Jake

He had an even lower fielding percentage than Tim. And in this case, UZR and DRS also had him as a below average fielder (but not as bad as Statcast's new stuff has him).

I was more or less assuming (maybe wrongly) a prior knowledge of the Statcast statistics for outfield defense. The percentages are basically referring to how many balls are fielded and converted into an out divided by all the balls that are hit in the vicinity of the player. A typical success rate is in the neighborhood of 85% in this metric. Of course many batted balls have a nearly 100% chance of being fielded and others close to 0% chance of being fielded; that's what this metric tries to account for. The "added" refers to a comparison between how many of the balls hit to the player you would expect an average fielder to convert to an out and how many the player actually did convert to an out. So if the balls hit towards Yoan would have been outs 86% of the time by an average fielder and Yoan got outs 88% of the time, he's +2%. My points about counting stats and rate stats is that if you have Player A who is +2% added and he had 100 balls hit to him, his OAA is 2. Player B with +2% and only had 50 balls hit to him has a OAA of 1, even though Player A and Player B appear to be roughly equally good fielders.

If you are a follower of the Statcast/Baseball Savant folks, then you know they've been teasing the release of their infield defense metrics for months now. They are very close to public release, I believe it will be this week, and they've even been tweeting out some tidbits to get people interested. Without divulging my methods, since I suspect it will render my methods no longer usable, I have gotten my hands on most of the data (note: I haven't hacked anybody, everything's on the up and up). I only have complete data for 2019 but have some info about Sox players in prior years. So who wants to hear about the Sox??? Just like the outfield defense, you have two basic metrics: Outs Above Average (OAA) and a percentage added. OAA is a counting stat, like RBI, and is therefore sensitive to playing time and number of chances. The percentage stat is more like batting average and lets you more easily compare players with different amounts of playing time. On outs above average, out of 218 qualified infielders... Moncada ranked #51 (+5 OAA) Yolmer #82 (+2 OAA) Tim #104 (-1 OAA) Abreu #142 (-3 OAA) On percentage added, out of 218 qualified infielders... Moncada ranked #51 (yes, exactly the same as OAA; 2% added) Yolmer #86 (1%) Tim #104 (0%) Abreu #142 (-1%) So almost exactly the same in their cases. The differences in rankings for OAA and success rate added are mostly at the very top and bottom. By position... Among 3B, Moncada ranked #9 out of 53 3B in OAA and #7 in percentage added. Among 2B, Yolmer ranked #19 out of 71 2B in OAA and #21 in percentage added. Among 1B, Abreu ranked #34 out of 40 1B in OAA and #26 in percentage added. Among SS, Tim ranked #29 out of 54 SS in OAA and #29 in percentage added. Quick Sox highlights: Tim didn't do as badly as we feared. I can add that in 2018, he ranked in the 87th percentile among SS, much better. He was in the 66th percentile in 2017. If he cleans up the errors, he's going to be a real asset like we all hoped. He has demonstrated a consistent strength moving to his left over the years per these numbers. Last year his problem was coming in on balls. Yoan's defense was rated above average by UZR and below average by DRS, so some of us weren't sure where he stood. This suggests he is indeed a strong defender at 3B. Great! Also of note: In 2018, his 2B defense ranked in the 1st percentile, meaning he was the worst or close to the worst infield defender in MLB by these metrics. Abreu isn't good, but he's not horrible either (at least when it comes to fielding balls; this doesn't factor in catching thrown balls AFAIK). Other metrics were overrating Yolmer it would appear, although he has been by no means bad. Statcast indicates he struggles going to his right. Other info for non-Sox players: Best OAA in MLB: Javier Baez (+19) Arenado (+17) Andrelton Simmons (+16) Nick Ahmed (+16) Trevor Story (+15) Matt Chapman (+14) Paul DeJong (+13) Matt Olson (+12; by far the highest 1B) Jose Iglesias (+12) Worst OAA in MLB: Vlad Guerrero Jr. (-16) Jorge Polanco (-16) Fernando Tatis Jr. (-13) Didi Gregorius (-13) Jonathan Villar (-12) Tim Beckham (-9) Kevin Newman (-8) Gleyber Torres (-7) Best % added: Isiah Kiner-Falefa (8%) Tony Kemp (7%) Cory Spangenberg (6%) Andrelton Simmons (6%) Jeff McNeil (5%) Marwin Gonzalez (5%) Matt Olson (5%), Javier Baez (5%) Worst % added: Chad Pinder (-11%) Vlad Jr. (-8%) Luke Voit (-7%) Didi Gregorius (-6%) Fernando Tatis Jr. (-5%) Tim Beckham (-5%) Ryon Healy (-5%) Also, Marcus Semien was well below average, though not horrible, this year and was no different than the past two years, in contrast to the story told by UZR/DRS.

On day 1, should be Yoan. The research on lineup construction would say you want your best hitters to bat 1, 2, and 4. If it's not clear which of your top 2 hitters is better, put the faster one at leadoff. So we should have Yoan 1, Eloy 2, and Grandal 4. Anderson is probably our 5th, 6th, maybe 7th best hitter and should be low in the order. We should make Robert and Madrigal prove their worth although I don't think Madrigal has the ability to be a top half of the order hitter even with everything going well.

I think it's plausible that Kopech will need/do best with some minor league innings before coming up, but it's hard to trust that the Sox would be acting in good faith.

I don't know but I kind of want Puig because this team would be so much fun to watch no matter which way it goes.

I'd line them up like this: 3B Yoan LF Eloy 1B Abreu C Grandal DH Encarnacion RF Mazara SS Anderson CF Robert/Engel/Garcia 2B Madrigal/Garcia/Mendick

The danger with trying to alter a player's launch angle is that there's more than one way to do it and you need to pick the right one. You could keep the swing the same and improve the launch angle by getting a guy to hit the ball more out front (i.e., earlier). Someone else might need a change to their swing path. Another guy might just need to improve his approach and swing at pitches that can be elevated. Sometimes focusing on the desired end result too much can get in the way of finding the right solution.

Seems like Pillar has hit the decline phase defensively and Engel is basically the Jesus Christ of outfield defense so I'm not too high on a Pillar move. I'd rather go for a stronger-hitting corner OF for a platoon guy for Mazara.

What would Pillar be for?

That's not so simple. For those innings Gio won't pitch, who do you propose pitching them?

Remember that Driveline is associated with strong stances on several things — not just mechanics but also the importance of various physical and statistical indicators of performance (e.g., spin rate) as well as training, like their use of weighted balls and the volume of throwing. White Sox could be perfectly aligned on most things but disagree greatly on one and that would be sufficient for them not to encourage their players to work with them.

One potentially important difference between MadBum and Keuchel/Ryu is the draft pick compensation.

Can you point me to a link to Hahn's comments about Kopech? I've never seen anything like that.

How would they? Giolito, Cease, Kopech, Lopez, someone else. And we know they wouldn't go with Covey or Fulmer for the 5th spot even if they don't bring in a legit FA starter.