This all falls on KW

[jasonxctf]

so I read a stat the other day, that the Sox's bullpen, including Bobby Jenks had a 7+ era since May 8th.

 

lets assume that by May 20th, everyone knew that the bullpen was in bad shape?

 

so what has KW done to fix this problem?

 

5/27/07- Sent Andrew Sisco to AAA

5/28/07- Called up Dewon Day

6/4/07- Sent Mike McDougal to AAA

6/4/07- Called up Bret Prinz and Ryan Bukvich

6/16/07- Put Dewon Day on the DL

6/16/07- Called up David Aardsma

6/21/07- Sent Bret Prinz to AAA who refused assignment

7/4/07- Sent David Aardsma to AAA

7/5/07- Called up Gavin Floyd from AAA

7/6/07- Put Mike McDougal on the DL

7/6/07- Reinstated Dewon Day from the DL

7/10/07- Sent Gavin Floyd to AAA

7/12/07- Called up Charlie Haegar from AAA

7/17/07- Sent Nick Masset to AAA

7/17/07- Called up Ehren Wasserman from AAA

 

The Sox were 21-19 on May 20th. Still within reach of the Wild Card or Division.

 

KW choose to not make any trades for bullpen help, yet now he says we are in buyers mode???

 

 

[retro1983hat]

Fully agree. KW is on the hook for this.

[jackie hayes]

First off, is it that hard to write a more informative thread title?

 

But as to the substance, what was your proposal? What should KW have done mid-season? To get premier relievers would have depleted the minors, if we could have gotten them at all, and we would've been left with a slightly improved bullpen and still no offense. And no future. No thanks.

[jasonxctf]

not sure if its still around but i had made a post about 16 relievers in just the AL that are from teams with no chance of competiting. (TB, Balt, TX, KC, etc)

 

The point is, that when he had a chance and the team had a chance, KW chose to do nothing.

 

Now, when the team is past the point of no return, any move that KW makes to better the team is too late.

 

He didn't give the team a chance to win in 2007.

[Colorado Sox Fan]

Nobody trades away decent relievers that early in the season. Teams have to start dropping out of contention. The Yankees are desperate for bullpen help and they can't get anything, either. Nearly everyone's LOOKING for bullpen help. Remember when the Sox bullpen was getting praised? This was a long time ago:

 

 

04/22/2007 12:30 PM ET

By Justice B. Hill / MLB.com

 

DETROIT -- Manager Ozzie Guillen broke Spring Training camp a few weeks ago with plenty of uncertainty about his bullpen.

"Spring Training was no fun," Guillen said. "We did not pitch well in Spring Training."

 

He had no doubt that the arms were there. He knew he had the people to form a productive and effective bullpen, but could those people pitch better for Guillen than they'd done in the Arizona sunshine?

 

The answer is a resounding "yes."

 

For if any part of the White Sox team has been a bigger surprise than the 'pen, Guillen doesn't know what it is.

 

From the start of the season until now, his bullpen has displayed a kind of consistency that Guillen didn't see in Spring Training or last season. Relievers have come in and silenced opposing offenses with regularity.

 

No matter whose name Guillen calls for relief, he's getting good work.

 

Case in point: the five relievers he used Saturday afternoon in the 7-5 victory over the Tigers in 10 innings. They worked a total of three innings, gave up one hit, one walk but no runs. The performance of the bullpen has been a nice about-face from what it had done in Cactus League play.

 

"The way they pitched in Spring Training, it was a lot of hopes," Guillen said of his bullpen. "But, now, we know they throw the ball the way they should be throwing the ball."

 

In 7 1/3 innings against the Tigers, Guillen's 'pen has allowed no runs, struck out nine and held the Tigers to a .120 average.

[CanOfCorn]

not sure if its still around but i had made a post about 16 relievers in just the AL that are from teams with no chance of competiting. (TB, Balt, TX, KC, etc)

 

The point is, that when he had a chance and the team had a chance, KW chose to do nothing.

 

Now, when the team is past the point of no return, any move that KW makes to better the team is too late.

 

He didn't give the team a chance to win in 2007.

 

Um...yeah, you are assuming that those teams that employed the 16 relievers were willing trade partners. Do you know that KW DIDN'T call their GMs and ask for Special Reliever "A?"

