ptatc

QUOTE (Jake @ Nov 23, 2014 -> 07:20 PM) Semien is 100%, without a doubt, the best MIF prospect in our system. I'll take Anderson

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 23, 2014 -> 10:29 AM) I will say I'm just somewhat disappointed in that it seemed like this would be beginning of a new team strategy for using our position players. For first time since forever, the possibility that our DH could be switched among 11/12 position players could have happened rather than just having two 1B. In all likelihood finding a LH non 1b for this would have been extremely expensive. But, just feeling a bit of "more of this then, eh?" Probably still hesitant due to the kotsay experiment.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 11:54 PM) A career.470+ slg player in the cell... Um... Yea, I'll take that bet man. you mean like the career .510 slg that Dunn had before coming to the cell.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 06:53 PM) He actually doesn't K that much, below league average last year, withing ~2% points of league average each year with the Nats. His BB/K rate last year was super sexy: 14.0%/18.4%. He's been super consistent with the K's throughout his career, typically around 21-22%. His first PA with the Sox will be only his 20th in the AL FWIW. I know. It was a comparison I just couldn't stop myself from laughing at.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 06:49 PM) At this point, the Sox have two guys who will need to be platooned. Both Gillaspie and LaRoche should not face LHP. Most of us assumed that Semien would share 3B, and I would guess that Viciedo would be first in line to take the RH tandem for LaRoche. However, there may be more possibilities to emerge. So the wish list is now down to an out fielder, who does not have to be left handed, at this point, a right handed starting pitcher, and a closer. He's had less than 2 years worth of AB's in the majors. This is not a time to write a guy off and say he can't learn and improve.

Big lefty from washington named Adam with big power and alot of K's, spent most of the career in the NL. At least it's for only 2 years and less money this time. (just kidding by the way just thought it was funny)

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 03:45 PM) It includes positional adjustment, which factors his production in relation to DH. This would include zeroes for defensive value for DHs It said it include UZR is it negated as well. If so, how can you have one stat that uses multiple nulls for different variables and still maintain it's validity?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 03:22 PM) Dudes he's fat. There's also a well-supported precedent of fat dudes getting bad real fast around age 30. This is rate of change of combined component runs, so it's basically WAR: EDIT: Source: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-will-prince-fielder-age/ This graphs only applies if you want him in the field as it considers position and uzr as well as hitting. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out if your are short and overweight you aren't going to be a good fielder at most positions. I wonder what it would look like if you are looking at a dh, so only hitting.

