witesoxfan

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 12:13 PM) Went to a party last night. Lots of younger folks (21-24ish) were there. Long story short. Is it me or are these words/phrases excessively overused by teens or people in their 20's: 1: "Awkward" - Oh my f***ing god i'm sick of this word. I must've heard this word 50 times last night. Anything that's even semi strange, uncomfortable, weird, etc, the word awkward comes up. 2: "At the end of the day: - oh my goodness. again. at least 50 times. 3: "it is what it is" - i wanted to shoot myself. i heard this at least 72 times last night. 4: "selfie" i will kill a small, defenseless animal next time i hear this word. 5: "I love my bf" t-shirts. wtf is this now? Is this, like, cool now? I saw at least 5 girls wearing these. i'm 31 now. am i just getting old? It is what it is. At the end of the day, if you don't love your bf, you're just going to be an awkward old man. Selfie.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 18, 2014 -> 09:24 AM) Maybe we need to start offering some PEDs around Soxtalk. The P standing for "post" The liquor store has plenty of these.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 06:50 PM) He goes 3-3 tomorrow and all is respectable again. It's a new level. Just slow down. I think it's the people who jumped on the bandwagon who needed to slow down. He will likely start hitting better shortly, but who knows how well? This is why we warned against putting too much stock into numbers at Great Falls. If and when he starts putting up good numbers in W-S, we can acknowledge that there's something there.

How have the Sox helped mold you into the pitcher you currently are? Is there anything specific they've worked on with you? QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 18, 2014 -> 07:13 AM) Does he have any insight that he could discuss about EJ and his pitching problems this year? We will only be asking Chris Beck questions about Chris Beck.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 07:09 PM) I'm positive it means he will be on the roster next year. Whether they choose to give him a full season in the bullpen like they did with Sale is not known until next March. http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=92849 Considering it came from the horse's mouth, I think you can be pretty assured that Rodon is a starter.

I just want them to call up Zaleski.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 12:10 PM) Then he should go to the SEC. I don't want a dickface coaching ND. I'm not saying I want Charlie Weis back and go 7-5 every year, but there has to be somebody out there who can win without being shady. In today's environment, it seems tougher than ever.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 10:47 AM) If the Sox had a guy like Peavy in the dugout with all his fire and passion, the bullpen would be too scared to blow as many leads as they have. Sox would probably be in playoff contention. This has been verified by science.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 10:18 AM) If someone had offered any value at all for Adam Dunn, he'd be gone already. That's the point I just made in the Avi thread. If there were a team offering value at all - either to eat the remainder of his salary or offering a prospect that has any upside whatsoever with the Sox eating his salary - the trade would have been made already.

QUOTE (The Wiz @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 10:04 AM) Whats the point in letting him get AB's in September other than hoping for a miracle run winning 90% of the games from here on out? And if teams are offering nothing and expecting the Sox to eat salary, it's likely because Adam Dunn hasn't been as productive as you feel he has been. I am quite aware how productive Dunn has been. He's been one of the most productive DHs in the AL against RHP. He's just a platoon partner. He's worth a C prospect. Teams have not offered anything because they assume the Sox will want to get Dunn out (which I'm sure they do) and will do anything to get him out, accepting virtually nothing. It's a bad precedent to set. So you work from a leverage standpoint. Not just for this year, but for the future. If teams just assume you'll eat all the salary and accept nothing back in terms of prospects, you have already lost that battle. If you show teams that you are willing to follow through and continue playing these guys, then they will be more aware moving forward and will be more willing to accomodate to your needs. It's also a respectful thing to do to a veteran player. I think he'll be gone by the 31st either way.

There are 3 sides to every story.

QUOTE (The Wiz @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 09:54 AM) Because the team is not competing for anything now and he's a free agent at the end of the year. And it's not like his production has been off the walls. If it was, some team would have traded for him by now. Teams may be offering nothing and expecting the Sox to eat the salary. The Sox may say we will do one or the other, but not both. There is literally no point in DFA'ing Dunn.

