witesoxfan

I think I'm mostly upset in this in that the Sox finally get a guy to the majors who looks like he could be a very nice player and the first thing they do is trade him for a starting pitcher who is about to get expensive as hell. Question WAR all you want to, but Brian Dozier hit .242/.345/.416, played mediocre defense, and stole 20 bases at a 75% clip and he was just worth 4.6 WAR this past season. That means, if nothing else, that he was a very good player for the Minnesota Twins. If Marcus Semien hit .230/.310/.390, stole 15 bases, hit 15 homers, and played mediocre defense, he'd probably be worth 1.5-2 WAR and that could easily improve to the point where he was worth 3+ WAR or more. I think we are underrating depth quite a bit, and Semien provides a ton of that for the current version of the Sox. Losing him would be very significant.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 12:34 PM) Those positions are just too easy to fill IMO especially when looking at adding a top of the rotation RHP Then sign Brandon McCarthy. He's slightly inferior and doesn't anything other than money. Those positions may be "easy" to fill but the Sox have struggled filling them for 5+ years now. Their backup plan for LF and RF right now is seemingly a guy who has a sub .300 OBP for his career and has never been regarded as good defensively. If Semien goes, their plan at 2B is a guy whose role on an MLB team should be that of a utility player or a player who has dealt with injuries seemingly every year of his career thus far. Hell, even their 3B is mediocre defensively and absolutely brutal against lefties. Are you telling me that you couldn't see their current options failing and burning the Sox because they have a lack of depth again? At the very least, we know Semien is going to be average to slightly below average at the plate, and I think there's a strong chance he's way better than that. Trading a talented kid because the positions he plays are "easy to fill" is the reason the Sox haven't made the playoffs in 6 years and have only done so twice in the last 15 years.

QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 12:25 PM) Semien has never shown that he's going to be great with the glove. And he's older. So it all comes down to his offense. Now, I'll grant that the major league #s were absolutely nothing like the minor league ones. But we're basically at the point where he's been around the minors and back, so this is the time (and when it comes to establishing value, last year, well, was the time) It's not late in his career, but it's late as far as finding out what will be The Thing he's awesome at. He made a few throwing errors because he was rushing the throw. That seems like a fairly correctable problem, and he absolutely showed sufficient range at the MLB level. Look at the minor league numbers if you question his ability to handle positions defensively. Marcus Semien is not older. He turned 24 in September. Come on now. Marcus Semien has 326 plate appearances in the major leagues. The White Sox have guaranteed Dayan Viciedo $4 million based on 1798 career plate appearances of him continually getting worse. They can give a guy who put up better minor league numbers, shows more athleticism and versatility, is cheaper, and is younger more of a chance than that. Also, why do you need someone to find "The Thing he's awesome at?" Players that are perfectly capable of doing everything fairly well but nothing great consistently have 10 to 15 year careers in the major leagues. That can absolutely be Marcus Semien. Like I said, I understand if he goes, and I will still be upset, but none of the above justifies it. The only part that justifies it is that the Sox feel he was the least they could give up to get Samardzija and they felt Samardzija was necessary. I disagree with them in that regard, but so be it.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 12:16 PM) Of course, "anybody else" may not be enough to get the deal done. I don't know if you could throw together some combination of Sanchez, Johnson, Montas, Danish and Hawkins that could get it done. Then move on. Samardzija is a good pitcher, but if you can't him for Micah Johnson, Frank Montas, and Courney Hawkins, then you move on. That offer is more than fair and offers plenty of value both in the short and long term.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 12:15 PM) I cant think of many things that have less value than a utility IF and a 2B. Semien's a good hitter who plays all over the field, has great athleticism, and just has the look and instincts of a baseball player. This aside from the numbers he put up in the minors, which are phenomenal. Also, even though I advocated for using him as such, a $4 million backup LF/RF/1B that can't hit righties, can't hit lefties, doesn't play defense, and isn't very fast has a hell of a lot less value than that, but the Sox felt so inclined to offer Dayan Viciedo a contract too. That's a hell of a lot less valuable than what Semien can provide you. Like I said, Semien makes way too much sense for the A's in this deal and I hate the idea of that, but I think I'm the only one. You have to trade good players to get good players and all that jazz. I still hate the idea of giving up either Anderson or Semien.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 11:57 AM) I would almost rather give up Anderson than Semien, especially if Oakland values Anderson over Semien to the point that they would add a prospect to the deal. Semien has a reasonable chance of being a positive-WAR full-time starter at several different positions in 2015. Of those players that can be traded, the only two I do not want the Sox to deal at all are Semien and Anderson. They could frankly trade anybody else and I wouldn't care at all.

