Nineteen Seventeen

Hey look, I'm back

2005-10-15T23:45:00.000-05:00

I don't know if I'm going to be posting regularly ever again, but I thought I'd do those that still link to me the service of posting again.

The White Sox are now one win away from their first World Series since 1959. This is clearly the biggest month for the franchise in the past 40 years. Five more wins and they've broken the drought...not the curse, but the drought of 88 years. They have 10 games now to win those next five. The year in the name of this very blog will be the time before last, instead of the last time that we won the World Series. This is huge.

The White Sox, even if they win no more games, will never be the same as a franchise. For the first time in a long time, they are on the national scene for an extended time in October. This year is going to help the franchise for years to come. I don't think we can comprehend all of this year, but I'm sure if we revisit this in a few years, it will bear out.

So Go Sox! And on to the World Series...and through it!

Situational hitting leading to early success

2005-04-24T10:46:00.000-05:00

Despite being 22nd in baseball in OPS, the White Sox are 14th in runs scored. What is the cause of this success? Situational hitting.

Now in the past, I've been one to downplay its importance, but the results have shown that it has been, in fact, vital to the White Sox success this year.

Two stats that demonstrate this are the number of times the Sox have rolled into a double play and the number of team Sac. Flies. The White Sox are the only team in baseball that has more sacrifice flies (12) than double plays (7). That's quite a large difference. They also lead the majors in most sac. flies and fewest double plays. Juan Uribe and Carl Everett are 1-2 in the majors with 5 and 4 sacrifice flies respectively. The major league leader in this category in 2004 was Mark Lorretta with 16. Uribe's nearly a third of the way there through about one ninth of the season.

These numbers have led to the White Sox being able to score runs, even when the hits are not falling and have contributed greatly to the team's early success.

Amazing times on the South Side

2005-04-23T23:07:00.000-05:00

With the White Sox' 3-2 victory tonight in extra innings against the Kansas City Royals, they are now 14-4. Yes, that's correct, Fourteen and four.

Let's put this in perspective for just one moment:

This is the best record through 18 games in franchise history. All 105 years of it. Now, I don't know if that says more about this team or the pathetic history of this franchise, but still that is damn good.

Also, the White Sox are the only 14 win team in baseball. The next closest team only has 12 (Los Angeles Dodgers). The White Sox are already 6.5 games ahead of the Detroit Tigers, whom many people picked to win the division, 6 games ahead of Cleveland, whom more people picked to win the division and 3.5 games ahead of the Twins, whom many people picked to win the World Series, let alone the division. The White Sox have not been this far in front since the 2000 team ran away with the division. This whole thing is absolutely incredible.

Outside of the AL Central, the furthest team back is the Colorado Rockies who are 6 back of the Dodgers, yet the Kansas City Royals are already 9 games back. 9 games back 18 games in is not a pretty place to be in.

Now let's analyze what's brought the White Sox to this point. It's quite clear that the starting pitching staff has been the primary reason why the White Sox are in this position. The cumulative ERA is 2.88 right now. The worst on the team now is Contreras at 3.48. Everyone's been solid, almost day in and day out. Garland and Buehrle are already both at 3 wins. White Sox fans have to like what they're seeing so far out of this bunch.

Another large part of the equation are the contributions of various hitters. Podsednik, a guy whom I didnt think would have a great year, but left open the door due to his troubles at Miller Park in both 2003 and 2004, has a .327 AVG with a .393 OBP right now and 9 steals with only one caught stealing. This is exactly what you want out of your leadoff hitter. If he can keep any semblence of this up, then it doesnt matter what Carlos Lee does because the White Sox won this trade based on added depth. Also, Uribe's been hitting very well. .302 average, but a low OBP. Yet, he's had some important bunts and many sacrifice flies (5 already, to match his total from last year in the first 18 games) in close games when we needed him to come through. Crede's been excellent also, hitting .333 and in the midst of a 14 game hit streak. Finally, Iguchi has been surprisingly good early. Though I'm slightly dissapointed in the lack of power and the relatively few walks I've seen from him, it's hard to be too dissapointed in a .305 average from a guy coming over from Japan.

There have been a few worrisome parts of the bullpen. You really cant blame Vizcaino that much for his inflated ERA, he was running on empty and could not be replaced due to an empty bullpen. He's been fairly solid otherwise (he gave up the game tying hit tonight, but he's been a decent middle reliever). Takatsu has been shaky, like last year's start. Cotts has been Cotts-like, though he looked better tonight. But on the flip side, Marte looks a lot better than last year already. Politte looks like a whole new pitcher and is locating his fastball extremely well. Hermanson looks like the reliever he was before the end of the year blowup last year. On the whole, the relief corps has been good enough to win us 8 one run ballgames, and there's nothing wrong with that. Winning 1-run ballgames with a good bullpen is the only real way to outperform pythagorean record by a significant amount and the White Sox are doing just that.

The best part is that they're doing this in spite of Dye, Konerko, Rowand and Everett. If one part falters, there are other parts that could pick up the slack and keep us on this pace. All in all, it's just totally incredible that the White Sox have started this way. I can only hope that they can keep this up.

Buehrle's amazing game

2005-04-16T18:10:00.000-05:00

9 Innings
3 Hits--All to Ichiro
1 BB
1 ER
the kicker:
Career high 12 K's
And it was all over in an Hour 39 minutes.

Mark Buehrle was amazing today. There's nothing else that can be said except maybe that he was outstanding or brilliant.

If the White Sox are going to win this year with pitching, it's all going to start at the top with Buehrle. I think he's on his way to a career year in 2005...if he can keep the ball down. So far only one home run allowed, which is why he's pitched so well so far this year. I like what I've seen so far from him...and the rest of the rotation on that note and it should be exciting to see what this team has in store for us on the pitching end of things for the rest of the year.

On another note, Paul Konerko is now the Major League Home Run leader after belting two out of the yard for a grand total of 6. He has four other non-Home Run hits. I don't think anyone really expects it, but wouldnt it be cool if Konerko actually managed to best his home run total of last year? It's not out of the question, especially if he can hit a few more out on the road, as 27 of his 41 came at home. He has three on the road and three at home so far this year.

Overall, I'm extremely happy that this team is 8-3 right now and tied for the Major League lead in wins with Minnesota at 8. It would be nice if we actually could be ahead of the Twins, but who knows? The wild card actually might come out of the AL Central this year.

If the pitching can keep something resembling this up, then I would probably revise my 85 win prediction to a much higher total as I feared the starting pitching might only be mediocre this year. We shall see, however. Only 11 games have been played so far and many of them have been relatively cold, so I won't put too much stock in 11 games, but I think that it's nice to see what every pitcher can do at their best (or close to their best).

I'm back

2005-04-03T18:17:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the extra-long break. It was a combination of vacation and being ultra-busy, but I'm back in time to post my predicted standings for the upcoming season. I apologize for not having the time to post my predictions in more detail, but I'm going to try my best to make some fair comments on each team, but here we go:

AL East

New York-Additions of Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright will benefit this team, even if Wright and Pavano come down significantly from their career bests last year and dont pitch to their contracts. They bolstered their bullpen with Felix Rodriguez and it's much deeper now, so Gordon and Rivera will have more in them down the stretch. Their offense was never a question and wont be in 2005, especially if Giambi bounces back to a certain degree like I think he will. This team will probably win the most games in the AL by a significant margin, being the only team to win 100 or more.

Boston-Many questions on the starting pitching staff. Schilling will be fine, but Wells is old and in the decline. Clement will struggle with his control more in the more offense-oriented American League. Some of their hitters will come off of their better season last year and we've got a team here which is still great, but not the best in the AL. I see them finishing closer to 90 wins than to 100.

Baltimore-They can definitely score runs and that's what makes them the favorite in the race for third place in the AL East. Sosa, Palmeiro, Lopez, Mora and Tejada form one of the better power cores in baseball. The pitching is still a major concern, but it should be slightly improved over last year's group, but we're not talking by a lot. This team will end up on the right side of .500 this year, but the pitching will keep them from threating the Red Sox for second.

Toronto-The return of Halladay for a full, healthy season and of Vernon Wells will help this team. So will the addition of Corey Koskie. It will be enough to propel them past the Devil Rays, but not that much further.

Tampa Bay-After not finishing last in 2004, I see them returning to the basement of the AL East. They only finished three ahead of Toronto and I do not think that they have improved a whole lot. Player development could have a positive impact on this team, but I just don't see them avoiding the basement with Toronto's improvements.

AL Central

Minnesota-In all likelihood, the Twins will remain atop the AL Central in 2005. The return of Joe Mauer and the use of Morneau for a whole season will be helpful, but there are some things to watch out for. They lost the left side of their infield and their new members are less than inspiring names (Cuddyer and Bartlett). 2B will still be occupied by Punto and Rivas. Overall the offense probably won't be all that great and there will be great reliance on the pitching staff. Santana might not regress a whole lot, but Radke will after having a career year. So too will Joe Nathan. They still win the division, but with less authority, coming in at about 87-88 wins, leaving the door open if Chicago or Cleveland gets inspired. After outperforming their expected for three straight years, they are a good candidate to underperform, but it's hard to pick against the 3-time reigning champs.

Chicago-The hitting will be better than many expect, but the pitching won't live up to the potential...at least the projected pitching staff. Buehrle will pitch at a near Cy Young level, but Garcia will be good, but not great. His ERA will be in the 4-4.25 range. El Duque will stay relatively healthy, but will only be mediocre. Garland will be his average self but Contreras will be a disaster. McCarthy is called up by mid-June for some reason or another and competes for the ROY award. The bullpen will be decent, but not shut down. I see about 85-86 wins with a decent chance of winning the division, but they clearly will not be the favorites.

Cleveland-Their hitting is excellent and will be in the upper tier of baseball, but they just have too many questions on their pitching staff to finish above the Twins or White Sox in my view. Westbrook's losses will more than offset Cliff Lee's gains, Sabathia won't breakout, Millwood does not impress me and Elarton plain old sucks. This rotation is an overrated bunch in my view. The bullpen is not improved all that much. I just dont see how this team is going to make large gains on the 80 wins of last year. I think somewhere in the 83-84 range is right about right and if a few things fall their way, they could finish second. If a few more things fall their way, they could win the division, but I dont see their chance as being better than the White Sox' chances, hence the pick of third.

Detroit-This team has been far overrated by many prognosticators. I just dont see how this team is better than the three above. Everyone talks about how Bonderman might break out this year and how that will help their pitching staff, but all of the other teams already have reliable front of the rotation starters. The Bullpen is not as good as advertised as Percival isn't a top-tier reliever, Farnsworth is horribly inconsistant and Urbina looked off last year. Urbina is probably the best of the trio, though. The offense is good, not great and the addition of Magglio wont change that. They'll improve to about 77-78 wins, but not much more.

Kansas City-It will be nice to see full years from Greinke and Dejesus (and maybe even Mike Sweeney), but there's not a lot to like here. They'll probably lose about 95-100 once again and will be the worst team in the AL by a significant margin. Few teams in baseball have less going for them than the Royals in 2005.

AL West

California Angels of Arizona
Oakland
Seattle
Texas

I've previewed this division previously. I flipped around Seattle and Texas though because I think Seattle's pitching will rebound and Texas will be hurt by a large regression in their bullpen and the total lack of pitching all around. They will be pretty close, but I think Seattle has the edge.

NL East

Atlanta-You just can't pick against this team. Hudson will contend for Cy Young this year. I'm a little unsure about Smoltz, but that has more to do with my not having seen much of him this spring and monitoring his progress. The corner outfielders will be shameful, but improvements from Chipper, Andruw, Giles and Furcal will partially offset that. This is a team that won by 10 games last year, so it might be closer, but they'll find a way, as they always do.

New York-I like their rotation as one of the better ones in the National League. It's pretty solid from top to bottom. Beltran and Pedro will propel them to second place, with a chance of winning the division. Pedro is my NL Cy Young pick this year and the lack of Bonds for a long time might help Beltran finish among the leaders in the NL MVP race. Kaz Matsui will improve and a full year of David Wright will be very helpful to the Mets.

Florida-Yes they got Delgado and I also like the pickup of Al Leiter, but the lack of a decent bullpen outside of Mota is going to ground their chances of winning the NL East unless the rotation can stay healthy for the whole year, some that has yet to be seen. Don't get me wrong, they're pretty close to the Mets in my view, but I just like the Mets a little better.

Philadelphia-I just cannot get enthused about this Phillies team, even though they have a lot of talent at many positions. It's probably just as likely that they finish fourth as them finishing 2nd, but I just can't pick the Phillies over the Marlins or Mets. Something always seems to go wrong with them. If nothing goes wrong for the Phillies, they could win the division. They are definitely the most likely team to win their division of all of the teams that I'm picking to finish this low--the NL East is just that close--, but for predictions sake, something inside tells me something is going to wrong with them.

Washington DC-This is something that we can all agree on. They have some nice talent, like Livan, Nick Johnson, Vidro and Jose Guillen, but they dont compare to the other four teams in the division. Guzman and Castilla wont prove to be very helpful additions and will prove to be money thrown down the drain. The Expos will struggle even more to score runs in the Shea-like RFK stadium.

NL Central

St. Louis-Sure they lost Renteria, Woody Williams and Mike Matheny, but they werent all that valuable anyways. Their losses in the bullpen, however, will prove to be problematic to a certain degree. They're probably still a 93-95 win team and the class of this division, but they could encounter problems if they have serious rotation injury problems or if Larry Walker cant stay healthy for most of the year.

Chicago-They have a lineup that's on the fringes of the upper-tier and they have arguably the best front three in baseball after the breakout of the Big 3, but that still wont lead them to a division title. Prior is going to struggle more than many think as he continues to have lingering injury problems and only puts together 2 dominant months. Maddux will continue to give up the longball a ton and will decline some more. The fifth spot in the rotation will become a bigger problem than many anticipate when Rusch fails to meet expectations. The bullpen will be bad to mediocre. If Hawkins is given the closer's job, it will be the latter, if not, the former. Despite my tone, I still think they're an 87-89 win team and will be in Wild Card Contention again in 2005.

Cincinatti-Pitching additions will be more helpful than many realize. Kearns will stay healthy and they'll have a great outfield of Kearns, Dunn (who will lead baseball in Homers with 55 or so) and Pena. They'll score runs and give up a lot, resulting in a record near .500, but I think they can get over the .500 hump this year.

Houston-The loss of Wade Miller, Carlos Beltran and Jeff Kent are going to be a bitter pill for this team to swallow, combined with the decline of Bagwell and Biggio. They were a fun team to watch last year, but without a bullpen, with a good, not great rotation and with a lot of question marks, they will fall from where they were last year by a significant margin.

Milwaukee-They had a fair amount of things going right for them last year and they still won only 67 games. I'm not so sure how they're going to be a whole lot better, though they should be better than Pittsburgh. Capellan is a big wild card. If he can step into the rotation and pitch well, this team could turn out better than expected, but that's less likely than it sounds. Lee will help this team score more runs.

Pittsburgh-Didn't improve a lot or lose a lot. They'll be fighting with Milwaukee to keep from being the only 6th place team in baseball, but it's a race they'll probably lose.

NL West

San Francisco-I think Bonds will be back by mid-June to Early July and that he'll be back to his old ways at that time and that sums up most of what you need to know about why I'm picking the Giants. The other things include a full year from Noah Lowry, an improvement from Jerome Williams, the excellent addition of Armando Benitez and the addition of Alou. Alou wont come close to matching his home run total, but he'll still be pretty good considering he'll be playing half his games at SBC Park

Los Angeles-They're not that much worse than San Francisco and this should be a major battle again, but the bullpen that they've prided themselves on for a few years now just isnt that great. Brazoban and Gagne will be lights out, but getting there will be a problem. The rotation will be solid, but not incredible considering Dodger Stadium. Hee Sop Choi will have a breakout year and Drew was a great addition, but Beltre powered them past San Francisco last year. If Drew gets hurt, then their chances of winning the division are severely diminished.

San Diego-I remain unconvinced that this team has what it takes to win the division. The pitching should be decent, but sometimes even the best pitching staff can't overcome a terrible hitting team (see 2003 LA Dodgers). They really didnt add any offense and I dont see it improving much, given their ballpark. Woody Williams wont be as good as David Wells was last year. They'll finish 3rd again, but it will be a close third.

Arizona-They spent a lot of money and finally look like a major league team, but they wont be contending in 2005. I like Javy and Webb, but Ortiz got waaaaaaay too much money. The loss of RJ will hurt them more than many are talking about. Shawn Green will help their offense though. Luis Gonzalez is a big wild card in terms of health and performance. He could improve or he might even need to contemplate retirement. This team will be watchable in 2005, but it wont be a good team.

Colorado-This team will hit. This team will not pitch. You could say that about every single Colorado Rockies team ever for the most part, but it still holds true with this team. They're a worse team than Arizona because Arizona looks like a medicore to bad major league team while Colorado only looks like half a major league team (and you can guess which half).

Playoffs and Awards:

AL Wild Card-Oakland

NL Wild Card-New York Mets

AL Playoffs
New York vs Oakland: New York in 3
Minnesota vs Anaheim: Minnesota in 5
New York vs Minnesota: New York in 7

NL Playoffs
Braves vs Giants: Braves in 4
Mets vs Cardinals: Cardinals in 5
Braves vs Cardinals: Braves in 6

World Series: New York over Atlanta in 5

AL MVP: Vladimir Guerrero
NL MVP: Albert Pujols
AL Cy Young: Randy Johnson
NL Cy Young: Pedro Martinez
AL Rookie of the Year: Brandon McCarthy
NL Rookie of the Year: Jeff Francis

So there ya go, a few surprises in the Wild Cards, but otherwise not a ton of surprises with the Yankees returning to World Series victory. Note that these predictions arent to be taken extremely seriously as there's a ton of luck involved in baseball as well as unforeseen factors, trades, etc.

Seismic shifts in the Baseball Blogging world

2005-03-13T20:30:00.000-06:00

There have been a lot of changes in the past few days (and weeks) in the baseball blogging world:

The first thing to happen was the exodus of Rich's Baseball Beat and Wait 'Till Next Year from All Baseball to a new site that the two created called Baseball Analysts. The new site is of the highest quality and is probably one of the best blogs out there right now. I urge everyone to check it out.

The next major shift to occur was the consolidation of many blogs into the SportsBlogs network. This network doesnt really have a homepage, but it is headed by Blez from Athletics Nation and includes many team blogs and John Sickel's Minor League Ball. I really like how these blogs employ the diary feature, so that others can contribute in a way that doesnt require them to start a new blog.

Another huge shift was the consolidation of many blogs from All Baseball and other sources to Baseball Toaster, including Will Carroll, Mike's Baseball Rants, Bronx Banter and Dodger Thoughts. This new site instantly becomes one of the centers of the baseball blogging universe.

Now that All Baseball was essentially raided of the majority of its highest quality blogs, they merged with the Most Valuable Network. The details of their merge haven't really been worked out yet, but the first thing that happened was Exile in Wrigleyville moving over to All Baseball, which I like a lot. I wasn't a big fan of the old interface of Vince Galloro's site while it was on the Most Valuable Network, but I like the All Baseball interface. I'm also happy that Vince is on a baseball website, not just a generic sports website. He's the White Sox' lone representative of the bigger name bloggers.

The interesting part is that this all took place in the midst of Spring Training. I don't really know why all of this happen, but it's really important to note all of this. It seems as if there is a general consolidation of blogs, which is probably a good thing. I dont think it will compromise the blogs to be affiliated with one another. On the contrary, it might raise the visibility of all of them for them to all be located on one site or in one network.

All hail Brandon McCarthy

2005-03-11T22:31:00.000-06:00

It seems as if McCarthy is finally getting his due praise from the national media.

His decent start (statistically it was awesome, but it wasn't the best he's done, which is really saying something) at one point was the first slide on the slideshow on MLB.com yesterday.

John Sickels (whose Minor League Ball blog is excellent if you have not been there already) rated McCarthy the top White Sox prospect with an excellent (by Sickels standards) A- grade.

Dayn Perry, rated him the 14th best prospect in all of baseball (which is the highest I have seen him ranked), saying:

McCarthy led the minors with 202 strikeouts in 2004, and he also posted a sparkling 6.7 strikeout-to-walk ratio across three levels. Not bad for a 17th-rounder. He shows exceptional command of a two-seamer, four-seamer and excellent curve. McCarthy's changeup needs refinement, but he still made good progress with it last season. His mechanics are polished and efficient, and his height (6'7") gives him a good downward angle at hitters. Some scouts aren't wowed by his stuff, but the numbers thus far are tremendously impressive.

But we all know that scouts weren't exactly impressed with Buehrle at first, but look how he turned out. McCarthy is not in the same mold as Buehrle, however, in that he is probably going to rack up more K's than Buehrle. I've heard the comment that he's like a tall Zach Greinke, which sounds pretty fair to me in that he gets a lot of K's, pitches smart and has great control.

Hopefully we'll get to see him one more time this spring on television, but I have a feeling that we'll be seeing him a few more times before the season is over.

His being at a very good level puts the White Sox in a good position, in that if Garland isn't adequate, Hernandez isn't healthy or Contreras proves he isn't good enough to start, McCarthy is there and will be a more than reliable replacement. By sheer ability, he'll probably find his way into the rotation before the year's end.

The nature of US Cellular FIeld in 2005

2005-03-06T21:53:00.000-06:00

One of the biggest stories to emerge from the White Sox in the 2004 season was the emergence of US Cellular Field as one of the top parks in baseball for yielding runs. The split between the home and road stats of White Sox players is exempified in Paul Konerko and Mark Buehrle. Konerko had a 1.079 OPS at home and a .708 OPS on the road. Buehrle, on the other hand, had a 5.02 ERA at home and a 2.63 ERA on the road. Konerko was Albert Pujols at home and Joe Crede on the road. Conversely, Buehrle was Ismael Valdez at home and Johan Santana on the road (yes the splits on these two players were really that big!).

The prevailing theory that has been proposed is that the changes in the Upper Deck changed the wind flow patterns and thus caused more home runs. This runs contrary to the information given to Kenny Williams before the renovations were made, but it seems like a logical theory for the most part. However, correlation does not always indicate causation.

Another interesting thing to note is that Wrigley Field, usually known as a pitchers' park, played as a hitter's park last year. We can use this as a control because the dimensions or upper deck wasn't changed there.

Given this, is it really the case that US Cellular Field has been permenantly changed to an extreme home run and hitter's park? I have my doubts and I'm calling that US Cellular Field returns to being less of an extreme hitter's park. I believe that the weather conditions in Chicago last year were the cause of the extreme hitters park nature of US Cellular FIeld last year. We'll know which is the case come October.

Spring Training games are here!

2005-03-05T16:24:00.000-06:00

Finally, the purgatory known as "Spring Training games" is upon us! While the games are absolutely meaningless, they provide a lot more fodder than occasional articles and quotes coming out of Tucson. The White Sox so far have dropped 3 of their 4 Spring Training games (and are leading significantly in their fifth) and nobody could really care less about how they are doing.

The best thing by far that has happened this spring training is Podsednik starting off 6 for 7 with 2 leadoff triples, 2 steals and (I believe) 2 bunt base hits. This is very encouraging and reminds us about his potential. If he could surprise a lot of people, come back to where he was in 2003 and hit .300 with a .360ish OBP, that would be fantastic.

On the downside, the White Sox' starting pitching has been less than fantastic so far, with all five pitchers having some sort of trouble. The only one I'm really concerned about is El Duque. There have been very few encouraging signs about him this year from a performance perspective. His velocity is down and his location wasnt good in his one Spring Training start. We'll just have to wait and see about him, but I fear he might not be all that great for us, even if he is healthy, but I'm going to give him more of a chance than one ST start and a few reports.

The fun really begins when on March 7th, the first of 21 televised Spring Training games is shown on Comcast Sports Net. Supposedly, that is the most amount of ST games televised by any team in history. As much as I like listening to games on the radio, getting to see the White Sox in action is that much better. This also might help the organization build up interest in the White Sox this season, especially if they are winning a lot of those later games (they dont matter, but that doesnt mean that they wont sell tickets).

And in potentially positive White Sox media news....

2005-03-01T21:52:00.000-06:00

The Tribune has a new White Sox beat writer. His name is Mark Gonzalez and he is coming in as an outsider who has no biases toward or against the White Sox (from CA originally, via AZ). This is definitely a positive development seeing that Bob Foltman was making up the position of White Sox management to make it appear that Frank Thomas was not going to be welcome to return after the 2005 season. Here's hoping he does a really good job and stays on the White Sox beat for a long time (assuming he does a good job)!

Phil Rogers morphing into second Jay Marriotti

2005-03-01T21:46:00.000-06:00

When I read the morning papers, I noticed a similarity between the two: both had an article about Ozzie Guillen and how he is a hypocrite for criticizing Magglio. One was written by Phil Rogers and the other by the Moron: Jay Mariotti.

I have to say that I find the timing interesting seeing that there was a poll on chicagosports.com about who was the leader of the White Sox and Ozzie won by a considerable margin.

Well this didn't surprise me that much from the Moron, though it was apparent that his personal vendetta against the White Sox has strengthened since being fired by ESPN 1000 for his really bad ratings (to which he claims he quit for not being able to criticize Jerry Reinsdorf).

But I have to say I was surprised by Phil Rogers' article today. Maybe I should not have been so surprised after that despicable attack article on Frank Thomas earlier. It seems that with this article he is further trying to stir up trouble. I really can't see any other purpose to this article.

Maybe he wants to be the White Sox's manager for life. Why else do you take on Jerry Reinsdorf's fights? And how else do you explain Guillen summoning righteous indignation toward recent comments by a confused Magglio Ordonez about his financially driven departure from the South Side?

First of all, Phil Rogers is in no position to call anyone a company man seeing that you work for the same company that Mark Prior, Kerry Wood and Dusty Baker work for. Now maybe if he had worked for the independent Sun-Times, this argument would have had more creedence, but coming from the company that owns the Cubs it does not.

No one says the Sox had to pay Ordonez $15 million a year indefinitely, especially in light of the serious knee injury that limited him to 52 games last season. In fact, given the club's spending limits—reasonable with their middle-market attendance and revenue—they made the right decision to let Ordonez walk.

But why keep beating him up? And why turn Guillen loose as an attack dog?

Come on. This is silly.

Now he's criticizing Ozzie for being pissed about Magglio bashing the organization to which he has devoted about 15 years of his life? Of course Ozzie's going to be pissed as hell. Magglio's comments were not, as Rogers says later, "less-than-explosive." The part which upset Ozzie the most was that Magglio seems to be unable to let this whole thing go and move on. The White Sox have moved on, but Magglio can't seem to let go of the whole thing which he created. Ozzie is basically trying to say to Magglio: "Move the [bleep] on and shut the [bleep] up." I'm totally with Ozzie on this.

Quite honestly, Phil Rogers is entering the territory of Jay Marriotti. I don't know if I can take him seriously anymore after these contemptible articles. He's lost a lot of my respect for needlessly bashing Ozzie and trying to push Frank out of town, all in the course of two weeks.

Predictions 2005: AL West

2005-02-26T22:04:00.000-06:00

We'll start the first in a series of 6 divisional predictions with the AL West.

Notables additions to the division:
Adrian Beltre 3B
Richie Sexson 1B
Steve Finley CF
Richard Hidalgo RF
Orlando Cabrera SS
Jason Kendall C

Notable subtractions:
Mark Mulder SP
Tim Hudson SP
Jermaine Dye RF
Troy Glaus 3B
Jose Guillen OF
Troy Percival RP
Edgar Martinez DH

The AL West is a division that, on the whole, is about as strong as it was last year. The team that has practically defined this division for the past few years, the Oakland A's traded away their two best pitchers in Mulder and Hudson, who also happened to be the two best in the division. However, to make up for that, the Mariners added Beltre and Sexson, which, in terms of divisional strength, counterbalances the departure of those two.

Projected Order of Finish:
Anaheim
Oakland
Texas
Seattle

Anaheim

While Anaheim did lose Troy Percival, their longtime closer, their bullpen is not really all that much weaker because of the loss. Francisco Rodriguez will end up being a better closer than Percival could have been. The bullpen as a whole is still one of the absolute best in baseball. I dont think Finley is that much of a better player than Jose Guillen would have been, but he's not all that far behind. Cabrera is a fair upgrade over the overrated David Eckstein, but Cabrera is overrated as well. They're going to depend a lot on relatively young players in McPherson and Kotchman, though Kendry Morales is waiting if either of them falter. Their rotation isn't all that stellar. As far as the rotation goes, Colon will almost certainly be better and Kelvim Escobar is probably one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball; however, Lackey, Washburn and Byrd really dont strike me as better than average starting pitchers, so on the whole it's what I'd consider an average rotation, but in this divsion, that's not such a bad thing. The Angels should win this one easily by at least 5 games. 94-95 Wins should be their target.

