ScottyDo

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 18, 2012 -> 11:34 AM) Your premise is correct here: that Viciedo has a higher floor than many prospects because he's shown some level of competency at the ML level. But I think you're taking it way too far when you say his bust rate is almost non-existent. As I said in more detail a few posts back, he's put up 0.3 WAR this year and on pace for a well below average ML season, and his Achilles' Heel is his plate discipline, which is something that is definitely NOT a sure thing for him to develop. He may simply not be able to recognize pitches well enough to realize his potential. If he doesn't do that, we have Delmon Young. If he doesn't improve significantly, he's going to have a pretty disappointing career. You're right, I overstated that. His bust rate will look negligible compared to players who haven't sniffed the majors, though. Doesn't mean he can't bust, you're right. And while another Delmon Young isn't something I have my fingers crossed for, it's a pretty decent floor for a young guy.

I'm not that worried about Thornton. With a lead like that, you're gonna be more aggressive than usual when pitching. Makes more sense to challenge the hitter with a fastball, given that even throwing a cookie is going to result in an out most of the time.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jul 18, 2012 -> 11:06 AM) Your protecting the WORST farm system in MLB by most accounts. Keep Viciedo and what's around him in 2015? You prospect guys slay me. What's funny is I'm not really a prospect guy but you're adopting so extreme a position that I look like one. I'm generally in favor of trading unproven talent for proven talent, but I am more willing to take a look at the balance sheet. The better the prospect, the more likely you are to get burned by the trade, but since they're prospects their bust rates tend to be fairly high, and many trades for veterans therefore come with acceptable risk levels. With Viciedo, he's performing decently with flashes of greatness in MLB at a very young age, so his bust rate is almost nonexistent (barring injury which is equally likely to occur in the guy you're trading for). In fact, I'd hesitate to call him a prospect. The odds of him succeeding brilliantly in the future is relatively high, so you'd better get something good for years to come to offset those odds.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 18, 2012 -> 11:01 AM) I don't think Marty thinks Viciedo is a "problem." Candidate for Juan Pierre Platoon Partner = Problem, in my book. But it's hard to tell, as I'm not certain what his point really is. I just know that he's been wanting to trade Viciedo at every opportunity for months.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 18, 2012 -> 10:40 AM) It's not what he hits, it's WHEN he hits. Take away those two three run bombs against the Yankees and Royals and we're only 1 1/2 games ahead of the Tigers and in danger of being passed this weekend. In all fairness, a hitter having a better overall season might have had more than 2 game-winning hits by now, so that's not necessarily the best indicator. I totally understand that Viciedo has not been amazing this year -- or, more precisely, has been half amazing, 1/4 awful and 1/4 decent -- but he couldn't buy a beer from Jewel not too long ago. Given his statistical profile and age, odds are he puts it together sometime within the next few years and neither I, nor many other people, want that occurrence to happen for another team...unless we get something back that will ALSO be producing for us years from now. This year, he's not been a hero too often (except that month when he single-handedly kept us in contention), but he also hasn't been a goat, so there shouldn't be urgency to dump him and still compete. And I'd give it a 70/30 shot that he performs VERY well in the second half, so what's the marginal benefit of replacing him? Given Marty's "ALL WIN NOW!" meatball caveman philosophy, why not throw every prospect we have at a marginal improvement at 2b? We could give Colorado Viciedo, Nate Jones, Castro, Mitchell, Thompson, and Molina for Scutaro, and that'd help us win games because 2B would be performing better. See, ultimately there's a limit.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jul 18, 2012 -> 10:36 AM) He makes too many outs and a big revenue team like the Sox don't have to wait 2-3 years to develop a LF 'er. ...wait, what? Are you talking about signing a LF in free agency now or something? Man this is so off the rails.

QUOTE (Carter224 @ Jul 16, 2012 -> 08:27 PM) Can we dump Konerko for him? Pauly has been worthless since the end of May.. WORTHLESS. Konerko's stats in his "worthless" stretch are better than Lilli's still

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jul 18, 2012 -> 01:30 AM) ' Viciedo will not be the difference between being competitive and not. As far as wedging him into arguments goes, I guess you're talking about Pierre. I find it odd that some posters are putting "developing" Viciedo in the next two months by playing him against RH'ers instead ahead of improving the lineup by platooning him thus having a better chance to you know ... win games. That's the Rongey Defense right there. "It doesn't matter that Kotsay is the DH because one player can't make a significant difference." Like hell they can't! How many games behind the Tigers would we be without Youkilis? It's a really stupid argument, pretending the sum total doesn't consist of its parts. Nobody should ever vote for anything unless their vote is guaranteed to be the tie-breaker, because otherwise their vote was not the difference between winning and losing.

