Spring training won't be dull if White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen has his way.
He's gonna call someone a fag again?! Great!
As Guillen talked Tuesday about the additions of third-base coach Jeff Cox and bullpen coach Juan Nieves to his staff, he emphasized the Sox will change their preparation radically in an effort to improve dramatically from their 90-loss season.
"You're going to see a lot of crazy stuff in spring training, regardless of the baserunning," Guillen said during a conference call.
Let me just say that Ozzie Guillen is pretty clearly already crazy, based on the quotations you will find if you search for his name on this blog. So when he says, "You're going to see a lot of crazy stuff in spring training," he's basically saying he's going to like drive a Volvo onto the field in the middle of the game, and dress his players up like '30s gangsters, and maybe have guys run right across the mound to second on grounders to the infield, and possibly like fire guns in the air during pre-game pepper drills.
"You're going to see hit-and-run [plays] when it's not a hit-and-run situation. You're going to see people bunting when it's not a bunting situation.
That...that is awesome. A guy who already loves to do two stupid things -- bunt and hit-and-run -- is now telling us that he is going to start doing these things more. Doing them when the situation doesn't even "call" for them. This is the equivalent of saying, "I'm going to start intentionally walking guys with runners on first and second with no outs after an 0-2 count." Or: "I am going to buy extended warranties from Circuit City for products I didn't even purchase."
"Maybe people are going to criticize me for the way we're playing in spring training, but we have to go with a different approach. In spring training we're going to turn the switch on right away."
Someone should remind Dumb-Dumb here that the 2005 team that won the WS was 4th in the league in HR, first in caught-stealings, and had four great starters and a fantastically over-performing bullpen. They did not win because they didn't bunt enough. They won despite how much they bunted and foolishly got caught stealing. Ozzie Guillen is a moron.
Even before Guillen fired Razor Shines and hired Cox to take over, he hinted at such changes.
Cox, 51, will take on more duties in overseeing the bunting and hit-and-run drills, along with former major-league manager Buddy Bell, who was named director of minor league instruction and will help implement the emphasis on bunting and situational hitting at all levels.
Someone in Chicago needs to stop these people. They are dooming this franchise to another 100 years of title-less baseball.
Guillen worked with Cox for three seasons in Montreal and Florida (2001-03) but became impressed with Cox's work in Kansas City in 1995 and said his upbeat personality could fulfill the humor that was missing last year when goofy bullpen catcher Man Soo Lee returned to South Korea.
Reasons the White Sox Stunk Last Year: aging players, injuries, bad starting pitching, bad relief pitching, too much bunting, too much dumb strategy, not enough good hitters.
Not a Reason the White Sox Stunk Last Year: humor void caused by goofy bullpen catcher Man Soo Lee returning to South Korea.
Cox played in 61 games with Oakland in 1980-81. He put down 11 sacrifice bunts in 59 games with the Athletics in 1980, including four squeeze bunts.
Yup. That's the dude you want instructing your hitters. The guy who hit .213/.273/.231 with a 45 OPS+.
The Sox have been lacking in executing hitting fundamentals over the last two seasons. They struck out 1,149 times in 2006 and their .318 on-base percentage was the worst in the majors.
The strikeouts are meaningless. The 2004 Red Sox led the league in Ks and won the World Series. Philly, Colorado, and Cleveland were all in the top 7 in MLB in Ks this year and they all made the playoffs. It's the OBP you should worry about. You know what doesn't increase a team OBP? Sac bunts, dumbasses.
"I'm tired of being afraid to put on the hit-and-run because we don't know if we're going to put it in play," Guillen said. "I'm tired of striking out.
Hey -- I have an idea. Don't put on the hit-and-run.
Guillen warned everyone not to be surprised if A.J. Pierzynski is laying down a bunt or executing a hit-and-run in spring training, and that even the core hitters (Paul Konerko, Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye) will be asked to work on situational hitting.
You seriously want to try to make Jim Thome try to move runners over with ground balls? You want to make Paul Konerko go the other way, instead of letting him just do his thing? Really? That's your solution? Trying to strip your only power hitters of their power? What else you got in store for the off-season, genius? You going to sign David Eck--
The Sox could give [SS Juan] Uribe a $300,000 buyout and attempt to re-sign him if they fail to land a free agent like David Eckstein, who can bat leadoff and play shortstop, or fail to trade for a younger shortstop.
Eck and the ChiSox. A match made in heaven.
Labels: david eckstein, ozzie guillen, smartball
