Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 14, 2015 -> 10:50 AM) If you're given the choice between that and having your spouse no longer be able to see a doctor, isn't the choice obvious? Um, the rest of us have jobs too. Many of us rely on cars and therefore gasoline to get to these to jobs and provide for our families. But I get it, it's ok for you to sacrifice your moral highground when it's your family at stake, but the rest of us are clearly monsters who support beaheadings when we fill up our gas tanks. Again, please scrap the ridiculous holier-than-thou act.

Let me get this straight, Balta has accused everyone that uses gas/oil of somehow supporting beheadings, but at the same recently admitted to applying for a job at Penn f***ing State, an institution that enabled a child molester for years and still views one of those enablers as sacred. Talk about some holier-than-thou bulls*** right there.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Feb 8, 2015 -> 05:26 PM) You're right. Your opinion is most certainly more accurate than unbiased statistics. Are you familiar with BABIP? I guess GMs must not use these "unbiased statistics", because you think one of them would have given Ronald a major league job if he was simply unlucky last year.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 7, 2015 -> 10:45 AM) Would you please stop this? Thanks, snookie lover. Absolutely disgusting...

QUOTE (Douglas Rome @ Feb 7, 2015 -> 09:38 AM) baseball has been very very good to Diane V. how much has he made in the last 4 or 5 years? More than enough to go back to Havana and sit on his front porch and eat tacos and get big and fat and live like a king. thanks, douglas This is just a stupid f***ing post all around.

The problem with linear weights is that it treats all runs equal, when we all know that is not the case. The distribution of how those runs is scored is incredibly important. All else being equal, a narrower distribution will result in more consistent scoring and ultimately more wins. A lineup full of high strikeout players may score a ton of runs (if power is there), but their output of runs will have high levels of variation. A lot of their runs will come in blowouts and provide no marginal value. Total run production obviously matters, but consistent run production is far more important when it comes to wins and losses.

Locking up Shark would put our rotation in great shape for the next 5 to 6 years. Assuming it was a 5 year extension, we'd basically have the core of our rotation locked up through 2019/2020. Sale - 2019 Quintana - 2020 Shark - 2020 Rodon - 2020/2021 Say Shark gets $21M a season, we're talking about a total commitment of about $50M for those guys in 2019 and even less every year before then. That's f***ing insanity and a credit to the job Rick Hahn has done locking guys up early and adding cost certainty to the payroll going forward. On top of that, Montas & Danish are probably only a year or two away, with Spencer Adams not far behind them if you believe he's as advanced for his age as his peripherals suggest. Honestly, lock up Shark and this is the best shape our rotation has been in in my entire lifetime as a Sox fan.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 02:53 PM) PECOTA seems heavily regressed to the mean, and while that might make statistical sense, what we are interested in as fans isn't the mean case, but the outlier case(s). What is interesting is the breakouts, both at the team level and player level. I haven't seen where PECOTA predicts outliers any better than ZIPS, or even the Diamond Mind sim predictions. Plus, the Sox have a lot of guys without a lot of data on them, or bad data due to injury. Garcia and Eaton (his bad 2013) fall into the injury related cases, and Jose Abreu is a 28 year old that had the 3rd highest wRC+ in baseball last year. Projections are going to put him down for a regression, but many scouts (and us fans) might be putting him down to actually IMPROVE, based on the fact that now he knows the grind of the season, many of the pitchers, how they plan to get him out, etc. I wouldn't guarantee it, but with Jose, there just isn't a lot of data for the projections to look at, in this instance scouting might be better informed. And of course playing time projections are often inaccurate. I'm not completely arguing to "throw out the projections, including PECOTA" but it's been proven time and time again that their predictive value is mixed, at best. Yea I'd rather the Sox were projected for 100 wins, but it's not the end of the world to see 78 either. I don't think Hahn or us fans think this is a 78 win team. I think it's closer to 85 but that's just my opinion. This is a great post. Well said.

I appreciate what projection systems attempt to do, but Dick Allen has a fair point on the accuracy of them. They work as a point of reference, but nobody should be putting too much stock into them. Honest question, but what does Pecota project for Melky this year? I'm guessing he's being unfairly punished for the season he had a spinal tumor.

If used appropriately, I think this is a solid move. I was high on Saladino as a reserve infielder, but there's nothing wrong with having some depth in AAA. I'm guessing he'll get a shot at some point this season, whether due to injury or another player's lack of performance. And this should definitely keep Luery Garcia off the roster and allow him to get consistent ABs in AAA. The only downside to this is we now have less resources to use towards a 4th OF, which I think should be a fairly big concern for us. We really don't have much depth at the position in the minors. Maybe Trayce Thompson finally figures out how to hit to some extent and can become a quality 4th OF, but that seems like a long-shot. Michael Taylor really doesn't do anything for me either. Right now, it seems like Shuck pretty much has the job without a legit competitor. Given his track record, I find that to be very worrisome. We're pretty much f***ed if any of our OFs go down for an extended period of time.

