Dick Allen

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 12:46 PM) Of course it hasn't worked out - so far - for the White Sox. But it also has done no harm so far (given that Reed's performance has been lackluster anyway), and it has the potential to be a win going forward. Regardless of that, you evaluate the GM on transactions at the time they were made. I'm surprised there is not 100% agreement that it was a good trade to make at the time it was made. If that is the case, Brock for Brogolio if you look at their previous numbers, wasn't a bad trade for the Cubs. And if that is the case, no one should ever complain about Jeff Keppinger being a bad signing even though Hahn himself said he f***ed up that one. If all trades and signings should be judged at the moment they are made, especially if they include prospects, to me that is silly. I don't care if Matt Davidson was ranked 1 or 1000 by BA or any of the others, and neither does Hahn. It is what the White Sox think of him that matters. And if he turns out to not be the prospect BA or BP or Keith Law make him out to be, that really is inapplicable, because the White Sox shouldn't and don't rely on their scouting reports to acquire players. A GM needs to be able to project. Hahn looks like he is capable of this, but this one blew up in his face.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 12:32 PM) And if Matt Davidson goes back to normal, the Sox win this trade in a laugher. No, because you are basing normal on numbers accumulated at Reno. He had about a team average OPS.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 12:29 PM) We don't know if it worked out or not. What if Matt Davidson ends up being adequate at 3rd, hits .260ish and hits 25 homers a year? It hasn't worked out so far but it's not like Davidson is dead or something. He has a ton of power. He even displayed a ton of power in a terrible season. If you are willing to write him off already then go right ahead but you shouldn't be surprised if others have not. And what if Kate Upton tells Verlander to go scratch because she is with me now? Why is it OK to write off Reed but not Davidson?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 12:27 PM) What about the rest of the peripherals you aren't mentioning? His HR rate is what is killing him. If that goes back to normal, he is better than a AAA strikeout machine who cannot field or hit .200. Hahn made some great moves last winter. This trade wasn't one of them.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 10:45 AM) Way way less than that. Go look at his arb status and production this year. 2nd year arb eligible, probably pushing $6 million to keep next year, only 2 more years of team control, rotten and injury plagued season, seemingly can't play 3b any more. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if he was non-tendered after 2015. He'd be a decent guy to flip for Viciedo actually, if the Pirates thought Viciedo could fit at 1b for them. Pedro Alvarez is the kind of guy I could see the Sox going after...because I expect them to keep scraping the bottom of the barrel. Pedro Alvarez is scraping the bottom of the barrel right now. This could be true. For some reason, there was a Pirates scout at the White Sox game Sept. 9. What I don't understand is if people don't like Dayan Viciedo or Adam Dunn, why would they like Pedro Alvarez?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 12:22 PM) Judging by the continuing decline in his velocities, you might well have seen peak Addison Reed already. Yet his k rate is going up and his walk rate is going down.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 12:16 PM) He probably will. Like I said, when it comes to arbitration, the word "save" makes all the difference. It's not about how well you pitched, it's whether or not you pitched in the 9th inning. http://www.hardballtimes.com/how-paying-es...es-teams-money/ http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2013/12/3...ary-arbitration And the example got paid $3.2 million, which is less than Downs and slightly more than Belly. If that is expensive, just wait to you see what Hahn is going to have to spend to fix the bullpen. It would be interesting to see what other offers, if any, they had for Reed. It does boggle my mind there is not 100% agreement the trade did not work out for the White Sox.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 11:43 AM) I never said he can't be a closer for a playoff team. I said he wasn't gonna be closer for the next Sox/DBacks playoff teams. Like NSS said, he is about to get expensive, especially cause arbitration loves the save statistic. Given where those teams are, it makes zero sense to pay your everyday closer a lot of money. Will he get paid next season any more than the Sox paid Belisario or Downs? For him to be really expensive, he would have to be really good.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 08:46 AM) So how close to a fireable offense is this trade for Rick Hahn? If you fired a GM for a bad trade, it would be the job with the most turnover . Hahn stole Eaton . I just can't understand why people still say it was the right move when it clearly is apparent Davidson isn't what was advertised. He still has 30 HR potential but it is rather unlikely. If Hahn traded him for a closer making close to minimum now I doubt anyone still saying last year's trade was right would say trading him for a closer now would be wrong. He wasn't what he was supposed to be. That is obvious. He really wasn't a top 100 prospect.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 08:04 AM) The GM that willingly made the trade was fired two weeks ago. He apparently pegged Davidson's reality better than anyone else. I really don't understand White Sox fans fascination with busted prospects. KW trades a slew of busts, yet he ruined farm system by trading everyone away. Matt Davidson hits .199 in his second season in AAA, with 165 strikeouts and poor defense, and he is still considered a future piece to the puzzle just because he made a top 100 list. There are a lot of names on the top 100 lists who eventually show you they really didn't belong. The reality is the White Sox got at least as much for 2 months of Gordon Beckham and Alejandro De Aza and one month of Adam Dunn, as they did for Addison Reed. Addison Reed in reality, was given away. If you want to say the trade made sense at the time fine, because you were sold a line that Davidson was a future middle of the order bat who would be fine at 3B..but with hindsight, it was awful, and White Sox scouts have to be better than this. Matt Davidson cannot play.

