jackie hayes

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Apr 1, 2005 -> 01:01 AM) I'm not discounting his opinion, I just don't think he is that well-informed about the AL Central. These sabermatricians can keep calling the 2003 Marlins or the previous 3 Twins teams flukes because of their run differentials, but the fact is the Twins have a very good chance of winning the AL Central even if they "only" win their games by 1 run. That may well be (he may not pay much attention to the ALC), I'm just arguing that he's not a "hack". I'm not at all sure of this, but didn't he pick the Twins last year? I think his reasoning was basically that they'd proven him wrong so many times before.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Apr 1, 2005 -> 12:38 AM) There was no excuse for Neyer to forget the Dye signing considering he called Dye the best free agent bargain not too long before writing that article. He also blamed his "sources" for forgetting to list Dye. He deserves the criticism. This logic -- that making one dumb mistake makes your analysis automatic garbage forever more -- I don't agree with that at all. How many posters here would have any credibility left if that rule were applied? This is just a way of trying to attack someone's arguments without looking at the arguments, which I'll never accept. I know that many people here hate sabermetrics. Fine, don't listen to Neyer. I think sabermetrics has a good deal of value, yet I'm often sceptical of his opinions. But judging from what I've read, he knows a LOT of baseball history, loves the game, and is anything but a 'hack'. Trying to throw out everything he's written on forgetting where the great Jermaine Dye signed (c'mon, "bargain" does not mean "cornerstone") is weak. Btw, I believe he did put the A's on the 10 worst offseason list -- no?

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Apr 1, 2005 -> 12:25 AM) So in Neyer's opinion, signing Dye removed the Sox from the list of 10 teams that had the worst offseason and made them the favorite to win the A.L. Central? Are you for real? The guy is a back-tracking hack. How are you defending this kind of rubbish? :headshake Neyer says without signing Dye, the Sox have (he admits, arguably) one of the 10 worst offseasons in baseball. If they do, then they are better than 10, middle of the pack. Minnesota and Cleveland also don't do much, are middle of the pack. The Sox had some bad luck last year, plus the fact that Minnesota has a very weak infield, means the Sox win this year. Pretty simple, entirely consistent...unless one has a bone to pick.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Apr 1, 2005 -> 12:11 AM) Then explain to me why Neyer is now picking the White Sox to win the A.L. Central after saying that they had one of the 10 worst offseasons in baseball. Sounds pretty ridiculous to me. It's almost like he heard from someone else that the White Sox would be good this season so he just agreed. HACK. Umm... He changed his mind after learning of the Dye signing. From the article that YOU cited: "signing Jermaine Dye probably does remove them from the '10 Teams That Did the Least to Help Themselves' list". Did you not read this before posting it? So if he thought they didn't improve much, but probably just had bad luck last year, he'd still pick them to win if noone else improved much (which seems obvious in this division, except arguably Detroit).

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Mar 31, 2005 -> 11:55 PM) Neyer did not know about the Dye signing and did not even double-check his "sources" yet he still wrote an article saying that the White Sox had one of the top 10 worst offseasons in baseball. He allowed this article to be published at ESPN.com. Neyer may not be an utter moron but he is clearly a hack. He made a mistake and admitted it. That's why all newspapers have the little oops square -- this happens every day. If you want to argue with his analysis, go ahead. But the NYT makes dumb mistakes, that doesn't mean it's a "hack" paper. Deadlines mean errors, deal with it.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Mar 31, 2005 -> 10:32 PM) No, but if you don't even know all of the moves that a team made during their offseason or care to double-check, what credibility do you have? Got it. A journalist who forgets a single signing (and then publicly admits his mistake) is clearly an utter moron, worthy only of derision till the end of his career. So does this apply to posters too?

Farmer praising Billy Beane. I'm in shock. I thought bashing anything tangentially related to Moneyball/James/stats was written into Sox announcer contracts.

What's w/ this conservativism? Wheels could'a made it!

He's that good, but he also pitches for the Pirates.

So you're telling me that we've got nothing to show for Billy Koch? Which is much better than having Billy Koch to show for Billy Koch, btw. I'm trying to suppress that nasty little part of my brain that wants Ozuna sent down for no other reason than to watch Jabroni explode. No big surprise, he earned it. Hope he can help bury the 'too old to be good' argument.

Well, it's nice to dream. For $5 mil? Please... Sam Smith's living is to formulate 'out there' moves, but this one's just wacko.

It's great to get feedback on discussions like this. Welcome to the site, hopefully this won't be your last appearance!

I don't know -- these are just for fun, and 90% of the mocks are cookie-cutter. These are at least different. Roddy White was a pretty big shock to me too, but I've seen him creep into the 1st round in some mocks. (Never THAT high, though.)

QUOTE(AddisonStSox @ Mar 28, 2005 -> 10:18 PM) I've lost a lot of faith in Marte. He used to be automatic. When he came in, you would know it would be a short inning. Now, he takes a few lumps before getting those three outs. I'm hoping Hermanson and Vizcaino can come in and shut things down like Marte did two years ago. He was still pretty damn good last year. (2 years ago, just sick.) I think it's early to lose faith in someone who's been as regular as Damaso.

