[Dye to Reds Speculation]

The problem here is that you're just pulling this out of your ass. What evidence do you have that suggests he'll regress? He has lowered his H/9 and BB/9 rates each season since he got to Tampa, and the guy is 24 freaking years old. 24, and he made his MLB debut as a 19 year old. He's not like some 28 year old AAAA player or anything. His K/9 rate dipped last year, but it looks like that is because he was still having control problems overall, but because of his improvements with his control, he ended up missing in the zone more than he'd done the year before. The guy still can't hit his spots, but he's finding the plate more, and IMO that is why his K/9 took a dip. His stuff didn't regress in any way, and if he continues to improve his control and becomes able to hit his spots more often with his FB, look the f*** out, because that slider is a wicked out pitch that will make him a legit top-end starter.

 

Overall it looks like Jackson was rushed by the Dodgers, who then gave up on him and traded him for scraps basically in Denys Baez. It appears he has turned the corner, and if he has indeed done that, he's a great buy.

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php...-jackson-clutch

 

That sums it up fairly well.

 

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

What study is this? Please show a link or resource to this "research."

 

Doesn't it make sense to you that you want your top four hitters to get more at-bats than your 7-8-9 hitters? That batting in the earlier spots in the order will give them an additional 50-75 opportunities per season, maybe even 100 for a leadoff hitter.

 

Why doesn't Ichiro hit 9th for the Mariners then, if it doesn't matter? Why do managers have a L-R-L run or a R-L-R run to keep opposing managers from sticking with a lefty reliever or specialist for too long late in the games?

 

I'm kind of speechless here. I'm glad you aren't/weren't a manager, we might have had Mark Johnson leading off, followed by Royce Clayton.

 

What next? There should be no such thing as starting pitchers? Every starter should be designed for one inning each game and pitch 6-7 times per week???

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~mbodell/battingOrder2001.html

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=uxdvwQdXb...7&ct=result

 

Of course, there is a difference between the optimal lineup and the worst lineup possible, but the difference between lineup a vs. c is minimal.

[Dye to Reds Speculation]

Some people actually see his stuff and the improvements he has made and recognize his potential should he continue to develop as he has been. He's a potential #1/#2 starter who right now is a capable #4/#5. The Rays are only dealing him because they don't want to pay arbitration on the guy when they've got a stacked rotation and bunch of awesome prospects ready to make the jump.

He's going to regress hardcore if he has the same control problems this season. The kid walks way too many guys and doesn't miss a lot of bats. Pass.

 

 

[Dye to Reds Speculation]

What is it with people and Edwin Jackson? He's not very good at all.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

You really believe Chris Getz is not only ready to play everyday, but that an untested rookie who many consider will end up as utility player/supersub can legitimately hit leadoff and not sink the entire offense in the process? Well, by the Powers of Caruso, I hope that gamble works, because the one with Swisher, a "tested," veteran player, sure didn't work out so well.

Studies have shown lineup order means next to nothing.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

I think you guys are on crack cocaine.

 

Elite defensive player? I heard the same things about Aaron Rowand, too. Anderson is a better overall defender, but "elite" is not a word I throw around very lightly.

 

If Anderson does start, who in God's name is going to hit leadoff?

 

Alexei Ramirez with his Soriano-esque approach to the walk? Chris Getz/Betemit/Nix? I'll survive with BA as a starter, just to end this argument about his perceived greatness once and for all...but that means we have to go out and acquire Hudson, Roberts or Grudzielanek.

 

There's no way you can have Anderson, Ramirez or Getz/Betemit as your leadoff hitters.

I honestly don't really care who leads off, it's completely arbitrary. And yes, Anderson is a very, very good defensive player. The only people who believe Anderson and Rowand are on similar levels defensively need their eyes checked; just because people were overzealous and misguided in their judgments with Rowand doesn't diminish Anderson's value.

 

In terms of in house options, I guess I really wouldn't care if it's Getz or Ramirez.

 

Also, I really wouldn't impugn anyone's walk rate if I was you, considering you're campaigning for Willy Taveras.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

So, just to clarify, you want Brian Anderson to be the starting CFer? Owens? A platoon?

 

Please tell us who you would acquire to play CF, if not one of the above. And what players you'd be willing to give up.

I'd play Anderson there. He's an elite defensive player who is more valuable than anyone else on the roster.

 

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Doing the little things: The "2009 Bill James Handbook" is recommended reading. There's a fascinating section on baserunning, which points out the World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies ran the bases better than any other team — not because they had the fastest players, but because their players made the most of whatever speed they had.

 

James assigns a plus-minus number based on how often players went from first to third on singles, second to home on singles and first to home on doubles, among other things. Among the Phillies' ratings were Jimmy Rollins' plus-46, Shane Victorino's plus-34, Jayson Werth's plus-28 and Chase Utley's plus-21.

