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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 22, 2014 -> 12:01 PM) No. Without modern pitch tracking it's literally impossible to come up with that metric because prior to that there was no record of whether or not a pitch was out of the zone if a guy swung. QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 22, 2014 -> 12:02 PM) That's pretty funny. What was Mickey Mantle's career O Swing %? Yeah, I know it's not something we had so much data on until recently, but what is advanced about it? We got new technology, not some kind of awakening. WHOA IT'S ALMOST LIKE WHEN HE SWINGS AT BAD PITCHES, WORSE THINGS HAPPEN!

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 22, 2014 -> 11:54 AM) would you consider O swing % an advanced metric? For a guy who says you didn't like Viciedo and it had nothing to do with sabermetrics, it is funny you have mentioned his O swing % as something that showed he was what he was. In fact, earlier this season, you mentioned the same metric or maybe a similar one, and then said he may be turning a corner. So if your Viciedo hate has nothing to do with sabermetrics, why use sabermetrics to try to tell us he sucks ? There is a guy that sits next to me in the stands that tells him he sucks every time he comes to the plate. I doubt it has anything to do with O swing %. No, I guess I don't consider O Swing% an advanced metric. It's just someone counting the number of times a guy swings at pitches out of the zone. Has that not been something obviously relevant for like 70+ years?

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:29 AM) Well, people misuse advanced metrics just like people misuse traditional stats. The biggest misuse of advanced metrics is accepting them as an absolute, as in saying somebody with a 7.0 WAR in a season was clearly better than somebody with a 6.7 WAR. I disagree with this. I think the biggest misuse of advanced metrics is misapplying them. Their accuracy is what makes them good in the first place -- but with accuracy comes precision, and with precision comes a reduction in breadth. As long as people like Dick Allen run around trumpeting blanket misuse like "well if WAR is right then why can't I add WAR up and get team wins?" and "WELL if DIPS makes sense how come Gavin Floyd has a better xFIP than Mark Buerhle?", the perception that there are two bizarro, mutually exclusive versions of baseball reality warring with one another will continue to thrive. I think part of the problem is branding/naming. The word "wins," for example, has at least three distinct meanings among mainstream stats, new and old. It isn't difficult to see why this stuff can be very unclear to those who haven't spent a decent amount of time reading up on all of it. QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:29 AM) While the advanced metrics are much better, they still don't have a perfectly linear correlation to wins (or even runs). They are still approximations of value, albeit much better ones. As for projection systems, they all are based on normal distributions which expect 2/3 of the results to vary by as much as a full standard deviation. If you get way beyond a full standard deviation, then yes, it is justified to suggest luck might be involved. It also helps to look at what is driving the variance. An extremely high BABIP is more likely signaling luck (Flowers), whereas an increased walk rate is more likely to suggest genuine improvement from the player (Viciedo). Yeah, I think this has a lot to do with a general misunderstanding of linear weights and the corresponding difference between context-neutral and context-dependent statistics. These stats simply don't measure the same thing, and cannot be used interchangeably. When a sabr-y guy cries about RBIs, it's because he has a statistic that answers the current question better than RBIs, not because he has a better version of the RBI. QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:29 AM) Also, I don't think anybody is putting a lot of stock in advanced metrics when it comes to scouting. You are scouting college and high school players and there is no accepted way to translate their stats the way we can translate major league, and to a lesser extent minor league stats. Now, scouts who have a foundation in advanced metrics will be looking for different things when scouting than "traditional" scouts, and as such will likely have a higher success rate, but there is still a very large error rate in scouting. Regardless of your evaluation method you are never going to hit on every draft pick. Indeed. All of our most advanced offensive metrics are useful only because they have a clear and distinct frame of reference. When you're talking about varying levels of competition, you can throw frame of reference out the window. If sabermetrics has contributed to scouting, it's because it has helped identify and quantify the most valuable contributions that can be made at the ML level, thus allowing scouts to prioritize certain types of skills or tools. As for measuring and predicting development though, there's not much there.

I didn't like Viciedo, and I'm still not convinced he's going to remain good, and it has nothing to do with sabermetrics. It has everything to do with "approach." Is that Hawk enough for you? lol Marty is babbling like a toddler that knows words but not sentences. Holy s***, lol. Are you drunk this early, Marty?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:08 AM) Thanks. They're pretty close, but if the Marlins made Stanton available, I wouldn't be like "NO, I WILL NOT DEAL MARCUS SEMIEN OR MATT DAVIDSON AS THE LAST PIECE OF THE TRADE BECAUSE THEY'RE TOO AWESOME." I know lol

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:02 AM) No one is untradable, but Semien and Davidson are untradeable.

