almagest

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 28, 2008 -> 01:05 PM) I've been told time and time again on this board a strikeout is no worse than any other out. I guess that applies to everyone but Uribe. Ok, so I'm still waiting for a coherent justification as to how a hitter with a 79 career OPS+ is good. It seems all you can do is seize on somewhat extreme statements on how bad Uribe is and use them for evidence as to why he's good. Either that, or praise Uribe for hitting 20 homers and still somehow managing a slugging percentage in the low .400s or high .300s.

QUOTE (Soxpranos @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 02:13 PM) Everyone wants Crede to be traded but he is far more valuable than Thome or Konerko. Uhh... how, exactly? Because he's had a good first month of the season, has a bad back, and is in his walk year with superagent Boras? I mean, it's not like Thome and Konerko have an entire career of good to great numbers to back them up... oh, wait...

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 27, 2008 -> 03:23 PM) I think im in the minority here, but i just dont understand the draw. I've owned the previous three versions and I always got tired of it after about 1/4 of the way through the game. I'd imagine i'll get it eventually, but i'm certainly not gonna rush out at 12 tues to pick it up. Mario Kart Wii is solid, as to be expected. I really like the online play. Now if only we can get Goldeneye and Mario Tennis on the Virtual Console, my Wii experience would be complete. I feel the same way. I can't get into any of the GTAs. I think it's because I have no attention span in that game -- I'll do a mission or two, then wonder how far the bodies will fly if I shoot rockets at people from the top of a building. Or I'll try to drive a car into a police helicopter. By that point I've already wasted an hour. Today reiterated that not much is as fun as Smash Bros. with 3 friends. Picking up Mario Kart now w/ my $25 Amazon gift certificate. Also highly recommend Gamefly for pretty much anyone.

QUOTE (Frankensteiner @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 01:32 PM) I am hoping, if anything, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back game for Uribe and Ramirez. It won't be. You'll continue to see either one or both of them tossed out there, because we don't really have anyone to play second at this point. Maybe Bourgeois or Getz? You could platoon either one of them with Pablo Ozuna, since Bourgeois is a switch hitter and Getz is a lefty (IIRC).

QUOTE (frankie5angels @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 01:26 PM) I would unload PK and his contract. Thanks for the memories but see ya. This is f***ing embarassing!! Yes, because teams are going to be lining up with prospects to take his contract away from us. Yes, that will happen. 5-0 now. Whee. I also don't understand why Alexei Ramirez is playing CF. He's not good defensively at SS or 2B, so let's play him somewhere even more difficult? And all he can do is hit a fastball, so Ozzie plays him against a lefty who doesn't throw anything straight?

Chamberlain made a TON of mistakes with his offspeed stuff that inning, and left a few fastballs in the middle of the plate as well. He didn't look nearly as sharp as he did the inning before. We also had a good approach against him, amazingly enough. Nice win.

Quentin's 2008 stats through last night: AVG OBP SLG OPS .241 .380 .500 .880 Uribe's 2008 stats through last night: AVG OBP SLG OPS .172 .232 .281 .513 Is it really THAT hard to figure out why Quentin is given a break for the K, but Uribe isn't for his pop-up?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 21, 2008 -> 10:40 PM) Thin Crust >>> Deep Dish....there I said it. You Californians gave us California Pizza Kitchen. Your opinion doesn't count. QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Apr 21, 2008 -> 11:00 PM) absolutely, I like to taste something other than sauce. Psh, you taste cheese too!

This always seems to happen against the Orioles.

Sherrill sure is worried about Dye.

Hawk made a good point in Mora's at-bat. He was obviously trying to go the other way or up the middle, and seemed to be looking offspeed. Why they kept throwing him breaking balls over the outer half, i don't know.

QUOTE (juddling @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 10:41 PM) Oh Boy....as the downward trend for Hollywood continues...here comes....Fast and Furious 4 It should be called, "The Fast and the FOURious"

QUOTE (G&T @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 08:28 PM) Mark will be lucky to make it through 7. I wouldn't exactly say that 2 runs allowed through 6 innings is a bad start. Also, since when is 6+ innings bad?

