Eminor3rd

Danks is a scrub

Last lol

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 01:33 PM) http://books.google.com/books?id=VsmnfVUKJ...ine&f=false Most informative reply ever, haha

QUOTE (robinventura23 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 09:24 AM) I would still root for them. In this day and age of MLB.TV, etc., it's easy to watch a team while out of state. It's hard to turn off fandom, in my opinion. You root for them your whole life, it's hard to just pick another team. Yeah, this is how I feel. I don't think I have a choice anymore. It's Sox for better or for worse, so I hope they take care of me

More Justin Hooper: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/67-prep-lef...like-potential/.

QUOTE (The Wiz @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 12:14 AM) I believe the goal should be to maximize his talent and potential, not maximize the time until his arb. clock starts. Truth. I'd also add "not to maximize the asset for the marketing department." I'd love to see him in September if he's ready, but not just to move tickets.

Cool previews, thanks friend!

Seriously though, I think that I would remain a fan of the team that moved. I've been a Sox fan both living in and out of Chicago -- it was tough before when I could only see the games that were on WGN, but now that there's mlb.tv, that's how I watch them all anyway. Realistically, I'm a huge, huge baseball fan and I wouldn't know what to do with myself without it. I don't follow the NFL, NBA, NHL, soccer, or anything else, so this is all I got. I'd HAVE to maintain a rooting interest somewhere, and there's no way I could ever shift to one of these other pre-existing clowns. But here's the big follow-up question: If the Sox moved, but then Chicago got ANOTHER team a few years later (a la Cleveland Browns), which team would you root for THEN?

I obviously chose Lyle Mouton.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 03:10 PM) If the conventional wisdom is that all of these guys suck and need to be dumped, why is it assumed that somehow someone else wants them?

For what it's worth, the author is being universally trashed in the comments section.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 12:01 PM) No, but Garcia can DH which frees up Dunn to move to the bullpen.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 10:44 AM) For whatever reason, De Aza has always been terrible at going back on the ball, whether in center or left. Most of the balls he gets a glove on and drops, at least from my observations, were balls he was going back on. You may be right, but I think that all of us should accept the fact that our ability to judge a player's range is very, very limited. It's extremely hard to tell if another player would or should have caught any particular ball -- we almost never see their jumps and cannot, with any degree of accuracy, judge the distance player actually had to run. What he CAN see are the obvious screw-ups and therefore we're naturally inclined to over-represent them in our minds. I think this is the stuff that we need the data MOST for, because these measurements are much more accurate than our TV perceptions.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 10:15 AM) See Pods, Mackowiak, Viciedo, DeAza, Rios, etc. Not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing, but just to clarify my statement -- I'm claiming that hitting and defense are both very "mental."

QUOTE (Tmar @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 09:05 AM) Except war isn't claiming it measures best player, it is supposed to measures a more exact figure of wins above replacement. So how could somebody be worth 13 wins more oh but also 17 wins more? They can't, and that should destroy any credibility the stat has as it is then contrived. Like I did with my TIP compared to FIP, I could make my own WAR formula and it would be no more and (more importantly) no less valid a stat than war This post very clearly indicates that you do not understand what WAR is, how it's calculated, or what it measures. Therefore, I don't blame you for being skeptical. If you still aren't clear after reading wite's post above, I would suggest reading up on linear weights, because that is the central concept behind assigning run values, which it seems like you think is random. If you read up on linear weights and have a problem with how THEY are used, you might have a legitimate argument against WAR in general. If I thought the run values were random, I probably wouldn't like WAR either. I'm not trying to sound pretentious or condescending; I don't think all of this stuff is a matter of being smart or not. I think it's more about how much reading one is willing to do, lol. It's just really hard to take an argument seriously from someone who HASN'T done that reading, you know? Like you shouldn't take political advice from Reddit posts because they are made by people who are simply reacting to headlines with ideas -- but haven't taken the time to actually understand the mechanics of the issues.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 08:43 AM) Regarding Caple's argument, he says he doesn't like that people are using it as "THE definitive evaluation of a player's worth." No one involved in sabermetrics uses it this way. I personally felt that Trout deserved the MVP the last two seasons because he was an incredible all around offensive player plus he played very good defense. I felt his contributions were worth more to his team than Cabrera's were. I have no problem with the other argument and had no problem with Cabrera's MVPs. He then says it's too complicated. That's a pretty terrible argument against something, and really, it's not. Here is FanGraphs easy definitions: "Offensive players: Take wRAA, UBR & wSB, and UZR (which express offensive, base running, and defensive value in runs above average) and add them together. Add in a positional adjustment, since some positions are tougher to play than others, and then convert the numbers so that they’re not based on league average, but on replacement level (which is the value a team would lose if they had to replace that player with a “replacement” player – a minor leaguer or someone from the waiver wire). Convert the run value to wins (10 runs = 1 win) and voila, finished! "Pitchers: Pitchers – Where offensive WAR used wRAA and UZR, pitching WAR uses FIP. Based on how many innings a pitcher threw, FIP is turned into runs form, converted to represent value above replacement level, and is then converted from runs to wins." http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/ That doesn't seem overly complicated to me. It may be time consuming and tedious to manually calculate individual WARs, but it's not complicated. His next argument is that there are multiple WAR statistics. That's because the two primary sites - B-R and FanGraphs - use two different sets of data, neither of which are wrong, to compute WAR. Consider how you rate the best NFL offenses and defenses in the league. Some people will use yards per game and some will use points per game. It's essentially the same exact process. Yards per game will give a better indication of future success - if a team puts up 450 total yards and doesn't turn the ball over, but only scores 19 points through 4 field goals and 1 touchdown, you would assume that, so long as they continue putting up 450 yards, they'll score points - but total point scored will tell you how often they have actually done it to that point. It's the same difference between fWAR and bWAR, especially for pitchers. Regarding the 3rd link, you are letting a pre-conceived notion bias your opinion again. Just because a guy does not seem like he should be there doesn't mean he shouldn't be there. Some of it likely has to do with Kansas City's park and pitching style - Gordon leads left fielders on balls going into his zone, but he also leads all left fielders on plays made out of his zone. Look at how the fans have scouted him though - very good instincts, good first step, OK speed, good hands, great release, good arm strength and incredible accuracy. Per those calculations, the fans scouting reports says Gordon has saved 16 runs in LF. These are good tools to have. As has been said ad nauseum, these are not the end all, be all, but they do help us see a broader picture. Killer post, Forum Administrator.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 09:24 PM) 1. Why even bother sending professional scouts to big league games then? How could they possibly form an educated opinion about a player from watching him in 1 game? Why not just go purely with statistical data? 2. I never said there aren't outliers but I do think it is very rare that a player would improve defensively in his late 30s. 3. Simple answer: hitting is far more mental than defense. Hitting is less dependent on physical ability than defense. I guarantee that statistics would prove that a player's peak years defensively happens at a younger age than his peak year's offensively. 1. First, because scouts at lower levels are looking to evaluate talent over skill. You can see how fast a guy runs or how hard a guy throws and be certain that a player's capability will remain consistent in the short-term, but you CAN'T necessarily get a good idea of how that will translate to performance going forward. Secondly, in the upper levels or when a decision over acquisition has to be made, they DON'T only see them once. They send multiple people several times and compare their reports with their peers. 2. Certainly rare, but since it's not impossible and there are outliers, then the existence of outliers should not be a sufficient condition to discard a model. 3. I strongly disagree with the premise that hitting is far more mental than defense. I also disagree that hitting is less dependent on physical ability -- it's just a different type of physical ability. Statistics do in fact prove that player's defensive peak years typically occur at a younger age than their offensive peak years, but that does not invalidate the existence of outliers.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 04:19 PM) As far as Rick Hahn goes, he's done one good thing in the last year or so, and that's Jose Abreu. (I'm not even going to give him credit for Rodon, because the Astros are 50% responsible for bungling that one). Other than Jose, there would be a tremendous amount of pressure on him to keep his job for 2015. What? 1. Jose Abreu was a massive, MASSIVE win. In that one move, Hahn improved the team for up to six years more than most teams improved in the entire offseason combined. 2. Adam Eaton has a 116 wRC+ in centerfield. Do you realize what an incredibly valuable asset that is? And he's pre-arbitration? Maybe he's injury prone, maybe he's not. The reality is that he's put up 2 fWAR so far DESPITE missing all that time. He's played like a 3.5ish win player over a full season, and if if he never DOES play a full season, he's still going to come up above average in total production. Five more years of control! 3. He signed Jose Quintana to an awesome team-friendly extension, giving us two of the most valuable under 25 starters in the majors under control until like 2020 or something. That is a WIN offseason any way you slice it. Ok so his bullpen reclamation projects didn't pan out (partially thanks to injury) in year ONE of a rebuild, and you're telling me he'd be fighting for a job if not for Abreu? lol ... But I get it. You're frustrated about the game and I am too. It's alright -- it'll pass. Take a deep breath and realize we have some bright days ahead of us. *big hug*

