caulfield12

It’s interesting to note the Brewers are having a lot of success with ex AL Central guys. Moustakas, Cain, Kratz, Jeffress from KC, we contributed Saladino, Swarzak last year, Junior Guerra, Cedeno, Soria. And their huge breakthrough hitter, Aguilar, came from CLE.

https://www.mavsmoneyball.com/2018/10/4/17939512/dallas-mavericks-hire-bob-voulgaris-in-front-office-role-gambling-research Or even what the Mavericks are doing...

Where’s the proof that the White Sox are doing anything Interesting or remarkable? The rebuild is riding on Moncada, Kopech, Anderson, Jimenez, Cease, Robert and Madrigal being studs. How did they use analytics or non-traditional avenues to scout any of those guys? The only positional player they’ve really been right on is Abreu in the last half-decade. KW and Paddy are the ones who pursued him, how did analytics play a role? Heck, they might have the most boring name for a proprietary database system in the history of the sport. At any rate, for months and months, we’ve been hearing the strength of the system was high end collegiate pitching...and that many of these guys would end up in the bullpen. But the results down the stretch were not exactly confidence boosting. What is it that the White Sox actually do well, right now? We have a pretty terrible defensive team...other than Anderson, Moncada (when focused), and Engel, who can’t hit. We’ve got fielders who can’t hit and a bunch of hitters who can’t field, to many to name. Our one seeming advantage is overall team speed and aggressiveness...but we also stopped stealing bases, and that philosophy runs counter to nearly every team in baseball (anyway) and also causes lots of injuries/wears down players to boot. We have a bottom 5-10 manager and a bottom 5-10 front office. The ONLY thing saving the White Sox is being in the worst division in baseball, with 3 rebuilding small market teams, and the Indians being small market, too. If we were in either the AL West or AL East or all the teams played balanced schedules with top five advancing, this franchise would be in pretty serious trouble.

Meanwhile, Sasse/Flake/Murkowski/Collins can all pretend to be more principled...defending the values of the Constitution, uniting the country, etc.

Okay, after the first and second rounders, what one singular area stands out about Sox drafting the last 2-3 years? It’s high upside collegiate arms, many of which will end up in the bullpen. Or we’re also selecting a lot of pitchers who don’t end up making it as starters, like Nola/Wacha vs. Buehler vs. Fulmer.

He’s never going to be the type of baseball broadcaster who paints a picture with words...or who loves the White Sox.

How many games did the Rays go with relievers for 6+ innings this year, including starting relievers? What did the A’s try to do tonight against the Yankees? Since the White Sox only have two starters right now, and Rodon’s health down the stretch was questionable, at best...what do they have to lose, exactly? See current AL Wild Card thread (at the end) if you still need further clarification.

Which ring was that, 1989 as a player?

Still think he’s more a voice talent evolving into a baseball announcer rather than someone who the sport comes to instinctively, like a John Rooney. For most White Sox fans, at least the die hards, they appreciate a little pure, unbridled emotion from time to time. Doesn’t mean you have to be an overt homer. Where you know that broadcaster is just as invested as you, the fan, in the final results. Vin Scully was the perfect example. Heck, I’d take Bob Eucker.

Wonder how long before Trump tries to shut down the NY Times in the “interests of national security”?

That’s the mlbtraderumors of politics. They just link to articles at both sides of the political spectrum. A small amount is original content from their own writing staff, 90% is not. So simply being linked there doesn’t mean it’s not right or left wing publication. Where does the content originate? If the FBI report isn’t comprehensive (and lots of witnesses/lines of questioning are being excluded) and has been “politically guided/massaged” by the Trump Administration, what real probitive value does it actually have?

To what level of effectiveness? They might as well go with the Rays’ and A’s bullpen approach...at least that would be original, especially since relief pitching is supposed to be the strength of their drafting philosophy. Experiment. Do something, anything different. Besides overbunting in a “runs are not at a premium” stadium.

Who are the guys who supposedly are analytics-based picks? Call and Fisher, that’s all we heard about with them. Steele Walker? Burger? Collins? Dunning? Guys like Beck, Adams and Hansen were supposed to be pure stuff guys. It seems the only consistent philosophy is drafting high potential collegiate arms (most end up in the bullpen), but, for this to work...they’d have to remain healthy and they’d have to have a better record of success than other teams in extracting value, yet we haven’t had a season like that where inexperienced pitching surprised/overachieved since 2012.

During the summer, why would that make any sense? He had to be up on the weekends for church on Sunday morning, right? Besides, it wasn’t even a big party, it was pre-party gathering of a small group. But if he was already drinking/drunk before he arrived, why would that be credible to believe his denial? Many have already corroborated his heavy drinking habits. Nobody has argued that with Ford, at least yet.

Yet Moncada, Jimenez, Robert, Kopech, Cease and Madrigal all appear to be traditional scouts’ dream guys...either in raw talent or baseball aptitude.

We’re reaching PizzaGate/Q-Anon/Seth Rich levels here...obviously, every Democratic woman in the country should make fake allegations against Kavanaugh so they could earn millions through Soros and gofundme.com appeals.

