This team is a catastrophe right now

[greg775]

The problem is that there is no elite talent on the big league team (PK may have been once, but the years and mileage have taken their toll, and Sale, while likely to be a very good starter, is, in my opinion, a solid number one starter, but not a true ace...and yes board, feel free to flame me if you'd like), and there isn't any on the farm apparently, as Hawkins is struggling, although it's way too early to write him off. There is some decent talent on the big league club, but to contend, you really would need career seasons from a lot of those players (e.g. DeAza, Viciedo, Beckham). The years of safe but low ceiling drafting along with few very high draft picks (which is a nice problem to have) have left the cupboard bare, and I just don't see how the Sox are going to be competitive for a while. I'm optimistic that Hahn will right the ship sooner rather than later, and while a lot of people point out (and are partially correct) that loading up on top prospects isn't a recipe for success, it doesn't hurt your chances, particularly when said top prospects can be great trade chips. Sorry to give up on the season so soon, but I'm hoping for a fire sale, and to bring in as many young players as possible and let Ventura do what he's supposed to be good at - working with young talent. Yeah, the attendance will be miserable, as will the on-field product, but those things will happen anyway with the current team. I'd like to see the Sox be proactive sooner rather than later, and will support and follow the team with a keen eye towards the future. Hahn was apparently one of the most coveted young execs in baseball, so let's see what he can do.

 

That's a pretty good post.

I hope if the Sox do trade Paulie, Rios, Peavy, Dunn, Thornton and Crain he can manage to get some useful young prospects for all of them. It's scary to think he might trade those familiar names, but if the Sox keep losing at this rate, you'd think they would be huge sellers right before and after the all-star break.

If the past is any indication, the team will wake up, start hitting some home runs and be just north or south of .500 most of the year and prevent the wholesale selling of parts.

[LVSoxFan]

I liked the op, BW!

 

Drunk or not this is just painful to watch.

[joeynach]

I'm a little drunk(drinking is the only way to make going to these Sox games fun after all)so prepare for the over exaggerations. This team is just awful. This franchise is awful.

 

-Robin Ventura, go the f*** away. You are one incredibly bad manager who almost makes me wish for the days of Ozzie Guillen. Almost. Thank you so much for not signing that extension.

 

- Matt Thornton: How does an 8 year veteran make the mistake of trying to pick someone off second with 2 strikes? Oh, you have no confidence in youself? Don't worry, we have zero confidence in you too.

 

With you 100% on these two points. RV I have seen enough, his baseball acumen, his understanding of game situation, his knowledge of player tendencies, his adaption of some of the newer strategies and information all seem to be well well below average to me. I have seen enough.

 

Thornton, when was the last time he actually threw 96-98 and blew hitters away....2009? I understand velocity's drop as a player ages and the innings pile up, but so should the team's manager, scouts, and GM. However, apparently no one else has noticed this glaring trend as Thornton has continued to be use,d looked at, and penciled in by Sox management and our manager as this same 97-98 blow him away high leverage reliever now for years and he just isn't anymore. He's got no secondary pitch, not one he can throw for strikes, and now that he's throwing 93 not 98 his margin for error is much smaller. Does anyone else want to recognize hes not the same as he used to be and should not be used in need these need a strikeout-high leverage situations against other team's best hitters.

 

Here is Thornton's K/9 rate from 2010 to 2013. 12.02, 9.50. 7.34, 3.68.

Here is Thornton's vFB from 2010 to 2013. 96.1, 95.8, 95.0, 93.7

Here is Thornton's Swing Miss % from '10 to '13. 14.9, 10.4, 8.1, 5.2

 

ENOUGH SAID ON THORNTON!

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

With you 100% on these two points. RV I have seen enough, his baseball acumen, his understanding of game situation, his knowledge of player tendencies, his adaption of some of the newer strategies and information all seem to be well well below average to me. I have seen enough.

 

Thornton, when was the last time he actually threw 96-98 and blew hitters away....2009? I understand velocity's drop as a player ages and the innings pile up, but so should the team's manager, scouts, and GM. However, apparently no one else has noticed this glaring trend as Thornton has continued to be use,d looked at, and penciled in by Sox management and our manager as this same 97-98 blow him away high leverage reliever now for years and he just isn't anymore. He's got no secondary pitch, not one he can throw for strikes, and now that he's throwing 93 not 98 his margin for error is much smaller. Does anyone else want to recognize hes not the same as he used to be and should not be used in need these need a strikeout-high leverage situations against other team's best hitters.

 

Here is Thornton's K/9 rate from 2010 to 2013. 12.02, 9.50. 7.34, 3.68.

