Eminor3rd

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 02:20 PM) I would take a package of Soler, Almora, Baez, and Bryant. I'd rather have Alcantara than Baez

I'm not sure there's a reasonable Cubs package I'd take for Sale. I'm not high on Baez like so many other are, though.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 10:56 AM) We will see what happens. This guy comes from Oakland, Beane has emphasised getting on base when stocking his lower levels. Hitting is hard. You can know exactly what you are doing wrong and what you need to do to fix it, and still not be able to do it. If this guy can make Garcia and Viciedo stars and on base machines, he will be worth his weight in gold. But guys still chase pitches. There are some built in things with hitters that are very difficult to change. I agree with you absolutely on this. There's pitch selection and then there's pitch recognition. One is a plan, the other is a skill that not everyone can develop. The coach needs to teach the plan and assess the skill. If players don't have the ability, they need to be cut. I would assume that since the players we have are all still here but the coach is gone, the organization believes it's the instruction that is faltering -- though I acknowledge there are a lot of politics and PR involved that may trump all. For example, I think Viciedo can't do it, because I see him look like he's deciding to take random pitches before they are even thrown, and half the time they're strikes. Then he swings at the next pitch above his eyes. He looks like he's trying but failing miserably. Alexei, on the other hand, has never done anything differently at the plate since we got him. He's getting gradually worse because pitchers are getting better at pitching to him and he's getting older and slower, and he refuses to adjust his game to stay on top. That could be his stubbornness or a failure in his instruction, not sure. But the fact remains that if Viciedo/Garcia CAN'T add 30-40 points to OBP, either through instruction or new skills, they will never even be average major league players.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 10:39 AM) I have no problems with this guy. I would just say if you really think the hitting coach is going to increase everyone's OBP 30 or 40 points, you probably need rehab. If that's out of the question, why are we even rostering Viciedo, Garcia, Phegley, Flowers, Beckham, etc?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 10:39 AM) If you really think a month or a year with a new hitting coach is going to make Ramirez, Viciedo, or Garcia more selective, I have some Sears stock to sell you. They have played under multiple hitting coaches their entire lives but still have the same approach. I don't think there is much hope for Alexei to improve on that. As you do get a little older, sometimes you do get a little wiser, so maybe Viciedo and Garcia can become more selective, but odds are against it being anything drastic. If you show no signs of even trying to change habits which are NOT a matter of muscle memory after a year, that means you're not coachable or not capable. I can think of no industry where showing zero progress over the course of a year doesn't get you fired. So either those guys are unsalvagably bad, refuse to take direction, or it's the coach's fault for being unclear or having a bad philosophy.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 10:25 AM) I am reading his quotes and he appears to be saying the exact same things Manto was saying. Even mentioning going out of the zone once in a while. As far as swinging at strikes, I don't think there is a hitting coach who doesn't preach that. The fact is, the fewer strikes you have on you, the more selective you can be. I think everyone knows that from when they started playing Little League. If they know that, they don't ever seem to act like it. Alexei Ramirez, Dayan Viciedo, Avisail Garcia, and Josh Phegley swing at horrible pitches early in the count with startling regularity. He said sometimes you need to go out of the zone depending upon what a pitcher is trying to do to you, which still requires being selective about pitch location, it just means that the zone where you're looking to hit may shift. This is starkly different than the concept of expanding the zone for the sake of driving runners in, which we heard from Manto. This is completely ignorant to (1) the fact that you decrease your chances to be successful by expanding the zone for the sake of putting a ball in play and (2) the fact that you must establish the boundaries of your strike zone with a pitcher in order to force the pitcher to stop throwing bad pitches to you.

I'm down

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 01:13 AM) LOL. Trying to figure it out. Either way, I think Granderson was plan B, and frankly not as talked about as it was in the media. Now I could be shocked and see some activity next week, but right now I'm seeing alot of scouts flying to Chicago. And you wouldnt need those for someone like Granderson. Isn't Granderson from Chicago? Wouldn't be surprised if he still lives here in the offseason. Not that they're like, scouting him on the couch or whatever, lol. I don't know, I guess it doesn't matter.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 04:38 PM) I can't win. Though I try. I wish an objective debate coach could come in here and deem me the winner. Seriously, before this thread, I thought you were starting to get more reasonable overall. But that post about Ozzie revolutionizing the field of baseball management is just savant-level insanity.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 04:10 PM) Grady Little used that "revolutionary" strategy in the 2003 ALCS and barely made it out of Boston alive. Right! But evidence to the contrary never fits into revisionist history, does it?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 04:11 PM) Maybe revolutionary was a questionable word. It was different, though; managers had gone to the lefty/righty thing in 05. Yes, they had, when their starters weren't pitching extremely well and efficiently. And, the results of the specialized reliever trend have been overwhelmingly successful in every measurable way. Ozzie Guillen had nothing to do with the incredible performances our pitchers gave us in that post-season. The only thing he could have done was ruin an obviously good thing unfolding in front of him. I guess we can give him credit for not sabotaging those performances, but no one is going to buy any argument that 99% of all managers wouldn't have "done" the exact same thing, which was doing nothing.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 03:57 PM) Can somebody give me play by play? Any matchups where various managers would start to play the lefty/righty game even with workable pitch counts? You are aware that reliever usage has steadily increased over the years, right? That hundreds of managers had been letting their pitchers pitch even deeper into games than Ozzie Guillen for DECADES? That even IF Ozzie Guillen had actually been doing something different than his contemporaries by "boldly" letting his starters flirt with 120 pitches, it would be a call back to the norms that had dominated baseball for OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS, thus representing something similar to the absolute antithesis of the word "revolutionary"?

