witesoxfan

This is how I feel about Madden 25

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Sep 6, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) We're all familiar with Phegley's history. That was no normal spike though. That was like a Brady Anderson lite spike. As far as Flowers' approach. It's not that he's guessing as much as he's not aggressive early in the count. He's constantly falling behind in the count and doesn't have the bat speed to fight off pitches consistently. Yep, players have a tendency to spike. You'd think if he were still using - considering the tests in the minors are just as hard, if not harder - he'd have an OPS better than .550. Guys get hot. The best thing to do would be to hope that he can pick it up and continue.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 6, 2013 -> 01:41 PM) I despise Flowers' guess approach at the plate. That might be able to work in the minors, but in the majors, it's badly exposed his batting eye. Personally, if you want to contend, neither Phegley or Flowers is starting caliber IMO. Both would make a good back-up catcher to a strong lefty hitting catcher. I honestly agree with this, and I think Phegley may be a guy you can groom into the every day job. Still, McCann isn't the the most attractive option in the world either being a fat catcher with injury concerns.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Sep 6, 2013 -> 12:56 PM) I'd be cool with Pence, though Abreu tops my list and then McCann. I think Wite proposed ADA or Viciedo for Sandoval? If Hahn pulled off that sequence of moves, then I'd be real happy going into next year. Hell, 2 would make me happy. I don't think either one of those two would be enough, but if you include Beckham I think you can make something work. That seems like too much to me, but if the Giants included a C+ prospect, give or take, I think it would be perfect.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 6, 2013 -> 01:29 PM) I don't know about anyone else, but I flat out have no idea what we have in Phegley and Flowers at catcher, after hearing of Flowers injury. I have no problem upgrading from either of them.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Sep 6, 2013 -> 11:58 AM) I'd actually love me some Hunter Pence. Sox need a guy to liven up the dugout/clubhouse, and sans his time in SF last year he's been a solid hitter throughout his career. At $13 mill a year, I'd have no problem with Pence either. He still has one of the ugliest swings I've ever seen in my life, but it's obviously pretty effective given that he hits the ball 5 miles

I think the real question we all want to ask about Avisail Garcia: what's his chill to pull ratio?

I remember watching that on Baseball Tonight when it sucked less. It still sucked.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 6, 2013 -> 10:43 AM) Best player available is fine with me, no matter who it is. I agree 100%. It could be another tall, lanky lefty with a fastball-slider combo, and I would not care. Hell, they could take 2 of them. Sale's tough enough to hit, but if you follow him up with Inventory and Reduction, I have no problem with it.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 6, 2013 -> 10:36 AM) Hey look, an actual rebuttal. There we go. Okay, no matter what you think of Flowers, he has hurt this team negatively. Baseball Reference has a mere 100 players less valuable than him this season out of 1150 players. Fangraphs, 130 worse. Either way, not a pretty picture. I'm not going to sit here and argue whether he's bottom tier or second bottom tier. It's just bad. Phegley's excuse is that he's younger and performed on some level this year. That's why you move forward with him over Flowers. That said, he shouldn't feel comfortable with the starting job either. He did have a nice second half. Well, actually just a beast August and nothing else of note. But we shouldn't be making key future decisions based solely on a few week stretch when he hasn't shown much else at all. You're right, no reason to get rid of him unless we bring someone else on board. But I would put those odds very very high. Waiting on A 27 right handed backup catcher makes no sense moving forward, no matter what our plan is. Meant for this to be longer but I'm on mobile and my thumb hurts. I actually think we have found middle ground on all of this, which is honestly something I can say I never thought I'd see.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 05:23 PM) There's been just 30 worse players than him among players with as many plate appearances. Only one catcher has had a worse OPS (I'm shocked there is one). Yet there have been more catchers than that that have been less valuable and actually hurt their teams more in fewer plate appearances. I could get 50 ABs from the White Sox from the catcher position, and I would literally cost them every single game, but at least I don't have as many ABs as Flowers does so I would be a better option. That is the argument you are making. If he was hurt? Then the struggles make sense. What's Phegley's excuse? That he's a rookie and only has 165 plate appearances? Then in all reality, he's pretty much had the exact same chance as Flowers has as a full time starter. You're right, he should have said something to Herm, and he did, which is why he was on the pitchers' shoulder program. Rehab didn't work over the course of the season, so they cut it open. He admitted that having the starting job and trying to prove that he could handle it was the biggest motivator in hiding how much it was affecting him. If you had your dream job on a silver platter, I imagine you'd do what you could to try and secure it too. Oh, and I'm going to bet that Flowers is going to remain in the majors for a while. When there are teams like the Marlins running out guys like Jeff Mathis, Kyle Skipworth, Miguel Olivo, Koyie Hill, and Rob Brantly, then there are going to be teams who will take on a catcher like Flowers. "Somehow had a nice second half." That's total bull and you know it. He had a fantastic second half and they play 2 halves. He struggled in the beginning but started to come on when he started to receive more playing time. The fact is, he was one of the Sox best hitters in the second half of last year. Point is, there's no reason to get rid of him unless someone else comes on board. I think we've all made that pretty clear. Oh, and I really don't see how I'm coming to the defense of Flowers. I don't see how anyone has. If he's not back, I really don't think anyone's going to be upset. It's you who tries to discredit any and everything Flowers has ever done by using irrational and, at times, illogical arguments to make your point. So, if and when the Sox strike out on McCann in the offseason, and the Sox are trotting out Phegley and Flowers again next year, I'm not going to be surprised.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 6, 2013 -> 09:39 AM) sucker. If I stop playing and start hating it, I'm coming after you

G-Reg or Sudfeld at TE this week?

Wooo Matt Prater, 7 points!!!

I caved. It's pretty fun, especially running the read option.

Guess who hit it?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 04:37 PM) This sounds like a late excuse to being one of the worst players in MLB. If I were him, I would do the same to try and salvage my soon to be over major league career. There have been 10 CATCHERS who have had atleast 100 plate appearances who have had WORSE seasons in the majors this year than Flowers, let alone other s***ty position players and pitchers, and one of those 10 has been the White Sox starter for better part of the second half. And he did that with possible tears and frays in his shoulder too (which makes it sounds like a sad song was playing in that thing all year long). He was also a great backup catcher for the White Sox in 2012, was twice a top 100 prospect, once a top 60 prospect, and has a strong background in the minor leagues. He's worth another shot, and I hope he gets it from the Sox. Instead of using a rational thought process regarding Tyler Flowers, you let your mind go to the most extreme state possible without considering anything else. Maybe, at the end of the day, all Tyler Flowers becomes is a AAAA, journeyman, minor league fodder, organizational player who bounces between the majors and minors until he quits. Maybe he's actually a starter in the form of a Chris Snyder or Russell Martin or Mike Napoli. Maybe it's somewhere in between. But, instead of using blind thought and declaring him one of the worst players in the majors - he was bad, but not nearly among the worst, and that's WITH this shoulder injury - maybe you should take a step back and do a little research into the matter before making these absurd statements.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 04:27 PM) I heard he was looking for you and your magical socks, Wite... Not sure what those would do other than cause more problems for Tyler. First he sucks at baseball, then he's forever alone.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 04:04 PM) Surgery was today I believe, Any reports on how it went? Skin was cut, blood was soaked up with gauze. No details other than that.

Did I mention that I made the money selling restored Corvette motorcycles made by Indian bikes from the 1870s?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 03:54 PM) Yeah, I would think that would have to be the case. I wonder how many pitches he saw. I'd guess he had a ton of long at bats where he fouled several pitches off before eventually getting a walk. That was my thought too. A lot of 1-2 and 0-2 counts, because he didn't take pitches in the zone, and also a lot of swings on 0-0, 1-0, and 0-1 counts. Also, 210 of his walks from 2000 to 2008 were intentional passes (and, in fact, he was the league leader in IBBs except during Bonds' historic 4 year run). That's the other thing though too...in 2003, he walked 63 times, and 22 of those were intentional, and how are those figured? Those aren't just out of the zone, they're supposed to technically be considered unhittable. If those don't factor in, then it makes a bit more sense, but even still, it doesn't. Seriously, Vlad Guerrero has to be a statistician's favorite case study, or somewhere near the top anyways.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 02:59 PM) That's a good question, not sure. The definition isn't too clear: "Z-Contact% - Percentage of times a batter makes contact with the ball when swinging at pitches thrown inside the strike zone (PITCHf/x)" If I had to guess, I'd say it does include foul balls. I would guess so too. I mean, in 2003, Vlad had an O-Swing of 34.8% and an O-Contact of 58.3% (while also Z-Swing and Contact at about 83% and 87%) and he walked at 13.5% and struck out at 11.3%. The strikeouts can be explained, but if he were swinging at 1/3 of all balls and putting those in play every 3/5 times, it'd seem to be essentially impossible for him to walk at 13.5%, no?.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 02:49 PM) That's terrible even for a Seachickens fan... I had no idea anybody was a fan of Bill Parcells

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 02:51 PM) Exactly -- a ton of bombs But that's sort of the thing. Vlad swung at everything, but he also HIT everything. You know what his career K rate was? 10.9%! And even he walked at a career 8.1%. And that's because HIS zone contact rate was 89%, compared to Garcia's 70-something. Vlad was freak because he had a legendary hit tool. Garcia has like a 40 grade hit tool. Man, Vlad was cool as hell. Is contact considered just hitting a ball, or hitting it in fair territory?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 02:26 PM) I know he's not still a Sox. Didn't write that correctly. He had to be the dumbest player alive thinking he was a power hitter. Also Erstad. Sox have had some really bad players. They ought to have Viciedo just have a drill where somebody pitches to him and he has to take every single pitch to learn how to draw a walk. He has so much talent and he still has not emerged as a threat. Lillibridge did hit 13 home runs, and all indications were that he was among the Sox best athletes. There have undoubtedly been smaller guys throughout the game - and not just in the steroid era - that hit for power being that skinny. As a defensive sub and hitting against left handed pitching, I didn't mind Lillibridge. Anything more than that was way too much.