caulfield12

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 10:26 PM) SDSU outplayed Michigan in the first half, but Michigan absolutely crushed them in the second. That is going to be a dangerous team, especially if they can keep shooting. McGary was the biggest difference though. Just a force down low on both ends of the court. He's a real nice player. That could very easily be a Final Four team. Oh, and it was amazing how terrible Wolters looked. Michigan's entire goal was to keep him from doing anything, and they did a pretty damn good job of it. Almost as bad as the vaunted Muscala looked in his game.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 22, 2013 -> 05:24 AM) So much for my survivor pool. My mistake for betting on Alford as a 3 seed. Who can forget ? Gee, thanks. At least McCaffrey, while they were one half of closing any number of B10 games out from getting into the tournament, is doing things the right way. That game was more comparable to Davidson/Marquette, in the sense that Iowa was up 20 or 18 at one point, led almost the entire game until that last moment. Harvard was in command from the get-go, trailed for just a bit i the 2nd half, but it wasn't as heartbreaking or gut-wrenching for fans as the Davidson game yesterday or 2006 for Iowa. Just when you think he's got things turned around and 100% going in a positive direction, he'll make them regret giving him that long-term deal at UNM.

Danks has been throwing 88-89-90 already. If he was like Jim Parque after injury and now throwing in the low 80's, then we would have a REAL reason to worry. He's probably rushing to come back, he's losing his release point, his mechanics are a bit of a mess or maybe he's battling some scar tissue issues or even a "dead arm" from not having thrown for 9 months and then hitting that first wall in the comeback. Patience, young Jedi.

Yep, these smart kids really can play. "We battled a really good basketball team in a tough environment," coach Tommy Amaker said. "I'm very proud of our guys." Amaker outcoached his contemporary, Steve Alford, exacting revenge of sorts for the time Alford's Indiana team beat Amaker and Duke back in the 1987 regional semifinals. "I commend Tommy and his staff and his players," Alford said. "They made shots. We dodged this bullet a lot this year and were still able to get wins." Based on their regular-season and conference tournament victories, the Lobos were a popular pick to head to the Final Four this season. The school even gave Alford a new, 10-year contract Wednesday that called for a $125,000 bonus for a Final Four trip. They'll save the money but feel the pain. The Mountain West Conference, judged one of the top two leagues in college basketball all season, fell to 1/3 so far this week. And Harvard -- yes, that school we've all heard of, but not usually this time of year -- is moving on. The university that gave us Jeremy Lin -- are we ready now for Crimsanity? -- plays Arizona on Saturday. "YYYYYEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!! HARVARD winssss!!! hahahahhah i told you.... (hash)threepointgoggles (hash)bracketbusters," was Lin's Tweet shortly after the victory. But this year's Harvard story is not all about the warm-and-fuzzies. The team lost its two co-captains before the season began because of an academic scandal that involved more than 100 students. Amaker, who had plenty of experience in rebuilding projects when he coached a Michigan team recovering from NCAA violations, didn't wave the white flag. He simply asked his team for more. In stepped freshman point guard Siyani Chambers, who played like a veteran. He wasn't great against the Lobos, finishing with five points and seven assists, but he kept his team under control, poised and found open players. Suck it, AlFRAUD. You did the exact same thing to Iowa when you had a 3 seed seven years ago on the first round.

MSU and Memphis is going to be a battle of athleticism as well. Hope that prick Alford gets beaten by Harvard, that would be hilarious. Harvard's supposedly one year away from being a very dangerous team under Amaker.

Memphis missed way too many free throws down the stretch. Not unlike the national title they gave away to KU. Can't believe that 3 point banker went in and then the quick turnover. Didn't see that coming.

Memphis has really allowed St. Mary's to take them out of their run-and-gun style and slowed down the 2nd half considerably. Still don't think Memphis is in much danger. Those two horrible airballs didn't help matters much.

Thomas Hamilton from MLK High was a big kid, too.

