shysocks

If Danks' deal is in the timeframe we're using, then you have to include Q. The guy where the most money is on the line, Abreu, is a success. Those two tilt the scales in the other direction quite a bit.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Dec 8, 2015 -> 07:01 AM) Thank you for the Info. I was not aware of that injury. Now my question is; Why was he playing? He should have been benched. Now, I'm even more disappointed in this team. If he couldn't contribute because of his health, he should not have been left in a position to spoil the team's chances of being competitive. He was a "black hole" in the cleanup spot. Simply inexplicable!! QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 8, 2015 -> 08:30 AM) with due respect to all, i don't believe it. fluff job by the sox It is not a fluff job by the Sox. The only info on LaRoche's hand injury that I've seen came from the very bottom of this piece on South Side Sox. LaRoche complained about hand soreness in the beginning of the season, and according to Schneider, the soreness was in some "serious places on the hand." After performing tests, LaRoche didn't break his hamate but occasionally still experiences soreness in his right hand. Something to keep an eye on because a nagging injury like this can zap the power from a batter's swing, and could be a factor on why LaRoche's slugging percentage is below .400. I have not seen any other media outlets run with this or even mention it, so it's possible I'm overrating it.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Dec 8, 2015 -> 05:54 AM) Meh, Miller is overrated, his peripherals are not good, projected for an ERA over 4 by Steamer next year. This. I don't like Baez at all but I don't think the Braves would be doing too bad in said deal.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 8, 2015 -> 08:59 AM) I want a T-shirt that says, "Exorcise Avi!" I'll contribute to the Kickstarter. QUOTE (ChiSoxFanMike @ Dec 8, 2015 -> 09:00 AM) I still think making Saladino the starting SS would be a major mistake. It would not be ideal for a team that is trying to win, but at least we would be strong up the middle defensively and we'd be keeping the seat warm for Anderson (who might be gone anyway in this fictional world where we have Todd Frazier). QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Dec 8, 2015 -> 09:03 AM) LaRoche is done. Garbage. He'll be 36 years old. This is the list of players in 2015, 35 or older who posted above average offensive numbers. Name wRC+ David Ortiz 138 Alex Rodriguez 129 Carlos Beltran 119 A.J. Pierzynski 112 Adrian Beltre 108 Juan Uribe 104 I filtered for 300 plate appearances and got 9 guys with wRC+ at 100 or more, out of 21 players total. We have evidence LaRoche played with a hand injury last year. I don't know if he'll be good, but I'll bet you he's better than we saw in 2015..

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Dec 8, 2015 -> 04:01 AM) Yes I think that Frazier and Upton could make the Sox contenders but no I don't think the Sox acquire either Frazier or Upton (despite rumors). Well said. If we get those two, and if we see production from Melky and LaRoche that is similar to what we expected when we signed them... Eaton Melky Abreu Upton LaRoche Frazier Avila/Navarro Saladino Sanchez That's a very good lineup. Exorcising Avi Garcia would really do wonders.

Hard to compare because when Episode I came out the internet wasn't the same and we didn't have social media, but I remember it being highly anticipated too. I'd say it was comparable to Force Awakens.

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 7, 2015 -> 03:42 PM) Seems like a quick, simple solution is to upgrade in RF. Avi brings nothing to the table offensively or defensively Hear hear! It's why I'm softening re: a potential (but still probably unlikely) Upton signing.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Dec 7, 2015 -> 12:56 PM) Question; how hard is it to hit 2 buttons and get to the Diamond Club where all teams are discussed? There is just too much clutter IMO. I go to the Pale Hose Talk section to read and discuss what is going on with the White Sox which is what this site is about. I hate having to go through a bunch of threads about a team signing a player that the White Sox were never linked to, to see if there is anything being talked about regarding the White Sox. If people don't how there are multiple threads about one player then make it clear that all talk about David Price goes in the Diamond Club section with one thread, close all the other threads. I didn't see a problem with how it was and I prefer that but I am just one man with one opinion. I know you address this point, but frankly "making it clear" is easier said than done. When Price signed there were like three threads with upwards of 20 posts about it almost immediately. Doesn't happen with the current configuration. I'd turn the question around on you - how hard is it to ignore the threads in here that don't interest you?

