Eminor3rd

Guys. Lillibridge is horrible. Seriously, let's try to catch lightning in a bottle with Milledge.

QUOTE (chisoxfan09 @ Mar 14, 2011 -> 08:45 AM) I have high hopes Morel is going to be an above average hitting 3rd baseman. Not a batting champ or OBP machine but decent enough to start and compliment his solid defense. I think Morel will become Brandon Inge

O'Hare is a zoo. Go with Midway whenever possible. Kuma's Corner is where you can get the greatest burgers in the entire world. My favorite pizza place is Art of Pizza, but the famous ones are great too (Uno, Gino's East, Lou Malnatti's, etc.) As mentioned before, find a place on the Red Line. Takes you almost everywhere important, including the Cell. I get all my tickets on StubHub =\

My favorite player. For real. I have a Thornton shirt and everything.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 07:14 PM) Except that most catchers tend to not be productive hitters in their mid-30s. Look at Piazza, Johnny Bench, and I-Rod. Thurman Munson's numbers began to drop in his early 30s, a season and a half before his death. Fisk is the notable exception. If you have a decent defensive catcher who calls a good game and his "meh" with the bat (A.J.), then I'm cool with running him out there behind the plate until his knees crumble. Because that's where the vast majority of his value lies. But when you have a hitting talent like Mauer AND owe him $100M+ of guaranteed money, you make his health and longevity a priority. The problem is that a .330 avg with 12 homers and no speed isn't worth anywhere close to $23m in any other position on the diamond, especially not 1B or DH.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 07:19 AM) So do the Twins have anything on the way up in terms of minor league starting pitching? It seems like they've had the same batch of 5-6 guys as their starters since at least 2008. I think Kyle Gibson is about ready.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 29, 2011 -> 09:45 AM) Really? Why do you disagree with that? I thought the fact that all Delmon Young does well on D is throw was pretty firmly established. Yeah, Delmon is consistently below average defensively. Good arm, bad range, bad routes. The thing about the Twins is that their SP staff is due to completely implode. IMO, they've been playing over their heads for a couple years now.

Wow! The unmovable Vernon Wells. And they got Napoli back? AA is a f*cking magician!

Couple thoughts: 1) Teahen was nothing short of a trainwreck defensively last year at third. It was so bad that I actually think he's probably better than what he showed. Certainly, no one that's GOOD defensively plays that badly, but with a larger sample, I bet he's closer to 'below average' than 'Ryan Howard' level. 2) Having said that, I think my favorite role for Teahen is backup RF for CQ. Since CQ is obviously not going to be DH this year with any regularity, he's going to need significant rest if he's going to stay off the DL. Not sure what CQ's platoon splits are like, but I would definitely be in favor of throwing Teahen in RF against some tough righties, esp. if CQ is in a slump, and esp. now that a CQ/Teahen platoon will never need to bat higher than 6th in the order. Teahen is bad in RF too, but he's not as bad as CQ, and he's not as bad as he is at 3B. Essentially, I liken Teahen to a slower, better hitting alternative to Lillibridge.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 10:58 PM) Good article overall, and the comp to Masterson is one of the lesser points that gets discussed in the Sale closer vs. starter debates, yet it's a solid one. Sale flies open to right-handed hitters and gives them the opportunity to see the ball longer, which means that Sale as a starter is really going to have to develop that changeup if he's going to be successful facing RH hitters three times per game or so. As a closer Sale can use the change to keep hitters honest, but as a starter it'll be his main weapon, especially when he's working in the low-90's as opposed to the mid to upper-90's as would be the case out of the rotation. Same thing goes with Sale's slider vs. LH, it's going to be something he'll have to rely on a lot more and isn't going to appear nearly as devastating when he has to throw it for a strike in a hitters count following a FB that is 4-5mph slower than what we see out of the pen. Sale's best weapons are blazing FB, deception, and the ability to throw 3 pitches, but putting him out there as a starter takes away some of that blaze off the FB, minimizes that deception given repeat ABs, and forces him to throw his offspeed stuff for strikes more often. Also, in closing situations the game is on the line, and hitters often get in "swing for the fences" mode which allows someone like Sale to go out there and, more often than normal, get ahead of a hitter with a couple decent-to-bad sliders because the guy at the plate is sitting on the FB. But it seems like in earlier parts of the game hitters are more patient, and may wait for the pitcher to get a strike or two over before getting serious. And then you have the durability/mechanical concerns. The only thing I disagree with is any kind of implication that players are worth their WAR and that Sale as a closer is basically Bronson Arroyo. To me that's just like comparing the OPS of a corner OF with the OPS of a SS. That is nuts. Sale as a closer is horrible sight for hitter. His job is to kill rallies, send people home, and do it all year long whether in the regular season or in the playoffs, big game vs. a division rival or against the lowly Royals. Arroyo's job OTOH is to do a decent job eating innings over the course of a 162-game season, helping his team get to the playoffs and then hopefully (for his team's sake) hiding out at the back of the playoff rotation. There are far more Bronson Arroyo types in baseball than Chris Sale types. BTW I don't have a major problem with Sale as a starter even though I'd much rather see him as a closer. I just see it an unnecessary move that could easily backfire. And I don't see his ceiling as a starter nearly as high as it seems most of the people here do. I've seen a couple times at least where people have said he'd be at or above Danks' level. I completely disagree with that. I agree, wholeheartedly, that his stuff will not be nearly as dominant in a starter role. That's why I'm in favor of starting him in Charlotte and letting him figure his game out on AAA guys instead of at the bigs. I'm of the opinion that we can ALWAYS convert him to a reliever, but we should give him as much of a chance as we can to let him figure out how to be a starter first.

Eh, no way. Way too much money to take on, and I have a feeling we'd grow to HATE Ibanez.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/t...sale-conundrum/

QUOTE (kwill @ Jan 10, 2011 -> 05:03 PM) Stop trying to sell me car insurance. Hahahaha I thought that too, assumed it was just me.

I'd like to see some sort of data on the success of bouncing pitchers back and forth (which I'm sure doesn't exist because it would be impossible to gather) before I felt strongly either way. I'm just not convinced in the viability of the strategy solely from cherry-picking a couple examples of one-in-a-million freaks of nature like Santana and Smoltz.

http://bloggingfromthebleachers.wordpress....stics-part-two/ The tables aren't pasting very well, my apologies. Link above. Interesting to see the Sox pitching staff (MB, Danks, Floyd, Jackson, Peavy in the post above) coming out so mediocre in terms of the standard DIPS-like rate stats, but so totally elite in terms of bWAR. The likely explanation for this highlights one major strength of our rotation that often gets overlooked: the propensity to pitch a ton of innings. If you really think about it, our guys are really good at (1) not getting blown out of games early, and (2) staying off the DL, Peavy notwithstanding. What does this mean? For one, it means we'll do a good job of protecting the bullpen, hopefully minimizing the impact of it becoming worse this offseason. It also means that if someone DOES get hurt, it significantly diminishes the value of the group as a whole. Obviously, there a a million different ways to rank and evaluate pitching rotations, but I thought the post above raised an interesting thought.

QUOTE (beckham15 @ Jan 8, 2011 -> 03:33 PM) we already have that in Chris Sale You know, I may be in the minority, but I really hope Sale starts the season in Charlotte. The reason is because he clearly isn't going to be throwing as hard as a starter, and I'd like to see him test his "starter repertoire" on the AAA guys before bringing it to the majors. I'd just hate to see him get pounded a couple times early on and hurt his confidence or start trying ridiculous mechanical things to accommodate.

Seems to me like we have our team now (pending the Ohman physical). What other rumors out there seem realistic? Do we still think CQ gets moved?

Even without Sale, this is a very adequate bullpen for the AL Central. Good move, it's cheap and gives us options.

QUOTE (DOWNTOWN PANTHER @ Jan 7, 2011 -> 10:22 AM) Disgruntled fan??? My team won the NL Central last year. I think I speak on behalf of the Reds fans when I say that not having Dunn is a good thing. For the Reds at leat. I think we can politely agree to disagree. All I can say is lets hear your take on your 56 Million dollar man come July. I think you may be taking this a bit too serious. .380 or so OBP is elite these days, and plays nicely on a high-power offense that's low on OBP. I don't see how this is possibly a bad move. Sorry, man, not sure what's making you so upset about Dunn, but he just made our team a LOT better.

I think the Cubs will want to keep him as depth. I mean you never know what Carlos Silva is going to do.

QUOTE (Paint it Black @ Jan 6, 2011 -> 10:09 PM) Serious question and want to see where people stand: Omar Vizquel Y/N? For me it's an easy No. I agree that at first it seems like an easy no -- slick defense light-hitter. But then you look at the numbers and... doesn't he have the most hits of any SS in history or something? I feel like a plus-plus defender who happens to have the most hits in his position's history HAS to be in, right?

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 6, 2011 -> 12:28 PM) It's awesome to see Frank mentioned in there as one of the greatest 1B's ever. Posnanski is definitely a Frank Thomas fan. There's an article somewhere of Posnanski making the case that Frank should be a slam dunk first balloter.

QUOTE (Pale Sox @ Jan 6, 2011 -> 02:10 AM) The idea that Alomar was a "negative" defender statistically really puts a damper in how I value statistic defensive metrics. Darn statistical evidence getting in the way of the actual truth.

QUOTE (Pale Sox @ Jan 5, 2011 -> 07:33 PM) One of the first comments on that article basically explains Dunn's changed approach, explaining the Nats hitting coach wanted him to have a more aggressive approach. I remember the Reds did the same thing when he first came up for a couple of years, and he struggled then too. Hopefully Walker leaves him alone. Here's the article the fangraphs commenter linked. http://www.masnsports.com/the_goessling_ga...roach-work.html I agree. If he hits 40 homers when he's being patient and walking a lot, and he hits 40 homers when he's aggressive and strikes out a lot, I think I'll take the former.

I've only played Baseball Mogul, I've always wondered if I wanted to get into OOTP.