Balta1701

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 01:51 PM) So how many righties are we facing in this series? Ross and Scherzer tomorrow, Gio Gonzalez is Thursday.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 01:45 PM) I enjoy baseball when I have no emotional interest. I'm totally the opposite. I put it on in the background and wind up doing something else when I don't care. I want someone to root for. I'm about to move and I'm going to one last Pirates game before I leave...and yes I'm going when the Cubs are in town because I want someone to root for in that game. (in case it's not clear, I will be rooting strongly for the Pirates that day).

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 01:39 PM) This is where I'm still stuck. I might be hitting my limit at about the 10 year point, and just flat out watching less baseball as a consequence. Then again, if I could stop having to move across the country I'd probably be right back where I was last year, watching every game.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 01:08 PM) I remember how common that line of thought was in the early 2000's. You are quite literally the first person I have seen bring it up and say they might have been wrong about. Everyone else just pretends it never was said. The last 10 years have fully convinced me that saying "I'll trade 1 WS for 10 years of garbage teams" remains completely the right move.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 07:58 PM) That is false because all three things are related to on the field performance. In your example, only actual performance is related to actual performance. Surplus is not. Surplus value is "not related to on the field performance"? So the total value generated by a person has nothing to do with how they actually play on the field? Ok then. I'm out.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 07:57 PM) Then why when people were talking about how disappointing Shark was last year, did you use his fangraphs WAR to point out he pitched as expected and not the 0.2 on BR? Because I'm still trying to figure out how the 2015 White Sox as a whole unit had such a big disparity between their pitching bWAR and fWAR. If you go to bWAR, Chris Sale was a pretty weak starter last year, he'd have made a good #3 starter with a 3.3 bWAR. Over the long term for Buehrle I think B-R is getting closer because I think that by focusing more on the runs scored and less on the K's it manages to take into account how he controlled the running game and how he managed the game/fielders behind him. But that's one specific player and how the algorithm works. Something extremely funny happened with the way those two counting stats managed the White Sox last year - one of them hung everything on the defense, one of them thought the pitching staff was terrible top to bottom.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 07:47 PM) At the end of the day it doesn't matter what is paid for. It matters what performance you get. Surplus value is worthless on the field. Having a ton of surplus doesn't get anyone out or drive anyone home. I feel this has basically become a tautology at this point, because basically you're saying "it doesn't matter what is paid for, it matters you get performance, but even though you can't pay for performance I don't like your language". It's a distinction without a difference. It's saying "people pay to see runs scored, they don't pay to see hits and walks".

