DBAHO

Anyone have BA's overall ST numbers also?

So that puts us 4 points behind Colorado for the 8th spot. They have a 3 game homestand coming up against Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton though.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 09:21 AM) But, I think the back court is the place that the overhaul should happen. Between Gooden, Tyrus, and Noah, with Gray as a 4th option, I think we actually have a solid frontcourt that if we ever develop it or ever, you know, stop playing 4 guards and Gooden for 10 minute periods down the stretch as leads bleed away (Seriously, how many leads does this small lineup need to lose for the Bulls before Boylan realizes..."hmmm, rebounding down the stretch might be useful"). If you pencil down Goodon, TT, and Noah for 30 minutes a game between those 3 positions, I think the Bulls set up a solid front court rotation next year. I think that the PG position is where we have to try to upgrade, is the message overall. I like our rotations in the front court, at SG if we can trim away some of the excess people, but with the way Hinrich has performed this year I just can't see him carrying this team. This is the problem I see though. I don't know if TT is going to have a role with the Bulls after this season (especially if they hire Rick Carlisle) So if he leaves, they need a replacement. And in the draft there's not many PG's. Augustin is too small, Rose and Bayliss will go top 5. The only guy I can see who would make sense is Darren Collison from UCLA, who's got great speed and is very good defensively, but he's slated to go around 15 at this point.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 07:54 AM) I don't think that Alex is "surrendering" to friendlies...there's no way that I can believe that "the others" could be firing on Carl and Rossaeu at the risk of Alex. Well there have been occasions before where the others have knocked out friendlies with precision 1 by 1. And if they're using sniper fire, they're not going to target Alex I'd say. It all comes back to Ben for mine. He planned this. The attack isn't going to happen for a little while yet, so why send those 3 off so early? At least now with Michael being caught, I imagine the freighter can get its act together, and start bringing guys onto the island to catch Ben.

Try to get some work experience / internship maybe? Although it's certainly not the easiest field to do so (unlike something such as accounting or finance). Probably keep building up that portfolio I guess.

Started listening to Lupe Fiasco a little after reading the recommendation here from a few pages back. Anyone recommend his best songs?

Another coaching link;

Hmmm;

Haven't heard much of Edwards in the past month. Is there any word on whether he's actually leaning to endorse anyone, out of the 2 candidates?

They're comparing Hibbert to Joel Pryzbilla on nbadraft.net. Great size, good shot and good rebounder, but bad quickness and atheleticism. A few months back he was a borderline top 10 guy. Now he's slated to go around 19. His stock must have really slipped this season.

I can't find the ratings for Jones or Hunter either, really weird. If anyone can find them (got the rest from Hardball Times), put em up I guess. As a team, the Sox in 2007 had a RZR in the infield of .762 (below the AL average of .776) and an RZR in the outfield of .861 (below the AL average of .870). So they were sub-par defensively in 2007.

I remember they did have a RZR up for Anderson previously, but for some reason they took it down, and I think it was over .900 back in 2006. So he is really elite back there. If he could ever become a .260 20HR guy, he would be, really, really valuable in CF for a lot of teams in a Mike Cameron sort of way.

It's certainly more fan friendly, with the HR ball being more common. But the Sox showed in 2005 that pitching wins no matter what. They more than anyone should realize that.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 01:20 AM) As they should. Well you're getting upgrades at 2 spots offensively with Swisher and Cabrera coming in. Pierznyski should be better in 08 than he was in 07 IMHO. Dye and Konerko are capable of more. So I think will those improvements offensively, we should certainly be better there, even with Crede coming in for Fields. Considering our overall rotation is probably below average, we need to do what we can (it's hard enough for them pitching half their games in an extreme offensive ballpark) to help those guys out.

Well on your 2nd point, I think the Sox definitely home more HR's at home than on the road. Thome for instance 21HR's at home compared to 14 on the road. Uribe 15HR's at home, 5HR's on the road. And yeah flyball rate is dependent on the pitcher and hitter. The Sox hitters didn't hit as many outfield flies as Philliy hitters for instance, but when they did, there was a better chance of a HR occurring. But obviously, if you're a hitter hitting at U.S Cell compared to PETCO, you're going to try and hit it as much in the air as possible, because if you do, as shown by the stats above, there's a decent chance it'll go out of the park.

