SI1020
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Posts posted by SI1020
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3 hours ago, Balta1701 said:
Over a 13 year period Paul Konerko put up an .866 OPS. Jose Abreu has put up an .865 OPS over 6 seasons.
I kinda understand the vitriol for Abreu. It's people getting tired of statements like yours and constantly having to turn them around. He's a good but not great hitter. I have no problem keeping him around for another year or two. But that doesn't mean you have to oversell him, and it's not an insult to Abreu point out that you just ignored what Paul Konerko did over 13 years.
Actually Konerko is my all time favorite Sox 1bman. I even defended his defense a time or two. Not so great range but he could really scoop them. You might also want to note that Konerko earned only 27.7 WAR points over the course of a very productive career. I'm not putting Abreu on a pedestal. He's played on some of the lousiest White Sox teams ever and done well in spite of it. I just don't understand the desire to flip anyone with a modicum of talent for "prospects" who as we all see fail more often than not. Lastly, I also remember Konerko being savaged on Sox message boards, and not just in his early struggling years. I liked Konerko a lot. I like Abreu now. What's the problem?
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On 7/2/2019 at 12:33 PM, Quin said:
People that are able to do research and have evolving opinions.
I'll bet I've done more research than 90% of hard core baseball fans and I absolutely HATE sabermetrics. I guess I'm still an ape. Now as to the poster who mentioned RBIs. When we compute say a batting average we have a number that corresponds to 1.000 which would be a hit in every official at bat. Every time a batter comes up he has the potential to have at least one rbi. Figure out his rbi percentage like we do his BA and you'll more than likely see that those guys with hi rbi totals have them for a very good reason. They are productive with men on base. My biggest gripe with sabermetrics aside from the snide arrogance of its devotees is that the thumb is on the scale on all of their most hallowed stats. Not only that but these stats are continually revised as this or that formula is "tweaked." Kind of like Winston Smith and his job in the records department of the Ministry of Truth. Did you know that WAR has been recalculated numerous times? Baseball-Reference twice had massive readjustments in their Pitching and Fielding WAR stats. The way the all time rankings shifted was breathtaking and ridiculous at the same time. When I called them on it, asked for an explanation in detail they pretty much told me I was an idiot and go run along and play.
Now as to the subject at hand. I will never understand the vitriol so many Sox fans have had for Jose Abreu. He is the most productive hitter on the team since Frank Thomas. HIs BA has been down a bit this year but he has always been streaky and he's a hot streak or two away from approaching .300 at the plate. His defense is suspect but I like the way he scoops, and that is very important for me when it comes to a first baseman. Tim Anderson in particular owes him a bunch of steak dinners or arroz con pollo if Jose prefers something like that. He deserves his spot on the AL all star team.
I know this post will sink my already low rating down even further. I've been in love with data, stats of all kind since I was 6 and 1/2 years old and to me saying sabermetrics/analytics whatever is highly flawed is the understatement of the year. At least they still count wins and losses the old fashioned way. I wonder how long that will even last in today's bizarro world.
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23 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:
This is spot on especially the part about removing the luck along with a superstar having a down half a season and still would be our best player. The worst thing about loving Giolito or Moncada or Eloy and Anderson is that they have no sustained success and we cannot yet expect them to do well because any young player can get hot and then revert back to being bad. That is always the worry until they get a few good years in a row under their belts. It is the same thing with counting on Robert and Madrigal. All these players have so very little time actually being good and in the case of prospects not even good at the highest level. It's great to have hope and believe it's all working but there is nothing wrong with having as close to a sure thing as you can get.
Taylor Street couldn't have said Hahn was killing it 6 months ago. He shouldn't be claiming victory based on a few months of sample size. Not to mention all the other bad GM'ing things bmags brought up in Hahn's reign.
