nrockway

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.

I frankly doubt it. Plenty of teams could have used Clevinger going into the season and know what he's capable of. And if he's toast, it's a minor league contract, no major loss. Re-signing him was the stupidest thing Getz has done, mostly from a moral standpoint but also from a baseball perspective too. There are about 10 pitchers in the organization that I'd rather see develop than watch Clevinger's old slimy ass net the Sox 2 extra wins in a 120 loss season.

I've always been partial to "Yasmani Groundball" .

I'm pretty sure LuBob was the second woman to convert to Islam alongside her buddy Khadija. Or was that Lubaba.

“We knew that it was going to be a challenge to play consistent winning baseball. And I say winning in terms of a wins and losses standpoint,” oh dang, winning in terms of the standpoint where you win instead of lose. interesting strategy, will it work?

I tend to agree but he's a free agent after next season. Could the Sox compete next season? Maybe but I wouldn't bank on it. You'd probably prefer to have a player under contract in 2026 and beyond than Fedde for 2024 and 2025 I think.

I think the funniest thing about it is that they waived all guys they traded for.

He has been very good through 4 starts. 22.2 IP, 1.99 ERA, 0.93 WHIP. I like this trade more than I did initially but I wonder what we could've gotten if we waited.

I don't think the system is that good but there are a lot of useful players, I could see many guys outside the top 10 turning into good major leaguers. The issue is, what has already been discussed ad nauseum, actually developing those players. Especially hitters. I feel fairly confident in this team's ability to develop a pitching staff and the system is weighted toward pitching. But a lot has to go right for the Sox to turn 4 or 5 of those position players into every day players. It would be nice if Colson could stick at SS while Gonzalez and Ramos pan out and can play 2B and 3B respectively. Hopefully the idea is to pump up our pitchers' value and trade them for guys who can hit and balance out the system. The Mena trade was the right idea, just wasted on a pointless player. Kopech seems like the likeliest candidate to bring back a good player.

They should hold a meeting at a batting cage. What is there to talk about, how they can't hit the baseball? I'd recommend practicing that.

I agree and I love rooting for a guy who's from Illinois (or might as well be) but I echo the sentiment that the other Jake's potential is tantalizing even if he hasn't looked so amazing, while likeable Jake is who he is, an oft-injured first baseman who can really hit the ball. He'll be way better than 86 WRC+ by the end of the season if he plays enough games; he'll just give up as many runs on defense at third as he scores. The Marlins strategy of getting a bunch of infielders who can't play defense because they expect their pitchers to strike everybody out has been a hilarious failure. Also confused about why Jazz is playing center field instead of SS, like why'd they sign Tim Anderson?

They are in a sorrier state because at least the White Sox admitted they need to rebuild. Karnisovas is in the Hahnish stage of general managing whereby signing old veterans that nobody wants or giving up draft capital for them is the path to "get over the hump". They've had one winning season since 2016. They've whiffed on every draft pick too except, maybe, Ayo Dosunmu, a league average backup that we're overpaying because Karnisovas screwed up his rookie contract. The Bulls will trot out this same monstrosity for the foreseeable future and delay the inevitable. They need to tank and I won't follow the team until they start over. The White Sox are bad, as expected (worse actually but it doesn't really matter), because they committed to a rebuild. A step in the right direction that the Bulls refuse to make. I would trust Karnisovas even less than Getz to manage a rebuild though. Getz may have been the wrong pick because he has no track record, well Karnisovas has a fairly long track record now and it's overwhelmingly bad.

I basically started posting on this forum because I gave up on the Bulls for the reason the other poster mentioned (and basically the reasons why people in this thread are giving up on the Sox). That team is going to treadmill until 2030 because there's no path for improvement and their idiot GM keeps compounding his bad mistakes. Trading lottery picks for bad, overpaid veterans, trading an all-star starter who you have team control of for a guy who sits on the bench for a year then doesn't get re-signed. Drafting a non-NBA player with the 4th overall pick, declaring him the franchise savior, then watching him flounder for years because the GM can't admit he screwed up. They will re-sign Pat this offseason and cement the Bulls as a 39-43 team for the rest of my life. Just good enough to make the BS play-in and not tank ticket sales, not good enough to actually win anything. The Bulls may be "better" than the White Sox in relation to their respective leagues, but I actually think the Bulls are in a sorrier state. I could reasonably expect the White Sox to have a good team in 2026, I see no path for the Bulls unless they get really lucky in the draft (that is, if they haven't already traded all their future draft picks away).