chitownsportsfan

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 5, 2015 -> 01:34 PM) The guy who comes to mind first is Billy Hamilton. He stole 75 of 90 bases in AAA at age 22. He was a universally regarded top 50 prospect (or at least top 100) for his entire career. He has a pedigree and translated his speed into real production in AAA. He got called up because he was ready.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 5, 2015 -> 01:33 PM) And despite all of that, Johnson is actually putting up better numbers, and nearly identical defensive numbers, to what Sanchez did in the majors. And looking deeper into the numbers, instead of just using age as an oversimplistic crutch, Sanchez actually is in his third stint at AAA. He has 1107 PA's in triple A alone. Johnson has 1391 PA's for his entire minor league career. Sanchez actually has about 2000 minor league PA's compared to Johnson's nearly 1400. So while Sanchez is young in terms of age, Johnson is actually younger in terms of actual professional experience. Even including Sanchez's insane start in his 3rd stint in AAA, his OPS is only about 20 points higher than what an injured Johnson put up in his short time at AAA last year (.684 vs .702) Now I know that this is Chicago and the fans love the back up quarterback more than the actual quarterback because of the unknown factor, but the reality is offensively there is going to be very little difference between Johnson and Sanchez. Johnson is going to get a plus because of his speed, Sanchez will because of his defense. Then again, Sanchez has 3 errors already at AAA, while Johnson has 1 in a similar amount of time in the majors. Age is an over simplistic crutch? It's one of the most critical scouting tools. Sanchez gets punished for being 2 years younger than Micah and having more experience in pro baseball? I cannot, for the life of my, understand this argument. You don't get extra points for being raw at 24. In fact, you should get deducted for it because baseball players don't usually improve much at 24 as they do at 22 regardless of how much baseball they have played. Why in the world would you ding Sanchez for having more AAA experience at a younger age and putting up (for the most part) better numbers? It makes no sense. Having 3 fulls seasons in AAA before you turn 23 is a positive, not a drawback. When you're one of the youngest players in the league a 111 wRC+ is incredibly impressive for a glove first SS/2B.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 5, 2015 -> 01:26 PM) Are we genuinely sure about the bolded? IIRC Sanchez went down and immediately had a multi-error game. But I do agree with you, pretty much every other organization in baseball would have given Micah more time in the minors. If the pro Micah and pro Sanchez camps can't agree that Sanchez' defense is better than we'll never agree on anything. Every single scouting report on Carlos Sanchez starts with "solid glove...no hit". He was spectacular in his cup of coffee last year in the field. Fangraphs had him .6 dWAR in just under 240 innings. His bat sucked, but that's a separate point. He can also play SS and give Alexei more days off without relying on Beckham, who has the range of Jeter at this point probably.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 5, 2015 -> 01:10 PM) Fans specialize in panic. The reality is that Micah Johnson means little. If the stars on this team don't start playing like stars, Carlos Sanchez could come up here and hit 1.000, and it won't matter. Though just for kicks... This is Sanchez's call up, versus Johnson's call up. Can you tell which is which? .246/.317/.263/.581 67 OPS+ -0.2 DWAR .250/.269/.300/.569 62 OPS+ -0.1 DWAR The difference is that Sanchez put up, in a full AAA season, a 111 wRC+ -- as one of the youngest players in the league. Micah Johnson, at 2 full year years ahead of Micah in age, struggled majorly in AAA at the dish. This doesn't even mention the huge defensive upgrade that Sanchez brings over Micah. Sanchez is two years younger than Micah. I'm really not sure why that hardly ever gets mentioned. It's a clear point in Sanchez' favor. I will ask this question: would any other org other than the Sox have promoted Micah this spring over Sanchez? I imagine the Royals wouldn't even have had a decision to make. The Sox don't value defense and they over value raw speed. It's been obvious for almost a decade.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 5, 2015 -> 01:08 PM) .317/.393/.830 in AA. I guess that is either jack s*** production or your knowledge is what you described his production above A ball. The cherries you pick are so sweet. As if haven't looked at his b-ref page a hundred times looking for any reason he should be on this club. 120 PA at above average median age for the league (23) How about a much larger sample in "never been farther away from MLB" AAA: 275 .314 .370 / .684, .968 fielding percentage.

