The Hawk

I think that I would offer McCann three years @$10M per year. I think that is a fair evaluation for both the team and the player. He's proven himself to me that he is a top five over-all catcher in all of baseball.

I disagree. The shrunken strike zone killed a lot of the use of the curve ball at least as a strike pitch.

I don't consider not getting Wheeler a failure. I think that they were a year away from contending in a full season. But a lot of things improved for this team in the silly season and next year they should go for it all by going hard for a couple of good veteran pitchers and this doesn't necessarily mean just via free agency but also by trade

I think that the entire scenario about players thinking seriously about coming to the Sox and playing has changed dramatically in the last couple of years. The Sox, I think have established themselves as a good team and one which is on the rise. They are young and yet have a core of young veterans also. I know this. If I were a good pitcher, I would love to be pitching in front of an offensive juggernaut like the Sox have. Who wouldn't be. The thing is also is that they have a group of high end young pitching talent also in the system so the option of trading some of that talent for veteran good players is also possible, I have to think that Reinny wants to go out with a world series win or two before he kicks the bucket also. I'm hopeful that he doesn't pull defeat out of the jaws of victory and not give Hahn what he needs to win everything.

I don't think so. McCann will want a 3 year contract with potentially an option year to boot. He has worked his butt off for the last two years and risen to the top of the catching profession in baseball.

Wow. That's great. He flew fighter jets in Korea, right?

Why? Every player should be "tradable" with the right offer being made.

Curveballs pretty much went the way of the dodo bird until the baseball "gods" decided to mess with baseball once again and create the new strike zone and baseball to bring the home run hitter back into the forefront. It is pretty recent that the curve started to come back because under the old rules, umpires had much tighter strike zones and were not calling curve ball strikes basically. The era of change-ups and hard sliders developed. Now they changed the strike zones around and the curve ball is back to being developed. The other new "approach" is pitchers going higher up in the strike zone with hitters who have adjusted their swings to elevate the baseball and can't normally get around on a high strike in the zone now because their swing plain starts off lower than it was before.

Bottom line. Mazara is an average major league right fielder. All major league managers and pitching coaches use statistics to one extent or the other as information which pertains to their job. Statistics do not run the game that is being played despite what some stat fans want to believe, players and managers do. And if you want to disprove something that I've said, the burden of proof is on you, not me. Consider this a US Court of Law, not a French Court of Law.

What pray tell does that mean? Nope. I asked you to tell me what you think a stat guy manager is versus a non stat guy manager. YOur answer was the simplistic thing, not the question. What doesn't manifest itself on the field? What logical fallacies have I done. Be specific. As far as your question itself. I never said anything to the effect that certain managers do not use statistics. You did, in fact. And you never did answer my question about whether you happened to know what happens inside a baseball dugout and clubhouse in terms of planning for a game and what gets done during the actual game in terms of decision processing.

Fulmer did fail. Rodon got hurt bad(that isn't a fail in my book). Lopez hasn't failed(yet) NOt with a new pitching coach on the way anyway. Cease is also not a fail. I think that the Sox load of good arms at the major league level and high echelons of their minor league system is a STRENGTH of this team going forward not some kind of weakness. There will be a nice load of competition in spring training next season for a couple of starting jobs with somewhere around 6 legit guys battling it out. That's a good thing to me.

It can. Depends, though, on what the person wants to get across to someone else.

What do you think about a trade market for Grandal? Like you said, the market for good two way catchers is high and the talent pool is very low. The Sox have an over-all honey pot in catching right now.

First of all, I liked you post. What I'll say though is that this was a very small subset of baseball we witnessed and the success of pitchers with certain catchers is tough to assess as being the barometer of a catcher's prowess. Now McCann has always been known to be a favorite of a lot of pitchers. He had this rep even as a Tiger. Personally I think that he is a very good defensive catcher and calls a good game. I think that Grandal is better at getting strikes called and is a slightly better hitter. To me, both are deserving of a top five rating over-all in baseball as catchers. As for where Grandal plays when McCann catches, I'd say that he plays either 1B or DHs. Its not a big problem really to me, although I would love to see the Sox give Mercedes a chance before they release him. I just think that if they didn't sign EE and went with Mercedes, they'd have gotten a lot more production out of the DH slot.

