Greg Hibbard

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.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 02:59 PM) The OPS+ numbers that SS2K5 cited should answer your question. They should? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Valentin seems ranked in the top 5 SS in OPS+ in 2000. I think Cabrera is ranked 7th for LF.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 02:27 PM) Melky and his .790 OPS is a 117 OPS+ this season. Again, Jose Valentin and his .835 OPS from 2000 was a 107 OPS+. In other words Melky is rated 10% higher than Jose was in his season, despite better looking numbers. True, but when you compare Jose Valentin's production at SS compared to other shortstops in that season, does he look relatively better than Melky Cabrera compared to other LF in this one?

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 01:41 PM) The only point on which you and I seem to disagree which position players don't hit enough HRs. In the case of Anderson, it's too early to say that. In the case of Lawrie, he's Ray Durham with a .300 OBP. And while I agree that the slugging from our catchers has been below average, that's not a position where power is easy to come by. Not every team has a Buster Posey or Salvi Perez. My entire point is that if you're going to have Adam Eaton and Melky Cabrera in your outfield accounting for less home runs combined than a Jose Valentin or a Joe Crede of years would typically get on their own, and if Tim Anderson is in your infield with Tyler Saladino, and you have a BLACK HOLE at catcher..... beyond the 65 homers you can count on with Abreu and Frazier, WHERE ARE YOUR HOME RUNS COMING FROM?

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 12:44 PM) You do a nice job of cherry-picking career high stats there, but the reality is that Alexei Ramirez was more typically a 15 HR, .740 OPS hitter. Iguchi had some power, but was basically a ~100 OPS+ hitter during his career with the Sox. Very average. It's true that Valentin and Durham had better power than average at their respective positions (especially Valentin). It'd be nice if the Sox farm system could develop another Ray Durham, but it hasn't. That said, I should point out that Lawrie slugged .413 this season. Extrapolated over the course of a full season, that'd put him on par with Ray Durham power-wise, but with fewer walks. If you think that the Sox need more HR power (and you wouldn't be wrong about that), the way to address it is through RF and DH. That's where the real power deficiency has been over the past few seasons. I'm cherry picking the seasons in which this team made the playoffs to highlight the reasons WHY they made the playoffs. Let me cherry pick another stat for you: the four worst white sox teams, record-wise, since 2000 have something in common - they all didn't really hit too many home runs. YEAR HR WINS 2007 190 72 2013 148 63 2015 136 76 2016 155 72 I'm not saying that this team needs home runs from every position to thrive, but in a home run hitter's ballpark, it's obvious to me that a big home run hitting team (and yes, career years from some guys offensively) correlate to winning the division, whereas low home run totals correlate very strongly with this organization's very worst recent seasons.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 12:34 PM) It is tough to pull from the steroid era, but I think Tim Anderson will put up solid power numbers eventually. He has a super quick bat and hits a lot of line drives. I don't think he will be a big power guy, but something in the 15-20 homers, plus some solid doubles and triples power. In 2000, MLB teams average 190 HR per team In 2016, so far they are averaging 177 HR per team through 152 games played. Extrapolating this out to 162 games would be 188 HR per team.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Sep 22, 2016 -> 12:19 PM) (3) Agreed here but, again, these are middle infielders. Most middle infielders don't hit like Robbie Alomar. Most middle infielders from those aforementioned teams: 2000 Jose Valentin - 25 HR, .835 OPS 2000 Ray Durham - 17 HR, .810 OPS 2005 Tadahito Iguchi - 15 HR, .780 OPS 2008 Alexei Ramirez - 21 HR .792 OPS

