Part Time Thome Kills Sox Again

[Dick Allen]

Our team was in it primarily because of an outstanding run against NL teams, where the DH was not part of the equation. Notice how mediocre we were prior to and after the NL stretch. Just look at out record against the AL and AL Central.

This is an excellent point. The Sox were 12 games over .500 against the NL. They are 2 games over .500 against the AL. While half of those games against the NL incorporated the DH, they were against teams that usually don't play with one. The rotating DH has not worked. Maybe it could if you actually had everyday-quality players rotating, but even some of the better hitters struggle when DHing once in a while. A week or so ago, the White Sox had the 13th ranked production out of the DH spot in the AL. I don't know if its changed, Manny has probably raised the overall average a couple of points, but no run production.

[Paint it Black]

LOL

On and on about Thome.

Thome didn't cost us the division.

We could have picked up a similar DH. KW listened to Oz. It's both their faults.

It's second guessing about Thome. This board had so much Thome hate his final year here.

I hope Thome leads them to the WS title. Once and for all, Minnie, go for it.

And the Ozzie haters may get their wish of his firing. Surely Thome will bury us in that 3 game series some more and Oz just might freak out where he throws something or injures a writer and finally gets fired for good. He's sensitive about the Thome thing.

 

You guys on this Thome kick fail to accept one fact.

We were in the race w/out Thome. We did not add to the team at the AS Break. We stood pat and paid for it.

We could have responded like competitors and added a bat. We were right there with Minnie.

Sox thought they could stand pat.

Halfway through the season we were right there WOUT THOME.

Sox could have but didn't add the bat to continue competing with Minnie. But keep dreaming about Jimmy Thome who so many wanted out of town and were so happy he went to the Dodgers.

 

Let me guess, the Thome for Rowand deal was a bad trade?

 

Although you are right about how many people wanted Thome gone last year, it doesn't mean they're complete idiots. I'm tired of trying to play NL baseball in the AL. Yeah the "rotating DH" is a great idea if you know, you actually have the talent to pull it off. This is on Ozzie and only Ozzie. It's what he wanted. The White Sox left a lot of runs on the table by not resigning Thome and it hurt them the first two months of the season.

[elrockinMT]

We should have signed Jim Thome. But, what is the overall record of our rotating DH guys anyway?

[BigSqwert]

But, what is the overall record of our rotating DH guys anyway?

What does that mean?

[Paint it Black]

What does that mean?

I think what he is saying is what is our record when Quentin is the DH or when Jones was the DH, etc.

 

Personally, I don't think that tells you anything. There are countless variables with stats like that.

[Vance Law]

But the decision to not sign *Thome* AT THE TIME was not that bad of a decision. It's almost like going back to a draft after 5 years and figuring out who should have been drafted.

nope. read the opinions of a huge number of posters in the 66 page thread from January. January was before the season started.

 

But honestly, I believe if we did sign Thome, we'd still be in this spot and people would be ripping on K-Dubya and Oz for going into the season with an aging DH who couldn't play full time.

some people would. an enormous number of posters would not. peruse the 66 page thread from January to determine who thought what in the offseason, which was before the season started.

 

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=76042

[Leonard Zelig]

He certainly could have helped earlier in the season. Kotsay was hitting .333 his last 20 games according to the graphic last night, but its a pretty empty .333.

This month Mr. Unclutch Jim Thome has 6 walks and 5 homers in 23 plate appearances. He has 10 homers his last 60 plate appearances. I cannot see any argument that says getting rid of him, basically kicking him out the door as he would have played for whatever you would have paid him, was anything but a horrendous move. I've seen lots of attempts, but they make zero sense.

 

 

Our team was in it primarily because of an outstanding run against NL teams, where the DH was not part of the equation. Notice how mediocre we were prior to and after the NL stretch. Just look at out record against the AL and AL Central.

 

 

 

Replaces one of the weakest links in our lineup (Thome > Kotsay)

 

Takes away several Twins wins I can think of... including the walkoff against us in Minny.

 

The swing between those two events probably makes the difference in the standings.

 

And the Sox runs scored since the ASB is somewhat deceptive. We have been a very inconsistent offense. We had big scoring days followed by games where we couldn't buy a run against crappy pitching. It's exactly the sort of thing that happens when you have a combination of bangers and low OBP (aka high probability out-producing) players in the lineup.

