caulfield12

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 08:04 PM) The prob is there's no way to sort by a minimum # of opportunities. If I set a min of 400 plate appearances, here's that list: Florimon 68% Shuck 66 Dozier 62 Bonifacio 61 Kinsler 61 Trout 59 Bautista 58 Puig 58 Aybar 57 Alc. Escobar 57 Rasmus, Andrus, Bourn, Stubbs, Jennings, Reyes, Crisp, Alexei closely after that But Trout was on 1st base when a single was hit 44 times. Florimon (amazingly) only 12 times in 440 pa. There'd obviously be a decent amount of variability in this one stat year-to-year based on the small sample size. Nonetheless, as you see, you've got a lot of the usual suspects at the top of the list. For comparison, since he's been discussed so much, De Aza was at 56% last year, and now 50% for his career. Would have expected to see Bourjos, Marte, a couple of others....what was Billy Hamilton in his limited appearances? That huge outfield explains Florimon and Dozier. JB Shuck and Bautista? Hmmm.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 03:52 PM) Yep. Alexei 7 for 12 in SB in 2011. 30 for 39 in 2013. Coachable in terms of general offensive philosophy and making smart decisions (not going brain dead on routine plays) out in the field on a consistent basis.

But the Astros already have a clone of Abreu in Cris Carter, haha.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 09:44 PM) I don't know guys... if his true talent is 2013 Salty, he could be a real solid contributor for several years. He'll only be 29 next year, and he just put up a 3.7 WAR season. A lot of that is from above average defense. I'd pay $8m a year for 3-4 WAR for the next 4 years without blinking. What is the downward OPS/WAR correction from that Boston Red Sox offense to the White Sox, where there would be a lot less protection and definitely more offensive production expected...more pressure to earn his contract? I don't think you do it, unless you can get some other pieces in place (let's say, Chris Young, Abreu and offensive improvement at 2B/SS/3B). If you sign Abreu, you almost have to go out and sign 2 more players (let's Chris Young and Salty) to make a true run at it. Or trade Santiago/Quintana in conjunction with signing 2 players. (Wish we would have taken a stab at CoCo Crisp a couple of years ago, but we probably wouldn't have been the same player for us he has been with the A's.) Two years ago, of course, DeAza was coming off a freakishly high 2nd half OPS, and it would have been hard to justify going out and getting a similar type of player.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 12:30 PM) Absolutely. That is why I said it. Why must I recommend anything? What does it matter? How about I recommend Puig see a few pitches? There, I said it. All is better now. Puig has accomplished WAY more than Bonds and Frank and ARod? Remember when you said we shouldnt judge him based on 2 games? Now it is ok to judge him on the previous series consisting of 4 games, only because he did so well in that series? LMAO, you will jump through any hoop to defend your precious, Golem. Are you sure it's not Gollum or "Smeagol"?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 01:01 PM) #1, when Alex Rodriguez was 20 years old, he hit .358/.414/.631/1.045 with 36 HR and 54 2B. #2, Bonds and Thomas both attended college, so their ability to play at Puig's age was reduced drastically by that. Still, in Thomas's first 941 PAs, he put up .321/.453/.547/1.000 with 39 HR, 42 2B, 5 3B, 182 BB, and 166 K. Bonds did struggle to an extent early in his career, so you're right there. Of course, Ken Griffey Jr put up .284/.350/.454/.805 at the ages of 19 and 20 and he was playing gold glove defense too. #3, what does what those guys did or did not do have anything to do with Puig? Seriously, Yoenis Cespedes looked great last year too and struggled this year. Maybe we should wait more than 432 PAs before we start comparing Puig to 3 of the greatest hitters of all time (regardless of any foreign substances entering their body). I WAS ONLY TALKING ABOUT PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE!!!! ONCE AGAIN, NOT SAYING HE'S BETTER THAN THOSE PLAYERS....HAYYYS We are talking about a 22 year old rookie, are we not? Who has never played in the MLB playoffs before? If I remember correctly, many superstars like Bonds and Frank Thomas and A-Rod have struggled mightily in the playoffs (in their entire 20's) and were WAY under anything Puig has accomplished already.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 12:45 PM) Thank you For the link or no mention of Yasiel "Wild Horse" Puig?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 12:42 PM) Yes, he's a solid deal at $4.4 million. More solid than Beckham, IMO. (Beckham defenders, those of you who are left, please feel free to jump into the fray.)