Deng is the only keeper in that group of 3 you mention Bob right now. Aldridge over Thomas was a big mistake. But they also could of had Brandon Roy in that draft IIRC. Instead of Gordon they could of had Andre Igoudala. I think the Bulls just need a big center who can give you 15/10 a game. Lopez sounds like a guy who could develop into that, but right now he's slated to go top 5 I think. Memphis would rather DeAndre Jordan if they went a big I think. Suits their gamestyle better because he can get up and down the court like Dwight Howard. 2 other bigs who are slated to go top 15 are Hasheem Thabeet and JaVale McGee (and maybe Roy Hibbert). All are rated lower than Lopez and Jordan though.

Really disappointing for Danny. He showed quite a bit of promise in 2007. Marcel's had him down for a .260/.330/.440 line in 2008. I don't think Uribe is going to get anywhere near that.

Have a look at the defensive thread Bob just to show the difference in defense b/w Crede and Fields in 2007. And I think that's obviously the major reason why they want Crede up if they can't trade him. Anything they can do to help out the pitching staff, they will.

Alrighty another thread (yeah I'm trying to get some discussion going in here, it's been a bit quiet). We all know how much KW and Ozzie preach about having a good defense. And considering the inexperience of the backend of our rotation, well our defense needs to be pretty good this season, better than what it was last season. The stats that I'm going to use is Revised Zone Rating, or RZR for short and Plays made out of zone OOZ. RZR is Revised Zone Rating is the proportion of balls hit into a fielder's zone that he successfully converted into an out. OOZ is the total number of outs made by a fielder on balls hit outside of his zone. First of all I'll use Juan Uribe. Now Uribe's been an excellent defensive player for us, but I just want to show the difference he had not only offensively in 2007 compared to past seasons, but how he fielded in 2007. 2006 - RZR = .841. OOZ = 40. 2007 - RZR = .796. OOZ = 49. So that's a drop-off of .045 in RZR for Juan. Now let's look at his replacement Orlando Cabrera. 2006 - RZR = .778. OOZ = 44. 2007 - RZR = .807. OOZ = 51. I actually thought Cabrera would have a better RZR than that. It's better than Juan's 07 season, but I think it shows that when Juan is at his best defensively, he's elite. Still Cabrera is certainly at least above average, and I'd expect something around a .800 rating for 2008. Now lets have a look at Joe Crede in 2006 and 2007 compared to Josh Fields in 2007. Crede; 2006 - RZR = .760. OOZ = 57. 2007 - RZR = .829. OOZ = 25. Fields; 2007 - RZR = .668. OOZ = 15. So yeah, that's quite a difference. And it's something Josh needs to get better at. I wonder if the change to Fields really would have had a small impact on a pitcher like Danks who really started to struggle after the 1st couple of months of the season? A little correlation maybe? Now lastly, I want to use Nick Swisher (unfortunately I couldn't get this stat for either Owens or Anderson). Swisher; 2007 (CF) - RZR = 878. OOZ = 17. I would figure, .878 is pretty good, especially when you compare it to the above. I never really understood the talk that Swisher is no good in CF (albeite I've never seen him play there). The stats from last season show he was pretty good there, and the Cell is a smaller park than the Oakland Coliseum (so he'd have less field to cover). And his arm would certainly be better than Owens. Hence why I really wanted Quentin in LF and Swisher in CF to start the season. Ain't going to turn out that way though.

Wow, can't believe they're not going to broadcast it on TV over there. WGN airing American Idol re-runs instead? Yikes.

From another Hardball Times article; There also this cool spreadsheet for with all batted ball park factors for 2003-07. http://www.hardballtimes.com/images/upload...Spreadsheet.xls

They do good stuff over there, and I think it's a pretty good view on us; http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/...ago-white-sox3/

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Mar 16, 2008 -> 06:20 AM) You should have seen the other pitches he made. He was absolutely filthy. After seeing this inning of work I made my post that I'd give up anyone on the Sox for him practically. I remember when all of the Buehrle talk to the Dodgers was going on last season, I had a pipe dream of getting Kershaw (which was probably unrealistic). Billingsley / Betemit is what I ended up settling on. But if Kershaw can stay healthy, he'll be a stud. Dodgers just have an excellent drafting record.

The Diamondbacks will win the World Series.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 22, 2008 -> 11:03 AM) Gordon is restricted this year, so you can bet Pax won't let him walk away. At best they figure out a sign and trade with someone. IIRC, Brian Cardinal has an expiring contract at the end of next season. Maybe a 2010 1st rounder, Cardinal's deal and either Jarvaris Crittenton or Kyle Lowry? Crittenton's an ideal guy to target IMHO if I were the Bulls. 6'4 PG, who can score, but he's not a Jamal Crawford / Steve Francis type of combo guard. But who knows, maybe it's to time to free up some room, and try to target Lebron / Wade when they hit FA. They also probably need to try and dump Noc's deal on someone.