chitownsportsfan

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?

Yea, I'm not sure El Duque didn't just fail his physical because the duct tape and Gorilla Glue being used to hold his arm together showed up on the MRI. That would suck. I had just convinced myself that Vasquez' solid DIPS would make this trade worth it. I don't want El Duque and his 19th century arm and his 4.5 million this year at all.

You know, someone should have put odds on this: if the Sox win the World Series in 2005, what are the odds a thread will be made in the offseason ( in earnest) calling him Evil? I would have put it at about 1/500. I should have made that bet. Seriously though, this thread helped me waste an hour of work today. Thanks guys.

Carl Crawford for Garland straight up: yells yea! Crawford is a player I really like, has speed, has a high OBP, and plays good defense. He's young and fairly cheap to boot. Garland's stock is at the highest I think it will ever be. Time to get out while the gettings good with him.

What is the payroll at right now, like 90 million? I gotta give JR credit for keeping his word that increased revenues would lead to increased payroll.

You could care less about Chris Young? I don't know about that. I'm not saying I don't like the deal, but Young could have been our starting CF for the next 10 years.

God this deal makes me want to wretch. Vasquez is overated, he posted a era+ of 96 last year. He's a gopherball pitcher who will be playing in the bandbox of the Cell? No thanks. Screw 2 years from now, this team has a chance to repeat, Vasquez weakens that chance.

Right, it's not groundbreaking, but many pundits have argued that the Sox are the "anti-moneyball" team, when that simply isn't true. KW might not be a Billy Bean acolyte, but he isn't Bull Duram either. The Sox were built on run prevention (pitching + defense) because the market was undervaluing these skills. That is what made the Sox so efficient with their modest payroll in 2005.

I found this interesting quote from the Sox management in an article about judging player value in the New York Times Interesting stuff. I think the "different popular method" used to determine victories is : Pythagorean Winning Percentage RF^2 ------------- RF^2 + RA^2 # RF = runs scored; RA = runs allowed. I'm not a huge proponent of this formula because I think it misjudges how "good" teams find ways to win close games that hasn't yet been determined from statistical analysis and probably never will. The confidence the Sox had in late innings and the calm hand of Ozzie (mostly) helped the White Sox outperform their pythagorean by 8 games. Still, I'm glad that KW is thinking analytically as well as traditionally about player aquisitions. Personally, I predict Thome and BA will be worth more like 30 more runs than Frank and Rowand. I don't have any stats to back that up though!

I'm really sick of the crap that gets thrown at sabremetrics around here sometimes. Nobody is advocating putting Stairs at leadoff. Nobody is "undervaluing" speed. This article seemed like a pretty fair analysis to me. I think when he says "overpaid" for Konerko he is dead wrong. The market was tight this year with lots of teams willing to throw cash around for a slugger. Saying the Furcal deal was a steal and Konerko's is overpaying makes no sense. We as Sox fans tend to assume that Thome will be perfectly healthy not just next year but for the bulk of his contract. Rowand on the other hand is a known commodity and is 5 years younger than Thome. I see where KW is going with this--he wants to win now. It does hurt to give up two promising LH pitchers though, especially when the organization isn't exactly loaded with LH prospects.

I too have heard that about BA Rock, but I'm not willing to say he's going to be as good as Rowand his first year in the bigs defensively. I think he will be a + CF but as good or better than Arow? I'll reserve judgement.

I recently read a very good article from the hard ball times that looked at pitchers HR/rate in 2005 and what we can learn from it. MB had one of the lowest rates of his career, which no doubt helped him to his best season yet. Unfortunetly, HR/rate is highly variable even for the best pitchers. I feel a strike first guy like MB is especially vulnerable to the long ball. Hopefully he proves me wrong with another low HR/rate year, but I would bet on his ERA rising as well as his HR/rate. Not to say he won't have another great year, but I would be surprised to see a repeat performance--he was excellent last year, top 5 pitcher in the league no doubt. That will be tough to repeat, but he is our best pitcher IMO

Deadspin is hilarious, but I always take these stories with a grain of salt. Although, Pods' story is very relatable for myself. I know I've done similiar in a moment of "must get drunk but not let people see it" moment.

"I just see absolutely no reason to be worrying about the lack of a lefthander or the health of Hermie. The outfield defense is much more suspect at this point if we're speaking about concerns, as of course the point of the offseason is too quibble about matters like this. Outfield defense, problem #1. Relief Pitching, problem #2. But neither of these are problems worth worrying about, at least not until Spring Training hits." Outfield defense? 2 of the 3 pieces remain the same, BA is projected to roughly the same of Rowand--less range, better arm. How is that a huge problem? A 24 year old closer with a history of arm trouble, a 22 year old Bmac, and legit concerns about repeat performances from Contreras, Buehrle and Garland seems much more pressing than outfield defense. I'm not saying that any of the players I've mentioned won't play well, just that outfield defense is a long way away from importance and concern compared to the performance of the pitching staff.

These are legitmate worries. On the first part, yea, a starter could go down, probably will go down at some point in the year. The good news is that MB, JG, FG and Contreras have never shown any shoulder or other arm trouble in their careers. The innings are always a concern, but these guys aren't coming off major surgery or even seasons in which they had to sit because of soreness or dead-arm. El Duque is the only injury concern, but his injuries seem to be the "take a month off" type--other than that he seems to have a rubber arm. Everything I've heard has suggested that Hermie's rehab is going better than can be expected. My main worry with him is some regression back to his career numbers. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised is the entire pitching staff sees some regression to the mean. If MB has as good a ERA as he did last year I'd be surprised, very surprised actually. Contreras has nasty stuff, always has, but his deal we mental, and that seems to be straightened out, so I actually think he'll pitch better throughout the whole season than last year. I think Garland ERA will be around 3.90 and I think FG's will be around 3.90 as well. Not terrible numbers, but not as good as last year. Luckily, this regression should be more than made up for by the extra 30+ runs that Thome is going to give us over what Frank and Crazy Carl gave. At least I'm praying he stays healthy enough to get 500 AB's. Jenks is really my biggest concern. How will he respond to being the number 1 guy out in the bullpen spring training on? It's alot of pressure and I think he's going to go through some wildness at some point next year. At that point, does Ozzie go back to closer by commitee? The LH out of the bullpen, I'm not worried about. KW will bring someone in to an already strong bullpen and they can be a the 2nd left behind Cotts. As was mentioned, any team in MLB, save perhaps the Indians, would trade staffs straight up for the Whitesox. We have the best staff in the bigs, our worries are nothing compared to teams like the Yankees, Angels, Red Sox, etc.

Well, as another poster noticed, TB is desperate for pitching. Does this make them consider El Duque? Maybe not, probably not. But if they ask for Brandon, then we say, "no", and move on. Getting Crawford without giving up a major prospect and/or starter would be a coup for KW.

I have to disagree with you Juggernaut, I think the D-rays will be looking for much more than you suggested. Maybe Duque and Fields for Crawford. I don't think the are going to give up a quality young player just to dump a little salary. They aren't that broke.