Semien going to Oakland makes a ton of sense and I hate it because Semien is probably my favorite young player in the system right now.

QUOTE (smalls2598 @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 11:41 AM) Per Jeff Passan, Moss to the Indians is done. 2b prospect Joey Wendle to the A's Wow, that's incredibly underwhelming. Yes, I would have dealt Carlos Sanchez for him in a second and I don't know why the A's wouldn't take him over Wendle, despite the obvious difference in power numbers.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 11:09 AM) So with the Sox, one of the ownership group acts as the CEO of the team, but in Toronto, the ownership group hires it out, that's the difference? Maybe. That's about the only thing I can think of, but it would make sense. I'm sure Reinsdorf has money elsewhere, but the Rogers Group owns the Blue Jays and I don't think their biggest priority is running a baseball team.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 11:03 AM) I guess I'm trying to understand the operational differences between KW's current position and the position with the Blue Jays. Seems like he's the boss of the GM in both cases. I'm guessing in Toronto, he'd play the role Reinsdorf does in Chicago.

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 10:02 AM) Bob Nightengale ‏@BNightengale 5m5 minutes ago The San Diego #Padres looming as the most likely destination for #Dodgers Matt Kemp, offering Yasmany Grandal and one other player to LA Looking like Kemp is going to be gone. Grandal was another rumored target. If people are going to say "why didn't the Sox trade for Grandal/Kemp?!" this would be why. Kemp's value is that of a cost controlled, solid young catcher while Grandal's value is a very good offensive outfielder (who is owed a lot and plays poor defense).

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 09:49 AM) I'd rather roll the dice on Gregerson at 3/20 than Robertson at 4/50. At 12.5 million per year you're basically paying Robertson to be a 2 WAR player, something he's done exactly once in his career. Four seasons ago. The idea of Robertson is crazy to me too, especially at that price. Ideally, they'd sign neither of those guys.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 8, 2014 -> 09:36 AM) I have a lot of family who are Tigers fans and every single one of them hates Coke with a passion. That's probably just because they are Pepsi people.

Gregerson is a guy that really, really scares me as a reliever. He doesn't feature big stuff, his strikeout rate continues to fall, and he's primarily succeeded with a BABIP that is way lower than expected. Unless they could sign him to a similar contract that Duke got - and that seems illogical - I'd stay away from him.

This is also why you use a combination of statistics and you do not rely on one single statistic. If you see a guy that has a WAR of 5, all you know is that he's a good player but you have no idea what else he's done. The same thing can be said for FIP - if you see a guy with a FIP of 3.75, you only know that he's a guy who appears to be a good pitcher, but that may be under or overrating his ability to induce weak contact. It wasn't that many years ago that FGs started keeping track of IFFB%. I don't believe they are capable of including this in any sort of formula for FIP or xFIP or SIERA or whatever other ones you'd like to use, but they've seen over the years that some guys, especially relievers, are capable of inducing infield flyballs at a higher rate than your normal pitcher. This matters because it's an inherently easy ball to catch and, while you typically want your GB/FB as high as possible, it's OK to allow IFFB's because 1) the BABIP of an IFFB is going to be very close to 0 and 2) the HR/FB of an IFFB WILL be 0%. We still have no way of incorporating that, so we look at that in conjunction with a stat like FIP, not as a mutually exclusive option. We may see a guy put up a FIP of 3.50 but an ERA of 4.50 and wonder if it was defense or if it was allowing hard contact. We see that it was Javy Vazquez, who has a tendency to leave balls up and out over the plate, and can see that it was probably his ERA that was a bit closer to the truth.