IMHO This is one of the most important aspects of the minor leagues and "learning to be a professional ballplayer." People to often complain about rushing good players. Most often it helps them in the long run. Beckham should have spent more time in the minors. I really think it would have helped him learn to adjust out of the MLB spotlight.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 02:36 PM) You're right, he's not fat, he's a perfect physical specimen. Billy Beane is not regarded as the king of "Sabes," that title would belong to Bill James, if anyone. Also, Dude, sabes is not the preferred nomenclature. Sabermetrics. Signing a player for one year who is gong to cost $6-10 million who the Sox will not trade at the deadline would be among the most pointless moves they could make and is the definition of spending money just to spend money. Torii Hunter makes as much sense for the White Sox right now as Michael Jordan does in that, at one point in time, they were both outfielders. Political correctness at it's worst.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 12:51 PM) It is still hard for me to understand how power is vanishing in baseball without anyone talking about the ball. They were talking about the ball when it was considered the "steroid era", I remember Hawk calling it a Titleist. But even without steroids, say there were none, players are bigger and a lot stronger these days. Pitchers throw harder than ever on average, yet the power numbers are falling off a cliff. There are more variables than size and strength in the power equation. Speed of the bat is more important than either of the other two in the physics of a swing. With the increase pitch velocity, you need to swing even faster to make up the difference. Personally, I think the increased pitch velocity is mostly from the pitchers trying to throw harder all the time. With the decreased expectation of innings pitched and analytics, pitchers throw harder more often. There is absolutely no correlation between muscle strength and pitch velocity. The PEDs allowed the pitchers to maintain thier pitching within games but moreso allowed relievers to recover faster and pitch more often. Of course changes in the ball and size of the ball parks made a difference as well.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Nov 20, 2014 -> 08:43 PM) Wow - you mean it will only take Quintana and a top prospect to land a high K hitter with a .654 OPS! The love of declining veterans is getting sillier by the minute. .654 OBP is not good. Nor is 159 strikeouts Hahn would belong in an asylum if he gave Avi or Montas for Bruce, much less both. Spare parts only. How does one bad injury filled year constitute a "declining player." If you want power you need to deal with the high K rates. The rampant PED era is gone.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 21, 2014 -> 11:30 AM) Melky has always had some ability. I think his attitude has been questioned in the past. I do agree, I would think he's still juicing. Maybe if he gets a multi year deal, he gives it up for a couple years, and the team who signs him is left holding the bag. I still think juicing is rampant, and really think MLB has made an effort to keep scoring down to at least make it look like players aren't making a mockery of their testing, which is supposed to be the best of its kind. The problem is, the testing is always a step behind. The only way to truly rid the sport of it is to do baseline blood testing when they begin professional ball. This way they will know when they are taking something. They will not know what but they will know the chemistry has changed. Currently, they can test for all known PEDs with the urine and blood tests. However, there are always new PEDs being produced. It's mostly linked to track and field athletes as it's a bigger market but they will trickle down to NFL and MLB.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Nov 19, 2014 -> 08:56 PM) Sale Qunitana RHSP FA Rodon ( after 6 weeks ) Noesi That's ideal for me and obviously it requires trading Danks... Which I think is a hot topic on Rick's cell phone right now. Fingers crossed. That's good except you need a replacement for Rodon as he will only pitch 165-175 innings this year.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 19, 2014 -> 12:08 PM) If a fast food restaurant - say Crazy George's - was willing to pay people $30 an hour to put out the best fast food in the area while taking home microscopic profit margins, while the rest of the fast food restaurants - say "Tampa Tacos" - gave the typical $10 an hour to take home bigger profits while putting out a lesser quality product, I doubt people would say "those people are Crazy George's are way overpaid." Economic theory says no one is ever overpaid and that people will only ever be underpaid. Someone/Something may be paid/may cost more than you were willing to spend, but someone out there is willing to spend that amount for that service/product at that price, and thus it is valued properly. The problem never lies in that. The problem lies in our inability to properly determine the depreciation of that service over time. A lot of times these services depreciate way faster than we realize they will, even after time and time again we see it do the same thing, partly because we've seen it work previously (both the service and extending the life of the service) and because the known is better than the unknown until it's not or the unknown becomes known. Reality is one thing. The fans perception is another. Fans will always say that the professional athletes in the major sports are overpaid when it comes to salary and especially free agents.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 19, 2014 -> 02:25 PM) While I would agree if 2 weeks in the minors actually does get the White Sox an extra season of control, it is well worth it especially early when there are some off days and potential postponements. You are talking 2 or 3 starts. That said, if he does make the Opening Day roster and 6 years from now we are cussing Hahn and KW out for doing it, he will have had a really nice career. 6 years is a long time. JR will be in his mid 80s. I doubt he still would be running the team. He isn't going to pitch more than 165-175 innings this year so you just need to figure out how the Sox want to use them.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Nov 19, 2014 -> 12:22 AM) Everyone is overpaid now. If you aren't overpaying you aren't getting players. Better be damn good in the draft/International signings if you don't want to spend the money to sign the guys to help you win Everyone says this every year.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 16, 2014 -> 10:01 AM) It all depends on whether or not your plan was already compliant with the new rules. Mine haven't gone up, but my in-laws had theirs go up 15%. The state of illinois is a self insured group and mine went up over 50%.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 10:47 AM) On the other hand, any time the topic of reduced doctors' compensation comes up, plenty of people scream that they'll all just leave the country or stop practicing medicine. The problem isn't that simple. People currently complain about the quality and time it takes to see a physician. If you make it less attractive for people to become physicians, it will make the quality and shortage even worse. the best way IMHO is to go to an HSA system. Hospitals charge up to 60% less when paid in cash. Use insurance only for the catastrophic injuries. Everything else, cash. Much of the cost the hospitals and physicians trump up is due to insurance companies taking 180 days to pay. By the way even though hospitals and physicians may charge 117,000 or whatever, they know they aren't going to get it. They charge that and the insurance company says it will only pay 30,000. They hospital gets 30,000 and ingores the rest. It's mostly just monopoly money.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 02:02 PM) What changed your mind? You used to be pretty gung ho for Salty? The concept of pitch framing makes a lot of sense, and the better framers should be worth a lot more than the poorer ones. I just think there are too many factors that cause some strikes to be balls and some balls to be strikes other than the catcher. The two different formulas I have seen used, most of the top 5 are the same except for order, but below that, there is a wide variance. Flowers is terrible in one and one of the better framers in another. Its only because the stats guys hav3 finally figured out how to somewhat quantifyvpitch framing. Stuff that used to be important but people stopped caring about because it wasnt part of the stats package. The idea of defense first for catching is coming back around.

