almagest

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ May 3, 2008 -> 07:01 AM) You must not have seen opposing teams batting average against Marcum. This was no fluke. Marcum's actually a pretty good pitcher. I knew we'd have trouble this game. Not 0 runs, 2 hits trouble though.

QUOTE (MAX @ May 2, 2008 -> 02:58 PM) He is still a career .761 OPS guy by your stats. That's not bad. Not bad != #3 hitter. At the very least, move him down in the lineup. QUOTE (Kalapse @ May 2, 2008 -> 03:02 PM) Except this year he's hitting .300/.364/.700/1.064 w/ 3 2B and 3 HR in 30 ABs vs southpaws. Sample size.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 2, 2008 -> 09:18 AM) Is Getz left-handed? Bats left, throws right. QUOTE (Hawkfan @ May 2, 2008 -> 12:41 PM) Can anybody reference any success stories with this much rotation? benching thome and konerko options with rotating in anderson seems strange. Thome and konerko are premier players who are tough to bench for an organization. Also seems hard for someone to get hot and stay hot with that much rotation. I wanna see everyone play just as much as the next, but I think finding a good lineup and stickin with it is the way to go. Ozzie rotates in enough already. I'm not advocating benching Konerko -- I'm advocating giving Konerko a few days off here and there, with Swisher going to 1B, and Anderson in CF. Also, Thome has NEVER hit lefties well -- career .241 .342 .419. He shouldn't be in the lineup against lefties much at all, which would slide Dye or Konerko over to DH, Swisher to 1B or LF, Quentin to RF, and Anderson in CF.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 1, 2008 -> 08:37 AM) Don't look now, but since starting 0-8 the Tiges are 13-7... They're gonna have to get and stay pretty hot to dig themselves out of that hole. Sweeping the Yanks is a good start, though. I still think they'll have a hard time maintaining a long winning streak because of their pitching.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 02:39 PM) It's not that they lost 3, its the way that they've looked losing three. Generally when you lose, you look bad. It's hard to look good and lose without accidentally ruining it all and winning.

