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QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 10:08 AM) Wasn't the worst strike called a ball in 2015 Samardzija pitching and Flowers catching? It was something like 2 inches from dead center but Flowers was really awkward trying to catch it as he was set up on the corner. It looked so much like a ball, even Hawk didn't complain. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-worst-c...-of-the-season/

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 10:05 AM) Agree about pitch-framing, but looking back in past years Flowers didn't rate too highly there (2014 he was below average, 2013 only slightly above average), is this something that we can be sure is a permanent change? There does seem to be a consensus that pitch framing can be taught, so a catcher improving over time makes sense.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 08:46 AM) Looking at the pitch framing statistics, most of the guys at the top of the heap were personal catchers for some of the best pitchers in baseball. Are we going to say that the pitcher is elite because of the framing of his pitches or say that the strikes called outside the zone are because the pitcher is elite? It will be interesting to see where he ends up because Sale almost single handedly puts Flowers at the top of the stack rankings. And I am not sure I am on board with Flowers' pitching framing being the reason he gets so many called strikes. This is why FanGraphs doesn't include it in fWAR, despite the fact that Prospectus clamors for it. Cameron isn't ready to assign 100% of the value of the "stolen strikes" to the catcher, but there isn't any data at all pointing to what fraction the the pitcher or catcher. It's universally acknowledged that it is a skill of the catcher and adds value, but the amount of value is not known. Certainly, it's some fraction of the actual value of the added strikes.

The night of the Peavy trade, when we found out which teams are involved, I said: "I'll be happy as long as we don't end up with Will Middlebrooks or Avisail Garcia." It seems pretty likely that we're about to have both at once!

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Dec 2, 2015 -> 04:39 PM) Did you read the quotes on MLBTR? That's what I was referring to. Yeah, that's what my "lol" was referring to also. Sorry for unclear. I am lazy with posts sometimes.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Dec 2, 2015 -> 03:02 PM) fWAR is useless. Doesn't make sense. lol

I wish Gordon all the luck in the world, but I sure as HELL wish we could have just cut bait about 3 f***ing years ago.

QUOTE (shipps @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 06:08 PM) I will let you know when I have... https://www.youtube.com/embed/gpaOy8b8X6A

What a thread

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 05:57 PM) If he can still be okay behind the plate, I'd love for him to take Flowers roster spots and also take some at bats away from Laroche. Unfortunately I don't see us doing that anyways. He's supposedly extra-bad behind the plate, and I don't know that the difference between his bat and Flowers is enough to justify both the defense loss and the Chris Sale sadness.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 05:53 PM) He elected to go to free agency. I know he has been a name that has been thrown around here the last couple years. I would like to bring him in, I think he still has good upside even though his numbers away from Coors have been pretty bad. I liked the idea of Rosario as a back C/platooner for LaRoche, but then we signed Avila. The ship has sailed, methinks.

QUOTE (Knuckles @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 05:36 PM) Samardzija gonna cash in. Maybe. The problem with these "precedent-setting" deals is that they have the secondary effect of removing the deepest pocket from the bidding pool. There are four teams that are going to commit big on a starter before Samardzija's name gets pulled, and the Tigers and BoSox are already out.

He'd have to be practically free, and we'd have to be confident he could play third base for us. I'm not sure either of those conditions can be met.

I think Brett Lawrie should be considered a target if he can be had at a price that reflects his risk. If he didn't have warts, he wouldn't be available in the first place. For those that feel the Sox are in a payroll bind while also pot-committed, the only way to make up the talent gap cheaply is to gamble on some upside.

QUOTE (Baron @ Nov 26, 2015 -> 01:10 PM) Nice assumption there. I'll answer the previous question though. I dont think he handled Zach Duke,Adam LaRoche and Tyler Flowers correctly regarding to matchups. Zach Duke's big selling point was that he had neutral platoon splits. In order to platoon Tyler Flowers, one first needs a left-handed player with which to platoon him. LaRoche should be platooned at this point, but you could argue that if he wasn't going to get in his groove and be an effective everyday hitter, the Sox weren't going anywhere anyway, so they were giving him every chance to get it going.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 11:38 PM) Who's b****ing just saying Avila will not play more than Flowers. Because of the negligible difference in their salaries?