QUOTE (Chi Town Sox @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 05:27 PM) It feels like its in the middle, no swollen areas. That's a tough one as it's a there is a bunch of small things there. It could be a nerve irritation: is there any pain going up or down. It could be a muscle called the poplitius: is it aggravated with your knee straight and you pull your toes up in the opposite of a gas pedal motion using a towel. There is also ligaments and capsule back there that can get injured with a hyperextension motion of the knee. If these don't help you should see a physician as there are many others as well.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 12, 2014 -> 08:58 AM) Any tips on helping high school golfers avoid injuries? I've been working with them on various stretching drills and even swinging a club left handed to balance the stretching. Basically all tips I've picked up through the years. Primary thing is to use the hips with the turn in the swing. Thus its really core work and hips. Exercises like wall squats and lateral hip exercises are the best. The other part is the elbows. Make sure they dont grip too tight. If they do make the grips bigger. This decreases the stress onthe elbows.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Oct 10, 2014 -> 08:30 PM) I think we all Sox fans (including us) need to keep in mind that while KW had a hand in some good moves, he also made moves that were bad. Im not going to turn this into a debate where we list KW's good and bad moves but I will say that I respect KW for 2005 and in recent times trying to put together a winner, but KW is also a reason for the rebuild we are enduring now. It must not have been easy for Hahn to step into the roll of GM. People also forget that KW recommended that the team would have been torn down and this re-building started 2 years earlier if JR listened to KW. He wanted to do it earlier but the big brass wanted to try a couple more years before the re-building would start. The decision to always go for it was not KW's alone, although it was his preferred method. Just like the decision to change directions was not KW's alone. The brass decided to change it and it was the logical time for Hahn to take over. They were all in it together before and they are all init together now.

QUOTE (Chi Town Sox @ Sep 24, 2014 -> 03:39 PM) I have this pain behind my knee (more towards the back side of my knee). It is very weird how it comes and goes... If I am sitting for a while and then get up, I can feel it. If I were to bend my leg as far back as possible, I could feel it. Sometimes it feels like it could give out at any moment. Never a ton of pain but soreness, moreso. I can play sports, sometimes I will feel it, sometimes I won't. I tend to sleep on my side with my legs bent so I can definitely feel it in the morning until I work it out but it's not just a morning thing. Is it on the back of the knee by the hamstrings or more toward the middle? It there a swollen area back there when you poke there?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 2, 2014 -> 11:38 AM) Ignoring everything else, who are the guys (plural) that the Sox signed to minor league contracts and turned them into Cy Young pitchers? I can think of Loaiza, and that was one, isolated incident who never had another season like that again. My problem with giving Cooper a pass and chastizing all of the hitting coaches is that I don't see much of a difference. Who are the pitchers that Cooper has helped recuperate? Please note that, based on your criteria (ie Konerko), I can exclude anyone who has had success before or after Cooper too. I really like Cooper, I felt that Walker should have been let go when he was, I had no problem with Manto being let go, and I still really like Steverson, but what are we basing that off? Don't forget Thornton who was a scrap heap player the Sox got for Joe Borchard. Cooper convinced the GM to get him saying he saw something he could fix. This is where the whole Coop can fix 'em started. Garland and Contreras would probably be there as well considering the Cubs gave up on Garland and traded him for a reliever and Contreras was going bad in NY.