Kalapse

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 11:06 AM) As usual, don't let actual reality interfere with your hyperbole: Beckham last 28 days: .265/.351/.718 Perfectly acceptable for a 2B. Eh, there are much higher expectations for Beckham than old man Polanco or Skip Schumaker type numbers. He was the #8 overall pick, #20 prospect in baseball in 2009 ahead of guys like Porcello, Smoak, Santana and McCutchen. I think we expect numbers similar to what he put up in May (.303/.379.421/.800) instead of the incredible inconsistency we're getting from him now (.205/.286/.364/.649 in the month of June) along with the frequent awful at bats (1 or 2 a game where he just looks clueless at the plate, even when he's going well). He's supposed to be one of the best 2B in the league, not an average to below average offensive second baseman especially with the league averages as low as they are right now (AL: .680 OPS at 2B compared to .719 last year and .764 in 2009).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 17, 2011 -> 05:06 PM) One problem is that Rios's SB %age fell off a cliff last year with the Sox. More CS's in 2010 than the previous 2 years combined. Well there was an increased focus on base stealing when he arrived in Chicago. “I told Rios, I said, ‘Get on base twice in the game and give me two stolen bases. We don’t need 40 home runs from you,’” - Ozzie, December of 2007

Justin Upton disagrees.

One of the problems I have with yesterday's riots is that it was 100% premeditated. I was watching the live coverage last night on CTV and a reporter noted that some of the fans she talked to before the game were looking forward to recreating the '94 Vancouver riots if the Canucks lost. It only lends credence to Steve's comments, the police were "ready" for rioting, not nearly as prepared as they needed to be but they were well aware that some s*** was going to go down if the Canucks lost, there was plenty of buzz before the game even began. It's not totally out there to say Vancouver can not be trusted, they seem to be the rioting type and now it's becoming a tradition.

Jason Michaels

QUOTE (danman31 @ Jun 13, 2011 -> 11:56 PM) I liked The Master a lot and David Tennant is my favorite doctor of the three so far. The writing is at its best now, but the best part about the early ones was Rose. I thought she was a great companion, though Amy Pond is my new favorite. Having to sit through season 4 and Donna will be harsh though. I was thinking about season 4 when they mentioned her as a possible replacement for Michael Scott on the Office, I mean, that show's bad enough already. And yeah, Tennant was just awesome, he sold me on the show. Doctor Who can be pretty bad at times, the episodes that miss tend to miss by a mile but David Tennant tended to make them watchable thanks to his energy and comedic timing. It does seem like the Matt Smith era has been pretty strong, not many duds in there so far.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 13, 2011 -> 11:33 PM) What dream world are you living in? Release a guy out of "respect to a veteran player?" I know you want him gone, but that is a total reach. The guy is hitting .260 which is not worthless no matter what you Juan-haters think. You don't just release the guy. You trade him or add Dayan and platoon him with Juan. I am assuming Viciedo is playing left in the minors. If he's playing right we really have problems cause Dayan probably will be a butcher in left if he's used to right. .260 isn't worthless when there's a good ISO to go along with it, Juan's at .046 so yeah, that insanely soft .260 is worthless. If you're gonna hit .260 try keeping your ISO away from the very bottom of baseball (2nd LOWEST!) oh yeah, and the 9 times he's been erased from the basepaths in a futile attempt to swipe a bag makes that .260 just that much weaker. Penalize his batting average for the 9 CS and he's hitting .224, boost his SLG for the 10 SB and his first slash stats are .224/---/.308 putting his ISO at .084 which would be good for 23rd worst in baseball just ahead of AJ Pierzynski. Jonathan Sanchez has 1 less double than Juan Pierre this season. Where's the payoff? .260 hitter going about 50/50 on the basepaths, sporting a league worst ISO and a walk rate in the bottom 30 percentile of baseball. Yeah, that's not donin' it for me.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 13, 2011 -> 11:17 PM) Maybe in 6 months or so Ill be able to comment on Dr Who. Based on earlier comments I decided to load it up on the Netflix and Im starting season 3. Blink and The Master, some good stuff that season. Plus if you're skipping season 2 you don't have to sit through Love and Monsters and Fear Her which were just brutal television.

