Jake

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 03:44 PM) I'd guess that Chris Curley will go to AA to take that roster spot. Outside chance they go with Micah, but I kinda doubt it. Yeah, that makes more sense to me

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 02:39 PM) Brandon Allen sucked too. Not that Soxtalk didn't enter full freakout mode after we traded him

As I continue to think about this, our roster was clearly constructed based on the idea that the way above average value positions would be 1B and DH and that was largely the case last year (and we saw everything fall apart as Dunn and Konerko slumped down the stretch). This year, you see how bad the team is without its best players being its best players. Dunn has rallied back but playing 1B takes a nearly insurmountable chunk out of his value. The biggest problem with this team is that Paulie did not hit as well as planned AND nobody else hit a ton better as expected to make up for it. This team is probably a contender if PK is mashing and playing 1B. Sadly, it is hard to get a great 1B. Let's hope we figure something out. Someone in FutureSox said they see Andy Wilkins potentially being a 2-2.5 WAR player. Do you know how much better we would be if we had a 2-2.5 WAR player at first right now??

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 03:02 PM) To me, I see a guy like Viciedo as "no plan at the plate," where he has no idea what he's going to do except something very basic. That's improving, but still. I view a guy like Tyler Flowers as "cannot recognize pitches fast enough" because he knows what he wants and where he wants it, but he doesn't have the hand-eye coordination to make the sweet spot make contact often enough. Based on numbers alone, Garcia is going to fit into the former rather than the latter. I more or less agree with that. I think Dayan is a guy who is constantly being coached and given a plan and his success seems to be dictated by how good that plan is and how well he sticks to it. Flowers is constantly being coached and given plans but rarely seems to produce based on this type of instruction because he seems simply incapable of either recognizing pitches or just hitting pitches he recognizes on a consistent basis.

Position by position WAR rankings for White Sox (this encompasses the best metrics for batting, baserunning, and fielding): First number is 2013, second number is 2-year average for positions where we have had players returning from last year C - 27th 1B - 28th / 17th 2B - 29th / 28th SS - 13th / 14th 3B - 29th RF - 18th / 15th CF - 22nd / 22nd LF - 20th / 23rd DH - 18th (out of 18 teams with qualifying amount of PA) / 7th out of 21 Here we see that our outfield and shortstop is definitely our strength, 3B/2B have been consistent problems. The biggest changes for this year compared to the 2-year average are the 1B/DH combo and of course the dropoff in catching is clear to us after AJ's career year. We still see the need for change in 1B/DH spots here, with PK in particular really hurting the team. Dunn should be able to shine in a DH role for as long as he's around. Keppinger has really dragged down our production at 2B and 3B this year while Gordon/Conor have not been good enough to balance that out. Catching has been bad. Want to start winning? Get producers at 1B, 2B, 3B, C. Now...how to do that? Because it seems hard at first glance. Well, it seems to me that Phegley turning into a good player would be a great first step. After that, you need Gordon to stay hot and keep Keppinger off of his position. Then, you either need Conor to play over his head and be a league average hitter (and, again, keep Kepp away or have Kep start hitting again) or get a new face over at 3B. We need a new face at 1B as well. It would also help if Dayan, who's been carrying our LF'ers to that mediocre ranking, could start to rake and improve our standing in that spot. De Aza could stand to simply repeat his defensive effort from last year to raise his own value. Rios is probably not a big concern...he won't carry us to having the best RF production, but we won't have bad production either. Ideally, you turn Rios into a producer at one of these weaker positions via trade. Then you hope Avisail can give us similar production in RF. The indispensable character, it seems to me, is Alexei. I didn't expect to think that.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 02:33 PM) No biggie. I'll get used to the posts rooting for the No. 1 pick. I just see it as kind of dumb considering the fact picks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to me are about the same. 1 is the only one that has been historically very significantly different. 1 and 2 are different, but 2-3-4-5-6 are hardly any different from one another.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 02:15 PM) Well, in 2011, it declined from a career worst 35% to a second career worst 34%, and 2012's 29% is still higher than every year before his disastrous 2010. Also, while his K rate has technically declined, Manto has also presided over Adam's OBP and overall offensive production declining. He got a broken version of Adam. He has turned Adam into our best hitter this season and a key contributor last season and the second best hitter on the team if you combine the last two seasons.

