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QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 05:03 PM) Your organization should be up for contraction if you can't find a suitable replacement for Mark Teahen. Whether it be by veterans or prospects.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 04:43 PM) Yeah, but Mauer has underachieved (by his standards) most of the year. He's really heating up of late. If he goes 2009 the rest of the way it could be curtains. Everyone has down years. Let's hope this is his and he stays there without Morneau's protection.

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 04:59 PM) Is that potential career ending? That is his second one. It depends on the cause of the flexor tendon injury. If it is isolated to the tendon and is only a grade 1 or 2, it will heal without difficulties. If the tendons were strained due to laxity in the elbow ligaments it's a ligament replacement surgery.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 04:47 PM) Now I have been drinking. It's 2010, correct? It's not 1994 and we have Robin Ventura, right? You can't be serious. I don't believe Robin Ventura was playing for the Sox this year. Although that injury he sustained in spring training the one year was horrific. I'm just pointing out that players can be replaced with veterans not highly-touted unproven prospects.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 04:23 PM) Or to alleviate injuries throughout the year. Shane Victorino, an all-star last year, goes on the DL. What do the Phillies do? Call up a consensus top 10 prospect, 5 tool talent in Dominic Brown to step in. I'd hate to see what our alternative would be say Rios were to go down. That's a terrifying thought. Or how the Whits Sox team performance dropped when they lost their starting 3B.........oh wait a veteran stepped in and performed well right away. Prospects are suspects until they've proven they can play at the MLB level.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 01:58 PM) It's only a good plan if you have capable offensive players, which we really don't have in Kotsay and Jones. That wasn't the question. The question was why was Rios at DH. and Jones in CF. And I agree with Balta, Jones has done a good job. Another question: could the resting of Konerko, Rios and TCQ allow them to be more fresh and have a better overall season as opposed to the lineup with someone like Thome full time at DH? If nothing else to probably has allowed TCQ to play more without lower extremity injuries. There is no way to know for sure just a question that popped into my ADHD mind.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 03:50 PM) There is a balance between talent, luck, and management of the team. I just believe that an abundance of talent will help the downfalls of being unlucky or not having the greatest manager more than luck or a great manager has on a bad team. Ill leave it at that. Everything you said is true. The abundance of talent is the easiest to control of the group there is no denying that.

QUOTE (kane0730 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 03:19 PM) Since there isn't much Dunn news today, let's get hypothetical. What would your line-up (not Ozzie's) be with Dunn? *assuming no position player is traded Mine: Pierre Ramirez Rios Konerko Dunn Quentin AJ Beckham Omar Ozzie would put Dunn between Rios and Konerko to break up the righties.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 03:16 PM) How do you build a team though? You cant build a team around luck, you build it around talent. You want the best team in the league, it doesnt always end up that the most talented wins teh division, but it gives you a damn good chance. And lets say if Konerko went down this year, but we had a stellar farm system, and we were right in it in terms of competing still. We could use that system to replace Konerko. It gives you so much flexibility and opportunities to have a stellar farm system, and yet it doesnt even cost a crippling amount. An extra 3-5 million a year in the draft would do wonders for us. All of the points are valid but the most talented team has a chance to win but usually it's how the team performs the best. I hate to use the quote but it's the organization that wins not the individual player. If the parts fit together well they have a good chance to beat the more talented team. That's why the GM and manager are often as important as the players. The players are people their performance may depend on how they are handled by the manager and to a lesser extent GM over a long and grinding season. You can't judge a franchise just on the talent in the system or MLB level. It needs to be judged by performance. Did they win or not.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 03:13 PM) People jumped to conclusions because of the thread title, and there were some legit concerns stating if the team fell out due to not having a big bat because Ozzie wanted flexibility and KW didnt make a move because he let Ozzie control him, but no, for the most part this thread has been about the Sox improving overall. Some posters have continually not understood that since the beginning of the thread because they got caught up with the title too much and not the content. And sorry if I pissed anyone off, it became very frustrating having to retype what I was saying every other page because people werent actually reading it. It's the same point. The Sox are one of the best run frachises in baseball and their teams have performed well since they took over.

