Joe Cowley says our season is over: do you agree?

[scenario]

I disagree. I think we would have added a bat had we been in contention and would have been in very good shape.

 

I'd much rather be working from a position of strong pitching than vice versa.

 

Sound to me like we agree rather than disagree.

 

I strongly agree that I'd rather be working from a position of strong pitching.

 

But that doesn't mean that we should have built a team that, by design, was going to be at-best mediocre offensively and pray that our pitching would save us.

 

 

[Balta1701]

But that doesn't mean that we should have built a team that, by design, was going to be at-best mediocre offensively and pray that our pitching would save us.

Hypothetically then, what should have been done differently? I'll grant you bringing in a legitimate DH, but even in that case, if everything worked, that team is still mediocre offensively. The other holes we filled last season were either 3b/2b and LF/leadoff. Was there a better LF option? I could see Beltre being a better 3b option, but even adding Thome and Beltre wouldn't have made this a top-flight offense on paper.

[iamshack]

Sound to me like we agree rather than disagree.

 

I strongly agree that I'd rather be working from a position of strong pitching.

 

But that doesn't mean that we should have built a team that, by design, was going to be at-best mediocre offensively and pray that our pitching would save us.

What I'm saying is that we would add a bat so that our offense would become better than mediocre.

[scenario]

What I'm saying is that we would add a bat so that our offense would become better than mediocre.

 

What I'm saying is we should have done that in the offseason... rather than suffering through the inevitable.

 

 

[Balta1701]

What I'm saying is we should have done that in the offseason... rather than suffering through the inevitable.

And my response is...even if we had added an offseason bat...unless that bat can make Quentin, Beckham, Pierre, Ramirez, and Pierzynski not get off to horrid starts, we'd still be a below average offense, we'd still be a below .500 team by several games, and we'd still be talking about selling guys. Worse yet, we could have forced ourselves to make a trade for that guy or given up draft picks to sign that guy.

[iamshack]

What I'm saying is we should have done that in the offseason... rather than suffering through the inevitable.

I'm not sure we agree on what's causing this awfulness...

 

I tend to think that had the starting pitching performed as expected, we would be in a position to add even with the slow offensive start. I firmly place 80-90% of the blame for this on them, as opposed to the hitting.

[WCSox]

In regards to part 1, are you serious? He's been a terrible offensive player since May 1st. A hot April doesn't=significant offensive force. I can't even believe I'm having this argument about a guy that really has been a bad offensive player since 2006 ended.

 

As for Teahen, he's a 3rd basemen with no power and poor defense. To me, that's a problem, especially considering he's a career .331 OBP guy (with a whopping .340 in that category this year) and that's his best quality.

 

 

 

He is making mind numbingly ridiculous arguments, but if you want to attach to them as well, be my guest. To somehow defend Mark Teahen, Juan Pierre, and Andruw Jones performances right now as some sort of help is obnoxious. They've been mediocre, just like any reasonable person would expect. To say "people were wrong" to think they'd kill this teams offensive production is simply wrong.

 

Dude, take your retarded anger-fest somewhere else.

 

[scenario]

I'm not sure we agree on what's causing this awfulness...

 

I tend to think that had the starting pitching performed as expected, we would be in a position to add even with the slow offensive start. I firmly place 80-90% of the blame for this on them, as opposed to the hitting.

 

I understand what you're saying. The pitching has been a disappointment... yes. That was not expected.

 

But I just don't understand why we chose to accept offensive mediocrity (at best) in the first place.

 

We have THE lowest team batting average in the American League. We're near the bottom in OBP. We're 9th in SLG. All despite the fact that everyone is healthy.

 

The sad part is that this (to me) is not a surprise... which is what I find so frustrating about the design of this years team.

 

You shouldn't spend $100M and expect to have a mediocre (at best) offensive team.

 

That's just not acceptable IMO.

Edited June 7, 2010 by scenario

[fathom]

I understand what you're saying. The pitching has been a disappointment... yes. That was not expected.

 

But I just don't understand why we chose to accept offensive mediocrity (at best) in the first place.

 

We have THE lowest team batting average in the American League. We're near the bottom in OBP. We're 9th in SLG. All despite the fact that everyone is healthy.

 

The sad part is that this (to me) is not a surprise... which is what I find so frustrating about the design of this years team.

 

You shouldn't spend $100M and expect to have a mediocre (at best) offensive team.

 

That's just not acceptable IMO.

 

AWESOME POST! No excuse for such a high payroll to go into a season needing career years to even think about competing.

[dyuen]

I understand what you're saying. The pitching has been a disappointment... yes. That was not expected.

 

But I just don't understand why we chose to accept offensive mediocrity (at best) in the first place.