Here is Thornton's vFB from 2010 to 2013. 96.1, 95.8, 95.0, 93.7

Here is Thornton's Swing Miss % from '10 to '13. 14.9, 10.4, 8.1, 5.2

 

ENOUGH SAID ON THORNTON!

 

Not to mentioned he is to be garbage in High-Leverage situations, which seems to be when Robin loves to use him....

 

 

2012 - .297 OppAVG, 7.00 ERA, 7 BB, 8 K, 1.44 WHIP, .841 OppOPS

2011 - .303 OppAVG, 4.80 ERA, 9 BB, 10 K, 1.93 WHIP, .838 OppOPS

 

s***, his CAREER ERA in high-leverage situations is 5.98 and that's in 122 IP.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Chilihead90

[The Ginger Kid]

Thanks for that...I needed a good laugh!

 

It's so painful watching Thornton any more, especially against division teams who are ready for his limited arsenal.

[The Ginger Kid]

 

Here's a funny quote...

 

"It was my fault. I got a little bit too far out there and I shouldn't have put myself in that situation," Tekotte said. "I'll learn from it. I take the blame on that one. I felt like I lost momentum a little bit there for us."

 

A little? You think?

[caulfield12]

At the rate we're going, at the end of the homestand, we'll be in 29th place out of 30 teams in MLB attendance. If we're lucky, we will still be ahead of SEA....that's after 15 homes games, or 18.5% of the season.

 

To stay out of 29th place, we'll need to average 16,045 in the next 6 games, for a total of 96,273 fans.

 

 

 

BOTTOM 10

 

21. Minnesota 26,481

22. Tampa Bay 21,904

23. Houston 21,596

24. Kansas City 20,984

25. Pittsburgh 20,615

26. SOX 20,188

27. Miami 19,586

28. Oakland 19,309

29. Seattle 18,531

30. Cleveland 15,194

 

 

 

 

 

[KPBears]

I never understand why everyone falls into this "we're going to suck for years thing." Yes, we have been losing and our team is incredibly frustrating to watch but we keep losing by 1 run. We have been every game minus the Sale vs. Cleveland Saturday game. You have to think things are going to turn and I don't think the organization's future is dire.

 

I am just happy, as another poster just pointed out, we have our rotation set through the next two years.

 

'14 -'15 Rotation

 

1.) Sale

2.) Peavy

3.) Danks

4.) Quintana

5.) Santiago/Axelrod

6.) Erik Johnson

7.) Scott Snodgress

 

 

 

Not only that but a lot of money comes off the books after 2014.

 

After '13: Konerko (13.5 mil), Floyd (9.5 mil) Thornton (5.5 mil ** 6 mil club option - 1 million dollar buyout), Crain (4.5 mil), Lindstrom (2.8 mil)

After '14: Dunn (15 mil), Peavy (14.5 mil), Rios ( 12.5 mil, **team option for 13.5 mil - 1 million dollar buyout)

 

Assuming club buys out Thornton, that's 34.8 million off the books after 2013.

Assuming club buys out Rios, that's 41 million off the books after 2014.

Assuming club exercises Rios option, and we still net 28.5 mil after 2014.

 

Plus, every FA we would lose would be past their biggest pay out and in their 30's; almost all of them should be had for less or equal to their preceding year's salary.

 

 

Obviously any complete turn around would have to be had through developing young talent but targeting specific free agents should at least keep the team competitive with their abundance in starting pitching. We will definitely have money to spend.

 

FA Options in 2013:

 

Catchers: Brian McCann, John Buck, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Geo Soto

1B: Corey Hart, Kendry Morales, Justin Morneau, Mike Morse

2B: Robinson Cano, Chase Utley

3B: Michael Young,

OF: Jason Kubel, David Murphy, Jacoby Ellsbury, Curtis Granderson, Shin-Soo Choo

 

FA Options in 2014:

 

Catchers: Russell Martin,

1B: Billy Butler, Victor Martinez (maybe)

2B: Dustin Pedroia, Rickie Weeks,

3B: Pablo Sandoval, Hanley Ramirez, Aramis Ramirez, Chase Headley

OF: Melky Cabrera, Josh Willingham, Denard Span,

DH: Victor Martinez

 

There's anywhere from 50-75 million coming off the books and it's going to have to go somewhere. And on a night where the Sox just lost their fourth in a row this is all I can talk about.