 

Compare that to these regulars with the Cubs: Kosuke Fukudome plus-25, Mark DeRosa plus-13, Alfonso Soriano plus-12, Mike Fontenot plus-12, Ryan Theriot plus-7, Aramis Ramirez plus-7, Derrek Lee minus-9 and Geovany Soto minus-9.

 

And these with the White Sox: Brian Anderson plus-12, Carlos Quentin plus-9, Jermaine Dye plus-1, Alexei Ramirez minus-1, Paul Konerko minus-7, Jim Thome minus-13 and A.J. Pierzynski minus-18.

 

Pierzynski is on the short list of the worst quantifiably bad baserunners in the game. His rating speaks to his lack of aggressiveness, yet he had eight baserunning outs. The only players who had as low a rating and as many such outs were Prince Fielder (minus-22, nine) and Ramon Hernandez (minus-22, nine).

 

I'll allow Bill James to make an argument for me here (and you could make an argument for the White Sox prying away Fukodome if the Cubs will eat half his salary)...we need more players here in the plus, not negative, category.

 

The one number that really stands out, and I'm not sure I can explain it, is how Alexei Ramirez would be behind Dye in this category. I couldn't watch any games this season at all (being out the country)...is Ramirez tentative on the bases? I've seen him a couple of times, I know he has very good speed, and is the fastest player on the White Sox, followed by Wise and Anderson. Was he held up by Cora a lot?

This works against your point. Of course baserunning is important, but being able to run the bases well far outpaces the ability to steal bases in terms of importance.

 

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

This is true, in a sense....quickness and getting good jumps are important to playing CF.

 

However, you need to have really great "closing speed" to get to many balls in the gaps or balls hit over your head. Anderson is very good going backwards, but not quite as good side to side.

 

But Anderson, while he USUALLY gets good jumps (not always), doesn't have the type of first step explosiveness and speed/burst to steal bases. It takes him a little longer to get started on the basepaths.

Not what I was getting at. Of course, defense is so so so so so so much more valuable than base stealing ability.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

I'm sorry.

 

I forgot my Proverbs 29:9.

 

I'm done here.

Good riddance. You can cite bulls*** like fielding percentage all you like, but it doesn't make it a worthwhile statistic.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

No, errors while they can be subjective tell you if they missed on a play that they should have made. And you cannot have range in the outfield without speed.

Not true at all actually. Owens is faster than Anderson, yet Anderson has much, much better range due to his ability to read the ball off the bat.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

It tells you how many errors a player makes compared to how many opportunities they have had. That's what it tells you . In addition, with tavera's great speed he would have many more opportunities than the average CF.

Errors are wholly subjective and meaningless.

 

Also, speed does not equal range.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Would you accept an OBP of .331, a BA of .283 and 50 SB?

 

Would you accept a .980 fielding % in center field?

 

Those are his averages in his career.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/taverwi01.shtml

Fielding percentage tells you absolutely nothing.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Good big league power hitters and below average power hitters - because you're talking about SLG% not batting average - do not have the elite speed and base stealing ability of Taveras. Therefore while the are more dangerous at the plate as far as the XBH goes, they are less dangerous in terms of scoring should they get on.

Again, the ability to either reach base or drive someone is much, much more important than the ability to steal a base. He is simply not a good offensive player.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Thome's LD% doesn't prove anything aside from that fact that Taveras does hit line drives himself just like some other good big league hitters, he's not like a slap hitter only like Gathright or something. His problems come when he hits the ball in the air.

He also doesn't hit XBH hits like good big league hitters, or even below average major league hitters.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Well, then we should trade away Thome, Dye, AJ and Konerko because they're MORE likely to get injured...and Vazquez, Buehrle and especially Jenks because they too are injury risks.

 

You take away the legs of Hanley Ramirez or Jose Reyes, they're going to be dramatically less effective as hitters and fielders as well. Nobody can play well with injuries.

 

However, when you have a younger/speedier/more athletic team, the odds are in your favor, and having one fast player on your team go down won't cripple your entire line-up. This is more how the Angels and Rays attack other teams. Actually, the Red Sox with Ellsbury are fairly similar...although I'm sure we could have another LONG debate/thread comparing Ellsbury to Taveras too.

You are meandering around the point. Also, please don't try to make the comparison of Taveras to Ellsbury, that's terrible.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

AJ's defense behind the plate is more than throwing out baserunners at a poor rate. He's great at preventing WP and passed balls which then expands the strikezone for his pitchers.

 

1. All tools can be equally effective to a team. It's a team game. When there is no one on base and you need a run against a good pitcher for example, it's much easier to score in a bunt hit, stolen base, sacrifice situation then it is to hit a home run.

2. He doesn't have power, so his flyballs are pretty much all pop ups and s***, but he still hits line drives. His LD% has been pretty much equal to Thome's over the last four years. Power in contact is not the same as contact. He puts the ball in play.

1. Yes, but some are more equal than others. That's academic.

2. So what if he and Thome have the same LD%? That proves nothing.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

The point is that Swisher has never been a leadoff hitter and that's not a place where he is comfortable. You can't fit a round peg in a square hole. We kind of saw that with Cabrera leading off...or AJ hitting second. They were so-so, but there are many out there who could have done better. Swisher, obviously not being one of them.

