michelangelosmonkey
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Posts posted by michelangelosmonkey
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46 minutes ago, Baron said:
You know your two stronger points you refuted with the actual facts about Cease.
I'm not sure I understand....what are the "actual facts" about Cease...Cease is 25 (now) with really good stuff...in the actual games last year he gave up 4 runs a game (ERA) which will win him a lot of games with this team.
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2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:
How many competitive teams are relying on guys coming off FIPs in the 6 to 7 range as their #4 & #5 starters to open the season? And it’s shocking that some people keep ignoring the fact Kopech will be on a strict innings limit and won’t have pitched in a competitive game in like 950 days when the season actually starts. That’s a tremendous about of uncertainty at the back of the rotation and all it takes is one major injury to the big three to potentially derail the whole thing. Banking on Katz being our savior instead of adding an arm like Quintana for $8M is simply unacceptable.
Last year on Sept 19th Cease was 24 was 5-2 with a 3.20 ERA . Yes FIP says he was was worse...ERA says what actually happened FIP says what should have happened. At the end of the year Cease had the equivalent of 2.7 WAR (again his fwar was much worse but thats because they use FIP). But I gotta say every contending team in baseball would be happy to use Cease as their #4 starter after their three CY Young contenders pitch. As for Kopech...everyone says he looks great. He has overpowering stuff. And if he has 27 starts where he goes 3 innings and Crochet follows him up with 3 innings...each of them get 81 innings for the year which still saves some innings for post season...and again...our fifth starter...3 innings at 100 from the right, 3 inning at 100 from the left...and then Bummer to make them cry. Why do you want ANYONE instead of that.
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1 hour ago, scs787 said:
How many teams really have good depth beyond there starting 5? The front 4 is a lock, and I don't see why Kopech shouldn't be the 5th starter very early on. I haven't looked at the schedule but typically the 5th spot in the rotation can be "Skipped" early on if they wanna hold Kopech down in the minors to get the extra year of service time....adding a high end SP this year never made sense to me.
We don't know the plans they have for Vaughn so DH might not make that much sense either.
Flowers still out there? He to me makes the most sense for backup catcher.
There's always the trade deadline if a starter goes down for the year and guys like Lopez, Steiver(Who I thought this board liked) and Lambert dont step up and there's no plan for Crochet as a starter this year.
Sensible post. No teams have starting pitching depth beyond their top five. It is just the chorus of negative voices that permeate every thread on Sox Talk. Gio, Lynn and Dallas were all in the CY Young voting last year and Cease and Kopech have TOR stuff. Which of those five are we sitting to bring in some old gas can? And the idea that "well what happens if someone gets hurt then we have to start Stiever"...brought to you by the same people that are putting Dunning our 5th best prospect in the Hall of Fame while Stiever our 6th best is garbage? To start the season there are six off days in the first six weeks...and likely several rain outs or snow outs. If we have to give Lopez two or three starts...or try a couple of bullpen days (I suspect Katz/TLR are more open to this concept than Renteria/Cooper) that is hardly a disaster. You know who else relied on a couple of 23 year old starting pitchers...the Dodgers last year.
The reality is we are not "all in". Last years excitement and positive developments with the young guys has moved us from playoff consideration into championship consideration. But we are still reliant on LOTS of very young guys...I don't think any one of us think 2021 is going to be the teams peak. The Padres sort of had to push all their chips in because they are spending $75 million each year for Machado, Myers and Hosmer and Machado is turning 29 this year while the other two are in their 30's. We right now have one of the most exciting lineups, defenses, starting pitching and bullpens around...it looks like most of the players should be getter better (approaching their prime as opposed to leaving it) and we have kept our budget sound...I don't think we have a single bad contract. Why do we need to trade assets now? Why do we need to pick things off the heap now. I am FINE with letting Robert, Jiminez, Madrigal, Vaughn, Moncada, TA and Collins grow together. I'm fine with letting all our exciting minor league pitchers get some non-COVID pitching time. I am fine with waiting until the all star break to see what weaknesses we have, what strengths we have in the minors and then trade or buy some other teams burdensome contract (Yelich in RF?) or extend Lynn and Gio. We have added four really good parts to a team that was very good last year. This is spring and we should be rejoicing not complaining about not getting some Pittsburgh pitcher that was never any good, or giving a bunch of starts to someone like Quintana, or spending money on some 30+ year old back up catcher. Pitchers and catchers can't get here soon enough.
