Eminor3rd

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 09:51 PM) I don't think it is as simple as less strikeouts equals more double plays. Or vice versa, that more strikeouts means less double plays. It depends on the type of contact, runner distribution, etc. Guys like Matt Kemp and Ian Desmond struck out a lot last year but were also near the top in GIDP. On top of that I would bet that on average the guys that make consistent contact that are near the leaders in GIDP are also reaching base on error more than the big power guys that strike out a lot. How does that factor into advanced metrics? ROE is counted as an out towards BA, OBP, OPS, etc. I know the hardcore sabermetricians don't want to hear this but common sense tells you that if all else is fairly equal the guy that puts the play more often than the other guy will be more valuable to an offense. I don't think any compilation of advanced statistics can argue this point because there are too many variables to precisely quantify it. At that point when the stats cannot tell the whole story, it doesn't hurt to use a little common sense IMO. All of that is factored into linear weights averages. All of the things you mentioned are salient points, but they can all also be counted and their impacts averaged. Further, they've run year-to-year correlations to find out which factors are consistent and which act as randomness, allowing them to assign credit to players with repeatable skills and treat players who have exhibited non-repeatable "skills" as regression candidates, both positive and negative. Anyone who doesn't understand how linear weights work in baseball statistics should refer to Tom Tango's research from the early part of the 21st century -- it forms the foundation for how sabermetrics treats offense (at the plate, not the basepaths), and I've never seen even the most ardent traditionalists even try to put together a coherent argument against it. There's a ton of stuff in sabermetrics that is shaky, but this is not one of those things. And I think if you look into it, you'll agree. It makes a ton of sense. Regarding the bolded: You're right, but no one is arguing otherwise. The whole point though is that all else ISN'T equal in the cases we're referring to. As wite and I both said: there's no doubt that strikeouts contribute negatively toward offensive output (although it's less negatively than common sense suggests because of double plays), but strikeouts are only a component of offensive output, and we can just look at offensive output as a whole. People get too caught up in one component of hitting at a time as if we can't just look at how many runs a guy produces. And you can do that with both traditional and advanced stats. I hate the RBI stat, but even if you love it, you can look at RBI and see that Mike Trout drives in a whole bunch of runs DESPITE the fact that he strikes out. The strikeouts affect that number, but why wouldn't you just judge him based on the runs he produces? The K's are baked in there. If a guy is 20% above average at the plate but strikes out a bunch, he;s still 20% above average at the plate.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 05:51 PM) Eminor3 was talking about on field antics in comparison to Sale, or at least I thought, and Balta switched over to media relations. Regardless, I don't think him playing with fire was a detriment. Maybe Peavy showed up one of his defenders a few different times but it's not that big of an expense considering the energy he brought on a regular basis. In the media, Sale and Peavy are entirely different. Based on what we've seen so far, Sale shows great composure with the media. When I said "like Balta said," I was referring to just the phrase where he said that it was all fine when he was pitching well, not the rest of his post. Sorry for being confusing. Also, I didn't mind Peavy's intensity much at all when he was here, but I think it's gotten more out of control in the starts I've watched form him the past two years with BOS and SFG.

QUOTE (Stev-o @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 04:45 PM) I'm not "big" on the new metrics, but, isn't there something about "productive" vs "non-productive" outs? Obviously, you're better off having a guy sacrifice himself to get a batter into scoring position than him striking out. IMO, all outs are not the same. Yes, but runner distribution isn't predictive. So basically you can look back at a season or game and find out which hits or outs were the "biggest" and most important, but if you're talking about building a roster for the coming season, there's no reliable way to ensure that contact will come at the right times, so you have to assume that it will be the average number of times, which is baked into the linear weights values for all of the events, which comes out in total production, which brings us back to square one. So if two guys are 100 wRC+ guys, but one strikes out more, they're still equally valuable. You can look at stats like WPA and Clutch score to see which guy had the bigger impact, but the difference between those leverage related value and the context-neutral linear weights stats does not carry over from year to year. Also, it's beside the point, but a lot of the extra benefit (on average) received from contact outs versus strikeouts is negated by double plays. So the difference ends up being smaller than it intuitively seems.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 02:25 PM) I don't know if that ever was a detriment to Peavy. Obviously Peavy was more expressive on a regular basis but I don't know how you'd be able to quantify any effect that had. Sale on the other hand had his moments where he'd blow up but they were just more memorable than Peavy's day-to-day antics. I remember Sale going ape on the water cooler against the Rangers in August 2013, I remember him freaking out in Detroit last year and then just throwing big fists pumps after big outs. Either way, I don't understand your parallel here or how Peavy's attitude became in issue. Seems like more a comparison of convenience than anything. I am biased because I played with a lot fire and like watching animated guys. Like Balta said, it was fine when he was good, but eventually, as he became more and more of a cartoon haracter, it started to make him pitch hurt leading to disastrous results and went so far as to even give up a huge pennant race homerun after telling the batter he was going to throw a fastball. If you watch him now, you can hear him screaming more clearly than ever, and then you look at his numbers and realize he's just declining more and more.

QUOTE (shipps @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 01:21 PM) I am curious to see if Rodon is a hardass like Sale. If he has the same type of edgy competitiveness to him that will be pretty awesome to see the two feed off of one another. QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 02:15 PM) I think he might be even more of a visual competitor than Sale. Where Sale gets pumped up and mad at himself for the most part, Rodon does that and has had incidents where he'd freak out if NC State's manager. Brett Austin has also told stories of Rodon growling on the mound. Sometimes I fear Sale will develop into Jake Peavy, to the point where his physical loss of control actually becomes a detriment.

