3GamesToLove

They need to make some kind of decision on Garcia, obviously.

Protected pick!

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Oct 4, 2015 -> 04:15 PM) I'm surprised that his fWAR is as high as it is among Sox pitchers. And yes, I only watched him from 06-now, but I know exactly how important he was to the 05 team. Pre-05, his numbers don't look like a #1 pitcher. Even with his 3.29 ERA in 2001, his FIP was 4.10. A ton of innings with a 120 ERA+ will take you places. You forget the offensive era.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Oct 4, 2015 -> 03:11 PM) Ed Walsh Chris Sale Wilbur Wood Eddie Cicotte Billy Pierce Red Faber Ted Lyons And then there are the pitchers who "put on a Sox uniform" but didn't spend their prime pitching seasons here. Don't get me wrong, Buehrle was a great pitcher for us, but let's not overrate him. His numbers aren't nearly as good as the posters here make them sound. Those guys are all better, obviously, but I think if you're top ten in a franchise this old, you definitely count as "one of the best." He's 7th on the list of bWAR for the Sox is within 3 wins of #4. If you want fWAR, then he's #5. Also, not to sound like one of those "did you see him play!?" guys, but you were six years old in '05 so I'm not sure you have the right perspective on Buehrle.

Quintana is the man. I bought a shirsey of his in April. In the dozen games I went to this season I can count on one hand the number of other shirts/jerseys I saw with his name on them, which is baffling.

There is literally no downside to names on jerseys, except for teams who do nameplates that look crappy (thank God the Sox don't). Off the top of my head, the names on the back of NFL jerseys look really crappy and cheap. I personally get a bit annoyed when I tune into a Yankees game or Red Sox or Giants home game and don't know right away who's pitching. Luckily some of the TV broadcasts (FOX especially) have started displaying the pitcher/batter names throughout the entire AB above the scorebug now.

I like that the shape of the CF board is reminiscent of one of the old Comiskey ones, too.

Finally. This should improve the fan experience considerably.

QUOTE (Real @ Oct 1, 2015 -> 06:12 AM) well they aren't getting fans to come to the park because there's a winning team playing there might as well use gimmicks This is dumb. Plenty of winning teams have promotion giveaways like this. It's not an either/or.

The mainstream media is really counting Kershaw out of the Cy Young conversation?

Goddammit.

This isn't good.

The fact that there is a poster and thread dedicated to the fortunes of Dan Black here is one of the more remarkable things about this site.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Sep 25, 2015 -> 10:58 AM) You guys remember when Hector Santiago was an allstar this year and a bunch of people said that was an awful trade for Hahn. Lol @ those people. Those were people who only just got it straight that Eaton wasn't traded for Addison Reed.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Sep 25, 2015 -> 09:40 AM) No contradiction. He's a "keeper" in the sense that he's a decent baseball player. I hope the Sox trade him because he's not as good as his numbers, he'd return value and you can't build a team trading prospects only. Trayce Thompson is a building block and should be our CF next year. But Robbie boy keeps wheeling out Melky, Alexei and Eaton day after day after day. How is Eaton "not as good as his numbers?" Also, building around Trayce Thompson at this point is insanely optimistic.

Ideally you'd move him out of center.

Aside from my uneasiness about the Rose lawsuit, I'm really looking forward to this season. And it's unfortunate that tickets are CRAZY expensive. I used to go about once a season, but went twice in '13-14 and three times last season. I've never sat anywhere but the 300 level at the UC and don't see how I could ever sit downstairs, barring winning a contest or something. I'm doing a game in November this year then saving some room in the budget for a playoff game. Also got some pretty good seats for a Bucks-Jazz game in Milwaukee for cheap.

