New Direction for Organization

[maggsmaggs]

KW has had the highest payroll in the AL central every year since 2001 and has won one division. He needs to go, its his time. Clean out the organization, its clear we are not headed in a great direction. Our minor leagues are horrible and our major league team is old and slow, worst possible combo. Promote Rick Hahn who is a more numbers guy and not a feel guy and lets see where he takes us. And Ozzie just needs to go, plain and simple.

[CWSGuy406]

It's gotta start with one of these (I wish I knew how to link a video properly):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8BcG6SUqpU

[lord chas]

this team needs some heart

[BearSox]

this team needs some heart

And the only way you're gonna get that is with some young players who have something to prove.

 

This team had their glory in 05, appearantly for most of them, that was enough.

[whitesoxfan101]

I'd like to see a firesale under the direction of our new GM Rick Hahn, but that's a pipedream. I bet we don't even firesale, Kenny is too smug to do that.

[klaus kinski]

Value of these players is dropping daily-dont expect much if it happens.

[BearSox]

maggs, like I said before in the gamethread, I completely agree. Pre-05, Kenny was considered a horrible GM. It really looks like in 05 he caught lighting in a bottle. Kenny needs to go, and Rick Hann looks like he could do a great job. Ozzie needs to go as well. It seems like he is a 10 game losing streak from completely exploding (only 5 more to go!).

 

Our minor league system and scouts are pretty damn bad as well. We have some good 'spects, but that all. We need a new hitting coach with a new philosophy as well. Same goes for all the minor league hitting coaches as well. I know we have that one really good pitching instructer in AA, but he is the only one I hear good things about.

 

 

Value of these players is dropping daily-dont expect much if it happens.

Well, Dye should get something good if he continues to hit okay. Iguchi and Crede need to get red hot though.

 

But like others have said, even if we are 20 games out at the break, KW would be to smug to go into rebuild mode.

[T R U]

We are ONE GAME under .500 with over 100 games to play

 

Our hitting ALL AROUND has vastly underachieved so far

 

The pitching is prolly gonna be like this all year.. I dont think they are performing over what they can do or under, the bullpen will prolly shape up soon anyways it was apparent they werent going to dominate as long as they did as it is..

 

I wish everyone would just relax here, jesus, yeah its tough as hell to watch this but we are not out of anything.. The hitting HAS to come around or we are toast, I cant see us being last in offense for this whole season..

 

If we are 10 under and way out of it in July blow it up, but RIGHT now? Gimme a f***ing break

[Soxfest]

Clean House!

[Hideaway Lights]

neither yet, although the idea behind this offseason's moves was absolutely baffling at the time, and the results are not surprising.

 

hopefully kenny learns from this

 

either sell and rebuild or keep the title contender together

 

don't do this half-assed bulls***

 

if we are around .500 at the ASB we are looking at a worst case scenario 2007

[fathom]

neither yet, although the idea behind this offseason's moves was absolutely baffling at the time, and the results are not surprising.

 

Well said....this crap started during the offseason. KW isn't a good enough manager to try and build a WS contender AND get younger during the same offseason.

[Chisoxfn]

this team needs some heart

It's off to see the Wizard...the wonderful wizard of Oz

[max power]

This site is full of overreactorz. Its hilarious to me what some of you people type. Its why I come here

[Melissa1334]

this team needs some heart

thats why i would like a guy like hunter on the team. sure, it wouldnt be worth it, the money and years, but hes a leader and plays hard.

[whitesoxfan101]

thats why i would like a guy like hunter on the team. sure, it wouldnt be worth it, the money and years, but hes a leader and plays hard.

 

Those are my exact thoughts on Hunter as well.

[Balta1701]

thats why i would like a guy like hunter on the team. sure, it wouldnt be worth it, the money and years, but hes a leader and plays hard.

Didn't we say the same things about Erstad, Thome, and a few other guys?

 

Seriously, if we're spending money, spend it for performance!!!

[CWSGuy406]

Well said....this crap started during the offseason. KW isn't a good enough manager to try and build a WS contender AND get younger during the same offseason.

 

Fathom, I think that you'd agree that even if Kenny put together the PERFECT, ideal winter, the Sox still wouldn't be much better than where they are now.

