the playoffs, and they did that with a much weaker rotation. As others have said, teams have been able to get by without a whole lot of bullpen depth, especially with strong starting pitching.

 

Honestly, if Jenks straightens things out a bit, I'm not really worried. If he's pitching reasonably well, Politte and Cotts give us some decent late inning options, and McCarthy has the potential to give us a lot of solid innings. Even Logan looks decent so far. As long as he throws strikes, he can be fairly useful, although I don't want him in high-pressure situations in a close game. I think we can get by for quite a while, and if we don't we can always try to pick up a reliever at the deadline, even though that will definitely cost us.

[Felix]

Without reading anything in this thread, I'll just say that for once, I agree with VAfan.

 

Now I feel dirty

[beautox]

Ok, I for one am going to turn this around and be the optimist on our bullpen.  Then again, I usually wind up being the optimist, but anywho, I can type pretty fast.

 

I think the Sox are in a pretty good position with regards to their bullpen, for several key reasons:

 

1.  The Sox have several people who can close.  Bobby Jenks is naturally at the top of that list, but if he winds up unable to close, just like we had Hermanson as a backup last year, we have Cotts as a decent backup this year.  IMO, the Closer still remains by far the biggest key to your bullpen.  If you have a good closer, you can have basically nothing else around him and your bullpen will still look decent.

 

Think about last year with the Cubs.  Their bullpen was s*** the first 2 months of the season, then they moved Dempster to the closer's role, and suddenly everything looked better.  Think about the 04 Dodgers; Depodesta traded away everything from his bullpen except his closer, and they still had a good bullpen (Gagne got himself hurt because of that mess, but that's another story).  Think about the Yankees with Rivera, or how the Red Sox look with and Without Foulke.

 

If we can have just 1 guy who can hold down the fort as a closer, we will be in very good shape in the pen no matter what else happens.  We may lose games if all we have is the closer, but we will win enough that no one will notice.

 

2.  The Bullpen is going to be used even less than last year no matter how many innings people threw last year.  Why?  Because we have 5+ "innings eaters" on our starting staff.  Last year, El Duque was only able to throw 128 innings.  He barely averaged 5 innings per start.  Just having him in the rotation guaranteed our bullpen was going to have to throw 4-5 innings at least every time through the rotation.

 

With Vazquez in his place, we are just going to need the bullpen less and less.  The guy throws 200+ innings every year, and that's a ton less innings going to the pen. Especially if they follow their word to get McCarthy 100+ innings as well.

 

3.  We have 2 converted starters in our bullpen.  Last year, the longest we ever really saw anyone go out of the bullpen was Viz throwing 2.1 innings or Jenks occasionally throwing 3.  So every time we got wrapped up in one of them 13-14 inning games where neither team can score, we used our entire bullpen (and sometimes lost the game because all we had left were walker/Adkins).

 

With both McCarthy and Thornton out there...we have 2 guys who are able to keep the bullpen from having to blow itself out.  Both of them can throw 4-5 innings out of the pen if the game is tied late and we need them to do so.  This can let us keep people fresher.  Big advantage.

 

4.  Yes, we have a lot of youth out in the bullpen.  But there are also advantages to youth.  Specifically: health.  We have what, 2 guys over 30 in our pen, and 1 of them is already on the DL?  Aside from the guy with the screw in his elbow, there's really no reason to expect that the bullpen is going to struggle to stay healthy this year.

 

5.  Raw talent.  We b**** and moan about how Minnesota is able to bring up these guys who can throw 96+ all the time.  Well right now, we have managed to pick up a guy who can throw 99+ from the right side and a guy who can hit 97 from the left side.  On top of that, we have 2 other lefties who can hit the low 90's and seem to have good control, and a righty in the low to mid 90's.  Oh, and another righty who can hit 93-94.

 

6.  Left-handers.  Ozzie wants to play the matchup game?  There are teams that go entire seasons without being able to make use of a LOOGY.  We have f***ing 3 of them.

 

7.  Coaching staff.  We've already seen what Ozzie and Cooper can do for our starting rotation, we've already seen what they were able to do with Cotts, we've already seen what they were able to do with Politte, Hermanson, Jenks, etc.  These guys are damn good at getting the most out of our pitchers.

 

8.  Catchers.  The same guys who were shaken off 2 times last year by Buehrle are calling pitches for these guys too.

 

Are there bullpens better than ours?  On paper, probably.  But I still think we're going to be surprised how good of shape we're in, especially if Bobby can keep building velocity and can settle into the closer's role full time.  We're well set up for this run.  I'm just vastly less nervous than most of you are.

