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SoxNet: What To Do With Alexei Ramirez


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QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 22, 2015 -> 11:05 AM)
If the SS position can't be obviously upgraded this next offseason,you decline Alexei's option and sign him much cheaper perhaps with incentives where he gets paid if he performs. His fielding has been better, and he has hit slightly better lately. Perhaps he is coming out of his funk. I don't think he has declined physically as much as some think.

To be clear..."he has hit slightly better lately" =

Hit .186 during June

Hit .214 (3/14) since the AS Break

Hit .160 over his last 7 games.

 

He had 1 7 game hit streak where he went 10/23. Otherwise, he's been terrible recently.

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QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 22, 2015 -> 09:48 AM)
At this point, is Juan Uribe less of an age-related risk than Alexei Ramirez? And if $9m doesn't make much of a difference, why can't we have both?

Setting aside Uribe, you asked how we could spend $9M to make a difference - I assume you were referring to whether a baseball team is competitive. I was responding in that context, and again, just because you're more than nine million dollars away from competing doesn't mean it can't be spent wisely. Or poorly.

If I thought what we're seeing from Alexei was his true-talent now, I wouldn't argue to keep him. But I'm also not saying that he's going to get back to his prime numbers. But there are a confluence of factors here:

 

1) There is evidence that suggests that he will produce MORE going forward than he has this year.

There's ALWAYS evidence that a -1 WAR player will produce more. I've argued the extent of that improvement - that last year's power was the outlier, not this year's, for example. I'll also argue the quality of the evidence. From Fangraphs:

 

The key to using quality of contact stats is to use them cautiously. They provide a different look than what we’ve had for many years, but there’s measurement error built into the calculations and we don’t have a perfect understanding of how quality of contact leads to positive outcomes. We also don’t know much about how quickly you can trust the data and how well it ages.

 

I do not believe for one second that Alexei in 2015 is hitting the ball as hard as he always has, but let's grant that he is. We definitely do not know how those values are calculated and we don't really know what they mean. What about the exit angle? Maybe he's just hitting it hard straight into the ground. His ground ball rate is certainly higher. He's pulling the ball less. I don't attribute that to an effort to use the whole field, I attribute it to a loss of bat speed.

 

The fact is he's been a bad hitter three of the past four season now and his defense is undeniably declining. If we're making guesses at his true talent in 2016, I'm guessing 1 WAR. Buy him out and renegotiate if that's the case and we really can't bear to let him go. I don't think he's a guy who'd make us regret moving on though.

 

2) There is NOT evidence to suggest that our internal replacement candidates will produce more than Alexei going forward.

3) $9m is still a relative pittance to pay for a decent veteran stopgap SS

4) The $9m spent doesn't appear likely to preclude us from making any of the other potential veteran stopgap signings (like Uribe) that look likely based on the FA class.

 

Now, if $9m turns out to be the difference between getting Weiters or not, this calculus may change. But I'm guessing that a lot of your will agree with me that Weiters at Boras rates in a weak positional FA class may be way too big of a risk anyway.

 

I wanted to trade Alexei over the offseason because (a) he was at peak value, (b) I thought Leury Garcia or Carlos Sanchez could fill the gap reasonably well, and © I thought the team was another year away from starting to make a run at the WC. Now, 8 months later, ALL of that has changed. Alexei's value has never been lower, Sanchez/Garcia have failed to produce, and RH's plan is clearly to compete immediately. Based on that plan, I just don't think we have a better option than giving Alexei a chance to bounce back.

This is mostly team building philosophy stuff that I'm not too eager to get into right now, but the short answer is that RH's plan to compete immediately might not be the correct plan. Coupling that with my doubts about Alexei ever being an impact player again, I would cut him loose. I'd let the Sanchez/Micah/Saladino trio sort out the middle infield while possibly pursuing somebody for the left side via trade. And I'd sign Uribe because while he might be an equal aging risk, he's come out the other side of having his own fork stuck in him. He also doesn't need as much PT as Alexei and wouldn't get in the way of those three.

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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 22, 2015 -> 11:14 AM)
To be clear..."he has hit slightly better lately" =

Hit .186 during June

Hit .214 (3/14) since the AS Break

Hit .160 over his last 7 games.

 

He had 1 7 game hit streak where he went 10/23. Otherwise, he's been terrible recently.

 

Don't want to nitpick here, but your stats are off. I picked him up on fantasy baseball a few weeks back ... only reason I know....

 

 

July 48 5 14 2 0 1 3 4 0 2 2 1 .292 .340 .396 .736

Last 7 Days 14 2 3 0 0 1 2 2 0 1 0 0 .214 .294 .429 .723

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QUOTE (BrianAnderson @ Jul 22, 2015 -> 03:13 PM)
Don't want to nitpick here, but your stats are off. I picked him up on fantasy baseball a few weeks back ... only reason I know....

