scenario

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 05:37 PM) Armstrong also gave up 3 SBs. Not sure how much was him or the pitcher, but still doesn't look good. It's a shame Armstrong looks pretty solid, but his since he is lefty and not too good defensively, he really can't be AJs backup, IMO at least. Maybe someone will trade for him or something, but I am not sure how much value a 25-year-old catcher has that really doesn't have a great minor league track record nor is he good defensively. Why is Armstrong 'not so good' defensively? Because of one game? Here are his fielding stats by year in the minors. BTW, Birmingham lead the Southern League in throwing out baserunners this year... in large part due to Armstrong.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 08:17 AM) How many people have good breaking stuff in ST ... In the thin air of AZ? ^^^^^^^^^^ Add on top of that, that Law was evaluating Floyd during his FIRST outing in spring training. I'm not even sure Coop allowed him to throw a curveball in that game. The normal ST process is that Sox starters only throw fastballs their first time out. Might have been helpful if a guy like Law thought to take stuff like that into consideration rather than acting like it was midseason. Sloppy scouting, if you ask me.

One of Law's posts... "Gavin Floyd - Will he win 10-15 games for the White Sox this season? No. Saw him this spring - the plus-plus curveball he had as an amateur appears to be gone. Fastball is very true, and he’s in the league’s most HR-friendly ballpark. Get a good chiropractor, Gavin." Another right after watching him pitch against Texas in a spring training game... "Speaking of Floyd, he's gone backward since his days as a top prospect. The No. 4 pick in the 2001 draft -- one ahead of Mark Teixeira -- once had one of the best curveballs in the game, but it's dropped all the way to solid average, and he can't get consistent bite on it, throwing just one plus curve (to strike out Michael Young) during his outing. He doesn't command his four-seamer at 91-93 mph, and his straight changeup isn't going to fool hitters." Nice going Keith.

Interesting idea. And I agree that '77 probably saved baseball on the south side.

One our our posters, Wanne, went to an Arizona Fall League game last week and asked GBeck if we were going to see him in Chicago within the next two years. His answer? "Sooner." Could just be a young guy being cocky. On the other hand, it got me thinking... maybe he knows something we don't.

QUOTE (bighurt4life @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 08:46 PM) Peoria v. Surprise Slayer not in the lineup. Derek Rodriguez gets the win pitching a scoreless inning, Cole Armstrong goes 1-4 with a r and rbi. He's playing a lot compared to Beckham who's only played a couple times so far. I read in another thread that Beckham is getting less playing time because he was a late add to the roster. Teams that committed players earlier got priority for starting positions. The Sox couldn't commit him until he signed... and since he signed late...

Swisher batted .191 after the all-star game with a .298 OBP. He batted .164 in September with a .238 OBP. THAT is why he didn't play. Not because he is in some fictitious 'doghouse'.

QUOTE (Wanne @ Oct 12, 2008 -> 05:50 PM) Hope this works for everybody. I was trying to post them in the thread individually...but it wouldn't let me. Basically just a few shots of Beckham, Poreda and Armstrong... http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php Got your email Wanne. Pictures uploaded and inserted below. Great job!!

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 11, 2008 -> 01:08 PM) Shelby was kinda old for that league, correct? Not really. He was 22... didn't turn 23 until after the season. So he was right in line with most people in high A-ball. I use the following guideline as being 'on-target' age-wise: - Low A... 21 - High A... 22 - Double A... 23 - Triple A... 24 (All of those numbers are below the league averages btw.) If players advance ahead of that schedule, that's great... but not expected. So, in terms of age and development so far, he's not behind... he's right on schedule.

The Sox are not going to trade Swisher.

Here's the first half of the article below. Full article is at this link. You couldn't blame Chicago White Sox prospect John Shelby III if he needed a little push in the right direction every time he leaves the dugout to take the field. A second baseman at the University of Kentucky, since being selected in the fourth round of the 2005 Draft, Shelby has moved from second to the outfield, back to second and back to the outfield. It looks, however, like the outfield will be his home for the foreseeable future. But since it's still something of a new home, Shelby is in Arizona at Chicago's instructional league camp, continuing to refine the defensive end of his game. The offensive end? Well, that doesn't look like it's needing much help these days. In his second full season, Shelby had a standout year, maybe the best of any White Sox Minor Leaguer, hitting .295 with 15 homers and 80 RBIs for the Winston-Salem Warthogs of the Advanced Class A Carolina League. He finished eighth in the system in average, fifth among full-season players, fifth in homers and second in RBIs. He also stole an organization-best 33 bases, getting caught only five times, despite the fact that he was hobbled all season, to varying degrees, by a sore hamstring.

