Look at Ray Ray Run

Episode was a good listen. Frank asks Tim for 46 steals this upcoming season. ?

Couple of quotes on La Russa early that were interesting. Tim still seems a bit reluctant from this interview but says he's coming around to it. He also says that "we can't let La Russa overshadow what we're doing here."

Interesting thoughts; I believe it was you who addressed my post in a personal manner; not the other way around. Unless I missed the name calling or pointed response to you specifically? I believe it is me who lives in your head there, pal. And yes, people who call me an idiot and clueless on a topic only to be proven horribly wrong will have me enjoyably pull receipts because that's part of the fun on a forum? Otherwise we'd just shout or thoughts into the void. Have a good one, champ!

LOL, pal you're the one who felt the need to call me clueless and state I knew nothing about a subject matter over and over. When you gang up on a poster with other posters to say how stupid they are, only to be proven categorically wrong, expect to be lambasted for it. That's the point of online receipts. Emotions aren't involved in my internet interactions, but when the exchanging of ideas and thoughts becomes toxic to the point of pointless personal jabs and insults by multiple people I no longer find enjoyment or value in contributing hence my stark decline in posting. Cutting back on contributing isn't "quitting." Posting is a hobby, and hobbies are supposed to be enjoyable. When they stop being that, I simply do them less. It's not rocket science.

So the post where you called me a know it all, and then explained to me why it wasn't racism despite me already saying it wasn't racist, was somehow you understanding my point? That's quite the take. The final line of my post was directed at your earlier comment; the rest was clearly not. Again though, you have issues with responding to posts instead of posters.

It wouldn't be a characteristic that should define you in a discussion. This isn't hard to understand. Randomly pointing out a Hispanic players lack of English acumen has no place in that conversation. Mathers history isn't a secret in the baseball world either. Please continue to defend his rhetoric though, it behooves you quite well.

I know reading comprehension and my posts has never been a strength of yours, so I'll highlight this part to help you better read it: "If you want to say it's not racist, sure, but it's absolutely discriminatory and it's offensive." Is that clear enough for you, now? So thanks for again trying to call me out, when I literally said what you are now saying. Maybe if you responded to the post and not the poster you wouldn't constantly claim I said things I never said, and you wouldn't let emotions get the best of you in internet discussions.

I like that Julio tried to make light of it, but this is a great indicator of how something as small as randomly discussing a players English acumen, while he's already assimilating to a new country and culture while traveling and dedicating his time to perfecting his craft, can be incredibly disrespectful, discriminatory and flat out ignorant.

What I see in this thread are a ton of people who have no interactions with non-American's on a frequent basis and have never sought out conversations with people from different backgrounds. Randomly critiquing someones ability to speak English, when the USA does NOT have a native language, is disrespectful and to many of those people hurtful. Many people whose first language is not English are very self conscious about their accents, word usage, or their inability to speak as well as they wish. They are self conscious due to the attitude displayed by Mather and the likes. Let's first start with the Japanese nonsense spewed by him. Interpreters are comfort for people whose first language may not be English and are in a spotlight. You never want to misconstrue a question or misspeak and have it blow up in your face. Additionally, eastern culture is dramatically different than western culture so having someone like you around all the time can help you assimilate much better to the foreign environment in which you're also asked to perform at the highest level. Now for hispanics; why do you feel the need to randomly comment on their ability to speak English? Americans are simply uncultured despite being a melting pot of a country. Uncultured to a point of incredible embarrassment, but many Americans view that uncultured nonsense as a badge of honor. We're one of the only developed western nations that don't have a majority of the populace learning/speaking multiple language. Our ignorance is something that leads to frequent disrespect to those who are either trying to learn english, or who already speak some but aren't perfect. Someone asking why it's a big deal why the President of a company randomly comments on an employees ability to speak English when it's irrelevant to his success (the onus should be on the organization to help drive comfort and success, not discredit their lack of english speaking ability) completely overlooks the levels of disrespect and ridicule within that comment. Someone who doesn't understand how elitist it is to mention, in passing, his ability to speak English to the rotary club is part of the issues we have. If you want to say it's not racist, sure, but it's absolutely discriminatory and it's offensive. It's something that these guys are self conscious about to begin with given that they were thrown into a new culture, with (in many cases) very little support system, and don't even speak the language fluently and now their boss is shaming them for that in front of a bunch of strangers. The USA doesn't have a national language for a reason, yet when it comes to degrading those who don't speak their language the US ranks right up there with the pompous French despite not even having one. It's actually shameful that the USA doesn't teach spanish to all kids given the amount of people in the country that speak it. As someone who lives in a house with a non-native English speaker, I have seen how she's been disrespected or judged by customer service reps, coworkers, people at restaurants and strangers in public. I'm embarrassed for most who don't understand that the issue isn't that my wife has an accent, it's that millions of Americans think that's a problem or something that should be brought to peoples attention. LOL at comparing this to some taco truck and saying the guys English isn't great. It's more like saying, I like this guys tacos even though he doesn't speak English; as if him not speaking English is a bad thing or somehow has to be overcome by incredible tacos.

If Lucroy is in the opening day lineup then this off-season was even more of a disaster than I initially thought.

