completely useless by september: only two weeks left

initially, i did make good on my promise to give you a hearty helping of statistical analysis on the cubs, however, a freak mozilla error eradicated my post from the realm of existence. that said, i'll try a condensed version for your reading disdain:

the cubs, obviously, made a big statement when they went out and acquired nomar garciaparra from the venerable boston red sox. even moreso than his ~.320+ish average since joining the cubs, he has made a bigger impact on the psyche of the team. jim hendry, layman's term for "baseball mastermind", went out and told his ballclub that he believes in their world series chances by giving up a potentially solid end-of-the-game bullpen guy in francis beltran.

all in all, the trade was a steal for the cubs, even though i wouldn't be surprised to see that justin jones prospect flourish in a twins uniform within 2-3 years. even if nomar is a rent-a-player, the message has been steadfastly delivered to the team: the tribune co believes in them.

since that fateful trade, the cubs have managed to fight for the lead in the wild card race. they have to be the most favoured team in that race, as the giants and padres both are quality .500+ teams, however, neither of them have the depth to supplant their majorly-talented stars (barry bonds, jason schmidt, phil nevin, brian giles, jake peavy) and thanks to having the end of the rotation feature 300 game winner greg maddux, especially in the realm of pitching, you'd think that the cubs have a clear advantage.

problem is, the cubs have had bullpen woes this season. farnsworth looks to be drinking again as his inconsistency has actually became consistency, however in terms of the downside. he's been shelled in his last 7 outings (~7IP, 10 ER, 0-something). for a guy who has all of the physical tools to not only be a quality reliever, moreover a dominant closer, he certainly doesn't have it all together in his head: where stoicism is needed most.

up until friday, when the cubs bullpen singlehandedly (or well, three-handedly) managed to blow two out of three games against the NL-West leading dodgers, i was sold on the cubs top concern being the status of mark prior. yes, i wholly admit that such a statement sounds preposturous on the surface, but up until a start last week in Colorado, prior had managed to run his era upwards to something like 5.05, with high walk totals complementing a lack of Ks that would have kept pace with last season, or even 2002 where he averaged something like 12.7 K/9IP.

also, this season, opposing teams seem to have figured out a good strategy to potentially beat the cubs' mighty starting staff: take pitches. rather than swinging at pitches 1-3, if you can force the cubs pitchers to have 7-10 pitch at-bats, knowing that they're still on a somewhat short leash due to earlier injury problems, you can garner a walk, cheap base hit, or ultimately knock the starters out of the game from, say, the 5th-7th innings. this tactic doesn't apply to greg maddux, who has emerged to be one of the cubs most consistent pitchers during the month and a half since last we spoke. still, that said, i wouldn't necessarily count on maddux in, say, a one game wild card playoff up against jason schmidt... but for a fifth starter, i dont think that you can do much better than good ol mad-dog.

so that said, the cubs' bullpen is the key concern. as the cubs progress down the stretch, despite injuries to wood and prior giving them "breaks" during the season, you have to wonder if they will run out of gas in october once again, akin to last season. if the cubs' bullpen is indeed shaky and indeed not something that dusty baker can turn to without causing some fear, then the starters will invariably watch their pitch counts rise, which as we discussed before, is a quality tactic to beat the cubs' 4 "power" starters.

nevertheless, i will focus on yesterday's games in a new post, which you probably have read before this one. take care.

month and a half? well, one team's dead.

welcome back to cicerockstarbaseball: i was on sabbitical.

since we last wrote, the chicago baseball picture has started to get clearer and clearer. while 60 games are certainly a pretty good number, by the time you get to the triple digits you start figuring out which teams are for real.

in the case of the chicago white sox, unfortunately, once again the supposed surplus of talent didnt materialize. couple that with two key injuries to the two most potent bats in the lineup and you've got one patented roasted ballclub (the "hot ballclub" is the patented hawk harrelson sammich).

friends, the demise of the 2004 chicago white sox is now officially upon us. in the last week alone, the general manager has come out and lambasted the perceived lack of desire in the team. meanwhile, sports talk radio shows are proclaiming the death of the ballclub in the foreground while ozzie guillen starts to lament and take the blame in the background.

