Ozzie has lost his way

[Steff]

I WAS DRIVING, I WAS CONCENTRATING

 

 

 

Wearing blinders and earplugs, too?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rowand44]

Wearing blinders

The way he drives, you'd think so. "Sir, you're in the wrong lane."

[SnB]

Wearing blinders and earplugs, too?

that's how i live my life, thank you very much

[iamshack]

What on earth could Jon have said?

 

After Garland missed, Guillen said the pitcher came into the dugout and said something that set the manager off.

 

"He came down and whispered (something) in my ear," Guillen said. "I was a little upset about it. I won't say I overreact. I would react the same way with all my players."

 

Southtown

[fathom]

Won/loss record will never get Ozzie fired. He said last year he would quit if the Sox won the WS. I think he will walk away sooner than anyone thinks. The only way he gets fired is if he does something so stupid the Sox have no choice. I don't think he's lost the team, but these little tirades will eventually lead to that IMO.

 

As unbiased as I can be, it wouldn't shock me if Ozzie is gone after this year. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not this team is winning or losing. I think that a certain person we brought in to the organization a few days ago could be the next manager of this team.

 

What on earth could Jon have said?

Southtown

 

Sorry I actually got Michael Young out.

[LVSoxFan]

Is that what he said? LOL. That's a good one.

[iamshack]

Honestly, this sheds light on a lot of things.

 

Why Dye walked over there. Why Thome walked over there. spiff, I think I even saw Jose walk over there and he can't even understand the language.

 

It seems maybe Jon was not happy about how Tracey was treated (or how Ozzie has been acting) and came over and said something. It also seems as though guys on the team knew about this, as they recognized what was going on pretty damn quickly.

[Chisoxfn]

It's not just with the pitchers. This team is geting angry. Oz better straighten out his approach or he's going to be in a world of trouble.

I saw enough when I saw Dye and Thome have to go over when Ozzie was going off on Garland. There facdes looked like..."Oh, not again". I fear they are getting sick and tired of it, but I really hope I'm wrong and obviously things are magnified when you are losing.

 

This team needs to find a way to get some positive momentum, whether its on the field or it comes via the trade, I don't know, but they better find a way.

 

I don't see any evidence of Ozzie "losing the team" at this point. However, screaming at his pitchers in front of everybody in the dugout is counter-productive and will cost him if he keeps it up.

Imo and I've said it in the past as I've slammed him heavily for this...but thats exactly how you lose a team.

[Guest JimH]

As unbiased as I can be, it wouldn't shock me if Ozzie is gone after this year. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not this team is winning or losing. I think that a certain person we brought in to the organization a few days ago could be the next manager of this team.

 

Are you talking about Sandy Alomar?

 

If so, think bench coach.

[fathom]

Are you talking about Sandy Alomar?

 

If so, think bench coach.

 

Yeah, I was referring to Sandy. With our current group of guys (for the next 3 years or so), he'd be a great leader of them. I haven't seen this mentioned, but Thome was saying in the paper how he just thinks Sandy is the nicest guy he's ever met, etc. Here's an observation I have about Ozzie....he's a much better manager when he has a group of scrappy players who feel like they have to overachieve to win. It might sound funny, but we might have too much talent this season for Ozzie to properly manage them. When you have this much talent, sometimes the best thing to do is just get out of their way and let them manage themselves.

[LVSoxFan]

That's an interesting observation about letting talent like this manage themselves. You're probably right.

[Steff]

Yeah, I was referring to Sandy. With our current group of guys (for the next 3 years or so), he'd be a great leader of them. I haven't seen this mentioned, but Thome was saying in the paper how he just thinks Sandy is the nicest guy he's ever met, etc. Here's an observation I have about Ozzie....he's a much better manager when he has a group of scrappy players who feel like they have to overachieve to win. It might sound funny, but we might have too much talent this season for Ozzie to properly manage them. When you have this much talent, sometimes the best thing to do is just get out of their way and let them manage themselves.

 

 

Worked last year.

[fathom]

Worked last year.

 

Exactly...and that was a hungry, overachieving team with nowhere near the talent we have this season. Last year, we needed to do little things in order to score runs, as our offense wasn't very good. Up until the last few weeks, our offense has been amazing. There's still hope, but it's kinda concerning to see the Twins playing like the Twins of old (great pitching, great defense, line drive hitting). When Jason Tyner looks like Rod Carew, you know things are going well.

[LVSoxFan]

Hey here's something I thought of last night which you reminded me of.

 

Remember what happened between '04 and '05 after we came in second yet again to the Twins? I'll tell you: we copied them. KW admitted it back then, everybody knew it--we weren't going to win with our combination of scrubs/superstars and our feast-or-famine HR derbies.

 

So we decided to ape the Twins' smallball approach. And it sure as hell worked.

 

So last night I'm watching them and I'm wondering: these guys are missing THREE of their superstars (relatively speaking) and they're just KILLING. They're playing like the Twins of OLD, and they made us look impotent and uptight (whereas we embarassed them last year more or less).

