Thomas_Ventura_Roberts

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jul 31, 2016 -> 10:42 AM) IT'S HAPPENING. I agree. I find it interesting that they have put Frazier at 1B today. There may be some dominoes about to unfold today. I'm guessing the Sox will make 2 more trades before the deadline.

The Sox trade of Zach Duke for a speedy outfielder seems to be a good one. We can use a prospect like Charlie Tilson.

In the real world, results are what matters most, not just metrics that tend to state this or that. Chris now has 14 wins. Those are tremendous results! I still look for him to have an awesome year of 24+ wins. As for the legitimate use of metrics, they do uncover instances when a guy is producing results but some top line measurements are not capturing the full impact of those results. In that vein, I do hope that Quintana will start getting some well deserved offensive support.

One might say Tim Anderson, but he has been called up already.

Yes. Giving Latos the first opportunity seems to make sense. If Latos doesn't prove worthy of the 5th spot in the rotation, they can always move Gonzalez back into the rotation. I would not be surprised that, as the season goes along, the Sox also think other pitchers in the minors might be ready to give the 5th spot a try too.

Why is Rollins being put at DH? He doesn't even hit well enough anymore to be the everyday shortstop.

I like Trayce, but I like Frasier better.

QUOTE (soxfan49 @ May 23, 2016 -> 06:42 PM) Meanwhile CSN is still out on Comcast. How f***ing pathetic Yes. It is quite annoying. I hope it is fixed before the next game at the least.

Does anyone know why Avisail Garcia has not played the last couple of games?

Avi probably is for real. Last year was his first full year in the majors, and he will not turn 25 years old until June. This is a good time for him to show whether he has absorbed lessons from his early major league experience as well as Sox coaches.

Matt Davidson's swing looks pretty good. I wonder what the Sox think about his potential.

Actually, forecasting is about finding imbalances and thinking about how they will be resolved. Two things can happen here; and strictly speaking, neither of them are amenable to traditional statistics. If he doesn't make any improvements in chasing base pitches, then he will continue to struggle. If he becomes even average at that and given his natural talent, he would have a huge improvement in performance. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

It seems like he got a lot of money per year for someone who had one very good year and some good years.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 15, 2016 -> 10:37 PM) See, this statement is based on Rodon falling into their laps...and Chris Sale (who was obviously the best scouting example). But Fulmer and Rodon were the best collegiate pitchers those two seasons, respectively. Adams was a high schooler, as was Hector Santiago. We all know about Quintana's origins. The Sox are great at finding pitching, PERIOD, but that reputation with college pitchers is more based on 1998 through the Broadway, Ring, Poreda and McCulloch selections...before the drafting philosophy shifted dramatically. It will be interesting to see how good Rodon is this year.

I keep forgetting about Carson Fulmer. If luck goes the White Sox way in 2016 with regard to injuries, fast developments, and veteran comebacks, they would be positioned to be quite a team. Then again, what if they needed a mid-season addition to the starting rotation? I was wondering today about who they would turn to that had some real upside potential, and Carson did not even cross my mind. We may need Carson in the starting rotation before this season is finished, and I am glad he is in our system.

Even if the White Sox were to stop right now in their off-season activities, the team would be fun to watch in 2016. The addition of two key infielders with a good core of returning players should translate into a competitive team with at least an outside chance of winning it all. As good as some of the players are, it isn't as fun to watch even those individual players if the team is not competitive. Then, a lot of the Sox near term and long-term success will come down to whether some of the existing young players in the majors and minors or some of the soon to be drafted players live up to their upside potential. I'm not a believer in purposely trying to be bad for multiple seasons in the hope of hitting on all the high 1st and 2nd round draft picks you get. A team can accidentally get those high draft picks like the White Sox have done for the past 3 seasons. No need to purposely extend the string of losing seasons. The bottom line is that a team has to have the ability to evaluate and develop both pitchers and hitters whether they are or are not competitive at the major league level. When you are like the White Sox who have developed pitchers but not enough good hitters, the thing to do is to develop that other side of your organization. I am glad they are doing that. In short, I hate the idea of tanking multiple seasons like the Cubs did and like some do advocate. Of course, for this year, it will be even sweeter if the Sox acquire a big-time outfielder.

Steve Stone did an interview and gave his judgment that he would be given the qualifying offer, and he would decline it. Stone feels that some team will give him a 4-year, $60 million contract. In the unlikely chance that he accepted the qualifying offer and tried to re-establish himself, Stone feels he would be smart enough to make the emotional and pitching adjustments that he would need to make and would pitch well enough for the Sox. Stone, though, definitely puts an extremely low probability that he would take that route because going into free agency makes the most sense for him. In short, Steve feels there is no substantial downside risk to making him the qualifying offer.