I'm glad you mentioned this. I take nothing for granted, especially where Giolito is concerned. He looked great in September of 2017 but was Jaime Navarro bad last year. Many thought Lopez had figured it out last year but now look at how he has regressed. In addition to dropping like flies young pitchers today are so inconsistent. I expect Moncada to be good from here on out and Jiminez to eventually be a top of the line hitter. Anderson is not baseball smart, makes way too many physical and mental errors and of course I hope he's healthy again soon. Yes, I agree. These guys must show sustained success and it will take time for us to properly evaluate them over the long haul.
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On 6/15/2019 at 10:54 AM, ptatc said:
Similar to baseball where they have a true minor leagues. Or like hockey where they have a working agreements with foreign leagues where the US team owns their rights to play in the US.
This way they can all make a living and not pretend to go to college for a year.
I for one think that is a very good idea and have been in favor of this or something similar for a long time. I don't want to see young athletes deprived of a chance to ply their craft but the situation in college sports is beyond a sham at this point. You could literally write a book (I think it's been done numerous times) about the disaster that is college sports in the USA today.
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6 hours ago, Dick Allen said:
Chuck Tanner has the managerial record for consecutive last place finishes.
Obviously, the better the roster, the better the manager. Bad players make smart moves not work. Good players make bad decisions work out. Good players win, bad players don't.
He does? Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's came in last place 1915-21 and 1940-43. When did Chuck Tanner top that?
https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/mackco01.shtml
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On 5/30/2019 at 7:10 AM, poppysox said:
It's odd that a smart baseball man like Ricky doesn't seem to feel it when a pitcher is losing it or a hitter needs to sit for a few days. Most of us can see those things and start buzzing on this forum before the roof caves in. None of us have Ricky's 40 years in the game and yet virtually all of us are mystified by some of his decision making. Ricky very obviously is not dumb and yet continues to out think him self. He doesn't even need to come up with anything clever. He has bench coaches and a pitching coach to suggest the smart thing to do. I do think he manages the clubhouse side of things very well...the game side not so much.
Bingo! I totally agree with you.
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9 hours ago, Chisox378 said:
You all attack me because I believe same sex marriage and homosexuality is a sin. You preach tolerance but you are the most intolerant of all.
Give it up. Stick with the White Sox and the game of baseball. Yes the left today is very intolerant. So is the other side, we live in very ugly times. I wonder if you feel like the words of this old tune? The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolosA great tune from a golden era. Written by Cole Porter. You should google him. The world is more complicated and nuanced than we want it to be.
As for the game. I had a gut feeling the Cubs would win and that Giolito would lay an egg. He was over due for a sub par outing. There's lots of promise on the Sox but they still have a long way to go. Lastly, I HATE losing to the Cubs.
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2 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:
I think it's very interesting to look back on the 2005 team with a mind towards value and advanced stats. I'd never done it before, but in thinking about how much "value" we need to contend, I think it's an interesting exercise...
Offensively, we had a total of 18.6 WAR. The things that stand out the most:
1) our DH absolutely SUCKED that year. Crazy Carl had a negative WAR of -0.2. Frank obviously did everything he could in limited time to gain a 0.4. We got basically nothing out of DH.
2) we didn't have an offensive player above 3.8 WAR. That's kind of shocking to me, considering how many I felt had "all star" type years in retrospect.
3) Many of our starters/everyday players - including fan favorites like Joe Crede, AJ and Pods - had WARs below 2, a value that I think most question whether the player should retain the job.
4) Timo Perez's WAR is truly fascinating
Pitching-wise, unsurprisingly, we had an amazing year. 4 pitchers above 3 WAR, with Buehrle having a career year. 23 WAR total for the staff (I know this is a dubious metric to evaluate relief on).
With all this said, and with seeing a core of Moncada, Anderson, and Giolito emerge as legitimate potential 4-6 WAR players, and with Eloy having the power and hitting potential to hopefully get to a similar level too, it makes me feel better that we don't necessarily need 9 3+ WAR starters offensively and 5 can't miss studs for our pitching staff. Even our amazing 2005 team had huge holes in some positions, and that's just the way it is on a baseball team, I think.
