Marty34

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 29, 2014 -> 02:21 PM) Good question. Going off that list of guys on the last page, I think these guys should be able to put up a 1.8-ish fWAR season in the first year of the deal and should be available for 4/50 or less: Brett Anderson * Josh Beckett Chad Billingsley * A.J. Burnett * Chris Capuano Wei-Yin Chen * Jorge De La Rosa Scott Feldman Gavin Floyd Jason Hammel Dan Haren * Roberto Hernandez Hiroki Kuroda Colby Lewis Justin Masterson Brandon McCarthy Jake Peavy Ryan Vogelsong Jerome Williams No idea what Masterson will get. I think it'll be about what Ubaldo got. That's a bad list and doesn't have the upside that Jimenez has.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 29, 2014 -> 01:52 PM) Lots of errors in your logic here, Dick Allen. Let me help you out. 1. WAR is a counting stat. Jimenez's current, barely significant advantage of 0.5 fWAR is marginalized further if you control for innings pitched. And before you argue that Jimenez should get credit for having more innings, note that Jimenez has three additional starts. Rienzo actually has more IP per start. So, on a per start basis, we're talking about a difference in fWAR of roughly 0.3. Remember this the next time you make your bimonthly post about how WAR is BS because it says a guy with 7.0 WAR is definitively better than a guy with 6.7 WAR. 2. Once again I'll point out the difference between what I type and what you claim I type: the phrase "he hasn't pitched any better than" is not the same thing as "he is better than." I would agree that Dustin Pedroia "hasn't hit any better than" Dustin Pedroia, I wouldn't say "Gordon Beckham is better than Dustin Pedroia." 3. There is a major disconnect between your understanding of the $/WAR figures your referencing and the inherent value of an individuals performance in relation to actual wins. The $/WAR figures are descriptive figures about what the free agent market chooses to pay per WAR. This does not apply, at all, to pre-free agency players and therefore cannot be used compare salaries across those player types. This is why we say "needs to do X to live up to his contract" but we DON'T say "his performance is/isn't worth having because he is paid more/less than $5-6m per WAR." This is because the free agent market is NOT the only place one can get WAR. Ubaldo's contract, in a vaccuum, could break even in free agent dollars if he averages about 2.5 fWAR per season (which, btw, he is NOT on pace to reach in this season), but in the context of roster construction, you have to compare that with what you can already receive at a much mroe efficient valuation internally (someone like Rienzo could give you, say 2 fWAR at like $200k per). The only time you'd opt for the higher rate production you'd get from the free agent is if (1) the production simply cannot be matched more efficiently elsewhere, either with a single replacement player or several, and (2) the difference you're getting is enough to make a substantial difference in the outcome of your season (like if Ubaldo was the final piece to push the Sox over the edge.) In summary, given that the marginal difference between the production of Ubaldo and that of Rienzo has been both (1) not statistically significant and (2) not even remotely close to enough to make a difference in the White Sox season, I would conclude that, for all practical purposes, the White Sox would not be any better off with Ubaldo and would have a bad contract, too. Your whole thing is that Jimenez's contract is bad. What available pitchers next year are a better gamble than him in that price range?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 29, 2014 -> 11:23 AM) Well, it was 4y/$50m and he hasn't pitched any better than Andre Rienzo. I think it's safe to say that there are many pitchers on that list who can be expected to pitch as well as Andre Rienzo and can be had for 4y/$50m. Name those pitchers.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 29, 2014 -> 10:30 AM) A lot of these guys will have options picked up, have retired, or are simply bad, but there are plenty of interesting names on the list that there will be options. Brett Anderson * Josh Beckett Chad Billingsley * Joe Blanton * A.J. Burnett * Chris Capuano Bruce Chen * Wei-Yin Chen * Kevin Correia Johnny Cueto * Jorge De La Rosa Ryan Dempster Scott Feldman Gavin Floyd Yovani Gallardo * Jason Hammel J.A. Happ * Aaron Harang Dan Haren * Roberto Hernandez Luke Hochevar Hisashi Iwakuma Josh Johnson Kyle Kendrick Hiroki Kuroda John Lannan Colby Lewis Jon Lester Paul Maholm Justin Masterson Brandon McCarthy Brandon Morrow * Jeff Niemann Ross Ohlendorf Felipe Paulino * Jake Peavy Wandy Rodriguez Max Scherzer James Shields Carlos Villanueva Ryan Vogelsong Edinson Volquez Jerome Williams Jimenez at 3y/$39M is a more than reasonable risk looking at these pitchers.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ May 29, 2014 -> 10:44 AM) I can't believe people are still advocating giving up that 2nd rounder. Giving away draft picks is not how you sustain success. Again, the Sox wouldn't just lose that 2nd round pick. They'd lose the slot amount for the pick as well. That could be enough to not be able to sign a Rodon that could potentially fall to you. It's just stupid. The Sox won't be in a position to give up a draft pick next year either. It's just stupid and I'm pretty sure it isn't the way that Rick Hahn intends to build this team. There is no pitching in the minors right now. It would be silly to wait three-to-five years to develop it when it appears the core position players are largely in place.

Lock Beckham down for 4/$24M and let him be the face of the franchise.

If Jimenez would have been a bad signing, who do they target that is better in this year's free-agent market with the big spenders looking for pitching too?

This team has no business being around .500 with the injuries it has had. Ventura deserves more credit than he's getting.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 27, 2014 -> 04:36 PM) He was worth a look, it was a good gamble IMO. It wasn't a gamble, he was the team's 4th starter.

Sox attendance is as expected. Coming off a 99-loss season, having 1 playoff win since World Series, and one-third of the home schedule consists of Cleveland, KC, and Minny.