 

Edit: forgot 1.  Offense.  We've massively upgraded the bench/sunday lineup, and we've massively upgraded our DH spot.  I've harped on this since last year, but we also had 4 or 5 guys who really disappointed with the bats last year.  Score more runs and you'll need the bullpen less, or you'll be able to bail the pen out even more.  Last year we were only about 60 runs from being the #4 offense in the league.  We've got a real shot @ top 5 this year.

 

First off im more of a lerker here and just recently signed up so hello to everyone on the board. Secondly i agree 100% with you i think people are getting a little two worried about Jenks and our bullpen in general. Yesterday Jenks looked good he was'nt at 100% but he looked solid, he was working in a few cut fastballs and he brought the 12-6 hook and his velocity was up. He also struck out two, if our farm hand Valido had'nt droped the ball, Jenks would've been out of the inning and not blown the save. With regards to Matt Thorton since Coop has truly had time to work with him he looks much more fluid i believe that was his third scoreless appearnce; hes always had a good arm. Yesterday he came into a bases loaded situation and got out of it and looked good doing it. He also struck out Todd Helton and made him look silly in doing so. Anyways thats just my .02 cents. Go Sox!

[Jordan4life_2007]

Balta, I hate you. You said everything I wanted to say.

[KevHead0881]

To tell you the truth, while I am concerned about the bullpen going into this season, I am no more or no less concerned than I was when we were entering the playoffs last year.

 

Going into the postseason, we had the following questions: Could we survive with an unproven closer, a setup man with a bad back, a second lefty that you didn't know what to expect on a daily basis, etc.

 

This year, we have essentially the same questions. Vizcaino pitched most of the time last year, but I don't see McCarthy having trouble duplicating his performance. Hermanson is still hurt. Logan and/or Thornton takes over Marte's spot as the "not sure what to expect" 2nd lefty.

 

Would I prefer to have some more veterans who have experienced some success? Sure. But I don't see us as really having less depth than last year. The real key is that we need Cotts and Politte to pitch at least close to the way they pitched last year. If they don't, we'll have some serious problems.

 

If our starters go to s***, I can see our bullpen getting exposed. We'll see, I guess. Like I said, I am concerned. But I don't see our situation as being much worse than it was last year.

[santo=dorf]

QUOTE(beck72 @ Mar 31, 2006 -> 11:34 AM)

What else should have KW done, though, with the FA market outrageous [and not very good besides the few overpriced guys]? You didn't say what moves you would have made.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't bother asking VA that. He was spamming for the signing of Brian Giles and re-signing Contreras and trading Vazquez in the middle of the season.

[UC76]

When you look at what Viz, Hemanson and Marte did last year, all had varying problems with injuries and/or just struggling at one time or another. As long as this year's "rookies" stay healthy, I think they should improve as the year goes on and they grow in their roles. Hopefully, if there are growing pains, they happen early, and by August the "rooks" are solid.

[whitesoxin']

I haven't read all this thread, but it isn't KW's fault that Hermanson can't remain healthy. Thorton and Logan scare me, but Cotts, Politee, B-Mac, and Jenks should be just as good as last year if not better. I am not too worried. If you don't have good starting pitching, there's no point to having a bullpen because they are there to protect the lead, not to protect the defecit.

[Felix]

but Cotts, Politee, B-Mac, and Jenks should be just as good as last year if not better.

Not mentioning Cotts, BMac, and Jenks, why should Politte be just as good, if not better? He's 32 years old and had a career year last year, posting an ERA 205 points below his career average, and 160 points lower than he had ever posted in a full year. If anything, his numbers are going to decrease considerably, and its highly unlikely that he posts a 2.01 ERA and 0.94 WHIP again.

[whitesoxin']

Not mentioning Cotts, BMac, and Jenks, why should Politte be just as good, if not better?  He's 32 years old and had a career year last year, posting an ERA 205 points below his career average, and 160 points lower than he had ever posted in a full year.  If anything, his numbers are going to decrease considerably, and its highly unlikely that he posts a 2.01 ERA and 0.94 WHIP again.

He has looked good so far in Spring Training. And according to Big Frank, he's still 5 years away from his prime.

 

Maybe he just finally found his form last year? Just like Contreras.

[greg775]

Great post.

We definitely have a bullpen that could bite us.

