Carlos Rodon

[greg775]

Glad to see him pitching well and competing hard. Screaming on the mound. Nice.

Means little though cause our team only plays well when the pressure is off. Love Rodon though.

[greg775]

Someone do doesn't want to pay $12-15M AAV for the likes of Brett Anderson, Clay Bucholz, Andrew Cashner, Jeremy Hellickson, Derek Holland, Rich Hill, etc.

 

Shields will be tough to move, but if the Sox are willing to give him away (I suspect they will be), I bet he could be moved including much cash. $10M AAV is below the going rate for a back rotation innings eater.

Inning eater? LOL. Yeah if you pitch him six he'll give up seven (runs).

[caulfield12]

So let's see, the first problem is that the final paragraph is exactly the argument that the FO will make to ownership about why they need to sell out and be all in next year again, but anyway.

 

Here's my issue with getting excited about Rodon - you see it in posts above this one as well, saying "if he finds the consistency..." but that's not easy.

 

Even a true ace will have plenty of days where he doesn't have 1 of his pitches working, and even a true ace will have days where he has literally nothing. The trick for "consistency" is what can they do when they don't have things working.

 

To me, it's not unexpected at all that Rodon is having a really good stretch right now, because he has two plus pitches. When those two pitches are working effectively several games in a row, he will have several great games in a row. You can even see guys keep that up with two plus pitches for long enough to make the all star game, but eventually they always hit a rut because every pitcher loses the feel for some pitch eventually. Right now Rodon's had two seasons where he's found a groove and had both pitches working late in the year but not early in the year.

 

Rodon's also had more demonstrable swagger/cockiness and hasn't been afraid these last seven times out to celebrate a big strikeout (the one against Orlando with bases loaded, two outs and a seemingly precarious 5-2 lead).

 

That's where he needs to be more flexible as a pitcher. While he was struggling in July, the Yankees announcers noted that everything was hard, hard, hard with him - upper 90s fastball followed by high 80s slider. That's a mix that works from the bullpen when you face a guy once or you get pulled before the second pitch hurts you, but as a starter one way to overcome the times you are missing one of your pitches is to be able to change speeds. We're still waiting on him to have some ability to do that - a hard fastball and a hard slider will destroy some teams if they're plus pitches, but other teams that hit those pitches well or days when the slider isn't working well will still be bad.

 

Without an effective pitch in the lower 80s, Rodon's success will be entirely based on him having his slider and fastball and good control of both every time out, and I haven't seen the pitcher who works that way.

 

I would argue that he's finally found an effective mix.

 

He was throwing 98-99 in the 6th at 110-115 pitches. Earlier in the year, he was trying to emulate Sale by throwing fastballs in the 91-94 mph range to conserve his stamina for later but he just doesn't have the fastball command to get away that velocity.

 

He was throwing the fastball too slowly and the slider was too close to the fastball in velocity. He's a lot like Wilson Alvarez at this point in his career imo. Same body, maybe a bit more solid/muscular and same explosive stuff from the LH side. Ptac has always argued his mechanics were not conducive to consistent command over an entire season, and that walks and/or injuries would always be a concern.

 

At any rate, Abreu, Anderson and Rodon are tilting that windmill in the direction where tearing things apart doesn't seem logical, but then JR has to open the pursestrings and that would be twice in three years where they "overspent" coming off losing or disappointing seasons.

Edited September 10, 2016 by caulfield12

[southsider2k5]

Daryl Van Schouwen ‏@CST_soxvan 2h2 hours ago Next step for Carlos Rodon: 200 innings. http://bit.ly/2cK5LPt

 

 

[southsider2k5]

Christopher Kamka ‏@ckamka 19m19 minutes ago By game score, Carlos Rodon's 86 yesterday was the second best start by a #WhiteSox pitcher this season (Sale had 92 on Apr 15)