 

Cuz, if they are that good of a reliever, perhaps they wanted to wait until closer to the deadline to start a bidding war?

 

Alls I'm sayin' is, it takes two to tango.

[NorthSideSox72]

Seriously, what trades could KW have made in May or even June for solid, experienced relievers, that wouldn't have required giving up major talent from the minors (which the Sox have a very limited supply of anyway) or giving up some high price like a starter?

 

And besides, in spring training and even the first month plus of the season, everyone was PRAISING the bullpen for their performance. And there is still a lot of talent in the bunch, but some of them need more development.

 

KW gets some responsibility for it because its his roster, sure. But to say this "all falls on KW" is to suffer from long term memory loss.

 

[jasonxctf]

quite true.. so maybe you have to overpay a bit to get a middle reliever in May rather than July.

 

What a difference it would have made.

 

[elrockinMT]

Our goose was cooked early as far as the pen is concerned, but troubles were exasperated by a slumping offense, etc, etc.

 

It's a team thing and difficult to correct other than through internal moves. It was and still might be a little to early to expect trades to help this club rebound. I don't want to give up, but every night it's like the pen especially finds a new way to lose and a new scapegoat.

[NorthSideSox72]

quite true.. so maybe you have to overpay a bit to get a middle reliever in May rather than July.

 

What a difference it would have made.

You are suggesting that overpaying for one middle reliever would have made a significant difference? I really don't think so. This bullpen has multiple holes to fill, and having to give up the farm to fill just one of them would not have helped much this season (but it would definitely have hurt later).

 

[jackie hayes]

not sure if its still around but i had made a post about 16 relievers in just the AL that are from teams with no chance of competiting. (TB, Balt, TX, KC, etc)

 

The point is, that when he had a chance and the team had a chance, KW chose to do nothing.

 

Now, when the team is past the point of no return, any move that KW makes to better the team is too late.

 

He didn't give the team a chance to win in 2007.

You just may want to glance at how those pens have done this year. TB's and Baltimore's have been awful. I don't think Texas would have written off the season that early. And who from the Royals? Riske?

 

Bullpen arms are always unpredictable. Trading off 3 decent minor league starters (thinking of the price for McDougal) on the off-chance that everyone you get'll pan out, when your minors are lacking already and your offense is one of the worst in baseball -- now THAT would have made me call for Williams's head.

 

I don't know how anyone can look at these Sox with 20-20 hindsight and say they had a chance. This is just an awful team, and neither a couple bullpen arms nor an act of God could get them into the WS this year.

[winninguglyin83]

my thoughts on this bullpen are simple:

 

KW trusted in guys he had no reason to trust.

 

Call the freakin role.

 

Sisco? We'd seen him pitch in the division for two years. He had no command and no consistency. What reason was there to believe it was going to change? He needs a lot of work in the minors to fix some mechanical issues -- and he might never make it.

 

Aardsma? The Cubs sent him up and down a million times last year. The Giants had already dumped him. one-trick pony with a straight fastball. Wasn't hard to envision what was going to happen and did.

 

Masset. Control problems in the minor leagues. Why would anybody think that he would come to the majors the start throwing strikes? I don't care how hard you throw. If you're always behind 2-0 and your fastball is straight, you got no chance against good hitters.

 

I'll give him Jenks, Logan, Thornton and even MacDougal (the biggest disappointment) for a foundation.

 

But building a bullpen around Sisco, Aardsma and Masset was simply foolish -- and KW got burned big-time.

Edited July 18, 2007 by winninguglyin83

[jasonxctf]

i think the point that i'm trying to make here, is that everyone knew that the bullpen was an issue back in mid-late May.

 

Why are we sitting here in late July with the problem still unfixed?

 

Would a corrected bullpen saved the season??? hard to tell. i would guess we would have 6-7 more wins right now if we had quality, major league talent in there. 6-7 more wins, puts the sox around .500 with a fighting chance for post season play.

[Balta1701]

Gio Gonzalez and Ryan Sweeney for Octavio Dotel.

 

Get it done KW!

 

(ok, so I can't find the text color button yet)

[Balta1701]

Would a corrected bullpen saved the season??? hard to tell. i would guess we would have 6-7 more wins right now if we had quality, major league talent in there. 6-7 more wins, puts the sox around .500 with a fighting chance for post season play.