 

We have THE lowest team batting average in the American League. We're near the bottom in OBP. We're 9th in SLG. All despite the fact that everyone is healthy.

 

The sad part is that this (to me) is not a surprise... which is what I find so frustrating about the design of this years team.

 

You shouldn't spend $100M and expect to have a mediocre (at best) offensive team.

 

That's just not acceptable IMO.

I agree with you. I was angry in the offseason when we accepted having a mediocre offense and then people just assumed we would acquire a big bat to make the offense better. To me this is backwards thinking. Why wait 3 months to have a decent offense? I also agree that the bad offense is not a suprise. Sure some individual seasons are shockingly bad but as a whole the offense is just as bad as I thought it would be and the design was terrible.

[Balta1701]

I understand what you're saying. The pitching has been a disappointment... yes. That was not expected.

 

But I just don't understand why we chose to accept offensive mediocrity (at best) in the first place.

 

We have THE lowest team batting average in the American League. We're near the bottom in OBP. We're 9th in SLG. All despite the fact that everyone is healthy.

 

The sad part is that this (to me) is not a surprise... which is what I find so frustrating about the design of this years team.

 

You shouldn't spend $100M and expect to have a mediocre (at best) offensive team.

 

That's just not acceptable IMO.

Teams that are spending just about as much as us (Or more) with Mediocre offenses:

 

The Sox are 22nd in Runs, spending somewhere around $98 million if you count the money from the Dodgers.

 

The Tigers are spending $20 million more than us and are 20th in Runs.

 

The Cubs are spending $45 million more than us and are 23rd in Runs (13th in the NL).

 

The Phillies are spending $40 million more than us and are 18th in runs (10th in the NL).

 

The Giants are spending $98 million and are 25th in Runs.

 

Seattle is spending $98 million and is 26th in runs.

 

Houston is spending $92 million and is 28th in runs.

 

Furthermore, more than a few of these teams planned to win with pitching. Seattle, the Giants, etc.

 

Now look, I'm going to agree with you that the DH platoon was a poor idea. But let's come back to reality here. $100 million in salary does not make you a big spender in the MLB anymore. 14 teams are at $92 million or above. And even if we'd signed a DH, we're still at the bottom of the league in offense...because Quentin, Beckham, and others have fallen flat on their faces, and none of them were going to be replaced coming into this season.

[WCSox]

I understand what you're saying. The pitching has been a disappointment... yes. That was not expected.

But I just don't understand why we chose to accept offensive mediocrity (at best) in the first place.

 

We have THE lowest team batting average in the American League. We're near the bottom in OBP. We're 9th in SLG. All despite the fact that everyone is healthy.

 

The sad part is that this (to me) is not a surprise... which is what I find so frustrating about the design of this years team.

 

You shouldn't spend $100M and expect to have a mediocre (at best) offensive team.

 

That's just not acceptable IMO.

 

There's no reason why we shouldn't have brought back Thome. That said, there weren't a lot of other good offensive players out there that would play for Thome's current salary. It's not like we weren't looking (Damon).

 

There were too many payroll obligations on the books going into this past winter and not enough revenue coming into the organization to spend significantly more. Kenny was forced to go cheap (although one can certainly question how he spent). He got lucky with Jones and not-so-lucky with others.

 

[scenario]

Teams that are spending just about as much as us (Or more) with Mediocre offenses:

 

The Sox are 22nd in Runs, spending somewhere around $98 million if you count the money from the Dodgers.

Etc, etc....

 

Now look, I'm going to agree with you that the DH platoon was a poor idea. But let's come back to reality here. $100 million in salary does not make you a big spender in the MLB anymore. 14 teams are at $92 million or above. And even if we'd signed a DH, we're still at the bottom of the league in offense...because Quentin, Beckham, and others have fallen flat on their faces, and none of them were going to be replaced coming into this season.

 

 

Part of the problem is that we shouldn't have been depending on Quentin coming off injury... or Beckham starting his first full MLB season... to have big years...

 

At the same time we're expecting Teahen, Pierre, Jones, and Rios to have career bounce back type years.

 

Yeah, Rios has delivered. And that's great. Love to see it.

 

But just too many rolls of the dice at the same time IMO.

 

Add in AJP and Alexei getting off to slow starts and you end up with the crapfest we've been watching.

 

All too predictable if you ask me.

Edited June 7, 2010 by scenario

[iamshack]

I look at this pitching staff and I expected them to pitch very closely to the 2005 staff.

 

I looked at this offense and thought they would be better offensively than the 2005 lineup card.

 

I just honestly believed we had enough offensively, and any shortcomings would be addressed in-season.

 

Look at it this way, at least we didn't trade away a bunch of pieces for some bat that would have been irrelevant because we are pitching so poorly.

