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QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Feb 21, 2013 -> 07:29 AM) Morel put up a .653 OPS in 2011, despite a monster September. He also didn't have any significant back injuries that year. Ignore last season, and this is basically his body of work at the major league level. All he's shown so far is that he can be a good glove, light-hitting 3B. Let's be honest, no one knows what we have in Brent Morel at this point in time. A rookie season doesn't define a player, but let's not forget Morel was never an elite prospect to begin with. However, given what's he shown in nearly 600 ABs, there is simply no reason to rush him back to the majors, not when we have a capable starting 3B. Let him get consistent at-bats in AAA and prove himself once again. If he shows enough at Charlotte, then he can be considered for a role on the major league team later this season. I'm with you. I'm not saying Keppinger is a sure thing, but there is absolutely no reason not to assume it's his job to lose. The guy was .329/.367/.439 last year, and Brent Morel was .245/.287/.366 in his NON-injured year. Yeah, Keppinger is probably not good at defense at third, but let's not forget that Morel hasn't exactly lived up to the hype of being the great defender we thought he was -- he has essentially graded out as a scratch defender in his time in the majors so far by UZR and I think the eye test has matched. I'm not saying he can't be better than has been both offensively and defensively (our samples are small in both cases), but there's really nothing there so far to suggest otherwise. So in a year where you claim to be competing, there is no reason at all to force playing time for Morel to see what you have. Keppinger has got to lose the job first.

I have nothing against Morel, but all his recent performance is bad. Keppinger is coming off a career year, so it's his job to lose, IMO. I'm totally cool with giving a healthy Morel a real chance is Keppinger comes out sucking, though.

If they ever make the playoffs, I'd bet attendance would increase noticeably the next year.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 19, 2013 -> 03:53 PM) For the most part. Essentially, not having minor league depth, to some extent, reduces your ability to let guys like Konerko and Dunn sit and get healthy because you will lose too often due to the terrible quality of the replacements. As such, they will play and perform better than replacement level players, and thus better than projected, even though injured, but they will not be performing at their peak physical condition. Yeah, but for a guy who is going to spend all year in AAA if all goes well, you can't get much better than Dan Johnson. Anyone better wouldn't sign up for that kind of role.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 19, 2013 -> 03:31 PM) So what's the downside in playing guys if it produces extra wins? I think you guys are arguing the same thing.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 19, 2013 -> 03:07 PM) The problem was that there was no guarantee 3 weeks would have done it. According to our resident physician and what we could get from the Sox post-season statements, there was a reasonable chance that if they tried to remove Konerko's bone chip, that would be it for him for the season. It turned out to be wrong, but that couldn't have been known before the surgery was attempted. If you had a 50% chance of dealing with Dan Johnson from June - October, wouldn't the decision change? Certainly.

In retrospect, I could have dealt with 3 weeks of Dan Johnson while Konerko rested up -- but I don't know if I would have made the decision at the time if Paul said he was good enough to go.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 19, 2013 -> 02:41 PM) And how much of it is just pure luck? Yes, definitely. It would be more accurate to say that Cameron made a compelling case that staying healthy can add several wins. How much of the credit goes to coaching/training, player's propensity for health, and pure randomness, we do not know. But we can assume that the parts that the team can control -- the training staff and perhaps the player's health track record -- are significant parts of that equation.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Feb 19, 2013 -> 02:25 PM) To add to what has already been said about PECOTA projections is that I think one reason PECOTA has historically underrated the Sox is that it has consistently underrated Mark Buehrle. PECOTA is based on the assumption that pitchers who had a BABIP that strayed far from the .300 average were either very lucky or unlucky to do so and were likely to revert to the mean in the future. They never adjusted for the reality that Mark actually had the skill to get a lot of outs without missing a lot of bats. Of course Mark is no longer with the Sox, but that's just an example of how PECOTA is flawed. Indeed, Mark is an example of the largest blind spot we have in pitching analysis, which is the class of pitchers that appear to be sustainable "exceptions" to DIPS theory. Jered Weaver and Matt Cain are two other big examples.

QUOTE (SI1020 @ Feb 19, 2013 -> 10:31 AM) Horrible article. I have never been a fan of run differential or the whole Pythagorean win thing. Now they can say, well weren't that far off after all. They're lousy at predicting and some of us have actually spent lots of time on this and still refuse to bow at their altar. Yeah, I think you missed the point. This is a group of people trying to figure baseball out -- it makes perfect sense to investigate the flaws and exceptions of your model in order to improve. Using this info, Cameron just made a compelling argument that the quality of a medical staff can add several wins per season to a team by preventing replacement level players from getting playing time. It's super interesting and makes a ton of sense and we never would have known if someone hadn't done all this work and spent time and energy analyzing it. But the longer you try to look at information like a war between nerds and normal people, you're going to miss out on great insights like this.