Nice to see what will likely be the opening day line-up finally, with the exception of Gimenez.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 03:05 PM) Does Anfernee Hardaway still play for them? Nope, Keith Lee, Phillip Doom Haynes and Dana Kirk.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Mar 21, 2013 -> 02:42 PM) I don't care about his studio stuff--I hate him as a person. Gottlieb=Keith Law of NCAA coverage

DJ Stephens from MEM ST is an amazing leaper. Jackson's a good ballhandler and floor leader. Memphis State is pretty unknown, but definitely looks dangerous and could make a very deep run. Not very many interesting games yet...Bucknell put on a huge run against Butler, but it got answered and the Bulldogs pulled away in the end. The Bisons' 2 time conference player of the year started out 1/10 and just never really got going.

Hochevar would be the only one, because of his age and the fact that he has the stuff, if he had the right pitching coach, to POSSIBLY turns thing around. Would depend 100% on what Cooper and the scouts thought about it. We've seen reclamation projects work out over and over again, but Chen is what he is and not worth the price. Although Hochevar's getting to the point where he will be non-tendered, or more and more expensive, so now would be the time to move. And you'd have to doubt they would be likely to deal him to a bitter division rival and then turn things around AGAINST the Royals. Pretty unlikely scenario that we could get him before he was non-tendered or released and found himself on the open market with the ability to pick and choose where he wanted to go.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Mar 20, 2013 -> 08:50 PM) You don't remember them about Harold because he didn't talk to anyone. Harold was the cliche of the same player whether he had a good day or bad day. That's my point with Thomas. He is the best right handed hitter I've seen but it was more the way he was so obvious with complaining about stats and errors that should be turned into hits. He always focused on those thing after games. There were games the Sox won and he was miserable and angry because a hit was taken away. Some of the reason that players don't hit the other way is that is decreases power which in turn decreases OPS which is the current "best way" to determine the overall quality of a hitter. With the exceptions of Viciedo and Carlos Quentin, I'll agree with you. That opposite field doubles stroke was also what made Beckham so dangerous in the beginning, but then he got away from it...perhaps the allure of the big power numbers at USCF was too alluring. Ironically, he's had seasons when he was MUCH better hitting on the road than at home.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Mar 20, 2013 -> 06:57 PM) I don't disagree with all of what you said. I like the "small ball" way as opposed to the home run driven teams. The homerun driven teams will slowly fall away with PED testing. Part of the problem is that people assume hitting to the right side means sacrificing. That isn't the case. You hit to the right side and have a chance to get a hit because the first baseman is holding the runner on. That is different than sacrifing with a bunt. The increased focus on stats keeps players focused on them instead of on the big picture. That was one of the thingsd that teammates had a problem with regarding Frank Thomas, Always going for the batting line in the paper instead of worrying about the only thing that should matter, winning. Yeah, it goes back to the way Pods and Iguchi played the game the first half of 2005 together. You take advantage of the holes in the defense, situationally. How many times have we seen Sox hitters pull balls to 3B and SS in those situations for tailor-made double plays? (Yes, Alexei or Alex Rios in the past or any number of Sox offenders). That's not to say they've never hit the ball to the opposite side and unintentionally grounded into a DP, but the odds of getting a hit are much higher going that direction than pulling the ball, because you have the 1B covering the bag and the 2B in movement with the possibility of a steal, opening up 85% of the right side depending on the situation. But yeah, sacrificing yourself in that way is totally different than bunting a runner over to put him in scoring position. And I don't remember as many complaints about Harold Baines (when he was the best hitter on the team for nearly a decade) making similar "selfish" outs, compared to the criticism that Thomas received as a purported "stats first, team second" player.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 20, 2013 -> 06:34 PM) And only 2 of those starts did Santiago go even 5 innings, can you even call the other 2 "starts"? In 21 innings @ NYY, BOS, & BAL Axelrod gave up a total of 4 earned runs, that's far more impressive. Don't we have the best bullpen in the AL, if everyone's healthy?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 20, 2013 -> 06:44 PM) In a much bigger body of work, Axelrod has put up way better numbers in the minors. But his career really took off in 2011, dramatically, so looking at Santiago pre-2011 in the minors is essentially about as valid in predicting Quintana's 2013 major league results based on his Florida State League or Low A ball numbers.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiti...ndle-commitment Article on UK already claiming it's the best recruiting class ever, over Fab 5...even without Wiggins.