 

The reason I fall into the "we're going to suck for years thing" group is because, quite frankly, the Sox have the least organizational talent of any team in MLB. There are certainly teams with less talent at the big league level, but on an organization wide level, the Sox are dead last. There is almost no young position player talent at any level in the Sox system, and most of their top prospects have far too many holes in their game (and I'm hoping that Hahn leverages them into trades for better prospects down the road). If you analyze the talent, both in Chicago and on the farm, on a position by position basis, nearly every position is average or poor. Our best players seem to be Rios, who won't be around much longer and should be on the block if he continues his hot start and the right package is available, and Sale, who I think will be good but not great (and quite frankly, if Sale and his reps had any confidence that he would be an elite pitcher for an extended period, they would not have signed such a cheap deal, and would have gambled on a few more big years leading to a superstar contract).

 

And as a further comparison, look at the 2005 team. I think the Sox have had more talented teams in the relatively recent past (certainly some of the early/mid 90's teams, and possibly even the early 2000's teams). But the 2005 team had a number of average to pretty good players have career or near career years...Rowand, Crede, Podsednik, Buerhle, Contreras, Garland, Hermanson (who was picked up by Jenks after his injury). Not to mention other players in or near their primes who are far more talented than most of the current roster like AJ, Uribe, Garcia, Dye and Paulie. That's a list of 12 guys who had one of their better (if not their best) years of their career (and there was also Everett, who was faded but still put up pretty solid numbers for a supposedly washed up DH). If you take 12 regulars on this year's squad, and they have similar success, I still don't see this team winning more then 85-87 games, which won't even be enough for a wild card spot. And the best players on the team, with the exception of Sale and maybe Reed and Viciedo, are going to be one year older and already on the back 9 of their career.

 

The organization needs a serious talent infusion. It will take time, but smart drafting, smart prospect swapping, and somewhat free spending (when the time is right, and which the team will do despite what some poster think) can turn things around. I think it's going to be at least a four or five year period before they really compete again (maybe three if everything breaks right). But it can happen. For those who aren't old enough to remember the mid to late 80's, the Sox were miserable during that period. But they scouted and drafted well, made smart moves, and it led to approximately a 20 year period where they were frequently competitive, doubled their franchise postseason appearances, and won the big one. If the Sox lose 90 games for the next three years and then have another run equal to 1990-2012, I will be very pleased.

[caulfield12]

Indians-White Sox Preview

The Cleveland Indians are looking to match their longest winning streak from last season, and facing the slumping Chicago White Sox may be enough. Haha...headline at yahoo sports.

 

 

 

 

 

As pointed out many times before, they were quite fortunate to end up with McDowell, Thomas, Ventura and Alex Fernandez.

 

At least two or three of those situations could have gone the wrong direction (ending up with Jeffrey Jackson, for example) and we wouldn't have had our early 90's success.

 

On top of that, the Baines trade gave them Wilson Alvarez and Sosa. And then they also developed Jason Bere with a lower draft pick.

 

 

Is it possible to do again? Sure.

Is Hahn the right guy? Maybe. Maybe not.

 

Ramirez/Quentin/Floyd/Danks/Rios/Viciedo/Peavy all being injected into the organization within a two year period more or less (Danks took one season to develop, 2007) shows that it can be done, that rebuilding on the fly thing.

 

The problem is that 1) signing international free agents just got harder, and 2) it's probably going to be harder to find teams that are looking to dump salary like the Blue Jays and Padres essentially did with Rios/Peavy, and, finally, teams are going to be very careful not to trade young/cost-controlled pitching (think Homer Bailey for Jermaine Dye) for higher priced veterans (Freddy Garcia).

 

You can almost argue that 2008 set this franchise back, in a sense...because it delayed the dissembling of the core, which will finally end up with Konerko leaving (Dye first, Thome next, Jenks, Buehrle, and AJ this past off-season).

Edited April 23, 2013 by caulfield12

[oldsox]

FWIW, The Cleve announcers said the Sox lead the majors in swings and misses.

[Chicago White Sox]

FWIW, The Cleve announcers said the Sox lead the majors in swings and misses.

We're the 11th worst team in terms of strikeouts (better than I expected), but we are dead last in walks & OBP. Our batting average is also thr 4th worst in baseball, which means we're making weak contact and/or are getting unlucky to some extent. Offensively we're a mess and we continue to throw away outs due to poor decision making and a lack of execution.

 

What's really a shame is that we're first in quality starts. Our starting pitching is out there battling. Even Axelrod has pitched well. Unfortunately, it's all going to waste right now. The bottom of the 7th and top of the 8th last night is the perfect example of why our starters have no wins.

[bmags]

Hire Greg Walker!

[Dick Allen]

Hire Greg Walker!

