What Would You Rather Do?

[Quin]

See poll.

 

I'd do Haren if I could keep Viciedo to DH along with Teahen when Teahen returns. Having this 1-5 next year is crazy:

 

Danks - Haren - Buehrle - Peavy - Floyd with Sale in the wings.

[Lemon_44]

With that scenario both A & B would be possible, which wouldn't surprise me all that much. If KW could somehow land a pitcher and a bat, the Sox would have to be right there a Series favorites.

[chetkincaid]

With that scenario both A & B would be possible, which wouldn't surprise me all that much. If KW could somehow land a pitcher and a bat, the Sox would have to be right there a Series favorites.

 

The Chicago White Sox will never be a World Series favorite... Not as long as the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, Twins, Braves, Mets, or Phillies are in existence. Even the Rays get more respect and publicity than the White Sox. When is the last time you heard of someone not from Chicago pick the Sox to win it all? I didn't even see anyone pick them to repeat in 2006 - even after fortifying the line up with Jim Thome.

 

I remember Jason Stark saying that the Chicago White Sox had NO CHANCE against the Astros with Oswalt, Pettitte and Clemons. Ha.

Edited July 17, 2010 by Chet Kincaid

[Quin]

The Chicago White Sox will never be a World Series favorite... Not as long as the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, Twins, Braves, Mets, or Phillies are in existence. Even the Rays get more respect and publicity than the White Sox. When is the last time you heard of someone not from Chicago pick the Sox to win it all? I didn't even see anyone pick them to repeat in 2006 - even after fortifying the line up with Jim Thome.

 

I remember Jason Stark saying that the Chicago White Sox had NO CHANCE against the Astros with Oswalt, Pettitte and Clemons. Ha.

 

The Sox could have Jesus playing CF and they'd be underdogs still.

 

Edit: In 2006 Tim Kurkjian said going into the break whoever won the AL Central would win the World Series, and he thought it would be the Sox.

Edited July 17, 2010 by Quinarvy

[Real]

Is Ken Rosenthal from chicago? He picked "Team Wacko" to win the world series this year

[fathom]

Danny Haren is having a disasterous season, so unless Arizona is willing to lower their asking price, no team should be going after Haren like he's the Cy Young candidate he has been. His velocity decrease is very concerning.

[Balta1701]

Danny Haren is having a disasterous season, so unless Arizona is willing to lower their asking price, no team should be going after Haren like he's the Cy Young candidate he has been. His velocity decrease is very concerning.

Last night, Haren's fastball averaged 90.88 mph and topped out at 93. I checked an 8 inning, 4 hit start of his from May of 2009, and his fastball averaged 90.3 and topped out at 91.6. Here's a detailed look at a couple of his outings, with numbers up to date as of late May.

Looking at strikeouts compared to walks, Dan Haren is about as dominating a pitcher as there is in the Major Leagues right now. He ranks eighth in the league in K/9 (9.24 K/9) and is tied for tenth best in the league in limiting bases on balls (1.82 BB/9). If we want to go even deeper, we can look at the fact that Haren has the third best whiff rate in the majors, getting hitters to swing and miss almost 26 percent of the time. He ranks only behind Tim Lincecum, Clayton Kershaw and Ricky Romero in that category and is right in front of Josh Johnson. How about another one of my favorite advanced pitching stats? Haren LEADS ALL MLB STARTERS in getting hitters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone (35.8 percent).

 

Dan Haren is still a dominant pitcher...except for one thing.

 

Last season, Ricky Nolasco struck out almost 9.5 per nine innings and only allowed 2.14 walks per nine innings. Unlike Haren, Nolasco wasn't quite as hard to make contact off of and hitters weren't chasing as many pitches outside the strike zone. However, the one glaring similarity between the two is the amount of home runs surrendered early in the season.

 

To this point, Haren has allowed an amazingly high 16 home runs, which is only eleven fewer than he allowed all of last season and only three fewer than he allowed total in 2008. Through May of last season, Ricky Nolasco was bad, but not quite as bad, allowing eight home runs in the season's first two months.

