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I just got my Buehrle jersey back from being numbered and lettered.... but I think the White Sox need to trade him and Vazquez and finish building for the future. We are an 83-87 game winner right now. I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise with Vaz in the 4-slot and a cast of thousands in the 5-slot. Sure, we still have a great lineup and we have a great bullpen, but the winner of this division the last several years has had starting pitching as its major strength. Can you really count on Contreras having another great year at his age and with his injury history? Can we really count on Garland to carry us again? Can we really count on Buehrle to rebound? These are all HUGE contigencies. Even if all three go as well as possible there is still the question of Vazquez and Floyd/Sisco/whoever. In any case, we are NOT signing Buehrle to a five or six year contract. Reinsdorf has never done it, and he will not do it now. So why not get something for him? You're not getting enough for him midseason. Additionally, Vazquez still has value in the NL. I would HATE to see Buehrle go but I think it makes the most sense with the moves we have already made.

Make sure you close the forum for home games, we wouldn't want to devalue the season ticket holders' investments

Any injury to a major part of our lineup (Konerko, Dye, Thome) and our lineup flat-out sucks as is. There is no pitcher in our rotation who illustrated any kind of consistency in 2006, and all of them sucked for at least a month at a time. I don't understand this "if our pitching can return to 2005 form" argument. This is akin to saying "well, if we could just get career years out of four starters and most of the bullpen at the same time again, we'd be alright" If our pitching can pitch at their mean ERAs and WHIPs, that would be more realistic. I'd take a 15-12 Garland with a 4.45 ERA if I knew I was getting a 14 game winner in Contreras and a 17 game winner in Buehrle. As for Vazquez and McCarthy, I'd be ecstatic if they both won 12-13 games each with ERAs under 5. 70 wins out of the starting rotation should assure us of getting something like 90 wins total.

If the white sox make no more moves in the offseason, they will win the AL Central, even if Detroit wins 90+ games. I vote false. I am scared of going through Garland-like growing pains with B-Mac, which are very likely to happen. Very few starters come in and have instant season-long success at the major league level. Vazquez can't pitch in the AL, imo. Everyone else was inconsistent in '05. I have no idea what their plans are for Gavin Floyd. We'll score enough again, but will we pitch well enough? No, not as is. This team is looking like an 86 game winner at this point. Somebody reassure me.

Yeah, I really don't understand why anyone thinks we need to address hitting. Pitching was the problem last year. Although getting rid of Garcia might be addition by subtraction anyways

why are we playing the Yankees 10 times? I thought that had to be a misprint because we are shorting some other team (I forget who)

That Brian Anderson doesn't suck (april and may), nor is he indespensible (july), that the truth lies somewhere in the middle lather, rinse and repeat with about 13 other players over the course of various periods of this season

The only two answers are not either a. ozzie gets all the blame for this season, and all the credit from last season b. the players get all the blame for this season, and all the credit from last season I'll leave it up to you to discover what the actual answer is. I realize most here were raised in the tradition of western dualism, but try to think a bit outside the box

Tigers are something like 12-23 in their last 35. Why are people assuming they will even go 8-8? KC has been really good recently as well and are no pushover.

Every time you talk about Jay, Jay wins.

This is not enough runs for Freddy Garcia. He should say something in the postgame interview about the offense f***ing him over again.

wow. sorry, I know this is not sox related, but big news.

where's all the bitterness and certain doom I have come to expect from the game threads?

let's have some fun if we're all going to collectively sulk.

Let's get some context on a bad season. A bad season is where you start out 8-19 coming off of a division title and are fighting to get back to .500 the whole way. A bad season is where you are expected to contend for a division title because your ownership group acquires the then-highest paid FA in history and then your all-star third baseman breaks his leg in spring training. A bad season is where you are a middling team with no direction and you go on a August West Coast trip in which you go 0 for your first 8 and finish with the worst record you've posted in a decade.

I've never said Ozzie is alwys right, but he certainly deserves a lot of credit for last year, no matter how bad of a manager you think he is. Look, part of managing is dealing with egos. Dealing with personalities. Dealing with coaches. This is all stuff we don't see. The Ditka analogy is a good one - because he wasn't a great coach. But to say that any team, whether it was the 85 bears or 05 Sox was a lock to win the championship despite whatever manager you threw in there is just plain ignorant. The intangible qualities that a manager brings - such as motivation - are not apparent to us on a day to day basis.

101, so your point is basically that Ozzie always deserves none of the credit and all of the blame

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Sep 7, 2006 -> 12:58 PM) Buehrle was cruising in game 2, I highly doubt even Manuel would have taken him out. Games 3 and 4 were blowouts, and game 5 was when the Angels bullpen collapsed. So I don't see what difference it made, other than it meant our bullpen went into the World Series not having worked in forever, which could have really backfired. Yeah, Ozzie deserves a ton of credit for Garland, I think even the most anti Ozzie people out there would easily admit that. It did not backfire. That's the whole point. Say what you will about him, but Ozzie made a lot of great calls during the playoffs. Yes, he made a couple of bad ones too, but mostly he was on. What if Manuel takes a starter out of 3 and 4 and a reliever gets blown up? Who's to say the whole series doesn't change then either?

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Sep 7, 2006 -> 12:54 PM) Let me again make myself clear: Both are BAD managers, but Jerry would be a bit better with this team IMO simply because Jerry just stayed the hell out of the way and did nothing, something this team often times needs. Plus, he knew when to take a starter out (outside of his lack of trust in Garland), something Ozzie doesn't. Okay, so when would Manuel have removed each starter for games 2 through 5 of the ALCS last year? That was my whole point. That he WOULDN'T have just handed the ball to the starter.

Of course, whenever Ozzie puts players in and they fail, it's his fault for putting them in, but whenever Jerry puts a player in, it's probably the player's fault for not performing.

Jerry Manuel had a chance to win all three playoff games he was involved in, and there were questionable moves in all three.

Okay how about this trap: Ozzie won the world series last year, true or false? Manuel couldn't even win a friggin' playoff GAME.

Choose one: Jerry Manuel - 65% shot to win last year's world series, and 100% chance of 1st place this year Ozzie Guillen - world series last year, current set of events I'm sorry, but saying Manuel and Guillen would've managed things the same is just ignorant. Let me ask you this. Would Manuel have brought Buehrle in to close a World Series game? Hell no. It was the right call. Jerry Manuel loses game 3 of the WS every day of the week, IMO.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Sep 7, 2006 -> 12:29 PM) If ignorance is truly bliss, this is the happiest thread in the history of the site. Oh, and fair weather means you only care when they are good, not being a crazy die hard who doesn't like stupidity. That is all. I'd like to think this was supposed to make sense

Controlled Chaos, http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...54162&st=45 and later on the next page by the same guy http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...54162&st=60 another guy, same thread, later on: http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...54162&st=90 The debate in that thread is appalling, cc. I could go on and find other examples, I'm sure. Oh yeah, and btw: Jerry Manuel could NOT have done that job. He'd be still standing on the mound in the 7th inning of game 2 of the ALCS waiting for Wunsch to somehow come in.