The Ultimate Champion

Robin's brain = footlong chili cheese dog hence the farting

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 04:27 PM) Yea, because no team has ever missed the playoffs by a game. Are you serious with this s***? I can't tell if you're trolling hard or what. Riddle me this: either Robin forgot to PR for Jose when he was on 1st or he changed his mind once he was in scoring position. The possible explanations are: Robin doesn't really understand baserunning leverage (not a good thing, hard to believe since he played professional) or he forgot, or he changed his mind. All 3 options are awful, pick one. Ok brainfart, but Robin has a lot of brain farts. Robin Ventura: 1 step behind the action 2 steps behind the fans watching 3 steps behind the announcers calling the game 4 steps behind the opposing manager

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 04:02 PM) Greg, you have to understand GPx99+, which factors in simulated metrics based on imagination. Basically, what would Beckham produce on a context neutral environment if we has credited with the runs he was "willing" to produce? Then, consider a typical aging curve, temper that with what you think his favorite color says about his personality type, and then scale it to 100. It's park-adjusted, league-adjusted, and bias-adjusted. GPx99+ has Beckham at 82.12, which is roughly equivalent to 3 imagination wins above what you'd expect if a hippo played the position. That's a B- ballplayer no matter how you want to slice it. It's funny how far some people will go to mock or disagree withy greg rather than actually admit they are in agreement with him. BTW where the f*** is Matry? You guys do this stuff to hima ll the time too. Also I agree with the pares about hippos & all the pqarts about hippos. Thank you have a nice fday.,

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 12:55 PM) Kershaw FIP: 1.75 Kershaw xFIP: 1.92 Kershaw SIERA: 1.90 Sale FIP: 2.31 Sale xFIP: 2.80 Sale SIERA: 2.58 Those are some pretty significant differences when you're talking about that level of excellence. Sale is obviously utterly brilliant, but Kershaw is the king. There's a point where you have to admit that the differences in on-field situations are so significant that you can't rely on stats to predict & account for them. Sale and Kershaw both are elite & have incredible stuff. The conditions they play under are very different, and trying to use advanced stats to declare a clear winner is like trying to compare a great 90's hitter to a great 70's hitter. There's just no point, both are great, and you really need to see both guys perform under the same set of conditions to declare one substantially better. Now I'm not going to say that Clayton Kershaw couldn't put up better numbers than Sale pitching in the Cell, maybe he could. You'd probably find a lot of people that say he would. But neither of us know for sure and you can't minimize the imapct of the DH and overall park and league factors just through some dumbass formula. It's on the field where these guys play and every single tough out, every tough AB, etc. this all adds up over the course of a game and effects enerything else. The NL is the much easier league to pitch in & the NL West has a lot of large ballparks & s*** hitters too. You just can't compare the two. Again, maybe Kershaw is not only better than Sale but better by a fairly decent margin. We don't know and we probably will never know. But who cares, both are elite. In the end when they are compared the likely factors used to compare the two will be based on health and longevity. The guy who stays healthier and pitches longer will be considered the better pitcher.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 01:04 PM) I wouldn't know who Moises Sierra is. You still don't klnow who Moises Sierra is. Neither do I. But as long as Abreu does everything is cool.

