SI1020

No I have argued forcefully and with detail on the subject numerous times. I liked Bill James in the late 80s. Devoured his stuff in the beginning. Now it's all totally off the rails. If you want to believe Rick Rueschel was as good or better than Juan Marichal or that Whitey Ford wasn't a great pitcher go for it. If you like continually shifting realities be my guest. Three outcome baseball is great ain't it? At least Jason Benneti, who loves analytics understands that WAR is cumulative and traditional stats can't be ignored. Your comment proves my point about snide and arrogant. All my kids and all of their kids were vaccinated. I'm alive today because of a real scientific advance that made a previously impossible surgery possible. I love data and stats of all kind. If I ran a baseball team I'd make good use of them. I just wouldn't put myself in an analytics straight jacket.

Actually Konerko is my all time favorite Sox 1bman. I even defended his defense a time or two. Not so great range but he could really scoop them. You might also want to note that Konerko earned only 27.7 WAR points over the course of a very productive career. I'm not putting Abreu on a pedestal. He's played on some of the lousiest White Sox teams ever and done well in spite of it. I just don't understand the desire to flip anyone with a modicum of talent for "prospects" who as we all see fail more often than not. Lastly, I also remember Konerko being savaged on Sox message boards, and not just in his early struggling years. I liked Konerko a lot. I like Abreu now. What's the problem?

I'll bet I've done more research than 90% of hard core baseball fans and I absolutely HATE sabermetrics. I guess I'm still an ape. Now as to the poster who mentioned RBIs. When we compute say a batting average we have a number that corresponds to 1.000 which would be a hit in every official at bat. Every time a batter comes up he has the potential to have at least one rbi. Figure out his rbi percentage like we do his BA and you'll more than likely see that those guys with hi rbi totals have them for a very good reason. They are productive with men on base. My biggest gripe with sabermetrics aside from the snide arrogance of its devotees is that the thumb is on the scale on all of their most hallowed stats. Not only that but these stats are continually revised as this or that formula is "tweaked." Kind of like Winston Smith and his job in the records department of the Ministry of Truth. Did you know that WAR has been recalculated numerous times? Baseball-Reference twice had massive readjustments in their Pitching and Fielding WAR stats. The way the all time rankings shifted was breathtaking and ridiculous at the same time. When I called them on it, asked for an explanation in detail they pretty much told me I was an idiot and go run along and play. Now as to the subject at hand. I will never understand the vitriol so many Sox fans have had for Jose Abreu. He is the most productive hitter on the team since Frank Thomas. HIs BA has been down a bit this year but he has always been streaky and he's a hot streak or two away from approaching .300 at the plate. His defense is suspect but I like the way he scoops, and that is very important for me when it comes to a first baseman. Tim Anderson in particular owes him a bunch of steak dinners or arroz con pollo if Jose prefers something like that. He deserves his spot on the AL all star team. I know this post will sink my already low rating down even further. I've been in love with data, stats of all kind since I was 6 and 1/2 years old and to me saying sabermetrics/analytics whatever is highly flawed is the understatement of the year. At least they still count wins and losses the old fashioned way. I wonder how long that will even last in today's bizarro world.

I'm glad you mentioned this. I take nothing for granted, especially where Giolito is concerned. He looked great in September of 2017 but was Jaime Navarro bad last year. Many thought Lopez had figured it out last year but now look at how he has regressed. In addition to dropping like flies young pitchers today are so inconsistent. I expect Moncada to be good from here on out and Jiminez to eventually be a top of the line hitter. Anderson is not baseball smart, makes way too many physical and mental errors and of course I hope he's healthy again soon. Yes, I agree. These guys must show sustained success and it will take time for us to properly evaluate them over the long haul.

I for one think that is a very good idea and have been in favor of this or something similar for a long time. I don't want to see young athletes deprived of a chance to ply their craft but the situation in college sports is beyond a sham at this point. You could literally write a book (I think it's been done numerous times) about the disaster that is college sports in the USA today.

He does? Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's came in last place 1915-21 and 1940-43. When did Chuck Tanner top that? https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/mackco01.shtml https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/tannech01.shtml

Bingo! I totally agree with you.

Give it up. Stick with the White Sox and the game of baseball. Yes the left today is very intolerant. So is the other side, we live in very ugly times. I wonder if you feel like the words of this old tune? The world has gone mad today And good's bad today, And black's white today, And day's night today, When most guys today That women prize today Are just silly gigolos A great tune from a golden era. Written by Cole Porter. You should google him. The world is more complicated and nuanced than we want it to be. As for the game. I had a gut feeling the Cubs would win and that Giolito would lay an egg. He was over due for a sub par outing. There's lots of promise on the Sox but they still have a long way to go. Lastly, I HATE losing to the Cubs.

