Prime reasons why the 2006 White Sox failed to repeat

[VAfan]

Though it aint over till its over, or until the fat lady sings, I'm ready to write my postmortem to the 2006 White Sox at the risk of being perceived as a fool if, by miracle, they rebound.

 

Why did they fail? Here's my list.

 

1. Poor starting pitching. This was supposed to be the strength of the club. But, aside from Jose Contreras's early run, and Jon Garland's excellence from June forward, the starting pitching has been pretty damn bad. Mark Buehrle does not resemble a pitcher worthy of a contract extension. Freddie Garcia no longer has a fastball. And Javier Vazquez developed an uncanny ability to get torched in the 6th inning of every game he pitched. Not to mention that Contreras was also getting beat regularly once his streak ended. The result was a staff that even a huge jump in offensive production couldn't compensate for. (At one point in a 2-1 9th inning lead against Boston, I wrote that we hadn't won a game since mid-June scoring less than 4 runs. Jenks promptly gave up the lead and we lost 3-2 in 10. Last season, we bookended the first and last games of the year as 1-0 victories.)

 

2. Inconsistent relief pitching. Last year the bullpen worked hand in hand with the starters to keep us in virtually every game. This year, we had a lot of guys blow up big time -- Politte, Cotts, McCarthy, Logan, Riske, and even Thornton, McDougal and Jenks on occasion. The bullpen has lost 21 games, including 7 losses by McCarthy, while winning only 17. That's not a good ratio.

 

3. Too many outs in the lineup. Uribe, Anderson, Pods, Iguchi. Having these 4 guys hit in a row, especially against left handed pitching (see below) or on the road (see Iguchi's splits), killed the Sox in game after game. This is why our offense was inconsistent. If Thome, Konerko, Dye, AJ, and Crede didn't score at least 5 runs themselves (see starting pitching for why this was necessary to win), we were destined to lose. I thought the Sox should get Bobby Abreu to replace Pods as the lead off hitter to solve this problem. Unfortunately, Abreu is likely to be a chief reason behind the Yankees return to post season glory -- as they were the only team able to pay his contract. That just sucks.

 

4. Poor game management decisions by Ozzie. My biggest problem with Ozzie was how he managed Javier Vasquez. We lost at least 9 games (I stopped counting) where he had the lead after 5 innings, but proceeded to blow up in the 6th inning. How many times does it take for the manager to realize we need a different plan for the 6th inning? Why not get Brandon McCarthy ready to take over to start the 6th inning of those games, from the windup, like a second starting pitcher? We should have won more than 50% of those ballgames and would be at worst tied with the Twins at this stage if we had. Ironically, the last game JV won was the game against the Yankees when he was pulled, for the first and only time this year, after 5 innings.

 

5. Complete inability to beat lefties. Part of this was Ozzie's doing. During a huge number of games Ozzie used Pods, Iguchi, Thome at the top of the lineup, even though Pods was HORRIBLE against lefties, Iguchi couldn't hit them at all, and Thome was much worse against them than he was against righties. This trio were susceptible not only to left handed starters, but made it easy on opposing managers to use their LOOGYs on 3 guys in a row late in tight ballgames. Some of this could be explained by Pods and Iguchi not having such terrible splits in the past against lefties, but at some point you have to adjust. Of course, what could he do to adjust? Kenny Williams, who was applauded for strengthening our bench, didn't notice that everyone on the bench was a lefty or switch hitter who couldn't hit lefties either. The only one who could -- Pablo Ozuna -- went almost two months with a total of 2 hits after he pulled a hammy. Yet we never made any roster adjustment to address this problem.

 

6. Better competition. We killed the AL Central last year on the way to 99 wins. But this year, every other team in the AL Central is better, except the Indians, and they had their own motivation to knock us off. Not separating ourselves from the pack early made the season a struggle, and when we hit our rough patch, we fell out of the race rather than just being worried about holding on. It was just a different dynamic. Plus, all of our chief competitors have stronger pitching or much stronger pitching. It is hard to beat that game in and game out.

 

7. The Tigers and Twins beat us at our own game (which was the Twins game before we stole it in 2005). The 2005 team led all the way with the league's best starting pitching, great defense, a solid bullpen, and the ability to manufacture runs and score with HRs. The Tigers are now the best team at executing that style, with the Twins and A's close behind. Even the Yankees starting pitching was better than ours. There's nothing wrong with scoring a lot of runs (see the Yankees), but you've got to pitch well to win. We didn't.