 

 

July 48 5 14 2 0 1 3 4 0 2 2 1 .292 .340 .396 .736

Last 7 Days 14 2 3 0 0 1 2 2 0 1 0 0 .214 .294 .429 .723

The "last 7 days" is the time since the AS break. That's the .214 you show.

 

The last 7 games includes the 3 game series against the Cubs where he went 1/11, since he sat out one of the games against KC.

 

I did not give the July numbers, but they're generally positive because his 10/23 streak happened starting on July 1. His June numbers were terrible, he had 1 good week, then he's been rotten again the last 7 games.

 

Every stat I gave still appears accurate.

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Hey fun with selective endpoints and meaningless stats in isolation like HR/year!

 

Goodness. Anyone that watches the Sox realizes the guy has lost not just a step, but a couple steps the last few seasons. He's toast. If anything he gets a dead cat bounce back to 1 WAR next season.

 

Trade him for a bag of balls literally anyone except Tim Anderson would be better to play there the next 60 odd games including Saladino and Sanchez.

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QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jul 22, 2015 -> 02:36 PM)
Hey fun with selective endpoints and meaningless stats in isolation like HR/year!

 

Goodness. Anyone that watches the Sox realizes the guy has lost not just a step, but a couple steps the last few seasons. He's toast. If anything he gets a dead cat bounce back to 1 WAR next season.

 

Trade him for a bag of balls literally anyone except Tim Anderson would be better to play there the next 60 odd games including Saladino and Sanchez.

 

Did you read the article, the whole reason this thread was created, on page 1?

The whole thing shows statistically what you said is wrong.

 

I forgot why I held out posting on this site for years. It's like listening to the post game radio call ins! There's a reason micah and Anderson are in the minors. There's a reason we'd all want to poke our eyes out If Semien was on our team. Defense.

 

Trading Alexei makes zero sense because we don't have an option to fill in!

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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 20, 2015 -> 02:59 PM)
With Alexei having a $1 million buyout/$10 million option next year, there's very little reason to "give him a chance to bounce back". You do that with guys who are under contract, not guys where you're picking their options up.

 

If the White Sox weren't going to be picking up Ramirez's option, they would be in the process of trading him right now.

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QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 20, 2015 -> 05:47 PM)
So Alexei leads all AL SS in assists. Is that an indication that he plays more than most SS or is it because the fuss about his fielding is slightly overblown ?

 

He got off to an awful start. At one point he had a -1.5 dWAR. He is back to 0.0 now as we speak.

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 23, 2015 -> 04:14 PM)
He got off to an awful start. At one point he had a -1.5 dWAR. He is back to 0.0 now as we speak.

 

i take it as his range, while it is not as it was before, and since his offense took a hit, he is look at different.

 

that is why i still am on the high point of alexei still is a valid ss.

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QUOTE (LDF @ Jul 23, 2015 -> 10:23 AM)
i take it as his range, while it is not as it was before, and since his offense took a hit, he is look at different.

 

that is why i still am on the high point of alexei still is a valid ss.

 

If you buy into Range Factor per game. League average this year is 4.21 and 3.98 the year prior at SS.

 

2012 4.18

2013 4.23

2014 4.31

2015 4.64

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 23, 2015 -> 03:31 PM)
If you buy into Range Factor per game. League average this year is 4.21 and 3.98 the year prior at SS.

 

2012 4.18

2013 4.23

2014 4.31

2015 4.64

 

forgive me on these stats you posted, by is it good or bad???

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QUOTE (LDF @ Jul 23, 2015 -> 10:33 AM)
forgive me on these stats you posted, by is it good or bad???

 

2 things.

 

#1 he is above league average, and #2 his range factor is going up, not down. What you make of the numbers totally depends on how much value you put into fielding stats.

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 23, 2015 -> 04:42 PM)
2 things.

 

#1 he is above league average, and #2 his range factor is going up, not down. What you make of the numbers totally depends on how much value you put into fielding stats.

 

either way..... many thanks in explaining this to me.

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 23, 2015 -> 11:42 AM)
2 things.

 

#1 he is above league average, and #2 his range factor is going up, not down. What you make of the numbers totally depends on how much value you put into fielding stats.

The other stat, the Zone rating, the "number of balls he is fielding in his typical zone", is the other one...and when I checked a couple days ago that was as bad as it has been in years.

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One thing that hasn't been discussed or factored in. It seems that older players elevate or decline based on how the team is doing. Playing s***ty on a s***ty team has me wondering how a change of scenery or a reversal of Sox fortunes would do for him. At some point a player is championship shopping, getting up for the potential of a playoff berth, maybe a championship. When that goes away . . . On the other side, he's not giving it the contract year bounce.

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