Eminor3rd

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 06:10 PM) Welcome Mike. I want you; please want me. I don't even

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 08:25 PM) To which I said in the other post how these projection systems are extremely conservative and projects the most likely outcome, but rarely predicts well with breakout seasons. I believe the Sox will have more players who are positive outliers compared to the projections. I wasn't advocating to look at WAR to predict team record, but I believe it's a good indicator of team success. And FWIW, the average variance of last season's record for all teams compared to team WAR total is 4.3 wins, which might be better than some of the beat writers' projections. I agree with this. But this is reflected in the mean. It's just as likely to miss a breakout as it is to miss a meltdown. It simply isn't likely that the Sox will experience more of one than the other. It's possible, surely, but it's a less likely outcome. The distribution of those breakouts and meltdowns is, largely, what no one can nail and why the projection systems will never accurately predict a season record for all the teams at once. But, they do a good job of putting everyone on an even playing field and showing you the average outcomes. What we should take from these is that the Sox have a lot of guys who, if they act like history shows, have shown signs that their performances were better in 2014 than they will be in 2015. It doesn't mean that they won't go undefeated and have the 25 best player performances in the Majors next year, but it's a useful piece off information that we should keep in mind.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 05:16 PM) I did as well. I like WAR as a rating system, but I take these WAR projections with a huge grain of salt. Having WAR in the 40 range would mean you're an 88 + win team, and in the 20's says you'll win around 70 games. FWIW Sox ended up with 24 WARs last year, and they end up winning 73 games, so I think it's a pretty good indicator. I'm not talking about WAR, I'm talking about the top projection systems and what they say about players. If you add up WAR and guess records, you're going to be way off. Everyone agrees with this.

84, I think we make a good run for the playoffs but ultimately fall short.

I might try to sneak into Chicago in April/May, before our Penn League seasons starts. Wish I could be there to see this stuff more.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 02:59 PM) The reality though is that some guys should get better, some guys should get worse, right? It shouldn't be "every single guy will perform worse than he did last year" as shown here. What I found fascinating is that with a projection of "every single guy on the White Sox has a worse 2015 than they did in 2014", we're still right on the edge of what would make that a competitive team. QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 03:02 PM) How did the WAR projections work out with the standings last season? I think I read the Red Sox led the AL East in actual WAR, not projected, and finished in last. Some guys will beat their projection, some guys won't. That's how it goes every year. And even if they don't win the WAR trophy, it doesn't mean they won't actually be better than teams that finished ahead of them. Exactly, and that's why it makes sense to use the aggregate as a frame of reference rather than get caught up in the specifics. That's what math is really good at: macro-level trends. At the end of the year, you'll be able to go through and find all kinds of outlier players that the system missed on, but as a whole, it's going to be pretty damn accurate.

In general, fans are never realistic about their players' upcoming regression. We always assume the guys that underperformed will get better, but the guys that overperformed have "broken out." If we're being realistic, we'll probably get worse performance out of 3B, SS, and C. We're hoping for upside out of RF, CF, and 2B. There's a good chance we'll see noticeable negative regression out of Sale and Quintana, because they both had AWESOME seasons. I mean, can you really ever "project" a guy to be a Cy Young finalist? We can't bank a 2-flat ERA out of Sale any more than we can bank a league average bat out of Gillaspie. There are TONS of problem with these WAR projections, but there's some truth in what they illustrate, which is that it isn't safe to expect that every player on our team performs within 10% of their absolute peaks.

Here's the thing about all this spending: there's only one signing that "mortgaged" the future at all, and that's Robertson. IMO, Hahn's model of sustained winning is still in play. Even in the Samardzija deal, you figure that with a midseason trade or, if things go well, qualifying offer pick, Hahn will get back much of the value he gave up. It was Semien and a bunch of prospects that didn't even crack the top ten in a weak system. Essentially, Hahn is doing everything he possibly can to win SO LONG AS it doesn't affect the future. Scherzer would most definitely affect the future, so I don't think there's any chance we get him. The plan now is just to get better every year, not to "push the chips in" and go for broke when the iron feels hot.

Biggest thing is health. The lineup and rotation look fine until you subtract any one piece. We have no depth and it may kill us.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 05:05 PM) Hypothetical: What happens if Rodon comes out and absolutely tears it up this spring? You still send him down? I do, for at least three weeks.

I heavily disagree with this. 1. We need to keep him down a few weeks so that we can push his free agency back a year. 2. You're not going to get anything for Danks anyway, so why not let him cover those 50 innings you won't get from Rodon? Otherwise it's going to be like Chris Beck 3. What happens if Rodon isn't ready? You either rush him to his detriment or get even more worse innings from Chris Beck/Parker Frazier (?) or some other random. Look, I was ALL about dumping Danks for nothing before Hahn went on his balls out spending spree -- but now we need depth more than ever. Danks is bought and paid for, and there's nothing we can do about that. If he's our best 5 man, let's just use him.

I think we'd be better off finding strong, right-handed bench pieces to share time with Gillaspie/LaRoche at this point. Sanchez won't hit like Lowrie, but the glove will be substantially better, and you gotta figure the resources are running out at this point. May not have enough to make more than one more move, if any.

QUOTE (WKamm @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 08:21 AM) Went to 2 games last year. No, I don't like Harper. Having both Melky and FLowers is too much. I legitimately feel sorry for you. It must be frustrating to be so caught up in some off-the-field crap that it interferes with your ability to root for your team in a rational way.