QUOTE (Real @ Jun 13, 2011 -> 10:05 PM) You all are saying these things about Pierre, "Not what he used to be", "Not very good at his job" What about Rios? In terms of WAR, they're both damn near identical. Is Rios washed up? Just putting it into perspective, just because a guy is having a horrible year doesn't mean he's done. Juan Pierre's been bad for 7 years and now he's getting into his mid 30's and his legs are failing him, he can't bunt and his defense is going to s*** all that on top of his other obvious shortcomings and you have a guy who's reaching the end of his usefulness as a major league baseball player.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 13, 2011 -> 04:16 PM) Leads the AL in plate appearances. WTF He also leads the game in outs just as he did last year. Dude made 515 outs last season and another 220 this year.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 12, 2011 -> 11:30 PM) Pierre is not that good, but he's not deserving of the venom he gets on this site. I don't like slap hitters like Juan, who also has lost a step stealing bases and in the field, but he's not one of the worst players in baseball, either. People got on me for praising Bobby all last year saying it was 'ad nauseum.' We get it. Most of you hate Juan. Why beat the same ol dead horse over and over and over? At least shut up when some of us beat a dead horse on things you don't want to hear about cause we get it ... Juan sucks and you hate Juan ... on and on and on. 3rd worst is still pretty damn bad.

I love how Hawk says Juan Pierre has really struggled with his bunting this season. Funny because I seem to remember keeping a running tally of his failed bunt attempts last year when he was falling behind 0-2 or popping out in seemingly every bunting situation.

Juan Pierre's been struggling for 7 years.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 31, 2011 -> 08:44 PM) Before we all get ahead of ourselves, again, he only has 1 year of service time. Do we even have to worry about locking him up? No, all the same rules apply, nothing changes for him. If he finishes the season with 2 years of service then he's ours for the next 4 years and can make $500K next year. There is absolutely no reason to think about locking him up. He's made 10 starts this season and is under team control for the next 4.5 years, there's plenty of time to let him sink or swim before committing to him. And yes, I worry about a starting pitcher with a 5.0 k/9, that's asking an awful lot of your defense.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 25, 2011 -> 11:36 AM) Kalapse, Had to look up with Gallifrey was and Im not sure what the question was. ---- Game of Thrones has been great, they could have given a little back story to start, but maybe they didnt want it to seem to much like Lord of the Rings. Just something about the families, etc. It's a Doctor Who reference, I didn't think anyone would get it. What you described was basically the plot to David Tenant's final episode.

It's simple: there IS a salary cap in baseball in the form of a self appointed team budget. Every team has one and the fans generally have a pretty good idea of what the team is willing to spend, the Sox have been around $100M since 2006, all that changed this season with a jump to ~$120M but if this team bombs that payroll will be dropping next season. So basically people care because there's only so much money to go around and that money needs to be spent as efficiently as humanly possible. And yeah, you load up your payroll with bad contracts and it will destroy your franchise with few exceptions.

QUOTE (SpainSOXfan09 @ May 24, 2011 -> 06:40 PM) Kalapse, why does Vicedo go directly to ARB and not pre-ARB? By virtue of the fact he signed an MLB contract and not Minor league? All that data is as of Spring Training and the sheet assumes that anyone on the 40 man roster earn a full year of service for each of the next 6 years, this obviously will not happen with everyone but it needs to be assumed otherwise there's no good way to plan out a player's next 6 seasons. This also assumes a player will not qualify as a super 2. With that said Viciedo's signed for the next 2 seasons with no out clause and less than a year of service coming into the 2011 season so he's under White Sox control for the next 6 years. 2011 and 2012 would be pre-arb years along with 2013 if he weren't under contract and if he doesn't get his .089 years of service up to .172 this season (which he likely will not) then 2014 will become a pre-arb season and he'll be under White Sox control through 2017. Every player is under team control for 6 years of service, a service number of 3.000 - 5.171 makes a player arbitration eligible anything less than 3.000 and he's pre-arb. This only changes if a player is under contract or qualifies as a super 2 player. Viciedo is under contract through 2012 so he already has a fixed salary for 2 of his pre arb years, the contract runs out then he becomes pre-arb until he reaches 3.000 years of service. The bottom line of this convoluted answer: 2011 and 2012 would be pre-arb if he weren't under contract. (Note: he could very well be a super 2 player in his 3rd year of service turning that 3rd pre-arb year into an arb year)

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 24, 2011 -> 02:14 PM) The Event hasnt really been explicitly explained. Since that was all from the last episode I gave it spoilers. Gallifrey, yes?