 

8. Kenny Williams didn't make the right adjustments. At the trade deadline this year, we added Mike McDougal, who was a critical need for our bullpen, and Sandy Alomar, who was not a critical need for anything. The most obvious impact player on the market -- Bobby Abreu -- was probably beyond our means, but I wish he had found a way to make that happen. Abreu would have eliminated the HUGE hole at the top of our lineup, strengthened our defense, and enabled us to beat lefties (check out his splits). Most of his contract could be covered next season by trading a starter (take your pick -- Garcia, Vazquez, or even Buehrle), and Rob Mackowiak (bring up Sweeney to platoon in CF and back up the other outfield spots), with no loss of prospects. Since there was no way to fix the starting pitching, adding offense was the best way to salvage this club. Unfortunately, the Yankees understood this, and they are likely going to win the World Series because they made the move we should have made.

 

So, that's my list. Of course, I'm totally bummed. But this season doesn't take away any of the magic of 2005. And I think we have the core of a club that will have every chance of going after it again in 2007. The key, of course, will be starting pitching.

 

GO WHITE SOX!!!!!

[chisox72]

Wait...I know the answer to this one.....

 

Aaron Rowand, Carl Everett, Frank Thomas

 

 

[LVSoxFan]

No argument here. Good work. Like the comment about how we stole the Twins' game in 2005. Yup. That's exactly what we did. We fielded our version of Twins baseball last year.

 

Looks like they stole it back, and it looks like we reverted to the 2004 feast-or-famine Sox.

[SinkingShip06]

Wait...I know the answer to this one.....

 

Aaron Rowand, Carl Everett, Frank Thomas

 

HOW DARE YOU FORGET TIMO AND WEE WILLIE

[LosMediasBlancas]

Wait...I know the answer to this one.....

 

Aaron Rowand, Carl Everett, Frank Thomas

 

Carl's pre season comments about the Sox not making the playoffs this year have been in the back of my head all year for some reason. Sure Carl has said a lot of crazy stuff in the past and sure it was easy to write him off as sour grapes, but maybe he knew something.

[3 BeWareTheNewSox 5]

Amphetamines? You never know

[Steve9347]

PITCHING Edited September 19, 2006 by Steve9347

[3 BeWareTheNewSox 5]

World Baseball Classic? Who knows, could've had an effect on Freddy (quoted saying hed never do it again)

 

PITCHING

 

Sure, take the easy way out Went from studs to average overnight

[Balta1701]

Sure, take the easy way out Went from studs to average overnight

Below average, actually.

[Steve9347]

aren't we like 11th in the AL in team ERA or something ridiculously bad?

[shoota]

Though it aint over till its over, or until the fat lady sings, I'm ready to write my postmortem to the 2006 White Sox at the risk of being perceived as a fool if, by miracle, they rebound.

 

Why did they fail? Here's my list.

 

1. Poor starting pitching. This was supposed to be the strength of the club. But, aside from Jose Contreras's early run, and Jon Garland's excellence from June forward, the starting pitching has been pretty damn bad. Mark Buehrle does not resemble a pitcher worthy of a contract extension. Freddie Garcia no longer has a fastball. And Javier Vazquez developed an uncanny ability to get torched in the 6th inning of every game he pitched. Not to mention that Contreras was also getting beat regularly once his streak ended. The result was a staff that even a huge jump in offensive production couldn't compensate for. (At one point in a 2-1 9th inning lead against Boston, I wrote that we hadn't won a game since mid-June scoring less than 4 runs. Jenks promptly gave up the lead and we lost 3-2 in 10. Last season, we bookended the first and last games of the year as 1-0 victories.)

 

This is a good idea for a thread and I agree with most of your points. I would like to mention that Mark Buehrle was very good in the first half of the season and earned his All-Star selection. He didn't fall apart until the July game against the Cubs when he gave up 7 runs in the first inning. IIRC, he had around a 3.42 ERA at the time.

Edited September 19, 2006 by shoota

[Felix]

See, I thought the answer was not enough wins to make the playoffs. Silly me though

[GaelicSoxFan]

I think the primary reason is Ozzie being so in love with Pablo Ozuna and Rob Mackowiak. I know that after this season, Pods will be referred to as "the former White Sox left fielder", but I'd take him any day over Ozuna. Pods is fast and mediocre. Ozuna is fast and bad. I can name several teams Ozuna can play everyday for: the Schaumburg Flyers, the Kane County Cougars, the Joliet Jackhammers, the Windy City Thunderbolts and the Gary South Shore RailCats.