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 07:45 PM) Fun fact for using WAR and money. Javy Vazquez made about $37 million less in his career than Mark Buehrle and had a higher career war. Another interesting fact - this is only true if you go to fangraphs, which does have some issue with how it handles strikeouts and perhaps defense at the pitchers' spot. If you go to B-R, Vazquez put up 43.3, Buehrle put up 59, which is right on the edge of HOF-worthy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 07:34 PM) You can all of the surplus value in the world, but it is actual performance that matters. Returning the favor of using an extreme example, in the surplus model, having a team full of 500k players would absolutely be the best thing on the planet, because they take barely any performance to out perform their cost. There is about 100% chance of that team being the worst team in baseball though. This is where your theory of how important this is falls apart. No Sox fan is going to show up to see surplus value. They are going to show up for performance. If you get half a WAR on average from each minimum wage player, that adds up to 12.5 WAR at a price of $12.5 million or about $100 million in surplus value. Tell me how that 12.5 WAR team would finish in the standings? Interestingly, they'd finish at approximately the same position as a $140 million team generating no surplus value - 12.5 WAR. Put it another way. The White Sox, at their payroll, can fairly pay for 12.5 WAR. They need to get to 35, or better. They need to underpay by 25 WAR, give or take the error bars, and underpaying by 35 would be nicer. James Shields, if he repeats his 2015 performance, is 1 of those 12.5 WAR. If he repeats his 2014 performance, he also would cover 2 of the remaining 25.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 07:01 PM) Eventually he would have a salary, which would be reflective of the fact that he put up a big WAR. But because the players we trade away don't put up numbers for the most part, they aren't getting big contracts. The whole "surplus" idea doesn't really matter as far as actual team performance. It is a function of payroll, and doesn't matter for on the field performance at all. It is a needless misdirection of the fact that the Sox are bringing in talent that outperforms that talent they trade away. See this is where I think you're 100% wrong. The average team spent $8-$9 million per WAR on the free agent market last season. With some error, if you want to be the 2015 Cubs you ahve to figure out how to get to 45+ WAR. If you want to have a good shot at the playoffs you need to get to 35-ish. If you did that entirely with "fairly paid" players, you're talking a $300 million payroll right now. That means getting to the playoffs is ENTIRELY about generating enough surplus value from your players to overcome the fact that even the Dodgers don't have that payroll. If the White Sox acquired 9 players, each of whom made $15 million and performed fairly, this would still be a losing roster unless they had some highly performing players who were dramatically underpaid. You cannot make the playoffs without a number of people who do that. Of course, the White Sox do have some guys who are doing that - Chris Sale first and foremost. But the entire reason why you can afford "James Shields, David Robertson" signed to "fair" contracts is that you also have guys who generate surplus value. If you don't have enough guys generating surplus value, then you'll have your handful of expensive players and they'll be surrounded with an extremely weak roster incapable of competing, or you'll have the Dodgers payroll. Team performance will be terrible without enough "surplus value players". They are directly linked.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 06:19 PM) I think if you had a database you could run some vlookups off of with salary / war / etc all, there it would work and that includes a list of all players traded and received, etc. I'm not spending the time to do it, but theoritically a solid blog type piece from someone. There is some extent a difference between pre arb and post arb guys and the reality of what should be expected and clearly there is more value in a guy who puts up a higher WAR than two or three guys who equate that same total, but in general, I agree with your previous post. Theortically, best thing the Sox could have done is trade every positional prospect we had drafted over the past 15 years...only upside God I hate that Excel function. I wish it wasn't so useful.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 06:05 PM) Which also means these players aren't amounting to anything, otherwise they would also have large salaries eventually to match the WAR they would be putting up. But they aren't. The Sox are getting performance, which is what is actually the most important thing here. I think this is similarly incorrect. Take the example of Trayce - he could darn well have a shot at an all star game this year, but his salary going out is a pittance. That would not be because Trayce is a failure, that would be because Trayce's salary is set by pre-arb. What you'd really have to do is take it a full step further and calculate "Surplus WAR" for every guy sent out, the total WAR they produce minus the WAR that is paid for by the team over the first 6 years, and this has become so much math that even I'm giving up.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 05:31 PM) As highly rated as that group was, they pretty much all busted, pretty much like almost every player that has been traded away from this organization, except for a very few exceptions. If you really want to prove something, instead of just ranting, I would love to see a study done of the WAR we have traded away, and the WAR we have received in trades during Hahn and Williams time here. I have a feeling it would be incredibly slanted towards the Sox. It should be. Because typically during the Ken Williams era the White Sox also take on salary. Let's give an example. If Jeff Samardzija comes back and puts up 3 WAR but is paid $10 million to do it, and for simplicity we say that teams pay $5 million per WAR on average, then the break even point for that being a fair trade is 1 WAR from the guys given away if that's all you're hunting for - by a trade of that format you haven't just given away talent, you also have given away some ability to spend on the FA market. If Todd Frazier puts up 4 WAR this year and Trayce puts up 3 WAR, the White Sox would have 1 extra WAR per the metric you asked for, but they are also paying more for the player. Do that sort of math for this trade - the White Sox are giving away, in the modern era, the money it would take to get about 1 WAR per year for the next 3 years. If Shields puts up the same 1.1 fWAR he put up last year for 2015, 2016, and 2017, and EJ and Tatis never amount to anything whatsoever, the deal would be a fair one for the White Sox. They'd be up 3 fWAR from it, but that would be a fairly compensated 3 fWAR. If you just totaled "WAR coming back versus WAR going out" you'd get a totally unfair number if the team regularly takes on payroll, which they did in this trade. If the guys going out do nothing whatsoever, the White Sox breakeven point from Shields is "2015 James Shields". If he's any worse than that, the Sox overpaid in the strictly accounting sense, but they would still come out on top in the metric you asked for. If he's better than that, then that's a net gain for the White Sox if the 2 players sent out amount to nothing.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 02:00 PM) That was definitely an issue. The rumored trade did come before the shaming, so that was probably done knowing he was gone. The only question would have been was there enough offered from other teams for him to move, or did the Padres owner know he was going to be a White Sox so he ripped him? I do agree, if they weren't trading him, that doesn't get said. I have no special insight into the Padres but "owner who put a lot of money into a player and then loses his temper at that player after an embarrassing game and 1.5 frustrating seasons after he spent a lot of money and was promised results and then the team has to dump the player as fast as possible" doesn't seem like an impossible sequence to me. The owner jumping on him before the trade was announced but while the trade was done seems like impressive enough 3-dimensional chess playing that my instinct is that an owner-outburst seems more likely to me.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 01:27 PM) The only suggestion for performance I am making is that he will more consistently work deep into games than the guy he is replacing. I am not sure what to expect from Shields. His numbers are odd. While his fastball has fallen in velocity, his cutter has picked up speed. Instead of being about 6mph different like it was a couple of years ago, it is now more like 4.5mph. Part of being effective is having distinct differences between those pitches which doesn't allow a hitter to sit in between and adjust. It is what killed Danks along with a consistent release point. I don't think the bolded agrees with the stats the way I read them. For his career his FC (Fastball Cut) on Fangraphs has averaged 87.0 mph, this year it is at 86.5. It is true that his 2016 cutter velocity is up slightly from the 85.9 last year, but it's basically identical to the 86.4 that he was throwing in 2014. 2013 shows 87.1, 2012-2011 it is up at 89-90 and I'm wondering if Pitch F/X wasn't classifying all those correctly. Out of the last 4 seasons, this year's cutter velocity is right in the middle. Some additional edits: The pitch at 89-90 in 2011-2012 he was also throwing 20% as much as the FC he's been throwing since 2013 started, so I think there's probably some real difference in the pitch he's throwing those years. Suddenly he started throwing it a lot more in 2013-2016, wouldn't be stunned if the pre-2013 pitches were mostly fastballs that had a bit of extra movement on them. They probably don't even contribute that much to the average cutter velocity since he threw more FC pitches in 2014 alone than he did in 2012 and before.