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Dec 7, 2015 -> 01:30 PM) Am I the only one that browses the site by just clicking "new posts" and don't really pay attention to which sub-forum each thread is in? I've been using that since somebody (probably you) posted about it a couple weeks ago. I didn't know it existed and it's been magical. But that's only for when I've been away from the site for a short time and want to catch up. That button after a day or more away would just be return too much stuff I don't care about.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 7, 2015 -> 01:28 PM) So I'm not going to make some big winded post as what I am posting is purely based upon conjecture (along with some of Hahn's quotes) but I've heard Hahn talk a lot about working to fix our offense, but like last off-season, I've heard so little about our defense? It just makes me go hmmm, have we learned nothing from our struggles the past few years. I realize that good defensive, OBP guys don't grow on trees (and to be frank, OBP and good defense are the Sox two biggest achiles heels) but for us to consistently talk about offense just strikes the wrong chord to me. I have watched a team that has been fundamentally bad for the past few years and last off-season we tried to fix the offense while ignoring defense. Sox deserve the benefit of the doubt cause they have yet to make a move this off-season that made the defense worse, but they also haven't upgraded the defense either (which is fine...only position they addressed was catcher and net net I'd say that move was defensively neutral to slightly positive while offensively having the upside to be positive). You were banging the defense drum last offseason almost to excess but I'm in full agreement with you now. I haven't gotten through the Upton / Asdrubal threads yet, but those are guys I'd prefer the Sox stay away from.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Dec 4, 2015 -> 06:40 PM) Not going to lie, I am not a fan of having other teams signings in the White Sox part of the website. I would much rather have them separate like they were before. Since the boss is looking for feedback, let me say that I disagree with this. I've been reading the board after not logging in all weekend, and I like having the MLB-wide threads here in PHT. I also like each move getting its own thread; it's just neater and it seems like it facilitates more/better discussion.

