Would it be better for the organization to get swept by the twins?

[Jordan4life_2007]

Everytime I think I want the Sox to lose to better the organization, I remember that no one has been held responsible in a long time for the struggles on the field (ie: Greg Walker). Also, as others have accurately stated, the more this team loses now, the more we will lose in attendance and the result will be loser payroll in upcoming seasons. I root more for guys like Kotsay and Vizquel to perform poorly (if we're going to lose, of course) in order to provide more chances for Nix, etc. As much as I might state that I don't mind if we lose, I know that every game we win, my optimism for the next game and a possible win streak rises.

 

The only time I deem it "better" to lose is when you're hopelessly out of it and you can improve draft position. I was on that train in 2007.

[SoxAce]

Leave it to the mods to call out people for stepping over the line.

 

The mods suck however.

[iamshack]

I don't think it's foolishness. Now, if you think the White Sox are going to win 92 games this season, I could at least understand your argument in believing that they can overcome this. I don't think they are more than about a 80 win team if things go well.

 

I don't think team sucks - there are at least 10 teams clearly worse than they are, probably a few more. They are not good enough in my estimation to overcome a 8 game deficit.

First of all, I have not stated how many games I think they will win.

 

Second of all, we have ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY GAMES LEFT. I'm sorry, but you just do not have neither the crystal ball nor the immense evaluation skills to know whether or not 8 games can be made up with 132 left. That is literally one game every two weeks. We honestly don't know a whole lot more right now than we did at the beginning of the season.

 

Finally, you have no idea what kinds of injuries or trades/transactions might occur between now and the end of the season. You just have no idea what could happen over the course of five months!

[BigSqwert]

The only time I deem it "better" to lose is when you're hopelessly out of it and you can improve draft position. I was on that train in 2007.

I don't want this team to tank it. We've got too many good players underperforming. I'm not overly optimistic that we'll secure a playoff spot but I think they have it in them for a good run the rest of the way.

[iamshack]

Can this team play at the clip necessary based on the hole they've already dug to reach the low 90's win total necessary to even have a shot at the postseason though? Very unlikely.

Do you think the fans of THOSE teams thought it was likely at this point in those seasons? They would have said the same thing!

[fathom]

The only time I deem it "better" to lose is when you're hopelessly out of it and you can improve draft position. I was on that train in 2007.

 

Agreed, I think we'd all agree that if we're 10 out come mid-August, losing would be better off (except Greg maybe)

Edited May 11, 2010 by fathom

[spiderman]

First of all, I have not stated how many games I think they will win.

 

Second of all, we have ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY GAMES LEFT. I'm sorry, but you just do not have neither the crystal ball nor the immense evaluation skills to know whether or not 8 games can be made up with 132 left. That is literally one game every two weeks. We honestly don't know a whole lot more right now than we did at the beginning of the season.

 

Finally, you have no idea what kinds of injuries or trades/transactions might occur between now and the end of the season. You just have no idea what could happen over the course of five months!

 

Unless you think this team is going to play at a 80-45 clip (or something close to this), I think you're fooling yourself. I don't need immense evaluation skills to know that a team that I expect to win about 80 games isn't good enough to not only overcome a 8 game deficit, but also win close to 90 wins.

[Jordan4life_2007]

As annoying as it is for you to see negative posts from people like me, it's equally annoying to see you be negative about those posts. We don't need a Positivity Policeman in the forum. Leave it to the mods to call out people for stepping over the line.

 

That's what you and others don't seem to get. I'm not saying you have to be Hawk or the 2006 version of jphat. And the mods shouldn't do anything. You're not breaking any rules or anything. You have the right to be as negative as you'd like. But this is a public message board. If I went on a "this team sucks, the season's over" rant every 5 minutes I'd expect somebody to call me out at some point.

[whitesoxfan101]

Do you think the fans of THOSE teams thought it was likely at this point in those seasons? They would have said the same thing!

