KW said Dunn signing will drive tix sales, but also that “it might be important to the GM’s health and his long-term employment prospects.”
Translation: I couldn’t take anymore of Ozzie’s DH experiments (Kotsay, Mark).
December 2, 2010
Kenny Williams: Adam Dunn signing important for my health
November 9, 2010
Mark Kotsay: The White Sox are trying to get a left-handed hitter
In another development, Sox free agent Mark Kotsay said on Jim Bowden’s XM Radio show that the Sox are trying to acquire a left-handed hitter, such as free agents Adam Dunn or Aubrey Huff, or trade for Prince Fielder in addition to re-signing Konerko.
The Sox had discussions with Milwaukee involving Fielder, but those talks stopped prior to the July 31 trading deadline after the Brewers asked for Gordon Beckham.
Padilla @ ESPN says the Sox will likely get a chance to match any contract offer Konerko gets:
At the very least, the bond figures to afford the White Sox one last chance at matching any deal Konerko might have on the table from another team.
The situation is unique, although not unprecedented, because it will give the White Sox a bargaining chip that other clubs won’t have. Call them naive, but because Konerko and Reinsdorf are so close, the club expects that whatever dollar amount it could be asked to match will not be an artificially inflated one.
November 8, 2010
October 11, 2010
Differences between expected and actual BABIP for the 2010 White Sox
A couple of years ago, Chris Dutton and Peter Bendix did some research on batted-ball data and created a metric called xBABIP (“expected BABIP”). xBABIP dispelled the myth that BABIP was primarily a function of “LD%+ .120.” Rather, as Dutton and Bendix found, BABIP was better explained as a function all batted-ball types and ratios with speed/power/strikeout considerations.
Last year, Derek Carty and Chris Dutton debuted the simple xBABIP calculator on THT. This tool has empowered users to determine a player’s xBABIP and compare it to their actual BABIP. Therefrom, one could forecast a hitter’s expected batting line, assuming all the input ratios were to remain constant. Over the course of 500+ PA, these ratios tend to be significant, though conclusions can still be drawn at the 300 PA threshold (we’d really only be waiting on IFFB% stabilization).
For all 270 hitters who accrued 300 or more plate appearances this season, I applied the xBABIP formula (by park) to determine each hitter’s expected batting lines. In short, what I have created is a spreadsheet of “what you can expect as a baseline for production in 2011, assuming all else remains constant.” In other words, this is how these hitters should have hit in 2010. …
Numbers for the White Sox players from the full spreadsheet:
| Player | PA | xBABIP | BABIP | Difference |
| Andruw Jones | 328 | .310 | .239 | .071 |
| Juan Pierre | 734 | .351 | .294 | .057 |
| Mark Kotsay | 359 | .298 | .247 | .051 |
| Carlos Quentin | 527 | .282 | .241 | .041 |
| A.J. Pierzynski | 503 | .299 | .278 | .021 |
| Alex Rios | 617 | .322 | .306 | .016 |
| Alexei Ramirez | 626 | .311 | .300 | .011 |
| Gordon Beckham | 498 | .304 | .297 | .007 |
| Omar Vizquel | 391 | .309 | .309 | 0 |
| Paul Konerko | 631 | .297 | .326 | -.029 |
For players that played part of the year with the White Sox I got their BABIP numbers from statcorner. All the numbers are for the time they played for the White Sox:
| Player | PA | xBABIP | BABIP | Difference |
| Jayson Nix | 57 | .262 | .189 | .073 |
| Manny Ramirez | 88 | .313 | .388 | -.075 |
Mark Teahen had only 262 PAs.
September 27, 2010
Link of the day
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kotsama01.shtml
Check out the sponsor!
September 9, 2010
Frank Thomas: It will come down to next week’s 3-game set against Minnesota
No Frank. We’re 6 games back. Even if we sweep the 3 games against Minnesota, we’d be 3 games back. The division was lost when the Sox decided to punt on Jim Thome and let Minnesota grab him. Look at the Sox DH production and the Twinkies DH production. The Twinkies have a 131 split OPS+ and the Sox a 92. And if the Twinkies didn’t have Jim Thome to play at DH when Morneau went down, their other DH option, Kubel, has a split OPS+ of 86.
