Eminor3rd

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 11:04 AM) Parent was fired because of reasons that are only own to people in the org Only useful fact stated so far in this thread since the OP.

I feel obligated to say this once every ten pages: If you trade young stars locked up to long-term, sub-market deals, you will ALWAYS be rebuilding. These players are the elusive "best case scenario" for what prospects turn into, and it only works out 1% of the time. You wouldn't spend $1,000 to buy four lottery tickets that each gave you a 1% chance to win your money back.

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 11:18 AM) Semien would serve no purpose on the current Sox team. Sanchez/Johnson cover 2nd, Alexei/someone else plays short, and Olt/Saladino/etc play third. His glove is awful, especially on the left side of the infield. He'd probably be best suited for 2nd base and there's no space for him. Exactly. I LIKED Semien, but we have to acknowledge that it's a good idea to trade from depth.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Oct 14, 2015 -> 07:54 PM) He definitely does. The manager creates an atmosphere that either encourages or discourages the team. As I originally posted, I had not seen the Cubs play until this series. Look how Joe Maddon is making changes with his lineup. I would think having a lineup w 4 rookies playing key roles makes his job a lot tougher than a team w a strong veteran presence. The manager creates the atmosphere and ultimately is the cheerleader and the ass-kicker. Read Terry Francona's book about all the drama that comes with the job. Having rookies who hit dingers makes his job easier than having rookies who strike out and fail on defense.

Blech we can't keep these guys long enough. Who's next to inherit the "best pub scout writer" crown?

Mark, I don't know you, so please don't take this as personal, but this s*** really grinds my gears. QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Oct 12, 2015 -> 07:56 PM) Finally regarding advanced stats. I'll simply say this...they obviously have a part in the game but baseball is played by real life humans with billions of variables in play literally throughout the season...from injuries, to slumps to bad weather to bad calls and fluke bounces. THOSE SIMPLY ARE NOT, CAN NOT AND WILL NEVER BE QUATIFIABLE...period. I think those who think they can are delusional. Literally no one thinks this. The randomness/unpredictability of particular events is DEEPLY ingrained in projection models and regression analysis and have been for over a decade. In fact, one of the easiest ways to use sabermetrics without digging in at all is simply to know which numbers/events CAN'T be predicted and then look to see if a player's performance has been greatly affected by them. If so, that player is not likely to continue whatever it is that player has been doing. QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Oct 12, 2015 -> 07:56 PM) Plus I like to think I'm a fairly intelligent individual. I want to be able to enjoy baseball and not need a f***ing advanced degree in quantum theory or advanced mechanics to be able to...let alone to be able to even try to understand most of the gobbledygook that is being spewed out by some computer geek in his basement on his laptop. (Not directed towards you or anyone in particular but just as a general comment.) Where do you get this "advanced degree in physics" crap? Harold Reynolds? 95% of every "advanced stat" is just an average. This stuff is NOT hard to understand, it's just that people like you refuse to attempt to understand it, and that's evident in the fact that you imply things like sabermetricians insisting that randomness can be predicted. You have an issue with something that doesn't even exist. You CAN get it, you just don't WANT to get it. Even when there's complicated math involved (i.e. Markov chains used in projections), you don't have to understand the actual math to understand what the math is doing (i.e. generates the average outcome of events of given probabilities in a way such that previous iterations don't affect future iterations) This is what it looks like when people decide they hate something before they even try to understand it. It's totally fine that you aren't interested and don't feel like spending the time to learn about it. By all means, enjoy this game however you like -- it's nothing but entertainment, after all. But then please don't draw random, uninformed conclusions about it anyway.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 06:46 AM) Hahahah, cmon on man. Sale could easily get you Arenado and Cargo. Add Fulmer, Q and Abreu? Hah. I'm not sure Colorado would trade Arenado for Sale straight up. Maybe since they need pitching so badly, but that's how valuable pre-arb positional stars are.

Guys Arenado is not getting traded.

I think the Sox are going to be active, but I don't think it's going to be in the free agent market. I think they'll be looking to make several trades to improve the offense, and I think they'll sign some dudes to improve the bullpen.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Oct 7, 2015 -> 06:40 PM) Well, it's not like I suggested giving Eaton away. Bring a 3B and/or C in for him. How then are the Sox going to get better? You have to trade something to get something. I think Trayce is miles better than Eaton defensively (a lot of that is because Eaton isn't particularly good defensively). I also don't know why people are so down on Avisail, yet say nothing about Melky. Huge age differential, salary differential. Both are poor defensively (although Avi had more assists). While Melky out-hit Avi, he still was below par offensively. Melky Cabrera has a long history of being an average to above average contributor. He's put up 2.5-4.5 fWAR in three of the last five seasons, and one of those where he DIDN'T was a year where he had a tumor on his spine. Avisail Garcia's entire career has been a below-replacement-level trainwreck in which he hits like a mediocre second baseman and fields like he's never played baseball before. It's much easier to see Melky putting up a 2+ WAR season that it is to see Garcia putting up a 2+ WAR season.