 

Why is Dan Haren, of a career 1.24 GB/FB rate, giving up so many home runs? It is plain and simple: location (command of his pitches).

 

...

Two things stick out to me. One, the difference in how many pitches are up in the strike zone or up out of the strike zone and two, the lack of changeups and sliders thrown.

 

According to pitch f/x data, Haren has consistently thrown changeups 10-11 percent of the time over the past three seasons. So far this season, however, Haren has only used his changeup 3.3 percent of the time and his slider...zero percent. The slider stats could be defined differently as cut-fastballs as sliders act in much the same fashion and Haren's pitch f/x on the two are similar (Haren says he has been using a cutter lately). But the Changeups are another story. In his last outing Haren threw one changeup and five splitters, the pitch most similar in movement to a changeup. However, what differentiates the two pitches in that a change typically moves more horizontally than vertically while a splitter moves less horizontally and more vertically. In the data from yesterday and the two pitch types were recorded separately.

 

For whatever reason, Haren seems to have lost a feel for his changeup. Pitch f/x data shows a loss in vertical movement and the fact that he is simply not throwing the pitch as often speaks volumes.

 

Haren hasn't lost control of his pitches, but rather confidence and, subsequently, command within the strike zone.

 

The bottom line is that Haren is still dominating hitters at a high level, but he has been crushed often when he has made a mistake. Pitchers of all ability levels get hurt on mistake pitches, but pitchers with Haren's stuff seem to get away with it more often. To this point in the season, Haren has not received many breaks. His BABIP against is a high .345, which does not even include his home runs allowed.

As of right now, his BABIP is .343.

[ThunderBolt]

The D-Backs want a king’s ransom for Haren. Sacrificing everything for a guy like him when he's not even filling a pressing need would be a disservice to this team.

[chw42]

Haren's fine, there's nothing wrong with him in terms of his ability. Like Balta said, it's location issues.

[Pants Rowland]

The Sox could have Jesus playing CF and they'd be underdogs still.

 

The Sox DID have Jesus playing CF in 2005.

 

 

[fathom]

good stuff Balta. On the Padres telecast last night, they kept mentioning his fastball issues.

[clyons]

I don't want to overpay for Haren right now either, and I fear Laroche is just a Kotsay who's had more playing time. Give me big Adam.

[fathom]

I don't want to overpay for Haren right now either, and I fear Laroche is just a Kotsay who's had more playing time. Give me big Adam.

 

For some reason, Nationals are treating Dunn like he's Jason Heyward. The asking price is insane, and with there being very little change that Dunn would re-sign with an AL team, KW would be better off using our resources elsewhere.

[chw42]

I don't want to overpay for Haren right now either, and I fear Laroche is just a Kotsay who's had more playing time. Give me big Adam.

 

Adam LaRoche is way better than Mark Kotsay and it's not even close.

[Balta1701]

For some reason, Nationals are treating Dunn like he's Jason Heyward. The asking price is insane, and with there being very little change that Dunn would re-sign with an AL team, KW would be better off using our resources elsewhere.

A late first and a sandwich pick, for a team looking down the road, is really valuable.

[fathom]

A late first and a sandwich pick, for a team looking down the road, is really valuable.

 

So would getting a very good package for Dunn instead of a world-changing package like they want. The Nats would probably go cheap on the supplemental picks anyways.

[Balta1701]

So would getting a very good package for Dunn instead of a world-changing package like they want. The Nats would probably go cheap on the supplemental picks anyways.

If I were them, I'd hesitate to deal him for Hudson + Flowers, for example. I know they're shooting beyond that (beckham) but there's zero reason to give him up for less than that.

[fathom]

If I were them, I'd hesitate to deal him for Hudson + Flowers, for example. I know they're shooting beyond that (beckham) but there's zero reason to give him up for less than that.

 

You must have a lot of confidence in their scouting department if you think they'll draft two players better than Hudson and Flowers.

[clyons]

Adam LaRoche is way better than Mark Kotsay and it's not even close.

 

Beyond having slightly more power, please explain.

[Balta1701]

Beyond having slightly more power, please explain.

Slightly more power?

