BrandoFan

He had 6 GIDP in 2003, not 9.

si senior

You wanted Defense for 2003? Here's the basic stuff Some more Btw...you might want to ease up on the strike out totals since NOBODY cares about them - this isn't 1968. Adam Dunn is on pace to 215 K and Paulie couldn't carry his jock. Just a tip. Finally, if you really have been watching Sox games as you say, you'd know that the "10 extra doubles and 10 extra singles Kong cost last year above the league average for 1B position" was actually a CONSERVATIVE estimate, and that once you factor in his many failures to track down medium and deep foul balls because of lack of speed, his Total Defense (whether measured by bases or outs) comes off worse. Hell, how many times has Willie bailed him out on such plays? Magglio Ordonez gets them? What?! In general, just because an official scorer never gives a player an error when that player doesn't touch the ball that goes RIGHT under/next to him, doesn't mean said player didn't cost his team an out, in effect commiting a no-error ERROR.........In other words, there's MUCH more to Total Defensive Contribution that error totals or fielding %. That's just reality. Paulie is slow and slow-reacting. Over the course of 155 games and god knows how many "reachable" balls, his lack of agility and quickness costs you FAR more than the 5-10 extra errors Valentin usually commits over the league average for SS position per year. That's just baseball 101. Oh and funny you should mention their salary ....

You have shown jack s*** - other than your primitive understanding of what Total Defense (or Total Offense for that matter - thanks for glossing over GIDP and baserunning aspects, to say nothing of pretty much the entire 2003 season which was what Cerbaho and I analyzed, in addition to 2004....Did you think I wouldn't notice?) is. "How much range does a 1B really need?" Priceless. For 2003 Here we go

Boy, was that weak.

I don't advise using ZR exclusively, but if you must and you want to compare players from different positions, then you can start out with ZoneRating+ which normalizes ZR against the league average. So yes, if say a CF'er is well-above the CF average and a 2B is well-below the 2B average, you can safely say that the former is "better" than the latter - even if you are gonna have to do a SHILOAD of number-crunching and guestimating in order to come up with an exact number of how many bases/outs/runs one is better than the other by. Rolen's range has slipped in the last couple of years (same as Andruw Jones and Vizquel), he's gotten slower and heavier. But he still has a gun and excellent anticipation and hands and a good range.

Cerb, ZoneRating is just a part of it, but it cannot encompass many of the plays on which Valentin excels and Konerko doesn't. Such as Kong awkwardly chasing after pop-fouls or slow reacting on line-drives that "dissect" the STAT zones and therefore do not show up in ZR. You also have to remember that Valentin has Crede who is excellent going to his left and who ends up cutting off a lot of balls in Valentin's "zone", therefore hurting Jose's ZR. Also, a generic ZR already incorporates ERRORS since nearly all of Jose's errors take place within the charted zones as they are of routine variety. So the Jose's defensive value the last couple of seasons goes WAY beyond ZR or its weighted variation. You have to see a pitching-adjusted RangeFactor (ARF), Pinto's Probabilistic Model of Range, Bill James's Defensive Shares, Ultine's ZR (UZR) and similar metrics....and only then you begin to get a complete picture. The point is well taken, though. Jose's overall defensive contribution is MUCH better than people give him credit for. Butcher my ass.

I have explained and clarified my "love affair" with Simon point-by-point in many posts in this thread. I am not going to repeat myself, other than to say, again, that the reason I like Simon is the reason I liked Uribe last year - I see his talent being put to good use by a contending team, in this case the Sox. What he did with the Cubs in the second half (esp in the clutch) was no fluke IMO. Right now he's just coming off a ham-string injury and stagnating with the Pirates, but I can see him repeating his Cub performance with the Sox. I have also soured on Gload, Sunday's bloop single notwithstanding. And after the last 2 years (since 2002 ASB), I no longer trust Konerko against RHP, esp in clutch situations - Simon would be a cheap insurence in case Paulie goes into meltdown mode, if anything else.

Once again Astros choke. Defense decided the game - with 2 outs Jeff Kent was slow to react on Patterson's soft liner and it went just under his glove, which prolonged the inning for Alou who hit a 2-run homer....all the while Derek Lee timed his dive perfectly and robbed the AStros of an RBI single. That's a 3 run swing. Cubs win. :fyou Jeff Kent Once Wood, Sosa and Prior are back, I have no idea how Cards and Astros plan on keeping the Cubs away from post-season.

Considering Rangeless, Slow-Reacting Paulie probably allows 10 extra "doubles" and 10 "singles" that should be OUTS per season....That's roughly 30 extra bases allowed over the league average for 1B in 2003. Of course, it doesn't include all the times slow-footed Paulie failed to track down a foul ball, allowing the opposing batter to stay alive....Shall we say at least another 10 plays? We know from same Total Defense stats that Valentin actually comes out on the PLUS side as far as bases saved/bases allowed go over an average SS. In 2003 alone, he was ahead by 15 bases OVER the league average - and that included all the errors, naturally. So on defense alone, Valentin was anywhere from 20 to 30+ bases better than Paulie last year. Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it. Now DP....last year Valentin had 5 GIDP and Paulie had 28. That's 23 extra outs Paulie "cost" the White Sox. How should we factor them into Paulie's overall production? Give him 23 errors? Take away 23 of his singles? I am open to suggestions. I am not even gonna go into base-running where Paulie costs you A LOT versus Jose over the course of the entire year because he gets the stop sign at 3rd regularly....or cannot go from 1st to 3rd on a single to RF-CF with 1 out....or cannot tag up on a medium depth fly-ball....or cannot advance on the ball in the dirt....or cannot beat a bang-bang force-out at 2nd....or never distracts a pitcher by getting a big lead at 1st and forcing that pitcher to repeatedly throw over.....etc.....Or did you think those plays don't count? Nuke if I were you, I'd quit taking little digs at Valentin at every opportunity. Half the time they don't make sense, and other times they are statistically short-sighted.

