Greg Hibbard

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 28, 2016 -> 01:56 PM) Off the top of my head, I found Connie Mack whose teams lost 610 games over a six season span... in a 154 game schedule. Fine. Yes, there are those from a bygone era that lost a lot. How many managers in the past 40 years have had this bad of a five season stretch and survived the chopping block?

So there's no doubt that Robin will be the worst manager in the history of baseball record-wise with 6 straight seasons at the helm of the same team, right?

This is the worst manager in recent history. There is literally NO reason to retain him. NONE. Anyone would be better. Why watch this team?

This discussion has led me to examine the numbers again and I must agree that OBP is probably a bigger issue. I did not realize the decline this organization has had in terms of taking walks, in general.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Sep 24, 2016 -> 06:27 AM) Yep. Except we just proved that the talent in '97 performed worse then he talent in '16 and still won more games. So what gives?

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Sep 23, 2016 -> 02:40 PM) To the bolded portion, I have the following points: 1) Why would a top 8 OBP team not be good enough to win, especially with a dominant pitching staff? Why is the arbitrary Top 5 OBP team that you picked necessary? 2) Please explain how you calculate the average you list above. 3) I find your presentation method a bit dishonest. Yes, a .327 OBP would be 8th in MLB, however, you neglect to mention that a .330 OBP, just 3 tenths of a percentage point higher, would give the vaunted top 5 OBP offense which you seek. Which, again, leads me back to point 1. 1) I don't really know, I'm just trying to respond to others' arguments which seem to imply that at least a top 10 OBP is necessary. what tier of OBP do you think is necessary to have a better chance of getting it the playoffs? Don't some top tier OBP teams also have excellent pitching (I.E. Cubs)? 2) I added their hits, walks and HBP up and divided by at bats, walks, hbp and sf. 3) fine. What OBP would the team have to have to have significantly improved chance at the playoffs, and given the OBP of the five players listed, what 2B/OF/C/DH combo gets you the OBP you need to improve to that mark?

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Sep 23, 2016 -> 01:56 PM) I never thought I would see the day that somebody was defending Terry Bevington on here. I like how you conveniently leave out that though it was one of Belle's worst seasons he still had .274/.332/.491 slash with 30 HRs, 45 2Bs and 116 RBIs. Also you are completely ignoring the production of Baines, Martinez and Cameron. Frank was so damn good then that he basically provided the offensive of 2 average hitters. This lineup has nothing of the sort in it other than Abreu for the last month and a half. Even in that month and a half his numbers don't reach what Frank did for an 8 year span. Overall the '97 team had a slightly better offense (101 to 100 OPS+) and a slightly worse pitching staff (93 ERA+ to 96 ERA+) and they managed to win 80 games. This years team is on pace to win 77 games. Let's not pretend like Bevington was some sort of managerial genius because he managed 80 wins compared to Ventura's 77 on what are both average teams. It seems to me a 101/93 is noticeably worse than a 100/96, and Bevington won at least three more games than Ventura probably does this year no matter what Robin does, with worse metrics, but you're saying that Bevington and Ventura are roughly equivalent and that Bevington should still be more derided? Ok, I don't get it.

QUOTE (harkness @ Sep 23, 2016 -> 01:19 PM) I'm not saying hitting more homeruns isn't helpful... I'm saying it's the wrong thing to focus on. Bull pen bull pen bull pen and on base percentage. So would you answer my OBP question, then?

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Sep 23, 2016 -> 01:04 PM) Really? Look at some of those lineups from 1995-1997. It's easy to manage when you're lineup is anchored by a 1st ballot Hall of Fame first basemen, and a Gold Glove, Hall of Fame talent third basemen and features guys like Harold Baines, Tim Raines, Danny Tartabull, Ray Durham, Tony Philips, Dave Martinez and Lance Johnson. Ok, I'm looking. Um. The regular lineup for 1997 season featured Ray Durham with one of the worst OPS's of his career, Chris ".582 OPS" Snopek at 3B for most of the games, Ozzie Guillen sporting a .612 OPS for 140+ games at the ass end of his career, Jorge Fabregas at C with about a .680 OPS, Al Belle in the worst season he had in the late 90s. Frank Thomas had a great year and Ventura played part time. The pitching... Jamie Navarro at 9-14, Danny Darwin, James Baldwin, Wilson Alvarez only startign 22 games....need I go on? Only two starters had above .500 records and they were ONE GAME above .500. Bevington still managed them to 80 wins. How? I don't honestly know. Maybe Frank's WAR was 80 that year.

