Is Ventura a good game manager?

[fathom]

I have never seen a team that executes worse than this team. 2011 was pretty bad, but this team seems like they've never been coached in any aspect of the game. Ventura's demeanor seems to be rubbing off on the team.

[joeynach]

This is just getting hilarious. Even to the point where I go to covers.com to see the White Sox vs. the Over/Under. In 17 games going in today, the White Sox are 4-13 against betting the Over. Bad.

[Cali]

Here's the deal. I agree they will hit better, most if not all of them really. But at that point how deep of a hole will they have put themselves in? Cause we all know (outside of '10) getting out of holes, not the Sox specialty.

[fathom]

Here's the deal. I agree they will hit better, most if not all of them really. But at that point how deep of a hole will they have put themselves in? Cause we all know (outside of '10) getting out of holes, not the Sox specialty.

 

Even if they hit better, it's a pretty low ceiling for most of the guys.

[joeynach]

Even if they hit better, it's a pretty low ceiling for most of the guys.

 

Yep, whats the ceiling for Beckham, .275/.330/.410/.740, wow. For Flowers .250/.320/.440/.760, great. For Viciedo .300/.310/.450/.760. For Alexei, .285/.325/.420/.745. For Keppinger .300/.320/.400/.720. For De Aza, .290/.340/.400/.740. That seems about right to me, not a guy with a ceiling to me at or above .800 OPS. There just isn't going to be a lot of production now, nor if they all somehow turn it around and hit these numbers. Just a bunch of .750 OPS players.....slightly above average as an all goes well ceiling. Yuck!

Edited April 23, 2013 by joeynach

[greg775]

This is just getting hilarious. Even to the point where I go to covers.com to see the White Sox vs. the Over/Under. In 17 games going in today, the White Sox are 4-13 against betting the Over. Bad.

 

Man, if you spent the first month of the season in Vegas and bet the under on the Sox, you coulda had a nice little vacation.

[Steve9347]

Great post. You wanted numbers and then just ignored them.

You provided incorrect numbers. Your first number was incorrect.

 

Also, I don't really know what your point was - you repeated what I did with numbers. There's not a lot of room to grow from your very post.

[southsider2k5]

You provided incorrect numbers. Your first number was incorrect.

 

Also, I don't really know what your point was - you repeated what I did with numbers. There's not a lot of room to grow from your very post.

One number was wrong. The rest of it was your conjecture, which you totally ignored once they proved you wrong. I found a run a game with improvement only in one area.

[Steve9347]

One number was wrong. The rest of it was your conjecture, which you totally ignored once they proved you wrong. I found a run a game with improvement only in one area.

You found s***.

[southsider2k5]

You found s***.

 

of course, because you handwaved it away when it didn't work your way.

[joeynach]

Man, if you spent the first month of the season in Vegas and bet the under on the Sox, you coulda had a nice little vacation.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Betting on baseball specifically is all about finding and betting a trend. Someone is hot, someone is cold, someone always wins here, someone can't win here. Right now the easy trend to bet is the under in Sox runs and the Under for the game as well since their pitching (and Bullpen) has been great. If you had the stones to do so for the first three weeks of the season you would have a bunch of no sweat easy wins, this team scores a couple runs off 4-5 hits per night consistently......easy money.

[Steve9347]

of course, because you handwaved it away when it didn't work your way.

Sigh. Fine.

 

Since apparently google doesn't work for my stalker, here you go.

 

De Aza .649 OPS vs .693 career

PK .766 vs .858 (or even .857 last year)

Gordo .649 vs .693

Dunn .421 vs .865 (or even .801 LY, or .569 in 2011 by far his worst year ever), not to mention his .100 RISP

Viciedo .646 vs .737, plus .200 RISP

Keppinger .315 vs .722, plus .091 with RISP

Ramirez even with his .316 average is .788 vs his career .721. While he is hitting for average, he isn't hitting for much power yet. So there isn't a lot of regression to the means to be had there.

Rios is .984 vs .771, so plenty of regression room there, though much less if you look at his LY of .850 with any faith

Flowers is at .794, with a small sample .710 career. His minor league numbers career out to .876, with .814 in his triple A time, so even a reasonable growth with playing full time puts him pretty close to where he is now.

 

Yes, there is plenty of room for movement even to the norms, let alone anyone actually having a "good" year versus their career norms.

 

Also common sense will state that a movement from even .170 with RISP to .250 with RISP is an extra hit with RISP every 12 ABs or so, working out to about a run a game extra. That alone wins many games.

Since apparently Google doesn't work with you to find accurate numbers, here are my responses (in red)

 

De Aza .649 OPS vs .693 career He's actually at .742, well above his career OPS and just under last season's outlier.