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 12:43 PM) I thought that the purpose of gaining that AZL team was to have a place where the more raw prospects could develop and I remember Rick Hahn saying that the more affiliates an organization has the better the farm system because you can develop more prospects in your system. How does selling Bristol help us? And where those kids going to play? Wait, the White Sox owned Bristol? What? I thought they were merely changing affiliations? That happens all the time, very rarely does any money change hands. MILB teams might be looking for a major league affiliate they think will boost attendance. MLB teams might change because of inferior field conditions/clubhouses/facilities compared to newer ones. It's also not uncommon for AA and AAA teams to try to pressure the major league affiliates to give them better talent/more top prospects to promote...and the major league teams will continue to stow away their best prospects in AA.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 12:44 PM) And I think Chris Sale's 8-11 record needs to be bettered by whoever the #1 starter is as well. Every single measurable from Reed suggests his body of work last year is poorly reflected by his below-average save percentage. If that's the only thing you're looking at then you're just finding excuses not to like his performance. Or we could have done the same with Sergio Santos falling apart down the stretch in 2011 and that being the sign of a future career-threatening injury....his save percentage for most of the season was well above 85% until the Tigers torched him at least twice.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 12:43 PM) Got it, so you want the team to forfeit all games after 8 innings. Seems like he's probably saying Webb...

Nook LaLoosh or Sidd Finch would do nicely. 2005 Bobby Jenks? The funny thing is that the best closer in the game today is with the Red Sox, and he hardly throws much harder than Shingo Takatsu's straight 90 MPH fastball. The difference is his incredible movement and variety of pitches/angles. Not a one trick pony.

Giving Granderson 3 years and $45 million is crazy. Even though the White Sox don't know how to draft, I hate losing a second round pick for Salty AND paying him $36 million over 4 seasons. One of the ideas suggested was Chris Young in CF. It also gave the impression Morales was going to turn down a 1 year deal from the M's for $14 million. That means Morales is probably out of the Sox price range and it would be better to gamble on Abreu, even though I still believe he's going to be a bust. Ellsbury and Choo, forget it, based on the Pence deal. Same thing with McCann. I would rather swing for the fences (Abreu/Cespedes/Puig/Soler/Viciedo) than go with players like Granderson, Salty and Morales who are nice/decent additions but aren't going to make the White Sox playoff contenders. Same with Andre Ethier, for example. And, finally, is DeAza actually a good deal at $4.4 million? How would other teams perceive him on the trade market? As a starter for 4th outfielder. Because it's not wise to pay Jeff Keppingers and DeAza's of the world that kind of money to be bench depth/back-ups. If you're a playoff contender, it's a different story.

I think we can all agree Reed's very unlikely to become another Mariano Rivera and is more like Sergio Santos...which is a mid-tier, #11-20 in the game closer. He's not elite....and he's not bad, certainly not bad enough to pull him from the role. Is he likely to improve? And by how much? A lot here would prefer to give the job to Jones or Webb, for example. Both have better pure stuff than Addison. Yet do either have that "closer mentality" that Reed's had since his college days at SDSU, backing up Strasburg...? How much is he worth to other teams in terms of trade value? That's the biggest question....if the 2014 season starts to go south.

FWIW, the Pirates got almost all of their starters to give up 2-3 MPH on the velocity/gun readings for the fastball and ditched four seamers for two-seamers with more downward movement....thus more groundballs, fewer homers, more balls hit into the defensive shifts. Velocity alone doesn't mean anything. We've all seen Nate Jones or Jenks get lit up with 97-98 MPH straight stuff...and we've all seen pitchers like Contreras or Garland dominate with low 90's splitters/sinkers. Francisco Liriano fell out of our rotation late in the season, yet became one of the best starters in baseball at a lower velocity with more movement the following year.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 12:03 PM) It consists of one line "Swing at anything close" You realize we have two Cuban players on the White Sox...their weaknesses are pretty much the same, yes? Other than a healthy Miguel Cabrera or Victor Martinez, how many Latin players have what you would consider a great approach at the plate? And what are your recommendations for improving their performance/s? If you can change both of them, as well as DeAza, maybe you should be on the White Sox coaching staff, right? We are talking about a 22 year old rookie, are we not? Who has never played in the MLB playoffs before? If I remember correctly, many superstars like Bonds and Frank Thomas and A-Rod have struggled mightily in the playoffs (in their entire 20's) and were WAY under anything Puig has accomplished already.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 09:32 PM) Puig dp in the ninth. Him and Punto had some big inning kills LOL. His overall hitting stats for both (combined) playoff series or this one even are better than 80-90% of Cardinals' players, though.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/rosen...,1800408.column On Five Outs....Rosenbloom, funny stuff. Rips Alou and Ramirez for having tickets back to Dominican for the day after Game 7 already purchased....and Andy McPhail and Crane Kenney get taken apart too for playing into the curse nonsense. Baker also a target, of course.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,4924051.story Adolfo now....has dropped Zapata officially, it seems A glowing Tribune puff piece on a Sox prospect....for now at least. Buddy Bell quotes always scare me, btw.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 05:40 PM) unscientific or just opinion? You put the Rays last but what is the population in the area around the stadium compared to other major cities? Same with Oakland. Did you know the Rays are the 6th highest watched team when it comes to local tv viewers? Didnt Houston lose a local ratings battle to a WNBA game this year? What makes the Yankees the best? Because they so happen to be in the biggest market in the country? They better be selling out their stadium nightly when they have 10 million people a train ride away. Not mine!!! From the article. That's great for the Rays, but in that media market, it's still not generating enough revenue/advertising rates to offset the low attendance. It's why they're going to have to sell off David Price to the highest bidder, in all likelihood.

Miguel Cabrera looked terrible in that at-bat. Almost stunning he didn't get the job done with 1st and 3rd, one out...to at least tie the game. Obviously hurting...trying to play through it. Uehara's BAA for LHB's there was down in the low 100's....not a chance for Fielder. Just goes to show you don't ALWAYS have to have a fireballer as closer, KW.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 04:57 PM) Puig, I think was 58% on taking extra bases. High risk, high reward. Tough to wrangle an ultra-aggressive player and chorale him to the break even point on taking extra bases. Puig also had 11 SB to go with 8 CS. Edit: So Puig's terrible stolen base percentage of 58% matches his excellent extra-base taken percentage of 58%. Seems fitting. Just out of curiosity, who were the Top 10 (MLB) in that statistic?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 03:46 PM) So if you take the fans out of the fan base, there are no fans. Brilliant. If you take out every AB where Adam Dunn K'd, he'd be a really good hitter. They ARE Cub fans. Who cares why they go, they go. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1609247...oyalty-rankings Here's one that ranks it Yankees, Phillies, Giants, Cardinals and Braves (not that anyone rates them so highly). The White Sox have always played second fiddle to the Cubs in the city of Chicago, but they have failed to consistently put fans in the seats even when they're playing well. The last time the team was in the postseason in 2008, their average attendance was just 30,877, or a little over 75 percent capacity at U.S. Cellular Field. Their attendance numbers declined to 24,271 last season (24th in baseball), and that was despite the fact the team sat in first place for most of the year. Unscientific. Five worst.... 5. White Sox 4. Marlins 3. Mariners According to Seattle PI, a study was done that shows the Mariners have lost more fans than any U.S. sports team in the past decade, as attendance has dropped 51.4 percent over the past 10 years. 2. A's 1. Rays Five best... 5. Red Sox 4. Giants 3. Phillies 2. Cardinals 1. Yankees

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 04:45 PM) Just that he clearly isn't so old that if he managed to improve some technique-wise, his speed isn't imminently disappearing. He's got some years. Regarding the reliability of baserunning statistics, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Fangraphs is doing too much subjective tinkering with the data. It's pretty much just aggregating observed events. And if for some reason you didn't want to go by that, you can simply look up the raw data on Baseballreference. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/...g-batting.shtml The most careless (or "dumbest") baserunner this year was Jose Altuve who made outs on the bases or was picked off 21 times (not including caught stealings). 2nd would go to De Aza or Puig (who had 15 to De Aza's 17 but in a lot less games). De Aza took an extra base (went 1st to 3rd on single, 1st to home on double, 2nd to home on single) 46% of the time. League average was 39%. Paul Konerko was dead last among regular players at 8%. Add in Dunn's 22% and Phegley's 18% and the White Sox otherwise pretty decent showing gets dragged below league average to 36%. Sox were also pretty much league average at being picked off and making outs on the bases. And what was Puig in those situations? How many extra bases did he take?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 03:46 PM) So if you take the fans out of the fan base, there are no fans. Brilliant. If you take out every AB where Adam Dunn K'd, he'd be a really good hitter. They ARE Cub fans. Who cares why they go, they go. Put Cardinals attendance from 1960 up against Cubs' attendance. That includes the states of Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Nebraska for the Cardinals. They will kill the Cubs' attendance numbers. There's a BIG difference between a tour group that comes from Iowa once a year for the ambience/experience of Wrigley Field and the 20% of fans who consistently make up 80% of the Cardinals' fan base. Those aren't pure baseball or Cubs' fans, they're mostly "Wrigley Experience/Afternoon Baseball" fans. Where were they for most of the 1960's, 70's and early 80's?