Look at Ray Ray Run

Agreed. I cant decide if taubman is the kind of guy who would fuck over the Astros or if he's the kind of douche who blames mlb baseball and would never help them. Regardless, Luhnow doesnt strike me as the kind of guy who steps down.

Fake twitter rumor.

Two weeks from this upcoming Saturday is when the stove will start to bubble!

No one cares what a single baseball writer thinks a players destination will be. MLBTraderumors does predictions every off-season; based on feedback and things they're hearing and etc. They get about 4-6 out of the top 50 right every off-season. No one has any idea where anyone is signing or going.

This one always feels shitty to me. While you sign an agreement when you take up a job like this - or any job in a data analysis industry - it's likely that Luhnow built a lot of the models himself. The data he built the models with may have even been gathered and monitored based on technology he put in place, but technically that data is owned by the club. While you are being paid by the organization, and they assume the rights of your work once you complete it, it's really hard to work on something for 7 years and then you can't take it with you. It doesn't excuse his actions - for example, Theo had to leave all his information behind and start fresh - but it does feel shitty when you work for something for so long and then have to start over at a new spot.

The concern was never warranted in the first place. Cooper has a nice track record and noticeable impact on very specific arm types. In a tenure as long as his, times will change and failures will happen. Being WILLING to change with the times while pairing that with some old school thoughts that made him successful says a lot about the guy. People love firing coaches in sports; in reality, continuity and consistency at the positions correlates better to success than not.

165 million would put them at the same level as the Astros; do they struggle to compete with the "big boys?" I'm going to go ahead and stop responding as you are derailing the point of the thread with non-relateable posts complaining about completely irrelevant things.

What the heck does any of this have to do with Don Cooper's acceptance and strong embrace of advanced analytics for developing his pitching staff?

A payroll being 150-165 means the rebuild didnt work? So the cubs and astros rebuilds didnt work? You're all over the place. Also, again this has nothing to do with this thread or my posts. You're just going thread to thread to complain about the same thing.

What are you being critical of? What does any of this have to do with this thread? Yes, if their best starter gets hurt that would be bad. How do you contend in just one half of baseball? How was kopech going to make a 70 win team into an 82 win team? Development isnt linear. Guys you were disappointed in last year could make adjustments and come out strong. You honestly never know. Why is Balta the one that determines the success of the rebuild?

Yeah, and now you have a coach who still has some old school mental mind trick coaching paired with an analytical mind. Cooper can be a bit of a curmudgeon, but those quotes and reviews from his staff - particularly Gio who is now the leader of that unit - are glowing and lead me to be very optimistic. I still have hope for Lopez too; assuming he can find that ride on his fastball consistently. Time will tell if he can; it's clearly an arm action issue.

What do you mean? What are you asking? Do you think that the Sox now, somehow, are causing injuries? How did it set the rebuild back? What are you being critical of? You're just typing a bunch of stuff but not making any actual points. What have those teams figured out?

Giolito was broken when the Sox acquired him - he's now, arguably, a top 10 arm in baseball. Kopech couldn't find command; he struggled early with the Sox before finding his release point and really taking off. Dunning had developed really nicely before the injury. The Sox got a 4 MPH increase out of Stievers fastball in ONE off-season. They turned Tommy Kahnle, Anthony Swarzak went from worthless, to a piece they traded at the deadline for something. I won't even get into the find and development of Q and Sale.

Yeah, let's strip away all the success stories and then evaluate the effectiveness of the system then - that'll tell us a great story. Great take. No matter how good you are, you're going to have failures. It doesn't mean you'll always be correct. The Sox track record with pitching isn't bad in the least bit. So many pitching injuries ha; all they've done is revert to the mean. Likely their shoulder programs and etc have been copied and implemented across the league. Edges in baseball don't last very long; if you're doing something really well, it won't take long before people start copying your system.