IMO Hermy is (was) the key. We need a healthy Hermy. I realize we

don't have one.

But I think we're one stud body short and it probably is going to bite the

Sox in the butt.

[beck72]

First off im more of a lerker here and just recently signed up so hello to everyone on the board. Secondly i agree 100% with you i think people are getting a little two worried about Jenks and our bullpen in general. Yesterday Jenks looked good he was'nt at 100% but he looked solid, he was working in a few cut fastballs and he brought the 12-6 hook and his velocity was up. He also struck out two, if our farm hand Valido had'nt droped the ball, Jenks would've been out of the inning and not blown the save. With regards to Matt Thorton since Coop has truly had time to work with him he looks much more fluid i believe that was his third scoreless appearnce; hes always had a good arm. Yesterday he came into a bases loaded situation and got out of it and looked good doing it. He also struck out Todd Helton and made him look silly in doing so. Anyways thats just my .02 cents. Go Sox!

Welcome aboard .

 

The biggest thing coming out of spring training is health. So far, only Hermanson is ailing. If Jenks was throwing 90 mph, with pain and soreness, then I'd be worried. Jenks nor anybody else are throwing with pain. Health is the key and so far so good

[ISF]

I hate losing El Duque, but mainly for the playoffs. Vizcaino and Marte were mediocre at best last year, quite frankly I can't see how Jenks could do any worse than Shingo.

 

Compared to last year Jenks > Shingo, Logan > Marte

 

Duque > Thornton until further notice, although Coop appears to be working his magic again.

 

McCarthy >>> Vizcaino.

 

I'm sorry, I don't see how we can be anything but better there. We have some ???, but we had plenty of those last year too. Given that this management group just gave us our first champions in 88 years, they have my complete confidence.

[Disco72]

I was at the game yesterday, and Logan looked good against mostly Braves regulars. He should be able to at least fill the Wunsch role from a few years ago.

 

Second, bullpens are notoriously inconsistent from year to year. How often do teams sign or trade for a "proven" veteran who blows up all year. The Cubs are probably the team most victimized by this inability to realize that bullpen arms do not pitch consistently year in and year out. Sure, there are proven, consistent guys out there, but look at what unproven guys like BJ Ryan got? Look at what the Cubs paid for Howry and Eyre, two guys the Sox gave up on who are decent but not great relivers. Both are as likely to have bad seasons as good ones.

 

The Sox had a true competition for spots in the bullpen, and the guys who are there won the spots in Spring Training. When the biggest questions on your team are the 3rd, 4th, or 5th guys out of the bullpen, you're doing pretty well.

 

Finally, Jenks looked good last night. He hit 98 on the radar and seemed to be trying to throw his breaking stuff more. Let's see what he can do starting on Sunday before we worry about replacing him.

[VAfan]

As I mentioned at the outset of this thread, I just wanted to get the rant out of my system. Now that I've done so, and especially now that Jose Contreras decided to accept the Sox offer and buy into this team for a 3-year extension -- something noted above that I wanted all offseason -- I'm fine with the White Sox pitching staff. Indeed, I'm ECSTATIC!

 

Yes, I think there will be some blown saves and some growing pains, and I don't expect us to get off to quite same raging start we had last year, but I think with our tremendous starting depth and much much better bench that we'll still be clicking in August and September. (Indeed, I expect us to be kicking ass then.) And by then, the "rookies" in our pen won't seem like rookies anymore.

 

Signing Contreras may have one additional benefit. Brandon McCarthy should now realize he has to focus in the moment on being a great relief pitcher. He can't be thinking that Contreras is going to be dealt mid-season. Once he gets his head around that, I think he'll become very good - perhaps lights out.

 

So, as I said at the beginning -- GO GET EM ROOKS!

 

GO WHITE SOX!! BACK-TO-BACK WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!!

[beck72]

When the biggest questions on your team are the 3rd, 4th, or 5th guys out of the bullpen, you're doing pretty well.

 

 

Way to put the Sox problems into context! [i'll correct you just a bit and say the biggest question marks are the 5th and 6th bullpen guys--behind Jenks, Cotts, Politte, and McCarthy]

[bmags]

i just want to chime in that this was a really interesting thread...i can see both sides and i'd say i agree i wish we would have gotten another arm for our bullpen, but i can see it working out like balta said. I guess i just have to trust cooper and KW to take care of anything that breaks. They have my confidence and my world series ring (not mine but you know...parallelism)