Dick Allen

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 7, 2013 -> 01:16 PM) The line has moved from +2.5 to -1 or -1.5 in favor of the Bears. Kicking myself a bit since I was planning on betting them tonight. After watching the first meeting between these teams, it's surprising money would be on the Bears. They couldn't stop Detroit with Briggs.

Flowers might get $1 million, and even if you offer him arb and he wins, can't you release him during spring training and pay him 20% or some sort? If Jarrod Saltilamaccia is worth 4 years and $36-40 million, Tyler Flowers is probably worth $1 million for 1 year or at least $200k to see where he's at this spring. I'm no fan, but he has shown he's a decent back up who can hit homers.

If Thibs didn't just sign an extension, Gar Forman would love to blame him for what is going on. The Bulls are hard to watch right now.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 08:00 AM) Either I am the only honest guy here or I am the only one who sucks at fantasy football. I sure as hell aren't leading either of my leagues in scoring. 4-5 9th of 12 - 6th in points 4-5 8th of 10 - LAST in points My team sucks. I'm getting beat by 12 year olds. Of course a lot of my problems are injury related. I lost by 7 this week with Arian Foster and Aaron Rodgers in my line up. Jimmy Graham got me a goose egg a few weeks ago, so I lost, then he was a game time decision last week and they said he would be limited, so I went with Reggie Wayne. He gets hurt, Graham scores a TD or 2, I lose by 5. I am 3-6. I also have about a 80 point lead in points scored against me.

If Martin really was tough, after this harassment, he should have picked up a gun and shot Incognito right in the face. That would have been G. I'm sure Incognito's dad would have shown some respect. The fact that Incognito's dad is mentioning Martin being suicidal makes this even more dispicable.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 12:30 PM) I assumed when he said "look into taking advantage of" that it was something that would require effort on the part of the Sox. If the Cubs leave WGN and that leads to increasing White Sox viewership on the same channel, that doesn't require any effort on the part of the White Sox. Although I'd consider giving up a kidney to get them off WCIU, if that helps. I agree about games on the "U", and I'm local. The sound is horrific every broadcast, and there seems to be other technical issues more often than when they are on the other stations.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 01:06 PM) I can't imagine any coach who's not already a huge friend of Ozzie being willing to take him onto his staff. That's a ridiculous level of distraction from your 3b coach. Seriously, imagine having the media crowding around your bench coach after the game waiting for him to say something stupid and then having to clean up his mess for a week or two every year. Maybe if Joey Cora gets the Mariners job I could see that, but then would Ozzie be comfortable being 2nd fiddle to a guy who was 2nd fiddle to him? It might be a problem, but if he isn't the manager, he may be able to back off a bit. They were showing a 2003 Marlins playoff game a few weeks ago on MLB Network, and Sutcliffe was going on and on about what a great 3B coach Ozzie was. Maybe it was his evil twin "Greg Sutcliffe".

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 12:56 PM) Are Ozzie's chances now better about managing in Bristol? Turning this back on Ozzie, does he get a chance again to manage? I say no. He has proven to be too much of a liability for a franchise plus he hasn't taken a team past their expected production in 8 years. In fact his teams seem to underperform the majority of the time in the past 8 seasons. That's a really good question. I think the only way he manages again in the major leagues, is if he takes a coaching job and the organization gets comfortable with him, and he takes over that team eventually. If Loria is willing to pay him for 3 or 4 years to do nothing, I think other teams realize, that while Loria is a problem, Ozzie has had issues with both organizations he managed.

One other thing to keep in mind about Garcia in game 4 when the Sox won by 6, he only allowed one hit and no walks the last 5 innings. He was cruising.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 11:49 AM) Nor was I. I also bet that my 0.1% chance of the White Sox relievers giving up more than 6 runs is closer than 3%. What you are suggesting by saying that is that, in every 33 chances, any bullpen pitcher is liable to give up 7 runs in 1 inning of work. How many relievers even gave up 7 runs in an appearance - even including more than 1 inning - at all this year? It's silly that you two are getting so worked up over this. Again, let me explain #1) Ozzie was lucky that his team was even in a position to throw 4 complete games in a row. Ozzie was NOT LUCKY TO WIN because his pitchers threw 4 complete games in a row or whatever. #2) In the case where the White Sox clearly had the game wrapped up, I would have removed the starter to allow him to remain fresher to throw in a potential game 7, which was still very much in doubt at that point. #3) Leaving Garcia in or going to a reliever, nobody would have cared either way because neither decision was incorrect. a. If Ozzie puts in a reliever, he is not wrong. b. If Ozzie leaves Garcia in, he is not wrong. Do we understand this or do I have to say it about 12 or 13 more times before this thread can die again? They only had a 6 run lead once in the 4 games. 2 3 run leads and won one by 1 run, thanks AJP. If you thought he was not wrong, why did you even start this argument by saying his leaving the pitchers in was not smart? You also hinted earlier that his leaving them in may have affected their performance in 2006. So you are all over the place. For a guy who says someone else is always trying to get the last word, you do spend a lot of time trying to get the last word. If Greg wants to think Ozzie is a genius, why does that bother you?