Btw, does anyone know if chat still supposed to be up by opening day? Sorry for off-topic, just all the calls for pbp reminded me.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Mar 28, 2005 -> 07:51 AM) The collective line of our RFers last year was an abysmal .256/.315/.414 -- Dye is a substantial improvement over that. There were about 450 non-magglio ABs in RF last season. It actually amounted to about 75% of the ABs from our RF. That's statistically significant enough for me. Pierz > C 2004 Uribe > JV 2004 Iggy ~ WH 2004 Crede should improve (hopefully) Pods I don't actually think Frank's health is that important... I think Jurassic is gonna have a first half like he did in '03.. I don't have anything to back that up, I just feel that he has a short attention span when it comes to being the best player he can be, and it looks like we should get his best effort to start '05. Dye was .265/.329/.464, which is certainly better than that line, but I don't think 65 points in ops is dramatic. And I still think you have to say that Joe B's abs were inflated because we were already out of it. Borchard had 94 abs in Sep + Oct of last year. There's no way the Sox would have sent him out there as often as they did in a meaningful situation. In that sense, the Sox haven't made a big improvement. Moreover, I'm not confident we won't get 25-50% of our rf abs from players other than Dye, anyway. He has to be right for a full season, which hasn't happened for a few years. I like the Dye signing, don't get me wrong. But imo the expectations should be tempered a bit. I agree with much of the rest of what you say, AJ is a big improvement, wait-and-see on Iguchi -- depends on how all these doubles hold up in the Cell. But Uribe isn't replacing anyone in the lineup, Carlos is a big loss, and I think Thomas's recovery is quite important (even though I'm optimistic about Everett, too -- and I'll take either half of 2003). Finally, w/ apologies to all, I'm very sceptical that a bunt-happy offense is a wise idea in this century, or the 2nd half of the previous one. The Sox are 2nd in the majors in sacs this spring, so I think that will be a big part of the strategy. Overall, I see the offense improving on the 2nd half offense, treading water compared to the season average, and definitely declining from the 1st half of last season. (And really, who wants ANY part of the 2nd half? -- That's what I meant by setting the bar low. That team is going to lose anywhere, so improving on that is faint praise.) Not that this is disastrous. Pitching is what failed us last year, and that has been improved. The only thing is that so much depends on 2 very shaky propositions, Contreras and Hernandez. If Hernandez can give us 125-150 ip, and Contreras can hold his era close to 5, then I think we'll be successful. O/w, we do have McCarthy and Hermanson, and maybe Adkins. So I'm very cautiously optimistic. I just feel that the offensive analysis is somewhat rosy.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Mar 28, 2005 -> 07:03 AM) Once Frank is healthy, Dye will likely be batting 5th or 6th. That's a far cry away from having Borchard/Timo in RF and batting anywhere in the lineup everyday. It may be better than the overall average of Magglio-Timo-Borchard that we had last year, but not by much. Figure Dye has about a .330 obp. Magglio was at .350 (which was flukey low), and Timo's about .290. Borchard, well, we all know -- .260 (I'll be generous). But I discount Joe's numbers somewhat -- he was basically playing in a try-out, and if the games had counted he would have been hitting a lot less. Then if Everett gets displaced it hurts us some more -- he's hard to place, but I'd guess around .340, roughly his average over the last 2 years. Plus, "once Frank is healthy" is key -- he was very important when healthy last year. I wish the chart would be consistent with the discussion. Just talking about the 2nd half team while using a chart with season averages might be somewhat misleading.

I'm sceptical about the hitting analysis. Getting runners into sp is so much a function of obp, and our obp was just awful at the end of last season. Using that as a standard (eg, comparing Dye to Joe B/Timo) is just setting the bar awful low. It's also a little odd to read about the park, etc, and no mention of the loud proclamation that smallball has come. Maybe they believe it's mostly rhetoric. Unfortunately, I think the pitching analysis is spot-on, and that's really what'll make or break us this year. Good depth in the pen, but a starting 5 with a lot of questions.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Mar 28, 2005 -> 01:37 AM) Also, Ozuna can field all the positions Valdez can and he can also play the outfield. I don't think Valdez being out of options will play a role or is an issue to Kenny and Ozzie. If another team claims him, so be it. If not, the Sox will sign him to a minor league deal and send him to Charlotte. I don't think anyone's disagreeing with you that Ozuna looks like a good bet to make the team. But a good bet isn't a sure bet -- unless you know a wart on someone's ass . At least that's how I took sf101's post.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Mar 28, 2005 -> 01:31 AM) well Valdez does have a prayer since he was an Ozzie favorite back in florida and you got to believe Ozzie will get what Ozzie wants Also, Valdez is out of options, if they liked Ozuna enough they may want him to play regularly, etc. Lots of things like this could play into the decision. Although I'd still be surprised if they kept Valdez. Only news to me -- Harris and Cotts as "sure bets".

QUOTE(qwerty @ Mar 27, 2005 -> 05:01 AM) You have to turn it up so damn high to hear them but the one guy blasts your damn ears off. Agreed.

Why is Bajenaru so hard to pronounce? Heather, are your ears ringing? G'night.

Frye was pretty amazing. Head gets my vote. Deron saved the Illini at the end, but Head made so many incredible plays just to get to that point. Great game.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Mar 27, 2005 -> 02:34 AM) Nice play calling to end the game, Lute.... They gawn! No kidding -- what was that supposed to be, anyway? Wow, that's excitement.

QUOTE(DonkeyKongerko @ Mar 27, 2005 -> 02:28 AM) I think Deron has 3 and Augustine with 4. I thought Augustine had fouled out -- ?