And that's a White Sox loser

[Balta1701]

I don't think anyone ever claimed Brandon has better stuff than Javy.......Javy's problem has always been putting it together.

If that changeup is working for Brandon, I'll say that he has better stuff than Javy. Especially if he can get a good feel with that 4th pitch (2 seam fastball) and get on top of it. Plus curve ball, low to mid 90's fastball, dominant changeup, with a sinker could be absolute murder on opponents.

[southsider2k5]

Strong supporter of OZZIE here.

 

But enough is enough.

RANT ON/

Your complete lack of handling your bullpen is killing this teams chances of making the post season. Why do you insist on this nonsense lefties ve lefties and righties vs righties matchups! Because of this ridiculous notion you have we have blown many games. Please for the sake of this team use the person who is shutting ppl down and or on a hot streak . Be it thorton, jenks and or macdougal.

Because Tracey, Cotts ,Bmac, and Heager are obviously not hot right now!

RANT OFF/

 

Great rant. Too bad it was a complete waste of your keyboard. Thornton, Jenks, and MacDougall were not available. So, oh awesome internet baseball manager... What's your next "obvious" solution?

[Texsox]

Great rant. Too bad it was a complete waste of your keyboard. Thornton, Jenks, and MacDougall were not available. So, oh awesome internet baseball manager... What's your next "obvious" solution?

 

 

[The Ginger Kid]

I asked this in the game thread: who's more overrated right now, McCarthy or Anderson?

On these boards?

 

Both, by a mile.

[The Critic]

On these boards?

 

Both, by a mile.

In terms of baseball performance?

McCarthy, by a country mile.

He's excelling at not excelling these days.

[SpringfieldFan]

The one thing about Brandon this season is that as a reliever, he's really not getting the chance to use his full arsenal that well. His best pitch is the changeup...it sets up every other pitch. But if he's coming out of the bullpen and just trying to throw strikes, he winds up being mainly a fastball/curveball pitcher, and that fastball is too straight and too slow for people to not hit it if they're looking at it.

 

Also, I haven't seen much of that 2-seamer he was supposedly working on last offseason as far as I can tell.

 

Thanks, Balta. This is my favorite post in a long time. As to the comments that he has been tried in every situation this year - wrong. He hasn't gotten a chance as a 2006 starter. The truth is that he doesn't have the kind of stuff to be a reliever, especially a late innings one. Before the season I recall him saying something about how he has been a successful starter because of the way he adjusts his strategy through the course of the game and gets stronger the longer he goes into a game.

 

I plead with anyone to look up his stats from the last couple months of 2005 when he did start - then let me hear how you explain that. Would I put him in the rotation tomorrow? Probably not, since the other five have stepped it up lately. He also, as Oz said, is not Cy Young, either. However, none of that in any way translates to the conclusion he is overrated as a starter because he has had a 5 ERA as a reliever. And finally, I have to throw it out there: if he were dominating out of the pen, he would be considered - yes you guessed it - "too valuable" as a reliever anyway. Talk about a catch-22.

 

SFF

Edited September 11, 2006 by SpringfieldFan

[southsider2k5]

Thanks, Balta. This is my favorite post in a long time. As to the comments that he has been tried in every situation this year - wrong. He hasn't gotten a chance as a 2006 starter. The truth is that he doesn't have the kind of stuff to be a reliever, especially a late innings one. Before the season I recall him saying something about how he has been a successful starter because of the way he adjusts his strategy through the course of the game and gets stronger the longer he goes into a game.

 

I plead with anyone to look up his stats from the last couple months of 2005 when he did start - then let me hear how you explain that. Would I put him in the rotation tomorrow? Probably not, since the other five have stepped it up lately. He also, as Oz said, is not Cy Young, either. However, none of that in any way translates to the conclusion he is overrated as a starter because he has had a 5 ERA as a reliever. And finally, I have to throw it out there: if he were dominating out of the pen, he would be considered - yes you guessed it - "too valuable" as a reliever anyway. Talk about a catch-22.

 

SFF

 

Two things.

 

#1 why only look at when he was an effective starter last year? Why not look at his first stint up here when he really struggled? Also, what's to say he wouldn't have crapped out ala Kip Wells, Jack McDowell, and Jon Garland who had successful stints in their call ups, and flopped in their first full seasons as starters? All three were considered top notch prospects with big credentials coming into the big leagues, had big Septembers, and then didn't deliver the next year.

