jimhaiduck

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Sep 8, 2006 -> 02:35 PM) Well, if Ozzie stuck with Anderson and he has now seemingly turned the corner (including 2 hits yesterday) then why does he continue to platoon him in CF? Anderson goes 2-4 yesterday and yet he's benched in favor of Ryan Sweeney today. Wouldn't he want to sit back and enjoy the fruit of his labor and play Anderson everyday? He brought up Sweeney to play him so he might just be platooning those two from here on out unless Sweeney looks overmatched which I doubt he will be. I'd probably rather see Pods sit. He's going to go with whoever is hot, and before you point out that Sweeney was 0-6 he hit 3 line drives right at guys last time out.

Last time I looked, Ozzie wasn't hitting into double plays in key situations, missing sac bunts, giving up 7 runs in 4 innngs, coming in a 1 run game and promptly giving up a HR to make it a 4 run game, etc. Despite all the talk about "throwing guys under the bus", Ozzie stuck with Anderson this year and he seems to have turned the corner (which is why Ozzie is now playing bad cop because he knows BA can take it), he insisted Garland extend himself in games in 2004 and 2005 and it's paid off big time. He has one starter and 2 relief pitchers he can count on and his offense has been suspect as of late, yet we are 1/2 game out of the playoffs. Ozzie was a great hire and he and KW make a great team. We can't win it every year, but we'll be there in the running for the foreseeable future.

QUOTE(qwerty @ Sep 7, 2006 -> 03:27 PM) Willing to bet anderson first year out produces sweeney in his first year... both defensively and offensively. I could see you making a case for him if he was top 15-20 in the entire minors... but he is top 15-20 in his own individual league. There are what... 19 leagues in the minors? His numbers were not quite as impressive as you take them as... if you consider his age they are slightly more impressive. He had an .802 ops in charlotte of all places. Just watching him play ( and yes i have seen him in person in charlotte and online when games are available) he is not ready yet. A year or two from now is when he will likely have it all down. He needs to work on his power and better defensive reads/jumps. You have to rememeber there is not one area of his game that he extremely excels at ( average, gap power, obp, defense). He still has time before he will be a productive every day baseball player... even to the point of brian anderson. Francouer? There are guys that put up numbers like him dime a dozen if you give them 600 at-bats plus a season. His approach up there is just disgusting to watch. He is the definition of a guess hitter. > That makes no sense. You can't compare stats from 20 different leagues. He's at the highest level of minor league baseball and doing very well and he's been steadily improving. Francouer is a dime a dozen player? How many other 22 year olds are going to drive in 100 runs this year and have it considered a sophomore slump year? I originally thought that Sweeney was slated for 2008, but he could easily be a platoon player at worst in 2007. I saw him in Spring Training this year and he has a better arm than Anderson and is better defensively than Pods, Ozuna, Mackowiak and Dye. If he can hit .260, he'll play. Pods won't be here next year so there will be plenty of opportunities.

QUOTE(danman31 @ Sep 7, 2006 -> 08:43 AM) Bingo! People need to realize that he was not a dominant minor league player ever. He's hovered around .300 everywhere he went. Age is one thing but if that's the excuse then he isn't ready now. Sweeney next year will likely be about the same as Anderson this year. I know most people aren't satisfied with Brian's production despite improvements. I'm not sure why everyone is saying that Sweeney has been mediocre this year. Sweeney was the 8th leading hitter for avg. in the International League and in the top 15 in RBI's and top 20 in OPS. There's a misconception that there are hitters in the minor leagues hitting .375 with 60 HR's. That's not the case. Check out the league leaders and you see there's only one player in the entire International League with an average over .308 and I guarantee you there are a bunch of future All Stars in that league. Sweeney is 21 years old, he's about 1,000 at bats from high school. Hitting is arguably the toughest skill to master in all of sports. That's why you don't see High School players go directly to the pro's. You can count on one hand the number of College hitters who've come straight into major league baseball and been productive (Bob Horner, Robin Ventura??) and Sweeney is younger than those guys. Jeff Franceour was hitting .275 when the Braves brought him up last year and he won't be seeing the minors anytime soon.

> I agree 100%, but this year Garcia and Buehrle have ERA's about 1 run worse than their career ERA's which is huge. Vazquez is about 3/4 of a run higher. Garland and Contreras are both at about their career averages so we have no one having anything better than an average year, and yet we're 22 games over .500. The question is whether this year is an aberration or the start of a downward trend for Garcia and Buehrle. These last few starts for Buehrle, Garcia, and Vazquez are going to determine who stays and goes. Garcia claims he is getting stronger and was throwing 92 and 93 mph in his last start. Buehrle looked good and Cuddyer said he was the Buehrle of old on Sunday. Vazquez was decent, but his start was ruined by Riske. Basically, those 3 are auditioning for the 2007 Sox team. One will be gone for sure and unless we have a deep playoff run two or even three could go.

QUOTE(SadChiSoxFanOptimist @ Aug 27, 2006 -> 08:08 AM) This is an interesting topic... Maybe the issue isn't just accepting the historical phenomenon of failing to repeat, but instead, determining why some teams DO repeat and others fail to. What are the causes? General manager's philosophy? Financial resources of owner/team? Drafting/ philosophyplayer acquisition/minor league strength? Incumbent manager's style/philosophy? Other? It comes down to talent, and this year's team is as talented offensively as any I can remember, but our pitching, and to a lesser degree our defense, have not performed as expected. I didn't expect our starter's to all have great years, but for the most part they have been brutal. I have never seen so many 2 out runs scored against our guys which in some respects could be an aberration. There have been numerous times where one at bat (which a decent pitcher should convert to an out 75% of the times) ends up costing us 3 or 4 runs which inflates ERA's etc. Kenny Williams job will be to determine if 2005 was the aberration or 2006.