Eminor3rd

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 5, 2015 -> 01:59 PM) I really don't think Rodon forced the issue that much, his first start or two at Charlotte weren't that great and he still had stuff to work on like his changeup (same thing that Fulmer might have to work on btw) but they still pushed him up to the big leagues as soon as they got the extra year of rights for him. Barring a complete overhaul of the management and front office and barring injury that's my guess, we see him break in next April/May. For a rebuilding team, that's not bad anyway, may as well get his first year in the bigs done when the rest of the roster is this weak and a few bad starts don't cost us anything. Right but that's because we had Hector Noesi. Ideally, I'd like them to do better than that. We've been, once again, lucky with pitcher health. I think the dieal plan for Fulmer going into the season is depth with a September callup. We can adjust accordingly if we have options.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 5, 2015 -> 01:06 PM) I don't see any reason to expect them to do much different with Fulmer from how they treated Rodon this year. If he forces the issue, I expect you're right. But it's not a given that he'll be ready.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 5, 2015 -> 12:29 PM) First crack at that? Johnson. Second crack? Beck. 3rd crack? If neither of those guys hold it, Fulmer won't be all that far away. Fourth crack at that? Montas. And then we'll have Adams, whatever pitcher we take with our first round pick in 2016, and who knows who else might step up out of the last couple drafts as well. That's a decent enough list that for a truly rebuilding team they should look at trading out of that top 3 to fill the remaining holes in their organization. Yeah, that's plan B. But I'd like to see them bring in the Jason Hammel-type guy first to try to make an early season run and second to have a moveable asset at the deadline. If EJ/Beck beats him for the spot, fantastic. And I'm guessing Fulmer won't really be in the mix until a bit later in the season anyway -- perhaps in the vacated spot post-deadline.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 5, 2015 -> 12:09 PM) I still don't think the White Sox have the money...but even more generally look at it this way. The White Sox keep drafting starting pitchers with their top picks, they keep trying to develop starting pitchers, their lineup is unbelivably weak and their lineup is by far the biggest flaw with their organization. It would be completely backwards for them to spend money on the starting rotation when their lineup is this crappy. Then again, it was completely backwards for them to have a philosophy of "Let's trade pitching for hitting" and then trade position players for Samardzija anyway. I agree. Trade Jeff, let him sign a big FA deal somewhere else. Go into the offseason trying to sign a short-term veteran on a short deal, use money to fill the holes in the lineup. Sale/Quintana/Rodon is a fine top three, you8've got Danks in there at 5 regardless, so go grab a 4 arm and that's fine.

Very cool play

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jul 4, 2015 -> 02:32 PM) I know I probably sound like a broken record but I've been on this Sox-BoSox Quintana trade long before this thread. I've said Vazques, Marrero, Margot and Edwin Escobar is fair for both teams and I still think it makes sense. I think asking for Swihart will get you nowhere. You're probably right.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jul 4, 2015 -> 10:34 AM) What do you think is fair then? QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Jul 4, 2015 -> 11:00 AM) Really? One of the best 20-25 pitchers in the game signed long term to a very team friendly contract? Pay up...or you won't get him. Generally speaking: Betts is untouchable, you guys are treating him as merely a starting point for a deal. Swihart would be a realistic prized centerpiece, you guys are treating him like he could be the second or third piece. There's no way they'd give up both Margot and Devers, and probably only one of them if the centerpiece is a notch below Swihart. THey'd probably push hard to make on of those two THE centerpiece. Let me be clear: I'm NOT advocating trading Quintana. The best case scenario, realistically, is probably Swihart, Kopech/Chavis, two solid arms you haven't heard of. I'm not saying it's good, I'm just trying to be realistic. We need to remember that a young, controllable, above average position player is more valuable than a similar pitcher, and positional prospects are valued extremely highly right now.