Reinsdorf assures Ron that Abreu will always be a White Sox

[Jack Parkman]

Just now, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Lol Carlos Sanatana, Hoskins, and Max Muncy would like to have a word with you. 

Santana's had a good year, but he's not as consistent as the top 3 guys. 

[Superstar Lamar]

Is there any doubt JR is conjuring up one of his heavily deferred money contracts and telling Abreu he doesn't need an agent to look it over?

[Thad Bosley]

28 minutes ago, mqr said:

2 years is reasonable. But what freaks me out, is that if 2020 is the year that Jose totally crashes, there's no way Jerry moves on in 2021.

I guess this is where I become disconnected in the conversation.  Jose turns 33 next year, not 39.  Are we really thinking this "crash" is going to happen as soon as next year, after a year where he's going to end up smacking 35 homers and drive in nearly 120 runs, and 35+ doubles?  I mean, I can see and probably expect him to come down a bit on those numbers, but only into the 25-30 homer range and 90-100 RBI range, with 30 doubles or so.  For $9-$12 million bucks, I'll take that kind of production out of my DH.  

I know anything is possible, but for Jose to hit that wall where he's totally lost it, I don't see that happening as soon as next year.  There's certainly no indication of it as of yet, at least as far as I can see.  

[ScootsMcGoots]

14 minutes ago, Thad Bosley said:

I guess this is where I become disconnected in the conversation.  Jose turns 33 next year, not 39.  Are we really thinking this "crash" is going to happen as soon as next year, after a year where he's going to end up smacking 35 homers and drive in nearly 120 runs, and 35+ doubles?  I mean, I can see and probably expect him to come down a bit on those numbers, but only into the 25-30 homer range and 90-100 RBI range, with 30 doubles or so.  For $9-$12 million bucks, I'll take that kind of production out of my DH.  

I know anything is possible, but for Jose to hit that wall where he's totally lost it, I don't see that happening as soon as next year.  There's certainly no indication of it as of yet, at least as far as I can see.  

I don't either. Jose has been extremely healthy too except for some freak accidents last year. With how hard he works and how dedicated he is, I bet he he still has good years through age 35 season...like top 10 in league first base/DH years. Although I do think he should be at DH.

[SonofaRoache]

1 hour ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I also think first baseman and DH's get a raw deal relating to WAR - they are penalized far too much and it's an inefficiency with the statistic, no doubt. Similarly to how Colorado bats are punished far too much since they do not receive a bump for their road production when all stats have shown that Colorado players are at a disadvantage, more than other teams, when they're on the road.

I'll use David Ortiz vs Mike Cameron as an example. They have the same career WARs, nearly, and Ortiz had nearly 3000 more PA's than Cameron so Cameron's WAR/162 rate was way better than Ortiz. 

You won't find a human being alive that would have rather had Mike Cameron for his career than David Ortiz. Not one.

Well the whole point of WAR is to compare players at similar positions. So Ortiz is going to the HOF because he is better than his other 1B/DH peers. Mike Cameron is not going to the Hall of Fame because he is not better than his outfielder peers. WAR is useless when comparing different positions because each position needs a certain skillset. 

[bmags]

jose signs 1 year 12 mill this year

becomes player manager in 2021.

2022 - Team is bad - Jose promoted to GM to get him out of manager position 

2024 - Jose promoted to President of Baseball Operations, and will report to Nick Hostetler, Foreign Minister of Baseball Operations (who reports to Rick Hahn Senior Chairman of Baseball Operations, who of course reports to KW - Senior Managing Chairman-President of Baseball Operations).

 

 

[chitownsportsfan]

2 minutes ago, bmags said:

jose signs 1 year 12 mill this year

becomes player manager in 2021.

2022 - Team is bad - Jose promoted to GM to get him out of manager position 

2024 - Jose promoted to President of Baseball Operations, and will report to Nick Hostetler, Foreign Minister of Baseball Operations (who reports to Rick Hahn Senior Chairman of Baseball Operations, who of course reports to KW - Senior Managing Chairman-President of Baseball Operations).

 

 

And they all report to Senior VP of JR Operations: 

Gar Forman

[TheTruth05]

5 minutes ago, bmags said:

jose signs 1 year 12 mill this year

becomes player manager in 2021.

