chitownsportsfan

It just hit me...Ozzie and KW have ordered Thorton to get shellacked so that he passes through waivers! Yes, I love my conspirary theories.

Well, I'd contend their mostly meaningless, but you'd at least like to see the velocity and control there for your pitchers. Hitters take longer to get into the groove, this is well known and major reason it's suggested we take their results with a grain of salt, but this time of year pitchers should be working on getting their pitchers over and increasing their velocity--I really don't care if they give up a few hits in the process. However, Jenks has shown that he's not only lost velocity, but that he can't throw his curveball for a consistent strike. I can't complain about the Iguchi situation, I've wanted him at 2nd all offseason. If Ozzie wants to use some spring training stats to justify this one, hell, I'm not going to say otherwise

Yea, but I'd rather have a half guess than a guess.

Alas, "statheads" write poorly researched articles as well. Most statheads have the White Sox winning the central or coming in 2nd to the Indians. Most statheads think Minnesota's club is pretty mediocre. I wouldn't get your undies in a bunch over this article, although I'm sure some of you salivate at any "stathead" dissing the Sox. He's clearly cut from half the cloth of the BP guys--all the arrogance and none of the smarts. Anytime a "stathead" writes an argument and their aren't any stats, well that's just laziness.

I'm scared for nearby objects the first time Thornton blows an important game.

Well, the thing is that that "out on a ball in play" is exclusive from any "moving over" of the runners. Essentially, it's worse than a strikout because a runner might get got in a pickle from 3rd to home or 2nd to 3rd. That's the only logic I can think of for that. Any other ideas?

Good point Shaftr, I think we had this debate over on SSS a few weeks ago. The Pods/Lee trade cannot be evaluated in isolation. That is, the trade was really part of a larger organizational emphasis on defense and a spreading out of resources. I'd take Lee over Pods anyday of the week, twice on doubleheader days. However Pods was an adequate piece on a world championship team, nothing wrong with that. I also have no doubt that if the Sox had had the money to still sign Vizcaino and Iguchi and Dye with Lee in LF, then they still would have won at least 99 games and the World Series--everything else being equal outside of Lee and Pods' 2005 stats.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/...e-outs-article/ If you're still not convinced, Google "productive outs", there are hours of reading material proving their relative worthlessness to winning baseball.

Yea, I just realized all those numbers were from 2004 anyway, the point stands, but not as well. Dang Google and ESPN teaming up against me. Who knew the string, "Productive outs 2005" would produce the 2004 stats...

Defense has been widely regarded as a major reason the Sox were so good at preventing runs in 2005, it's been discussed even by the arrogant Baseball Prospectus, which even took the extremely rare step for them of admitting they were wrong. The Sox converted a higher percentage of balls in play into outs then every team except Oakland. That's a good thing. However, the Sox were 20th in "productive outs" http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/productive?tp=team The top 3 teams in "productive outs" were Washington, Colorado, and Pitsburgh. In fact, the winning percentage of the bottom 1/3 in productive outs is much higher than the top 1/3. Productive outs is about the last thing I'd look at to see how well a team performed. It's almost meaningless.

RME JICO--you're my hero! I didn't even have to dig through the archives of THT's to prove my point. I thought those articles were very fair, they concluded that speed does make the pitcher a little more loose--to the tune of 2 runs a year--that's rather yawnworthy in my book. Give me two LF'ers, all things being equal, power hitting, contact hitting, arm, and I'll take the faster guy every time. Speed has a place in baseball no doubt. But its place is relatively unimportant compared to the other major American team sports.

For the sake of Hermie I hope that a) he either pitches pain-free without the shots, or B) he realizes that his future healthy depends on not ruining his back when he's 33. He's a guy that the cliche, "gets by on grit" applies to fairly well. I wish him the best.

