Jerksticks

Laroche sucked some life out of me personally. After watching 4 years of Adam Dunn, who to me is the absolute worst type of mid-lineup hitter (I understand some of you value his style and i respect that) I was so ready for a fresh start ar DH. But no, we got the same thing but arguably even worse. Looks like 6 straight years of pull-happy no contact. That s*** hurts.

Yea but how fast was the pitch? Avi looks good against the 88-90 mph guys too

He should be fired and humiliated because that's what that asshole deserves.

QUOTE (BrianAnderson @ Sep 16, 2015 -> 12:43 PM) Keeping him at the deadline was the right decision. Look at the Indians even today, 20 games left, sitting at one under .500, and like 5 games out. Still sadly doable. When I look back at this season, even with the poor defense, even with the poor offense early, I still peg this season on Shark. If he does his job like he did last year, there is no doubt in my mind we have 5-7 more victories. Let's call it 6 -- we'd be 74-69, 2 games out of the playoffs. Sale did his job, Danks did his job (I looked back at his stats, he realistically gave us a chance to win in 17 of 27 starts), Rodon exceeded expectations for me, and Q was solid as usual. The bullpen was what I expected, greatly improved. The offense, although it sputtered, ultimately didn't do entirely much worse than I figured (2B and 3B didn't meet my expectations), the defense was on par with what I thought, though a bit worse (beginning of the season hurt, also the OF is a problem now and going forward IMO). So in the end I blame it solely on two guys. LaRoche and Shark. I don't even call it worst case scenario, but I'd give QO to Shark, if he takes it, so be it. He should, in reality, be a very solid 4 on this team next year if he wants a re-do before another FA try. I'd do another year with this rotation. I don't think he takes it, and I think he winds up with a 4-5 yr deal similar to Ervin Santana. I'm calling a 4year, $56mm deal. I totally agree. Laroche being an automatic out in the heart of the order killed in-game momentum through July. Rallies were not possible with him in the lineup. And once Robin started benching him and we got some momentum...Shark absolutely buried us. He peed his pants the minute the WC became attainable. Well said. 2 horrible seasons. I feel bad for RH & KW. It looked pretty solid before the season.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 15, 2015 -> 09:26 PM) if you go back to the Scott Kazmir trade thread there's a large contingent of people who explained to me that Samardzija should be more valued than Kazmir because he's more reliable historically and you'd probably want Samardzija pitching if you had the choice for 1 game. I'm one of those people Balta. I guess all 29 GMs knew that he would implode and personally derail a playoff train. But that's why GMs make the bog bucks- they can predict that kind if stuff without any evidence to support it.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 15, 2015 -> 08:38 PM) What has Hahn done in his time as GM to earn another year? Used a lot of money and resources on 3 of the worst players in baseball. Wow.

The problem with Avi is that pitchers own him. I love the idea of a Good Avi too, but everyone agrees that he's almost being bullied by pitchers right?? Trayce looks way smarter at the plate...and that has absolutely zero to do with BB%, BABIP, OBP, K% or any stat. Zero zilch nada. Agree? Yes?

How about the ultimate 12-man pitching staff since 2000 for fun? Most people here can remember most of them. In their primes of course. SP: Sale, Buehrle, Contreras, Garcia, Loaiza RP: Foulke, Howry, Carrasco, Cotts, Thornton, Jenks, Robertson And maybe worst 12-man since 2000, if you never wanted to win a game: SP: D. Wells, K. Wells, Axelrod, Ritchie, Noesi RP: Simas, Linebrink, Koch, Logan, MacDougal, Downs, Webb

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 11, 2015 -> 11:13 PM) Talking about all time Sox teams is senseless cause people always want to mention the old, old, old timers and thus anybody who played past 1960 pretty much is pooh-poohed or laughed out of the discussion. I hate having to put the old oldtimers on the list, making it a very boring list/discussion. I mean try to put Buehrle on a list and you'll get Ted Lyons'ed and Billy Pierced to death. Amen bro. It's tough pretending to be 150 years old telling stories about where you were when the Black Sox scandal hit. "Boy that Joe Jackson could really lay into a 70mph fastball! Cicotte? Absolute stud!" But it's cool some of the old-timers here remember some of these guys. Speaking of which, can any of you share some insight with us young guys about some of the old fabled Sox pitchers? That would be pretty cool.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 12, 2015 -> 12:14 AM) What in thee f*** is this? Can't see that point of view? I see both sides easily

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Sep 10, 2015 -> 11:49 PM) I think two legit bats (preferably RF & 3B) and improvement from some of our holdovers makes us contenders next year. The pitching staff should actually be better with Rodon's continued development, Johnson replacing a disappointing Shark, & a full season of Nate Jones. We don't need an elite offense, just can't be bottom five in OPS & ISO like we are this year. Interesting. Jeff S was so bad this year, looking at his overall numbers now, that It would be hard for EJ to be much worse. He could be worse but probably not much worse. It's similar to SS. Sure Saladino could be worse than Alexei...but really? Probably not. Save the 9 million and put it into the Heyward fund.