[SoxFan1]

PITCHING

/thread

[beautox]

Nice comments VAfan, i don't think the lack of post season is on KWs head, he asked all the vets in the club house if they needed anything to make a post season run, and they said no, he addressed his BP the best he could, Thornton and MacDougal are excellent pick ups, and he knew cotts and politte wouldn't be lights out but he didn't expect this, basicly everyone on the pitching staff from last year sans Bobby, Garland, Jose all decided to s*** the bed at the same time, its ok we've got the ring last year and the future is still bright for the Chicago White Sox. the AL Central is going to be GREAT for a long time, embrace it.

[VAfan]

Nice comments VAfan, i don't think the lack of post season is on KWs head, he asked all the vets in the club house if they needed anything to make a post season run, and they said no, he addressed his BP the best he could, Thornton and MacDougal are excellent pick ups, and he knew cotts and politte wouldn't be lights out but he didn't expect this, basicly everyone on the pitching staff from last year sans Bobby, Garland, Jose all decided to s*** the bed at the same time, its ok we've got the ring last year and the future is still bright for the Chicago White Sox. the AL Central is going to be GREAT for a long time, embrace it.

 

The problem going forward is that the Tigers and Twins have great YOUNG pitching, while, except for Garland and Buehrle, all of our starters are on the wrong side of 30. Sure, we have McCarthy, but after the way he pitched this year, don't some of you have doubts about him? I think Ozzie mismanaged him more than any player on the team, but I still think he should have sucked it up and performed better. He was given several chances to win ballgames down the stretch and he lost every one.

[Balta1701]

The problem going forward is that the Tigers and Twins have great YOUNG pitching, while, except for Garland and Buehrle, all of our starters are on the wrong side of 30. Sure, we have McCarthy, but after the way he pitched this year, don't some of you have doubts about him? I think Ozzie mismanaged him more than any player on the team, but I still think he should have sucked it up and performed better. He was given several chances to win ballgames down the stretch and he lost every one.

Great young pitching is not always a guarantee of winning. In 2001-2002, the Chicago Cubs were looking at having great young pitching. Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Angel Guzman were all at the top of the "Pitching prospects" or "Great young pitcher" lists. All 3 have since imploded.

 

The White Sox have some things that are very much to their advantage. They have young talent at multiple positions. Young closer, 1 young starter, 2 potential young starters, young CF, young LF/3B, young RF waiting in the winds. And on top of that, the White Sox have money.

 

You don't need to build an entire starting staff under the age of 27 if you have money to afford a few veterans. And there's never any guarantee that young talent, especially at the pitching position, will remain healthy and at the same level. Having money allows you to turn some of that young potential into proven talent, which is what KW has spent the last 2 years doing. For the Tigers, Twins, and Indians, every one of their young guys has to work otherwise they have a hole they can't afford to fill. If a hole appears on the White Sox roster, KW has the ability to move that talent to fill in that hole with a veteran whether or not it the talent he moves will ever blossom.

[RME JICO]

VaFan,

Here are a few more. Good points, I agree 100%.

 

Other Coaches - Besides Ozzie, what about Cooper with the pitchers, or Walker with the lack of bunting skills? What about Cora at 3B? How many outs did he cause with his Windmill arm? Could the lack of production in the SB department have to do with Raines not being out there at 1B?

 

Unwillingness to at least try McCarthy in the rotation in July. Who knows if he would have given up 10 runs a start or been really solid. He did pitch 5+ innings of 1 run ball vs MIN in August, but I guess that was not enough to convince the Sox to at least give him a start.

 

Too many lineup changes - no continuity. We called for Dye in the 3-hole all year and he was put there only after an inury to Thome and by then it was too late. Also, even when the Sox were rolling in April-June, they seemed to have a new lineup everyday. Eventually this has to break up your rythym.

 

No major deadline deal - There were several opportunities, but no major moves were made. It seemed like every other contender did something to improve their team. I think everyone felt like something needed to happen here and it didn't. The Sox were on a slippery slope and that July slide has never really went away.

