OmarComing25

I don't have a problem with LaRoche in the lineup. If we have any hope of contending next year he needs to turn things around.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Sep 1, 2015 -> 09:34 AM) It's interesting to think about next year and ways to get better immediately. Our pitching staff looks relatively set for the next couple years and should be much better with a defensively sound team behind them. Do you keep Sanchez at second and Saladino at third? Both rate out extremely well in terms of their defensive abilities. Do you see a bigger platoon between Eaton and TNT? Do you take all this money coming off the books in the next couple seasons and go after a big fish like Heyward? He immediately makes this team much better defensively. White Sox starting pitchers have a 4.23 ERA and a 3.67 FIP, no other rotation has such a huge difference. The interesting thing to note is the A's are actually outperforming their FIP (3.24 ERA, 3.65 FIP), yet their defense is ranked 28th and not too far ahead of ours. I have a potential theory to explain some of that difference. The A's poor defense has mostly come from the infield, while their outfield defense is just a tad below average. Meanwhile, our outfield defense has been completely dreadful, while our infield defense hasn't been nearly as bad. When your infielders have poor range, you'll give up some more extra-base hits, but a lot of the extra hits will just be singles. However, a poor defensive outfield means almost every extra hit you're giving up is going for extra bases. Interestingly, our relievers have outperformed their FIP (3.35 ERA, 3.73 FIP). However, this can probably partially be explained by all the groundball pitchers we have in the pen who are causing hitters to hit balls to our strong(er) defenders. However, our rotation gives up a significantly higher percentage of flyballs than our bullpen does, and they're getting burned by our horrific outfield defense. A guy like Heyward would alleviate this problem considerably.

Schwarber's last 15 games: .148/.246/.389, 22 Ks Not saying he won't still be a monster for years to come, but can we wait for him to play more than 50 games in his career before anointing him as the centerpiece of the next Murderer's Row (or saying we should have picked him over Rodon)?

The Cubs are 74-56 with a +22 run differential (13th overall). The A's have a +18 run differential yet are 58-74. Baseball is weird.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 31, 2015 -> 08:04 PM) More Cubs brilliance. They add solid pieces without dipping into their farm system cache. I'm pretty sure you're incapable of posting without talking about how something is "genius", "brilliant", or "the greatest thing ever". QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Aug 31, 2015 -> 08:39 PM) ESPN Chicago poll of best pitcher in Chicago (as of 2 minutes ago): Jake Arrietta - 62% Chris Sale - 38% Not sure I agree with that. Arrieta has certainly made this race a lot closer than it was at the beginning of the year, but Sale is still the clear winner right now. Those same voters would probably (incorrectly) vote Greinke over Kershaw too.

White Sox defensive ranks over the last 7 years (ERA rank in parentheses): 2015: 30th (17th) 2014: 28th (27th) 2013: 22nd (20th) 2012: 8th (19th) 2011: 20th (19th) 2010: 27th (18th) 2009: 25th (7th) Not as much of a correlation as I would have thought, but being 28th in defense over the past 7 years can't have helped our ERA. From 2009-2015 our pitching is 20th in ERA but 2nd in fWAR.

Being "brutally honest" also doesn't necessarily mean you're right in what you're saying or make your opinion suddenly more valid.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Aug 30, 2015 -> 09:46 PM) Have you looked at us recently? We are a mirror image of both of those clubs. Man you sure do whine a lot. The outlook is not as bleak as you claim.

To guarantee that Sale will have a sub-2 ERA in the NL seems pretty silly. But a 2-2.25 ERA is not at all unreasonable. He has a 2.47 FIP over the last two seasons, and adding in the usual NL discount we should expect an ERA in the low 2s.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 30, 2015 -> 09:22 PM) agreed but I would be willing to bet anyone the Cubs don't win the Series this year. I'd be willing to bet anyone that any particular team won't win it all, odds are always going to be in your favor if you take the field. This isn't the NBA where Golden State is getting favorable odds in Vegas to win a title at the beginning of the playoffs.

If you're the Cubs do you try to extend Arrieta right now? At the rate he's going he's going to get a hefty sum in 2018.

