vilehoopster

So, 42 huh? What question does that answer? Is that the least number of left-handed starters any team has ever seen in a season? Or is 42 the answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything? Or is it both?

I can't believe that too many left handed starters are going to want to face the White Sox this year. Also, I have to believe that a lot of managers are going to try to avoid starting a lefty against the Sox. Seriously, if you're an average left hander, even above or below average, are you going to want to go out and pitch against the Sox? I have to believe no. Now, I know every professional athlete has pride and confidence, but there has to be a point where any athlete (in this case a lefty pitcher) thinks about the odds and how the odds are not in his favor, and what would be best for his stats and his success. As the Sox are approaching on the schedule, I believe that managers will manipulate starting pitching rotations whenever reasonable and without throwing guys off pitching cycles to avoid putting a lefty out against the Sox this year. I mean 14 for 14 last year says a lot. Here's a question. Is it kept track of; is there a stat for how many left-handed starters a team faces in a year? If so, I have to believe the White Sox might set a record for fewest number of starting left handers faced in a year.

Glad that someone started this topic, very interesting. So here's my two-cents worth. First of all, Anderson pretty much has to lead off and Abreu has to bat 3rd. Both of them like being where they have been and both are huge leaders (probably the two biggest leaders) on the team. TLR all but has to bat them there. If he doesn't, I strongly believe it would be a big first step to losing the clubhouse. Plus they're both great there. I think Anderson is pretty much an ideal lead off man. He gets on base; charges the lineup with excitement and disrupts the other team; you want him getting as many bats as possible. Abreu is great batting 3rd. He is officially a great RBI guy; no longer in dispute. So here's my line up for next year. 1- Anderson 2 - Madrigal - high batting average - good bat control for hit and run or can take pitches for Tim to steal and still not strike out - will get on base that can be knocked in 3 - Abreu 4 - Moncada - I don't think he will start here, but I believe he will be so overpowering that he has to be moved here, smashing doubles and homers. I also, think he will be top- three in MVP voting this fall 5. Eloy - It's gotta be him 6. Robert - he won't start here, but will soon move ahead of Grandal to bat 6th -- look at the murderers row of Abreu, Moncada, Eloy, and Robert (who will explode in his 2nd year) 7. Grandal 8. DH -- Vaugh -- He will give us about .275 average and between 15 & 20 homers 9. Eaton/ Engel That's my prediction, and I'm sticking to it. Wow, is this gonna be a fun lineup to watch. Can't wait.

I just have a general set of questions about some possible and probable incoming players with Cuban backgrounds. 1.) First of all, has Norge Vera signed with the White Sox yet? According to posts on this forum, he was supposed to sign last week. Where is that situation at? 2.) There were some comments on here that Yoenis Cespedes has changed his agent/ management team at that he was now with the same agent team as several other White Sox players from Cuba. The belief or implication was that he would soon be a White Sox player. Has anything happened with this? 3.) And my last question is a tough one, sort of opinion based. When the Sox got Yoelqui Cespedes, he was, according to MLB.com, the No. 1 international player available in the draft. Marco Paddy bragged him up as major-league ready right now. I saw this and thought: There's our starting right fielder next year, in 2022. Yet, when I look at other ratings of international players, he is rated far down the list of best players, in some cases not even top-ten. What is going on here? Is it the usual difference of opinions between scouting services? Also, how reliable is Marco Paddy? I understand that he found and talked the Sox into Luis Robert. Did he discover Abreu? What is Paddy's track record with finding players? Thanks for any comments or insights.

Is the Percota total of season wins usually the same as the Vegas lines or the online betting places lines?? Because if it is, I'm gonna break my rule and do some betting that the Sox win over 83 games and the Cardinals win over 80.

Of course 4 at 25% doesn’t mean a guaranteed 100%, but if you do a 25% chance and do it twice, you have a 50% chance of success. So there is something to my logic.

So, I have a 21.7% chance of being correct. I'll take that.