Oakland

Yes I do recognize that they traded away Mulder and Hudson, but their young pitching talent is as good as any in baseball. While the rotation wont be as good as it was in the past, Blanton, Haren and the best of Yabu/Meyer will be pretty darn good by the end of the year considering the low standards set by the AL and this division in particular in terms of starting pitching. Rich Harden is on the verge of a breakout season. The question is if Zito can return to his 2000-2003 form and conventional wisdom says that it will. On the offensive side, Jason Kendall will be a huge help. They still have Chavez, Durazo and Hatteberg, with other players who should be at least decent in 2005 like Kotsay, Byrnes, Swisher and Ellis. This might also be a great year for Nick Swisher, but his better years are more likely to be further down the line. Back to pitching, their bullpen is stellar. Dotel, Cruz, Calero, Bradford, Jaric, Street, Rincon, Duchscherer, etc, are all excellent bullpen candidates and any way they go, they can't go wrong. If they happen to be wrong, they will have plenty of other combos that they could toy with. The bullpen is going to carry this team to second place in the division and I predict 87-89 wins for the Oakland A's.

Texas

Now why did I put them below Oakland? Here's my reason: Their bullpen absolutely carried them to those 89 wins last year and I expect regression in three of the major members: Shouse, Mahay and Almanzar. Cordero, Francisco and Brocail will all probably keep it up, but the first three I don't like because they're all above the age of thirty and had career years last year. That's a warning sign for regression. I don't feel the Rangers would have been as successful if it weren't for their pen. Their rotation flat out sucks. Rogers wasn't great last year, despite his 18 wins, and is 40 years old; Drese's peripherals are unencouraging (4.25 K/9 1.69 K/BB); Chan Ho Park one of the most overpaid (and worst) starters in baseball, Chris Young might be fair, but that's the best I could see him doing and they dont even know of their fifth starter yet. It's a garbage rotation. The infield is the best in baseball (arguably) with Teixeira, Soriano, Young and Blalock, but outside of Hidalgo, an enigma, and Kevin Mench, still a question mark, there are no other reliable big bats. I think it's a pretty good team, but I see this team as more of an 85-87 win team because of their putrid pitching staff, which was not at all improved this offseason.

Seattle

Their lineup is now one of the most underrated and best in baseball with Reed, Ichiro, Winn, Beltre, Boone, Ibanez and Sexson. This is clearly the strength of a team that plays in one of the least offensive-friendly ballparks in the majors, which can be a plus, minus or neutral, depending on how you want to look at it. The problem is that their pitching is not in the best of shape. Moyer finally started showing signs of age, giving up 44 Homers last year. Yikes! Joel Piniero will certainly be better in 2005. Gil Meche is still one of the biggest enigmas in baseball. Franklin might go back to his previous form, but that remains to be seen. This rotation has the potential to be one of the best in the division again, especially if Madritsch keeps it up, but repeats of last year cannot happen for the other 4 starters and it require a lot of things going right for that to occur. Felix Hernandez might be able to bail them out, but even if he can, how quickly can he make an impact? Probably not that quick. The bullpen is not good, and is their weakness. Guardado is an excellent closer, but that's all they've really got in the bullpen. The days of Nelson, Rhodes and Sasaki are long gone. Overall this will probably be a vastly improved team, despite my somewhat negative attitude, winning about 75, possibly even 81 games if their rotation gets it together, but their poor bullpen will hold them back from going too far.

Conclusion

This is the one division where I can say that I would be really surprised if the team I predicted to win ended up losing. The Angels are clearly the class of this division, almost any way you look at it. The rest of the division is pretty good, but I can't see the wild card team coming from this division, simply because the A's are a worse team than last year and the Rangers, at the most, didn't get any better. The only argument I can see with my rankings is the placement of the A's over the Rangers, but I think that the two are pretty darn close and if the Rangers got second place that it would surprise me very little. This division has lost its luster that it once had when Seattle won 93 in 2002 and 2003....and failed to make the playoffs both times, but it's still a very good division.

Backing Bonds

2005-02-23T20:36:00.000-06:00

I'm a Barry Bonds fan and nothing he said yesterday changed that. I don't see how what he said yesterday was a big departure from what he has said in the past. Apparently, Joe Sheehan doesn't either:

The fact is, Bonds was correct in much of what he said yesterday. The media does keep running back to the same stories over and over. There are larger problems in our society than athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. Whether steroids are cheating isn't the black-and-white question it's been presented as, not in a game that turns a blind eye to the kind of amphetamine use baseball has seen. His blanket accusation that everyone in the room had lied at one time or another was unfortunate, almost certainly erroneous, and provided an easy way to paint Bonds as a bad guy.

I wrote this in December, but it's worth mentioning again: Bonds is facing these questions in part because he was betrayed by the system. His grand-jury testimony, and that of others, was leaked to the media. That is the biggest crime in this situation to date, and almost no one has addressed it with the same gusto as they have the connections between Bonds and his personal trainer. Where are the investigation and the indictments for that crime?

As far as that testimony is concerned, I don't think you can have it both ways. I don't think it's fair to treat it as Grand Jury Testimony where the stories are good, but then decide that where the story isn't as good, the person is lying. That's what Bonds is facing here: not only was his testimony leaked, but people have effectively been accusing him of perjury for two months since then. His explanations for his use of the clear and the cream have been dismissed, his performance record seen as tainted.

I agree wholeheartedly. There is definitely a double-standard when it comes to Bonds and it has a lot to do with the media's hatred of him. There is no shred of objectivity left from the media's perspective, which makes it seem like people like me, who aren't positive that Bonds did the 'roids or that they helped him even if he did take them, are in a very small minority.

It seems as though one cannot suggest anymore that Bonds just might be telling the truth or say that you are on Bonds' side without being attacked for that position immensely and that is entirely unfair.

The media hates Bonds. The media has made you connect Bonds with the steroid issues based on their reporting. The media wants to to be on their side of the Bonds issue. I know most White Sox fans should know that the media does not always reflect the truth.

I have a lot respect for Bonds, taking a stand against the media who keeps rehashing the same friggin' story over and over and over a billion times because it's a lot easier to discuss than what acutally might happen on the field. Why is it that the media sinks so much time into this steroid issue, when a lot of the team previews aren't even researched thoroughly?

The whole proportion of the steroid issue and the question of asterisks is a media invention. Are steroids a problem? Yes they certainly are, but there is a testing policy that will be given a chance for a year or two before anything is to happen. So why bother harping on this story continually? It's because the media is lazy and they can't write (seemingly) well on any other issue.

Bonds is 100% correct on that part.

I think Bonds overplays the race card sometimes and definitely is not the most diplomatic person in the world, but the content of what he's saying is for the most part accurate. It might not be what the media wants to hear, but that's too bad. Sometimes being candid and pleasing the media don't always match up and Bonds recongizes this.

It's really time for this story to die. The story really isn't going anywhere and all it has done is unnecessarily tarnished the game of baseball in the eyes of the fans. The problem is under control to a large degree and only the most secretive of steroid users will get away with it now.

Let's give Bonds the benefit of the doubt for now, as is the American way; innocent until proven guilty. Let him play and appreciate his records for what they are on the surface: amazing. Enjoy watching him break the records and if irrefutible evidence that they were a creation of steroids comes about, then you can look at the records in the same way as you see the records of pitchers who used spitballs and scuffed balls in the early 20th century, or most recently, Gaylord Perry, who doesnt have an asterisk next to any of his records.

No Playoffs for the Sawx

2005-02-22T19:17:00.000-06:00

I don't see the Red Sox in the playoffs. I think one of the Twins or Rangers can bump them off. I see the Red Sox as significantly weaker this season than last. The pitching is significantly weaker, and the offense will probably regress. The Staff:

Schilling has had mixed reports, with him himself saying in the current Sporting News that his ankle will be fine for opening day, but his arm may not be. Given that he is far and away the best pitcher, they need him badly.
My real beef with the Red Sox supposedly being so good is the Matt Clement addition. Matt Clement has regressed for the past three seasons. I watched him pitch a lot last year, and he did not look good. His ERA last season was 3.7, and he placed in at a 36 VORP. Fairly decent, but that's not much compared to Pedro Martinez, who he has to replace. Moving into Fenway, his ERAa might rise half a run. Down the stretch though, he was brutal, and he lost his rotation spot to 1-12 Glendon Rusch. Is this really a number 2 starter on a World Series team?
At 41, do you really expect David Wells to stay healthy, or even out of the bar fight? On the statistical side, he moves out of one of the best pitcher's parks in the National League into a hitter's park in the American League. That does not bode well.
Wade Miller is coming off Labrum surgery. Tell me if I'm wrong, but Labrum surgery does not have anything like the success rate of TJ surgery. Counting on him to do much would not be wise.
Arroyo, I got nothing. He had a 25 VORP in 179 innings, a very good fifth starter.
Tim Wakefield had a 4.9 ERA in roughly 190 innings. He's 38, which I guess isn't that old for a knuckleballer. But his numbers just are not that good.

On the offensive side, there will be some regressions. Varitek is 33, when most catchers start to break down. Renteria, the big new shortstop, managed a .297 OBP against right handed pitchers last season. Mark Bellhorn was good last year, but the year before he managed no home runs in 110 at bats with the Rockies, in the best place to hit home runs. Damon is relatively young, but at 30 he might start slowing down, and his OPS jumped 110 points from the year before, something he probably cannot maintain.

I picked the Rangers over the Red Sox, but I probably should have picked the Twins. They've lost some, but Mauer did not play much, and he will add enough to ofset the loss of Koskie. Bottom line: The honeymoon should end soon for the Red Sox.

Konichiwa Tadahito Iguchi!

2005-02-22T19:01:00.000-06:00

Say hello to the New Second baseman for the Chicago White Sox (hopefully for the next 3 years).

Predictions

2005-02-21T20:36:00.000-06:00

I'm not going to pretend this is scientific, but I'd like to put this out there. On October 2nd, 2005, I think the standings will be:

AL EAST
Yankees
Red Sox
Devil Rays
Orioles
Blue Jays

AL CENTRAL
White Sox
Twins
Indians
Tigers
Royals

Al WEST
Angels
Rangers (Wild Card)
Athletics
Mariners

NL EAST
Braves
Marlins
Phillies
Mets
Nationals

NL CENTRAL
Cardinals
Cubs (Wild Card)
Reds
Astros
Brewers
Pirates

NL WEST
Giants
Dodgers
Padres
Diamondbacks
Rockies

Lavishing praise on Brandon McCarthy

2005-02-21T15:43:00.000-06:00

If you didn't know about Brandon McCarthy before President's Day weekend, you probably knew a lot about him afterwards. The Sun Times, Tribune and WhiteSox.com all had articles about the 21 year old, 6'7" righty.

If you're not familiar with the Brandon McCarthy story, here it is:

Maybe you had known about him from before 2003. His 2003 Rookie league stats hinted at his potential greatness. In 101 innings at Great Falls, McCarthy posted a decent, but not special 3.66 ERA. However if you look inside the numbers you might have been able to foresee what happened in 2004 (which I'll get into later). He struck out 125 over this time period for a K/9 of 11.14 and walked only 15 for a K/BB of 8.33. He didn't give up all that many homers either, 7 is not a terrible number over that time period. An astute watcher of the minor leagues may have noticed this, but probably not too many others as this was not a ton to get excited about. After all, this was Rookie Ball.

In 2004, however, he broke out and proved that those Rookie Ball numbers were not a fluke. He started the season at Low-A Kannapolis where he posted another good, not great ERA of 3.64 in 94 innings, but again some of his rate stats were excellent. His K/9 was excellent once again at 10.82 and his K/BB was also pretty good at 5.38. His record was 8-5 in 15 starts and the organization felt as though a promotion to High-A Winston Salem was due.

So about halfway through the season he arrived at Winston-Salem. What did he do? In his 52 innings, he was absolutely brilliant. He posted a 2.08 ERA, had a K/9 of 10.38 and an astonishing K/BB of 20 even (60 strikeouts and only 3, yes 3 walks). On July 31st, in a game against Myrtle Beach, he struck out 16 batters in 7 innings or 16 out of the 18 outs he recorded, a ridiculously amazing performance that left many turning heads.

Thus he earned a promotion to AA Birmingham after only 8 starts in High-A. Talk about moving quickly through the system. He only got 4 starts at Birmingham as it was near the end of the year. He went 3-1 in 26 innings with a 3.46 ERA. His K/9 again was extremely high at 10.04, but his K/BB decreased to 4.83. This was probably just a function of the little time he had to adjust to the more veteran hitters of the Southern League than any regression. The fact that he could maintain that K/9 of near 10 at every single level through the system demonstrates his excellence.

When it was all said and done on the year, McCarthy led the minors with 202 strikeouts in 176 innings for a K/9 on the year of 10.57. His win total of 17 was good enough for second in the majors. It is pretty clear that he is among the top pitching prospects in baseball.

Over the weekend, it appears that Ozzie finally got his first look at McCarthy. He thought enough of him to compare him to the great "Black" Jack McDowell, stating:

He's not too far away from the big leagues," said Guillen of McCarthy, who will start a couple of Spring Training games. "Mentally, he's ready to pitch. He's focused and knows what he's doing.

"When you see a kid so young moving the catcher over and telling him what he wants to throw, that's pretty impressive," Guillen added.

This is great stuff to be hearing out of someone who actually played with Jack McDowell. Like McDowell, McCarthy might also be ready to pitch on a high level from day one as he's never had problems adjusting between different levels. Obviously the majors is a whole different animal, but he's very close to being ready.

Before McCarthy came on the scene, it was generally thought that Anderson and Sweeney were next in line to impact the White Sox from the farm system, but it's clear that it will probably be McCarthy, now thought of by many as the superior prospect (including yours truly).

If one of our pitchers were to go down in the middle of the season, I wouldn't have too much fear as I have a lot of confidence in Brandon McCarthy. His game seems to be developed way beyond that of a normal 21 year old and might be able to step in and help immediately. Having McCarthy in the system, almost at a point where he'd be able to pitch in the major leagues might come in real handy later in the season.

The Tribune's attempt to push Frank out of town continues

2005-02-19T09:53:00.000-06:00

I told you the last time that it would just be the first of many mentioned of Thomas's 2006 status. Phil Rogers had a piece today about the case for getting rid of Thomas.

This means it's highly likely he'll open the season on the disabled list, a first in his 16-year career. It probably means he will miss all of April and possibly May, as well.

This part's true, though I'm not so sure that the chances of missing May are as likely as Phil Rogers does. He's putting it in this light to further his later point.

But -- and here's the part I hope to be wrong about -- it looks as if 2005 could turn into a painful farewell for one of the best right-handed hitters in baseball history.

And now the anti-White Sox and anti-Frank Thomas stuff starts...

There's little doubt it will be his last year in Chicago, as general manager Ken Williams seems ready to hand him a $3.5 million severance rather than exercise a $10 million option after the season. But it would be nice if he could go out somewhat in style.