Iowa has Indiana State down by 16 and cruising (famous last words for Iowa fans this year, I know) with under 8 minutes remaining. In another big NIT surprise, historical spoiler and 7th seed Stony Brook is beating UMASS by 11 on their home floor in the 2nd half. Will be really interesting to see where that potential Iowa/Stony Brook game would be held. While I'd love to have a home game, I think it would really benefit the team for next season to be able to go into hostile territory and pull out any type of post-season victory, even if it's only the NIT, it's still helping for their development next year. Now UMass has tightened the lead down to 6 with 7:39 to go. Mercer is beating TENN by 6 in Knoxville at the half.

Weakening the least important spot of the bullpen isn't as important as winning games in April and May and getting off to at least a decent start. I just have a feeling Axelrod, the more times other teams face him and get video on him...will end up being a 5+ ERA starter. Who knows? Many feel the same way about Quintana after the 2nd half last year. We'll just have to wait and see, but there's one thing I know for sure, I'd feel more comfortable expecting a win with Santiago starting versus Dylan. Is Axelrod as bad as most of the 5th straters we trotted out from 2001-2004? No. But when the Tigers are 6 deep in their rotation, and it's quality depth, we need to enter every game with the highest likelihood of getting a win. Santiago put up 4 starts last year with a cumulative sub 2 ERA. Does anyone actually think Axelrod could have done the same? http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/9060/s...8DuPWaqVjmFCLcF Axelrod had 3 quality starts in 7 tries. He also gave up 4, 5, 6 and 7 runs in his other starts. With the pressure on the White Sox offense to score in the cold weather...Alexei's usual troubles, it seems that it would be better to take a chance behind the pitcher who's more likely to limit the opposition to just a few runs than one who is more likely to go out and give up 4 or more.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Mar 20, 2013 -> 04:57 PM) I disagree. I think with the front offices and agents relying more on stats makes the players more worried about the numbers than the game sometimes even the win. Pitchers come out earlier to preserve their stats. Hitters no loner hit to the right side to move the runners because it will diminish their stats, even though it can help scoring. It's obviously not all hitters or pitchers but I think this idea is prevalent. Of course as players the money is a factor. They will fall in line to get the bigger contract if that is what everyone is looking for. There's also a cultural correlation, where someone like Viciedo or Alexei got noticed for their flair and hitting skills, but not necessarily doing the little things well. Alexei to this day doesn't have enough patience and pull hooks 90% of the balls he hits on the infield instead of adjusting for the situation. The famous saying with Dominican players is "you don't WALK your way off the island, you hit your way," and it's pretty rare even in their major league careers that you see players from the Dominican or Puerto Rico with huge OBP numbers. Vlad Guerrero would be a prime example. If they want to go back to a successful, fundamentals-based approach, and get away from "chicks dig the longball" 2000-2004 White Sox baseball, then the countries to emulate are definitely Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei. Those players tend to be smaller and not home run hitters, so to continue to have success in their professional leagues, they have to sacrifice themselves depending on the situation. Of course, there has to be a balance. The "Twins' Way" thing only goes so far when you run into superior competition. Another factor is all those SABR and statistical analyses proving that sacrificing batters or stealing bases don't lead to as many runs scored as the Earl Weaver approach to baseball.

