7/18 games

[ThunderBolt]

I think it's about being careful with Holbermg's arm. He already pitched a high school season and being from Florida probably has been playing year round while also doing a lot of pitching. I am sure he will start next year, but this year, they just wanna get his feet wet without killing his arm.

Pretty logical assumption considering the massive amount of innings he’s had in High School. I believe he was top two in innings pitched down in Florida a along with Patrick Schuster

[BearSox]

We've been over this. You don't evaluate players like most people. I disagree.

 

What's that suppossed to mean? So, you are saying you'd rather have Swisher than Sweeney, Gio, and DLS?

 

Obviously we haven't really missed Sweeney, Gio, or DLS... but I'd take Sweeney in CF over Wise anyday, Gio would be a potential option for us as the 5th starter, and DLS (while he is out recovering) still has a lot of potential and time to develop that potential.

 

I said it from the time we made the trade for Swisher, it was a terrible move. Swisher is a mediocre ball player who gets overhyped because he walks a lot. No matter how you cut the cheese, a guy who hits around .240 and K's over 130 times a year isn't that good of a player unless he is putting up massive power numbers. Plus, not to mention Swisher had probably the worst approach to hitting last year of all our players combined, IMO.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

At least we got rid of that soulless bastard Swisher! Right? Right? Right? Also, I really like what I’m seeing from Jared Mitchell.

 

 

So we're still on this. Still. Wow....

[ThunderBolt]

So we're still on this. Still. Wow....

You know what they say about old wounds… I think I’ll lay off on this one for a while, doesn’t make the trade or the return any better. Also doesn’t excuse some of the ridiculous slander some Sox fans insist on putting on Swish. That’s the core argument, having lain that out let’s move on. Dan Hudson has to be top 100, right now. There’s no question in my mind, but where do we all think he falls into the mix?

[BearSox]

You know what they say about old wounds… I think I'll lay off on this one for a while, doesn't make the trade or the return any better. Also doesn't excuse some of the ridiculous slander some Sox fans insist on putting on Swish. That's the core argument, having lain that out let's move on. Dan Hudson has to be top 100, right now. There's no question in my mind, but where do we all think he falls into the mix?

If he keeps what he is doing up, he definitely has a shot at top 50.

[ThunderBolt]

Yesterday, Brandon Allen went 2-4, with a 2B, and a HR. He's now hitting .391/.481/.870 with Reno.

 

[DBAHO]

Yesterday, Brandon Allen went 2-4, with a 2B, and a HR. He's now hitting .391/.481/.870 with Reno.

Does Reno play in the PCL?

 

If so, well his high offensive numbers shouldn't be much of a surprise there.

[ThunderBolt]

Does Reno play in the PCL?

 

If so, well his high offensive numbers shouldn't be much of a surprise there.

Yep, PCL definitely some inflation going on there.

[maggsmaggs]

It depends on how Hudson's stuff rates out. If the scouts are clocking him in the low 90s, he's probably outside the top 50. If he's in the mid 90s, he could crack the top 50. The rankings are very much stuff dependent.

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

Yep, PCL definitely some inflation going on there.

Shave 100 points off each number and he's still hitting .291/.381/.770. It's 23 AB so a small sample size, but it's not just inflation. The kid has lots of talent and I still don't like that trade.

[ThunderBolt]

Shave 100 points off each number and he's still hitting .291/.381/.770. It's 23 AB so a small sample size, but it's not just inflation. The kid has lots of talent and I still don't like that trade.

Trust me, If I make a club about how much I didn’t like this trade, you’re welcome to join it.

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

It depends on how Hudson's stuff rates out. If the scouts are clocking him in the low 90s, he's probably outside the top 50. If he's in the mid 90s, he could crack the top 50. The rankings are very much stuff dependent.

Agree. Hopefully he makes the top-100 but you never know. There are always very good prospects left off, not just on the Sox side but all around baseball. I think the better question top-50-wise is does Danks make it? I have to think at least Flowers does. Viciedo will probably miss the top-100 this year, but maybe Mitchell cracks it, or at least gets an HM. Hudson isn't someone I'd bet on unless scouts really like he secondary stuff.

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

Trust me, If I make a club about how much I didn’t like this trade, you’re welcome to join it.

I was in that club the moment I heard about it.

[danman31]

Swisher is a mediocre ball player who gets overhyped because he walks a lot. No matter how you cut the cheese, a guy who hits around .240 and K's over 130 times a year isn't that good of a player unless he is putting up massive power numbers. Plus, not to mention Swisher had probably the worst approach to hitting last year of all our players combined, IMO.

