hogan873

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Mar 18, 2014 -> 03:16 PM) Come on, Rock, don't ignore context. You're not like these other guys. He put up a .775 OPS on the strength of a .370 BABIP, over 42 games. Players ride .370 BABIPs all the way to MVP awards. A .775 OPS on that BABIP is somewhere between disappointing and very disappointing. Furthermore, he did it with a league average LD% somehow, which is numerical corroboration to what we all already observed -- a whole bunch of seeing-eye grounders and shanked pop-up ducksnorts. If he does everything that way he did last year, that BABIP is going to drop substantially. It may stay above .300 if he continues to hit 8-10% more GB than average, but take 50 or so points off of that BABIP and stay around 3.0% BB rate, and that average-ish RF OPS will very quickly become below average. The dude needs to learn to take bad pitches and work a count. He's 22, so hopefully he does, but he has shown us nothing so far. He has shown remarkable tools, and no skills. It depends how you define talent, I guess, but I always think of it more toward the skill side of that spectrum. EDIT: Also, I'm not expecting him to be one of the greatest hitters ever, and I'm not saying he has to be him to be successful -- but that's the comparison everyone is making that I'm criticizing in my post. I'm tired of people comparing him to Miguel Cabrera. As players, they are nothing alike. I view tools and skill to be pretty much the same thing. Different players are going to have different skills that are part of their overall toolset. It's the skill vs. will comparison that will set players apart. Granted, if a guy has little skill, all the will in the world won't help him at the MLB level. But, if you have two players with similar skills and one busts his ass day in and day out to get better, he's going to succeed over a guy who tries to fall back to his "god-given" skills. Garcia is a guy with the skills to be a great player, but he's going to have to bust his ass.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Mar 18, 2014 -> 02:33 PM) Whatever talent he's oozing, it isn't hitting or fielding a baseball. I get it, he's a physical specimen. Someone teach him how to play. He may look like Cabrera, but he sure as hell doesn't hit like him. QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Mar 18, 2014 -> 02:37 PM) Not fitting the bill on this puts him in company shared by, oh, all but 2 or 3 people in the history of Earth QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 18, 2014 -> 02:38 PM) 1. So he doesnt hit like probably one of the best hitters EVER? Thats CRAZY!!!!!!! 2. The guy put up a .775 OPS with us last year at age 22, and has tremendous upside. So yes, he has great talent. The talent is there...maybe not to be as good a hitter as Cabrera (there's not many players that are or will be). He has a very high ceiling, and with him being young, there's a chance he could be a great player and a cornerstone for the Sox for years. Most likely it's going to take a bit of time, but if he can hit in the .270 range with 20+ HRs this year, that would be a good start.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 17, 2014 -> 09:41 PM) Does anyone watch Agents of SHIELD? My list right now is Scandal, House of Cards, Shameless, Person of Interest, Elementary, both NCIS shows, CSI, The Blacklist...tried to start watching Hannibal but can't really get into that one. Maybe I can't picture anyone else but Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, especially a former James Bond villain from Casino Royale. I enjoy Agents of SHIELD.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 17, 2014 -> 02:38 PM) Crazy. That is about the last guy I would have expected to be involved in a series like that. He's good friends with Carl Sagan's widow, and they've been working for quite a while to do this. He said he wanted to do something worthwhile with some of his disposable income.

Tough to watch episode of The Walking Dead last night.

So, there are still 4 catchers in camp. I assume one is Nieto. Since he was a Rule 5 pick, if the Sox send him to the minors he goes back to the original team? Is that how it works? And is that the only reason he's still in camp?

This thread today has been like a child that is throwing a temper tantrum, running around screaming, ripping the heads off stuffed animals while the parents calmly talk to said child, which only infuriates the child even more. Of course, what usually happen is that the child finally sobs himself to sleep surrounded by his beheaded stuffed animals.

QUOTE (almagest @ Mar 13, 2014 -> 09:27 AM) I really think this should be his subtext/flair/whatever it's called. Yeah, what is that called? Subname? Subtext? Thing above the little squares?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Mar 13, 2014 -> 09:03 AM) What if greg775 was just one of Hahn's Assistant GMs trying to neutralize the PR around all the worst things that happen to the White Sox? Think about it: he supports everything the rest of us hate, and dumps on everything we like. He's not a troll, he's an entity of universal balance. Someone needs to put that on greg775's profile.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Mar 13, 2014 -> 08:49 AM) Adam Dunn would be a good fat waitress at Applebees. Then he could add a little TexMex to spice up some of that "veteran wisdom" he's so great for. I don't think I want Dunn giving advice to anyone on this team. Well, he does have experience as a bartender after Dallas Buyers Club.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Mar 13, 2014 -> 09:39 AM) This is a fun thing to think about. "Ok, ok, greg775 likes him, so we know we'll have the fans from Lawrence behind us. Ahh s***, here's a lengthy one from witesoxfan, get ready for a dumpfest. WHo gave that asshole access to FanGraphs anyway? Oh it's free? Oh. Well whatever." "Quick, I need a team of folks to hit the Applebees in Lawrence, Tulsa, and um...how about New London. Find out which players make them smile. And see if Ozzie is available to help with the polling."

