Dick Allen

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 10, 2018 -> 06:17 AM) I mean, I don’t always agree with eminor3rd, but it’s pretty insane you keep repeating the bolded comment above. He has explicitly stated to you multiple times that those metrics aren’t the be all end all. And quite frankly, you really hadn’t given any reasons other than “he sucks” for the vast majority of this thread. That’s the reason why people were giving you s*** about this. He kept mentioning them. I have told you, his past history, his age, I have watched him, I think strikeouts have jaded his advanced numbers, Javy Vazquez style, and his projections. I have written it several times. But just think about it, his FIP and xFIP were good in 2017, better than in years. Why wasn't he worth anything in the trade market? If these are signs he is a top 25 reliever, why did KC have to include cash and one of their best relievers team controlled for 5 seasons to get rid of him? And why, if he put up the exact same xFIP and FIP the first half of 2018, which no one would actually wager anything although they keep saying its' the best measure of what he will be, would he be worth considerably more than he is now with these numbers? I think he sucks, you think he's an asset. Fine. I don't know why it bothers so many. You can tell me my reasons are stupid, that's fine too. I think pulling a xFIP at an age 33 season which was significantly better than any xFIP he put up in years is also stupid to use for projection. We'll see. I hope you're right.

Considering all the teams that will be spending cash next year, if the White Sox have any chance at Machado winning 65-70 games isn't going to help the cause unless JR gives him an offer that is not very similar to the rest. There is no doubt in my mind they want him, but if the money is the same, I think he picks the Yankees. He will have to Cano him but with an extra truck of cash than Cano received.

Fangio coming back would be a big piece off Nagy's plate. Now the hard part, finding your young QB quality targets and other roster shortcomings.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 09:41 PM) No, correction: if you or greg write he sucks FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER, you'll get backlash. It isn't that you're arguing with math, it's that you're arguing without making a point. The whole reason this argument started was because you basically said "Soria sucks, otherwise the Royals wouldn't have dumped him for nothing," which would be about the weakest appeal to authority ever if it weren't for the fact that greg's argument was "Soria sucks, I know because I read Royals fans tweet bad things about him," thus taking the cake. The one post a few pages back where you said something like "I don't think you can bet on a guy that's 34 with two TJs to bounce back like some others do" made a ton of f***ing sense and I accept wholeheartedly. In fact, just as I can see Hahn saying to himself, "I need bullpen veterans, lemme go grab a dude whose FIP was way lower than his ERA so hopefully I have some semblence of upside without paying up," I can totally see Moore saying to himself, "Soria's arm is about to fall off, I saw him resort to some new tricks that aren't going to last forever, I better move him now before the league catches up" or something. And I actually hadn't thought of that until your post. None of us has any idea if he'll be good, but a productive conversation is people stating their views and then backing them up. If someone says I THINK THIS BECAUSE OF THESE REASONS and you respond with, essentially, NUH-UH WANNA BET? it's going to get a rise out of people every time. I have given you reasons. You chose to ignore them, because they don't line up with your end all FIP and xFIP. We will find out in a couple of months.

Who knew? Black genetics are the reason most can't get legally high State Rep. Steve Alford ® spoke out on Saturday against legalizing pot using the type of racist “logic” commonly heard when “Reefer Madness” was considered a serious documentary. “What you really need to do is go back in the ’30s, when they outlawed all types of drugs in Kansas [and] across the United States,” Alford said, according to the Garden City Telegram. “One of the reasons why, I hate to say it, was that the African-Americans, they were basically users and they basically responded the worst off to those drugs just because of their character makeup, their genetics and that.”