PK .766 vs .858 (or even .857 last year) I stated we could expect improvement from PK in my post - you've added nothign

Gordo .649 vs .693 Gordon Beckham had a batting average over .300. Your career OPS with him doesn't matter as he's proven he's nothing like his rookie season which carries a lot of weight in that career OPS. A .649 OPS from Gordon is what you should expect. You added nothing here, either

Dunn .421 vs .865 (or even .801 LY, or .569 in 2011 by far his worst year ever), not to mention his .100 RISP Dunn is brutal. As long as he's in the lineup, the Sox will suck.

Viciedo .646 vs .737, plus .200 RISP He's not getting strikes because he swings at everything.

Keppinger .315 vs .722, plus .091 with RISP I'd already said he should improve.

Ramirez even with his .316 average is .788 vs his career .721. While he is hitting for average, he isn't hitting for much power yet. So there isn't a lot of regression to the means to be had there. When Alexei hits for .200 in May, you'll understand why regression to the mean exists.

Rios is .984 vs .771, so plenty of regression room there, though much less if you look at his LY of .850 with any faith More repeating what I'd already said by adding easily googled numbers.

Flowers is at .794, with a small sample .710 career. His minor league numbers career out to .876, with .814 in his triple A time, so even a reasonable growth with playing full time puts him pretty close to where he is now. I didn't say that Flowers would drop. I said to expect anything more out of him was asinine. It is.

 

So we're back to where I started - you didn't provide anything there. Yes, the Sox could hit better with RISP. But our slow players standing on second doesn't necessarily mean scoring position like it does for most teams.

 

The White Sox have a horrific offense this year - I said it before the season started and I'm saying it now. They are not going to contend for ANYTHING in 2013.

[southsider2k5]

Sigh. Fine.

 

 

Since apparently Google doesn't work with you to find accurate numbers, here are my responses (in red)

 

De Aza .649 OPS vs .693 career He's actually at .742, well above his career OPS and just under last season's outlier.

PK .766 vs .858 (or even .857 last year) I stated we could expect improvement from PK in my post - you've added nothign

Gordo .649 vs .693 Gordon Beckham had a batting average over .300. Your career OPS with him doesn't matter as he's proven he's nothing like his rookie season which carries a lot of weight in that career OPS. A .649 OPS from Gordon is what you should expect. You added nothing here, either

Dunn .421 vs .865 (or even .801 LY, or .569 in 2011 by far his worst year ever), not to mention his .100 RISP Dunn is brutal. As long as he's in the lineup, the Sox will suck.

Viciedo .646 vs .737, plus .200 RISP He's not getting strikes because he swings at everything.

Keppinger .315 vs .722, plus .091 with RISP I'd already said he should improve.

Ramirez even with his .316 average is .788 vs his career .721. While he is hitting for average, he isn't hitting for much power yet. So there isn't a lot of regression to the means to be had there. When Alexei hits for .200 in May, you'll understand why regression to the mean exists.

Rios is .984 vs .771, so plenty of regression room there, though much less if you look at his LY of .850 with any faith More repeating what I'd already said by adding easily googled numbers.

Flowers is at .794, with a small sample .710 career. His minor league numbers career out to .876, with .814 in his triple A time, so even a reasonable growth with playing full time puts him pretty close to where he is now. I didn't say that Flowers would drop. I said to expect anything more out of him was asinine. It is.

 

So we're back to where I started - you didn't provide anything there. Yes, the Sox could hit better with RISP. But our slow players standing on second doesn't necessarily mean scoring position like it does for most teams.

 

The White Sox have a horrific offense this year - I said it before the season started and I'm saying it now. They are not going to contend for ANYTHING in 2013.

 

I'm still waiting for you to stand behind that statement about the team seeing no improvement.

[Steve9347]

I'm still waiting for you to stand behind that statement about the team seeing no improvement.

I think my continual posting pretty much says that, but if I must. This offense sucks and expecting it to be much better is asinine.

[witesoxfan]

Yep, whats the ceiling for Beckham, .275/.330/.410/.740, wow. For Flowers .250/.320/.440/.760, great. For Viciedo .300/.310/.450/.760. For Alexei, .285/.325/.420/.745. For Keppinger .300/.320/.400/.720. For De Aza, .290/.340/.400/.740. That seems about right to me, not a guy with a ceiling to me at or above .800 OPS. There just isn't going to be a lot of production now, nor if they all somehow turn it around and hit these numbers. Just a bunch of .750 OPS players.....slightly above average as an all goes well ceiling. Yuck!

 

This post is ridiculous because you are talking about ceilings and then lowering the ceiling.

 

Using the averages provided - I like those numbers - here's about what you'd see.

 

Beckham hits .275, he's almost certain to walk atleast to career averages, if not better. That's a .340 OBP. He'd also, inevitably, hit for more power too, which will increase his Iso. He's a .775 OPS player at .275.

