11 minutes ago, Quin said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/2NbJfzpPGK

Between this and the Spirit Halloween post, I hope the Guardians get thrashed.

They're such losers at heart.

Its the kind of energy that trash like Jose Ramirez breeds on a baseball team he leads. That dude has the biggest ego I have seen for being on a team that is consistently shown that they just aren't that good in the playoffs. Can't wait to see his dumb ass "how did this happen" face after they get destroyed by TB.

1 minute ago, Southwest Sider said:

Its the kind of energy that trash like Jose Ramirez breeds on a baseball team he leads. That dude has the biggest ego I have seen for being on a team that is consistently shown that they just aren't that good in the playoffs. Can't wait to see his dumb ass "how did this happen" face after they get destroyed by TB.

What he said about TA had some ugly connotations. And I'll leave it at that.

I thought when Colson led off the inning being hit by a pitch Doyle would bunt him over to second. Instead of bunting he struck out. If he would have bunted Sam would have drove him home with the single.

If one is truly dispassionate about this:

best 1-12 pitching staffs

LAD NYY Milwaukee

TB

Cleveland

San Diego

Houston and Chicago

8 hours ago, Paulie4Pres said:

They struck out NINETY-SIX TIMES IN 7 GAMES. They struck out 75 times in the ALDS. What the f*** are we talking about? This team has zero approach at the plate. None. It showed the entire second half of the season.

These hitters probably do have a lot of potential, but there's no chance it is realized with this s%*# organization.

The season was smoke and mirrors. A bunch of mediocre hitters have career years. They will be s%*# next season and I would put money on it. The only guy who I have any confidence in, is Vargas. He will be gone soon too because no chance Reinsdorf pays him.

You forgot the part where we all die, then the Sun blows up and swallows its first 4 planets. I mean, if you're going to mope like a child, don't be a p**** about it.

59 minutes ago, Colome's Hat said:

I think the pressure got to them. They led the AL in walks this year. Fine with K's as long as it's supplemented by walks.

I think so too, but combined with some filthy pitching from Cleveland.

8 hours ago, JoshPR said:

The approaches were bad. Anybody who says different wasnt watching. And swinging strike outs too. Just wild swings. I wonder how many Ks Mune and Colson would have combined for if Mune plays the whole season. That is not winning baseball. Actually this is problem in baseball right now. When you a guy like Chase hit only 15 homers and K almost 150 times that's a problem

Nobody's really saying any different, are they? I think a rookie team got overwhelmed in the clinch games of the 2nd round and abandoned a pretty successful approach from games 1 and 2. Perhaps Cleveland adjusted, and these guys just couldn't readjust that fast, and panicked. I mean, one of the team-leading veterans was Miguel Vargas with parts of 3 seasons under his belt.

9 hours ago, pcintelligence said:

Hawk would talk about the sphincter factor. The stars rise to the occasion while the also-rans mess theit trousers .

I did notice how much less fun the team seemed to be have as the series went on.

I’ll just take satisfaction that Jose Ramirez will never win anything and cost himself a boatload of money to do it.

55 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

If one is truly dispassionate about this:

best 1-12 pitching staffs

LAD NYY Milwaukee

TB

Cleveland

San Diego

Houston and Chicago

Staff include bullpen. Ours is better then Houston. Probably better then the Cubs as well.

3 hours ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

Shapiro didn’t strikeout for the Sox a hundred times.

But did he wear black?

3 minutes ago, Colome's Hat said:

Staff include bullpen. Ours is better then Houston. Probably better then the Cubs as well.

Just going by the 8 remaining DS teams.

Other than NYY, the best pitching staffs all remain.

Can't be all that shocking.

Cubs/Sox both more powered by offense that can suddenly shut down in the postseason...especially in just 2-3 games.

Same with Boston forgetting how to manufacture runs, too.

Or SD slumping on offense just when their bullpen being overtaxed finally caught up with them, too.

You now have arguably the four best organizations overall remaining.

Some might argue the Braves, but all four teams are there for reasons that shouldn't be all that mysterious to the 26 other organizations.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by caulfield12

Honestly, I think things just fell apart in the end.

I hate that people give a ton of blame to Venable, considering he's trying to perform voodoo magic with a pitching staff that was rough, especially the 2nd half of the season. Not to say he can't make mistakes - I thought he was too trigger happy pulling guys he didn't trust after they gave up a run - sometimes you got to let the guy settle in and/or respect the opponent. For example, with Sean Burke tonight, I think he did the right thing after the Jose HR. Jose gulfed one - nothing you can do but tip your cap. Earlier in the series, it seemed like he was dying to get to Grant Taylor and Hagen Smith, basically knocking them out of the series.

