witesoxfan

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 02:05 PM) I liked your cause and effect, and enjoyed your analysis here, but let's do this for DeAza. Let's do it for Tank. Let's do it for Beckham. There are a lot of guys on the roster 'blocking' other guys who can't play the game of baseball effectively. I happen to think Paulie was not exactly the worst player on the team. Viciedo was seemingly going to platoon with De Aza and get about 300-400 plate appearances prior to Garcia getting hurt. He can play multiple positions (I think it's safe to say he can play LF, RF, and 1B). He's young and got years of control still. De Aza was viewed as a competent starting player. Beckham was given one more chance. Those players all have bigger roles with the ability to diversify their roles while also having (relative) youth on their side. They could have had a future on this team if they performed. Konerko has no future on this team, and this team is rebuilding, which is a time when teams make critical decisions on their future. I love and respect everything Konerko did for the organization, and I ultimately didn't care that Konerko was on the roster, but those people who have or had a beef with Konerko have/had legitimate gripes.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 11:43 AM) Unless you had Seattle last year, they were so awesomely consistent. But yes, I agree with you in theory, usually play the matchup game. There are others you can be pretty safe with. When the Smith's are healthy and active, the 49ers defense is typically the same way, but I don't ever count on my defense getting me any points.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 11:51 AM) ESPN with a report from St Louis Rams camp, informing all on who chose to shower with Michael Sam. I wish i was kidding *facepalm* I feel like this is ESPN investigating the gay cooties.

Defenses are volatile - there are times really good defenses don't get you any points and really bad defenses get you a lot of points. I usually just work based off matchups with those on a weekly basis.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 10:28 AM) The great joy people take seeing a person they don't even know struggling is actually pretty sad. Yeah, it's unfortunate seeing people say that. I always liked Beckham and wanted him to succeed, but it just wasn't meant to be for the Sox. Another guy that comes to mind when thinking about this is Uribe too. He had turned into a pretty terrible hitter by the end of his Sox career and he's gone on to have a really nice career.

I blame Ferguson, MO.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 10:58 PM) Palmer is going to wite and Balta's team. Smart move considering the Bills play the Bears and Palmer knows that playbook. And also because Jordan Palmer is a very good QB mentor/coach from the sidelines. Either way, the Bears are f***ed come week 1.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 08:22 AM) Greg, wtf are you talking about? Please read the following carefully: Gordon Beckham is a below average major league player by any statistic, both advanced and traditional. The only reason people are saying he is better than most #8 picks is because most #8 picks don't ever even make it to the Majors. The whole point being made is that even holding down a job as a mediocre player is something of an accomplishment. This has NOTHING to do with advanced metrics. I've never come across anyone who can hold a personal grudge against something as consistently as you. I mean seriously, if your car won't start, do you blame WAR? Do you blame Adam Dunn? There's a hair in my buger! GODDAMMIT ADAM DUNN

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 07:17 AM) QB: Jay Cutler RB: Jamaal Charles RB: Montee Ball WR: Alshon Jeffery WR: Antonio Brown TE: Dennis Pitta FLEX: Ryan Tannehill K/DEF: Who cares - streaming Bench: Johnny Manziel, Chris Johnson, MJD, Knile Davis, Keenan Allen, Justin Hunter, Terrance Williams. And I picked up Shaun Hill right after Bradford left the game over the weekend 12 team PPR league. QBs are allowed to play in the FLEX so most teams use 2 QB's every week. Defense also gets points based on ST return yards so I've streamed a defense every week all 3 years in this league I really like everyone except the QBs. There's a lot of big upside on the team with what should be good production all around too. I worry about Tannehill as the flex, but, like I said, there's a ton of upside. QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 26, 2014 -> 07:34 AM) Is that normal to be able to play a QB at the flex? My league just does RB/WR/TE. It's not normal, but 2 QB leagues are fun as hell.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 07:24 PM) Looks cool, man. I think Chip Robinson has real potential to move on up in the company.

QUOTE (peavy44 @ Aug 23, 2014 -> 12:05 PM) Tim Anderson has too many errors i dont think he is. This has nothing to do with his future as a shortstop. He's 21 and has all kinds of time to improve his hands.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 11:51 PM) I want to ask you. Throw out all these metrics. You watched him play for these many ways. Do you personally feel ... do your eyes tell you Gordon Beckham was IN ANY WAY a valuable member of the White Sox? Like I said if he is a good No. 8 pick throughout history, then baseball GMs are worst than I thought. But please answer my personal question, this time using no metrics at all. Your opinion of Gordon Beckham from what you saw .... and others that cite stats that say he's good please comment as well. What in the hell are you talking about? People have explained this to you already, what their eyes saw and what the numbers say. Why are you dwelling on this?