The 2005 White Sox were 17th in MLB in wRC+. This year's team is 29th. We were 8th in 2004. We are currently 28th in UBR (ultimate baserunning, which assesses the amount runs earned/given up on the bases via speed, stolen bases, blunders, etc). We were 12th in 2005. 16th in 2004. The 2005 club led baseball in pitching WAR. We are third in baseball this year. We were 17th in 2004. In 2005, we were 8th in team UZR. This year, we're 23rd (worth mentioning we were 10th last year, so there is a reason to believe we can field a decent fielding club). 5th in 2004. We have the pitching it takes to win a WS. We don't have the position players. The players who have cost us most defensively, per UZR: Dunn, De Aza, Viciedo, Konerko, Keppinger, Beckham. As you make Dunn your DH and eventually get rid of him, we should improve defense at that position. Konerko also gone. Crazy that we've given away well over twice as many runs with 1st baseman defense than any other position, relative to the average defenders at those positions. I think De Aza has had a weird season and we can reasonably assume he improves defensively, since he has been an average centerfielder throughout the rest of his career. Viciedo was better last year as well and I think he will continue to just be a slightly negative LF. Keppinger is not going to continue to play much second base for us, where he's cost us the most runs. Beckham has never been looked upon kindly by UZR, but his poor defensive play when he came off the DL has dropped it much lower than normal. I'd expect that to pick back up. Worst baserunners, per UBR: Konerko, Keppinger, Dunn, Flowers This entire stat is weighed down by PK, who's had one of the worst UBR seasons I've ever seen. Keppinger is well below career norms, not that anyone here would shed a tear if he were moved. Dunn is slow. Flowers won't be running the bases for us much in the future. Worst hitters, per wRC+: Keppinger, Phegley, Gimenez, Flowers, Ramirez, Konerko Keppinger's season has been really dreadful. The Phegley/Gimenez/Flowers trio has been really bad and Flowers has been the best of the bunch. I think we're all hopeful and somewhat confident that Phegley eventually outproduces all of them and maybe by a great deal. Let's hope. Alexei is Alexei - his offense among shortstops isn't all that bad, 17th out of 26 SS w/ 250 PA's and is of course leading our team in WAR on the strength of his defense. Paulie sucks, I think you see a theme here. I think as we break it down, we see where to seek improvement. We need to get Dunn off first base where his defense is nearly canceling out his offense. We need Paulie to retire. Keppinger has to either be his old self, go, or ride the pine. We need production out of the catching position. Those are the most efficient places to improve the team. Unfortunately, our top prospect plays the same position as the guy tied for the lead on our team in WAR. This is why you can't simply dump Rios, you need to try to move Rios' production to another position(s). Avisail can be pretty good in RF and it won't improve our team because we have to subtract our best player to get Avisail out there.

I think Law used to dislike the White Sox because KW had singled him out as an "idiot" in the past. I think he has since, more or less, buried the hatchet. There are reasons not to like Avisail Garcia. When he was asked about Avisail on ESPN, he was very diplomatic. He said there is division among people like him about how his approach will play at the MLB level over time. He first presented the case that many see him being a perennial all-star, but said that his and some others' opinion was that he "has no plan at the plate" and thus is unlikely to hit it big.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 12:42 PM) When he was hired he said that OBP was a little overrated or something like that. He should have been shown the door right then and there. All he has ever said, which of course results in people jumping down his throat, is that there are situations in which a walk is not the most productive result of an at-bat. He has always used examples of great hitters needing to hit a pitch they can hit rather than letting pitchers pitch around them. The first time he was quoted saying something like this, he talked about having a runner on third with 1 out. He said if your best hitter is up and the pitcher is trying to walk him, that's not what you want. You want your best hitter to drive the man in instead of allowing the pitcher to set up a DP for an inferior hitter. He also theorized that some of Dunn's issues were related to his preference of walks over hitting the right pitch. Early this season, we thought Manto had f***ed Adam up. It turns out, according to Adam, that he only began to turn around when Manto stuck to his guns and wouldn't let Adam scrap the changes to his approach just because he wasn't executing them correctly right away. QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 01:47 PM) If the White Sox continue to prioritize tools over skills at all costs, though, we're going to need someone that will teach the kids to stop swinging at bad pitches. And considering he was able to convince Adam Dunn, reigning emperor of TTO, to start swinging at anything that appeared to be middle in, regardless of count or pitch type, I do NOT think Manto is the guy to teach that plate discipline. Manto has presided over Adam's K rate declining in consecutive seasons.