One thing that is barely mentioned about AP, which makes what he did even worse, was stuffing the kid's mouth with leaves. Obviously he doesn't want others to hear the kid scream. It makes me think he at least had an inkling what he was doing was wrong.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Sep 18, 2014 -> 12:23 PM) True. But does that mean you should be banned from earning a living in the NFL? I'm really curious to the answer. We know Marshall turned his life around (so far) after being awful to women when he was younger. Do Rice and Peterson deserve the chance to correct their behaviour and turn their lives around? Is suspending these guys from the NFL the best way to help them reform? The suspensions aren't permanent. I fully expect Peterson to play again. Rice may be a different story because that video will never go away and the reason they make so much money is because of the people who are not going to be happy Rice is on the team they root for. You commit crimes and are caught, you are subject to penalties. As the saying goes, playing in the NFL is a privilege, not a right. Expect to be held to a higher standard. And the standard to remain "eligible" isn't very high. Don't beat women. Don't beat kids. It is not that hard to stay out of trouble. Plenty of bad actors never get suspended. The vast majority of players don't get suspended. Olin Kreutz, who is supposed to be a jackass, was on the radio the other day, and he said something that is true. With oractice squads, there are probably around 2000 NFL players. There are about 5 or 6 guys, if that, bringing them all down right now.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Sep 18, 2014 -> 09:00 AM) Same reason you don't credit for being on base when reaching via a fielder's choice. You only reached base because some unusual event occurred that allowed it, when otherwise the play would have resulted in you being out. An out is recorded on a FC. All that other stuff is taken care of with ERA, and your batting average.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Sep 18, 2014 -> 08:58 AM) I read a thought in a blog a while ago that I'm going to paraphrase now: If you boil both of them down to just what they are, on-base percentage is far easier to understand than batting average. Try explaining each of them to somebody who has never heard of baseball. OBP: The number of times the hitter reached base (minus as the result of an error or drop-third-strike) divided by the number of times the hitter came up to bat AVG: The number of times the hitter reached base (minus as the result of an error, drop-third-strike, walk, or hit-by-pitch) divided by the number of times the hitter came up to bat (minus times that resulted in a walk, hit-by-pitch, sacrifice bunt, or sacrifice fly) The reasons anybody cites batting average more often is because they've done it for 100 years and it's one third of an imaginary piece of headwear known as the Triple Crown. It's actually pretty strange to make a distinction between at-bats and plate appearances, as batting average does. Through the entirety of baseball history, a team's OBP correlates better with its runs scored than AVG. SLG, even better. This is a statistical fact. It is easier to find AB and hit totals for individuals in newpapers and box scores than plate appearances. I don't think anyone is disagreeing OPB not being important. But is is funny how offense has dropped. Jim Thome, took a lot of grief around here. He was very streaky and station to station, and was on the team when some of this board became anti home run. But his first 2 years with the Sox would actually lead the league on OBP this season. His 3rd season would be top 25 and his last top 20, and that is with what would be maybe top 5 HR totals. I don't think it is all steroids. I have said before, I think Bud deadened the ball a little to give the appearance his steroid policy is working. I think pitching is becoming even more specialized, which makes it harder to hit. The White Sox have played 5 nine inning games this season that took over 4 hours to finish. A lot of that is pitching changes, trips to the mound, batters taking their time,etc. They have to fix it. Generations attention spans are shrinking. Most 4 hour games on a Tuesday night suck,

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 18, 2014 -> 08:41 AM) It's because the fact that he reached base is credited to the fielder. The batter didn't "earn" the base. I understand that, but that is handled for the pitcher with their ERA, and for the batters batting average.If it is 3 and 2 and the pitcher doesn't throw a strike,you go to first and that is earned. If the pitcher makes a good pitch and you hit one to 3rd and the 3rd baseman doesn't throw a strike, and you are safe,that already goes against your batting average, but you are on base and you didn't make an out, so it should go towards your OBP. It isn't enough to make a big difference, but it really doesn 't logically make sense to me.

I have always wondered why reaching on an error does not count as a time reaching base in regards to a player's OBP. He didn't make an out. He did reach base. Obviously, there isn't going to be much difference, but it doesn't make much sense.