QUOTE (TRU @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 04:40 PM) My gut feeling is this has taken way too long for him to be suspended for the season. I would guess 8 games, which means he is eligible to return for week 10. Quite the boost for the run to the fantasy playoffs. Ive been able to land him in all leagues but 1 so far. I'm targeting round 9/10. I have the 12th pick in my PPR league (AGAIN, 2 years in a row now). Frankly, at that point, you are drafting WR/RB3's who have upside, so drafting a guy who could give you that type of total point output (meaning a WR3 output) over 8 games is quite a steal. And I mean, who are you going to keep over him, Jeremy Kerley (or whatever)? Yeah, if he's done for the season, I lose him, whoop dee doo. I bought into the Steven Jackson and David Wilson hype last year and got absolutely torhced for that, and I drafted them like 12/13.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 04:31 PM) Maybe a little. Most 20 y/o are physically mature. They may be starting a lifting program to add muscle or something but they are physically fully mature. There may be a few that are still developing. So with his background as an athlete he has be physically training more than most. I changed quite a bit from 18 to 21 to 24 though too. It's also going to be interesting to see how they handle him moving forward. Given his age, you would think that they'd be more aggressive with him to try and optimize his value, but if he deals with struggles, how quickly do they cut the cord or move him around? Because he's older they can't have too long of a leash, but given his pedigree, you have to give him longer than most UDFAs. I don't mean anything to come across as negative, just attempting to analyze it from the front office standpoint. Maybe that's the incorrect way to go about it at this point and we should just sit back and enjoy a good underdog (sorta) story. I'm rooting for him to make it.

QUOTE (TRU @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 04:21 PM) And this should pretty much go without saying, if Josh Gordon wasnt drafted in your league go pick him up immediately.. Also, draft him if you haven't drafted yet. I got Gordon late last year and plan on doing so again this year. If the guy put up 1600 yards in 14 games with Weeden, Hoyer, and Campbell, throwing to him, imagine what he does when he has a guy like Manziel chucking bombs to him all the time. If he doesn't get suspended for the full year - hopefully he won't, because he shouldn't - he could easily win some leagues for guys.

Really nice interview. While he's relatively old for the level - 24 in low A does not scream future MLB player - he obviously has incredible work ethic and athleticism given the Olympic style training he's gone through. He's also shown a very advanced approach for being a raw prospect, given the 13.9% walk rate, and his K-rate is not outrageous either at 16.7%. Given all that plus the supporting cast he has around him, I wouldn't be surprised to see Eddy play at the MLB level at some point. This is a guy I'm going to look forward to following.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 02:06 PM) How does Jordan still have options? He used his last option this year. Once an option is used within the season, they do not have to be exercised beyond that point, so the Sox can send and recall him to their heart's delight (to some degree, as he has to remain in Charlotte for 10 days prior to them recalling him except in the event of injury).

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 12:58 PM) Players are not going to lose on purpose, and any discussion of that is silly. They don't have to, and they don't care very much about a #5 draft pick vs a #10 pick the next year. The losing takes care of itself. IOW, there are teams either fighting for a playoff spot (or trying to get home field adv) or teams with not much if any hope of getting into post season play. Not much in between. Call it Group 1 and Group 2. Now I don't have any stats to back me up, just decades of watching MLB. When Group 1 above plays Group 2 at the end of the season, there is a huge disparity. If the same teams meet in April-June, not nearly as much. Why? Because in September Group 1 teams are playing much harder and certainly with more emotion than Group 2 teams. This translates to wins and losses. There will always be exceptions. There will often be a Group 1 team go into the tank the last two weeks of the season and a Group 2 team can get hot and be a spoiler. But the Sox are clearly a Group 2 team this year. Just my opinion, I could be wrong. It would be an interesting study, and I agree with your general premise that teams don't try to lose but rather bad teams lose more often than good teams. There have been other times in this franchise's history where they've performed much better in September and it was concluded during those times that they performed better because the pressure was off. I look to 2002, 2003 (where the opposite happened), 2004, and 2007 off the top of my head. This team most definitely won't tank and try to lose.