Thursday's game... another day game. Harrell with the start. Gartrell and Armstrong in the lineup. Looks like the first few days anyway that they're playing guys every other day. First inning... 3-0 good guys.

The fact that he only threw one off-speed pitch doesn't surprise me. It was his first outing in the AFL... he only pitched one inning... threw 17 pitches... 12 of them for strikes... gave up two hits... in a tied game... It's like spring training. You have to establish your command first. Then expand your range of pitches.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 12:20 PM) Perhaps http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/...istency-is-key/ Interesting read. Interesting article. A good example of what can happen when an engineering graduate student has too much time on their hands. I found it interesting that the 2007 WhiteSox had the most consistent offense in MLB. Only problem was that they were consistently horrible.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 11:00 AM) That's were some tie back to league average needs to be made. Does consistent .3 runs below the league average top inconsistent .3 runs above the league average? The problem is that you have to assume pitching is a constant to make those comparisons meaningful. Since it's not, that makes the stats interesting but not very useful in the real world.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 11:07 AM) Average for the team or against the league? How would you account for a team that doesn't score enough runs? Or another way, the question is how important is consistency. How would you compare a team who is inconsistent and scores say 5 runs per game against a team that is very consistent but only scores 2 runs per game? The lack of scoring would confound the study. Well... I think it goes without saying that inconsistently good is going to be better than consistently bad.

http://aflwhitesox.mlblogs.com/

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 10:43 AM) I agree there. Consistency is very important. Still, a small ball lineup that consistently puts up 3 runs a game isn't very good. I don't know how the statistics break down here, and I would be curious to know. Does Baseball Prospectus or anyone else do a "consistency" analysis? As for Detroit, they would have had a much better record, even with that inconsistent-but-powerful team, if their team ERA (4.90) wasn't 3rd to last in the AL. Same with Texas (5.37). Yes. I agree. Good pitching is required. Great pitching + above average consistent offense = Gets it done. That's pretty much been the formula for Tampa Bay this year.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 10:25 AM) The Yankees and/or Red Sox wil get them all, but maybe Florida will sneak in there. I will be surprised if the Marlins don't go after the Cuban ball players big time. I think the players will be influenced by the agent... who happens to have a great relationship with the Sox. And I think they will be highly influenced by Alexei's situation.... the fact the Sox gave him a chance to play at the major league level right away. Add in that the Sox already have Cuban players on the team to help ease the new guys transition. I think it adds up to us being a serious contender for these guys.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 10:26 AM) Statistical data would show that power hitting lineups tend to out-produce small ball lineups, no? If by out-produce, you mean score more runs on average over the course of a season.... yes. But consistency of production is just as important in producing wins as raw numbers of runs scored. For example: Look at the Tigers this year. They were one of the top teams in baseball in runs scored. But they also lead MLB in the number of times they were shut out. Score 19 runs in one game... zero in the next. Boom or bust doesn't get it done when it comes to wins, no matter how impressive the total number of runs put up at year end. Give me a team that scores fewer runs but has greater consistency any day.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 08:59 AM) True, and although I'm a big fan of Kenny, the lack of fundamentals throughout the organization has to be laid on him. Either we are drafting too many players who are fundamentally unsound, or our minor league instructors are incompetent. I think these things can be practiced and learned, so I pick the second. I think the failure in fundamentals is problem that many minor league systems struggle with. There was a very interesting mlb.com article last year about the systems Neal Huntington was putting in place in Pittsburg to help turn their system around. The first thing he did was bring in all the minor league people and give them "the book" of terms to be used... so that at every level, everybody used the same language to describe the same things. Very smart organizational thinking. It allows young players to move from level to level and have what they learned in the prior year reinforced rather than changed. Might seem to some like a small thing... but it's not... at ALL. If you look at teams that do a great job at development, they all do something similar. I think that with Buddy at the helm... the Sox are moving in a similar positive direction.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 9, 2008 -> 09:08 AM) What about the other leagues? Do you have any links to the winter ball rosters? I am hoping to see Donny Lucy's name somewhere, along with Kevin Dubler. Ahhh... thanks. I didn't think about putting links in last night. I just put links to the leagues up there. No rosters have been announced for the Caribbean League teams yet.