 

Laroche has a career .829 OPS, Kotsay .749. LaRoche is 30, Kotsay is 34. LaRoche's best offensive season was 2009, Kotsay's was 2004. Both have slightly negative UZR numbers at 1b in their career. Kotsay has never hit more than 15 HR, LaRoche only hit less than 20 in his rookie season. LaRoche averages 39 2b and 26 HR over 162 games, Kotsay 33 and 12.

 

That's like saying Paul Konerko has slightly more power than LaRoche.

[knightni]

The Sox DID have Jesus playing CF in 2005.

AHHMEN.

 

[clyons]

Slightly more power?

 

Laroche has a career .829 OPS, Kotsay .749. LaRoche is 30, Kotsay is 34. LaRoche's best offensive season was 2009, Kotsay's was 2004. Both have slightly negative UZR numbers at 1b in their career. Kotsay has never hit more than 15 HR, LaRoche only hit less than 20 in his rookie season. LaRoche averages 39 2b and 26 HR over 162 games, Kotsay 33 and 12.

 

That's like saying Paul Konerko has slightly more power than LaRoche.

 

Fair enough. I don't follow the NL that closely, and I really don't know that much about the guy. I do see, however, that he seems to strike out an awful lot for a mere 25 homer guy, which is probably why his career OBP is nearly identical to Kotsay's, as is his career avg. His homer totals would probably rise at the Cell (which hasn't helped Kotsay's at all), but when you account for the adjustment of coming over to a new team mid-year, not to mention a new league, as well as a worst to first change in standings, I fear he wouldn't be that significant of an upgrade, especially since his playing time here is likely to diminish from what he's getting in AZ.

 

That said, I'd love to see just about any other lefty with more thump take Kotsay's at bats, but I think the talent gap between LaRoche and Dunn is vastly greater than that between LaRoche and Kotsay, so in terms of the poll topic, I'd much rather have us pay a higher price for Adam than acquire LaRoche for cheap, even though the latter seem alot more likely.

[Kalapse]

ZiPS projection for LaRoche the rest of the way: .277/.356/.498/.854, .372 wOBA

ZiPS projection for Kotsay the rest of the way: .261/.322/.384/.706, .313 wOBA

 

One of those is very good and the other is very bad, switching teams and leagues really shouldn't result in a .060 point drop in wOBA. Then you factor in the wild card:

 

One of the big reasons why everyone keeps bringing up LaRoche's name is his career splits:

 

1st half: .253/.328/.450/.778 AB/HR: 24.8

2nd half: .300/.363/.546/.909 AB/HR: 17.7

 

Year by year 1st/2nd half splits by OPS:

 

'04: .680/.934

'05: .810/.732

'06: .805/1.042

'07: .763/.854

'08: .764/.975

'09: .784/.915

'10: .808/???

 

Dude's got a consistent track record of significantly picking it up in the second half. He's also put up a sub .300 batting average in the 2nd half of a season only once and that was in 5 years ago.

[clyons]

ZiPS projection for LaRoche the rest of the way: .277/.356/.498/.854, .372 wOBA

ZiPS projection for Kotsay the rest of the way: .261/.322/.384/.706, .313 wOBA

 

One of those is very good and the other is very bad, switching teams and leagues really shouldn't result in a .060 point drop in wOBA. Then you factor in the wild card:

 

Those are very intriguing numbers. But do you guys see Ozzie abandoning his beloved rotating DH for an Adam LaRoche? I think he would for Adam Dunn, but would he play LaRoche enough to post those kind of stats, or just swap him in for what Kotsay does now?

[chw42]

ZiPS projection for LaRoche the rest of the way: .277/.356/.498/.854, .372 wOBA

ZiPS projection for Kotsay the rest of the way: .261/.322/.384/.706, .313 wOBA

 

One of those is very good and the other is very bad, switching teams and leagues really shouldn't result in a .060 point drop in wOBA. Then you factor in the wild card:

 

LaRoche's rest of the way batting runs: 8.82

Kotsay's rest of the way batting runs in same # of PAs: -4.52

 

So yeah, that's a 1.2 WAR difference there all by itself.