POTW

[Butter Parque]

As much as everyone wants to blame Ventura (and rightly so, for the most part), this is not a team that a good manager can salvage. They don't make any contact, they have relatively little speed, they can't play any defense, and the pitching seems like it could run hot and cold with guys like Floyd, Axe, Quintana. You can second-guess Ventura all you want, I doubt it would make any difference with a team playing this bad.

[witesoxfan]

At the rate we're going, at the end of the homestand, we'll be in 29th place out of 30 teams in MLB attendance. If we're lucky, we will still be ahead of SEA....that's after 15 homes games, or 18.5% of the season.

 

To stay out of 29th place, we'll need to average 16,045 in the next 6 games, for a total of 96,273 fans.

 

 

 

BOTTOM 10

 

21. Minnesota 26,481

22. Tampa Bay 21,904

23. Houston 21,596

24. Kansas City 20,984

25. Pittsburgh 20,615

26. SOX 20,188

27. Miami 19,586

28. Oakland 19,309

29. Seattle 18,531

30. Cleveland 15,194

 

I'm OK with everyone else venting, but would you give up this f***ing attendance act? The Sox have drawn well in April like 1 time in the last 15 years, and they had to win a World Series the year before that happened. The fact that they're averaging 20,000 is encouraging enough for me.

[lostfan]

I'm OK with everyone else venting, but would you give up this f***ing attendance act? The Sox have drawn well in April like 1 time in the last 15 years, and they had to win a World Series the year before that happened. The fact that they're averaging 20,000 is encouraging enough for me.

I thought it was just me, I'm so bored by that topic. I'd rather talk about the team, as mediocre as they might be.

[caulfield12]

Fine, attendance is irrelevant.

 

We should only judge the team on revenues produced/profits made.

 

Done.

 

And every season, no worries as we're usually 29th in the majors in attendance heading into May.

In fact, we're way ahead of the Indians.

And the Orioles ONLY drew 11,000+ fans last night, so we weren't dead last in attendance for May 22nd games either.

Edited April 23, 2013 by caulfield12

[joeynach]

Not to mentioned he is to be garbage in High-Leverage situations, which seems to be when Robin loves to use him....

 

 

2012 - .297 OppAVG, 7.00 ERA, 7 BB, 8 K, 1.44 WHIP, .841 OppOPS

2011 - .303 OppAVG, 4.80 ERA, 9 BB, 10 K, 1.93 WHIP, .838 OppOPS

 

s***, his CAREER ERA in high-leverage situations is 5.98 and that's in 122 IP.

 

Thats awful, where did you pull this high leverage stat from though. I was actually referring to his periphrials and the eye test when I said he shouldn't be used in high leverage situations, but you found some sort of real stat?

[joeynach]

Thanks for that...I needed a good laugh!

 

It's so painful watching Thornton any more, especially against division teams who are ready for his limited arsenal.

 

YYYYYEEEEEEPPPPP!!! My gripe is more of the lack of internal recognition of this. Like I was saying from Sox brass (and beat writers alike) everyone still seems to be cool with penciling him into this shut down high leverage reliever role by default. This isn't 2009 anymore, the dude throws 93 and doesn't generate the swings and misses and strikeouts that made him who he was......WHO HE WAS!

Edited April 23, 2013 by joeynach

[joeynach]

Fine, attendance is irrelevant.

 

We should only judge the team on revenues produced/profits made.

 

Done.

 

I agree with that, knowing what we know about the Sox, from the way they operate, what makes it in the Forbes report, how they publicly discuss finding and maximizing alternative revenue sources constantly.....we should all on this board at least recognize that from a financial/payroll/revenue perspective attendance don't mean squat. Perhaps attendance is more of a revenue driver in other organizations, but it is not with this team.

[NorthSideSox72]

-7 run differential. Starting pitching doing very well, bullpen is mostly fine, though the lefty specialist crowd scares me, particularly Thornton. Only a few games back, and it is late April. Detroit isn't looking that great. The Royals are an artifact of offense, their pitching is going to suck. Let's all calm the hell down.

 

There are a few specific problems to focus on here - and it isn't Flowers (who is doing OK), Ventura (who we don't see enough decisions from yet to form any useful opinion this year), the Front Office (who did quite well with the constraints they were working within this offseason), or a lack of Santiago starting (since Axelrod has done damn well so far).

 

1. Lineup is well below .200 w/ RISP - and worst in baseball.

2. Dunn and Keppinger are, so far, terrible at the plate

3. Team is playing bad defense, which is surprising given they were among the best last year

 

Those are the three reasons that are responsible for like 80-90% of the suckage. Blame? #1 and #2 might fall on Manto et al, #3 maybe on RV... but really, 1 and 3 are probably a bad luck factor as much as anything else. There is a good chance these things reverse themselves, even if nothing is changed. Also, Beckham (who was hitting!) comes back, and Danks comes back.