My 2 cents: -Robin is a dogs*** manager. He's probably nowhere near "worst ever" territory but he's bad enough to where you call him that out of anger. Fans emit emotional responses & overreact to everything, what's new? Robin is bad though, so calling him the worst manager ever is like me calling Big Frank the best hitter ever. Yeah it's an overreaction, but so what? Frank was still incredible & Robin still blows. -Robin's players like him and will play for him. Because of this maybe it's Parent you can & hire someone else to manage the game while Robin is a figurehead/media guy who handles the non-baseball issues & keeps things in order. That could work. -Robin is an organizational hire. He's here because he's not going to step on the toes of those above him & also he's here because of the leadership he showed as a player. My only issues with Robin have been on-field issues, so maybe you bring in someone else for the game decisions and everything is kosher. But if you want Robin making the on-field calls all the time then you should expect to lose close games. That's that, he's a s*** game manager. But because his players will play for him, he's a better manager than a quality game manage who looks to divide the clubhouse and/or can't relate to the players or can't keep the media at arm's length. In summation, I have OPs back if you guys wanna turn this thing into a battle royal. OP overreacted but we all do, but not enough to where his points lose validity. Robin is a s*** game manager and that's that.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 12:47 PM) I really don't think there is much he can improve on other than maybe continuing to refine his command and perhaps learning to "pitch backwards" at times. I mean, he's pitching at a historically great level and if he keeps it up for 10 more years he'll be a no doubt HOFer. Kershaw is on pace to be one of the top 5 pitchers of all time, if Sale is only top 20 when he retires I think we'll take that. Yeah Sale's ceiling is HOF level, that's what I am getting at. He's been burned a few times staying with the same pitch at close speed & that sort of thing. If Sale can show the extreme stuff, extreme deception AND become more of a "mind f***" pitcher like a Maddux or Buehrle then watch the f*** out because those numbers are really going to turn into "video game" numbers. And I think that's exactly the path Sale is looking to take. It's all about getting the hitter, getting the out, getting the win with him. And I love it.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jul 28, 2014 -> 10:53 AM) If Sale faced pitchers three times a game, faced NL lineups, and pitched in an extreme pitchers park as Kershaw does vs. the cell, the argument would rage. Personally, I believe it is a very close call. Yeah the difference between AL & NL is really enormous when you get to this most elite level. Sale pitches in the AL in a hitters park, that says a lot right there. Neither pitcher is going to find himself in many situations you call "tight," maybe 1-2 per game mostly in the first couple innings or the last couple innings due to being not quite warmed up enough/not find the offspeed stuff right away or a fatigue or pitches shown (per batter) thing. Taking away the DH is huge in a SP staying fresh a little longer and not having to show a hitter your full arsenal until later. Also with the pitcher up it gives a guy usually 2 hitters (8 and 9) to try and find that breaking ball if it's early in the game and he's not getting it to do what he wants. You can't just flip your breaking pitch over the middle of the plate to your average DH, not at all.

I would LOVE to see what Sale could do with a brilliant catcher behind the plate. I think Flowers is ok, but put a guy back there that really knows the game and hitter tendencies at an extreme level & really that's what I think Sale needs. I think that because of Sale's experience now, if you put AJ behind the plate & Buehrle in the dugout next to him he'd take that next step. He's great but he's great mostly on stuff IMO. I think right now he's in that stage where he's learning to be a great pitcher with great stuff and IMO he probably needs a little extra help. I think Sale is the kind of guy who if he could develop a Maddux/Buehrle type of approach/mentality (and I think that's what he's trying to do) would be capable of putting up an ERA right around or even below 2.00, that's how great his stuff/deception is. Sale is a pretty special player but I still think he has room for improvement left. His absolute ceiling is otherwordly & I agree with the poster who said we're fortunate to be able to watch this guy every 5 days. And again in terms of overall ability, I could actually see myself picking up a baseball card 10 years from now, flipping it over, and looking at a single season of something like 220IP with an ERA of 1.80 or so and a WHIP under 1.00, that's what his absolute ceiling is IMO. He's that dominant.

I watched Frank's speech. To hell with the stupid game. That said, Robin does need an evaluation at the end of the season. IMO if we have ANY hope of even a 2nd wild card spot in 2015 then HE GONE.

Cool thing to ponder: the unheralded minor league longshots like Andy Wilkins and Carlos Sanchez we'd end up playing probably are better than anything we'd get out of one of our trade pieces should we keep Alexei.

QUOTE (peavy44 @ Jul 27, 2014 -> 04:17 PM) Alexei not going anywhere his price is so high no team will pay it Anyone out there in dire need of a SS?

Who has the LEAST value of the three: Beckham, Dunn, Belisario: rank them. I go: Belisario most value, then Beckham, then Dunn. We trade all three maybe we get another Jon "The Missing" Link.

Beckham = dead weight Alexei - actual value but probably high price Danks = someone might take him for free, real exciting there anyone else....?

Anyone have anything legit here? Seems like Hahn isn't getting any real offers because aside from Alexei we're having a garbage sale. This forum is dead just like Gordon Beckham's bat.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 27, 2014 -> 02:55 PM) As often as I've thought that Big Frank bordered on arrogant, that was as much humility and gratitude as you'll ever see on that stage I never thought that. The media told us that. f*** the media.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jul 27, 2014 -> 03:00 PM) I wonder if they were drinking BHB. What else would it be? Big Hurt Beer: the only microbrew beer you can drink without looking like a p****.