I feel the exact opposite. I feel okay about our DH situation, but feel confident that, no matter who it is, we'll be much less bad than last year with EE. My optimism is with the back end of our starting rotation. All four guys there have pretty big upsides. I would say that Cease and Kopech have huge upsides (TOR stuff), and Rodan and Lopez have very good upsides (Let's say solid 3- starter upside). Now, I admit that these percentages are totally off my head, but I think there's some validity there somewhere, and I think I might be being a little conservative in my expectation here, but here goes: I think Cease has a 30% chance of approaching his huge upside in 2021. With Kopech, for the 2nd half of the season when he comes up, I would say he has a 25% chance of approaching his huge upside. I would say with Rodon, due to fear of injuries, he has a 20% chance of being a good 3-level pitcher for our World Series contender. With Lopez, I'll say a 10% chance of becoming a solid 3rd starter on a contending team. Now, add all those up: (and to a simplistic degree odds do work like this), with four options with strong upsides and the odds come to 85% likely that the Sox have, at least, one good pitcher from that group of four. I think there's a chance that the Sox are very strong with their 4th starter, strong to the point where if Keuchel takes a little step back from last year, the Sox will still be very strong in, at least, their 1st four starters. To be honest (and I am an optimistic fan), I think I devalued the odds for Cease, Rodon, and Lopez, but I think I overrated Kopech a little. But that is my weird logic about why I feel good about the back end of our starting rotation.

Oh my God! How many more threads are gonna be started bitching about the organization/ owner being cheap, about how we should have done this or done that or added this for that much money. I like Rick Hahn's Hoosiers quote, "Our team is on the floor." And it's a damn good team, a damn good one. It is exactly what we fan wanted; it's a World Series contender, a strong World Series contender. For all the bitching on this forum, that is all a fan can ever ask for. In this post and so many complaining others the "there's no guarantee" or "what if so and so gets injured, there's not quality backup". People are upset that, with this present line up (this team "on the floor") that for the White Sox to win the World Series, things really have to go right; they need to stay injury free. That complain is made over and over and over. Well . . . No Duh!! Every team ever is like that. If they don't have luck and stay injury free, they're not going to win the World Series. There's never a guarantee, never. Nobody in MLB has spent more money or had better personal or farms systems than the Dodgers and Yankees since the 2000s. Yet before this year, the Dodgers hadn't won a World Series before 1988 (That makes our 2005 win seem recent). The Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2009. No amount of money spent can guarantee a World Series and protect a team from injuries derailing a promising season. I got news for you guys: if Mookie Betts goes down either to injury or a bad slump and one of their top pitchers gets hurt for a long time, that $40 million on Bauer ain't gonna matter. Same thing with the Yankees or Padres, if they lose two important players, they're not making the World Series. So it's equally true for the White Sox. If one of our big pitchers go down and we lose one of our big bats, I got news for you, a back up LH bat and better back up catcher isn't going to matter. It ALWAYS comes down to a lot of luck and staying injury free, always. I'm excited to see what Vaugh can do. And I've said this before: I absolutely did not want Nelson Cruz, that steroid cheater. I don't want to cheer for a Cruz; I want a team I can be proud of. For all our complaining, I want to see what Collins can do, or to see a huge jump in performance from Cease. If we worked in the same office and could have a solid, hand-shake bet, I would bet that Cease has a better year than Musgrove or Taillon or whatever oft-injured pitcher somebody on here mentioned that the Sox have to have to "guarantee" success. To justify their complains, people on here are making statement and taking off with them like they're absolute facts. Come on, really? Are the Sox really not going to make the World Series because Joc Pederson is soooo much better than Eaton. Yet people are having shit fits on this board because we didn't sign Pederson. Or someone bitching about this back up infielder is so necessary when the Sox have Leury Garcia. Really? Are any of the many names listed on here THAT MUCH better than Leury? Ridiculous. For all of the complaining on this board, in my opinion, the rebuilt has been a total success, and we have to give Hahn and management credit for it. This White Sox team is what we wanted: It is a strong World Series contender and will be for, at least, four or five years. There are no guarantees (again, ask the Yankees and Dodgers fans). All fans can realistically ask for is the ownership and management to give them a a strong team, a team that is a serious World Series contender. And we have that, so if only for a minute or a thread or two, just stop bitchin'!