QUOTE (harkness @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 05:21 PM) You are telling me they play in harder ball parks to hit homeruns... not sure what your point is. Those teams won because of their pithing and defense and other factors. If you are saying the Sox need to get home run hitters because they play in a home run hitting park - again I say that's what they have been trying to do and its failing. So really what you are advocating is for them to do the same thing they been failing at. What southside posted showed pretty clearly that HR's isn't the reason the Sox aren't scoring as much. No, what southside posted was the OBP has a bigger correlation to winning than home runs do, but he posted that without really taking into account something like park factor. I would argue that in the Cell, home runs play a bigger factor than they do in other parks, and when you look at the success of the Giants and the Royals, the reason they win was because they designed their team for their stadium. Other teams can't win when they go in and try to hit home runs, so if they get a bunch of doubles and triples hitters and use speed and pitching to their advantage, they're going to come up aces a lot of the time. I'm really not sure I'd look at the failing careers of Adam Dunn and Adam LaRoche and categorically write off the idea of going out and acquiring guys who hit for power, but if that's your take on it, good work, I suppose. So... if we accept the OBP argument, I'll ask the question I asked upthread and didn't get an answer to: If we are moving forward offensively with Abreu/Anderson/Cabrera/Frazier/Eaton and their OBP is an average of .327 (which would be 8th in MLB in OBP) and if a top OBP team is required to compete and a top five OBP percentage is north of .328 - what combination of 2B/OF/DH/C in 2017 that fits into our payroll and takes into account available players is going to get you an AVERAGE OBP of .328+ from those four positions? If the answer is "the White Sox are just f***ed" then why aren't we dumping EVERYONE and starting over?

And yet, for all of Bevington's incompetence and stupidity, he still managed that club to a winning record over 3 years. And for all of Robin Ventura's skill and acumen as a major league player, since September 1, 2012, he manages this team to an average of 71 wins per season over 4+ years. Obviously, it turns out that you don't need a brain or wits or to know the difference between "warming" and "not warming" or "foul" or "fair" or arguing a call in favor of the White Sox to manage them to a winning record.... so what's Ventura's excuse, then?

I'm having a hard time coming up with concrete ways in which Robin Ventura is good compared to anyone else at managing a baseball team

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 04:52 PM) So you admit now that LFs don't need to hit 25-35 HRs to justify their spots in the lineup? I'll call that progress. BTW, Melky is having a better season than Justin Upton, Alex Gordon, Jayson Werth, and a bunch of other starting LFs. Yes, but the problem with using Johnny Damon to justify why Melky doesn't need to hit home runs is that Johnny Damon does things that Melky Cabrera never could do. There's no question that Melky Cabrera is having a good season.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 04:21 PM) Johnny Damon never hit 25 HRs once in his career. He was pretty good, no? Come on, guy. Damon stole 400+ bases in his career and walked a whole lot more than Cabrera, and I would guess might have score a time or two from first base on a double, etc. His speed and eye more than made up for his lack of power.

I don't think I would dump Anderson, either, nor am I complaining about him very much, especially given the price - but his K/BB ratio is really really bad. In light of the discussion about OBP: If Anderson, Melky, Eaton, Abreu and Frazier as the core, your OBP from those five players this year is a combined .327 (an average which does not even put you in the top 8) Total homers are 96 for those 5 players. I would assert that you would need at least an OBP of .327 on average from the rest of your lineup to compete, and probably 75 more homers. So, can you add enough OBP/power from 2B/OF/DH/C with anyone we could bring in?

