We are almost at the All Star break and what Cub or Sox is the Biggest LETDOWN?

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Soto on the Northside

Alexei on the Southside

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Frank must be at the game I hear a jag say Ahhh Choo before the pitch is thrown to Choo

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

The entire 2009 Chicago Cubs (Excluding the Starting Pitching)

The White Sox fans for actually beleiving all of HAWKS preseason
bullshit. Everybodies great,best young arm in baseball,best looking hitter,
blah,blah,blah. He is Jerry's Mouthpiece!

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

I doubt that he's near any of the crowd mics this time.

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-"God is great. Beer is good. And People are crazy!"

Alexei isn't so much of a letdown because his #s last year were the result of a few distortions. Few debut players carry a .300+ batting average into the next season (calling Freddy Sanchez), especially when that batting average is backed up by a measly on-base percentage.

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Ernie Broglio.

Gordon Beckham. I thought with his calling up the Sox would have clinched by now!!!!



Ok really I would have to say Marmol or Soto.

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I do not buy that for a minute. White Sox fans were on cloud nine about Alexei after last year and his expectation level for this year was through the roof. So far this year he has been a huge letdown.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

White Sox fans should have tempered their expectations.

Alexei finished the season with a .290/.317/.475 line. "One of these things is not like the other..." His BABIP was a little high at .296 but not alarmingly so. What sticks out is the 77:18 k/bb rate and a ground-ball rate approaching 50% - this season he's hitting 51% on the ground and his fly-ball rate has dropped by 3%.

You don't have to "buy" anything, RFDC. I realize what I say about the Sox seems to annoy you for whatever reason, but you can't deny that there were plenty of warning signs that popped up during Alexei's rookie campaign.

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John Danks

BD, I'd agree about Danks, but he's been severely unlucky this season. According to Fielder Independent Pitching, which is a self-explanatory stat measured on an ERA scale, his 5.10 ERA is bloated and distorted (much like the double-disc reissue of Pavement's first album... hey hey!)

Also, pitchers on average tend to have a BABIP of .300. Danks' pitching BABIP was .299 in 2008 - this season it's .323. I'd expect Danks to finish the season with similar stats to last year, as there was nothing too far out of the ordinary to indicate that his 2008 season was a fluke. He's just been somewhat "unlucky" this season, and when pitchers are going through rough periods like that, where nothing seems to go their way, it looks horrible and we believe the pitcher is somehow worse than he actually is. On the other hand, when a player is extremely lucky and play well beyond their ability, everyone wants to hand the guy a Cy Young Award or crown him Rookie of the Year.

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Suckers, does any Sox player deserve to be labeled as a letdown? So far you find excuses for them.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Quentin- another injury in a career of injuries now has me questioning him as a cornerstone

Fields- as I said in another thread, I expected bad D and strikeouts, but I also expected power.

Danks/Floyd- for al the statistical "return to the mean" crap about Floyd, he has shown over the last 5 or so starts that he can indeed be a good starter in this league...which fully justifies disappointment over his start to the year

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Jim Hendry and Kenny Williams

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What I should have said about Alexei is that he's more of a fluke / marginal major leaguer than a letdown. If you don't have high expectations for a guy, the discrepancy between that and his poor performance doesn't belong in the discussion of "biggest letdown."

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Ok, so who on the Sox do you view as a letdown this year?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I think the biggest letdown in Chicago baseball wore #27 during the 2007 disasterous White Sox season, hitting 20 homers playing the bulk of that season for an injured Joe Crede at third base. Last year, he wore #22 and was injured the bulk of last season for both the Sox & Triple "AAA" Charlotte. This year, he wore #22 until Scott Podsednik's return, and when Jerry Owens was sent packing, he started sporting #7. He's supposed to be the third baseman for the Chicago White Sox, until his team-high 53 K's & Wilson Betemit's atrocious defense in very limited action prompted Gordon Beckham's call-up from Charlotte late last week...The biggest letdown in Chicago baseball this year is JOSHUA Fields.

Where do you start for the Cubs? All of the following are leading candidates:
Soto- his reporting to camp a little haeavier probabally played a part on his earlier injury which he has yet to overcome
Zambrano- His child-like tirades and temper tantrums are really becoming an annoyance more than it has been in the past, since his numbers aren't justifying his behavior
Bradley- His predicted injuries and suspensions have come to light once again. But now us Cub fans have the privelege of seeing it first hand on a daily basis.
Ramirez- Only because he got hurt. The injury is more of a disappointment than Aramis himself.
Derek Lee- He really needed to get off to a good start to sway off the haters but now Lou is feeling the pressure to sit him more often. Lee's defense has been less than stellar this year as well which was always one thing that we can count on.

But the award goes to.......(drum roll).......

Milton Bradley. aka. Jacque Jones.. I have to give Milton the award because he just signed a huge contract and was expected to deliver immediately. All we have seen is that he can still bump umpires, and still get injured. But throw in a sub .200 batting average, and we have a major disappointment.

I think the Cubs should've known how much of a loose cannon & injury risk Milton Bradley was before they signed him in the offseason. Buyer beware...

agreed. Fields has easily been the most aggravating for me. his name should be Josh Errors.

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@audioidkid

JOSHUA does the trick for me, Doug. No White Sox game goes by these days without a whiff, as Dan Patrick might say...He's on pace for 200 or more strikeouts this season!

I'll second those both ... good calls.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

I think my horse is pulling away from the pack.

Cubs' GM Jim Hendry should have done his homework before signing Milton Bradley to such an outrageous contract. He's injury prone, a loose cannon, and he's as bad a right fielder as a certain fraud who also plays for the Chicago National League Ballclub in left field. I don't know about you, but watching Alfonso Soriano dog balls in left is becoming an embarrassment as when he butchered second base for the Yankees & Rangers before Frank Robinson ordered Soriano to play left for the Nationals and initially refused. Soriano, Bradley & Carlos Zambrano are making the kind of $$$$ that won't be easy to get off the books financially and will be problems the Cubbies will be stuck with for years to come...

Pinella & Hendry are the Cubs 2 biggest disappointments this year.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan