witesoxfan

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 22, 2014 -> 09:19 AM) I'll smack your mouth You should try it, I have heard from reliable sources that you can just punch your computer screen and I will feel it.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Apr 22, 2014 -> 08:38 AM) I'd like to see Trayce and Micah in Charlotte to begin the second half of the season, they may get a cup of coffee in September, but I think Johnson in particular would have a hard time finding AB's. Snodgress needs to show he can get guys out in AA first. He hasn't done that. Over 29 starts, his ERA is 5.15, a 1.48 WHIP, a K rate of 5.8 per 9, and a walk rate of 3.9 per 9. This year has not started well for him either.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 09:29 PM) Damn. We just can't win You are a silly goose. Of course they can win. They just did last night. All they have to do is score more runs than the other team over a 9 inning period.

Matt Zaleski

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) What a crushing blow that would be for this city. First Rose, then the Bears' D, then Rose again, then Toews/Kane, then Garcia, and then, possibly, this. I think there are worse things that can happen to a city than athletes of sports teams getting injured. Not trying to get this 'bustered, but holy hyperbole Batman.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 02:14 PM) I think this is the biggest mistake/misrepresentation of stats. I don't think any are predictive in nature. I think they are all reactionary based on history. They are only predictive to the extent that history repeats itself in the same form that it has already happened. This is why projections are made prior to the season. We use past history to help us determine what we can most likely expect, and then room for error is given within those projections (optimistic and pessimistic projections). Sometimes, players even [over/under] perform those numbers too. Trends are found and developed based on the average case - players will continually improve as they near the ages 29/30/31 with the growth tapering off, and beyond that point, they have a tendency of producing less and less with those numbers decreasing more and more as the player nears retirement.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 02:06 PM) It will be interesting to see what effect shifts have on defensive metrics moving forward. Your infielders won't require as much range, I think sure-handedness will become a premium. I was watching ESPN last night and the White Sox are 4th in baseball right now using shifts. Houston is far and away #1. FanGraphs had an interesting article up the other day about the Astros apparently pitching "away" from a shift. It showed a infield shifted very far to the left (no 2B) with the pitcher working away from Jose Bautista. The theory behind it is Bautista is a rather extreme pull hitter, especially with offspeed stuff, so he's more likely to pull into that shift no matter where you're throwing the breaking balls. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/why-would-a...inst-the-shift/ Shifting is really quite interesting to think and read about.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 01:56 PM) Now the "you just don't get it" argument. You're on a roll today. http://www.fangraphs.com/library/defense/uzr/ No, UZR doesn't use the eye test at all, other than the fact that it's determined by people who watch every single play. It's all based willy nilly on numbers. So yeah, you're wrong on multiple levels.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 12:16 PM) I'm surprised you actually believe this because it's absolute bulls***. Sorry. Except that it's not, so I'm sorry you don't understand that.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 11:57 AM) You're using a false equivalency to try to justify your argument. I'm not talking about RBI's and W's. They have nothing to do with this conversation. You believe that it takes 3 years to judge defense. That's laughable. It takes 5 minutes with your eyes. You guys spend all this time trying to create perceived value for players and it's just stupid. No, it takes 3 years to come up with some sort of predictive capabilities of UZR because it has a large variation, but with limited ability to actually view plays, many people believe that Derek Jeter is still a good defensive SS which is clearly not true. Statistics help us understand that further. You can tell how players are playing defensively right away, but sample size also has to come into effect as well. You can say they are useless all you want, but they cover all their bases and help us understand how quickly and often players actually change defensively.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 11:43 AM) Aren't eyes used for defensive metrics? To some extent, yes, they are.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 11:38 AM) RBI's and Wins have absolutely nothing to do with this conversation. Nice strawman, homie. What are you talking about? It's a corollary. You stated that defense is judged with the eye test because they've been doing it for 100 years. Thus, if using your eyes for defensive quality is true because it's been used for 100 years, then using RBI and W must also be true because they've done it for 100 years. Please tell me why that is and why people don't adapt and use other mediums of information as they evolve and begin to better understand certain topics. You can't say that "oh this is true because they've done it for 100 years but this is not true because they did it for 100 years."

