Dick Allen

Hahn knew there was trouble in spring training, when he started claiming waived guys and signing released guys to minor league deals. That was before he knew the severity of the Jones injury and when Lindstrom was healthy. There has been so much crap in the White Sox bullpen this season we won't remember half of their names in a couple of years.

QUOTE (staxx @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 01:41 PM) As a previous poster suggested, the bullpen is one of the final pieces that you address. There was no reason to make any substantial commitments going into a year where many thought we would be still far from competing. With that said, RH is not the one throwing meatballs that get launched out of the park. Injuries to your 2 main bullpen pieces with one bad luck signing will put nearly any bullpen in the MLB into a bad situation. The point is if Matt Lindstrom and Nate Jones are your top bullpen pieces, your bullpen isn't very good.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 01:34 PM) It really isn't about the bullpen.it's about contending this year since you've been arguing that with a bullpen " I coulda been a contenda, instead of a bum , which is what I am". But at least you gave me some clue on your thoughts but not the main one I asked for. Build for a contender every year or build a strong young core ( which hardly ever includes bullpen pieces)? Both ? Can't really do both since now it takes mega contracts to keep core intact or fill holes you missed. So I don't actually know your personal philosophy except that you are condemning Hahn for not making the right decisions to build a bullpen for CONTENDING THIS YEAR. Also it's more of a state of the union your giving me with a few exceptions for a few guys . But I also thought a free agent ,specifically Ellsbury should've been signed since I value above avg hit tool and speed and defense for outfielders more than I do power ,but this team just can't compete signing free agents like him with the Yankees . And lo and behold that guy who talked about VMart and Morneau was me in my initial stages of looking for LH bats to acquire. I still think you're a contrarian ( I'm being nice) then anything else but you,in your 3rd or 4th attempt, won't take a stand one way or another on a philosophy. I can only conclude you want to try to contend every year and that's fine. But I'd like to hear it from you. Trust me ,I like to contend every year too but its nearly impossible in the day and age of mega contracts that cripple teams without deep pocket owners so I don't argue for a great bullpen in what should've been a rebuilding year. Like I was saying, if Hahn didn't make the Reed /Davidson trade, the White Sox would probably be within 2 games of the 2nd wild card, with a head to head coming up in Toronto. I have taken a stand and don't change my stance with the wind. He weakened the bullpen with that trade and didn't strengthen anything except non Charlotte Knights IL pitchers' k-rates.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 01:20 PM) I seem to have missed hearing about the Dbacks #1 closer option getting injured after one appearance. Then I also missed the part where their #2 closer option got injured a month later. I also missed when that happened to the 2012 & 2013 White Sox. I guess Addison Reed deserves credit for staying healthy which Jones & Lindstrom couldn't do. Is that Hahn's fault? The 2005 White Sox won the WS losing their 3rd closer. And check on the Red Sox, Bailey, Hanrahan, blow out and they win the WS. I don't know why Jones was the #1 closer. Lindstrom won the job and was 6 for 9 before he went down. If Addison Reed does that, he's horrible. Matt Lindstrom turns out to be the glue that held the bullpen together. He wasn't very good. I have mentioned, I like Nate Jones, but the truth is, the next save he gets will be the first of his career. Hahn weakened the bullpen by trading Reed for what is turning into essential nothing.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 01:04 PM) Cleto called up Feeky is thrilled. What is the over/under on Cleto walks before he gets to go see Charlotte again? He has been on a roll, and throws hard, so I guess you have to give it a try considering the other options.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 12:12 PM) So that's all you got ? Your stance on one trade ? I didn't ask for that . I asked for a stance on how to build the Sox into a winner. 2 responses no answer on that so you're leaving me to assume that playing devils advocate or being a contrarian is your thing . Isn't that called trolling ? This is about the bullpen. My thoughts on how to build a winner are all throughout Soxtalk. Look them up. Some don't appear like they are any good. Some are pure genius. But generally, pitching wins. I don't like the free agents this year, they are either going to cost a ton or really suck. That's why I wanted the Sox to look at them last season. Maybe that was dumb too. They need a starter. The bullpen is in shambles and they need a LH bat. Someone had an idea yesterday about VMart or Mourneau. I'm leery of VMart and don't think he'll leave Detroit anyway, but Mourneau is intriquing. His numbers are really good this season and his home/road splits are pretty even. His price tag shouldn't be too much. No way I would trade Ramirez unless blown away. Hahn is crafting his pitching staff around being groundball pitchers, and with Beckham out the door losing Ramirez would put a hurt on the pitching staff. If they both are gone next season, it may not always seem obvious but there are DPs turned by these guys that aren't turned by others.. And the bullpen is wide open. The Sox will also need a catcher, but there is Russell Martin and a ton of crap. Listening to Hahn the other day, I have a feeling at least one of Sanchez, Micah Johnson , Semien will not be White Sox property in 2015. I have mentioned Semien as a guy I would use like Tony Phillips earlier in his career where he can play several positions. Everyone but Sale, Q and Abreu would be available. Rodon would also be unavailable but he can't be traded anyway.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 12:08 PM) Here are your free agents then: http://espn.go.com/mlb/freeagents/_/position/rp What would you have done differently? It's so easy to criticize when we're sitting behind a computer screen with incomplete information. Given what was on the market, I have no problem with what Hahn did. I also understand that you wouldn't have traded Reed, but I am going to disagree strongly and suggest that you are sorely mistaken if you think that would have solved all of the bullpen woes. It wouldn't have solved all the woes, but if you take history into account, it alone makes the team at least 2 or 3 games better. The DBacks have lost 3 games when leading in the 9th. The White Sox the 2 years Reed was closing, lost 4 each season. They have lost 6 so far. Right there they are contending. Asking someone exactly what they would do is a set up because I don't know what was available as far as trades. All I'm saying is he picked the wrong guys and shouldn't have traded Addison Reed. Reed was very underappreciated, and like Alexei Ramirez, who seems to be a popular guy to want to trade, is a guy who is going to cost a lot more to replace than he cost.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 12:06 PM) 2nd guessing mangers is as old as baseball itself whether its before or after the fact. In the history of the game it's usually after the fact since the internet is a more recent development and before that it was done after the fact in newspapers and sportstalk radio. Some here make good points some do not, But again please tell me your opinions of how you think Hahn should be developing his roster because you are criticizing after the fact as well . Your thing is arguing the stances people take on various topics. For once say what your stance is how to turn this team around so people can find your old posts and find your faults , your hits and misses ,the way you do it to others. Go back to the thread with the trade. You will see I am not criticizing after the fact. I didn't like the trade then. I didn't like the trade when Reed was struggling early and I don't like it now. I've been wrong plenty and am not afraid to admit it.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 11:55 AM) Nate Jones last year had a 2.64 FIP, Addison Reed had a 3.17. Year before that Jones had a 3.39, Reed had a 3.64. The backup plan got hurt, it's really that simple. Jones was pitching the 8th inning. Reed the 9th. I don't know if you are someone who has been talking about roles being changed and pitching different innings making a difference, but the Sox couldn't find guys who didn't cough it up in the 9th. Maybe Jones is lights out in the 9th, maybe he is a guy who would rather pitch the 7th or 8th.