FWIW, Greinke pitched four innings against our AAA roster today. Things are looking encouraging, according to the LA Times. Currently receiving PRP Therapy, the same one they used with Billingsley. BTW, in the current Sox ST going on, Jordan Danks is 11 for his last 15 and just tried to bunt with a runner on 1st and two outs, haha. Make that 12 for his last 16, or .750. Two hard hit balls today. He's definitely making things interesting.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 20, 2013 -> 02:46 PM) First and foremost, I strongly disagree that the game has gotten worse or diminished. I treasure the game more than ever because players are prejudiced much less based on body build and more by actual baseball skill. Second, the idea of building a team with an incredibly deep and strong bullpen has been around for a while. Specialization has changed it a little, but having a great bullpen to get to the end of games - yeah, 2002 Angels nailed that. Even with teams trading for prospects, Beane realizes that there is still value in trading players with service time. That's the market inefficiency he is taking advantage of now. Rather than hold players through their arbitration eligible years, deal them the year after they become eligible - you save money and you get better prospects. Yes, you take PR hits for dealing star players, but you continually restock your system and the number of options you have to fill out your roster continually expands and grows more talented, thus allowing you to add a rental piece here or there when/if necessary without any great cost. Tampa Bay does this flawlessly too, and, all things considered, they are probably the premier organization in all of baseball right now. The Royals haven't made the playoffs in like 27 years and they've only had like 2 or 3 winning seasons since that time, and it's because they are run so poorly. The trade for James Shields and Wade Davis this year is a perfect example of that. They gave up 4 very good prospects - one of whom is a top 5 prospect in the entire game, and arguably the best - for a very good starting pitcher and a mediocre starter or good reliever. They still aren't likely to win the division, nor will they be likely to next year, and suddenly that "best farm system in the history of the game" is all for naught. This is something I hope Hahn is able to do a little better than Williams. It's a more conservative path and requires a deeper and better minor league system. However, you can also restock the minor league system faster as well. Hopefully the Sox can continue stockpiling minor league power arms, and maybe in the near future they can deal Nate Jones and'/or Addison Reed. Honestly, there aren't a lot of pieces the Sox can deal right now, but in the next 3-5 years there could be. Stay patient and conservative and only make deals that make sense. Overpaying for players is working right into the hands of guys like Beane and Friedman and they will continue to make those deals 100% of the time, so you better be sure that, if you are overpaying for someone, it's not to compete for a division title but instead to win a goddamn World Series. If you overpay, that division better be gift-wrapped, ready for delivery. I still believe Santana was the biggest mistake, but maybe the change of scenery will help him. Still, from watching him last year, either his stuff is diminished, he's been overused by the Angels and/or he was injured last year. But, yeah, they're more than a James Shield away from competing with the Tigers. Myers easily could have taken RF from Francouer, who they foolishly signed to a multi-year deal, and who then ended up blocking Myers because of his contract. And, in the end, they will probably end up dealing Alex Gordon when he gets too expensive, so they'll repeat the same process of having to deal position players to shore up their starting pitching inadequacies. As far as the A's go, the Gio Gonzalez move to the Nationals is a pretty good example to illustrate your point....as well as that other Moneyball-ish idea of dumping closers when they become overpaid or start to lose some of their stuff, like Koch. They went through a five year period where they had a different closer every year. This also is an area where the White Sox haven't invested a lot of money until Jenks got more expensive. They've had Howry, Foulke, Gordon, Marte, Takatsu, Hermanson, Addison Reed, etc. In fact, you can argue they invested MORE money into the likes of set-up guys like Dotel, Linebrink, Thornton, Crain, etc. As far as the last point about overpaying, the Jackson/Hudson and Swisher moves definitely smack of that...or overpaying for the aforementioned veteran relievers, which they've addressed now in the last couple of years with their minor league system as well as cherry-picking some plus arms from other organizations and nurturing them along.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Mar 20, 2013 -> 02:12 PM) He grew up in New York, what did you expect? More specifically, Brooklyn, right?