 

Of course not, which is why you wait until July before taking action on a team. But I don't think the fans of those teams who assumed their teams sucked turned out to be dumb because their squad was one of the small minority who overcame absolutely sucking for the first several weeks. At some point, you are what you are. We're not quite at that point yet (I personally think the Memorial Day/June 1st region is a good time to first evaluate what your team is), but we're getting there quickly.

Edited May 11, 2010 by whitesoxfan101

[spiderman]

The Yankees were 21-29 in 2007 and made the playoffs. Point is the season is far from over.

 

If the White Sox had the talent that the Yankees typically do, I'd feel better about their chances.

[Chisoxfn]

The Sox will be in serious trouble if the team collapses. You guys should know that. We haven't dedicated enough money to the farm system and don't have a lot of tradeable assets to the contracts in place and the fact that most of our tradeable assets are guys we don't want to trade (Floyd/Danks) as they would be key building blocks.

 

So Peavy/Konerko/Buehrle are all key guys that we could move, but wouldn't get a lot for due to there contracts. Paulie might be the exception on this because he's putting up massive numbers and only has this year remaining on his deal. But his pending FA will reduce his value a bit.

 

Danks/Floyd/Quentin/Beckham/Ramirez are all guys that are potential building blocks that we probably wouldn't move because we'd have to trade for prospects and push everything back a few years. Quentin/Ramirez might be guys we'd look into trading, but there production hasn't been as good recently and because of that I don't know how beneficial a trade would be.

 

Andruw Jones would be a good piece to sell come July if we aren't in it and he is still hitting. His contract is a steal and plenty of teams could use a player like him at his price.

 

Jenks - most likely to get non-tendered

 

Thornton - s***loads of value with 1 year remaining. If we were going to go into a rebuilding mode, we'd probably have to move him cause there is little value holding him due to the fact we would be a few years away.

 

But the thing that is the most scary, is that if we were to go through a complete rebuilding due to salary restrictions, we just don't have the prospects at hand to even be close to being competitive. It would take years to get to that point, imo, since we don't have the trade chips necessary to help restock the system. We'd basically be completely reliant on the draft in the upcoming years to rebuild the system (outside of Viciedo, Flowers, Huddy, Morel and a few other guys).

 

That is where Kenny's lack of setting aside enough resources towards our minor league player development and acquisitions has really killed the squad.

[spiderman]

Of course not, which is why you wait until July before taking action on a team. But I don't think the fans of those teams who assumed their teams sucked turned out to be dumb because their squad was one of the small minority who overcame absolutely sucking for the first several weeks. At some point, you are what you are. We're not quite at that point yet (I personally think the Memorial Day/June 1st region is a good time to first evaluate what your team is), but we're getting there quickly.

 

[caulfield12]

Including the last two games that were blown in the series against TOR, we've blown and gone on to lose 7 "late" leads ALREADY at this early point in the season. (Some of the Twins' teams, like 2006, might have done this 2-3-4 times all season long, something like that...)

 

Can that trend continue without Jenks as the closer? Probably not, the numbers will even out.

 

LET'S just argue that they had held onto 4 out of 7 of those leads, not entirely unreasonable, agreed? They'd be 17-15 or maybe 16-16 and right in the thick of it heading into Minnesota.

 

"Close" games we've lost out of 19 (not to mention many games were leading early and were passed....we haven't been BLOWN out more than 5-6 times all season where the game was "hopeless")

 

APR 7th 3-3 tie in 7th against CLE, LOSS

APR 8th 3-2 lead into the 8th against CLE, LOSS

APR 9th 3-2 lead into the 7th against MINN, LOSS

APR 10th 1-0 lead into the 8th before Garcia walks Thome, Kubel goes yard MINN, LOSS

 

THESE FOUR GAMES, to me, were the turning point in this season's momentum being stalled/killed from the get-go.