 

Taveras is, and he's coming off a so-so season. If we always wanted to acquire talent at it's highest possible value, and not expect it to fall in value but continue rising, KW should quit playing General Manager and just go to work not for Warren Buffett but for Obama, because it's going take that level of intelligence (someone who's always right about the future) and prescience to get us out of this financial/economic mess.

Orlando Cabrera leading off in 2008: .293/.341/.386

Orlando Cabrera hitting 2nd in 2008: .234/.305/.305

 

Taveras' season wasn't so-so -- it was horrible.

 

 

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Maybe we should try Nick Swisher there. He has a REALLY high career OBP. Great, problem solved! Let's dance! Cue David Bowie soundtrack. Everybody Wang Chung tonight.

It would have been fine with me. Unfortunately, Nick had a rather bad season.

 

Of course, you're probably going off last year's numbers only -- something you wouldn't want us to do for Taveras.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Ok so fine. But the Colorado fans didn't care. They threw s*** at him and called him names and when he stole bases they tried to charge the field.

 

Something in Colorado f***ed his head up.

I laughed.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

I think if we substituted Pods' numbers over his career before he came to the White Sox, nobody would have been very excited to acquire him. In fact, most were griping/complaining about losing El Caballo and replacing him with a zero power hitter.

 

SPEED NEVER SLUMPS. DEFENSE NEVER SLUMPS. HAVING A GOOD ARM DOESN'T DISAPPEAR EITHER, ON A DAY-TO-DAY BASIS. (Of these three, Owens gives you ONLY one thing, because his CF defense is so-so or adequate, partially because of his arm but other deficiencies exist as well...TAVERAS GIVES YOU ALL THREE ON A CONSISTENT BASIS).

 

Point 2, Jerry Owens isn't a reasonable facsimile of Wily Taveras. And it's not that close. Just ask KW or anyone with the White Sox FO.

 

Sure, we can pick apart Taveras' 2007 season, but if we went by one season, Jon Danks would have been horrible in 2008 based on his 2007 numbers and Gavin Floyd never would have been acquired based on his past MLB stats. Alexei Ramirez would have been playing in Winston-Salem or Birmingham, based on "conventional" wisdom.

Okay, so we'll pick apart the rest of his full seasons in the league. Yep, terrible. Okay.

 

Speed does slump, especially when you don't get on base at a decent rate. Guess what? All facets of the game are susceptible to slumps; do you get your baseball ideology from the Grinder Rules campaign?

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Why do you have to be such a turd sandwich then?

 

That is your opinion that OBP trumps SLG%. I'd say it does in certain positions in the order, like say Mike Jacobs can fit his power and very low OBP in the #6 slot of a team much better than a guy who gets on and doesn't have power could. For lead-off OBP does trump SLG which makes it stupid that I keep seeing comments about SLG% and OPS regarding a lead-off spot. You do not need to hit home runs if you lead off, and you don't need a whole lot of triples or doubles if you can steal efficiently.

 

I don't know how you can say Willy offers no OBP skills. He makes contact, he does walk some, and his speed allows him to hit for a higher average than most players because he can put down bunts and beat them out. His average strongly affects his OBP and if he hits .320, which he did in '07 and can do again, he'll get on at a .360-.370 clip. It is a lot easier for a player like him to hit .310-.320 because he can put bunts down when the IF are playing back, or hit the ball past him when they come in and give up range.

He's only done this once, in a 97 game season. The likelihood of him eclipsing .300/.340 in a full season is minimal at best.

 

OBP absolutely trumps SLG%, that's irrefutable. Leadoff isn't a position, it's simply a spot in the order, one that doesn't matter much as a player leads off once (!) a game. The important thing is finding a high OBP player to put there, not a fast guy with a terrible OBP.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

What are you talking about?

 

COL averaged 33,127 fans in 2008. CHW averaged 30,877 fans in 2008. And when Willy played in HOU in 2005 and 2006 the average attendance was 34,000+ and 37,000+ respectively. I guess we really don't want Willy now because he'd be playing in front of even fewer people.

I'm enjoying this.

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

Not the same.

 

Owens has no arm, plays mediocre defense and can't hit for average.

Owens will probably post a .315 OBP.

 

[Sox still interested in Willy Taveras]

So you think there's no mental aspect of baseball then or what? The thread I made showed that statistically he has become absolutely horrible deep in the count, specifically on 3-2 when he should feel like he has control of the situation. His poor numbers there indicate something mental. Being in a winning environment where tons of fans cheer his strengths is probably going to be better for him that 25 people in the crowd or whatever in Colorado who don't about anything he does because the team is garbage. He needs to take his mind off the numbers he's playing for in Colorado and just react naturally like he did when he came up as a rookie. If he does that, the numbers say he'll be a very good player, because every other part of his game has actually improved.

This is your idea of a "statistical analysis"?