Kenny Hates Prospects

QUOTE (BearSox @ Dec 2, 2008 -> 08:18 PM) Here is Jon Gilmore's perfect game profile: http://www.perfectgame.org/players/playerp...e.aspx?ID=16827 I really hope we get him after reading that scouting report. He sounds like he has a ton of potential and is a hard-nosed ball player as well. Jon Gilmore has Donald Trump hair. Just think, we trade the s***tiest haircut on the team and now we end up with Beckham and Gilmore? Awesome. I hope Viciedo comes into ST rockin' a mullet, then we'll be in business.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Dec 2, 2008 -> 08:19 PM) i really believe that in 2011 a 2-3-4-5 of beckham, flowers, quentin, viciedo could be really good and really young Throw in Alexei too. That's like the s*** I used to do in fantasy mode on baseball games. I'd collect all these awesome prospects and then kick everyone's ass with them.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Dec 2, 2008 -> 08:16 PM) If Lillibridge, Flowers, and Gilmore are all involved, thats essentially 3 of their top 15 prospects or so. "f*** yo' couch, Frank Wren!" -Kenny Williams, thinking about your av

QUOTE (daa84 @ Dec 2, 2008 -> 08:08 PM) a package of Flowers, Lillibridge, Morton and Gilmore would be a just a great package IMO That would be insane, but then I would doubt Logan as the second player. I can't see how they'd be able to deal Thornton with Jenks available, but maybe Dotel or something? Anyway, that is a f***ing ton for Javy Vazquez. A f***ing TON. Something is fishy here.

LMAO at the Baseball Cube attributes on Jon Gilmore http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/G/Jon-Gilmore.shtml Scouting Report Power: 30 Speed: 1 Contact: 53 Patience: 3 ...and these are out of 100. I'm guessing they just sliiiiiightly missed the boat here. Just imagine a guy who is so slow that at full speed Paul Konerko passes him like he's standing still.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 2, 2008 -> 07:48 PM) It wasn't really that long ago when we had pretty much NO infield prospects. Danny Richar and some scraps. Yeah, that is what is so odd. And actually, back then Shelby was still a 2B prospect. So of our 3 best 2B prospects, we traded one 2B, moved another to the OF, and kept Getz. Now Getz is at the bottom of the long-term depth chart, or near it at least, so talk about a turn-around in the span of little more than one year...

QUOTE (daa84 @ Dec 2, 2008 -> 07:46 PM) was just coming here to post this after watching mortons highlights....his stuff is good...good curve, flashed a good change, and even threw a slider in there at 84...stuff and delivery wise reminded me alot of gavin but with less tail to the 2 seamer...looked like he was already throwing a cutter...from what i saw i liked this kid more than boone logan thats for damn sure http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/media/video....74&c_id=atl Agree. The velocity thing is good only if there are secondary pitches to go with it. If we do get him, then this isn't another Masset.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Dec 2, 2008 -> 07:44 PM) I don't know if it has been mentioned, but I guess Flowers got busted for PED's in 2006. I really hope that his positive test results are from him taking some sort of supplement that he didn't realize was on the banned list. If it's Lillibridge, Flowers, and Morton, that's a great deal. If it's Lillibridge, Flowers, Morton, and another player, damn this was a hell of a deal. As most people know, I have been in favor of keeping Vazquez, but when you practically get 4 for 1 (I don't count Boone, he was as good as gone), and 3 of those 4 are players like Lillibridge, Flowers, and Morton, that's a good ass deal. Anyone ever think we might see a platoon of Getz and Lillibridge at 2B? Yeah I don't count Logan either. He's got a great arm and has a chance to be a dominant setup man, basically doing for us close to what Damaso Marte did back when he was the hottest s*** around, but there was no chance in hell Boone was going to do it here. He needed a change of scenery.

Also, Lillibridge's inclusion is kind of odd. How many MIF prospects do we need? Maybe some of the posters really aren't dreaming and we really are after Peavy? Or else we're after Roberts, or something. Or, as someone else suggested, the Sox plan to move Lillibridge to CF. It will be very interesting to see how this shakes out.