Honestly it's foolhardy to make predictions on what will happen in the playoffs. Baseball is just so random anything could happen and I wouldn't be surprised. A team could win 115 games 5 straight seasons and never get out of the first round. On the other hand, a mediocre team could get hot and win it all due to some scrub playing over his head. The quality of the team means less in the baseball playoffs than in any other sport. You just have to get in.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 30, 2015 -> 09:05 PM) I have more of an idea for offense, but how is that figured out for pitchers? Seems ridiculous if the difference between Sale and Arrieta is almost same between Arrieta and Q. It's based mostly on FIP. According to advanced metrics Sale and Kluber have been the two best pitchers in the AL this year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 10:01 AM) So if you're going to max out your salary spending you darn well better have a team that has some room to survive a couple players underperforming or getting hurt! And we've even been unbelievably lucky this year on health too! We've been lucky on injuries, yeah, but we also consistently have one of the healthiest teams every year, that's not an accident.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 09:36 AM) The rebuild was going fine until they decided to take a U-turn last winter and sign a bunch of veteran stiffs. You can look at the rebuild of the Astros and Cubs ans most of their talent was not acquired from trades. It was acquired from signings of international players and through the astute drafting. Yes the Cubs got their ace from a trade but that was from a trade anything should do – Dumping a mediocre veteran in July for a young player. Again that's another thing Sox simply did not do over the last year. The Cubs only got two of their pieces on the current team through the draft, every other major piece came through free agency or a trade (Rizzo, Arrieta, Russell, Montero, Fowler, Lester, Hammel, every good pitcher in their bullpen). Soler was an international signing but he has a negative WAR this year and is not one of the reasons for their success.

Even if Trayce can only put up an OPS of .650ish, if he plays good defense and is average on the basepaths then that is already a better option than Avi.

Another reason I don't like a full rebuild is because I don't have faith in proper execution. A big problem has been the inability to develop hitters, but if we go full rebuild with the same crew, then that doesn't fix the root problem. We need a change at the top before it makes sense to commit to a full rebuild.

I still completely disagree that a full rebuild is necessary or the right move, especially with our rotation. We need to make a few savvy moves and have a couple young guys turn into usable pieces, and I see no reason we can't be a pretty good contender by 2017. Hell, if our team this year just repeated their 2014 seasons, we'd likely have a wildcard spot right now. The situation is not extremely dire by any means. Half the reasons for the Cubs success this year were guys picked up off the scrap heap. We hit on a couple similar-type moves and suddenly everything looks different. Yes we have a lot of holes on the position player side, but we have a lot of pitching talent in the organization, and if we continue to develop them into guys that can contribute at the ML level we can trade our surplus to fill those holes. We don't have a horribly aging team, no crippling contracts, and we've been drafting a lot better in the last few years both locally and internationally. We're not necessarily in an enviable position of course, but I don't see reason for such extreme pessimism, especially considering we lost 99 games just two years ago and in today's game you only need to win 86ish games to be a contender.

I'm not one of those AL fans that would go "Hurr Durr the Cardinals would be lucky to win 76 games with an AL schedule", but to just look at the records of the top teams in both leagues (while completely ignoring the bottom) and concluding that one league is better than the other solely based on that is a really lazy way to look at it.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Aug 28, 2015 -> 08:58 AM) Exactly. This is all a baseball fan needs to acknowledge. The pitching in the NL is absolutely horrendous. "But they have Kershaw & Greinke & Bumgarner & Arrieta". Shut up. Nobody can name more than a couple #2 starters in the NL, let alone the #3-5s. It's junk ball, plain and simple. Just acknowledge it. To be fair there's plenty of s*** pitching in the AL too, just look at the Tigers and Red Sox staffs.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Aug 28, 2015 -> 08:28 AM) It's been discussed endlessly and tirelessly that the lack of a DH is a major disadvantage to NL teams in interleague play. Until there's a DH in the NL, they will continue to have a worse record. Even so, I'm not sure where you're getting that the NL is better though. There's no easy wins in the AL, I would take the A's over like 6-7 NL teams. The NL has many of the top records, sure, but they also have all the really s***ty teams. It begs the question of just whether the top is that good, or the bottom is that bad. Probably a bit of both, but I'm not convinced the top NL teams are any better than the top AL teams. However, the bottom of the NL is pretty awful.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Aug 28, 2015 -> 08:18 AM) The NL is better than the AL overall, though. They have the hardest division in baseball. They'd be 30 over in the AL Central. I don't how you can say that. First of all, the AL is 140-120 in interleague play. Small sample size, but the Cubs have a losing record against the AL Central this season (I'm not saying they'd be under .500 in our division though). The AL is clearly better this year in my opinion, the worst six teams in the major leagues are all in the NL. All the top teams in the NL get to pad their win totals against them. I'm not convinced that the Pirates or Cardinals are better than the Blue Jays or Astros at this point, the schedules are too imbalanced and there's too much variation in baseball to simply say "better record = better team".

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Aug 27, 2015 -> 10:05 PM) Based on what? Some of the top teams are in the NL right now. Would you say that about the Cardinals or Pirates too? Under .500 is a big stretch but I think all three of those teams would have a worse record in the AL for sure. Way too many easy wins in the NL.

Damn Trayce hits the ball hard. He's earning all his hits.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 27, 2015 -> 07:35 PM) Rodney is on fumes like Soriano earlier. Maybe, but it's a low risk move.