No Gimmick . . . Just Real Hitting Science!
Alex Rios has $58.7M left on his contract, is coming off a season in which he hit .199/.229/.301 after joining the White Sox, and has, at times, appeared completely lost at the plate. But don’t worry, Greg Walker is planning a special trip to Puerto Rico help turn Rios around.
As the Sox slipped further out of the race in September, Rios channeled ‘06 Brian Anderson and I plotted a post about the Sox most important off-season acquisition; a new hitting coach. You know, one that actually does something, makes obvious adjustments to struggling players instead of letting them ‘hit their way out of it’ and preaching on about the magical powers of the obverse side of a baseball card. My reasoning was simple; the Sox had roughly 60M reasons to find a hitting coach who would actually do something besides spout cliched baseball platitudes.
... “Quentin and Rios are the two guys that we wanted to work with specifically. They are young middle of the order hitters and should be with us a long time. Q is a guy that watches a lot of video and is a bright guy. We’re going to look at the good, bad and the ugly the last few years and come up with a gameplan. No swinging or anything like that. Just some time spent with him, mostly on the computer, come up with a plan.
“We want [Rios] to work on some things in the offseason with no pressure. I wanted to firm up that we’re all on the same page.”
So while I have to applaud Walker for finally taking a more visibly proactive approach, that little voice in the back of my mind dutifully reminds me; it’s Greg Freakin’ Walker. He’s about as effective as ExtenZe.
Repoz
Posted: October 29, 2009 at 11:39 AM |
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1. Shooty: Applying to be Fearless LeaderYour words ring hollow, chump.
As for Walker, fire him, don't fire him. It doesn't matter. If the Sox want to hit better, they need to get better hitters.
What does it mean to break out of a slump that includes the numbers 199/229/301?
That's because I'm not very bothered if he sucks while playing for another team.
You need to improve your reading comprehension. I said "last two weeks". September/October is four weeks at least.
Rios's last 14 games, he hit .302/.351/.453. If that's what you can expect from him on average going forward, that's great. But if that's what you can expect from him when he's "hot", eh, not so much.
Alex Rios is a fine role-player. He's not a star. If the White Sox are counting on Alex Rios to be a keystone for their 2010 offense, they might as well give up on contending right now.
Hope? Terror about the Sox taking on a $60M albatross?
UNLESS he was playing while injured and the last two weeks were the only weeks he was healthy, or he finally got new contacts...
no.
No, but it shows that he hasn't completely fallen apart as a player.
He had a terrible slump from early August to mid-September. That's all it is. White Sox fans are making too much of it.
It wasn't all 22 weeks. His OPS was 794 in mid-June. For comparison sake, he had a 798 OPS last year when his OPS+ was 111. He stunk horribly for the next three months.
Is there any reason to think his three month death spiral mean more than the rest of the last four years of his career?
Hope? Terror that your team has just given away a valuable player for absolutely nothing?
I agree that the White Sox need to upgrade their offense, but given that they (1) are in the AL Central and (2) have four good to very good starters (Buehrle - Peavy - Danks - Floyd -- is this the most solid 1-4 in baseball?), their offense doesn't need to be great for them to contend. They really need -- in addition to a healthy Quentin -- somebody to hit well in LF, and somebody to hit well at DH (or at 1B, if you want to move Konerko to DH). It doesn't seem to me that you need to break the bank to find good hitters at that end of the defensive spectrum.
I'm too lazy to compute his combined line outside Rogers Centre, but its close to ,271/,315,402.
Home: .291/.346/.489
Road: .271/.315/.402
That was a pretty decent job of eyeballing his road stats.
It's no more ridiculous than you (and other folks) making predictions about Rios' future based on one season's worth of data (half-a-season, actually -- he wasn't that bad in Toronto this year) when the three seasons prior to this one, Rios has close to 2000 PAs of a 115 OPS+.
Quite frankly, the reaction to Rios' 2009 strikes me as very similar to the reaction to Swisher's 2008 (I say that in a 'general' sense -- most Sox fans with any inclination of a saber background felt he was due to bounce back and weren't pleased when he was sold for pennies on the dollar. Wait, did I say pennies? Lint is more like it.). Luckily for Sox fans, even if Rios is more of a 90-95 OPS+ hitter (which is several percentage points behind what most projection systems will have him at), Rios is a well above-average defender while being pretty superb on the basepaths.
Which is part of why I was so furious when the Jays just let Chicago have him for nothing.
One thing which should be noted about Rios - there was a surprisingly comprehensive campaign after his departure from Toronto to depict him as lazy, somewhat stubborn, and completely unwilling to work to further develop his skills or even maintain them (and that he had been so since he got his big contract). It even included negative comments from Jerry Howarth, who (if you follow Toronto radio broadcasts) has always come across as a nice and extremely positive guy.
Whether this means that Rios is actually lazy and unmotivated, or whether this just means that Rogers was very effective in pushing the company line to cover their asses from the PR fallout, it's hard to say.
You can still live out the dream!
I would consider it good news. Stop thinking of only yourself!
The Minutemen will protect me. You won't get past Buffalo, al Qanada.
He'll turn it around! He'll be worth the contract! It'll happen! Just wait and see!
Your words ring hollow.
Is there any particular reason to think that the final two weeks of the season mean more than the previous 22?
Hope? Terror about the Sox taking on a $60M albatross?
Is there any reason to think his three month death spiral mean more than the rest of the last four years of his career?
Hope? Terror that your team has just given away a valuable player for absolutely nothing?
Moneyball, the real story behind professional baseball's movers and shakers, in theaters April 2012: It's no more ridiculous than you (and other folks) making predictions about Rios' future based on one season's worth of data (half-a-season, actually -- he wasn't that bad in Toronto this year) when the three seasons prior to this one, Rios has close to 2000 PAs of a 115 OPS+.
Catch the fever! Caaaatch it!
I think this is a good time to mention that my cousin plays guitar in the Tragically Hip. Let's get the Canadians together and talk about our favourite albums and songs. I find it hard to decide other than to say that every live version is better than the studio version.
Buffalo: Canadian bridgehead to finish what we started two hundred years ago.
They won't be happy until everyone is spelling words with unnecessary "U"'s.
By Canadian standards, I think this makes you a celebrity.
I strongly agree with this statement. The live stuff I've heard either in person or through recordings has been universally excellent.
I OD'ed on the Hip's rock-ier songs back in the day. Now, I listen to their mellow tracks most of the time: Bobcaygeon, It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken, Scared, Fiddler's Green, Wheat Kings. . .
RE: The Hip live. Seen them five or six times, but not for the last 6 years or so. Is Gord still doing the long, stream of consciousness rants?
I don't know why, but "Caaaatch it!" is ####### cracking me up.
By Canadian standards, I think this makes you a celebrity.
By Canadian standards, having all of your fingers and toes and/or a seventh grade education makes you a celebrity.
I don't know anything about the Tragically Hip aside from two or three songs I've heard, but I would have bet ten bucks that they had a guy named "Gord."
Actually, they have two guys named "Gord."
Matt Good's Vancouver is great.... oh, you meant Hip albums. I'll probably have to destroy my Canadian passport once I admit this, but my only real exposure to the Hip is the song they had on one of Rick Mercer's shows, and having my older sister force me to leave during their set at a 9/11 benefit concert.
Rios needs a complete attitude adjustment to turn his career around.
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