Jose Abreu

Sale has 2.97 ERA compared to 2012's 3.05. Hopefully it doesn't do any rising this week

I liked Serigo Santos a lot when he was closer

I predict 14-4 Cleveland, 12 runs in 3.2 innings for Axe

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 25, 2013 -> 09:21 AM) Short of a fire sale, it is pretty impossible to clear 14 roster spots. Will Floyd be re-signed? Completely forgot about him.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Sep 24, 2013 -> 09:18 PM) Just before Giambi hit it out, I was about to mention that Reed looks a lot heavier than he did at beginning of season. Does anyone else notice that? Yes. Could be a problem as in May his ERA was under 1

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 24, 2013 -> 09:14 PM) His stuff isn't good enough to be a closer, IMO What should he be then? Setup? MRP? Long?

It's his 2nd season. you know how Bobby did in his 2nd season? ERA of 4. Give Addison another year before you write him off

Giambi again

Reed looking for 40th save

May sound like a dumb question but any chance Rodon drops to 3/4/5?

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 24, 2013 -> 08:59 PM) Yes. Thank you. I could actually see the Sox drop to 5th. Twins may lose out, and the Royals may just fold once they get eliminated. Have a fun weekend in Chicago and lose some ballgames. Notable #5's of the last decade- Buster Posey Matt Wieters Brandon Morrow Ryan Braun Better than the notable #4's (R. Zimmerman)

Late, but nice pen work from Jonesy. 4-5 with a 4.17 ERA. Much different from last year's 8-0 w/ 2.38.

Notable #4 picks of the last decade: Ryan Zimmerman. That's it.

Fun fact- Last year, in the last game of the year in Cleveland, Viciedo hit a grand slam in the 9th inning. Today, in the last week, he hits a game tying home run in the 9th inning.

Viciedo! Tie game!

Sox fans in July: "Dunn is hitting .314 in his last 25 games! He's turned it around! Keep him forever!" Sox fans in September: "Dunn blows! I hope he retires! Worst hitter in the majors!"

Santiago and Quintana continue battle for lower season ERA

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 24, 2013 -> 05:00 PM) Yeah, I'm just gonna disagree with that. Purcey's lucky his ERA wasn't 4.50 or 5. Guys simply don't get away with stranding 88% of base runners over the course of a full season. I mean, he did walk tons of guys but he had flashes of brilliance

He was better than Thornton this year. Solid job, great ERA.

Here's to hoping that this was why the .325 Keppinger became the .253 Keppinger.

Phil Niekro got on with an ERA over 4... but good list of elite pitchers he's joining

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 09:05 PM) Tied, that didn't take long for the most overrated pitcher in the majors to blow the lead Samardzja is so overrated it's not even fair

QUOTE (Jake @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 09:22 PM) UZR is the absolute best way to evaluate player defense - it is predicated on humans reviewing video with objective (ie, not opinion-based) measures. The belief is that UZR is best evaluated with about three seasons worth of data, though. This is of course true for lots of other statistics; we know that batting average and other conventional stats tend to be unreliable over short periods of time, even single seasons can be predicated on luck or random fluctuations. So, I look at UZR with smaller sample sizes, but always take it with a grain of salt. One season isn't a bad amount of data, but when one season sticks out as different from the player's other years, you should definitely look upon it skeptically. This is especially true because defense isn't nearly as prone to things like slumps as offense, so in most cases a brief change in UZR is nothing to be alarmed about unless there is a clear cause like injury. Some players will have an upward trajectory in the early parts of their careers and many others will steadily get worse defensively. I thought it was opinionated. ESPN is also responsible for some of these new stats, for instance "Total QBR" which is a QB rating out of 100 rather than a PASSER rating up to 158.3. I guess Sabermetrics is doing the same.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 08:53 PM) UZR does a pretty good job of evaluating how a player does in the field, positive UZR means a player is above average fielding, a really good fielder will have a UZR of +10 or more. It varies a lot from year to year with players though so you have to be careful about how you interpret it, but with Beckham UZR agrees with the eye test, he's not getting to as muh as he did 2 years ago. War tries to rate a players overall impact, taking the position they play, their defense, their hitting, and their baserunning all into account. Again pretty good but you have to decide sometimes how you compare things. Thanks. Sometimes I just prefer the classic fielding percentage.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 08:20 PM) I checked the other day and his UZR was about 1.5, so basically just slightly above average. The stats definitely show him regressing and getting to quite a few fewer balls this year. I'm new to all the sabermetric stats. Are UZR and WAR and all of this stuff really indicative of how they're performing in the field. (#TWTW but not really)