OmarComing25

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Sep 7, 2015 -> 12:32 PM) I think cooper needs to go more than Williams or Hahn. Why?

When was the last time a pitcher who had success in the NL replicated that success in the AL? Cueto has sucked, and Hamels has just been OK for the Rangers (I'm aware of the small sample sizes). We all know what's happened with Samardzija. I can't think of one. I guess Volquez has been OK this year but he's not really a guy I would say has had a past history of success.

In 2012 we went 2-6 against the 69-93 Red Sox, and 6-12 against the 72-90 Royals. No skullf***ing needed, we go .500 against those two teams and we win the division.

It's baseball. The Royals could get swept out of the first round or they could win it all and neither result would surprise me in the least.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 6, 2015 -> 10:38 AM) I kinda want the Cubs to get to the WS just to see the board implode. lol. I can't believe how many people here have the Cubs living rent free in their heads. This is pretty funny coming from the guy that can't keep it in his pants anytime the Cubs win a game.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 07:25 PM) With regards to the weak contact stuff, how about the fact that the reason his ERA is so high is because the Twins have destroyed him this year? In those games, it definitely wasn't weak contact. There's no doubt that a majority of his games, Sale just dominates. I don't know, I still think the Minnesota thing is mostly a fluke. Look at Randy Johnson. In his most dominant season (2001), he had a BABIP of .315, well above his career average. I don't think that in a season where Johnson struck out around 40% of the batters he faced that the rest were squaring him up well. Seems more like the randomness that is baseball.

I Know I should be cheering for us to lose right now for draft position, but f*** the Royals, I'll always root for beating them.

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 10:57 PM) Good young arms? Who? Fulmer and Johnson? We can't count on either of them to be in the MLB rotation next year. We have a lot of potential SP prospects in the minors. Why can't we count on Johnson next year?

Ok c'mon going by overall record to judge an offense doesn't make sense. Arrieta has faced a lot of s*** offenses in the NL but the D'Backs have a pretty good offense. Edit: For the record, the Cardinals don't have a great offense.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 08:05 PM) Thanks for clarifying FWIW, I don have a problem with the view that Arrieta has been better this year. The ERA difference is pretty big, and I'm not necessarily in the camp of "pitcher's have 0% control on balls in play". The case for Arrieta is strong. I've always used ERA a lot, but this year has just made me sour on it a bit because of Sale. His advanced metrics are the best of his career by far, but his ERA is looking like it's going to be the worst of his career so far. With a difference that stark it just feels like ERA is missing a big part of the story. I mean it doesn't make sense that Sale is giving up the weakest contact of his career yet he's giving up more hits. There's something else there. And when the same pattern exists with the other pitchers on the same staff (like with Quintana), that just further increases that doubt in my mind.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 07:34 PM) What's sequencing in regards to? FWIW, I'm a much bigger believer in WAR, etc for hitters than I am FIP for pitchers. Sequencing is the order you give up hits. Let's say two pitchers give up a walk, a single, and a homer in an inning. If Pitcher A gives up the homer first, then the other two, he ends up giving up only one run. If Pitcher B gives up the walk and single first and then the home run, he gives up three runs. ERA says Pitcher B was three times worse than Pitcher A. FIP says they were the same, because in a way they essentially did the same thing.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 06:56 PM) Sale absolutely was better last year, IMO. Significantly fewer hits allowed. He also was way, way better with RISP last year. Agree to disagree then. There's way too much noise in the ERA metric for me to trust it too much (BABIP luck, defense, sequencing), this year has convinced me of that. Sale has been far more dominant this year than last year IMO.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 05:42 PM) Difference in ERA between Greinke and Kershaw is half the difference between Arrieta and Sale. A 2.03 vs a 3.29 ERA is a pretty obvious choice for me as to the better pitcher for that season. Sale has given up weaker contact than Arrieta if you look at their batted ball profiles. He has him beat pretty handily by every advanced metric. Was Sale better last year compared to this year? I don't think so.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 02:51 PM) Arrieta on his way to not giving up a run in his start. Would be 6 of his last 7 starts. Can't believe some think Sale has been better this year. On the things we know pitchers can control, Sale has been better this year. Do you think Greinke has been better than Kershaw this year?

With the second wildcard, it's easier to make the playoffs than ever. Hell an AL team might make it this year with 83-84 wins.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Sep 4, 2015 -> 12:51 PM) Not really, the expected WAR is about 1. Yes maybe the Sox can make a good pick, but the chances the guy ever even makes MLB is 50/50 at best. Well yeah, most draft picks fail, but we're comparing the value of the supplemental pick to a random team's #8-10 ranked prospect. I'll take the former, unless it's the #8 ranked prospect in a loaded system, especially considering most fans would have seen this as White Flag #2.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 4, 2015 -> 12:38 PM) Fulmer was thought to be maybe a tiny step behind where Rodon was. I could totally see him in the bigs next year and I could totally see him taking Danks's spot at some point during the year. I'd also agree with "not rushing him" but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him starting at AAA next year and moving up rapidly. Would it be more likely to see Fulmer taking Danks' spot next year if we were contending or not contending?