Yeah that's strange. Why DFA these guys now? Why not wait until a trade or signing needs to be made?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 7, 2015 -> 09:38 AM) The fact that they are not blaming the manager means they are blaming the players. I expect a very active winter for the White Sox. That's the way I took it, too. I think it's ultimately good news.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 08:49 PM) Another thing that bothers me is it seems like the good CFer's generally have higher defensive value than corner OFer's. Again maybe it's something I see rather than a fact. But a CFer can run gap to gap at full speed while corner OFer's must temper their approach to balls hit down the line because of the chance of colliding with walls. This tempered approach is necessary unless you have no regard for your body yet corner OF's can't get those ridiculously high defensive ratings as much as CFer's do. Alex Gordon was about the highest you'll see in 2014 for a corner. Heyward in 2012, 2014 and 2015 was pretty high also. When someone like Trout moves from CF to a corner doesn't it seem like their defensive rating always goes down yet they are the same player with the same speed and abilities. I know being strong up the middle is essential in baseball like it's always been so a truly gifted defensive CFer has more inherent value built into the position just like SS does. Again playing a corner means you can't run as fast or must slow down when approaching walls but is that something that is taken into consideration ? The defensive numbers just tell us about what plays they make. They don't care how the player went about making the plays. As this Statcast stuff continues to develop, we'll be able to develop a much richer idea of what each player does well and poorly and I think it will contribute substantially to our notion of what actually makes a good defender at each position. For now though, we just count what they managed to pull off or not and give it a run value.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 08:08 PM) Hmm doesn't seem like his offensive numbers are worth 2.5 WAR to me at all. Under .300 OBP , 98 wRC . And sorry once again if the advanced stats confuse me and I don't understand evrything I am looking at. But to me it looks like just about all of his WAR came from defense. QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 08:19 PM) LOL. he must be the best defensive center fielder of all time. Absurd. Couple things: 1) That defensive runs number includes the positional adjustment, so he's getting 10 or so runs tacked on just for that 2) His defensive runs was the highest in the entire MLB this year, and it wasn't particularly close. So if you think it's absurd that he could contribute that much, keep in mind that we've chosen an example that literally represents the most extreme outcome. Also, for whatever reason, people assume that it's gospel that "defense never slumps" and reject the idea that players can have good or bad years with the glove despite evidence to the contrary, so it's very possible that Kiermaier PLAYED like the best CF of alltime this year without necessarily BEING the greatest CF of alltime.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 01:43 PM) Heyward is like 26. He'll be the big fish of the bats. Maybe a 5/80 for Cespedes or Upton. I don't know what the market would be and if I'd sign them yet. Just throwing two names out there with numbers. Cespedes will easily be $100m+. I can see him with a Werth-like deal.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 01:52 PM) Plus offensive contributor, elite defensive player and only 26. You're buying his "prime" years instead of his 29/30+ years with your typical free agents. It's a combination of the players he is, his age and I am sure the fact that he was once the consensus #1 prospect doesn't hurt his case. I wouldn't advocate doing it but given the way the market has been I get it. He's also an on-base guy in an era where no one gets on base.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 01:40 PM) OK. I appreciate you getting me up to speed on this. Seems like it has limited predictive value then, which is what my initial hunch was. No problem!

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 01:30 PM) The difference is the White Sox don't deliver at all. They're bad every year. They can't draft position players, either. That's fair, but I'm just saying it isn't a lack of a plan.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 01:06 PM) So we don't know to what degree BABIP is random chance and what might attributable to changes in the player's TWIW, do we? I think we do know the degree -- I don't personally, but researchers have been able to attach factors to the influence of batted ball profile, ballpark, and quality of opposition. The end result is, roughly, that the majority of it is random chance, but speed, GB/FB rate, and LD rate are significant factors as well. If you look up a list of all the MVPs, for example, you'll notice that all of them run high BABIPs in their MVP years. You'll also notice that they all run high line drive rates in their MVP years. High LD rates correlate strongly with high BABIPs. High LD rates are not shown to be stable from year to year at all, though; they basically occur when a player is hot for an extended period of time. And that makes sense -- guys that win the MVP are "having good years" and/or "playing to the peak of their abilities." So it isn't that it's random, but it ACTS as randomness because we can't predict its peaks and valleys and is better predicted by its collective average than it is by its recent values. We don't know when a guy is going to have the best year of his career, but we do know what it looks like when it's happening, and we do know that it isn't very likely to occur twice if it's driven by high BABIP.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 01:21 PM) To be fair, Theo did come out and basically say at the time, we're gonna suck for 3-4 years so be patient. At least that front office had/has a plan and are on the same page. Ours does, too. They're going to try to remain competitive every year, without ever "going for broke." And it's fine -- the team has zero market-rate financial obligations beyond 2017 and the farm system continues to improve.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 01:49 PM) So when a guy with 1200 career balls in play has a .300 BABIP and the next year he has 400 balls in play with a .330 BABIP, what's his BABIP going to be next year? There's no way to know -- but the most likely outcome will be whatever the largest total sample shows. So say that after that 400PA year of .330 BABIP, his career total is now .312 or something -- the most likely outcome over the next 400PA is .312 (though you'd have to adjust more for aging curves and anomalies in batted ball profile, which is essentially what the projection systems do).

