This Guy Fills Out the Lineup Card With the Worst of Them

Just as the Cubs's swift turnaround is Lou's doing, Jay feels everything wrong with the White Sox falls on Ozzie.

Hold Ozzie accountable

Finger of blame needs to be pointed at their popular manager when burned-out Sox lack energy, focus, commitment, passion

No. Finger of blame falls on underperforming players, aging players, injuries, and the front office not doing anything about it.

Not that managers tend to have more than like a 2-game influence on a team's final record, but if I had to rank MLB managers, I'd toss Ozzie just slightly below the middle of the road. He's not as stupid as the things he says. It's just that his glaring weaknesses get ridiculed while his main strength gets ignored.

Start with the weaknesses. He runs his players into outs. He doesn't care about on-base percentage as long as you can run. He bunts and sacrifice hits excessively because he doesn't understand that, especially with a team that projects to hit a lot of HR, it's dumb to trade an out for a base. In essence, he's a poor offensive manager.

There's one very important thing he should get credit for. Ozzie, historically, has had a very low tendency to abuse his starting pitchers, removing them almost always before the dangerous 120-pitch mark regardless of performance. The way Ozzie keeps his starting pitchers healthy and durable came in handy in 2005, when the playoffs proved that there were no signs of fatigue after a long season.

More than once, I've been asked this spicy little question on national TV and radio: Should the White Sox fire Ozzie Guillen? And each time, I wasn't the only one who considered it a very fair subject, with two out-of-town commentators and a distant talk-show host suggesting the Blizzard of Oz blow away amid a revealing 76-92 demise since last July.

So like, 3 dudes agree with you, and you can't even provide their names. And for those who like to keep track, this paragraph contains the obligatory "Blizzard of Oz" reference. Seriously, explain to me how a hothead like Ozzie is a "blizzard". Just because it rhymes with "wizard" doesn't make it clever.

Only in Chicago is it considered a moot and even blasphemous point, mostly because hypnotized media sheep let Sox management dictate their thoughts instead of thinking independently.

Let me ask you something, Jay. When a person always takes the viewpoint controversial to the mainstream as you do, is that thinking independent? No, no it is not. Your opinions are one hundred per-fucking-cent dependent on what most people DON'T think.

As the slip-slide continues, chairman Jerry Reinsdorf has made it clear his beloved manager isn't part of the blame, which prompts general manager Ken Williams to echo the executive-suite sentiment, which prompts local mouthpieces to disseminate Soxpaganda.

Soxpaganda....weak sauce, dude, weak.

Truth is, while Williams let fungus grow on the ballclub and has been slow to the acquisition switch since last summer's trade deadline,

Stop, stop right here. This is the one time you are right in this entire article. Williams made no effort to win now with a win-now team. He decided to watch them age instead, and not address gaping holes at SS, LF, and CF (no, Erstad is NOT a solution....contenders don't compete by replacing bad players with slightly less bad players). Too bad that's a comma there after "deadline" and not a period.

the Sox still have underperformed by eight to 10 games in each of their last two halves of baseball.

Actually Jay, when you're given the aging of the team's players, the fact that Dye, Crede, and Thome had coincidental career years last year and were bound for regression, and the fact that the bullpen way overperformed in both 2005 and 2006, it's pretty reasonable to expect the team to lose 90 games like PECOTA projected. Do you really think that Ozzie is to blame for Dye's .227 EqA or injuries to Dye, Thome, Crede, Erstad, and Podsednik? (Granted the last two suck, but the guys replacing them are even worse) Do you?

And for that flaw, yes, you should fault Guillen.

Yes, despite the fact that there are 6 above-average players on the team this year, it's Guillen's fault that they aren't winning. A couple others (Terrero, Danks, Podsednik when healthy) have been mediocre, and everyone else has been bad-to-terrible. Granted, Ozzie doesn't put high OBP guys at the top of the lineup, in front of HR-hitting guys, like he should, but remember this fact, Jay....HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY. HE HAS TWO ABOVE AVERAGE HITTERS ON THE ENTIRE TEAM.

You should because the Sox too often lack energy, focus, commitment and passion -- variables that are his daily responsibility. They look burned out, and don't discount the possibility that he personally has applied the burnout with his nonstop onslaught of episodes, incidents, stunts, slurs and F-bombs.

You know, I bet the Sox players didn't injure themselves. Guillen's stunts and slurs caused Joe Crede to undergo season-ending surgery. His F-bombs accelerated the aging process. Because of Guillen's lack of responsibility, Juan Uribe is sporting a passionless, burned-out .219 EqA and is still the club's best option to play everyday at shortstop. (somehow, that number is lower than last years' when he had a .257 OBP)

When a team wins a World Series, follows with a 53-27 record in last year's first half and then takes one of the most sudden and bizarre nosedives I've seen in sports, the manager should be front and center on any accountability list.

Here's the problem with Jay's columns. He only really says one thing throughout the entire article. Each new sentence, paragraph, etc. is just a new way of repeating his wrong opinions. For example, this one right here, I could just reply like this again, because he hasn't said anything new.....

"Yes, despite the fact that there are 6 above-average players on the team this year, it's Guillen's fault that they aren't winning. A couple others (Terrero, Danks, Podsednik when healthy) have been mediocre, and everyone else has been bad-to-terrible. Granted, Ozzie doesn't put high OBP guys at the top of the lineup, in front of HR-hitting guys, like he should, but remember this fact, Jay....HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY. HE HAS TWO ABOVE AVERAGE HITTERS ON THE ENTIRE TEAM.

You know, I bet the Sox players didn't injure themselves. Guillen's stunts and slurs caused Joe Crede to undergo season-ending surgery. His F-bombs accelerated the aging process. Because of Guillen's lack of responsibility, Juan Uribe is sporting a passionless, burned-out .219 EqA and is still the club's best option to play everyday at shortstop. (somehow, that number is lower than last years' when he had a .257 OBP)"

The Sox program is stale, flat and not worth the price of admission, much less a $108 million payroll outlay that ranks fifth in the major leagues. So how do you not point at least a finger or two at Guillen?

Because Ozzie Guillen doesn't have anything to do with on whom that $108M is spent? You know what, forget it, I'm not here. Ignore that stupid, unreasonable blind guess of mine. Ozzie's fault. You win.

Even if he shoots a middle finger back.

::chirp::

The Sox have not capitalized on their championship, fading quickly as a local story and losing much ground in their stated quest to dent into the Cubs' massive popularity.

When was that quest announced? I'm curious, when the hell did they decide that was more important than winning?

TV ratings have dropped dramatically -- not helped by a depressing Hawk Harrelson, who goes silent for long stretches during losing skids -- and the organization seems to be in a panic state.

If it weren't so funny, I'd wish Mariotti and Harrelson would quit vying for the immortal title of "I'm not as much of a dumbass as he is."

The Guillen era has been fun and triumphant, but it also was a one-and-done proposition filled with headaches.

Name one team that has won the World Series twice in the past 7 years.

I don't even want to continue with this. Running short on time, and all this nonsense makes my head hurt.