And in today’s pregame show Bill Melton said something like ‘ the Andruw Jones, Mark Kotsay and Dayan Viciedo combo has given the same numbers as Jim Thome.’ No. Not even close. Look at the DH links above.
September 8, 2010
News for Ozzie: Justin Morneau’s last game was July 7
“I don’t know about the organization,” Guillen responded on Wednesday, when asked if he was feeling the heat with that decision now. “Myself, I know he’s going to hit. Maybe the fans do. Maybe the media does. I really don’t put attention to that. I don’t. He had big hits for a lot of people. He had big hits for us. I don’t put any attention to that. I don’t.
“If it’s not Thome then it’s going to be [Justin] Morneau. Jim is playing just because Morneau is not there.”
If the Twinkies hadn’t acquired Thome due to your stupidity, they wouldn’t have the option of playing Thome after they lost Morneau.
September 7, 2010
About the guy Ozzie couldn’t find at-bats for
but magically found them for Mark Kotsay:
Jim Thome has continued to hit and hit and hit this year, and check out where he ranks now on the list of most plate appearances by a guy 39 or older, minimum 170 OPS+:
Rk Player PA OPS+ Year Age Tm G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO BA OBP SLG OPS Pos 1 Barry Bonds 617 263 2004 39 SFG 147 373 129 135 27 3 45 101 232 120 41 .362 .609 .812 1.422 *7/D 2 Ted Williams 517 179 1958 39 BOS 129 411 81 135 23 2 26 85 98 12 49 .328 .458 .584 1.042 *7 3 Hank Aaron 465 177 1973 39 ATL 120 392 84 118 12 1 40 96 68 13 51 .301 .402 .643 1.045 *79 4 Ted Williams 390 190 1960 41 BOS 113 310 56 98 15 0 29 72 75 7 41 .316 .451 .645 1.096 *7 5 Jim Thome 293 173 2010 39 MIN 95 240 39 66 16 2 21 51 50 3 75 .275 .399 .621 1.020 *D 6 Barry Bonds 52 174 2005 40 SFG 14 42 8 12 1 0 5 10 9 3 6 .286 .404 .667 1.071 *7 7 Manny Mota 50 176 1977 39 LAD 49 38 5 15 1 0 1 4 10 3 0 .395 .521 .500 1.021 /7 8 Cy Williams 21 174 1930 42 PHI 21 17 1 8 2 0 0 2 4 0 3 .471 .571 .588 1.160 /879 9 Harry Davis 9 201 1914 40 PHA 5 7 0 3 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 .429 .556 .429 .984 /3
I’m telling you it’s magic…
September 1, 2010
THT on the 2010 White Sox’ ‘DH by committee’
In a vacuum, a re-signing of Thome by the White Sox would give the South Siders a +3.0 WAR swing in the AL Central Standings. Note, however, that Thome has only 279 plate appearances this season while splitting DH duties with Jason Kubel. Of course, Thome’s been platooned, which may exaggerate his bottom line, but any potential non-platoon “regression” would surely be offset by the additional playing time he would have seen with the White Sox. Let’s just leave the WAR at +2.4 and call it even.
The White Sox do not play in a vacuum, however. Thome, in not re-signing with the White Sox, signed a deal with the Twins. Hence, in a Thome-on-the-Sox-over-Kotsay theoretical situation, you have to not only add +3.0 WAR to the White Sox 2010 win total, but also subtract 2.4 WAR from the Twins’ 2010 win total. That turns a 4.0 game lead by the Twins in the AL Central into a 1.5 game lead by the White Sox. …
August 31, 2010
Fangraphs looks on the White Sox’ ‘DH by committee’ plan
Twenty times this year Paul Konerko has filled the DH spot and seven times he has taken a day off. In all 27 instances Mark Kotsay took his place at first base. In an additional 47 games Kotsay himself has served as the DH. This has been nothing but a detriment to the team. Kotsay is no longer a good hitter, and really hasn’t been one since 2004. He has a mere .304 wOBA this year after a .309 mark last year, and he hasn’t crossed the .320 mark since 2005. There was no reason to think he’d approach average production for a DH. Yet he has been their primary guy in that spot. It seems like it could have gone to a more worthy player. …
August 16, 2010
White Sox could get Manny Ramirez as a straight waiver claim
According to Buster Olney of ESPN, Ramirez is still owed $5 million this season and the Chicago White Sox could feasibly get Ramirez simply as a straight waiver claim and with no need to send prospects in return.