QUOTE (LDF @ May 5, 2015 -> 01:58 PM) i don't know, maybe, it is me only who is saying this, maybe they didn't do this, b/c they would send a msg that they lost faith in the young player. They never should have had faith in him in the first place is the problem. After the first week for spring he hit under .250 the rest of the way and made several fielding blunders as well. He struggled in the high minors. You know the definition of insanity -- it's the Sox' approach to position player development. Rush them, it will work!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 5, 2015 -> 01:56 PM) Because Micah Johnson isn't your problem. The problem is the guys you are paying the majority of the payroll too. So unless your plan is to bench Alexei, there isn't much point here. Micah Johnson is below replacement and made a critical error in the last ball game. He certainly isn't part of the solution. You have an above average defensive 2B that has done nothing but earn a spot on this 25 man roster and instead they handed it to a guy that hasn't done jack s*** above A ball. And they wonder why guys always under perform. Maybe make them prove something in AAA first. Oh wait, Sanchez is doing just that and can't get a roster spot. s*** is f***ed up and bulls*** man.

The Mariners are doing things the right way shaking things up only a month in after a disappointing start. The Sox will continue to sit on their hands as is their style. Lloyd was on the radio this morning in Seattle talking about how things clearly aren't working with his managing and the the players' play and that he's already changed things up in the routines. In addition they made a roster move -- they called up a guy from AAA today that is their equivalent of Carlos Sanchez. Very frustrating to see Chicago's approach to their slow start contrasted with the team here in Seattle. I'd swap out RV for McClendon in a freaking heart beat.

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 4, 2015 -> 02:56 PM) Is that all you have? You bring it up every time you disagree with me. I have yet to see you point out where I "insulted" you. If mods defending their points disqualifies them from being mods we wouldn't have any mods here. I haven't attacked you. The guy you hate is the reason the Sox have your favorite player. I don't see why that makes you think I shouldn't be a mod. It's worth noting. Hahahahahahahahah. More internet tough guy stuff. Your posts in this thread speak for themselves. Cya another day.

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 4, 2015 -> 02:52 PM) This post hurts my eyes and the post you quoted wasn't directed at you. Again, wow. You call me out for "not defending my position" and your response to him is "this post hurts my eyes". I'm done here. This is beyond poor form it's not any community I want to be a part of. Go Sox. I'll come back another day.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 4, 2015 -> 02:49 PM) Jesus. Should I go around correcting everyone's grammar as well? There's a lot of people who annoy me as well, but I put up with them because it's a White Sox fans MESSAGE BOARD. It's supposed to be fun and enjoyable. What has KW done since 2005 that makes him NOT SUCK? If you have a predisposed belief (or non-predisposed, because everyone here, of course, doesn't have a single bias and analyzes statistics and players just as dispassionately as a FanGraphs algorithm) that he's go great, what's YOUR ARGUMENT? He's in the wrong here and digging the hole deeper. If nobody can ever be wrong about a player or season or team or anything then this message board would have zero posts and zero posters. Again I am shocked that the admin team here finds his behavior mod worthy. Why is he a mod, because he posts a lot and has been here awhile? It certainly isn't for his mod skills.

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 4, 2015 -> 02:49 PM) Or chitownsportsfan's favorite player, Avi Garcia. I remember when Hahn wanted to trade Peavy for a deal centered around Middlebrooks and KW said no because he preferred Avi. Irony. Wow. I can just shake my head that you are a mod.

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 4, 2015 -> 02:40 PM) How did I insult you? I think you're just insecure. This is a message board, if you're going to make baseless points, you're going to be asked to back them up. I don't have a problem with you and don't pay attention to how cordial you've been but I do pay attention to you making silly proclamations based on your predisposed beliefs (See, KW/RV suck, Hahn that GOAT). Back up your posts and we can hold hands through this tough time. When Caulfield calls you out for the same thing a post before mine I think it's pretty clear you're setting up strawman arguments and trying to antagonize posters. If you want to go through ever poster's history and call out everytime they are wrong and continue to hammer on the points you'll be a pretty busy man. Not only is that not how you moderate a forum it's trolling IMO. I think Hahn is a very good GM and I think KW has wore out his welcome long ago. Those are my opinions man. If you want to argue those opinions are incorrect fine. But don't start out a post to me or anyone else with some macho guy online "I'm CALLING YOU OUT" BS. I was arguing a very specific point about how the org values defense and you decided to turn it into a discussion about how I don't respond to criticism and my GM preference. Get real I don't respond to vapid trolling and moronic arguments. There's a lot here to move past. I don't give a f*** about holding hands with you I simply was nice to you out of respect as your position as a mod and mine as a poster. If you want to turn every single discussion into a referendum on who gets the most points for making correct predictions -- well, that's about the farthest thing from a mod's job as possible. Where's the guy that posted the "I have a bad feeling thread"? He should be awarded a million internet points.

