fathom

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 19, 2007 -> 11:18 PM) The funny thing to me is everybody saying we will start hitting. Well first of all, we have the worst hitting coach in the game and a manager that gives away free outs left and right bunting, even in tie games in the 7th inning when a gale wind is blowing out. Second of all, all of our starting pitchers had great track records going into last year, I kept hearing "well when they recover with this offense, we'll be unstoppable!" It never happened. This looks exactly like last year, only in complete reverse. Only difference is we didn't get off to a great start this time, the 2 teams we are fighting with this year might be better than the 2 from 2006, and now even our bullpen is starting to show signs of being pathetic. And I won't even address the incredible, hard to believe that he's still being defended Ozzie stuff again. I'll give you the same advice for tonight that Ozzie gave his troops after his first game with the team: "Go get drunk and forget about it". You know I dislike this current team as much as you do, but you're going to give yourself an ulcer if after every game we lose, you have to make a thread like this. It sucks to lose....so just do what I do and root for every Cubs player to suffer a season-ending injury.

QUOTE(AirScott @ May 19, 2007 -> 11:13 PM) I don't care how much you thought about this since the game ended, there's no reason to fire Ozzie Guillen. For one, we're only five games out IN MID-MAY! There are 123 games left on the White Sox schedule, why blow the whole f***ing thing up after two losses? Guillen won 83 without Maggs and Thomas for the majority of 2004, won 99 and a World Series in 2005, then won 90 last year. So what he pops off at the mouth? Nobody on the team cares. Remember the Magglio-Ordonez-is-a-Venezualen-piece-of-s*** tirade in 2005? Didn't seem to have any negative effects, right? The players didn't exactly love how he treated the Tracey and Garland incident's vs the Rangers last year, and now we have some tension with the whole catching situation. For once, I'd rather Ozzie just focusing on managing and using good strategy.....and stop trying to be funny in the press.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 19, 2007 -> 11:10 PM) This doesn't answer how do we fix this though, and I am forever grateful for 2005. However I know we aren't going to win anything again with this core, so we should start trading it for what value it has left to try and rebuild, and maybe the new core can help. Keeping people to avoid attendance and interest falling is utter nonsense, if we start losing (which we will, if we firesale or don't firesale, either way), attedance is going down. At least if we get some young parts, we have hope. KW and Ozzie are too proud and arrogant to blow up the team already. They're going to use the injury angle if things get real bad. They'll want to see how we play with Pods and Thome back in the lineup before making any big decisions. I wouldn't be so excited though about seeing us trade some veterans...I'm sure we'll just try to get a AAAA prospect that looked good in the Arizona Fall League.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 19, 2007 -> 11:05 PM) So what do we do, keep the veterans we have for a ton of money and continue to be mediocre? If you want to win another World Series, we have to sell off parts, because we can't tweak what we have and win anything. Think of it this way....2005 was our one good chance to win the whole f***ing thing, and we did. Be forever grateful of this, because a lot of teams don't capitalize when it's "their season". The window with the core group of Buehrle, Garland, PK, and Crede looks to be done. I'm actually intrigued to see who will be our team leaders in say 2009. My favorite thing to watch the rest of the season will be to see Danks pitch.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 19, 2007 -> 11:03 PM) A firesale hurts this team for a lot longer than you guys think. Sure it gives you some talent, that may or may not help you. But a fire sale will kill attendance. A fire sale + cubs doing well will bury it. It will taper off later this year. If we are fielding a rebuilding team next year, they will see less renewals on the ticket plans. And without that revenue, the salary of our team will drop. Its a vicious circle. Hopefully they can turn this around. And people are relying on our minor league coaches developing the players into being ready to contribute at the MLB level.