2022 - Team is bad - Jose promoted to GM to get him out of manager position 

2024 - Jose promoted to President of Baseball Operations, and will report to Nick Hostetler, Foreign Minister of Baseball Operations (who reports to Rick Hahn Senior Chairman of Baseball Operations, who of course reports to KW - Senior Managing Chairman-President of Baseball Operations).

 

 

This is good

[Bob Sacamano]

10 minutes ago, bmags said:

jose signs 1 year 12 mill this year

becomes player manager in 2021.

2022 - Team is bad - Jose promoted to GM to get him out of manager position 

2024 - Jose promoted to President of Baseball Operations, and will report to Nick Hostetler, Foreign Minister of Baseball Operations (who reports to Rick Hahn Senior Chairman of Baseball Operations, who of course reports to KW - Senior Managing Chairman-President of Baseball Operations).

 

 

Please don't put any ideas in Jerry's head. (Re-reads player manager comment) Too late.

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, soxfan2014 said:

Please don't put any ideas in Jerry's head. (Re-reads player manager comment) Too late.

There was a legit thing after ozzie that Konerko could be player-manager.

[Bob Sacamano]

Just now, bmags said:

There was a legit thing after ozzie that Konerko could be player-manager.

Yep. Which is why I made that last comment. Instead they convinced Ventura to take the job he didn't even want.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

1 hour ago, SonofaRoache said:

Well the whole point of WAR is to compare players at similar positions. So Ortiz is going to the HOF because he is better than his other 1B/DH peers. Mike Cameron is not going to the Hall of Fame because he is not better than his outfielder peers. WAR is useless when comparing different positions because each position needs a certain skillset. 

Huh? WAR attempts to put an all encompassing value on every player by taking into account their value based on position and etc. In no way does WAR argue that 50 wins at DH is more valuable than 50 wins in CF; the point of positional compensation and penalty is to judge every player on an even scale based on the different value they provide.

By WAR, Cameron was a more valuable player in his career than David Ortiz. 

Defense is really important and WAR is the best publically available number to evaluate all players on the same scale. That said, WAR has weaknesses just like any other all encompassing metric, and it's regarding their value weights. I personally believe, based on all the data that tells us that defensive metrics are far too volatile to be really reliable on an individual year basis, that WAR weights defense too heavily. 

The support of the above opinion is there based on the fact that MLB teams do not pay for defensive value like they do offensive value. For example, heyward was paid for about 50% of his defensive value, not 100%.

I appreciate the stat and the normalization of it that allows everyone to be judged on the same scale but there are shortcomings and the penalty for DH's and block head first baseman, as well as its overvaluing of an inefficient defensive metrics are two of the issues I have with WAR. 

[bubba phillips]

3 hours ago, Jose Abreu said:

Just for the record, I don't think Abreu is a good defensive 1B, but he's the 8th most valuable defensive first baseman per Fangraphs

Didn't realize there were so many bad fielding 1B's.  On second thought, isn't that where you put somebody who can't field any other position?

BTW, which of those stats reflect Abreu's "statue-like" agility in going to his left or to his right on batted balls?

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

2 minutes ago, bubba phillips said:

Didn't realize there were so many bad fielding 1B's.  On second thought, isn't that where you put somebody who can't field any other position?

BTW, which of those stats reflect Abreu's "statue-like" agility in going to his left or to his right on batted balls?

Range is built into both DRS and Total Zone.

[Jose Abreu]

5 minutes ago, bubba phillips said:

Didn't realize there were so many bad fielding 1B's.  On second thought, isn't that where you put somebody who can't field any other position?

BTW, which of those stats reflect Abreu's "statue-like" agility in going to his left or to his right on batted balls?

They're all in the negative range because Fangraphs adjusts those ratings based on position, and anyone playing first base provides far less value than someone playing shortstop or center field, for example.

The stat you're probably looking for is range runs (RngR), for which he is second to last.

 

Regardless, I still find it funny that the people who think he's below average/bad based solely on 1 or 2 Fangraphs stats conveniently ignore that Fangraphs also says he's the #8 defensive 1B in the league this year

Edited August 22, 2019 by Jose Abreu

[pcq]

2 hours ago, Charlie Haeger's Knuckles said:

If I'm out of line here, feel free to let me know... but short of calling up Andrew Vaughn 2 or 3 years too soon, who the hell else are the Sox going to pencil in for 500 ABs at 1B/DH? Its not like there are examples of clear improvements available for similar "value". ANd before I see another person drop CJ "Captain HBP" Cron, I don't want to hear it.