He doesn't get overhyped. He is a solid ballplayer. Average is the worst stat for hitting. It's based a lot on luck and varies from year to year. Regardless of the trade, it really bothers me that you think Swisher sucks because you don't like the things that he is actually good at.

 

Also, right now Sweeney is an awful Major Leaguer. He'll probably get better, but he is just not good right now. Nothing from that trade has proven to be worth more than Swisher.

[BearSox]

He doesn't get overhyped. He is a solid ballplayer. Average is the worst stat for hitting. It's based a lot on luck and varies from year to year. Regardless of the trade, it really bothers me that you think Swisher sucks because you don't like the things that he is actually good at.

 

Also, right now Sweeney is an awful Major Leaguer. He'll probably get better, but he is just not good right now. Nothing from that trade has proven to be worth more than Swisher.

 

Really, average is the worst stat for hitting and is based on luck? LOL. I'd say it's one of the better ones and now underrated. Actually, I'd say AVG, OBP, and SLG (SLG depending on what type of hitter) go hand in hand. A low average and decent OBP is no better than a high average and a similar OBP.

 

And really, how much does it vary? Well, a better way to phrase that is, does it vary more or less or the same amount as OBP does? It's about the same as a player's average directly correlates with the the OBP.

 

Besides a tendency to walk and decent power, what is there to like about Swisher? He plays a decent 1B and corner OF, fine. He's a switch hitter, cool. But his approach at bat is atrocious (he stands up there looking for a walk and not swinging until he's got two strikes on him), he K's a lot, doesn't provide a much run production (outside of 1 year, he usually only drives in around 70 runs), and had a s***ty attitude when he got benched for sucking.

 

I'm sorry, but good riddance. I never understood the purpose of trading for him in the first place. I'll take the potential of Sweeney, Gio, and DLS and the money saved over the mediocrity of Swisher anyday.

Edited July 19, 2009 by BearSox

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

He doesn't get overhyped. He is a solid ballplayer. Average is the worst stat for hitting. It's based a lot on luck and varies from year to year. Regardless of the trade, it really bothers me that you think Swisher sucks because you don't like the things that he is actually good at.

Wow, people are still trying to defend Swisher with the luck argument again. Luck isn't the reason he's prone to wild hot-cold streaks and doesn't make a lot of good contact. Hitters who make a lot of good, hard contact *or* make a lot of contact, have excellent bat control, and know how to use their speed generally hit for higher averages.

 

The idea that players rely on the amount of luck that stat-lovers assume is basically an attack on the idea that hitting is a refined skill. Good hitters aren't "lucky." Nick Swisher is not a good hitter, and his poor batting average doesn't mean he has poor luck. His swing blows and he becomes passive deep in the count.

 

And I agree with BearSox 100% that batting average is the most underrated stat in baseball these days. Why is OBP such a skill and batting average is not? Much if not most of the time when pitchers are throwing out of the zone because they are either, 1) pitching around a hitter, 2) trying to get a hitter to chase, 3) worried about a baserunner, 4) tired and losing control, or 5) having trouble getting a breaking ball over. So that's all on the pitcher, and the only control the hitter has in those situations is whether to swing or not, which basically accounts to BOTH pitch recognition and aggressiveness - and stats don't say s*** about aggressiveness or passivity. Swisher is often passive and if you've watched Sox games when Swisher was here there is no f***ing way you can tell me that standing there and taking a pitch because you can't see the damn baseball, and then walking as a result, is some kind of skill. You also can't tell me that standing there in an RBI situation as a guy who is expected to be a run producer and then looking for a walk is also some kind of skill.

 

The only skills involved in OBP are pitch recognition and the ability to make enough contact on tough pitches to keep the AB alive - and OBP doesn't tell enough about either. Batting average however not only tells you whether a player saw a pitch and hit it, but whether he also was successful. It's not like every hit is some little blooper, and even for those kinds of hits, it still takes skill to speed up or slow down your bat and make contact after you've been tricked by a pitch, and it takes skill also to make enough contact on a tough pitch to drop in a hit somewhere. Frank Thomas did that s*** all the time and he was probably the most skilled hitter in Sox history. And isn't it funny how the best hitters always seem to hit the most bloopers? That's because they are skilled. Luck doesn't exist and belief in it is for those who also believe in Santa Claus, but if it did exist, the closest example of luck in baseball would be something like hitting a towering pop-up in a dome and having it drop in for a double because the ball hit a catwalk.

[danman31]

Luck doesn't exist and belief in it is for those who also believe in Santa Claus, but if it did exist, the closest example of luck in baseball would be something like hitting a towering pop-up in a dome and having it drop in for a double because the ball hit a catwalk.