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 4, 2015 -> 02:09 AM) Can't you guys watch John Danks pitch and see SOMETHING that is very very good? I said he's sucked on occasion. He's also pitched very very well. And he battles. You can't watch him pitch and see ability and competitiveness? He's got talent and check his starts. He's had some good ones the last two seasons. Some excellent outings! To not give him credit is flat out wrong. I didn't say he was Sandy Koufax. He's a great No. 4 or 5 starter, though. No, he's not. He's been one of the ten worst starters in the league over the last three seasons by both ERA and fWAR. By definition, that is NOT a great No. 4 or 5 starter. Only a handful of guys have been worse. Yes, he's had some great outings, but he's had Way, WAY more really bad outings. Yes, I like that he tries hard and gives it his all. But I'd still replace him in a second if I could, because I like it when the White Sox win. And no matter how hard he tries, he's bad. For every great outing, he'll have 7 or 8 clunkers. He used to be good, but he just isn't anymore. Shoulders are rough.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 11:42 PM) I hardly ever say "I told you so" on here. But I have to in regards to Danks. I told you guys Danks is NOT trash. I said he's had some stellar outings to go with the pathetic ones. I told you I like the way he battles. Danks is not an excellent pitcher but he's not worthy of the hate spewed on this board. He's just not. Danks has had some good outings the past 2 seasons. He simply HAS. Great win again. Well the Sox are trying to play with our emotions and tell us they actually have a decent team. I'm not going to believe yet, just wait and see and enjoy the wins. Please please please though, give MR DANKS some credit!!!! It is deserved. Lol greg. Really? http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...&position=P Look at those numbers. Are you going to say "I told you so?"

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 11:00 AM) I'd rather have Jeff Hoffman We all would. Pentecost's stock has dipped since draft day, though, so he may actually be a realistic target. Hoffman has had helium.

Guys, you know how we all make fun of those ridiculous bloggers who have ridiculous notions of their favorite players' trade values? That's what you all sound like.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 12:53 PM) Curious as to what the metrics are for measuring that. Are the measurements based on the impact on the actual 9-inning game that the manager has within his control (lineups, pitching decisions, strategical/tactical decisions, etc.)? How does one measure a manager's ability to have his team ready to perform on a daily basis? How does one measure a manager's ability to get a roster all pulling in the same direction? Say what you want about how big of an impact a decision to steal with 2-outs in the 7th has in a tight game. But what about the ability to have a veteran come in and hit to his potential as opposed to one or two standard deviations below his potential over the course of a year like we are seeing? That's exactly my point, shack: we know that a manager affects these things, but we don't know how much and we don't know if a guy is helping or hurting. So, again, I'm not claiming anything about Robin, because I don't know. YOU (the collective you) are claiming that Robin is failing at making his veterans perform. How do you know? If you want to make the argument that the failure of a pinch-hitting veteran is RV's fault, you are then claiming that a different coach would make the difference. Demonstrate that. Research has not been able to find correlations between any specific manager and any specific ability or characteristic. The studies are hazy because not much is found. There appear to be some managers who consistently keep their players in position to perofrm at their best -- until all of a sudden they can't anymore. Ron Gardenhire was god until he wasn't god anymore. Joe Maddon was a miracle man until the miracles stopped. Joe Torre was a bum until he landed in the Evil Empire during it's period of being the Microsoft of baseball. Who is next? Clint Hurdle, maybe? I don't have any bookmarked articles like I often do, because manager stuff has always kind of put me off. It's so cloudy and frustrating that I haven't been drawn to it. But if you Google around or klook at some of the classic books, you'll see a lot of effort put into trying to isolate it to very little success. This is why, when posters start saying stuff like the team isn't prepared on a daily basis" and "RV has to make the batters move the runners over instead of striking out," I gotta call shenanigans. NONE of us know how prepared the team is. NONE of us know what they work on or what the coaches tell them to do in big situations. It's WAY more likely that they're being told to succeed in all of the glaringly obvious ways that we all know players can succeed, but they're simply failing. Alexei Ramirez does NOT need extra ground-ball practice. That's NOT the difference. A pep talk might help sometimes,l or it might not, but none of us know.