Greg Hibbard

can we please stop talking about this guy

It really hasn't been a piss-poor year, though. It was a piss-poor 22 game stretch, and then a slightly-better-than-mediocre 3+ months after that (89 win pace over the last 80 games).

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 7, 2011 -> 08:10 PM) No, Greg, don't go to the dark side, too. I'm going to take the optimistic route and say they have a pretty good chance to make it...but they have to make up some ground next week. Who are DET and CLE playing against? If Humber can come back around (50/50, right?) with the six-man rotation giving him more recovery time, and Rios and Lillibridge play like they have the last two games, they could actually do it. You have to like what you saw out of Carlos Quentin too, 2 opposite field doubles. Harrelson's right, he does that consistently and he's a .285-.305 hitter and close to MVP level again. He's just so naturally strong, he doesn't need to pull everything to collect homers all over the diamond. My pessimism has more to do with Detroit's recent surge than not believing in the Sox. I believed the Sox would win games against the Twins this season, and even after the 11-22 start I felt they'd win at least 80 games. After 11-22, winning the division was always gonna be about how well everyone else played more than how well the sox played.

I can totally understand not really following the team if they are on their way to a 67-95 season. Not really following the team when they are 55-58 and 6.5 out with 6 weeks left to play in a bad division is sort of insane. It's unlikely the Sox will win it, but they still have a chance. You can't say that about more than half the teams in the majors.

This team went 32-21 despite Alex Rios, Adam Dunn, Ozzie Guillen, Ken Williams and everyone else anyone would care to blame for most of this season. The team didnt play spectacularly well during that stretch. If they win that same percentage of remaining games, they will finish the season with 84 wins. Its not asking this team to do what they have not already done before this season, with the same problems that are apparently with them for the duration. Unfortunately, a lot of it is simply out of their hands now. This team is probably not capable of winning many more than 84-86 games, and the tigers would need to play several games under .500 to give us a chance.

I don't go to Sox games because ticket prices have just gotten astronomically high. As a 37 year old fan who has been attending games since the early 80s, I've happily bought tickets to go see far worse than this because it was still a good, entertaining product for the price. Paul Konerko, Mark Buehrle, AJ Pierzynski, some of the bullpen - that's worth paying $20 to see. It's not worth paying $100 to see.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 5, 2011 -> 07:52 AM) I don't think anyone's assigned the "Most" blame to the easily replaceable guy. You say that like this site hasn't come down hard on Pierre, Dunn, Rios constantly. If Ozzie Guillen is losing games and his team isn't responding to him, then he shouldn't be here. There are decisions Guillen has made that other managers would not have made that are directly responsible for wins (sticking with Pierre when everyone wanted his head, and then he hits three GW hits) I'm having trouble identifying a single example in which Adam Dunn won this team a game.

So we're assigning the most blame to what's most easily replaceable? Oh, I see.

Why not pick 9 games where Dunn struck out with men on Why not pick 9 games that Rios went 0 for 4 Why not pick 9 games that Pierre sucked Why not pick 9 games that the bullpen blew in April Why not pick 9 games that were lost to injury lots of ways to blame everyone for this season

After the last three weeks, I finally think Ozzie needs to go, regardless of this season's outcome. The distraction is just too much. I'll stop short of name-calling out of respect for what he has provided this organization.

We had a very vague comment from Mark Teahen that turned into an umpteen page thread about Oney's subsequent twitter-tirades. Now, we have a stickied response from a player's wife regarding derogatory comments made by Oney. I believe that positive things came out of that thread, and I think Lauren Teahen has shown herself to be a strong, dynamic woman who won't take any s*** (good for you). However, there's a larger lesson in this. Can the focus on Oney Guillen please end? When we talk about Oney Guillen, he is the only one who wins. He is obviously not in this thing for anything but attention. He has added nothing of anything value to this organization from a baseball standpoint. He is a truly pathetic excuse for an adult. However, we are fanning the flames. If we all truly believe that this organization needs to get back to having two eyes on the baseball field, let's have the fans here at soxtalk lead by example. We are renowned as some of the most knowledgeable and passionate fans in baseball. Let's add to that reputation, rather than the reputation a lot of other organizations have.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 30, 2011 -> 11:21 AM) 7-29 isn't quite 14-2 To put that in perspective, the Red Sox would have to go 5-15 over the next 2-3 seasons head-to-head to equal our level of ineptitude in the face of the Amazon River Contagion/Quarantine Team. Most White Sox fans probably don't even realize our streak vs. the Red Sox is that good, but they have no trouble reciting by memory how terrible we are vs. the Twins. I know you think they are different. The Red Sox are a much better team than the Twins, and it's very surprising we've had that level of success over 16 games vs. them.