Nope. I am all for argument. I love it in fact. I just don't like personal insults. If you have an opinion that you don't agree with or dispute something that someone claims as being factual, make another argument or provide proof of the other guy being wrong.

That is what you think a stat guy is? He looks at stats and adjusts? And you think that there are actually some managers in baseball that do not go over stats like that or who have people who work for them that do do it and bring up things that he deems the manager needs to know? Come-on man. What that manager will typically know if he is a good manager, is whether a particular hitter for some reason can see the ball good coming out of the pitchers hand. Hitting has a lot to do with confidence as does pitching. I take it that you are a big time advocate of Sabermetrics. I would like to know if you have ever experienced what pitching coaches at high levels and managers at high levels actually do in preparing for and managing in baseball games? Just for a general comment, do you see any managers or pitching coaches referencing stat sheets, or computer monitors while the game is being played? I'd say that they don't. What they will do and what they have done throughout time is to prepare their teams before the game gets played as best that they can using both analytical and subjective information. And some of this stuff includes stuff that no analytical data doesn't include including injuries or achy players, whether a pitcher can find his release point in the bull-pen warming up, whether his curve ball has bite or not, etc. In other words, you gave me a very simplistic answer on what a stat guy manager is and what a non stat guy is and I think that it is nonsensically simplistic. I'll just state that while I do not know exactly what a major league manager or pitching coach looks at, I do know a bit about what high school coaches and college coaches and managers look at. I've also had some kids that I've coached who made it to college and professional baseball, talked to many college and professional scouts, and a few kids who did play in the major leagues.

I do not think that people need to get insulting when arguing what is basically an opinion. I don't care about being popular or anything but I don't go out of my way to insult people personally and don't take any shit leveled at me. Its stupid. I like this board from my two weeks or so on it and appreciate the ideas thrown around. Its a good board with some intelligent fans on it.

Another insult. Knock that shit off. Since you called me "dense", tell me all about your knowledge of what a "stat guy" is and how he operates versus who is a "non-stat guy" and what he does differently. Tell me, for example what a pitching coach does or doesn't do in each case? I need to learn this stuff if I am to interact with such a smart stat guy like you, I guess:)

Where did I get "proven wrong"? I asked a good question. What do you think that a stat guy manager does differently than a non "stat guy"? It sure as hell doesn't play out during the course of a game other than in the preparation for the game. By that I mean, pitchers will still go over their preparation for how they are going to attack the line-up presented by the other team, the infield will review the hitter tendencies and how they will defense each player and the outfield will do the same. Then there will be a general review to make sure that the pitchers and the defense are in synch. This has gone on for decades BTW. More data is available now and its easier to format and make available now than before but this same kind of stuff has been reviewed like forever by good managers and pitching coaches. Am I right?

One of the funnest moments of my sports fan life. Paulie is a "god".

Define what a manager who is "stats guy" is? Tell me what you think that these guys who are "stat" guys do as a manager that is different from what a NON stat guy does. All stats are to me is information that a manager takes in as part of what his decision making process is. I think a lot of this is subtle. In fact I know it is subtle.

Speaking of bad calls. Did anyone see that of all bleeping umpires, Laz bleeping Diaz is on that WOrld Series crew. I don't know where on the rotation that piece of scum is, but can you imagine if his sorry behind is behind home plate in the 6th or 7th game of the series?

I would really as a fan love it if they could somehow resign McCann. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me from a financial statement given what else they need pitching-wise. But it would be still neat to have that guy back.

As in the movie Pulp Fiction..... Butch(aka Ozzie) has lost his Chi Town privileges:)