QUOTE (The Wiz @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 01:24 AM) The logical decision would be to DFA Dunn to open up room for Garcia to DH and just focus on hitting for the final month and week of the season. Let De Aza and Viciedo play for the final month to see if they can get hot and build some trade value/a reason to hang on to them for next year. This is not logical at all. Why would you DFA a guy who has actually been productive?

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 07:17 AM) I never said defense isn't important, I just don't believe that LF defense is nearly as important as you are making it sound. To me, defense up the middle is very important particularly relative to the corner positions. There is no doubt that defense has played a large role in the Royals' success this year. They have an average offense, very good pitching (esp. bullpen), and great defense. However, I would argue that their record would be even better if they had average defense, very good pitching, and a great offense (i.e. 2013 Boston Red Sox). What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter how you rate the importance of defense in LF. The numbers indicate that Alex Gordon has been so good out there that he has saved a lot of runs and has likely, as a result, won games for the Royals based solely on his defensive ability.

Just curious to know people's responses on this topic. I'm also a Bills fan and a requisite for acquiring the Bills is that the new owners keep them in Buffalo, and that Jon Bon Jovi's group has essentially gotten them kicked out as a result, it's awesome. Still, it's a slow time in the season, and I want to know. I think I know the answer - I know my answer - but am interested in yours.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 03:13 PM) I do worship Hawk in all ways, but yes he did (in today's climate) say something wrong. He said the thing about skirts, which implies Scotsmen can't get after it and compete hard in sports, certainly not near as hard as other nationalities. BUT IT'S CALLED A KILT!

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 01:58 AM) I don't know why some of you guys aren't more mad at Hahn for the Addison Reed thing. I mean it's inexcusable to trade away a good closer (a proven closer for those of you who don't think he was good) when you have no closer candidates in the current organization. It's pretty bad GM'ing I think. You know, he did acquire some pieces in putting together his version of a bullpen. It's not like he didn't try. He just failed. That's what makes me shake my head at you guys giving him a free pass. He thought he was building a bullpen, but he failed miserably. It's just plain ridiculous to see all these bullpen implosions. If I was a season ticket holder, I'd surely be mad. You know who else was a good closer for the White Sox? Sergio Santos. The Sox did the same exact thing, and the exact same thing has happened. Even still, I'd prefer to have Nestor Molina at this point in time, given the contract and prospect status, over Sergio Santos. He acquired guys with talent, and those guys with talent have either gotten injured or have underperformed their talent level. Write them off and move on. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Actual "consistent" middle relievers cost a lot of money and they do not win you a lot of games. If you have a bad team, you are paying guys $7-10 mill a year to come in to preserve 5-4 losses. That's not a smart business move. It's better to do that when you can at least have a good team for these bullpens to work for.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 02:16 PM) I may be wrong, but I believe a player must go to a juco for 1 or 2 years to be draft eligible again For JuCo or ComCo, just 1, meaning he will be eligible to enter the draft next year.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 01:25 PM) Pedro Alvarez has 24 K's in 36 career AB's against the Tigers. (6 of 8 times in the current series). Don't think that's the solution when chasing a division rival. Although they don't have the same Verlander and Scherzer's likely to be gone in 2015. http://books.google.com/books?id=VsmnfVUKJ...ine&f=false