First, have to know when do the Sox plan on competing for a playoff spot.

Remember when people wanted Gillaspie DFA'd this winter in order to keep Dunn.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 22, 2014 -> 11:29 AM) Well, people misuse advanced metrics just like people misuse traditional stats. The biggest misuse of advanced metrics is accepting them as an absolute, as in saying somebody with a 7.0 WAR in a season was clearly better than somebody with a 6.7 WAR. While the advanced metrics are much better, they still don't have a perfectly linear correlation to wins (or even runs). They are still approximations of value, albeit much better ones. As for projection systems, they all are based on normal distributions which expect 2/3 of the results to vary by as much as a full standard deviation. If you get way beyond a full standard deviation, then yes, it is justified to suggest luck might be involved. It also helps to look at what is driving the variance. An extremely high BABIP is more likely signaling luck (Flowers), whereas an increased walk rate is more likely to suggest genuine improvement from the player (Viciedo). Also, I don't think anybody is putting a lot of stock in advanced metrics when it comes to scouting. You are scouting college and high school players and there is no accepted way to translate their stats the way we can translate major league, and to a lesser extent minor league stats. Now, scouts who have a foundation in advanced metrics will be looking for different things when scouting than "traditional" scouts, and as such will likely have a higher success rate, but there is still a very large error rate in scouting. Regardless of your evaluation method you are never going to hit on every draft pick. The Sabre man just gave you proof that player A is better than player B by virtue of the .3 difference in WAR, there's no denying 7 > 6.7. It's just as laughable as TWTW though.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 02:07 PM) You come up with those toolsy outfielders yet? No.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 22, 2014 -> 12:26 PM) The Saber guys told us Carlos Gomez sucked. They told us Dayan Viciedo was pretty much a lost cause. They told us Alexei Ramirez wasn't going to be worth his contract moving forward. The fact is like Hickory posted earlier, a 7.0 WAR player isn't necessarily better than a 6.7 WAR player. Yet, if someone is considered anit-saber, that fact will always be used as proof that the person who thinks the 6.7 player is better is just wrong. There are going to be misses both good and bad with whatever you use. As the saying goes, everything in moderation. If you like a player there will always be a stat to hang your hat on.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 11:33 AM) Instead of spouting off meaningless interjections, give examples of outfielders advanced metrics doesn't like. When advanced metrics likes them they stop being toolsy outfielders,

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 11:21 AM) Disdain shown for toolsy outfielders? You mean how they agreed that Andrew McCutchen was the NL MVP last year and that Mike Trout has been robbed 2 years in a row all the while baseball "traditionalists" have awarded a 1B the award 2 years in a row? Frankly, you're making s*** up as you go and you're embarrassing yourself. Stop. Small sample size!!!

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:44 AM) I have never met nor talked to nor read a single person who used solely sabermetric statistics. It's all opinion, yet the Sabre crowd will pull out an advanced metric like it's some kind of trump in an argument. It's bad luck when the metric doesn't predict future performance. I get a laugh out of the disdain shown for toolsy outfielders from the Sabre crowd, I guess bad luck doesn't cut it for the scouts that recommend the ones that flop.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:08 AM) Using xFIP to measure overall pitcher quality is like using a ruler to measure your weight. You're going to get all kinds of weird conclusions if you use the wrong tools to answer your questions. That explains Alex Anthopoulis. With a dash of bad luck thrown in.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 21, 2014 -> 09:37 PM) I'm assuming since you ignored everything in my post, you're going to continue having no clue what you're talking about. Which is fine because you aren't fooling anyone. you consider OBP an advanced metric. It's not.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 21, 2014 -> 08:19 PM) I would say conventional statistics vastly overrated Michael Bourn and sabermetrics showed exactly how bad of a deal he was as a free agent. Aging veteran who wasn't a league average offensive player and whose value was predicated solely on his legs. Unfortunately, he had a high batting average and was fast, the former of which is especially overrated The Indians are at the front of the Sabremetric line.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 21, 2014 -> 04:14 PM) Then make an intelligent argument about which ones are misapplied and why it's wrong. You can't do that if you don't take the time to understand what they are. Like, if WAR is messed up, why? How can you even think is IS or ISN'T messed up if you don't have at least a basic understanding of linear weights? If you hate the defensive metric component, what is it about the defensive metrics that you think are wrong? Too often people think advanced metrics are wrong simply because they don't always confirm that person's per-conceived notion. And, like I said, there's NOTHING wrong with not caring enough about them to learn about them. Really. It's just impossible to have an intelligent opinion on them if you don't know about them. Give me DOB, OBP, and SLG, K's and BB's for a hitter along with his historical numbers and I will make as reasonable a judgement on a hitter as any Sabermetrician using advanced metrics.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 21, 2014 -> 03:48 PM) You can't direct him anywhere, he refuses to read anything that may educate him on things he's already decided to hate. I don't hate Sabremetrics. I have issues with how they are applied and the importance placed on bootleg stats.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 21, 2014 -> 03:46 PM) Here's a list of the first ten players I can think of who have been underrated by traditional statistics, but that sabermetrics have identified as very good (most of which have been paid accordingly): 1. Ben Zobrist 2. Brett Gardner 3. Alex Gordon 4. Michael Bourn 5. Howie Kendrick 6. Nike Napoli 7. JJ Hardy 8. Russell Martin 9. Angel Pagan 10. Andres Torres What statistics are showing these players as underrated?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 21, 2014 -> 03:28 PM) greg, i have nothing. I cant anymore, my savings are gone, my house is gone, my wife is mad at me. i cannot follow your gambling advice any longer I'll not take a cut of the $5 I won you.