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QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 12:51 PM) Garcia has now stepped up to the plate 100 times in a White Sox uniform. He is hitting .344. Unfortunately he is also striking out 24% of the time while only walking 5% of it. And therein lies the issue. If you look at his plate discipline numbers, you see that he is swinging at substantially more pitches out of the zone than league average (38% to 26%) and also making singinficantly LESS contact than average on pitches in the zone (79% to 87%). These number are all approximately in line with his career number with Detroit. Don't misunderstand -- by no means am I giving up on Garcia. I'm just pointing out that he has not actually turned any kind of corner with us, he's just getting really lucky on his batted balls.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 12:15 PM) The stronger you are, the more sustainable that is because OF's have to play deeper. QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Sep 5, 2013 -> 12:18 PM) To add to that, when you're as strong as Garcia, those shanks go over infielders heads. Not to the tune of a .448 BABIP, my friends. I don't like it any more than you guys do, but he is making bad contact on too many bad pitches that he should be taking.

Avisail is unfortunately deep in the territory of "unsustainable performance" based on his Pitch F/x and component stats. Ugh, I really hope his approach improves -- those shank singles aren't going to keep finding places to fall forever.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 4, 2013 -> 05:25 PM) Like I said I have no problem moving Alexei if the right deal comes along (personally I'd give Semien first shot at the SS spot) but I'm not going to take a poor deal for him until one of the young guys plays so well that I'm forced to move Alexei for them. Agreed. We did it! We have reached consensus after a series of about 10 posts! How many times does that happen on this board?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 4, 2013 -> 05:04 PM) He had about 30 games hitting 6-7-8 and had an OPS of about .690 in those 3 slots. He hit 75 games in the 2 hole with a .660 OPS but a similar batting average, so he was clearly putting the ball in play just about as much but he wasn't hitting for extra bases as much. It's hard to extract a true trend from the 100 at bats lower in the order, but the 0 HR in 335 PA's in the 2 hole compared with 4 HR in 250 PA's elsewhere in the lineup I think makes a pretty strong case. I agree with all of that too. I just still think that 4 HR/250 PA's combined with a .300ish OBP is still a defense first player. I think the team can get 80-85% of that production with similarly glovey/speedy Garcia, and by moving Ramirez/pitcher, can take step at finding the higher upside bat it really needs to get back to contention. Getting Garcia regular at bats also gives him a better chance to improve more quickly.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 4, 2013 -> 04:50 PM) The point there would be that Alexei could presumably continue to have that power stroke if he was hitting 7th, and there were some unique requirements of hitting in the 2 slot that were causing him to adjust his stroke. Right, I understand. What I'm saying is that even Alexei + power isn't good enough to bat in the middle of the order for a contender. He simply doesn't get on base enough. If he can hit 15 homers again, he's still only going to be about a 90 wRC+ because he makes too many outs (I'm basing this on what his batting lines were when he was hitting 15 homers a few years ago, since his OBPs have been remarkably consistent). A .270-.280 average is good an all, but it looks way worse next to a .300 OBP. But, maybe you're saying that putting him at #7 or whatever will still allow him to hit for more power and that it was the #2 hurting him more than the #3 spot helping him. That would make sense, but didn't he hit at the back of the order most of the first half of the season during his epic power outage?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 4, 2013 -> 04:39 PM) Some of that, we should note, seemed to be a direct consequence of him being put in the #2 slot in the batting order. How much it's hard to say, but when he got put in the 3 slot he suddenly found his power stroke again. That may be true, or it may not. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Still, even if it was absolutely true that he hits better and with more power from the #3 spot, do you really want to clog the 3 spot up with a ~90 wRC+ hitter? Alexei's bat, at its best, is good "for a shortstop," but it's still a below league average bat by a significant margin. He's an asset as a #7 hitter, but the fact that he's been a key run producer at #3 is just a testament to how completely impotent our offense is. Considering that Alexei is not likely to get any better, and that if he is, he needs to be our three hitter, there's just no argument I can think of that he should stand in the way of player development, because a team that relies on a 90 wRC+ for serious run production is not a team that will win many games.