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 13, 2014 -> 09:40 AM) "Hey guys, should we go after [NAME REDACTED]?" Fixed that for you.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 13, 2014 -> 09:39 AM) Back to the competing thing, if the Sox win 86 games, is anyone going to be too surprised? On the flip side, if they only win 72 games, is anyone going to be surprised? I won't be surprised with either. Baseball is a fickle game, and you can flip everything around simply by being luckier. Honestly, I'd be more surprised by only 72 wins. I see this team playing close to .500 baseball. 82 wins won't be enough to compete, but 86 wins vs. 82 wins could be the difference between playing baseball in October and playing golf in October.

I like Dunn, and I root for him every time he comes up to bat. He's been a big disappintment with the Sox, but as someone else pointed out, his line since being with the Sox is affected by the outlier year of 2011. Still, batting .210 or so isn't great. The power still seems to be there, and I hope he cranks out 25 HRs before the trade deadline so if the Sox wish to they could possibly trade him. Right now, though, he's going nowhere. The Sox don't have a hope to trade him without sending a bunmch of money (which they won't do), and contrary to the beliefs of some people, dumping a guy and eating $15 million makes absolutely no sense. Everything I've seen heard, and read about Dunn is that he's a great teammate. I know that doesn't necessarily lead to wins, but having a veteran guy in the clubhouse who is a good teammate doesn't hurt at all.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Mar 12, 2014 -> 08:28 AM) It's March 12, 2019.... predict what all these young guys will end up looking on this date (regardless of what team they happen to be playing on). Here's a scale to use: 0 = never plays in the Bigs 1 = cup of coffee/outright bust 2 = useful role player or specialist for a couple years 3 = very useful bench/backup/utility/MR option 4 = borderline starting position player OR high quality setup man OR 5th starter, several seasons in the bigs 5 = average starting position player all around OR quality closer OR #4 type of starter, several seasons in the bigs 6 = above average starting position player all around OR dynamite closer OR #3 starter 7 = generally an All-Star level position player OR #2 type of starter 8 = perennial All-Star position player OR true ace SP 9 = HOF candidate Here are the names, no particular order: Jose Abreu - 8 Marcus Semien - 6 Micah Johnson - 6 Carlos Sanchez - 5 Leury Garcia - 5 Connor Gillaspie - 4 Matt Davidson - 7 Avisail Garcia - 8 Dayan Viciedo - 5 Adam Eaton - 8 Jordan Danks - 3 Jared Mitchell - 5 --- Chris Sale - 9 Jose Quintana - 7 Erik Johnson - 7 Daniel Webb - 6 Nate Jones - 6

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 11, 2014 -> 01:47 PM) Prove it. See, I can http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/v/vicieda01.shtml and prove my stance. Prove yours. That link doesn't prove that Viciedo sucks. Granted he doesn't have the best numbers, but what number would he have to have to "not suck"? He's only had two full years at the ML level, and he was hurt for a while last year. His HRs were down a bit from 2012, but his 2B and 3B (oddly enough) numbers were up. He's got to get better at taking walks and not swinging at bad pitches. Is he great? No. But supplying a link that displays stats that are not terrible is no way to prove that he sucks. If he improves a bit this year (provided he isn't traded) and hits .265+ with 25+ HRs while taking a few more walks, I'd be okay with that.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 10, 2014 -> 03:16 PM) He murdered LHP in 2012 and couldn't hit RHP. He improved vs. RHP last year and slipped a bit vs. LHP. It's cherry-picking, but cherry picking is fine when you are looking for anything, but if you take his 2013 vs. RHP and his 2012 vs. LHP, you are talking about a guy hitting close to .300 with a .332 OBP and an .820 OPS. Plus he can hit the ball 500 feet, and is still very young. There is a lot more there than some of the crap you wanted the White Sox to acquire. I think today is his birthday. You should at least be nice to him on his birthday. The key, obviously, is if he can put it all together for one season. I'd personally like to see the Sox hold onto Viciedo and try to trade De Aza. I doubt Viciedo will ever be a .300 hitter, but I don't think .260 with 25+ HRs annually would be a stretch. If the Sox were to get a good package (better than Saunders) for Viciedo and said package serves the club today and the future, I'd be okay with letting him go. Regardless, I don't see how the Sox won't trade one of Viciedo or De Aza.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Mar 10, 2014 -> 12:53 PM) That's 2.5 cents per ticket. Or they could roll it into one more dollar hot dog night.

Cosmos was pretty awesome. We told the kids they had to watch it with us, and at first they argued. Ten minutes in they were sold and were asking a ton of questions. This is a show that every kid needs to watch.

Tuesday's episode of Person of Interest was a good background episode. Showed that Finch knew about Mr. Reese before he hired him.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 6, 2014 -> 10:16 AM) Sure, because he won't be playing nearly as much. Can't argue that logic.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Mar 4, 2014 -> 03:32 PM) They are wrong. Yeah, it looks like they scored 2 or less runs in 28 of the home games.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 4, 2014 -> 04:13 PM) Liddi goes yard to tie the game at 4. Who's Liddi?

Watched Gravity this weekend. I enjoyed it, but I think it probably lost a lot of what made it so good on DVD. I really wish I had made it to the theater. I saw the preview in front of Pacific Rim in IMax, and the trailer alone blew me away.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 27, 2014 -> 10:19 AM) Truth. If he doesn't pitch well, it will be a bad, bad deal. Especially considering he took a roster spot away from one half of the "Twosome of Terror" that were destined to be the 1-2 punch that the Sox desperately needed at the top of the order. On a side note, the poll also showed that Cleto failed to elicite smiles from patrons at afrorementioned Applebees when he dined there.