What is Going Wrong With the Sox

[Jordan4life_2007]

Alright. It looks like we're just going to ignore that I'm going back to the all-star break last year. And not just the start of this year. But that's fine.

 

Thanks, Milk. I thought I was clear. This isn't just about a slow start to this season.

Edited April 21, 2011 by Jordan4life

[Milkman delivers]

If Rios had 5 of those solid contact outs land for hits, his batting average would .254 right now, and this thread wouldn't even exist. 15 games to declare someone as being bad is just stupid. Has he gotten off to a bad start so far? Absolutely. Does he all the sudden suck now? Hahaha, no. Give it at least 100 games before we bury him in the dirt.

 

Learn how to read. The time between the ASB of 2010 and now is more than just a small sample size.

[macsandz]

As soon as this team started bunting into triple plays, f*cking around on defense and blowing multiple, 3- run 9th inning leads, the Baseball Gods decided to pi$$ on them for week or so.

 

Their penance will end soon boys, and when it does they'll start rolling again.

[greg775]

Man I can't wait when all the people on the ledge say they believed in this team all year.

 

I'll never say that, because this team the past couple years has been so up and down you believe for a time, then don't.

I can't stay blindly optimistic in this team. But if we somehow get good, I'll congratulate the team for the turnaround.

 

I'm still waiting for the Sox to get their first late inning lead in about a week and a half. I truly think they'll blow it. Our next win will be like 9-3.

[earthshiner]

I say trade ozzie for Gardenhire then...

[T R U]

The Sox have gone from the "new car" smell to the "omg who the f*** threw up in my backseat" smell.

 

Im thinking more BBO smell from Seinfeld

[witesoxfan]

As soon as this team started bunting into triple plays, f*cking around on defense and blowing multiple, 3- run 9th inning leads, the Baseball Gods decided to pi$$ on them for week or so.

 

Their penance will end soon boys, and when it does they'll start rolling again.

 

This kind of blind optimism bugs me too. There are some legitimate concerns with this team and, due to these concerns, it's possible they can go into a month or two month long funk. The rotation has quite a bit of talent but subbing Humber in for Peavy brings it down quite a bit, especially since Floyd has shown that he can go into sustained slumps, Jackson can be extremely erratic (though I personally think he's going to be just fine), and Buehrle has begun to show some signs of wear and tear over the years and I don't think you can count on anything more than a 4.25 ERA, which IS valuable in its own right. And, though I think the bullpen is going to be fine in the long run, it's still a bit of a concern as well. I think Thornton will be fine in the long run and Sale, Santos, and Crain should all be solid (though I think Crain will come back down to earth a bit as well). But Ohman is really only good to get an out here or there, Pena is terrible, and Gray isn't a major league reliever. So, in all reality, the Sox offense could heat up at the exact time the pitchers start to unravel a bit too.

 

I think there are some concerns with the offense as well, but not as many, Morel and Beckham being the biggest of those concerns.

 

I do still think it's a good team, but honestly, a lot depends on Peavy - not just because of Peavy himself, but because of what it does to the entire pitching staff. If he can get back to being even a 4.00 ERA pitcher for the Sox, it makes the rotation extremely strong - replacing a 5.00-5.50 ERA pitcher with that will do wonders - moves Humber to the mopup role, where I think he'll be solid, moves Pena to about a 6th inning role where he can be put into low or middle leverage situations, and leaves the big 4 to handle the 7th, 8th, and 9th. It also allows the Sox the tiniest bit of depth in case another starter gets hurt, because Humber can probably prove to be an adequate fill-in type. If Peavy doesn't get back to full health, then the Sox are stuck with Humber in the rotation and god forbid what happens to it if someone else goes down.

[StrangeSox]

Nobody ever does that, seriously. So many incorrect things are said about the pessimistic posters. It's like watching Fox News talk about Democrats.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

I'm starting this thread in Spring Training next year.

 

Well, you started it in March a couple years ago

[Balta1701]

Alright. It looks like we're just going to ignore that I'm going back to the all-star break last year. And not just the start of this year. But that's fine.

 

Thanks, Milk. I thought I was clear. This isn't just about a slow start to this season.

And you're ignoring the majority of his career.

[Harry Chappas]

They are too wildly inconsistent in every facet of the game to be taken seriously.