Merkin, the White Sox reporter said this in answering a fan question: The White Sox aren’t done, but, barring a trade, I’m not sure if there will be any more big-name additions. Now I have noticed that Merkin is pretty much the voice of the Sox front office; that's the way he's appeared to me in the years I've been following his stuff on MLB.com. He's pretty much saying no big signings are going to happen. Whatever might happen will be in a trade. So, I think we can put any talk of signing Bauer or even Cruz to sleep, because it looks like it ain't gonna happen. The trade point scares me. I hope we don't give up too much.

Edwin Jackson has an interesting article on MLB.com right now where he talks about all the cities he played in and which ones he like best for this reason or that reason. He listed Chicago as the best city for kids and for pizza. Anyway, he listed St. Louis as friendliest city and as having the best fans. It's pretty funny that he mentioned only one person he ever heard booed there. Can you guess? It's a former White Sox? Here's the quote: "The only place that I've never heard a person get booed, except for A.J. Pierzynski, is St. Louis," Jackson says. "They kinda cheer for everybody, and that's something you don't see anywhere." Here's the link, a good read, if it works. https://www.mlb.com/news/edwin-jackson-talks-favorite-baseball-cities

I really hope that there's a minor league season. Being down here in Indiana, I really look forward to Charlotte playing in Indy every year. It's great: cheap seats right down by the field, up close in a great park with easy in and out before and after game. Don't my seeing Charlotte from me two years in a row!

Am I the only guy that doesn't want Cruz because of this cheating with PEDs. I have said this before: you have to be naive to not think that Cruz is on on PEDs. I know he has never actually been caught, failed drug test caught, and only caught by connection to that whatever lab, but still, it's unreasonable to think he's not on them. The way he has gotten better in his upper 30s, his connection to PEDs in the past. Lance Armstrong when years and years winning Tour de France races, while not getting caught when everyone know he was on PEDs. So don't use his never failing drug tests as an example of his innocence. Plus many, many people on this forum have complained about his PED use in his years with the Twins. But now that he's available, we want his PED cheating ass with the Sox? That just seems so hypocritical to me, "He pisses me off that he cheating for Minny, but wait; now I want him to come cheat for the Sox". I don't want to cheer for a cheater; I don't. If that means the Sox win a few less game, so be it. But I think the Sox can be (and are right now) a World Series contender without the putting the odor of PED cheating on any success the Sox have in the upcoming years. Again, I don't want to cheer for a cheater.

OKay, that is good. Pretty funny.

Of course, he should have won MVP. He had the best statistical season and he was extremely valuable to his team in terms of leadership and creating a winning club house culture. He was the Most Valuable Player, in the entire league, to his team's success this year. I don't know how you could reasonably debate otherwise. War, bwar, FUwar are, to me, stats that seem to be the ultimate example of "not seeing the forest for the trees". I talked about my distrust of war on here repeatedly. All you need to know about the value of war, whichever war it was that year, is the example of two or three years ago, when Abreu had a year-end war barely above Yolmer Sanchez. They (and there were MANY on this Board) used this war to say how the White Sox should unload Abreu to the Red Sox for whatever they can get. They quoted war (again many, many posters and posts on this board) that the Sox should offer Jose one year, at most and not for even 10 million, to return to the Sox. If he won't take it, let him walk. That people are still using war to discredit or demean Abreu is shown in the quote I started with above. Even before this past MVP season this year, Abreu led the AL in RBIs and people were talking about his low war. It kills me. When a guy leads the league in RBIs and you're using war to show that the guy is not that good; well, that says less about the caliber of the player and more about how weak war is as a stat. Come on, people. You know who you are/were. Another knock I have with war is how ridiculously low Colome's war was. I had a long post on that one. People quote his war and imply he was barely above average, but he saved (not sure of this number, don't feel like looking it up) something like 42 of 46 games in the last two years. How can a closer have such a great save percentage, but barely be above average in war for relievers. it makes no sense to me. To me, war is the ultimate "can't see the forest for the trees" stat. And how it is/ was used to assess Abreu is my example of that.

Yeah, stay away Ass Faces !!! Can you imagine an outfield of Colas, Robert, and Cespedes in two or three years. That is so beautiful to think about.

