caulfield12

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/detroit-tigers/gordon-beckham-7272/cash-earnings/ $15.6 million $2.6 million signing bonus in 2008 $18.2 million total, about $12 million more or less after taxes career fWAR=5.8

Why exactly would that be described as likely, especially in terms of being a starting pitcher?

Fangraphs is more credible...fWAR vs. bWAR.

Poor Ron...another Abreu run left in him. As to the post, that’s kind of the point though, that offense had 5 guys between 2-4 fWAR (balance) with Pods, Crede and AJ the bottom along with DH split. Pods and Crede would be second and third on this year’s team. Right now, there’s only Moncada and then a huge gap to a fading McCann. Then you have four starting pitchers from 3.3 to 5.9, with the worst of those in Contreras the best pitcher in baseball the final two months...the equivalent of Giolito when he went on his consecutive win run earlier this year.

Copy and paste from actual quote on Machado? Definitely not KW, has to be Hahn.

Robert is never going to be a second place hitter under Renteria...

This goes back to the Jack Parkman point about the “limited” future value of Madrigal and Vaughn, although I’m a huge believer in Nick. The hardest one is to figure out how Don Cooper is going to get Michael Kopech to somehow stop having the mentality of throwing the ball through a brick wall...and not get hurt again, when it seems so many are tuning out our coaching staff and looking for solutions outside of the organization? If we turned over this current team to the Astros to run, I would have a lot more faith on the coaching, scouting/ evaluation and development side.

What I just don’t get is why we put so much credence in modern analytics...but then so many readily accept we are going to overpay someone like Jose Abreu to play a position he’s not even good at...which directly leads to more errors from Anderson and Moncada? Somehow we have to believe Anderson will be a 3+ player and Jimenez a 4+ player. Or that Moncada will stop getting hurt when the games start to really mean something. Can you think of any other team in baseball where you can add the players surrendered in just two trades and those players have a higher current season value than the ENTIRE fWAR value of the team they were traded from/by?

Sure it does, it tells us exactly how far that we still have to go to construct a competitive roster for 2020. All one has to do is look at these statistics from playoff teams over the past seasons...and compare them with where we stand. It's not just a matter of aggressiveness in Free Agency, it's also a matter of working harder than our coaching staff has ever worked before to bring out the best in Moncada, Anderson and Jimenez. The organization has to figure out how to keep everyone on the field as well. Real self-reflection and appropriate changes in the coaching staff. Right now, nothing else matters. We could make the best set of moves in Hahn's career and still not be a playoff team unless we fix internal/endemic problems first.

Negative=realistic I would love to believe that Eloy Jimenez is going to have Rusty Kuntz as his personal outfield coach next season, start throwing the ball in on throws from the outfield at about 20+ MPH faster and evolve into a 4+ player, but I haven't seen any evidence of that. Tonight, he loped into the corner for a ball he should have been more aggressive with, wasn't aware of the fact that the runner was one of the fastest in baseball (Jacoby Jones)...we need more focus and concentration out of all our younger core players if they're going to take that next step in 2020 and beyond. You simply can't give up triples on ground balls hit down the LF line. As long as we continue to use fWAR as our MAIN measurement of a team's growth, then Eloy will always be dinged and Tim Anderson will too for his lack of walks and inconsistent/erratic defensive play. I don't know what else can be said. Abreu's a totally different issue, he is what he is, and that's not going to change dramatically at age 31-33.

"Aggressively benign" is a perfectly apropos definition...

This pretty much sums it up... Collective White Sox TEAM fWAR=12.0 Chris Bassitt, Frankie Montas and Marcus Semien=8.8 White Sox MINUS Moncada/Giolito=4.5 Semien just came about another ten feet away from hitting a go-ahead THIRD homer of the game out against new Cubs' bullpen addition David Phelps.

We’ll take the win, but beating a 32-75 team without Castellanos and Greene isn’t much of an accomplishment...in the end, we’re going to pile up a 72-73 win season by beating up DET and KC, especially after Moncada returns.

Not sure why anyone would throw a change to speed up Abreu’s bat...

Leury’s been one of the best hitters in the AL the last month and you take the bat out of his hands for Ryan Goins to drive them in? Ugh!

The problem is that someone younger is probably a placeholder type like a Smoak. Moreland, Adams. That said, it would be more logical for Jose to accept DHing with established veterans playing the position than someone like Collins, Palka, etc. I can just see it now...Renteria claiming Jose’s throwing ability makes up for his other defensive weaknesses.

Add in Ryu as well...possibly Strasburg.

The anti-Ron would say “I love you, Gregster, and will never report you to the board administrators for potential banning because we’re all Sox fans here and certainly don’t ever want to see one of our players to fail.” He would be Elrockin mixed with a dash of Joe Maddon.

I don’t even think he’ll be in Winston-Salem...because they need to assess as quickly as possible whether he’s going to be a contributor at the major league level in the second half or not.

Goins is our fifth most valuable position player/hitter (by fWAR) out of 45 who have appeared (granted, most pitchers just had a few at-bats).

That’s pretty hard to do because 2016 is getting termed a “still competing and retooling on the go draft” and 2017 features a first rounder who might never play again at this rate. Madrigal and Vaughn were pretty obvious choices, like Rodon...same problem there. The question is can we produce enough 1.5-2.5 fWAR supplemental contributors so that half the roster doesn’t have to come from free agency or waiver transactions from other teams...this assuming we’re spot on with our top three remaining minor league position prospects (see above, plus Robert).

Anderson should be at a higher level than 1.6 fWAR, with the biggest cause for concern net negative defensive ratings despite that obvious ability he’s flashed. Hopefully a new defender at 1B along the lines of a Brandon Belt will help. Moncada has to prove he can stay healthy now that he has proven he can produce...same with Eloy on health and on the defensive side, because just 30 homers alone are not going to amount to much without making other contributions. It seems as if every player in the Minnesota lineup can hit 25-35 homers.

It’s all about the Benyamins!

They better play Collins everyday at the MLB level between now and the end of September if they’re NOT planning on going outside the organization to address the DH issue. No excuses now that Reed is gone. DFA Castillo and be done with it, he and Alonso are setting Fangraphs records for negative fWAR in a limited amount of plate appearances.

Sawchik also wrote one on the Pirates three years ago, at that time about defensive shifts, pitch framing and starting pitchers allowing more balls to be out into play by focusing on more low two-seam fastballs paired with Gold Glove level defense on the infield. https://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Baseball-Miracles-20-Year/dp/1250094259 it would be one thing if we had a proven track record of success...but sacrificing one more year from Moncada and Giolito isn’t likely to end well for Sox fans. Or just ask the Nationals if they would treat Strasburg in the same way if he departs the franchise this offseason without a World Series title on his resume.