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 4, 2015 -> 02:25 PM) You went the whole post without mentioning KW. Bravo. You blame Kenny for picking Micah over Sanchez, a move that is nowhere near the forefront of this team's problems. When you were asked to explain why Kenny Williams is a cancer and why that move reeks of KW you defer to Vince Coleman, Buddy Bell and assumptions on the organization's philosophy (Hahn?). Then onto Alexei/LaRoche and on... I guess if you can't defend your irrational assumptions you can always just change the subject. What are you digging at? What do you want me to admit? That I speculated about KW's influence? Again, I continue to be suprised that you are a mod here. I have been nothing but cordial to you for weeks and you insulted me for no reason after 8 pages of good discussion and then when I answer you you continue to dig at....what exactly? I have no f***ing idea who runs this club at the end of the day. Neither does anyone here unless they are JR or his family. Given that, we can only surmise and use induction. I have surmised that Micah over Sanchez was KW. Why? Because KW has drafted a million Micah's and not a single one has ever panned out. The move reeks of his scouting stereotype hard on -- a track star on the baseball field.

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 4, 2015 -> 02:07 PM) Please explain this. You have no reason to think this. You usually don't respond when someone calls you out, but if you do, please respond to the bolded with your reason to think that. I just love this board's rationale. All winter I was saying KW is more involved than you guys are acknowledging. I was told this was Hahn's team and I was wrong. Now, with the players underperforming, KW made all of these moves. Everyone's making assumptions that decision X (at this point in time) was a bad one, and since it hasn't worked out in the twenty-whatever games, it has KW all over it. We have no idea who suggested/executed the majority of the moves. Some moves, however, have leaked out to the public. For instance, KW spearheaded the Abreu signing and Hahn worked exclusively with David Forst to get Samardzija (a move attributed to KW by the fickle SoxTalk masses). Most of you can save yourselves the time with long posts and just be succinct and say RV/KW suck and Hahn's still the GOAT so the rest of the rational posters who can handle the team's skid can skip right over it. Micah or Sanchez is a symbol for everything that is wrong with how this org develops position players. They value athletes over ball players. They value some nebulous thing like "speed" over repeatable, real skills like above average defense up the middle, they rush guys before they've even proven they can tear it up in the upper minors. They talk out of both sides of their mouth. According to Buddy Bell the gap between AAA and MLB has never been higher. So what do they do with Micah? We'll just skip a full season in AAA! We'll hire Vince Coleman and just skip the natural maturation process that happens and try and have him learn how to read pitchers at the MLB level! Micah is currently below replacement in fWAR so yea, he's not part of the solution. I keep bringing him up because on a team that is awful defensively they decided to keep arguably their best defensive infielder on AAA. Ramirez is looking pretty toasty as well. I guess their scouts just missed that or assumed he could play SS until he turns 40. And what else, they sign La Roche and talk about letting him play 1st base 2-3 times a week? How often is he playing 1B? Once a week? They talk about getting better defensively but then you look at their decisions and you realize it's all hot air. If you want to talk about "calling me out" go ahead but I have articulated my position on Sanchez and Micah over and over and over again on this forum. You're free to go through my post history. So far, pretty much every single thing I predicted has come to pass with the two. Micah is struggling, making little to no impact, and the defense has been bottom 5 in MLB. Meanwhile, Sanchez proved in the spring and so far in AAA that he's MLB ready.