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 11:48 AM) Another point. To those who think Hahn didn't focus on the pen because we were "rebuilding" but he'll fix it next year, because it's easy to fix, doesn't that make out Hahn as a total moron? I mean, if it's easy to fix the pen in a year, then why didn't Hahn do it this year? My opinion is that Hahn tried to fix the pen, but did a very bad job of it, starting with the fact the team had no real closer once it traded Reed. I'm not saying the Reed trade was ill conceived on its own. I would say without a backup plan for a pen without Reed, it was extremely risky, and the risk Hahn took blew up in his face. Hahn did the same thing with the starting rotation, but on that score, he's been much more fortunate. Erik Johnson and Felipe Paulino blew up, but the Sox have gotten by with wire-waiver claim Hector Noesi and 29-year-old rookie Scott Carroll. Plus, John Danks has pitched much better than might have been expected. I will agree with this. Hahn, KW and JR specifically said they didn't want to go through another 99 loss season again. One way to pretty much assure that of not happening is to have a decent bullpen. If it is so easy, that should have been addressed. Most every team is always in the market for relievers, so I'm going to guess it's not as easy as advertised, especially when you really don't have anything in AAA or near ready in AA to even remotely consider hanging your hat. Guys are going to fail, guys are going to get injured. You have to assume that. The Sox got burned because they signed the wrong guys and had nothing but waiver guys ready to step in when they and other waiver guys failed. The lack of arms high in the system isn't necessarily Hahn's fault, but it wasn't like he wasn't part of the decision makers the past decade.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 11:36 AM) Good post. It acknowledges Hahn's putting together a horrific bullpen, but also has a possible solution at the end. Dick Allen is right, though. Lindstrom has become a lot better reliever to people now that he's been out of sight a long time. I personally think he's just another body and probably would be hated by all by now had he kept pitching. We'll never know about Nate Jones. I never liked him; a lot of you and probably Hahn thought he'd be a dynamite closer. If you go back to the thread where Lindstrom was DL'd , I didn't read one post that hinted the poster thought it was much of a blow to the bullpen, and that was after Nate Jones was out. It ranged from the bullpen will be better off, to someone saying it could cost the Sox a Brandon Jacobs-like prospect at the deadline, to mentioning several of the other relievers as interchangable parts. I have always liked Nate Jones. But there is another guy who has been ripped on this board before, and suddenly he is an irreplaceable part of the bullpen.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 11:15 AM) You know DA, you get on a lot of people about 2nd guessing Robin Ventura yet here you are 2nd guessing Hahn and the people who are defending Hahn . All of a sudden you think Hahn should've treated this year like a contending year. So I hope you can make it clear for me what you think Hahn should have done from the beginning. Should he treat every year as a contending year spend a lot of money , keep the payroll high, give out huge long term contracts to just a few individuals 4? 5? 6 OR MORE ? Try to establish a core of young players, build slowly ? Attempt to do both at the same time? At least be consistent in your devil's advocates posts or trolling as some prefer to call it. Addison Reed makes 538k this year. About 1/6th what they pay Beli and 1/8 what they paid Downs. I thought that trade was dumb from the start. It's documented. I get on people for getting on Ventura after the fact. Anyone who really thinks Addison Reed doesn't help this team is just fooling themselves, just like they are fooling themselves if they think Matt Davidson is going to develop into a middle of the order major league bat.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 11:03 AM) It's not like Addison Reed is any better than Jones and Lindstrom. He's given up more career homers than Lindstrom in less than half as many innings. That's not a positive trait for a closer. What is a positive trait is converting your saves. Lindstrom was 6 for 9 when he went down. That's not a percentage that keeps your team in wild card contention.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 10:48 AM) Lindstrom was already, on paper, one of the worst closers on opening day. Again, not calling him a bad reliever but he was not one of the 20 best closers to start the season. This pen was bad to start and while Nate and Lindstrom were unexpected, most everything else could be expected with exception of Putnam pulling things out. We had some vets on the decline or who we were hoping we could turn around plus Petricka and Webb (as two nice arms who...are still just that and really the only projectable worthwhile pieces in our pen). Yes. I understand injuries can set you back, but it's Nate Jones and Matt Lindstrom. I will say, since he's been injured, Matt Lindstrom has become a lot better pitcher without even throwing a pitch than he was when he went down.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 10:47 AM) It's a rebuilding year. Hahn doesn't think he had a shot at winning.... If that is what he thought, he thought wrong. An average bullpen, this team, with all it's warts, had a shot.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 10:39 AM) When the top 3 relievers in your preseason depth chart are not on the active roster, that's gonna happen. That's why, if you think you have a shot at winning, you don't trade Addison Reed for Josh Fields Jr. People had no problem and still don't with the Sox getting rid of him. Yet now the bullpen sucks because Nate Jones and Matt Lindstrom, yes the same Matt Lindstrom some where doing cartwheels about when they found out he was hurt and would no longer be closing, aren't there. If Jones and Lindstrom were both healthy, and really, I don't know how in the world anyone can assume a pitching staff won't suffer numerous injuries, the Sox bullpen would still suck. Hahn knew it in spring training, but it was too late.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 10:25 AM) Oh c'mon DA, I expect more from you. How can you project them being this bad? Belly just simply doesn't belong in high leverage situations, and if injuries never happened he probably never sees those situations. Lindstrom was gonna be that RH set up guy, and based on how well he pitched last year and in the minors Daniel Webb probably was looked at ahead of Belly in those situations.....I still remember one of them fancy fangraphs articles that called Webb a future closer. We're also talking about a bullpen that was built for a rebuilding team. Like everyone continues to say on here it's the last thing you build. If Hahn looked into that crystal ball everyone expects him to have and saw that this team was a bullpen away from being in serious contention for a WC and possibly even an outside shot at the division I'm sure we'd be looking at a different pen right now.... You don't pay guys $3 million to not pitch in high leverage situations. The problem is there are so many pitchers on the team this board says do not belong in high leverage situations, which means there are one or two guys who do, and they cannot pitch in each of those situations. The bullpen is horrible. It's a bunch of scrap heap pick ups that didn't work out, and it is costing the White Sox at least a shot of trying to win the wildcard. I would bet everything I own, Rick Hahn doesn't use lack of luck as an excuse with some of these guys and bring them back next season.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 10:17 AM) A 53.2% LOB% is incredibly unlucky in the grand scheme of things. If you want one example, look at Arcia's 2 run double on Saturday's game. That entire play is De Aza's fault. He took a poor route, faced the wrong way, and as a result, had to adjust while going back and leap and he misplayed it, and somehow that is not an error on him. A good defender makes that play and "saves" two runs. Yet somehow, the official scorer believed that the 2 runs given up were Belisario's fault. Ask Angels or Blue Jays fans about Scott Downs. See what they tell you. That's a pretty poor argument. Belisario was fairly good last year and he's been mostly hit with one too many hits. I'd have no problem with him coming back. Gordon Beckham has gotten a bit unlucky. I don't see how that's relevant. There's also 2850 plate appearances worth of results to show that he's not a very good hitter and to expect change is insanity. I also am not a guy who feels that the Sox need to dump Danks, and you know that. An upgrade would be fine but it's not necessary. If they can get the right players, I don't mind them trading him. It also was unlucky for the hitter that ball didn't wind up in the seats. It was tatooed. Beli sucks, there are no 2 ways around it.