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 11:05 PM) I went a bit overboard by saying "conservatively", but Quintana has been worth 9.9 fWAR over the last two years, so saying he's a 5 WAR pitcher is reasonable. Conservatively, he'd be a 4 WAR per year pitcher. This doesn't address that calling Puig a 4 WAR per year OF is fairly generous. I think it's reasonable to call them both 4-ish win players. Quintana's contract is better and he's coming off a better season, so he's got more value. Some of that is negated by the fact that pitchers are more volatile than position players. I agree that Quintana has more value than Puig, but the difference is not anywhere in the same universe as including either Seager or Urias, let alone both of them. Including Avi is nothing; he's close to worthless right now. Montas is nice but again not even close to either of those other guys.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 11:15 PM) No offense, but why does Steamer matter? Quintana put up fWARs of 5.1 & 4.8 the last two seasons. Unless you overweight his first two MLB seasons (as a developing 23 & 24 year old), he's basically been a 5 WAR pitcher. So why should we expect Quintana to pitch closer to his sophomore campaign than his age 25 & 26 seasons? Quite frankly, a 3.6 WAR projection for him next year is garbage no matter how you slice the numbers. It matters because it actually takes regression into account. You can say it's an imperfect system, but it's a hell of a lot more accurate than the typical fan "projection" which is always expecting every player to perform at their peak. OP said that a "conservative projection" is matching his career high. That's ridiculous. Any given player is never "likely" to match their career year at any given time.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 10:39 PM) Quintana is, conservatively, about a 5 WAR per year pitcher. Puig is very inconsistent, but let's call him a 4 WAR per year OF to be generous. So, player for player, Quintana is going to be worth 1 more WAR per year. That's just not true. Quintana's career high is 5.1 fWAR, and he's projected at 3.6 by Steamer. He CAN be a 5 win guy, but that's not conservative at all. He's probably most likely a 4 win guy, conservatively 3.5.

That swing looks awful to me.

Hard not to like this. He's been hurt, which has kept his price down, but if he can get healthy there's some real upside. Left-handedness hopefully relegates Flowers to Sale + vs. LHP duties, limiting his ABs nicely. A $2.5m gamble when there really wasn't much else available, and what was would cost a ton of talent.

Quintana is probably worth Puig + Barnes, or a similarly valued prospect, realistically. He's definitely NOT worth Van Slyke on top of that, and that's not even considering attaching a boat anchor contract like LaRoche's to it. Especially since LaRoche is literally useless to the Dodgers, who have Adrian Gonzalez and no DH spot.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/addressing-...ensive-problem/

QUOTE (LDF @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 06:36 PM) i will give you credit, you do make a compelling argument but for me, taking the advance stat out of the equation, i will settle this as before his surgery and post surgery result. now the book is clean and everything is new stats as you pointed out. thus there is no book. now for my disclaimer, you may be trying to point this out in using the stats and i am too dumb to realize it .... all i can say to that, if that is the case, pls excuse my post. I actually don't think it's an "advanced stats" thing -- his last three years, in terms of the "traditional" innings and ERA, have been REMARKABLY similar, and since his injury his DIPS stats have never really painted much of a different picture than his run-based stats in the first place. In a low offensive environment like we're in, a 4.75 ERA just isn't very good. But yeah, I'm not saying he's always sucked. I think we probably overrated him pre-surgery, but there's no question he was a very good pitcher. He's just not the same guy after his shoulder issues. It's not his fault or anything.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 06:01 PM) If he puts up,a 1.8 WAR he is worth something. That does not suck. I agree with that, but my point is: 1) Assuming he's going to match his four-year peak despite not much changing in his peripherals just isn't realistic. It's possible, but not likely. We do this all the time as fans -- when a guy "breaks out" to any degree, we tend to bank on it continuing -- but when a guy has a s*** year, we always assume he'll bounce back or progress to the mean. 2) Even if he could be expected to match it, 1.8 WAR for $14m does not suck, but it doesn't have any surplus value at all. So he's not a trade asset. And while you didn't specifically say he should be worth Neil Walker (if we added something small), that's what the posters were suggesting when I jumped in.