Sox Actively Shopping Viciedo

[Chisoxfn]

Yep not a lot of room in the alleys and pretty large foul ground by modern park standards. The cell is playing only slightly above avg for runs the last few years I believe .

I still say some of the park effects get impacted by how good the home teams offense and pitching staff is. If you had a great offense and lousy pitching staff, you will likely see some skewed park effects (albeit I am sure they are normalizing the results of the above average offense / pitching staff vs. other parks but there could still be issues in that process). You also have other factors such as how well various teams are built for their home park, etc.

[Balta1701]

I still say some of the park effects get impacted by how good the home teams offense and pitching staff is. If you had a great offense and lousy pitching staff, you will likely see some skewed park effects (albeit I am sure they are normalizing the results of the above average offense / pitching staff vs. other parks but there could still be issues in that process). You also have other factors such as how well various teams are built for their home park, etc.

Every place calculates these factors a little bit differently but when you go through all of them, the cell still comes out roughly the same - above average, sometimes in the right years close to the best park for hitters, entirely driven by HR hitting.

[flavum]

Ok, fiiine. We'll take Walker for Viciedo.

 

https://twitter.com/keithlaw/status/542819306677866496

[Lemon_44]

I have no problem giving Viciedo another year to show improvement at the plate. He's not going to be a good defensive player but there have been a lot of bad defensive players that can hit and hit for power.

 

I don't know why everyone is writing off a 25 year old. There are numerous players that have struggled at the plate in their early to mid 20's and then turned it around into nice careers. Ortiz and Carlos Gomez come to mind. I'm not saying he'll turn into that type of hitter but I'm not writing him off either.

 

I always see in the minor league section people talking about guys being in age appropriate levels. Viciedo has been in the bigs since 21 so his development is occurring at the ML level. Nelson Cruz was just entering ML at 25.

[shysocks]

I have no problem giving Viciedo another year to show improvement at the plate. He's not going to be a good defensive player but there have been a lot of bad defensive players that can hit and hit for power.

 

I don't know why everyone is writing off a 25 year old. There are numerous players that have struggled at the plate in their early to mid 20's and then turned it around into nice careers. Ortiz and Carlos Gomez come to mind. I'm not saying he'll turn into that type of hitter but I'm not writing him off either.

 

I always see in the minor league section people talking about guys being in age appropriate levels. Viciedo has been in the bigs since 21 so his development is occurring at the ML level. Nelson Cruz was just entering ML at 25.

Ortiz was always a plus hitter and Gomez had speed and defensive talent to fall back on. Viciedo's "development" has consisted of the same recurring bad habits and continuing deterioration at the plate.

 

After this many plate appearances, age is no longer an excuse.

[shago]

Viciedo : bag of coal

[Lemon_44]

Ortiz was always a plus hitter and Gomez had speed and defensive talent to fall back on. Viciedo's "development" has consisted of the same recurring bad habits and continuing deterioration at the plate.

 

After this many plate appearances, age is no longer an excuse.

Ortiz's first 5 years yielded a 1.3 OWAR, Dayan's is 2.3. Ortiz did take off in year 6 though.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Lemon_44

[cabiness42]

Ortiz's first 5 years yielded a 1.3 OWAR, Dayan's is 2.3. Ortiz did take off in year 6 though.

 

Testing is much more stringent for Viciedo's year 6 than it was for Ortiz' year 6.

[Kyyle23]

Ortiz's first 5 years yielded a 1.3 OWAR, Dayan's is 2.3. Ortiz did take off in year 6 though.

 

Ortiz played 150 fewer games in his first 5 seasons

[Lillian]

Ackley's career is similar to Beckham's. They both came out of college, with great expectations. They were both high draft picks, from the SEC. They both got a "cup of coffee" at 23, and looked like

world beaters. They were both asked to change positions, and did so, reasonably well. The unfortunate parallel is that both have failed to realize the great offensive potential that they promised.

At this point, I think that both are considered failed prospects.

 

Career stats:

Beckham .245 .307 .375 .681

D. Ackley .245 .309 .366 .676

 

I guess that I wouldn't mind taking a chance that he might actually figure it out, at the plate. I do like his versatility. He is a guy who could even play a little 3RD, if the Sox needed

him there. He's a year older than Viciedo, and doesn't have his power potential, but is a better baseball player, in every other respect. I still don't see how slotting him into that hole in

LF, makes this team much better. I'd rather that they Sox traded Dayan for more bullpen candidates, or pure prospects.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Lillian

[MDWhiteSoxFan]

Viciedo and Danks for Ackley and Walker

[LittleHurt05]

I know we went through the same thing with Beckham and held on to him too long, but I'm still scared to get rid of Viciedo. I still think he can became a great power hitter. Unfortunately, I have zero evidence to back that up.

[cabiness42]

I know we went through the same thing with Beckham and held on to him too long, but I'm still scared to get rid of Viciedo. I still think he can became a great power hitter. Unfortunately, I have zero evidence to back that up.

 

I think with the way advanced metrics have changed how we value defense, Viciedo can't hit enough to justify keeping him in LF.

[LittleHurt05]

I think with the way advanced metrics have changed how we value defense, Viciedo can't hit enough to justify keeping him in LF.

 

That's true and we have zero use for a DH currently, or at least zero use for a $4 million platoon DH. (And he hasn't even hit lefties that well the past two seasons.)

 

Given his age, I'm not ready to declare him a bust, but he might have to break out somewhere else if it happens.

[Kyyle23]

That's true and we have zero use for a DH currently, or at least zero use for a $4 million platoon DH. (And he hasn't even hit lefties that well the past two seasons.)

 

Given his age, I'm not ready to declare him a bust, but he might have to break out somewhere else if it happens.