 

For example -- for me, the ideal offseason would have been dumping Podsednik for nothing and bringing in someone else on a one year deal for LF -- let's say Trot Nixon. I know you didn't like the Garcia trade a heckuva lot, and I fault Kenny Williams for his questionable 'crush' on Gavin Floyd, but in reality, one year of Gio Gonzalez throwing league average 'ball and we will, at the very least, be even in that trade. That doesn't change the fact that, at the time, it appeared Garcia would have a little more value than a B prospect (at the time, Gio) and a project pitcher in Floyd.

 

McCarthy trade? It's tough to see this trade ending up as a loss for the Sox, although I think B-Mac will wind up being a solid #3.

 

Cotts trade? More of the same -- I don't see how one could call that a bad move at the time the move was made or even now. Cotts was a one pitch pitcher, while Aardsma was coming off a pretty good year as a Cubs reliever. The Vasquez kid is having success at Charlotte, too, and is looking like he can eventually help a big league club, if only as a LOOGY.

 

Sisco trade? Ehh... Everybody loved it at the time, myself included, but after watching Sisco for now (about) three months -- spring training included -- it's tough to envision Sisco ever being anything more than a mediocre LOOGY. My not-trained-to-be-a-scout eye tells me his motion is very wierd -- I don't know how to put it into baseball terms, but it looks awkward, almost 'forced' (if you know what I mean). Meanwhile, Gload, a guy who was ALWAYS underutilized and (dare I say) underappreciated by this organization, would be this team's third best hitter (world's tallest midget with this offense, I know) and would have looked good filling in for Thome when he went down and right now as our LFer.

 

Hall signing? Don't need to talk a whole lot about him, great move, unfortunate injury.

 

Erstad move? I'm not going to talk about this a whole lot. I'm glad that Kenny didn't throw big money at any of the other free agent CFers, but I didn't particularly like the Erstad move (in a starting role). Then again, Anderson has gone down and sucked an egg at Charlotte. I guess this goes back to one of the real fatal trades of the organization, Vazquez for Young.

 

So basically what this comes down to is that I'm not close to calling for Kenny's head yet. He's still a top ten GM in baseball (that's off-the-cuff, but if someone challenged it, I'd be willing to put my personal list of those better/equal to him).

 

What it comes down to is, if Kenny made all the perfect moves this winter, I still don't think we'd be in sniffing distance of Detroit or Cleveland. This year's problems are mainly here for two reasons; first, Kenny tried to have 'one more go' with this core group of players. Most of this 'core' were over the age of 30 -- and sometimes you're playing with fire there. The second lies in the lack of production from the farm system finally biting this team right in the ass. That one lies directly on Kenny's shoulders. He has called attention to it, let's see if things change.

 

Oh, and I know a lot of people are calling for Crede to have been traded, but I'd like to see some posts from the winter calling for Crede to be traded. It's easy to say it now, after he's sucked for two months, but off the top of my head, the only person actively wanting Fields up here on April 1st was beatox -- maybe I'm wrong and missed some posts, though.

[caulfield12]

Fathom, I think that you'd agree that even if Kenny put together the PERFECT, ideal winter, the Sox still wouldn't be much better than where they are now.

 

For example -- for me, the ideal offseason would have been dumping Podsednik for nothing and bringing in someone else on a one year deal for LF -- let's say Trot Nixon. I know you didn't like the Garcia trade a heckuva lot, and I fault Kenny Williams for his questionable 'crush' on Gavin Floyd, but in reality, one year of Gio Gonzalez throwing league average 'ball and we will, at the very least, be even in that trade. That doesn't change the fact that, at the time, it appeared Garcia would have a little more value than a B prospect (at the time, Gio) and a project pitcher in Floyd.

 

McCarthy trade? It's tough to see this trade ending up as a loss for the Sox, although I think B-Mac will wind up being a solid #3.

 

Cotts trade? More of the same -- I don't see how one could call that a bad move at the time the move was made or even now. Cotts was a one pitch pitcher, while Aardsma was coming off a pretty good year as a Cubs reliever. The Vasquez kid is having success at Charlotte, too, and is looking like he can eventually help a big league club, if only as a LOOGY.