Yes absolutely. Make them give back the trophy and give it retroactively to the Cleveland Indians who had a six game lead over the White Sox in the pythagorean standings. That team was unworthy of a championship. Bill James told me so himself.
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On 6/5/2019 at 1:11 PM, poppysox said:
I'm not trying to denigrate any of our White Sox hero's of yesterday. But look at the careers of those you mention:
Landis .247 lifetime 10 year career 93 HR Peters 124 Wins 103 Loses 3.25 era 13 year career
Mincher .249 12 200 Horlen 116 117 3.11 11
Aparico .262 17 83 Locker 57 39 2.75 10
Cash .271 16 377 Lattman 59 68 3.91 9
Berry .255 13 58
Hershberger .252 10 26
Romano .255 9 129
Battey .270 12 104
I think most of todays fans will take the over on their expectations on what todays prospects will achieve.
Johnny Callison should also be on that list. Most of these players made an All Star team, many multiple times. For example Aparicio 13 times, Battey and Cash 5, Callison, Mincher and Romano 4. Callison, Berry, Hershberger, Landis, and of course Aparicio were all superb defensively. Bob Locker had one of the best sinkerballs ever, was very productive with the Sox and I would take him over anyone in our bullpen except for Colome. Barry Latman, the most pedestrian of the bunch I would take over the mess we have at SP these days. Minus Giolito of course. The White Sox did have an excellent farm system in the late 50's early 60's. Veeck trading away a large portion of it after the 59 pennant cost them dearly. The Sox farm system was ranked highly at the turn of this century and that did not pan out as well as expected. Prospects are just that. Most do not succeed. Even most of the ones who make it to the majors do not have stellar careers. I like the group the Sox have now, but even assuming they'll have better luck on the injury front they're still going to need to draft well consistently and most of all be willing to open the wallet. The rebuild looks much better this year than last but there is still a lot of work to do.
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6 minutes ago, skooch said:
Because it just had to be done ...
Farmer just doesn't cut it for me. He literally makes the games unlistenable.
Farmer is not and never will be a good PBP announcer. When he was paired with John Rooney I thought they made an excellent team. In fact IIRC they were very highly rated in the Sox Championship year 2005. I'm still mad that the Sox let John Rooney go, he was my all time favorite Sox announcer and I can remember all the way back to Bob Elson.
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4 hours ago, wegner said:
Billy Pierce was absolutely my late father's favorite all time player so he holds a special place in my heart.
Minnie Minoso was one of the greatest ambassadors for baseball and life that this city has ever seen. He once came to the downtown office where my wife was working and he gave her a signed autograph that she gave to her lucky fiancé as I was at the time. She said he was the nicest man.
Billy Pierce is also my all time favorite White Sox player. I got a chance to meet him in 1999 at the ball park. He was intelligent, witty and a gentleman in every way. After our meeting I almost floated back to my seat. I never saw a left handed pitcher with such perfect mechanics, the way he would rock back and get every ounce of leg and arm motion that his small frame would allow, maximum effort with minimum strain. I doubt that the White Sox ever had a player more beloved than Minnie Minoso. I remember as a kid buying a pack of baseball cards at the drug store in my neighborhood. As I turned the corner and looked over my new cards I noticed that Minnie Minoso was in the bunch. "I got Minnie Minoso!" I yelled loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.
The way both players were treated by HOF voters was both a sham and a shame. Imagine pitchers like Harvey Haddix or Don Larsen getting more votes than Billy Pierce. Or Alvin Dark, Phil Cavaretta and Mickey Vernon out polling Minnie who was getting all of 1.8% of the vote in 1969. What a joke baseball HOF voting can be at times.
