The White Sox thread

yeah i think they're underrated because they're cleveland & because they have little in the way of impact talents (peralta and hafner tho, jaysus). but yeah they do look like a solid if unimpressive team.

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Cleveland has to win at home. I can't believe their road record is miles better than their home record and yet it is.

it's not a law, but typically elite relievers strike guys out by the truckload. hermanson doesn't do that; his k-rate is a paltry 5/9 IP and his k/bb is under two. his HR rate is uninspiring & he's not a groundball pitcher. i think all dave is saying, and i think we'd all agree, is that, as elite relievers go, this guy is pretty mediocre. compare his peripherals other than hits allowed to those guys you mentioned and i think he'll grade out pretty poorly. i'd rather have a guy w/ better stuff (and as i've said before, the sox have those guys) closing out my games.

however hermanson is certainly a good example of how easy it can be to manufacture a closer. he could definitely be 'serviceable' (a 3-somthing era doesn't seem at all out of the question), but he's even more definitely not a great reliever.

Let me offer this out there, as of right now:

Dustan Hermanson is as good of a closer as Dontrelle Willis is as a starter.

I might even venture to say "better", but I'll just leave them as equal entities and let John go on a posting frenzy for a few hours until I come back.

what the hell am i supposed to even say to that?

How about the following:

hahahahah ahahahahhah ahahahh hahahahahaha hahahah hahahahah hahaha

Also, regarding this: yeah i think they're underrated because they're cleveland & because they have little in the way of impact talents (peralta and hafner tho, jaysus).

Please see what Victor Martinez & Grady Sizemore have done since May. Also of note: Coco Crisp's May, June, and August. (Please note that I have more faith in the first two than the 3rd.)

OK, I can't let this slide: "Dustan Hermanson is as good of a closer as Dontrelle Willis is as a starter."

DONG DONG DONG. Given D-Train's year, a closer would have to be like prime Eckersley or Gagne or Mariano to even be thought of as equal, especially given the number of innings they DON'T pitch in comparison to a 200ish IP starter guy of the Train Version 2K5's caliber. And, like John D ably showed, Herm is not even close - being a high-rent Kolb gets you as far as the Brave doghouse. And getting on yr anti-Dontrelle hobby horse to bloviate like that is the stuff of internet board asshattery. Of course, so is responding to said asshattery, so, um, well played and kudos.

The mid-'60s Dodgers, '73 Mets and '88 Dodgers got pretty far with "mediocre offensive attacks."

I don't understand the 'Chisox out in the LDS' chorus ... sure it could happen, but as likely not. Weren't the 116-win Mariners relatively hot going into October? Weren't some of those Atlanta teams? As far as I know, no factors correlate especially well with postseason success, be it killer offense, late-season streaks, Joe Morgan's "veteran emotion" etc. I know Neyer wrote a column suggesting the Sox could do well in October recently, I think the gist was front-line pitching.

Hermanson leads the AL in Relievers Expected Wins Added:

http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/?report=52

gygax i don't know how serious you are, but they're both relatively unknown quanties w/ unremarkable stuff, and "as good an x as y is a z" equations can get a little confusing anyway. but um, no. hermanson is like 35 w/ a woeful track record and has clearly been lucky this year. willis is 23, has a v good track record w/ intermittent flashes of brilliance, and, while also lucky this year, is almost definitely not as far over his head as your boy hermie.

now bear with me while i gently remove this hook from my mouth & spit out your little worm.

(haha it was getting to you too dave!)

Read what I wrote: I didn't say that Hermanson was as good of a pitcher as Willis is, just that he's as good/better in his respective role.

Hermanson is 32, hardly washed up.

Hermanson is one of the 7 most effective closers in the game this season, could the same be said of Willis of MLB starters? Of NL starters?

Why should a closer NEED to be a strikeout pitcher? That makes no sense.

closer:K::batter:HR?

Hermanson is hardly an unknown quantity. He was a high 1st round pick, and looked really good early on for the Padres/Expos. He was excellent for the Giants before the bottom fell out last year.

As far as Willis goes, his stats say that he has been somewhere between the 5th and 15th best starting pitcher in baseball by virtually any measure:

2.67 ERA (7th MLB)
2.68 ERC (9th MLB)
124 k (32 MLB)
178.2 IP (7 MLB)
6 CG (tied 1 MLB)
5 SO (1 MLB)
18 QS (t 9th)
1.13 WHIP (11th MLB)
3.15 DIPS (8th MLB)
.644 Opp. OPS (14th MLB)

His strikeout stats are obviously his main drawback, but not to the point that he's hurting his team.

a closer doesn't NEED to be a strikeout pitcher. it's just that the best relievers ARE.

and the truth is being a top 10 reliever over one season, esp. when combined w/ unlikely peripherals, just doesn't mean a whole lot. unknowns enter that group one year and drop from it the next all the time. it's a tiny sample size.

