Greg Hibbard

@ron883 don’t you owe Jose Abreu FOUR YEARS worth of apologies for the personal attacks, constant undermining of his abilities, weekly threads questioning his status, and other bullshit you’ve been 1000% wrong about and yet foisted on the board over and over and over and over again?

I’m ready to get pelted, but would Zavala on offense/defense really be better than Mercedes as a catcher?

Dylan Cease vs. Bailey Ober LET’S GO!

I guess so. All rotations go through a stretch like this. The bullpen might be fixable by acquisition. Yes, these are all valid concerns - but we did a 98 win clip for the first half of the season with many starters out and despite the power outage from some of those guys. The strangest thing to me right now is reading knee jerk reactions on a daily basis here. It’s seems like the goalposts of everyone’s expectations of this team have just moved in such an irrational direction over the course of this year. Did anyone really have this team competing for a World Series after Eloy went down? How about even before he went down? I seem to remember a lot of folks were in the “not this year camp”, or thinking we were an 80 something win team. Yet it seems like simultaneously everyone now thinks we are this established WS contender but also feels that once we have a bad stretch of a few games it’s time to jump straight off a bridge. Why? To take it one step further, I wonder - does only one team have a great year, the eventual World Series winner? Or is it possible that the White Sox are having a very good year but maybe don’t win the World Series, but still win 95 games and still go deep in the playoffs. Is that acceptable, or do 29 teams disappoint every season? I suppose what I’m saying is that all things considered this team has been very good and resilient this year and I wish I felt like the board had more faith in it.

I guess I’m not really too bothered by what I’m seeing since we are fielding such a AAA lineup right now. We will be a much better team when we get everyone back healthy.

That was a strange play.

Bad game for the Sox all around, which happens to every major league team against any given opponent. I expect them to shake it off and come out ready tomorrow but I also expect the usual hand wringing here and wonder if the same people who say winning all your games against the Tigers is meaningless will simultaneously say you can’t lose any games to the Tigers…

LEURY JUICEBALL GARCIA

I’m sure Ron will come up with some way that that play was actually Abreu’s fault.

No, it’s not happening quite often lately. After he was beaned in the kneecap, Jose had a slash line of .333/.538/.667/1.205 over 3 games In the Minnesota series before going 0/5 tonight, but please don’t let facts get in the way of your narrative to destroy Abreu by any means necessary. You honestly sicken me with your agenda.

Every team, even good ones, have something like a 1-7 stretch. But the good teams respond by going 4-0 and getting back on track.

Hahaha Donaldson is on tilt

How does one interpret Collins’ WAR? His bWAR is only 0.2 this season and over the course of his career it’s not good obviously. Is that just a bad metric for his position/playing time? He also is sitting at an OPS+ of 90 for 2021. He doesn’t seem this bad to me.

I just want to be clear - so you feel as though being on base in 5 out of 9 plate appearances and having 1 home run in this series is undesirable offensive production, correct?

In terms of wRC+ / OPS+ / oWAR, or whatever metric you prefer....who do you think will be our premier offensive player by season end? I think it's an interesting question and not a clear cut answer.

You know, you're right. You've been so damned right with every post about Abreu over the past 4 seasons that I definitely trust your eye on Gavin Sheets after a handful of at bats. SOLD.

Considering some of the struggles we have had with say a fifth man in the rotation even being competent in other seasons (2004 comes to mind), I wouldn’t shake up the rotation if I were the White Sox. He continues in exactly the role he has been in.

I’m so upset right now about this. And yet, for some damned reason, all I can think about is all the bad karma Ron has foisted on Jose over the last 5 years. It makes me so damned angry.

I’m so sick of this line. Are we not allowed to have the 2005 World Series?

Did anyone on the Sox have the prescience to look at a damned forecast and consider whether a situation where we wasted lance start on 2 or 3 innings of rain-ball was a good idea?

I think TLR has watched enough of Mercedes bat against right handers to know which handed pitcher he’s better against. This is a manager that often otherwise sets lineups based on making sure left bats vs right.

I’m guessing that Yermin plays when one of the two catchers is off at DH now? Surely Grandal/Collins each need some days off. My other theory is that TLR may be setting him up for failure.

The 2010 Giants went 4-12 at one point in late June of that year. The 2011 Cards went 11-15 in June. The 2012 Giants went 2-8 in late June-early July, and later in July went 1-7. The 2013 Red Sox went 4-8 at one point in August. The 2014 Giants went 22-30 over the entire months of June and July. The 2015 Royals went 2-9 in late May / early June. The 2016 Cubs went 1-9 in early July, and had a losing record that month. The 2017 Astros, Cheating and all, went 11-17 in August. The 2018 Red Sox, a 108 win team, had a 4-7 stretch in August. The 2019 Nationals had an 11-14 April and a 3-7 stretch in July. Every team will lose 7 out of 11, 8 of 10, a few in a row. I'm concerned too, but the fact that we're this good with this many injuries is astounding. Fully healthy, entering this season, I had this team winning 89-93 games. I considered myself an optimist. Even after a 5 game losing streak we are on pace for 99... We will have bad stretches. It is how we make adjustments to those that dictate what we're able to do later this season.

In 1994, Frank was the best right handed hitter I had ever seen. Period.

Thank you. There’s actually a lot of perspective to be gained from taking a step back from the ledge (including what you posted): - every championship team has bad losing streaks at some point in the season. - we are down three starters, Moncada doesn’t feel right, and we have zero depth. - while it sucks to lose 4 in a row to a playoff bound team, we were on the road and they are a good team. I would rather lose 4 in a row on the road to a good team than get swept in Detroit or KC like the Sox do some seasons they are contenders. - we identified a lot of fundamental weaknesses by having this happen in June, well before the trade deadline, when we can add.