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Nice win, but we need to start beating actual good teams before I know this is for real.

I cannot stand the smarmy owner of the cubs or his racist father, so no, I will not be rooting for the cubs. "Injuns"? .. in 2020? Yikes.

No one is answering this question because 1) it is an over-simplification and 2) the unsimplified answer is really hard to find. BUT, I was really interested so I spent way, way too long looking into this: First, to answer your question itself. Here are Dyson's career stats: Here are Eloy's You can see Eloy generally adds about -3% to -5% to success rate, whereas Dyson generally comes out to about 5% added in large sample sizes. So we are looking at probably a 10% swing in catch probability - Eloy has a success rate of 83% while Dyson has 93%. Of course, the thing this does not capture is that Eloy's biggest weakness may be going after balls in the gap - we have seen he is very slow to get the ball back in. So let's say a batter has, idk, a 10% chance of taking an extra base against Eloy that they would not have gotten against Dyson. Eloy has played LF for 5733 opponent PAs, and he has fielded 542 balls in that time, so on average he fields a ball in 10% of the at-bats he plays in LF. Now, the chances may have been lower or higher in this inning, depending on batter profiles, pitcher arsenal and velocity, etc, but lets talk on average. Of the balls Eloy fields, about 60% are catching flyballs, the rest are retrieving a ball from somewhere in the outfield. So each batter has an extra 1% chance of getting on, and an additional 1% chance of taking an extra base. Most of the balls that Dyson catches that Eloy won't would be pretty tough, so lets say each batter has a .25% better chance of a single, .65% better chance of a double, and a .1% better chance of a triple, since those are rare. Add in the effect of taking an extra base, almost all of which would be stretching a single to a double, and I'd say (very roughly) that the average batter has .25% better chance of a single, 1.5% better chance of a double, and .25% better chance of a triple. Now to answer the question you are simplifying - how much does that affect the Sox overall chance of winning? And how does it compare to the offensive advantages of leaving Eloy in the lineup? This is a pain to answer mathematically - you have to recursively calculate a ton of stuff because the win percentages change based on which batters get on (i.e. are there no outs still or two outs). You can use Markov Chains to calculate expected runs from 24 base-out states but that doesn't take into account the batters and the pitcher or handedness or a tons of other super important stuff. Over the last year I built a basic Monte Carlo baseball simulator to account for these things. It isn't particularly advanced, but it can give us a rough estimate here, so I'll take the opportunity to use it instead. To answer the latter question first, let's look at how important Eloy is if you assume the Twins at least tied it up, and also don't take fielding into account. I ran 100,000 simulations, and I found that with Eloy in the lineup, the Twins won 60.5% of games when they scored at least 2 in the top of the ninth. With Dyson in, the Twins won 61.3% of those situations. Note that the Twins chances of winning here are much higher than 50% because in some of these situations they scored more than 2 runs and took a lead into the bottom of the ninth. So if we assume the Twins at least tie it up, having Eloy in the lineup over Dyson is worth about 0.8% towards the White Sox' chances of winning. Not a ton, and the overall effect is that the Twins have a 6.11% chance of winning with Eloy in while 6.30% chance of winning with Dyson in. But again, that is ignoring fielding, so let's see what happens when we take into account the fact that Dyson lowers the chances of the Twins tying it up in the first place. I ran another 100,000 simulations for both Eloy in and Dyson in, this time adjusting the opponent chances of hits as described above. With Eloy in the lineup, the Twins had a 6.18% chance of winning. With Dyson in the lineup, their chances of winning were 6.24%. In case you thought I woefully underestimated the importance of Dyson's defense, I reran the simulations with the defense having 5x more of an effect. In this case, the Twins win% with super Dyson was 6.19% Basically we are talking near negligible differences, and the White Sox chances of winning were slightly better with Eloy in. Really though, this exercise just goes to show how tiny of an effect individual strategic choices usually have on a team's chances of winning. These things just don't matter all that much in baseball, and I'll argue about them until blue in the face anyway. TL;DR: The difference between Eloy and Dyson on overall win percentage was negligible, and there is a mathematical argument that leaving Eloy in was the correct choice. BTW, I saw someone mention that RR only left Eloy in because he was leading off the ninth. So I reran the simulations with the scenario that Eloy instead made the last out in the 8th, and EE was leading off the ninth. In this case, leaving Eloy in gives the Twins a 6.22% chance of winning, while putting Dyson in gives the Twins a 6.17% chance of winning, and now subbing Dyson is (again, barely) the correct answer. So it was fair to treat Eloy leading off as a major factor. If you think I messed up any of the estimates badly let me know, I am happy to rerun with different settings.

