Vance Law

QUOTE(fathom @ Feb 13, 2008 -> 11:26 AM) I think the only thing they were on was a hot streak. Since there was steroid testing in 2005, that would mean they would have had to be on HGH. I highly doubt they would have stopped using it then in 2006, when these guys sucked. Exactly. Did all of these guys wait until there was steroid testing to start taking them? They weren't putting up those numbers before steroid testing. Why didn't the share the roids with the hitters and El Duque?

QUOTE(knightni @ Feb 12, 2008 -> 11:10 PM) Is the HumpDome a hitters or pitchers park? Or does it depend on when they turn the fans on? Metronome last year was the second worst hitter's park in the AL after Oakland (yeah, Swisher!). 2005-2007 it was 3rd worst with Safeco at #2.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Feb 12, 2008 -> 11:34 AM) Johan Santana Livan Hernandez. I'd say the Twins kinda have Liriano replacing Johan, and Livan replacing Silva. Anyway, I like that the Sox will be hitting against this bad pitcher. witesox makes some interesting points. I believe Livan has pitched the most innings in baseball since 2003, so he will eat a lot of innings. But on the other hand, what good is that if those innings are as bad as they're expected to be? "Livan, could you stop eating all of these? You suck." ERA+ of 91 and 95 the last 2 years, and now he's going from the NL West to the AL Central. Wouldn't the Twins have someone or some combination of young starters who would benefit from pitching the major league innings? Especially if this is just a "practice season" for Minnesota.

QUOTE(WHITESOXRANDY @ Feb 7, 2008 -> 11:19 AM) You're comparing a 4th OFer type (and not a great 4th OF) to a solid starting OFer. Your "solid starting OFer" doesn't have a starting job, and is therefore a 4th OFer. In my opinion, you are being overly generous with your use of the word "solid." I think there is very little difference between Owens and Crisp, not enough to justify the money, not enough to justify trading them anyone of value. And starting Crisp in the outfield over Carlos Quentin is idiotic, in my opinion.

QUOTE(shipps @ Feb 5, 2008 -> 11:48 AM) If Nick hits over .265 and 22 hrs I would be shocked. I will be shocked if he is healthy and hits less than 25. I will be surprised if he hits less than 30.

I wouldn't trade Owens straight up for Crisp. Owens is way faster, playing for the league minimum, and under control for, what, 5 more years? Owens could be an excellent role player if (that's a big if) used properly. Occasionally starting in center, but especially with our flexibility in the outfield (Swish can play all 3 spots) coming in as a defensive replacement or pinch runner late in games. His best skills are neither hitting nor getting on base, but using him to pinch run late in close games for any outfielder or Konerko/Thome is an excellent weapon.

QUOTE(Markbilliards @ Feb 6, 2008 -> 05:53 PM) I also hate that he constantly feeds Mariotti's publicity by complaining about him on the air. This is another thing I love. Where else do you see that in antiseptic MLB? Hawk just harping on Mariotti and calling a douchebag a douchebag.

QUOTE(sircaffey @ Feb 6, 2008 -> 01:29 PM) Hawk makes the games less exciting. Zzzzz...As far as tone, personality, and commentary DJ and Hawk have to be one of the most boring duos in baseball. This I don't get at all. I like that Hawk is a unique original character who has his own voice, lingo, and manner of speaking. I don't hear that anywhere else. Every other announcer I hear is a generic, flavorless broadcasTOR dronebot with broadcasTOR voice. Also, John Miller on ESPN screaming "ssaaaafe!!" on a close play, using that fake umpire voice is the worst thing in baseball since Vince Coleman got caught by the tarp machine.