 

The key reason for all of this is that Ozzie wanted to try to win with this offense. That is the reason Kenny and Jerry let us go into the offseason this way.

[Balta1701]

I'll say it again...I'll agree that we needed to upgrade at the DH slot.

 

I'll disagree though that we were needing Teahen to have a bounce-back year. We were needing him to be average for Teahen (he's been that with the bat but not the glove). The calculus was simple; the Sox were below average defensively at 3b last year and below average offensively at 2b last year.

 

If you move Beckham to 2b, which is where you'd in theory want him anyway, then if Teahen is average at 3b defensively like he has been the last couple years, you're replacing Getz's .650 OPS with Teahen'.750 OPS. Teahen's glove has fallen off a cliff this season, but he's given us exactly what we were looking for with the bat; more than Getz.

 

I don't think anyone was hoping for a career year from Pierre. I'd be more than happy with a career average year from Pierre. He hasn't even done that.

 

The reality to me is...unless you were willing to dump Beckham, Quentin, or Ramirez in the offseason, or you really miss Getz's .516 OPS this year, the only spot where there was a legitimate upgrade to be had was DH by bringing in Thome. We weren't spending the money on Vlad, although that would have worked nicely too, but if we spent a little more on DH, we'd have been just as likely to be stuck with Matsui as we would have been with Vlad (maybe more likely since we needed a LH bat). And frankly, we've gotten better production out of the guys brought in to DH than I expected.

 

You're ignoring each and every one of the real issues here and harping on the minor ones. This team was built to pitch and put together a decent offense. The offense hasn't been decent, but until you can point out for me where you though dumping Beckham and Quentin was a good idea in the offseason, you're focusing on guys who really don't matter. And you're arguing that a team with a $100 million salary shouldn't have on paper an average/mediocre offense, when half the league is in exactly that boat.

[Balta1701]

The key reason for all of this is that Ozzie wanted to try to win with this offense. That is the reason Kenny and Jerry let us go into the offseason this way.

Gotta disagree with you shack.

 

The key reason for all of this is that we needed Beckham and Quentin to produce. You have those guys producing and this offense is probably in the upper part of the league, even with the other guys struggling.

 

The DH spot hasn't been the problem. It's been the guys they've been rotating with.

[WCSox]

I look at this pitching staff and I expected them to pitch very closely to the 2005 staff.

 

I looked at this offense and thought they would be better offensively than the 2005 lineup card.

 

I just honestly believed we had enough offensively, and any shortcomings would be addressed in-season.

 

Look at it this way, at least we didn't trade away a bunch of pieces for some bat that would have been irrelevant because we are pitching so poorly.

 

The key reason for all of this is that Ozzie wanted to try to win with this offense. That is the reason Kenny and Jerry let us go into the offseason this way.

 

I thought that they'd be roughly the same as the '05 lineup, but pretty much agree with the rest of this. I'm pretty sure that Kenny is happy that he didn't spend $8M on Damon to "put us over the top."

 

[ThunderBolt]

Coming into the season i had the White Sox offense pegged to be worse then last years. I was never a fan of gambling on such a great pitching staff with an offense composed of wishful thinking, retread types. Even now i still don't think the pitching staff being terrrible is a good enough reason to excuse our pathetic offense.

[Balta1701]

Coming into the season i had the White Sox offense pegged to be worse then last years. I was never a fan of gambling on such a great pitching staff with an offense composed of wishful thinking, retread types. Even now i still don't think the pitching staff being terrrible is a good enough reason to excuse our pathetic offense.

And I don't think the offense being somewhat worse than predicted is a good reason to excuse the pitching staff being hugely worse than expected.

[ThunderBolt]

And I don't think the offense being somewhat worse than predicted is a good reason to excuse the pitching staff being hugely worse than expected.

I'm not going to let the pitching staff off the hook either. The fact is even if we were pitching as expected, we'd still be the third best team in the division, because The Powers that Be were comfortable settling on guys like Mark Kotsay and Andruw Jones to sink or swim with this team.

[WCSox]

I'm not going to let the pitching staff off the hook either. The fact is even if we were pitching as expected, we'd still be the third best team in the division, because The Powers that Be were comfortable settling on guys like Mark Kotsay and Andruw Jones to sink or swim with this team.

 

Jones has been far from awful and Kotsay, although terrible, is a part-time player. If you want to point fingers, you're pointing them at the wrong players.

 

[ThunderBolt]

Jones has been far from awful and Kotsay, although terrible, is a part-time player. If you want to point fingers, you're pointing them at the wrong players.

I'm glad that you're comfortable with a .205 average and a .314 OBP coming from two guys who were supposed to hold down the DH spot. I'm not. Especially, when the majority of the 15 hr's and 34 RBI's that these guys put up are from a guy trending downwards in the exact same fashion as last year.

Edited June 7, 2010 by Thunderbolt

[iamshack]

Gotta disagree with you shack.

 

The key reason for all of this is that we needed Beckham and Quentin to produce. You have those guys producing and this offense is probably in the upper part of the league, even with the other guys struggling.

 

The DH spot hasn't been the problem. It's been the guys they've been rotating with.

I think you're misunderstanding my argument.

 

I agree the DH spot hasn't been the problem. I also agree having some of the core guys not hit, such as Quentin, Beckham, and AJ is killing us far more than Juan Pierre and the Kotsay/Jones platoon.

 

What I am saying is that the reason Kenny did not pull the trigger on Thome, or maybe some other potential big bats like Vlad, is that Ozzie kept insisting that he had what he wanted. Kenny relented and Jerry said "we can't hold the guy accountable as manager unless we give him the kind of roster he wants." So Kenny and JR reluctantly let Ozzie have his way. At least for a trial period.

 

I fully believe Kenny thought he would be adding an offensive piece around mid-June or early July to fortify a decent offensive team and a top-tier pitching team, and that would be enough to put us in position to win this division.

 

Unfortunately, it has turned out like really no one saw, which is Quentin/Gordo/AJ all hitting .200 AND our SP performing terribly.

Edited June 8, 2010 by iamshack

[WCSox]

I'm glad that you're comfortable with a .205 average and a .314 OBP coming from two guys who were supposed to hold down the DH spot. I'm not. Especially, when the majority of the 15 hr's and 34 RBI's that these guys put up are from a guy trending downwards in the exact same fashion as last year.

 

I'm comfortable with Jones' .823 OPS and 10 HRs as a part-time player. As for Kotsay, I'm pretty sure I was clear about his performance.

 

That said, nobody expected top-notch production from the DH spot this year. And I don't see why you and others continue to focus on it with laser beam-like intensity, while completely ignoring the fact that vets like AJ, Alexei, and Quentin are playing like horses*** this year. THAT'S the reason why this team can't score runs. When only three players on your roster with 150 PAs have a 100 OPS+ and Mark Teahen is your fourth-best hitter, singling out the DH is kind of silly, no?

 

Let's say that Kenny out-bid the Tigers for Damon back in March and released Kotsay. Do you think that it would make any significant difference in the standings? (Damon is currently sporting a WAR of 1.0. Kotsay's WAR is -0.5.)

Edited June 7, 2010 by WCSox

[scenario]

The reality to me is...unless you were willing to dump Beckham, Quentin, or Ramirez in the offseason, or you really miss Getz's .516 OPS this year, the only spot where there was a legitimate upgrade to be had was DH by bringing in Thome.

 

You're ignoring each and every one of the real issues here and harping on the minor ones. This team was built to pitch and put together a decent offense. The offense hasn't been decent, but until you can point out for me where you though dumping Beckham and Quentin was a good idea in the offseason, you're focusing on guys who really don't matter. And you're arguing that a team with a $100 million salary shouldn't have on paper an average/mediocre offense, when half the league is in exactly that boat.

 

 

I disagree.

 

A few comments...

You say I'm ignoring each and every one of the real issues? Why? Because I don't agree with you?

The majority of comparisons you make for run production to team salary are for team in the NL.

I don't think dumping Quentin or Beckham has anything to do with improving this team. The problem is that for the most part we simply built a mediocre offense around them and hoped they'd be better than they are.

 

Bottom Line: I think this is a poorly designed offensive team (average, obp, and slugging). We could have had people who would have made this a MUCH better offensive team in all categories without breaking the bank. And if we had, it is unlikely we'd be in the position we are now.

 

For example:

If I was in charge... (this is not revisionary history. It reflects what I would have done at the time, not as a result of looking in the rear view mirror.)

I wouldn't have traded for Pierre or Teahen. I think both are highly flawed offensive players who do not add quality to our lineup and therefore were bad decisions.

I would have left Beckham at 3B for this year (and avoided screwing up his head with another position move)...

I would have gone after Orlando Hudson to play 2B...

I would have gone after Damon and put him in left.

And I probably would have re-signed Thome.

 

Hudson, Damon, and Thome were better 'risks' than the guys we bet on.

The likelihood of them providing offensive consistency to what has been a terribly inconsistent lineup is high.

The net salary difference involved would not have been significant.

And the net impact on our lineup, IMO, would have been.

 

Instead we rolled the dice... and ended up with mediocrity which has hurt us since other guys we were depending on are struggling and there's been no one to pick them up.

 

You want to disagree... fine.

But don't expect me to agree that I'm "harping on a minor issue".

We are a bad offensive ballclub by design. That is NOT a minor issue.

Edited June 7, 2010 by scenario