GT: Rangers @ White Sox 6/1, 7:10PM, CSN

[southsider2k5]

Juan Pierre has been awesome in LF, aside from a couple misplayed balls early in the year he's gotten to basically everything out there.

 

Lots of that is canceled out by giving up extra bases with a complete lack of an arm IMO.

[Balta1701]

Lots of that is canceled out by giving up extra bases with a complete lack of an arm IMO.

UZR includes throwing arm, and Pierre has the highest UZR on the team. (note; that doesn't mean he's the best defender on the team, that means the difference between the average LF and Pierre is the highest on the team).

[fathom]

Lots of that is canceled out by giving up extra bases with a complete lack of an arm IMO.

 

I don't feel like the opposition has taken too much advantage of Pierre's arm so far. Honestly, they seem to take advantage of Quentin's lack of ability to charge the ball and get off a good throw a lot more than they do Pierre. As Balta said, Pierre's been excellent in LF compared to what we've had in the past with Quentin, Pods, and C. Lee.

[Kalapse]

Lots of that is canceled out by giving up extra bases with a complete lack of an arm IMO.

Eh, I haven't gotten that feeling this year. I expected his arm to be a big problem but there haven't been many instances where it's cost us, baserunners for whatever reason aren't taking a lot of chances against him perhaps due to his getting to balls so quickly. Teahen and Quentin have been awful but Pierre and Rios have been awesome, Alexei -- despite having a negative baseball IQ -- gets to a lot of balls your average SS has no chance at and Vizquel and Jones in their limited playing time have been excellent so the good has gone a long way to cancel out the bad.

[fathom]

Eh, I haven't gotten that feeling this year. I expected his arm to be a big problem but there haven't been many instances where it's cost us, baserunners for whatever reason aren't taking a lot of chances against him perhaps due to his getting to balls so quickly. Teahen and Quentin have been awful but Pierre and Rios have been awesome, Alexei -- despite having a negative baseball IQ -- gets to a lot of balls your average SS has no chance at and Vizquel and Jones in their limited playing time have been excellent so the good has gone a long way to cancel out the bad.

 

well said

[NorthSideSox72]

Lots of that is canceled out by giving up extra bases with a complete lack of an arm IMO.

I'm not sure where you keep getting this defense thing. Other than Teahen, the defense has looked average or better to me. Alexei is his usual self, making spectacular plays and messing up easy ones. Beckham has been fine defensively. Konerko is above average, so are Rios and Pierre, thus far. Quentin not so good, I guess you can add him to the below average. Jones and Kotsay have been fine when playing. Vizquel is Vizquel. Overall, that's an average defense, maybe a little better than average if you take Teahen out of the equation.

 

[Balta1701]

I'm not sure where you keep getting this defense thing. Other than Teahen, the defense has looked average or better to me. Alexei is his usual self, making spectacular plays and messing up easy ones. Beckham has been fine defensively. Konerko is above average, so are Rios and Pierre, thus far. Quentin not so good, I guess you can add him to the below average. Jones and Kotsay have been fine when playing. Vizquel is Vizquel. Overall, that's an average defense, maybe a little better than average if you take Teahen out of the equation.

It's somewhat impressive how much UZR agrees with you.

 

It disagrees on Konerko being above average, thinks the same about Kostay in the OF, Teahen and Quentin have been the real weak points. Alexei slightly above average, Beckham sitting basically at average, Pierre and Rios tearing it up.

[southsider2k5]

I don't feel like the opposition has taken too much advantage of Pierre's arm so far. Honestly, they seem to take advantage of Quentin's lack of ability to charge the ball and get off a good throw a lot more than they do Pierre. As Balta said, Pierre's been excellent in LF compared to what we've had in the past with Quentin, Pods, and C. Lee.

 

I'm not saying Juan hasn't been an improvement, but I still don't see him as a plus defender.

[fathom]

I'm not saying Juan hasn't been an improvement, but I still don't see him as a plus defender.

 

If you look past the arm, I feel that he is a plus defender. Simply put, he makes all the plays you need from him. I've always gone against the grain with regards to thinking that Konerko is a mediocre defensive player. No range, and while he's good at picking balls in the dirt, so is nearly every 1B in baseball.

[southsider2k5]

I'm not sure where you keep getting this defense thing. Other than Teahen, the defense has looked average or better to me. Alexei is his usual self, making spectacular plays and messing up easy ones. Beckham has been fine defensively. Konerko is above average, so are Rios and Pierre, thus far. Quentin not so good, I guess you can add him to the below average. Jones and Kotsay have been fine when playing. Vizquel is Vizquel. Overall, that's an average defense, maybe a little better than average if you take Teahen out of the equation.

