The Ultimate Champion

QUOTE (oneofthemikes @ May 28, 2014 -> 01:10 PM) I don't see any way that the Sox wind up with Hoffman, regardless of what the first couple of picks are. I agree but just imagine all the potential future 1st round talent you could lock up if you had about $7M or so to spend on your second pick and going forward. We're probably identifying all kinds of talented kids out there for the later rounds. Some will have strong commitments and will go to school, but throwing $1M in their faces changes things a little. And if you really stop and think about it, we're already out there trying to project 14 year old boys into baseball playing men, and we're already out there prepared to literally throw millions of dollars at kids who were 15 just a few months ago. Going after college freshmen, high school kids, etc. and throwing big money at them seems a whole lot safer to me.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:18 PM) It seems peculiar to me that the guy who runs Fangraphs which claims Alexei's performance last year was worth $15.6 million and his performance this season has already been worth $9.8 million, and whose worst performance of his career was worth $8.5 million, doesn't think he has the correct skills to bring back anything major when he is owed $10 million next year with a $10 million option with a $1 million buyout for 2016. Seems he isn't buying what his site is selling. Yeah I'll eat s*** on this one. I wanted him gone, thought he was in full decline. But funny enough, his renaissance coupled with the Sox rebuilding situation makes it even more reason to shop him. I wouldn't trade him for a light return though, I'd hold out for a small ransom figuring the Cuban factor from a marketing standpoint and the on-field and in- clubhouse value of his presence outweighs any smaller return.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 28, 2014 -> 12:19 PM) Ok seriously, this thread is just stupid at this point. The trolling and stupid stuff back and forth stops now, or suspensions will happen. Period. Back to Gordon Beckham here or find somewhere else to post. 1) This thread is awesome 2) There is no trolling going on, these are deep disagreements which are still unresolved apparently. 3) You already suspended me for 2 whole months. I'm at the back of the line now, so please start at the front. Everyone else should be suspended before I am again, you can't just cut in line/skip turns like that, it's not fair. 4) Gordon Beckham sucks. 5) There is nowhere else to post. There is no Soxtalk but Soxtalk.

My preferred way of doing this: 1) Kolek at slot or below, pick back otherwise 2) Aiken at slot or below, pick back otherwise 3) Hoffman way under slot, and go with overslot guys from then on This way we get SP with upside at the top and money to spend elsewhere. Kolek would look wonderful in this farm and on the mound in a Sox uniform & hopefully there are enough questions to get him to slip to #3, because on talent I think he's the #1 with Aiken close behind him. No way do I deal with Borass, but I guess I wouldn't mind drafting Rodon & playing the Hoffman game where you cap it at slot or below and take overslot guys throughout, and then when the window on Rodon starts to close, if he looks unsignable, you make a last minute push and offer Rodon's bonus money to a bunch of overslot guys in the later rounds, and go with the numbers & plan on getting that pick back.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:51 AM) If Beckham can stay healthy, he is a guy you want on the White Sox. Not trade fodder. You're going to be forced to pay him or let him walk very, very soon. IMO the best outcome for the Sox would be Micah Johnson and his dynamic offensive game taking over 2B long-term, with Beckham providing high enough trade value to return a high quality RHSP prospect/project to fill out one of those "uncertain" spots and maybe create some depth. Semien is solid and I think a much stronger player mentally than Beckham ever has been or could be, but unfortunately not nearly the same level of talent. Maybe Semien stays as a true UT player, maybe he brings back something. No matter what though I can't see the Sox paying Beckham, and this close to FA, I can't imagine his management recommending him take a "team friendly" deal unless they think Gordon is just overachieving right now & will come back to earth.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:34 AM) We all need to remember that hindisght is 20/20. You have to evaluate these decisions based on the information we had when they were made. Like TUC can admit that Dunn has been good and still think it was the right idea to cut him. Like wite can admit Paulino blows and still think it was the right idea to sign him. There was nothing wrong with the Paulino signing. Of course I wanted Hahn to acquire Noesi and start him instead but whatever. And of course I was right, he's at least been better and has more upside. By the same token, there was nothing wrong with trying to get a deal on Ubaldo or Ervin. I wanted Ervin, again I was right (pattern emerging here?) but whatever. Things happen. What is important is making the "type" of moves you need to make when it's right, like the Reed trade, and all the veteran RP signings, some of which have worked and others which have not. Hahn is the reverse KW right now because he's looking to get prospects out of proven players but he'll probably end up the reverse Kenny too in that he'll largely be giving up the better player, "losing" the deal, but that's just how the game works in general and it's pretty unrealistic to expect a high success rate with prospects. So Hahn has been doing what he has had to do for the most part, and the biggest moves he's made have been completely independent of trades, they've been the extensions to Sale & Q along with the Abreu signing and bring in God Steverson to bless this lowly bunch with his hitting wisdom.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:19 AM) You cite the statistic of batting average and then wonder why people think you're trolling. If you aren't then the alternative is that you haven't the faintest clue how to measure the value of offensive performance. The #1 goal of a hitter is to not make an out, and Dunn is the second best on the team at doing that. Dunn wasn't taking PA away from more deserving players. Before the year, neither De Aza nor Viciedo had proven enough to warrant getting playing time at DH. Even if Garcia doesn't get hurt, do you really think De Aza is playing over Dunn given the way the two have hit so far this year? I wasn't down on Gillaspie. I said that I thought Davidson would eventually become the starter at 3B but that in the short term he was a worst a platoon player there. Yes he was. Obviously. Who the f*** sat all day every day while Dunn took the field? Viciedo. I seriously am starting to think you just can't make connections or something. There are a finite number of PA to go around. Veteran players in contract years who have no chance at coming back and seem to guarantee a very minimal return best case scenario do not take away PA from younger, cheaper players under team control on rebuilding teams. The Dunn move was a Reinsdorf penny pinching move that was indefensible at the time and only turned out well because another younger core piece got hurt and missed the season. Your bulls*** "logic" here applies equally to Avisail as it would to Viciedo. You don't sit either of those guys for Dunn. Obviously.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:05 AM) Also, at the end of the day, I still make the Addison Reed trade, WHICH WAS MY ENTIRE POINT IN THE FIRST PLACE. You still deal Reed, but not for Davidson. The thought process behind the move was solid & Hahn shouldn't be criticized for it. But if you have a crystal ball you definitely don't get Davidson as things look now.