Re-sign the damn guy.

But for the love of God, can we please move Yoan to the 3-hole and Abreu to cleanup?

Vaughn has leveled off and Magical is sub .700. Let's focus on trashing the few serviceable players we have using teen incel language as much as WTF possible. 

[mqr]

13 minutes ago, Jose Abreu said:

They're all in the negative range because Fangraphs adjusts those ratings based on position, and anyone playing first base provides far less value than someone playing shortstop or center field, for example.

The stat you're probably looking for is range runs (RngR), for which he is second to last.

 

Regardless, I still find it funny that the people who think he's below average/bad based solely on 1 or 2 Fangraphs stats conveniently ignore that Fangraphs also says he's the #8 defensive 1B in the league this year

Defensive metrics are notoriously finnicky and need massive sample sizes for true talent evaluation. 

Since 2013, the only first basemen with >3000 innings worse than Abreu in UZR/150 are Encarnacion, Morrison, Lind, Chris Carter, and the corpse of Ryan Howard.

In 2018, he had the lowest UZR of any qualified first baseman despite playing about 100 innings less than the rest. 

Edited August 22, 2019 by mqr

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

7 minutes ago, Jose Abreu said:

They're all in the negative range because Fangraphs adjusts those ratings based on position, and anyone playing first base provides far less value than someone playing shortstop or center field, for example.

The stat you're probably looking for is range runs (RngR), for which he is second to last.

 

Regardless, I still find it funny that the people who think he's below average/bad based solely on 1 or 2 Fangraphs stats conveniently ignore that Fangraphs also says he's the #8 defensive 1B in the league this year

The problem with statistics is people only value the ones that support their position. 

I'll watch people consistently move the goal posts on things they believe in by changing the stats they view as valuable. 

I see this at work all the time. Someone preaches to me over and over that theyve found an area of opportunity or a deficiency. They'll present me their supporting metrics, and I'll review it. I'll rebutt with counter supported data, and they'll tell me the correlation isn't as strong or that the MOE on that output is poor. Then one week later, they'll present me another position and they'll support it with the same analytics I used to rebutt their previous proposal; now stating that output is more reliable. These are professionals of the field too so I expect nothing less from people outside the analytics world.

[Jose Abreu]

3 minutes ago, mqr said:

Defensive metrics are notoriously finnicky and need massive sample sizes for true talent evaluation. 

 Since 2013, the only first basemen with >3000 innings worse than Abreu in UZR/150 are Encarnacion, Morrison, Lind, Chris Carter, and the corpse of Ryan Howard.

In 2018, he had the lowest UZR of any qualified first baseman despite playing about 100 innings less than the rest. 

Absolutely, and I don't think he's a good defensive 1B, but I'm just trying to make a point that you shouldn't just look at one stat. If you don't like his wRC+ or fWAR, maybe look at his exit velocity and hard hit rate instead. Even better, look at them in conjunction with each other. 

[bubba phillips]

Since Abreu will be 33 next season, I'm surprised that no one is suggesting an incentive-laden contract.  I know it went over like a fart in church in the Machado negotiations, but still.

How about $8 million guaranteed with various benchmarks for HR's, RBI's, OBP that could bring it to a max of $14 million if he reaches them all.  Also an option for a 2nd year if minimum benchmarks are met.

[SonofaRoache]

40 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Huh? WAR attempts to put an all encompassing value on every player by taking into account their value based on position and etc. In no way does WAR argue that 50 wins at DH is more valuable than 50 wins in CF; the point of positional compensation and penalty is to judge every player on an even scale based on the different value they provide.

By WAR, Cameron was a more valuable player in his career than David Ortiz. 

Defense is really important and WAR is the best publically available number to evaluate all players on the same scale. That said, WAR has weaknesses just like any other all encompassing metric, and it's regarding their value weights. I personally believe, based on all the data that tells us that defensive metrics are far too volatile to be really reliable on an individual year basis, that WAR weights defense too heavily. 

The support of the above opinion is there based on the fact that MLB teams do not pay for defensive value like they do offensive value. For example, heyward was paid for about 50% of his defensive value, not 100%.

I appreciate the stat and the normalization of it that allows everyone to be judged on the same scale but there are shortcomings and the penalty for DH's and block head first baseman, as well as its overvaluing of an inefficient defensive metrics are two of the issues I have with WAR. 