 

Sisco trade? Ehh... Everybody loved it at the time, myself included, but after watching Sisco for now (about) three months -- spring training included -- it's tough to envision Sisco ever being anything more than a mediocre LOOGY. My not-trained-to-be-a-scout eye tells me his motion is very wierd -- I don't know how to put it into baseball terms, but it looks awkward, almost 'forced' (if you know what I mean). Meanwhile, Gload, a guy who was ALWAYS underutilized and (dare I say) underappreciated by this organization, would be this team's third best hitter (world's tallest midget with this offense, I know) and would have looked good filling in for Thome when he went down and right now as our LFer.

 

Hall signing? Don't need to talk a whole lot about him, great move, unfortunate injury.

 

Erstad move? I'm not going to talk about this a whole lot. I'm glad that Kenny didn't throw big money at any of the other free agent CFers, but I didn't particularly like the Erstad move (in a starting role). Then again, Anderson has gone down and sucked an egg at Charlotte. I guess this goes back to one of the real fatal trades of the organization, Vazquez for Young.

 

So basically what this comes down to is that I'm not close to calling for Kenny's head yet. He's still a top ten GM in baseball (that's off-the-cuff, but if someone challenged it, I'd be willing to put my personal list of those better/equal to him).

 

What it comes down to is, if Kenny made all the perfect moves this winter, I still don't think we'd be in sniffing distance of Detroit or Cleveland. This year's problems are mainly here for two reasons; first, Kenny tried to have 'one more go' with this core group of players. Most of this 'core' were over the age of 30 -- and sometimes you're playing with fire there. The second lies in the lack of production from the farm system finally biting this team right in the ass. That one lies directly on Kenny's shoulders. He has called attention to it, let's see if things change.

 

Oh, and I know a lot of people are calling for Crede to have been traded, but I'd like to see some posts from the winter calling for Crede to be traded. It's easy to say it now, after he's sucked for two months, but off the top of my head, the only person actively wanting Fields up here on April 1st was beatox -- maybe I'm wrong and missed some posts, though.

 

 

A lot depends on getting a comparable outfielder to CY back for Garland or Vazquez.

[fathom]

Fathom, I think that you'd agree that even if Kenny put together the PERFECT, ideal winter, the Sox still wouldn't be much better than where they are now.

 

I was expecting more creativity from KW. A lot of us thought he was collecting young arms in order to then make a trade for a superstar like Carl Crawford. With all of the momentum the organization had earned from the 2005 and 2006 season in regards to attendance, I had higher hopes that KW would bring in one more superstar to try and keep the momentum going for at least another season. I have no problem with him rebuilding, but I thought it should have been done after this current season. I hated the Garcia trade, as he was our best chip to go ahead and add another talent to the major league team. When you look at how much the Astros gave up to get Jennings, I really think we could have gotten more than a good, but not great prospect, in Gio and the crap that is Gavin Floyd. I honestly think Gio's best value to this team would be to trade him again, as his numbers are skewed by pitching in Birmingham and padding his stats against a few real bad hitting teams.

 

I still think we messed up by not including Perez on the 25 man roster. Thome is worthless against LHP. Also, I still think Ozzie messed up by putting Toby Hall at first base. It was a stupid decision on his half.

[caulfield12]

I was expecting more creativity from KW. A lot of us thought he was collecting young arms in order to then make a trade for a superstar like Carl Crawford. With all of the momentum the organization had earned from the 2005 and 2006 season in regards to attendance, I had higher hopes that KW would bring in one more superstar to try and keep the momentum going for at least another season. I have no problem with him rebuilding, but I thought it should have been done after this current season. I hated the Garcia trade, as he was our best chip to go ahead and add another talent to the major league team. When you look at how much the Astros gave up to get Jennings, I really think we could have gotten more than a good, but not great prospect, in Gio and the crap that is Gavin Floyd. I honestly think Gio's best value to this team would be to trade him again, as his numbers are skewed by pitching in Birmingham and padding his stats against a few real bad hitting teams.

 

I still think we messed up by not including Perez on the 25 man roster. Thome is worthless against LHP. Also, I still think Ozzie messed up by putting Toby Hall at first base. It was a stupid decision on his half.

 

 

I think the Astros preferred Jennings' "upside," and that they might have an easier time keeping him down the line than Garland, who many perceive as wanting to return to CA or possibly back to the Midwest and Chicago. I think their trade for Jennings was a little like the Royals signing Meche...they saw an undervalued pitcher, whereas Garland was coming off two very strong back to back seasons and the White Sox wanted too much for him.

