Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 3, 2015 -> 04:37 PM) Hahn has said this plenty of times so this is my thought as well. Honestly, if Soto is healthy he could steal a lot of playing time from Flowers, especially if Tyler doesn't put a .355 BABIP again.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Mar 3, 2015 -> 10:34 PM) Everyone, including ZIPS (the machine that it is) saw Sanchez last year. Isn't likely to hit much more than 250/290/350 but he's a slick glove guy metrics and scouts both saw that. We saw it, dude has serious range and a solid arm at 2B. Micah is likely to be a poor fielder even if he's better offensively. I don't like that trade off on this team. What makes you think Micah is likely to be a poor fielder? And how does ZIPS value defense for a rookie with zero games played in the majors?

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 3, 2015 -> 04:36 PM) Looking at tomorrows lineup, which is very likely a regular season lineup we'll see against LHP, it's kind of sad to see that some ugly bottom third from last year. Beckham-Flowers-Sanchez has minimal offensive upside. If Micah gets the job and can get on base at a ~33% clip I want him batting lead off. Every time he gets on base he'll get plenty of chances to run with Eaton typically seeing plenty of pitches. The brain trust really seems to love the prospect of Melky hitting second and I understand why but I worry the team, as currently constructed, will be a little too top heavy. I hope they're flexible enough to hit Melky #5 or #6. Especially if Avi Garcia doesn't set the world on fire which is a very real possibility. I know a lot of advanced metrics say you should have your best hitter hitting second but I think we have guys with speed/bat control that could benefit from having speed on base in front of them. Essentially, Eaton should always be #1 or #2 and some mix of Melky, Micah and Bonifacio should make up the other hitter. I agree with everything you say here, but I think for 2015 at least Micah should bat 9th. First, I see his OBP closer to .300 than .330 given a typical rookie adjustment period, which is too low to bat in either of the two spots directly in front of Abreu IMO. Especially when we have two relatively high OBP guys in Eaton & Melky as alternative for those spots. Second, I want him to have the green light at all times and until he refines his technique/strategy against major league pitchers & catchers, it's better to limit the amount of outs he makes on the base-paths while Abreu is at the plate.

I love the idea of Micah batting 9th this season. If he can get on-base at even a halfway decent clip, he's going to score a f***ton of runs with Eaton & Melky batting directly after him. Hopefully he wins the 2B job, because he'll be fun as hell to watch.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Mar 2, 2015 -> 05:18 PM) Still hope we hold him back, even if he's ready. What is it, a month for a full extra year of service? More like two weeks. It would be really, really stupid not finding a way to keep him down for a couple of weeks to start the season. Hell, we really don't even need a 5th starter for the first two weeks due to off days. Even with the Sale injury, I see no reason Rodon would be needed short of another injury.

100% hoping that Micah wins the 2B job. I really like Carlos, but he projects much better as a reserve infielder. If I'm going to give everyday at-bats to a prospect in a season I'm serious about winning, then I definitely want it to be a guy who can possibly be the long-term answer at the position. Unfortunately, Sanchez's upside is pretty limited offensively IMO. I actually think a lot of people are sleeping on Micah. He might of had some struggles along the way, but the Sox pushed him through four levels over the past two years. And yes, I know he was a college draftee, but he missed half of his junior season due to an elbow injury. The fact is the Sox have been fairly aggressive with him and despite that he's had a couple stretches of dominance. His AA performance in particular was quite impressive and sold me on him as legit prospect. If healthy, and that's the biggest concern IMO, he can be a dynamic offensive player. Defensively he needs some work, but playing everyday with Alexei and working with the major league coaching staff might be good for his development.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 01:20 AM) Maybe I'm in the minority, but I actually really liked The Order. I can see some of the complaints people had with the early game being a bit slow and not a ton of gameplay, but I had fun with it. I think it breaks down into two camps. If you're one of those people who doesn't care about the story in games and skips cut scenes, then stay far clear of this game. If you think of cut scenes as a sort of reward for beating a section of gameplay and don't mind watching the story unfold for a few minutes in between gameplay sections, then you'll probably enjoy this game. It's gorgeous, the world they created with the knights is cool, I enjoyed the story, the science weapons they made up are super fun. The gameplay is fairly average for a third-person cover shooter, but nothing egregious. There's a s***load of quick time events, which I normally can't stand, but this game's weren't annoying. I can see why a lot of people weren't thrilled with it (although there are very few bad reviews, simply average/ok ones), but I enjoyed it. It's not five hours long like leaked on the internet, you'd have to sprint through the game to pull that off, but it's shorter than an Uncharted game for example. If you're worried about it, get it for $20 at some point down the road and it will give you a good weekend. I actually enjoy story-driven games, even if they lack traditional gameplay. Heavy Rain would be a perfect example of such a title. And honestly I'm cool with shorter length games, but I can't justify paying $60 for a 5 hour experience. Glad to hear it's a bit longer and that the story/setting is as good as advertised. Like you said, probably worth a shot if it's $30 or less, which is likely in a couple of months.

Regarding Rodon and service time, a full year is considered 172 days. Given that a major league season is 180+ days, you simply need to wait two weeks or so before calling up the player to get that extra year of control.

The only way Shark is getting 5/$140M in free agency is if he's a Cy Young caliber pitcher this year. Very dissapointing to find out he's completely delusional about his own self worth. No way we extend him anytime soon if he's looking for $28M a year.

Wow, IGN gave The Order quite a dissapointing review. Definitely will be passing on that game now.

I think saying Micah has limited upside is pretty foolish. He's got 80 speed and shown enough plate discipline to suggest he can be an impact leadoff hitter. Defensively, he's got the tools to be above average. Obviously he needs to put it all together, but if he does the ceiling is pretty high. Unfortunately, people evaluating him rely too heavily on his AAA stats, which are likely deflated due to him adjusting to the level while having hamstring injuries.

I'm surprised the Melky Cabrera deal has gotten no love. IMO, it's one of the few non-Cuban deals that is likely to provide surplus value over the life of the contract. Plus by all accounts he's a great clubhouse guy. I personally think it was a better signing than the LaRoche deal, which seems to be getting a lot of praise.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 01:57 PM) LOL. Good rebuttal. Why don't you remind us all how Hawk really wasn't that bad of a GM again? Clearly you have no agenda here.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 10:48 AM) While I may tip the scale in one direction or the other, blaming one person 100% brings another "come on man" kind of comment. Stone has some blame as well. We can discuss if it is 10% or 50%. But you can't allow Stone to skip with zero blame. You're right, Stone should tell Hawk to STFU once and a while, so let's blame Steve for about 10% of this mess.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 07:29 AM) What I don't understand, and I do think they do get along better these days, is why 99% of people think if Hawk and Steve aren't getting along, it is Hawk's fault. If one were to interact with each of them seperately just as Joe Fan, it would be 100% the other way. If you ever run into Hawk on the street or at a hotel or something, the guy couldn't be more pleasant. Stone, let's just say he acts like they will be renaming the Cy Young award the Steve Stone award fairly soon. Come on man, Steve Stone may be a complete asshole outside the booth, but Hawk is 100% to blame for their awful in-game chemistry. He's constantly talking over Steve and doesn't allow for different opinions/perspectives from his own, which is a shame because Stone has intelligent viewpoints he could be sharing those watching. We get you like Hawk a lot, but let's not ignore reality here. At this point in his career, Hawk is nearly impossible to work with unless you pair him with a parrot that will just agree with everything he says. I can't see Stone staying with the Sox after his contract ends and frankly I don't blame him.

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.