Eminor3rd

Here's a tangent, but one that could at least get us to stop talking about board moderation: I was thinking about ticket sales and my own habits of attending games, and I realized something: I don't think the team's record affects how many games I will attend, whatsoever. Every year, I go to about 3-5 games, and watch about 100-120 on TV, no matter how well the team is playing. I was wondering why this is the case, when it seems the main narrative here is that people go to games more when the team is good, presumably because it is only interesting to go if the outcomes are meaningful or the quality of play is high. Further, it seems that people are willing to pay a higher price if the team is good, but that they feel that those prices should drop if the game outcomes mean less. There are a couple things here that don't resonate with me. First is that I think I view attending a game as an experience whose value is derived (mostly, playoffs and pennant races notwithstanding) from everything OTHER than the meaning or quality of the baseball being played. That is, I am a pretty "dedicated" fan in that I pay a lot of attentiont to the team and that my mood is tied greatly to the team's success, but that physically being at the game has nothing to do with any of that. I can watch the games on TV, and in fact, I prefer to watch them on TV nearly all the time because it's way easier to actually follow what is happening. If my interest is in the on-field events, the TV is far superior. If I want to go "do something," showing up at a game is an excellent option. In fact, If I lived in another city, I'd probably still go to 3-5 games per year to see whichever team was there, no matter how little interest I had in that team. Secondly (given everything I just said above), the price of tickets being tied to the quality of the team makes no sense to me, personally. When I think about it, the price of tickets needs to be competitive with other types of things I can choose if I want to go and "do something." Because the ballpark experience is the entire draw, it seems silly for me to expect to pay less when the team isn't good or to be content paying more when they ARE good. So, on a macro level, this makes the common argument of "well they need to maintain a certain level of competitiveness or the fans will stop going to games altogether" kind of a ridiculous one, in my mind. To me, the experience doesn't change enough to cause my behavior to shift with winning percentage. In fact, if the teamsustained enough failure to lower my overall interest, it would more likely affect how much I watched them on TV than it wouild affect how often I attended games. Now, all of this would be different is we couldn't watch the games on TV. If you had to go to the park in order to stay on top of everything, like I suppose you used to, this is all different. So I'm wondering if our atitudes as fans are sort of "behind the curve" when compared to our actual behaviors. Anyway, this is all totally from my perspective. I can see how a more casual fan than a typical Soxtalk poster or even just a person who gets different things out of the ballpark/TV viewing experience may feel differently, but it seems there's some unresolvable dissonance in how we've been viewing these things and I wanted to see how everyone would respond to the stuff above. Thoughts?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 25, 2013 -> 02:51 PM) Take the last 3 games against Cleveland out, what's his OPS? Right, so Kenny failed by not trading for a lefty-platoon player for Viciedo sometime over the last three weeks of the season.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 25, 2013 -> 12:02 PM) Nope. Meaningless baseball on the radio is brutal. Especially when I'm looking forward to listening to B & B on my commute home, and instead it's a bunch of minor leaguers playing ball. I understand how people watch on TV, but spring training on the radio kills me. I don't disagree with you at all about the game, but B&B are the WORST. Oh my god they're excruciating.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 25, 2013 -> 10:31 AM) And yet, the Sox were in first place with two weeks to go, and he was hardly the only one who struggled in those final two weeks. I can't even point to WAR or anything in this situation - if, like, 2 guys step up and play better, the Sox, at the very least, likely have a play-in game against Detroit. Instead, Detroit got hot, the Sox got cold, and they lost the division. Exactly. It's one thing to evaluate in retrospect, but these decisions weren't made in retrospect, Marty. The Sox had this thing in the bag -- all they had to do was exactly what they had been doing thew entire season. By the time everyone knew it was over, it was already over.

QUOTE (WilburWilhelm @ Jan 24, 2013 -> 10:08 PM) I completely disagree. Any player that strikes out 222 times and bats .204 is a poor hitter in any spot in the order. Only two more long years till that bum is gone. The Sox would be better off batting Keppinger third. I'm not dissing your intuition, I think it makes sense, too. But if you are working within the context of the players we have on our team, you are simply incorrect, factually. If you don't believe me, look up Tom Tango's research on batting order optimization by linear weights.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 24, 2013 -> 04:00 PM) Paco Martin Lyle Mouton!

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 24, 2013 -> 10:23 AM) True, but a large part of that is due to Moustakas's glove. I was just referring to their offensive stats. Moose was a bit better last year, but not significantly. Indeed, though if you neutralize his defense, he still had a 2 fWAR season. But, your point is taken -- Moustakas has definitely been better offensively, but not drastically better.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 24, 2013 -> 08:54 AM) Moustakas is younger than Beckham, but so far their numbers aren't very different. Moustakas just had a 3.5 WAR season. Beckham just had a 0.8 WAR season.

#Barves got Upton. Guess we can stop talking about Kubel to the Sox now.

I'll be three rows back behind home plate on that second Angels game

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jan 23, 2013 -> 03:44 PM) Does to me Sox could not beat KC last year before they improved there team this year, and cost Sox the AL Central in 2012. Not beating a team head-to-head and finishing below a team are entirely different things. All 77 losses were equally responsible for us missing the playoffs.