That entire article is a great read; there are other excerpts as exciting as the above but I don't want to direct link too much because it's a subscription service. The piece about Cooper today in Fegan's piece touched on all of this further; some excerpts from that - I agree very much with the following. “There is a benefit to having the continuity of instruction, the fact our drafted players are hearing the same message in the minor leagues that they’ll hear all the way up the chain in Chicago,” Hahn said. “That’s in part because of the long-term continuity of Coop and the other pitching coaches in the organization. Another layer, our scouts have a really good sense of what type of arm action and deliveries we feel as a staff we’re really good at getting better, and what hangups we avoid because historically we haven’t seen good results from. There is a great benefit from that continuity from a development and scouting standpoint.”

After reading Fegan's piece in September about continuity within the system and one voice/message throughout all levels, paired with the massive jump in analytics this year at the MLB level, I find the anger directed at Cooper by fans to be misguided. When you read Eno Sarris talk about how the average pitching coach tenure is 1 season, you realize that continuity is likely a better driving force of success than constant turnover. You will have peaks and valleys within the tenure, but the continuity from level to level has a lot of value. Cooper also isn't as archaic as people think. An excerpt from one of the articles I found promising: But Giolito — who ditched his sinker and returned to working exclusively with a high-riding four-seamer because of a report from White Sox analytics in spring training — says that the simplicity of in-game cues frequently belies the complexity of mid-week work on spin axis, ride, spin rate, angle and extension. Getting López’s fastball to ride like it did over the barrels of Cleveland hitters all afternoon has been a back-and-forth battle with frequent hiccups. But it’s been about establishing in side sessions what elements in his delivery will produce the fastball action they’re looking for with Trackman and Rapsodo data, and getting him to carry that into games. “A lot of credit to Coop and Has (bullpen coach Curt Hasler) with having the old-school background, old-school pitching mentality and learning all this stuff from our analytics department,” Giolito said. “Really, really educating themselves so they can in turn help all the pitchers. We look at that stuff on an almost daily basis in our bullpens and stuff like that and that’s been super beneficial to me this year. When I can look at an outing and see I climbed up a little higher (in release point) and my ride wasn’t as good. OK, let me go into my next bullpen and focus on getting back into my good (arm) slot and then we have the Rapsodo on it and it’s like oh, there it is, there’s the carry and the way the ball should be coming out. A lot of credit to them for learning all that stuff, taking it all on.”

It was classic Rogers, clueless as always. People put DJ, Nelson Cruz and Meadows on their ballots and Rogers took onus with Fegan putting a top 10 player in WAR on the ballot. What a dunce. I actually bought the athletic subscription at the beginning solely for Fegan and Kenny Rosenthal.

The mistake they made with that situation was telling Yu what the supposed tip was; of course he was going to go back and check the tape. If he can't see it in slow motion on replay then there was no glove waveing. Also, what a class act Darvish is.

Yu has always been very well spoken and intelligent. He gets into his own head sometimes but that's well said. To grind your entire life for that opportunity only to feel cheated at the end of the day must really suck.

Smith got one year less but 1 million more per year. One down, 24 to go.

Yes, baseball needs a deadline.

Signs with the Braves for 3 years, 39 million. Looks like things are going to go a bit differently this year than last.

Hahn implied they did without saying it.

What??? Mark Teahen was a negative WAR player for over 300 games the two years prior to the sox signing him. Jon Gray has been the 39th ranked starter according got FG over the past 2 seasons. Those two players are nothing alike.

The difference between a 0 WAR player and a 3 WAR player is the difference between a AAA replacement and an above average regular. The difference between a 3 WAR player and a 5 WAR player is the difference between an above average regular and an all-star. Mark Tehen shouldnt have been a big leaguer - so giving him a contract in hopes of unlocking something hidden is fools gold. Jon Gray is an above average big leaguer - so trading for him in his prime in hopes of unlocking the next tier of his skill set is reasonable. I would take the time to quantify my claim, but respectfully I've realized it won't change your opinion (or most peoples at that) so it would be a waste of my time.