“One team that seems to revel in its reputation as stat-agnostic is the Chicago White Sox. That stems in part from the style of Sox executive VP Kenny Williams, who served as general manager from 2000 to 2012 and has expressed his preference for old-school ways over sabermetrics. On the other hand, Rick Hahn, promoted to GM in 2012, takes a friendlier view of analytics. The man at the center of the White Sox's analytics operation is Dan Fabian, who describes himself as a "stathead" and is well-respected within the industry (but just pretty good at baseball trivia). He has overseen the development of the White Sox Scouting Portal and has recently brought on Dan Strittmatter, a former math major at Notre Dame, to coordinate baseball information. But in contrast to the Cubs across town, led by Theo Epstein and new manager Joe Maddon, the White Sox are stuck in neutral, with no signs they're doing anything innovative.” White Sox are in the “one foot in category,” so not anywhere near the forefront...both those guys are from ND as well, but they’ve never gone outside the box for NASA, Wall Street quants, Cal Tech, MIT types. Haber is put in this category due to his educational background, but more of a negotiations/business guy than a pure analyst type. Not surprisingly, six out of the ten playoff teams are “true believers,” two more that just missed and then the Pirates, who were at the forefront of the pitch framing (Wilson and Cervelli) movement and pitching to contact as well as massive defensive shifting. http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12331388/the-great-analytics-rankings?_escaped_fragment_=mlb

They are also Jason Heyward for five more years and Yu Darvish for five more years and Tyler Chatwood for two more years. The three will make more than $50 million next season alone. They are a team that preaches culture – and still has a player in the middle of a must-win game sitting in the clubhouse and scrolling through an iPad, much to the chagrin of others in the dugout who were living and dying with every pitch. They are in that awkward place where they need to start considering the future as well as the present, lest the latter bleed into the former and cause the chaos spiral of other successful franchises that lost sight of their window and watched it slam on their fingers. The sentiment in the clubhouse, at least, was that wholesale change would be unnecessary. “I honestly don’t anticipate a lot,” Maddon said, and his sentiments were echoed by those who saw the injuries to Darvish and Bryant and closer Brandon Morrow and imagined how much better a 95-win team would be with them at full strength. And that’s true, all well and good in a hypothetical world, but injury-free seasons are a pipe dream, and such considerations must be baked in to any rational assessment of the future. Baez talked about the Cubs needing to play more as a team, and, OK, fine. That may be true, but it’s too difficult to quantify for anyone outside of the room to know. And Heyward said the season wasn’t a success because the Cubs didn’t pop any bottles in celebration, which, sure, even if the reality that October is a crapshoot renders most World Series-or-bust sentiment just blather. And Rizzo planted his flag for Maddon, saying that “without his leadership, guys aren’t playing the way they play” and that “Joe’s best year was this year as far as managing all the moving parts,” which doesn’t sound like the sort of talk from a guy who expects to be playing for a new manager next year, even if the Cubs do have as much cover as they ever will should they move to replace him. “I love this team,” Rizzo said. “I’ve loved this team from Day 1. We lost to teams that were better than us. That’s all you can say. We fell short.” 0:01 0:40 Arenado, Baez share hug at third

Brewers were one better...they had it for the last two months, though.

And Kyle Tucker in the same draft, who would be the #2 prospect in the Sox system...

The Astros traded or let go: JD Martinez, Vincente Velasquez (Phils), Domingo Santana, Kiki Hernandez (Dodgers), Preston Tucker, Delino DeShields, Jr., Robbie Grossman, Chris Johnson, Singleton, Jonathan Villar, etc. That’s not even counting the Cole and Verlander deals. That’s a LOT more talent than the White Sox produced between Sale/Q and this current rebuild’s class of talent (mostly imported via four trades.) The difference is they had 3-4X more that talent coming in, even if you account for the Appel over Bryant debacle and then selecting Brady Aiken fiasco. When you’re methodical about talent evaluation, you can make ten mistakes and still not miss a beat. Whereas we have one young pitcher go down and we’re moving the timetable back at least a year.

How can you retain Stevenson or Sparks when you just set a franchise record for ineptitude offensively? Either that, or the talent evaluation sucks and the coaches are maximizing the talent available to them...

There’s no need to read a book. Atwater, Rove, etc., have been masters at this since the Reagan years. The difference is the GOP fought back from the center, whereas Trump is on the extreme right on many issues, yet still won. Is it any surprise there’s now a countervailing movement from the far left? How often has the GOP had to compromise or back down? Bush/Gore, Citizens United, Merrick Garland, etc. Crony capitalism is slowly destroying the very social fabric of the US, to the point where there’s more issues that divide than unite Americans.

You mean, like Robin Ventura?

Amazon is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all US employees. The change takes effect November 1 and applies to full-time, part-time and temporary workers. Amazon (AMZN) says the $15 minimum wage will benefit more than 250,000 Amazon employees, plus 100,000 seasonal workers. "We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO. "We're excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us." The change applies to Whole Foods and all other subsidiary employees. Amazon also said its public policy team will begin lobbying for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour since 2009.