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 4, 2013 -> 04:18 PM) The problem is, this really isn't the case this year. His performance at the plate this year is better than last year and has gotten better as the season has gone on. (If a team really paid attention, the fact that he hit a ton more power as soon as he was out of the 2 hole should be really important too). Alexei's given every indication this season that he's going to age well, the only question is his level of focus on the field and whether or not he's on a team/has a manager that can help with that. I disagree with that premise. This year was better than last offensively, but that's just because last year was horrible. The fact is, this year is his second worst offensive season, and he's now two years removed from showing 10+ HR pop. He's never been able to duplicate his rookie year at the plate. Aging players tend to gain power and patience to compensate for their declining athleticism, but Alexei has been backwards: he's shown absolutely nothing to suggest he's becoming a smarter hitter, and has remained useful instead because he's retained his speed and improved his defense. Anything could happen, but if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on age sapping his legs before he has a late career hitting renaissance and learns to work himself into hitters' counts and allow him to increase his slugging.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 4, 2013 -> 03:58 PM) I'm not going to be mad if Alexei is moved but if they're going to move him they ought to get a solid return for him. He's affordably under contract for several years and fills a position that is a key need for a lot of teams. Take a look at the contract Elvis Andrus is only a little bit better than Alexei with the bat in his previous years (worse than Alexei this year) and the Rangers signed him to 8/$120. The Sox shouldn't need to send along money with Alexei because they ought to be getting significant returns back and Alexei isn't going to be expensive even in his most expensive year. If they send out a significant amount of money, they better be getting someone who is irresistable in return. Right, but the Rangers gave that to Andrus coming off his second straight season north of 90 wRC+ (92 and 96), and they gave that to a 23 year old who presumably had a good deal of offensive upside. You're right that Alexei has been better than Andrus this year, but Andrus' season has been a disappointment, and wasn't what they Rangers thought they were buying when they signed extended him. Alexei is a good player paid roughly market value, but he's 32 and his skills are declining at the plate. If we have young guys who need at bats, we should get what we can for Alexei and get those young guys as much experience as possible in 2014, IMO. EDIT: As far as sending money goes, I don't think they should NEED to send any to move him either, but sending money is the way to maximize his return regardless, if only because it increases the number of potential suitors.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 3, 2013 -> 12:47 PM) I think it's safe to say there is zero chance the Sox are sending significant amounts of money to someone to move Alexei. Frankly, nor should they, he's had a solid year, better than last year, established in the last month he still has some power but they were putting him in situations where he wasn't using it, and his defense may well still be better than this if he is put in a place where he needs to stay more focused. I think they're sitting with a high price on Alexei for now, I think the trade deadline established that pretty clearly. Maybe next year it comes down if Semien is 100% ready and Beckham continues to hit. Leury will make a fine utility guy for now. Hopefully his presence will allow them to actually give guys an offday next year, as opposed to waiting until late August like we did this year. If Leury hits well enough to take over the position, spectacular. I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I'd still like to see it happen, especially if they manage to move a pitcher for another bat. Even if that bat is an OF, you can play Semien at 3B. Alexei has been solid -- looks like he'll end up about 3 WAR, but that's still propped up almost totally by defense and positional adjustment. His bat has been solid for a SS, but we're still talking about an 82 wRC+, which is simply not an impact bat. So, since we're talking about having a SS whose value comes almost completely from his glove, I don't know that the dropoff to Leury would be very much at the end of day, and he'd clearly benefit from time to adjust to Majors.

