Eminor3rd

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 18, 2011 -> 07:56 AM) Take a look at the 2012 Free Agent Pitching class, as it currently stands. Jared Weaver Matt Cain Cole Hamels Zach Greinke John Danks Isn't Greinke the only one that the Yankees aren't the best fit for? I'd be willing to bet that Weaver, Cain, and Hamels are all retained. Of the three, Cain would be the most likely to go.

QUOTE (oldsox @ May 18, 2011 -> 08:38 AM) Disagree. If we offer arbitration, they will prob accept and then we are stuck with the salaries. Esp MB. MB could accept, especially considering that he has been playing around with retirement, etc. Jackson, however, will absolutely NOT accept. He's expected to be one of the top FA starters on the market and will surely get a multiyear deal, at probably more than his current $8m/yr salary, if he continues to pitch like he has (two dominant starts for every one complete disaster). The sandwich pick there is money in the bank, so long as he stays healthy.

Looking for it, got it, misses it EVERY TIME

Morel needs more AB in the majors. He doesn't have holes in his swing, he just looks overmatched. He needs reps against good pitching. Also, nothing Omar Vizquel can do is going to turn this team around. He's a very useful piece, but it's in this team;s best interest to let Morel figure it out at the major league level.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 5, 2011 -> 03:26 PM) Would the Rays trade Longoria? Would the Rockies trade Tulo? Would the Marlins or Dodgers trade Johnson or Kershaw? That's what I meant. I'm giving love to Castro and hating on our pathetic roster at the same time. I would go as far as to say that the Marlins will LIKELY trade Johnson.

This game is excruciating

QUOTE (qwerty @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 05:02 PM) Really wish they would have won one before the sox played them. The odds... the odds. Gambler's fallacy! Now that they've already lost 4 in a row, the odds of them losing another are the same as them winning one. The unlikely streak is only unlikely before it starts.

F*CK LILLIBRIDGE

I predict Pierre goes yard today.

Guys. Lillibridge is horrible. Seriously, let's try to catch lightning in a bottle with Milledge.

QUOTE (chisoxfan09 @ Mar 14, 2011 -> 08:45 AM) I have high hopes Morel is going to be an above average hitting 3rd baseman. Not a batting champ or OBP machine but decent enough to start and compliment his solid defense. I think Morel will become Brandon Inge

O'Hare is a zoo. Go with Midway whenever possible. Kuma's Corner is where you can get the greatest burgers in the entire world. My favorite pizza place is Art of Pizza, but the famous ones are great too (Uno, Gino's East, Lou Malnatti's, etc.) As mentioned before, find a place on the Red Line. Takes you almost everywhere important, including the Cell. I get all my tickets on StubHub =\

My favorite player. For real. I have a Thornton shirt and everything.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 07:14 PM) Except that most catchers tend to not be productive hitters in their mid-30s. Look at Piazza, Johnny Bench, and I-Rod. Thurman Munson's numbers began to drop in his early 30s, a season and a half before his death. Fisk is the notable exception. If you have a decent defensive catcher who calls a good game and his "meh" with the bat (A.J.), then I'm cool with running him out there behind the plate until his knees crumble. Because that's where the vast majority of his value lies. But when you have a hitting talent like Mauer AND owe him $100M+ of guaranteed money, you make his health and longevity a priority. The problem is that a .330 avg with 12 homers and no speed isn't worth anywhere close to $23m in any other position on the diamond, especially not 1B or DH.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 07:19 AM) So do the Twins have anything on the way up in terms of minor league starting pitching? It seems like they've had the same batch of 5-6 guys as their starters since at least 2008. I think Kyle Gibson is about ready.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 29, 2011 -> 09:45 AM) Really? Why do you disagree with that? I thought the fact that all Delmon Young does well on D is throw was pretty firmly established. Yeah, Delmon is consistently below average defensively. Good arm, bad range, bad routes. The thing about the Twins is that their SP staff is due to completely implode. IMO, they've been playing over their heads for a couple years now.

Wow! The unmovable Vernon Wells. And they got Napoli back? AA is a f*cking magician!