Also I actually like Dunn now, he's been useful, but it's still time to trade him. The last thing this team needs to do is misinterpret heart as talent & then make backwards moves to try to become a more convincing pretender. Stay with the course. Trade Dunn, Tank to DH, play Sierra & let's see if he can be something decent for us. Or find someone else.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 28, 2014 -> 11:04 AM) How's Adam Dunn doing buddy? Back in the .230s again BTW my whole issue was Dunn taking PA away from more deserving players. After Avi got hurt we actually needed someone. Funny how YOU and so many members of Soxtalk were down on ALL of Gillaspie, DeAza and Viciedo, and acted as though shortened playing time for them because of Dunn was just a nonfactor, who cares. Well guess what, I was right you were wrong, because Connor and Viciedo it turns out actually WERE worth the PA far, far more than Dunn. And had the Sox started the year with DeAza in a comfortable spot where he wasn't out there in a platoon role playing for his job maybe he'd be doing a lot better than the high .100s he's been in for a while here. So yeah, I was right the whole damn time and we only needed Dunn because Avi got hurt. If Avi doesn't get hurt then guess what genius, Viciedo is riding the pine and everyone at Soxtalk is willing to dump the guy for scraps, just like they feel toward DeAza right now. What a smart move that would be. It's funny how when posters clean house and whoop that ass by making strong arguments how sometimes the mods cower from the onslaught and claim trolling. But I sir am a champion and I refuse to be trolled so f*** yeah.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 28, 2014 -> 10:56 AM) It's the opt out that makes it a disaster. Basically, the ONLY way it goes to seven years if if he sucks or is hurt. Otherwise they have to give him more to keep him. Crazy bad contract, ESPECIALLY before he threw a pitch in the MLB. The other side of that is that if he's good and opts out, the Yankees are completely out of the remainder of his deal, which is the more frightening part. The key for them isn't just to automatically give in the way they did with ARod and CC, they would need to take the blinders off and actually evaluate the situation appropriately like the other 29 teams in baseball would. That opt-out could end up a godsend for NY for all we know.

Wite is also the same guy who figured we could just DFA Gillaspie at the tend of ST rather than play the guy, should we need the playing time for the veteran crap on the roster. Dick Allen is right more than wite is, and it troubles him deeply.