 

The most valuable asset in the game is left-handed starting, which works in the favor of the White Sox if they do sell off Buehrle or Gio Gonzalez again.

[Whitewashed in '05]

It's gotta start with one of these (I wish I knew how to link a video properly):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8BcG6SUqpU

LOL, YES! YES!

 

I mean the video ofcourse...

 

I'm with that one guy who started a new thread everyday saying we should fire everyone in the organization.

[Whitewashed in '05]

Fathom, I think that you'd agree that even if Kenny put together the PERFECT, ideal winter, the Sox still wouldn't be much better than where they are now.

 

For example -- for me, the ideal offseason would have been dumping Podsednik for nothing and bringing in someone else on a one year deal for LF -- let's say Trot Nixon. I know you didn't like the Garcia trade a heckuva lot, and I fault Kenny Williams for his questionable 'crush' on Gavin Floyd, but in reality, one year of Gio Gonzalez throwing league average 'ball and we will, at the very least, be even in that trade. That doesn't change the fact that, at the time, it appeared Garcia would have a little more value than a B prospect (at the time, Gio) and a project pitcher in Floyd.

 

McCarthy trade? It's tough to see this trade ending up as a loss for the Sox, although I think B-Mac will wind up being a solid #3.

 

Cotts trade? More of the same -- I don't see how one could call that a bad move at the time the move was made or even now. Cotts was a one pitch pitcher, while Aardsma was coming off a pretty good year as a Cubs reliever. The Vasquez kid is having success at Charlotte, too, and is looking like he can eventually help a big league club, if only as a LOOGY.

 

Sisco trade? Ehh... Everybody loved it at the time, myself included, but after watching Sisco for now (about) three months -- spring training included -- it's tough to envision Sisco ever being anything more than a mediocre LOOGY. My not-trained-to-be-a-scout eye tells me his motion is very wierd -- I don't know how to put it into baseball terms, but it looks awkward, almost 'forced' (if you know what I mean). Meanwhile, Gload, a guy who was ALWAYS underutilized and (dare I say) underappreciated by this organization, would be this team's third best hitter (world's tallest midget with this offense, I know) and would have looked good filling in for Thome when he went down and right now as our LFer.

 

Hall signing? Don't need to talk a whole lot about him, great move, unfortunate injury.

 

Erstad move? I'm not going to talk about this a whole lot. I'm glad that Kenny didn't throw big money at any of the other free agent CFers, but I didn't particularly like the Erstad move (in a starting role). Then again, Anderson has gone down and sucked an egg at Charlotte. I guess this goes back to one of the real fatal trades of the organization, Vazquez for Young.

 

So basically what this comes down to is that I'm not close to calling for Kenny's head yet. He's still a top ten GM in baseball (that's off-the-cuff, but if someone challenged it, I'd be willing to put my personal list of those better/equal to him).

 

What it comes down to is, if Kenny made all the perfect moves this winter, I still don't think we'd be in sniffing distance of Detroit or Cleveland. This year's problems are mainly here for two reasons; first, Kenny tried to have 'one more go' with this core group of players. Most of this 'core' were over the age of 30 -- and sometimes you're playing with fire there. The second lies in the lack of production from the farm system finally biting this team right in the ass. That one lies directly on Kenny's shoulders. He has called attention to it, let's see if things change.

 

Oh, and I know a lot of people are calling for Crede to have been traded, but I'd like to see some posts from the winter calling for Crede to be traded. It's easy to say it now, after he's sucked for two months, but off the top of my head, the only person actively wanting Fields up here on April 1st was beatox -- maybe I'm wrong and missed some posts, though.

I agree on a lot of what you said. Especially the farm system tidbit! This past offseason KW was forced to gamble more than he would have liked with Sisco, Danks, Pods, Aardsma, Masset, and Erstad. I honestly don't think KW just settled for Pods and Erstad, but he thought maybe if our pitchers are "healthy" again we can get away with not so great offense. Not only did most of these guys not work out very well, but we have had bad years so far with Dye, Konerko, Iguchi, Mac, and our entire bench.

