What happened to the White Sox?

[adamb100]

How did they go from WS contender's to last place below the Royals and are going for the worst record in the league?

 

 

(edit: 'unabbreviated' White Sox in thread title; we're not bound by ezBoard's 60-character limit anymore http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif --1992)

[sbrylski]

The Sox are the stat-guys glorious achievement this season, as the statistics predicted a big fallout. So not everyone is suprised.

[crewcrazy]

They got really, really old and everyone is falling back to Earth after a couple years of having career years -- Thome's regressing, Konerko, Pierzynski and Dye are on their way down, Podsednik's been hurt and has stunk when he's healthy, Darin Erstad just plain sucks, and Ozzie Guillen insists on giving up outs. Outside of Jenks and maybe Buehrle, their pitching has stunk, too. It doesn't help that they probably have the least amount of talent on their roster out of anyone in that division -- the Royals may stink, but the young guys they have may already be more talented than anyone on the White Sox roster.

 

Like sbrylski said, it's been noted on blogs like FJM that the White Sox were predicted to lose 90 games at the beginning of the year -- something that columnists and "experts" tore apart before the season started and are now hoping everyone forgets while they write "How could this have possibly happened!?" columns.

 

On another note, the White Sox mortgaged their future for a couple good years, and it's starting to come back to haunt them -- it doesn't help that Chris Young is hitting 30 HR in his rookie year after Chicago traded him to Arizona for Esteban Loaiza. Hell, they could probably use Frank Thomas these days, but Kenny Williams chased him out of town because of their personal dispute.

[JohnBriggs12]

They made some bad deals. They had "can't miss" prospects fail and their farm system was devoid of pitching talent. They also have been hurt by injuries some of which could have been predicted.

 

They traded Aaron Rowand for aging Jim Thome prior to 06. They felt Rowand was expendable because of Brian Anderson, who turned out to be a bust.

Thome has fewer RBI in the past two seasons than the guy he replaced, Frank Thomas.

 

Because of the success of Jenks, Williams thought he could go out and get a bunch of flame throwers, like Cisco, Aardsma, McDougal, and that Don Cooper would turn them into Jenks. He way overrated his pitching coach. Those guys were available for a reason.

 

They had no starting pitching ready, so Williams had to deal to get it, but the Gavin Floyds and Denks haven't exactly been very good.

 

Injuries to Joe Crede, Darrin Erstad and Pods, forced them to a youth movement with guys that weren't ready. Dye has also been hobbled by leg problems.

 

Contreras starting showing his age.

 

They still have 3 solid if sometimes inconsistent starters in Buehrle, Vazquez, and Garland. If Crede returns to full strength, they will move Fields to LF. They will also make a free agent run at getting Rowand back. Still they will need plenty of pitching improvement to get back to contender status.

[pitchleague]

I read the title and thought you meant the "College World Series" .

 

As for the Sox, this is kind of what I was talking about in another thread regarding the Brewers in the future. Nobody knows how we are "really" going be for the next 5 years. There are hopes that we will win alot of games. But it's just not a guarantee in baseball. The White Sox are legit proof of that.

 

Personally, I think they'll be fine and will be contenders again next season.

[endaround]

Because the White Sox have a lot of really bad players the Brewers might not be good? The White Sox won a World Series based upon an entire pitching staff having career years. They then proceeded to assume those levels were sustainable. And they kept around players instead of improving (see the Houston Astros).

[sbrylski]

Crewcrazy, I believe they traded Chris Young for Javier Vazquez. I thought that was a stupid trade at the time, but that looks worse than I thought now. Vazquez had a $12 mil a year contract...

[pitchleague]

they also traded away Chris Young because their Brian Anderson was going to be the second coming of centerfielders.

 

Oops.

[Jopal78]

First, in defense of the Vazquez trade, Javier is 11-8 on a horrible team with a nice 3.91 era, and a sparkling 1.14 WHIP, not to mention a K:BB ratio of nearly 4:1. Vazquez has subsequently signed a three year 34.5 million contract extension which is a very nice deal for a 30 year old pitcher with those numbers.

 

Dumping Thomas, and then trading for Thome was stupid. But the main problem is that last year Dye, Crede, Konerko, Thome, and Pierzynski generated enough offense to cover for the total lack of offense from SS, CF, and LF. Also, the pitching was still strong for the White Sox in 2006. This year, the early season slump by the entire lineup exposed their offensive weaknesses at SS, LF, and CF, plus the starting pitching outside of Buerhle and Vazquez struggled, and Williams power arm bullpen experiment blew up in his face. Plus their band aids to patch up LF and CF have failed (Erstad, Mackowiak, etc.)

 

That being said Josh Fields has had a solid rookie year for the Sox at 3B and LF (.740 OPS, 18HR in 81 games). If Fields continues to improve as the LF, Crede comes back healthy, and they can land Torii Hunter in CF, they could make some noise in 2008. Of course, that is a lot of IFs.

[joepepsi]

They also traded away 40% of what should have been their 2007 rotation. Freddy Garcia is workhorse that isn't easily replaced. He's injured for Philly this year but it doesn't change the fact the White Sox traded a good consistent starter without a suitable replacement. They also traded Brandon McCarthy, who I thought was supposed to be a stud.

[Ennder]

A lot of guys had career years at the same time and they got hot at the right time and won a world series, the White Sox were never an amazing team.

[brettac1]

People pointing at Thome as part of the problem are barking up the wrong tree, I think. That was an excellent trade, considering they also got Gio Gonzalez as part of the deal.

 

Since coming to the White Sox, Thome has hit .277/.410/.556 with 65 HR.

Since leaving the White Sox, Frank Thomas has hit .271/.378/.504 with 60 HR.

 

The real problem is that they thought Scott Podsednik was good, and then they thought Darin Erstad would help the team somehow, when the best thing he can do if he plays for your team is get injured. Their offense is just awful, and that's the biggest problem they face, Uribe is brutal. So is Pierzynski. They just fell way too in love with the "gritty gamers" instead of people who are good at baseball.