Team Spotlight: Chicago White Sox

Heltonfan · 11-25-2007, 11:53 PM

The White Sox, due to a combination of a terrible farm system, some excessive contracts, and a lack of star power, are well on their way to becoming Orioles West. After a pathetic 2007 season (which any idiot could have seen coming, of course), this team is trapped; they have a very long way to go to catch the Indians, but they can’t very well rebuild, because with Thome, Konerko, Dye, Buehrle, Contreras, and the aforementioned weak farm system, their chances in the future won’t be any better.

Summary Statistics
Rotation: -30
Bullpen: -7
Lineup: -47
Bench: -11
Defense: -2
W-L record: 72-90

Rotation

Vazquez 3.67
Buehrle 3.84
Contreras 4.22
Danks 5.02
Floyd 5.15

Vazquez has turned out better than expected, and, to give credit where credit is due, Kenny Williams did manage to sign him to a very favorable extension ($11.5 million a year through 2010). But still… would you rather have Vazquez at $11.5 million, or Chris Young at the league minimum? To me, that’s a no-brainer. Deals like this, sacrificing what little young talent they had, are a big part of what has locked this team into the no-win situation they’re currently faced with.

Danks and Floyd may be young, but they’re terrible pitchers. The White Sox have a guy named Jack Egbert, who spent this year in AA, who projects better (4.82) than Danks does, but he’s not highly thought of by the scouts, and is a real longshot to win a rotation spot.

Bullpen

Jenks 2.73
MacDougal 3.71
Thornton 4.12
Linebrink 4.55
Logan 4.00
Masset 4.29
Wassermann 4.62

One of the things that gave me a lot of pleasure last offseason was watching KW put together his bullpen. We heard all this talk about collecting “live arms”, how Andy Sisco was such a steal, how the McCarthy/Danks trade wouldn’t have been made if the Rangers hadn’t been willing to include Nick Masset in the deal… problem being, all of these guys suck.

The “throw a bunch of live arms against the wall and see what sticks” approach to bullpen-building has some merit. But – and this should be blatantly obvious, although it apparently wasn’t to the White Sox – it only works if you have more candidates than you have open bullpen spots, because the whole point of the strategy is that not everyone is going to stick. It’s what you do when you need to fill one or two spots; when you need to fill four, it’s a recipe for disaster. The way KW played it, he needed every single one of the new guys to deliver. They didn’t. And the result was predictably ugly.

Also, usually, when teams enter a season with a horribly unsettled bullpen like that, they find two or three guys along the way who stabilize things. The White Sox never did. The closest thing they had to a stabilizing force was Ehren Wassermann, who gave them a grand total of 23 innings and who, as you can see above, doesn’t project to be of much use next year. So they entered this offseason with no more bullpen depth than they did back in March – which, of course, prompted the astonishingly awful Linebrink signing. Fun how everything all comes together like that.

Lineup

C: Pierzynski 0.94 (.237, -1)
1B: Konerko 2.66 (.294, -4)
2B: Uribe 0.77 (.226, 10)
SS: Cabrera 1.84 (.249, 0)
3B: Fields 1.27 (.266, -9)
LF: Sweeney 1.28 (.248, 6)
CF: Anderson 0.48 (.237, -2)
RF: Dye 2.13 (.279, 5)
DH: Thome 3.31 (.303)

No, I don’t think they’ll wind up playing Uribe at 2B. But it’s the best configuration of their current collection of talent.

A healthy Thome will beat that projection, but that’s really just begging the question.

Obviously, this is a terrible lineup, and they desperately need to add an outfielder or two.

Bench

Hall .193
Richar .238
Cintron .220
Owens .233

If I Were In Charge, I Would: If the White Sox add any more big contracts, that will only assist their transformation into Orioles West. Obviously, if someone falls into their lap at a below-market rate, they should take advantage of that, but they’re not in a position to be handing out market value deals. Doing so would be a great way to lock themselves into the 75-80 win range for years to come.

And if they decide to be sellers, it will a) completely destroy whatever slim chances they have for ’08 and b) not do a whole lot for the future (because the guys they would be trading are signed to market-value contracts, which means by definition that they have minimal trade value).

So the solution, if you can call it that, is to do nothing. Well, not nothing – I’d add a reliever or two, and hunt for hidden gems in the minor league free agent pool – but nothing likely to make headlines. This team is trapped between a rock and a hard place, and all they can do is sit and wait in the hope that an escape will present itself.