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46 minutes ago, iWiN4PreP said:
Lynn trade was an upgrade from a current spot... for one year. Lynn is old and will likely regress.
Dallas Keuchel is almost guranteed to regress strongly.
Cease is a complete question mark.
Kopech won't throw more than like 80 innings next year and for all intents and purposes should be counted OUT of our rotation for 2021.
Lopez flat out sucks.
Giolito is an ace.
Rotation is one of the better ones in the AL, but that's not saying anything TBH. It's one Gio injury away from being useless.
Just so I'm clear...Lynn will regress, Dallas will regress...but Wainwright and Quintana are fine? Kopech 80 innings/Crochett 80 innings...Kopech 3 at a time followed by Crochett as they stretch out there arms...160 innings...or 160 innings of Wainwright?
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6 hours ago, YourWhatHurts said:
They start the offseason behind everyone else, targeting the 2nd and 3rd and 4th tier options as their 1st tier options. This is how.
I'm not sure what you mean...they landed Lance Lynn who is by almost any measure a top ten pitcher in baseball. Their starting rotation is Gio, Dallas, Lynn (5-6-7 in Cy Young voting), Cease and Kopek/Crochett...with Lopez reclamation if anyone is hurt. Why is that bad? Which one of those guys do you want to take away starts from to give it to Quintana? Why would Quintana or Wainwright want to sign here with Kopech waiting in the wings?
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The difference between old time stats and WAR is that WAR tries to take into account fielding and baserunning in a single metric. The reason Fangraphs and Baseball reference have different WARS is that fwar uses Ultimate Zone ratings for their defense and Ultimate base running and weighted stolen bases for their baserunning and rWar uses Total zone ratings for fielding and linear based system for baserunning. The big difference in WAR is with pitchers as FG uses FIP (fielding independent pitching) instead of ERA which doesn't use actual runs scored but uses a predicted runs scored based on the number of walks/hits/homers given up. For MOST pitchers, over a few years FIP is very close to ERA. For some pitchers its a big difference...which is why some heated arguments on Soxtalk about it. Sort of like the batting average balls in play argument...this guy was not as good as he actually was because he was lucky (or unlucky)...but maybe that guy has a skill set that leads to more Babip...and round and round we go.
While the fielding and baserunning stats are subjective it tries to be much more objective than the old stats like fielding percentage used to be. 20 years ago old-timey baseball guys thought Derek Jeter was a GREAT fielder...because he played in NY, made some flashy plays occasionally and didn't make any errors. When they started looking at it turns out he was a terrible fielder...-1 defense War per season. Zone ratings calculate how many balls an average player SHOULD get to...it's why Robert is so good...he catches way more balls than the robots think that he should...Jeter was the opposite.
The problem with a lot of stats is people use them with too much certainty...the idea is that FIP will give us a better idea of Cease's future than ERA (Cease's FIP is terrible his ERA is pretty good). The future is uncertain...something like FIP should allow us to pick out a hidden gem (as I was arguing in the Musgrove thread) and I really couldn't find much evidence that it did. I think one of the greatest things I ever read about stats was from Moses (Bill James). He said if you sat in the stands every day and watched a baseball team you couldn't tell the difference between a .300 hitter (all star) and a .250 hitter (journeyman) because it amounted to a single hit a week. (500 at bats, 150 hits vs 125 hits over 25 weeks). Because baseball is a game of lots of repetitions a small difference per week can make a big difference over a lot time.
