Eminor3rd

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 19, 2013 -> 11:19 AM) Tulo needs to stop getting hurt. And if we do extend Kershaw it's gonna be for over $200 million, I'd rather keep Sale for a year or two less for $160 millions less. The thing about Tulo though, is that none of his injuries are nagging or project to be long-term. It's not completely unreasonable to assume a lot of it has been bad luck. Wrist broken by a pitch, for example. Kershaw is 25, has universally lauded mechanics, and is the best pitcher in the game. He's the type of guy you are fine paying market value for, especially in a mid-to-large market.

High-end positional talent.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 19, 2013 -> 11:28 AM) I'll be honest, I sort of selfishly wish we could keep Peavy...he's been one of the few bright spots on this lifeless team. I like him too, but it's time to make room for some new guys. This group just isn't working.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 19, 2013 -> 12:44 AM) I never said anyone was an idiot. Strikeout with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs is really bad. Most other situations it does not hurt you anymore than a different kind of out would. There are many people on this board who know a hell of a lot more about advanced metrics than I do by the way but I'll be the saber god if you want me to be. Also, strikeout with 1 out and a runner on first is GOOD compared to anything on the ground when you're slow AND they are shifting on you. What's better and worse depends on the situation. The negative run values attached to outs are based on the average of all possible situations. Overall, on average, a strikeout is just slightly worse than a typical ball in play.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 19, 2013 -> 11:17 AM) Seriously, 7 innings of 2 hit shutout ball with 10 K's would be awesome. If nothing else, the K's should be there against the Braves.

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/white-sox/...o-be-jake-peavy

QUOTE (Knackattack @ Jul 18, 2013 -> 10:59 PM) Peavy is worth more than garza Not until he shows he is healthy.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jul 19, 2013 -> 11:04 AM) Unless they don't get Rios because they wont give him up. The system is desperate for LH bats and Rick needs to start holding out for some. Hanson is intriguing, but with Beckham holding down 2B for the forseeable future, he is a pretty big risk. If Texas and Pittsburgh are the two teams in it for Alex, which ever team gives up either Sardinas or Polanco first wins. Then they just get Schierholtz for way less and platoon him with the recently hot Tabata. Polanco is a top 25 prospect in the league, we'll be very lucky if we get him for Rios. They just aren't that desperate because they have other options.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 19, 2013 -> 10:33 AM) Not a single person in that group I'd trade Sale for straight-up. I'd take Tulo and/or Cabrera. And I'd take Kershaw if I thought I could extend him, which would be the case if you were trading for him.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 19, 2013 -> 10:15 AM) Alexei, Rios, and cash to PIttsburgh for something like: Hanson, Kingham, Tabata, and Mercer. Is that enough? Too much? Barrett Barnes is a guy that the Sox were rumored to be taking with the draft pick that they selected Keon Barnum with. Lambo is old I do believe but he is hitting a ton of homers in their system. Also, Stetson Allie is a guy I'd take a flyer on. He didn't work out as a pitcher but he is killing the ball in A Ball as a hitter. Pittsburgh has a ton of prospects. I would think Polanco, Taillon, and Glasnow are guys that they'd like to keep but other guys should be in play. I think that's a realistic trade.

I don't think anyone disagrees that you'd rather not give players huge money, long-term contracts because of all the risk involved. That said, individual teams don;t get to set the market -- this is simply the price of admission. These contracts get signed where supply meets demand.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 19, 2013 -> 09:05 AM) I think this might actually be one of the best fits out there. I agree and have been saying this for weeks. I'm bracing myself to be disappointed by the return, though. Polanco I think is untouchable in this type of deal, and Heredia scares me based on what I've heard BP guys report over the past year or so. That being said, I think we'd have to be satisfied if either Hanson or Glasnow is the centerpiece.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jul 18, 2013 -> 11:54 PM) Rios and Alexei for Polonco, Hanson, Kingham and Herrera? Does that seem like a steep price? Yeah, that's too much, I think, unless the Sox pay all of the salary.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2013-trade-value-20-16/