I've read this whole thread through and I don't know what to make of it. First, are we getting three players or four players? If it is three, a Lillibridge-Morton-Flowers package is awesome. If we were allowed to choose four players then I can't see how some of these names would have been involved, unless the Sox are eating some salary or something. Lillibridge, Morton, Flowers AND MORE??? Wow, we'd be getting a lot there. It appears Kenny may be getting more in dealing Javy than he gave up for Javy (Chris Young) so I like this a lot. Still want to see whether it is three or four, but Flowers and Morton is definitely fair for Javy IMO. Watched some video on Morton before, just the MLB highlights, and it doesn't look like he gets it up there in the mid-90's at all but he showed off a nice curve + change combo.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 11:28 PM) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James This is the guy who created the stat. He has been in the Boston Red Sox front office for many years and uses these stats to help the Red Sox evaluate players. You cannot watch every single game played by every single base ball player. People smarter than me (and despite your blanket statement that people who don't like Taveras are "stupid", I am somewhat bright) have came up with formulas to help gauge a players performance. To call it ridiculous mush shows how little you know about the years spent in developing these stats That's right, I do know very little about the years spent mashing the mush. I know the Red Sox value his opinions and statistical mashed potatoes quite highly, but I also believe they spend an assload of money through the draft, through the international free agent market, through free agency, and in their scouting and player development departments. And I don't think you need runs created or whatever to tell you that Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsukaza, Curt Schilling and all the other key cogs in their championships are or were very good players. Nor do you need that stat to tell you that Jed Lowrie, Clay Buccholz, Dustin Pedroia, Jon Lester, Michael Bowden, etc. either are or were very good prospects. In short, I attribute about 0.0000003% of the Red Sox successes to Bill James.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 11:31 PM) What would you consider a good year? Hate to ask you to use those evil "stats", but "he ran fast" isn't what I'm looking for. (I'm going offensive wise here). Just so you know if the White Sox acquire him and he has a career year I will cheer him as loud as anyone on this board. A good year, to me, means he hits above his career average of .283, gets on at a clip higher than .330 which is IMO the best you can expect out of a full season of Anderson ATM, and helps us score runs in situations where our sluggers aren't slugging.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 04:43 PM) That's a really bad plan. You're taking on a lot of reclamation projects and risky prospects at the expense of 3 pretty good (and proven) MLB veterans. I'm down for trading one of Dye/Jenks/Vazquez to a projection player, but all three for a batch of prospect is ridiculous. Especially now that we have Beckham, Viciedo and Poreda as a very solid top 3 in our farm system. Not if we get a very good young player out of it and use the savings elsewhere. I wouldn't lump Poreda on with Beckham until he shows the repertoire to start, and we haven't seen Viciedo play yet. If you're going to suggest the futures of the prospects we'd acquire are up in the air, then you have to say the exact same things about our guys.

Dye's value just went down. Abreu, Burrell, and Dunn will not cost draft picks. Ouch. I hope none of these guys were in the Reds plans and we can still get Bailey and whatnot.

QUOTE (Felix @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 11:15 PM) Didn't you say you were done replying to these posts awhile ago KHP? Whatever happened to that? Because you guys kept up with your s***. I thought you'd all quit, but then you didn't. I am almost done for tonight though, it's getting late. All I have to say is that I am going to laugh so f***ing hard if I wake up in the morning and turn on the radio and hear that the Sox have just acquired Willy Taveras. I'll laugh even harder if he has a good year and you guys can't enjoy it because you're all too butt-hurt by his low SLG%.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 11:14 PM) That's what I was waiting for... thanks... No, thank you, really I mean it. Now that I know how insightful it can be to take all those stats out of context, weight them arbitrarily, and then combine them into this ridiculous mush, I'll never have to look at what a player's strengths are in individual areas again. God bless the runs created stat.