 

Tyler Flowers walks a lot and hits for a lot of power. If he hits .250, he's going to have a .350 OBP and a .500 slugging. I really see no way around it. He's an .850 OPS player at his ceiling.

 

I'm going to tackle Jeff Keppinger before Viciedo, because both are absolutely hilarious and terrible projections. For Keppinger, I will agree that his ceiling is about a .300 average in this park. To put up an IsoOBP of .020, his walk

rate would have to be 2.9%. He doesn't walk a lot, but with a career walk rate of 6.4%, it's safe to say that he'd probalby put up a .340 OBP at the bare minimum if he hit .300 (that's 19 walks over the course of 650 PA's. He tried to do that in 2011 at 3%...but that's till better than 2.9%).

 

Which brings me to the Viciedo projection of .300/.310 and I'm stopping right there, because that would mean he'd walk like 9 times over the course of 650 PAs or, in 500 PAs, he's going to walk or be hit by a pitch 7 times. He's not a very patient hitter, but that's just not going to happen. He's also not a .300 hitter. If he did, he'd put up an OPS of around .850.

 

You have De Aza's ceiling at .290/.340/.400, but he put up .280/.350/.410 last year. Keep lowering that ceiling.

 

Flowers, Viciedo, and Beckham have legitimately high ceilings as all around players. Alexei is primarily here to hit for a decent average and play slick defense. De Aza is a perfectly good player, especially at his ceiling. However, you are extremely unlikely to see players' ceilings and rather their medians, which is exactly what you see. Sometimes, when they go through rough stretches, you see their floors too.

 

This is not an exciting team and in fact is a boring team that is likely going to finish around .500 (though I think they'll still end up around 83-85 wins), but to suggest that these guys have low ceilings is absurd.

 

I am glad you mentioned the ceilings of Konerko, Dunn, and Rios though. Oh, and the ceiling of the pitching staff too.

 

[joeynach]

This post is ridiculous because you are talking about ceilings and then lowering the ceiling.

 

Using the averages provided - I like those numbers - here's about what you'd see.

 

Beckham hits .275, he's almost certain to walk atleast to career averages, if not better. That's a .340 OBP. He'd also, inevitably, hit for more power too, which will increase his Iso. He's a .775 OPS player at .275.

 

Tyler Flowers walks a lot and hits for a lot of power. If he hits .250, he's going to have a .350 OBP and a .500 slugging. I really see no way around it. He's an .850 OPS player at his ceiling.

 

I'm going to tackle Jeff Keppinger before Viciedo, because both are absolutely hilarious and terrible projections. For Keppinger, I will agree that his ceiling is about a .300 average in this park. To put up an IsoOBP of .020, his walk

rate would have to be 2.9%. He doesn't walk a lot, but with a career walk rate of 6.4%, it's safe to say that he'd probalby put up a .340 OBP at the bare minimum if he hit .300 (that's 19 walks over the course of 650 PA's. He tried to do that in 2011 at 3%...but that's till better than 2.9%).

 

Which brings me to the Viciedo projection of .300/.310 and I'm stopping right there, because that would mean he'd walk like 9 times over the course of 650 PAs or, in 500 PAs, he's going to walk or be hit by a pitch 7 times. He's not a very patient hitter, but that's just not going to happen. He's also not a .300 hitter. If he did, he'd put up an OPS of around .850.

 

You have De Aza's ceiling at .290/.340/.400, but he put up .280/.350/.410 last year. Keep lowering that ceiling.

 

Flowers, Viciedo, and Beckham have legitimately high ceilings as all around players. Alexei is primarily here to hit for a decent average and play slick defense. De Aza is a perfectly good player, especially at his ceiling. However, you are extremely unlikely to see players' ceilings and rather their medians, which is exactly what you see. Sometimes, when they go through rough stretches, you see their floors too.

 

This is not an exciting team and in fact is a boring team that is likely going to finish around .500 (though I think they'll still end up around 83-85 wins), but to suggest that these guys have low ceilings is absurd.

 

I am glad you mentioned the ceilings of Konerko, Dunn, and Rios though. Oh, and the ceiling of the pitching staff too.

 

Do you realize the discrepancies between the numbers I threw out there and the numbers you threw out there is so small, there isn't enough enough potential production to get excited about. If this teams loses 70 something games and we go with your ceiling numbers there still isn't enough there to keep watching or be excited about for the future.

And if we meet in the middle, forget about it, we are still talking about a starting lineup now and looking forward that is the same slew of slightly above average players if we use (potential) OPS as the metric. And if we look at their peripherals we are still talking about a slew of hitters who have established themselves in all the same light; low BB (OBP) rate, high K rate, low pitch count see'ers, high Swing %, high swing miss %, decent power.

 

And lets forget about ceilings for the moment. Lets look at career slash lines and see what we got with this lineup.