I like Sanchez all-around game at second base. For a team that is consistently strong in pitching, there is nothing wrong with having a player like Sanchez fill that spot. I think his improved bat is for real too. If Micah Johnson shows his offensive potential is for real, he could attempt a switch to left-field or even be a bit of an unconventional DH. If we were in a situation where we have to trade either Sanchez or Johnson because both were performing but neither was going to be switched from second base, the market would have to dictate who we would trade. Whether this off-season, next spring, next summer, or whenever, one never knows exactly how other teams will value our players or what other teams would have to offer in return. It could very well be that a very attractive trade could be made with one but not the other, but who knows how the trade front will look in December, April, or June?

With Danks pitching well and with a set 5 man rotation, I'm sure they are not in a rush. They probably will be more amenable to a 6 man rotation in September, especially with a desire to not overextend Carlos Rodon in his first year.

QUOTE (ron883 @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 08:36 PM) Why hasn't he been called up yet? He is making a mockery of AAA right now. He has nothing left to prove. These are the only reasons I can think of really. 1. There is something with his Arb/free agency clock that I don't know about. They are limiting his time in the majors for that reason. 2. They don't want a 6 man rotation, and they want to see if they can dump Danks on somebody. You tell me folks. I want to see him pitch.

One thing about Tank is that he never bought into trying to make the adjustments that the White Sox wanted him to make. Maybe he will be more amenable to making those adjustments now that he has a second chance.

Would it hurt the Sox to stand pat and not make any trades before July 31st? Teams are not necessarily going to give us the building blocks that we would want. If that should happen, why not stand pat? We have some good young pitchers and position players either on the major league team or not too far away in the minors. By standing pat, we could build up some depth of talent. Trading Samardzija or a relief pitcher would make sense if we got something in return, but we could always trade excess relief pitchers in the off-season, and we would be in a better position to re-sign Samardzija or at least get a compensation pick if we kept him. Another consideration, I get the feeling that we have 2 young second baseman who can be very good major league players. By the end of the season, we would have a better idea of who we might want to trade away out of the two. One of those two could be packaged with pitching to get an interesting young hitter. If we keep Samardzija either to the end of this season or beyond, we would not have to bring up young starting pitchers such as Eric Johnson or Francelis Montas as soon this year or Carson Fulmer next year. It would give Rodon more time to develop in the comfort of the #4 spot in the rotation too. Of course, if a team does give us the prospects we would desire for Samardzija, then it would be interesting to see what Johnson or Montas could do.

Doesn't the original baseball stats guru, Nate Silver, now advocate using Bayesian statistical methods rather than the regression methods used by places such as Fan Graph? Fan Graph's methods are really backward looking whereas Bayesian methods are both forward and backward looking. Interestingly enough, the more subjective and backward and forward looking Bayesian methods are more likely to yield the kind of conclusions that a traditional analysis might yield. Also, I loved the test Nate did that pitted his advanced stat metrics against Baseball America's more old fashion methods to see who more accurately predicted which minor league prospects actually turned out to be good. Baseball America did slightly better in the test, and Nate actually expected that to happen. Of course, that did not surprise Nate because the purpose of the Billy Beane or Scott Hahn use of advanced stats is not to replace traditional analyses but to complement it, and the Baseball America predictions in effect tacitly combined traditional and (to some extent) advanced statistical analysis. In a sense, the main role for advanced stats is to serve as a sort of tie breaker after traditional analysis is first done. It also can be used to try to optimize how to allocate ones budget. There is a subtle difference between doing that and how some try to give a generic interpretation to things such as using WAR metrics to determine who is a better player or team. In short, for those who like a more traditional analysis, take heart that the most path breaking statistical analyses may come to some of the similar conclusions that your old fashioned perspectives tend to yield. In any case, that is my 2 cents on part of this issue.

This is a fantastic analysis!!!

There is so much that can happen between now and the playoffs. One wild card with any team in any sport is whether the younger players develop faster, about the same, or slower than expected in any given year. One never knows that until the season is well underway. Conceivably, you could have a playoff rotation of Sales, Samardzija, and Quintana taking 2 starts a piece and Rodon in full rookie bloom taking the other start in a 7 game series. The bullpen also would feature a proven and top quality closer, two quality lefties, and a bunch of young arms who really put things together. It also is possible that a Montas could play a role of a Bobby Jenks style reliever come August through October. Again, on the offensive end of things, it all depends on how some of the younger and upcoming stars perform. Right now, we don't know if they are going to be very good or down right nasty in the potency of their offensive production.