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 10:43 AM) He got a really dumb organization to give him $42 million by performing during a contract year. If hypothetically that were chemically-aided, why would he stay on them and risk a positive test that would cost him that money through a suspension? He's well below a career 100 wRC+ hitter if you don't count the clearly steroid-aided Giants and probably Royals seasons. Quick bit of math had him at 90 even assuming he was clean last year. A 30 year old hitter with a career 90 wRC+ putting up a 67 isn't that big of a dropoff or unprecedented in any sense. This is one of those things where speculation rules. It's the same thing as the manager thing -- we don't know if he's on PEDs or not, we don't know WHEN he was and wasn't, we don't know WHAT he was on, and we don't know how much it helped or didn't help. You're welcome to jump to whichever conclusions that you want regarding all of that, but if you're being intellectually honest, you should acknowledge that you don't actually KNOW what you're talking about here. None of us do. Regardless -- we're talking about what Hahn should/could have expected from Melky this year. If you're going to argue that he should have planned for a 60-something wRC+, I just don't think you have any ground to stand on. This year is WAY off everything we've seen over the entire roller coaster of his career for the past five years.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 08:35 AM) The good news is that Melky Cabrera's career is one replete with honor and dignity and respect for the game and since he's such a respectable person with no reputation for lying to the league you can have 100% confidence that Melky Cabrera would never do anything during a contract season that would have impacted his performance that year. You have moved the goalposts, Balta. We're not talking about honor, we're talking about wins. RE wins: Melky is a career 100 wRC+ hitter. At 30 years old, he's putting up 67. PEDs are irrelevant because he's performed both well and badly when both on and off PEDs. If you think he was still on them last year, why do you think he still isn't now?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 09:08 AM) Fair enough. I understand your desire to determine causation, and that's a reasonable desire. Unfortunately, I'm not sure many FOs have the patience to determine whether the manager is part of the problem...but they may be able to determine much more quickly that the manager is not part of the solution. Let's entertain the thought that Balta is correct - and I suspect that he is, at least partially - and that this is an organizational problem. Perhaps then Robin is sharing blame across a wider spectrum rather than carrying more of it himself. Either way, have we seen anything out of the guy which would suggest he is some tremendous leader? Has he done anything which would suggest that he is managing a team that would be winning if not otherwise handicapped by poor organizational philosophies/development? Is this guy a leader in an organization lacking them? To the bolded: absolutely. The FO is in the best position to evaluate him, so we have little choice but to trust them. We may not WANT to trust them, but we aren't privy to clubhouse dynamics like they are. To the second point: I agree, I have not seen anything to suggest RV is adding value to the organization. However, there has been a lot of work done to try to evaluate what a manager CAN contribute, and most of it points to the idea that the manager doesn't make much of a difference at the end of the day. That is NOT to say that the manager's job isn't important, but rather that the difference between the best manager in baseball and the worst is relatively small. So, you're right: I have no grounds and little interest in defending RV. I just think it's silly to spend so much time being so sure he needs to go because I don't think doing so fixes the team.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 09:01 AM) http://mweb.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-h...proposed-dealsv White sox are listed #10. Suggesting shark traded to the blue jays for catching prospect Max Pentecost That would be amazing.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 09:02 AM) Completely unprecedented...except for the 68 he put up in 2008. And not that far from the 77 he put up in 2010. Then suddenly in 2011 he got a lot better and in 2012 he was great except for some reason he missed about 50 games. Then he had a tumor removed and had the best season of his career two years after that 50 game suspension. The point stands, despite the fact that I somehow missed referencing his bad age-23 season seven years ago.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 04:46 PM) Let me ask you this: Is it possible that the current culture of our organization or our big league clubhouse could have this kind of affect on performance? Is this type of underperformance symptomatic of how our organization is being managed/coached/developed? Yes, it is possible. But what evidence suggests that's the case? RV was at the helm in 2012 when the team won 85 games and Adam Dunn was MLB's Comeback Player of the Year. What's different now? Something might have changed, but we can only speculate. The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim (in this case, the claim that "the White Sox failure is due to incompetent managing by RV"). For example, it's also possible that your brain is being controlled by a robot elephant that lives inside the moon. You'd have a hard time disproving that claim, since you can't see inside the moon, but that doesn't mean you should take it seriously, because there's no evidence to suggest that it IS the case. The crux of my argument/rage on this theme is this: everyone seems to be very passionately sure that RV is the problem, but I don't see anything to suggest that RV is actually the problem. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 08:21 PM) Alexei's D has been dropping off from year to year, so you can't just say this is some unexplainable act of God. Ok, what you just said seems to support the claim the RV is not responsible for Alexei's terrible defense. Is RH to blame for keeping him? Idk, I was among the leaders of the "trade Alexei" charge that existed before all of the acquisitions, but even I don't think that him throwing balls into CF or rolling balls to second with his glove instead of tossing them underhand are the result of physical decline. He's having a bad, dumb year. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 08:21 PM) Melky and Samardizija both had similar rough seasons just in 2013, so I don't see how this completely out of a standard deviation for them. Either way, those two players aren't the only thing keeping this team from being a contender. Melky Cabrera's wRC+ in 2013 was 86, which is roughly equivalent to a solid ML SS. Melky's wRC+ THIS year is 67, which is worse than a typical AAA journeyman. His performance is far-and-away worse than it was in 2013 and, for him, completely unprecedented. There was simply no reason to see this coming. Samardzija has had years like this before, yes, but Samardzija (and the pitching, in general) isn't really the issue. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 08:21 PM) I mention Flowers & Beckham because they are on the roster and have to start the majority of the time. That's not Robin's fault, he didn't make up the roster. Then who's fault is it? Maybe the people who put together the roster? The people who acquired both years ago and are too stubborn to give up on them? I understood where you were going with that, and I think I answered it. Basically, if the better players were playing even remotely close to fair expectations and it STILL wasn't enough to win because of guys like Beckham/Flowers, I'd be furious at RH. But I can't be furious at RH because I don't know if it mattered in the first place, because five to seven of the players on the team are having the worst seasons of their entire careers.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 03:47 PM) So none of us "have a clue as to whether or not Robin is a good or bad manger", but if he's fired "it will be a meaningless move that panders to the pitchfork mob". So in other words, you're arguing that managers are essentially worthless, which I find to be a laughable notion. Just because you're unable to quantity a manager's value, doesn't mean they provide none. That is very much NOT what I'm saying. There are two points that you referenced: QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 03:47 PM) So none of us "have a clue as to whether or not Robin is a good or bad manger", Yes, you and I and everyone here are ignorant of RV's affect on the baseball team outside of (1) his tactical, in-game decisions and (2) what is reported by the players/media. It's been demonstrated that the difference between the best and woprst tactical managers has a miniscule effect on wins, and the players and media are not giving us anything to suggest that RV is offending his clubhouse or promoting laziness. So we have nothing. It sucks but that's how it is. We can speculate, but speculation is worthless. Like how that Cards blog is speculating that Randall Grichuk is a 6-win player going forward -- it's certainly plausible, but there exists nothing to suggest it will occur. QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 03:47 PM) but if he's fired "it will be a meaningless move that panders to the pitchfork mob". It will be meaningless because the notion that RV's coaching is causing several key veterans to hit worse than they've ever hit in their lives is insane. That is NOT a claim that manager's are meaningless, it's a response to the ridiculous claim that most of you are making, which is that RV's managing has led to unprecedented performance disasters among several veterans who have demonstrated that ability to perform MUCH better in the recent past, despite the fact that many of those players performed substantially better UNDER THE SAME COACHING STAFF over the past two seasons. You (the collective you) are making a strong claim as to the cause of the team's failure, but you are providing no evidence to back it up. In the midst of a lack of evidence, Occam's Razor demands a simpler explanation that has precedent: the players are not executing. There exists no evidence that they are not capable, and there exists no evidence of strife in the dugout.