I think if Sierra got himself some Flinstones vitamins, he probably could be a star. If he stays clean, he is probably a guy if he played every day for a while you would probably have seen enough reasonably soon.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 09:22 AM) But it's mostly bad luck. Belisario wasn't bad last year and it seemed the Dodgers no longer wanted him because they had other guys coming in (meaning they were just spending as much money as they could on the bullpen) plus there were some concerns about his night life. He's been extraordinarily unlucky this year - a 53.2% LOB% is just about the lowest I've ever seen. Downs was a great reliever last year and he just couldn't find the strike zone with the Sox. Injuries are bad luck too. Why is it bad luck when players don't perform up to their last year's performance? The GMs job is to project. Why isn't Gordon Beckham's BABIP bad luck? Except for a nice stretch after the first couple of weeks, Beli has pretty much been awful. You either get the job done or you don't. Hahn picked the wrong guys. That's simple. I watched them tee off on the White Sox bullpen this weekend. There were a couple of dinks, but for the most part they were hitting ropes all over the place. Belisario had issues, but ask Dodger fans about him and you won't get many positives out of his performance. People can't wait to dump Danks' contract, yet look at Downs, Beli, Keppinger, Paulino, add up all that money and it's pretty close to what the are paying Danks or even Dunn and at least those guys contribute something.