 

As far as trading Crede this past offseason I saw a few posts saying that we should have traded him the moment we couldn't reach a long term deal with him. Not that people would have wanted him to go, he had a great season.

 

Like I said before, look what some good years from players can do for a team in 2005, now look what some bad years can make a team look like, now. KW can still fix this ball club. It won't be easy, but he's done some magic before he can do it again. He finally got burned. He made one too many gambles with not many other options. The best finger to point at right now is player development in the farm, bottom line.

[caulfield12]

Sometimes managers get more out of their teams than they should. Sometimes they get less.

 

While this surely will surprise White Sox fans, Ozzie Guillen is a plus-3 this season, which means he has done a good job to hang around .500 with a team that has issues.

 

The only other managers who have helped out their team as much, according to the Impact Factor, are Arizona's Bob Melvin and Tampa Bay's Joe Maddon.

 

The managers having the worst years are the Yankees' Joe Torre and the Cubs' Lou Piniella, at minus-6 and minus-5, respectively.

 

It's a surprise Torre's moves aren't working, as he—like the Braves' Cox—should be on his way to the Hall of Fame. Both Torre and Cox have career Impact Ratings of plus-36, the best in history. That's better than any manager enshrined in Cooperstown.

 

Among those guys, Bill "Deacon" McKechnie, who won pennants with three of the four National League teams he managed, is a plus-29, and famed Yankees manager Miller Huggins is a plus-26.

 

No one's likely to catch Cox and Torre anytime soon either. Tony La Russa checks in at plus-21. Minnesota's Ron Gardenhire is plus-19. Dusty Baker was a plus-18 after winning with the 2003 Cubs but slid to plus-8 before being replaced by Piniella (surprisingly a career minus-4 after the horrible start this year).

 

from chicagosports.com (Phil Rogers)

 

I did a quick tabulation on the rest of Guillen's career...

 

2004=-1

2005=+8

2006=+2

2007=+3

 

Overall=+12

Edited June 1, 2007 by caulfield12

[santo=dorf]

QUOTE(maggsmaggs @ May 31, 2007 -> 08:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

KW has had the highest payroll in the AL central every year since 2001 and has won one division. He needs to go, its his time. Clean out the organization, its clear we are not headed in a great direction. Our minor leagues are horrible and our major league team is old and slow, worst possible combo. Promote Rick Hahn who is a more numbers guy and not a feel guy and lets see where he takes us. And Ozzie just needs to go, plain and simple.

Bulls***.

 

BTW, "your" =/= "you are.

 

Why are Kenny and Ozzie the only options here? KW puts the pieces in place, and it's Ozzie's and the coaches' jobs to motivate an ensure the players play to the best of their abilities.

 

Is it KW's fault Konerko, Crede, Iguchi, and Dye aren't hitting? No.

How could have KW improve this situation before the season started? He should've traded Crede at his peak value along with his slimy agent and back concerns. I'm holding that against him. You could argue Iguchi and Dye as well, but they are cheap, soon to be free agents who can net us draft picks. Crede can't do that after this season.

 

Is it KW's fault Erstad is a below average hitter? No, but he should not have signed him. Ozzie would have never had the chance to overplay him (Guillen's fault) and let him make a ton of outs if KW never signed the guy. I'm holding them both accountable.

 

Molina being an automatic out for a month and a half? That's Guillen's fault.

 

Bullpen? Mostly KW getting too young and cheap, but Ozzie certainly has not been managing them to the best of his abilities.

 

There is no cut and dry answer (well, maybe Walker if they want to send a message) at this point in the season.

[harfman77]

I think this is very premature, but if we fail to either make the playoffs or come out of this season with the prospects to make a run in the near future, it is time for Kenny to go. This organizational has done a horrendous job of bringing in amateur talent either through the draft or through international free agency and that all falls on the shoulders of Kenny Williams. I pray that Steinbrenner will fire Cashman so the Sox would have a shot, their minor league organization has been depleted over the years by some of Georges moves but it is a strength again for that organization. Either that or whoever is running the show in Arizona, they have also done a good job bringing in Owings, Quentin, Gonzales, Young, Callaspo, and others.

 

And if you get rid of Kenny you have to give the new guy an option to hire his own guy to manage the team, if he decides to stick with Ozzie, thats fine, if not he should bring in a guy that he trusts to get the job done.