Terry Bevington managed the White Sox for three seasons and amassed a winning record overall: 222-214. Robin Ventura has managed the White Sox for five seasons and has amassed a losing record overall of 369-431. Bevington arguably had better teams to work with in some seasons.....but Robin has had more years. Who's the better manager?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 04:08 PM) So while the rate of HR/G hasn't changed much since 2000 (1.166 this year, 1.172 in 2000) runs per game has fallen off drastically. Then it was 5.14, now it is 4.48. So while homers are slightly down, runs scored are hugely down. That is over a 10% drop off. That is reflected in the OPS+ numbers. As a team we are ever so slightly below average with a 99 OPS+ today. What it looks like to me is a team that is largely unlucky or unclutch. Take your pick. Our OPS+ is essentially league average, but we are creating 4.19 R/G when the average is 4.48. Runs are harder to come by. A home run guarantees you at least one run, whereas any other hit does not guarantee you a run. The White Sox are hitting drastically less home runs in 3 of the past 4 years.

Look - is this true or false: the Giants and Royals of the last 3-5 years have had great success building a team that was well-suited to the home stadium they play in.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 03:59 PM) I really can't believe you're claiming that Eaton, Melky, and Anderson are hurting us offensively, but I guess here we are. Again, I have said all are good players. They don't hit enough home runs for the positions they occupy, given the rest of our offense. Period. LF and RF are power hitter positions where you typically get 25-35 homers a year and well north of .800 OPS.

I mean, I can't really believe that I have to convince some of you guys that maybe we should build the team we are competing with around the ballpark where we play 81 of our games, but I guess here we are.

QUOTE (harkness @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 03:50 PM) I really don't agree. I think the reason we have been so bad is BECAUSE we have tried to chase power hitting fee agents and they end up being strike out machines. Look at the Royals and Giants of recent years... they are not home run teams. Championship teams have good pitching, good defense and tough outs. How many home run hitters you can round up doesn't equal championship baseball... mayb 1920- early2000 something. But not now. Ok, I'll look at the Giants and Royals....if you take a look at this link. http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor/_/sort/HRFactor

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 03:39 PM) You seem to think that steroid-era numbers will be easy to replicate in today's game. The reality is that few teams are going to be able to score 900+ runs again. The Red Sox are at 855 right now and they're an outlier. The Cubs won't get anywhere near 800 this season. The Orioles, Jays, and Rangers, will all end up in the 700-750 range. If the Sox could score 60 more runs next season (via a combo of more HRs, more 2Bs, better situational hitting, etc.), they'd be at around 700 runs, probably over 80 wins, and possibly Wild Card territory if their bullpen improves. The fact that a 900-run (or even 800-run) season is a pipe dream next season doesn't doom the Sox to another sub-.500 season. Given their starting pitching, they're not as impossibly far away from competing as you seem to think they are. Blackjack, ok. I hear you on runs scored. I am, and have been, talking about home runs. The average MLB team hit 190 home runs in 2000. The average MLB team will hit 188 home runs in 2016. Can you explain why the White Sox should have reduced home runs compared to the Steroid era when the MLB totals really aren't down? Thank you.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 03:19 PM) Well, yes, the Sox unquestionably need to score more runs. Nobody's arguing against that. But saying that Eaton, Melky, and Anderson are part of that problem just because they don't hit enough home runs (as if a HR is the only way to score a run) is just silly. The problem is the team composition. I feel like we're talking in circles. My very first post in this thread said I was not criticizing those players, but IF YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE THOSE PLAYERS with low homer totals, you have to get your homers from somewhere. I realize that you think the solution is to get RF(CF?)/DH production. How many more home runs do you think you can add to those positions next year, taking into account the amount of production we got from the third outfielder/DH position this year? Do you automatically assume Frazier will hit 40 again?

Yes, but it's not like we are talking about reverting to team like 2000....I'm talking about having enough power for a frontline of Sale, Q and Rodon to actually win a division and get into a playoff series where they could succeed.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 02:59 PM) You seem to think that Valentin's offensive production is typical for a SS and that it'd be easy to replace, and that just isn't the case. I think Valentin's offensive production is one of the reasons we succeeded in that year despite relatively mediocre pitching top to bottom, but that it played well for the Sox because he was able to have a career year in a hitter's park. I don't think it's necessarily easy to replace. I think that creating enough offense can be done in a number of ways, though, and Valentin proves that.