QUOTE(Jeremy @ Feb 6, 2008 -> 11:39 AM) Also, I have to take issue again with people talking as though we didn't get substantially older or more expensive by adding Swisher. Yes he's great, still relatively young, and signed to a very reasonable deal. You can't compare him with home grown prospects though. While he's about three or four years from reaching his peak, the guys we deals are more like 8 or 9 years away from their peaks. While he'll make a reasonable amount of money for an All-Star caliber player - roughly $35 million - over the course of the next five seasons, in Gio and DLS' first six seasons combined they'll probably make less than $5 million total. It's apples and oranges, unlike players like Quentin and Richar who don't have much more MLB service time than a prospect who's yet to make his major league debut. What's all this now? Are you bothering to make the distinction, "The team got "older and more expensive" by adding Swisher and also, "the team got younger and less expensive" by adding Richar and Quentin. Why would you not simply look at the overall picture to say that with the changes Williams has made, the 2008 team with Swisher, Quentin, Fields, Richar, Danks, Floyd is a notably younger team with more cheap and dirt cheap starters than we've had in recent years. QUOTE(Jeremy @ Feb 6, 2008 -> 11:39 AM) I don't think that's particularly damning. Everyone realizes that not all prospects pan out. That's not a reason for trading them all IMO. You're referring here to the post I made about the 2001 BA top 100 list. As I state there, my point is simply how silly, meaningless , and poor that list (and therefore any list including this year's) is at predicting future MLB success. On both the fronts of who is included, and their relative rank order( "aw nuts, our guy is only #74 while the White Sox are kicking our butts with Borchard at #23"). They ranked our guys Rauch, Borchard, Crede, Ginter, Wright and no one else, while the correct order would have been Buehrle, Rowand, Crede....... I made no case anywhere about whether or why or how prospects should be traded. I particularly like, "everybody realizes that not all prospects pan out" as a rationalization for 1 out 5 prospects pan out. It's unreasonable to expect ALL of them to pan out. It's reasonable to expect them to be wrong 4 out of 5 times (or 6 out of 7 with MB and AR). My point, again, is that these lists with their rankings are overall a worthless indicator of future success. A counter-argument of "hindsight is 20/20" will not be valid. I'm not saying I could do a better job of accurately predicting the future. I'm saying the list isn't worthwhile, and that people like lists.

QUOTE(wsgdf_2 @ Feb 5, 2008 -> 09:02 PM) PECOTA SAYS: .263/.349/.439 .788 OPS I'll take it. By the way, PECOTA also says Alexei Ramirez goes: .295/.342/.452 .794 OPS I'll take that too. Oh, and PECOTA says Swisher is good: .265/.373/.501 .874 OPS Wow, I don't buy that on Ramirez. To me the projection on Quentin is hedging on whether or not he's healthy. If he's legit healthy, I put him down for considerably better than PECOTA. .850 if healthy- way worse, and way fewer games if not. .788 is some combination of healthy and not healthy at various times.

QUOTE(daa84 @ Feb 4, 2008 -> 03:14 PM) im not sure that the sox have really been ranked among the worst by baseball america over the years....i mean they were second to last back in 88 and 89, but damn that was 20 years ago.... since 1984 BA has had us ranked as the following... 2000 - Can't find Info 2001 - 1st 2002 - 9th And to further point out the relative meaninglessness of these lists and their rankings: 2001 Rauch #3 Borchard #23 Crede #36 Ginter #44 Dan Wright #61 One of those 5 (for which we were ranked the top farm system) turned into a major league starter. While the 2 most successful major league players thus far from our system from this time, Buehrle and Rowand, were never ranked in their top 100 list, and the "can't miss" guys Rauch and Borchard...missed.

QUOTE(Jeremy @ Feb 4, 2008 -> 01:47 PM) Like most things in life, you need some balance and Kenny's approach right now is pretty extreme, considering that we probably have the worst minor league system in baseball right now. Not dismissing your points, but another thing to note is the difference between trading our prospects for expensive aging veterans, and what we've done, bringing in Swisher, Quentin, and Richar. Traded 5 prospects for 3 young starting major league position players. With Fields, Danks, Floyd, Jenks...that's 7 of the top 15 important players at 27 or younger.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Feb 4, 2008 -> 11:09 AM) Wait, Shingo was drafted? No, he was simply listed as one of our top "prospects" having been picked up from Japan, but having never played in MLB.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Feb 3, 2008 -> 12:44 PM) If all the players in the old days were drunkin assholes, I wonder why anyone would follow the sport. All of the guys not in baseball were drunken assholes, too.

QUOTE(ChWRoCk2 @ Feb 2, 2008 -> 09:26 PM) Yeah but if I understand that analysis right it means we would get that many runs if we batted Swisher and Thome 1 and 2. Which is pretty unrealistic. The number I quoted of 5.53 runs/game was with our expected batting order as I see it: Orlando Swish Thome Konk Dye AJ Fields Quentin Richar With Swisher and Thome batting 1, 2 it projected an even higher 5.65 runs/game.