This start just really magnifies how awful the ORG's talent base was when Hahn took over. Nobody ready in the upper minors, no young promising position players and for the most part not many "surplus value" contracts. Now, the Sox have some great pieces but they still have huge holes obviously. Personally I'd put my faith in Hahn over anyone else in the ORG at this point. I don't think you can emphasize enough how awful the roster was he inherited from KW. KW is a cancer IMO. The Micah over Sanchez decision has KW written all the f*** over it.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 4, 2015 -> 01:42 PM) Ventura is the very definition of "bold hire". Gardenhire is the definition of a "safe hire". Bold is new and different, not a guy who is 57 years old and has 13 years of MLB managerial experience. If you want a re-tread, just say you want a re-tread. Hiring a guy that was doing college baseball commentary that had zero managing experience wasn't "bold". It was stupid and the general reaction at the time was "wtf?" Maybe it was "bold". But it was boldly stupid. Like sending a dic pick to the girl you're macking on.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 4, 2015 -> 01:34 PM) The idea that the White Sox will hire outside of the organization is 100% laughable to me. Anyone who is counting on Ron Gardenhire to be brought in is fooling themselves. I'd say the odds that the replacement manager is already drawing a White Sox paycheck are somewhere around a 2nd standard deviation level of confidence for me. Well we'll continue to suck then imo. Hiring from within has got them were they are. The Bulls made a bold move with Thibs (hard to fathom now but it was seen as so at the time) and JR needs to make another bold move IMO and hire his next guy outside the org. Honestly the only "org guy" I could live with is probably Ozzie. He's far from my first choice but if they are gonna go that route they could do worse IMO.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 4, 2015 -> 01:25 PM) They can play this baseball for the last 140 games. That is literally worse than playing it for the first 22 games. Well that's true but do you have any faith that RV is going to lead the Sox into the playoffs any time soon? If you fire Robin and install a guy that's won some like Gardenhire you can start figuring out who is going to captain the next playoff Sox team. I have no doubt it's not RV. Not sure what the answer is, but he's not it.

Changing the deck chairs probably won't help but it sure as hell can't hurt. They literally can't play any worse than last in runs, last in rs, and last in defense.

This cherry picking of teams that went on big runs needs to stop. It's like going back through hands of blackjack and concluding that it's always a good idea to hit on 18 because you drew a 21 a couple of times. How many times did you bust? For every team that goes on a big run after starting poorly there are 10 that just continue to suck. It's the exception, not the expectation. This team has been absolute horse s*** through the first month. I don't see any reason to expect a turnaround this isn't the Nationals' roster -- this is a flawed roster that needed every break to go there way. So far, outside of some nice pen performances and Avi hitting, they haven't had any breaks go there way. I think this is just teh baseball gods smiting Hawk down for thinking a good bullpen equals a good team. Hahahahahaha. Not when you can't get them the lead moron.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 4, 2015 -> 12:40 PM) if these guys like Robin as much as they say they do, they had better start to figure things out quickly. Eventually fan response at the gate will dictate a change is needed. As I said earlier I really don't think liking a manager is a goal or something positive at all. In fact, I'd rather guys respected the manager but hated his guts than a guy they love but maybe don't respect. I think they respect and like Robin but it's obvoius the team has a collective physcosis right now. I posted the Fangraphs stats last night. We have exactly two players above replacement. Something is rotten in that clubhouse it's almost unfathomable that everyone is this bad. I'm not much of a chemistry guy but something isn't right imo.

Until the org places a premium on defense series likes this one will continue to happen imo. Especially up the middle. Flowers is no great shakes either and Eaton has been shaky as well so far. Micah, well, he is what he is and that's mistake prone.

The way the org pumped him up he was bound to fail. They f***ing rush everyone of their guys it seems. He was nowhere near MLB ready and we saw it in spring. That Sanchez lingers in AAA while the Sox are close to last in every single defensive metric really pisses me off. Here's what should happen on the off day: Robin out Steverson interim Micah to AAA Sanchez up Gordon is new everyday 3b sanchez is new everyday 2b rodon to aaa ____ up The team needs defense BADLY. I don't think Gordon is any sort of answer but right now he can at least provide defense.

QUOTE (Bigsoxhurt35 @ May 3, 2015 -> 11:20 PM) I want Gardenhire. I've always liked him and would like him to be the next guy. With that said we have to balls up and fire RV first. something is rotten on the South Side: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...4&players=0