chitownsportsfan

What don't you like about them?

Yea, Jim Hendry is like the parent that buys his wild son an overpriced muscle car for his birthday only to see him crash it while the more efficient Honda sits in the garage. Fill in Hendry, Jaque Jones, Marquiss Grissom, and Dusty anywhere you want in the analogy. I suggest Hendry as parent, Dusty as son, and Jones and Grissom as the muscle car. I was going to suggest a cheap yet good youngster in the Cubs outfield for the Honda, but couldn't find one.

What is the problem?

No habla enspanol? No escucha...es facil, no? Pienso que este es un bueno idea que ayuda la gente que habla espanol les gustan los medios blancas mas. It heartens me to see comments like Anthrax's responded to in such a sensible manner. There is progress in this country after all. Last time I checked, Latino's pay taxes just like Pollacks, Jews, Protestants, Italians, WASPS, etc. Perhaps the mayor should try and make things a little easier on them. But I digress. This will only help the Sox became mas popular, que es la problema?

It's unfortunate that some of you seem to be lumping this "simulation" into all the other great work BP does. If you read the tone of the preview article BP wrote for the series, you get the feeling that the series is meant to be a mostly tongue-in-cheeck response to Valentine's crazy blather about how his team is better. Everyone is the sabermetric community admits that is extremely difficult to compare leagues. Nobody over at BP is going, "this is exactly how it would really happen". It's the middle of winter, instead of staring out the window and waiting for spring, they decided to have some fun. Please don't reject Bill James and sabermetrics just because of this.

I tend to agree Rowand, in a short series of 5 or 7 games, starting pitching depth past your number 3 starter is pretty much meaningless, meaning that teams that possess three good starters have a big advantage. I have yet to see any stats to back up my intuition though, so I will say "probably" until I do. I think someone over at BP was looking into doing an analysis of "what wins in the postseason" and the big assumption he was going to prove or disprove was the point you and I are making.

Ah yes, the mythical sample size of "one". LOL, you can't be seriously trying to argue this point can you? Last time I checked, if you scored more the opponent, you win. Obviously if you score 7 runs a games youe pitching can give up 6 and you'll still win more than you lose. If you mean that good pitching is harder to find and more expensive than good offense, I won't argue with you. If you're saying that pitching is more important than offense, I won't agree. Run creation and run prevention are equally important. The Red Sox won 95 games with a good/great offense and a mediocre pitching staff. You have to figure in the offense inflating Fenway into any argument. Top front line pitching depth 1-3, such as the the White Sox possess, might be more important than a good offense in the postseason. However, during the regular season it matters little if at all whether a team is good at scoring runs or good at creating runs.

1. Billy Beane--nobody does more every freaking year with less. People focus too much the Billy Beane described in Moneyball and assume he a) only knows about sabermetrics and B) doesn't care about defense. Both couldn't be further from the truth. Beane is natural charmer when it comes to the business side of the job, which helps just as much as his sabermetric knowledge. Also, the A's were the best defensive team in baseball last year. 2. Kenny Williams--KW might get burned time to time on a trade, but he's proven that a GM can learn on the job and go from mediocrity to greatness in only a few years. He's not afraid to "think outside the box" when it comes to player aquisitions. His decision to hire Ozzie was just what Sox needed after the corpse of Jerry Manuel.

And as Jico implied, ERA isn't that good of measure of a pitcher. Not as bad as RBI for hitters, but still not very accurate. WHIP is better K/BB is good K/9 is good DIPS is great ERA is blah Personally, I think ERA+ is a pretty good measure of pitchers worth. ERA+ is adjusted for park and league averages, which makes season's like Garland's, Garcia's, Count's and Buehrle's seem that much better. The Sox were second in MLB in defensive efficiency though, no doubt that helped all those guys' ERA+'s

Over 70% of you guys predicting over 95 wins. Pesonally, I think that is crazy, not that crazy, but still crazy. The pitching staff comes back to earth as does the defense; the offense is slightly better: 93 wins is good enough for a playoff berth and then anything can happen

I believe that is correct Jackie. The recent Bill James book on win shares devoted over 73 pages to explanation. The only way to obtain his explanation (in my understanding the most complete) is to purchase the book. I'd really like to get my hands on it. To your second question, I think that the Hardball Times has it in their annual. Not sure however.

It's not redundant, just poorly worded. Say it like this: "In 2005, his first year with the Sox..."

Studes, in the article you linked says the following:

Ah, thanks southside fireworks man for correcting my error. Sounds like we better flip him or sign him then.

Another thing to consider is that if Contreras has another solid season, and he rejects the Sox's arbitration offer, he will most likely be a class A free agent and net the Sox two high draft picks in 2007. Not a bad return on a player that helped propel the Sox to at least one World Series and is likely ending his career (with the appropriate fall-off in production) and looking to be overpaid while he does it.

Tejada will be, ahem, "30" this year. He's entering the end of his career and will be a very expensive "33" in 2009. Historically, players peak from 28-31, so give the best-case scenarios about his age, he can expect to decline in the last two years of his contract. His peak season was in 2004 at age "28", and he tailed off last year. Then there is the cloud of steroids hanging over him. I'm not calling him guilty, but I believe more often than not, where there's smoke there's fire in these things. Maybe he only used roids for a month or two during the offseason, maybe he didn't use at all. But it's something to consider. As many have mentioned, he's not as good as Uribe defensively, Uribe might be the best shortstop in the game, Tejada is good, but not that good. Tejada is a great player and a team like the Cubs that would do well to win 85 games without him (and miss the playoffs by a wide margin), but perhaps could look at 90 games with him (and a possible playoff berth) would be wise to pull the trigger. Tejada gives the Sox maybe 3 more wins next year. Maybe. Maybe he takes us from 95 expected wins to 98. But at what cost to the future? I'd assume we'd have to trade Bmac and Uribe if the Cubs are offering Prior and the Sawx are offering Manny. No thanks.