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 11:20 AM) No I actually don't need an argument to prove this. 100 years of baseball proves it. Defense has always been judged by the eye test. The burden of proof is on you and your stats, not me and my eyes. I can watch a guy like Avi Garcia for 5 minutes and tell you he's a horrible defender. I don't need stats for that. For 100 years of baseball, they thought runs batted in and wins were important statistics in determining the quality of a player too. Are you going to try and make arguments for those too? I'm not saying that the eye test is useless, but to suggest that defensive stats are useless because "they've been doing the eye test forever" is also incredibly wrong.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 09:43 AM) For some reason, I remember more of his flares/dunks/dinks/gorks into RF that would fall in front of RFers playing him deep. A lot like Joe Crede. Except Crede's would end up as outs or foul outs. Maybe the 1990-1998 version of Thomas, I didn't see much of him on t.v./video from 1992 onwards, when he was really in his prime. Frank could hit any pitch that hit the plate out of the park. I have memories of him hitting fastballs and sliders on the black over the right field wall.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 11:00 AM) My stat of the day - if Tyler Flwoers had 3 more at bats he would be the American League leader in batting average. Sporting an obscene .606 BABIP. He's hitting absolute bullets right now, with a 32.4% line drive percentage. A .606 BABIP is entirely unsustainable, but frankly, seeing him put up a .350-.400 BABIP is not outrageous and that would be incredibly valuable behind the plate.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 10:23 AM) Defensive stats are absolutely meaningless. The only good tool to judge defenders is your eyes. Well that's absolutely wrong.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 09:33 AM) Lombardozi's also doing well with the Orioles. Dombrowski's made some awful trades this past off-season. ehhhh .276/.288/.310/.598

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 09:33 AM) If Beck turns out to be Jon Garland, I will be thrilled. Poor man's version, meaning ERA in the 4.75-5.00 range in a now suppressed offensive environment. He would be a AAAA guy.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 21, 2014 -> 08:40 AM) I mentioned this on the last Podcast we did... Beck is, in a few key ways, a lot like Charlie Shirek. Both can reach mid-90's with a heavy fastball, both are sinker-ballers who get good ground ball rates, both rely heavily on control for success, both were drafted lower than their one-time stock had dictated and were taken as buy-low guys, but had K rates just too low to be relied upon. Before anyone flips out... They are built differently (Shirek was smaller and had a high-effort delivery), and Shirek was a Top-3 round guy taken 7th, whereas Beck was a top 10 overall guy taken in the 2nd, so the comparison isn't perfect by any stretch. Just pointing out some interesting parallels there. I do think Beck, since he doesn't have to work as hard to get the same velocity and is still young, has plenty of chance to improve. His control has been encouraging and his homers are in line with his career totals (which are good), but he is flatout going to have to start striking guys out to be anything more than a poor man's version of Carlos Silva or Jon Garland.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 20, 2014 -> 11:21 AM) http://m.espn.go.com/mlb/story?storyId=10811835 Tigers release Alex Gonzalez Nice trade Dave, that wasn't an overreaction at all. QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 20, 2014 -> 01:41 PM) Of course they do Can't wait for him to go 3-4 with a run saving catch.

Yeah, Beck was one of the guys I really liked, but this is an incredibly discouraging start. His K/9 was around 7 to end the year last year in Birmingham, but it's dipped back to terrible.

Mike Porzio

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Apr 20, 2014 -> 09:57 PM) Just looking at his advanced fielding stats, they have him killing it at SS and 3B, but pretty damn bad at 2B. Any theories on this or is it solely sample size? Sample size stuff. It's hard to say anybody is good or bad based on UZR with this amount of games played. To begin to establish anything, we want to wait until at least June or July, and to actually establish his typical UZR, it'll be, as noted, around 2-3 seasons worth of data, and in that time frame, his defensive prowess is likely to change too. It's tough to do anything predictive with UZR other than making reasonable judgments.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 18, 2014 -> 04:05 PM) And if Rondon will only sign for $8 million, if he's not picked #1 he'll be going back to college for another year, potentially costing him a year of free-agency down the road. Of course, that's also assuming he stays healthy and pitches to his capability, which is not a given either. $8 million versus $5 million versus nothing right now is the bigger difference in this equation, but it's something Boras has advised his clients to do in the past. That injury could also strike at any point between now and 14 months from now as well. If the Sox know they can get Rodon for a fair price, then I have no problem with it, but that's assuming a lot.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Apr 18, 2014 -> 04:12 PM) It's pretty easy and I was putting Robin on blast way before the Sawx tied the game up over at SSS. 1st, you could stick with Downs for more than one better. 2nd, you could not waste Veal in that inning. 3rd, you go to the guy you've designated as your closer in the 9th. 4th, you bring in Webb before extras, instead of Petricka. It's pathetic that Webb and Lindstrom didn't come on until it was too late. By any sane logic (Webb has looked good this year, Lindstrom has a decent track record in his career) those two guys are 2 of your 3 best relievers and they should be pitching in high leverage situations. Robin f***ed it up. The bullpen sucks; Robin sucks at managing bullpens -- those things can both be true, it's not an either or situation. Robin is an awful in game manager IMO and a few other people here are with me, it's not an outlandish position given what we've seen over the past 2+ years out of him. He just doesn't do a good job putting players in positions to succeed, especially out of the bullpen. This is much better than willy nilly saying Ventura running out of pitchers is embarrassing. This provides context and evidence as to why. I have never disagreed that Ventura could have handled it better, just that at some point, pitchers have to throw strikes.