QUOTE (Cali @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 11:48 AM) I would love to get Joba for Bobby...or just Joba in general somehow. Getting him out of NYC would do wonders for him I think. Get Coop to do his "fix 'em" and with a little luck you'd have a pretty dominant closer in a few years. But this season: Putz Thornton Chamberlain Santos Threets Linebrink Pena I don't know, the knock on him in Nebraska was that he was too much of a head case to take a chance on.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 03:09 PM) I just said that an occasional outlier due to injury is acceptable, but a team with our resources in our division should have top 2 talent year in and year out. Again talent is a relative term. I think the record is the most important. I think there were a few years where the Sox were more talented than the Twins and they won the division. The talent is one thing, winning is another and they don't always correlate.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 03:06 PM) IM NOT CALLING FOR FIRINGS!! Ive never said that!!!!! Im calling for improvement, change in parts of the organization that have sucked for years! I thought the discussion started with how well (or not) KW and Ozzie were doing. The only way to improve in this area would be to change one of them. My apologies if this wasn't the discussion you were having.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 03:04 PM) If we were in the AL East I would say its ridiculous, but no, were in the Central against a well run organization in the Twins, two s***s orgs in the Royals and Indians, and a pretty good franchise in the Tigers. With the resources we have we should be at the top 2 every year, with an occasional outlier for injuries and such (thats baseball). But our talent should be as high if not higher than anyone else in the league. If not, thats a major screwup with the resources by the GM. Has anyone in any division been in the top two every year for the past five years? I'm not sure that is realistic given the incidence of injury in this sport.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:55 PM) Well, for us young whippersnappers I am sorry for wanting more out of the franchise that I grew up with. Im sorry that I cant blindly see and allow a blatant hole in the franchise and just say "Im okay with it." Im sorry taht I see this franchise in a great opportunity to be a top 7 or 8 team year in and year out with the resources given to it and that it is struggling to be there year in and year out. I know not every season is going to go your way, but we should be top 2 in the central every single year with the resources we have. I don't think your over exaggeration is the point. The point is that the management combo is doing a very good job with what they have and they have been one of the best in baseball. The call for their firings is a little over the top giving thier relative success.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:48 PM) Oh cmon, the Phillies have been a better franchise, they are identical in playoff appearances, they have made the WS twice, and they have a much better farm system and it can be argued that they have a better MLB roster. i really don't care who has the better minor league system the only thing that matters is winning at the major league level. One could translate to the other but winning is all that matters. The World Series wins puts them up there of course but again if you look at how awful they were before hand their system was bound to be good with all those years of higher picks.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:40 PM) Exactly. I don't care where we stack up in relationship to the rest of baseball, I care where we stack up in relationship to the Twins. Because that's our competition every year. I still would let them have more division tiles without a World Series title. If we are close to them every year but have more World Series trophies, I'll live with that. The ultimate goal is the World Series and as long as we are in the hunt and win a few division titles in the meantime, it works for me. I'm not sure I could handle a run like the Braves had in the 90's (before which they are awful for a decade) where they won the division title every year but couldn't win the World Series. It's just a personal preference but I'll take the title.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:35 PM) Depending on how you look at wins and titles, the Marlins have been successful, Angels have been good, Phillies have been excellent. The Phillies are a great example. They spend alot at the MLB level, but not Boston/NY territory and they invest alot in the draft. Guess what, when they want to trade for Cliff Lee and/or Halladay they can do it, and they have homegrown players like Victorino making a huge difference and they still have MiLB depth to make a trade if they want to. They arent perfect, but they have a damn fine franchise. The Marlins have been ok the last 10 years but not at the Sox level, they've had too many ups and downs. The Phillies have been coming on strong the last few years but weren't very good and probably awful before that. I still think the management combo we have is among the best certainly in the top 5.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:33 PM) Well see this is where the argument gets interesting. To me, the Twins have been a more succesful team than us in KW's time since they've won the division five times and we've won it twice (no wild cards for either side, only AL Central wild card in that time was Detroit in '06). Obviously we've got the trump card of the World Series in '05, but I'm not sure the fact that we found the right playoff combination in '05 (which I think doing is more luck than skill, considering it's teams that got there being great for 162 trying to be better in a best of 5 or 7) overcomes the Twins resume overall, even though it is a trump card. The is a valid way to look at it. Either way the two franchises are close. I still think they are in the in the upper echelon as far as management goes.