As a hitting anayltics instructor. Very good sign by the sox, I have followed his stuff in the internet for some time and he is very modern and progressive.

I do use some of his drills with the players I'm working with too, he is a guy whom I would trust to do swing changes towards the modern elevate style on sox prospects.

I'll be honest, I didn't know who this guy was. Went down a rabbit hole of his videos and he seems like a great voice to have in the org. Love seeing progressive hires by the Sox. 

What is his background and where was he previously?

1 hour ago, TheTruth05 said:

I'll be honest, I didn't know who this guy was. Went down a rabbit hole of his videos and he seems like a great voice to have in the org. Love seeing progressive hires by the Sox. 

I'm about to do the same haha

Jim Thome is a big backer of this guy. 

 

Do damage. OBP is life.

 

 

Edited November 17, 20187 yr by Dick Allen

Thome has been a very interesting person in this org. His name seems to pop up all over from scouting to personally coaching guys. 

Im not that surprised, as I have always heard that Thome is one of the best people you’ll ever meet, I’m sure everyone wants him around.

Interesting we hired him away from Mizzou before he even coached a game for them:

http://www.journalreview.com/sports/national/article_4142d6cb-6e37-5f54-b38d-4da471c2f8ad.html

1 hour ago, sox71 said:

What is his background and where was he previously?

College and private hitting instructor I think. Don't think he ever played pro ball. I think initially he copied stuff from other "internet guru's" but he also studied a lot and is into the modern analytical stuff. Does private lessons and also has internet content you have to pay for.

25 minutes ago, bmags said:

Thome has been a very interesting person in this org. His name seems to pop up all over from scouting to personally coaching guys. 

Im not that surprised, as I have always heard that Thome is one of the best people you’ll ever meet, I’m sure everyone wants him around.

Thome is great but his swing views are very old school, in the mlb shows the did swing analysis he demonstrated stuff he totally not did when he played. That is quite common with star players, they often have a different feel than what they actually did. Everyone interpretates cues differently and many greats developed a great swing with the old school cues but many lesser talents take the cues literally and fail big time.

Old school coaching was throwing the same cues at every player and hoping a small percentage becomes really good with the others you just blame the players that they were " not coachable".

Now in good modern training you teach it more literally and try to adapt to the different learning channels (visual, kinesthetic, audio...) to reach more athletes instead of just relying on natural talent.

I love thome but I don't think he has the desire to learn all the technology and biomechanical stuff because what he learned as a kid in the 80s made him a 600 hr guy, he can't really relate to the struggles of lesser talents.

If you take a former player, take a guy like Donaldson or Turner who learned it late in the analytical way but those guys are currently still playing because that analytical modern stuff only became really big the last 5-7 years.

Edited November 17, 20187 yr by dominik-keul@gmx.de

On 11/17/2018 at 8:22 AM, bmags said:

Thome has been a very interesting person in this org. His name seems to pop up all over from scouting to personally coaching guys. 

Im not that surprised, as I have always heard that Thome is one of the best people you’ll ever meet, I’m sure everyone wants him around.

Anecdote time: He came into a restaurant I worked with last year. I was there meeting the owner. I talked to Thome for a few minutes. He's as cordial as anyone you'll ever meet. He tipped $120 on a $100 bill. 

Uh-oh, Madrigal fans aren't gonna like this guy.

 

 

I’m confused by that question. How could anybody take Option B? I understand wanting to decrease strikeouts, because putting the ball in play MIGHT lead to more productive at-bats, but in this hypothetical scenario, we know that putting the ball in play was not more effective. Give me the .800 OPS all day. 

25 minutes ago, SoxBlanco said:

I’m confused by that question. How could anybody take Option B? I understand wanting to decrease strikeouts, because putting the ball in play MIGHT lead to more productive at-bats, but in this hypothetical scenario, we know that putting the ball in play was not more effective. Give me the .800 OPS all day. 

I agree with you, I don’t know how option B won that poll. People are so anti-strikeouts that they’re letting it outweigh practically every other metric.

43 minutes ago, Jose Abreu said:

I agree with you, I don’t know how option B won that poll. People are so anti-strikeouts that they’re letting it outweigh practically every other metric.

I don't know if its that. I am a Madrigal fan but not just because he doesn't strike out. I do like that he doesn't strike out but that is not his best or most important quality.