If you look at it from the standpoint of who in the pen is most likely to get through the 9th or any other inning for that matter without walking people and/or giving up runs, it's Putnam, today's outing notwithstanding. The problem with the pen is that no matter how you order it there's still no real stability. We have a couple quality MR options and a couple potential quality SU options, but zero effectiveness from the left side, no real specialists, no real closer. Putting Webb into the 9th could easily result in him moving back to the front of the pen, and would you really want to do that with your closer of the future, push him too aggressively into that role? IMO you go Putnam & hope that Carroll can do some light work in the front end. Belisario was working well in the SU role, and if you want to prime Webb for the closer gig in the future maybe you go with him as your righty specialist, that way he'll be in the mindset that he can get into any game and there will still be some pressure, i.e. men on and a tough hitter at the plate good part of the time. Ultimately some guys are just going to have to step up like Petricka did and push Downs off the team. I bet Hahn's scouts have been very busy looking for quality LHRP prospects in other organizations.

Sliced bread is the greatest thing since Todd Steverson.

Okay so let's just assume you were to be able to pass through a long series of tests like sleeping in caskets with baseball bats and so on, and you participate in all the high society masquerades where everyone wears Greg Walker masks, etc. until EVENTUALLY after a painful initiation a little bit less involved than the one GWBush went through to become a member of the Illuminati, you were finally adopted into The Order of Stevenson. What would that emblem look like? I've searched google long and hard, what about this one? This one is cool too but IMO it also sucks because it has that copyright crap on it: I would like to be a disciple of Mr. Stevenson. Is that so wrong? Tyler Flowers is a disciple is Mr. Steverson & I think that is cool also.

I vote that he is a God an in his honor we should hold down Greg Walker, shave his head, and use Greg Walker's hair clippings with glue to make pretty pictures for him ala South Park for Moses. I think that would be to his liking but his statue needs to be carved out of ICE.

Okay so this man has been a total revelation for us. What an incredible hire, best move of the offseason outside of Abreu and Q's extension. It's funny how when you have something that actually works the way it is supposed to you don't have to argue over its usefulness at all. Give him an official title & build this man a statue. Long term deal too.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ May 23, 2014 -> 06:04 PM) I'm watching SportsTalk Live and the question was who would you take for one game and then for the next 5 years. Kaplan and some other jack wagon said they would take Sale because "he is a proven super star" but take Samardzija over a career. Samardzija hasn't consistantly had a good season over his career. Maybe 2 years ago when he went 9-13 with a 3.81 era. Chris Sale has a lifetime ERA under 3 as of today. 4 years younger and on an insane team friendly contract. I wanted to reach through the TV and just smack some sense into these Cubs homers. Discuss Yeah Samardzija wants to be paid like a true ace & also believes it would be unbecoming of him to take any sort of hometown discount, and that doing so hurts the rest of the league. Meanwhile Chris Sale is better than him everywhere across the board and is locked up with us at a rate which will make it extremely easy for him to outperform his contract. I'd figure Sale is a far better teammate as well. Samardzija is good though. Let him be someone else's problem.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ May 23, 2014 -> 11:56 AM) Agree it's an unlikely scenario but I assure you it doesn't matter that Noesi has 0 options. The Sox aren't going to protect a 27 year old sudden journeyman who has shown little indication of turning into a quality starter over one of their own 25 year old prospects that has found nice success at the MLB level. He's not a journeyman though. He spent almost his entire career with one team that gave up on him. He's a reclamation project, and years control matter more than age, and 27 is still young and still within the possibility of inclusion into our core. He's definitely shown indication improvement. Whether he continues and progresses to the state Rienzo has been in lately we'll just have to see. But if he does you certainly just don't dump him in favor of someone you have options on. But again, this is all really unlikely. One of these 3 is probably not going to make it, and there's still always the possibility of someone else getting moved or especially going on the DL.