I'm no Ozzie apologist. When he was hired, I didn't think he would last 1 season. But IMO he was a really good manager his first 3 seasons. Even in 2006. After that, he was too focused on himself. I don't think he's the genius Greg thinks he is, but he obviously knew what he was doing during the 2005 postseason.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 11:36 AM) Just want to point out that sometimes suboptimal decisions still work out. If Option A will work 10% of the time while Option B works 90% of the time, you didn't make the best choice if you happen to go with A and it happens to work out. But that is one reason I used 3%. If the OBP the next AB goes from .320 to .350, that's an increase of 3%. If the odds the bullpen implodes are 3%, it's pretty much a wash. I'll go with the guy who is cruising as long as his pitch count isn't inflated and he's feeling fine instead of the unknown. If he gives up a hit or 2, then you take him out. And that is what Ozzie did during the WS, and what he would have done during the ALCS. If you don't need your bullpen, there is no point using them.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 11:37 AM) According to what? How are there too many variable involved? What are they? What is the threshold for "too many?" There are always too many variables involved to predict the future with certainty. That does NOT mean you shouldn't use what you know to hedge your chances. Just randomly guessing when you don't have to isn't really trying very hard. There are too many variables involved in human biology to ever really get the field of medicine right. Should we stop trying? Has our incomplete picture of medicine NOT helped us increase the quality of our lives? Just looking at his game logs in 2005, Bobby Jenks gave up 3 runs in a game himself 3 times. For it to be 3%, the team only had to do it 5 times.

It would be interesting to see the actual comments after these games. I bet there was more Ozzie was a genius than idiot. Probably more interesting would be the gamethread when El Duque shut down Boston. I know when he was trotting in I was WTFing, and when it worked out, I didn't think of Ozzie as a guy who made a dumb decision that somehow worked out.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 6, 2013 -> 10:59 AM) Which is why I said there's a 99.999% chance that it would have been fine. If you prefer 99.9% (meaning 1 in 1,000 rather than 1 in 100,000) then whatever, it was a miniscule chance that it would have had an effect. Considering you are using sabermetrics for your argument which is heavily dependant on math, I think you would have to agree the 1 in 1000 that the Sox bullpen implodes isn't anywhere near accurate. I would say there would be at least a 3% chance they implode. Probably nearly the same as the difference of the percentage of getting on base between the 3rd and 4th times through the order.

The result is the only thing that matters. If you want to think Ozzie was a genius because he left his pitchers in, fine. If you want to think Ozzie was "not smart" for not yanking his pitchers, fine. The Sox won. Why have a problem with what was done 8 years later? And to say the ultimate result would have been the same if he had used the bullpen, while perhaps true, is total speculation, certainly not a fact.

Even if Martin needed "toughening up", I think it's pretty sad if anyone thinks they way that was supposed to be accomplished actually makes one "tougher". How is wanting to punch out Incognito going to make Martin tougher? What if he couldn't take the hazing anymore and actually went farther than throwing a punch? Being in a fraternity in college, I am very familiar with hazing, and the few individuals who seem to actually live to haze people. I agree, a lot of it is harmless, but there is always someone around willing to take it to another level. It's beyond stupid IMO. Just cut it all out before something really tragic happens.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 12:07 PM) Taking a look, his HR/FB% was basically at its lowest with the White Sox, too. So strange diagnosing him. The only thing that really jumps out at a glance is pretty low strand rates. I think it just boils down to Javy being an enigma nothing will ever be able to explain.

