OmarComing25

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Nov 1, 2015 -> 10:59 PM) Sabermetrics taking over mind sets of players.. yikes. And agreed with Reed. It's not Sabremetrics, as many examples you can give of the more experienced team winning I can give you just as many examples of the inexperienced team winning. In '05 every team we faced in the playoffs was far more experienced than us, but we still kicked ass.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Nov 1, 2015 -> 10:46 PM) Tell that to the players and manager who have repeatedly said it before and during this series. They know what it takes now. Not just "being happy to be there." http://grantland.com/the-triangle/mlb-play...yths-to-ignore/ They can say whatever they want the numbers don't support them. The whole " knowing what it takes now" is such a BS narrative. There's no secret strategy to winning the World Series. You need to do the same things you do to win any other series.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Nov 1, 2015 -> 10:43 PM) Being in the World Series last year was so beneficial for the Royals. There's no correlation between experience and playoff success.

Mets have no one to blame but themselves. They've had the lead in the 8th inning in 4 of the 5 games. Just pathetic in closing out games.

QUOTE (coco1997 @ Nov 1, 2015 -> 11:11 AM) If the Cubs signed Gordon to play LF, wouldn't that just about seal Schwarber's fate? Does anyone really think he can stick as a catcher? I like that one proposal I read to trade Schwarber to Oakland for Sonny Gray. The A's get set at DH for the next decade, and the Cubs have an easy #1/2 under team control through 2020. That's a terrible trade for Oakland.

Is there data on guys who move to the DH spot without having prior experience there and then struggling? I'm not sure two data points is a sufficient sample size to make that kind of conclusion, especially since we acquired both guys well after their prime years anyway.

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Oct 31, 2015 -> 11:28 PM) Oh come on. It changes nothing, really? So we're just going to go about assembling our team with second third tier FA and cast away FA's to compete against a DIVISIONAL opponent, twice in the World Series and likely to win it this season, even after Williams has acknowledged we're in our three year window? Point A to Point B changes when the Royals have more revenue from a World Series run to retain, sign, extend vital playera for their success. Unless you think the Royals have unlocked the secret to beating the variance in the postseason (and both years required massive f***-ups by the A's and Astros), yes it doesn't change much from the end of the season. Any team that makes the playoffs is capable of winning it all, the Royals aren't special here. They won the AL in the regular season, that says a lot more to me than the results of 3 series. But even ignoring playoff randomness, I'm not sure what your point is. Why would this change our plans? Do you really think Hahn was planning on sitting on his ass, but it's only after a division rival wins it all (assuming they get it done) that he cares about improving the team? That would be ridiculous. If anything, worrying about "answering" a title from a rival would just lead to desperation and risky moves that would set us back further. It won't and shouldn't make a difference, we already knew KC was good enough to win it all, them actually getting it done is irrelevant as far as we are concerned. The fact that the 2011-2014 Tigers never won it all didn't make them any less of a threat, they were still one of the best teams in the league regardless of playoff results. Do you really think the other NL West teams tried "harder" after the Giants' recent success? No, a rival doing well doesn't suddenly create new options to improve that didn't exist before.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 31, 2015 -> 10:47 PM) Yes, but it sets an even higher bar or standard. From Point A to B is a massive gulf, at least for the moment. And I disagree. The Royals set the standard by winning 95 games, them winning a few short playoff series that are each basically a toss-up doesn't change anything. If the Astros had held on to their 4-run lead in Game 4 of the ALDS, the distance from Point A to Point B would be exactly the same. This changes nothing.

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Oct 31, 2015 -> 10:20 PM) Go Royals! I can't wait for Hahn to assemble a team to compete with the World Series champions... Whether or not the Royals close this out won't affect Hahn's plans at all.

We get it, the Royals put the ball in play. You don't have to spend 90% of the airtime talking about it.

QUOTE (CWSpalehoseCWS @ Oct 31, 2015 -> 02:46 PM) Even if he was to leave the Royals, why would he have any desire to come to the Sox? I know money talks, but between the Royals, the Cubs, and the Sox, which team would you be more compelled to sign with from an organization standpoint? Money wins out 99% of the time.

LaRoche wasn't really a high K guy, to say he was similar to Dunn in that regard is just false. LaRoche's career K% is 22% which is slightly below average, and in 2014 his K% was just 18.4%, well below anything Dunn ever put up. Yeah I know he struckout a lot this year but that was unusual for him. Also I'm not ready to write him off for 2016 yet. Even Dunn was able to bounce back after his historically bad 2011 to make the All-Star team the next year, and LaRoche has a pretty good track record, I don't think he just completely lost all his ability to hit. My expectations aren't exactly high for him especially given his age, but I wouldn't expect him to be nearly as bad as he was in 2015 either, especially if Robin limits his ABs against LHP which I think he will, like he did with Conor this year before we finally pulled the plug on him.

