greg775

The Royals are so bad and they took us 4 games to 0 recently. It's baseball so we should savor the wins against Detroit since we went 0-4 vs. KC which is very hard to do.

Dan of Steele with the A plus post. Keep 'em coming Dan. Nice post! Greg agrees.

I'll give Nova credit. Nice win for him.

I feel like it's very very weird I'm the bad guy on this issue (Jose) when I'd think logic would make me the good guy since there's really no reason at all to be criticizing Jose Abreu right now. Like I said, it's silly at best; the movie Major League parody working overtime here. Yet in a bizarre world I sense a strong segment in the anti Jose group. Personally if I had power here instead of trying to not get banned again, I'd be telling some people to lay off Jose until he's actually worthy of deep criticism. I'd call it player bashing; others may disagree. It's just kind of sad a guy can go 3 for 5 and knock in two runs and score two runs and the best he can muster from his own fans is "yeah but ...." Oh well, just my opinion. I wonder if people would like Jose if he was 24 and having this season or if they'd still dislike him for some reason. To the fellow Jose lovers on here, or those who at least think he's worth being on the team, I don't mean to lump you in. I realize some of you are silent on the issue which is fine. I cheer you and toast you with a can of Miller Lite tonight over Jose's fine game. GO SOX GO BEARS

Me thinks If I blasted Jose like several others on here do, I'd be shipped away. It's very repetitive from the same people. The mods really should consider whether criticism of a guy who is actually having an all star season is acceptable. It borderlines player harassment. At least that's my opinion. If he's at .190 with 7 homers and 42 RBI that's one thing; this guy produces and has to put up with unrelenting criticism sans me and 2-3 others who sometimes join me in defending him. It's kind of silly, really. Rather than back me, I'm the one invited to leave. That is hilarious. Peace out. I gotta run; hopefully Sox have this one wrapped up.

I wish I had 10 dollars for every time my fave player gets bashed on here. I love u Jose Abreu!! Keep it rolling with the Sox. There's a silent majority on here that loves you. Nice game so far. (Does anybody have any suggestions how I can calm down when people bag on Abreu? It really bothers me; thanx in advance). p.s. some of you really do act like that fan in Major League who is always complaining. You realize that, don't you? Your act can be as laughable as the Quaid character. GO SOX GO BEARS GO HAWKS

I'm not sure that's a good strategy either. It's definitely against good business practices to figure a guy might be productive four years of the 7 year deal and reek the rest. Also you are assuming he will guarantee one or two WS titles. It'd be nice if the Sox could have an owner and front office that uses the fact the rest of the division is small market and finds a way to dominate and not just have a 2-3 year window of potential excellence.

I'd just as soon they not give a zillion dollar contract to a pitcher. I know I want Jerry to spend so much money it hurts his wallet, but I'm kind of against the 300-500 million dollar deals I'd rather sign some "very good" starters for say 60 million over 5 years. Or sluggers for 80 million over 5 years. I just feel like the minute we give that kind of money to a starter he'll turn into the bad version of Humber. or Covey.

Beckham seems like a good dude. Is he set for life financially? Did he make it big enough? I wish him $$$. He paid his dues.

Eloy needs to relax and go up there hacking. His talent is too immense. No need for Eloy to ever struggle or doubt himself. He's made to hit.

Very sad at what has become of baseball. No action except when the hitter connects for the home run. I mean homers are fine, but let's just play home run derby if that's all fans care about now. Pitchers are getting awfully fragile anyway. Home run derby might be worth exploring. A home run derby league actually might be interesting to average fans. There's a 3 on 3 basketball league.

Good article on Cruz and age. Question: If all of a sudden it was announced we'd have Cruz as our DH next season would you be happy or upset? The implication is from 39 to 40 he's going to completely forget how to hit. Interesting. https://www.mlb.com/news/nelson-cruz-late-career-power-nearly-unmatched-in-history

Great post. That's why I was posting that our fans of the rebuild don't want to contend until every position player is a star and we are projected to cruise to the WS title. The basis of the Sox rebuild is to have superstars or stars at virtually every position. And they get a lot of projected stars as is: Stars to superstars: C-Collins. 3B-Moncada. SS-Tim. 2B-Madrigal. 1B-Vaughn. DH-Burger. LF-Eloy. CF-Robert. RF-Star to be acquired if Rutherford isn't a star. Pitchers- for some reason they will allow mere mortals to be projected as part of the rotation but certainly there's hope this group will include several stars or superstars: Cease, Gio, Kopech, Lopez, Bummer reliever. Colome good nuff closer. If the above mentioned every day players aren't star caliber, Hahn is gone. There doesn't appear to be as much depth down on the farm as we thought there'd be, though we get another top draft pick next year.

Not til the new owners take over I hate to say. We're not competing during the proposed window of this current tank/rebuild.

Modern baseball is crazy. They are going to have to develop new ways to determine if a player is good or not that don't involve boring techno advanced stat digits. Pitchers going five innings or six is ridiculous. Nobody can go deep in games. Four pitcher no hitters? Wow. I wonder how many one pitcher no hitters we're going to have in the future? It's going to take awfully low pitch counts to pull it off. I bet 110 pitches is the ultimate max. That's about 12 pitchs an inning. I guess it's do-able,

I don't hear the stat people clamoring about ERA when discussing pitchers. Is ERA indeed still safe? As far as what I said with my posting of all those pitchers, I would think if you look at all those starting pitchers who won, I bet most of their W/L was better than the runnerups. I didn't look at all the contenders. But like I said even in the past few seasons except for Felix Hernandez and deGrom you could point to W/L as being the deciding factor in Cy Young. I'd be interested in hearing from the advanced statters which pitchers listed did not deserve it despite great W/L records and ERA. I'm trying to say advanced stats are more important to the GMs in designing shifts defensively and baseball strategy (training everybody to hit home runs or strikeout; demanding they not steal bases) than they are to color announcers in the game.