The Packers were running the ball, the Bears were airing it out, then ran the ball really well. We actually were able to tell Peppers and McClellin were in the game. It truly was bizarro night.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 11:22 AM) Well, surely that's the main reason they hired Terry Bevington and Ozzie Guillen. So why are we to believe Hahn's better qualified to be a GM because he went to Northwestern and Harvard Law? If I remember correctly, Jon Daniels went to Cornell. Epstein went to Yale. Jeff Luhnow went to Penn and then Kellogg for MBA. Chris Antonetti went to Georgetown/UMass-Amherst. DePodesta went to Harvard. Kim Ng, University of Chicago. AJ Hinch, Stanford. KW, Stanford. Cherington/Amherst. Hoyer/Wesleyan. Michael Hill (Marlins) Harvard. Beane would have gone to Stanford. Josh Byrnes/Haverford. Anthopolous (McMaster/Canada-ECON). JP Ricciardi from St. Leo University is an outlier. Or this guy, the front office member with the most interesting background in all of baseball, not to mention the fact that he's Indian-American.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sig_Mejdal J. Mozeliak, Univ of Arizona/Univ. of Colorado, Jack Z. (Austin Peay), Andrew Friedman (Tulane) Wouldn't 50-75% of the GM's be coming from "non-elite" or state university Sports Management programs? Back when I was going to graduate school, Ohio University, UMass, Ohio State and Georgia Southern University (where I went) were all among the top five graduate programs. Whether it's presidents or MLB GM's, people have an expectation that leaders should have attended elite educational institutions and possess higher IQ's/SAT scores, what have you. KW went to Stanford for 1 year. You mentioned Beane "would have" gone to Stanford. He didn't. This is baseball,not something that you can learn in a classroom at a University. I just think that some of these guys are from more highly thought of schools is just coincidence at this point. I don't really think there is anything at Cornell or Harvard or Yale or Stanford that actually better prepares you for a MLB GM job. The guys with the advanced degrees seem to have the same problems the GMs who barely made it out of HS have.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 11:40 AM) Which was the difficulty with ol' Javy Vazquez, correct? In each of his 3 Chris Sale-like fWAR seasons with the White Sox, Javy's ERA was higher on the road than at home.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 4, 2013 -> 05:55 PM) Except that's only 1/2 the games...AND...you have the brutal weather in April and May. Plus you have to correct for how much the White Sox spent on their starting pitching/rotation compared to other teams. There are a LOT of other factors involved. According to my BP, USCF, while a homer haven, is slightly better than neutral for hitting overall. Last year, the 3 year factor was exactly neutral. So if the White Sox stay away from flyball pitchers, they usually fare pretty well at home.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 09:37 AM) AJ Pierzynski is not a long-term option, and signing a short-term option makes it harder to find a long-term option unless our goal is to field a competitive team in 2014. It really doesn't unless the long term solution is major league ready and in house, and what is wrong with trying to win in 2014? Granted, if every player plays at the level they did in 2013, there is zero chance, but I think there is a decent chance of improvement from a lot of people. A couple of offensive upgrades, a few less boneheaded decisions on the basepaths and in the field, the team could be very competitive. I don't think they will sign AJ myself, but I would much rather they signed him than anyone his price range or higher except for McCann. I also would look into the cheaper route. Someone has to catch. Flowers has shown he is a legit back up. Phegley is a hard guy to judge. Great offensive and defensive catchers are really hard to find. Maybe a placeholder is what is needed to buy some time to find one. Not all of Hahn's acquisitions are going to fit into a 4 or 5 year plan. That is impossible.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 06:33 AM) Salty had a bad week in WS defensively. Makes me wonder. His standard defensive numbers were almost identical to AJP in 2013. I think AJ caught 1 more inning. They both had the same number of passed balls, wild pitches when they were catching, and runners caught stealing. Salty had a few more errors, but unless you actually see the errors, catcher errors are often someone else's fault, or bad luck. There were 40 more SB against Salty than AJ, although Salty had a slightly better defensive WAR. Maybe he was framing pitches better or something, but if you didn't like AJP defensively, and think of the horror on this board coming into 2012 when the Sox owed him $6 million, I can't see how you are going to like Salty defensively.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Nov 4, 2013 -> 08:31 PM) I think that was a TD. The side judges should call anything close TDs so it's automatically reviewed. That makes way too much sense to actually happen.