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 18, 2013 -> 02:52 PM) Good post, but I can't see him getting $10 million a season anytime in the future. You can blame age, but I'd blame production. Re. Dunn. It's the annual advanced stats people vs. normal stat people. When he goes 1-for-30 or strikes out 3-4 times in a game, I think that contributes to lineup lethargia and overall team s***tiness. Maybe he does have some value, but I think most people who do not follow advanced stats closely would disagree violently. To many people, Dunn is a lineup wrecker because of his Ks and long stretches of awful-ness. Greg, he isn't a superstar nor is he a lineup wrecker. He is a player very good at some things, very bad at others, and it all adds up to 10% above league average offensively, with no defensive value. He is a roughly average DH. That is his value. Overpaid or underpaid, he is not anything extreme.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 18, 2013 -> 01:41 PM) As I said in the minor league forum, this now make 4 1B's in Charlotte: Wilkins, McDade, L Anderson and now Ishikawa. Anderson has been terrible and is probably gone. One of the others may go as well, though they may be hoarding extra 1B types knowing they MIGHT trade PK or Dunn. Still though, 4 is silly, you can't get them playing time. 3 is even silly, IMO. This also gives you an idea that the org probably doesn't see Dan Black as a future major leaguer, for those who have asked on that before. Yeah, I cant imagine Anderson sticks around now.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 18, 2013 -> 01:05 PM) Just by following this conversation , I'd venture to guess most of the Sox WAR is on the pitching side whereas Clevelands is evenly distributed, so any value the Sox have in pitching WAR is negated by lack of hitting WAR . So teams can have even WAR's but a team where it is more evenly distributed between offense and pitching probably has a better record. Is this assumption correct and a better way to explain it than trying to explain how Wins Above Replacement does not translate to actual wins and losses to the layman ? Dick Allen is right -- a win is a win is a win. Whether it's pitching or hitting or defense, the inputs that go into the stat are all broken down to runs saved or runs earned, which obviously have equal value. The reason it doesn't add up to actual wins is really just what I was trying to explain before about the stat assigning value to events based on their average outcomes versus their actual outcomes. But, again, the stat was NOT designed to add up to actual wins, so it isn't a surprise that it doesn't. It's really all about trying to compare players on an equal playing field. Is Peter Bourjos (all defense) having a better year than David Ortiz (all offense)? Is Adrian Beltre (clean up in a stacked lineup) really playing better than Ryan Braun (cleanup in a garbage lineup)? It essentially tries to serve as en equalizer of context and play-style by measuring all of a players contributions by the amount of runs they typically produce. Dick Allen -- you're right that it isn't perfect, but I still think you're looking for the stat to do more than it is supposed to do. It's very useful for a lot of things, but matching team records isn't it. It's sort of like how people get caught up on pitcher wins. When someone says "who cares about everything else, nothing matters more than a win," you can't really argue. The problem is that pitchers wins are NOT the same stat as team wins, they just have the same name. That's true, also, of wins above replacement. The win we're talking about is really defined as "produced ten runs above replacement," and we call it a win because of pythag, but it isn't the same stat as what shows up on the standings. A tangent on the "imperfection" of WAR-like stats: the product is onyl as good as the inputs. So, if they aren't right, it's not so much about the idea of them as it is about the data that goes in. Currently, the LEAST reliable components of these stats are centered on (1) evaluating catcher defense. The errors and throws are easy, but what about pitch framing and game calling? All studies so far can't find the differences showing up in the results, and no one is willing to accept that it doesn't matter, so we assume there's more there that we haven't figured out how to measure, (2) factoring leverage into RP evaluation. SPs gain a ton of value by soaking up innings, but and RP inning is not often the same as a SP inning in terms of value because RP innings often occur in more important game situations. Leverage index is currently factored in, but how much weight it's given is up to debate, and (3) positional defense. UZR makes perfect sense in all but extreme shift situations, but the numbers tend to fluctuate more than people expect them to, which leads many to distrust them.

Yeah, stopgap. Hopefully it means a pending Dunn trade, hopefully it doesn't mean Konerko is cooked.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jul 18, 2013 -> 07:35 AM) Maybe Konerko is retiring in 11 days. Or Dunn is about to be traded?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 09:10 PM) But these aren't projections, this is actual WAR accumulated this season. Cleveland is 14 games ahead of the White Sox, yet their total WAR is identical.To suggest they are even in performance but that much better based on managing or luck doesn't make sense. Just like all stats, basic and most advanced, it is flawed. Perhaps very flawed. I take it to mean not all exactly equal WAR players are exactly equal. Some must be far better than others. Going further with the coin flip analogy: If you flip a coin ten times, you would PROJECT 5 heads and 5 tails, meaning of all possible individual outcomes, it is the most likely. However, it is actually far more likely that the true outcome will be something other than 5H+5T, but not specifically anything else -- no individual combination is more likely to occur. Does that make sense?