Before I get trashed by the throngs...this is just my interpretation of the scientists behind the new stats and you can do a google search on any term and it will explain in minute details by the experts.
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7 hours ago, VAfan said:
I have a few problems with your argument.
1. Why is this in a Garrett Richards thread? If Garrett Richards the "all in" move you are advocating? The Sox may need more pitching depth, but Garrett Richards is not a serious difference maker for an "all in" strategy. He pitched 51 innings last year with a 4.03 ERA. Not that exciting. Before that, he hasn't pitched more than 76 innings in any season back to 2015. That's 4 years of nothing.
2. As you have admitted, Lynn is not a trash move if the Sox extend him. So you are making a big deal about something in the future which may or may not happen. Obviously the Sox would be in no position to extend Lynn if they hadn't traded for him, so they have at least taken that first step.
3. You miss the point that without Lynn the Sox would be in much worse shape. Lynn has been a solid 200 IP pitcher lately, and could be expected to post those innings again this year. Dunning would have been a 5th starter at best, and if the Sox made another move to acquire a pitcher like Lynn, could well have been pushed back to AAA in reserve. Like many of the people who opposed the Lynn trade, you seem to be overvaluing Dunning.
4. Moreover, when the Sox make the postseason, Lynn is world's better than Dunning, who wasn't trusted to pitch even a full inning last year.
5. Name a better pitcher than Lynn who was acquired this offseason via trade or in free agency who was acquired for less than Lance Lynn. The Snell trade gave up a lot more assets. Yu Darvish was acquired for less than Snell, but his contract was nearly triple that of Lynn's -- $22M, $19M, $18M over the next 3 years. Would you have rather traded Dunning for Yu Darvish given the Sox payroll structure? To acquire Darvish, the Sox would have had to give up Dunning, and the salary cost would have meant not being able to acquire other players. The difference between Darvish and Lynn this year is MORE than Hendrik's salary, for example.
I will agree with you to some extent. I believe the Sox need to do more this year to put themselves in the best position to win the division, pennant, and World Series.
But I don't think Garrett Richards was that move.
I really wanted the Sox to go after Corey Kluber. He may not have signed with the Sox for the $11M the Yankees paid. Would he have signed with us for $13M? Do the Sox have $13M more to spend? I hope so, but it's not my money.
When Kluber was healthy in 2018, he was better than any pitcher the Sox have now. He has a great postseason track record. It would have weakened our chief AL rival - the Yankees. He was a consistent 200 IP pitcher until he was hurt the last 2 years.
I'm not sure any pitcher that is left at this point moves the needle. I expect the Sox to make another Gio Gonzalez type move to add someone who can battle Lopez for the right to cover the beginning of the year while Kopech is held back to regain a year of control, and to potentially stretch him out so he could pitch in October. I don't want to trade more assets for a better starter because that just robs Peter to pay Paul. The Sox finally have a deep lineup of controlled stars. They need to keep them and win with offense.
My overall take is that the Sox are not finished adding. We just have to wait and see who that turns out to be.
This was wonderfully said. I would say that I'm not sure the Sox go after a GG type pitcher. I would also love to see them sign Bauer but the larger point is that they need five starters. Right now they have three chiseled in...Gio, Dallas, LL (5,6 and 7 in CY Young voting). You have Cease etched in...for all the trash he takes he was 5-4 last year with a 4.01 ERA...and with natural improvement as he ages and a new smart guy pitching coach it sure seems like he could get much better. So that leaves a fifth spot...do we really want to clog up that spot with a Garret Richards type...when we have Kopech ready? OK he's not going to be a 200 innings guy but having a Tampa Bay type "starter" game with Kopech for three followed by Crochett by three...what team wants to face that? Who wouldn't pay to watch that? And as our FIFTH starter? As for an emergency starter...we have our own reclamation product in Reylo...he has tons of natural ability and again...new modern pitching coach. I think they are set for war...the lineup looks great, the defense looks great, the relief staff looks great...and I kind of think the starters look great. Save the Bauer money for extensions to Gio and Lynn and let's head to spring training. Re-evaluate at the trade deadline.