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 01:02 PM) How many times a day do you listen to that song to know all those names? I hope you aren't making fun of Kyyle's Madonna fandom. He gets offended really easily.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 12:34 PM) The Alex Gordon conversation has come full circle. This was my exact point when I stated that a LF's defensive ability should not swing a guy with Gordon's offensive numbers into the second highest WAR in MLB for the season, even if he is an elite defender. Frankly, LF defense just isn't that important, especially relative to positions up the middle (C, SS, 2B, and CF). If it was, you wouldn't find so many hacks playing LF. And the argument that they are bolstering their offense by putting a bad defender out there somewhat surprisingly isn't true either according to the average offensive statistics for AL LF posted by someone earlier in this thread. So it seems Gordon's WAR is inflated by 1. left fielders that as a whole can't play defense and 2. are putting up pedestrian offensive numbers. I don't believe this has come full circle at all, and I do think defense in left field is important. Just because teams put bad defenders in left field does not mean you can not find a competitive advantage by putting a good defender in left field. The 2005 Sox outfield defense was much better and saved a lot of runs because they had a speedy guy who could cover a lot of ground in Podsednik out there. I fully believe the 2010 White Sox almost won 90 games partly due to Juan Pierre having gold glove range out there. A lot of balls get hit out to left field. The Royals are in first place in the AL Central and part of that reason is undoubtedly due to their defense, and Gordon provides great defense out there. I think saying that having good defense is not important is virtually the exact same thing as saying having good defense at 3B is not important. Of course it is, but if you're Robin Ventura right now, do you want to play a mediocre defender in Conor Gillaspie at 3B to get his bat in the lineup, or do you want to put Leury Garcia over there who, while playing much better defense, will also put up a .550 OPS? You are going to choose the bat. Frankly, I think good defense at every position is incredibly important, but beggars can't be choosers. There are only so many guys who are good to great defenders at all these positions but the number of guys who hit well is even less than that. Teams value good hitting more than they value good fielding because it's much more difficult to find.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 12:13 PM) There is certainly a mental aspect to both but the mental aspect to hitting is a much greater factor than it is to playing defense. I'm not sure how this is even debateable. If we are referencing mental with regards to positioning, then it's still quite important.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 10:11 AM) 1. Who are these people? Folks that work for fangraphs? BMLB GMs? Just trying to understand the definition of "those involved in sabermetrics." It is cited endlessly as the primary criterion in player performance evaluation, and very rarely used as a "complimentary" statistic in conjunction with other statistics by the countless articles I have read on ESPN, SB Nation, etc. as well as forums on this site. 2. How is it pre-conceived that De Aza is poor defensive LF? I have watched the guy play the position all season. According to the link, he's actually an ABOVE average defensive LF. Just sayin 1. Show me these people that use WAR are their primary criterion. If you read and follow FanGraphs at all, any citation of WAR is backed heavily by supporting arguments showing why a player's WAR (or UZR or what have you). If there are people who say "so and so is better because his WAR is better," I will not agree with them until they make an argument supporting that assertation. But if you ask me who I'd prefer between Abreu and Gordon, I'm probably not going to use WAR at all to justify who I think the Sox should take. 2. He may be a bit bird brained out there, but he's still a talented player. This suggests that his arm is weak, he has above average range, but he doesn't have sure hands out there. Given his skill set - above average speed with shaky hands and a weak arm - I don't think the assertion is far off, especially since this has been the type of player he's been since joining the White Sox as a full time player. For all intents and purposes, he's an average to slightly above average defensive player from a quality perspective. It also suggests that, as the #11 overall defensive player in LF, that teams are putting bad defensive players in LF, likely in an attempt to bolster their offense.

