Danny Richar

[3E8]

Yep, defense considered it's not close. Uribe's '07 Win Shares % is .432 to Richar's .317. For comparison Erstad was .312.

[DBAHO]

GPA lol. You may want to edit that.

GPA stands for Gross Production Average.

 

A variation of OPS, but more accurate and easier to interpret. The exact formula is (OBP*1.8+SLG)/4, adjusted for ballpark factor. The scale of GPA is similar to BA: .200 is lousy, .265 is around average and .300 is a star. A simple formula for converting GPA to runs is PA*1.356*(GPA^1.77).

 

[DBAHO]

Those numbers are pretty close, yet Uribe, by far the better defensive player, and probably Soxtalk's most hated White Sox, is a worthless piece of crap, but Richar is going to be great. I'm not arguing whether Uribe was bad last year or not, he was, so were a lot of guys. What I'm arguing is that while Richar may have a chance to be good, right now, considering defense, he's not even better than Juan Uribe at his worst.

I would argue otherwise.

 

Richar had a RZR of .802 in 2007 compared to Uribe's RZR of .796, which showed that Uribe was sub-par defensively in 2007 (compared to his previous RZR #'s).

 

Right now that number is .905, so Uribe has done a lot better so far at 2B defensively.

 

But the Sox shouldn't hesitate making a change by the end of May if Uribe still has numbers around the .520 OPS mark and hitting below .200 (currently .171).

 

Richar to me at least showed a bit more plate discipline than Uribe, which is what the Sox are really after from their hitters in 2008.

[Dick Allen]

I would argue otherwise.

 

Richar had a RZR of .802 in 2007 compared to Uribe's RZR of .796, which showed that Uribe was sub-par defensively in 2007 (compared to his previous RZR #'s).

 

Right now that number is .905, so Uribe has done a lot better so far at 2B defensively.

 

But the Sox shouldn't hesitate making a change by the end of May if Uribe still has numbers around the .520 OPS mark and hitting below .200 (currently .171).

 

Richar to me at least showed a bit more plate discipline than Uribe, which is what the Sox are really after from their hitters in 2008.

Richar is currently hurt and unable to play. Discipline and Richar should not be used in the same sentence as he was told to get his visa early but he ignored it and was the only White Sox late to spring training. Most would say its not a big deal, but say it was Uribe who was late. The reaction on this board would have been a lot different. Guys who hit .230 with a .289 OBP shouldn't be given a job. Uribe won his in spring training, and I really doubt he will continue to hit .170.

[DBAHO]

Richar is currently hurt and unable to play. Discipline and Richar should not be used in the same sentence as he was told to get his visa early but he ignored it and was the only White Sox late to spring training. Most would say its not a big deal, but say it was Uribe who was late. The reaction on this board would have been a lot different. Guys who hit .230 with a .289 OBP shouldn't be given a job. Uribe won his in spring training, and I really doubt he will continue to hit .170.

Well hitters who hit .234 with a .284 OBP (in one of the best offensive ballparks in baseball) in their 5th season as a major league starter shouldn't be given a starting job either if you are going to use that argument.

 

Will Uribe hit .170 forever? No of course not. Eventually he'll get hot and go on one of his streaks, he always does. But is that going to be in May, June, July, August etc.? We can't afford to wait if Uribe is still scuffling at the plate. He's gone downhill offensively in basically every season since he's been here, no-one can deny that.

 

Richar to me has the potential for better numbers than Uribe does. We know what Juan Uribe will give you. A .230 AVG with a sub .300 OBP and around 15-20 HR's.

 

Richar however, people were predicting he could have a .750 OPS this season. Marcels were predicting a .260/.330/.440 line with a .260 GPA in 2008.

 

As for his visa issues, he's only got himself to blame, but I know first hand actually how hard it is to get a visa and an appointment to work overseas (which I am going through now myself), so I have a little sympathy for him there. There was some reason IIRC why it was the case, something about late paperwork or something, but Richar still should have been here.

 

I just don't take a lot of stock in ST numbers either. Look at Alexei Ramirez for instance. Looked great in ST, but totally overmatched in his 1st 2 games.

[Harry Chappas]

Juan Uribe's average is higher than Jim Thome's. Jim Thome makes 3x what Uribe makes and has no defensive skill set while Uribe saves at least a hit a game with his defense.

 

While I am not saying Uribe is better than Thome, Thome should be a greater concern with his age at this point than Uribe.

 

Juan Uribe's hitting is not why this team will lose. Jim Thome's can be attributed to at least a couple of games already (Thursday, Friday and yesterday he had the opportunity to come through and failed, sorry the GO RBI wasn't that impressive).

[WCSox]

Those numbers are pretty close, yet Uribe, by far the better defensive player, and probably Soxtalk's most hated White Sox, is a worthless piece of crap, but Richar is going to be great. I'm not arguing whether Uribe was bad last year or not, he was, so were a lot of guys. What I'm arguing is that while Richar may have a chance to be good, right now, considering defense, he's not even better than Juan Uribe at his worst.

