chw42

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 12:59 AM) I'm not even sure we have the better bullpen when Howell is healthy. We have a clear edge if Bobby can rebound from last year's mediocre performance. Adding Soriano was a big upgrade for Tampa. Adding Soriano does help. But when you look at our bullpen, we have a lot more talent there and a whole lot more potential.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Apr 7, 2010 -> 12:33 AM) Well, I'm not sure which of my questions you were answering when you said the Rays. I'm guessing you meant that you would take their roster and not that they have no faults in their lineup. Maybe in the long run theirs will be better, but for this season, I will take our players with their track records over any projections. Also not sure how you quantify their offense & defense vs. our pitching. Is there some stat for this or is it just your opinion? Theirs is just as good as ours right now. We have the better rotation and bullpen, but they have one hell of an offense. I'd say that our starting pitching is one tier better and our bullpen is one tier better. But their offense is somewhere near the likes of Boston and New York while we'll hover near the middle of the AL.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 11:28 PM) Is that statistic actually coming out? Well I don't know what they'll do with the data they get from hit f/x, but eventually, it will at some point.

QUOTE (Ranger @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 10:50 PM) I can't understand ever wanting a Sox player to "suck". If he didn't suck to begin with, there would be no need to replace him in the first place. But he probably will suck, that's the thing. And even if he does, Ozzie will be reluctant not to play him.

QUOTE (OldSmoky2 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 10:11 PM) Of the seven AL teams ahead of us in those projections yesterday, five lost. Doesn't mean it's not a useful stat, but just pointing that out. There's a few issues with that argument. You have to look at how many runs that team scored, how much value their lineup brought to begin with, and how many runs the pitchers on that team gave up.

This would be a great win. Toronto lost. A sad Chris Bosh is a good thing right now. If the Raptors don't get in, our chances of signing him could go up.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 07:39 PM) If his FIP is significantly higher than his actual ERA doent that imply that Jenks defense behind him was exceptional? Not exactly. FIP measures everything a pitcher can control. So HR, HBP, BB (not IBB), and K are in the formula. Of course, the part where it is not perfect is where it does not take hits other than home runs into account at all. xFIP is better anyways. Hopefully, when hit f/x comes out, we can get something better and more accurate.

QUOTE (everafan @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 07:34 PM) Every year there are Indian apologists - people who think Shapiro is some kind of SABR genius even though he couldn't win when he had Lee, Sabathia, Hafner, and Sizemore in their prime. This is why he won GM of the year in 05. Rob Neyer believes the ALC shakes out like this AL CENTRAL 1. Twins - 85 2. Indians - 81 3. White Sox - 77 4. Tigers - 76 5. Royals - 72 The Twins would have been big favorites if they hadn't lost Joe Nathan. Now they're just favorites. And yes, the Indians went 67-95 last year. But somebody has to be this year's big surprise, right? Fausto Carmona, Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore all played exceptionally well in spring training. The Indians have a new manager. I'm just saying, don't be shocked if they do something amazing. Shapiro is no SABR genius. I didn't even know he was SABR.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 07:54 PM) They have 3 guys in their rotation with less than 40 games pitched in their careers. What would people here be saying about Kapler if he was our starting RF? I think Zobrist is gonna play there a lot with Rodriguez/Brignac platoon at 2B.

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 05:31 PM) The difference of course is that AJ is the C and Kotsay is the DH. I expect far greater production out of the DH. He was a vaulable player when he could play above average CF. He can't do that anymore and he should be a role player. He has no business being a DH. He has no business being a starting player and he has no business batting 5th. That too. If A.J. played anywhere else (LF, 1B, anything that doesn't require speed), he'd be a far below average offensive player.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 05:31 PM) Zambrano has more god given ability than anyone on our staff, but his mental state makes him dicey. I think I would take Floyd as well, because you know what you are going to get from him, especially in a big game. This would have been true like 3-4 years ago, but I'd have to say that both Floyd and Peavy are far more talented.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 05:12 PM) Who is defending Kotsay around here? Who ever defended Erstad? I wouldn't say the Ranger was defending him, but that was in response to his post.

QUOTE (Ranger @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 04:26 PM) Reasonable. Your mistake is in assuming that people that can make a case for having him hit 5th is the same as them having some sort of "Kotsay-mania". The argument above is a valid one. You can pretty much guarantee that just about every game, the LRLR matchup is going to matter late in the game unless it's a blowout or some pitcher is throwing a complete game, which doesn't happen much anymore. The real issue is that none of the left-handed hitters on the roster are all that fearsome (although Teahen has the best potential to improve and be that), so it's a pretty good idea to separate them as best as can be done. He really doesn't. They are very, very similar hitters in terms of production. They are similar, but A.J. is slightly better. A.J.'s career ISO: .142 Kotsay's: .132 Plus, you have to take into account that A.J. can actually post a .142, while Kotsay is hovering around .110. And you cannot tell me that there is not a Kotsay mania going on when Hawk talks about him like he's the most perfect player ever and that he can do no wrong. He's the new Darin Erstad.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:41 PM) AJ's OPS since he joined the sox, starting in 05 .728 .769 .712 .728 .755 Kotsay hasn't played regularly because of injury for a couple seasons, so it's hard to give numbers on what we might get from him, especially if we're careful enough to keep him healthy. But he put up a .732 in 2008, and a .783 with the Sox last year. I'll be the first to admit "Sample size!", but if Kotsay hits like a .300 hitter, we're talkign ab out 10-20 points of OPS difference at the worst. AJ and Kotsay seem like pretty similar hitters when it comes to OPS. You can't get me mad about that one right now, the numbers just don't back it up. Weighted On Base Average tells a similar story, but it says that A.J. is the slightly better option. A.J.'s wOBA since 05: .318, considering he put up a .326 last year, I'd project him to get one around .320, which both Bill James and ZiPS agree with. CHONE and Marcel have him slightly below .318. So we can say that he's going to end up in the .315-.320 range. Kotsay's wOBA in his last season with more than 400 PAs (2008), he put up a .316 wOBA. In his last alright season back in 2005, he put up a .321. Considering that Kotsay's regressing more than A.J., you can mark him for a .310 wOBA this year, which again, ZiPS and Bill James agree with while CHONE and Marcel have him lower. That 5-10 point wOBA swing isn't a lot, but it's a potential difference maker.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:38 PM) The biggest misconception about Kotsay that I can't stand is that he's fast. He almost got doubled up yesterday with the bases loaded on a slow chopper to 2nd base that wasn't turned quickly at all. Exactly, he used to be fast. But people don't forget so quickly I guess.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:32 PM) There's nothing wrong with the player he was 5 or 6 years ago Bad grammar there. I meant to say that some people still might think that he is as good as he was 5 years ago.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:29 PM) Like it or not, there's logic to breaking up the RH hitters. Beckham, Quentin, Konerko, Rios all in a row, followed by Jones/Kotsay, AJ, Teahen, and Ramirez...if you don't break them up, you're setting yourself up to be hurt in the 8th and 9th innings by LOOGY and ROOGY people. That's not just for the heart of the order too...yes, Quentin and others have splits that say they hit RHP fine...but there's always going to be an occasional RHP, say a side-armer or sommething like that, which you can pull out of a hat to frustrate those guys, and if you don't break them up you're giving away innings. The ideal solution is to get an .800 OPS out of Teahen. If he can do that, he can fit in that 5th spot and not be a hole. Otherwise, I'll live with Kotsay until it's May and hes hitting .220. If he can hit .300 out of that spot, even if he does so with no power, at least he breaks everything up. You can get that out of A.J. He actually hits for more power than Kotsay too.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:28 PM) I'm not a big fan of facts. Fact.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:27 PM) I'm very concerned for those peoples mental state if that's the case. If Ozzie and Hawk can be blinded by Kotsay mania, I'm sure that some may be blinded by his hot wife or the perception that he used to be a good hitter with a good glove.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:24 PM) You could have saved some work: I think some people around here actually think Kotsay batting 5th isn't the worst thing in the world. Plus, using some evidence to back up your argument isn't a bad idea.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:13 PM) Yankees president lashes out at Brewers owner and his complaints about being unable to afford to sign his players, says "I'm sorry that my friend Mark continues to whine about his running the Brewers" Easy for him to say. This Yankee arrogance is such crap.

FanGraphs had a nice article about lineup optimization. Optimizing Yesterday's Lineups Using CHONE projections and a nice lineup optimizer tool, the writer compiled a list of how "optimized" the lineups were yesterday. Team Actual Best Dif TEX 5.017 5.033 -0.016 MIN 5.257 5.308 -0.051 OAK 4.519 4.571 -0.052 CLE 5.019 5.081 -0.062 KCA 4.379 4.446 -0.067 PIT 4.552 4.628 -0.076 * DET 4.698 4.776 -0.078 TOR 4.676 4.763 -0.087 CHA 4.759 4.858 -0.099 SEA 4.478 4.578 -0.100 LAA 4.891 5.016 -0.125 HOU 3.967 4.142 -0.175 COL 5.064 5.258 -0.194 ATL 4.898 5.106 -0.208 LAN 4.773 5.982 -0.209 ARI 4.704 4.916 -0.212 FLO 4.813 5.035 -0.222 SFN 4.294 4.522 -0.228 PHI 4.783 5.102 -0.229 WAS 4.410 4.644 -0.234 CIN 4.608 4.846 -0.238 CHN 4.660 4.899 -0.239 MIL 4.629 4.876 -0.247 SDN 4.176 4.431 -0.255 NYN 4.381 4.645 -0.264 STL 4.843 5.116 -0.273 The AL teams obviously have the better optimized lineups since we don't have a pitcher hitting, but take a look where we are. According to this, we had the 8th best optimized lineup in the AL out of the 10 teams in action yesterday. And to be quite frank, TB, BOS, NY, and maybe even Baltimore might be ahead of us. Meaning we would've had the 11th or 12th best optimized lineup in the AL on opening day. For a club that could be offensively challenged this is unacceptable. Kotsay hitting in the 5th spot is one of the larger issues (Pierre at leadoff is another, but that won't ever change). Taking something straight from the article. For the most part, we have this right. Gordon's hitting second, Konerko is hitting 4th, but Kotsay is hitting 5th... We saw this yesterday. Twice, Kotsay came up with men in scoring position, and twice hit the ball into the ground. If those ground balls weren't weak, it would have been two double plays, not just one. Had it been two, the Sox might have scored only 4 runs instead of 6 (since after Kotsay's ground out RBI, Quentin scored on a wild pitch). If it wasn't against the Indians, that could have made a hell of a difference. Ozzie needs to stop playing around and either put Rios or somebody more qualified into that 5th hole. Hell, I'd rather have A.J. there than Kotsay. Or, move Quentin to 4th, Konerko to 5th and Rios to third if Alex gets off to a good start this week. He can play Kotsay as much as he wants for all I care, just hit him lower in the order where he won't be put into situations that can decide the fate of a game.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 12:30 PM) Huh? They obviously fixed it... It was an error.

So I check out Zambrano's FanGraphs page today and was very surprised... They had nothing but hitting stats for him. Then I saw that his bat was actually worth 0.6 WAR in 08 and came away pretty impressed. After yesterday's outing, you'd think the guys over at FanGraphs are trying to say something, lol. Carlos Zambrano is the next Rick Ankiel...xD

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 12:45 AM) 2nd in the AL, first in the MLB. That's just how good he is. Does that make sense? lol.