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 03:24 PM) Yea but you are acting like anyone who had a dissenting opinion was attacked for it. Not seeing that I didn't see any dissenting opinions. I can tell you when I had mine, it was the same reaction as with Soria. Also, not too many wanted to hear anything negative about Zach Duke. I don't know what it is with these guys that make posters fall in love?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 03:17 PM) While I agree he is HOF worthy, he doesn't scream 1st ballot. At no time did I think he was the best player in the game. I think he's a HOFer myself. I just think either you are or are not. Making someone wait a year or 2 or 10 because of the level of HOFer they alledgedly are seems a bit silly to me.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 03:02 PM) And after the talk of peripherals, there is talk of "best case." Again, no one is saying they are 100% certain he will be good or great. Just that there is reason for hope. I would bet on him being mediocre rather than great. So would I. So would all the projections I have seen. So would MLB team execs. Mediocre at best.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 02:52 PM) If your claim is he sucked last year, that's just factually not true. The numbers do disagree with you in that regard. If your claim is that he will suck in 2018, you're entitled to your opinion, but all of his numbers from 2017 show a positive trend, so I'm hopeful that he will be a useful piece who can net the team some talent in July, and if he's not, it costs the team nothing but money. I have seen too many anomalies to think these numbers are foolproof, especially with relievers. And I know, no one is saying they are foolproof, but I don't neccesarily believe he was one of baseballs top relievers last year. David Robertson put up similar numbers his first couple of years with the White Sox, and his second year it turns out he was playing hurt, and if someone said he sucked, there were plenty of others to pile on. If you have a high k-rate, I believe these numbers tilt toward you. It is the one thing sabermetrically I could never understand. K's for a pitcher were huge. K's for a hitter was nothing. Although offensively, that seems to be turning.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 02:30 PM) http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=90722 Not seeing a lot of this I don't have a post in that thread. Must be somewhere else. A lot of satisfaction in that thread though. Peripherals.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 02:27 PM) Based on the content of this thread, I cannot fathom how you can continue to accuse people about being certain about Soria's future performance. There are dozens of posts in this thread acknowledging uncertainty. Most in this thread are hopeful about a Soria bounceback because peripherals. LITERALLY NO ONE is certain that Soria is good because peripherals. You are creating a strawman, pretending we're arguing for that strawman, and then tearing down your own strawman. Yet if I or Greg write he sucks, there is a lot of backlash. We are arguing with math. You just don't want to hear anything that contradicts FIP or xFIP.

QUOTE (credezcrew24 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 01:48 PM) I just think it's funny that anyone would brag about predicting that Felipe Paulinio wouldn't do well It wasn't bragging, but if you go back to when they signed him, any post not positive about his future performance was ill informed, exactly like not being positive about Soria. Peripherals.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 01:26 PM) Passion just oozes out of this guy. Interesting that they did not have Trubisky part of the process but Nagy raved about the day they spent with Trubisky when they were doing the draft stuff. Trubisky saw Nagy today. I know they were thinking about having Trubisky part of the coaching interviews. I am glad they didn't. I think it puts way too much pressure on him at that point. He has enough to deal with at this point. If he were in the league a few years and had a couple of Pro Bowls, then I could see it.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 12:28 PM) Jones won 10 straight Gold Gloves, 434 home runs and might get kicked off the ballot. He is far more deserving than Vizquel and is in far worse shape. I think they both deserve it, but will probably have to wait until they are 60 or 70 years old. Pretty ridiculous.