Hurray! Winning is fun. Let's do it again some time soon

QUOTE (My_Sox_Summer @ Jul 17, 2012 -> 05:37 PM) Hello fellow Sox fans! I am just putting this out there for you guys to see. I recently (April) moved from Sterling, IL into Chicago over by Sox Park. Since I moved I have been going to a bunch of games being that I am under employed and work mostly from home when I do have work to do. A few weeks into the season I decided to try and see if I could do this, 50 games for under $500. I usually get tickets at the game from people with extras. I usually spend about $10 a game. I will bring my own water and peanuts from time to time, but rarely do I spend much on extras at the park. I decided to blog about it so you can read and follow my progress at- http://mysoxsummer.wordpress.com/ I am also on FB - http://www.facebook.com/MySoxSummer I post pictures and scans of the tickets to make it more legit. I am not an author so it is lacking on the verbal end, but a bunch of folks have told me that they like it. I am at Game #23 and have a total of $152 spent. Frank Thomas and Jermaine Dye have re-tweeted it to their followers on Twitter. Just wanted to share. Thanks guys! Go Sox! Be nice to take the next three in Boston! Interesting idea, and flies in the face of all the crazy meatballs who remember when cheeseburgers were 25 cents

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jul 17, 2012 -> 01:25 PM) Viciedo alone isn't going to bring people to the park. The point was pretty clearly that you can't trade away all your young potential stars for the EJax's of the world if you want to remain competitive on an extended basis. Trading Viciedo would be such a move. Nobody is saying, or has ever said, that Viciedo would be a draw on his own. But it has been repeatedly shown that winning is the only draw the Sox could ever depend on and Viciedo can be a significant part of winning in the future. I think you're being purposely obtuse to further an argument you presented months ago just out of stubbornness. You manage to wedge Viciedo into as many crevices as you can, even if the argument doesn't fit. EDIT: I'm also fairly sure nobody has ever said they would NEVER trade Viciedo under any circumstances. I'm sure we would all trade him for Grienke if we could be assured a contract extension. However, we want an eye to the future and you apparently want to dump him for Rob Mackowiak.

I heard DJ mention it a few weeks ago and started looking for it and he's right. In that time, De Aza has been a step or two away from balls that drop in front of him on many occasions, yet hasn't even come close to missing a ball hit deep. He should probably move in a little to adjust that ratio. It's worth letting one or two balls go over your head for doubles if it means cutting off 10 more singles (especially run-scoring ones).

Yeah, I'm not sure a Sox version of the worst song in sports history was ever necessary. "Go Cubs Go" tops .

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 16, 2012 -> 05:35 AM) 1st series win in KC since 2009.

Greg 4 Prez!

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 14, 2012 -> 06:00 PM) Marinez has started a grand total of two games in his whole minor league career, including the Domincan. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/pro...?P=Jhan-Marinez Good point. Not sure who I'm thinking of then.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 14, 2012 -> 05:07 PM) Shortest.Post.Ever. Point being, though, that his few issues do not include a lack of stuff. He can miss bats and his whiff rate agrees. Obviously, he needs to get his breaking ball over more so he cuts his walk rate back a little, but he's pretty damn good as things stand, particularly when you consider his relative inexperience. I heartily disagree with those who say he can't put people away or that his stuff has been anything less than advertised.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 14, 2012 -> 03:00 PM) Has Danks made any good plays defensively since he's been up? He played a huge role in causing the Sox to lose a game to the Dodgers by turning a single into a triple. Last night, it seemed like he wasn't playing deep enough in that situation. He seems more comfortable in CF. The ironic thing is he looks much more competent at the plate than a lot of us thought he would. Danks has made a couple of tough plays look easy by taking very direct lines to balls. I remember one in particular last series against Texas where it was sinking fast and he came and got it when Viciedo wouldn't have been close.

pen fifteen?

People often mention that one bad outing completely screws over a reliever's ERA. If you take out Reed's one disastrous outing, his ERA would be 2.53 and he would be getting ROY talk. He is giving up homers at an insanely low rate, striking guys out and has a bad BABIP at the moment. I'm not sure what people who doubt his offspeed stuff are watching because his change and slider can be devastating from my eyes, and are perfectly matched with a 95mph fastball with good late tailing action. Seriously, what do you want from the guy? He's aggressive, keeps the ball in the park and is unflappable as a rookie. His stuff is extremely good, he's just not polished yet. There are 139572 other things to complain about on this team that are more legitimate than Reed.

QUOTE (Real @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 06:07 PM) when you're producing a bunch of relievers how good is your system really? They're all filling holes that exist, which is the whole point of a farm system, soooo...pretty good? There are probably one or two of them that could start if needed (Marinez, Santiago) but that's not where the vacancies were.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jul 13, 2012 -> 08:38 PM) I've had a lapse in attention lately and need someone to catch me up - someone wanna school me on Jordan Danks, the last 6 months ago, in a brief paragraph or so? Tall, fast, great D, good at hitting singles off the bench so far.

Soooo tired for work this morning! Stupid ump calling Hudson out cost me precious hours of sleep!

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 04:39 PM) I think we'll know if Humber is the starter next Tuesday or not based on his performance tonight. I'll be checking the Gameday frequently. Link

I hereby cede my bragging rights and predict a fall to second place, because predicting 3rd place in the preseason led to a good first half. EDIT: Yes, my prediction caused their play to improve. It's science.