Dick Allen

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 26, 2013 -> 01:40 PM) His recent quotes definitely have the sound of a guy who has been completely exhausted and beaten down by trying to deal with this team this season. Didn't you say he "checked out" long ago? How could he be beaten down if he checked out?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 26, 2013 -> 02:00 PM) That is including Dylan Axelrod and his 5.68 ERA over 128 innings as well as a few other guys who were absolutely terrible in their time up. They will not be in the team's long term plans. No, but other bad pitchers will be with the team every year. It's almost impossible to avoid.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Sep 26, 2013 -> 01:42 PM) What are you basing this on? If you're looking at something like runs allowed, then even an average ranking would be incredible given we play half of our games at the Cell. The Sox's staff has definitely better than average this year. Runs, walks, strikeouts, hits allowed, ERA. They are all around average. Also, White Sox pitchers historically have pitched better at home than on the road, so I kind of blow off park factor.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 26, 2013 -> 10:49 AM) Because the pitching staff has been pretty damn good this year? The pitching staff's performance was pretty average in the AL. Of course you could make a point the defense will make their overall numbers look not as good as they should have been, and it would be hard to argue, and they dumped Thornton, Peavy and Crain, but they are pretty much in the middle of the pack in most of the big categories. The other parts of the team performed so poorly, even an average-like performance seems spectacular.

Swish killed it, but I'm pretty sure there are several hundred guys who would have hit that meatball a long way.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFan05 @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 07:32 PM) From what I'm hearing Leury sounds like a Billy Hamilton divided by two He is so small, maybe he could crouch like Rickey Henderson used to and draw a ton of walks.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 07:17 PM) I spent the entire year last year crediting the manager for the great fundamental play the whole year. They came out of ST focused like lasers on their jobs and it lasted the whole year. You probably gave him too much credit, and now are giving him too much blame. In August, if Alejandro De Aza gets doubled off of third on a soft liner or throws the ball over the cutoff man's head, blaming it on spring training is way out there. According to Stone, they work on fundamentals all the time. In fact, Gonzo took a picture for Twitter a couple of months ago with Daryl Boston holding a pre game baserunning clinic. They had 2 or 3 boneheaded baserunning plays later that night. There are a couple of guys with very low baseball IQs that probably can't be helped, sort of like not everyone can get a 35 on the ACT no matter how much they prepare. They also have guys getting a little older, and the perfect storm occurred. Everything went wrong.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 07:03 PM) AJ pierzynski disagrees You are correct. Jermaine Due also stole 1b, when he fouled one off during the WS and acted like he was hit. Paulie hit the grand slam the next pitch. Leury does need to learn how to bunt for hits. If he does, he could become extremely valuable.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 07:02 PM) Again, you insist that they adequately worked on fundamentals, the evidence instead says that the white sox are te first team in nearly 100 years to have the best fielding percentage one year and the worst fielding percentage the next year. And its been pointed out over and over again, they work on fundamentals, as Marty pointed out Connie Mack managed the last team to do that. Was he a horrible manager? BTW, It is funny that fielding percentage seems to be a worthwhile stat sometimes, but other times it is laughed at. I would think if taking groundballs in March was as vital as you claim, and it was blown off, after playing X number of games, the Sox would have been at the point of where the were a season ago in April, yet the fundamentals never improved. I am quite sure if the Sox never worked on them like you claim, that story would be out there, but it is not.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 06:24 PM) Leury is fast. Wow. Caused a terrible throw by Kipnis with his speed and I think he would if been safe too The only way to steal first base is to learn how to bunt.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 06:36 PM) Again, why does the offense sucking balls mean that Robin did a good job this year? We all know the talent level on this team, especially on offense, was pretty damn bad and that a poor season would have been the outcome no matter who the manager was. That doesn't mean that Robin didn't contribute to our struggles as well with poor decision-making. Let's hold everyone accountable for their roles in this mess, even if some parties are more responsible than others. While the players are the chief culprits here, Robin does not deserve a free pass IMO. Judge the guy when he has good players. Every manager loses with bad players. LaRussa lost with bad players. Bobby Cox lost with bad players. Piniella lost with bad players. Scoscia lost with bad players. There is nobody who can win with bad players. Whoever the managerial flavor of the day is right now would lose with the Sox roster. Robin has been falsely accused of things on this board. Not working on fundamentals in spring training. False. Not wanting to manage. False. Let it play out. If good players lose under his watch, make a change, but as of now judging him on what he is being judged on is like judging Cooper on Dylan Axelrod's performance. No one will do that.

Someone over at WSI had Reed's and Sale's stats against teams other than Cleveland. Sale has an ERA of 2.16 and Reed, 2.97. Both get blasted by the Indians.

De Aza-consensus he isn't very good, get rid of him Ramirez-consensus, he has to go Gillespie-consensus, not a regular player Dunn-consensus, please retire Konerko-consensus, see Dunn. Garcia-consensus, hope for the future Viciedo-consensus, maybe hope for the future Beckham-consensus, bust, should probably go Phegley-consensus, the Sox need a catcher This is Ventura's line up. The players he has to play with. Just going by Soxtalk's consensus, expecting anything but losses piling up would be insane.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 10:51 AM) Also, the answer is quite obviously getting rid of Adam Dunn. If they did just that and made no other moves, they'd win 108 games There will always be a punching bag, even if the team wins 100 games. Before he went on an historic role, in 2005 Soxtalk wanted Contreras traded in a package for AJ Burnett.