Catching up on highlights via MLB network...that was a strike to Castellanos.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:45 PM) This has got to turn around sometime right? This team is not as bad as they're playing right now.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:38 PM) It's hard to be objective when the team is everybody's patsy in its own division. Until the Sox reallize you have to beef up the scouting department and do EVERYTHING you can to win division games, it will SUCK. Balta is realistic. The current setup sucks. Horrible manager and horrible owner and owner puppet in KW. Verdict still out on Hahn. I'm not realistic. I genuinely dislike this team. I'm waiting to see them prove me wrong. Here's another shot. I'll be the first to admit I can't stand this team. Major move here from RH, he's now spent a lot of the money he saved on LaRoche. Shields better produce.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:37 PM) I just want objectivity. Maybe your background doesn't require it, but to be a good, contributing member of a sports forum, you should have a hint of it. Especially someone as intelligent as yourself. You stopped posting objective opinions years ago. Now you nag narratives. The only post I made on this trade from a White Sox perspective is to note that his fastball is down 2.4 mph from his last year with the Royals and at about the worst level of his career. Maybe there's a reason why. Maybe it's something other than him getting old and that is something that gets better for him as the season goes on? But for the Padres, this is exactly what they should be doing. Save some money, get players who have talent but need work. This could be the best deal ever for the White Sox, he could snap into a great season and lead them to the playoffs, and this would still be the kind of move the Padres should be making.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:35 PM) His career ERA is 2.86 overall and the numbers there put it at around 3.55 ish for the AL Central? That's not top 5 in baseball but its not what I'd call "coming up short" against the Central, that's still above average. Jose's career ERA is 3.35, but against the Central 2.71 Cle, 4.02 against Det, 4.34 KCR, 3.83 MIN. That totals up to being about 0.5 runs higher than his career average against the Central also. Similar to Sale's career/Division difference. I'm now wondering if part of this isn't "Familiarity with the pitcher" plus "team tries to push the starting pitcher as hard as they can against division opponents" combination, but that's an interesting note.

QUOTE (kapzk @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:32 PM) Chris Sale vs AL Central: 28-26, vs Cle 4.07 ERA .254 BAA, vs Det 3.02 ERA .223 BAA, vs KC 2.82 ERA .278 BAA, vs MIN 4.05 ERA .252 BAA. Now Chris Sale is a hell of a pitcher in this league (top 3-5 for sure) but he comes up short in the big games against the division rivals. His career ERA is 2.86 overall and the numbers there put it at around 3.55 ish for the AL Central? That's not top 5 in baseball but its not what I'd call "coming up short" against the Central, that's still above average.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:31 PM) No one needs to have any exchange with you to learn your opinion on anything. And this is one of the two reasons I haven't been posting. Because if you're not a fan of this team, its now personal for too many people.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:26 PM) He's doom and gloom on the Sox. The Padres were the opposing force against the Sox here so naturally Balta is going to support them. Your take is strong and without holes, but when I have posters messaging me with the "Balta would come back at this time in the Sox season" and "Of course Balta hates the trade" I feel the I have to say something. I wasn't going to nitpick through his argument, but his shtick is annoying people to a point where they come to me to complain or poke fun at it. Please tell them to say something to me then.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:23 PM) Stupid to even bring Sale out for the 7th when he looked bad in the 6th. Sale started this inning at under 100 pitches right? Against a division opponent, your supposed #1 pitcher, 1 run game, and a bullpen that has struggled recently? If the team has made a decision that it's time to save Sale's pitches and rest him a bit fine take him out, but I can't critique that. Chris Sale ought to get 110 pitches unless they're trying to conserve his innings already, and if they are trying that then they shoudln't have moved him up a day last week.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 4, 2016 -> 06:22 PM) Robin is gone Monday if we lose this series right? does still work?