 

Whatever it was that Ozzie used to do to get the best out of his team is gone. They should be winning on talent alone and they are not.

[southsider2k5]

I saw the game. And he was definitely unlucky. But you know better than anybody how fed up I am of this dude. KW took a risk. I'll give him credit for that. But the return has not been worth it.

 

We could always run Macowiak out there again...

[BigSqwert]

And you're ignoring the majority of his career.

How about his career as a White Sox? Pretty unimpressive overall.

 

.259 average, with minimal power, since we acquired him.

Edited April 21, 2011 by BigSqwert

[caulfield12]

Or Anderson, Wise, Owens, Erstad, Pods, etc.

[caulfield12]

Cleveland had a long pennant race and an ALCS game 7 just a couple years ago, and they're right back to the bottom of the league in attendance now.

 

Trading Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez, Blake, Peralta, Franklin Gutierrez, Ben Francisco, etc., since will do that to a franchise. The only identifiable players they were left with were a post-HGH Hafner and an ailing Sizemore.

 

Dolan just never got the fans back on his side (from the very beginning), he's regarded more like Huizenga there from what I've read.

 

You would like to think with the Cavs seemingly dead in the water that they could make some inroads getting 20-30% of their fans back. Let's not forget, it took from something like 1954 until the 90's teams (and movies like Major League) for baseball to become popular again in CLE, along with the new stadium.

Edited April 21, 2011 by caulfield12

[bigruss]

Get this s*** out of the way now, and start playing some complete ball soon. The stretch won't last forever, but the good teams are ones that can persevere out of a stretch like this. It'll show a lot of the mentality and character of the team in how they recover from this.

 

Hopefully it brings them together and they start playing some good baseball by the time I return in a week.

[fathom]

Now is the chance to be an expert by figuring out why the team will turn it around. Anyone can point out the problems, the fun is figuring out what no one else sees. So I am not surprised that fathom would start this thread. I am surprised he hasn't contributed more meat. That's what I was hoping to read.

 

Read this three times, and still don't understand what you're trying to say. And if you're saying that anyone could point out the stuff I said, I highly doubt most people would list stuff about Will Ohman looking better, etc. and most people probably had turned off the game before seeing Dunn's compact swing for a double.

[Tuna]

I think he'll turn it around, having said that, I dropped him from my fantasy team two days ago...

[oldsox]

I saw the game. And he was definitely unlucky. But you know better than anybody how fed up I am of this dude. KW took a risk. I'll give him credit for that. But the return has not been worth it.

I don't know how you can give KW "credit" for taking a risk. What he did was to take a huge problem off the hands of Toronto. Similar to what he did for San Diego.

[mmmmmbeeer]

I remember watching that last blown save and thinking to myself how badly those guys needed a break to get their heads straight and reevaluate their approaches to closing games. Then I began to reminisce about how baseball is such a difficult game because, with a 162 game schedule, you just don't get those opportunities to refresh yourself mentally...MT and CS would just have to suck it up and learn on the fly.........then came 6 more losses and a nice week long mental break for the pen. Baseball is a funny game.

[southsider2k5]

I don't know how you can give KW "credit" for taking a risk. What he did was to take a huge problem off the hands of Toronto. Similar to what he did for San Diego.

 

Teams do this all of the time. It's called buying low. It brought us guys like Jim Thome and Jose Contreras off of the top of my head.

[fathom]

Teams do this all of the time. It's called buying low. It brought us guys like Jim Thome and Jose Contreras off of the top of my head.

 

Indeed, and if you have a high payroll like we do, it's a great way to get talent without having to give up much. It might not have worked out well with Rios and/or Peavy, but it's much better to be the team in the position to get the talent instead of a team like the Pirates that loses it.

[Socal Cid]

Teams do this all of the time. It's called buying low. It brought us guys like Jim Thome and Jose Contreras off of the top of my head.

 

 

Big difference in buying low and taking a flyer on someone while paying them a couple of million, as opposed to the rediculous contracts KW assumed in Rios and Peavy. If neither of these two players perform KW needs to go.

[Steve9347]

Ok, I've covered another slow-starter. Someone want to make a thread for the rest of our lineup sans TCQ?

 

Seriously, though, does Gordon Beckham suck?

[Chisoxfn]

I noticed at spring training that his bat speed just looked slow. He had trouble catching up to any fastballs and it looks right now that he's completely in between on his swing.