There's little doubt? Maybe there's little doubt in the Tribune sports office and the premature celebration has begun, but I think there's a lot of doubt on whether or not he'll be back. I think it entirely depends on how he does this year. If he can come back in early May and produce well the whole year (a likely scenario), I think there's little doubt that he will be back at the 6.5 million that Kenny would have to pay for him (the scenario that the Tribune expects is that Thomas will excercize his 10 million dollar option and the White Sox will pay 3.5 million to buy him out leaving Kenny with an extra 6.5 million). I just dont see how the Tribune can be so sure in that. This is clearly an opinion and not establised fact.

[Going out with style], of course, never happens with the White Sox. It didn't with Carlton Fisk, it didn't with Jack McDowell, it didn't with Robin Ventura or even Guillen. It certainly didn't with Ordonez. Why should Thomas be different?

He should be different because he was with the club a lot longer than most of those players and he was/is better than all of them. It's not fair to compare Thomas with the players on this list, in my opinion. Thomas has been with the team 16 years and is the best hitter in team history.

It's always fun to be right, but sometimes you wish you were wrong. That's the case with my take on how badly an even more one-dimensional Frank Thomas is likely to fit in on the White Sox, who have been renovated around a National League model.

Two reasons why he's already wrong. First is that Thomas, while unable to play defense, is not a one-dimensional player. The absolute biggest thing that hitters are expected to do is.....to hit (obvious). Thomas's hitting ability is one of the best in baseball when he's healthy enough to play and he's not all about the Home Run ball. He also is one of the best players at getting on base in baseball. His average aint terrible either. He's not a speed threat, but I think it's unfair to call him one dimensional as offensively he's not one dimensional. If you want to argue that offense in itself is the one dimension, go ahead, but it won't get you far as it's the most important dimension by a huge margin.

On the Second point, I actually heard Kenny Williams say that while he wants a National League feel to the club on the whole, that he likes having an American-League style middle of the order. Now we all know that these distinctions aren't very good anyways: they're quite vague. Thomas can easily fit in with the concept of an American League middle of the order.

No, the Boston Red Sox couldn't have won without David Ortiz last season, but we'll consider that the exception that proves the rule.

Well if a team wins by being the exception, then maybe what they have going on there is something that other teams should follow, not shun, as far as I'm concerned. Nobody dismissed the 1969 Mets as the exception when they went to a 5-man rotation. Everybody copied it, as Hawk tells us. Maybe the Red Sox are on to something with having a great full time DH.

That combustible clash between Thomas and Guillen, which was incorrectly forecast last spring, might only have been delayed.

This last line of the article is only put in there to stir up trouble. There is no reason why Guillen and Thomas should have reason to clash. They got along fine last year with higher tensions and I'm sure that Ozzie will put Frank in when he's healthy, if that's what Rogers thinks will happen to cause this clash.

In fact this whole article is in there to stir up trouble. There's no reason to worry about Frank's 06 status when we haven't even gotten to playing spring training games in 2005. Let's worry about '06 when '05 ends.

Let's compare the Tribune and Sun-Times way of noting Frank's 06 status in a similar article today:

Sun-Times

Thomas, who will make $8 million this season, has the first opportunity next offseason to exercise his option for $10 million. But unlike the last two years, the Sox can buy out the contract by giving Thomas $3.5 million and making him a free agent.

The unlikely scenario that remains is that Thomas turns down his option, the Sox elect to not buy out the contract and they use their team option of $12 million to keep the franchise leader in home runs and RBI.

That seems pretty fair. I dont think Thomas will be back if he does not want to be back. To say the Sox can buy out his contract at the end of 06 is perfectly acceptable and journalistically responsible. There isn't a whole lot of editorializig in the Sun-Times version of this part of the similar story.

Also notice the title of the article is "Thomas won't report until March," which is the accurate way of stating the news about Thomas.

Now the Tribune

With a player option for $10 million for 2006, it's expected the Sox will exercise their option to buyout Thomas for $3.5 million, possibly bringing a close to a 15-year Sox career.

The title of this one is "Thomas' ankle healing slowly" despite the fact that Thomas has had no setbacks whatsoever and is probably on the same timetable predicted by Kenny earlier on, that he'd be back in May.

Secondly, the editorializing about Thomas's contract in this article which is supposed to be news is evident. I don't know in what circles outside of the Tribune Sports room it's "expected" that Thomas won't be back, but I'd be interested to find out.

The Tribune will pursue their agenda of kicking Frank out of town very hard this year, as evidenced by today's paper. Don't buy into their BS based upon what we know at this point. There's really no way to know if he'll be back next year and it all depends on what he does this year. The attacks on the White Sox organization and Frank Thomas by the Tribune are shameful, but they're not going to stop anytime soon.

The case for Shingo

2005-02-18T17:42:00.000-06:00

Shingo Takatsu, or Mr. Zero as he is called by many, had an outstanding year last year in his "rookie" season for the Chicago White Sox. On June 12th, in a game against the Braves, he earned his first save for the team and promptly took over the closer's role on a full-time basis for the remainder of the year. Some of Takatsu's impressive accomplishments include going 19 for 20 in save opportunities, a scoreless inning streak of about 25 and a streak where he set down 29 batters in a row, a hidden perfect game as he exceeded the requisite 27 batters in a row (Hidden Perfect games just mean that you retire 27 in a row. It's entirely unofficial and does not have to happen in one game). It was quite an impressive rookie season. He has been annointed by Kenny Williams as the closer for 2005, but there seems to be some concern as he tailed off at the end of the year, or did he?

ERAs by Month:
April 3.86 (7 IP)
May 0.00 (11.2 IP)
June 0.77 (11.2 IP)
July 0.96 (9.1 IP)
August 7.36 (11 IP)
September 1.86 (9.2 IP)
October 0.00 (2 IP)

That stretch from May to July was just incredible. 3 straight months under a 1 ERA? That's almost unheard of. In fact, in 2004, Takatsu was the only pitcher in baseball that could lay claim to such a streak. Not Eric Gagne. Not K-Rod, not Otsuka, Benitez, Nathan, Linebrink, Lidge, Rivera, Gordon or Foulke. Only Shingo Takatsu. (The actual ERA for all of those months combined was 0.55). This is truly impressive.

Now you're probably thinking "He's trying to avoid that August ERA!" Well I'm not going to try to poo-poo it. He had a bad month in August. A pretty darned bad one at that which definitely prevented him from an amazing ERA to finish the year with. Some have stated that this was due to hitters figuring out his frisbee and just waiting for the 87 MPH fastball. The problem with this assessment is that his combined September/October ERA was 1.54, not exactly an awful way to close out the year.

Here's my assessment of why Shingo faltered in August. It's not statistical in nature, but more of an observation. When Shingo was having success for most of the year, the key wasn't that he was just fooling everyone with his frisbee, but he had excellent location with the fastball on the outer half of the plate. It broke right over the corner of the plate and he was getting strikes with it. When he was having trouble in August, he wasn't throwing that fastball for strikes early in the count and thus had major trouble working behind in the count. When he got back on track again in September and October, the fastball was getting thrown for strikes again and he had success again.

Shingo was unhappy with the way he was pitching to lefties last year and decided that he needed to develop a new pitch (at least that's what this thread says). Speculation is that it's a cutter as he spent a lot of time with Esteban Loaiza last year and Don Cooper loves the pitch. If Takatsu has developed a cutter, it would greatly improve his pitch selection. He has enough slow pitches with the 75 MPH slider (I guess) and the 60 mph changeup and an 82-84 MPH cutter will be good for changing speeds with the fastball at 87 MPH. It will definitely help him in 2005.

I think he'll do very well again in 2005. Even though hitters might be more ready for him when they face him, he still represents a large departure from the normal MLB pitcher, so a hitter is still probably unaccustomed to him. Besides Jody Gerut with 7 at bats, no one has really had more than 3 or 4 against him anyways. He should do just fine as the full-time closer in 2005. Shingo-time is not going away this year and Shingo, in all likelihood, will not cause us any problems.

Iguchi's power translation to surprise many

2005-02-17T18:54:00.000-06:00

Now I'm going to go out on a limb with this piece, but it's something that I firmly believe. The first thing is that I recommend that you watch this video showcasing Iguchi from the Official White Sox site before you read any further. Notice the park with the really high walls. That's Iguchi's home park (if you haven't figured it out already). Here are the park factors for all of the parks in the Japanese league, with the home park of Iguchi in bold (They're from 2000 and 2001, but I don't think they've changed much, at least Iguchi's home park):

Team 2000 PF 2001 PF Comments
Chunichi Dragons 976 888
Hanshin Tigers 959 978 Large dimensions
Hiroshima Toyo Carp 1074 1004
Yakult Swallows 1027 1009 Very small dimensions
Yokohama Bay Stars 1043 1031
Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants 952 1081
Chiba Lotte Marines 973 1044
Fukuoka Daiei Hawks 971 969
Nippon Ham (Tokyo) Fighters 1034 1107 Shares with Yomiuri
Orix Blue Wave 1009 1036
Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes 1005 943
Seibu Lions 1003 998

Now what do you notice? Most of the parks are offensive parks, but this is not the case for the home park of the Daiei Hawks. It is among the minority of ballparks which play large in the Japan League. Allow me to remind you that Ichiro played for the Orix Blue Wave, Hideki Matsui for the Yomiuri Giants and Kaz Matsui for the Seibu Lions, all neutral or offensive parks.

Somehow Iguchi has managed to put up lines of .340/.438/.573 and .333/.394/.549 in 2003 and 2004 respectively at this pitchers park with 27 and 24 homers respectively. Fairly impressive stats. Now we can expect a dip from those numbers certainly, but if Iguchi is going from a pitchers' park in the Japan League to one of the best hitters' parks in the Major Leagues, that will soften the drop by a significant degree.

Aaron Gleeman recently did an article on what we can expect from Iguchi in 2005 and he crunched the following stat line:

YEAR AVG OBP SLG IsoP IsoD
Tadahito Iguchi 2005 .300 .345 .425 .125 .045

Now the way he did it was that he used Kaz Matsui, Hideki Matsui, Ichiro Suzuki and Tsuyoshi Shinjo's first year stats and compared them to the stats of their last year in Japan to make a projection. Now I have demonstrated how this methodology has some problems in that it doesn't at all account for the fact that Iguchi was playing in such a pitcher-friendly ballpark, though I think it gets decently close. I would project a slugging percentage a lot closer to .500 than Aaron Gleeman would, though the OBP might not be a whole lot better than that, but we shall see.

I am going to go on record as saying that I believe that Iguchi will hit at least 20 home runs in 2005, assuming health. 17-25 homers is the range of reasonable possibilites that I'd guestimate. I think he's going to be a power/speed threat in the 2 hole of the lineup this year, especially if he ends up hitting in front of Thomas. I think the biggest part of his game that will suffer is the K/BB ratio, but that he'll still find a way to hit out a lot of homers.

I'm pretty optimistic about Iguchi. There's not a ton to base an opinion on because he's not an established MLB player, so wild speculation can run rampant about his abilities, but the truth is that we can't know until the season starts. Spring Training is still too early to make a call on him because of what happened to Shingo with his 6.75 ERA in Spring Training and his 2.31 ERA in the regular season.

Thomas to return in March??

2005-02-16T17:45:00.000-06:00

Buried in the bottom of the White Sox article in the Tribune today is this bit about about Frank Thomas:

In past springs, any Sox controversy has centered around Frank Thomas. This spring, Williams expects peace, because Thomas' contract is running out and Williams seems determined not to push his DH into action after foot surgery last fall.

"I have not seen him," Williams said. "I'm sure I will on the 21st (when position players report)."

Will Thomas be recovered enough to go through drills next week?

"We won't gauge where he is until he shows up," Williams said. "A lot can happen in two weeks, and it has been two weeks since his last [rehabilitation] report."

That report put Thomas "on schedule for mid-March," Williams said. "During his rehab, he has not pushed himself for spring-training activities. But I think the most important person to listen to [about his health] is Frank."

This is absolutely excellent news. The White Sox' chances of winning the AL Central immediately got a huge boost with this news. Now I don't exactly when this means Frank will be back. Even if it turns out to be by the beginning of May, that's not the end of the world. I'm sure Carl Everett can do a fine job for one month. But this opens the door for Thomas to be in the lineup on Opening Day, a very encouraging development. If Thomas can come back and hit like he did before he went down last year, then the White Sox will be the clear favorites to win the AL Central in the book of any reasonable prognosticator. He was on track to lead the AL in OBP before he went down with the foot problem. His OBP was .434, while the eventualy title-winner's, Melvin Mora, was .419. Thomas was also on pace for about 40 homers once again.

When Ozzie made the remark that he thought Thomas wasn't going to be back until June, he made that remark without any medical information. Now, Kenny Williams has a lot of info about Frank's health status and it's definitely good news.

This brings up a question that I'm glad that we're able to ask: What do you do with the fact that we have 3 players for two positions with Everett, Dye and Podsednik all vying for a corner outfield spot? I think a platoon with Everett and Dye would be extremely sucessful.

Dye's 2004 stats vs Lefties
AB 161
AVG/OBP/SLG .280/.376/.491
HR 8
BB 26
K 28

Everett's 2003 stats (he hardly played last year) vs Righties
AB 388
AVG/OBP/SLG .299/.382/.557
HR 24
BB 44
K 56

That would be one really good platoon. It can only happen if Podsednik plays decently well and everyone stays healthy, but this is clearly the ideal situation here. If we end up being able to do this platoon then we have entirely and effectively replaced Magglio's bat. It would be one expensive platoon at about 8.5 million, but that's a lot less than what Magglio was asking and makes more sense than keeping one on the bench. It also might be the most talented platoon in baseball. I don't know if Ozzie or Kenny are thinking along these lines at all, but I hope the thought has at least entered their mind going into Spring Training

Springtime for White Sox Baseball

2005-02-16T16:37:00.000-06:00

Well it's finally here: The Pitchers and Catchers have reported, and a few others in addition (*cough* Aaron Rowand *cough*). We also have our first quotes of the year (none from Ozzie that I've seen yet).

Aaron Rowand says:

"There is a little more excitement around here...It is a different feeling than having a group of guys on the team that is going in a different direction."

Indeed. With all of those roster changes since the beginning of last year, the sum total of them for the better, the excitement is justifiable and the team is certainly going in a new direction.

Here are the first spring training pictures of the year:

The excitement begins....

Extreme Makeover: Nineteen Seventeen Edition

2005-02-16T15:47:00.000-06:00

A few changes to the site:

1. We now have an official banner. Many thanks go out to WinningUgly! at White Sox Interactive for taking some time out of his busy schedule to create the amazing new banner. He has come through in the past for me as well, creating a Schoe's Foes banner for my sig when I started the WSI Schoe's Foes group at the beginning of last year and a follow up sig banner when I abolished the group after Schoeneweis's great start.