QUOTE (joejoedairy @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 11:50 AM) waiting for the other shoe to drop.... right.. I get it!

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 03:36 PM) Yup. You. greg is out of control now and it's your fault. And I can't stop taking the bait.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 03:35 PM) I don't see how you can go through that post point by point and not at least agree about the Oz in 2005 that I describe. Revolutionized big game baseball by letting his pitchers do their thing? ENGINEERED A PROGRAM that allowed his players to believe they can win? You've got to be kidding. You're trying to tell us that Ozzie Guillen INVENTED the concept of starters pitching deep into games and of trying to keep his players thinking positive about winning.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 03:31 PM) It can't be that ridiculous if a human being currently employed, never been in jail or in trouble (knock on wood on all that stuff), in charge of a family, believes it. I am a sane, untroubled person and believe it so how can it be deemed that 'ridiculous?' You don't agree about that team being a well-oiled machine? The defense had to make u proud to be a Sox fan and who was in charge? Lol, yes it can greg, yes it can.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 03:23 PM) Not an advertisement, a press release announcing their search for a new manager. I thought you would be excited, they are trying to get your man back managing. Online press releases ARE ads these days. It's a slightly outdated but still widely employed content marketing tactic. Greg is almost never right about ANYTHING, but he's right about this.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 03:13 PM) He basically revolutionized big-game baseball, or should have revolutionized it, in his letting the starters do their thing so deep into games the whole way. Aside from that, he engineered a program that allowed his players to believe they could beat all those good AL teams en route to the Big Dance where we took care of a good but not great Houston club. He put a team on the field golden with the glove that amazed me with its efficient, professional, incredible baseball. That kind of a run thru the postseason??? Remarkable. It's belief, baby!! Lol, greg, wtf universe do you live in?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 02:48 PM) I'm talking about as a manager; it's not easy to win the big prize. He's in elite company. His ONLY problem is his big mouth. It's probably not correctible unless there's a clause in his contract that everything he says that 'concerns' management, he'll be fined $100,000. If it's worth 100,000 to Oz to mouth off, so be it, the team would take that cash in a second. Problem is he's not quite THAT good to even mess with it. The Mouth he has will keep him out of baseball. People like me think that's unfortunate. First, you assert that there is value in having won before. You are implying that having won before is evidence that a manager is a good bet to win again. Then, the VERY NEXT THING you do is give an example of a manager who won before and -- despite being really good and having really good teams -- was never able to win again. You cannot be serious.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 02:32 PM) Don't discount the value of a guy who has won the big prize. As good as Leyland is, he couldn't get a ring with the Tigers though he got one earlier than that. You just talked yourself in the smallest, most efficient circle I've ever seen.

Even if you thought they were speaking under the table (which I don't), how could the Sox put a valuation on him before he finds out if he receives a qualifying offer? It's 100% false.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 12:42 PM) Is calling Ozzie bilingual a reach? lol

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 11:43 AM) I thought that Toronto wanted Lawrie because they were trying to put Canadian-born players on their roster to draw in the fans. I think that's just a media narrative. They always do it with Miami too.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 11:36 AM) An interesting question that I was pondering as I too had those first world problems shack had(couldn't sleep)..... If San Fran came along and offered the Sox Sandoval for Q and a much lesser prospect which would you guys rather do? Sandoval/lesser prospect or Lawrie and the 20th overall prospect? I'm kinda torn here. While Sandoval has been the better, more consistent hitter overall, Lawrie might have the higher upside but is much less of a sure thing. Does the potential of a potential front end of the rotation starter a year or 2 down the line push you to take the risk on Lawrie, or with this offense the way it is now make you disregard the high end prospect for the more sure thing offensively? What says you? Comes down to age and team control. Gotta be Lawrie

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 03:02 PM) Before I'd make that deal, I'd have to see who the best hitter 26 or under Quintana could bring back regardless of position. I'd think it would have to be better than Lawrie. Like who? I can't think of any that would be realistic for Quintana. Pitching is way easier to find than hitting in the current offensive environment, I think you have to pick someone with a little of the shine worn off like Lawrie.