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4 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:
Then why on Earth did they trade for Lynn? You’ve just told me this team isn’t ready to compete this year.
Where on earth did you draw that conclusion? If you think this is a finished project youre more optimistic to me. But that doesnt mean they shouldnt take a shot this year while hoping Moncada, Robert, Eloy, Vaughan and all the young pitchers take the next step.
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2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:
At least you agree I can project his performance this year for the full season. Those 0 WAR players win you a lot of titles.
Baseball reference shows him with .5 WAR in 29 games...which comes out to 2.5 WAR per season...as a 23 year old...at near zero cost. The glory of the White Sox right now is that they have so many guys that will be going through growing pains that you won't even notice. Robert and Eloy and Madrigal and Vaughan and Cease and Kopech and on and on can go through a bad month without it costing us because it is liking when they are having a good month they can be so good.
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1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:
He had a leg injury too?
No he hurt his shoulder five games into his rookie season, was out for three weeks...came back and played the rest of the season almost certainly in pain as he had surgery on that shoulder as soon as the season was done. I'm no doctor but it would seem the act of diving for a ball or to steal a base would be mentally and physically terrifying for a 23 year old playing in the majors for the first time and might effect his fielding and baserunning. But you are right...Pods was amazing before he was hurt...and his skill should be considered outside of the stats when he was playing hurt.
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3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:
Did you not watch that season? Pods was nearly perfect on the base paths for the first half of the year. He had a streak of 22 consecutive bases stolen at one point, the majority of the bases he stole were by July. Then, he hurt his hamstring and was at a 50% or higher rate of being thrown out in the last couple months, and he actually needed to run less that year because of it.
So you are saying that Pods lack of success after his injury is not worth considering...and yet Madrigal's injury is irrelevant? Just asking for a friend.
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36 minutes ago, ron883 said:
People with legitimate sources are saying the opposite of what you are saying. You're talking with conviction based on your gut feeling, which happens to be wrong.
I mean who are you to say that Soxsteve's strong opinion is wrong? Some guy on Soxtalk claims to be an insider and thus he knows more? You know what would happen if the "insider' were ACTUALLY an insider (maybe he is) and he was outed...so now it is...Paul Sullivan reports White Sox are shopping Madrigal...Half the board would say...when was the last time Sullivan ever reported anything he's just throwing crap against the wall...a quarter of the board would say he is just a mouth piece for Jerry Reinsdorf...and a quarter of the board would be panicked that we were trading Madrigal for Tampa Bay's garbage. No one knows the future with any certainty at all including Rick Hahn and to confidently shout someone down for having the wrong opinion is goofy. SoxSteve makes a strong point that core pieces of the rebuild like Madrigal and Vaughan should not be traded. I made a point about us undervaluing the skillset of Madrigal and we would be foolish to trade him away. But I also think RH would be foolish for not seeing what he can get for Madrigal...and Vaughan...and everyone else. I'm sure he'd take a call from the Yankees...Robert for Gerrit Cole? Or the Mets...Moncada for deGrom? OK, let's talk. Like any knucklehead in a fantasy league the point is to value our assets and get a sense of how other teams value of our assets...and if we see a way to leverage a trade to make the Sox better let's consider. Personally I'd like to stand pat from here and see how the soufflé rises. In the off season we've added a top 10 starting pitcher, a top 5 relief pitcher, a historically useful right fielder and seem to be replacing EE with the very exciting Vaughan and the only asset we lost is one of our 12 exciting young unproven starting pitchers...and Vegas looks at our team and loves us. Soxtalk should be a love fest.
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3 minutes ago, Wisebri224 said:
Sorry I thought this was the pitcher thread ?
Soxtalk is a meandering river. You should see our debate on thermodynamics in the "NBC Sports is going away" thread.