 

I'm not going to drag this out into a long argument, but I think Thome is the easy excuse and it ignores the fact that 2 of our starters were the worst in the league for 1/3 of the season, 1/3 of our lineup was horrible to start the season, and that our bullpen has cost us plenty of games. I'm not saying that the offense would not have been better with Thome, but he wouldn't have prevented what I believe the main deficiencies of this season were. The Sox could have won this division without him and I think there are several other people to blame for our position before the people who chose not to resign him.

 

[Jerksticks]

I'm not going to drag this out into a long argument, but I think Thome is the easy excuse and it ignores the fact that 2 of our starters were the worst in the league for 1/3 of the season, 1/3 of our lineup was horrible to start the season, and that our bullpen has cost us plenty of games. I'm not saying that the offense would not have been better with Thome, but he wouldn't have prevented what I believe the main deficiencies of this season were. The Sox could have won this division without him and I think there are several other people to blame for our position before the people who chose not to resign him.

 

 

All of this is spot on in my opinion. Perfect post here. To think one unsigned man was the sole cause of our futility....well that's just too easy to argue.

[Jerksticks]

And people like to point to Thome's late-inning heroics as the missing piece, but what about all the runs Teahen has cost us? Either by botching up defense or not coming through with the bat. Or the whole team sucking...but no, it's Thome!

[greg775]

Let me guess, the Thome for Rowand deal was a bad trade?

 

Although you are right about how many people wanted Thome gone last year, it doesn't mean they're complete idiots. I'm tired of trying to play NL baseball in the AL. Yeah the "rotating DH" is a great idea if you know, you actually have the talent to pull it off. This is on Ozzie and only Ozzie. It's what he wanted. The White Sox left a lot of runs on the table by not resigning Thome and it hurt them the first two months of the season.

 

Leonard Zelig is da man. He said it best IMO.

As far as the above post, I don't argue with it as much as say to all of you Thome people, who cares?

Our team was in the race and still had a shot at the all star break. Instead of building on we had, for whatever reason, we couldn't get Dunn or anybody and we faded away.

This should be a reminder every year to not be fooled that teams don't need upgrading at the trade deadline.

 

As a Sox fan and competitor I choose to not praise Thome every single day and lament his loss. I wanted to beat his ass, instead the Sox whimpered away, losing losing losing to Central Division teams all the time and failing to upgrade.

 

Yes in hindsight we needed Thome I guess, but Leonard's points cannot be denied!!!!

Edited September 12, 2010 by greg775

[Buehrle>Wood]

greg, how do you manage to make every thread on this board so awful? It's really impressive.

[greg775]

Somebody like Zelig makes a great counterargument and the Thome lovers go away.

I see nobody's responding to Zelig, so I bring it up.

The Thome argument is not cut and dried.

 

And killing a thread about Thome? Gee, sorry, like the subject isn't in every thread.

What is a good thread? Somebody makes a point and everybody agrees I guess and feels better. Thome great; Kotsay sucks; let's get on with the day.

 

Thome is one of my favorite Sox ever. He is class and like somebody said earlier he's deep down loving what he's doing to a team that didn't want him. Of course he is and gets the last laugh this year.

Edited September 12, 2010 by greg775

[gatnom]

I'm not going to drag this out into a long argument, but I think Thome is the easy excuse and it ignores the fact that 2 of our starters were the worst in the league for 1/3 of the season, 1/3 of our lineup was horrible to start the season, and that our bullpen has cost us plenty of games. I'm not saying that the offense would not have been better with Thome, but he wouldn't have prevented what I believe the main deficiencies of this season were. The Sox could have won this division without him and I think there are several other people to blame for our position before the people who chose not to resign him.

 

Sure, they could have won this division without him, but they didn't because of the reasons you mentioned and then some. If the Sox resigned Thome, he would probably add a couple wins over the course of the season. Taking him away from the twins probably takes away a couple wins from them. That puts the Sox at two games back and still in the race instead of six games back and looking forward to golfing with Hawk in the offseason.

[LittleHurt05]

The reason the Sox didn't sign Thome was because he couldn't play the field, yet their big waiver wire pick up is basically a full-time DH now too. I still support the Manny pickup no matter what happens, but I just find that funny and ironic.