Actually, it boils down to TWO ugly outings - you forgot the one against the Yankees where: 1) Defense (Mark himself, then Crede and Uribe) eff'ed him in the ass in the 1st 2) Yankees took advantage of bad defense with at least 3 "soft" hits But Corky still has point - the .280+ BA-against is NOT gonna work. That's one area he's gonna have to improve upon because when he's gonna (knock on wood) go against either Red Sox or Yankees in ALDS, having extra baserunners will kill any pitcher because those teams know how to play for a BIG inning....

P-AAAAAAAAAAA.......

Sox are catching Mark Kotsay at the wrong time...Mercy!

And yet Jose is still a better defensive SS than Konerko - a defensive 1B when everything (anticipation, range, arm, aggressivenes, etc) is tallied up....Nobody cares about strike-outs and his OBP is 331. Do me a favor, stop while you're behind, or I might just start subtracting bases Konerko costs you with GIDP and base-running from his OBP.

Agreed. While he's at it, he could also teach Valentin how to hit into 28 double plays, how to base-clog and how to have a lateral range of a GOP mandate.

No, you don't understand - strike-outs are EVIL. They just are. 3 outs rolled in 1. Edmonds, Thome, Dunn, Sexson, Sosa....They're just sickening.

I'll be damned, I remember somebody mentioning he's a FA after '04......Well, that's that then. He'll 42 when the contract runs out...Arizona done overshot it.

Dreaming? It's been 86 years. Overpay for Garcia and watch him phone it in, Colon-style. In 2002 and 2003, his road ERA was 4.75. Right now he is surpsingly effective against left-handed hitters, but I have a feeling this anomaly is gonna correct itself before long, with his ERA jumping back to 4.00 where it feels more confortable... Get Randy Johnson. Arizona is dying a last place death. They won't re-sign him. Timing will never be better. Unit still got it, although at this point, in order to keep him fresh for the playoffs, a 90-100 pitch limit will have to be imposed. I've heard enough bulls*** about "committment to winning" in the last 3 years. All the while Todd Ritchie, Bill Kotchie and a washed-up Robbie is what we got. Give Arizona some good prospects and have them pick up part of his salary. That means with 3 months left, Uncle Jerry iz gonna have to pay about 4-5 Mill. Oh agonizing price of glory....

Simon is one of those player where you look at his 3-year OPS and go "hmm, what's so special about him?", but if you put him in the right set of circumstances such as a team that plays a lot of high-adrenaline games, puts runners on base for him to drive, a team that only needs him against RHP, etc......he can be deceptively valuable as he's shown with the Cubs last year. As far as Gload, he impressed me in the beginning, but now....I just don't see it. He is just so mechanized if that's the right word; for someone with a short swing, he sure is tardy on a lot of fastballs. Before blooping a base-hit today, he was pretty abysmal against righties and failed many times in the clutch, something that is Simon's bread and butta. If course, if Paulie starts hitting RHP the way he hit them pre-2002 ASB (he was actually better against righties than lefties), then Simon might become an after-thought. At 800K, I would like to see Sox take that chance because that would show they actually know how to improve the ball-club's depth with low-risk/high-reward acquisitions. As far as Sox team needing speed....Sox have Olivo and Willie as #9 and #1. Uribe and Rowand are #1 and #2 when lefties start. Magglio, Carlos, Jose aren't exactly slow. This team has decent speed, Frank, Konerko, Crede and Alomar notwithstanding. What Sox need is better coaching because they don't take good leads, their jumps are mediocre - that's the reason behind so many Caught Stealing. Also, so many hit-and-runs are botched because hitters at plate lack technique and desire to sacrifice, not neccessarily because of lack of speed. Randal Simon is so damn effective at yanking his hands in and puling the ball through the right side of the infield - if he had Jose or Juan running from 1st, they'd be standing on 3rd base every time and he'd get cheap hits as well.

He hit a 1-2 blooper just out of Ekstein's reach. Other hits came in a blow out -- just as his HR in Cleveland did. I still remember how badly he was choking every time the game was on the line in 8th and 9th, and believe had a seperate thread detailing those travails. So whatever. Fact remains: Gload came into today's game with a 592 OPS against RHP, which is basically what he is up here to hit. He is AAAA player from the looks of things. There is a Simon thread, I won't be repeating myself...again.

That would be a stupid thing to do. Jose is hitting about 280 against LHP since April 7th, with a 350 OBP and 400 Slug. Considering it's the first time hitting lefty-on-lefty, I'll take those numbers even if he has a few things to improve. Defense? All his errors total less runs (2 in NY and 1 in TB) than Kelly Dransfelt's 4-run error in Baltimore alone, and Kelly could dream of Jose's range and baserunning skillz. You sit Jose against lefties and you risk distrupting his timing against righties - and he's your best hitter against them.

Hope I didn't jinx Joe.

Magglio has to assume leadership role and help Frank, Esteban, Mark, Juan, Shingo and Co bring this team to ALCS and bring a ton of fans to the park/televisions in the process. If he can't do that, giving him 25% of the payroll would be stupid. I still rmember Frank making 40% of the 1999 payroll - how did that work out?

You don't see it? Well, that's too bad isn't....

How the f*** did Pirates only score 1 run when they had 9 or 10 baserunners in the first 4 innings alone? Stupid, sexy turbo sinker.... :fyou