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 10:01 PM) I certainly think issues such as lazy defense, bad base running and poor managing has contributed to half of our misery this year. I don't know the extent to which WAR measures those factors. The team isn't very good, but the starting pitching is good, the front of the bullpen was too prior to Crain's injury. Certainly not a horrendous team as it has played, although a below average team. It mostly doesn't -- team WAR is just the sum or individual player WAR. So anything that happens that has to do with how the players interact with one another or how different streaks or sequences of events occur will NOT be reflected. These are the factors that make reality reality and so it cannot be predicted entirely by a mathematical formula.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 09:10 PM) But these aren't projections, this is actual WAR accumulated this season. Cleveland is 14 games ahead of the White Sox, yet their total WAR is identical.To suggest they are even in performance but that much better based on managing or luck doesn't make sense. Just like all stats, basic and most advanced, it is flawed. Perhaps very flawed. I take it to mean not all exactly equal WAR players are exactly equal. Some must be far better than others. I don't think you understood the beginning part of Jake's post. The reason it is off is because there is nothing like a normal distribution of events in real life. Also, it is a fallacy to assume that because someone will regress, they will regress completely to the original projection or true talent -- just that they will regress TOWARD it. Past events, whether likely or not, are in the bank, so to speak, there's no law that says it all has to even out. That's the gambler's fallacy. It's like if a coin flip is 50/50 and you flip 5 heads in a row, its not more likely that the next 5 will be tails -- it's 50/50 every time. Again, take a look at those articles. Especially the second one.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 07:14 PM) So the Sox team WAR is the same as Cleveland's. the Angels team WAR is ome of the best in baseball. There is reason to doubt WAR as a useful, accurate tool. I like to use it, but ii really is not consistent with the standings, and I know nothing is going to be perfect, but it is significantly off in many cases. Again -- it comes down to using a stat to answer the question it was meant to answer. All linear weights-based metrics, including WAR, are designed to make a descriptive, context-neutral evaluation of performance so as to be able to compare such performances across different situations (players, leagues, eras, strategies, etc.) It is essentially using math to find an ultimate common denominator. What WAR does is tell you how many wins would be created by a performance in an entirely average chain of events. This never actually occurs, but it's useful because now we can make comparisons. Projections seek to do the same thing -- describe the average outcome. What those standings say is this: "Here is what actually happened and here is what the player's performances should have produced on average . It essentially is what happened versus what the teams "earned." Then, they take it one step further and say "if the players continue to play as they have, their results should regress toward what their performance 'earns,' and they should end up closer to this " If you think these projections are claiming to be a crystal ball, you are mistaken, and you should read these articles (one of them involving the White Sox even!) by old Dave Cameron: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/of-projecti...nd-predictions/ http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-differe...nd-projections/ Anyone who has watched or played sports knows that the winner is often not the most deserving or most talented -- that is, I believe, at the very core of what makes sports interesting -- and these types of standings strive to give us a deeper look at team performance by not just showing us the winners, but also showing us who has "played the best." It's interesting information for fans like all of us, who tend to spend a ton of time picking apart every aspect of our team and its plight.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 06:28 PM) And why is that? Because that is the way that these stats were biased. Change the importance of a piece of the puzzle, and their values could change drastically. "Biased" is the wrong word though. Run values that are attached to both offensive and defensive metrics are based on large sample correlations of historical data. No one is arbitrarily "deciding" what things are worth -- they are studying how events impact the game and weighting them mathematically.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 17, 2013 -> 05:48 PM) Yeah, I appreciate what you always bring to the table. Although I'm not sure wrc+/woba can provide the entire context...there has to be some value to the fact that baseball games are decided by who scores the most runs and Adam Dunn is capable of producing them extremely well in short bursts. There is a context that can be provided in simpler ways than just isn't with some of these more advanced metrics (at least not to my knowledge). Yeah, sequencing is an interesting matter. To my knowledge, most attempts at judging the value of consistency vs. streakiness have been inconclusive, though I do specifically remember someone creating a stat called BACON (Batting Consistency) that was supposed to measure who had their hits distributed most evenly. If I recall correctly, Ichiro was the champion there. Ahh, yes: http://www.plunkeveryone.com/?p=95