QUOTE(kramer99 @ May 19, 2007 -> 11:03 PM) lets just give up now... i mean, no team could be doing so terrible at this point in the season and make the playoffs right...especially in such a great division!!! Twins Record on May 19, 2006: Minnesota 18 24 .429 9.5 Who won the division last year again? your right...doesnt matter.... lets just give up now You almost prove the point of this thread though (no matter how impulsive I think it is). The Twins made some changes to their roster, and basically kicked off two veterans and added some life to their team. The Twins also had an amazing bullpen that probably blew less saves all year than we have in the first 1/4 of this season.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:59 PM) if the sox get swept, the only thing to do is to admit that the cubs destroyed the sox. I'll just be like "the bullpen sucks". To be honest, Cubs fans, at least ones that I respect (all two of them maybe) act like they don't care about baseball anymore as a way to justify not admitting the Sox won the 2005 WS.

Brandon McCarthy was never the savior that people thought he'd be, but he also might have been the most vital pitcher we had, along with Contreras, during the 2nd half of 2005. He had some huge games that helped stop losing streaks.

QUOTE(Melissa1334 @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:54 PM) if were not making the playoffs, theres no point in keeping dye, crede, uribe, gooch. Of course not, but you have to wait closer to the deadline. If we trade them now, our attendance will be cut in half for next year. Here's the scary part....this team doesn't have just a few holes to fill for the next two years. There's only 5 or 6 guys on the entire roster right now who we can be sure will be here for 2009. Our window is all but closed for being a WS contender. It will be hard to get too upset if we have to rebuild for a few years, as we've been a consistent over .500 team for a long stretch.

QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:52 PM) Joe Girardi would make a great new manager, not that anybody is getting fired unless they murder Mike North. I want him nowhere near our Sox pitchers....there's a reason almost all of them have gone on the DL since he started with the Marlins.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:51 PM) This team has 0 shot at making the playoffs, and is full of dead weight. Waiting has no use, at all. We are nowhere near good enough to finish higher than 3rd this year. And fire Ozzie. Add that and that is what i'm basically saying, just in not as calm terms. I agree they won't make the playoffs....but there's nothing to gain by trading away our veterans right now. Flat out, our minor league development sucks. We can't call up anyone that doesn't look like a Little League hitter. I don't want to see Jerry Owens and Ryan Sweeney battle the rest of the year to see who can ground out more. Just be like me with Ozzie....hope he says something stupid.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:48 PM) Everybody. Manager, players hitting .200, bullpen choking when they finally get runs, all of them. Kenny and a few young guys are the only safe ones, and even that is temporary. We aren't winning anything this year and there is no use keeping all the dead weight on this team. Ironic coming from me, but show a little patience. No changes will be made until Thome returns and we see him play for a month or so. If things are real bad, the trade deadline will be looming, and then you'll see changes.

What is our bullpen's ERA now? Seems like it has to be nearing 5.00. QUOTE(Melissa1334 @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:48 PM) mac basically helped us lose both games even though he didnt pitch today. if he threw the ball the way he was supposed to, then he would have pitched today in the 8th, then handed it over to jenks Good post...MacDougal is a lot better pitcher in the environment we had today, as he doesn't give up many homers. Aardsma tries to be too perfect, and he throws to many pitches down the heart of the plate.

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:43 PM) then so do 15 other teams. This team looks like about 15 other teams...some nice parts to it (starting pitching) and then a lot of crap thrown in. When Rob Mackowiak is hitting #5 for you (as he did a couple games ago) you know you have issues. Many of our players are aging, fading stars...and our youngster don't appear to be ready, if they ever will be. We don't really have anyone who runs much and it's hard to score on 3 straight singles when you top averaged hitter is around .255. Cleveland and Detroit are better clubs. Minnesota may be fading out quickly with their injuries, but you never count those guys out. Great post....this offense is really missing some exciting, younger athletic players that can make things happen.

QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:38 PM) Each and every positional player and many of the pitchers are playing wayy below their expectations. Out of curiosity, does anyone else ever feel like letting them get some of the blame?? Yep, they deserve so much blame. The thing is, as you know, coaches are the scapegoats in sports since you can't fire all the players. This s*** has been going on since the very start of the 2nd half last year, and it really makes you wonder if this team can be any better than a .500 team. No one should blame Ozzie for today's loss. Pinella severely outmanaged him, but it didn't matter....our bullpen sucks right now.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:39 PM) No one in the front office could've forseen the collective s*** this offense would take. I honestly believe they were concerned about the offense, but the salaries were too high for them to make the changes they wanted to.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:35 PM) You mean they were able to actually make strides and get better. Geeze, based on what I've seen people are juts worthlwess when done and Jenks was still getting guys out with lower velocities (doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize Jenks is still one of the best closers in the game, even if he's throwing 93-95). And I'm glad people are writing off the relief core, it wasn't that long ago that people were raving about it. I remember all along saying this core will lose some hair but at the same time it will grow and improve (its going to have ugly stretches) but come season end it will be one of the best in the biz. And anyone expecting a young pen to consistently dominant all season was ludicrous. This is not on Kenny, he should make an adjustment to try to fire up the offense, but this isn't on him. I'm glad he did things because his off-season was a very good one in which the team got younger, the farm system got stronger, and our pitching got back to the way it should be. This bullpen has been blowing games consistently since the 2nd game of the season. We have the worst hitting team in the majors and one of the worst bullpens in the majors....not a good recipe for winning. If all that matters was making the farm system stronger, then we should have traded Crede and Dye. KW said he was going to upgrade the relief core this offseason, and he failed. He's fallen in love with "stuff" guys.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:15 PM) Who gives a crap. I care a lot more about making sure our starters stay fresh all season. Plus, its a good time to see what Masset can do. The Cubs are just one team and not a very good one at that. This team has won its past few series, has some of the best pitching in baseball, and will get better offensively. There is no reason to b**** and moan as much as everyone seems to do around here on a daily basis. Why not enjoy the fact that we have very good baseball people running this organization and have the ability to get to another world series. I disagree....I don't think this team has a chance to make the playoffs this year. There are too many good team in the AL this year. The Cubs offense is very good, anf if the wind is blowing out tomorrow, Masset likely won't last more than 4 innings. Thus, we're going to destroy our relief core again.

QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:30 PM) Maybe no people will realize there are problems with this team. It sucks. The better team won. They humiliated us. The Cubs are a damn good team....no doubt in my mind they'll win the NL Central.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:29 PM) Oh so you guys want the Sox to go to there two/three best relievers: Jenks/Macdougall/Thornton. Last I looked at one point this season most of you f***ing morons thought Jenks was done, MacDougall was god, than after a couple bad outings he's trash and should never see another game, and well Thornton is an absolute joke (oh wait, he's now all of a sudden pitching decent). So if it were up to you guys, Mac would have been the closer a while back (than released after his last couple outings), Jenks would have been down in the minors till he could hit 99MPH (since it matters so much) and Thornton would be long gone. Ya, you guys are real f***ing brilliant with your over-reactions. Jenks and Thornton have started to get their velocity back up to above average...that's all we were asking for. I don't think anyone is complaining about Aardsma being in the game. Bringing in Logan was stupid, but Ozzie's never cared in the 8th inning once we're trailing. This relief core sucks....it's dumb enough to base it all on velocity, but when you combine that with their loss of velocity, it's a joke. KW failed this team so bad in the offseason....thank god Danks is good.

Wow....Pinella earned his salary today. Can we please throw at the next batter?

Boone's never been one to not enjoy a meltdown.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:24 PM) It's just as embarassing as our bullpen the last two days. maybe even moreso. I couldn't stand to even read it anymore. BUt I figured after a good stretch people would be sane so I came back yesterday. I've never seen anything like it. It's hilarious Yes, our bullpen sucks. I don't think anyone disagrees with you on that. I'm not even faulting Ozzie for this....these guys have to get hitters out. Aardsma was brought in to face righties, and was throwing meatballs galore.

QUOTE(WSoxMatt @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:23 PM) All you do is b****, so Im just being like you...annoying isnt it Give it a rest....your comments have nothing to do with the game....they're pathetic baiting.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 19, 2007 -> 10:20 PM) Again we pitch someone away, and then play him to pull in the OF. Best post in this whole thread.