I'd would love to see Alexei moved in the offseason. Would probably need to eat some cash to get a decent prospect, but I can't see any reason not to do that after moving all that payroll over the last couple months. I think Beckham gets one more year, but we need a slot open for Garcia/Semien to get going. Alexei has no upside, so he gawn. I'd also like to see a pitcher moved for a young hitter or prospect. I'd much rather move Santiago than Quintana, but if Quintana brings a substantially better return, I'd go for it. I'd like to see an attempt at extending Quintana otherwise. With Johnson/Rienzo, I'm not sure we even need to sign a buy-low pitcher even if we trade someone over the winter.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 30, 2013 -> 12:50 PM) Map Room is a serious yuppie hangout. Or at least it was until I moved out of Bucktown a couple or three years ago. Not that there's anything wrong with that. By the way, there is a semi-fun Sox bar in Bucktown called Lemming's. Hopleaf all the way, Andersonville! Though damn it gets crowded on weekends.

Cool stuff!

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 29, 2013 -> 09:04 PM) I apologize for posting on Ozzie. I will stop. I can go through and delete all my posts on Ozzie as well. It's not about you posting about Ozzie, it's about you ignoring every single piece of information that doesn't support what you already think. It just gets old, and frustration is bound to bubble over every now and then because people try to explain stuff to you a million ways, but you never change your mind even though you never present anything to defend your point. It's fine to disagree, but not when you can't make any sort of argument for your point of view. It's like if someone kept saying the Earth was flat in every thread, no matter how many times people pointed him toward information proving the Earth was round. Occasionally someone is going to be having a rough day and be tired of hearing it and just blow up about it.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 29, 2013 -> 09:35 AM) LOL we were posting at the same Oh, lol. I totally didn't even notice the time stamp.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 29, 2013 -> 08:47 AM) haha, beat you I'm so bad about hitting reply to posts I see without reading the rest of the thread first, lol.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 28, 2013 -> 11:27 PM) Unfortunately I can't cite fWAR, because they dont show team splits if a player was traded midseason, so I have to use bWAR for that, and according to bWAR he is actually a -0.1 with the Sox coming in to tonight's game. Its possible that will swing to a 0.0 after tonights big game, but like I said, he is losing a lot of value because of how much these metrics hate his defense. I mean, obviously its been a very small sample size, but they have him as probably the worst CF in baseball during his short time out there. Something like a -55 IIRC. They do show the splits, just click the thing that says "partial seasons" at the top of the table.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 28, 2013 -> 10:50 PM) Not to belittle the advanced stat people, but how do you explain your great stat, WAR, when it is obvious that Avi is a contributing greatly, looks great and has a negative WAR. Give me batting average, on base percentage, HRs and RBIs and SBs as stats and I'm happy. Because it includes his time with the Tigers this year, where he was horrible for more time than he's even been on our team. His WAR since he's been with the White Sox is positive. Just once, please, lift a f***ing finger to have some clue what you're talking about before you dismiss an entire school of thought. Just one of these times look at some piece of information before forming your opinion.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 22, 2013 -> 10:59 AM) Binny's and Jewel carry it. It tastes like piss but it packs a punch. This is exactly true

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 27, 2013 -> 01:38 PM) Nah, I have ADD so I'm up on this stuff. Which also explains why I'm posting about it on Soxtalk at 1:38PM on a weekday. I thought posting at 1:38PM just meant that you have a desk job you don't like... oh wait is that just... uh nevermind.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 27, 2013 -> 01:28 PM) Then you must think college students are sick too because there are plenty of them that will fake ADHD to get an adderall prescription so that they can study all night. Well. I mean college students ARE kinda sick...

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Aug 26, 2013 -> 06:54 PM) I totally agree. What is McCann looking at? More or less than the contract that Dunn signed 3 years ago? Before this past season, I'd say to always assume it'll end up much more than we think, but then Bourn and Swisher both ended up signing surprisingly small contracts. That said, I can see some teams going high AAV for a shorter term commitment, so 3/45 seems minimum for a FA class as weak as this. Plus all of the mystical "TV Money™" from the MLB is supposedly kicking in next season. I guess I'd probably be down for McCann if (a) his price is on the low end of what we'd expect, and (b) if we don't land Abreu. If what I've heard from BA/BP podcasts is true regarding Abreu's defense, I think we'd be committing a lot of money to a DH logjam (especially if you think Viciedo sticks around) in a few years if we got both, and that's realistically when positional and financial flexibility should be the most value to us.

I go back and forth on the idea of McCann. On one hand, he's 29 already and injury prone, but on the other, he's 20 times better than any C in our system, there's no one around to clog up 1B/DH after next year, I think the team can be competitive in 2-3 seasons while he will still be able to hit, and there's a chance his contract stays reasonable if teams see him as risky at C for more than a year or two.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 26, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) Hawk and Stone were actually talking about this the other night. Hawk admitted that there are fans who could manage a game just as well as Robin. He said though that managing the personalities is the biggest skill now, however. I do think that is an important skill, and one that we really don't know how to quantify. Agreed 100%. And I think a lot of it has to do with circumstance -- I think the team could respect and play well for a ton of guys if they can make a good initial impression on one another.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 25, 2013 -> 04:15 PM) Is Hawkins the most disappointing offensive prospect in baseball this year? Cody Buckel is probably the most disappointing pitching prospect in the minors. He's the youngest guy in the league. I say no.