chitownsportsfan

Hahn is a great rebuild GM but it remains to be said if he can build a sustainable winner. So far he's done well, hopefully by this time next year we are seeing the fruits of his labor.

I found this sorta interesting: http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/...ch_active.shtml

QUOTE (Tony @ May 24, 2017 -> 05:19 PM) Aside from a few nice days, that is sort of the way it should be based on weather in Chicago in April and most of May. Perhaps, but no other team, northern or not, has had such a start.

After today sox will have opened with 29 road games and 16 home games. That is by far the biggest delta in MLB. If it wasn't a rebuilding year I'd be pretty pissed.

QUOTE (Tony @ May 24, 2017 -> 06:02 PM) Jose is just KILLING the ball. Ron weeps.... He goes through the same thing every year it seems. The cycle goes something like ---> looks like s*** --> starts shooting some RBI singles into RF on occasion but still mostly looks like s*** ---> starts hitting HR and line drives everywhere ---> starts taking walks in addition to hitting line drives and HRs ---> looks like s***.

QUOTE (Tony @ May 24, 2017 -> 06:00 PM) Not really. Hit hard. Damn. I don't think it moves the needle much, but it's another data point. At this point might make sense to hang onto him unless you get bowled over with an offer.

I didn't know it was a day game WTF happened to Q? 8 runs on 8 hits with 7K? Some bad luck or what?

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ May 24, 2017 -> 03:44 PM) I get what you're trying to say here but I can't think of a single stat for pitchers that I wouldn't look at first before I'd look at wins. Pretty much every other stat tells you more about the value of the pitcher than the win does. Hypothetically, if you had two pitchers with the EXACT same WAR (whatever measure, fWAR or bWAR), the exact same K/BB ratio, exact same IP, everything exactly the same except one guy has 300 wins and the other 280 sure use it to break a "tie" but that is probably the only time I would consider it. A win is important to a pitcher because you play to win the game and that starter has to look his team in the eye every night. It's not important to our evaluation of them as fans and analysts. on a side note, seems like traffic has picked up here this year. Awesome.

Personally as far as if pitcher is a HOF worthy in the saber era I'd look at a few things but mostly just how good he was relative to his peers in things like ERA+, K%, BB%, WHIP, IP. I wouldn't consider wins in the evaluation. I would also look at fWAR and bWAR ranks from his time in the league. I believe over 15K players have played in MLB. Only 220 or so are in the HOF. Roughly 1.2% of all players that play, have been deemed worthy. I'd keep that ratio in my mind when comparing the player to his peers. Was he in that percentage of dominance?

If you believe in wins as a metric then you also have to believe that Jose Quintana is a mediocre pitcher, right?

Who f***ing cares if this guy goes back to wherever the hell he came from? There's no "there" there. He's former 1st round pick in the same sense Beckham is a former first round pick at this point. At least Gordo has some initial success, Covey was never even good in the minors of MLB. Anyways, it's sad to say but I'm excited to probably see Fulmer and/or Lopez within the next couple weeks. Neither has dominated AAA but at least they have the potential of being a 3rd or 4th starter.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 24, 2017 -> 07:51 AM) If those mostly pull/power hitters could execute bunts with a 75% success rate, they'd have to eventually adjust but it hasn't happened yet to my knowledge...at least not on a consistent basis. Feel bad Davidson hit into a key DP in what might be his only at-bat of the series, With a huge opportunity to impress his former organization. Probably trying too hard. Davidson has been absolutely fine. I have no idea if he's a true talent 240/290/500 hitter that can play average defense at 3B in MLB, but he's given the team .4 fWAR and that is amazing given his prior problems. Anyways STOP f***ING BUNTING SO MUCH. Ugh. Renteria pissed me off last night. That said, he does so many things better than RV late inning wise. PH Narvaez was absolutely the right call even though he struck out. So was PH Avi. The Sox just didn't execute the simple task of making contact but I love how he forced the D-Back to load the bases.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 24, 2017 -> 12:33 AM) Hawk saying Rodney might go to the HOF has to be one of the dumbest things he's ever said

QUOTE (oldsox @ May 23, 2017 -> 11:18 AM) Let me get this straight, JImmy. You're saying Sox have signed 20 international guys in 2016-17? Most these guys are probably just one in a thousand makes the majors types. Probably some concerns about their real age with a few as well.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ May 23, 2017 -> 11:54 AM) I agree. In the rebuilding phase a team needs leadership and that good mix of veterans. Go with some of he thinking here and we would always be in last place rebuilding as we trade off anyone that starts looking good on the Sox. There's no reason to trade Jose. I am not a big "chemistry" or "ambassador for the team" believer but if anybody is that guy it's Jose. Just make him a DH and let him hit 280/340/500 for the remainder of his career on the SS. He looks slim and fit this year, hasn't helped his defense, but he's stayed injury free and he looks quicker on the bases. He's a good leader by example and with voice for the latin guys.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ May 23, 2017 -> 10:58 AM) Here's the Sun-Times story on Rodon: http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/carlos-...long-road-back/ What I found very interesting is that he says the injury is not to his bicep...but to his shoulder. Yea right? And he said that now it's sort of a dull ache after he throws instead of a stiffness. I mean, that's not exactly great news either. I dunno, I just hope there's nothing structurally wrong with his shoulder. It's a death knell. That said, he's obviously ramping up his throwing, almost seems to be where he was around the middle of March as far as workload, so that's positive. Hopefully he throws another sim game, gets to 60-80 pitches, then makes a couple rehab starts in AAA and is ready in July.