This is a silly thread to make. We don't even know if Fulmer can be a starter at the big league level.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 09:42 AM) Chris Sale is currently sitting at 259 strike outs on the season. Sale has gotten those K's in 29 starts and 194 2/3 innings pitched. Ed Walsh currently holds the franchise record with 269 strikeouts in 1908. The amazing thing is that it took Walsh 66 games, including 49 starts over 464 innings to get those 269 strike outs. Walsh sported a 5.2 K/9 in that 1908 season, Sale is at 12.0. The most impressive comparison is their control. Walsh put up a 4.8 K/BB ratio in his 1908 season. Sale is at 6.48. QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 09:51 AM) This is one of the most interesting instances of rate stats vs counting stats, IMO. It also should absolutely put to rest the idea that old-timey pitchers were as dominating as today's aces. The Hawks of the world can claim that these guys were throwing "as hard as anyone" and that they just didn't have radar guns, but there's just no way that's true. Now, the old-timey aces very well may have been just as VALUABLE as today's ace because of the massive disparity in workload, but it seems too obvious to me that they made a clear tradeoff to prioritize innings over dominance. And there can't be much question who would would be superior on a per-batter basis. That Sale is on the verge of overcoming an old-timey COUNTING stat record is, IMO, as indicative of how insanely dominant he is as well as it is indicative of how relatively weak the Sox history of high-end pitching is. After all, it SHOULD be impossible to break a counting record like that despite throwing less than HALF the innings. Most of this is accurate, but let's not pretend that the changing approaches by batters is a huge factor in rising strikeout rates. Similarly, note the team single season strikeout records...very few of them are deadball era guys, despite the fact that those were the guys who compiled crazy innings totals. This isn't an indictment on Sox pitching history in particular, just a reflection of the changing nature of the game. If anything it's a reflection of the lack of Sox strikeout pitchers in the modern (let's say post-1970 era). Many of the all-time records for teams were set in the 50s-90s or so. Granted, workloads were still incredibly high back then--higher than today, but not as ridiculous as Walsh's era.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 12:25 PM) It makes more sense if you focus on who is employing who -- Players, managers, coaches, training staff, are all employed by the Major League organization. The GM of the milb team is emplyoed by... the owner of the milb team. The affiliates are (mostly) independent businesses that are contracted by the MLB teams to provide a playing environment for their players. The milb team is a third party. The milb GM doesn't "work for" the MLB affiliate. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 04:07 PM) Yes, except for rare circumstances when the MLB teams themselves owned the affiliates (pretty rare) and used those teams/front offices as training opportunities. Or the Az and Florida facilities that have short season teams. Basically, the main reason, though....was to control the quality of the clubhouse/facilities and especially the playing surface quality. Used to be the case more in the low/er minors, think A ball and below. Right. It makes total sense, but the language is counterintuitive.

It is a little odd that if you want to be a major league manager, you start by coaching and managing in the minors. If you want to be a major league player, you start by playing in the minors. If you want to be a major league GM, though, you're probably not going to be starting out as a minor league GM. I completely understand why (future GMs are in baseball ops/player development positions throughout the organization), but from the outside it seems strange.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2015 -> 04:19 PM) I will say this much. The pending free agent who best fits the White Sox needs right now is a guy that hasn't been talked about at all. That name is Matt Wieters. A guy whose career high in OPS+ over a full season is 110. That's good for a catcher in this day and age, of course, but that will be five years ago. His defensive numbers have cratered as well. I don't know anything about his framing abilities off the top of my head, but signing him to something long-term feels like an albatross waiting to happen.

I enjoy the sports on their own, baseball especially. I follow the majors in general very closely, especially when the Sox are bad. It's my favorite sport--I read about it constantly and listen to about a half a dozen different baseball podcasts. I have MLB Extra Innings/mlb.tv, so the Sox being bad just means I watch them a little less and watch everyone else a little more. I also don't give a damn about hockey, football (I put the NFL on in the background on some Sundays, but I have no time for college football), or college hoops aside from ISU. I spend my time thinking/reading about baseball during the winter almost as much as I do during the season. I follow the NBA and really enjoy it, but not with the same fervor as I do baseball. I also follow English soccer pretty closely, though not as much as I did ~5 years ago. The sport I follow almost as close as baseball is pro tennis, where you don't run into the whole "my team sucks" problem.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 19, 2015 -> 11:35 PM) I think he's earned a spot on the big league club next year. Get rid of Melky and put Dayan back in left. Though that doesn't help our defense any. ... If we could dump LaRoche, make him DH and bat him ahead of Abreu. QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Sep 19, 2015 -> 11:36 PM) I think he should DH. Or at least platoon DH, with the occasional start at 1B/LF/RF to give guys a rest. Wow. Based on 150 AAA appearances? Should be noted that he was bad in the ultimate hitters' league in Oakland's system before that.

lolwut