 

In other words, they looked like we used to last year. And, missing three starters (big bats). I'm starting to wonder whether our/their type of team even works with too many big bats. Losing theirs seems to have sparked them. We have more than a few boomers and... well, here we are.

 

But that's not the point of my post. The analyst in me wants to ask: what are they doing that we're not doing? Since we followed their lead in building our WS team, I'm trying to look at what's different about them.

 

I'm guessing pitching would be #1. Santana, Liriano. Radke sure looked good last night.

 

But what else?

Edited July 25, 2006 by LVSoxFan

[VAfan]

A very good set of comments. I want to add a 6th beef.

 

6. Total misuse of Brandon McCarthy. This has been the yoyo man of the Sox staff this year. First he's long relief, then short, then long, then short, then what?? He seems to warm up a lot and not make it into games. If we aren't going to start this guy, then use him like a starter -- to start the 5th, 6th and 7th innings as relief for starters -- Buehrle, Vazquez, Freddie, and Garland early in the year -- who don't have it that day, or (in Vazquez's case) are due to melt down the third time through the lineup. Granted, we had problems with Politte ruining our rotations, but that doesn't excuse the way Ozzie has completely failed in his handling of McCarthy. This guy could have helped Vazquez win his last two starts had he been inserted in the 6th innings of both games before Vazquez started giving up hits.

 

You could make a case last year for forcing starters to go long. We had no long man in the pen. But this year, with a guy who you WANT to give 100 innings, to fail to use him in long relief when so many games would have been won or remained competitive if we had only gotten our starters out of the game in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th innings, is just terrible managing!!

 

MANAGING REQUIRES A MANAGER TO ADAPT HIS STYLE TO THE TEAM HE HAS, NOT THE TEAM HE WANTS.

 

We have more than enough runs to be successful. But Ozzie has to manage like Bobby Cox -- who, when asked on Sunday Night Baseball weeks ago how he was going to turn the Braves around said the only thought on his mind was how he was going to win that night's ballgame -- ONE GAME AT A TIME.

 

WIN TODAY. The streaks will follow.

 

 

 

****************

(Side note: I hope Dye isn't being punished for sticking up for Garland. If that were true, I'd fire Ozzie tonight if I were KW. Rather, it's probably because Dye had an 0fer with 4 Ks in the last Texas game. And Ozzie wanted to play Gload again after he laid down two successful bunts in that win. That kind of managing I don't mind.)

Edited July 25, 2006 by VAfan

[Wedge]

A very good set of comments. I want to add a 6th beef.

 

6. Total misuse of Brandon McCarthy. This has been the yoyo man of the Sox staff this year. First he's long relief, then short, then long, then short, then what?? He seems to warm up a lot and not make it into games. If we aren't going to start this guy, then use him like a starter -- to start the 5th, 6th and 7th innings as relief for starters -- Buehrle, Vazquez, Freddie, and Garland early in the year -- who don't have it that day, or (in Vazquez's case) are due to melt down the third time through the lineup. Granted, we had problems with Politte ruining our rotations, but that doesn't excuse the way Ozzie has completely failed in his handling of McCarthy. This guy could have helped Vazquez win his last two starts had he been inserted in the 6th innings of both games before Vazquez started giving up hits.

 

You could make a case last year for forcing starters to go long. We had no long man in the pen. But this year, with a guy who you WANT to give 100 innings, to fail to use him in long relief when so many games would have been won or remained competitive if we had only gotten our starters out of the game in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th innings, is just terrible managing!!

 

MANAGING REQUIRES A MANAGER TO ADAPT HIS STYLE TO THE TEAM HE HAS, NOT THE TEAM HE WANTS.

 

We have more than enough runs to be successful. But Ozzie has to manage like Bobby Cox -- who, when asked on Sunday Night Baseball weeks ago how he was going to turn the Braves around said the only thought on his mind was how he was going to win that night's ballgame -- ONE GAME AT A TIME.

 

WIN TODAY. The streaks will follow.

 

In retrospect, I'd have to say that the Vazquez deal really is the killer for a gob reasons. To wit:

1) he stinks.

2) he stinks expensively; hence, he is virtiually untradeable.

3) he's keeping Brandon out of the rotation. Brandon may or may not be good, but I'm sure he'd stink less than Vazquez and at a minimum the experience gained would pay dividends in the future (sort of the Brain Anderson of our pitching staff, if you will).

4) we lost Vizcaino who might have been a decent bullpen piece this year.

5) we lost Young who might amount to something or would have been a good piece in a deal (same goes for Vizcaino).

6) we traded El Duque for him, when in reality he should have been traded for a bullpen ace to clear the spot for Brandon, which was the whole point of traded El Duque, anyways.

 

I suppose the unfortunate thing is that the team did not seem to understand just how dire Hermanson's situation was. If they had understood, I'm pretty sure Duque would have been shopped for a bullpen guy, or at a minimum Vizcaino would have been retained.