You have to wonder if we had them working on something in particular early in the season that was causing them to take a step back

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 12:40 PM) "It may well be 2014 is a season like this one where we got rid of Jake"....to me, that means it's absolutely a rebuild coming up. I got the sense that he's just going to play the market as it comes to him. If the market dictates that we dump everyone for low-level guys, we do it and we probably aren't great. If it dictates that we get MLB-ready talent, we're ready to compete with a young club plus a vet or two. If the market sucks, we hold all the current vets and see what happens at the deadline.

Danks!

Tank!

I did not get the message that we are trying to rebuild. As a matter of fact, I got the impression that that is the last thing he wants to happen. He isn't about to drop $50 million in free agency to make sure we compete, but he certainly wants to make this team good as quickly as possible. There is a reason he didn't mention the draft as part of our future, only mentioning that better drafting in the past couple years has already built up our system. There won't be any all-in next year, but I'd expect to see a new veteran or two around and a team that expects to finish better than last. He's going to try to get maximum value for our players and if that means Rios turns into young but good prospects, he's okay with that. He's going for as much Avisail Garcia type guys as possible and even suggested that Avisail has already begun to shorten our rebuilding window. He said he is fully willing to hold on to our veterans if we don't get fair deals because we can always go out and win next year. He also repeatedly talked about the pitching and how the rebuild is already partially done because of how good our pitching is. He's right about that.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 11:59 AM) Really excited to see what Semien can do at AAA. Hopefully he handles well because it would be nice to have a skillset like his in the lineup next year. Yeah, I really hope he turns into a valuable major leaguer. He really seems like one of the higher floor guys in the entire system right now.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 11:54 AM) Not a chance in hell he should be brought back next season. As bad as our offense has been, I have a hard time truly feeling like he should go. Before he came, players like Dunn and Rios were among the least valuable assets in MLB. Beckham had had his third straight declining season. Now those guys have become legitimate pieces again. The jury is out on a guy like Dayan, where the way he finishes this season could have a profound effect on the way we view his development. Our most significant decline this season is PK, and I'd like to find the person that believes that is the fault of the hitting coach and not father time.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 07:37 AM) I still don't see why you guys have Hawkins rated so high. Not even close to top 10 IMO. Fast forward to one year from now.....If he has similar numbers then, will you still rank him in Top Ten? Not me. Ranking prospects is a balance of talent and production. While the production side of Courtney is fairly low (not zero, though - he's playing center field well and showing off that power tool), the talent side is sky high. The net is still a very valuable prospect at this point.

LOL @ Dayan's face after he nearly misplayed that fly

That is one of the most softly hit homers I'v ever seen

Quit saying all the evidence they have is the "word of a drug dealer." All the investigative reporting suggests they have an absolute preponderance of evidence.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 10:11 AM) Great case for a new manager. It would be if it weren't for the fact the previous manager presided over a team with similar issues and had the same players

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 11:10 AM) Yep, that might be our best bet of adding an impact bat for next season. It would be awesome if we got yet another key contributor via waivers

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 1, 2013 -> 10:50 AM) He and Carlos will be the middle infield I'm sure, but it is hard to say which plays where. They may switch back and forth some, at least at first, to see who seems more comfortable at each position. Yeah, I'm betting they just trade off

QUOTE (Dizzy Sox @ Jul 31, 2013 -> 08:01 PM) Not in the lineup at B-Ham this evening...promoted to Charlotte perhaps? ding ding!