QUOTE (TRU @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 11:55 AM) Im going to look to see if I can join a random 16 team league. That looks like it would be a real test to see how good of a fantasy player you are. I wont do a 10 team league again, everyone has good players and waiver wire is full of useful players. 10 is the most I will ever do and I prefer 12 teams. What I dislike are rosters where you play like 9 guys and the total roster size is 16. You almost exactly fill out 2 teams with the guys on your roster, and it sucks because you have guys who end up rostering like 7 WRs and they are all like top 60 guys and they end up with guys getting 15 points sitting on their bench while other people run out someone like Jerrico Cotchery because they don't have any other choice.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 22, 2014 -> 08:47 PM) L. Garcia can't shine Paulie's shoes. Well, #1, I'm sure he can because shoe shining is not difficult. #2, you failed to understand. If the Sox DIDN'T have Konerko on the roster, they could have used a guy who plays the infield a bit better as a backup and then they could have had Jordan Danks on the roster all year long too. Not that it matters in the loss column - they may have won a few more games - but because of Konerko's inability to play anything but 1B, they needed someone to play all over the diamond. Players with that ability don't always hit well. Enter Leury Garcia. If Paul Konerko is not on this roster, Leury Garcia is not on this roster. Thus, you are being incredibly hypocritical talking about the shortcomings of this team while applauding Konerko and his "veteran presence" on the bench because those two events are tied together. They are mutually inclusive events. There is cause and effect - the cause is that Paul Konerko is on the roster, so the effect is that Leury Garcia is also on the roster. Do you understand this yet or should I keep expounding?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 25, 2014 -> 07:00 AM) I hate you both almost as much as I hate people that excessively take pictures of food and post them. At the end of the day, there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 22, 2014 -> 04:36 PM) Absolutely. They're just going to jump over other teams. The problem, of course, is that SlamBall is dead.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 22, 2014 -> 03:17 PM) First on Paul Konerko I think you would agree it'd be fair to give him an incomplete with just 171 at bats. 22 RBI isn't exactly horrible, but considering his .234 average and .273 on base he probably would get a C-minus, maybe even a D. But again, I'd argue an incomplete would be more fair. He truly was just a figurehead this season. For his Sox career I'd give him an A. As far as Dunn's grade of D to D- for his Sox career... Tangibles: Well, he goes out with a whimper this year with his 412 plate appearances. He has 49 RBI and 19 HRs. Good on base percentage but batting average of .224. He for his career had the 2011 season where he hit .159. I don't even know how that's possible. His on base was bad. The second year he hit .204 with 222 strikeouts. He did go for 41 hrs and 96 RBIs and had a .333 on base. That's a weird stat line. Obviously he was productive when he hit the ball. His third year he hit .219, 34, 86 with a .320 on base. In conclusion, he drew a lot of walks, struck out a ton, had two good home run years out of four. Upon studying all the facts I would probably give him a D instead of D-. I guess a C- is possible considering modern baseball stat analysis would give him a lot of credit for all the walks and two out of four 'good' home run seasons is by definition, an average performance which lends itself more to a C-. I would stick with a high D however because of his historically bad season the first year and all the whiffs. Not to mention the fact MOST of the time he refused to go with the pitch even though he proved he could hit it out to all fields. I stick with D, but I would not freak if somebody gave him a C- I guess. To those of you who would somehow give him a B for his SOX career, I ask you, are the walks he drew truly that important that he gets a B? Are you giving him a B for the two decent-to-good home run/RBI seasons? Do all the walks he drew make him a Sox success story (especially considering he's pretty slow?). I don't know how he could get anything above a C- based on the stats. This is at least well reasoned. But you call his 19 home runs this year a "poor home run season," but I bet you don't know how many people have hit 19 home runs this year, do you? That number is 29. Only 29 players in all of baseball have hit at least 19 home runs this year.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 22, 2014 -> 02:57 PM) Adam Dunn will have been paid $56 million for 4 years where he put up a collective -1.2 WAR. Giving him a D is being very kind. Dunn seems like a good guy and a good teammate, and one guy who I have never seen loaf. I am not a member of his hater club, but face it, he was a bust. I won't disagree with that. His first season gets as big of an F as possible, but it's the clear outlier. He didn't perform as expected, but given what he did the last 3 years, I think an overall grade of a D (which is subjective based anyways) is a bit unreasonable. At worst, I guess I'd give him a C, and I am in agreement that he was a bust of a free agent prize, though he's not the worst free agent signing in Sox history, so at least there's that.