Tilson is back to light jogging and "baseball activities". I'm still going with the middle of june timetable at best.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ May 22, 2017 -> 08:19 PM) Tyler Saladino still sidelined with back issues. Not bad enough supposedly to go on DL Just 10 day DL him and bring up Delmonico. There's three guys on the roster that can play 3B and 2B. edit: and to add: AT A GOOD MLB LEVEL. this team has some gloves at the important positions now. TA is up and down but overall has been at worst an average MLB SS over 120 odd starts and by most accounts has been above average. Garcia is run neutral to +5 in CF. Sanchez is + 8 ish runs a year at 2B. Todd ditto, although he'll be gone soon. Obviously Sally can flash the leather. Narveaz and Smith are mediocre but won't kill you at C. I like it.

Let's beat this weirdo tonight. Greinkie is a jerk. May, by most accounts, is a poor MLB defensive CF. Leury, by most accounts, is a solid MLB defender at CF, SS, 2B and 3B. I guess any player can improve but May has a long, long way to go. Even longer than Leury had coming into the year. Leury hitting like this makes him a very valuable player, but even if he never really hit more than say 240/280/340 he's hang on as a utility guy for a few years. May has no such luxury.

You should look at the update on my Avi thread from earlier. He's carrying the same APPROACH but his swing is much improved. His pulling more balls, lifting more balls into the air and overall he's making way better consistent contact on fastballs up in the zone -- something he struggled with mightily early in his career. Everybody knows you throw Jose Abreu junk down and away once you get ahead in the count: but you make a mistake a fastball or leave a breaking ball up and more often than not he'll cream it. He's not the most disciplined hitter but he sure can hit mistakes. Same thing applies to Avi this year. In previous years Avi didn't punish mistakes -- for whatever reason he couldn't catch up to fastballs in the zone and he was constantly either missing them entirely or hitting them into the dirt.

QUOTE (bighurt574 @ May 22, 2017 -> 04:53 PM) The guy had 400 games and 1,400 at bats under his belt before this season, all for a combined 0.1 WAR. That's after 2,300 at bats in the minors. He was a year or two away from being non-tendered. Glad he's shown some signs of life, but he still has to prove the consistency. Yea this.

QUOTE (Sox-35th @ May 22, 2017 -> 02:26 PM) The sound off the bat. Dang. Go Sox. It was funny on the day he signed I randomly was watching a Tim Tebow batting practice video and as I was watching I thought his swing looked pretty good. A bit stiff, but good. Then I watched the Robert scouting video that's on the web, the 17 minute one, and I immediately noticed how much louder his contact is then Tebow's. Robert has a bit of a long swing but plenty of guys with that sort of bat speed make in work in MLB. Key will be his pitch recognition improving over the next 2-4 years in the Minors.

If Kopech is blowing through AA and gets promoted into AAA in say August, makes a few starts down there and still has 20 odd inning until he reaches his limit, I'd love to see him used like Sale's first year and get his feet wet in MLB in September.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 22, 2017 -> 01:42 PM) Is there anything out there on exit velocity? It's actually down .5 a MPH from 90.1 last year to 89.6 this year. What has really improved is his ability to hit balls up and his ability to get the ball in the air. He is absolutely crushing pitches up and out over the plate this year. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player?playe...amp;season=2017

Just a quick bump here now that the sample sizes are getting bigger: 1) K% is down to 19%, which is 6% lower than last year. 2) He's getting hits on 18.4% of his IF ground balls, that's insane, that's downright ichiro esque. That will regress but it speaks to his increased speed and his hustle. 3) GB/FB ratio remains much improved, at 1.55. 4) Pull percentage is also improved at 44%. 5) Which explains a lot his improved linear weights on fastballs, which has NEVER BEEN POSITIVE is now 11.4 runs above average. You gotta be bleeping me! 6) His defense over the past 100 or so games has actually improved to "passable", someone noticed that last last summer he improved and he's carried that over to this year, only -1.8 runs below average in RF, which with the way he's hitting you hardly even care about. All in all I don't see much in the numbers indicating he's improved his approach or batting eye. What I do see is a guy that has improved his swing quite a bit. He's making a lot more loud contact this year. His swing plane is better and his bat is much quicker on fastballs. He and Thames are similar stories although obviously Avi lost bulk instead of adding it. This could be a Steverson victory, and a hard work victory for Avi as well.