I didn't say Swisher was a good hitter or that I would do the original trade over again. It's just that the Sox have lost nothing and none of them are big prospects anymore. I just think Swisher has some value as a hitter. His numbers with the Sox were well below his career numbers.

 

Luck doesn't exist in baseball? Really? You wrote a long post about Swisher not being good and then say luck doesn't exist in baseball? Everything you post is so definitive like you are always right, and you know what you are talking about, but to say luck doesn't exist is embarrassingly ignorant. Luck may be overstated, but c'mon.

 

Batting average ranges more than most stats. Hitters generally make similar amounts of contact (ie avoiding Ks, and don't bring this back to Swisher, I don't care). That's where the consistency comes into play.

[fathom]

It's simple with Swisher. Some teams value OBP more than batting average. We traded him to one of those teams, but unfortunately got nothing in return. The lack of depth the trade gave us really hurt us earlier in the year, and who's to say it's not hurting us in trying to make trades now (by having more to offer Blue Jays, etc.).

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

Really, average is the worst stat for hitting and is based on luck? LOL. I'd say it's one of the better ones and now underrated. Actually, I'd say AVG, OBP, and SLG (SLG depending on what type of hitter) go hand in hand. A low average and decent OBP is no better than a high average and a similar OBP.

 

And really, how much does it vary? Well, a better way to phrase that is, does it vary more or less or the same amount as OBP does? It's about the same as a player's average directly correlates with the the OBP.

 

Besides a tendency to walk and decent power, what is there to like about Swisher? He plays a decent 1B and corner OF, fine. He's a switch hitter, cool. But his approach at bat is atrocious (he stands up there looking for a walk and not swinging until he's got two strikes on him), he K's a lot, doesn't provide a much run production (outside of 1 year, he usually only drives in around 70 runs), and had a s***ty attitude when he got benched for sucking.

 

I'm sorry, but good riddance. I never understood the purpose of trading for him in the first place. I'll take the potential of Sweeney, Gio, and DLS and the money saved over the mediocrity of Swisher anyday.

Agree 100%. Swisher is an average player IMO, no better than that.

 

In hindsight I'd still deal Sweeney, Gio, and DLS, but for someone a lot better than Swisher. I agree though that I'd rather have the Swisher package than either Swisher or the package we got from the Yankees.

[ThunderBolt]

And I agree with BearSox 100% that batting average is the most underrated stat in baseball these days. Why is OBP such a skill and batting average is not?

Batting average has little bearing on how many runs a team scores. Runs win ball games. Batting average fails to take into account the number of walks and the number of homeruns a player gets. So, if Swish hits 250, but walks over a 100 times and hits 25-30 homeruns, he is a much better player then say, Howie Kendrick who might hit .300, but with two homeruns, and walk very little.

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

I didn't say Swisher was a good hitter or that I would do the original trade over again. It's just that the Sox have lost nothing and none of them are big prospects anymore. I just think Swisher has some value as a hitter. His numbers with the Sox were well below his career numbers.

 

Luck doesn't exist in baseball? Really? You wrote a long post about Swisher not being good and then say luck doesn't exist in baseball? Everything you post is so definitive like you are always right, and you know what you are talking about, but to say luck doesn't exist is embarrassingly ignorant. Luck may be overstated, but c'mon.

 

Batting average ranges more than most stats. Hitters generally make similar amounts of contact (ie avoiding Ks, and don't bring this back to Swisher, I don't care). That's where the consistency comes into play.

I agree that he has some value as a hitter. I think he's average and agree that with the Sox he was below his career numbers, but I also believe his numbers with the Sox are a lot more indicative of his skills than the numbers he put up in his career year in Oakland.

 

No, there's no such thing as luck, period. It doesn't exist. The odds play themselves out as in everywhere in life, and baseball especially is an extremely complicated game where hundreds of variables are always present. For example, getting a basehit because the 3B coming in to field a grounder slips on wet grass is NOT luck. The hitter isn't lucky or unlucky that it rained. Everyone plays under the same conditions. That's just one example, but it stands for everything. In a 600+ PA season, when you where all the offensive stats came from - facing hundreds of different pitchers in varying periods of success and failure, and facing hundreds of different defensive players, and tons of different defensive arrangements, and doing it in a bunch of different ballparks under all kinds of weather conditions - when you consider all that, each individual event that became part of a stat is unique enough an unlikely enough to be explained away as "luck." So luck doesn't exist in baseball, because saying it does completely ignores how complex the game is.