It wasn't all bad luck. Downs was getting pretty old. Beli was a non tender, that's $7 million right there. Sure Jones may have helped. It was bad luck Lindstrom got hurt, but there were posts on here saying his injury was a blessing. Putnam got hurt, but his performance has well exceeded expectations. Petricka has been at least as good as anyone could expect, and the other guys were junk. Waiver wire pick ups or organizational arms like Rienzo who people get way too excited about. The good news is if you are a White Sox prospect and fancy at least starting your career in the bullpen, you have zero obstacles except poor performance or injury keeping you from a major league job.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 3, 2014 -> 07:40 PM) 4-5 days ago I made a simple, one sentence, non-combative statement saying that Sox trading Addison Reed didn't help the bullpen, or if he were still here it would be better, or something like that, and I was promptly villified by 3-4 posters, 2 of whom are mods, basically insinuating that I don't know what I'm talking about, calling me a troll and that our bullpen is fine without him, even telling us what the Sox bullpen ERA is vs Reed's ERA, etc. etc. as if his 26 saves are irrelevant to the discussion, or words to that effect. The fact is the Sox bullpen imploded this weekend, and Reed had a scoreless inning today with 3 K's, not that that makes any difference. I still say Reed would have helped this team this year. A lot. I agree with you. I keep reading how below average Reed has been, but they have lost 3 games in his save situations. The Sox have already lost 6 games leading in the 9th. That is 3 games right there. Plus, everyone talks about Lindstrom and Jones being out made everyone else worse. Wouldn't that mean not replacing Reed made everyone else worse? Try not to take it too personally. It is just stubborn people who got too excited about some decent numbers put up in Reno and they don't want to admit they were wrong. Hahn made some great moves in the offseason. The Reed trade wasn't one of them.

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 3, 2014 -> 07:11 PM) I'm not really on an anti-Guerra crusade, he's just the guy who screams "DJ Carrasco" in our pen. ie, seems to be over his skis, not great stuff, has been exposed to lots of MLB and MiLB and just doesn't seem that great. But this falls into what I was saying in the game thread, which is that our bullpen isn't stuffed with "worst" pitcher types, it just lacks "best" pitchers. Who do you go to when it matters? After Petricka, there are no obvious answers Thompson isn't exactly a super-duper exciting guy, but has been successful as a closer at every level - seemed like a guy who might have earned a longer shot at creating a valid sample size. With that said, if we're going to send guys down with options rather than cut boring vets like Guerra, Rienzo seems like the better candidate for that...and might be later this week when Putnam returns 24 or 25 year olds racking up saves in high A isn't really a sign of future major league success. I do agree there were other candidates that could have been sent down or even released, but Thompson off the roster is zero loss. Rienzo has to be next. They hardly use him.

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 3, 2014 -> 06:45 PM) Guerra just being the guy with the least desirable mix of recent performance, track record, and potential development Coming into today's game, he had fanned 5 of the last 6 batters he faced and had 5 or 6 scoreless appearances in a row. His track record is at least as good as anyone else's, and certainly better than Thompson's.

Sox bullpen gave up 22 runs on 29 hits in 9 innings against the Lowly Twins this series. They did fan 10 so I bet their collective xFIP is a little lower than 22.00. Which is nice.