QUOTE (shysocks @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 01:11 PM) Moving my response to the advanced stat thread. I would say it's because baseball isn't a controlled probability experiment like flipping a coin. It's more complicated. There are dozens of factors that determine what happens to a ball in play. It involves a human being hitting a round ball hurled by another human being at varying speeds and trajectories with a cylindrical bat; the ball can then travel to any part of a 3-dimensional playing field, where any of nine human beings must react to turn it into an out. To get less fluctuation you could do two things. One is simplify the experiment. I would bet that if you could have the same pitcher in front of the same defense throw straight fastballs down the middle of the zone at the same velocity to a hitter for 400 ABs, his BABIP would fluctuate a lot less. Two, you could increase the sample. For a coin flip 400 is a lot of trials, but with all the factors in baseball, it's not that many. But in the last five years, with 180,000 plate appearances per season, the league BABIP has only ranged from .295 to .299. Right. Put simply, there are two answers: 1) Expected value will converge to the mean as sample grows. One season may be far off, but five season won't be. 2) BABIP is NOT supposed to be truly random, it's just that random effects explain most of its value. Players that hit lots of line drives or ground balls, for example, can increase their BABIP.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 10:22 AM) Thanks .It just seemed odd to me that Kevin Keirmaier gets a 32.0 defensive WAR this year which is ridiculously high and overall is a 5.5 WAR player but realistically is he that same WAR playing CF in the Cell because much of his value is defensively. FYI - the 32 number isn't "defensive WAR," it's "Defensive runs" which is an input into WAR. The actual number changes year to year, but usually roughly 10 runs = 1 WAR. So, essentially, 3 of Kiermaier's 5 WAR came from his glove.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 09:59 AM) That's why advanced metrics make me crazy. As a fan you knew exactly mathematically how to do batting average , OBP , slugging percentage because its all simple math that reveals part of a picture but not all of it. Some of these new metrics you have no idea what went into devising them and just how full of flaws they might be. And on the offensive side what gets rated higher ? Does a walk with the bases loaded contribute as much to WAR and other offensive advanced metrics as a single that drives in 2 runs with the bases loaded ? Oh, it's not that I don't know what goes into them, I'm just not sure if the defensive component is park-adjusted before being put into WAR. If it isn't then that's an interesting area for future study and significant results could move the needle toward making defensive metrics more accurate. As for your second question: the bases being loaded would have nothing to do with either situation. The hallmark of offensive saber stats is that they are context neutral -- which allows us to compare players apples to apples (or close to it) rather than by stats that are as much (or more) dependent on how good a player's TEAM is. Basically, if a guy gets a walk, he gets awarded the difference between (a) the mean run value of what a walk produces on average in the current run environment and (b) the run value lost if he made an out instead. In 2015, a baserunner-starved environment, a walk was worth 0.687 runs more than an out. So the batter would get 0.687 when he walked, no matter how many men were on base. A single, if you're curious, was 0.881 runs in 2015. So he DOES get more credit for a hit that could score multiple runs, but that value gets normalized. EDIT: Sorry, didn't see shysocks' reply =\ In case anyone is curious as to the other wOBA and FIP constant values: http://www.fangraphs.com/guts.aspx?type=cn

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Oct 6, 2015 -> 09:17 AM) Yes he was terrible, awful, a huge disappointment but I often wonder if the elite OF's this year Kevin Pillar, Kevin Keiermaier, Jason Heyward, Lorenzo Cain put up the same defensive WAR in US Cellular ? Seems like Sox OF's somehow get punished for playing there. Who was the last Sox OF who even had a decent defensive rating like say a 5 on the positive side ? The OF's I mentioned are all 15+ so I'm not asking for much with a 5. Everyone harps on Avi's D (well his offense too) but his defensive WAR was a -13.8 while Adam Eaton's was a -8.8 . Someone show me a good defensive OF who played for the Sox in the last ,say, 15 years.Oh hell make it 25 years , still might not find one with a decent defensive WAR. It's an interesting question -- I have no idea if advanced defensive stats are park-adjusted.