chitownsportsfan

Ames eh? On a personal note, when I was in HS a few years ago we had a transfer student from Ames, he was straight up the best athlete I had the priviledge of playing baseball with. He was in the mold of 6-2 190 SS's with a cannon arm and good hit. He and I were captains of the team our junior and senior years--he was a great teamate and competitor. He played a year for Albion here in MI then hung it up due to differences with the coach. I have great respect for Iowa and Ames' athletes because of him.

I agree completely. In fact, Hermie, Cotts and Politte each posted HR as percent of flies numbers that will be nearly impossible to duplicate. Cotts has straight up nasty control, but I'm worried about Politte and Hermie--not terribly worried, but worried enough that the might cost us a few more wins than they did last year.

Heads: love that counter. ONLY 42 DAYS TILL BASEBALL!

Yea, I did sorta ignore the good news from Hermie. Still, is anyone predicting Hermie to have an ERA under 3? I know I'm not. He shined last year, and thank him for it, but this year I see a bounceback.

Ah, spring training: where even the celler dwellers get good writeups and the WS champs--well they get the benefit of the doubt lets say. Am I the only one already sick of these puff pieces that say "blah, blah, go Sox, blah?" The only real piece of news in this article is that the Sox won't pidgeonhole themselves into taking a 2nd left, which given the options for 2nd lefty, seems like the reasonable thing to do.

I heart Mark Buehrle.

As someone vaguely familiar with the charms of cocaine, I wouldn't say that. I would say "PCP" however.

Given how many times Buehrle took the ND or L last year in a good performance, I don't blame him. Although calling a pitcher's win/loss record "personal" is a known "no no" around me!

I like Coop's philosophy of pitching: be aggressive and get ahead in the count. And if you don't get ahead in the count, don't be afraid to challenge guys. It's nothing revolutionary, but the players believe in it when they take the mound and that is important.

This is good to hear. I'm more worried about his back than the elbow. It's not like he's going to be playing that field that often, but his back could flare up at any time. I just hope it's something minor like muscle spasms (relatively minor anyway) and he only misses a few weeks if it does happen.

I have to say that I thought the Maggs departure was a bad decision. However, in hindsight, I'm sure KW knew much more about his medical situation than I did. KW did a great job finding Dye from the scraphead and locking him up for 3 years at a very reasonable rate.

We've had this discussion a million times but I'd go with: Pods Gooch Thome Kong Dye Uribe Crede AJ Anderson The top 5 are rock solid in my mind. The bottom 4 might need adjusting depending on who is slumping and what not.

For some reason I always type BABIB instead of BABIP. ISO just takes away the singles from slugging to give a better measure of "power" Ichiro has a decent slugging percentage but then again he bats .340 most years and isn't a good power hitter. PA is just a good denominator for getting averages for things like walk rate and strikeout rate.

Yea, I agree with everything except Uribe/AJ--I would bat Uribe 6th and AJ 7th. And I don't want Uribe to be switching places with Gooch at any point. And on a related note: why do you cite a certified idiot as evidence for your L/R/L lineup? I mean, that's like citing Joe Morgan on OPS.

I guess I didn't NorthSideSox72. Well good, I'm not that worried now, but I'll only really believe when I see it on April 1st.

Thome should bat 3rd according to reason and I'm sure he would if KW was managing. However, Ozzie is managing and I'm not sure if he'll agree with reason on this one.

Yea. Dye had a very solid campaign in 2005, overcoming a slow start to post a respectable 274 .333 .512. While not amazing numbers for a corner outfielder, throw in his salary and good defense and Dye is a keeper. Couple interesting things to note about Dye last year: 1) His ISO power numbers where the highest of his career. Also, the percent of fly balls he hit that turned into HR's was 16%, a very healthy percent. It seems Dye benefits greatly from playing at homer happy US Cellular. 2) His BABIP was around 285, among the lowest number of his career. He consistently posted a BABIB of over .300 in his "prime" years. This suggests to me that he's lost some ability to make consistent good contact at the expense of greater power--not a bad tradeoff given he plays half his games at the cell. 3) His walk rate continued to decline, to only 8% of his PA's. As recently as 03, his walk rate was 11%. Like most of Dye's stats, this one was hurt by a very poor spring. So what does this all mean? I think we can expect about the same from Dye this year. He benefits greatly from hitting at US Cell as a right-handed pull hitter, and he seems to have put his injuries behind him. Hopefully Ozzie's newfound depth in the outfield gives plenty of time to rest Dye and keep him fresh throughout the season. A line of 500 PA .279 .332 .520 is what I see for Dye.

Yea, I should have just said "expert prediction"

Should this be the official experts "prediction" thread?

I know I'm going to be pissed if it's a tight race in late August and Ozzie sends Widger, Ozuna and Borchard out to do some damage on a Sunday.

I'm worried about BA's confidence early in the season coming off the injury, obviously spring training will be more indicative of how he's feeling and what we can expect than more estabilished guys with a proven history. Should make things more interesting though. Borchard, if he even makes the team, will probably not be playing center, unless it's on one of Ozzie's crazy Sunday lineups.

Smart pickup by KW here. Classic low risk high potential signing. It's good that the Sox have room on the 40 man roster right now, but it might just mean a lack of organizational depth.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writ...view/index.html As preview articles go, this one isn't exactly "in depth". Only a paragraph or so for the Royals, Twins, and Tigers. It doesn't say anything we don't know about the Sox thats for sure. Thought I'd link it though since nobody else did. Just another "eh" mainstream media article for me.

Thanks to the internet, you at least know that you are smarter than someone.

Yea, I read a few things about this on THT's and SSS. It's a point well taken, and there are certainly a few wins in being able to score 4-5 runs more consistently--especially with the staff the Sox have. I agree though, it's not nearly the most important stat in terms of why the Sox were good last year. The run prevention is. It's still something to consider though. Ozzie's intuation (nudged by a huge dose of KW giving him a stud staff) might just be right on this one.