 

Richar is currently hurt and unable to play. Discipline and Richar should not be used in the same sentence as he was told to get his visa early but he ignored it and was the only White Sox late to spring training. Most would say its not a big deal, but say it was Uribe who was late. The reaction on this board would have been a lot different. Guys who hit .230 with a .289 OBP shouldn't be given a job. Uribe won his in spring training, and I really doubt he will continue to hit .170.

 

Good posts. I wasn't even going to bring up Richar's apparent lack of maturity (one of the problems that Anderson had, BTW).

 

If Juan is still hitting under .200 at the end of June, then by all means give Richar a shot. But until then, he's far from having earned the starting 2B position simply because "Uribe sucks." Juan is actually really good at something (defense). I haven't seen evidence of Richar being good at anything.

 

[witesoxfan]

If Uribe continues hitting anywhere near the Mendoza line within the next 2-4 weeks, and Richar is healthy and feeling well, he should be given a shot to take the 2B job from Uribe. There would be no excuse not to.

 

I understand right now that Uribe is the Sox best option for 2B considering both offense and defense, but he's not the Sox most talented 2B, and you should give shots to those who are more talented.

[WCSox]

I understand right now that Uribe is the Sox best option for 2B considering both offense and defense, but he's not the Sox most talented 2B, and you should give shots to those who are more talented.

 

No, you should give the shots to the people who perform better. "Talent" doesn't mean crap unless it translates into production.

 

Plus, I don't see Richar being ready until late May at the earliest, after being out with an injury and missing part of ST. He'll probably play most the latter half of this month through May in the minors.

 

Edited April 15, 2008 by WCSox

[Balta1701]

No, you should give the shots to the people who perform better. "Talent" doesn't mean crap unless it translates into production.

Uribe's pretty talented too, but he doesn't perform either. If he wants to keep his job, he better start performing.

[WCSox]

Uribe's pretty talented too, but he doesn't perform either. If he wants to keep his job, he better start performing.

 

Agreed, but he performs with the glove a lot better than Richar, Ozuna, or Ramirez.

 

[the People's Champ]

Boy I remember when we had Scott Fletcher at 2B, he sure could catch the ball, but he started losing his bat. Ended up batting around .200. So they started playing Joey Cora in his place. Man that was a big mistake. He must have cost us at least 5 games that one year cause he couldn't throw the ball to first base. I'm pretty sure it was '91.

 

Yeah I'd definately take the defense over 30 or 40 points in a batting average any day of the week. Especially from someone with World Series experience.

[witesoxfan]

Boy I remember when we had Scott Fletcher at 2B, he sure could catch the ball, but he started losing his bat. Ended up batting around .200. So they started playing Joey Cora in his place. Man that was a big mistake. He must have cost us at least 5 games that one year cause he couldn't throw the ball to first base. I'm pretty sure it was '91.

 

Yeah I'd definately take the defense over 30 or 40 points in a batting average any day of the week. Especially from someone with World Series experience.

 

You are making reference to the same Joey Cora who, 2 years later, was the starting 2Bman for the AL West champions, right? And then was the 2Bman the next year for a team leading the AL Central when the strike occurred, right? His bat, poor as it was, also probably contributed to a couple more wins that Fletcher's wouldn't have.

 

The Sox currently have about 4 options for 2B (Uribe, Richar, and Alexei are each 1, and then I'm counting Bourgeois and Pablo as half options each), and they all have their flaws. However, if Richar can come up and put a .725 OPS together with about a .340 OBP and play halfway decent defense, I imagine that would be an upgrade over Uribe. Unless Uribe gets hot anytime soon, the Sox should be looking to replace him, even with his fantastic defense. I'd love him as a superutility player, but as a starter, he just doesn't cut it for me.

 

 

 

 

[witesoxfan]

Swinging for the fences cost us the game tonight. The most noticeable cases were the last 2 AB's, with Quentin and Crede. Instead of just dropping the bat down and poking a hit into RF over the 1st or 2nd baseman's head, they were swinging for the fences. Both of them wanted to be heroes and hit 600 foot home runs.

 

Now that I've thought about it, I'm also going to slightly disagree with this. The Sox had their fair share of hits in the game, but they let Smith work late into the game and then it got to the bullpen. Smith is a guy who walked 5 in his first start in 6 innings, yet he walked 1 in 7 against the Sox, and that was the Sox only walk of the game. That's not necessarily a good model for success, especially when you can scatter hits like the A's did throughout the game. The Sox getting picked off twice didn't help matters either.

 

When the Sox walk, they get runners on base, they fatigue the pitcher on the mound, and they get to the bullpen early, and no manager wants to use their studs in the 5th or 6th innings, so it's going to be a pitcher who is either young, has a rubber arm, or is mediocre. You can then score runs all game off the starter and score runs off the middle relievers; if you get up 3, the other manager is less inclined to bring his studs in just in case he does get rocked, and then he doesn't have said pitcher rested for the next day and he's going to lose the game. It's pretty simple really.

 

However, I say slightly disagree because it's pretty easy to try and overswing and hit his mediocre stuff out of the ballpark, and in doing so, you won't make him work deep into counts, and thus, he won't walk anyone. It's always been a fall of the White Sox - just throw some scrub who can't throw it 87 MPH and watch them flail at a meat fastball over the middle.