I agree; the trade of Lopez for seems like a natural for both clubs. Pretty much, both organizations and fan bases have soured on the two players. I have to believe both sides see the loss of their player as very, very minor. Yet both have big upsides that could really plug a hole that the other teams needs. Lopez has something that if you could find it and tap into it, would give you a very solid starting pitcher. Boston needs pitching, and again, Boston has soured on B. There is nowhere for Lopez to be of value to the Sox. The bullpen is loaded. People who think maybe Lopez in the bullpen, do you really want to see him jogging out to take the ball with a guy on 1st and the Sox holding a one or two run lead in the 6th or 7th inning? Do you want that? I sure don't. On the other hand, Benintendi could plug several different holes for the Sox: An insurance if Eaton gets hurt, we still would have a left hand bat to put in right field. Another left-handed bat to DH or play in left field if Eloy is sitting or hurt. Again, he has a really big upside that it seems worth the Sox time to try to find. Could the Sox make this happen if they threw in a minor minor leaguer, the equivalent of a Weems? Too me, the Sox lose nothing in moving Lopez. He's like a college junior part-time starting power forward, and the coach has brought in two freshmen forwards who are clearly better than the returning player. Like this junior forward, Lopez doesn't have a spot anymore. The Sox have recruited over Lopez's talent level. So why not move him.

I’d rather have Q.

I know you see yourself as the smary, intellectual guy who points out to all of us the errors of our ways. To try to win your argument, you start with "your reality versus reality". I gave a reality: Hendriks has blown twice as many saves the last two years: hard, total reality, not my reality. The point of my argument (which I have since abandoned to cheer Hendrik's arrival with the Sox), is that people get caught up in minor statistics to the point of ignoring the most important statistics like save percentage and winning the game. (See, this is what the idoim/metaphor "not seeing the forest for the trees" means.) My point about winning deserves the most importance (over other statistics, worse than "damn liars") is absolutely true. Winning the game and the World Series deserves tunnel vision, and this is a reality that most people on this forum share with me. I know you know what "seeing the forest for the trees" means. I just wanted to give you a dose of your own pseudo-intellectualism. Like when you try to explain tunnel vision to me. I know, why don't you tell me I'm incorrectly using "overkill"', even though the guy used it perfectly correctly.

So you're basically hiding behind stats, "analytical" to ignore observable realities. Lol. There are liars, damn lies, and statistics. As true today as it was over a hundred years ago.

You just said this to get me going again on my Colome better than Hendriks argument, didn't you? Well, not taking the bait. I know, most of you are saying, "Thank God".

Okay, I said I was through on this topic and I keep posting but I have a question, a question not really on this topic but on my earlier twist on the topic. Is anyone else afraid that Colome is gonna end up in Minnesota with the Twins? Because I sure am.

Thank you for saying this. But really, I come here for the debate, the mental gymnastics for trying to prove my point and that I'm correct. I was doing pretty well for a while, but the point about getting a loss in earlier innings but not getting a save, I had no counter for that. Plus your point about how strikes out are more important with a, let's say, less-good defense behind you; is very true, and is a strong point why Hendriks is a better fit for the Sox next year than Colome. So welcome Hendriks and come on season and get here.

Okay, my last post on this topic. I am glad the Sox signed Hendriks. I am ecstatic that the Sox are willing to spend this type of money to win. But I am a loyalty guy and I hate to see Colome go; I hate to see it. Hendriks will come in and be great. I believe Colome would have been great (as I have debated the last couple pages). My first ever post on this forum was that the Sox should pay and keep Avi Garcia. The next day he was released, rather funny and ironic. It's really tough for me to see guys whom I cheer for and have helped the team go, so I argued/ debated that we should have kept Garcia and I argue that we should have kept Colome. Again, I love that we got Hendriks. There is no doubt that the Sox are clearly going for the World Series this year. The closer king is dead, Colome; long live the new closer king Hendriks. I'm behind him 100% God, oh God, I want the season to start soon. I am so excited for what is coming. I hope it isn't delayed too much.

This is a good point. I cannot think of a counter to this arguement/ point. You have me. Coming in without the opportunity for the save (but still get the loss), does show why the save percentage might skew in Colome's favor. A good point. You have me on this one.