what are you proposing then? I thought it was emphasizing making contact. If you want to make Abreu hit like Guillen. fine. Lots more balls in play. Better player.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Well, the Sox haven't won shit with Abreu and I don't think it's silly to say that he would be the "best" player on the Royals. We're talking about an overall philosophy regarding putting together a lineup here. The problem is the fetishization of the walk/OBP to the point where guys are often failing to swing at the most hittable pitch in a given at-bat.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I just ran a regression of swings/strike and wRC+ and there is no correlation.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

No correlation of what to what? Obviously there's a correlation between guys going deeper into counts and the higher strikeout rates. It's not like strikeouts are at all-time highs because every batter is going down on three pitches.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I just told you. The correlation between swinging at strikes (Z-Swing%) and offensive value (wRC+)


SUMMARY OUTPUT

Regression Statistics
Multiple R 0.039323963
R Square 0.001546374
Adjusted R Square -0.002832808
Standard Error 17.79464152
Observations 230

ANOVA
df SS MS F Significance F
Regression 1 111.814982 111.814982 0.353119346 0.552941801
Residual 228 72196.03284 316.6492669
Total 229 72307.84783

Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value Lower 95% Upper 95% Lower 95.0% Upper 95.0%
Intercept 98.73864862 14.35287352 6.879364504 5.73132E-11 70.45741373 127.0198835 70.45741373 127.0198835
0.736 12.82182812 21.57690727 0.594238459 0.552941801 -29.69381043 55.33746667 -29.69381043 55.33746667

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

You've just forced JORR to go on a murderous rampage. Uh oh.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I'm not going to pretend to understand that, but I will say that "Runs Created" is a specious concept at best. Further, the concept of "offensive value" is murky. You seem to be focusing on elite power hitters. I'm not suggesting Abreu or Goldschmidt is striking out "too much". The fact that elite sluggers whose power can't be separated from their strikeout rates are part of the sample clearly affects the data.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

OK. so you have a theory that can't be tested or measured. great.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I'm stating the fact that 30% of batted balls result in hits (not including home runs). That being the case, it's not unreasonable to suggest that a batted ball is a better result than strike three.

Runs scoring is at nearly all-time lows and strikeouts are at nearly all-time highs, and you seem to be suggesting there is no correlation between those two facts.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

maybe maybe not. Plus you assume batters/teams can do something about it. and if they did something it would make it better.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Well, I don't believe pitchers have gotten so overwhelmingly superior that suddenly strikeouts are at about 10 per game because of their greatness. I'm sure the specialization, i.e. relievers coming in the game throwing in the high 90s, is a factor, but I think the imperative to work counts isn't really helping batters get on base. Again, the amount of walks issued is not drastically up while strikeouts certainly are. Batters simply don't care about striking out. For the most part they are trying to "work" the pitcher, especially the starting pitcher.

There was an interesting long form article about the Royals run to the World Series last year. In one of the ALCS games that Price started, Rusty Kuntz was going over the strategy and he said something like, "If we can get into the seventh with Price around 80 pitches, we should be in good shape." That's the exact opposite of the conventional wisdom, but they did it and it worked. They weren't trying to "work" Price to an early exit or take a bunch of walks. The strategy was to put the ball in play and let the percentages do the work.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I would love to know what the "firm, serious offer" was compared to what he got.

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Glad they didn't get Fowler.

Please explain this. Either you or Keyser.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I have no beef with Fowler. I just wouldn't want to pay the going rate for him.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

He isn't worth $11M a season? I believe MLBN last night stated he has the third highest OBP since 2011.

In US Cellular, with that small right field...his power would go up and his defense would be less of a negative.

I'm very surprised.

As a Cubs fan, I was hoping for a deal that would move Schwarber or Soler for strong, cost controlled young pitching and maybe the Cubs could get Fowler back for a 3 year $40M deal. Once it seemed like the market wasn't strong for him.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Fowler would've cost $32m plus the #27 overall.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft ... ft_round=1
The White Sox draft so well when picking later than 13th overall, don't they?

That's not even a shot against the Sox. After the first 10-15 overall picks in any first year player draft, it becomes a complete crapshoot. There is no reason to cherish a 27th overall pick compared to a player going into an age 30 season that would be a big benefit to the current team as they attempt to make a push for a playoff position. Furthermore, the $32M-$35M is considered a huge bargain.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I don't know. I guess he's worth it because he got it. In fact, he's probably worth more on a truly open market where a pick wasn't tied to him.

I wouldn't mind having him instead of Melky. I just don't want both. It's not a criticism of Fowler as a player. I just think for the White Sox and the way they operate, I wouldn't want to tie that money up on him right now.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I'm not a big Fowler fan but I totally agree with you on this.

Who is the $36m (thats what he got) considered a bargain by? You? Because only one MLB GM deemed him worthy of it and from the sound of it nobody else came close. You overvalue Dexter Fowler, kind of like you overvalued Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler by assuming the two (even packaged together) could get young, cost controlled pitching in a post-Shelby Miller trade world.

The Sox cannot tank for 5 years to replenish their farm system. They also have Kenny Williams who trades about 3.5 top30 players every offseason, every so often they need to restock. 3 picks in the top 50 this year is a good place to restock.

I believe as much as anyone that the 2016 Cubs offense is going to be legit.

But...

Fowler
Heyward
Rizzo
Bryant
Montero
Soler / Schwarber
Zobrist
P
Russell

would be just as good. And Arrieta, Lester, Carrasco (or Ross or Salazar or Matz, etc) , Lackey, Hendricks/Hammel would clearly be stronger.

I don't mean to get away from the Sox talk in this thread...but Fowler's presence at the top of the order isn't overstated. He was the Cubs' catalyst last season.



I had temporarily forgotten you were a troll. Thanks for reminding me.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

If you think Jorge Soler gets your Carlos Carrasco you are out of your fucking mind. If it actually could and Theo turned it down its no wonder he got ran out of Boston.

IMU trying to call others out for trolling, after he claimed to be the most objective baseball poster on this board. Unintentional comedy hall of fame material right there.

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Austin Jackson signed. I was hoping he would be back with the Cubs. Nice pickup.

They need an impact left handed bat so they sign a right handed bat whose power and defense are on the decline and strikes out by the bucket load. Sheesh

Who is Avi Garcia?

I don't see this move and LaRoche's injury as any sort of coincidence. LaRoche showed up like he didn't give a shit so they're going to give him the Keppinger treatment. Fine by me, I hate LaRoche.

Did Frank get banned again?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Jackson took less money to play for the sox

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.