Beane’s strategy succeeded, at least for a time. In 2002, when Lewis followed the team, the Athletics won the western division of the American League. Although they were defeated in the playoffs, the A’s story was an appealing David and Goliath tale: an underfinanced, underdog team uses its wits and the tools of modern econometrics to compete with rich, powerhouse teams like the Yankees. It was also, in Lewis’s telling, an object lesson in how exploiting market inefficiencies can pay off for shrewd investors. Billy Beane brought to baseball what the new breed of quantitative traders brought to Wall Street—an ability to use computer-driven analysis to gain an edge over old-timers who relied on gut instinct and personal experience.32 In 2011, Moneyball was made into a Hollywood movie, with Brad Pitt playing the role of Billy Beane. The movie left me cold. At first, I wasn’t sure why. Brad Pitt was charming and charismatic as always. So why was the movie so unsatisfying? Partly because it ignored the stars of the team—three excellent young starting pitchers and All-Star shortstop Miguel Tejada—and focused instead on marginal players who had been signed by Beane for their ability to draw walks. But the real reason, I think, is that it’s hard to stand up and cheer for the triumph of quantitative methods and more efficient pricing mechanisms. These, more than the players, were the heroes of Moneyball.33 Actually, I do know at least one person who finds price efficiencies inspiring—my friend and colleague Larry Summers (the economist whose morning prayer about economizing altruism I discussed earlier). In a talk he gave in 2004 while president of Harvard, Summers cited Moneyball as illustrative of an “important intellectual revolution that has taken place in the last 30 or 40 years”: the rise of social science, and especially economics, “as an actual form of science.” He explained how “a very wise baseball general manager hired a Ph.D. in econometrics” to figure out what baseball skills and strategies made for a winning team. Summers glimpsed in Beane’s success a larger truth: the moneyball approach to baseball held lessons for the rest of life. “What’s true of baseball is actually true of a much wider range of human activity.” Where else, in Summers’s view, was the wisdom of the scientific, moneyball approach coming to prevail? In the field of environmental regulation, where “committed activists and attorneys” were giving way to “people who were skilled in performing cost-benefit analyses.” In presidential campaigns, where the bright young lawyers who predominated in the past were now less needed than “bright economists and bright MBAs.” And on Wall Street, where computer-savvy, quantitative whizzes were displacing schmoozers and inventing complex new derivatives: “In the last 30 years,” Summers observed, “the field of investment banking has been transformed from a field that was dominated by people who were good at meeting clients at the 19th hole, to people who were good at solving very difficult mathematical problems that were involved in pricing derivative securities.”34 Here, just four years before the financial crisis, was the market triumphalist faith—the moneyball faith—on bold display. As events would show, it didn’t turn out well—not for the economy and not for the Oakland Athletics. The A’s last made the playoffs in 2006 and haven’t had a winning season since. To be fair, this is not because moneyball failed but because it spread. Thanks in part to Lewis’s book, other teams, including those with more money, learned the value of signing players with a high on-base percentage. By 2004, such players were no longer a bargain, as rich teams bid up their salaries. The salaries of players who were patient at the plate and drew a lot of walks now reflected their contribution to winning games. The market inefficiencies that Beane had exploited ceased to exist.35 Moneyball, it turned out, was not a strategy for underdogs, at least not in the long run. Rich teams could hire statisticians too and outbid poor teams for the ballplayers they recommended. The Boston Red Sox, with one of baseball’s biggest payrolls, won World Series championships in 2004 and 2007, under an owner and a general manager who were moneyball apostles. In the years after Lewis’s book appeared, money came to matter more, not less, in determining the winning percentage of major league teams.36 This is not at odds with what economic theory predicts. If baseball talent is priced efficiently, the teams with the most money to spend on player salaries can be expected to do best. But this begs a bigger question. Moneyball made baseball more efficient, in the economist’s sense of the term. But did it make it better? Probably not. Consider the changes moneyball has wrought in the way the game is played: more protracted at bats, more walks, more pitches thrown, more pitching changes, less free swinging, less daring on the base paths, fewer bunts and stolen bases. It’s hard to say this counts as an improvement. A drawn-out at bat with the bases loaded and a tie game in the bottom of the ninth can be a classic baseball moment. But a game littered with long at bats and lots of walks is usually a tedious affair. Moneyball hasn’t ruined baseball, but—like other market intrusions of recent years—it’s left the game diminished. This illustrates a point I’ve tried to make about various goods and activities throughout this book: making markets more efficient is no virtue in itself. The real question is whether introducing this or that market mechanism will improve or impair the good of the game. It’s a question worth asking not only of baseball but also of the societies in which we live. from What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limit of Markets by Michael Sandel It's an interesting argument that I'd never considered. Moneyball is essentially about exploiting a "market niche" to ones advantage before the other teams discover and adjust, not unlike the Royals last year utilizing the theory that developing a young, dominant, cost-controlled bullpen can be a much better way to get back to at least mediocrity than investing it in veteran starting pitchers and free agent acquisitions (of course, acquiring Erwin Santana flies in the face of this). Of course, it has only led to one post-season series win, unless you want to consider the Twins (through their teaching of fundamental baseball, teamwork and letting the other team beat itself) or Rays (investing in farm system, particularly young pitching, as well as outscouting the big-spending franchises) more recent proponents of the system. The article cites Epstein's Red Sox FO, and that's also spot on...although it's a bit counterintuitive in the sense they were spending more than every team out there but the Yankees, definitely in 2007. An even bigger question, with everyone using SABR stats now to define players, have we gotten too far away from traditional metrices like RBI's or batting average? Or has SABR simply enhanced the way we understand the game of basball and provided more objective and "fairer" meansuring tools?