shysocks

Really enjoyed watching him pitch with the dead-center camera angle in St. Louis. It allowed you to see the movement on his pitches so much differently. That's the gold standard for baseball viewing on TV.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 01:07 PM) No. You will not get fair value for Chris Sale... Then you don't bloody trade him and that's all there is to it. All the other stuff is window dressing to the core point, just independent events, red herrings that I don't even care to consider. You're just advocating for a different brand of mistake.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 12:50 PM) Here's the problem with that comparison. What have the Mariners done with Felix? 0 playoff appearances, 1 year above .500, 1 year finishing better than 4th in the division since 2009. Oh darn...so trading that pitcher would have done what...make them a bad worse team and a losing franchise? Fixed. They had a pitcher who everybody wanted, a bona fide stud, and that was the type of offer they were fielding. Couple that with teams valuing their pre-FA players more now than they ever did, and you expect a Chris Sale return to be remotely satisfactory.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 12:41 PM) No. You cannot. He is a pitcher and can only affect 33 games or so. This argument ignores how much more of an impact the pitcher has on the games in which he appears. A starter who throws 200 innings typically faces well over 800 batters in a season. Ian Kinsler had the most plate appearances in baseball last season with 726.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 12:31 PM) I still like the Peavy trade. We got some high upside players and Garcia is worth the risk. He's toolsy as hell. He just has some huge flaws that could have been corrected. The trade was just fine. Montas was a throw-in and is one of our most important prospects, and it was also a complete salary dump.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 12:27 PM) And while I agree, if you're down enough on this franchise as I am such that you expect this team to continue losing for several years...comparing "rebuilding with the best pieces we could get for Chris Sale" and "letting Chris Sale be the dominant player on a losing team until he is traded in 2018 or gets hurt" at least motivates consideration of the "take the best offer you can" option. Just like the best five players among... Clay Buchholz Daniel Bard Michael Bowden Justin Masterson Nick Hagadone Josh Reddick Yamaico Navarro Felix Doubront ...would have had the Mariners set for years if they had traded Felix!

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 11:15 AM) I'm tellin' ya - ride the Stone Pony right on out of the "Land of the Williams/Hahn Bad Decisions", out of the cellar of the American League, and onto baseball greatness!! "Ride the Stone Pony" is next year's ad campaign.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 10:09 AM) Do people forget Ozzie quit on the team? Who was the manager for many of the This. Team. Is. Dead. posts. It didn't used to be blamed on the manager. Now it is. Apparently yes.

First of all, I'm not answering a ****ing survey question to read that column. Why do newspapers not seem to understand how the internet works in 2015? Never mind, I think I know the answer. EDIT: Clicked the link again and I didn't have to take a survey. Whatever. That column's only function was to throw raw meat to the dogs. Second, if you are calling for the White Sox to hire Ozzie, you are not thinking critically about the team. It is a lazy and stupid suggestion.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 01:36 PM) I wish Avi would develop consistent home run power. He's hit some bombs. Looks like he's the same as all the modern hitters. He's got to become more selective and when he gets a hitters count ... bam! Right now he's kind of a mess at the plate and a horror in the field. The bold cannot be overstated. By every indicator you can think of, he is rough out there.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 08:48 PM) And all 4 based those expectations on major free agent signings. Maybe that's worth noting? Which major free agents were the Indians banking on? Their expectations were based on growth from starting pitching. Unless you're not counting them among the four teams that had expectations.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 12:54 AM) Stop with the bulls*** reasons to fire RV, there's only one reason to fire him and that's because you can't fire 25 players. If he was making one ridiculous substitution after another, or running into outs with his stupid calls from the dugout or if guys were constantly out of position on defense then yes, by all means, the manager is leading to losses. But these guys are playing like horseshiit and that's why they're losing and that's why we want the manager fired. He's the boss. He's as close as we can get to firing some or all of the players. Motivation my ass. If you need to get motivated to play professional sports you're in the wrong career. And ask yourself something: would Gillaspie, Flowers, Sanchez and Ramirez be STARTING on a winning team right now? Not likely. That's about half your lineup. I'd throw LaRoche in there if he hadn't finally started to heat up. And you might wonder whether or not Avi would be starting in RF on a winning team. Fire Robin, don't fire Robin, who gives a s***. All it is is red meat to the fans and a complete "Who, me?" by management. How about firing Buddy Bell who has nothing down in the minors that's developed into MLB talent that can help right now? That'd be a nice start. And I'd take a long look at Doug Laumann too. Over 2 decades heading up scouting for the White Sox. Like what you see? I love this post. To expand - Buddy Bell's job isn't high profile enough for Rongey to have to fend off angry callers about him, but he should be first out the door.

