chw42

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 12:50 PM) According to Greg Walker, we are a great fastball hitting team, and weak when it comes to change-ups. He couldn't be anymore right. I was surprised that we hit Fister last time out, we've had lots of issues with him before.

QUOTE (hitlesswonder @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 12:45 PM) I was going by Law's top 100 prospects list, which Hudson didn't make. Granted, some teams don't have a pitching prospect on there, but most do. And before we go with the "Law hates the Sox" stuff, Flowers and Mitchell made the list when they probably shouldn't have given their K rates. I think it's fair to say that Hudson's value as a prospect is certainly open for debate. Of course he doesn't make it. It's Keith Law.

Hudson was ranked in the top 70 by Baseball America. Do the math. 70/30 = 2.333 On the average team, Hudson would be a top 3 prospect, if not top 2.

QUOTE (scenario @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 12:01 PM) Marcum is making $850,000 this year and has 2 arb years left before free agency. What is the motivation for the Blue Jays to trade him unless the Twins are willing to overpay? Most major league teams do NOT give up cheap young quality starters unless they get a ransom for them. This rumor has been shot down pretty much. People thought it was going to be Marcum because they called up a AA pitcher to take his spot, turns out Marcum had a blister problem and he would also be starting on three days' rest. I said something similar on the first page to what you said, trading him doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the Blue Jays.

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 11:51 AM) This hasn't been talked about yet. With the emergence of Santos and the fact that Putz and Thorton are pitching well. What about a Jenks for David Ortiz? The redsox are looking for relif and ortiz is a great clutch left handed power bat. Why would the Red Sox trade Ortiz in the first place?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 09:47 PM) Brett Myers deserves so much more love on the trade market than he's getting. He looks sensational on the mound this season. He's actually better than anyone that's out there right now, really. If only he wasn't such an ass hole.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:19 AM) So first we had Dipotity or whatever his name is pimping Joe Saunders because of his win total in 2008-2009. Now we've got Melvin using quality starts to somehow put Dave f***ing Bush in the same class as Cliff Lee (who missed the first month of the season) and Dan Haren? What does it really require to be a GM these days? f***ing morons. Maybe I should appreciate KW more. Scott Boras compared Oliver Perez to Sandy Koufax. It's called trying to lure stupid people in.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 08:23 AM) With Tor. asking for Joba Chamberlain from the yanks and Casey Kelly from Boston for two months of Scott Downs [and soundly rejected], http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/07/aski...cott-downs.html what would the Yanks say to Bobby Jenks for Joba? The Yanks don't have a reliable set up man to get the game to Mariano and may think Jenks could be a key addition. Joba's 5.95 ERA is ugly, and the Yanks don't take kindly to failure. Jenks in set up would be an upgrade for them, and would be worth more than Downs as he's under team control in 2011. It would take salary off the sox hands as well. Trading Jenks for Joba would favor the Yanks the rest of this year. Yet it would probably be a wash for the Sox in 2010, with Putz and Thornton picking up the closer spot and be a big pick up in 2011 and beyond. Even if it's not to the Yanks for Joba, trading bobby now would be a great way to get out from his contract because they likely won't be able to move him in the off season. Teams need bullpen help now and there aren't many options for closing/ set up. Toronto's crazy. That's pretty much what you can come away with in those rumors. As for Bobby, I'm sure some teams would have interest, but we're not getting anything near Joba or Kelly back for him.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 08:28 PM) You're a good knowledgeable poster but sometimes I just laugh. At least 75% of you posts have a sabremetric stat in it. I guess I just laugh because there's such a difference in anything you see with the mainstream media ( newspapers and TV) and what you see online from young baseball fans. Tell me something don't most guys with high BA and high OPS usually also have high line drive rates and high BABIP ? And if most do wouldn't they all be due for a regression at some point ? It's as if you rely on these things as some sort of crystal ball. It's Jim Edmonds, he's not really what a lot of people consider a good hitter anymore. And no. There is a difference between good and unsustainable. Alex Rios is hitting really well this year, but his BABIP is only 10 points higher than his batting average. Albert Pujols only hits around 16-17% line drives. 29% is a gaudy amount of line drives and a .350 BABIP is the result. Edmonds has always hit a good amount of line drives (usually around 20%), but when that rate is almost at 30%, there's no way he's going to keep that up. Detroit's had two guys this year that I have been watching closely - Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch. I've been saying that Jackson's going to slump for a while now, he's no longer hitting .380 like he was early in the year, but he's now hitting .315. There's going to be another slump coming sometime soon for him, he has a .430 BABIP and a 28% line drive rate. Nobody with a good 600 PAs has ever had a BABIP above .390. And that 28% line drive rate won't hold. As for Boesch, the regression is in full swing. At the ASB, he was hitting near .340 with a .390 BABIP. He is now down to .305 and a .339 BABIP. Boesch's track record in the minors along with that unsustainable BABIP (especially since his batted ball rates looked extremely normal) made me feel that his hot hitting wasn't going to last all that long. Of course, Jackson's the much more toolsy player in comparison to Boesch, so that may be why Jackson is still floating while Boesch is sinking. Either way, those are two little anecdotes about unsustainable BABIP and line drive rates.

