jackie hayes

Someone pointed out in another thread that Pierre is very inexpensive. If they want to move some salary, they'd trade Castillo. I believe Castillo is making $5-6 mil, while Pierre is making $2-3.

There's something incredibly sad, though, hearing about these things while baseball is still being played. The last game of 2003, the announcers made the usual "Our next broadcast will be..." announcement, only this time it was of course in March. Why? That was a bitter pill. I just want some closure to this season, then I'll look forward to the offseason. That's not to say that it won't be fun -- just something I've been thinking about, that this reminded me of.

White Sox winner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great game, great season, Paulie. Great to see the Sox pull this one out after trailing. Even though the season has been a disappointment, let's milk these last couple weeks for some good baseball.

The first part doesn't describe PK. The second part is both here and there -- you say it isn't about Paulie v Gload, then you go on to say Gload is the a player who "in a way is more valuable". It's not a fair argument to say, "don't compare them", then "by the way, Gload's a more valuable player".

C'mon Jon, you just got the lead, now you've got to hunker down and...oh well.

I really hope the Sox can pull this one out, as a bright spot at the end of a dark season. Not that it would mean anything substantive for next year, just one game, but I don't want to be saying, "It was great when Paulie hit his 40th, it's just too bad we couldn't..." Let's go Sox!!! Lecroy out at the plate, then a run-scoring single. Let's do some catching up here.

Whatever budget a team settles on, it doesn't seem wise to invest 1/5 of that in one player. A lot of players have to pan out well for this scenario to work next year, plus a big deal hamstrings you for many years in the future. I don't think the Sox should sign anyone for more than $12 mil per year, or about 1/6 of the total budget. And then, it should only be for a healthy player. Beltran's an awfully good player, but unless he turns into Barry Bonds he's not worth $16 mil (which does seem like a fair guess at what he'll get).

How bad have the Sox been this year defensively? Obviously there are some problems, but I haven't seen huge deficiencies (on the field or in the numbers) -- Jose's hands aren't very good, but he compensates for that in range and arm strength. Crede's struggled. But I'm willing to be convinced. Where else have the Sox had big defensive problems?

My question is really about the lineup. Why is there so much emphasis on the Sox lineup? The most obvious failure this year was the pitchers -- our team era is a full run higher than the Twins'. We scored at least as well as the Twins, but our starters and bullpen were pummelled. I'm not sure that "small ball" describes the Twins. They steal bases well, but the Sox have more sacrifices. And I find it hard to believe that the stolen base difference is anywhere near as important as the runs allowed difference. But I agree w/ you about the minor league system. Something is not working there.

He didn't say he "would have wanted more", only that he now wishes he'd gotten more. I think (from other comments) that he's referring to Willie's inconsistency. Maybe sb and bunting, too, at least that would make sense.

I doubt that would be the difference. Their pitchers so badly outclassed ours, Frank and Maggs probably wouldn't be enough. I think last year was mostly bad luck, but this year they were really much better. I hope they do well. If nothing else, unless the rivalry is really something special (Bears-Packers), I like seeing Midwest teams beat the rest of the country.

Why are you so sure the rotation would become very solid? The 4 that are probably set (Buehrle, Garcia, Contreras, Garland) haven't shown much over the 2nd half.

Except that Gload's numbers are based on so few abs, it could very well be a fluke. Maybe not. Anyway, I didn't want to hijack the thread, so I'll leave it at this.

The NL difference is part of it, but not much -- it's about a 7% bump. And it'd be great to get a fast, high-obp guy to lead off. But it won't help us win if our pitching doesn't improve drastically.

Maybe, but that's a different argument than saying PK's a bad clutch hitter. I don't know what kind of pitching the Sox could get for Paulie, and that's our biggest need, IMO.

I'm not the one splitting hairs. You said he had about half the hrs in roughly the same number of at bats. That makes it sound like he's only half as likely to hit a hr in a runners-on ab. When you actually compute the statistic (an estimate of the probability of PK homering conditional on runners-on and qualifying for an ab), the drop is from 8.04% chance w/ the bases empty to 6.99% with runners on. That's not half, and I think most people would think that it could well be a random blip, not a meaningful difference. I also specified what particular types of pitchers I was referring to, closers and rhp (relievers) -- I wasn't referring to facing some random assortment of pitchers, b/c that's not what a batter faces.

