This is for the baseball historians among us.

 

Aside from the Marlins "fire sale," has there been any other Championship Team that has made this many changes in its lineup? (This is a question, not a commentary, pro or con.)

 

Changes in terms of number of roster differences and in terms of quality moves (i.e., key position players vs. "gang of four" types)

I am sure there has, but this one is up there, but the Sox have not changed that many of their starting players so these were more upgrades than anything.

 

If you count DH as a positional player, then the Sox have 2 changes out of 9. For starting pitching, it is going to be either 1 or 2 out of 5. The other players were Bench players and Middle Relief, so the numbers seem higher than they really are.

 

From the Playoff roster the Sox lost:

 

DH - Everett

CF - Rowand

 

SP/RP - Hernandez

RP - Vizcaino

RP - Marte

 

Bench Players -

Harris

Perez

Blum

 

They have added:

DH - Thome

SP - Vazquez

Bench - Mackowiak

Edited December 21, 200520 yr by WinninUgly

Whether you feel the moves are great or bad it sure looks like the busiest off season since the 97 Marlins took their team apart, a very different situation then what KW is trying to do.

 

I have a file of transactions (from RetroSheet) that goes up to 2003. I linked it to players from the WS winner who had either 1 AB or 1/3 IP in the series, and were traded or released between October of the WS year and the following April. The White Sox are at 8 so far under this criteria.

 

I'm not as comfortable with this file as I am with the rest of the Lahman dB so on the left I show the totals by year since 1980 and on the right the details from the last 15 years, to see if anybody can find some flaws, ie I'm pretty sure retirements don't show. (The reason Homer Bush didn't show up from the 98 Yankees is he didn't have an AB in the WS).

Edited December 22, 200520 yr by TLAK

God damn did the Marlins f*** up.