2. The color scheme has been upgraded to reflect the fact that this is a White Sox blog and not a generic, random blog. If there are any suggestions for the color scheme or if anything looks out of whack, feel free to leave a comment or an E-mail. If you're asking why the links in the link section are blue, it is to reflect the fact that the White Sox' colors were not always black and white and if fact were red, white and blue back in 1917 and many other times in White Sox history. You would know this if you have read WSI's amazing White Sox Uniform Guide by George Bova.

Climbing aboard the "bash Canseco" bandwagon...

2005-02-15T22:17:00.000-06:00

I too am one of those that does not have any respect for the Canseco allegations.

Just because someone says something that sounds like it could be true, doesn't make it true. You must bring a claim into question, regardless of how plausible it sounds, if the person make the claim is of a questionable personality. Jose Canseco fits this description. When Kem Caminiti broke the silence on steroids in Major League baseball a few years ago, everyone stopped and listened because everyone at least could trust him as a fairly credible source. A few days later, Jose Canseco made the claim that 85% of baseball players were on steroids, a wholly unbeliebable and implausible claim. No one listened to him because of the evident hyperbole and unreliability of Canseco.

We're not talking about a clean individual either. Jose Canseco freely admits to using steroids and embraces them. In fact, he was placed under house arrest in 2003 for using steroids as it was a violation of his probation. Why was he on probation? Because of the nightclub brawl that him and his brother were involved with. None of these incidents contribute to our ability to take him seriously as a trustworthy and honest individual. Freely admitting to cheating in baseball and trying to cheat the court doesn't help your case.

So why should we believe that he isn't really just trying to cheat the public out of 20 dollars or so to buy a book full of lies? I don't think that we really can. There may be some truthfulness to parts of what he is saying, but I have a feeling that his more outrageous claims were put in the book to sell a lot of copies when all things are considered.

Hawk Harrelson was on ESPN 1000 today and he freely on air called Canseco a "whore." I cannot say that I disagree with him. Canseco is tarnishing the game of baseball with his ludicrous, unsubstantiated and untrustworthy claims about some of the greatest players of our era. To compare this book to Ball Four is totally unfair to Ball Four. I have no plans to buy the book and waste my team reading through page after page of outrageous allegation after outrageous allegation. Canseco has managed one of the better PR jobs of all time for his new book, but that's where the praise ends from my perspective.

Canseco v. Rose

2005-02-15T17:38:00.000-06:00

What has Jose Canseco done, exactly, to earn himself some semblance of respect? His book is not that much different than Pete Rose's My Prison Without Bars. Rose wrote his book because he wanted to get into the hall of fame, and did some highly publicized TV interviews. Canseco wrote his book, from what I've heard, to take down his bash-brother Big Mac. Mark got the glory of breaking the home run record, Canseco spent his career injured, playing only 150 games in a season once after 1991, as pointed out by Will Carroll.

Canseco is being hailed by some as a shmuck, as EVERYONE said about the way Pete Rose released his book. Others hail him as something of a whistleblower, as Skip Bayless has. My problem with that is, this information was already out there before. I feel that Barry Bonds saying that he took steroids but did not know it was much more damning than the allegations by Canseco.

The book will end up being compared to Ball Four instead of My Prison Without Bars, which to me sounds ridiculous. Does it really sound to you all as if he is trying to clean up the game? Maybe I'm wrong, but the only thing standing between Canseco and comparisons to Rose is, as Bayless succinctly stated, his better sense of timing.

Nearing the end of the first of three countdowns

2005-02-15T14:31:00.000-06:00

So tomorrow at about 1 PM CST, the Chicago White Sox pitchers and catchers vouluntary report date will be upon us. Exciting as that is, the fact is that the waiting is not over and that this is just the first of three countdowns that us baseball fans must endure. This is definitely the start of the events leading to the baseball season, but we must remember that baseball season is still a good 6 weeks ahead of us.

The second countdown, which commences once Pitchers and Catchers report, the one to the beginning of spring training games will be easier to take. News articles will be coming out of Tuscon and other Major League spring traing sites. We'll have direct quotes daily from Ozzie Guillen, or White Sox players. Those two weeks will fly by and before you know it, on March 2nd, Spring Training games will be upon us. The exciting part about that is that 20 of them will be televised this year because of Comcast Sports Net, so we'll be able to get our Hawk Harrelson fix a little earlier this year. The first televised game is on March 7th against the Rox.

The final countdown, the countdown to opening day will be easy to take, though we will be eagerly awaiting the White Sox' first opener at US Cellular field in 10-12 years or so. It should be very exciting, especially with a pracitcally brand new team from last years' opening day lineup.

But I'm not trying to downplay the significance of tomorrow. It's the official start of the season and I can't wait any longer.

Questions for the 2005 Chicago White Sox

2005-02-14T21:23:00.000-06:00

Here are my questions for the 2005 Chicago White Sox heading into spring training (to which Pitchers and Catchers report in a day and a half):

1. How healthy will Jermaine Dye be and if he is healthy, can he put up numbers like his 1999-2001 seasons ever again?

2. When will Frank Thomas be back and will he play closer to his 2000 self or his 2002 self?

3. Is Aaron Rowand going to emerge as the best AL Centerfielder?

4. Is Tadahito Iguchi closer to Adam Kennedy or Jeff Kent?

5. Was Scott Podsednik's 2003 a fluke?

6. Is Jon Garland, at the age of 25, ready to make the leap to the pitcher he can be?

7. Which side of 4.50 will Jose Contreras's ERA be on?

8. Is this the year that Joe Crede finally steps up and his like everyone has been saying he can for how many years now?

9. Is Shingo Takatsu going to continue to have success in the closers' role or was he a one-year wonder because no one could initially pick up his "frisbee?"

10. Were Dustin Hermanson's relief efforts last year (sans the last two games of the year for him, when he was awful) indicative of what he will be able to do over a full season?

11. How is Luis Vizcaino going to deal with the move to US Cellular Field, considering his propensity to give up the long ball en masse?

12. How much did SBC Park supress AJ Pierzynski's offensive abilities last year? Will he approach or succeed his 2003 season?

13. Can an apparently healthy Carl Everett provide us with a year like the half-season he gave us in 2003?

14. If Podsednik, Everett, Thomas, Dye and Rowand are all healthy, who sits?

15. Was the home run-friendly nature of US Cellular Field a one-year wonder or did the wind patterns change for the benefit of Home Runs due to the renovation of the upper deck between the 2003 and 2004 seasons?

16. Can El Duque make more than or less than 25 starts in 2005?

17. Will Juan Uribe build on his 2004 season?

18. What happens if any of the five starters goes down for more than one month?

I'm sure I could think of a few more, but these are probably enough to ponder for now.

Aaron Rowand: Superstar in 2005?

2005-02-14T17:41:00.000-06:00

Aaron Rowand's season last year was very impressive, by any standards. I think that not only was his year last year underrated in the national media, and even in the Chicago media, but also I think he is underrated by the Chicago White Sox fandom. Quite honestly he put up excellent numbers last year and the only reason they weren't any better was because he only received 487 at bats last year. He did get off to a poor start, but let us evaluate his season as a whole.

His line of .310/.361/.544 was pretty darned good. That slugging in particular was excellent and good enough for 7th in the American League. I seem to recall another White Sox outfielder who wasn't very good before his age 26 season, but broke out in that season: Magglio Ordonez. His line in 2000, his age 26 season was .315/.371/.546, extremely similar to Rowand's. He did hit 32 Homers to Rowands 24 last year, but Rowand had 101 less at bats. Rowand also had 4 more doubles in these 101 less at bats, to account for the similarity in slugging percentages.

The thing that Magglio had that Rowand didn't last year was a solid BB/K ratio. Magglio's was 60/64 in 2000, while Rowand's was a mediocre 30/91. Rowand is still entering his age 27 season, generally considered to be the beginning of the peak years of a players' career. I have a feeling that Rowand will continue to improve, if only by a slight amount, in 2005, especially if the fact that he got better as last year goes on has any significance. While I don't expect it, a decent jump from last year might also be in the realm of possibilities. Either way, he'll probably be fighting with Vernon Wells in 2005 for the top spot among AL Centerfielders.

Must-Read on the Magglio contract

2005-02-13T22:52:00.000-06:00

Dayn Perry, writing for Fox Sports weighs in on the Ordonez deal, taking a stance almost identical to mine:

The upshot is that, in Ordonez's case, there's a substantial amount of statistical inflation going on. In contrast, Comerica, Ordonez's new home park, is one of the tougher parks in the game for right-handed power bats. Accounting for nothing else, his numbers are primed for a nosedive. Of course, we have lots more for which to account.[...]
Ordonez is 31 years of age, which means, if the vesting options for the final two years of his contract kick in, he'll be 38 before his final season in Detroit. It's unwise to give a corner outfielder a seven-year contract at age 31 under any circumstances — let alone one that's going to pay him in excess of $100 million — but it's even less prudent in Ordonez's case.[...]

After he skipped out on a workout-cum-audition — one that would supposedly prove to suitors that his knee was game ready — there was loose talk that he'd wind up signing a one-year deal. Instead, he's signed the second-biggest contract in baseball since A-Rod's market-shattering pact of 2000.[...]

So this contract would be a bad idea for a healthy 31-year-old; lavishing this kind of deal upon a player who's 31 and encumbered by a puzzling and serious knee injury is potentially disastrous. It's especially confounding behavior from an organization that not long ago got Dean Palmer and his onerous contract off the books and is still freighted down by the four-year, $35-million contract given to Bobby Higginson a few years prior. [...]

Also keep in mind that this isn't a franchise awash in revenues. Teams like the Yankees and Red Sox can withstand the occasional bad contract because of their unmatched payroll flexibility. Heck, the Yankees may wind up treating Jason Giambi and his $120-million deal as a sunk cost. The Tigers, however, can't get away with that kind of behavior, at least not with a contract the size of Ordonez's. [...]

This contract, besides failing to come remotely close to providing value on the dollar, is going to hinder the organization's ability to add the parts necessary to contend and retain their talented young players once they hit their high-salary years. [...]

I'd like to say that, for instance, the contract the Dodgers gave to Darren Dreifort a few years ago was worse, but this one's longer, for almost twice as much money and handed out by an organization that doesn't have the ability to absorb it once the deal sours. The question now isn't whether this is the worst free agent contract of the winter; the question is whether this is the worst free-agent contract of all-time.

The idiocy of that contract is impossible to hide. The reason this article mirrors my stance on his contract is that they fairly obvious. This contract is pathetic and unlike A-Rod or Giambi, Magglio has never put up numbers at any point of his career to warrant a salary of that amount.

First of many reminders about Thomas' contract status

2005-02-13T22:43:00.000-06:00

I'm sure this won't be the first mention of this between now and the end of the year, but the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times brought up the topic of Frank possibly leaving after 2005:

[Thomas] needs solid numbers and a playoff run to keep him with his original team, as the Sox can pay him $3.5 million to go away after this season. (Trib)

After this season, the Sox can buy out Thomas' contract for $3.5 million rather than pay him $10 million to $12 million in 2006. (Sun Times)

I don't have a problem with the mention of Frank possibly leaving, though the thought does bother me immensely. What I do have a problem with is how the Tribune characterized Thomas' situation. While I do agree that he needs "solid numbers" to get the option picked up, I definitely don't think he needs to take the White Sox to the playoffs to ensure his coming back, especially if they come stumbling out of the gate before he can even return. In the past, Jerry Reinsdorf, who usually defers to Kenny Williams on personnel moves, has personally dealt with Thomas on contract matters. I don't think Jerry Reinsdorf will be as eager to get rid of Thomas as Phil Rogers, the writer of that piece in the Tribune. HYes he did invoke the infamous diminshed skills clause, but from the various quotes I've seen of Reinsdorf regarding Thomas, I don't see him going the route of the buyout with the medicore FA market in 2005. Only a bad year would probably lead to the use of the buyout. Reinsdorf recognizes the value of Thomas to the team and probably will opt to keep him.

Reasons why this year's offseason seems to be starting later

2005-02-12T22:59:00.000-06:00

This offseason seems longer than usual this year for some reason. These last few days have provided for some painful waiting for the pitchers and catchers to report (at which point we'll probably just get a few pictures and quotes anyways. The real fun starts March 2nd, the day of the first spring training game against the Rox). I can actually think of a few reasons why it's less tolerable this year, and actually longer than last years offseason:

1. The 2003 World Series lasted 6 games (Florida over New York) while the 2004 series only lasted 4 games (Boston over St. Louis). Sure it's only a difference of 3 days, but the excitement of the 2003 series was a lot higher with Florida starting down 2-1 before coming back to win the next three. The effect lasted longer because it wasn't as dominant as the Boston performance last October.

2. Last year, the Yankees and D-Rays started the season early in Japan. This means that their spring trainings started earlier and the first games started earlier. The buzz about baseball started a bit earlier too.

3. mlb.com bought the exclusive rights to fantasy baseball for the next 5 years at 50 million dollars. This means that they can control when the fantasy baseball season starts and they have chosen next Thursday as their "Opening Day" for fantasy baseball. Leagues such as ESPN and Yahoo must get a contract with mlb.com in order to offer fantasy baseball and therefore cannot start earlier than mlb.com. In fact, I don't know exactly how it's going to work with Yahoo and ESPN this year in terms of starting dates for fantasy baseball.

4. I'm not sure on this one, but I believe that Baseball Prospectus 2005 is being released a month later than last year. If you're reading this, maybe you can help me on this, but wasn't BP2004 released in mid-January this year? I think it's supposed to begin shipping on Monday, but still it's somewhat late for this. People only read the predictions when they don't have spring training games to follow. At that point it's too late.

So if you think this offseason is progressing more slowly than last year's, as I am, you are probably right. Maybe it's only by a few days and only a few factors are affecting it, but every day and every little factor matters to a diehard baseball fans like us. One more week of waiting is very painful. The three and a half months without baseball can get intolerable at times, except at the height of the free agent season.

Big Frank

2005-02-11T18:29:00.000-06:00

Will Carroll Chat

When Ozzie Guillen said that he expected Frank back in June, I think ... well, I'm never sure what Ozzie is saying. Someone recently told me that it's not the accent, that Ozzie doesn't always make much sense in Spanish either.

I've heard May 1 as their target date. I'm not sure if that includes a rehab stint to shake the rust off his big bat.

Pretty funny, but for April at least, and maybe farther, where are the White Sox going to get their power? Konerko, Crazy Carl and Dye are the limits of the power then, and that's not all that much power. Looking at the April schedule, the ChiSox have 5 with the Twins, 6 with the Tribe, and 3 with Oakland. The rest are against the Royals, Tiggers, and Mariners, teams they should beat. Basically, the schedule is a push in terms of difficulty.