 

Batting average does vary, as do practically all stats, but there's almost always a range. Great hitters might range from .290-.320+, and very good hitters maybe .280-.300+, and for dogs*** hitters like Swisher maybe .220-.260 or whatever. Home runs vary a ton as well, but usually the elite ones are always 30-45 or so, but nobody would discount home runs in any way because of the wide variance.

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

Batting average has little bearing on how many runs a team scores. Runs win ball games. Batting average fails to take into account the number of walks and the number of homeruns a player gets. So, if Swish hits 250, but walks over a 100 times and hits 25-30 homeruns, he is a much better player then say, Howie Kendrick who might hit .300, but with two homeruns, and walk very little.

1) Howie Kendrick is a 2B and will save runs that Swisher won't because he is involved in more plays and plays a tougher position

2) Nick Swisher is an average at best player at a position where you want your best hitters

3) Basehits score runs if men are on base

4) Batting average doesn't need to take any other stat into account other than batting average - it's not hard to look at several different stats each in the appropriate context

5) Swisher's OBP only matters if others are driving him in, and for most teams, where he'd hit in the lineup is not in front of the sluggers, but behind them

6) Swisher's home runs are great, but he doesn't hit enough of them to overshadow the rest of his faults; he shouldn't be compared to players like Kendrick, he should be compared to 1B, DH, LF, and RF'ers

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

It's simple with Swisher. Some teams value OBP more than batting average. We traded him to one of those teams, but unfortunately got nothing in return. The lack of depth the trade gave us really hurt us earlier in the year, and who's to say it's not hurting us in trying to make trades now (by having more to offer Blue Jays, etc.).

Agree with some teams valuing OBP over batting average.

 

The rest is debatable. With Swisher here, and with CQ getting hurt, we're not picking up Pods who has been great. Is Pods more valuable to this team than Swisher? I think so, because we needed a guy like Pods and not a guy like Swisher.

 

As for the Jays, I can't see how they'd want to add future salary commitments in any case. I highly doubt they'd want Swisher when they have Overbay already owed money through 2010 plus Wells, Rios, Lind, and Snider all having to play.

Edited July 19, 2009 by Kenny Hates Prospects

[danman31]

No, there's no such thing as luck, period. It doesn't exist. The odds play themselves out as in everywhere in life, and baseball especially is an extremely complicated game where hundreds of variables are always present. For example, getting a basehit because the 3B coming in to field a grounder slips on wet grass is NOT luck. The hitter isn't lucky or unlucky that it rained. Everyone plays under the same conditions. That's just one example, but it stands for everything. In a 600+ PA season, when you where all the offensive stats came from - facing hundreds of different pitchers in varying periods of success and failure, and facing hundreds of different defensive players, and tons of different defensive arrangements, and doing it in a bunch of different ballparks under all kinds of weather conditions - when you consider all that, each individual event that became part of a stat is unique enough an unlikely enough to be explained away as "luck." So luck doesn't exist in baseball, because saying it does completely ignores how complex the game is.

As a hitter you only control your hitting. A fielder slipping is lucky for the hitter because he had no control over it. We might as well stop this because your stance is so far from mine it's actually hilarious to me.

[ThunderBolt]

1) Howie Kendrick is a 2B and will save runs that Swisher won't because he is involved in more plays and plays a tougher position

2) Nick Swisher is an average at best player at a position where you want your best hitters

3) Basehits score runs if men are on base

4) Batting average doesn't need to take any other stat into account other than batting average - it's not hard to look at several different stats each in the appropriate context

5) Swisher's OBP only matters if others are driving him in, and for most teams, where he'd hit in the lineup is not in front of the sluggers, but behind them

6) Swisher's home runs are great, but he doesn't hit enough of them to overshadow the rest of his faults; he shouldn't be compared to players like Kendrick, he should be compared to 1B, DH, LF, and RF'ers

1) I used Kendrick not from defensive positional value, but as a distinctive contact hitter, whereas Swisher had a patience and drive approach. They both have two distinctive approaches at the plate, thus allowing us to compare and contrast the value of each apporach.

2) Where? CF? RF? LF? 1b?

3) One can get on base via a walk, HBP or a hit. Getting on base puts you in the position to score, making yourself an asset to the team.

4) Batting Average takes two things into account. Hits per AB, ultimately it doesn't allow for anything outside of those two categories and is thus less valuable then the overarching OBP and OPS categories

5) No. Swisher's OBP matters in that he is getting on base. Whether he gets driven in (runs) had no bearing in this debate

6) Swisher averages 25 hr's and 88's RBI that's more than adequate for a guy who can play RF, CF, LF and 1b.

Edited July 19, 2009 by Thunderbolt