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 12:24 PM) Did you guys hear boos, cheering or a mixture of both. It sounded pretty mixed with the cheering maybe a bit a louder? Definitely. Alabama being there helped him a ton. If it was a USC vs. Syracuse final, I doubt he would have gone.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 12:33 PM) The entire crux of this argument appears to be your lack of understanding that a chance of something happening is not a guarantee or prediction that it will happen. No, the entire crux of the argument is, while I like the trade, I think Soria sucks, and people view crap on other teams a lot differently than they view it on their own. White Sox fans are unique in that they appreciate others' crap a lot more than their own. The White Sox have had a whole lot of whipping boys with excellent peripherals. But the dream is Soria will be flipped for a prospect who will help the White Sox contend for years. I hope that happens, but it is a dream. The Sox gave up a rule 5 unclaimed and got another decent reliever and cash to get him.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 12:16 PM) That's not true. We're so far away from DIPS being new that people forget where it came from. Voros McCracken mathematically tested the year-to-year stability of every pitching metric he could think of, finding that relatively few were significant predictors of themselves going forward. He noticed a pattern: that the ones that WERE significant predictors of themselves going foward were those least affected by defense. He took ONLY those factors that were statistically significant predictors of future totals, and developed a formula that scale the results to ERA. Then, hundreds of people have rigorously tested and proven that FIP (and eventually xFIP, which is essentially just FIP with normalized HR rates) is a better predictor of ERA than ERA itself is. This is true throughout the entire live ball era. It is math. It's calculating probabilities, so it isn't as black and white as 1+1=2, but the formulas were derived and proven from actual data. It seems to me this particular example doesn't really fit the bill. Using FIP and xFIP after last season, you wouldn't have predicted his FIP and xFIP numbers in 2017, and would have told anyone who did that they are arguing with math . The fact is, even if this is all you claim it is, it is not 100%, and everyone has access to this information. To become better than average, one must find anomalies with these numbers. Personally, I think his numbers were a bit inflated towards the positive, and he will be 34 years old with 2 TJS under his belt. Regression seems way more likely than anything else.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 12:21 PM) im shocked about vizquel. guess 11 gold gloves dont mean as much as i thought?? That is a bit shocking. Not necessarily that he won't make it on his first attempt, I get some voters think that "honor" is reserved for a precious few even if the guy is HOF-worthy, but his total is weak. He'll have to wait a while.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 11:05 AM) You absolutely have to know when the right time to strike is, but you could find anecdotal examples of this in every imaginable permutation over and over again throughout baseball history I'm sure. My point is the White Sox tried being impatient and "going for it" every year for about a decade with little to no success. Hahn then implemented a strategy of being patient and forcing teams to come to his price for his players, and in less than a year it took the White Sox from one of the worst farm systems in baseball to arguably the best for two years running. This wasn't accomplished by being impatient and taking the first offer on everyone who had value to get them out of town. It was accomplished by waiting and forcing other teams to come up to the price desired. Similarly, the Astros did gamble, but their gamble was smart. Essentially, it was "some team will get desperate and want to move a player we need for something of value at some point, and the price will come down to the level we find acceptable". Sure, it was a bit risky and could've cost them the 2017 World Series, but with the talent they have, they have a very long competitive window (unless something unforeseeable like injuries takes it away), so missing 1 of 10 or so shots may not have been a big deal to them. I'd prefer this rebuild to be the launch point for a prolonged period of sustained success, and I think the way to achieve that will be the same way the White Sox so quickly went from the outhouse to the penthouse of farm systems. Be patient, wait for a desperate team to match your need, and strike when the other team meets your price. Becoming the desperate team and overpaying for a present need depletes the surplus value that the team has worked very hard to build and will eventually lead to being back in the rebuilding process. Now, if the scenario you describe happens, I'd take that risk as well, but for me it's because I don't see Cease becoming that successful (even if the prognosticators are calling him the top pitching prospect in baseball) and even if he is, there's probably not a rotation spot for him here. Also, it's a 1 for 1 deal, which means that the Marlins were likely desperate and the White Sox will get good value from the deal. I'm not advocating never dealing prospects, I just want the team to go about it in the same way that has found them success recently, as well as other franchises like the Astros. Be patient, make teams meet your price, and strike when the time is right. Patience this offseason is going to screw a lot of players. It is unbelievable how slow the market has been, and it does seem while some guys will get paid, several are going to have it cost them. And wait until next year when Boras keeps Harper out there forever, which should probably keep Machado out there forever, which means a lot of guys will probably be just about at spring training before they know where they will play.

I was watching MLB Network yesterday and this is something that blew my mind. The SEC is a really good baseball conference, a couple of historic programs, but Frank Thomas is their only HOFer.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 09:59 AM) I could keep going, but you get the point. Besides Soxtalk won't let me quote anymore posts. Another productive day at work for you I see.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 09:45 AM) Mark Buehrle is an anomaly. So is Javy Vazquez. You wouldn't want him on the mound if the team had to win to save your job. Soria has many of the same issues. When the White Sox got rid of Bobby Jenks, there were no tears shed. Yet look at his peripherals during his last season with the White Sox.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 09:39 AM) Joakim Soria is 7th in WAR since entering the league. He was 21st last year. And Javy Vazquez has a higher career WAR than Mark Buehrle in a lot fewer games. I was also told earlier don't use WAR for a reliever, and is his WAR from 2008 really relevant? All I care about is what he does in 2018, and I am projecting it won't be pretty. It doesn't really matter to the White Sox, even if he bucked the odds, it isn't like the prospect they would get for him wouldn't have significant flaws, and if he sucks, winning doesn't matter this season. But there is a reason he was available for what he cost. The other guy was the prize. It wouldn't have happened without him.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 09:31 AM) Paulino, Felipe. So for years I've been reminding people I told you so. Show me some examples, or admit it's just made up bulls*** by yet another mod.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 9, 2018 -> 09:15 AM) Why would they need to do that when you would already remind them of it in every single post for the next four years? edit: make it 10 years. Another mod, another personal attack. More made up s***. I really don't know why "I like the trade but Soria sucks " offends so many people.