1 hour ago, Jose Abreu said:

I agree with you, I don’t know how option B won that poll. People are so anti-strikeouts that they’re letting it outweigh practically every other metric.

Who are the people following him on twitter that don't know this?

23 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Who are the people following him on twitter that don't know this?

Even on this site the obsession with K's is insane. That results of that poll are crazy, but not that surprising. 

Unless it is 30+ percent Ks they need to be seen in relation to power. 200 Ks with 15 homers is bad of course but I rather have a guy who strikes out 22% and hits 35 over a guy striking out 15% hitting 5 homers.

I actually developed a formula to quantify this:)

https://www.fangraphs.com/community/introducing-k-bb-iso/ (Btw this was when I started to do analysis, the format is pretty ugly due to the negative values, more elegant is to use K-ISO+BB so the good hitters have positive values)

If you have a low  to medium (say 10-18%) K hitter with power you almost always have an elite hitter.

Edited November 23, 20187 yr by dominik-keul@gmx.de

Btw I think moncada should focus on getting to more power. People say he should lower Ks and maybe he can lower them another 3-4 percent which would be nice but the real issue is his power. His walk rates are decent and his power isn't bad but it is basically average power the last 2 years (170 ISO which was above average 5 years ago but not anymore after the home run explosion).

 

His raw power ratings suggest there is more, he just needs to get to it. Imo the ideal moncada would be like peak Adam Dunn (I know sox fans don't like to hear the name but you only got the shell of him...).

Peak Dunn was basically 28-30% Ks 15+ walks and a 260-300 ISO. With that he regularly produced 900 OPS seasons which would make moncada a 6 war player or so. Moncada doesn't have quite the batting eye and power of Dunn but with the proper development I could see 30%/12%/250 ISO in his peak.

Lisle’s White sox problem is his new team has The worst of both worlds . The k rate of choice A, and the OPS of choice B. The White Sox had no one except the recently departed Ryan Lamar’e with an .800 OPS with more than 15 plate appearances, and set a MLB record for strikeouts. 

I don’t think anyone worries about k totals with sluggers who hit home runs and get on base, and produce runs.. Hopefully this guy can have an impact. There are probably a couple of current guys he may be able to help. The rest is going to require roster change.

Edited November 23, 20187 yr by Dick Allen

I'm not sure but I assume he will be more for minor league development. If course you can't change hitters profiles over night

On 11/22/2018 at 2:41 PM, TaylorStSox said:

Even on this site the obsession with K's is insane. That results of that poll are crazy, but not that surprising. 

I feel like the question could even be made more extreme: .925 OPS and 200 strikeouts or .700 OPS and 25 strikeouts in the same amount of PAs, and Twitter would still take the second guy.

2 hours ago, Jose Abreu said:

I feel like the question could even be made more extreme: .925 OPS and 200 strikeouts or .700 OPS and 25 strikeouts in the same amount of PAs, and Twitter would still take the second guy.

If the White Sox actually had hitters with supreme OPS, it wouldn’t be a question at all. But they had a .700 OPS as a team and set a major league record in strikeouts, and so far it has cost neither the people who put together these players, or the people who coach them anything. 

So it is very understandable why White Sox fans in particular are sensitive to high k totals.

37 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

If the White Sox actually had hitters with supreme OPS, it wouldn’t be a question at all. But they had a .700 OPS as a team and set a major league record in strikeouts, and so far it has cost neither the people who put together these players, or the people who coach them anything. 

So it is very understandable why White Sox fans in particular are sensitive to high k totals.

I think people should generally stop worrying about the big league club when the organization is trying to lose baseball games on purpose 

1 hour ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

I think people should generally stop worrying about the big league club when the organization is trying to lose baseball games on purpose 

The problem is the guys on the major league team we are all counting on in the future are currently strike out machines with relatively low OPS.

 

6 hours ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

I think people should generally stop worrying about the big league club when the organization is trying to lose baseball games on purpose 

I for one would worry less about the big league club if any of the younger players  would bother to get to an above average OPS. I happen to believe that piles of Ks work to prevent this from happening in a lot of cases.

 

I also have this [perhaps antiquated] belief that bad teams strike out a lot, while good teams don't strike out as much as their opponents. [Crazy, right?] Others may get their "jollies" watching Moncada, et. al strike out ad nauseum, but I don't. YMMV.