witesoxfan

QUOTE (Andy the Clown @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 10:58 AM) I'd like to vote for Morel please. I believe he is out of options, so he'll likely be gone by the time the season starts anyways. As of right now, he makes sense to stick simply due to the fact that he is younger.

QUOTE (flavum @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 10:44 AM) Kinda figured it was true. Hahn was on ESPN radio yesterday, and said the Belisario deal was probably getting completed "in the next day or so". He didn't mention him by name. Anyway, once Belisario and Downs are on the 40-man, somebody has to be dumped to make room. Candidates--Heath, Morel, Nestor Molina, Santos Rodriguez? Heath seems the likeliest to go.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 10:16 AM) How many qb's have had their brains scrambled? Serious question, I wonder how different the brain scramblage is in regards to position. Well Jim McMahon has such bad short-term memory that he will go from one room to the other to do something and forget what he was going to do by the time he reaches his destination on a regular basis. How much of that is CTE and how much is from drug use?

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 10:09 AM) Meh. I agree.

QUOTE (coco1997 @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 08:55 AM) Who is the guy who 'broke' this? Does he have any credibility? Not sure that he does. Only connection I see is that they're both from Kentucky.

Would be a nice signing. Hopefully it's true.

I want them to pick the best available player. Christian Colon was considered a high floor SS prospect too. He appears to be ready to start his career as a bench player, or perhaps as a AAAA player.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 17, 2013 -> 07:35 PM) Shocked Barnum hasn't made a list yet. He had a really nice September with a .914 OPS and a BB:K ratio of 7:10. I know it was an incredibly small sample size, but it's still a very promising sign IMO. Another sleeper I'd go with is Rangel Ravelo. He had a really nice year at Winston-Salem and while his HR numbers leave a lot to be desired for a 1B, he demonstrated excellent gap power last season. He should start 2014 as a 22 year old in AA and maybe we'll start seeing some of those doubles turn into HRs in the near future. A 1B who has suffered injuries in back to back seasons just doesn't get my motor running. He's a top 25 prospect for me with the potential to be a top 5 prospect some day, but the excitement for him is just not there yet. If he can stay healthy and put up an .800-.850 with good BB and K numbers, he could easily work his way into the top 10.

FWIW, FanGraphs finds bWAR valuable enough for pitchers that they list it on their website under the title RA9-WAR.

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Dec 17, 2013 -> 06:06 PM) Javy Vazquez finished with a career 54 WAR. That's good enough for Top 75 of all time. He's in the same WAR bracket as Whitey Ford, David Cone, Doc Gooden, etc, and their innings are all comparable. Samardzija's market value is pretty high because people see a potential Scherzer-like breakout (potential being the key word). He certainly has the stuff. Maybe 9.0 K/9 turns into 10.0 K/9 next season. I wouldn't be shocked. I'll be targeting him in fantasy leagues, in any event. This is where I will defer to bWAR (or RA9-WAR), which was 43.3. Yes, talent wise, he was one of the best pitchers I have ever seen. Frankly, I have never seen a guy with that kind of stuff and control in my life. He was filthy. He just so happened to leave pitches out over the heart of the plate all the time. As a result, he missed out on that talent by 10 wins over the course of his career. He only pitched in 4 postseason games, but he was absolutely horrendous in them. His WPA added for his entire career was 5.85 (Mark Buehrle is at 15.54). He was not a very good pitcher, as much as I loved him when he was with the White Sox. (Mark Buehrle, FWIW, is at 48.2 WAR and 55.2 RA9-WAR) To some degree, this is how I feel about Jeff Samardzija too. I think he is a talented pitcher with very good stuff, but there is no way I feel that the Sox should be looking to acquire him. His career WAR is 6.1 while his RA9-WAR is 4. His WPA of -0.05. He's always had a tendency to allow runners on base to score, and he has always had a tendency to allow home runs. He is the cliche thrower rather than pitcher.

If you have 1,000 people that will only kiss your ass on facebook when you comment, then I would say you need new friends.