simply put, the white sox just weren't a deep enough team pitching-wise to compensate for their lack of a non-station-to-station offensive ballclub. the white sox' lineup is predicated on the omnipresent threats of frank thomas and magglio ordonez. while thomas clearly isn't the dominating force he was in the early to mid 90s, he still draws his fair share of walks (i think he managed to get around or top 100 by the time he went down with his season-ending injury) which acutally ends up being formidable when teamed up wit hhis modest .275/35/110 type power numbers. magglio is a perennial .300+ hitter with 30-35 HR and 40 double power. he is far and away the white sox most consistent hitter, which he does with 30+ power. so you take those two away, you're exposing lesser-than-superstar players like carlos lee and paul konerko to the brunt of the pitchers' attention. while konerko and lee have enjoyed success ot the tunes of ~.280/25/110 type seasons, they tend to slide off of that pace when they're established as the #1 or #2 target of a pitcher's gameplan. not only that, but the onus is on them so they'll start pressing a little bit.

i can't knock konerko this season, though. while he still has his fair share of 0-4s, he is ~.275/28/75 or thereabouts. he's been pulling a pretty good # of 0fers, so he's a candidate to pull a konerko, aka have a sluggish second half that's about half or even less than half as good as the first half.

carlos lee was quite hot from i'd say the end of june into mid july, padding his #s up to something like .300/17/60, but since then he's slumped and remained pretty stagnant. then you still have joe crede hitting .233 (not rising up to .250ish like he did last season), juan uribe continues to hit poorly, albeit with decent power, nosediving at .260/15/45/10. when uribe was hot, he showed flashes of the potential he displayed as a rookie. maybe this is a necessary step in his career, as he showed what he ca ndo when he's on his game, now he has to physically and mentally condition himself to last for 150 games.

i would like you to know that while i type this, there's a whiny sox fan going off on the white sox' postgame radio show on a 3-5 minute rant about how he's pissed off at himself and his life for being tricked again into believing that the whitesox are a good team. he named every player on the roster as being a bum, complained about wasted pride, and said this is pathetic about 50 times.

what an amazing sedgway into pitching.

the whitesox pitching is very, very mortal. last year, esteban loaiza pulled a career year out of his arse and rode it to a 21-9 2.70ish 210K cy-young-runner-up-type-season. then buehrle is your #2; he was shelled early but recovered to have an era around or in the low 4s. then bartolo colon, an overpaid overrated yet very very solid and reliable pitcher was your apathetic #3, inconsistent garland was your #4, then a veritable crap shoot of free for all offensive games as your #5.

this year, loaiza regressed to being, well, loaiza, however the whitesox gave him a ton of runs. after a 9-5 start, those runs didn't stop him from having roy oswalt syndrome in surrendering almost every lead given to him during a monthlong stretch. with all that and a HR rate on pace for 35-40 in ~200 IP (whereas he gave up something like 17 all year in 230IP) he fell back to a #3. buehrle stepped up to a decent #1, but is really a pretty solid #2 or very good #3. jon garland had games where he pitched like a 1 or 2, but then he's had games where he's pitched like the free for all. his inconsistency keeps him at #4. scott schoeneweis started off good, going something like 4-1 or 5-1 with an era in the 2-3s. a good solid #2. but then, much like esteban loaiza, scott schoeneweis returned to scott schoeneweisdom pretty quickly, with his era skyrocketing into the 5s and then after his worst outing of the year (1 2/3 IP 7-8ER) they throw him on the DL to explain his magnanimous sucktiude.

then the sox got freddy garcia, who is having arguably his 2nd best year in the majors. in 2001 freddy won 18 games with an era i nthe low 3s, despite falling off in the last month or two of the season. the next two seasons he mired in mediocrity as a 4.0-4.5ish era .500 pitcher with a solid K rate. this year he pitched markedly better, but had no run support and a sub .500 w/l pct despite a 3.14 ERA up around the all-star break. the white sox acquired ihm, ans he's pitched pretty well, i'd say with an ERA in the 3.75-4.25 range with a little under 1K/inning. he's a solid #2 now.