I thought about calling this thread "why everyone is wrong", but I thought some might not take it as tongue in cheek as I meant it. There has been a lot of admiration here towards the Marlins style of play. In particular, many people have said that they would prefer a "smallball" style of play. I have a hard time seeing any advantage in that approach. My first instinct is to look at the overall numbers, which show the Sox with 132 more runs on the season, or 20% more than the Marlins. That's a huge number, but the answer is often that the Sox score 10+ runs in one game and then only scratch out one or two the next day, whereas the Marlins are more consistent with their 4-5 runs per game. If that's true, then perhaps the Marlins lineup is more useful than the Sox lineup. But it's not. Just look at the number of times the Sox have scored very few runs, compared to the Marlins: 0 runs or fewer: Sox 8, Marlins 7 1 runs or fewer: Sox 21, Marlins 23 2 runs or fewer: Sox 42, Marlins 45 3 runs or fewer: Sox 54, Marlins 65 4 runs or fewer: Sox 76, Marlins 83 5 runs or fewer: Sox 87, Marlins 99 The Marlins are only better in shutouts, and then only by 1 game. In every other low-scoring bracket, they are worse than the Sox. The Marlins do somewhat better (relatively) towards the end of the season (when Frank and Maggs are out), but it's hardly notable. The last 50 games: 0 runs or fewer: Sox 4, Marlins 5 1 runs or fewer: Sox 7, Marlins 8 2 runs or fewer: Sox 14, Marlins 13 3 runs or fewer: Sox 19, Marlins 17 4 runs or fewer: Sox 23, Marlins 23 5 runs or fewer: Sox 30, Marlins 30 The Marlins are not any more consistent than the Sox at scoring runs. The reason the Marlins are competing (though after today, that may be in the past tense) is their phenomenal pitching. Florida's team era is 3.99 on the year, 6th best in the ml. The Sox team era is 4.97, 7th worst. And what's worse, it hasn't gotten better since the shakeup. As a number of posters have pointed out, Freddy Garcia has not been an ace, with a 4.65 era since joining the Sox. Jose Contreras has a 6.18 era since the trade that brought him here. As a whole, the Sox team era has been worse since the All-Star break, while the Marlins have improved. The Marlins win b/c of pitching, and their weak hitting is really the team albatross. (The Twins, btw, are not much different -- a 3.98 era in the AL is astonishing, but their hitting is a little better than Florida's, with a .430 slg compared to Florida's .409.) With such a massive disparity in pitching results, why does everyone think that the real difference between the 2 teams is Paul Konerko's speed, or not having a classical slap-hitting leadoff hitter? If the Sox want to be like Florida, they need the arms first. Smallball is not going to help.

This is an example of how stats can be used the wrong way. In terms of hr and k/ab with runners on or with risp, you're talking about a difference of a handful of abs (eg, there is only a 3 hr difference between the ratios being equal). Whenever you use statistics, you have to keep in mind the fact that there is some randomness, and small differences are natural, not conclusive. (Plus, 16 is not half of 23, and "roughly the same amount of at- bats" should not mean a difference of 60, or 11% of PK's total abs.) Not to mention, there is no adjustment made here for the fact that PK will tend to face different pitchers (closers and more rhp) with risp. At the same time, the judgement of Gload rests on fewer than 100 abs. And he strikes out and gidp more often than PK with risp, based on this year's stats (fewer than 50 abs for Gload). In fact, his overall strikeout rate is only a blip lower than PK's, and he walks less often. The point is not that PK is great, and Gload is terrible. The point is that we know PK is a very good player, and we know very little about Gload. Moreover, what little we have seen from Gload isn't missing some of the same flaws PK has. You're still looking at a big step down and a big risk, in performance as well as overall numbers. Some people don't want PK b/c he's slow, or b/c they believe the return would be better. While I don't agree, it's all speculative and so it seems fair. On the other hand, the case that Paulie's a bad clutch hitter is very weak coming from stats.

Well, I still don't agree w/ you on specifics, esp Borchard. Even in the minors, he didn't show any ability to improve, to strike out less as he developed -- unlike Olivo and Gload, eg. It's just too bad he didn't exeunt long ago, instead of Reed, say.

The Sox have got to be more patient w/ their prospects. Keep him in the minors until he's mastered hitters at that level. If he never does, or if he gets hurt in the process, nuts -- move on. As good as his curve looks -- move on.

I thought he looked okay, despite the questionable INT (he looked down to me). Besides the stat line, what looked bad to you?

We won't get that for Konerko, b/c PK is not thought of as highly as Brian Giles. And PK and some cash for Pierre straight up, is that okay? Will we be a better team?

fast, bunting players...I guess It's a phrase that I usually translate to "smallball", but, c'mon, I know you've heard this phrase before, you know it as well as I do.

There have been many calls to trade PK and/or Carlos for "ozzieball" players. For those who support such trades, what do you expect to get? When you look at trades of premier players during the last off-season, I think of Brian Giles, Curt Schilling, Richie Sexson, Javy Vazquez, and Eric Milton. The first 2 were traded for prospects. The 3rd was traded for a bunch of prospects and middle-of-the-road major leaguers. The 4th was traded for a promising young player (Nick Johnson) and some players that were, essentially, prospects. And the 5th was traded for some promising ML talent -- but there were a lot of people saying Milton was overrated the whole time. I can imagine a Konerko for Pierre trade, straight-up (player-wise, the Sox would probably have to throw in some money), or maybe w/ the Sox throwing in a prospect or 2 -- nothing much better than that. (The Marlins may need some sluggers, w/ Lowell's contract & all.) What is the general opinion on that? Pierre's obp is not much better than Konerko's (.370 v .360), and his slg is much worse (.550 v .406). Of course, he is much faster. Is that a worthwhile trade, to you? More generally, what do you expect? Remember, these are not video game trades -- don't just talk about one-dimensional value, justify your proposition with a need and value on the opposing side of the trade.

In the heat of a division race, go for it. But when you're playing for nothing? Rest him, heck, put him on the DL and be done w/ it. At this point, don't risk anything.