chw42

I've loved his approach all year. Look fastball, hit it hard. He's got a completely different mentality than he did last year. He's looking for line drive singles and doubles, not home runs. Good for him.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 1, 2010 -> 03:03 PM) See, Ozzie just wanted to improve Thornton's inherited runners stats. He also improved Putz's inherited runner stats.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 1, 2010 -> 03:08 PM) Two pitching changes, three pitchers. 0 runs allowed. I think I meant three pitchers. I was hoping more or less that he'd save Putz in case Jenks doesn't have it.

Bobby's got the ninth. I hope he pitches like he did last time out.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Aug 1, 2010 -> 03:01 PM) Hudson's first start with Diamondbacks.... W, 8 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K 1/4 at the plate with 2 RBI. I am jealous.

Three pitching changes in one inning...

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 1, 2010 -> 02:57 PM) I guess they want Thornton to get some work with someone on base. It was pretty obvious to everyone that Gavin was done after the 7th. lol so you create a base runner for the hell of it when you're up by 3? Not a good idea.

QUOTE (Hawk09 @ Aug 1, 2010 -> 09:37 AM) Exactly. Hudson is 2-2 lifetime with an ERA of 4.72 vs teams that the Sox need to beat to win the division. Contrast that with Jacksons last three years: vs AL teams we need to beat to win the division ....28-13 ERA 3.81 vs the Sox .... 2-5 ERA 7.11 vs the NL ....3-12 ERA 5.95 What does that tell us? I think it confirms the conventional wisdom: - Jackson has lites out hard stuff( rated the #4 average fastball velocity in mlb by fangraphs) - The Sox kill hard stuff, yet struggle with crafty funky slow pitchers,especially leftys - The NL is a fastball hitting league. - In the AL power pitchers flourish. If he throws strikes,he will help the Sox the next 1.33 seasons. If he pitches to form vs the AL teams the rest of the way, he will win 6-7 games down the stretch. If he does that, I am happy with this trade. In sept and oct,power pitchers rule...we got a top 4 power pitcher in terms of velocity alone,behind only Jiminez,Verlander and Jock Johnson. ...we also have had success vs Verlander. Sox are like a NL team...we love fastballs. And the American League isn't? Some of the best power pitchers are in the NL (Jimenez, Strasburg). According to pitch value, the worst five teams at hitting fastballs are all in the National League. Saying Jackson switching back to the AL is a good thing for him isn't exactly true. It's usually never good to go back to a tougher league. If anything, Jackson is the same pitcher this year that he was last year, based on his peripherals.

Gavin's going out there again.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 03:14 PM) LOL, Braves get Rick Ankiel & Kyle Farnsworth from KC For some useful pieces too. Dayton Moore got ex-Braves back. He must be happy.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 09:22 PM) He's not overly slow. Definitely faster than Kotsay is. Viciedo is surprisingly fast.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 08:37 PM) It sickens me that I can't get excited. Soon as Teahen comes back it's a wrap for Dayan. I was bored and decided to run our current lineup through a lineup optimizer. Using Dayan's current wOBA (.363), our lineup averages 4.87 runs per game. I don't really think Dayan is going to hit that well all season, but I don't think it's unreasonable that he can at least have a .340 wOBA given his power. By just replacing Viciedo with Kotsay, our runs per game goes down to 4.57 (which is incredibly close to our season average of 4.61 runs per game, you wonder how these things work so well sometimes). That's a .3 run difference. That .3 run difference over the next 59 games is a total of 18 runs. Even if I put Dayan at a .340 wOBA and a .460 slugging, we would average 4.78 runs per game, that's a .21 difference, resulting in a difference of 12.4 runs. To make this even more realistic, I decided to put in the projected stats by ZiPS for the rest of the season. Fortunately, the expected regressions by Konerko and Rios get canceled out by better hitting from just about everyone except those two. With those projections, we're at 4.59 runs per game. If I plug in Dayan's rough .340 wOBA and .460 SLG projections, we get 4.77 runs per game. The difference is slightly less this time, as expected. Still, that difference is 10.6 runs. What about Mark Teahen? With him in there in place of Kotsay, we would get 4.7 runs per game. So this time, the difference is only 6.5 runs. So Viciedo is a 10.6 run advantage (1.1 WAR) over Kotsay the rest of the way. Teahen is 6.5 runs (.7 WAR). Having those two platoon might be the best idea of all. And the best thing I took out of this is that the projection systems don't seem to think that we have overachieved thus far. In fact, we have underachieved. So maybe we're not looking at a disastrous rest of the way without that big bat.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 08:44 PM) I think it was a reach for them to even make the deal...that being said, I have not been super impressed with McDonald. Either way, I could care less if you want to call his opinion silly...but it irks me when random message board guy thinks longtime ESPN baseball reporter and former beat writer doesn't bring anything to the discussion. I think Cowley is pretty lame for instance...but even he can bring things to the table because of his access to the team... Joe Morgan has a lot of power in Hall of Fame voting and he broadcasts games on national TV every night while working for ESPN. That doesn't mean he brings anything to the table. Reputation is one thing to consider, but at the end of it all, when the reputable person says things that don't make sense, I really don't care what the said person does.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 08:45 PM) I would rather have Jackson or whoever else is suppose to pitch on Tuesday on 4-game rest vs. Baltimore than have Carlos Torre pitch against the Tigers. True that.

Just one of those games.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 08:41 PM) Exactly. And everyone else would still be on 5 days rest because of the off-day on Monday. I don't see a reason to have Torres spot start on Tuesday when everyone would be rested anyway. Could be because they want to keep the rotation intact so nobody will be pitching on short rest in the future. Still, I think the Tigers series is kind of important.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 08:20 PM) I don't understand why he wouldn't pitch on Tuesday. He probably should... He last pitched on the 28th. Pitching on Tuesday would give him more than 5 days off.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 08:17 PM) So you disagree with him. That doesn't make him clueless. So you don't think his applauding of this deal for the Dodgers is ridiculous?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 07:51 PM) Do you really believe that? I know it's fashionable and all to rip on everyone who actually works in the industry, but I wouldn't characterize the guy as "clueless." You do know there are other parts of the game other than advanced metrics, right? Saying that the Dotel deal is a good and fair trade can definitely be classified as clueless. And yes, I'm well aware, but Olney is one of those guys who flat out rejects sabermetrics. So of course, I wouldn't see eye to eye with him.

Danks had a Javy Vazquez-like start. It was one bad inning that did him in.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 06:32 PM) Jeez, Andruw playing some terrible defense in this inning. No chance to catch that Stone cause he ran back on it. Yup, bad read.

WTF? 3 of those pitches to Ellis were strikes.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 04:00 PM) I don't know much about the prospects but Buster Onley doesn't seem to think they gave up that much FWIW. Buster_ESPN Observation: Love what the Dodgers did before the deadline. They clearly helped the team without giving up a lot.#trades Buster Olney is clueless. He's one of those "traditionalists".

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 04:43 PM) The only flaw is that it involves Mark Kotsay losing at-bats, which won't happen. I'm trying to ignore that right now. At some point, Kenny has to point out that Mark Kotsay sucks to Ozzie and tell Ozzie to stop playing him.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 31, 2010 -> 04:40 PM) Well in my scenario, you can DH Carlos and put Teahen in RF on days he plays (which is the majority of the time since he plays against righties). That's the best you can do with keeping Carlos out of the field for the rest of this year, he has to be out there against lefties. Combining the two plans would work.