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:27 PM) I will not argue the point that KW and Oz are the best GM/manager combo the Sox have had in the past 4 decades or so. But just because we have a long previous history of ineptitude at those spots doesn't mean we should give the current guys a pass because they aren't terrible as well. I think if you look around the league they are a fairly successful combination as well. Outside of the Yankees and Boston has there been another combo with more wins or titles?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 01:46 PM) It's not embarrassing as much as its hilarious. Like I said above, the cyclical nature of the criticism in this thread is ironic. On one hand you have someone complaining the the team doesnt build from within, on the other its people saying that the team doesnt go for it at the deadline and in the FA market. Its been a really long time since the White Sox have had such consistently aggressive leadership committed to winning. But like the saying goes, find the hottest girl in the world and I'll show you a guy who is sick of her s***. I think alot of the issue is that many people here have really only known the Sox management with Ozzie and KW. Right or wrong this is their point of view. They haven't lived through other GM's or managers, so it's only natural to do the grass is greener scenario. Many of the same posters have been tearing other GM's apart for recent trades. Most new GM's are unknown quantities and you aren't sure what you will get. It will be interesting on what the opinions will be once KW and Ozzie are gone. Having lived through Sox GM's and mangers since the 70's, I'm only too happy to see KW and Ozzie here. I can't think of a better GM or manager the Sox have had in 35 years.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 01:17 PM) I wonder why Rios is DHing. At least Andruw is solid in CF too. Ozzie's plan for the rotating DH. Keep a player's bat in the lineup while resting him from the field. This is why he wanted Kotsay and Jones. Good defenders in the field while the starters rest.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 01:10 PM) Pizza Cutter did a study on how big of a sample size is needed in order for the numbers to hold any predictive value. It worked out that you need a 550 PA sample size for a >.70 correlation with ISO. Two months is not going to tell you a lot. Do you know how they calculated it or where the information can be found? It most statistical prediction models you don't 70% of the data to predict the outcome. Granted the more data you have the more accurrate the prediction will be. However, if you need to get 70% of the data prediction models are useless as if you have 70% of the data the season is basically over and there is no value in prediction.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 09:35 AM) I'm sure somebody has tried to do a power analysis. Guys like Tom Tango and Mitchel Lichtman have been doing sabermetric research for decades. They have a whole book dedicated to things like bunts, clutch hitting, lineup order, hot and cold streaks, etc. If you dig deep enough, you might find something about power. I haven't come across it myself, but it might be out there. Bill James is just some guy who is looked at as the guy who makes up all these stats nobody has an idea about, but he's not really one of the current innovators of sabermetrics. Asking him about something 10 years ago probably isn't going to give you the whole story. Most of the research by Tango and Lichtman are descriptive and not predictive. They've done mostly retrospective studies. I was using Bill James as an example. Even the newest sabermetrics are based on the concept of"how can we determine (insert example) well this makes sense so let's try these factors." Things like WAR are very abstract. Who is the replacement? Is it the average player? Is it AL? Isit NL? We all know the leagues are different so how can anyone player be generalized to everyone. I'm not saying they aren't useful, I've always looked at numbers in baseball as useful. They are helpful for comparison. But when you are discussing stats and the use of them you really need to look at the reliability and validity and how you apply the terms. Back to the original point most people on this site use the concept and term of sample size wrong and it is not a good argument when discussing the predictive value of a players performance.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 09:13 AM) Judging anybody based on a two month sample size isn't a good idea. We've seen numerous times where players go on incredible 2-month power streaks (Chris Shelton, Jonny Gomes) and end up playing like absolute crap for the remainder of the season. As unlikely as it seems that a nobody could run into 20 some odd home runs, it is possible, but somewhat improbable. But still possible. I just read yesterday that the NFC had won 14 straight coin tosses in the SuperBowl, the odds of that happening are 1 in 16384. Seems incredibly improbable, but it's still happening. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/a...tingrandomness/ But you and this article are doing the same thing that Big Sqwert admonished Balta for. You are picking events to justify an idea you have about the sample. It's guessing. I'm not saying that 2 months of numbers is an adequate sample size or not. I haven't done the power analysis either. But you using the term sample size wrong. You can say that he is bias in using certain data to make his point, as you and the article did above. But before you start using the statistical terminology in relation to statistics, not events, you should have the data to back it up. There is always statistical error, like the example you pointed out. This is another reason why people shouldn't live and die by Bill James' made up stats during the discussions on this site.