De Aza: .276/.338/.413/.751

Keppinger: .284/.332/.390/.722

Rios: .279/.325/.446/.771

Konerko: .283/.359/.498/.857

Dunn: .238/.368/.496/.864

Viciedo: .261/.332/.435/.737

Ramirez: .276/.316/.409/.726

Flowers: .208/.307/.401/.708

Beckham: .246/.312/.381/.693

 

I see six of the nine players in this lineup with career OBP of below .340, what I would call league average. Of those six I see three with below dismal OBP level I will .320. In terms of OPS Bill James describes anything between .700-.766 as "average". I see that we have six of these players as "average". Of those Six, I see two of them at or near the dismal level, Flowers and Beckham, at .708 and .693.

 

As this team is constructed, hypothetical ceilings aside, this team is designed to have an extremely mediocre offense at best, it is a team that will by its composed parts struggle to get on base (and thus produce runs), and has a cast of younger "developing" players who all have the exact same hitting identity (low batting average, low OBP, decent power). And, to further compound the offensive output, the complimenting cast around those younger "developing" players is more of the same type of hitters with low BA's, low OBP's, decent power, high K rates, etc etc.

 

This offense is a designed as a disaster on paper and is thus a disaster on the field. So if you take the temperature of the fan base and they say things like there is nothing to be excited about and nothing to look forward to from a developmental hitter perspective you can see where it comes from. Are we really supposed to watch a 75 win team on the hopes that Beckham turns into a .720 OPS player instead of his career .693, that Flowers goes . 740 instead of .708, that Alexei Ramirez has a season that surpasses his career .316 OBP. Hence, nothing really to be excited for!

[Balta1701]

I see six of the nine players in this lineup with career OBP of below .340, what I would call league average.

League average OBP this year so far is .317, last year was .318, 2011 was .320.

 

League average OPS last year was .724.

[elrockinMT]

My head is spinning from all these numbers. I always hated statistics. You can interpret them anyway you want. I just prefer to PLAY BALL!

[witesoxfan]

6 players have an above average OBP. 2 of them have average to slightly below average OBP's. 1 of them has never started full time and has a minor league track record that indicates he will be a three true outcome player with an OBP that will likely be above average.

 

This is an offense that, whether by luck or not, scored the 4th most runs in the AL last year. The only two differences between this year and last year are Morel/Hudson/Youkilis vs Keppinger at 3B, and Pierzynski vs Flowers at C. I think, by the end of the year, those two will ultimately be a wash.

 

I don't think the offense is as good as it showed last year, but it's much better than it's been this year. It will probably be in the middle of the pack regarding OBP, but it will put up good power numbers.

 

This season has not been fun thus far. It's a long, long ways from over. It's not even 1/8th of the way done yet. I think, by and large, people need to take a deep breath and relax. I go back and compare to football all the time - this is the equivalent of 2 games of football - but comparing this to basketball or hockey, they are only 10 games in relative to those sports. They've played 19 games and have 143 still to play.

 

I think this is a boring offense devoid of long-term talent, but there is still enough talent here that they can and will hit as the year goes on, and they'll win a few games in the process.

[IlliniKrush]

My head is spinning from all these numbers. I always hated statistics. You can interpret them anyway you want. I just prefer to PLAY BALL!

Holy s*** Hawk's been on the board this whole time and we didn't know it

[joeynach]

My head is spinning from all these numbers. I always hated statistics. You can interpret them anyway you want. I just prefer to PLAY BALL!

 

Is that you Hawk Harrelson?

[caulfield12]

All these predictions are fine....but it doesn't matter a lick if Dunn and Konerko aren't close to the same hitters they have been historically.

 

Everyone knows that.

 

Heck, teams are already pitching around Rios, and over time, that's probably going to take him out of his offensive game and cause him to start pressing...right around the time that DeAza and/or Keppinger get hot.

 

Then when you take out AJ's production from the 6 hole, there's either Viciedo or Ramirez there, which also hasn't been/isn't enough protection for Konerko even if he is white hot again (crosses fingers).

 

 

[Disco72]

So, it turns out RV didn't call the Rios steal with Dunn batting: http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpos...mp;city=chicago

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

So, it turns out RV didn't call the Rios steal with Dunn batting: http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpos...mp;city=chicago

Southsidesox mentioned it too.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

It's concerning that Ventura won't tinker with the lineup . Right now the hot hitters need to be bunched together .My crazy lineup below at least against righties

DeAza

Alexei

Rios

Konerko

Gillaspie

Flowers

DanksWise

Keppinger

Dunn

 

Yes Dunn is last. At this point switch hitting Carlos Zambrano is a better option than Dunn. Maybe Kepp and Dunn can get hot together. Submit your own if you want.

 

edit: fixed

Edited April 24, 2013 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside