chw42

Didn't the Dodgers or Angels get no hit last year and still won?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 07:46 PM) Hopefully Alisay has a better than normal April. So far not so good. It was perfectly warm on Monday, lol.

What happened to Gene Honda Civic?

Carmona's getting real close to throwing some corner strikes. He's not getting some of these calls.

Hey, what happened to taking pitches guys? We worked Carmona over last inning, keep it going.

It looks like Peavy really tried to bust him inside there.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 07:36 PM) Thanks Yoda. Welcome you are.

Jake just killed his hands there.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 07:34 PM) I like the guy but he's got to be the least impressive #5 hitter in baseball. Second coming of Darin Erstad he is.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 07:32 PM) What a #5 hitter. Carmona was shaking in his boots. Hey his grindy blooper almost got us a run, DON'T HATE!!!!!

Carmona still has control issues.

Three weak pop ups. These Indians hitters have trouble catching up with that high fast ball.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 07:11 PM) That was you? Do you still have the clip? It got taken off Youtube a couple of days later. It's somewhere. I'll try to find it.

Peavy has some pretty quick feet. Very fast move to first.

Hanging slider. Cabrera singles.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 07:08 PM) This opening montage reminds me of a video clip a poster here put up before Opening Day last year. I made something like that from 08 footage.

Peavy's sporting the high socks.

QUOTE (beckham15 @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 06:20 PM) kotsay is in again Ozzie....

QUOTE (balfanman @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 04:13 PM) I agree that the Rays are probably better defensively and it's more than likely just a matter of semantics between us, but I don't think thatr the edge will prove to be "enormous". Other than Pierres' arm I think that our outfielders (any combination of Pierre, Rios, Jones, or Quentin) will prove to be among the best in the majors. Teahen, who knows yet; Ramirez could also be elite if he finds consistancy; Beckham, probably not yet but by the end of the season I'm thinking that he will rank among the best 2nd basemen. While not the most agile at 1st base I believe that Pauly more than makes up for any range issue with his scooping ability, saving countless errors. All in all, I think that by the end of the year our infield defense will rank in the top third of the league as well. A. J. is well....A. J., average at best defensively but apparently knows how to handle pitchers. I'm not that familiar with the Rays catcher but I can't imagine that all things consdered that he's tremendously better than A. J. Again, I'm not argueing that the Rays are better defensively, I just don't think that the difference will prove to be all that enormous. JMHO. The Rays arguably have one of the best outfields in this past decade. Both Crawford and Upton are amazing fielders and Zobrist is good just about everywhere. Their outfield could save 40-50 runs for that pitching staff, which is just mind boggling. Those three had a combined UZR of +40 last year and that was with Zobrist playing only 60 games last year in RF.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 03:58 PM) They can play in the drizzle can't they? Yeah, but it said showers, not light showers.

I looked at weather.com. It's going to rain until 9. Maybe we'll get this game in and it'll end at like 1 in the morning.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 03:46 PM) Pierre looks weak defensively when he's compared to Crawford, but so does just about every other LF in the game. I'll take Pierre's defense over that of Quentin, Pods, Carlos Lee, Albert Belle, etc. Crawford makes everybody look bad. He's a great CF playing left field.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 01:42 PM) Did anyone else notice that every manager in baseball is a complete idiot because none of them used the lineup that statistically was best? How good is this stat, really, how good is it? I'm asking cause I don't know, but I find it odd that every manager in baseball went with the wrong lineup. It's hard to maximize a lineup completely. Because what the stat believes is that the best hitters should be in the 4th, 5th, and 2nd spots, while the perception around baseball is that the best hitter should hit third and a contact guy should hit second. According to that lineup optimizer tool, a more optimized and somewhat acceptable lineup would look something like this. 1. Beckham 2. Rios 3. Ramirez 4. Quentin 5. Konerko 6. Teahen 7. Pierzynski 8. Kotsay/Jones 9. Pierre Beckham being our best OBP guy who can run, is hitting leadoff. Rios being our 4th best hitter behind Beckham, Quentin, and Konerko should hit second. Quentin being our best run producer hits 4th and Konerko being next hits 5th. Ramirez, being the 6th best hitter hits third. Teahen and Pierzynski are next in line, put them at 6 and 7. CHONE and most projection systems don't like Jones and Kotsay, so they go at 8. And of course, the sabermetric world hates Pierre, so he's hitting 9th. It does not take handedness into account, so that's why you have 4 straight left handed bats to round out the lineup, this also just proves that our left handed hitters pretty much suck. This system is not without its flaws, but all of this was formulated through a lot of research. I wouldn't ignore it, but it's a nice measuring stick for just how much better our lineup could be. I inserted the above lineup into the optimizer: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/Lin...361&Model=0 That above lineup would score 4.908 runs. The max amount of runs will be 4.921. That's a difference of .013, which would have been one of the best optimized lineups on that list.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 03:13 PM) Both. And there's really no debate. The Rays were 5th, 5th, 3rd and 1st in the AL in R/HR/BB/SB IN 2009. The Sox were 12th, 6th, 9th, and 6th in those same categories. There's no realistic reason to believe at this point that the Rays won't have a better offense than the Sox. The gap in defense is even more significant. The Rays were ranked 1st and 2nd in all of baseball the last two years in UZR. They were ranked 1st and 8th the last two years in DER (defensive efficiency ranking). The Sox were ranked 21st and 27th in UZR the last two years. The Sox were ranked 20th and 16th the last two years in DER. This is just common sense (not saying you don't have any). The Sox have been a very bad defensive the last two years while the Rays have been the best. Yes, they do. They have above average, and in some cases, elite caliber defense, in LF/CF/3B/SS/1B. The White Sox have above average defense at exactly 1 position. And that's RF with Rios (or when they play him in CF). Alexei has the tools to be an above average defensive SS. But he's not there yet. PK is good at scooping up poor throws. But he has zero range. Everybody else is either below average or not proven yet. It's not even close. Edit: Pierre has good range. But that arm. His range makes his lack of arm strength not all that troubling.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 06:18 AM) Also, if Kotsay puts up a .292/.349/.434 line in say 250 AB's for the Sox (that was his line from 113 AB's with the Sox last season); 1 - Would you be happy with that from the DH platoon split? 2 - Is that line good enough to stop the Sox from acquiring a Lance Berkman at the deadline? If Kotsay is hitting near .300, there is no way Ozzie stops playing him, so the second option may never happen. If he's putting up that line, I'd be okay with it, just not in the 5th spot. At least that's near the average DH production.