 

#2 As a right hander, he would have been WAY easier to replace in the pen, especially with the additions of guys like Mike McD out there. Unless he came out with some Scott Shields type outings, he is going to be starting for some team in the major leagues in 2007. The thing is even if he was that good in the pen, you still have Jenks, Thornton, McDougall, coming in for the 7th, 8th, and 9th, which means you would be holding Brandon back to be the 5th, 6th inning guy, which is useless for this team anyway.

[Balta1701]

Two things.

 

#1 why only look at when he was an effective starter last year? Why not look at his first stint up here when he really struggled? Also, what's to say he wouldn't have crapped out ala Kip Wells, Jack McDowell, and Jon Garland who had successful stints in their call ups, and flopped in their first full seasons as starters? All three were considered top notch prospects with big credentials coming into the big leagues, had big Septembers, and then didn't deliver the next year.

I will admit I haven't watched McCarthy as intently this year as I did last...but I can say beyond any doubt that when BMac was struggling last year when he first came up, the biggest problem I saw was his changeup, in that he simply wasn't using it. During El Duque's first DL stint when BMac was up, he was basically fastball/curveball, fastball/curveball, and that was it. He threw like 1 or 2 changes per game. When he got the change working later in the year, and AJ actually started calling for it, then all of a sudden no one could hit it. It seemed like he went back down to AAA, suddenly found the feel of that pitch again, and then with that 3rd pitch in the mix everyone was off balance.

 

I've sort of seen the same thing this year...when he gets really into a game, gets the changeup working, and has AJ actually calling for it at smart points (i.e. not the first pitch he throws), then he pitches very well. But wehn that change isn't working or isn't being thrown for strikes, then people sit back and hammer his fastball.

[Hangar18]

This team, all year long, just cannot get on a winning streak. Any kind of 8 game streak will do it for us .......Knowing our luck, once we do it, the Tigers and Twins will also wakeup. Im sure having a bad bullpen/Vazquez/Ozzie lineup-bullpen mismanagement has a lot to do with it.

[Soxbadger]

Im so sick of seeing McCarthy its not even funny.

 

On the other hand whenever Javy goes out Im pretty optimistic. If I had to chose which Sox starter to put out in order of confidence right now it would be, Garland, Javy, Contreras/MB, Freddy, and honestly outside of the top 2 I wouldnt be that happy.

 

At this point I think B-Mac has been set back about a year, he needs to go down to AAA next season and start exclusively. The Sox can not take a risk trading a starter and hoping that Brandon in a different role will be a "good" Brandon.

[Balta1701]

At this point I think B-Mac has been set back about a year, he needs to go down to AAA next season and start exclusively. The Sox can not take a risk trading a starter and hoping that Brandon in a different role will be a "good" Brandon.

And there's no risk in holding onto the 5 starters we have right now, having potentially 2 of them walk at the end of 2007, and paying out $50 million to those same starting 5?

[Soxbadger]

No there is a risk, but if you trade them with expiring contracts and off of this season you are going to get very little on your return. Unless a great deal comes around, I just do not think you will get very much for a guy like Garcia.

 

Otherwise if the Sox trade a starter, they will have to replace them, which most likely would mean either a free agent or trading, and right now that seems far more risky than just waiting and seeing if perhaps some of the pitchers had dead arm from the long run last year.

[fathom]

We're going to be trading one of our starters this offseason. I think Garcia is the most likely candidate to be traded. We need to create some payroll flexibility this offseason in order to upgrade at other positions.

[greg775]

Please trade Freddie and let McCarthy start so we'll know once and for all

if he can pitch and if he was "misused" all year.

I still wish people will admit KW did the misusing, not Oz.

People dont seem to want to admit Oz already had 5 starters to work with.

Our scouts, KW, whomever felt McCarthy could handle the relief role this season.

Somebody was wrong.

[Balta1701]

Please trade Freddie and let McCarthy start so we'll know once and for all

if he can pitch and if he was "misused" all year.

I still wish people will admit KW did the misusing, not Oz.

People dont seem to want to admit Oz already had 5 starters to work with.

Our scouts, KW, whomever felt McCarthy could handle the relief role this season.

Somebody was wrong.

On some level though, KW does have a point...it might not have been a bad thing to limit McCarthy's innings for one more year just so that his arm/body have more time to develop and he doesn't wind up turning into another Mark Prior.

 

Either way, we'll probably never know. But if he spends the next 5 years healthy and successful, in the back of my head, I'm going to give partial credit to this season. If he winds up healthy but never gets an ERA below 5, then I'm going give a decent chunk of blame to this season.