The White Sox have apparently won 7 in a row against the red sox and 14/16...certainly an anomalous streak when it comes to head to head play not unlike that Twins/Sox stretch?

The fact of the matter is that Sox ticket prices (and really, all ticket prices in baseball) have gone up so severely with respect to inflation over the past 20 years. I have an Lower Box opening day ticket from 1991; face value was just $13.00. Even if we take into account inflation, that ticket would be worth $22.37 in today's prices. Nowadays, you can't get a lower box seat for less than $40-$50, and in many cases it's more like $60-$80. It is absolutely absurd for baseball to continue to charge these rates and not expect families to not be able to attend in an economy like this. I get that salaries spiraled out of control similarly, but the fans are the ones paying for all this. It is absolutely unreasonable to believe $200-$500 is a reasonable amount of money for any middle class family to spend on an afternoon's worth of entertainment.

I think people need to take into account matchup problems and variance. The Twins match up very well against a listless, light-hitting Sox lineup, because they are built to play close games in an NL style. They can run all over a poor-throwing catcher like AJ. The Twins get crushed when they play teams that are capable of putting up a 5 spot in an inning. The Sox haven't been capable of doing that all season because they consistently have at least 3 major holes in their lineup. The Royals are more of an enigma. Certainly the Sox should be beating them. Should the Sox be 6-1 against Cleveland? I dunno. Cleveland's been doing pretty well against other teams. Should we be 3-0 @ boston? No way. Every year it's the same story. "We SHOULD beat ______ " or "We can beat ______ but not ________ " or "We can beat the bad teams but not the good teams", or "We only beat the NL" or "We can't beat the NL". Every year, you beat some teams you shouldn't, and you lose to others you should pummel. It tends to even out over 162 games and give an accurate depiction for how good of a team you have. Right now, we are a .500 team. We have played very mediocre baseball, and we have a record to illustrate that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 10:25 AM) The answer should always be yes. It should be, but many people hate this gm and/or manager so much that I wouldn't put it past them to want them to fail.

I think the better question is "do you want this team/manager/gm to win"

I'll go a step further and say that tonight's game is the most important game of the season.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 20, 2011 -> 01:23 PM) Even with JP's supposed 'hot' streak, he's still dead last among everyday LFs in wOBA and wRC+. What about over the last 300 PAs? Yes, he had an abysmal April.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jul 20, 2011 -> 01:16 PM) And still under .500 on the season so who cares what these teams have done since May 6th, that's just a random date to throw out there to make this team look better than they are. You're right about one thing, the Sox will be within 5 games probably all the way until the end but they wont win this division. Should they? Absolutely. Will they? Nope, not happening. It's not a random date. It's a segment of the most recent 64 games in which the Sox have basically done better or as well as any other team in their division. For the first 33 they did worse than anyone in baseball, and if anything, that's what will cost them. It's interesting, because if you just flip 3 key losses to wins (one game at min, one game vs. min, one game vs. kc) this team looks unstoppable in anyone's eyes since May 6. Instead, I feel as though a 3 game difference over 64 games turns them from "unstoppable" to "complete dogs***" in many people's eyes.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jul 20, 2011 -> 01:13 PM) I wish you were my father. You might be the most optimistic person I know. I'm not that optimistic. I wish people didn't have this tremendous double-standard when evaluating Central teams. I've seen quite a lot of "Cleveland's just winning the right way, it's their year" WTF? their record is s*** since their 20-8 start There's not a good team in this division. However, we're the most talented and we have the best rotation.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 20, 2011 -> 01:05 PM) An extra basehit of any kind is out of the question. He has two triples this month and one this week. Really?

It's amazing to me that people can look at this team, a team that's 8 over at 36-28 since May 6th, despite playing like s*** offensively, and say 'no chance, they don't have it' and then not evaluate MIN, CLE and DET the same way. Cleveland is 30-35 since then. Detroit is 36-27 since then, a half game better than the Sox. Minnesota is 33-33 since then. Nobody "has it". Nobody is running away with this thing. The Sox will be within 5 games all season. It is right there if they can ever wake up and take it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 20, 2011 -> 11:19 AM) .710 OPS, 71% on stolen bases. Yeah, that's irreplaceable. I'm not sure why you would evaluate a leadoff hitter by emphasizing a statistic that equates his slugging with his on base percentage when one is clearly more important than the other within the scope of our offense.

.291/.359/.351/.710 with 10/14 sb since May 1st when are people finally going to admit Ozzie might have been right about something