I don't have time to address the framing argument any further at the moment, although I wish I did because it's a great discussion. But as I posted in the other thread about Flowers' non-tender, people saying his hitting was trash are just simply not paying attention to the rest of the league. He struck out a lot. His ceiling was low. And I'd love to be able to describe the Sox' primary catcher as something more than "average for his league." But his numbers match up closely with the aggregate totals for catchers in the American League, except his rotten 2013. Go look it up for yourself.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 02:46 PM) What pitchers have the Sox fixed recently or semi recently? Does Q count? Otherwise off the top of my head... Hector Noesi's brief flirtation with competence, Zach Putnam has probably done more here than expected, that's all I got at the moment.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 12:57 PM) Since I can't or won't be taking statistic classes or whatever math applies here I have to break it down in more simplistic terms which unfortunately many of us here have to do. Just because you trust the new data doesn't mean a damn thing to me. I have to assume too much here. Trust the data, trust the guy interpreting the data, trust pitch f/x , trust his math, trust his baseball knowledge, trust you. Sorry no can do. All right, I'll lay it out step by step. Keep in mind there is at least one other system, Baseball Prospecus'. Its data is behind a paywall. 1. We have pitch F/X data for pitches that were not swung at. I think you are misunderstanding this part: Pitch F/X is what determines the location of each pitch, not the author studying the path of the ball. It’s just data he already has. It is not that much to ask that you trust the pitch F/X system. MLB trusts it enough to use it in the Gameday app. It has shown it can be slightly flawed in judging pitch type and velocity, but for pitch location – which is all we care about here – it is basically unimpeachable. Each of these data points was called either a strike or a ball by the umpire; that’s something we also can’t dispute. 2. We have an interpretation of the strike zone. Studying the rulebook strike zone wouldn’t do us much good because the data shows umps do not follow it. So we want a “recognized” strike zone. Judging each catcher’s sample against that should be more valuable than using the rulebook zone, because that’s what players actually experience in games. The explanation for that zone is explained very well here. He basically divided the space above the plate into small segments, took the likelihood of a pitch that hit each segment being called a strike, and found that the area where that number was 50% or more looked like one ellipse for lefty hitters and a different ellipse for righties. Those oval shapes are the recognized strike zones used to craft the leaderboard. So again, we have a dataset of hundreds of thousands of pitches, we know where the pitcher threw them, and we know whether they were called strikes or not. We use that to approximate the true strike zone. This is probably the biggest leap of faith required; as you said, it’s a “judgment.” But it is only a judgment of how the umps actually called games, not how they should have. The "should have" part is just based on this data. 3. From there it's simply grouping the data by catcher (“The catcher is simply used as a grouping point. There's no attempt to control for the pitchers, the umpires, the counts, or anything other than which side the hitter stood on.”). Any pitch outside the oval is judged outside the zone. If the ump called it a strike, the catcher got credit. Any pitch inside the oval is judged inside the zone. If the ump called it a ball, the catcher was penalized. Add it all up, compare the percentages to the league average, do some arithmetic, and you have the leaderboard. To me the methodology makes plenty of sense. What is up for grabs is how much credit or blame to assign to the catcher, which the piece goes out of its way to acknowledge. I don’t know the answer, and I’ve already gone out of my way to acknowledge that. But if you accept the premise that how a catcher receives the ball affects how the umpire sees it, then you have to accept that the catcher deserves some share of the credit or blame. And I don’t see how you could deny that premise – that evidence is out there. How many times have we seen a catcher drop a pitch right down the middle and have the ump call it a ball, for example.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 11:41 AM) So why show me Pitch F/X ? It uses no camera's? No computers ? Sonar ? Radar ? It's infallible ? If you are going to try and teach me something better give me the whole package. Does the person using pitch f/x see where the ball crossed the plate from over the top ? From the side ? Does it determine the height of the batter and determine his strike zone ? I don't see anything in what you showed me saying its used in pitch framing stats and even if it is why does the catcher get credit for it? Next year Flowers could be 20th in pitch framing for all we know. It's just another useless defensive stat based on judgment calls that you are saying "no I can tell you that catcher made the difference on that pitch being called a strike when he is only 1/3 of the people involved in that pitch with 100% accuracy. " You edited so I'll add: I'm not that interested in teaching you anything, turns out.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 11:41 AM) So why show me Pitch F/X ? It uses no camera's? No computers ? Sonar ? Radar ? I don't see anything in what you showed me saying its used in pitch framing stats and even if it is why does the catcher get credit for it? Next year Flowers could be 20th in pitch framing for all we know. It's just another useless defensive stat based on judgment calls that you are saying "no I can tell you that catcher made the difference on that pitch being called a strike when he is only 1/3 of the people involved in that pitch with 100% accuracy. " You asked how the framing numbers are compiled. It's with PITCH f/x, not a guy watching film. It is explained in the leaderboard I linked to before if you're willing to dig the tiniest bit. I have said the exact opposite of the bolded countless times in this thread. I can't argue with you if you aren't even reading what I'm saying.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 11:15 AM) Now only the umps and pitchers rep. Wrap your mind around this. Another variable is the guy charting all this stuff. How does he determine that a pitch was a ball and/or strike ? How does he determine that ? Are all center field camera's directly in line with home plate ? Does he look at every pitch from a directly over head shot of home plate ? So now you got another Umpire with a computer and a pencil calling balls and strike based on cameras and camera angles of those pitches. PITCHF/x Look, no offense, but the fact that you thought this was based on a guy watching every pitch of every game makes it impossible to take your opinion seriously. You called it the most ridiculous stat in the history of baseball without knowing the first thing about it.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 10:31 AM) I saw some graph on SSS that had Flowers getting 38 pitches outside the zone called strikes. A whole 38 if it's accurate . Woooo damn think how bad the Sox would be if they didn't get those 38 called strikes which by the way could be on the ump or a pitchers rep. Way way way too much discussion about it. Catching a fly ball properly gives you a better chance to throw out runners as do a lot of little things make you a better defender. The fact that it is easily charted is the only reason it's even talked about in this crazy environment of stats. All the other little things other fielders do is less definable. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen stats yet on how accurate infielders throw to first yet. Pitch framing talk is the most ridiculous new stat in the history of baseball. Would love to see a citation on that because I'm pretty sure you're way off. The oft-cited leaderboard that had Flowers second shows 169 calls going in the Sox' favor when he caught. Regardless of how much credit you want to give Flowers for that, if you think it's unimportant you are wrong. Sorry. As for the other little things like positioning, if a guy does them whenever he can it will show up in his ratings. Not really sure how that's an argument. Framing is talked about because it has a direct impact on the count.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 10:06 AM) Unless they are stopgaps to a catching prospect that you hope to acquire in such a deal. I would say that these moves are not telling at all about what the Sox are planning to do. If anything, it makes me think that they are leaning toward a complete tear down by bringing in two guys on one year deals. A pretty low investment that can be flipped at the trade deadline to stock some more pieces if they have bounce back seasons. I agree that this seems more indicative of a total rebuild than anything else because of the low cost. QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 10:13 AM) And pitcher preference. I hope that would be last on the list because it would fly against the front office cutting loose the team's best pitcher's favorite catcher.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 09:47 AM) Sanchez can be an elite defensive second baseman, but his bat has more potential than people here seem to think. He has shown flashes of being a decent contact hitter. Only 23. He's been young at every level. Not sure his offensive ceiling is that great but I do expect him to be better with time. He's one incumbent I wouldn't mind them giving a shot.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 09:45 AM) Let's see if Robin uses this platoon correctly, by the way. Why does this keep popping up. I am certain that Robin understands which starting pitchers are right- and left-handed. Any deviation in the platoon would be related to rest/injury.