 

APRIL 16th trailing 3-2 in the 6th against CLE, LOSS

APRIL 17th, 2-1 lead into the 8th, CLE, LOSS

APRIL 23rd, 3-2 deficit into the 6th, TEX, LOSS (think it was against CJ Wilson)

APRIL 30th, 4-4 tie into the 7th against NYY (Thornton gave up those runs, yes?) LOSS

 

MAY 4th, 2-1 deficit into 7th against KC, I think Teahen error here opens the floodgates, LOSS

May 7th, 3-2 lead in the 8th against TOR, LOSS

plus 2/4 games the last series against TOR, BLOWN SAVES

 

 

That's 12 out of the 19 losses that were either blown and lost late or one run deficits/tie games that got away from the Sox. In fact, I'd guess out of those "OTHER" 7 losses, 3-4 of them were games we had early leads in and the starting pitched just cratered (Peavy/Floyd).

 

Turn around those 7 blown leads late into a 4-3 record or 3-4 record, we're not having this conversation at all.

 

Of course, someone will say (and rightly so) that baseball "evens" out, that we've had 3-4-5 "comeback" wins (Mariners' series, Teahen in TOR) that we absolutely didn't deserve...so the naysayers will argue we're exactly where we deserve to be.

 

Certainly, Pythagoras would agree we're a below average, so-so team, just not as terrible as things would appear on the surface.

Edited May 11, 2010 by caulfield12

[whitesoxfan101]

The Sox will be in serious trouble if the team collapses. You guys should know that. We haven't dedicated enough money to the farm system and don't have a lot of tradeable assets to the contracts in place and the fact that most of our tradeable assets are guys we don't want to trade (Floyd/Danks) as they would be key building blocks.

 

So Peavy/Konerko/Buehrle are all key guys that we could move, but wouldn't get a lot for due to there contracts. Paulie might be the exception on this because he's putting up massive numbers and only has this year remaining on his deal. But his pending FA will reduce his value a bit.

 

Danks/Floyd/Quentin/Beckham/Ramirez are all guys that are potential building blocks that we probably wouldn't move because we'd have to trade for prospects and push everything back a few years. Quentin/Ramirez might be guys we'd look into trading, but there production hasn't been as good recently and because of that I don't know how beneficial a trade would be.

 

Andruw Jones would be a good piece to sell come July if we aren't in it and he is still hitting. His contract is a steal and plenty of teams could use a player like him at his price.

 

Jenks - most likely to get non-tendered

 

Thornton - s***loads of value with 1 year remaining. If we were going to go into a rebuilding mode, we'd probably have to move him cause there is little value holding him due to the fact we would be a few years away.

 

But the thing that is the most scary, is that if we were to go through a complete rebuilding due to salary restrictions, we just don't have the prospects at hand to even be close to being competitive. It would take years to get to that point, imo, since we don't have the trade chips necessary to help restock the system. We'd basically be completely reliant on the draft in the upcoming years to rebuild the system (outside of Viciedo, Flowers, Huddy, Morel and a few other guys).

 

That is where Kenny's lack of setting aside enough resources towards our minor league player development and acquisitions has really killed the squad.

 

Now this I agree 100 percent with, and it's also very scary to think about. If the Sox are going to go into rebuilding mode, more resources have to be put into minor league development, and we'll probably have to trade some people we really don't want to just to get some young talent back. And even then, it'll take us minimum a few years to get good again.

[Balta1701]

The Sox will be in serious trouble if the team collapses.

The one guy missing from your list is Rios...who I think is the key guy if you're going to do the firesale.

[iamshack]

Unless you think this team is going to play at a 80-45 clip (or something close to this), I think you're fooling yourself. I don't need immense evaluation skills to know that a team that I expect to win about 80 games isn't good enough to not only overcome a 8 game deficit, but also win close to 90 wins.

Let me ask you this. What were your expectations prior to the season?

 

If we were 16-16 instead of 13-19 do you think we would have no chance still?

Edited May 11, 2010 by iamshack

[whitesoxfan101]

The one guy missing from your list is Rios...who I think is the key guy if you're going to do the firesale.

