RME JICO

A DH is not the most valuable player, maybe the most valuable batter, but not player, DHs only bat 4-5 times a game. All the DH's should be tops in the league in batting, that is all they have to do. How about a player that has comparable batting stats with solid D? AL Most Valuable Player: Dye AL Cy Young Award Winner: Halladay AL Rookie of the Year: Liriano AL Manager of the Year: Leyland AL Comeback Player of the Year: Thome AL Biggest Surprise: DET AL Biggest Disappointment: CLE / LAA AL Game of the Year: Sox/Sawks 19 inning game NL Most Valuable Player: Pujols NL Cy Young Award Winner: Webb NL Rookie of the Year: Uggla NL Manager of the Year: Girardi NL Comeback Player of the Year: Nomar NL Biggest Surprise: SD NL Biggest Disappointment: PHI NL Game of the Year: Braves 13 - Cubs 12 White Sox specific categories: Best Hitter: Thome Best Pitcher: Jenks Most Valuable Player: Dye Biggest Surprise: Thornton / Ozuna Biggest Disappointment: Vazquez Game of the Year: 19 innings Favorite Moment: Gooch's acrobatic defensive play

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Jul 10, 2006 -> 05:03 PM) The issue is not with Scotty's baserunning. It's that 100+ points of OPS (and that's factoring in Ozuna's average dropping to .310 or so) is going to mean much more offensively than stolen bases. What are all of those players respective OPS. Ichiro Suzuki .845 OPS Brian Roberts .745 OPS Carl Crawford .880 OPS Scott Podsednik .744 OPS Chone Figgins .700 OPS Corey Patterson .741 OPS So ultimately Crawford and Ichiro have a higher OPS. Those would be the only two players that would seem to be an upgrade over Pods on offense, now D is another story altogether. QUOTE(chitownsportsfan @ Jul 10, 2006 -> 05:01 PM) First off, it's a very large assumption to say that Pods' steals are the main factor behind the White Sox wins. There are so many variables involved, and SB's are just one of many. Perhaps Pods plays on days when the "regular 9" play. Perhaps he steals most his bases against RHP's, which the Sox fare better against. I could go on and on... It's better to just assume his SB's add very little to the run expectancy for the inning and thus the game. SB's aren't that useful for an offense. The only way Pods should be stealing is if he's above a 80% clip. Even then, their benefit is marginal. Call me new fashioned and a stat-head pencil pusher, but I guy that steals bases, gets on base at a .350 clip, hits for zero power in LF, and plays terrible defense as well--is not a good player. He's a replaceable player. I hope Pods is gone next year and if he's gone and no other better options exist, Iguchi should be the leadoff hitter. And that Verducci article is junk. Talk about misleading use of statistics. Now Greg's numbers plus the one game he missed said that Pods had an effect on 10 out of 21 games where he stole a base. That is 10 wins out of the teams 57, or 17.5% which is more of an effect than I ever expected. If his Defense was not so horrible in the first half, no one would be questioned him at all. I am all for an upgrade, but I think there are more pressing issues on the team than the leadoff spot. He is probably priority #4 or 5.

Here are the only players with 20 or more SBs and their OBP and triples. Obviously speed and the ability to get on base or extend a hit: Ichiro Suzuki 27SB, .398 OBP, 6 3B Brian Roberts 22SB, .361 OBP, 2 3B Carl Crawford 32SB, .359 OBP, 8 3B Scott Podsednik 29SB, .353 OBP, 6 3B Chone Figgins 33SB, .333 OBP, 4 3B Corey Patterson 31SB, .315 OBP, 1 3B How is Pods that much worse than any of these players offensively? I just don't see it.

Greg, Great analysis. One of the best Pods SB breakdowns I have seen. I did notice May 17th was missing though (vs TB), Pods went 2-5 with a 1 run, 1 RBI, and 1 SB. His steal directly resulting in his score and at the time was the tying run. The Sox won 5-2. The most glaring stat about Pods is the Sox record when he steals a base: 18-3. That is amazing. For a stat that is supposed to not have that much meaning, that is pretty remarkable. You can look at it two ways, he is stealing when the Sox have a lead or he is actually somehow affecting the outcome of the game. The Sox are also 42-10 when he gets a hit. Pods has been very disappointing this year, especially with his glove, but most of his numbers are better than last year: 63 runs in 80 games compared to 80 runs in 129 games 6 triples compared to 1 last year 2 HRs compared to 0 last year 33 RBI compared to 25 last year 38 BBs with 312 ABs to 47 BBs with 507 ABs last year OBP about the same SLG up .042 OPS up .044 BA down .024 w/ RISP he is batting .339 in 62 ABs If he can bring his BA back over .280 and get his ass in gear on D, he is actually a fairly decent leadoff man. So if he can get better on Defense, what else can we expect of him?

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 10, 2006 -> 03:38 PM) Ugh, that's just horrid. Chris Young, Orlando Hernandez, Luis Vizcaino, Josh Fields and Lance Broadway for a 33 year old Jason Schmidt. That's 3 top prospects, an excellent bullpen arm and a #5 starter for a guy who is no where near a gaurantee to succeed this year. I agree, that is horrible and would be completely counter-productive.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 10, 2006 -> 12:32 PM) Well we can bury this rumor. The kiss of death has picked it up and is running it now. So that means pretty much it aint happening. Now that is funny! Freakin hilarious. Close thread, this deal is dead.

I didn't even realize that they had the lowest amount of innings as a pen, especially after last night. Now if a starting pitcher comes in for relief do those innings count for starting pitching or for relief?