Ronon!

I think he's gonna hit fewer homers. His sophomore campaign will be a challenge as pitcher's have a year of data on him, but I think he'll adjust and have a very good season. It just won't be quite as good as last year. I say 27 homers, 140 wRC+ or so if he stays healthy.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 11:20 AM) The 2015 Cubs are going to be an interesting case study regarding this because they are going to strike out a lot and I don't think there's any question of it. Ultimately though, strikeouts are only a portion of offensive output, and offensive output is only half of winning games. Logistically speaking, strikeouts will have an effect, but if the offense scores a lot of runs and the pitching staff limits opposing teams, strikeouts won't matter. This is the critical point. It's the exact same thing as the "Dayan Viciedo hits homers though" argument. No one is saying that strikeouts "don't matter," it's that they don't get scored in games. They are a significant factor in the effectiveness of someone's offense, but if a guy is effective offensively DESPITE strikeouts, then they don't mean squat to who wins the game. Just like Viciedo -- homers ARE important because they help make a guy a good offensive contributor, but if he isn't a good contributor DESPITE the homeruns, he's still a negative at the plate. So you don't say "team that strikeout don't win much," you say "teams with bad offenses don't win much," and possibly add that strikeouts could contribute to that bad offense. But you have to accept, also, that they may strikeout a ton but still have a good offense.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 11:19 AM) If he drops weight, improves his defense and offense, he'll find a job...

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 10:36 AM) He doesn't like to pitch when he isn't getting paid. Lol

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 10:44 AM) I'll still gladly take Viciedo over Beckham to have more homers from 2015 until the end of their respective careers. Again, so what?

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 05:57 PM) I'm not sure, but I know that John MacDonald once got traded for himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McDonald_%28infielder%29

QUOTE (asindc @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 09:42 PM) I laughed at the dandelion-steak analogy. It's on point. Welcome to the forum

It's important to note that the penalty money form this MUST be paid within 30 days. So the team that signs him is going to have to write a check for $30-40m within a MONTH. This takes more teams out of the running than would normally be down for $75-80m for a free agent or something that can be paid gradually over several years.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 04:23 PM) Just don't let the Rangers anywhere near a phone Haha seriously.

Contract is looking bad before it has even begun.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 12:03 PM) And how many homers did all of those names combine for in 2014? Dyson and Gore have almost no pop. Rios had 4 homers last season. This whole "but Viciedo has 20 homer power" thing is a quintessential example of how NOT to use statistics. He's a substantially below average hitter no matter how he arrives at his level of "productivity." Adding homers at the expense of overall production would be ludicrously stupid. It would be like eating dandelions instead of steak because the dandelions have more vitamin C.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 10:22 AM) Why would you trade great prospects when you can just sign him I think he's suggesting it wouldn't take "great" prospects. I imagine it would, though, as I think Washington values its depth and that if one WOULD come relatively cheap, someone would have already made it happen.

Everyone knew Viciedo was terrible except Chicago and, apparently, Seattle.

Live arm, makes sense, aligns with my expectations from the start.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 4, 2015 -> 03:19 PM) Yes, but they could see where he's at in spring training for a few weeks for next to nothing. Someone will sign him, and probably wind up saving a couple million. There obviously isn't a team out there that thinks highly of his ability, because they don't seem to care about losing him over $1-2 million. I wouldn't be shocked if he signs one of those "minor league deal with invite" contracts where he makes like $2m if he make the ML roster.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 4, 2015 -> 03:06 PM) I am pretty stunned they couldn't find someone to give them garbage for him. I think the defensive limitations just made his downside too low. As many have argued on this board, his skillset makes him an exceedingly poor fit as a fourth or fifth outfielder, essentially meaning that he needed to break out to be of any use at all. I imagine several teams would have taken a flyer on his bat if they felt they could at least use him on the bench in any instance. Even though $4.4m isn't a ton these days, it'll still buy you a pretty high-end bench player, so to commit it on a guy who likely won't even be that useful doesn't seem like a prudent use of resources, especially given the nearly every team is "going for it" to a certain degree this year.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 11:10 AM) The problem with the White Sox system before was not that they traded away good prospects and therefore had none left, they traded away except for one or two exceptions, guys that turned out to be not so great, but they still had no one any good in the system. Hopefully the guys they have now are different. Prospects are BS for the most part, and some guys all of us really like now will be considered garbage in a year or two. I wasn't exactly a KW supporter, but by dealing prospects that didn't amount to much, he wound up with a lot more value than if he had let them develop into what they would ultimately become in the White Sox system. The sin wasn't trading prospects away. Indeed, a major part of this "sustained winning" model has to do with the changes in how amateur talent is acquired. It isn't simply trading/not trading prospects, it's investing in the health of the system in general. The KW era was characterized by a lack of spending on amateur talent at the benefit of increased ML payrolls (allegedly). Now that JR has the draft system he likes, the analog for "spending competitively" is now "drafting effectively." One exception to this is the extent to which signing free agents can cost draft picks and pool allocations. So, the bigger picture is really about balancing resources. The game has changed a bit, but you can still make a good case that the KW-branded administration often focused on the current year's ML team at significant cost to the farm system -- though it wasn't always simply a matter of trading prospects.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 4, 2015 -> 01:35 PM) Until Conor Gillaspie picks "Spanish Flea" Someone will need to be designated with veto power.

I say a player picks it, staff maks it clear who the pick is, and it goes on as long as they win. Then they move onto the next one. Would be cool for the fans and the media.