 

Basically, let's see what happens in May. See where we stand on Memorial Day. If the team is still seriously bad like this, then it is time to trade off parts for prospects.

 

And by the way, yes, I know it is frustrating as hell. We all feel it.

 

[caulfield12]

 

 

The funny thing is that attendance always gets used as the excuse for lowered expectations...

 

The team was in first place last year, so the fans suck because they didn't come out and support the team. Meanwhile, the ticket prices averaged 4th in the majors, and 5th overall if you include parking/concessions/souvenir prices across the board.

 

So you're going to charge fans an arm and a leg for a flawed product, and then turn around and criticize them for not blindly supporting that product.

 

The payroll's in the top 10, but attendance is 20 something. We're LUCKY they are spending $110 million, etc.

 

The ticket prices are lower this year...so it's the fault of the fans for not supporting the team. Well, the team is playing as bad and has as few interesting players as any of the 2007/2009/2011 squads. In fact, much less talent, with the exception of the pitching staff.

 

And how many White Sox fans come out to game to watch the pitching staff win 1-0 or 2-1 games? Sure, baseball purists and Ed Farmer and Steve Stone, but KW always built Sox teams based on 3 run homers and a cloud of dust offense. So what does the front office expect when we have the least offensively talented team in decades on the field right now.

 

Not to mention the fact that Ventura's made about as many really good managerial decisions in the entire season as he's made mistakes in recent games.

 

 

[caulfield12]

-7 run differential. Starting pitching doing very well, bullpen is mostly fine, though the lefty specialist crowd scares me, particularly Thornton. Only a few games back, and it is late April. Detroit isn't looking that great. The Royals are an artifact of offense, their pitching is going to suck. Let's all calm the hell down.

 

There are a few specific problems to focus on here - and it isn't Flowers (who is doing OK), Ventura (who we don't see enough decisions from yet to form any useful opinion this year), the Front Office (who did quite well with the constraints they were working within this offseason), or a lack of Santiago starting (since Axelrod has done damn well so far).

 

1. Lineup is well below .200 w/ RISP - and worst in baseball.

2. Dunn and Keppinger are, so far, terrible at the plate

3. Team is playing bad defense, which is surprising given they were among the best last year

 

Those are the three reasons that are responsible for like 80-90% of the suckage. Blame? #1 and #2 might fall on Manto et al, #3 maybe on RV... but really, 1 and 3 are probably a bad luck factor as much as anything else. There is a good chance these things reverse themselves, even if nothing is changed. Also, Beckham (who was hitting!) comes back, and Danks comes back.

 

Basically, let's see what happens in May. See where we stand on Memorial Day. If the team is still seriously bad like this, then it is time to trade off parts for prospects.

 

And by the way, yes, I know it is frustrating as hell. We all feel it.

 

 

We were shredded by the Nationals, and didn't belong on the same field with them in terms of talent.

 

We're 3-6 against the AL Central and haven't played the Tigers yet.

 

Once again, we're not defending our home field. There is no home field advantage.

 

And we've only played decently against the Mariners, Royals and Blue Jays. The Mariners just plain suck...and the Blue Jays were missing Reyes and Bautista, among others.

 

Chris Sale has pitched decently, but hasn't come out of the gate as strong as he did last year. To win this division, Sale needs to be a 20 game winner, because you can't expect Peavy to be any better than last season (and he lost almost all of his "big" games and all the match-ups individually against DET).

 

 

 

 

[elrockinMT]

We are only four games out and it's April. Alcohol is a depressant and makes things worse. Quit drinking so much and things may seem more rationale. However, if we are still in last place and still playing this way in July or August I will join you at the bar.

[witesoxfan]

Fine, attendance is irrelevant.

 

We should only judge the team on revenues produced/profits made.

 

Done.

 

And every season, no worries as we're usually 29th in the majors in attendance heading into May.

In fact, we're way ahead of the Indians.

And the Orioles ONLY drew 11,000+ fans last night, so we weren't dead last in attendance for May 22nd games either.

 

That's one way of looking at it.

 

Or you can just see that this is a team that doesn't start drawing well until June and July because the weather sucks and school is still in progress, and quite frankly, there is no one on this team that is incredibly marketable right now whom people would go out of their way to see. It's a boring, boring team. b****ing about attendance right now is like b****ing about an inch of snow at the start of a blizzard. It's not going to get better any time soon.