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ May 23, 2014 -> 11:28 AM) There's no way in hell the Sox choose Noesi over Rienzo assuming results keep steady. On the surface Noesi has been moving toward the end of quality starting pitcher, last outing being another example of settling down. Rienzo has shows he's a Major League starter. I think it's likeliest that Johnson stays in Charlotte until one of these 2 pitches his way out of the situation, and of course that's only assuming Johnson pitches his way back to the Majors. But as an options issue, knowing that you'd lose Noesi entirely trying to send him down and also knowing he can't work in relief, should all three of Johnson, Noesi, and Rienzo pitch well and put themselves into the picture, you put Rienzo in the pen or send him down because he has options. But this is also assuming no one else is traded or gets hurt. In the end it's pretty likely that the Sox either won't have to make a decision or a player will make that decision for himself.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 23, 2014 -> 09:32 AM) The Mariners traded for a young strike-thrower (Noesi) and one of the very top prospects in baseball (Jesus Montero). Nothing wrong with the idea. Nothing wrong with the ideas of the players they got. Plenty wrong with the realities of the players they got. Noesi interested me, because he could throw strikes. And it’s because of him I’ve come to appreciate the difference between regular strikes and quality strikes. It was a strike he threw last night to Coco Crisp, don’t you know. Missed up, by two feet, but that pitch didn’t go in the books as a ball. Noesi’s been able to find the zone, but he’s been unable to find areas within it, and on top of that, he was the original guy who struggled with 0-and-2 pitches before Erasmo Ramirez struggled with 0-and-2 pitches. A couple years ago, before we knew what Noesi really was, he allowed five 0-and-2 home runs and three 0-and-2 doubles in 48 plate appearances. Ramirez, at least, hits spots and has a good secondary pitch. Noesi’s pitched cluelessly, and he hasn’t had the stuff to get away with it. Reporters picked up on it before I did. I tried to be forgiving for a while. In the long run, Hector Noesi made no friends. It’s interesting how many people can’t stand him, since he was a bigger factor in 2012 than in any other season. He barely did anything a year ago, and he lasted two appearances in 2014. Noesi spending most of 2013 in the minors did nothing to soften people’s impressions, and I think today’s being considered a joyous occasion, because the Mariners swapped out a long reliever. Even the Mariners got sick of the act, since they put Noesi on the roster and then changed their minds after a handful of days. The general message here is, the team isn’t screwing around, it intends to win this year. The specific message is, go away, Hector Noesi, you are not needed any longer. You only get so many chances, as a pitcher. Noesi’s 27, so he’s not young anymore. He can throw in the low- to mid-90s, so it’s not like he won’t have a job in a month somewhere, but his stuff isn’t special enough for him to keep getting good opportunities, and his approach isn’t good enough to make up for the stuff. At some point, with a frustrating pitcher, you have to cut ties and move on to the next crop. The Mariners ran out of reasons to be patient with Noesi, and while some other team could and will take him on, Noesi’s career isn’t starting anymore. He’s not some kid who just needs time. Now he’s been dumped by an organization, not in a trade for a player, but in a trade for a roster spot that doesn’t have Hector Noesi in it. Noesi isn’t yet a journeyman, but he’s headed down that path and you have to wonder if he realizes it. Noesi was born in 1987 in the Dominican Republic, in a municipality named Esperanza. Esperanza is Spanish for hope, or promise, and that’s something Noesi’s always had, and something people have had for him. It’s 2014 now and Hector Noesi is a long way from home. At the moment, in a professional sense, he doesn’t have a home at all. http://www.ussmariner.com/2014/04/04/hecto...ariners-career/ IIRC Mariners gave him like half a season as a starter before giving up on him completely and trying to make him a reliever. No one should be surprised at the Mariners inability to develop a good-looking young player.