I listed virtually all the Cy Young winners since the 60s and over 90 percent of them won it because of W/L and ERA. What does that tell the naysayers???? Wins and losses have been considered pretty damn important by baseball's decision makers!

Amazing how little the Sox have been able to do in the Central Division throughout history considering all the inherent advantages of playing in a big city like Chicago and all the other crap organizations in our division. Really sad the Sox have stunk so much going against Cleveland, Detroit, KC and Minnie. Can you imagine if we had a good owner and good front office going against those teams?

I can admit I was wrong. John Jay against all odds (injury) has done a nice job for the Sox. Not so sure why we needed him this tank year, but I can't let this go uncorrected. I was wrong. I despised him and was wrong in doing so. He's a pretty good professional hitter who appears to be a smart grinder if you will.

Sir, My point is, believe it or not, W/L and simple ERA still are the standards for Cy Young. deGrom looks like one of the only outliers. Also, sir, closers still are in the running if they get a lot of saves. Of course strikeouts could be used as well for starters but look at all the winners. They are either starters, sir, with great W/L records and great ERAs or closers with a ton of saves. Almost no exceptions! Yes in the old days it was automatic, but you see the same pattern nowadays for the most part. What do you say to this research, sir??

I don't want to fight. However, your basic premise is something very very rudimentary. Everybody has known for years, decades that a pitcher can't completely control W/L record, yet it was perhaps THE most important factor in a pitching winning Cy Young (prior to the emergence of closers). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce some pitchers have very tough luck in trying to rack up wins, instead get no decisions. Yet again ... forever it was THE bench mark for starters along with ERA of course. Bruce Sutter won Cy Young in 1979. Before that ... all W/L and ERA. McCormick 22-10, 2.85; Gibson 22-9, 1.12; Seaver 25-7, 2.21; Gibson 23-7, 3.12; Fergie 24-13, 2.77; Carlton 27-10, 1.98; Seaver 19-10, 2.08; Marshall 15.21 withi 21 saves, 2.42; Seaver 22-9, 2.38; Jones 22-14, 2.74; Carlton 23-10, 2.64; Gaylord Perry 21-6, 2.73; then Sutter. Then after Sutter and 37 saves it was all W/L and era cept for relievers: carlton 24-9, 2.34; Fernando V 13-7, 2.48 (strike); Carlton 23-11, 3.11; John Denny 19-6, 2.37; Sutcliffe 16-1, 2.69; Gooden 24-4, 1.53; Mike Scott 18-10, 2.22; Bedrosian 40 saves; Hershiser 23-8, 2.26; Davis 44 saves; Drabek 22-6, 2.76; Glavine 20-11, 2.55; Maddux the next four years all based on wins and era; Smoltz 24-8, 2.94; Pedro 17-8 1.90; Glavine 20-6, 2.47; Randy Johnson next four years all wins/losses and era based; gagne 55 saves in 2003; then clemens, carpenter, webb, peavy, lincecum twice in a row; halladay, kershaw, dickey, kershaw twice in a row; arrieta, scherzer twice all based on WL and era. last year deGrom more on the advanced stats. 10-9, 1.70 I can do the AL pitchers next if you wish. Even last year's snell at 21-5, 1.89 was traditional W/L and era. In 2010, felix hernandez won 13 and lost 12 so that was ignored cause of his era and strikeouts and he won it; Aside from that, all W/L and ERA cept for Eck's 51 saves; willie hernandez's 32 saves; rollie fingers 28 and sparky lyle's 26. Aside from relievers and Felix hernandez, all cy Young winners based on W/L, ERA. Seems to me we now know why Stoney mentions wins and losses so much, folks.

The disintegration of the W/L record has made its was to the modern baseball world though. I never look at W/L records anymore even though Stoney will mention record. He was mentioning Gio's a lot early. It used to be necessary before going to a game to see a pitcher's record. At this stage of the season a 14-8 record or something was a good pitcher.

Thanks Kite. I appreciate that.

Is there an anti Ron out there? Somebody to start a pro-Jose thread? One with all compliments? That would be neat.

It's a microcosm of society. You seen the anger out there? If a person like greg disagrees so much he must be trolling. ... Wrong. He simply disagrees. Parents are now teaching that their kids are right in their opinion no matter what so outlier opinions like mine are not welcome. They are despised. My point was ignored. That Stone immediately goes to conventional stats, wins/losses for pitchers and ERA; HRs, RBI and yes batting average for hitters. Most broadcasts squeeze in OBP in the graphic but never talk about it. If advanced stats were so important why aren't they being integrated into the broadcasts; can't ignore something if it's vital to baseball. Now in the front offices? Yes they are dying to acquire all the advanced stats. Shifts ... they know exactly where the batter will hit the ball. And the ruination of baseball to me? The knowledge that all a hitter needs to worry about are HRs or strikeouts. You must hit a HR or strikeout. Other stuff is bad. No need to hit and run or steal bases, not worth the risk. You notice McCann was raking when he was going to all fields. Now he's struggling.