Frank, although well off his peak, is still easily the centerpiece of the White Sox. I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade here, but losing him for a month is going to be hard for the rest of the offense to replace. Frank coming back too late, like July, along with an El Duque injury, might turn the White Sox season into 2001 lite. He better hurry back.

Some feel good White Sox previews

2005-02-11T18:05:00.000-06:00

The first one is from NBC Sports, and it's pretty good from a source that doens't write often enough on baseball. Their articles are pretty good and without a lot of the biases that the normal sportswriters usually have:

There are some good reasons to think the White Sox can end the Twins’ three-year stranglehold on the division, but DH Frank Thomas rehabbing ankle surgery into spring training and maybe not returning until May isn’t one of them. Otherwise, these changed Sox figure to be better. They no longer will revolve around an overly right-handed power-hitting lineup, and instead have added some speed, balance, defense and most importantly, a much-improved pitching staff.

The article goes on to predict a 90-72 record, a prediction that I find to be pretty fair.

The second one comes from Denver's Rocky Mountain News and is more of an offseason overview than a Spring Training preview, but in my mind it's offseason grading that I most agree with:

What reality says is the White Sox made some nice additions, but their success, as in the past, is going to hinge on the production of designated hitter Frank Thomas. He underwent surgery in October on his left ankle, remains in a walking cast and is uncertain for Opening Day.
Off-season grade: B

That comment is spot on. If we have Thomas producing at the levels he's capable of for at least 4 months and possibly 5, I think this division is there for the taking for the White Sox. Thomas was on his way to a monster 2004 last year before the injury and if he can come back and provide the .400+ OBP that we're used to and the 1 homer for every 15 at bats or less that he can provide, the White Sox will in the division, barring really bad luck.

The writer proceeds to give the Twins, Tigers and Indians a C and the Royals a D. Thankfully, there's a writer who recognizes that resigning Bradke doesnt make a big offseason compared to what some other teams have done this offseason. Personally I'd give the Tigers an F on the basis of that Magglio deal and Percival getting more than he's worth. To hold onto their money and use it wisely next year would have been a lot smarter.

Shingo Q&A

2005-02-11T17:40:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't read it already, here's a Q&A with Shingo Takatsu (and his translator, Atsu Tatsuki of course) :

Takatsu: Of course, pitching against some of the Japanese players like (New York's Hideki) Matsui and (Seattle's) Ichiro (Suzuki) comes to mind, but I must say the most memorable one was pitching against the Cubs. I believe that was late June, I came to the mound in the eighth inning ...

Q: It was top of the eighth inning and two out against Sammy Sosa, right?

Takatsu: Yes, U.S. Cellular Field was full that day, and there were a lot of White Sox and Cubs fans in the stadium. I came out in that tight situation and relieved against one of the best players to play this game. I think that was one of my best games in my career.

He "gets" the crosstown rivalry, which more than I can say about a lot of national writers.

Comparing AL Rotations

2005-02-10T17:13:00.000-06:00

Today, SI released on their website a ranking of all of the rotations in the AL. Despite the relative weakness of AL starting rotations, they felt justified putting the White Sox eighth:

1. Red Sox
2. Yankees
3. Twins
4. Indians
5. Angels
6. Blue Jays
7. Athletics
8. White Sox
9. Rangers
10. Tigers
11. Orioles
12. Mariners
13. Royals
14. Devil Rays

Thankfully, they actually list who they think will comprise the rotations, which makes it easier to check the fairness of these predicitions. The way to check this for fairness would be pretty foolproof as well. Let's check their list against the list of rotations by projected VORP for the rotation members that SI lists (difference from subjective SI lists in parentheses):

1. Boston 161.8 (0)
2. New York 158.6 (0)
3. Twins 138.6 (0)
4. White Sox 127.6 (+4)
5. Angels 112.3 (0)
6. Oakland 101.5 (+1)
7. Blue Jays 101.4 (-1)
8. Indians 97.5 (-4)
9. Texas 77.1 (0)
10. Mariners 72.2 (+2)
11. Tigers 70.6 (-1)
12. Royals 67.7 (+1)
13. Orioles 65 (-2)
14. Devil Rays 45.7 (0)

Fellow White Sox fans, I think you would all agree that there is some sort of major problem here. Jacob Luft (the author of the rankings) actually did a pretty good job overall when it came to the rankings, with one glaring exception, the White Sox and the Indians, whom he must have accidentally switched places....or just chose to ignore how much better the Sox' rotation is than the Indians.

I certainly can accept the notion without hesitation that New York and Boston have better rotations. The Twins I feel are probably on par with ours, but I can accept them as being higher. But to see the Indians, Jays, A's and Halos above the White Sox rotation is pathetic. I think the VORP predictions will prove accurate in terms of where the White Sox rotation will be. I think you've got the upper tier with NY and Boston, the second tier with the White Sox and Twins, the third tier with the A's, Halos, Tribe and Jays and the rest of the teams in a fourth tier, except TB who is below everyone.

The egregious ranking of the White Sox rotation as being number 8 in the AL cannot go unnoticed. I expect this trend to continue because SI's rankings usually reflect the general media senitment towards the White Sox in a particular year. Whatever, they'll just be really surprised when the White Sox rotation proves really good.

Over at Exile in Wrigleyville...

2005-02-09T21:43:00.000-06:00

If you haven't yet read Vince Galloro's column on Magglio over at Exile in Wrigleyville, you really should because it is truly excellent. I personally am more upset at Magglio than he is, but nevertheless it's one of the best overviews of the situation I've read. Definitely better than whatever the print media has been saying about Magglio in terms of truthfulness and quality.

Who to do the pre and post on ESPN 1000?

2005-02-09T21:31:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't heard already, Dave Wills is leaving ESPN 1000 to join the Tampa Bay Devil Rays broadcast team. I'm sure he'll be great there as he did a really good job with the pre and postgame shows. All Sox fans will surely miss NEEEEEEEEEXT and his references to Cubs fans who call into his show as "drillrods," but clearly this is a step up in the career ladder, even if it's on one of the worst teams in the majors who play in the most depressing stadium in baseball.

This inevitably leads to the question of who will be the next pre and postgame host. It seems most realistic that the replacement will be of the in-house variety. The two names that have been mentioned are Dan MacNeil and Carmen Di Falco. I happen to think that Carmen does a pretty good job with the Bulls postgame shows, but that doesn't mean that I would want him doing the White Sox pre and postgame shows. I would actually rather prefer Dan MacNeil in this role.

I don't know to what degree Carmen DiFalco is a White Sox fan (maybe if someone in a comment could alert me), but I know that Dan MacNeil is a White Sox fan through and through. This says something already, that MacNeil is the ESPN 1000 resident White Sox fan. I think some of his commentary can be shallow at times, but I think if placed in a different role as the White Sox pregame and postgame host that he could be a pretty good one. His reaction to the game would be a lot different to his discussions with Jurko and Harry. The "act" that some claim they don't like that he puts on would certainly be toned down. I endorse him as the next pregame and postgame host. Carmen DiFalco wouldnt be awful by any stretch, but I just get the feeling that he's too disaffected to live the season with the diehard fans or to properly deal with really angry fans like Dave Wills could. I think MacNeil would "live the season" with the listeners of the show a lot better. Of course that's subjective opinion, but that's my subjective opinion.

Kyle Farnsworth

2005-02-09T19:11:00.000-06:00

I'm going to keep my Cubs comments to a minimum, but I feel I have to comment on this. As a Cubs fan, I might be alone in saying that I am sad to see Farnsworth go. Despite all his suckitude and the number of times he walked the bases loaded for no reason, seeing him when he was on his game was worth every moment. There was one game this year in St. Louis where The Farns struck out Albert Pujols on three pitches: Fastball on the outside black, Fastball on the upper-inside corner, slider away off the plate. Afterwards the St. Louis Post Dispatch beat writer told Pat Hughes that that at-bat was the single most overmatched he had ever seen Pujols, including his rookie year. 100 mph fastballs and 90 mph sliders don't come around every day.

From the White Sox standpoint, with him now in Detroit, this deal probably won't mean much. Kyle Farnsworth has the wierd Bret Saberhagen thing going for him, where he alternates amazing performance with utter suckitude.

http://baseball-reference.com/f/farnsky01.shtml
His Era Plusses the last 4 years:
2001 154
2002 55
2003 129
2004 96

Now if Farnsworth has a 2001 type year, with 107 strikeouts to 29 walks in 82 innings, the Tigers could have quite the bullpen. No, that won't put them over the top, but it's certainly something to note.

Magglio, shut up already!

2005-02-08T18:47:00.000-06:00

Magglio just had to take his parting shot at the White Sox as he signed with Detroit a few days ago:

"I don't think someone would sign me for seven years if my knee wasn't all right. That's one of the reasons I didn't sign back with Chicago. Kenny was burying me, saying my knee was not OK." (emphasis mine)

If Magglio's knee was in such great shape, then why the heck did he have to go to Austria for surgery to fix it? Obviously there was some major concerns with his knee and Kenny Williams was just reporting on what he knew about the situation. Maybe Kenny could have given a more "proper" evaluation if Magglio had bothered to share your medical records with the White Sox organization, something which he probably had a responsiblity to do. Well if this is the logic that Magglio gives for not coming back, then he is truly to blame.

Kenny Williams responds:

"I really am at a loss for words. What do you say when you've tried at every turn to accommodate someone, be positive and, in many cases, cover them?"

He continues: "I'm at peace with how we have treated Magglio."

I have to agree with Kenny. The organization is not at fault for this situation at all and I think the fans realize this. Magglio brought this whole thing upon himself. Kenny didn't have any choice but to respond in this manner and I think he has a right to be confused and upset at Magglio's attitude.

Magglio on whether or not the fans will cheer him or jeer him:

"I hope the fans know I did my best for them, and they'll appreciate that."

Well I hope Magglio knows that he gave the organization, the fans and they city of Chicago the middle finger in the way that he left and the events that transpired over the past year and he can expect to be reminded of that for the next 7 years for every time he visits US Cellular Field.

Myself to Maggs: Don't let the door hit you on the way out

2005-02-07T22:11:00.000-06:00

My final goodbye statement regarding Magglio:

I used to be a fan of Magglio Ordonez, but after this whole debacle over the past year, I have turned into a Magglio detractor. From 1999 to May 2004, Magglio was a great asset to the White Sox organization as he was consistantly in the upper-echelon of the right fielders in baseball. He never complained or whined about anything and provided many exciting moments. His first contract extension happened without a hitch, but it was in the second negotiations, the most recent set, that I lost respect for Magglio.

The White Sox offered him a very fair 5 year 70 million dollar contract, one that he probably didnt deserve in that market. Vlad Guerrero had just signed for that sum and Maggs was not as good and 2 years older. Some money was to be deferred, but not so much as to devalue the contract below his market value. Not by a long shot. Magglio decided that this was still not enough money and negotiations broke down.

He then got injured and the way he handled that situation was unprofessional. He flew to Vienna for risky surgery without bothering to inform the team which he was still officially a part of. When you take into account the fact that the White Sox training staff is one of the best in the majors, it makes this fact a little more puzzling. Additionally, the White Sox were not allowed to examine him despite the fact that he was still receiving money from the team for sitting injured. He then hired Scott Boras, the White Sox' least favorite agent.

So today the Detroit Tigers introduced Magglio to the press after Magglio was signed as the last free agent likely to occupy a starting position.

They signed him to a 5 year 75 million dollar contract that can be worth 7 years 105 million if he plays at least 135 games in the preceeding years, which means it must be considering more as a 7 year 105 million dollar contract a 5 year 75 million dollar one. 7 years from now will be Magglio's age 37 season and he will earn 18 million that year if the option vests. This probably will turn out to be the worst contract of the offseason and in my opinion it is the worst contract given since the previous era of 100+ million dollar contracts. Carlos Beltran was signed for 14 million dollars more over the same period, and he is younger and better. Magglio has only a few more seasons at his best. Certainly he won't be as good as he is today in 2011. The opt-out clause might be the only thing that can save the Tigers from this terrible deal, but even then, about 12 million will have already been tossed away on Magglio if his health is not in good shape.

If the Tigers were looking to become contenders with this deal, they succeeded in the opposite. They will now be saddled with one of the worst contracts in baseball until 2011 (most likely). It will prevent them from signing big free agents in the future because of their financial commitment to Magglio.

Additionally, we have not addressed Magglio's inability to hit at Comerica Park
Career at Comerica:
G 34
AB 135
HR 1
BA .259
OBP .320
SLG .348

There's no way to describe that except as pretty bad. 1 homer in 135 at bats aint going to cut it. And we're not exactly talking about a tiny sample size. There is a large enough sample to raise major concern.

Another thing is who were the Tigers bidding against? Themselves? Boras is the master of this and it's likely that the Tigers fell into the trap of negotiating with his demands instead of realizing that Magglio should have accepted their demands because no one was offering near what they were.

Joe Sheehan said before the signing:
"If Magglio Ordonez signs for anything close to what Scott Boras is apparently asking for--five years at more than $10 million per--then the signing team is completely insane. Ordonez had a terrific five-year peak for the White Sox, developing power and plate discipline to go with the .300 batting average he showed up in the majors with...

Even if Ordonez were to receive a clean bill of health, the five-year contract for more than $50 million would be a huge risk, because players decline from where he is. Add in the injury risk, and the chance that this contract would end up as an albatross is huge. You can address some of that in the contract, but what do you do when Ordonez is healthy, but slips to .280/.340/.460 with below-average defense in right field?"

This contract is bad enough to do irreparable harm to the Detroit Tigers franchise for years to come and stops any progress they have made to a grinding halt. They might be decent, but they have no shot of ever assembling the talent necessary to contend, even in the AL Central unless they get blessed with a lot of young, cheap talent and smart trades, but a signing like this makes it apparent that we're not dealing with a franchise that is likely to do that.

If you're a Tiger fan, this is a sad day in the history of your franchise, whether or not you realize it at this point. I would be hoping and praying that Magglio goes on the DL with his knee problem for 25 days with the problem in order to get out of this unspeakably bad contract.

I really don't mean to be mean or overstate this situation with Magglio signing. It's not a bitterness issue. I am not sad to see Magglio go and the White Sox sign players such as Dye, Iguchi, Hermanson, Pierzynski, to trade for Garcia, etc. The White Sox are vastly better off without him in my opinion. This contract really was that bad.

Interesting White Sox cartoon in Korean

2005-02-06T23:22:00.000-06:00

I don't have a clue what it says, but the pictoral representations seems to be fairly accurate (the Jose Valentin one in particular is quite funny).

A few thoughts on the football season

2005-02-06T23:20:00.000-06:00

The NFL season is over and the Patriots are again Super Bowl champions. I happen to be a person who has a strong dislike for the Patriots and I'm getting more antagonistic about the NFL. I hope that this dispels the notion that the NFL is a lot more competitive than the MLB as when one team wins the SB 3 times out of 4, it's hard to take that comment seriously, despite what promotors of the sports might say.