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9 minutes ago, ron883 said:
Smh Ragah. Madrigal is neither. His speed, baserunning, defense, and baseball IQ were so overrated. If he wasn't an overachieving, little "grinder", he wouldn't be so overrated in those departments.
So what sample size did you require to determine his uselessness? First major league game? First inning of a major league game? Those idiots at BA, MLB.com, MLB pipeline and Baseball prospectus all have thought for the last two years that he was one of the 50 best prospects in all of baseball. He won the PAC 12 player of the year, College gold glove, PAC 12 defensive player of the year. First year in the minors he won the GG for minor league 2b while hitting .311. Are they using a different baseball in the majors? Is there some fundamental reason his entire history and the scores of scouts and analysts that think he is a +fielder and +runner are all wrong?
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27 minutes ago, poppysox said:
There aren't many people on this forum that complain less than I do about anything. Most people think I have a positive attitude about the WS team in general. I have pointed out the small sample size in many posts...and it's effect on errors, base running, and BA. I haven't really harped much about those who use those arguments other than state my disagreement in what Madrigals value is. This forum is about expressing opinions and it is my opinion that Madrigal is and will be a very good ballplayer.
Poppy I love your optimism. What frustrates me is the near universal belief on Soxtalk that someone with Madrigal's skill set is so replaceable. Tampa Bay traded with Oakland to get a 2b in 2018. TB is a smart team. That year their second base man hit 7 home runs, stole 16 of 20 bases and put up a .300/.354/.435 slash line...and was worth 4.8 WAR. That was the 22nd best WAR for all non pitchers in the majors. That's what people see in Madrigal. Fangraph says 2B is one of the weakest positions in baseball...Yolmer was the average 2B in 2018. Perhaps the White Sox have totally given up on him given the couple of outs he ran into on the base path and the couple of errors he made as a 23 year old rookie as our "insiders" say. Perhaps three or four silly mistakes for a first time major leaguer are too much to look past while the .340 batting average is just SSS. I just think Hahn is smarter than that...and there are very few pitchers out there that are worth the risk of losing a 3 WAR player for the next 6 years at a talent starved position that will cost almost nothing.
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Honestly...this can't be true? Why would he come to a team with a racist, drunken manager the cheapest owner in baseball, the dumbest GM in baseball, a team that will NEVER sign a high priced free agent, and that as we speak are trading our entire farm system for the Phillies mascot. Is he even aware of our record from 2013 -2019? Did he know we traded Fernando Tatis, Jr. Soxtalk where optimism goes to be strangled to death.
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2 minutes ago, bmags said:
What happens if you take out his best games though?
That's a real dick comment. Sorry if you got confused by my Musgrove comments...where he had two good starts at the end of the COVID season preceded by 32 starts where he gave up 5.3 runs a game. I thought that might be relevant data points to discuss...I thought it was an interesting fact that might be worth consideration that wasn't easily seen. Perhaps it was confusing to you and you will stalk me through threads calling me the "guy who takes out his best games". Troll on.
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3 minutes ago, bmags said:
I’m fine with Madrigal, I think he’s easy to upgrade over but he’s better than say Brett Lawrie. I just enjoy the hyperventilating from the group that heard we drafted a short, heady second baseman who doesn’t strikeout and decided he’s Nellie fox.
He his .341 his rookie year, provided the equivalent of 2 WAR offense and 1 WAR defense (30 games x 5) at 23. Why are Nellie Fox comps not still in order? Why is it hyperventilating to be excited about a player that is exactly the kind of player that this team needs? When half the board wants to trade him for a bucket of balls. The idea that we can "easily" upgrade him is curious...FG's suggests 2B is one of the weakest positions in baseball. You know how many 2B in 2019 had a WAR better than 3? 8 in all of baseball. We need to give this kid as much patience as we do with all the other budding stars on the team.
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3 minutes ago, Tony said:
There is never any grey area, with almost all topics. There is a large group that has absolutely made up their minds about Nick after 29 games and it will take a gargantuan effort for him to change the minds of those people.