QUOTE (professa @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 12:55 AM) This is just my opinion, but if I'm Rick Hahn, I keep Viciedo as a power guy off the bench. He can spell LaRoche against lefties (I know, Viciedo hasn't hit lefties well since 2012, but still) and is a good insurance policy due to the injury history of Melky and Avisail. If one of those two gets injured, that means Jordan Danks is your starting LF/RF, and that is not a good first outfield option off the bench for a playoff contender. I don't think we can afford the 4th OF to be so bad at defense. This team still needs a ton of defensive help. I'd like to see them be aggressive with late inning replacements to protect leads this year. I'd honestly rather have Danks than Viciedo.

These dudes are SO fast, lol: http://www.rosterresource.com/mlb-chicago-white-sox/

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 12:42 AM) As in? Danks???? I really hope its not Quintana QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 12:44 AM) Almost has to be Danks. Wait, that actually makes a ton more sense. Roughly the same salary in as out.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 12:40 AM) Corresponding roster move. Juiciest bucket comment of the offseason so far Could you be implying that Viciedo is gone?

Guessing this was the third guy. Well, I was hoping we'd get a good defender out there, but at least this is the switch-hitting #2 batter I wanted.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 13, 2014 -> 12:34 AM) The equivalent of Kotsay and A.Jones five years later. Troof. QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Dec 13, 2014 -> 12:37 AM) As great as this off season has been so far, it has also been a big reminder at just how many holes this team had. Hard to fix it all in one off season without spending $130M in payroll. Troof.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Dec 12, 2014 -> 04:30 PM) White Sox and Seattle taking Dayan Viciedo has been on going for two years . One club more serious now ! https://twitter.com/MLBBruceLevine/status/543515457073192960 Pags ‏@HEELPags 1h1 hour ago @MLBBruceLevine Please tweet in English. lol

I'm actually really hoping Sanchez nails down 2B out of ST because I think he can be a plus defender there. Sounds like Micah has the bat, but is fringey in the field, and I just don't think we can afford to add another fringey defender next year.

QUOTE (AlSoxfan @ Dec 12, 2014 -> 11:56 AM) I'm sorry but I can't believe for a sec. that we're only good enough for 77 wins. Am I being to much the Homie fan? I think Hahn made some pretty shrewd moves an improved us to at least a better than 500 club. and with a good yr. I really believe we can compete for the central or at least a wild card spot. I think we still need a left fielder at least but otherwise I'll take my chances with this team. QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Dec 12, 2014 -> 12:03 PM) I'm sorry but I take some projections with a grain of salt. I can guarantee you that no one projected the world series last year would have the royals and giants in it. To me you can project things a bit better when games are being played but look at the A's having a lead and looking like favorites until the faltered down the stretch. There is also teams that surprise every year or teams that are supposed to win and falter. To me the biggest things that people can't project is luck and you definitely need some luck as the season to go on for things to bounce you way. But you can also have things bounce against you and nothing that you can go about it. Yeah, I'll reiterate my last post: QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 12, 2014 -> 11:44 AM) Yeah, I mean those are the "grains of salt" we have to take these projections with. I think it's more useful to look at these projected standings in a relative sense than to get caught up in the actual numbers. What this tells us, essentially, is that there are still a lot of teams that look better than us. If one year of Samardzija is going to make sense, we need to make a couple more upgrades yet. Speaking to the broader issue, though, is that this team has some serious weaknesses. Offensively, we've got "black holes" in LF and C, and are expecting regression from 3B and probably SS. Garcia in RF is a HUGE question mark -- we assume he's going to hit, but he hasn't yet. Defensively, we're still a rather bad team. Both OF corners are completely ridiculous defenders, both IF corners are just a notch better, and our CF is probably overrated. The rotation falls straight off a cliff after Quintana at 3, where our two best options had ERAs near 5 last year. We all hope Rodon will save one of those slots, but he isn't going to show up until May at the earliest, and it isn't safe to assume he's going to be a star right out of the gate. There's still a lot of work to do if this team is going to "project" to be in the hunt. We certainly have enough talent today to luck ourselves into the race if everything goes well, but I'd like to think Hahn has a better plan than that.

RE: OP. 'Ware Justin Verlander. He's struggled learning to pitch with diminished velocity, but he absolutely has the changeup to do it well, and the body and mechanical profile to maintain his command. And he started looking like had it figured out toward the end of last year. I guess what I'm saying is that Samardzija might actually be ranked third here. Regardless, those 1-3 ranks are very close together. EDIT: Also, Ervin Santana > Jason Vargas by far

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 12, 2014 -> 02:53 AM) http://www.blessyouboys.com/2014/12/11/738...2015-al-central Manaea's not the #4 starter for the Royals. It's just impossible to put someone who started important post-season games behind him. With the Royals, it's probably Ventura, Duffy, Vargas, Guthrie and then there are about 5-7 possibilities for 5th starter, among them Manaea, Finnegan and Zimmer (if healthy). The Indians would probably list it Kluber, Salazar or Bauer, THEN Carrasco at this point. Minnesota would be Hughes, Santana, Gibson, May and Millone. No Nolasco...or, at best, he's 5. Did you see Carrasco's numbers last year? http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...&position=P You're right about Manaea, though. Much more likely that Finnegan slots there, IMO. For MIN, I can't see any way that May starts the year in the rotation ahead of Nolasco, even if that's the better choice.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 12, 2014 -> 09:12 AM) I would have loved to see Kemp land on the South Side. It would have been fun, for sure, but my god at some point this team has to stop getting worse defensively, right? It's really looking difficult to make that type of an upgrade right now.