If you represented it Infante and accepted 47 as his real number, you could have bought a game worn from the White Sox for $20.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 10:30 AM) I don't think it's so much that the saber community is unconfident in their numbers but it's more along the lines of if they are over/undervaluing it and if they should include other information. Alex Gordon's UZR this year is off the charts. The controversy there lies in the idea that it's because he's been head and shoulders above his peers to this point, not that his defense has improved substantially from this year to last. Either way, as has been said, if a person says substituting a 6 WAR player for a 2 WAR player adds 4 wins, it's an estimate and they should add 4 wins, but won't necessarily do so. The bottomline is it is an estimate and an average. No one has ever said it's perfectly accurate in that aspect, but that it should be fairly close. Still, if it is close, the actual numbers with the actual teams should be fairly close as well, and I have never seen an actual WAR standings chart. It would be interesting to see. All I can find is predicted standings based on projected WAR, and like those based on gut feeling, or old time stats, some look really accurate, some a little off, and some way off.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 10:04 AM) To add to what wite said: 1. trading a 2WAR player for a 6WAR player WOULD be adding 4 wins -- on average. However, the average outcome is less likely to occur than one of the entire field of other outcomes. But it is still the MOST likely individual outcome. That it cannot predict the future accurately is completely irrelevant becasue it still succeeds in telling you how much better, on average and measured in wins, the second player is than the first. And that's what you need to know. 2. What do you mean no other stat is called 'wins'? Did you forget the stat called 'wins' that has been a primary component of judging pitchers for over 100 years? Not for offensive players, and now ironically, the Wins stat for pitchers is meaningless. Also even the saber community isn't so confident in advanced defensive metrics. And that goes into WAR, correct? I used WAR. I post it often. But I am not naive enough to believe it is some uber accurate number. It is a nice number to put everyone on the same line, but there is a little more that goes into winning games than numbers you can put into a formula.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 09:58 AM) No, it should not be chalk but it should be close, as Balta points out above. WAR is context neutral, while real life is context sensitive. No one has ever said anything else. It's also not called wins, it's called wins above replacement. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, saying what I suggested - Trout would be expected to add 7 wins to this team if he replaced a player with a WAR of 0 - is an estimate. Estimates can be used legitimately. What is sure is that WAR suggests Mike Trout is a significantly better baseball player than Dayan Viciedo and that the White Sox would be significantly better with him in the lineup. Whether that's 2, 4, 7, or 10 wins is based on context. I think your basic gripe is that it stands for "wins above replacement," which is more complaining to complain, but the name of it is frankly meaningless - it could be "widgets abound ratchets" or "zoops above zorps," but what it tells us in regards to comparing baseball players is far more important as long as we understand it. You yourself admitted you have used a guy with 2 WAR taking the win total 2 wins higher. I am not complaining to complain. If a 6 WAR guy isn't 4 wins better than a 2 WAR guy, the stat is poorly named. The name isn't meaningless. It implies and has been used to suggest exactly what I am saying.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 09:30 AM) The name is fine. It implies that a player will produce however many more amount of wins than that of a replacement player based on how productive their performance is on a baseball field in a context neutral setting. The backing of this studies is the millions of plate appearances, defensive plays, and base running outputs in the past 100 years. Given those, they've figured that, in these situations, a player who does x compared to the y of a replacement player will be worth z amount more wins. If the Sox had Mike Trout instead of Dayan Viciedo all year, do you believe it's unreasonable that they'd have a record of 76-75 right now instead of 69-82? Of course not. Adding context into the situation, they could also be 73-78 or 80-71 too along with the same 76-75 that WAR says Mike Trout would add. WAR admittedly does not account for context, but keeping the statistic context neutral allows us to look at the statline in general and give us some basis as to how valuable a certain player truly is. No other stat is named Wins. It is very logical to think trading a 2 WAR player for a 6 WAR player added 4 wins based on the name. But that isn't necessarily true. Therefore, it is my opinion it is a poorly named number. The other thing is defensive WAR is still very, very debatable, with how it is being determined. And WAR is just based on numbers. Anyone who has done anything will admit people can bring far more or far less or just what their numbers show to the table in just about every line of work.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 16, 2014 -> 07:57 PM) And yet, it appears to have been surprisingly accurate for predicting the 2014 white sox. Add up everyone on every teams' WAR, and look at those vs, actual standings. It will prove the number, while maybe a nice tool to determine performance, should really be named something else.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 16, 2014 -> 09:42 PM) Wilkins obviously had no chance there. Wow. He definitely is showing everyone why he wasn't called up sooner.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 16, 2014 -> 10:05 AM) Christopher Kamka ‏@ckamka 2m This day in #WhiteSox history 2010: Paul Konerko, after being hit in face by a pitch in 1st inning, homers off Carl Pavano in next at-bat. That is hard to do. First you have to have someone hit your face. Then you have to convince the manager and trainer you can still play. Then you have to homer the next AB. I wonder how many times it has been done.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 15, 2014 -> 08:41 PM) I think Goodell is an egomaniac, and he did misinterpret the reaction to Ray Rice (I do think the changing attitudes in regards to marijuana worked against him here), but he's getting a LOT of help now. There are a lot of eyes looking at the current situation. When you have a job that pays you almost $1 million a week, and thousands kissing your ass, it would be pretty hard not to be an ego maniac.