I was watching Ken Harrelson drool all over Kansas City the other night, as he is wont to do, and like stopped clocks that are always right twice a day, he actually stumbled upon an excellent point. He said that at some point the KC "grinderball" Royals had won because they had designed their team for their ballpark (just like the 2000-2005 Minnesota "grinderball" Twins that got a bunch of skinny, fast dudes that Harrelson ALSO LOVED to beat the ball into that astroturf as hard as possible to fly down the first base line in hopes of singles, had the staff turn on the AC in the ninth, and hope the lead held). That ballpark in Kansas City is NOT a park where you can hit home runs, which is why the stadium has been a House of Horrors for the Sox over the years. But this got me to thinking - the Sox don't actually hit homers. And then, it got me to more thinking. It has been beaten into our skulls over the past umpteen years that US Cellular is a home run hitter's wet dream of a ballpark. And Guaranteed-to-Not-Call-It-Guaranteed-Rate Field in 2017 is still gonna be....you guessed it....a home run hitters ballpark. It used to be that we made sure we got a few dudes who could hit these things. Used to be. These days? No. So my question is....when the hell did this team lose this mantra? And why did we stop doing this? Because whenever the White Sox HAVE succeeded, it is because their lineup HIT HOME RUNS. A LOT OF HOME RUNS. I think there is this pervasive myth that the successful teams from the last 15 years were built on pitching and a good mix of power, speed and bench. I would say that it's much more simple than that. It's about home runs. The 2008 Blackout Sox won their division largely because they led MLB in home runs in a home run hitting ballpark. That lineup hit 235 of them. If you divide 235 by 9, that's as if every single of the 9 regular slots of that lineup was responsible for 26 home runs. Every single slot hit a home run every six games. Can you imagine that with this team? I sure can't. Yes, it was nice to win that blackout game with some pitching. But we got there because men hit balls out of the park with runners on base with one swing. The home run. The 2005 World Series winners with 5th in homers in MLB. Yes, they had great pitching, and yes, they had the emergence of a genuine flash-in-the-pan phenom closer. But that lineup still hit 200 home runs. Again, this is as if every single slot was responsible for 22+ home runs. Oh and by the way, the best white sox hitter of all time, Frank Edward Thomas, was severly limited in the number of games he played due to injury. Remember that 2000 team that won the division? There's a reason why Cal Eldred looked like a world beater until June and James Baldwin started 7-0 and it had NOTHING to do with their pitching skills. It had to do with the lineup hitting the cover off of the ball. Future $100,000,000 man Carlos Lee hit SEVENTH in that lineup. 216 home runs for that team. This current team? Does not hit home runs. They are 23rd in homers. If pace holds, they will hit approximately 165 of them total. That's atrocious considering our stadium, considering the number of homers our opponents hit against us, and considering the history of this team. Does it get better next year? Not if we sport this lineup again. Because: 1) Tim Anderson, at first glance, seems like a great little player. A little-known rookie with no expectations hitting .279 with a bit a pop and some wheels, the future seems bright. However, like many, many other players in this lineup - the looks are deceiving. Because: a) He has a .279 average and a .300 OBP. This is a worse OBP than Todd Frazier, who hits roughly 60 points worse than Anderson. b) He has a 10 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio. That's an absurdly bad statistic. c) He has a .702 OPS. d) He does not hit home runs. e) He does not hit home runs. f) HE DOES NOT HIT HOME RUNS. 2) Melky Cabrera and Adam Eaton are good players - who do not hit nearly enough home runs. Can this team acquire an outfielder who can have an OPS north of .800? Apparently not! Note: I am not complaining about these players. However, they are symptomatic of the White Sox building a team that has great stats for the ballpark they do not play in - and many of the wrong strengths for the ballpark that they do. It is wonderful that Eaton has ostensibly transformed into a gold glove defender. It is commendable that he gets on base at a nice little clip. However, The third best home run hitter on this team CANNOT have less than 15 home runs for a season, so if these guys are NOT going to hit home runs, we need another Beefcake slugger to pick up the slack. Normally, this would be a designated hitter, but the White Sox have also decided to have a year long joke with the fans that they now play in the National League and their Designated Hitter should actually hit like a pitcher, which is why Avisail Garcia cannot maintain an OPS north of SEVEN HUNDRED and you get people like JB Shuck and Jerry Sands laughing all the way to the occasional start. I don't even know that those guys should be called AAAA players. 3) Brett Lawrie and Tyler Saladino are nice little players - who do not hit enough home runs. Again, if your outfield cannot hit homers, the rest of our infield besides Abreu and Frazier better. Abreu and Frazier only come up so many times in a game, and without power protection why wouldn't teams just pitch around them? 4) Our catchers cannot do apparently anything at a major league level, and I don't know that there's a remedy for this. Our best offensive player, Jose Abreu, is ranked 43rd in MLB in OPS. The next best offensive player, Adam Eaton, is like 86th. Yeah, 86 for 86 this offense, I guess. There's a reason why James "Big Game" Shields has NINE QUALITY STARTS as a member of the White Sox and is only 3-3 in those 9 games. There's a reason why the bullpen comes up so many times in the 6th, 7th, 8th inning protecting small leads that we have no hope of retaking if we lose them (and we do with the likes of Cat Albers holding so many games in his fat little hands) There's a reason why mediocre starters have no chance to recover if they get touched for say 4 runs in 6 innings. There's a reason why Jose Quintana has "bad luck" and can't win games. WE CANNOT HIT HOME RUNS. Fix the home runs, fix the OPS. We need to remedy this, stat. How the hell has this organization lost this simple fact?