Another thing to remember about Alexei: we know he tends to blow for the first 6 or so weeks of the season. You can say that his numbers this year aren't THAT much better than his rookie stats (though there is a substantial .013 point difference in wOBA) but Alexei only had 73 PA in the team's first 49 games in '08, this season he has 200 PA through 49 team games. He's typically been significantly better in the final 110 games of the season: 2008: First 50 team games: .200/.230/.300/.530 Final 113 team games: .305/.332/.505/.837 2009: First 50 team games: .253/.299/.335/.634 Final 112 team games: .288/.349/.414/.763 2010: First 50 team games: .254/.288/.385/.673 Final 112 team games: .293/.324/.450/.773 2011: First 49 team games: .282/.347/.448/.794 This is far and away the best start to a season he's had in his career to date, he's not putting himself in some big hole to start the year. He wasn't given the opportunity to dig himself a ridiculous hole in his rookie year because he barely played. If the trend of him picking up his play in the final 4 months of the season continues into this season this should be the best season of his career, likely a .350+ wOBA season. Over the last 3 full seasons the top 5 offensive SS in the game have been at .348+ (Young, Reyes, Jeter, Tulo, Ramirez) so historically .350 puts you into elite company throw in his typical top of the league defense and you have an outstanding baseball player.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ May 24, 2011 -> 12:00 PM) Agreed. He's definitely top three. I'd have him behind Andrus as well. Only thing holding Alexei back from being number one to me is the boneheaded errant throws he still seems to make too frequently. He makes some amazing plays, has ridiculous range and has a solid arm but he does already have what 8/9 errors? Too many. Andrus has 10 errors this season, 3 less throwing errors over the past 2 seasons and 2 less total errors. Not a big difference there.

Since the beginning of the 2010 season Alexei has the 2nd highest WAR among SS in the game, the best UZR/150, 2nd highest +/-, the 6th highest wOBA and his walk rate this season is right at his respectable 2009 level, a number that I would accept for the rest of his career. There's a lot to get excited about with Alexei Ramirez, he's one of the best all around SS in the game at an incredibly important position.

QUOTE (Andrew @ May 23, 2011 -> 10:47 PM) ??? - You lost me right here on your first sentence. I would think it has EVERYTHING to do with performance of pitchers. If the defense messes up, the runs are unearned, so....like... yeah.... thanks. Do you mean to say the Red Sox started off badly and came back? And we didn't? And we didn't support our best pitcher, in particular? If so, say so. We hit like s***. We have a dumb f***ing mgr. who squanders outs and real live baserunners like they're toilet paper and he's wiping his ass. Not even sure what you're point is. If I was John, I"d run like f***ing hell from this team. Can't really blame him if (when) he does. I was referring to Lester's 6 wins compared to Danks' zero, notice the last thing that's said just before the line about the pitcher's performance: Lester has 6 wins. so yeah

John Danks has 6 quality starts which is the same amount as Jon Lester who has 6 wins, while part of this has to do with the performance of the pitchers (though Danks actually had a lower FIP coming into today) there's also the fact that Lester is getting over 5 runs of support more than Danks while in the game (3.39 r/s for Danks is the lowest in baseball, 8.48 for Lester is the 6th highest). Both pitchers have 10 starts this season and Danks has actually thrown about 3 more innings than Lester so it's not the length of outings (they both have 4 outings with 7+ IP, Danks has 3 of 8+ and Lester only 1). The Sox have scored 25 runs in John Danks' 10 starts this season and over a quarter of those runs came in one game. Baseball's a funny, sadistic game.

2nd highest WAR of any SS in baseball (behind Jose Reyes) at 2.0, tops in the AL (finished first in the AL last season). Alexei Ramirez is just a damn good baseball player.

Don't know if anyone's posted these but here's the Sox starters' numbers with regular and an extra day's rest: REST GS ERA WHIP k/9 K/BB PEAVY 4 - 119 3.82 1.275 8.9 2.86 5 - 81 2.78 1.065 9.2 3.70 BUEHRLE 4 - 186 4.33 1.364 5.0 2.27 5 - 113 3.30 1.201 5.1 2.77 DANKS 4 - 58 3.98 1.294 7.4 2.40 5 - 48 4.31 1.331 6.3 2.27 FLOYD 4 - 64 3.85 1.303 7.3 2.57 5 - 40 5.28 1.424 6.5 2.07 JACKSON 4 - 75 4.27 1.416 6.7 1.94 5 - 51 4.76 1.532 6.6 1.58