On a 1 year, non-guaranteed contract, he'd be nice. He typically gets lefties out, if nothing else.

So being the n00b I am, I started the Vault of Glass strike and figured it would go through the typical strike protocol where it finds guardians and yada yada and it did not. So, anyone interested in organizing a Soxtalk Vault of Glass strike?

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Dec 5, 2014 -> 05:46 PM) Jamie Moyer had 10 seasons with an ERA under 4, every single one of them his FIP was over his ERA. The 5 I chose to highlight were the most egregious examples. My point being that pitchers who pitch to contact and don't strike a lot of guys out are always going to have a high FIP and fWAR regardless And to the bolded....Or maybe it just points out that having pinpoint control as a pitcher and avoiding mistakes is a very difficult skill to master and maintain? There's a reason only a small percentage of guys can do it year in and year out. FIP suggests that any batter can hit any pitch hard at any time. Just not true. You're telling me there's no skill in getting a guy to roll over a 2-2 change-up for an easy out to the SS? Or to get someone to beat a low and away 2 seamer to the second baseman? If I'm getting this straight you do indeed acknowledge that this is a factor in a pitcher's success, but yet choose to use a stat that says it doesn't exist? That may work for you my friend, but not me. If it doesn't pass my common sense test I'm not going to use the stat, and common sense tells me that a pitcher can make certain pitches in certain spots to keep a hitter from hitting the ball hard. It's just that some are better at it than others and some can do it more consistently No it's not. Here

I will typically get one cold/chest congestion/cough/stuffy nose spell during November and that is usually the extent of me getting sick in the winter. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I got a nice 12 hour flu bug. That is the first time I vomited without the influence of alcohol since I was like a sophomore in college, which was also the last time I had the flu.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 5, 2014 -> 04:36 PM) I read that back when it first came out and you're right there are many things it addresses on both sides of the issue. I do have some positives and negatives in relation to it. negatives 1. Nolan Ryan. You really can't go by much of his training/pitching philosophies. This is like Micheal Jordan telling a 5'5" guy to dunk by just jumping because that's what I did. He is a gentic beast who did thing no one else could. His pitching came with Tom house and subsequently Larry Rothschild (homewood-flossmoor guys). This is the classic "towel drill" and throwing the football guys for pitching. Studies have shown how terrible these mechanics are for the shoulder and to a lesser extent the elbow. Just because aguy could throw 95 in his 40's doesn't mean everyone can. On the positive side his ideas of how to train the lower legs and trunk as opposed to the arm are excellent and I really push for pitchers. 2. Vazquez uses his theories of training revolving around pushing the lactate level as justification. We know through research that lactate levels have nothing to do with strength/power/soreness/recovery or anything related to muscle function. Muscle fatigue mostly comes from a combination of a disruption of the calcium channels to activate the muscle and a reflex action from the interneurons in the spinal cord which connect to the individual motor units in a given muscle. Again some of the power activities from the lower extremity are valid though. Positives. The key aspect to the whole article revolves around Glenn Fleisig's comments. He is one of the primary researchers in pitching today. He stated that pitchers should be pushed to the point of fatigue in training and pitching but not beyond it. Mechanics will breakdown and microtears will begin in the static support structures if this happens This is the key concept about your idea. I agree tht pitchers should throw more. However, it should not be when they are fatigued. If they throw in a game a day or even two after a previous outing, they will accumulate the fatigue and the wear and tear will be too much and everything will breakdown. I push for more throwing between starts but not at game intensity and definitely not with the large number of breaking pitches at that intensity that would be required to get MLB hitters out without proper rest I just want to re-iterate how awesome you are.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Dec 5, 2014 -> 03:40 PM) My point is that the stat is flawed and it, along with most sabermetric stats, should be used as part of the picture, not the entire thing. Such as Jose Quintana was not better than Cole Hamels last year just because his FIP was better. No one has ever said it's the entire thing. No one has ever said WAR, FIP, xFIP, SIERA, GB/FB, any stat ever has ever been the entire thing, the end all, be all of all statistics. Never has anyone said that. We are saying from a pure talent perspective and how well the pitcher actually pitched, FIP is a better indicator than ERA. ERA is a much, much better indicator of how many runs a pitcher has given up on average but that it is also far less predictive both in the short and long terms. Quintana and Hamels were both incredibly good last year. I don't think it'd be a stretch to say that you can choose either one. The bottom line is that Hamels and Quintana are not as far apart talent wise as you or anyone may believe, Jose Quintana is absolutely more valuable than Cole Hamels is for a number of reasons, and Jose Quintana would get a $20+ mill AAV contract in a rational free market.