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Jun 26, 2015 -> 10:19 AM) Would you rather have a bonus for $15M (Top 3 worst records) or $7M (Team with .500 record but not good enough to make the playoffs) for July 2nd and the draft combined. Of course this isnt the NBA or NFL, where you draft a guy and you're immediately able to see that player with the pro team, but I think the argument applies because teams with worst records, that have more money to spend are able to bring in more talent into their system, look at the Astros were able to do in the draft. Yeah they wont see Bregman, Tucker and Cameron this year but you cant deny that they added some serious talent into their system. I know how the bonus pools work and I'd still rather have the .500 team. It doesn't have as much work to do to get good and it didn't suck as much to watch. I think I made that my position pretty clearly.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jun 26, 2015 -> 09:08 AM) White Sox have a better record than Boston, and are just .5 games behind Oakland. Why are their chances higher? Still 90 games to go and they're 6 back in the wild card. Eaton and Cabrera are showing signs of light. Anything can happen. I'm not sure what projection system he's using but it's probably based a little on preseason expectations. Those teams were thought to be better coming into the season. Also, based on run differential and overall performance, most systems would say the Sox are "lucky" that their record isn't worse.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jun 26, 2015 -> 12:07 AM) Those aren't mutually exclusive things... They were only examples, but in general they kind of are. To get a top pick, everyone has to suck. There'd be no reason to believe at the end of the season that Melky can still be a contributing major leaguer, or that Eaton can get his act together. There'd be no reason to believe the Sox would be anything but crazy to take that $10M 2016 option on Alexei that once looked so good, or that Avisail Garcia will ever be average. Again - just examples. And I'm in no way commenting on the likelihood of any of this. Ignore the logistics of each player getting to where they need to be because that's not my point. What I'm saying is that I'd rather look at the Sox in October and see 4 or 5 holes instead of 7 or 8, because you aren't filling those extra holes with one top 3 pick. Seems pretty simple to me. QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Jun 26, 2015 -> 02:54 AM) If you're not going to make the playoffs, might as well aim for the highest pick possible. One of the worst positions that a franchise could operate in professional sports is the middle, you're missing out on the high end talent and you're not competing for a championship. So again, if you’re not going to the playoffs get the highest pick possible. That argument doesn't work in baseball. This isn't the NBA where one dominant player can instantly turn your team around. "Missing out on the high end talent" is not nearly as penalizing in baseball, where impact players come later in the draft more often. The top 5 hitters by WAR this year were drafted 1, 25, 34, 63, and 246 overall in their drafts. The top 5 pitchers were taken at 11, 13, 18, 134, and 161. If you look at the top guys over the last five years total you tend to see more slant towards the very top of the draft, but at the risk of repeating myself, impact players are picked later with regularity. Here's a pretty solid example that I think is fair to both sides of the argument. David Price was chosen 1st overall in 2007. Madison Bumgarner was taken 10th. Neither has become a free agent yet, and Price has earned 28.8 WAR compared to Bumgarner's 20.0. I would rather be able to comfortably project 1 extra WAR from 3 different positions for the next two years than have the 2015 team conclude as an epic failure and get the extra 9 WAR over about 7 seasons. You might obviously differ, and you're necessarily wrong for that, but the tiebreaker for me is that I just don't wanna watch my team lose right now any more than I have to. And I do see those outcomes as mutually exclusive. There's a correlation between Melky's (again, just for example's sake) final 2015 WAR and what you can reasonably expect from him for the remainder of his contract.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 25, 2015 -> 04:10 PM) Plenty of managers would not put the winning run in scoring position Double thank you. It was not an automatic call. For Robertson pitch mix, depends on the source. BIS says nothing unusual, PITCHf/x says higher percentage of straight fastball than the last few years.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 25, 2015 -> 04:13 PM) The Good: Eaton's continuing to hit. Beckham and Carlos Sanchez defensively. Sanchez 2nd game winning RBI. Rodon sliders, 7 swinging K's today. Ventura's decision to put the tying run at 2B and walk Cabrera to face Josh Wilson (who did have a 4 hit game against us, but is the definition of career journeyman/AAAA player). JB Shuck continues to make contributions in key moments. It's nice to be 5-5 against DET and pinning them with some huge losses (the walk-off HBP to Avi comes to mind) that will make their path to the playoffs harder and hard. The Bad: Tyler Flowers blocking pitches and general pitch selection by the catchers David Robertson almost had his 4th blown save in 12 appearances after flying out of the gate Alexei Ramirez continues to struggle mightily with RISP. He had a late K and I think all of the pitches were out of the strike zone. Conor Gillaspie is beyond terrible and might be the first DFA candidate of the position players...unless it's Bonifacio. Abreu was clueless up there today, career high in strikeouts for a game. Avi Garcia continues to make bad plays in RF and has hit just .155 in his last 29. FTFY I know what you mean though.

That was some sphincter time right there. Love Robin showing some creativity and walking Cabrera.

That's a different variety of sombrero.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jun 25, 2015 -> 02:52 PM) Man as bad as our catchers have been at the plate, I just saw that Seattle has a .471 OPS and Tampa Bay has a .453 OPS from their catchers. Holy s***. Yet Jesus Montero just wastes away in the minors.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 25, 2015 -> 02:29 PM) Jose not a good day. That's some variety of sombrero.

I see "V. Martínez doubled to left." and I reflexively wonder, Who didn't make a play?

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jun 25, 2015 -> 12:54 PM) You know you want that #1 pick! You can't resist! I don't! I can! I'd rather see some guys play well, see the team finish with 78 or 79 wins, and have some hope for how we project next year. If Melky and Eaton wrapped up with quality seasons, that'd be better for the health of the franchise than a top pick.