Yeah definitely had soft spots for a lot of people. When Hawk talked about Big Frank using an aluminum bat in batting practice... my God that must have been unreal. He's the greatest player I've ever seen and even though I expect to live another 50+ years I bet he's the greatest Sox player I ever will see. Even in spite of his numbers and how gaudy they are I think the DH role and the injuries still kind of diminished how great he really was. If I was a pitcher Frank was the last guy I'd ever want to face in any situation. Also love the kudos to Hriniak. Oh and lastly Frank being concerned about his numbers and stuff.... good. I wish all players were that focused. The best player on the team should be that way thinking about Sale and Abreu ATM).

I'm not really sure where you guys are going with all the fat chick stuff. First, how fat? I like girls a lil thick sometimes, in fact, most of the time really. Nothing wrong with that no no no. Secondly, even when you're talking about those REALLY big girls the thing is, you are all talking about them within the context of a bar meeting or something which of course you could always walk away from... none of this relates to Dunn. Dunn is like some nasty hoss who is a total b**** and you're married to her, and there's really nothing you can do but divorce her and take the hit financially and wherever else. It's like she won't wash the dishes, she won't clean s***, all she can do for you is bounce around on your pecker for about 10 mins every now and then but shes such an incredible b**** that you don't even want to talk to long enough to ask her, and touching... well that is just rewarding her for her behavior. So yeah you guys are going way too far with this, Dunn is worse than anything I've seen mentioned here (haven't read through much of the thread though, don't care to either) and girls with some butt are perfectly OK in my book, and probably most books too. Now I know here on the internet we're all GQ studs and stuff but I bet outside of that there are quite a few posters here who would gladly satisfy a woman or two of Walmart size.

So now we have one good reliever.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 24, 2014 -> 03:50 PM) I think it's less about them being "smarter" in general and more about the fact that it's the cream of the crop that leaves to come over here. I have no problem compiling talent regardless of type, but if the price is painful, Hahn's comments make more sense. Sure, we'd add another right-handed CF type and be happy, but he becomes less of a fit if it's money that could be spent on a player-type that we need more. The differences between Cubans who come up playing organized games competitively and your average prospect who comes up through the buscone system are night and day IMO. If you tell me on paper that I could have 2 SS, equal quality roughly with the bat, pretty equal in tools/ability on defense, and one came up through the DR and the other is from Cuba I take the Cuban 10 times out of 10.

Cubano is back! I'm on board with any of the Cuban players really. They're just smarter it seems, they know the game better from playing competitively. And some of the athletes over there are just awesome. If Rusney is a legit top end athlete who knows the game and plays it well... f*** the lefty/righty crap, just sign him. Probably will be pretty expensive though.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 24, 2014 -> 10:08 AM) blah blah blah, it's annoying to have a great pitcher that your team never wins when he pitches for some bizarre and sustained reason. It be nice to be like "oh, Q's pitching, automatic win". Instead it's "oh, Q's pitching, we'll lose 2-1". This is what happened to Buehrle over and over again, especially against Oakland it seems. So often he'd go up against that 3-headed monster & the Sox would just tuck on him. Ugh.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Jul 24, 2014 -> 09:53 AM) I remember a time, many years ago, when the word value wasn't used in what seems like every other sentence in a conversation about baseball- be it on radio or message boards. Contracts to star players have been skyrocketing it seems, and so this stuff becomes even more important. It's almost like you have 2 payrolls, a $$$ payroll and an on-field player performance value or payroll. I'm not all waist deep in the stats but I bet if you took the combined fWAR or bWAR (I don't even know what those things are or which one is better) of the players on every team and ranked those teams 1-30 and then put a $$$ figure on that WAR figure that would representative of the FA value of a 'win' then I bet you'd have a lot of low $$$ payroll teams with high talent payrolls and a lot of high dollar payroll teams with lesser talent payrolls. I don't know if that makes any sense but it does to me. We have whatever $$$ payroll figure our ownership is going to give us and we need to win with it no matter what. But let's say we want to be a contender and we want to build a team with a total player performance value roughly akin to the FA market value of a $140M payroll, then the gap between that $140M talent payroll and the $90-100M or whatever we're going to get has to be bridged somehow and really the best way to do that is in pre-arb guys, extensions that are team friendly, etc. and so that's why all this stuff matters.

Also I think Chisoxfn is right, we're not getting anythuing for Beckham. I was hoping for a longshot/reclamation type but even in his trade year he's been a huge disappointment.