the gg award is a joke that relies on reputation and market. But by the most objective stat for overall team defense--% of balls in play turned into outs--the sox were second in the league at .715, behind only (surprise!) the "Billy Beane doesn't give a $#% about defense" Oakland A's. (They posted a .715) Other teams in the top 5 are Cleveland, Houston, and the Phillies. The Red Sox and Yankees were 23, and 22 in MLB, respectively.

https://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4685 You will have have a premium account to read most of it ($4.95 a month, or $33.95 a year) Say what you will about sabremetrics (personally I love it), but don't ever say these guys can't admit a mistake. And why shouldn't they? Sabremetrics is about questioning everything you assume and always keeping in mind your own fallability gives you the ability to improve your knowledge. Contrary to what some people seem to believe, it isn't about "you're wrong, I'm right, nanananana". We don't care who is right, just that we can explain the reasons why we screwed up. This is the quest for knowledge at the heart of sabermetrics

Quickman: What is your problem with using stats? I think you should read some of Kunes stuff on the nature of scientific revolutions, because you're acting just like his dinosaurs.

It would have been cool if we had given up Pods instead of Rowand. I'm not sure why everyone loves Pods so much, he's an above average LF and an average hitter with good speed. He wasn't even that good at stealing bases, coming well below a 75% success rate that makes such endeavors worthwhile. The good news is that Scott's career avg of successful stolen bases is .79. I excect a healthy Pods will exceed that in 2006. That being said, I'm sure the Phillies didn't want Pods--they wanted Rowand to play CF. It's not that I don't love Pods, it's just that he isn't as important to the team as some of you seem to think. His most valuable asset might be that he makes only $700,000 a year. I point you here: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playe...age=7&type=full If you look carefully, you notice that Scott's two best seasons his BABIP was well over the league avg of .300 (.340 in 2005!). Now, what could be the reason for this? Well, it could be that he's hitting more ground balls and taking advantage of his speed. His GB/FB ratio in 2005 was 2.07! This is nearly .50 points ahead of his career avg! Even in 2003, when he posted a BABIP of over .330, his GB/FB was only 1.38. In 2004, Scott's BABIP was back under .300, and his GB/FB was 1.46. Yuck. In short, Scott was lucky in 2003 when he posted his only season of OPS over .800. In 2005, Pods had a .351 OBP, which for a "leadoff hitter" is pretty average. His OBP is largely dependent on his BABIP (which depends on his GB/FB ratio and an element of luck) and not on taking walks, which kinda sucks because it means it's hard to project just what the hell is OBP will be next year. Another key stat for "leadoff hitters" is the ability to work the picher. Scott does this pretty well He saw 3.9 P/PA in 2005. That puts Scott firmly in the upper quarter of the league average. So, is Scott an above average player that the Sox are happy to pay 700,000 a year for? Yes, is Scott the "key" to the Sox offense? Not at all. The Hardball Times calculates that a team full of Scott Podsedniks would have been good for 4.07 runs a game in 2005. Thats what an OPS of under .700 gets you. I agree it's silly of the writer to suggest the Sox should have traded Pods instead of Rowand, such a deal would have been laughed at by the Phillies, and rightfully so.

TLAK, I gotta give you credit: you're voicing a very unpopular opinion, one I completely disagree with. Still, that takes guts, so kudos. Kenny Williams doesn't give the 2005 Sox much credit because although they won the world series, as we all saw, the offense was prone to huge slumps that absolutely killed the team at times. (Thank god we didn't see "corpse ball" during the playoffs) This left little room for error in the pitching department. When the pitchers came back to earth in August we all saw what can happen when you can't score and you can't get a great start from your pitchers 4 out of 5 games: long losing streaks. So KW comes in and attempts to make the team more balanced, adding the LH Thome and super-sub Mackowiak. Both these players represent upgrades over the guys they replace. I feel your respect for the 25+ guys that won last year, but that is last year. This is a new year. To be sentimental would be disastrous when every other team is trying as hard as they can to knock off the Sox. On paper, the Sox are now a 95 win team. Last year they were a 90 win team that outperformed expectations by 9 games. I don't bank on that happening again, neither did KW, that is why he made the moves he did.

Huh? I'm far from an expert on the supplemental picks, but I'm pretty sure if the Sox lose Garland they will be due two high round picks, possibly even 1st and 2nd round picks depending on how Garland performs. Now, for what reason would KW waste his picks on bad players? He's going to be drafting them in high rounds--clearly he'll get as good as players as he can. Whats wrong with Arow clones? Arow is a + CF. He just helped land us Jim Thome and money when we have another cheap clone of him (BA) ready to go. Developing low-cost players through the farm systemis the one area where small and middle market clubs can hope to compete and gain advantage.

Good post Dick, thanks for that info. It confirmed my suspicions that the trade will have to be "ammended" if Duque fails his physical, and that that also precludes him from being traded anywhere else. I think most likely that they like Young enough to just say fine. I hope they do, because if they ask KW for more, he will (rightly) balk. If that happens then fine, we get our best prospect back and we work something out for when Garland leaves.

"then we could flip duque to someone else for prospects or something" Yea, that would be ideal. I don't see anyone wanting him though--he can't pass a physical, and he's owed 4.5 million. I mean, he's garbage. Too bad we can't just cut him and save money like the NFL.

Qwerty: I am ignorant: so the deal is not contingent upon Duque passing his physical? Won't the Dbacks just demand another player? What do we do with Duque then?