Olney also speculates that the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, or the Texas Rangers could all take a gamble on Ramirez. It’s also possible that Ramirez could go through the waiver wire unclaimed and then the Dodgers could trade him and, in doing so, agree to pick up a portion of his remaining salary.
Kenny shouldn’t have listened to Ozzie and his crazy DH theory, and keep Jim Thome. We’d have a proper DH, and not this Mark Kotsay nonsense, and for the entire season. Furthermore, Big Jim wouldn’t be contributing a .268/.387/.578/.966 hitting line to the Twinkies.
UPDATE: Rosenthal @ FOXS:
Left fielder Manny Ramirez…would be risky for a team to claim; the Dodgers likely would let him go, assuming that Ramirez was willing to waive his no-trade clause. The claiming club then would assume the pro-rated portion of his $20 million salary, which on Aug. 31 still would be more then $3 million.
The deferrals in Ramirez’s contract would make no difference in the amount his new club would pay; only the timetable might be affected. Ramirez’s contract stipulates a $5 million salary this season and deferred payments without interest of $3.33 million each on June 30, 2011 and ’12 and $8.33 million on June 30, 2013.
If Ramirez cleared waivers, he would be eligible to be traded to any team — and he would be wise to waive his no-trade clause for an American League club that would allow him to serve as a DH and build his value for free agency this off-season.
Ramirez, recovering from a right calf strain, could begin a rehabilitation assignment this week. The Dodgers cannot place him on waivers until after they activate him from the disabled list.
August 10, 2010
Tweet of the day
Jim Thome is one dimensional….but Kotsay is 0 dimensional.
July 27, 2010
Strange way to break a slump…
After having a line drive turned into a double play and watching Ichiro Suzuki jump over the right-field fence to take away a home run Monday, Mark Kotsay and his White Sox teammates went a non-traditional direction Tuesday to bring the left-handed hitter some luck on offense.
They set up a fire pit during batting practice and burned his bats, in a salute to Pedro Cerrano from the movie “Major League.” According to Kotsay, the ritual was executed by Mark Teahen.
“I walked out and saw what was going on, and obviously I wanted to find out what was going on, but I had nothing to do with it,” Kotsay said. “There are quirky things like changing your uniform or your undershirt or your shoes, but never burning bats.”
July 26, 2010
Kenny Williams: I should have addressed left-handed hitting
The White Sox haven’t done much damage from the left side all season, and Kenny knows it.
“In hindsight, it’s something I should have probably addressed,” KW said. “I didn’t, so that’s why you’re sitting here now and everyone’s talking about it. However, we’ve accomplished some things without that piece. It’s got to be the right guy for the right price. If it’s not the right guy for the right price, I don’t think you drop down to another level just to do something.”
One tidbit from KW: “There’s been a lot that’s been talked about about some guys that may be moved and I have no intention of moving them.”
Translation: Lay off Gordon Beckham, Gavin Floyd, John Danks.
July 20, 2010
Hudson + Viciedo + ? = Fielder + Starting Pitcher?
Most lists of Chicago’s top prospects have Hudson at No. 1 and Viciedo in the top five. Any deal for Fielder probably would have to start with those two. I also have to believe that Melvin would prefer trading Fielder out of the NL, though he could sign with any club he chooses after 2011.
This is not to say a deal is in the works. But Williams has been known to make big deals in the past, which is how he got Peavy. The White Sox have been doing quite nicely as they stand now, roaring to the top of the AL Central. But, if they go for the jugular, they might make a move on Fielder.
I was told the White Sox probably would ask for a starting pitcher in return to plug into their rotation, so the Brewers might have to include a pitcher such as Chris Narveson or Manny Parra in any deal. Otherwise, Chicago would be short of starters and the deal might not make sense. …
UPDATE: Ken Rosenthal tweets Kenny is not on Fielder :
White Sox not on Fielder – don’t like $$$, no match given Brewers’ need for starting pitching. Also not on Berkman. Focus still Dunn.
Losing Daniel Hudson because Kenny listened to Ozzie who didn’t want Thome would suck. 6 years of Daniel Hudson down the drain. With the money the Sox signed Mark Kotsay, they could’ve signed Big Jim…