I know Taylor would do it again in a heartbeat, but after that Game 1, he looked either hurt or extremely fatigued, having issues finding the strike zone. Same goes for Hagen. I wish Will would've least used two games to go full starters, 5IP and use a Fedde, Schultz, Sandlin or Smith for mop up if guys struggled hard.

Hitting wise, after Cleveland made their adjustments to how they were going to pitch the Sox, the Sox had no game plan, or did but would abandon it quickly, which is not unheard of for young hitters. For example, it seemed like the last game, they looked like the approach was to be patient and work the count, but then would swing at garbage in the dirt as they got antsy. Once Gavin was knocked out of the game, they continued to try to be patient, almost not realizing Cade Smith was going to come in the next IP.

Two things going into next year - I think they got to hope Colson gets hot and jump off that experience. I think they need to tell Mune to link back up with Shohei to undo whatever they did to his swing. His eye is still there, as he wasn't getting fulled inside the strike zone, but after his injury he would whiff at those pitches. First half he was connecting.

6 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Just going by the 8 remaining DS teams.

Other than NYY, the best pitching staffs all remain.

Can't be all that shocking.

Cubs/Sox both more powered by offense that can suddenly shut down in the postseason...especially in just 2-3 games.

Same with Boston forgetting how to manufacture runs, too.

Or SD slumping on offense just when their bullpen being overtaxed finally caught up with them, too.

You now have arguably the four best organizations overall remaining.

Some might argue the Braves, but all four teams are there for reasons that shouldn't be all that mysterious to the 26 other organizations.

Agreed. Might take our bullpen over Cleveland but it gets exposed with our starting pitching problems.

Guardians pitchers got 75 Ks in 5 games. Average of 15 Ks per game. 55.6% of the outs came via a K.

That’s pretty mind-blowing.

They were actually 6-31 with RISP. Still bad. Guardians were 10-37.

Really interesting comment from a Red Sox fan at fangraphs...

"I am surprised that the fact that the White Sox struck out 21 times is not mentioned in a more significant way but merely just as a side note.

***Organized baseball has been played since 1876 and this is the first 9 inning game in which a team has fanned 21 times. Coming on top of the 19 strikeouts in Game 3 it puts the spotlight on the growing imbalance between pitching and hitting.***

Much has been said about Jacob Misiorowski, Paul Skenes and Payton Tolle, but Gavin Williams showed the world last night that he is a member of that group and there are more and more of these 6’6″ pitchers coming along to only increase that imbalance. It wasn’t long ago that hits exceeded strikeouts regularly,

***in this series the teams hit a collective .199 and there were 112 K’s and just 57 hits.***

I hope baseball opens its eyes and sees this trend as something that needs to be addressed with more than token changes.

Very well said...got rid of shifts, but just look at team batting average s and OPS trends.

Closing in on the 1930s minus the NYY dynasty.

Of course some would argue the Yankees winning every 2-3 years was actually a good thing, much like the Dodgers of today.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by caulfield12

30 minutes ago, nitetrain8601 said:

Honestly, I think things just fell apart in the end.

I hate that people give a ton of blame to Venable, considering he's trying to perform voodoo magic with a pitching staff that was rough, especially the 2nd half of the season. Not to say he can't make mistakes - I thought he was too trigger happy pulling guys he didn't trust after they gave up a run - sometimes you got to let the guy settle in and/or respect the opponent. For example, with Sean Burke tonight, I think he did the right thing after the Jose HR. Jose gulfed one - nothing you can do but tip your cap. Earlier in the series, it seemed like he was dying to get to Grant Taylor and Hagen Smith, basically knocking them out of the series.

I know Taylor would do it again in a heartbeat, but after that Game 1, he looked either hurt or extremely fatigued, having issues finding the strike zone. Same goes for Hagen. I wish Will would've least used two games to go full starters, 5IP and use a Fedde, Schultz, Sandlin or Smith for mop up if guys struggled hard.

Hitting wise, after Cleveland made their adjustments to how they were going to pitch the Sox, the Sox had no game plan, or did but would abandon it quickly, which is not unheard of for young hitters. For example, it seemed like the last game, they looked like the approach was to be patient and work the count, but then would swing at garbage in the dirt as they got antsy. Once Gavin was knocked out of the game, they continued to try to be patient, almost not realizing Cade Smith was going to come in the next IP.