I 1000% disagree with that line of thinking, but such is life.
I'm fairly certain that Soxtalk has half a dozen very active trolls that hate everything and everybody related to the White Sox and just post nonsense in every thread to irritate the rest of us. It's SO idiotic to draw conclusions about a 23 year old rookie in his first 29 games in the MLB....especially when countering all the people that watched every game he played in college and the minors and predicted he would be a great fielder and baserunner. While I may be overly optimistic about Madrigal...if he is Eckstein 2.0...well he averaged 3.2 WAR per season his first 5 years in baseball and he didn't get started until 26. I'm ok with Madrigal at league minimum providing us a 3 WAR per year through our window.
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13 minutes ago, thxfrthmmrs said:
Musgrove isn’t a failed to prospect by any means. He was always a mid to back up top of arm and he has been exactly that. He’s also a late bloomer poised to breakout after significantly improving his secondary pitches, think of guys like Arrieta and Morton.
1 minute ago, thxfrthmmrs said:Cardinals playing all these games must have made Musgrove’s pitches spin better and move a lot more.
And he decided to wait to unleash this masterful new pitching in the last 13 innings of what had been a season giving up nearly 6 runs a game. I think our positions are pretty well set and your contempt for me is spilling over...so let's move in. Still, the Arrieta comp is interesting.
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Just now, thxfrthmmrs said:
Dumbest post I have seen on this site. You’re comparing a player who has never played that position at the pro level to a MLB pitcher who has shown moderate success at his position.
No I'm saying the Cards playing 3 doubleheaders in a week on the road, then having a day game after a night game...10 games in less than 7 days on the road might lead to exhaustion and partly explain the best game of his career.
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3 minutes ago, thxfrthmmrs said:
Musgrove isn’t a failed to prospect by any means. He was always a mid to back up top of arm and he has been exactly that. He’s also a late bloomer poised to breakout after significantly improving his secondary pitches, think of guys like Arrieta and Morton.
Wow...Arrieta is a great example...27, garbage before then...but his FIP and ERA were pretty much the same except 2012 when there was a huge difference and maybe that's what the Cubs saw.
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Just now, thxfrthmmrs said:
So you simplify admit you choose to ignore these data points because you don’t understand it. His stats are only mediocre if you choose to ignore his best starts. If those starts are fluke performances you could ignore them, but they arent, they are dominant performances where he was mastering his curveball and slider. You could make up all the excuses they Cleveland and STL couldn’t hit (which is very funny to be honest), but the movement and command of those pitches would tough for any MLB hitters to hit (this is all backed by statcasts data, which I know you would continue to ignore because you simplify won’t take the time to learn).
You should have seen how great the Saints cornerbacks played the Bronco's WRs in that game where the Bronco's quarterback wasn't in the league two days before the game...ONE completion....13 yards passing...all the field cast data showing coverage rates were off the charts saying Saints secondary could be set for an amazing rise...or, you know, maybe it was just a weird thing that happened once.
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2 minutes ago, bmags said:
He’s argued that reylo is better than musgrove because of Lopez 2018 bWAR.
Stop it...I NEVER agued that Lopez is better than Musgrove...I argued Lopez and Musgrove were both 27+ year old failed top prospects and that Stiever + Lopez ++ is better than Musgrove.
I'm coming around to the Sox starting with the team it has now
in Pale Hose Talk
Posted
No...I'm using ERA to suggest he's not as horrible as you say he is. Walking the bases loaded but getting out of it is either a skill or luck...but its not like Cease was throwing 92 and kept getting lucky. Some guys are brilliant for four innings then they walk a guy and have an error and then give up a three run homer. FIP loves those guys and hates the first. Discarding ERA is as bad as discarding FIP. Cease was frustrating last year but until late September teams weren't scoring off of him. That seems more of a data point than throwing out terms like horendous and ugly.