I agree to the no pop warner stuff too. Those kids don't know any better either. I will probably to flag football until 6th grade or so, and then let him decide at that point.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 02:53 PM) I just compared ESPN's WAR and bWAR for a few players and it's exactly the same... I assume they used bWAR because it actually correlates better with a player's performance for a said year compared to that player's reputation. It's a little easier to stomach for the average ESPN viewer. I was thinking it was different in the past. Oh well, not the first time I've been wrong.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 02:49 PM) Interesting. He so sexy Plus his bWAR goes from like 2 to 6 to 2 with the Sox, while it's pretty much a steady 4.0 with fWAR

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 02:15 PM) The Bills had Magic Matt and let him slip away. I know, and I hate them for it. OT, but my friend and I played a game of Madden online. He is a Packers fan and he beat me with Flynn, and he started talking s***. I just told him that the Bills only keep s***ty QBs and get rid of the good ones. That's why they let Ryan Fitzpatrick go.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 02:03 PM) There are few things in MLB as valuable a top-of-the-rotation starter. The Sox have Sale and the #3 pick in the draft, signing Tanaka would give them a chance to have three top-of-the-rotation starters by 2017 for the princely sum of less than $40M. With their future payroll obligations, it's absolutely a no-brainer to competitively bid for Tanaka. If they think he will hold up, I agree that they should spend on him. This is logic I can get behind.

ESPN calculates their's differently too. I have no idea how they do it.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 02:11 PM) Well, under this scenario, I could argue, well, you might love f***ing donkeys too, but should I allow you to? Haha, well that is plenty illegal. But I don't like soccer at all and frankly think it's a bit of a goofy game, but if my kid liked it and wanted to play, I'd let him. There are things with the scope of a normal society that are acceptable to let our kids do. I'm not going to let my kid eat a turd sandwich no matter how badly he wants to.

QUOTE (Tex @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 02:09 PM) Would you take a look at the equipment and the training of the coaches before making a decision? This I would do. The equipment and coach have to be up to standard. If it's shoddy and the coach is awful, there's no way I'm letting my kid play. And, with football, if after 2 practices my kid says "I don't wanna play," I'm not going to fight him like I would baseball or basketball or anything else. I'd simply say "OK, I'll let your coach know."

It's not even that. What if your kid just really, really wants to play football? Absolutely loves it to death. Are you going to tell him he can't? I played for 3 years and quit after my 8th grade year because I wasn't having fun playing it in pads. I still love it.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 02:07 PM) Bear fans are following Aaron Rodgers closer than I am. You have Magic Matt still. You probably want Rodgers to say out. These Bears fans don't know what they're talking about.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 01:52 PM) It's more accurate, I think, to describe it as attempting to strip influence of defense. Which, it is lucky to have a good defense, but it's more than just normalizing BABIP. Because FIP based metrics are more stable, they correlate better year to year, and are thus a better measure of a pitcher's true talent. If you're evaluating player value for the purposes of rosterbation, fWAR is the way to go. If you want to find out who contributed most on the field whether they earned it or not, use bWAR. Javy Vazquez is my favorite pitcher to look at

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 01:55 PM) No offense, but what team would trade for either of Viciedo/DeAza? I mean what team would be thinking either of those guys is attractive to make a deal for? I'd be able to stomach Tank another season to see if he can emerge if we'd get lucky enough to dump Dunn. DeAza would be OK if he'd stop the bonehead plays. There are a lot of teams who will have interest in De Aza. Just because you don't like them, greg, does not mean that they do not have value.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 01:50 PM) The usefulness doesnt outweigh the terribleness. Its just another gilded age. I have a snapchat, I barely send things, but every once in a while someone sends me something funny. (edit) Its kind of like my linkedin though, I never ask people to join my network, but I may accept your request. I usually just snap when I'm drunk and eating at Denny's. I always sing to my sausage

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 18, 2013 -> 01:38 PM) I think if you're going to use bWAR, especially for pitchers, you have to defend why it makes sense in context. Most of the time, when people use it, they do so because it's way higher or lower than the more commonly used fWAR number and so it fits their pre-determined opinions. When used to describe performance, I have no problem with it whatsoever. You just have to realize that is all it's doing - for the most part, it doesn't care how you got to that 2.75 ERA, just that you got there. fWAR says "HOLD UP YOU LUCKY f***" and does some correction for luck