If you are slavish in your devotion to WAR, SABER, Analytics and the whole new stats thing, as the vast majority of fans on sites like this seem to be then I would suggest taking a much closer look at more than just the raw numbers. Minnie accumulated his 50.5 WAR in just 6579 ABs. Billy Pierce was in the top ten for so many categories for many years. 5 times in the top 10 WAR for all players, 7 times for pitchers including twice at number 1. At or near the top in such stat geek loving categories as WPA and WPA/LI for many years. The lords of analytics were passing out WAR points stingily for 1950s players. If you love WAR you also need to look at how many years a player is in the top 5 or 10 percent of his peers. The stars of Billy and Minnie will shine much brighter if you do that. If Catfish Hunter is worthy of the HOF then dammit so is Billy. If Heinie Manush is enshrined then why not Minnie? I could give more examples but this is already too long.
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3 hours ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:
Because at the end of the year, having played the red Sox will grade out as a difficult match-up but had you played them in April, it was actually an easier match-up than 99% of teams.
The streaky nature of the game, and the limited scoring in baseball, means that there really isnt much difference at all between the easiest and hardest schedule in the league.
When you play someone, who you face, the health of the team and etc pretty much normalize any SOS discrepancies and make SOS a pointless baseball stat.
Thank you. Not the only pointless or at least highly flawed newer stat.
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13 hours ago, bschmaranz said:
This is part of the rebuild. Adding a 26 year old superstar on a longterm deal while we have cheap controllable assets everywhere else. It was the plan this whole time.
Albert Belle II? Belle was in his 30s, that makes no sense. And while we're on Belle, what's wrong with Albert Belle? 1 good 1 absolutely incredible season here.
Belle, great player and a bigger jerk. Reinsdorf signed him IMO to flip off the owners, or at least those he thought were throwing around too much money. His signing did not lead to anything special for the Sox. Even if I get a lot of thumbs down I think this is veering from the course. Up until very recently the thought of signing free agents was mostly rebuked in favor of letting all that great young talent develop. Then and only then signing free agents was to be the cherry on top. I also believe that Machado is going to press hard to be a regular SS, which I don't believe is his best position. The rebuild is not going well. The first wave of talent has not come close to meeting expectations and the luck factor was very bad with all the injuries, including Kopech and those down on the farm. Whatever. Not popular views I'm sure but if Greg can take the heat he gets so can I. Also I'm not convinced the Sox are going to sign Manny. I think the market is softer than he was lead to believe and he is biding his time waiting for someone to break and make him that blockbuster offer he thought would be there. In the meantime everything looks like a solid mess,
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Whatever happened to the rebuild? If you weren't on board with it you generally got ripped. If you're not for signing MM you don't gain much favor for that either. So what happened to the rebuild? My guess and that's all it is, leads me to believe that they realize their rebuild is not going well. In which case they wouldn't be wrong. As for MM, as talented as he is to me it looks like Albert Belle Part II. As for the signings Alonso is meh OK and Jay is not. I'm not doing cartwheels over all of this.
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17 hours ago, TaylorStSox said:
Probably because defensive metrics are absolutely useless.
I could not possibly agree more.
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QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 12, 2016 -> 07:52 AM)Not ripping you, but I'd be shocked if any lead announcer would be beloved. It seems to me most of them suck. They have announcer voices and not conversational like Hawk and Harry. I think Bennetti is good cause he's at least conversational. Hardly any do that. They have the nasal announcer voice. Keep Benneti forever. Hawk will quit soon enough. All road games for a team that is going to lose an unprecedented amount of road games the next 3-4 seasons. I mean a rebuilding team on the road? That can't be fun to announce a batch of 8-1 losses and 12-3 losses. Hawk will be gone very soon if we keep making rebuilding trades.Most of the modern day baseball announcers are painfully awful. Benetti has that cookie cutter "professional" announcer's voice although he is obviously bright and quick witted. However I found that schtick he had going with Stone to be very tiresome quite early on. As for Hawk, I think as long as JR owns the team he will have a job if he wants it. I have watched and listened to as much White Sox baseball as possible since early childhood but this year is going to be tough on every level I think.