Baseball America ranks Hawkins as the #55 overall prospect going into 2013

QUOTE (flavum @ Feb 18, 2013 -> 12:39 PM) Interesting... http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/t...ng-projections/ Was coming here to post this -- very interesting indeed. We knew about this, but it never struck me as something that could make quite THAT much of a difference.

This is the worst time of the baseball year. There's literally NOTHING happening, but we get constant reminders via useless articles that baseball isn't happening but will be sort of soon, so that the time passes as slowly as possible.

QUOTE (KG#1 @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 10:09 AM) Sox Claim Campana in August Anyone check that little blurb out? What would you guys think if the Sox got him? Dude is fast, but can't hit. I would think the Sox would pass. Yeah, we have fast guys on the bench. No need, really.

Nice work man, let us know if there's anything else we can help with.

QUOTE (flavum @ Feb 12, 2013 -> 07:38 PM) And they made mistakes too. They stuck with Morel too long, especially when he was batting 2nd. And Dunn can't be a 3-hitter for a winning team. I'm not going to knock Ventura for one season of managing, but I have no idea if he's a good manager yet. It all seems like a "college of coaches" scenario, with Robin doing the pre- and postgame media sessions. I just don't feel like he's the guy in control yet. And when he turns down a contract extension, I have to question how much he wants to do this. Truthfully, I'd rather have Mark Parent managing since he paid his dues in the minors, and has a good reputation. They had it won and blew it. Every player sucked for the last two weeks of the season and the blew a substantial lead. You should be complaining about them blowing it, not where Dunn is batting. He still has to hit, and the formula worked just fine all year. But they blew it. Sucks.

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Feb 13, 2013 -> 10:59 AM) Good morning lovely people of Soxtalk. It's been a long road (kinda, not really) & today's the day. Just over 5 hours of voting left. http://mlbfancave.mlb.com/fancave/vote.jsp...bid=0p2APw_luw7 Thank you again for all the support. Just voted about 15 more times. Good luck!

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 12, 2013 -> 03:24 PM) I've never had any problem with that. I've changed my tone a bit in believing that he could make it as a starter, but I believe he would be incredibly streaky as a starting pitcher, depending entirely upon the effectiveness of that screwball. As a reliever, he can light it up to about 95 and then the screwball (so long as hitters don't wait on it, like Cespedes did last year) it can be extremely effective. Yeah, his screwball is a good weapon because it looks different, but it doesn't have near enough movement to be a reliable swing-and-miss offering. It will be very effective if he uses it only about 10% of the time -- it's value is in its surprise.

So it consistently underrates us.

I'm changing mine: The Sox are competitive to the point that Hahn makes a big time pickup at the deadline that is more than just a rental.

QUOTE (ROC Sox Fan @ Feb 10, 2013 -> 09:48 AM) MLB Network Top 10 Right Now completed Third Basemen 1. Miguel Cabrera 2. Adrian Beltre 3. David Wright 4. Evan Longoria 5. Ryan Zimmerman 6. Aramis Ramirez 7. Chase Headley 8. Brett Lawrie 9. David Freese 10. Pablo Sandoval Just Missed: Pedro Alvarez, Kevin Youkilis, Alex Rodriguez, Jeff Keppinger, Todd Frazier, Manny Machado, Will Middlebrooks, Mike Moustakas While not Top 10, it's nice to see him get some "Just Missed" love. I'm very excited for some steady 3B contributions this season. Yeah, I mean we should really be expecting league average production from him, and I think we'll get it.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 10:59 AM) A lot of players add the leg kick for timing. I dont think Viciedo is lacking in the power department Yeah this is kind of a head scratcher for me -- he seems to have no trouble squaring the ball up. To me, his issue is purely pitch recognition. Every pitch he takes looks like he decided beforehand not to swing. I wonder if this isn't something to get him to habitually load his swing so he can make a decision to swing later.

I asked Mike Newman (FanGraphs prospect guy) about Thompson in a chat, and here's how he responded:

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Feb 7, 2013 -> 03:17 PM) Yeah, cuz you throw in the towel on Beckham to justify Keppinger's contract. Makes sense. All these exciting offseason moves really bring on the feeling that we're going for it this year. That's not what I said at all. I don't know if you've noticed, but Beckham sucks. Right now Keppinger is a better player than Beckham. Therefore, it's more likely that Keppinger will play better than Beckham. You throw in the towel on Beckham because he's never been good and now you have to give him arbitration raises.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ Feb 7, 2013 -> 03:47 PM) Just read a mag at the supermarket previewing the 2013 season they have the central looking like this.. Tigers, Indians, royals, sox and twins... Lol, wow.