He's a work in progress. He's a different pitcher here than elsewhere. Will it work? Nobody knows, but the Sox need more players like this. If he turns things over and becomes a quality SP then you control him for multiple seasons, meaning he either becomes a part of your future, or in a depth situation provides real trade value, the type you can actually start to get a little excited about. No sense wasting starts on Paulino or Carroll, and if Erik Johnson gets his velocity back and looks like the player we thought we had, then Johnson comes back, but IMO in that case you still go Noesi over Rienzo given upside, and you put Rienzo in the pen. "Innings limit" is a great way to explain some things such as option-forced "baseball" moves. Hopefully he does well. Noesi still makes some really bad pitches but he looks more under control here. He doesn't have Floyd's raw ability but remember how out of sorts Floyd was in ST when we got him from Philly. Just takes time. Same thing as Count, although again not the same ability level. But if Noesi reaches his potential he's every bit as good as the real Erik Johnson is IMO.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 23, 2014 -> 10:32 AM) Yeah, that would require insane manpower, but would definitely be fantastic. Hopefully this is some of the stuff we can start to see with the new MLBAM cameras. This is the kind of thing I meant before when I said that changes are happening where the stats are starting to make the game smarter, not dumber. I think the whole problem people like me, and to an extreme, people like Hawk, have with stats is that they can't tell everything that happens within the game, but yet there are some who still treat them as if they do. SoxTalk though, aside from being a massive collection of angry haters who refuse to give appropriate credit to legends like AJ Pierzynski and Mark Buehrle, is actually pretty smart when it comes to interpreting things the right way, which is I come back even when they ban me. I think the issue is just that there are more marginal fans and writers who take stats too far, and doing that prompts action on the other end of the extreme and then you get Hawk talking about TWTW. But IMO Hawk's TWTW is the kind of cocksucker Bill O'Reilly response to the cocksucker Bill Maher observation, but really both are just cocksucker responses and have more to do with cocks and sucking than baseball. IE just the other day my favorite radio personality in the world Mr. Darin DJ Jackson went on in detail about how he doesn't like the over use of the shift. I think part of the game becoming smarter via stats is that stats will cause shifts, shifts will then be overused, and then at some point you'll find yourself in a situation where you get a happy medium, and a shift on a hitter is akin to the question of, do you call in the lefty guy in the pen who is struggling himself to face a left-handed hitter who struggles against lefties in a vacuum, or do you call in the righty who is rolling to face a left-handed hitter when the hitters splits indicate he's better vs. RHP than lefties. Things will be learned, the game will be smarter, but in the end there will still be situations where it's nothing more than an overhyped guessing game, and when you're right it's a "no duh" proposition and maybe you're even a genius, but if you're wrong you're an idiot to do that when there's clearly a better option available.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 23, 2014 -> 10:03 AM) I think the key point is if a pitch is outside the zone, are you going to be able to leverage that take into a better pitch to hit later? Most of the time, I think the answer is yes. So it's not that Alexei can't hit stuff out of the zone, but he's going to hit better on pitches in the zone, and if he takes a pitch that is ultimately a ball instead of "expanding his zone," he's taken a step to forcing a better pitch to hit later in the at bat. The exceptions exist though. Like Abreu: probably won't see a much better pitch than a belt high fastball 2 inches outside, so if that's the best he's going to get, and it's close enough to his hot zone that he can do some real damage to it (not simply make contact), there is a case the expanding the zone is the best thing to do. Imagine the K zone as a box the exact same size you are used to seeing. But instead of it being in a fixed location it is a floating object, and the parameters are set by pitch sequence and location. The hitter just moves his zone up or down, in or out. I guess the main problem with viewing the K zone as fixed is that it assumes 1) the pitcher has full control of it all the time and the hitter has really none, and 2) when the pitch goes outside of it that the pitcher is forcing the hitter to play his game or something. But the truth is that not only can the pitcher beat the hitter both inside and out of the zone, the hitter can also beat the pitcher both inside and out of the zone. And if Michael Young *wants* Mark Buehrle to throw that 86mph fastball 7" off the outside corner so that he can lace it down the line, and if Miguel Cabrera *wants* to yank his hands in and pull that pitch over the LF wall, who is setting up who? You know what would be a really good stat? Adding up the number of hits that occur outside of the K zone on a hitter and subtracting those PAs from batting average, and doing the same with SLG% and RBI total (because hitters will expand to drive in a run, ex didn't Cabrera do this with the Marlins when someone tried to intentionally walk him but left a pitch too close?). Doing that might be one way of comparing the effectiveness of that hitter to others outside of the zone. There are things you could I am sure use zone numbers for but they'd have to be more specific. And again the whole great result that anyone should ever really care about on a macro scale is the quality of PA and whether the pitcher gets the hitter out or whether a hitter gets himself out. In the mind of a hitting coach or a more knowledgeable fan, again on a macro level, a line shot that the fielder robs is just as good as the line shot which goes for a double, because both are indicative of a quality AB. It's just that one result counts and the other doesn't, but as far as I can see the whole point of advanced stats is to try to figure out who is *really* the best, not just who is most fortunate or something.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 23, 2014 -> 09:53 AM) As I've clarified, most of the time it IS a bad thing, just as ground balls are typically bad because they're usually very weak outs and when they aren't they usually do very little damage as they are typically singles. Most of the time, swinging at pitches in the zone IS a good thing, just the same as hitting line drives is a good thing because they are hits most of the time and they can even be doubles or homers. However, there are instances where the opposite of the expected effect occurs, where you hit a grounder down the right field line just past the outstretched glove of the 1B and it kicks around and you end up with a triple, or you hit a screaming bullet to LF and the defender makes a stupendous catch. Generally speaking, you can't say so and so's O/Z-Swing is a bad thing because it ultimately does matter how they are performing, but players that swing at pitches out of the zone at a higher rate will typically be worse than those who do not. Yeah I can agree with this. I guess I just don't see how it can be all that useful. Maybe this kind of data works well as a starting point or for list making. I.E. I've come around some on WAR, it's a great measure to use when you want to whittle a s***load of variables down very quickly to make a very wide comparison (like adding up the overall value of player A to every player in the league at the same position, or calculating the effectiveness of an amateur draft 8 years out, etc.) but if you really want to make a specific comparison or make a pretty accurate review of a specific player you'll need a lot more data than that. To me, the eye test is still KING, and it's not even close, it's just that as always you can't look over 500 separate ABs or 500 separate batters faced so you need the numbers to tell you where to look and when.