I'd really like to see Dye switched over to DH against tough lefties, with Thome coming out, or Quentin switched out against lefties (he's not hitting them much this year), and have Anderson start in CF on those days. Also wouldn't mind Swisher switched (that's fun to say) over to 1B to give Paulie rest on occasion. Ideally, I'd like to see Anderson in there 2-3 times a week, and also brought in late in games as a defensive replacement, possibly getting an AB or two. As long as we're tweaking the roster, I'd also like to see Alexei sent down to AAA for regular playing time, maybe bring up Getz (though his numbers are nothing special right now), and have Getz, Ozuna, and Uribe fight it out for time at 2B, with Uribe and Ozuna able to fill in at SS/3B if necessary. Jerry Owens can come up in September or if an OF gets hurt.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 1, 2008 -> 11:06 AM) I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm "up in arms" about the offense like the "trade Thome, force Dye to waive his NTC and trade him, DFA Konerko and call up Fields" crowd is but I'm definitely worried about the fact that the offense seems to completely disappear every couple of games, and the team struggles badly against certain types of pitchers. I just don't feel comfortable about that. On the other hand, they are prone to light up the rest of the types of pitchers at any given time. Every team struggles against certain types of pitchers. Every team has slumps. I, too, have reservations, but it's really not worth getting too upset about, since unless we get hit with a rash of injuries I seriously doubt our regulars will hit close to the mendoza line this year. Their career lines indicate that all will get very hot at some point this year, and that will be when the offense really starts taking off. The Cubs have, by most definitions, a solid offense. They scored 19 runs last night, and managed 3 tonight. They were shut down by a cruddy Nationals team. The Tigers didn't hit AT ALL at the beginning of the year. The Yankees and Red Sox have bad stretches. The Diamondbacks were shut down a few times this year. Brewers as well. QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ May 1, 2008 -> 02:30 PM) Actually the Sox are 9-10 since they won 5 in a row. So they're not supposed to have stretches where they play ~.500 ball? They're 14-10 over that 24 game stretch. I'll take that anytime.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 09:08 PM) MarioKart Wii is f***ing awesome. That is all Damn right. Tossing the wheel in for free with the game was a great move by Nintendo. You can't snake as well with it as you can with a Gamecube controller, but it's an incredibly fun way to play. Reminds me a little of the Mario Kart arcade game.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Apr 28, 2008 -> 02:33 PM) Yep. I would like to point out the media bias in these stories. Not once have I read about a woman that keeps a guy chained up in some dungeon and forces him to have sex with her. But a guy does it and it is front page news. Damn liberal media! Seriously, though, I bet his wife knew, but was in denial. There are some things you'd rather NOT believe a person is capable of.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 05:36 PM) Carlos Quentin, Nick Swisher > Darin Erstad and Scott Podsednik ITS F***ING APRIL. Can we atleast wait until like June to declare that the offense is terrible? It's so frustrating the way people are jumping to conclusions. It's May 1st and some people have essentially conceded that the season's over, some have declared that the offense is terrible, and some are trying to trade the Sox two best prospects for a 2Bman who won't make or break the lineup. We also don't have to worry about seeing Luis Tererro, Andy Gonzalez, or Alex Cintron either. Pablo's back, Crede's back and playing alright, Thome's not hurt, and Dye has no lingering injury concerns. We've also scored a ton of runs this year, and really only started to tail off within the past 5 or 6 games. Out of 162. Yes, I am a little worried, and yes, it's disgusting watching the "offense" lately, but anyone up in arms about this team's offense needs to take it easy.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 10:25 PM) Pitchers are attacking this team low and away to keep the ball from leaving the premises. So if they pound the zone ( not walk people), and spot low and away how exactly with the worst BA in baseball how exactly are we mounting an offense. Sonnenshine, Blackburn, Bonser are all examples of pitchers who pound the zone, spot low and away, and use their breaking pitch to offset the fastball. These are pitchers that will shut this team down because our lack of a hitting attack outside of the lift and pull lock and launch offense. Pretty sure pounding the strike zone, spotting pitches away, and changing speeds is a good recipe to get almost any major league hitter out. At least, that's what I've seen in watching countless games from all teams the past few years. But apparently the White Sox are the only team to struggle with this approach.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 10:08 PM) I'm not really going to bother arguing semantics on what a straw man is or his reason for making that post, but OPS has its usefulness. It just has its limits, like any other stat. It's one part of a bigger picture. GPA was being talked about not too long ago. You make a semantic argument, you get one in return. And a strawman is a misrepresentation of someone's argument for the purpose of proving a point. Anyway you look at it, OPS is one of the more useful metrics. More useful than batting average, that's for sure.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 09:56 PM) Straw man. The post he made actually said "despite its usefulness." Nobody said OPS isn't that useful. However, the fact that the Sox rely on home runs so much partially explains why their OPS is high despite having a wildly incosistent offense. Straw man. The point of his post was to show that OPS isn't that useful, unless this is opposite world. I merely asked what was more useful. EqA is a good metric, but it's debatable as to whether it's more useful or not, since SLG has been shown to have a larger correlation to runs scored.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 08:50 PM) Unlike many other statistics, a player's OPS does not have a simple intrinsic meaning, despite its usefulness as a comparative statistic. One fault of OPS is that it weighs on-base average and slugging percentage equally, although on-base average correlates better with scoring runs. Magnifying this fault is that the numerical parts of OPS are not themselves typically equal (league-average slugging percentages are usually 75-100 points higher than league-average on-base percentages). someone else's "opinion" about OPS averages. Okay, so tell us a better metric for evaluating offensive production. You must have one, since you seem to know for sure that OPS isn't that useful.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 08:43 PM) Ah the ol 2 game sample, nice work. Continue to not make a point and post out of emotion of a loss instead of actual facts. Why do you even bother? One look at the replies in this thread shows that you're not getting well thought-out replies. You're getting kneejerk reactions about how Thome "f***ing sucks" because he hit a ground ball with 2 out and a man on first or whatever. That being said, we still need to find a way to score more than 1 run in games like this. Bonser was getting a pretty large plate, had good offspeed stuff, and was throwing strikes. But he wasn't untouchable. We had some really BAD at-bats tonight.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 08:15 PM) This game has me worried because you know the Twins will "pirahna" a run across this inning probably. I can see it: bloop single, SB, bunt, sac fly (that JD throws off the line to allow the run in). Nope!

