Strasburg has Verlander's heat and Wood's curve.

 

He averaged 97.8 on the fastball today.

 

That would be the highest out of all starting pitchers, even higher than Ubaldo.

Edited June 9, 201015 yr by chw42

We were talking about it earlier. You can't keep making bad trades and expect to have a competent roster. The Swisher debacles really hurt the talent in both the majors and minors, and then the Peavy trade killed our pitching depth. KW should thanks his stars Rios has rebounded this season.

I just can't accept this line of reasoning.

 

This roster was fine.

 

The players are just all regressing to absolute s*** at one time.

 

It's almost impossible to comprehend.

Kenny Williams has destroyed this team for years to come.

I wouldn't go that far, nor would i give him all the blame here. He got us Peavy, Beckham and Rios. It's not his fault that two of these franchise cornerstones didn't bother showing up.

I just can't accept this line of reasoning.

 

This roster was fine.

 

The players are just all regressing to absolute s*** at one time.

 

It's almost impossible to comprehend.

You're going to deservedly get in trouble saying "This roster was fine". This roster had some obvious weaknesses. But the problem continues to be the failure of its supposed strengths.

I wouldn't go that far, nor would i give him all the blame here. He got us Peavy, Beckham and Rios. It's not his fault that two of these franchise cornerstones didn't bother showing up.

Don't forget Carlos Quentin.

I could sit here and write a laundry list of reasons why the Sox are bad. Kotsay and Vizquel are just names you cannot win with no matter what else is going on with this team.

 

Omar Vizquel and Mark Kotsay continue to not be the problem.

I just can't accept this line of reasoning.

 

This roster was fine.

 

The players are just all regressing to absolute s*** at one time.

 

It's almost impossible to comprehend.

 

This roster needed a lot of near career years to compete in this division it felt like from the offense.

I could sit here and write a laundry list of reasons why the Sox are bad. Kotsay and Vizquel are just names you cannot win with no matter what else is going on with this team.

Really?

 

You base your ability to win entirely off of the backups?

 

If Quentin had 25 home runs right now, Beckham was hitting .300, Jenks had a 1.03 WHIP, and the big 4 pitchers all had ERA's under 3.5, this team would be in 4th place because of Kotsay and Vizquel?

I think the biggest problem with Vizquel and Kotsay are not the players themselves, but rather that they being on the roster is emblematic of a larger problem in the way we approached things this offseason. Mainly, how we showed a disturbing trend to settle for guys on this team that we had unrealistic expectations for. We wanted these guys to surprise us with results, we didn’t expect them.

This roster needed a lot of near career years to compete in this division it felt like from the offense.

This offense is actually outperforming last year's offense. We're 10th in the AL right now; last year we were 12th.

You're going to deservedly get in trouble saying "This roster was fine". This roster had some obvious weaknesses. But the problem continues to be the failure of its supposed strengths.

Maybe so.

 

But this roster is nowhere NEAR as bad as they are performing on the field.

 

This is just beyond all comprehension.

 

The problem with the 2010 season is not the roster that was built. It's the performance of that roster on the field. This was not forseeable in any way.

 

Of our 12-14 most important players, I'd say 3 or 4 are meeting or exceeding expectations. The other 8-10 are ridiculously underperforming.

I think the biggest problem with Vizquel and Kotsay are not the players themselves, but rather that they being on the roster is emblematic of a larger problem in the way we approached things this offseason. Mainly, how we showed a disturbing trend to settle for guys on this team that we had unrealistic expectations for. We wanted these guys to surprise us with results, we didn’t expect them.

Which guy did we have unrealistic expectations for? Which guy were we counting on to surprise us, unrealistically?

 

Beckham?

Quentin?

Peavy?

Buehrle?

Floyd?

Danks?

 

 

Thornton had a 15.000 WHIP and 135.00 ERA today in his 1/3 of an inning. Ouch for my fantasy team.

Ugh. Nevermind. This season is trainwreck.

 

Really?

 

You base your ability to win entirely off of the backups?

 

If Quentin had 25 home runs right now, Beckham was hitting .300, Jenks had a 1.03 WHIP, and the big 4 pitchers all had ERA's under 3.5, this team would be in 4th place because of Kotsay and Vizquel?

This offense is actually outperforming last year's offense. We're 10th in the AL right now; last year we were 12th.

 

And we all agreed that last year's offense just wasn't good enough. However, I COMPLETELY agree with what you're saying. It's hard to win when almost all of your main players are having bad years.

Mark Kotsay is a great bench player to have. Let him start maybe once every 8-9 games, come in to face tough righty relievers, and let him play 1B if Konerko is hurt. The problem is the way he's been used.

Pierre (we expected him to carry a two month hot streak over to the A.L.)

The expectations for Beckham were out of this world.

Jenks (not to suck like he did last year.)

TCQ to come back from injury and carry an offense without Thome and Dye hitting around him.

Jones

Kotsay

Vizquel

 

And we all agreed that last year's offense just wasn't good enough. However, I COMPLETELY agree with what you're saying. It's hard to win when almost all of your main players are having bad years.

The team that finished 10th in the AL in offense last year played game 163 against the Twins.

 

You can win with this level of offense...with the level we're getting right now...if you can pitch.

 

We can't do anything.

20k tonight....be interesting to see how bad attendance is tomorrow

Mark Kotsay is a great bench player to have. Let him start maybe once every 8-9 games, come in to face tough righty relievers, and let him play 1B if Konerko is hurt. The problem is the way he's been used.

The Kotsay/Jones combo has 16 home runs.

The team that finished 10th in the AL in offense last year played game 163 against the Twins.

 

You can win with this level of offense...with the level we're getting right now...if you can pitch.

 

We can't do anything.

 

I thought you said it was the Sox who came in 10th last year.

I thought you said it was the Sox who came in 10th last year.

The sox were 12th last year, they're 10th this year. We are better offensively in 2010 than we were in 2009 with Thome, Dye, and the great Podsednik.

 

The Tigers were the #10 offense in the AL last year, and they led the Central most of the year.

This roster needed a lot of near career years to compete in this division it felt like from the offense.

I agree. I don't think even the biggest pessimist would have thought things would go as bad as they have, but realistically this is an average team at best which is where most of the projections place them. Not the World Series contender KW made them out to be.

The sox were 12th last year, they're 10th this year. We are better offensively in 2010 than we were in 2009 with Thome, Dye, and the great Podsednik.

 

Do you know what we were in the first half of year vs second half of year last season?

I agree. I don't think even the biggest pessimist would have thought things would go as bad as they have, but realistically this is an average team at best which is where most of the projections place them. Not the World Series contender KW made them out to be.

 

Exactly