Now everyone complains about the competitiveness gap in baseball, but the fact remains that in the last five seasons, we have seen 5 distinct World Series champions, two from the NL and three from the AL (Yankees, Diamondbacks, Angels, Marlins, Red Sox). It seems as though the big-spending teams arent guarenteed to win such as in European soccer leagues. It is quite possible to win with a competant GM and a mid-sized budget. Obviously there has to be a threshold to be competitve. I think the owners should have a minimum that they have to spend in the CBA to force a bottom line of competition and not allow certain players to make more than certain teams spend. In today's market, a team with a 60 million dollar payroll could win the World Series if it is effectively run and a team that has an 100 million dolllar payroll can lose 90 games. Baseball is easily as competitve as other sports, though there are some teams which perceivably cannot win because of inept ownership (See Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh), but there are other teams such as Milwaukee that might do a lot of good this year with a low to medium budget and a strong farm system.

Baseball is competitive, and just because the AL East has the same top two every years doesnt mean that other divisions arent competitive. For instance, it is unclear who is the best team in every division except the NL Central, in which the Cardinals ran away with it last year. Divisions such as the ALC, ALW, NLW and NLE have at least three teams in which it could be reasonably argued that they could win.

Just had to get that out on the table.

My pick

2005-02-06T13:48:00.000-06:00

I'm now on record picking the Eagles, with something to prove, 27-24.

Another note about Sosa

2005-02-02T22:52:00.000-06:00

Sosa's the story right now in all of baseball, so I won't be afraid to comment further on him:

In today's Prospectus Today, Joe Sheehan makes an offhand comment that Sosa's ".375-.390 OBP will be a big boost for the Orioles' offense." I take major issue with this statement because the range of OBPs is nowhere near a given. Sosa has eclipsed the .375 OBP level in 4 of his 16 major league seasons. Granted all of those have come since 1998, but to expect this range is unrealistic. Even the year that Sammy hit 66 homers, his OBP was a good, but not great .377. His really great year offensively was his 2001 where his OBP was .437 and he also hit 64 homers. But last year his OBP was only .332 and even in 2003 it was only .358. His last great season, 2002, saw a .399 OBP from him. I think it's unrealistic to expect much more than another 2003 season out of Sosa and that would mean more of a .350-.365 OBP, certainly not a .375-.390 OBP. That being said, he'll still be beneficial to the Orioles next year, but Sheehan's apparently offhand comment cannot go without challenge because the Orioles simply cannot depend on Sammy's OBP being that high next year.

Sosa

2005-02-02T19:53:00.000-06:00

Sorry for all of the Cubs stuff today, but this just looks so weird:

I can't help but comment on this...

2005-02-02T17:30:00.000-06:00

This is Jeromy Burnitz's ZiPS projection:

Burnitz, Jeromy - 2005 ZiPS Projection

---------------------------------------------------------

AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG

---------------------------------------------------------

499  62  116  23  2  29  75  53 126   5  .232  .311  .461

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primer/discussion/26030/

Compare to Jose Valentin last year:

AB 450
R 73
H 97
2B 20
3B 3
HR 30
RBI 70
BB 43
SO 139
SB 8
BA .216
OBP .287
SLG% .473

The only major difference is that Burnitz is projected for a slightly higher Batting Avg and OBP, but otherwise the Cubs just replaced Sosa with the Outfield version of Jose Valentin. I remember last year how whenever I saw Valentin's name in the lineup I cringed because the best one could hope for realistically was a 1 for 4 game with only one strikeout. It got real bad last year for Jose and was a terrible way to go out, but the Cubs certainly are a worse team than they were a few days ago. From the Cubs point of view, I don't think this was a good trade. Sammy Sosa for Jerry Hairston, an unproven young player with only one season worth trading for, two marginal prospects and Jeromy Burnitz is a step down. The Cubs would be smart to at least use the DuBois/Hollandsworth platoon in one of the outfield positions, but Baker's infatuation with veterans might make this unlikely. This lineup, any way you order it is not going to strike fear in the hearts of many NL pitchers:

Hairston/Walker
Patterson
Nomar
Ramirez
Lee
Burnitz
Barrett
Dubois/Hollandsworth/Hairston?

I will now go on the record as predicting the Cardinals to win the NL Central, with the Cubs finishing second or third. This Sosa trade and Burnitz replacement just cements my previously unrecorded predictions

Pitchers and Catchers Countdown

2005-02-01T17:38:00.000-06:00

According to the countdown clock on the official White Sox homepage, there's only14 days, 19 hours and 24 minutes until pitchers and catchers report. But you probably knew that already if you're like me. Baseball season is quickly coming upon us....

"Good" pitching signings

2005-02-01T17:32:00.000-06:00

I'm going to agree with Henry that there weren't many great pitching signings this offseason, but there were two which he didnt mention that I didnt think were all that bad. The first is Odalis Perez resigning with LA for 3 years and 24 million. Perez remains one of the more underrated starters in baseball, which is in part due to his shalacking in the playoffs and his poor 2003 season.

And of course the other is the El Duque signing. PECOTA only projects 113 innings, but PECOTA also doesnt take into account the White Sox' training staff being one of the best in the majors, so it's likely that Orlando Hernandez will fall on the upper end of that projection. PECOTA predicts a 24.2 VORP over those 112 innings, so if he could stay healthy, there's a great chance that he might be one of the best pickups this offseason on the pitching side of things.

Pitching was really expensive this offseason and teams that didn't focus on it early enough and weren't interested in paying for it didn't get any (see the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles).

Best/Worst

2005-02-01T14:22:00.000-06:00

For my first post, I was considering talking about what I thought were the best and worst moves this past offseason. I thought long and hard, and realized that you can pick out a bad move much more easily than a good move. For example, there have been plenty of people bitching about the signings of Pedro, Eric Milton, Russ Ortiz, Derek Lowe, etc., but no very good pitcher signings come to mind. The small contract of everyone's favorite Esteban Loiaza might be a plus, especially if he ends up anywhere near his '03, same with the Wade Miller deal, but no outstanding signings really speak up to me. I guess that speaks to how much we expect out of a GM relative to what should reasonably be expected.

Greetings

2005-02-01T14:14:00.000-06:00

Hey all, I'm Henry. A couple of caveots on me here:
1. Yes, I am a Cubs Fan, I live on the North Side about half a mile from Wrigley
2. I didn't have a choice of teams to root for, I'm a fourth generation Cubs fan
3. I enjoy baseball, talking baseball, thinking about baseball, and blogging about baseball
4. I have absolutely nothing against the White Sox, and I root for them much more than any other team non-Northside team.
5. I also like the Dodgers, but in a loose sense.

Sox one of the 10 least improved?

2005-01-31T22:10:00.000-06:00

I dont subscribe to ESPN insider, but my sources at WSI tell me that in Rob Neyer's new article, he proclaims the White Sox to be one of the 10 least improved teams this offseason. I have to say that the White Sox inclusion in the article has to be among one of the most ignorant things that Neyer has written. By projected VORP, the White Sox additions project to be worth 116.9 VORP (I used Placido Polanco's projected VORP for Iguchi because based on all reasonable projections of Iguchi that I've seen, they are comparable players), while the players that we are losing project to a 86.5 VORP, a net increase of 30.5, which is a sizable increase. He sites the Lee for Podsednik and Vizcaino deal as the one that forces him to place the Sox on the list, but Podsednik's (17.7) and Vizcaino's (10.0) combined projected VORP (27.7) is actually higher than Carlos Lee's projected VORP Of 25.7. Rob's inclusion of the White Sox on this list greatly brings into question, from my point of view, Neyer's objectivity towards the White Sox as it's pretty clear the White Sox are a better team this offseason, despite the losses of Lee, Ordonez and Valentin. Kenny Williams has worked tirelessly to assemble a team which has no gaping holes in it, even if it meant having to trade and get rid of fan favorites and really good players and he has succeeded for the most part. This team has the potential to be like the 2000 team with less offense and more starting pitching if a few things fall our way. Having one of the best training staffs in the majors is an important step to acheiving those ends.

Win shares comparison 2004:
Ordonez, Lee, Valentin, Schoenweis, the brothers alomar, Mike Jackson: 54
Pierzynski, Hernandez, Dye, Hermanson, Podsednik, Vizcaino, Iguchi (again, we'll use Polanco, just for comparison purposes: 78
Improvement: 24 wins shares=8 wins. The White Sox won 83 in 2004. Add 8 to that and you get 91, only one less to the Twins' 2004 total who did absolutely nothing to improve.

I dont know if I am being unfair in any regards, but this is clearly an improved team. Maybe Henry can shed some light....

Was Paul Konerko's 2004 really a career year?

2005-01-31T21:44:00.000-06:00

The short answer to the title question is yes. The long answer is, not by all that much. Paul Konerko set career highs in the following categories, in this, his sixth season with more than 100 games played (and with the White Sox):
Home Runs: 41
Runs Batted In: 117
Walks: 69
Strikeouts: 107
Slugging %: .535
Stolen Bases (tie, I hope he doesnt try to eclipse this, ever): 1

Those are important categories to have set new career highs in, but are they really a large departure from where he was in 1999-2002? (Let's throw 2003 out for the purpose of this activity because that might be one of the worst slumps in major league history)

Let's look at the rate stats in 1999-2002 and 2004:
1999: .294/.352/.511
2000: .298/.363/.481
2001: .282/.349/.507
2002: .304/.359/.498

2004: .271/.359/.535

Does 2004 really look all that much better in this context? It was actually his lowest batting average of the period, which was made up for by a career high in walks, and the OBP was equalled in 2002 and eclipsed in 2000. The only thing that was so much higher was the slugging percentage. What could account for that? Lets look at Konerko's Doubles/Homers over the period in question:

1999: 31 2B/24 HR Sum=55
2000: 31/21 Sum=52
2001: 35/32 Sum=67
2002: 30/27 Sum=57

2004: 22/41 Sum=63

When you add the two together, the numbers fluctuate by a relatively small degree, not much more than could be adequately expected from luck. It just appears that in 2004, a lot of what was staying in the park beforehand was going out of the park because of A. Konerko's age being one where more power develops and B. the increased Home Run factor at US Cellular Field in 2004.

Let's look at Konerko's VORP by year:

1999: 38.1
2000: 29.0
2001: 39.9
2002: 43.3

2004: 48.1

So yes, it was a career year for Konerko, but the fact that he had the career year in his age 28 season indicates that it was just part of his natural development and not a fluke that anyone needs to worry about. If you want to get rid of that dismal 2003 (3.2 VORP), then we see a nice upward trend going that could actually indicate some improvement in 2005. I don't think Sox fans need to worry about Konerko's production declining in 2005, except for maybe the sheer number of Home Runs.

And as far as that extension goes, I think a 9-10 million dollar a year extension of 3-4 years might be in order, but I wouldnt go much above that in years or in dollars. Fortunately, Konerko doesn't seem like he's going to hold out for a lot of money (like Magglio did).

I would like to introduce....

2005-01-31T21:22:00.000-06:00

First things first. I apologize for having neglected the blog the past three weeks. I got uber-busy and should have paid more attention to it.

Second, and more importantly is that we have a new poster on the blog. His name is Henry (he'll probably go by NorthSideHenry) and yes he is a Cubs fan, but dont worry, he's probably one of the least anti-Sox Cubs fan that I know and he'll definitely offer more to the blog than I could alone. His entry onto the blog probably means that some of the talk is going to shift a bit more towards general baseball talk and the occasional Cubs talk, but let's be clear, the purpose will still be as a White Sox blog, just with a new poster with a different viewpoint. Welcome to Nineteen Seventeen Henry!

High turnover on the South Side

2005-01-10T20:13:00.000-06:00

One of the most obvious things about the White Sox this offseason is the fact that so many players are gone and there are many new ones here. Lee, Valentin and Ordonez, mainstays of the lineup since the 2000 AL Central Division championship campaign are all gone, replaced by Scott Podsednik, Juan Uribe and Jermaine Dye respectively. A fifth major league calibur starting pitcher was actually added to the staff. The bullpen was bolstered. A former hated rival in AJ Pierzynski is now the starting catcher on the South Side. Let's see how the 2005 projected starters (and bullpen) differs from the players who played the most at their respective positions in 2004 (Baseball Reference's "starters" will be the basis for this excercize, though I tweaked it a bit):

2004:

C Ben Davis/Jamie Burke/Miguel Olivo/Sandy Alomar
1B Paul Konerko
2B Willie Harris
3B Joe Crede
SS Jose Valentin (Uribe got his 502 at bats at 2b, SS and 3B)
LF Carlos Lee
RF Joe Borchard/Magglio Ordonez
CF Aaron Rowand
DH Frank Thomas

Starter 1 Mark Buehrle
Starter 2 Esteban Loaiza/Freddy Garcia
Starter 2 Scott Schoenweis/Jose Contreras
Starter 4 Jon Garland
Starter 5 Dont ask

Closer Shingo Taktasu
Reliever 2 Damaso Marte
Reliever 3 Neal Cotts
Reliever 4 Cliff Politte
Reliever 5 Jon Adkins

There were a ton of inseason changes so it's really hard to pin down who was considered in what role.

And now your 2005 Chicago White Sox:
C AJ Pierzynski
1B Paul Konerko
2B Willie Harris
3B Joe Crede
SS Juan Uribe
LF Scott Podsednik
RF Jermaine Dye
CF Aaron Rowand
DH Frank Thomas

Starter 1 Mark Buerhle
Starter 2 Freddy Garcia
Starter 3 Jose Contreras
Starter 4 Jon Garland
Starter 5 Orlando Hernandez

Closer Shingo Takatsu
Reliever 2 Damaso Marte
Reliever 3 Dustin Hermanson
Reliever 4 Luis Vizcaino
Reliever 5 Cliff Politte

I think a lot of this change will be for the better and that will be discussed later. It's interesting to note what players have the most years of service with the club including 2005 in their current tenures:

Frank Thomas 16 years
Paul Konerko 7 years
Jon Garland 6 years
Mark Buehrle 6 years
Joe Crede 6 years (he didnt get extended time till 2002 however)
Aaron Rowand 5 years
Willie Harris 4 years
Damaso Marte 4 years
Neal Cotts 3 years
Jon Adkins 3 years
Ben Davis 2 years
Freddy Garcia 2 years
Carl Everett 2 years
Jose Contreras 2 year
Juan Uribe 2 years
Cliff Politte 2 years
Shingo Takatsu 2 years
Jermaine Dye 1 year
AJ Pierzynski 1 year
Luiz Vizcaino 1 year
Dustin Hermanson 1 year
Scott Podsednik 1 year
Orlando Hernandez 1 year

Of the 23 players listed, 13 of them are new from 2004 or later. That is a very large number of players, considering that it's not a group of minor leaguers or anything of the like. Joe Crede is tied for third as the most tenured player along with Jon Garland? How ridiculous is that?