QUOTE (southside hitman @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:59 AM) If you are talking about Trey Michalczewski, he was supposedly a tough sign. We had to go overslot to get him. Gotcha. Thanks

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:47 AM) I'm saying it because the two teams who could take him before us are Houston and Miami, which would leave the Sox with the choices of either Rodon or Aiken, which would be awesome. I've seen several mocks calling for Gillaspie to go in the 20's or 30's

QUOTE (bmags @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:40 AM) Why don't we wait until Davidson forces our hand. I don't see the point of making room when he is striking out 35% of the time. People are so excited right now to get rid of any good pieces before we have good pieces to replace them. I thought we wanted to compete next year or the year after, not 2020. This. We don't need to give up on anyone right now. As it is, Davidson's best case scenario is a September callup if he's earned it. We can figure out what do do with Connor over the offseason at the earliest.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:52 AM) I have an answer for all of life's problems. Except when I don't. Then I just eat Funyuns. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRdsq4v5s4A

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:51 AM) OU: 129.5 pitches I'm taking way, way, way over That's such an easy over.

Didn't Montgomery have surgery of some kind?

Do we know why he fell?

QUOTE (Dunt @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:08 AM) Question for the masses: I want to subscribe to either Baseball America or Baseball Prospectus and am wondering which you guys prefer for prospect information? I enjoy both the Effectively Wild and Baseball America podcasts quite a bit and can't decide which I'd rather give my money to. I subscribe to BP and am content. It's just one of those things that's so cheap you just do it. I'd been considering subscribing to BA, but then I realized that someone dumps a bunch of them by the door at our office each month. So I've just started picking up those. I would probably prefer BA except for two things: Jason Parks and Doug Thorburn.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:08 AM) You and your trick questions. c. Rubber wall positioned so that ricochets glance towards 1B Yeah! Like a pitchback! Good call.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 22, 2014 -> 07:36 AM) I take it you don't subscribe to YES? Nope, no cable =\ QUOTE (beautox @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:34 AM) Just Hola on your browser and switch it to England and then back after it verifies you. I shall try this. Thanks!

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:53 AM) Trick question. c. 45 year-old Frank Thomas. Paul Konerko slides to 3B. Ok, for serious, who would you rather have playing third base, defensively only, for the rest of this year: a. Paul Konerko b. a 6'x6' plywood wall

QUOTE (DirtySox @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:47 AM) Baseball America's Top 200 Draft Rankings are up. http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft-preview/ It's exciting that we really have no idea who we're going to get a t 3.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:33 AM) That's merely wishful thinking. You watch your mouth. Who would you rather have on the 25 man roster right now? a. 34 year-old Jeff Keppinger b. 89 year-old Minnie Minoso

What is the deal with Michalczewski? He seems to be holding his own pretty well in A ball, but why are we so excited about him? I would think a guy like him would have to be raking to garner this kind of love.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 07:45 AM) Juan Uribe. Jeff Keppinger.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:07 AM) I would rather them keep an extra reliever here, and put Marcus at AAA. I really want him playing every day. Especially because he legitimately has things to work on. Chiefly, how to hone his approach to make the most out of his plate discipline.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:37 AM) You should use the advanced metrics, but if that's all you use, you will be in trouble. xFIP says Gavin Floyd was a better pitcher for the White Sox than Mark Buehrle. Is there really anyone who would rather have had Gavin on the mound in a must win game than Buehrle? Using xFIP to measure overall pitcher quality is like using a ruler to measure your weight. You're going to get all kinds of weird conclusions if you use the wrong tools to answer your questions.

I hate that mlb.tv is going to black me out of this game.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 22, 2014 -> 07:15 AM) Interesting that the Mets and Rangers are supposed to be highly analytical organizations but both are in the top 6 in MLB in Sac Bunts. Disdain for the sac bunt is one of the calling cards of analytics. Sabermetrics doesn't hate sacrifice bunts, it hates moves that reduce the likelihood that a team will score a run. Most managers tend to sacrifice bunt in situations where the extra out hurts them more than the runner advancing helps.