QUOTE (QuickJones81 @ Jan 23, 2013 -> 01:12 PM) Myles Jaye is a surprise in the top 10. Anyone else this high on him? I'm interested in what excites them about him. QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 23, 2013 -> 01:36 PM) I questioned that in another thread. He's got a decent fastball and one good breaking pitch, along with an emerging change-up. But he has control issues as well. He's young. I think he's certainly worth keeping an eye on, but I don't get the 9th ranking at all. Here's this from the article, hope I'm not making people at BP angry

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jan 23, 2013 -> 02:34 PM) Right, but Delmon Young as a prospect had 35+ HR power, if not 40+. He didn't reach it because of his mechanical flaws, but potential is based on what happens if all goes right for player A. Not what is likely or what will happen if his mechanical flaws persist. Well, I'm not saying that he'll have the same developmental path, I'm just using Young as an example of a guy who has way more raw power than game power. Parks says 7+ raw, and 7 power is much higher than 25 homer potential, so I think he's saying that he won't be able to utilize that raw power to its fullest extent against ML pitching. But I could be wrong.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jan 23, 2013 -> 01:48 PM) 25-home run potential for Hawkins? He had eight in 229 at-bats, which extrapolates to 21 HR over a full season. Mind you that was with a wood bat for the first time. Because it's potential and obviously no guarantee he would ever reach that, that seems awfully conservative. I don't think anyone questions his raw power, but game power is a massively different thing from A to the majors. His biggest flaw is his plate discipline, and his weakest tool is his hit tool, and those together can limit his game power. Think Delmon Young.

QUOTE (WilburWilhelm @ Jan 23, 2013 -> 09:19 AM) The theory should have been - batting Adam Dunn third all year long was the difference between winning and losing the central. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2013 -> 09:22 AM) No it wasn't. Lineup changes don't make nearly that big of a difference. Indeed. Tango showed that the difference between the best possible lineup and the WORST possible lineup (pitcher batting 4th, best hitter 9th, etc.) if used every day, all season, was about 2 wins. So the difference between the best possible lineup (which also happens to NOT be what nearly everyone considers the best possible lineup) and practically anything that could arguably be the best lineup is very minimal.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 22, 2013 -> 09:29 PM) http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/hotstove12/...leeper-2013-mlb anybody have insider? interested to see this. Overall, a bunch of stuff we already know about who is playing on our team. Some highlights:

From Jason Parks: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article....articleid=19444

Yeah, I'm pumped to see how that Luis Castillo guy develops.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article....articleid=19444 1. OF Courtney Hawkins 2. OF Trayce Thompson 3. IF Carlos Sanchez 4. RHP Erik Johnson 5. LHP Scott Snodgress 6. RHP Andre Rienzo 7. CF Keenyn Walker 8. RHP Christopher Beck 9. RHP Myles Jaye 10. 1B Keon Barnum There's a paywall, but Jason Parks has the best format for analysis on these lists, by far, IMO. I would consider paying for it if I were you. I'll paste Hawkins' profile so you can get a taste of what you'd be getting:

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 22, 2013 -> 09:54 AM) I didn't think KW did a great job at the deadline last year. Had they addressed their easiest correctable issue, a platoon partner for Viciedo, they may have won the division. I guess I just disagree that a platoon partner for Viciedo was their biggest need. Third base, IMO, was way more important, and I'm fine with KW shoring up the bu,llpen and adding a starter, which he did. Platoon partner for Viciedo would have helped last year, but it had to be 4th or 5th on the list.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 05:23 PM) I don't think we'll be in the position we were in last year at the deadline in the next 2-3 years. For that reason, I thought he should have done more like find a platoon partner for Viciedo for the last two months QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 05:27 PM) If we aren't "in it" why would we worry about finding a platoon partner for a 23 year old OF? Yes, this. I don't understand the connection between those two sentences.

QUOTE (Cali @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 04:42 PM) Well Kenny was supposedly asking "the moon"... If he had just lowered his standards a little maybe they'd have more to spend on a left handed hitter. It's not like Danks missing the season really hurt the team last year. We have to assume, though, that they had no idea he needed shoulder surgery. When you compare the decision at the time, it wasn't really prospects or nothing, it was prospects or the ability to have Danks pitching next year.

QUOTE (whitesox901 @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 05:05 PM) Exactly. Great post, Eminor3rd. Thank you, kind sir.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 04:50 PM) You have to do one or the other. No half-measures at the deadline like last year. I think it's a cost-benefit analysis at the time. That's the core of what we're saying. It's not about "go for it" or "don't go for it," it's about "what can I do to improve this team? What does that cost? Does the situation call for trading the future value it will cost for the present value I'll get?" Depends on who is available and how far ahead or behind we are. I LOVED how KW handled the deadline last year. Those acquisitions were very close to getting us to the playoffs and they cost us NOTHING. Play those few months out a bunch of times and I bet we make the playoffs at least half of them. We had a very real chance -- all we had to do was not collapse at the end -- and we sacrificed almost nothing for the foreseeable future.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 04:10 PM) What's the quickest way out of this mediocrity? If things go right with Sale, Danks Quintana, and Santiago there is an opportunity to build a team that can have sustained success. If things go wrong with those four we could be looking at a 3-5 year rebuild. Totally. I agree, we have the beginnings of a core we didn't have a couple years ago. That's sorta my point: I think the quickest way out is to stay the course, keep acquiring cost-controllable talent, keep making the organization healthier, don't chase shiny things to try to break out today. It sucks, but the quickest way might be a 2-3 year plan that could turn into 4-5 is everything doesn't break right. The good news is that we're a big enough market that we can stay in that middle zone of "plausible contenders" the whole time while we build. So you may never be expecting a championship, but you know that you have as good a shot as 8-10 other AL teams that fight for ~2 playoff spots each year. It's not perfect, but it's reasonable, and our patience has a good shot at paying off in a big way when the model matures.