Lou Piniella was known as a great manager before he came to the Cubs. Leo Mazzone was known as a great pitching coach, then he went to Baltimore and then couldn't find a job. Rudy Jaramillo was the hitting guru. I remember reading on this very board that he was such a genius, the Sox needed to hire his "assistant". He then went to the Cubs, and is now unemployed, at least at the major league level. People pin way too much of the results on coaches and managers. They can make a difference, but not a 20-30 game difference. People think Ventura needs to go, yet they also say all these players need to go. If the Sox lost because of the manager, shouldn't they keep the players? If the players are bad, how do you blame the losing on the manager? No manager wins with bad players. No coaches make Cy Young award winners or MVP candidates out of bad players.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 09:46 AM) Which is just amazing when the team is pretty much the same team as last year, at least until the trade deadline. It really wasn't the same. New C. New 3B. Dunn at 1B a lot more. Beckham missing at 2B in the first half for a decent stretch. The OF was the same, but Viciedo was what he always has been, as was Rios. The only differences were De Aza regressed tremendously both defensively and with his baserunning, and Alexei's head wasn't in the game (which isn't something new) more often. Perhaps a result of the games being meaningless.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 24, 2013 -> 07:55 PM) I really wonder if Dunn's going to retire He mentioned spring training in the Tribune today. Some may think walking away from $15 million for playing baseball for 6 months is noble if you aren't into it. I think it's dumb. He will be back.

Keppinger is one of those guys who can be awful like he was this year or pretty good. He has had a few decent years, and TB acquired him because he was non tendered. So he really can go either way. Hopefully the roster will be strong enough next year so they can pick his spots and he can put up decent numbers either to help the Sox win or entice another team to pick him up.

Texas looks like they would have been better off with Peavy instead of Garza.

The last reply they showed going to commercial showed his foot bounce.

That should be 6

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2013 -> 05:05 PM) We rolled out a scarily similar roster to the one with great fundamentals and 85 wins the previous season. Fine, Konerko finally got old, so that means they should have been a few games worse, and there were a few injuries early, so 78 wins should have been reasonable. The rest is all people doing worse than they should have. The best case I can make for how important a manager is for a team is the 2012 white sox. That team should have won 75 games and they won 85 games because they were well-coached and prepared for everything. This team, with most of the same players, couldn't spell "cutoff man" if they tried, let alone actually throwing the ball to one correctly. This team was different. Konerko got old, Beckham and Viciedo got hurt early, There was a new catcher, 3rd baseman, Dunn at 1b. Ramirez has always been an airhead, perhaps being out of it so quickly added to that. I never realized De Aza was that dumb of a player, but he is the only one that you could be surprised with, although he was never elite.for most of the first couplw months, there were 4 out of 5 different position regulars on the infield. And win totals now are silly. This team dumped Thornton, Crain, Rios and Peavy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2013 -> 04:51 PM) But you know what? It didn't work. Whatever they did do, it was so ineffective that they dragged the entire team out before a game in May to start doing basics like "hitting the cutoff man" again. So feel free to tell me that they did other things than play drinking games...because the results on the field speak for themselves. This looks like a team where every fundamentals practice in spring training was replaced by a drinking game. Whatever they did, we got stuck with the results. They were a total failure. Ever think that maybe the reason why they're telling how "man, these guys did so much work on fundamentals" in the spring is that everyone recognizes how poor the actual fundamentals on the field are, so they're covering for people? Why would they have to cover for anyone? The team was bad. As much as you want to make it Ventura's fault, it's not. Roll out the exact same roster next year with a different manager and there won't be much different. It is weird that you apparently don't think the Sox, close to a billion dollar franchise, want to win. If they thought Robin was the problem, if spring training was what you claim it was, although you admit you weren't there, if he has lost the clubhouse, if he had no clue how to run a game, he would be gone. As I have stated when the Sox problems according to Soxtalk were all Greg Walkers fault, if you really think Robin is the problem and don't address the real problem, you will be putting the blame on another person not responsible shortly thereafter.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2013 -> 04:39 PM) It's more the "How" for me. I wouldn't be nearly as angry about being here if guys had been hurt like they were early in the year and that kept going the whole year to create a 60 win team. It's the idiocy. It's the lack of focus. If I diagrammed a blueprint of "what a team looks like when its manager gave up before the season started", this would be it. Yesterday the Sox telecast mentioned again how much they went over fundamentals in spring training, and how many times they were out early working on them during the season. Unfortunately, you thinking the Sox did nothing but play drinking games in spring training was incorrect.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Sep 22, 2013 -> 11:41 AM) Remind me what year that was again when Ozzie won 60? It must be nice when the non-performing employee get to decide whether he stays or not. Remind me of the list of guys who would have managed this team into contention this year.