11-25-2007, 11:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
Heltonfan Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Yerevan, Armenia Posts: 847	Team Spotlight: Chicago White Sox The White Sox, due to a combination of a terrible farm system, some excessive contracts, and a lack of star power, are well on their way to becoming Orioles West. After a pathetic 2007 season (which any idiot could have seen coming, of course), this team is trapped; they have a very long way to go to catch the Indians, but they can’t very well rebuild, because with Thome, Konerko, Dye, Buehrle, Contreras, and the aforementioned weak farm system, their chances in the future won’t be any better. Summary Statistics Rotation: -30 Bullpen: -7 Lineup: -47 Bench: -11 Defense: -2 W-L record: 72-90 Rotation Vazquez 3.67 Buehrle 3.84 Contreras 4.22 Danks 5.02 Floyd 5.15 Vazquez has turned out better than expected, and, to give credit where credit is due, Kenny Williams did manage to sign him to a very favorable extension ($11.5 million a year through 2010). But still… would you rather have Vazquez at $11.5 million, or Chris Young at the league minimum? To me, that’s a no-brainer. Deals like this, sacrificing what little young talent they had, are a big part of what has locked this team into the no-win situation they’re currently faced with. Danks and Floyd may be young, but they’re terrible pitchers. The White Sox have a guy named Jack Egbert, who spent this year in AA, who projects better (4.82) than Danks does, but he’s not highly thought of by the scouts, and is a real longshot to win a rotation spot. Bullpen Jenks 2.73 MacDougal 3.71 Thornton 4.12 Linebrink 4.55 Logan 4.00 Masset 4.29 Wassermann 4.62 One of the things that gave me a lot of pleasure last offseason was watching KW put together his bullpen. We heard all this talk about collecting “live arms”, how Andy Sisco was such a steal, how the McCarthy/Danks trade wouldn’t have been made if the Rangers hadn’t been willing to include Nick Masset in the deal… problem being, all of these guys suck. The “throw a bunch of live arms against the wall and see what sticks” approach to bullpen-building has some merit. But – and this should be blatantly obvious, although it apparently wasn’t to the White Sox – it only works if you have more candidates than you have open bullpen spots, because the whole point of the strategy is that not everyone is going to stick. It’s what you do when you need to fill one or two spots; when you need to fill four, it’s a recipe for disaster. The way KW played it, he needed every single one of the new guys to deliver. They didn’t. And the result was predictably ugly. Also, usually, when teams enter a season with a horribly unsettled bullpen like that, they find two or three guys along the way who stabilize things. The White Sox never did. The closest thing they had to a stabilizing force was Ehren Wassermann, who gave them a grand total of 23 innings and who, as you can see above, doesn’t project to be of much use next year. So they entered this offseason with no more bullpen depth than they did back in March – which, of course, prompted the astonishingly awful Linebrink signing. Fun how everything all comes together like that. Lineup C: Pierzynski 0.94 (.237, -1) 1B: Konerko 2.66 (.294, -4) 2B: Uribe 0.77 (.226, 10) SS: Cabrera 1.84 (.249, 0) 3B: Fields 1.27 (.266, -9) LF: Sweeney 1.28 (.248, 6) CF: Anderson 0.48 (.237, -2) RF: Dye 2.13 (.279, 5) DH: Thome 3.31 (.303) No, I don’t think they’ll wind up playing Uribe at 2B. But it’s the best configuration of their current collection of talent. A healthy Thome will beat that projection, but that’s really just begging the question. Obviously, this is a terrible lineup, and they desperately need to add an outfielder or two. Bench Hall .193 Richar .238 Cintron .220 Owens .233 If I Were In Charge, I Would: If the White Sox add any more big contracts, that will only assist their transformation into Orioles West. Obviously, if someone falls into their lap at a below-market rate, they should take advantage of that, but they’re not in a position to be handing out market value deals. Doing so would be a great way to lock themselves into the 75-80 win range for years to come. And if they decide to be sellers, it will a) completely destroy whatever slim chances they have for ’08 and b) not do a whole lot for the future (because the guys they would be trading are signed to market-value contracts, which means by definition that they have minimal trade value). So the solution, if you can call it that, is to do nothing. Well, not nothing – I’d add a reliever or two, and hunt for hidden gems in the minor league free agent pool – but nothing likely to make headlines. This team is trapped between a rock and a hard place, and all they can do is sit and wait in the hope that an escape will present itself.