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 03:19 PM) This is gonna be one of Quintana's more impressive no-decisions We need a new stat for this year. Non-bullpen wins or something. Theoretical wins.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 12:01 PM) If you think that a good defensive LF is so very important, why is the worst defensive OF typically put in LF? Why are guys that can't hack it in the infield moved to LF? Maybe you have unearthed some new discovery that the rest of baseball has missed. He's playing LF at an elite level, whoop-de-doo. It shouldn't result in the 2nd highest war in baseball when combined with his very average offensive numbers. Again, something based entirely on your preconceived notion of the defensive value. The word "should" is key here. There are a lot of things that I think "should" be the case but simply aren't. Is it not possible that you are undervaluing defense? Further, is it not possible that all of us were undervaluing defense, but that some breakthrough is analysis taught us something new? The answer is that is IS possible, of course. But let me be clear: I'm not saying that there ISN'T some huge flaw with this stuff that makes it all useless and wrong. But no one has found it yet -- lots are trying and these are the current "state-of-the-art" that have been produced through all the scrutiny. You may be right and they may be wrong, but if you're going to make that claim, you need EVIDENCE that you're right, because there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. It's the very reason the numbers are being taken seriously in the first place.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 11:52 AM) Yea because everyone knows guys improve defensively as they approach 40... Come on, you can't be serious with this. What is a pre-determined opinion any way? I have an opinion based on what I have seen. Have I seen everyone of the games that both of those guys have played over the past 4 years, no. Do I need to have seen every game in order to come up with an opinion of who the better defender is, no. In general, a guy is either a good defender or he isn't. This isn't hitting where guys become smarter, more confident, etc. as they age until their physical abilities fail them. Very rarely do guys make vast improvements or become drastically worse defenders from one year to the next. 1. I bet you've seen about 0.01% of the games they've played in over the last four years, and I would posit that is not anywhere in the range of enough information to have an opinion that is more reliable than all of the data from the most advanced publicly available statistical analyses of defensive value that currently exist. The concept of "this data must be wrong because it doesn't match up with what I already think" is completely illogical, especially when "what you already think" is based on a very small sample of non-professional observation that happened years ago. 2. Generalizations are useful for context, but outliers always exist. In terms of late-career improvement, they aren't even THAT rare. Jhonny Peralta jumps to mind immediately. Jose Bautista jumps to mind immediately. 3. Why does it make sense that hitters can get better with experience but defenders can't? Quickness declines just like bat speed declines, so why doesn't every player always peak at age 22?

This is cool. Another reason to watch as the dog days slip in.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 09:18 AM) Did not say Dunn was vastly better, just said he was better. Tyler's AVG/OBP/SLG right now stand .053/.060/.021 points higher than last season; if that is not a vast improvement, I don't know what is. Yes, and if balls hit to left field off KC pitchers are caught instead of going for doubles or runners hold at third instead of scoring on singles, that is valuable. Again, you're basically saying that WAR is bad because it doesn't seem to back up whatever feelings you already had. Whether or not Gordon is the third MVP isn't really the point. The defensive component of his WAR is the highest in baseball. That means he is doing something at an elite level and his WAR reflects that. The bolded is a straw man argument that I can't deal with. I think you have a misconception that people just look at WAR and rank the players by that list. The people who use it acknowledge its imperfections, which is why other stats come in as well. Great post with an excellent example of using numbers in context.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 08:03 AM) I've seen enough of Beltre playing against the sox over the last few years to know he's a damn good defensive 3b. I saw enough of polanco when he was with the tigers and I can't imagine he's gotten better the last 4 years now that he's 38 years old turning 39 in 2 months. I'm not saying polanco is bad defensively, hell he's own gold gloves, but no way he's better than Beltre in my eyes How is this possibly a convincing argument that the metrics are wrong? You just said "I saw a guy play before and can't imagine he's gotten better the last four years" and passed it off like some kind of factual account of his defense. What if he got WAY better at reading pitches and positioning? What if continued practice made him an even more accurate thrower who made fewer mistakes? On the flipside, what if Beltre has just lost a step? Or maybe he's just having a worse year than usual on defense. Conflicting pre-determined opinions are not anything like evidence against statistical data. In fact, they happen to be exactly why we NEED the statistical data. You do not see any of these guys even remotely close to enough to be able to have an accurate account of their defense -- and that's nothing personal, it's true of all of us. Our brains lie to us, especially in extreme cases and especially when we see very little of something and try to generalize. There are several legitimate criticisms and limitations of the current crop of defensive metrics, but "to my eyes that can't be true" is NOT one of them.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 07:52 AM) http://www.csnchicago.com/white-sox/white-...bullpen-failure Can't even figure out what word he was trying to say...it's around the 1:20 mark "negative assesserations"? accesserations asseccerations....those aren't even words assertions...? Speaking of Sale, this scouting report from back in 2010 was pretty amusing to read. Claimed his fastball was only 90-92 then but COULD be a plus pitch, and then goes into long and detailed description of his mechanics and why he's so flawed and likely to be injured in the future. http://projectprospect.com/article/2010/05...scouting-report Sounded like suserration. He was saying that he either did or didn't hear any "negative murmurs" from the crowd, lol. At the buzzer. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/susurration