posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 1:46 AM by Jim

Schedule doesn't offer relief, either

The White Sox released their tentative 2008 schedule.  Some initial thoughts:

*The season starts on March 31 -- look for Greg Walker going double-barrell on aerosol cans in the dugout if it's as cold as it was last spring.

*They'll play the visitor to Cleveland's opening day, which could turn into some sort of ring ceremony should they win eight more games.  It'd be fun to see a play on Travis Hafner's "throwing up in the bathroom" quote.

*September will be brutal -- 21 of the 27 games that month will be against teams who finished this season over .500.  The games against the sub-.500 squads -- Minnesota and Kansas City, three apiece -- are on the road.  They finish August on a weekend series in Boston, so make that 24 of 30.

***************

Watching the Diamondbacks this October, can one make the claim that the Arizona bullpen is what the White Sox bullpen was supposed to look like?  They've assembled some hard throwers with shaky track records, but they've produced far better results.

Juan Cruz is Mike MacDougal with fewer health problems.  Cruz struck out 12.8 batters per nine innings (out of nowhere), but he's also posted ERAs higher than 6.00 in two separate seasons.

Tony Pena isn't all that different from David Aardsma, as far as I can tell.  Pena had 30 innings and a 5.58 ERA under his belt entering the year, and went on to work 85 serviceable innings.  Aardsma, meanwhile, was banished to the minors after July 4, never to return.

Jose Valverde and Bobby Jenks has both experienced highs and lows in the closer role, and Nick Masset and Dustin Nippert are equally disappointing sinkerballers.  Doug Slaten and Boone Logan are tall lefties with good fastballs and big breaking balls.

Valverde and Cruz entered the season with the best track records of the bunch, but neither were what you'd call rock solid entering the season.  In fact, outside of Nippert over Masset, there isn't one guy in the Arizona bullpen who would've signaled an upgrade in the White Sox bullpen before the start of the season -- and Nippert's not that good.

The Sox bullpen finished the year with a 5.49 ERA and a 1.61 WHIP; Diamondbacks relievers finished with a 3.95 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP.

Kenny Williams has to make changes to the bullpen this offseason -- there's no way he could sleep at night otherwise, even if he had a good plan that played out worse than anybody could reasonably expect last year.

At the same time, I'm prepared to be frustrated by investing resources in a "proven reliever" when they can thrive or fall flat on their faces from year to year.

The Baltimore Orioles spent nearly $12 million on Danys Baez, Chad Bradford and Jamie Walker in 2007, yet finished with a worse bullpen ERA than the White Sox for roughly five times the cost.  Look at the trade between Milwaukee and San Diego a couple of months ago -- proven Scott Linebrink didn't help Milwaukee's bullpen much, while the no-namer the Brewers sent in return -- Joe Thatcher -- dominated lefties in September.

The Padres are another lesson  -- their collection of cast-offs, rookies, retreads and Trevor Hoffman ended up with the league's lowest bullpen ERA at 3.06.

This is why I'm never enthused with trading valuable commodities for relievers, no matter who they are.  I'm expecting that the Sox will sink $3-4 million into a reliever, or, worse yet, trade Jon Garland for one.  At the same time, I'm holding out hope that Williams will once again collect interesting arms instead.

Only this time, they throw more strikes.

Comments

# The bullpen

Friday, October 12, 2007 12:19 PM by Arrow
The Sox bullpen strategy -- stockpile cheap live arms -- was a sound one. Like any strategy, there are times when it won't pay off, and this year was one of them. The basic evaluative question they have to answer is whether these guys sucked because they all had off years at once, or because they really aren't any good. If it was the latter, then they need to dump them and find other live arms, but if it was the former they should be able to expect rebound seasons from many of them.

# re: Schedule doesn't offer relief, either

Friday, October 12, 2007 3:07 PM by onlysoxfaninboston
I don't fault KW entirely for assembling the bullpen like he's done in the past, and he should continue with a similar approach. Its a gamble, but at least its cheap. The Sox have multiple weaknesses to address throughout the organization. For example, that $3-4 million could be used to sign a couple draft picks you know.

# re: Schedule doesn't offer relief, either

Friday, October 12, 2007 7:13 PM by Gregory Pratt
So, you mentioned awhile ago a 99 word sentence by Peter Gammons.

I dropped a perfectly structured, perfectly put 178 word sentence on my Poli-Sci professor in a "B+" paper I wrote.

It was a B+ paper because I had an 80 word sentence in there at one point and a 178 word sentence, both of which were perfectly sound sentences but which betrayed the fact that I didn't edit as well as I could've or should've.

But still, it was a happy day.

# re: Schedule doesn't offer relief, either

Saturday, October 13, 2007 1:46 AM by Jim Margalus
Basically all the bullpens left in the playoffs were built on the cheap. The Indians' best arms are ones they didn't pay for; Gagne was a bust for the Red Sox, and Fuentes is the only money arm on the Rockies.

I'd probably dock for 178 words, too. But let's see what the Peter Gammons generator can crank out:

"That there is a flaw in John Schuerholz's brillient team, it is in not quite being able to truly land an Elmer Dessens (who is to Los Angeles sportswriters what lead singer Taylor Molina was to Kneecaps, except that he, like Todd Linden with his time machine, has a better chance of a post-career career, in his case becoming a driver) to anchor a staff that would otherwise rival only that of the Rockies with Jeff Francis, and though sources tell us that Bobby Cox is working harder than anyone anywhere (including the entire city of Bloomington) with Chuck James to stop being so pretty, the Braves still hold out hope for Anthony Lerew to mature, and Blaine Boyer."

That's 119 words. So, yeah. 178 needs a period.

# re: Schedule doesn't offer relief, either

Saturday, October 13, 2007 2:24 AM by Gregory Pratt
Peter Gammons doesn't know how to spell brilliant?

# re: Schedule doesn't offer relief, either

Saturday, October 13, 2007 4:31 AM by MattTheRock
I'll just say this. Suck it Valverde.

# re: Schedule doesn't offer relief, either

Saturday, October 13, 2007 6:18 PM by Jim Margalus
"Peter Gammons doesn't know how to spell brilliant?"

Probably not, but he is notorious for needing an editor:

http://www.humbug.com/diamond/notes.html

# re: Schedule doesn't offer relief, either

Wednesday, October 24, 2007 3:31 PM by Roy Dean Bream
They MUST get more for Garland. Trading a starter for a reliever makes very little sense and is a terrible waste of resources.

Most relievers are failed starters. Relievers are made, not born. They are also unreliable. Marte and Vizcaino have been able to get people out since they left after 2005. Why? Keith Foulke was all but done until he resurrected himself in Oakland and Boston.

Hiring Nieves to help Cooper is a good move. The Sox have some raw talent in that pen, and they will be cheap mistakes that only cost them Neal Cotts, Ross Gload and Joe Borchard as opposed to expensive ones.