QUOTE (scenario @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 11:10 PM) Like I said in my original post... it's a list of all MLB players who had 1500 or more plate appearances in the 4 years from 2005-2008. I just picked the bottom 25 for the table. There was no cherry picking or data twisting involved. By setting the threshold of plate appearances lower, it generated a list of 199 players including most starting players over the last 4 years. Then I ranked them ALL by OPS. So if you don't see any other leadoff hitters in here, it's simply because their OPS was high enough so they were not in the bottom 25. Bottom line: Taveras was #6. NUMBER SIX. You want him for you leadoff man? Good for you. I don't. I think he sucks... and the data seems to support my opinion. The data says he has no power. That is all the data says. Do your ranking by OBP and he's not in that group over his career. Last year he probably is, but last year was not the norm for him.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 11:02 PM) Which would be speed? Again, Swisher is slow, he had a higher RC/G than him and it includes base running which includes SBs! Per Wikipedia: Technical version of runs created: RC = (H + BB - CS + HBP - GIDP) X [TB + (.26 X (BB - IBB + HBP)) + (.52 X (SH + SF SB)] / AB + BB + HBP + SH + SF HOLY s*** THE ANSWER TO THE UNIVERSE1!11!!!!1OMG1!!!!!! Thank God. I'll never have to watch another baseball game again.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 10:49 PM) If a guy hits 40 doubles and steals 15 vs. a guy who hits 15 doubles and steals 40, they basically get to second just as much, but the guy who hits the doubles will drive in runs. In the AL with a DH, a leadoff guy that can drive in runs is pretty valuable. If a guy hits 40 2B's he's not leading off, he's generally hitting in the middle of the order somewhere 3-7 depending on the type of offense the team is running out. There were two prototypical or close to prototypical lead-off men who hit over 40 doubles in all of baseball last year, and they were Brian Roberts and Dustin Pedroia. Good luck acquiring those guys.

QUOTE (scenario @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 10:43 PM) Listen... I don't know what you think you know... but ix-nay with the upid-stay. You obviously like Taveras, but that is not a good reason to take shots at people making reasonable arguments. OPS is a well established measure of offensive output. The fact is that players who score low in OPS have to do something else extremely valuable to justify their spot in a lineup. If it didn't mean anything for a leadoff hitter, then where are the other leadoff hitters on the list? In fact, where are the other 'good' offensive players? The fact is that practically every player on that list is considered 'marginal' as a starter... because of their low offensive output. It's a list that seems made up of defensive specialists and journeymen. Is there ANYbody on that list who would make the Sox a better offensive team? I don't think so. Your list is a joke. I just counted, and you've got 2 3B who aren't starters (Counsell, Castillo), 6 catchers, 9 SS, 3 CF, 2 2B, and 3 LF who aren't starters anymore (Payton, Pierre, Pods). Who would've thought that you'd come up with a bunch of players playing premium positions when you ranked according to OPS? Big surprise there... And yes, Taveras would make the Sox a better offensive team than what we have now because he adds an element to the game that we are missing.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 10:38 PM) Dick Allen summed it up well for me. He's a bad offensive player. And again, why is a guy who gets on a few more times per season and hits a few more XBH's more valuable than a guy who gets on less and hits for less power but does more damage when he's on? League average OBP and league average SLG% in CF isn't going to get you a whole lot anyway. At least Willy has a tool to use when he does get on base.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 10:34 PM) How about OBP? Taveras has been below league average in 3 of his 4 major league seasons. He's fine batting ninth or eighth, but leading off is a waste. Fine. Bat him 9th, I don't care. I'm arguing against people who think he sucks no matter what and isn't a better bet than Anderson. I disagree with all of that. Willy Taveras is not my ideal lead-off hitter, at all. However, those guys who would be ideal are going to be waaaay too expensive to acquire and I'd rather go after the cheaper guy. If the Sox do get Taveras, and if Ozzie does have him lead off, he isn't going to kill the team there. Batting 9th, he's not going to kill the team there either. Given his ability to play CF, if we do acquire him, there will be far greater issues with our offense and with our pitching and defense than Willy Taveras. And, if he has a good year, he'll actually help us.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 10:29 PM) He will be guaranteed to lead-off exactly once a game. He has zero power. What is your point? We all know he doesn't have power. Why do you need power to hit at the top or the bottom of a lineup when you're not expected to have anyone on base ahead of you?

QUOTE (Felix @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 10:23 PM) I said this way too many pages ago (as did a number of other posters in more than one thread), but it's refuted with the clever argument that OPS is a stupid stat and the statistical analysis that shows Taveras needs a fan base cheering for him in order to be successful, which is why Chicago is a better place than Colorado for him. See my post above. SLG% is not a necessary tool for a lead-off hitter. OPS is a stupid way to measure the performance of lead-off hitters.

QUOTE (scenario @ Dec 1, 2008 -> 09:53 PM) Here's a search I did of all MLB players since 2005... with a minimum of 1500 plate appearances... ranked by OPS (from lowest to highest). So... here are the 25 MLB regulars with the lowest OPS... with the worst shown first. Read into it what you want... More stupidity... Obviously he'll rank at the very bottom in a stat that accounts for a tool he does not possess, and a tool which BTW is completely unrelated to his job as lead-off man. How stupid are you people?