The amount of talent in the 16 to 30 range is eye-opening. Sure, the vast majority of those guys will end up being nothing, but at least most of them have decent ceilings if all goes well. We've definitely decreased the amount of organizational types in our system over the past few years. Very encouraging sign for things to come. As for missing players, I would have liked to see Antonio Rodriguez near the bottom of the list. I'll take his potential any day over a guy like Wilkins.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 07:49 PM) Top 10 LF and RF episodes start in 10 minutes on MLB Network. Did Melky crack the LF list?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 19, 2015 -> 03:00 PM) They're such different level pitchers I don't believe so. This is similar to the money I though Scherzer would get, but the terms are crazy. Maybe "avoiding crazy terms" winds up impacting S a bit, but I don't know about that. Shields struggling to get a deal, waiting until at least late January, and possibly taking slightly below what people thought he'd get might have more of an impact, IMO. What's crazy about the terms?

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jan 19, 2015 -> 07:26 AM) My question is why are Sox fans offended? Ricketts was talking at Cubs Convention with Cubs fans and made a joke. First of all, the attendance problem is real and true. Second, it's an innocuous joke. Sox fans would get a similar kick out of a joke told by KW at the Cubs expense if the circumstances were similar. Because Tom Ricketts has accomplished nothing during his brief ownership of Cubs. On top of that, attendance has decreased significantly since he acquired the team. Why is he talking s*** exactly? Until the Cubs become competitive, he should avoid taking cheap shots at other teams.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 19, 2015 -> 07:03 AM) What am I spinning? His quote was ,"Can't be that many kids having fun at USCF". I would think the attendance number would matter. If USCF is better for kids, and I would agree with that, (even though when I was of that age, I was totally into the game and not the other stuff, and am sure my dad wouldn't have brought me to a White Sox game after the first couple if I wasn't all that interested in what was happening on the field) why are more parents, in these days where everyone gets a trophy, and speaking to your children in a loud tone is considered abuse by some, really abusing their kids, and tsking them to Cubs games and not Sox games. Again, the one thing White Sox fans can do to stop these types of comments, is quit finding excuses not to go, and buy some tickets once in a while. The White Sox fanbase set themselves up for this type of comment with all of their apathy. I'm done, no need to waste another second on your straw man argument.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 19, 2015 -> 06:25 AM) As bad as the Cubs have been, their attendance last year would have been a top 5 all time number for the White Sox. People paying much attention to the comment, and upset he is breaking out the attendance trophy again, need to come back with something better than the Sox have face painting and a fundamentals deck. The fact is more kids do go to Cubs games, and really that is all Ricketts said. Lol...talk about spinning. Not one person is arguing the validity of Tom's statement. We all know the Cubs draw better than the Sox. Again, the initial statement was regarding who offered the better fan experience for children. Until children start buying their own tickets, attendance numbers really don't matter in this discussion. At the end of the day, Ricketts clearly took a cheap shot at the Sox to cover up a weakness in the Wrigley experience. There really is no denying this. But go ahead and keep defending the Cubs owner who has literally accomplished nothing on the baseball field.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 18, 2015 -> 07:34 PM) There are more kids at Wrigley Field than USCF. Ricketts said there weren't many kids at USCF. He is correct. We all laughed several years ago when there was a billboard around Wrigley that stated major league baseball was played 8.1 miles south. It was an off the cuff comment at a convention for the team. if people are upset he speaks the truth, change the truth Come on man, he took a cheap shot at the Sox because he didn't want to admit there is more for kids to do at the Cell than at Wrigley. There's really no debating this. But go ahead, defend Ricketts for no reason other than the need to argue.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Jan 18, 2015 -> 07:04 PM) QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Jan 18, 2015 -> 07:05 PM) Most not have been Beanie Baby day!

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 18, 2015 -> 07:08 PM) IMO, if White Sox fans don't want to be the butt of attendance jokes, they should go the the games. I don't understand the outrage here. The draw 1,000,000 more fans a year, and some guy questions him using a team that doesn't draw anything but tumbleweeds as his example. The question was on kids having more fun, not more of them attending games. There's clearly a lot more for kids to do at the Cell than at Wrigley. Not sure what you're arguing here.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Jan 18, 2015 -> 06:09 PM) Forget Zimmerman and stras , what about fister? Honestly, I think any trade with the Nationals is unlikely due to our relationship with Rizzo.

QUOTE (LDF @ Jan 18, 2015 -> 05:36 PM) as i been spouting about, the nat's want to sign Schezer and that will leave Zimm to be traded. it can be done.. again if the cost in players is reasonable. The cost for Zimmerman will most likely be unreasonable. The Shark trade was the exception, definitely not the rule. If we decide to trade more prospects, we should be targeting a long-term answer at catcher, not another rental SP.

Tom Ricketts is a such a f***ing tool.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 18, 2015 -> 02:54 PM) Because he hasn't done it either consistently or in AA. Spectacular year, but didn't even reach 100 innings. There ought to be guys who have put up much more consistent numbers than that. And these guys have Montas' stuff?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 18, 2015 -> 12:52 PM) Those guys seem too far away to reach top-100 in MLB lists to me. Montas will be in AA next year, how is that too far away for top 100 status?

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Jan 17, 2015 -> 10:06 AM) Do you see Montas as a starter long term? I thought I saw somewhere that he projects to be a closer. It depends on how his changeup develops and if he can maintain the command he displayed last season. Those are both big questions, so it's really impossible for me to guess one way or the other right now. However, the potential to be a top of the rotation starter is legit. I'm hoping they give him the opportunity to start until he proves he can't handle it.