High turnover is generally a good thing when you dont get results, so you have to give Kenny credit on that front. For instance, the AJ Pierzynski signing was a good move by Kenny Williams (take that Scott Long). So was the Jermaine Dye signing.

I'm Back

2005-01-10T19:20:00.000-06:00

Sorry about the long absence so early in the life of the blog but I got it started at a time when I probably should have waited a bit. I will try to post as often as I can now.

Taking a break

2004-12-26T08:47:00.000-06:00

I probably wont be able to blog much (if at all) over the next two weeks as I'm going on vacation pretty soon, so if you dont hear from me for a long while, that's where I am. On about January 10th, I should be getting back to blogging

El Duque it is!

2004-12-22T15:44:00.000-06:00

George Offman for once is actually right! El Duque is the answer to the fifth starter question that hasnt been answered since Kip Wells and Jon Garland shared the spot in 2000. Whether or not it was the best answer to the question is certainly up for debate, but at least we have an answer. I would have much preferred Odalis Perez or possibly even Wade Miller, but this will do if it was the only realistic pitcher we could sign within our means. I think 8 million guarenteed is also on the high side, but that's what the market dictated this year. I have heard a report that it's only worth 4 million, but I'm willing to bet that was a mistake, though it would be nice if it weren't.

Concerns about El Duque that I have:

-.79 career groundball to flyball ratio

-He's 35 years old. Or is he 39?

-He'd done worse of the road in his career (3.77 at home (always has been Yankee Stadium) career and 4.12 on the road)

-He hasn't pitched 190 innings since 2000 and he's done it only twice (1999 as well)

I think these are some important concerns and Ozzie is going to have to be really careful with him. I would expect about a 4.30-4.60 ERA with about 150-175 innings pitched next year, which would be great compared to what we've had recently. Who knows? Maybe he'll carry over his sucess from last year, US Cellular Field wont affect him much and he'll stay healthy? It's not entirely unrealistic.

His home/road splits are weird (2.61 ERA at home, 4.21 ERA on the road) because it seems they had more to do with his varying K/BB ratios than anything else (54/15 at home and 30/21 on the road). I dont know how to explain that, but I know one thing's for sure, I'd be happy as hell with a 4.21 ERA out of Hernandez. Overall it's a decent signing by the Sox and it gives them the best rotation in the division

El Duque to be signed tomorrow?

2004-12-21T23:50:00.000-06:00

George Offman of the Score 670 is reporting that the Sox will sign El Duque tomorrow at 2 years 8, with up to 4 million in incentives. He's an extreme fly-ball pitcher, but hell anything is better than what we've had to deal with the past 2 years in the fifth starter spot. To have five major league starters on this team is a huge upgrade. The upgrade is worth 4-5 wins at least over the terribleness that would have otherwise ensued had the 5th starter carousel started going again. This also helps us in that we wont have to promote prospects too early (ie Brandon McCarthy). Decent signing relative to the market, but excellent signing if there's truth to this report, and it does seem to have a lot of truth to it.

2005 Bullpen candidates

2004-12-21T23:28:00.000-06:00

Continuing on what I had started yesterday I will discuss the bullpen candidates who are not currently assured spots. This list might grow, but I dont anticpate by a lot. A reminder of the candidates I had mentioned before:

Neal Cotts (L)

Jon Adkins (R)

Arnie Munoz (L)

Kevin Walker (L)

Felix Diaz (R)

I'll throw in Jeff Bajenaru (R) because with a good spring he has as good a chance as the others to make the bullpen. I would expect one righty and one lefty of this group to make the bullpen. Let's look at them one by one now:

Neal Cotts (L) 5.29 ERA as reliever 4 holds 2 blown saves
He didnt have a great year last year in the bullpen. His problems involved giving up far too many home runs (11 in 63 innings) and walking a few too many (29 in that same amount of innings). His K/9 of 8.14 was pretty good and his BAA of .237 wasnt all that bad either. If he could give up a few less homers (interestingly enough 7 of the 11 came on the road) and walk a few less he'd be a solid reliever. I'm just not so sure he can do that. I would not recommend that he be in the 2005 pen unless he shows signs of better control at AAA next year. I know Ozzie likes this guy so I fear he will make the pen over some more deserving guys.

Jon Adkins (R) 4.65 ERA 5 holds
I would have to say that the ERA is a lot lower than it could be. His WHIP was 1.52, which is terrible. His BAA was .305, also awful. His K/9 of 6.39 wasnt so stellar either. At least he didnt walk a terribly high amount of batters. He gave up 13 homers in 62 innings as well. I dont see much of anything good in this guy and his 4.65 ERA can only be explained by luck and the fact that he was rarely put in situations of importance and with good reason. I would also not recommend him, but again Ozzie had him in his pen last year so that might play a role in the decision-making process.

Arnie Munoz (L) 3.97 ERA as reliever
Unlike the previous two pitchers, Munoz is actually a good pitcher. People will look to his absolutely pathetic start in Montreal and dismiss him outright, but that's the wrong way to evaluate him. He was miscast as a starter in the minor leagues and they tried to bring him up too quickly because we were desperate for a starter. His curve is an excellent pitch, he just needs to learn to be less afraid of the hitters. He did walk 10 batters in 11.1 innings in his short stint as a reliever, but he had 10 K's too. He's young and will learn how to pitch. Adkins is 27, Cotts is 24 (will be 25 by opening day) and Munoz is only 22, so you can cut the guy a little more slack. He was on the verge of making the 2003 roster in Spring Training before an awful spring. He will be good pretty soon and it's worth the risk that he might become a dominant reliever in a short amount of time. I would recommend him for the bullpen.

Kevin Walker (L) 4.26 ERA at AAA Fresno
I dont know why they signed this guy as he doesnt seem to have any upside. His BB/9 was 4.5 at AAA, he gave up his fair share of homers and didnt do anything particularly impressive at AAA. None of his previous AAA numbers are so spectacular either. They must see something in him that isnt evident through the stats, which is very possible, but I'm still skeptical. By now, you'd think he would have posted one good year. I do not recommend him for the bullpen.

Felix Diaz (R) 3.78 ERA as reliever
I think Felix is a good reliever and an awful starter. He gave up three homers in relief last year, but he didnt walk all that many, which is more than all of the other previously mentioned candidates can say (6 in 16.2 innings is fine by me). His 11 K's arent spectacular, but an 11:6 K:bb ratio isnt bad. Anyways we are dealing with a very small sample size so it's hard to read too much into these numbers, except for the fact that they werent too far off from his numbers as a starter. He got killed by the HR as a starter, but I think this will be less of a problem in relief.

Jeff Bajenaru (R) 1.34 ERA at AA Birmingham
I could offer his ML ERA (10.80), but that doesnt tell us much about the pitcher. He had great minor league numbers, but he just couldnt stop giving up hits at the ML Level. I'm thinking he might have a shot with a good spring because he's not that bad of a pitcher (51 K in 33.2 IP at Birmingham), but I dont expect him to make the team. I wont recommend against him if he has a good spring however. He has a higher potential than Diaz, so if he figures things out, I'd recommend him for the bullpen, otherwise he needs to get seasoning at the bandbox in Charlotte.

So I would add Munoz the lefty and Diaz the righty to the back end of the bullpen, both of whom are capable for long relief which makes my recommended bullpen: Takatsu, Marte, Hermanson, Politte, Vizcaino, Diaz and Munoz, with Vizcaino being my least favorite member. Any way you look at it I think we will have a fairly strong bullpen which should challenge the Twins for best in the division and one of the better ones in baseball.

Analysis of the 2005 Chicago White Sox: The Bullpen

2004-12-20T19:43:00.000-06:00

In the first of four analyses of the 2005 Chicago White Sox, I will focus on the only complete part of the team right now: the bullpen. During the offseason, I had advocated that our biggest priority was adding bullpen depth. My wish was granted when we signed Dustin Hermanson, not too long ago. The 2005 White Sox appear to have a pretty good bullpen shaping up, which will help us mightily. Ozzie has shown his willingness to leave starters in a long time, as the White Sox were dead last in bullpen innings pitched despite the 5^th starter problems, so the role of the bullpen might be a reduced one, but it might have also been due to the bullpen he was dealt. The pen this year figures to be very good. As of now, it consists of:

Shingo Takatsu (R)

Damaso Marte (L)

Dustin Hermanson (R)

Luis Vizcaino (R)

Cliff Politte (R)

Depending on whether it’s a 7 man pen or a 6 man pen, there will be an open competition between the following players for the final bullpen spot, but I’m willing to bet that it’s a 7 man bullpen:

Neal Cotts (L)

Jon Adkins (R)

Arnie Munoz (L)

Kevin Walker (L)

Felix Diaz (R)

Bajenaru might be given a chance, but I don’t think he earned a serious look after the way he performed last year.

Let’s look at the pitchers one by one:

Shingo Takatsu 2.31 ERA 19 saves in 20 chances

I really like Shingo’s chances of not dropping off significantly. The clear reason why he was having trouble later in the year was the amount of hitters he was walking. Some people believe it was because hitters weren’t getting fooled by the Frisbee anymore. What I think was really going on was he simply wasn’t hitting the corners with his fastball like he was for almost the entire year up until August. Sure he’ll be 36 next year and his numbers in Japan weren’t nearly this good, but Shingo is just so different than all of the other power pitchers in America, which is why he was so effective. In Japan, the hitters would be more used to a pitcher like Shingo, but here, he’s a total unknown. Pitchers who thrive on location are ageless anyways, just ask Greg Maddux with his 86 MPH fastball. I expect Shingo to maintain a 3.25ish ERA and remain the closer all year. He will be a very important part of the bullpen.

Damaso Marte 3.42 ERA 6 saves 6 blown saves 21 holds

Marte didn’t have a very good year last year…and he still was very good. He was not the 1.58 ERA pitcher of 2003, but he was still important and effective. His problem was that he would get into these fits of wildness which have caused him troubles throughout his career. His strikeout rate was also down some. I hope that his K/9, which has declined three straight years, does not continue to do so because it would probably mean that Marte will cease being an excellent reliever and will become an average reliever. I think his stuff is good enough that it will go back up again, or at least not decline. If Marte can cut down on the walks this year, I think he could post a 2.7 ERA, which is what I’ll predict for him. I’m not sure if he can be the 1.58 ERA pitcher ever again because his BAA’s were just insanely low that year, but I think an ERA between 2.50 and 3.00 is likely next year. Despite not being the closer, he is still the most valuable reliever on the staff and should continue to be so in 2005.

Dustin Hermanson (as reliever) 4.33 ERA 17 saves in 20 chances

I’m pretty optimistic about Hermanson because I don’t think his ERA really reflects what he’s capable of doing in a full season as a reliever. His BAA was only .224. His K/9 was 9.3. His K/BB ratio was a not too bad 2.55. He allowed only 2 homers in those 27 innings. What plagued him was 2 absolutely awful outings towards the end of the year which blew the NL West for the Giants. In those two outings he combined for 1 inning and eight earned runs. Ouch. That means he posted a 72.00 ERA in two of the most important games of the year against LA and Houston. As bad as this is, this really isn’t important to how he’ll perform in a setup role next year. Were he not the closer he would have been pulled sooner and he won’t be the closer next year. His ERA in all other games was 1.73, which is pretty darn good. Up to that point he had been solely a starter, so there’s no real track record for him as a reliever.

I think he will thrive in a relief role next year and he’ll post an ERA in the low 2’s. That might sound wildly optimistic, but I think he’s a really good reliever and when you take mediocre starters, they can turn out to be great relievers some times. Hermanson is one whom I think can do that. If Shingo falters and turns out to be a fluke, Hermanson will close.

Luis Vizcaino 3.75 ERA 1 Save 4 blown saves 21 holds

As much as I’d like Vizcaino’s chances of being a pretty good reliever in another ballpark, I really don’t like his chances all that much in 2005. I think he’s not a bad talent, just that his being a flyball pitcher will absolutely doom his 2005 season. His career K/9 of 8.32, which he has rarely deviated from, is a very good one. His career K/BB ratio of 2.42, which he also doesn’t deviate very much from, isn’t that bad either. What does bother me is 1.88 HR/9, where 1 HR/9 isnt so great. His career G/F ratio of 0.77 likely will not change either unless Cooper works with him to fix it. His ERA next year might be in the upper fours or the low 5’s. I don’t know if he will even be a usable part of the bullpen towards the end of the year. I liked the concept of bolstering the bullpen in the Lee trade, but I don’t think this was the pitcher to do it with.

Cliff Politte 4.38 ERA 19 holds 0 blown saves

Cliff just gave too many hits last year to be very effective, 52 in 51.1 innings pitched. His K/9 was pretty good at 8.42, his K/BB of 2.18 wasn’t so great, but that was his worst since 2001. He had no problems with US Cellular field, posting a 3.07 ERA at home, but a 6.14 ERA on the road, which is very odd. His BAA at home? .202. On the road? .326. This really makes little sense to me how the disparity could be so large. I really don’t know what to make of Politte’s potential for next year, but I’m willing to bet that it took him a while to get over his arm problems in 2003, which caused his 5.14 and 6.23 April and May ERAs. I think he’ll probably be in the upper 3’s next year. He’ll be a serviceable guy for the 6^th or 7^th inning, but I wouldn’t leave him out there in a high leverage situation if one arose in those innings.

Those are the 5 who are guaranteed spots in the bullpen as of now. I will get to the others who will be competing for the final spots later, when I get a chance…which might be a while from now as I’m really busy.

To be continued later…

Hey fellow White sox fans

2004-12-20T18:57:00.000-06:00

I've been meaning to start a White Sox blog for a while. I dont know how committed I can be to it, but I'm gonna try my best because I think I have enough to say about the White Sox to sustain a blog, if only I had the time. I love talking about the White Sox and I appreciate all feedback on my opinions.

I hope the name of the blog isn't a mystery to anyone. A lot of fans of other teams like to complain, but they really have no right to complain. It's been since 1917 when the White Sox last won their World Series. I was on www.dodgerblues.com and it made me sick to think that they were complaining about a World Series victory 16 years ago. Try 87 years and counting with no end in sight. The White Sox have been around 104 years and we've been to the playoffs all of 7 times and most living people can only remember 4 of those times. That's pretty darn sad. I'm here to follow the White Sox hopefully follow in the footsteps of their Red counterparts and win the World Series. Hope you enjoy the blog

Note: The actual wording of the blog is in reference to the Kenny Williams quote about the acquisition of Freddy Garcia