OPS of all American League catchers / Tyler Flowers by year 2011: .704 / .719 2012: .707 / .708 2013: .706 / .603 2014: .675 / .693 2015: .670 / .652 wRC+ 2011: 92 / 94 2012: 93 / 91 2013: 94 / 61 2014: 90 / 95 2015: 82 / 78 Recalibrate your expectations.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 09:10 AM) Sure, there is skill involved but there is a correlation between catching a top tier pitcher and the pitch framing rankings and statistics. I dont think Greg Maddux's two seam fastball was called for a strike all those years because of the catcher. I fully acknowledged that the pitcher plays a role. But Flowers caught Sale in 2014 too and didn't looks as good on the framing leaderboards. Did Sale's reputation grow enough during that offseason that it propelled Flowers to the top? Probably not.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 09:08 AM) Wasn't the worst strike called a ball in 2015 Samardzija pitching and Flowers catching? It was something like 2 inches from dead center but Flowers was really awkward trying to catch it as he was set up on the corner. It looked so much like a ball, even Hawk didn't complain. Indeed it was. Samardzija's body language after the call is hilarious. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-worst-c...-of-the-season/ Sullivan only pulls the most extreme examples for entertainment reasons but the point gets across.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 09:05 AM) Agree about pitch-framing, but looking back in past years Flowers didn't rate too highly there (2014 he was below average, 2013 only slightly above average), is this something that we can be sure is a permanent change? Intentionally didn't mention Flowers' name in my post but that's a fair question. I would say there's enough material out there about Flowers being a student of framing to make me believe the improvement wasn't an accident.