QUOTE (Tmar @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 09:05 AM) Except war isn't claiming it measures best player, it is supposed to measures a more exact figure of wins above replacement. So how could somebody be worth 13 wins more oh but also 17 wins more? They can't, and that should destroy any credibility the stat has as it is then contrived. Like I did with my TIP compared to FIP, I could make my own WAR formula and it would be no more and (more importantly) no less valid a stat than war There are different ways to measure how much value teams provide offensively, defensively, and pitching wise, and they suggest that these players would be worth x amount, given the measurements they are using. WAR is a context neutral statistic in all settings - it does not take situations into consideration but says that, if every at bat and every play were held in the same environment, this is how much said player would contribute. You can very generally say if you add a 3 WAR player to the team, you add 3 wins to the team (and you will see people do so and not be cricitized), but that is to be taken with an abnormally large grain of salt. If an NFL team has the best offense in the league and puts up 6000 yards from scrimmage, you would assume that they are, at bare bones minimum, a 10 win team based solely on how good that offense is. But if they have the worst special teams in the league and they always start at their own 5, and their defense doesn't stop an opponent all year long, then those things are costing them wins and they may only win 2-4 games. You could make TIP, but it would also have to be generally accepted by the public as well. I could make a WIP that set up a bias towards RBI, 3B, and CS, come up with a list of players, and say "Look at this," but if the general public says this is not a valid statistic, then it is not valid. WAR, especially fWAR (and to a lesser extent, bWAR), is a very well accepted and often cited statistic. Frankly, that alone validifies it, but that doesn't mean they aren't trying to improve the statistic to paint an even clearer picture moving forward. Now, if people do not want to use WAR or they disagree with WAR, that's their belief, but just because there are different statistics used to measure the same thing doesn't discredit it whatsoever, especially if there is one that is preferred over the other (or when both groups acknowledge the benefits and shortfalls of each statistic and share knowledge amongst each other). There is no perfect statistic, but using the WARs together, along with all other statistics, will help you figure out who the best players in the league are.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 09:46 PM) this article pretty much sums up my feelings about WAR http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8900693/...eplacement-stat this post pretty much sums up my feelings about defensive metrics and more specifically OF defensive metrics http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2011/...e-sabremetrics/ take a look at this list and I'm sure more than a few names will jump out to you as being out of place or at least they should http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...=&players=0 Regarding Caple's argument, he says he doesn't like that people are using it as "THE definitive evaluation of a player's worth." No one involved in sabermetrics uses it this way. I personally felt that Trout deserved the MVP the last two seasons because he was an incredible all around offensive player plus he played very good defense. I felt his contributions were worth more to his team than Cabrera's were. I have no problem with the other argument and had no problem with Cabrera's MVPs. He then says it's too complicated. That's a pretty terrible argument against something, and really, it's not. Here is FanGraphs easy definitions: "Offensive players: Take wRAA, UBR & wSB, and UZR (which express offensive, base running, and defensive value in runs above average) and add them together. Add in a positional adjustment, since some positions are tougher to play than others, and then convert the numbers so that they’re not based on league average, but on replacement level (which is the value a team would lose if they had to replace that player with a “replacement” player – a minor leaguer or someone from the waiver wire). Convert the run value to wins (10 runs = 1 win) and voila, finished! "Pitchers: Pitchers – Where offensive WAR used wRAA and UZR, pitching WAR uses FIP. Based on how many innings a pitcher threw, FIP is turned into runs form, converted to represent value above replacement level, and is then converted from runs to wins." http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/ That doesn't seem overly complicated to me. It may be time consuming and tedious to manually calculate individual WARs, but it's not complicated. His next argument is that there are multiple WAR statistics. That's because the two primary sites - B-R and FanGraphs - use two different sets of data, neither of which are wrong, to compute WAR. Consider how you rate the best NFL offenses and defenses in the league. Some people will use yards per game and some will use points per game. It's essentially the same exact process. Yards per game will give a better indication of future success - if a team puts up 450 total yards and doesn't turn the ball over, but only scores 19 points through 4 field goals and 1 touchdown, you would assume that, so long as they continue putting up 450 yards, they'll score points - but total point scored will tell you how often they have actually done it to that point. It's the same difference between fWAR and bWAR, especially for pitchers. Regarding the 3rd link, you are letting a pre-conceived notion bias your opinion again. Just because a guy does not seem like he should be there doesn't mean he shouldn't be there. Some of it likely has to do with Kansas City's park and pitching style - Gordon leads left fielders on balls going into his zone, but he also leads all left fielders on plays made out of his zone. Look at how the fans have scouted him though - very good instincts, good first step, OK speed, good hands, great release, good arm strength and incredible accuracy. Per those calculations, the fans scouting reports says Gordon has saved 16 runs in LF. These are good tools to have. As has been said ad nauseum, these are not the end all, be all, but they do help us see a broader picture.