I'm still very skeptical that teams are going to offer more or less based on a small handful of games in the playoffs. I don't think it'll make much of a noticeable difference at all.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 30, 2015 -> 09:43 PM) It's so funny because when they win, they brag about what great fans they are. These fans are brutal. Any loss regular season or postseason and they consider the offending players total bums. It's classic inning by inning game by game. They despise Ventura right now and love Cueto. A few days ago they wanted to run Cueto out of town. They were praising Rios the other day; now they want his head on a platter. Basically KC thought it was over at 2-0 forgetting home field means a lot this time of year. This series is going 7 obviously. Sounds like every fanbase ever.

Hard pass on Wieters at both the years and the price, especially if we have to give up a pick. His career OPS+ is 100, he's 25th in wRC+ among catchers since he debuted, he's not particularly great at pitch framing either. He throws out runners really well, and I don't know how well he calls a game, but I'm not really seeing the appeal.

QUOTE (sin city sox fan @ Oct 29, 2015 -> 01:02 PM) If you take out all the earned runs he gave up all season, his ERA is 0.00......not too shabby!! It's not really cherry-picking if 1 out of 53 appearances makes your numbers look much worse than they really were, and his ERA and FIP even with that appearance weren't that bad anyway. It's not like I took out 10 appearances.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Oct 29, 2015 -> 12:32 PM) Yay a new scapegoat Does anyone really know the assistant hitting coaches well enough to complain about them?

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Oct 29, 2015 -> 11:13 AM) At the All Star break, Jennings had an ERA of 7.83. He lowered that to 3.99 with a FIP of 3.47. He gave up 8 ER in the 2nd half of the season. You definitely keep him. If you take out his 6 ER in 0.2 innings against the Reds, his ERA for the rest of the season was 3.07. Definitely worth keeping around.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 09:03 PM) Haha OP i'm an idiot- sorry for the SS post. I think the only reason Montas was brought up to the big leagues was to beef up his value. I think the Sox put him in the pen to highlight his fastball amd mask his longevity issues- but now I bet plenty of GMs are salivating over that build and velocity. Methinks the Sox see something with him that is no bueno. He gone. They didn't just stick him in the bullpen though, he started a couple games. And it's still way too early to write off any future with him as a SP. He's clearly an unfinished product right now.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 29, 2015 -> 09:00 AM) This is getting ridiculous. +1000 He was probably joking, but sometimes it's really hard to tell.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 29, 2015 -> 06:34 AM) Not sure if it's been mentioned here, but that was the first time in degrom's career that he didn't get a single saying and miss. He got 3 swing and misses in his 94 pitches, not zero. Still very impressive by the Royals. Mets only had 3 swing and misses against Cueto too in his 122 pitches. In total, there was only 9 swing and misses in the entire game. Pretty crazy.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Cueto do well tonight, considering he's back facing the NL again.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 07:12 PM) Quintana is the wildcard, but it's a highly safe assumption that Chris Sale, Carlos Rodon and John Danks will be in the rotation. Erik Johnson enters camp (or the off-season) as the favorite to fill out the rotation assuming no trades. Quintana could be seen as the quickest way to filling 2 holes on offense; he has been a #2-#3 type of quality starter now for about 3 seasons, and has a team friendly contract for another 3-4 seasons. This should result, if traded, in 2 high end prospects coming back, and we know the White Sox are looking for MLB ready type of talent. With holes at C, 3B, and potential area's of concern at SS, 2B,and DH (although it's fair to assume that La Roche, Sanchez and probably Ramirez enter next year as significant contributors). They shouldn't limit any trade return to specific positions outside of maybe 1B, so they could add 2 higher end prospects this way. They could also keep Quintana and move Johnson; obviously the return will pale in return, but they could get a usable player in return while ensuring the rotation (top end) stays a strength. In either case, move a starting pitcher is the best bet for young offensive talent, and it's hard to expect that the White Sox will be major players again in free agency to fill these holes. This will never stop bugging me, especially when said by White Sox fans, who should know better than anyone. By any metric you want to use, Quintana has been a top 15-20 starter in the MLB for the past 3 seasons. Far better than #3 quality.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 06:39 PM) Good move by the Sox taking a chance on him. But I assume a bunch of teams passed on him dropping him down to Sox. Those teams don't have the track record we do with pitchers though.

Have to agree that we might overrate our SP depth. And I'm as excited about Rodon as anybody but with his control issues we should be careful before penciling him in as a top of the rotation guy for the future, a lot could still go wrong. This next year will tell us a lot about what we have (see if August/September Rodon is more like the Rodon we can expect than the first-half Rodon, see if EJ can get out ML-caliber hitters, see if Danish can improve his stock his 2nd go-around in AA, see if Fulmer is as ML-ready as we hope, see if Adams can take the next step, see if Montas has any future as a SP). To me, a possible Quintana trade might make more sense at the end of 2016 when we have more information about these guys.