At least AJ looks good. C'mon Carlos!

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 28, 2008 -> 01:05 PM) I've been told time and time again on this board a strikeout is no worse than any other out. I guess that applies to everyone but Uribe. Ok, so I'm still waiting for a coherent justification as to how a hitter with a 79 career OPS+ is good. It seems all you can do is seize on somewhat extreme statements on how bad Uribe is and use them for evidence as to why he's good. Either that, or praise Uribe for hitting 20 homers and still somehow managing a slugging percentage in the low .400s or high .300s.

QUOTE (Soxpranos @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 02:13 PM) Everyone wants Crede to be traded but he is far more valuable than Thome or Konerko. Uhh... how, exactly? Because he's had a good first month of the season, has a bad back, and is in his walk year with superagent Boras? I mean, it's not like Thome and Konerko have an entire career of good to great numbers to back them up... oh, wait...

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 27, 2008 -> 03:23 PM) I think im in the minority here, but i just dont understand the draw. I've owned the previous three versions and I always got tired of it after about 1/4 of the way through the game. I'd imagine i'll get it eventually, but i'm certainly not gonna rush out at 12 tues to pick it up. Mario Kart Wii is solid, as to be expected. I really like the online play. Now if only we can get Goldeneye and Mario Tennis on the Virtual Console, my Wii experience would be complete. I feel the same way. I can't get into any of the GTAs. I think it's because I have no attention span in that game -- I'll do a mission or two, then wonder how far the bodies will fly if I shoot rockets at people from the top of a building. Or I'll try to drive a car into a police helicopter. By that point I've already wasted an hour. Today reiterated that not much is as fun as Smash Bros. with 3 friends. Picking up Mario Kart now w/ my $25 Amazon gift certificate. Also highly recommend Gamefly for pretty much anyone.

QUOTE (Frankensteiner @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 01:32 PM) I am hoping, if anything, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back game for Uribe and Ramirez. It won't be. You'll continue to see either one or both of them tossed out there, because we don't really have anyone to play second at this point. Maybe Bourgeois or Getz? You could platoon either one of them with Pablo Ozuna, since Bourgeois is a switch hitter and Getz is a lefty (IIRC).

QUOTE (frankie5angels @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 01:26 PM) I would unload PK and his contract. Thanks for the memories but see ya. This is f***ing embarassing!! Yes, because teams are going to be lining up with prospects to take his contract away from us. Yes, that will happen. 5-0 now. Whee. I also don't understand why Alexei Ramirez is playing CF. He's not good defensively at SS or 2B, so let's play him somewhere even more difficult? And all he can do is hit a fastball, so Ozzie plays him against a lefty who doesn't throw anything straight?

Chamberlain made a TON of mistakes with his offspeed stuff that inning, and left a few fastballs in the middle of the plate as well. He didn't look nearly as sharp as he did the inning before. We also had a good approach against him, amazingly enough. Nice win.

Quentin's 2008 stats through last night: AVG OBP SLG OPS .241 .380 .500 .880 Uribe's 2008 stats through last night: AVG OBP SLG OPS .172 .232 .281 .513 Is it really THAT hard to figure out why Quentin is given a break for the K, but Uribe isn't for his pop-up?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 21, 2008 -> 10:40 PM) Thin Crust >>> Deep Dish....there I said it. You Californians gave us California Pizza Kitchen. Your opinion doesn't count. QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Apr 21, 2008 -> 11:00 PM) absolutely, I like to taste something other than sauce. Psh, you taste cheese too!