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 5, 2014 -> 03:37 PM) i like it, it does break up the logjam in the MI, and help them in other areas. i might switch Micker Adolfo with Wheeler. I don't believe there is a more talented player in the entire White Sox minor league system than Micker Adolfo. I do not think you'd want to keep Andre Wheeler over him.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Dec 5, 2014 -> 03:16 PM) Jamie Moyer 1996- 3.98 ERA and a 4.95 FIP 2001- 3.43 ERA and a 4.17 FIP 2002- 3.32 ERA and a 4.03 FIP 2003- 3.27 ERA and a 4.01 FIP 2008- 3.71 ERA and a 4.32 FIP Basically a huge part of Jamie Moyer's success is considered "lucky" according to FIP was my point. Look at Garland's '05 season for a point of reference...4.24 FIP and a 3.5 ERA. Now was he lucky that year or maybe was he perhaps spotting his sinker well and inducing weak ground ball outs? Either way I can assure you that it wasn't Juan Uribe's fantastic defense at SS that made him good that year. It's not necessarily dumb luck. Some of it can be, some of it can be randomness, and some of it can be a pitcher pitching well and above his peripherals. Mark Buehrle's career ERA is 3.81 and his FIP is 4.10. He has obviously pitched better than his peripherals. Javier Vazquez's career ERA was 4.22 and his FIP was 3.91. That's the other extreme. You will see that, and these will show bias for power pitchers and against finesse pitchers, but it will never be that far off as indicated by those two extreme examples where the two numbers were stil within three tenths either way. Compare Jon Garland's year in 2005 to the rest of his career. Do you believe he got lucky? There's no doubt he pitched well, but considering how well he pitched and how he never got that close again, I'd say he got lucky to some extent. It doesn't mean he was a bad pitcher or that he didn't have a great year.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 5, 2014 -> 01:27 PM) Haha. Micah Johnson and some unknown live arms for Brandon Moss. Would you do that? I think I would. In a heartbeat. Micah Johnson and Andre Wheeler/Adam Lopez, something like that.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Dec 5, 2014 -> 12:51 PM) Sox weren't insistent of not letting semien or sanchez play ss. Alot of Semiens time was at second cause Beckham was injured by the beginning of the year. Then when he came back up he played second again along with sanchez cause backham was traded. Also saw time at 3rd. Alexei playing 158 games at shortstop doesn't allow for anyone else to play there. That means the sox would have had to bench alexei to try them out there and why would they do that. Why is saladino frightening. Hahn spoke highly of him when he got injured and said would have been pushing up to the majors if it wasn't for the injury. Said he showed alot more offense this year and has been showing he can play more then one position. Marcus Semien played 83 games in the minors last year and only 42 at SS. Carlos Sanchez played 110 games in the minors and 44 games at SS. Saladino played 50 of 82 games at SS, making him the most likely. Perhaps they were just shuffling, but from what I've seen, really only Semien appeared to have enough range and it was far less than that of Ramirez. The Sox could compete or they could justify going into a rebuilding season if they got enough for Ramirez, but I do not view that as likely. Also, the idea of Tyler Saladino is frightening because this was his first successful season since 2011. His peripherals were fairly solid, but compare him to someone like Jordan Danks or Andy Wilkins. Would you want either of those guys starting every day for the Sox? I surely would not. Saladino put up comparable or worse numbers than those guys. He's a utility player moving foward.