 

I think right now we are at the point that we have to hope another GM believes that. I think one more season of what we got last year, and there is no return at all. Right now, I think he still has value(despite what a certain couple posters believe). I am comfortable gambling that he can be traded and could possibly break out

[Balta1701]

I think with the way advanced metrics have changed how we value defense, Viciedo can't hit enough to justify keeping him in LF.

Of course, this is true in large part because he's done the opposite of what people are supposed to do with coaching and gotten worse out there every year. He put up a -3.0 UZR/150 (UZR over a season) in 2012, which isn't great but is entirely tolerable if a guy is hitting decently.

 

He then put up a -9.7 in 2013 and a -13.8 in 2014. He's genuinely going backwards, by a ton, for no obvious physical reason. He's not old, he's not obviously in worse shape, he's not obviously getting slower, he's just getting sloppier.

[Balta1701]

That's true and we have zero use for a DH currently, or at least zero use for a $4 million platoon DH. (And he hasn't even hit lefties that well the past two seasons.)

 

Given his age, I'm not ready to declare him a bust, but he might have to break out somewhere else if it happens.

One other remarkable thing about our lineup is that we actually do have use for a platoon righty right now.

 

As it stands now, our lineup pencils in 4 lefties if you count Micah: Johnson, Eaton, Gillaspie, LaRoche. If Sanchez takes the 2b spot to start the year, that still holds since he switch hits.

 

I don't know how Micah's platoon splits will look in the big leagues, but I do know that two of those bats are garbage against lefties - LaRoche and Gillaspie. They're bad enough that Viciedo, as terrible as he is, would be an offensive upgrade from LaRoche at the DH spot.

 

Before trading Semien this didn't look like that big of an issue to me because Marcus's bat could have slotted in nicely against any LHP as both a starter and a pinch hitter, but instead now we're looking at a bench maybe holding Sanchez, Saladino/Leury, Danks2, and a LH hitting catcher.

 

Maybe Sanchez hits well enough to take some ABs from Gillaspie but its hard to see him taking ABs away from LaRoche, and plus Micah might benefit from some time on the bench against lefties as well.

 

Suddenly we've gone from a place where our lineup needed lefties to a place where our bench is fairly lefty-strong but what we're missing is a solid RH hitting bat somewhere.

[shysocks]

Ortiz's first 5 years yielded a 1.3 OWAR, Dayan's is 2.3. Ortiz did take off in year 6 though.

WAR isn't quite fair because Ortiz didn't get as much playing time, although I understand it goes to your point that Viciedo's learning is taking place in the majors. Ortiz had a 105 wRC+ through his first five season compared to Viciedo's 95, which has headed in the wrong direction pretty much every year.

 

There's just no evidence that a breakout is coming, other than "some other guys took awhile too." Let another team burn a roster spot for that belief.

[Eminor3rd]

Ortiz's first 5 years yielded a 1.3 OWAR, Dayan's is 2.3. Ortiz did take off in year 6 though.

 

Ortiz's breakout is pretty consistently attributed to moving out of Minnesota, where they were forcing him into an "opposite field approach." Boston just let him slug, and slug he has since done. I don't think there's any reason to believe that Viciedo is in a similar situation.

[LittleHurt05]

I have no problem giving Viciedo another year to show improvement at the plate. He's not going to be a good defensive player but there have been a lot of bad defensive players that can hit and hit for power.

 

I don't know why everyone is writing off a 25 year old. There are numerous players that have struggled at the plate in their early to mid 20's and then turned it around into nice careers. Ortiz and Carlos Gomez come to mind. I'm not saying he'll turn into that type of hitter but I'm not writing him off either.

 

I always see in the minor league section people talking about guys being in age appropriate levels. Viciedo has been in the bigs since 21 so his development is occurring at the ML level. Nelson Cruz was just entering ML at 25.

 

Now that you mention Ortiz & Cruz, you have a good point. Someone just needs to convince Viciedo to start taking steroids.

[Y2Jimmy0]

One other remarkable thing about our lineup is that we actually do have use for a platoon righty right now.

 

As it stands now, our lineup pencils in 4 lefties if you count Micah: Johnson, Eaton, Gillaspie, LaRoche. If Sanchez takes the 2b spot to start the year, that still holds since he switch hits.

 

I don't know how Micah's platoon splits will look in the big leagues, but I do know that two of those bats are garbage against lefties - LaRoche and Gillaspie. They're bad enough that Viciedo, as terrible as he is, would be an offensive upgrade from LaRoche at the DH spot.

 

Before trading Semien this didn't look like that big of an issue to me because Marcus's bat could have slotted in nicely against any LHP as both a starter and a pinch hitter, but instead now we're looking at a bench maybe holding Sanchez, Saladino/Leury, Danks2, and a LH hitting catcher.

 

Maybe Sanchez hits well enough to take some ABs from Gillaspie but its hard to see him taking ABs away from LaRoche, and plus Micah might benefit from some time on the bench against lefties as well.

 

Suddenly we've gone from a place where our lineup needed lefties to a place where our bench is fairly lefty-strong but what we're missing is a solid RH hitting bat somewhere.

 

I brought this up in another thread. Is Rickie Weeks horrible defensively and could he play 3B? He had a. .865 OPS vs LHP last season (Only 155 PA) and still has a ton of power.

 

[Princess Dye]

Scott Merkin ‏@scottmerkin 1m1 minute ago

Source: White Sox in serious talks with Mariners on moving Viciedo. Targeting a reliever in return

[flavum]

Oh, it's happening...

[Sockin]

Scott Merkin ‏@scottmerkin 1m1 minute ago

Source: White Sox in serious talks with Mariners on moving Viciedo. Targeting a reliever in return

 

Pleaseohpleaseohplease

[Princess Dye]

but whut about tha CUBANCONNECTION