Hermanson totally got worked by the scorer on that play! That was a total error!!!

or maybe he just SUCKS

or a WINNER (but seriously that scorer is a total homer for not calling that infield double an error).

HOW do you double to 2nd base?

That was no error. That was a foul ball, and a blown call by the home plate ump, screwing Garland out of another W.

HermansonSchmermanson. If all goes well, Jenks should be the closer next year, and a dominate one.

What are the Chicago papers like today?

Panicky, sweaty, annoying. What you would expect.

All that and more, with some choice Ozzie quotes.

they should worry about staying ahead of Boston or the Yanks, now.

i mean honestly if i'm a NY or Boston fan, I might be more worried than if I'm a White Sox fan. Cleveland looks postseason bound, division title or not.

I didn't think it was possible for the Sox to miss the playoffs, but looking at the standings and seeing how terrible they are playing now I'm not sure (although the Post Season Odds report makes it seem pretty unlikely--plus the Yanks and Red Sox have at least 3 games against one another don't they?)

Yay!

Back down you go! What a good game.

another great game.

anyone notice that these games have turned entirely on WALKS? all of these two run shots have come on the heels of walks, as did the tribe taking the lead on monday and tying it up in the 9th last night.

I'm too invested in seeing the ChiSox bounce to separate my frustration w/ the Indians & my appreciation for some good ol' fashioned awesome playoff-stretch-run baseball. But, yeah, sure, I'll buy the "great game" talk. Also, FFS, Hawk, PRETEND YOU'RE A BASEBALL ANNOUNCER.

omg what just happened?? my fucking cable went out RIGHT as Rowand was approaching the wall. he fucking homered, didn't he? fuck.

Yeah, the CSN feeds went down - for both Sox and Cubs - last night.

I didn't get mine back until the sixth inning. Some people in the 'burbs didn't get it at all.

It's funny 'cos the game the other night topped the ratings, so I imagine that's a lot of pissed-off people. And that's not counting the games in bars.

Oh, them bases on balls.

Christina Kahrl of BP on the worst game announcers:

"Pretty much all of the legacies are terrible, Buck less than Brennaman and Chip Caray (I think Skip's graduated to a different class). But I think in a class all to himself is Hawk Harrelson, the game's worst homer, the man who would rather talk about his successes on the links than pay attention to the game, because he's lazily comfortable in his ump-baiting and unblinking, Goebbels-like boosterism."

This shit is why I try not to care too much about sports. It makes my stomach hurt to think about it.

Okay, people don't like Hawk. Fine. He's easy to laugh at.

But the level of bitchiness - to the point of obsession - is astonishing.

Goebbels-like

Jesus. And it's realllly ironic, too. I can't believe how flagrant
these people are....

morb you're like chuck eddy with his vv links

clearly that BP guy is a fucking idiot

Congratulations on the AL Central title, Cleveland. You deserve it.

does Cleveland have ANYBODY on their team batting below .300 right now?

Do they have the best AL team batting average? I'm too lazy to check. Anyway, they are impressive. As a baseball fan, sure, I love the team. totally awesome what they are doing right now.

as pessimistic by nature as I am, tho, not ready to concede the central, I'm really not. McCarthy was amazing tonight. Again. Fucking Ozzie. fucking fucking Ozzie. Sticking with that piece o'crap for two games. If it comes down to the Sox losing by one or two games, all we have to do as Sox fans is point the finger directly at our Venezeulan friend for marching his garbage-ass Cuban friend out there when his garbage-ass Cuban friend didn't have SHIT in the tank. It's a disgrace.

i heard hawk harrelson say he'd take joe crede "over any third baseman in baseball - a-rod, rolen, anybody." and i know i heard this cuz it's quoted on that ihatehawkharrelson.com site.

Schnell!

travis hafner is so so so so so good it's sick

also chris karl is awesome

man last night's game was the third i've been to in the past month or so and they've lost all. sorry fellow sox fans. i'll stop going.

Oops, how's about I pay for you to attend some Angels & Yankees games coming up?

Throw in room/board/hookers and you got yourself a deal.

I mean fuck the one Bulls game I went to last season they totally blew it in the final minute against the HORNETS, who only wone like 5 or so road games the entire year.

Hey, oops - I was there, too! I guess I picked the wrong night.

Cleveland's defense might be its Achilles Heel as we head down the stretch. Royals beat them on a ball lost in the sun by Grady Sizemore, so the Sox catch a break and get their division lead back up to 2-1/2 games. With 4 games left against the Tigers and then 3 head-to-head with the Indians, and their magic # at 5, the Sox could clinch by Thursday night. 3 more wins, and the Sox are guaranteed of no worse than the Wild Card, too.