 

Konerko is great at digging throws and awful at getting to a ball hit more than a step away. I don't know that I would call him above average or not. He has looked a lot better this year because he has spent all year bailing out guys like Teahen, Alexei, and Gordo from some bad throws. Get some more average throws, and that is taken away as well.

[Harry Chappas]

My $.02

 

Pierre defensively has been better than I thought he would be and his arm while not a cannon is ok.....for a LF he is fine.

 

Teahen and Quentin suck and Rios is fantastic.

 

The rest of them are doing their job for the most part.

 

The defense is better than last year but it still needs to be better. A 1B with better range would be good but Konerko is in my mind above average as he can pick the s***ty throws from the left side of the infield and he is good at the pick off throw to second which is essential with Danks and Buerhle as well as the 3-6-3.

[Kalapse]

It's somewhat impressive how much UZR agrees with you.

 

It disagrees on Konerko being above average, thinks the same about Kostay in the OF, Teahen and Quentin have been the real weak points. Alexei slightly above average, Beckham sitting basically at average, Pierre and Rios tearing it up.

And the thing with Konerko is; picks and swipe tags unfortunately are not factored in so it's going purely on his range at 1B which is going to be pretty poor given how much of his athletic ability he's lost to this point in his career and you figure a 1B #1 job is to scoop balls out of the dirt, not cover a ton of ground so a stat that aims to quantify a player's range is going to mean a whole hell of a lot for a 1B so I'll take that data with a grain of salt. No doubt in my mind all the errors Konerko saves on errant throws outweighs any lack of range he may have at the position.

[Kalapse]

If you look past the arm, I feel that he is a plus defender. Simply put, he makes all the plays you need from him. I've always gone against the grain with regards to thinking that Konerko is a mediocre defensive player. No range, and while he's good at picking balls in the dirt, so is nearly every 1B in baseball.

He's one of the very best at making the throw from first to second on 3-6-3 and 3-6-1 double plays and pickoffs. That's a throw the majority of 1B have a ton of trouble with and it seems Konerko always gets the best angle possible for the throw. That's a pretty big part of being a plus 1B.

[Balta1701]

The defense is better than last year but it still needs to be better.

The thing I keep coming back to is...Teahen has not only been bad, he's been awful compared to Mark Teahen at 3b from previous years.

 

If he was even performing like he had in previous years (slightly below average rather than one of the worst in baseball) our defense would take another big step up, because suddenly the only real weakness would be Quentin in RF, and he's barely a starter out there any more.

[SoxAce]

If there is one thing I won't complain about Pierre, it is his defense. He has been stellar out there.

[iamshack]

Good discussion, guys.

 

As for our career numbers against Harden, this is no longer the Harden of old.

 

Let's get to him.

[Kalapse]

Jenks says he's available to pitch tonight, should be interesting.

[Heads22]

fathom is very agreeable today. Not sure if that's a good sign or not.

[fathom]

fathom is very agreeable today. Not sure if that's a good sign or not.

 

Just saw this post after I agreed with you saying it sucks that Teahen is out right now. I don't know why I'm agreeable today. Maybe I need to go view another thread on here talking about how great Jordan Danks is.

[chw42]

It's somewhat impressive how much UZR agrees with you.

 

It disagrees on Konerko being above average, thinks the same about Kostay in the OF, Teahen and Quentin have been the real weak points. Alexei slightly above average, Beckham sitting basically at average, Pierre and Rios tearing it up.

 

Konerko's been a very average 1B throughout his career. I think that -4.5 is going to increase once the season goes along.

[chw42]

Good discussion, guys.

 

As for our career numbers against Harden, this is no longer the Harden of old.

 

Let's get to him.

 

His fastball velocity's dropped 4 miles since he was last dominant in 2008.

[Heads22]

Just saw this post after I agreed with you saying it sucks that Teahen is out right now. I don't know why I'm agreeable today. Maybe I need to go view another thread on here talking about how great Jordan Danks is.

 

Will you agree that it's fortunate that if we need Brent to play tonight, he can borrow the bat boy's uniform?

[Chisoxfn]

The only guy who has been an above average defender by any reasonable amount has been Rios. There is no way Rios makes up for Teahen.

Pierre, Rios, Beckham, and Ramirez all I would imagine are above average on the UZR.

 

Ignore the above, Kalapse said it much better than I did.

[fathom]

Will you agree that it's fortunate that if we need Brent to play tonight, he can borrow the bat boy's uniform?

 

The only thing that's fortunate is that Lillibridge isn't on the Indians, as he'd probably have a career day against Jake Peavy this weekend.

[ThunderBolt]

Lillibridge’s time here is off to an auspicious start. His luggage didn’t arrive so he’s using Gordon’s glove and Kotsay’s cleats. http://twitter.com/ChuckGarfien/status/15203022656