nrockway

Every night lately I think to myself, "what a day, let's relax by watching the replay of my favorite team play my favorite sport." Now I have the good sense to click on any random page of the game thread and gage the reaction of fans to see if it's worth wasting two hours. Thus far, it's not been worth it. The minor leaguers are kinda fun to watch at least.

C Edgar run C Edgar catch C Edgar hit One, two, three extra base hits WRC+ goes up up up

I get the logic behind the positional adjustment and I don't take fault with that necessarily. Well I do a little bit, it overrates bad players who play premium positions and underrates first baseman defense generally -- but that's not really my point here, I'm more so critiquing what they give precedence to or ignore when making the calculation. I think Vaughn is a better defensive first baseman, relative to other first basemen, than dWAR calculations gives him credit for. I can't prove it quantitatively, it's just the eye test, he's saved some really god awful throws and turned them into outs. There was a play the other day, I forget who fielded it on the left side of the infield, maybe Mendick, it was a tough, close play but the throw was offline and in the dirt. Vaughn looked like a 200 pound ballerina, I don't know how he contorted his body to make the scoop. I'm exaggerating a little bit but I'm generally impressed with his play at first base; he's missed some hard grounders he probably should've fielded which I think is what's counting against him, but I bet he's saved a couple of runs making catches that other first basemen wouldn't get to (see: Michael Busch. literally the worst first baseman I've ever seen...I'd still rather have him than Vaughn).

I think however fangraphs calculates defensive WAR for first base and catcher is way off. Both sites do first basemen dirty, to my eye Vaughn has been pretty good defensively. He's turned a lot of bad throws into outs that I don't think other first basemen get. I don't think they do a "zone rating" for scoops/stretches but they should. The catcher point is mostly an aside, but boy does Fangraphs love "framing", something that can't actually be effectively quantified, is a skillset that is predicated on umpire ineptitude and will become entirely useless the second the automated strikezone replaces the home plate ump. Let's consider two catchers: Salvador Perez and Yasmani Grandal. Perez has a fWAR of 16.5 and a bWAR of 34.3. He's so bad at framing that it cost him 20 WAR. Now let's look at Grandal, 38.6 fWAR, 19.6 bWAR. Framing evidently earned him 20 WAR. How can there be such a discrepancy between the two calculations?

The entire team still makes very dumb defensive lapses (how about that Harper run down) which can only reflect on the coaching staff

Shewmake had been worse than I thought defensively but I bet most of that negative war is in the outfield. Benintendi and Grossman are two of the worst defensive outfielders I’ve ever seen play baseball. These are the kids you stick in right field because nobody is left handed in little league. Fletcher is ok but doesn’t have the range to play cf and it shows

they need to add an adjustment to FIP: pitched against White Sox. Paddock had an ERA above 8 before becoming prime Gred Maddux against the Sox.

Albert Pujols. Tony will vouch for him.

benintendi and grossman tripping and falling instead of fielding balls was hysterical

I deluded myself into thinking this team would be better than it was last year. I thought the hitting couldn't possibly get any worse and that the pitching/defense could actually impress. I thought Benintendi might bounce back and Vaughn would finally show something. Boy was I wrong. I don't necessarily blame Getz for that, I can only blame myself.

can we just relegate the entire team? does that exist in this sport?

well, after that Bohm 3-run home run, I decided I'd check the box score and see what I'm in for. oh s%*#, I mean his first 3-run home run. I think I'll pass on this game.

now that the Bulls have finished losing (for a couple months anyway), I can turn my undivided attention to watch the Sox continue to lose indefinitely!

I just wanted to play shortstop, man. One time. 70% of the kids can't throw it across the infield anyway, who cares if I have to turn my body? The last game before high school the coach let me play second base. Jerk.

the most memorable Sox game I attended, we went back-to-back-to-back off Randy Johnson. You could probably guess the year.