QUOTE (YASNY @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 01:29 AM) Maybe the fact that we have dominated the Tigers is more indicative of the strength of the Sox as opposed to the suckiness of the Tigers. Well, we lost 2 of 3 vs. Cleveland, and split with Minnesota. Both teams are at or below .500. That doesn't bode too well, though I suspect we'll find out more about this team in the series vs. the A's.

I don't think I've seen Toby Hall hit a ball hard in any at-bat during the regular season with the White Sox.

Not sure why Dye was swinging 2-0 when Grilli had walked Konerko on 5 pitches and technically walked Thome. Bad decision there.

Game is on regular Comcast Sports Net now, meaning HD for non-Comcast customers.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 10, 2008 -> 09:11 AM) Under $1000 would be nice, less would be even better... Anything. Seriously. Most any laptop you buy nowadays is more than good enough for ANY task besides gaming. Just make sure you have 2 GB of RAM or more, and you're set.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 12:30 AM) So one of the links on the right side of the page is "McRoll'd". So I clicked it. It's...interesting. I prefer the myself.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 04:32 PM) Lower the WHIP the better in my opinion over anything. Both walks and hits are the worst thing that can happen to a pitcher. Outs are outs, but the K-rate is considered very important, but can also be modified by less walks. I've always thought walks were worse, because they naturally lead to a higher pitch count, and it seems harder to string enough hits together to generate a run, than it is to draw a walk or two, then get 1 hit. I think this is one area where that conventional "walks will always kill you" wisdom is completely correct. QUOTE (jackie hayes @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 04:45 PM) But that gets back to the issue of sustaining whip from one year to the next. Take two pitchers who walk exactly the same number of batters. If one gets significantly more strikeouts than the other, that means fewer balls in play. The low-k guy could get lucky one year and have a very low babip, which would give him a lower whip, but that doesn't mean he can sustain it. Except for certain types of pitchers (especially strong gb pitchers), babip tends to revert to the league-average, meaning the next year he'll probably have a higher whip. In that sense, whip is more a measure of success than a predictor of future success. Which is why I mentioned Carmona originally. Pitchers like Brandon Webb and Carmona and Maddux in his prime and Garland to an extent can get away with pitching to contact, because they keep the ball on the ground. Being a flyball pitcher and pitching to contact is a recipe for disaster.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 11:47 AM) This reminds me of this comic: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png Which reminds me of me... XKCD is great.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 02:54 PM) I don't know how anyone can think a strikeout is the same as any other out offensively but important for a pitcher. I happen to think they are important to a certain extent for a pitcher. Its situational. While there are good pitchers that don't get many strikeouts, there aren't a lot of bad ones who do. Usually when pitcher's k rates drop significantly, their ERA's and other bad stats rise significantly. I think it's already been said, but basically, if a guy has a good OBP and SLG, you don't mind the strikeouts as much. Taking lots of pitches and being selective naturally leads to more strikeouts. It's the same for pitchers, you'd like someone who has a great K rate, but if you've got a pitcher like Carmona with a power sinker who induces lots of weak grounders, you're not going to complain.

Looks to me like Cuzzi is starting to go for the reach-around.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 10:22 AM) Nothing like having something to look forward to, a Sox player having a slump, that's a fan Rooting for my favorite team takes a back seat to being right on the internet. Everyone knows that!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 11:41 AM) Think about this example...which team is a strikeout more valuable to. The Rockies or the Tigers? The Rockies have a ridiculously good defense. The Tigers defense looks like a disaster area. If I'm pitching for the Rockies, I want to pitch to contact. If I'm pitching for the Tigers, I don't want Miguel Cabrera or Magglio Ordonez having to make a great play, because they wont' be able to do it. Actually, Coors Field is an extremely hitter-friendly park to ALL batted balls, to the point of making strikeouts more valuable there, even with a good defense. Even the humidor they're using now doesn't help all that much. QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 12:17 PM) If you look at sabermetrics I'm pretty sure they will tell you that Javier Vazquez is a much better pitcher than Mark Buehrle because Javy strikes guys out, but when you watch both of them pitch without seeing the numbers, you know Buehrle's more reliable. That's pretty selective use of evidence. As a previous poster showed, the pitchers that lead the major in strikeouts are almost always above-average to great.