Balta for thread MVP

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Sep 9, 2015 -> 07:29 PM) Same with the Cardinals and Pirates too. Yes. It's really night & day just how awful the NL is compared to the AL. The #2-#3 starters are horrible...not to mention the 4s & 5s. Mercy.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Sep 8, 2015 -> 04:55 PM) By random, I think it is all driven by sample size, but the fundamental question I ask is...do pitchers behave different with runners on then without and when that answer is yes, that tells me their is something to some extent flawed in the stat. Pitchers are the one player who truly controls a lot of what they do. I think this is just more you have small sample sizes with HR's and batting with runners in scoring position which means you can have extremes. All that said, if I want to judge someone based upon what happened in the year vs. a predictor of future success, I still put much more weight to ERA then FIP / XFIP. Bottom line, I award people based upon the actual results vs. hypotheticals that don't reflect the reality of actual runs given up. I like this. The problem most people have with ERA is the whole defense behind the pitcher argument. But some might argue from a more presidential position: Did it happen on your watch or not?

What's with the 1 game @Tigers 6/4? Every team doing a one game bonanzee like that?

Stupid front office now drafting players that are good.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 10:04 AM) an excellent way of looking at things. future does look good. Future looks great. So how come people blame the FO for the future looking great? It puzzles me

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 10:31 PM) Arrieta has been good but when is the last time he shut down a good offensive unit? The Dodgers, Giants, and D-Backs are not those teams. The last time he gave up runs was to the lowly White Sox. I love typing this so much that I'll type it again: Junk team playing in a junk division in a junk league that plays the game in a junk way which allows junk pitchers and junk batters to have long careers. A bunch of high-strikeout rookies are 20 games over .500 with no #3-#5 starters and a junkfire bullpen? GMAFB. Buncha junk and the media never reports that aspect of it.

This is all fine but if Olt is the starting 3B next year or in the picture even, well then s***balls as they say.

Even 3/45 might look nice to the Shark camp. Don't you think he'llmgrt some $15Mper offers?

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Sep 4, 2015 -> 02:50 PM) The system is as stocked with potential starting arms as I've ever seen it. Fulmer, Montas, Adams, Guerrero, Danish, Beck, Jaye, Lowry, and Clark all could easily end up as starters in various parts of a rotation. Yes and I think a bunch of our hitters are going to be popping up on radars in the next year or two. The new draft system has done wonders for the White Sox. That's why I think FA (Heyward) is an excellent way to bridge the 2-3 year gap so we can compete while the farm moves toward the top of the lists. The farm is about to be stacked if not already. Time to shell out some big bucks and win a WS before we become the Cardinals in a few years!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 4, 2015 -> 01:08 PM) Rodon was one of the closest things you will ever find to a major league ready college arm. Hell, the Sox could have called him up on the day he signed as a closer. I don't think Fulmer is there at all. I also don't think he has anywhere close to the ceiling that Rodon has. I am not saying that Fulmer isn't good, but Rodon has a special type of ceiling. Yea totally. To confirm your point one only needs to remember the 2 season hype-train that followed Rodon: the game against Cuba, his ridiculously nasty slider, extensive ESPN coverage, #TRTR etc. the dude was a legend a year before he was drafted. Not saying that Fulmer can't develop to be just as good, but he's got some work to do to get the scouts drooling. Big shoes to fill if anyone wants to compare his level of readiness to Sale or Rodon.

Coop early in the season: "Jeff certain things aren't working. I noticed something. Let's try this." JS: "f*** you I've always done it this way" Coop: "This isn't the watered-down NL, you actually have to be on your game here" JS: "f*** you" Coop: "You're ruining the momentum every time you pitch and your attitude is hurting the clubhouse" JS: "I played football" Coop: "What does that have to do with anything?" JS: "Everything" Coop: "I feel like I'm playing cards with my brother's kids" JS: "Uno b****" Coop: "Good talk" JS: "Great talk"

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Sep 3, 2015 -> 03:56 PM) Yeah we're 19th in strikeouts and 8th in the AL (that is, 18 offenses have struck out more than us), there's no reason to think Sale would strike out more White Sox hitters than normal. I wonder if our DH position has struck out more in the last 5 years than any other team at any other position. We've had basically the same me-first type of guy for 5 years. Can somebody look that up?

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Sep 3, 2015 -> 07:18 PM) pitch better bro. Seriously.