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Moncada will not equal Trout, Kopech needs a lot of work and the other two guys look like filler at best to me. Wonderful.
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QUOTE (gatnom @ Oct 10, 2016 -> 07:37 PM)He was a 4.9 WAR player last year (to Sale's 5.2) and is under control for 1 more year. I agree he's less valuable, but it's closer than you think.So I guess we should trade Sale for Bradley and any other player with 0.4 WAR and be ahead of the game. If the other player has a 2.0 WAR then it's a steal.
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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 21, 2016 -> 02:24 AM)Try that attitude out here.If you are reasonably well versed in history you will find yourself often wanting to bang your head against the wall. There are numerous errors put out there on various sites on a regular basis. They almost always go unchallenged because hardly anyone knows what information is factually correct and what is not. It is true that Jim Landis did not become a member of the White Sox until 1957 and a cursory look at his record shows he never had 19 outfield assists, although this old Sox fan will tell you he was a good defensive center fielder regardless of what his DWAR is listed. Minnie Minoso was perhaps the most exciting White Sox player ever and a definite fan favorite. It looks like 1955 is the year that both he and "Jungle" Jim Rivera had 19 outfield assists. I say this with no attitude towards you. The original tweeter should have been more careful.
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QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 30, 2016 -> 11:36 PM)The bandwagon filled up in 1984' Harry's 3rd season, and their attendance didn't top the Sox until 1985 after Sportvision was sold.. Besides the Sox exclusively on WGN wasn't going to happen. There would have been too many scheduling conflicts and WGN was owned by the same people who owned the Cubs.Harry left because of SportsVision. He compared the number of viewers he would have there with the national power that WGN was. Don't forget that in the midst of the champagne soaked celebration when the Sox clinched in 1983. instead of just enjoying the euphoria of the moment Jerry Reinsdorf had to take time out to insult Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall. So believe it, the Sox did no hand wringing when Harry Caray declined their offer and signed with the Cubs.
It is cute to say the Sox got rid of Harry but they did offer him a deal, and reports say more money than WGN. Not exactly a firing. And Harry has been dead over 18 years. Many of the people in the stands probably never remember him calling a game.
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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 30, 2016 -> 05:29 PM)Except the White Sox leanest attendance years happened while Carry was still here.Harry wasn't broadcasting for the Sox from 1968-70. Compared to attendance before him and losing records the Sox had most seasons he was there, you could make the case that Harry was a definite plus as far as attendance goes. I remember the era well and I can tell you that Harry and later Harry and Jimmy Piersall kept interest in the team as high as possible, considering the ineptitude on the field.
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The 1962 Mets could have had TWTW in abundance and all it would have done for them is maybe added a couple of wins over the course of their epically bad season. Obviously you have to have talent to win, that is first and foremost. That being said the Sox far too often play as flat and passionless as their manager. Abrue is absolutely right and no Adam Eaton is not part of this problem.
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Thanks for the in depth recap. Too bad the Sox are still a little light on talent down on the farm.
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Very sorry. Especially sorry that I didn't know how dire the situation was.
All Star Jose Abreu
in Pale Hose Talk
Posted · Edited by SI1020
Grammar.
No I have argued forcefully and with detail on the subject numerous times. I liked Bill James in the late 80s. Devoured his stuff in the beginning. Now it's all totally off the rails. If you want to believe Rick Rueschel was as good or better than Juan Marichal or that Whitey Ford wasn't a great pitcher go for it. If you like continually shifting realities be my guest. Three outcome baseball is great ain't it? At least Jason Benneti, who loves analytics understands that WAR is cumulative and traditional stats can't be ignored. Your comment proves my point about snide and arrogant. All my kids and all of their kids were vaccinated. I'm alive today because of a real scientific advance that made a previously impossible surgery possible. I love data and stats of all kind. If I ran a baseball team I'd make good use of them. I just wouldn't put myself in an analytics straight jacket.