Using Baseballmusings Lineup Analysis, I plugged in projections from Bill James. It projects we'd average about 5.53 runs per game. http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/Lin...451&Model=0 Using whatever projections Baseballmusings uses, it put Cleveland at 5.60. A key thing to note is that the Swisher and Orlando C. projections were for their old ballparks. Basically it's up in the air which of these teams will have a better offense. Personally, I'll take the Sox. And oh yeah, they project the Tigers to score 5.58 runs per game (yes that's with Cabrera). All 3 teams have powerful offenses that will score a lot. It will come down to who has great seasons and who has mediocre/poor and who gets injured. All 3 teams have question marks in their rotation and in their bullpen. Who will perform best? I don't know. You don't know. I only know that Magglio and Granderson won't repeat their 2007 performances.

QUOTE(knightni @ Feb 2, 2008 -> 01:20 PM) It's knightni, ships. Honestly, the Sox don't have much history when it comes to player loyalty (ie. players here longer than 6 years) They're historically too cheap to re-sign them in their expensive years. Let's see some comparison with other teams to back that up. How do they compare to the other 26 teams that have been around for 30 years plus?

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2008 -> 10:58 AM) I harped on this during the season, and I'll repeat it now. Erstad did not have a good start (aside from the first day, where he had a home run). He hit .261 in April and .266 in May. It only appeared he had a good start because 2/3 of our lineup was hitting around .200 for that first month. He hit .260 but seemed to be doing well because no one else in the lineup was hitting .260 or above. He did however have a great July. Put up an OPS of 2.000. Dominated. In that one at bat. True, not only was everyone else brutal, and Erstad had a league average batting average, but it seems to me he was hitting like .300 with runners in scoring position in the first half. He appeared to be the only guy who could knock in a run.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Feb 1, 2008 -> 04:45 PM) Without even looking, I can tell you that particular prospect aged 4 years soon after that ranking. Haha. That's interesting, I didn't know that. That particular anomaly notwithstanding... I took a look at a couple of those lists from 9 and 10 years ago (because presumably all of those players would have made it or not by now). I was able to recognize the names of about 60 players on each top 100 list (I am sure that there are posters here with a more encyclopedic knowledge of every prospect and player). A good portion of those, I couldn't tell you what team they played for, what they looked like, or what position the played if it hadn't been written right there. And that doesn't even touch on the relevancy of the order of their ranking (David Ortiz' high-water mark was #84).

QUOTE(Pants Rowland @ Feb 1, 2008 -> 01:21 PM) That is interesting that there is such a disparity in talent evaluation. It doesn't surprise me that there is a disparity, because this business of ranking baseball prospects is such a complete crapshoot. Take a look at past Baseball America lists and note what sort of success they have at predicting Major League success. My favorite is the #8 (#8!!!) prospect on the 1999 list.

Baseball Prospectus has their own top 100 list that includes, DLS at 46, Gio at 56, Poreda at 87, and Chris Carter at 99. http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7092

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jan 31, 2008 -> 01:57 PM) So you'd actually be in favor of adding a second low OBP hitter to the top of the lineup? People sure are confident that Crisp's last 1000 major league ABs have been an aberration. The only way I'd be in favor of adding Crisp is if he were acquired in a 1-1 swap for MacDougal and if he's placed in the 8th or 9th spot in the batting order. I could stomach it if he were 10th in the batting order as the 4th outfielder.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jan 31, 2008 -> 01:45 PM) Well, we're likely already in for a whole lot of Owens given Ozzie's love for him. If Crisp is added to the roster Quentin moves to 5th on the depth chart, I'm not so sure how much of him we'd actually get to see. If we did make the idiotic move of getting Crisp, I've got to imagine Owens in AAA or headed to another team.

QUOTE(GreenSox @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 11:15 PM) If we wanted Crisp, we shouldn't have wanted Crisp. fixed

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 11:27 AM) Perhaps I should explain myself. Though I used a finite example, I was doing so to make a broader point. Sure, I get what you're saying. My point, simplified, would be something like, in my estimation for every double Owens saves, Swisher has hit 2 doubles, or something like that.