It's not, not in the grand scheme of things. Why can't people just accept that historical data that shows there are plenty of things more important than base stealing for creating runs--like OBP and SLG. It's not being arrogant; it's being reasonable. No stat head is going to tell Scottie Pods to not attempt to steal if he can swipe at an 80% clip, but they are going to ask the leadoff hitter to get on base more, and to throw in some doubles and HR every once and awile--something he doesn't really do well at all. Scottie Pods is an average major league LF in his good seasons, nothing more, nothing less. However, compared to stonehands and lead footed Carlos Lee, he fit into the Sox's idea for better defense, which looks like a smart move in hindsight. I think their analysis of last year's offseason was spot on. And I think their analysis of this off-season is better than 95% of the offseason reviews you will see online or elsewhere. I'm not sure about Boston or the Yankees being ahead of the Sox, so I agree with that. But the Dodgers had a very good offseason, as did the A's, I'd put the Sox 2 and Oakland 2a, but IMO, the Dodgers, from a purely "how many more wins this year" standpoint did the best job, helped by the fact that they had a lot longer to go to get to the playoffs then the Sox and A's.

I have faith in Cooper to improve any pitcher he handles based on his proven track record. However, it's one thing to work with a guy over the winter, it's another thing to work with him 12 days before the season starts. The first lead Thortnon blows will have us all clamoring for Marte and Viz, which is sad. How does a bullpen go from a position of strength to the biggest weakness in a month? At the top the bullpen still looks strong with Jenks and Cotts, but it's the middle guys that are looking real shaky right now for those 6th and 7th innings where the Sox are in a tight game.

CWWKeith posted this over at SSS: Also, the Cheat raved about his performance today as well. Seems like if Lumpy can stay healthy he'll be a top of the rotation starter. In a farm system mostly empty of anything, this is great news. It's encouraging to see him throwing a consistnent 92+ heater that's dancing, while displaying good control as well.

I agree that this trade makes little sense for the Sox and much more for the Mariners. The stakes are so low however that there isn't much risk for either side, however the Mariners get a guy likely to make their club, and the Sox got a guy likely to be pumping gas come April 1st. I thought the Marlins were showing interest in Borchard? Surely they have someone better Thornton laying around... Doesn't sound like there was any market for Borchard, or KW failed to create one.

Hahahaa, only 5 pages until someone suggested this means Sweeney might make the roster. We should put the "Does this mean Sweeney makes team post" over/under at 5 on all threads.

Yea, but only 'cause Japan might win the WBC without him. Spring Training is meaningless. A professional like the Gooch will worry if his OPS is .640 in late June. I'd start worrying too at that point. Until then, I"ll just hope he stays healthy in the cactus league.

Frank really had to put this behind him--what was he going to go into the hall as a White Sox while still pissed off at everyone? No way.

Ron Howard helped create Arrested Development. That gets him a spring training look in and of itself.

I believe NWA started the Sox cap trend back in the late 80's early 90's. It's continued ever since.

I believe Dr. Dre popularized the Sox 'tilted brim look circa 1992. No doubt the Sox baseball cap (and baseball caps in general) have a certain popularity among the hip-hop generation--that is great.

A major upgrade no doubt. It's for that reason Balta that I'm not predicting doom and gloom this season--I'm predicting playoffs. I really think the offense will pickup the rest of the things that can and will go wrong.

As Omar from HBO's The Wire would say, "oh indeed". (Sorry obscure reference--but a good one IMO) If there is one reason to think the Sox will win more than 99 games this season, it's the offense. Throw PECOTA out the window, I think their Sox prejections are mostly junk. I'm not a big fan of BP in general, but that is for another day... Uribe, Crede, Iguchi, and BA will almost certainly improve as a group. Thome/Gload will improve the DH spot massively barring injury. (which is looking unlikely given the suddenly statue like Thome) I expect AJ to be about the same: sacrificing contact for power. I expect Pods to be about the same: dead average for his career. I expect Dye to perform about the same, and I expect Kong to have a slightly "worse" year. I am most optimisic about the offense this season. Say we score 50 more runs--will that make up for losses other places? Hopefully.

More good points Balta, I'm glad you're around on a Friday night to debate baseball with me--lol. I think however that in the grand sabermetricaly aligned scheme of things in my head that those things that went wrong cost relatively few wins compared to those things that went right. I agree however that the Sox had some things go badly, which will likely go right this year. The biggest thing to me that sabermetricians forget, and which you mentioned is the freaking abysmal play of Timo Perez. I mean, dude got 180 AB? I almost feel sorry for the White Sox, then I think of Neifi Perez, and how my pain pales in comparison. However, an improved bench is a reason the homer and sabermetric side of me sees nothing to argue with as a reason for optimism. Will an improved bench make of up a near certain regression from the bullpen? That remains to be seen.