Couple thoughts: 1) Teahen was nothing short of a trainwreck defensively last year at third. It was so bad that I actually think he's probably better than what he showed. Certainly, no one that's GOOD defensively plays that badly, but with a larger sample, I bet he's closer to 'below average' than 'Ryan Howard' level. 2) Having said that, I think my favorite role for Teahen is backup RF for CQ. Since CQ is obviously not going to be DH this year with any regularity, he's going to need significant rest if he's going to stay off the DL. Not sure what CQ's platoon splits are like, but I would definitely be in favor of throwing Teahen in RF against some tough righties, esp. if CQ is in a slump, and esp. now that a CQ/Teahen platoon will never need to bat higher than 6th in the order. Teahen is bad in RF too, but he's not as bad as CQ, and he's not as bad as he is at 3B. Essentially, I liken Teahen to a slower, better hitting alternative to Lillibridge.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 10:58 PM) Good article overall, and the comp to Masterson is one of the lesser points that gets discussed in the Sale closer vs. starter debates, yet it's a solid one. Sale flies open to right-handed hitters and gives them the opportunity to see the ball longer, which means that Sale as a starter is really going to have to develop that changeup if he's going to be successful facing RH hitters three times per game or so. As a closer Sale can use the change to keep hitters honest, but as a starter it'll be his main weapon, especially when he's working in the low-90's as opposed to the mid to upper-90's as would be the case out of the rotation. Same thing goes with Sale's slider vs. LH, it's going to be something he'll have to rely on a lot more and isn't going to appear nearly as devastating when he has to throw it for a strike in a hitters count following a FB that is 4-5mph slower than what we see out of the pen. Sale's best weapons are blazing FB, deception, and the ability to throw 3 pitches, but putting him out there as a starter takes away some of that blaze off the FB, minimizes that deception given repeat ABs, and forces him to throw his offspeed stuff for strikes more often. Also, in closing situations the game is on the line, and hitters often get in "swing for the fences" mode which allows someone like Sale to go out there and, more often than normal, get ahead of a hitter with a couple decent-to-bad sliders because the guy at the plate is sitting on the FB. But it seems like in earlier parts of the game hitters are more patient, and may wait for the pitcher to get a strike or two over before getting serious. And then you have the durability/mechanical concerns. The only thing I disagree with is any kind of implication that players are worth their WAR and that Sale as a closer is basically Bronson Arroyo. To me that's just like comparing the OPS of a corner OF with the OPS of a SS. That is nuts. Sale as a closer is horrible sight for hitter. His job is to kill rallies, send people home, and do it all year long whether in the regular season or in the playoffs, big game vs. a division rival or against the lowly Royals. Arroyo's job OTOH is to do a decent job eating innings over the course of a 162-game season, helping his team get to the playoffs and then hopefully (for his team's sake) hiding out at the back of the playoff rotation. There are far more Bronson Arroyo types in baseball than Chris Sale types. BTW I don't have a major problem with Sale as a starter even though I'd much rather see him as a closer. I just see it an unnecessary move that could easily backfire. And I don't see his ceiling as a starter nearly as high as it seems most of the people here do. I've seen a couple times at least where people have said he'd be at or above Danks' level. I completely disagree with that. I agree, wholeheartedly, that his stuff will not be nearly as dominant in a starter role. That's why I'm in favor of starting him in Charlotte and letting him figure his game out on AAA guys instead of at the bigs. I'm of the opinion that we can ALWAYS convert him to a reliever, but we should give him as much of a chance as we can to let him figure out how to be a starter first.

Eh, no way. Way too much money to take on, and I have a feeling we'd grow to HATE Ibanez.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/t...sale-conundrum/

QUOTE (kwill @ Jan 10, 2011 -> 05:03 PM) Stop trying to sell me car insurance. Hahahaha I thought that too, assumed it was just me.

I'd like to see some sort of data on the success of bouncing pitchers back and forth (which I'm sure doesn't exist because it would be impossible to gather) before I felt strongly either way. I'm just not convinced in the viability of the strategy solely from cherry-picking a couple examples of one-in-a-million freaks of nature like Santana and Smoltz.

http://bloggingfromthebleachers.wordpress....stics-part-two/ The tables aren't pasting very well, my apologies. Link above. Interesting to see the Sox pitching staff (MB, Danks, Floyd, Jackson, Peavy in the post above) coming out so mediocre in terms of the standard DIPS-like rate stats, but so totally elite in terms of bWAR. The likely explanation for this highlights one major strength of our rotation that often gets overlooked: the propensity to pitch a ton of innings. If you really think about it, our guys are really good at (1) not getting blown out of games early, and (2) staying off the DL, Peavy notwithstanding. What does this mean? For one, it means we'll do a good job of protecting the bullpen, hopefully minimizing the impact of it becoming worse this offseason. It also means that if someone DOES get hurt, it significantly diminishes the value of the group as a whole. Obviously, there a a million different ways to rank and evaluate pitching rotations, but I thought the post above raised an interesting thought.

QUOTE (beckham15 @ Jan 8, 2011 -> 03:33 PM) we already have that in Chris Sale You know, I may be in the minority, but I really hope Sale starts the season in Charlotte. The reason is because he clearly isn't going to be throwing as hard as a starter, and I'd like to see him test his "starter repertoire" on the AAA guys before bringing it to the majors. I'd just hate to see him get pounded a couple times early on and hurt his confidence or start trying ridiculous mechanical things to accommodate.