now one thing i want to give the white sox credit for is the acquisition of jose contreras. i really like this move, despite some chicagoians' disagreement wit hme on this one. esteban loaiza gave you all you're ever going to get from him last season. for his career, going into this season he was 12 games over .500 (89-77, i believe). last year he was 21-9. so take that away, he's a career .500 pitcher with a 4.65/1.45 era/whip tandem, and well under 1K per inning. practically 1K every other inning or less (i dont have my fact sheet right in front of me at hte moment). this year follows the rest of his career almost identically, except that he managed to get 9 wins i nthe first half of the season. loaiza lost velocity going into this year, and now is suddenly exactly what he was before. it wouldnt surprise me if loaiza was on the juice last year, got 4-5 more MPH on his fastball, and played to get himself about 10-20 million dollars to retire on as he gets near the end of his career.

suffice to say, i think loaiza was going to do nothing for you this season, then was likely to part way swith the whitesox to end up with a team more desperate for pitching, also one who is willing to pay $7-8 million per year for 2-3 years for him. the whitesox traded this guy straight up for jose contreras, the defected cuban national star pitcher. last year he was 7-2 with a 3.30/1.04 mark, with approximately 75K in 70 IP. he's a power pitcher who can get mid 90s and use some power to blow by hitters. he's got talent, and it was thought that as he got more experienced in MLB he could improve on his stuff already and end up a really good pitcher. this year, contreras redefined incosnistent, getting shelled way too often despite spinning some dominant games. he was expected to be an instant stud in NY vbecause he was signed for $8-10 mil per year for 4 years right off the bat, and he never relaly lived up to those epxectations in 2004. i think that bore down on him, the nhe got reunited with his family. whe nthat happened, the new york fans pretty much said ok you'd better be an ace now. it didnt happen. so here's to the hope that getting out of the intense media/fan scrutiny of NY and coming to the chisox, a second city second team where disappointment is a way of life. there's less pressure on him here and more latin guys to hang out with. the hopes is that he finds a comfort zone then unleashes his potential and becomes a solid pitcher, as he's under contract through 2006.

contreras has legitimate potential to end up a 17-20ish type win pitcher with a 3.5 ERA, 230+ Ks and good durability. sure, right now staring at a 9-4 5.45/1.40ish stat line doesnt seem that reassuring. but what im saying is there's a decent chance that he could end up much better, certainly better than loaiza would ever be. so for a little more money, the white sox have a project pitcher who seems like he culd at worst be a solid .500ish innings eater to replace the sorely missed bartolo colon. great trade, kenny williams.

in the bullpen, billy koch never recovered from not being in toronto or oakland. when he comes down to 95 MPH and throws straight on batting practice heat, he either gets rocked or tries ot avoid throwing hittable pitches at all costs, which means walks. then when he has to get over the plate, the ownage from the offense starts. marte has been marte this season, jon adkins has emerged as a solid long reliever / slop inning type reliever. cliff politte continues ot get into pressure situations despite being a league-average at best lefthanded pitcher (~4.25/1.25ish type stuff), shingo takatsu has emerged and been effective for a 1.2something ERA through his first tour of the american league, but he just on this very night gave up his first save op in the form of a 3 run HR by matt lawton.

so basically, once the team gets in action, if it falls bejhind it gets in a rut, the depleted offense presses, and the pitchers feel like if they give up a run they're screwed. this team is afraid of blowing games like it has over the last couple of months, and it knows what can and will likely happen, and sometimes it trudges on like a beaten dog. losing your two best offensive pieces will be a detriment to any team, and unfortunately for the sox their other power hitters seem to be better suited to lurking in the shadows of a superstar type dominating hitter, feeding off of the lack of attention paid to them as opposed to the other more worrysome names.

the whitesox are 7 games behind minnesota, and truth be told i'd be very surprised if they caught the twins. the twins aren't anything special and will get crushed in the playoffs, that is, unless the spectacular johan santana can pitch 7 innings in every game. he's almost deservant of another post altogether, but after a pretty bad first two months, santana turned it on and has been far and away the best pitcher in baseball since, what, early to mid june?

he's been like 10-1 1.75 with something like 100+K in like 70 innings, and a whip around 0.,93-1.05. on a pretty decent baseball team, he's been the best in the game.

the cubs are starting to take off right now, and that's another big giant post like this one. i'm going to take a break for hte time being, but i promise you, my loyal non-existant readers, that the cubs rant will be posted by tomorrow: sunday, august 8th 2004.