 

I don't think you'll get too much value for him even if he keeps producing like this when you consider his history of turning it on and off, along with him still have a huge contract.

[Jordan4life_2007]

I don't think you'll get too much value for him even if he keeps producing like this when you consider his history of turning it on and off, along with him still have a huge contract.

 

Rios isn't going anywhere. We've finally found an above average CF after years of bad.

[Chisoxfn]

The one guy missing from your list is Rios...who I think is the key guy if you're going to do the firesale.

I didn't even mention Rios because he isn't tradeable. He falls similarly into the Peavy/Buehrle/etc mode where any value you'd get for the player is off-set by the fact that he has a significant long-term contract and while he is playing great this year, I don't see any team willing to take on that contract and give us quality chips.

 

Basically put, this team doesn't have many guys that would fall into a firesale. And if we did go into firesale mode, it isn't as if we would be clearing payroll to than re-invest it in the following year. We would be clearing payroll because our team sucks and attendance is coming down and payroll will come down with it.

 

So there would be very little value gained by moving a Rios/Peavy/Buehrle except from the financial standpoint. Sure we might get some B prospects, but I'd be quite surprised if we were able to turn those guys around for a few A prospects. I might be wrong though because it all depends on the market and if Peavy and Buehlre are kicking ass we might be able to get quite the haul for them and that might be enough to really speed up the rebuilding process.

[whitesoxfan101]

Rios isn't going anywhere. We've finally found an above average CF after years of bad.

 

Well that's the other side of it. Even if i'm misreading his value, would the Sox want to trade him? The only way I would say yes is if they feel his strong start is a mirage, and considering his talent level, I doubt they feel that way.

[flavum]

Shack--

 

There's a huge difference between 13-19 and 16-16. I hate to break that to you, but there is.

 

Just do this...assume the Sox are out of it until they get to .500. When they get there, then see how many games out they are, and go from there. Until they get to .500, there's no point in being Mr. Positive.

[iamshack]

Shack--

 

There's a huge difference between 13-19 and 16-16. I hate to break that to you, but there is.

 

Just do this...assume the Sox are out of it until they get to .500. When they get there, then see how many games out they are, and go from there. Until they get to .500, there's no point in being Mr. Positive.

No, there isn't...there is a huge difference between how that shapes your impressions of the team.

 

Think just how easily 3 losses could have gone differently and been wins....now if you think you can predict with THAT much certainty just how good or bad this team is, after just 32 games, you are on crack. I am sorry, but you just can't.

 

Edit: By the way, don't mistake my argument for being Mr. Positive. I have not stated one way or the other whether I think this team will win this division or the Wild Card. All I'm attacking is this silly and ridiculous notion that after 32 games you can say with any degree of certainty that this team is incapable of winning the division.

Edited May 11, 2010 by iamshack

[Chisoxfn]

Shack--

 

There's a huge difference between 13-19 and 16-16. I hate to break that to you, but there is.

 

Just do this...assume the Sox are out of it until they get to .500. When they get there, then see how many games out they are, and go from there. Until they get to .500, there's no point in being Mr. Positive.

Look at how many late games this club has blown. Much more than the typical ratio's and enough to state that a 3 game swing would have been the norm. Add in the fact that we've had a good bullpen for the most part and you'd have to think we'd fall on the other side of this process as well coming up. It doesn't always work out that way, but I don't think it is tough to say that this team probably should be .500 and has been a little on the unlucky side (not even factoring in our below normal averages and significantly higher ERA's).

[whitesoxfan101]

No, there isn't...there is a huge difference between how that shapes your impressions of the team.

 

Think just how easily 3 losses could have gone differently and been wins....now if you think you can predict with THAT much certainty just how good or bad this team is, after just 32 games, you are on crack. I am sorry, but you just can't.