Two things going into next year - I think they got to hope Colson gets hot and jump off that experience. I think they need to tell Mune to link back up with Shohei to undo whatever they did to his swing. His eye is still there, as he wasn't getting fulled inside the strike zone, but after his injury he would whiff at those pitches. First half he was connecting.

Great post. It is probably extremely hard to let a guy like Burke stay in and prove it, it goes both ways a lot. Now Burke will go into offseason prepared to be an ace, but could have also had his moments of losing strike zone right after.

Great season......we ran out of gas and got a bit anxious and nervous the last 3 games.

Lots to be proud off but also a lot to fix too.

1 hour ago, nitetrain8601 said:

Honestly, I think things just fell apart in the end.

I hate that people give a ton of blame to Venable, considering he's trying to perform voodoo magic with a pitching staff that was rough, especially the 2nd half of the season. Not to say he can't make mistakes - I thought he was too trigger happy pulling guys he didn't trust after they gave up a run - sometimes you got to let the guy settle in and/or respect the opponent. For example, with Sean Burke tonight, I think he did the right thing after the Jose HR. Jose gulfed one - nothing you can do but tip your cap. Earlier in the series, it seemed like he was dying to get to Grant Taylor and Hagen Smith, basically knocking them out of the series.

I know Taylor would do it again in a heartbeat, but after that Game 1, he looked either hurt or extremely fatigued, having issues finding the strike zone. Same goes for Hagen. I wish Will would've least used two games to go full starters, 5IP and use a Fedde, Schultz, Sandlin or Smith for mop up if guys struggled hard.

Hitting wise, after Cleveland made their adjustments to how they were going to pitch the Sox, the Sox had no game plan, or did but would abandon it quickly, which is not unheard of for young hitters. For example, it seemed like the last game, they looked like the approach was to be patient and work the count, but then would swing at garbage in the dirt as they got antsy. Once Gavin was knocked out of the game, they continued to try to be patient, almost not realizing Cade Smith was going to come in the next IP.

Two things going into next year - I think they got to hope Colson gets hot and jump off that experience. I think they need to tell Mune to link back up with Shohei to undo whatever they did to his swing. His eye is still there, as he wasn't getting fulled inside the strike zone, but after his injury he would whiff at those pitches. First half he was connecting.

Good comments. I wished our hitters would have adjusted, and I wonder what adjustments if any were suggested by our coaching staff. 21 strike outs are utterly unacceptable and in game adjustments were a must. Sprinkle some small ball, take some pitches, cut down on 2 strike swings, bunt for example. Give take signs to undisciplined hitters in 3-1 counts.

2 minutes ago, hankchifan said:

Good comments. I wished our hitters would have adjusted, and I wonder what adjustments if any were suggested by our coaching staff. 21 strike outs are utterly unacceptable and in game adjustments were a must. Sprinkle some small ball, take some pitches, cut down on 2 strike swings, bunt for example. Give take signs to undisciplined hitters in 3-1 counts.

It doesn't seem like any adjustments were made after the 19 strike out game....that is what is so maddening to me.

4 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Then unless he goes back to Japan, you have figure out a way to maximize his value in trade.

JR isn't going to just write off $17 million.

No to mention he Vargas and Grichuk were the only ones with an OPS over 800 and he's by far their #1 jersey seller.

Building the team around Peters Meidroth Vargas Teel and Antonacci (Grichuk too)...then expecting repeats from guys like Newcomb Fedde Hicks Burke Taylor, well that just wont ever go the way you think it will.

Giving up on Carlson Colson Braden Mune and Benintendi...is borderline crazy or insane.

Not to mention Castillo Kay Hudson Brazobust Martin, etc.

Anyone who has ever traded stocks or even sports collectibles or fantasy players before will point out exactly why.

I’d rather win division titles and make deep playoff runs and frequent World Series appearances versus selling jerseys. I’m sure Jerry already has any paraphernalia profits already buried deep beneath his pillow.

5 hours ago, The Mighty Mite said:

I was against the Venable signing from day 1, the guy is still on OJT.

Venable may be a wonderful person or whatever but isn’t a wonderful manager. I think he’s a bit (probably more than a bit) of a flake. He’s playing blackjack while other managers are playing chess.