Yes absolutely. Make them give back the trophy and give it retroactively to the Cleveland Indians who had a six game lead over the White Sox in the pythagorean standings. That team was unworthy of a championship. Bill James told me so himself.

Johnny Callison should also be on that list. Most of these players made an All Star team, many multiple times. For example Aparicio 13 times, Battey and Cash 5, Callison, Mincher and Romano 4. Callison, Berry, Hershberger, Landis, and of course Aparicio were all superb defensively. Bob Locker had one of the best sinkerballs ever, was very productive with the Sox and I would take him over anyone in our bullpen except for Colome. Barry Latman, the most pedestrian of the bunch I would take over the mess we have at SP these days. Minus Giolito of course. The White Sox did have an excellent farm system in the late 50's early 60's. Veeck trading away a large portion of it after the 59 pennant cost them dearly. The Sox farm system was ranked highly at the turn of this century and that did not pan out as well as expected. Prospects are just that. Most do not succeed. Even most of the ones who make it to the majors do not have stellar careers. I like the group the Sox have now, but even assuming they'll have better luck on the injury front they're still going to need to draft well consistently and most of all be willing to open the wallet. The rebuild looks much better this year than last but there is still a lot of work to do.

Farmer is not and never will be a good PBP announcer. When he was paired with John Rooney I thought they made an excellent team. In fact IIRC they were very highly rated in the Sox Championship year 2005. I'm still mad that the Sox let John Rooney go, he was my all time favorite Sox announcer and I can remember all the way back to Bob Elson.

Billy Pierce is also my all time favorite White Sox player. I got a chance to meet him in 1999 at the ball park. He was intelligent, witty and a gentleman in every way. After our meeting I almost floated back to my seat. I never saw a left handed pitcher with such perfect mechanics, the way he would rock back and get every ounce of leg and arm motion that his small frame would allow, maximum effort with minimum strain. I doubt that the White Sox ever had a player more beloved than Minnie Minoso. I remember as a kid buying a pack of baseball cards at the drug store in my neighborhood. As I turned the corner and looked over my new cards I noticed that Minnie Minoso was in the bunch. "I got Minnie Minoso!" I yelled loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. The way both players were treated by HOF voters was both a sham and a shame. Imagine pitchers like Harvey Haddix or Don Larsen getting more votes than Billy Pierce. Or Alvin Dark, Phil Cavaretta and Mickey Vernon out polling Minnie who was getting all of 1.8% of the vote in 1969. What a joke baseball HOF voting can be at times. If you are slavish in your devotion to WAR, SABER, Analytics and the whole new stats thing, as the vast majority of fans on sites like this seem to be then I would suggest taking a much closer look at more than just the raw numbers. Minnie accumulated his 50.5 WAR in just 6579 ABs. Billy Pierce was in the top ten for so many categories for many years. 5 times in the top 10 WAR for all players, 7 times for pitchers including twice at number 1. At or near the top in such stat geek loving categories as WPA and WPA/LI for many years. The lords of analytics were passing out WAR points stingily for 1950s players. If you love WAR you also need to look at how many years a player is in the top 5 or 10 percent of his peers. The stars of Billy and Minnie will shine much brighter if you do that. If Catfish Hunter is worthy of the HOF then dammit so is Billy. If Heinie Manush is enshrined then why not Minnie? I could give more examples but this is already too long.

Thank you. Not the only pointless or at least highly flawed newer stat.

Belle, great player and a bigger jerk. Reinsdorf signed him IMO to flip off the owners, or at least those he thought were throwing around too much money. His signing did not lead to anything special for the Sox. Even if I get a lot of thumbs down I think this is veering from the course. Up until very recently the thought of signing free agents was mostly rebuked in favor of letting all that great young talent develop. Then and only then signing free agents was to be the cherry on top. I also believe that Machado is going to press hard to be a regular SS, which I don't believe is his best position. The rebuild is not going well. The first wave of talent has not come close to meeting expectations and the luck factor was very bad with all the injuries, including Kopech and those down on the farm. Whatever. Not popular views I'm sure but if Greg can take the heat he gets so can I. Also I'm not convinced the Sox are going to sign Manny. I think the market is softer than he was lead to believe and he is biding his time waiting for someone to break and make him that blockbuster offer he thought would be there. In the meantime everything looks like a solid mess, http://www.philly.com/phillies/manny-machado-white-sox-phillies-espn-buster-onley-usa-today-bob-nightengale-dan-lozano-20190117.html

Whatever happened to the rebuild? If you weren't on board with it you generally got ripped. If you're not for signing MM you don't gain much favor for that either. So what happened to the rebuild? My guess and that's all it is, leads me to believe that they realize their rebuild is not going well. In which case they wouldn't be wrong. As for MM, as talented as he is to me it looks like Albert Belle Part II. As for the signings Alonso is meh OK and Jay is not. I'm not doing cartwheels over all of this.