There's a TON of misuse of sabermetric stats in this article. Really sad for a pretty highly-reputed blog.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 12:06 PM) How is it Alexei Ramirez's fault that he'd old? And it's arguable whether or not Adam Eaton has the capability to succeed, I tend to think he overachieves based on his effort. Do you also blame Tyler Flowers, Gordon Beckham, and Conor Gillaspie for being bad at baseball? Are we allowed to place any blame at the feet of the people who brought these players in? 1. Alexei is not too old to lay off s***ty pitches. He's not too old to make routine 15 foot throws to second base. If Alexei's pile of stupid errors aren't his own fault, how are you going to blame the manager? Has he not had enough reps in his 8 year ML career as an above average and sometimes elite defender that he needs some coaching to prepare him to play defense during a baseball game? 2. I explicitly did NOT blame Flowers/Beckham/etc. for being bad baseball players. Do you blame Robin for them being bad baseball players? 3. Eaton put up a 3-win season last year with no unsustainable peripherals -- even if he's not a true-talent 3-win player, he is at least capable of being league-average. Regarding "the people who brought these players in (Hahn & Co., not Robin Ventura)": If these guys were putting up level of production that were even within an entire standard of deviation of what they were expected to do, and our team was STILL completely out of contention, I would grab a pitchfork and blame Hahn. But I do NOT blame Hahn for Melky Cabrera putting up numbers that are SUBSTANTIALLY worse than anything he's ever done at any level, including when he was playing with a tumor on his spine, ESPECIALLY coming off of his career year which just so happened to have occurred AFTER he served his PED suspension. Eaton's terrible performance is slightly less surprising only because he has much less of a track record, so anything would be less surprising. Going into the season, there were a ton of scenarios that could have unfolded where we would be totally justified in blaming Hahn for simply not putting enough on the field to justify his expenditures, but to blame him for what actually happened isn't reasonable because it isn't one of those scenarios. I mean if you truly believed that Melky/Eaton/Samardzija/whoever was going to perform THIS badly, then you can complain, but their performances are simply way worse than ANY professional expected as far as we can tell. The pieces on the field are capable of success, albeit without much margin for error. The pieces on the field, though, s*** the bed in the worst way, completely blowing that margin for error out of the water. They did not deliver what they were expected to deliver, even within reasonable margins of error, so I blame them instead of their employer.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 08:59 AM) The old" you can't fire all the players" line admits changing the manager isn't fixing the problem if the players are all still there. This, exactly. Everyone just wants someone to be fired so they they can say something happened. Is that actually satisfying? Wouldn't you all rather clamor for a change that would make the team better?

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 08:56 AM) You could say the exact same thing every time a professional coach or manager is fired. Result matter. Right, so blame the guys that affect the results. Blame Melky Cabrera and Adam Eaton and Jeff Samardzija and Alexei Ramirez, who are failing daily despite clearly having the skills, experience, and capability to succeed.

I just hate how everyone is acting like they have a clue as to whether or not RV is even a good or bad manager. We know he isn't great tactically, but you know who is even worse? Mike Matheny, and his team has the best record in baseball. So that tells you how much difference that makes. Beyond tactics, none of us know anything. You're all clamoring to fire RV because you want someone to blame, period. You have NOTHING to suggest that he's responsible for the failure of the team. The guy you're blaming for instilling poor fundamentals is the same guy you praised for instilling great fundamentals like two years ago. If he's fired, it will be a meaningless move that panders to the pitchfork mob. If that satisfies you, whatever, but it doesn't actually have anything to do with the team. This message board should be better than that.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 09:06 AM) Great, more defensively-challenged players that will live and die based on instruction. Would be nice to hit on one of these "off the charts power" guys. Sounds like Adolfo's getting some competition to push him from below at least. The more talent injected into the lower levels....some of it has to pay off eventually. Yeah, when are the Sox going to start going after the polished, MLB-ready 16 year olds?