I can't like this post enough. Your last point, that I bolded, is the most important to me. No one is saying the White Sox can't be good; they could be very good! In fact, projection models think so too, as their win outcomes range from 83 up to 105, but what all fans should be tired of is needing everything to go right to reach the potential the front office has sold for years. The job of the front office was to take this very talented core that is going to have some ups and downs, and give them much more likely production in pair with it. If you add two starters (even in the 8-10 million dollar range) and a real RF'er this off-season, you're looking at a team whose mean win total is now at 88-89ish, with all that youth and "variance." And with the idea that Giolito and Anderson are legitimately undervalued due to data/input issues when trying to evaluate them vs the avg. A common misconception of the "models don't project young players" isn't that they don't or can't, it's that a lot of young players fail and that's accounted for. We, as fans, may not believe OUR players will fail, but the reality is development comes in funky patterns and the sum of those patterns results in the outputs we see. So it's not that they don't project young players well, it's that there's more variance in those projections and as fans we're less likely to see that downside. What is exhausting is the front office not supporting the risk of those young players with proven vets; while also not requiring us to give up assets. There's a guy in this thread saying you HAVE to give Zack Collins and Dylan Cease a chance to play all the time. Why? The Dodgers are literally telling Gonsolin and May to take a seat and move to the bullpen until your number is called because depth is imperative and having proven assets when competing for a title increases your chances of competing for that title. You want to give Vaughn a shot because of your internal scouting, fine whatever but you could have given him a look/shot while also signing a proven MLB hitter to be your DH - further lessening the risk and burden of Vaughn. The job was to spend money when the window opened, that's what was sold. Well the window is open, and we're still stuck here rooting for a roster that needs to exceed their expected outcomes in order to be at the top of the totem pole.

With Tim it's not about ascending. It's that he succeeds in a way that no one else does. Projection systems will never fully capture his value because it judges him vs the avg player. I agree Tim and Vaughn projections are low and they're due to data issues; vaughn being not enough data and Tim being an incredibly unique skill set that succeeds in a very unprecedented way, I think the giolito one isn't great because it's still utilizing data from when he was a different pitcher entirely but it's really only a win shy of most others that view him highly. Lynn's on the other hand isn't terrible. Father time gets everyone and expecting regression at this age and beyond isn't ludicrous. Moncada is a tricky one. I think covid mattered but Yoan has to show that 2019 wasn't a fluke before its fair to say that is a poor projection. Frankly his 99th percentile being the same as madrigal is comical though but that brings me to madrigal who BP is much higher on than most so for some players they may understate there are ones they also may overrate.

Honestly, I don't think people remember how weak the offenses were that the White Sox faced last year and their back end of the rotation still got murdered. Having the Indians in the division helped them face some elite pitching but they didn't exactly light the Indians up. People hate projections that don't like their team, I get it, but to say that the projections are absurd and our opinions are superior without substantiating it is just lazy.

K

duplicate

Fair enough; you're certainly entitled to your opinion. Saying the Astros are for sure worse than the White Sox doesn't jive with almost any projection system. Whether PECOTA, FG's, or the countless others. It's actually not even all that close. When the W/L totals release the Astros will also be ahead of the White Sox there as well. I can definitely buy the Indians - the offense is just so rough - and the Angels are boom or bust so a lot of risk and variance there. But the Astros, as of today, are a better baseball team than the White Sox IMO.

Because of the hold on futures markets, and the fact that they move on air (meaning without wagers placed at their book in particular), they just aren't an efficient measure of expected outcomes. The sharp money that sets markets and moves lines aren't heavily invested in markets that keep their money locked up for 6 months and have a 20-40% vig attached to them. A great example of this is the movement within futures markets from night to night based on individual results. It's a reactionary market more than a predicative market. The win totals from bookmaker, pinnacle and the likes will be the best barometer we'll get regarding expected outcomes. I would trust those over any PECOTA projections or the likes.

This won't be the line. Pecota also has not been profitable vs the off-shore W/L totals the past 10 years, so they are not more predictive than the W/L totals. The futures market isn't predictive at all as it moves based on how leveraged the book is; the win/loss market doesn't move on air quite as often, and the closing numbers there are much more predicative of a teams W/L's than PECOTA. I would guess the Sox Win total will be 85.5-86.5, the Twins 88.5-89.5, the Indians 82.5-83.5. We'll see when they're posted and how they move.

The Angels are another high variance boom or bust team because their value is tied so heavily to a few players; similar to the White Sox of the past. They lack depth similarly to the White Sox. I think the Angels and White Sox are pretty similar; health to their pitching staff is essential for their success because they have no depth there. If one of their stars is bad or gets hurt they are in big trouble offensively too.

I hope Madrigal and Cease are amazing; Cease is an easy guy to root for and I like Madrigal but was absolutely disappointed in his mental mistakes last year. He really can't afford many of those. I don't think anyone needs to root for Eaton to fail to prove that was a crappy signing. The team shouldn't be signing "hopes" and "maybes" to fill giant lineup holes when they're trying to win a championship.

Based on what? What are you using to evaluate the teams and their standings? Besides the Indians, which team ahead of the Sox is clearly worse?

No, which is why I asked who said the team sucks?

Who has said the team sucks? I'm pretty sure people are merely disappointed that after a 4 year rebuild in which the Sox promised to get rid of all the maybe's and help the young stars grow as a winning roster, we're back to being the same team that needs a lot to go right - better than expected - to be a top tier team in the AL. The Sox can be fun to watch, and exciting, and fans can still be disappointed in how this is all shaking out. I'm, for one, excited for the season but I also don't think the Sox are a shoe in for the playoffs and they had a chance of being just that but decided to not invest in that opportunity.

The White Sox beat Pecota projections by the most in baseball between 2005-2012 I believe; it wasn't close. It had nothing to do with PECOTA hating the White Sox. They beat projections solely because their pitching stayed healthier than everyone else's in baseball (the Hermie effect). Here's an article that was written about it in 2013. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-white-sox-and-beating-projections/ We miss Hermie.