[chw42]

greg, how do you manage to make every thread on this board so awful? It's really impressive.

 

Trolling is an art.

[LittleHurt05]

greg, how do you manage to make every thread on this board so awful? It's really impressive.

 

The ignore function is a spectacular thing

[EvilMonkey]

You could count last year on one hand how many times Thome managed to hit to the left side and beat the shift when with the Sox. It would take 2 hands just to count the amount of times against the Sox alone. I for one would like to offer a bif f**k you to Mr. Thome for playing out his ass now instead of the last 2 years when we needed him. Mr. clutch hit he sure wasn't.

[kitekrazy]

Ron Gardenhire figured a way to get the most from good old #25. JT has 23 dingers and everyone seemingly critical to our chances (see Twins 1-0 win Saturday night).

 

Thats OK we got Mark Kotsay...

 

Geez only 41 post and this is the best you can come up with?

This has been beat to death more so by the baseball retarded.

 

YAWN

 

[StrangeSox]

You could count last year on one hand how many times Thome managed to hit to the left side and beat the shift when with the Sox. It would take 2 hands just to count the amount of times against the Sox alone. I for one would like to offer a bif f**k you to Mr. Thome for playing out his ass now instead of the last 2 years when we needed him. Mr. clutch hit he sure wasn't.

 

Thome had an OPS of .973 and .865 the previous two seasons. He played very well for the Sox.

[bigruss]

Geez only 41 post and this is the best you can come up with?

This has been beat to death more so by the baseball retarded.

 

YAWN

Way to attack a fellow poster personally.

 

And it keeps getting talked about because Thome keeps hurting us, and people are frustrated seeing him on our biggest divisional rival right now, as tehy are easily pulling away from us. Of course everything will be blown up when a team is struggling for a playoff spot, and having a stud player leave your team for the team ahead of you will only increase the attention it gets.

[Quin]

Kotsay has played 45 games at DH, 32 at 1B. He's played a majority at DH. He plays one position well, that of our best player. He brings no flexibility.

 

He is good defensively, not great by any stretch of the imagination.

 

With the way this season has gone, on days Paulie needed a rest, Teahen or Dayan could have taken over at first while we had a useless hitter at DH.

[fathom]

Please explain to me how this man is ever allowed to make personnel decisions?

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,3994057.story

[StrangeSox]

Please explain to me how this man is ever allowed to make personnel decisions?

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,3994057.story

 

From the article:

 

As a part-time DH with the Twins, Thomas has hit 23 homers with 54 RBIs. White Sox have produced 16 homers and 55 RBIs.

 

This likely indicates that Thome would have had significantly more RBI opportunities with the White Sox.

[IamtheHBOMB]

Please explain to me how this man is ever allowed to make personnel decisions?

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,3994057.story

 

I think everybody is sick of the Thome argument, but I do find Ozzie's take on it pretty hilarious. He puts on this facade, "you wanna make me the bad guy in this, then make me the bad guy". Like he is being so noble and falling on his sword for the sake of everyone else. Dude, in the first five minutes of the Chicago White Sox reality show you are on tape saying you don't want him on the team. You told the GM you wouldn't give him at bats if he was on the roster.

 

Someone should playback that clip for him to jog his memory.

Edited September 13, 2010 by IamtheHBOMB

[greg775]

Trolling is an art.

 

 

The ignore function is a spectacular thing

 

 

You could count last year on one hand how many times Thome managed to hit to the left side and beat the shift when with the Sox. It would take 2 hands just to count the amount of times against the Sox alone. I for one would like to offer a bif f**k you to Mr. Thome for playing out his ass now instead of the last 2 years when we needed him. Mr. clutch hit he sure wasn't.

 

1. Yeah I'm a troll at 11,000 posts and have been here like 9 years or something. I'm a troll. I've been here a long long time.

2. I don't ignore any poster. I like all points of view in life.

3. Thome was great with the Sox but the game threads brutalized him when he kept hitting into the shift. I remember he'd go to left once in a while and even homer to left center and we'd want more of it.

I'll never rip him, loved him and he's certainly getting even with us now. He's beating us like he did in the old days when he killed the Sox as a member of the Tribe for years.