Rudy Fernandez and Brewer would be a nice 2 guard platoon.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 09:23 AM) But you and this article are doing the same thing that Big Sqwert admonished Balta for. You are picking events to justify an idea you have about the sample. It's guessing. I'm not saying that 2 months of numbers is an adequate sample size or not. I haven't done the power analysis either. But you using the term sample size wrong. You can say that he is bias in using certain data to make his point, as you and the article did above. But before you start using the statistical terminology in relation to statistics, not events, you should have the data to back it up. There is always statistical error, like the example you pointed out. This is another reason why people shouldn't live and die by Bill James' made up stats during the discussions on this site. I'm sure somebody has tried to do a power analysis. Guys like Tom Tango and Mitchel Lichtman have been doing sabermetric research for decades. They have a whole book dedicated to things like bunts, clutch hitting, lineup order, hot and cold streaks, etc. If you dig deep enough, you might find something about power. I haven't come across it myself, but it might be out there. Bill James is just some guy who is looked at as the guy who makes up all these stats nobody has an idea about, but he's not really one of the current innovators of sabermetrics. Asking him about something 10 years ago probably isn't going to give you the whole story.

QUOTE (clown baby @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:32 AM) Thome has a .933 OPS, and is the exact lefty power bat that we are missing... Hating the Thome shift is a pretty dumb reason to not want him. Ozzie really screwed up picking Kotsay over Thome. It's going to cost us some good prospects now if we want to get somebody of equal production to Thome. That move is really not talked about enough. It could end up costing us Hudson and another good prospect. Ozzie screwed up. Plain and simple. I really need to stop listening to the Score, the callers give me headaches. But last night, some idiot called in to Les Grobstein and tried to defend Ozzie's decision by saying that Kotsay and Jones are more versatile and since they've hit 19 home runs combined, they're better than Thome. I hate people sometimes.

Mark needs to pitch like he did in Oakland. Let's take this series now.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 08:57 AM) rant/ People need to stop using the "small sample size" defense. The last I looked nobody has done a power analysis to determine what the proper sample size needs to be to predict the outcome of a 162 game schedule. Until that's determined you have no idea what the adequate sample size need to be. People continue to use statistical analysis without regard for the reliability or validity of any of the processes. This is one of the problems with all of Bill James stats. He bases them off things he thinks makes sense, but has never done and will never do reliability studies on them. I've e-mailed him and asked him those questions and he replied once about 10 years ago. His respose was "they seem to make sense to me." He doesn't respond to any statistical analysis questions anymore. I know I've stated this before but it bothers me when people use statistical analysis for their discussions when they really don't know how to use the terms. /rant. Judging anybody based on a two month sample size isn't a good idea. We've seen numerous times where players go on incredible 2-month power streaks (Chris Shelton, Jonny Gomes) and end up playing like absolute crap for the remainder of the season. As unlikely as it seems that a nobody could run into 20 some odd home runs, it is possible, but somewhat improbable. But still possible. I just read yesterday that the NFC had won 14 straight coin tosses in the SuperBowl, the odds of that happening are 1 in 16384. Seems incredibly improbable, but it's still happening. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/a...tingrandomness/

Westbrook is about as good as Joe Saunders. If you really need a 5th starter, why not?

QUOTE (Brian @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 09:13 PM) I think he does and he said he wouldn't vote Omar first ballot. But he may have been hypothetically saying that. Enough people will. He has legitimate reasons for not voting Omar in, but saying that Jeter was a better shortstop defensively just made me do a double take.

Looks like those bad mechanics are starting to take somewhat of an effect.

QUOTE (clown baby @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 07:51 PM) it seems like the dbacks are willing to trade him. he has decent peripherals this year and has great stuff, as always. i think he would be a great number 5 for the future and a good number 4 now. it would make hudson expandable. not sure what exactly they are looking for, but i can actually see it being possible to get him and dunn before the trade deadline. in other words, coop will fix him. teach him the cutter. You can also try and dangle him to Washington for Dunn.

It's good to have a laugher once in a while. Gavin was real good today, as usual. By the end of this series, I expect Detroit to be buried in the dirt and 5-6 games back of us.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 08:18 PM) nice to see Brennan Boesch coming back to earth. Now if Pavano would re-discover his Yankeeness... That was more than due. Regression to the mean at its finest.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 07:58 PM) Omar sure thinks we need to add another player to this team.... "I think we need to add something," Vizquel said. "If it's not another pitcher, probably it's another hitter. This is a time where we really need to make a step towards getting better and to separate between the teams that are around, having a chance, and the teams that really need to go on to the playoffs. "I guess the final cut is coming. This is the last time to make a change, and I think that with another guy on the team, we might secure the next step." I enjoyed his first comment. Well if it's not a pitcher, then OBVIOUSLY it's a hitter. lol. I like Omar more now.

QUOTE (scenario @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 06:32 PM) LOL at Garza's phone conversation with his 8 year old son after the game... (His wife and kids were visiting relatives in California.) "My son is the funniest kid ever,'' Garza said. "When I threw against the Marlins, he told me, "Man, dad, you suck - one inning, seven runs. I could do that.' I call him last night and I said, "Matthew, did you watch the game?" He's like yea. I said, "Nine innings, no hits. Who sucks now?" And he goes, "You're still not an All-Star." "He's a chip off the old block. It was good though. He's a competitor, and that's the way I like it. He keeps you grounded. He's like, you're not the best yet. So don't start floating away yet. I think that was the coolest thing, because for me it's him getting into baseball and watching it.' That kid is cocky.

I'll be in tonight.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 04:56 PM) Smoak is 23 years old, was the 11th overall pick in the 2008 draft, the #13 overall prospect in baseball (Beckham was #20 last year) and hit .293/.411/.461/.872 in 599 PA in the minors between 4 levels over the last 1.5 years. The fact that he struggled in his first 275 major league PA at age 23 didn't change his status as an incredibly valuable young player with huge upside. Smoak is basically = Beckham. Smoak's actually been really, really unlucky this year.

There's a much better likelihood of him getting hurt when he's playing defense. Because you know, that requires a lot of running. Injury-proneness is one thing when you look at Quentin, but the flip side is that his defense is flatout atrocious. The ankle and knee problems have made him even worse lately.