That's your Game 1 lineup.

You go for the win up two or more in the 9th. If it goes to extras it would have been a fail on your team anyway. We have enough offense to get around Eloy's missing bat, especially with the extra innings rules.

The talk of this structure remaining after 2020 is awful. I’d you’re going to expand, make it 6 teams or go back to division winners and a wild card game. 8 teams is awful. It works for 2020, but that should be it.

I literally said "In my opinion" - maybe I was right and RR got lucky. Maybe I was wrong and there is a reason I'm on my couch and RR is in a dugout. And FWIW, if we weren't having this conversation I was just about to post that I really like using Fry here. If you want to fight with someone who just trolls RR no matter what, fine, go find that person. I swear, the only thing more tired than game thread b****ing is people trying to police the game thread b****ing.

Who are we going to pinch hit late in the game now that all our best hitters are in the starting lineup? Ricky does it again!

Fans are idiots, but the teams did the firings I spoke of. The Hawks fired Q after winning 3 titles. The Bulls let Phil walk after winning 6 titles. The Bears fired Lovie after a 10 win season with a SB appearance and 2 Championship game appearances. So the argument that we should be okay with Ricky because the team is winning overall is weak. We get on Nomar and EE and Eloy's defense but that doesn't mean we don't want them to be better. Ricky is in the same boat and is held to a high standard like everyone else.

Bevington and it's not close.

Amazing Ricky's #1 fan is here to defend the indefensible. Like Eloy is some half way decent LFer. Up by two runs in the 9th and you leave a butcher in LF because of a theoretical AB that should never occur. Ricky could bat Edwin leadoff with Yolmer in the cleanup in the playoffs with Cishek as the closer and you would find some sort of hidden genius in it.

Dane Dunning didn't have his A stuff tonight. Maybe not even his B stuff tonight. He fought through the inconsistency to give us not just a QS, but a much needed 7IP. Gio has shown us how important it is to be able to win on nights you don't have it. He also has shown how hard it is to learn that skill. For Dane to come out and do this tonight, vs a loaded Twins lineup, as a god damn rookie... I know other pitchers are supposed to have higher ceilings, but I am just so fucking geeked for Dane Dunning man!

Honestly I think we can all agree that our main takeaway from this game is Fire Ricky Renteria

Renteria, to me from afar, seems like a heck of a guy. A guy who grinded the minor league managing jobs for 10 years - which is a shitttttttty career - to get a shot in the big leagues. Earned a chance with the Cubs after 15+ years coaching, then gets handed a shit roster and develops some young guys... nothing bad ever said about him or his clubhouse. Then the Cubs get good and can the guy. He then comes to the Sox, shit roster, never complains - no fighting in house, and everyone likes each other despite years of terrible terrible performance. Team gets good, guys swear by Ricky, he deflects all credit and all attention to the players; guy is literally crying after the Giolito no hitter because of how hard he knew Giolito fought and how much he loves his guys. People call me a Renteria stan, and while I hate plenty of decisions just like the rest of fans because I'm an "expert" too, you're right that I respect Renteria the coach and would have loved to play for a guy like him as all his players seem to love. That's what matters to most players, but I get why fans overlook something like that - which in baseball, means so much more than anything else.

I am fine keeping in EE for 60% of the games.. However, with that said he needs to bat 7th. Mazara should be replaced by Engel primarily immediately.

So we all agree now that Dunning should get the ball if there is a game three in the wild card round?

Something in that water down there. Besides bath salts and stuff

You should see the other option lol

Yea after today I’m 100% okay with giving Dane the 3rd start in the playoffs.Kid has the “it” factor

I’ll always agree with this statement.