The question is...how much do you sell off in order to get a fighting chance at the postseason (in the AL nonetheless, where a .500 record leaves you 15 games out of playoff contention at the end of the year)

[hitlesswonder]

I don't know how anyone can look at these Sox with 20-20 hindsight and say they had a chance. This is just an awful team, and neither a couple bullpen arms nor an act of God could get them into the WS this year.

 

I agree -- it's not like the bullpen is the only hole on the team. The offense is terrible. Half the starting lineup consists of AAA players. And to get decent relievers that early in the season would have cost players like Egbert, Gonzalez or Sweeney.

[Balta1701]

I agree -- it's not like the bullpen is the only hole on the team. The offense is terrible. Half the starting lineup consists of AAA players. And to get decent relievers that early in the season would have cost players like Egbert, Gonzalez or Sweeney.

And perhaps equally as important...the guys on the offense who aren't terrible all seemingly got off to terrible starts except Thome (who got hurt). Even if everything else was equal, we weren't going to win many games with this version of Podsednik and Erstad at the top of the order and Konerko, Iguchi, Dye, and Crede hitting around .200 for the first 2 months.

 

We survived bad starts by Konerko and Dye in the first 2 months of 05 because the pitching was really, really good and because we did a nice job of manufacturing runs with Pods tearing up the basepaths. Without that, we didn't have any way to avoid a slump there either.

[RockRaines]

the underperforming of basically everyone on the team falls on KW? Am i missing something?

[Gregory Pratt]

the underperforming of basically everyone on the team falls on KW? Am i missing something?

 

1. Do you have any criticisms of Kenny Williams at all?

2. I think the Overexpectations of Kenny Williams falls on KW.

[GreatScott82]

Whats Shingo been up to? It can get much worse than it is now can it?

[WCSox]

KW gets some responsibility for it because its his roster, sure. But to say this "all falls on KW" is to suffer from long term memory loss.

 

+1

 

Hey, KW haters, does Kenny also take the blame for Jermaine Dye hitting .225?

 

This just isn't their year. With the money that KW saves from JD, Tad, and Crede's contracts, let's hope that he can get some decent veteran middle relief this winter.

 

[Wanne]

I guess my biggest problem was keeping Sisco up...which I think personally was an ego trip by KW. Sisco had NO BUSINESS being with the big club at that point...and yet he was used in critical situations. But there was talk of using him as a starter at the beginning of the season. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong...but isn't he being used as a starter now? I'm not blaming KW for all of this...but between him and Ozzie's use of the pen...it's been frustating as hell.

 

And along the lines of the pen...somewhere in there AJ needs to be mentioned. I know it's probably tough for him knowing all these new faces and all...there strengths and weaknesses...but I can vividly recall just shaking me head with certain pitches called for in certain situations.

[harfman77]

I guess my biggest problem was keeping Sisco up...which I think personally was an ego trip by KW. Sisco had NO BUSINESS being with the big club at that point...and yet he was used in critical situations. But there was talk of using him as a starter at the beginning of the season. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong...but isn't he being used as a starter now? I'm not blaming KW for all of this...but between him and Ozzie's use of the pen...it's been frustating as hell.

 

And along the lines of the pen...somewhere in there AJ needs to be mentioned. I know it's probably tough for him knowing all these new faces and all...there strengths and weaknesses...but I can vividly recall just shaking me head with certain pitches called for in certain situations.

 

The problem with Sisco is that he always seemed to be close to figuring it out before it would fall apart for him. He has great stuff, and good power coupled with no control at all. I think KW and Cooper thought he would turn it around and they gave him every opportunity to do so.

[RockRaines]

1. Do you have any criticisms of Kenny Williams at all?

2. I think the Overexpectations of Kenny Williams falls on KW.

you are right, it was totally an overexpectation to think that our offense would perform as it has the last several years, and to assume the ace of our staff would continue to pitch well, and to think that at least 3 people in our bullpen could be trusted. Total insanity!!!

[fathom]

you are right, it was totally an overexpectation to think that our offense would perform as it has the last several years, and to assume the ace of our staff would continue to pitch well, and to think that at least 3 people in our bullpen could be trusted. Total insanity!!!

 

Who's the ace you're referring to? If it's Contreras, then I think we all knew better after how he looked since returning from injury last season.