chitownsportsfan

Ok, I've gone into my time machine and have pulled the following out of the past: Year W L RS RA 2005 99 63 741 645 2004 83 79 865 831 2003 86 76 791 715 2002 81 81 856 798 Yep, "wins" did get us a world championship last year--can't argue that. But gee, you think a little good old fashioned run prevention didn't help? That was the main difference between 2005 and 2002-2004, not some myth like "Ozzieball". Please don't say that I don't realize the importance of being able to move the runner over and play for one run. I realize playing for 1 run helps win close games. Having a shovel helps dig a hole, but not as much as a bulldozer. Get it?

Well, I don't care much about sacrifices, not unless they come in the late innings of a tight game. Playing for 1 run will get you 1 run.

Ozzie thinks "BABIP" is a Uribespeak for "more sunflower seeds" You think Bobby Cox might use it? I think Ozzie is a great manager for every reason having to do with corny things like unity and leadership, but only average when it comes to statistical optimization. Fortunetly, it's a pretty weak playing field for both categories.

OK, well I for one hope Ozzie looks at: p/pa k/bb babip Then I hope he throws all those stats out due to small sample size and the level of spring training compeition.

The thing is, I agree that Gooch will produce better down in the order. However, I don't think he's going to become enough better to warrant moving Uribe into the number two position. Lets face it, the Sox are not a good OBP team. They rely on run prevention and the long ball, which netted a championship. Uribe does a good job at run prevention and is unlikely to be good at much more. It makes more sense efficiency wise to play to your strenghts. Gooch is one of the few decent OBP guys the Sox have, he must bat high.

Quizas. Then again, games in April count as much as Games in September when all is said and done.

Whenever stats and traditional scouting ("free swinger") agree it almost always means a correct reading. This is a real no brainer imo--Uribe bats down in the order.

Exactly SSH2005. Any OBP the Sox get from defensive wizard and good power Uribe (for position) should be considered gravy. To expect different and try and make him something he isn't would be foolish. I really hope KW realizes this and convinces Ozzie to just say no on this one. And I don't care how spring training pans out. Spring training is for finding your 4th outfielder and 12th pitcher, not for making major changes to your batting order and starting lineup. Not unless you're the Royals anyway.

Ok, so first move he makes you disagree with I want an explanation. It can involve the sun and moon, but I need something.

Here comes my insanely long and detailed statcentric reply. First, to use Uribe's line in 2004 when he had 260 AB's in the 2 hole is silly. 260 AB's is not enough to get any sort of strong conclusion about a player. Lets say that Juan's last two seasons with the White Sox are a decent prediction of what he will in 2006. 2005: .252 .301 .412 .713 2004: .283 .327 .506 .833 Now, lets look at little deeper into the statistics and see what the cause for Uribe's sudden collapse in 2005 might have been caused by. Was Juan unlucky? Or was he lucky in 2004? Batting average balls on balls play is a great statistic because it represents the amount of luck a player had in a given year. Obviously, some playes get more than their share of "seeing eye singles" and "ducksnorts"--and some get less. It also can be coupled with line drive data to see if a player is a really excellent hitter, or just got really lucky. Obviously players who hit alot of line drive's have higher BABIP and thus higher AVG, OPS, etc. If you to to: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playe...age=7&type=full You can see very clearly that Uribe's BABIB was higher than expected in 2004 and lower than expected in 2005. In other words, Juan was lucky in 2004 and unlucky in 2005. I'd expect 2006 to fall somewhere in the middle. Notive that the nearly .030 change in BABIP corresponds very well to the change in Juan's batting average change from the same years. Juan didn't become any better or any worse at hitting for average--it was simple luck that made a big difference. Aren't stats interesting? Now, say that Juan's BABIP returns to around .300 this year. (which is very close to the league average). So raise his OBP by 20 points from last year and his slugging an additional twenty points. This give us .321 for an OBP. Of course, OBP is also influenced by a hitters control of the strike zone. Here, there is reason to be optimistic about Uribe's OBP and his hitting in general. If you go here: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs%5C454_batt...ll_20051002.png You see that Juan is steadily becoming a more patient hitter. This is obviously a good thing. I'd say we can expect the trend to continue, and so lets put .321 to .335 as a projected range for Uribe. (notice the lack of anything resembling a regression equation here--leave that for the serious nerds, or at least those with more energy and time for this stuff) Iguchi put up a .342 OPB last year. His BABIP was roughly .320, which not having data from Japan, I can't project to drop or rise. I'd bet on a modest drop, as Iguchi seems to hit a fair number of line drives, so lets say it falls 10 points and his OBP falls to .332. Not great, but still better than what Uribe projects. Now, those are just my amateur half-assed calculations. PECOTA, BP's mundo projection service, projects Uribe for 267 .315 .448, which seems pretty close to what I just projected. Pecota and I both think Juan will never be on on-base guy. As a fielder and decent pop from SS guy, he is a godsend. I love Juan, he just isn't going to be a good number two hitter. Just for sheets and giggles, here is the PECOTA for Gooch: 275 .346 .420 While above average for a 2B, and nothing to shake a stick at, I'd put the OBP slightly lower .340 say, and the slugging higher, up around .450, for a .790 OPS. I don't buy into the whole "let Iguchi swing away down low in the order". Iguchi is a better relative contact hitter than Iguchi, and Juan is the better relative power hitter. To confuse that would be run scoring suicide during this season. Another interesting stat is that Juan's G/F ratio in both 2004 and 2005 was .83. Gooch's in 2005 was 1.46! That in a nutshell is the difference between the two, something that basic subjective observation tells us: Juan is a free swinging bomber and Gooch is a disciplined contact hitter. Was it caused by their place in the order. Perhaps, but to me that is to against both subjective intuition and objective statistical analysis.