[Stocking]

and I thought the answer was cause the season isnt ova yet

[NorthSideSox72]

I think the primary reason is Ozzie being so in love with Pablo Ozuna and Rob Mackowiak. I know that after this season, Pods will be referred to as "the former White Sox left fielder", but I'd take him any day over Ozuna. Pods is fast and mediocre. Ozuna is fast and bad. I can name several teams Ozuna can play everyday for: the Schaumburg Flyers, the Kane County Cougars, the Joliet Jackhammers, the Windy City Thunderbolts and the Gary South Shore RailCats.

And... which part of Pods' game do you think is better than Pablo's?

 

Pablo was better this year in AVG (+63), OBP (+28), SLG (+85) K's (9% versus 19% of AB), and BARISP (+134). Heck, Pablo even has better stats against RHP than LHP, and he doesn't get much time against RHP, which bodes well for if he played regularly.

 

Offensively, the only category Pods bead Pablos is SB%, and even Pods was pretty bad there.

 

Defensively, Pods has made a whopping 8 errors in LF this year. Pablo has never made one in his CAREER in LF, though admitedly that is only 35 games (and yeah, I've seen him make some horrific plays that were not errors). Of course, FPct is not a great measure. How about arm strength? I think Pablo has that one over Pods. Other factors? Well, Pablo has trouble reading fly balls. Not that Pods doesn't, but Pablo hasn't gotten nearly as much time out there either. And he is improving.

 

So tell me again how Pods is so much better than Pablo? Because other than SB% and better fly ball judgement, I don't see it. And Pablo is basically a rookie when it comes to LF.

[LVSoxFan]

We can all agree that the pitching upon which we're built was not the foundation that it was last year, but what did NOT go wrong this year?

 

At any given time, I was ranting about:

 

-The pitching

-The offense

-The bullpen

-The lack of all three ever being present at the same time

-Questionable managing

-Bad baserunning

-Bad breaks

-Mental softness/lack of killer instinct

-Most decidedly: lack of any hot streak this year

-Maybe not making that trade

 

To me it's across the board, peeps. I just think this wasn't our year. On paper this team looked to dominate everybody. I'm not quite sure that because it didn't work out--yet--it's time to gut n' rebuild.

 

JMO.

[The Ginger Kid]

Number one reason: Tigers and Twins.

 

They've played better.

 

The Sox are a pretty damn good team. Will probably win over 90 games. You can pick apart the season all you want but the fact that it became a 3 way chase instead of a 2 team race doomed one team.

[GaelicSoxFan]

And... which part of Pods' game do you think is better than Pablo's?

 

Pablo was better this year in AVG (+63), OBP (+28), SLG (+85) K's (9% versus 19% of AB), and BARISP (+134). Heck, Pablo even has better stats against RHP than LHP, and he doesn't get much time against RHP, which bodes well for if he played regularly.

 

Offensively, the only category Pods bead Pablos is SB%, and even Pods was pretty bad there.

 

Defensively, Pods has made a whopping 8 errors in LF this year. Pablo has never made one in his CAREER in LF, though admitedly that is only 35 games (and yeah, I've seen him make some horrific plays that were not errors). Of course, FPct is not a great measure. How about arm strength? I think Pablo has that one over Pods. Other factors? Well, Pablo has trouble reading fly balls. Not that Pods doesn't, but Pablo hasn't gotten nearly as much time out there either. And he is improving.

 

So tell me again how Pods is so much better than Pablo? Because other than SB% and better fly ball judgement, I don't see it. And Pablo is basically a rookie when it comes to LF.

I just don't see that Ozuna is much of an upgrade over Pods. I like the fact that Ozuna hustles. But hustle can only make up a little bit for talent.

 

The only reason why they acquired Pods in the first place was they wanted speed at the top and their best prospect, Jerry Owens, was two years away at the time.

[Rowand44]

The Sox are a pretty damn good team. Will probably win over 90 games.

Thanks to the national league.

Edited September 20, 2006 by Rowand44

[TLAK]

From the Sun-Times

VOICE OF REASON: The Sox constantly hear outsiders give different reasons for their underachieving, but first baseman Paul Konerko offered his own simple explanation.

 

''Anybody who tries to figure it out doesn't know the game,'' Konerko said. ''Most people would say, 'Make it happen.' It doesn't work like that. It didn't work like that last year. People don't understand that.

 

''When we won the World Series last year ... this clubhouse is exactly the same as it was then. Everybody that was around knows that. Our dugout is the same. It's just sometimes you get it done, sometimes you don't.''