July 9th, 2006 vs Boston

QUOTE(wherehaveyougoneharold @ Jul 10, 2006 -> 07:47 AM) I asked a few months ago and got this back on PM. Unfortunately, I can't make sense of it, maybe you know what all this means... "CBS Sportsline posts pictures for each team after each game (usually). Here would be the link to the MLB picture page, and here would be the Rangers page. To get the bigger versions, just take the URL for each picture individual, and replace the part of the URL that says "lower" with "1024x768". If you do plan on linking to these elsewhere, do not link to the CBS Sportsline link. Upload the pictures to Imageshack, then link to that URL. CBS stopped offering the larger pictures last year because of people hotlinking them and it taking up too much bandwidth, so really, use imageshack. Unfortunetly, they do remove them not too long after each game (usually a few hours), so you have to be somewhat quick to get them all. Enjoy " Thanks I will check it out. I think they mean the smaller photos on the Team pages are labeled with lower in the URL, and if you copy the target or shortcut to the URL bar, you can replace the word "lower" with "1024x768" to display the large photos, which you can then save to your computer, then upload to imageshack.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jul 10, 2006 -> 09:55 AM) BTW, when was the last a rumor like this was talked about with the Sox, and it actaully happened. I really cant remember a deal that went down that we all knew was going to happen.... Exactly, this is not going to happen.

Does anyone have the source link to these pics, I will fill in for posting the pics so we don't miss any games. It been 8 days since the last update.

WOO HOOO Should get 2 wins for that marathon!

Detroit just lost 3-2.

Get em on, get em over, get em in!

Nice job PK!

PK is due.

Yes Big Jim!!

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jul 9, 2006 -> 05:32 PM) If we lose this one, it's going to really suck. This loss could be terrible to go into the break having been swept by a playoff team at home when you had a chance to come back in the last game to salvage something. Actually, this is a carbon copy of last year. The headlines of the last game before All-Star break in 2005: "Swisher's 11th-inning double lifts A's to win" The Sox were swept by Oakland at the Cell.

BA's turn to be the hero.

JD!

GOOCH!

SIT DOWN LITTLE PAPI!

QUOTE(CYGarland @ Jul 9, 2006 -> 03:17 PM) this 4 day break is going to be just what i need, after this weekend's debacle Except a good portion of the team won't have it off.

In advance, sorry for the long post. After the Game Thread last night I wanted to debunk some discussions about making the playoffs with a top rated offense and sub par pitching. So I looked at all the AL playoffs teams from the last 10 years (40 teams) to see where they ranked in batting and pitching. Here is what I came up with: Teams that made it to the World Series (out of 10 teams): 7 teams were ranked in the Top 6 for both batting and pitching (70%), 2 teams (05 CHW, 96 NYY) were ranked in the Top 6 for pitching only, and 1 team (97 CLE) was ranked in the Top 6 for batting only. This is a pretty strong indicator that you need a well rounded team to make it deep in the playoffs, and a strong offense alone will not get you to the World Series very often. For the ALCS losing teams (out of 10 teams): 4 teams were ranked in the Top 6 for both batting and pitching, 4 teams were ranked in the Top 6 for pitching only, and 2 teams (96 BAL, 03 BOS) were ranked in the Top 6 for batting only. This starts to even out a little bit and it shows that a team can make it this far with less balance or with only one strength. For the ALDS losing teams (out of 20 teams): 9 teams were ranked in the Top 6 for both batting and pitching, 4 teams were ranked in the Top 6 for pitching only, and 7 teams were ranked in the Top 6 for batting only. This shows that you can make it to the playoffs with a strong offense alone, but you will more than likely not make it past the ALDS. Finally, a collective total shows that of the 40 playoff teams since 1996, 20 or 50% were in the Top 6 in both batting and pitching, 10 teams were in the Top 6 in pitching only, and 10 teams were in the Top 6 in batting only. Current 2006 Team Ranks: Batting: #1 CHW, #2 CLE, #3 BOS, #4 NYY, #5 TOR, #6 DET Pitching: #1 DET, #2 LAA, #3 OAK, #4 NYY, #5 MIN, #6 CHW Now that is only half the analysis because that doesn’t show how many teams didn’t make the playoffs with Top 6 in pitching or batting. There were 9 teams since 1996 to miss the playoffs with Top 6 pitching and batting. Ironically, 3 teams (CLE, TOR, OAK) did it in 2005, the most for any season. That means 20 out of 29 teams made the playoffs with Top 6 pitching and batting (69%). This is probably the most obvious way to make it to the postseason, with a good balance of offense and pitching. For pitching only, there were 21 teams that had a Top 6 pitching staff that did not make the playoffs over the last 10 years. That means that 10 out of 31 teams since 1996 made the playoffs with a Top 6 pitching staff only (32%). For batting only, it was exactly the same as the pitching, 21 teams that had a Top 6 offense did not make the playoffs. Making the total 10 out 31 teams to make the playoffs with a Top 6 Offense only (32%). In conclusion, the numbers show that no AL team since 1996 has won the World Series with a Top 6 Offense only. Only 32% of teams with a Top 6 Offense only make the playoffs, and 70% of them bow out in the ALDS, the other 20% drop in the ALCS, and the last 10% (sorry CLE) lost in the World Series. An Offense can carry a team in the regular season, but the numbers show that you will not make it very far in the post season without a solid pitching staff. In comparison, 32% of teams with a Top 6 pitching staff make the playoffs (same as Offense), but only 40% lose in the ALDS, 40% lose in the ALCS, and 20% went on to win the World Series (05 CHW, 96 NYY). Balance is the key, but pitching seems to be the key ingredient to a successful postseason run. Without it, you cannot win consistently in 5 and 7 game series.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 04:47 PM) Is Papelboner on his way in? Yep