Boy Fry was really overmatched there thanks everyone

Man McCann just really ain't doin' it.

? Nice and long!

The difference in T.A. from 2 years ago until now is astonishing. He's worked so hard to make himself an incredible hitter. Truly remarkable.

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the hot takes are so delightful... ? ? ?

If anyone is interested, TA (based on season averages) has about 50 ABs left in the season (ABs not PAs). If it is exactly 50, he needs 25 hits to end the season over .400. Here is a quick table I generated saying how many hits he needs to finish .400 depending on how many ABs he ends with. ______________ | ABs | Hits | -------------- | 45 | 23 | | 46 | 23 | | 47 | 23 | | 48 | 24 | | 49 | 24 | | 50 | 25 | | 51 | 25 | | 52 | 25 | | 53 | 26 | | 54 | 26 | | 55 | 27 | | 56 | 27 | | 57 | 27 | | 58 | 28 | | 59 | 28 | | 60 | 29 | | 61 | 29 | | 62 | 29 | | 63 | 30 | | 64 | 30 | ______________ He'll need to stay hot, but for Tim I don't think it is impossible!

No Mazara or EE? Is Ricky a Soxtalk member now?

This looks like a world series winning lineup...

Didn’t think at his age Steve could still throw this much HEAT.

Go Sox. Fuck the Cubs.

Why is it ok to keep trotting EE out there? I don’t understand why this is ok just because we’re winning

This makes no sense at all. Its burying your head in the sand because things are going well, ignoring the fact that our manager is making awful decisions along the way. Yes, the guys are playing well IN SPITE of bone headed decisions from the manager. There is no "statistical evidence" of anything there. Cease has been incredibly lucky this year. So have many other pitchers in the bullpen. What you're saying is to ignore all of this because things have been going right over the past 30 or so games. Mind boggling.

I'm arguing a manager who gets the most out of his team is in fact good at his job; even if you don't like his strategic decisions that have very little statistical impact on the team or the outcomes.

Its hilarious to think we would have been better off throwing Rutherford in right and Collins at DH than to go out and sign EE and Mazara.

The Sox had a rookie starter going last night and Minnesota couldn’t beat them. Who were Minnesota starting?

The fact that Engel has the freedom to do that is a credit to Ricky.

In his postgamer Engel said that RR told him if the infielders are moving (the wheel play) fake bunt and swing away. Ricky's trying to credit his men and that's a good thing. I'm giving credit to RR. You can give it to whomever you want or whatever your agenda says.

Ricky just said post game that was Engel's execution. (he gives guys the green light to make those types of decisions in an at bat. Said that they don't have to rely on a signal from him).

Makes no difference. All it takes is one.

Hindsight is 20/20. I agree with RR and SoxBlanco.

lol it's like they all have Byron Buxton on their fantasy teams or something.

Now I must say... I have just become a big Stone fan.

That was a game we usually lose, huge win! That Engel at bat was great. If Ricky called for that props to him (that's just about it). Please for the love of god bring up Collins so we can put our best lineup out there every day

They need to bring up Vaughn and/or Collins tomorrow, and settle on a final lineup of capable players. This isn't a reaction to one game, it is a reaction to almost 50 games. Giolito / Dunning Starters: SS Anderson; 3B Moncada; 1B Grandal; DH Abreu; LF Jimenez; CF Robert; C McCann; RF Mazara / Engel; 2B Madrigal Keuchel / Cease / #5 Starters: Same except C Grandal; 1B Abreu; DH McCann or someone else. Mazara should only start against RHP, and be pulled after 2-3 ABs for Engel (first LH Reliever and or 7th in a close game for defense). Eloy should not be playing LF period in the 9th during any close lead (3 or less runs).

The same could be said about the Twins tonight. Too many LOB for each team and too many walks from the White Sox pitching staff. At least Minnesota doesn’t win like they used to from 2002-2005 with stupid ducksnorts in the outfield.

Love this team. Love this board cause I know in ten years I’ll make a reference to Adam Engels fake bunt single in a regular season game and everyone here will know what I’m talking about. Lets take this damn division

Bauer needs to be a White Sox. He wants a short term deal, needs to be in a big city, has an edge to him, and is a great pitcher.