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Sep 4, 2015 -> 12:13 PM) No way, I can see them with the same path as Rodon next year. Rodon started the year in AAA and bypassed AA. Is Fulmer as major-league ready as Rodon was? Unless we kick Danks to the bullpen or trade EJ/Q there's really no room for him in the rotation next year. No need to rush him, let him take over Danks' spot when his contract is up next season.

Great read, seems like all the guys have good attitudes, great to see out of Adams especially at such a young age. I know our minor league staff constantly gets s*** on for not developing position players but I feel they don't get enough praise for the work they've done with pitchers, and it seems like Perdew has been a big part of that.

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Sep 4, 2015 -> 09:09 AM) This is where we speculate, because I feel that while we weren't going to receive a top return; judging by what Kazmir received (and figuring Shark would command less) we could have still picked up atleast one teams Top 10 prospect. I'll never believe that they were going to trade Shark in the WC position they were in unless blown away with an offer. This is my issue, because many of us knew the true nature of the team and didn't want the illusion of competing to cloud their judgement. That's why I hope if they ever find thenselves in a similar circumstance they don't hesitate to trade Meh, I'd glad we kept him instead of trading him for a team's top 10 prospect, especially if it was a team with a farm system that isn't that deep. The supplemental pick could give us another guy like Spencer Adams, who is far better than a team's #10 prospect.

Greg I'm surprised you don't put $1,000+ moneyline on the Royals every time they play the Sox.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Sep 3, 2015 -> 07:25 PM) What fanbase that hardly ever makes the playoffs and has 1 world title in 100 years isn't miserable? Ever visit a New York knicks board? Mariners? Come on, don't sell the fans s*** and call it gold. This franchise and this ownership group has not been good overall. 1 title in 100 years does not, and will not ever, negate that. Just on average you'd have expected 3 titles or more over a 100 years, and that's average. I never said it was good overall, and I can't wait for JR to sell and KW to leave, I guess I just don't understand putting so much energy into something that constantly makes you miserable. I understand that this franchise doesn't make the playoffs that often and only has 1 title in the last 98 years, but from my perspective as a 25-year-old fan, it really hasn't been that bad. I don't really give a s*** how many titles the White Sox won well before I was born, what they did in the 1920s and 1930s has no relevance at all to today. Besides, judging so heavily on titles feels a little misguided IMO given the randomness of the sport. Was the last decade a failure for the Tigers? We won a title but I'd still give the Tigers the edge here. The Marlins have won 2 titles recently due to a couple lucky playoff runs but have been a complete joke of a franchise otherwise. My roommate is a big Phillies fan and he has said multiple times that from 2008-2011 the Phillies got better every year but did worse in the playoffs every successive year. Their worst team in that run was the only one to get it done, and the best one by far got bounced in the first round. Hell, I think that the 2006 and 2011 Cardinal teams were two of their worst teams in the last 15 years, yet those were the two that won the titles. The baseball playoffs are just so random that I don't put as much stock into who actually wins it because the best team rarely wins it all. It's still important but not nearly as much as in other sports IMO (especially the NBA). I realize that even taking away titles the outlook doesn't look that great for us, but would so many fans here be so disgruntled right now if we had made the playoffs in two of the 2006, 2010, and 2012 seasons? I don't think so. We were very close in all three of those years, a couple small things go differently and I don't think so many fans are on the ledge if we had made the playoffs 4 times in a decade. That's not to say that I give them a pass for not making the playoffs those seasons, but this has hardly been a Pirates or Royals-like run of complete suckitude for several decades. I still had a ton of fun in those three seasons even if we ultimately didn't make the playoffs.

QUOTE (knightni @ Sep 4, 2015 -> 09:03 AM) The Sox love free-swingers, I guess. Not really, we're smack dab in the middle of the AL in the last decade in strikeouts.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 3, 2015 -> 06:53 PM) Even in a post like this, you manage to again to clearly note that we have a bandwagon fan base. It is a fact of Soxdom. I don't know why everyone is so offended by this, as if it weren't true or something. You can make whatever excuses you want, and justify it however you want, but the numbers are what the numbers are. I don't feel that is is particularly "astute" to pretend that reality doesn't exist. If I didn't read the perpetual complaining about pretty much everything post after post after post about it, there wouldn't be anything to respond to. In fact I honestly can't comprehend how so many people can take so much of a negative experience from this franchise, yet keep coming back to complain about it. If things are really that bad, why in the world are you still wasting time on it? If this has really let you down for 49 of the past 50 years, and you STILL come back for more, the problem lies much deeper than a franchise's overall success rate. Afterall you know what the definition of insanity is... Agreed, there's a contingent of Sox fans that are always miserable and you wonder why they haven't gone to another team already if they hate the franchise so much. I'm not happy with the current state either but I don't get the point of endlessly complaining. Yeah we're a bandwagon fanbase but so are most fanbases so meh. We're hardly unique there.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 3, 2015 -> 02:28 PM) for me, i always thought of the person who is stating that Q is a #1 or ace, well as being a hard core fan. i have no problem saying that Q is a weak #2 solid #3. now if he a better offense or team.... that may move him to a solid #2. Quintana is at worst a very good #2. You don't judge pitchers on the quality of the team around them, especially the offense.