Let me rephrase this. Those who evaluate WAR to determine who the stars are do so by position. A first baseman isn't going to be compared to Mike Trout by using WAR. So the statistic itself sucks, but when determining who the great players are positional comparison is most important. 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

2 minutes ago, SonofaRoache said:

Let me rephrase this. Those who evaluate WAR to determine who the stars are do so by position. A first baseman isn't going to be compared to Mike Trout by using WAR. So the statistic itself sucks, but when determining who the great players are positional comparison is most important. 

The point of WAR is to be able to compare a catcher to a 2nd baseman on an even scale encompassing all value. I am not sure why you think WAR is best used to compare vs ones positional peers.

[greg775]

2 hours ago, Thad Bosley said:

I guess this is where I become disconnected in the conversation.  Jose turns 33 next year, not 39.  Are we really thinking this "crash" is going to happen as soon as next year, after a year where he's going to end up smacking 35 homers and drive in nearly 120 runs, and 35+ doubles?  I mean, I can see and probably expect him to come down a bit on those numbers, but only into the 25-30 homer range and 90-100 RBI range, with 30 doubles or so.  For $9-$12 million bucks, I'll take that kind of production out of my DH.  

I know anything is possible, but for Jose to hit that wall where he's totally lost it, I don't see that happening as soon as next year.  There's certainly no indication of it as of yet, at least as far as I can see.  

Yes, part of what drives me crazy is the expectation Jose is, like the one poster put, "very old" and he's going to open next season 1 for 30 and it'll be downhill even more from there and he'll finish .225ish, 11 home runs 66 RBI. Just total lousiness.

[Balta1701]

20 minutes ago, greg775 said:

Yes, part of what drives me crazy is the expectation Jose is, like the one poster put, "very old" and he's going to open next season 1 for 30 and it'll be downhill even more from there and he'll finish .225ish, 11 home runs 66 RBI. Just total lousiness.

Well first and foremost, we're conditioned to expect that. Why? Because in the last decade we've seen 2 expensive DHs on this very team basically do that to the letter: Dunn put up one of the worst seasons in MLB history and LaRoche was so bad we're glad he retired. Both of them produced better than Abreu did this season and then fell apart the next year. Worse still, fastball velocities have gone up league wide, especially since the Dunn signing, so if the thing that causes guys to fall off a cliff is that they slow down too much with age, the risk is still quite high that this player will hit a cliff at some point. Given our recent history with the DH position it'd be more surprising to us if he didn't fall apart than if he did.

Secondly...we already have seen substantial declines from Abreu. You like batting average, his batting average has dropped a lot. His strikeout rate has gone up. He's swinging hard to still hit home runs, but if that last skill starts to weaken he has nothing left. So already he's not nearly the hitter he was 3 years ago and we shouldn't pay him as though he is.

Third, you haven't bothered to understand any of people's actual discussion of Abreu, which isn't exactly surprising considering you don't bother to understand most things people write to you. While he may not fall off a cliff next year, or the year after, it is also not unreasonable to expect his performance to continue to take steps downwards, as we've seen this season. That may not happen, he may have a career year left in him, but people don't want to pay him with the expectation he'll have a career year and you don't want to lock yourself into him if he does continue the path downwards he's already ono. If we had a great lineup in 2021 and Abreu took a major step back that year, playing him every day at DH because he's well paid could be the thing that costs us the division.

So, just about everyone is ok with bringing him back for 1 year at the right price. A number of us are ok with 2 years or 1 year and an option for a 2nd year. Almost everyone who looks at this says that if he wants anything beyond that, he's going to have to hit the next 2 years because no team in baseball would sign him to a 3 year deal when his performance has already dropped off a lot. Also a lot of us understand that his free agent value right now is something like $10-$12 million on a 1 year deal, so anything beyond that is over-paying for a guy, and under Reinsdorf's roster, overpaying 1 guy means we have other guys we can't sign. 

[Nardiwashere]

38 minutes ago, SonofaRoache said:

Let me rephrase this. Those who evaluate WAR to determine who the stars are do so by position. A first baseman isn't going to be compared to Mike Trout by using WAR. So the statistic itself sucks, but when determining who the great players are positional comparison is most important. 

Why would the stat even take positions into account if it weren't meant to compare players of different positions? 

If you are only comparing 2Bs to 2Bs, there wouldn't be a need to adjust based on positional difficulty.