 

I would say you are both right. The Sox could easily have the 3 extra wins they need to be .500 right now with as close as a lot of games have been. But what about the close games they've won, like in the sweep of Seattle? Additionally, even if we ignore those, the Sox would have to come up with a stretch of ball six games above .500 to get back to break even, so as easily as this team could be .500, the difference between that and 13-19 is still significant.

[caulfield12]

The Sox will be in serious trouble if the team collapses. You guys should know that. We haven't dedicated enough money to the farm system and don't have a lot of tradeable assets to the contracts in place and the fact that most of our tradeable assets are guys we don't want to trade (Floyd/Danks) as they would be key building blocks.

 

So Peavy/Konerko/Buehrle are all key guys that we could move, but wouldn't get a lot for due to there contracts. Paulie might be the exception on this because he's putting up massive numbers and only has this year remaining on his deal. But his pending FA will reduce his value a bit.

 

Danks/Floyd/Quentin/Beckham/Ramirez are all guys that are potential building blocks that we probably wouldn't move because we'd have to trade for prospects and push everything back a few years. Quentin/Ramirez might be guys we'd look into trading, but there production hasn't been as good recently and because of that I don't know how beneficial a trade would be.

 

Andruw Jones would be a good piece to sell come July if we aren't in it and he is still hitting. His contract is a steal and plenty of teams could use a player like him at his price.

 

Jenks - most likely to get non-tendered

 

Thornton - s***loads of value with 1 year remaining. If we were going to go into a rebuilding mode, we'd probably have to move him cause there is little value holding him due to the fact we would be a few years away.

 

But the thing that is the most scary, is that if we were to go through a complete rebuilding due to salary restrictions, we just don't have the prospects at hand to even be close to being competitive. It would take years to get to that point, imo, since we don't have the trade chips necessary to help restock the system. We'd basically be completely reliant on the draft in the upcoming years to rebuild the system (outside of Viciedo, Flowers, Huddy, Morel and a few other guys).

 

That is where Kenny's lack of setting aside enough resources towards our minor league player development and acquisitions has really killed the squad.

 

 

I don't things are quite so bleak.

 

Let's go back to the end of 2007. Our minor league system was even looking more brutal, agreed? The only glimmer of hope was Owens/Fields/Wasserman and the fact that we hadn't dealt Buehrle/Dye, etc.

 

With the additions of Floyd/Danks/Ramirez/Quentin to that ballclub, we went from 72 to 89 wins, a 17 game differential.

 

There's absolutely no reason that can't happen again. 2005, coming off that mysterious 2004 offseason, we caught lightning in a bottle and never looked back.

 

Yes, 100%, KW'd need to make the "RIGHT" moves in the prospects acquired department....if it was 2002 all over again with our returns (the only decent one we got back was Frank Francisco), then I'd tend to agree with you.

 

Things would look a lot different to me if Mitchell was raking now at Winston-Salem or even BIRM, and looking 1 1/2 years away instead of 2 1/2 to 3 years out....

 

Yes, I do agree trading out of that most valuable core (Thornton, Danks, Peavy, Floyd, Rios) is riverboat gambling at its best and Jonestown suicidal at its worst, but I have zero belief that KW won't do at least SOMETHING and sit back on his hands while Rome is burning. Numerous times, they both said they won't tolerate and sit idly through another 2007, yes?

 

We do need a lot of things to break right with Flowers, Morel, Viciedo, Danks II, Shelby (possibly), Santeliz, CJ Retherford...but I don't think we can say we're any worse off now than in 2007, with the possible exception of the Twins looking like a "dynasty" and spending more money than us on payroll.

 

OTOH, look how good the Tigers and Indians (and White Sox in 05/06 and 08) have looked at different points and how each team "collapsed" and fell back to earth, only to be resurrected like a phoenix out of the ashes. It's always possible in this division, it's just that the margin of error is razor thin with Mauer signed until forever (then again, he goes down due to injury and their franchise is seriously imperiled, with 20% of payroll soaked up by ONE player, that almost never works, see A-Rod) and the Twins being finally able to compete on a level playing field with us and DET.