Regression to the mean. I honestly don't think Contreras will be much better or worse than he was over the course of 2005. One half magical half season will not convince me that he has completely cured his control problems. Maybe Don Cooper is a pitching coach god--I'll glady eat crow if he is. However, lacking statistical evidence to support that, I'll hold off on expecting it.

I would agree that the "ceiling" for this years staff is def higher than last years. But I don't think the "mean" projection is. Vasquez is a huge upgrade over last years Bmac and Duque. But unfortunetly some improvement out of the 5th starter isn't likely to overcome what I see as likely regression from Jon G and Buehrle. Buehrle was great last year, and his W/L record doesn't shot it. His peripherials had him as top 3 in the AL easy. I peg him as top 10 in the AL this year, nothing to shake a stick at, but not elite category. Very Good yes, but not elite like 2005. Jon G I see coming back down to earth and posting something around a 4.00 ERA, good numbers, but not as good as 2005 again. I should say that I think there is a slight chance the pitching staff outperforms last years, but a slightly greater chance that they underperform from last year. Also, the 'ceiling" on this group is much higher than last year. If Vasquez has a great year, (and that possibility is another thread and post in and of itself) then I agree, this staff will be hand down the best in baseball.

Yea, you did qualify your statement with "if"--but I still think that "if" is so unlikely to happen that we shouldn't even factor it into our predictions--unless of course we want to be wildly disapointed and wrong. I don't think your post said anything wrong, I just think it needed context.

Wow, that is quite the statement. I find it much too optimisic though. I suppose 105 could happen--if everyone on the team outperforms the most optimistic predictions and no injuries occur outside of the occasional hamstring pull. However, the chance of that happening is probably less than .1 percent, which doesn't really even make it worth considering in my mind. If this team played 100 seasons I think they would win 105 about once. As of now (and its very early) I see a team that wins 94 games and either ends up as the central champ (in a very tight race with the Indians) or the wild-card. I've read too many good studies of the 2005 Sox and 2006 by people I respect that suggest that while the Sox were a worthy and great champion--they did have alot of things go very, very right. Some might say they were lucky. I say good and lucky. I don't care personally, I don't get upset when people write that the Sox were lucky; I just care that they are World Champions and a great team. I don't think that the bullpen will be nearly as good this year as it was last year. I also don't think that the record in 1 run games will be anywhere near what it was last year. Yet the offense is clearly better on paper, and the starting pitching figures to about the same or maybe just slightly worse. Injuries to more than one starter will be devastating, and it does happen from time to time. Not to say it will, just that the Sox don't have the offense to support many injuries to their starters. Probably only the Yankees do, and their pitching sucks even when healthy, so that is their only option. I see Crede, Uribe and Iguchi having better seasons OPS wise, and Kong, Dye, Pods, AJ and Anderson to perform slightly worse as a group than last season. The big wild card is of course Thome. I give him around 450 AB's and .930 OPS--a huge improvement over Frank and Carl. The bench is another clear area of improvement, and I think the bench will be the biggest improvement of the 2006 Sox, as Timo and Ozuna combined for such suckiness last year that Mack, Ozuna and Borchard will probably seem like the '27 Yankees. I really hope Tribe fans don't get ahold of that 105 quote, I fear what they could do with it if the Sox fall on their face and only win say--92 games.

Yo Count me in--I'm new too.

Ha, just being a cubs fans means swimming in a pacific ocean of metaphorical piss every summer and fall--I wouldn't worry about it.

Here is another one: Detroit: At least it's not Baltimore.

Well he pretty much qualified the entire article by saying the Tigers are a much better bet for 4th than for 1st, and that any run will take lots of luck. But that is better than the Tigers have seen the past few years. He also said the AL Central is the toughest in baseball--high praise gentlemen! Please don't compare Perry to Mariotti, nobody, not even Dayn deserves that--well, maybe Woody Paige.

Perry is an idiot, but this mistake is really not significant. I'd be much more upset if he made up quotes like Mariotti or misused statistics like Phil Rogers.

Well, I believe he ignored all bunts in the study. He says he did anyway. I assume that means all bunts--successful or not--since he was using pbp data. Are you saying that the "stealers" have a better chance to reach 3rd because they are running on the play--or because they are just faster than average? I think it's a good start for a more in-depth look at how base stealers affect that game, but I wonder if more historical data was availabe, past the last few seasons. That would have greatly increased his sample size and made the study more reliable. Intuition tells us that a "stealer" will distrupt the pitcher, but his data suggests that walks actually go down with a stealer on base. I wonder if the pitchers are conciously deciding to "get ahead in the count", and "make 'em hit it" with a runner on. Likewise, I wonder if the batter simply becomes less patient with a runner on. I guess we won't know until pitched ball data becomes more available, then we can see if the pitchers are more aggressive or not. It's good to see the stat community exploring areas like this that give a bit of credit back to the speed and defense guys. I still a take a .380 OBP from our leadoff with 10 steals over a guy like PODS. I like PODS, but for a corner outfielder he really doesn't give much production beyond speed and average, two things not very important in run creation compared to OBP and OPS.

In a nutshell, 200 AB and this line: 276 .313 .330 .643 I don't mind that line nearly as much as Timo's though: 218 .266 .296 .562 179 AB Yuck, Yuck, Yuck.

JR for his money I can take, Ozzie for making me look like an "angel" on the course after a bad shot, and KW because the man is smooth. If "Stringer" Bell was a GM instead of a character on HBO, he would be KW.

The fact that Pablo Ozuna and Timo Perez won't have 400 combined AB's has to be worth at least 10 runs and two wins this year.

I think it just hit me how much Sox radio won't be the same without John. Man, this sucks.

Well said!