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The Sox have been completely exposed and embarrassed in this series, and there is no guarantee that Eloy and Robert will be anywhere close to the players they were when they come back...if they come back at all. Is it time to tear things down and get a haul for Lynn and Rodon at the deadline?

Delete this.

For those who think Escobar is meh please be advised that his 15 HR's would currently lead the team. His .743 OPS would currently be 4th on the Sox behind Moncada, Abreu and Anderson and only Moncada is barely above .800 OPS. Moncada's OPS is propped up by his walks. If Moncada get's injured Escobar can replace him at 3rd base. Escobar's Slg % is .455 which would be 1st on the Sox. Abreu 's is .448 Moncada's is .403. Mendick Slg % is .315 . Against RHP his Slg % is .431 which would put him 3d behind Abreu's .569 and Mercedes .524 but since Mercedes can't be counted on anymore might as well say Escobar would be 2nd. A few others with insignificant PA's are higher than Escobar but you get the drift. Against RHP his 10 HR's would be 1st on the Sox. Against LHP his 5 HR's would be tied with 2nd with Vaughn only behind Abreu's 6. Against LHP his Slg. % is .530 which would be 3rd on the Sox behind Vaughn and Abreu . Contrary to popular belief without Eloy, Robert and Madrigal who actually had the Highest Slg Pct against LHP on the Sox (besides Vaughn) when injured, the Sox do not kill LHP anymore. After Vaughn's outstanding .726 Slg. vs. LHP and Abreu is Mercedes and he can't be counted on anymore. After Mercedes is Grandal at .417 . After Grandal not a single regular above .358 . All of this should tell you that if you think Escobar is meh then you should think the whole lineup is meh especially against RHP and yes ,even against LHP. He is definitely better than Mendick and just about anyone on the Sox in an area where the Sox suck and that is power and slugging from both sides of the plate. When your 2 best LHH's OPS are propped up by walks putting Escobar behind our walk machines whether he hits righty or lefty Escobar is a pretty big upgrade.

I wonder who is taking the time to register at random baseball message boards in order to try to make excuses for the Houston Astros cheating. What a weird thing to feel the need to do.

First off, let's talk about 2017. The investigation found that the two people who brought the sign stealing scheme to Houston were Carlos Beltran and assistant coach Alex Cora. Both joined the team for the 2017 season. So they were not cheating before then. If you look at Altuve's stats, he hit .338 the year before in 2016, .313 in 2015, and .341 in 2014. He can just rake. Let's talk a little more about Altuve and the cheating scandal, since many seem to want him to be the face of it. Based on the evidence, Altuve was clean. Look at his home and away batting splits in 2017. At home he hit .311, but on the road he hit .381. Every single stat of his was better on the road. Carlos Correa has said that Altuve did not use the sign stealing scheme, and refused to participate. Here is that interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waxx9kLqnlc Here's the transcript of Correa in that interview: And the evidence seems to support that admission from Correa. Here is a chart from a guy who plotted every trash can bang he could from the 2017 season. Here is a comparison of Altuve to some others, such as Marwin Gonzales and George Springer: There is a video out there where you can hear a bang when Altuve is up to bat, and he looks at the Astros dugout and looked pissed off. I honestly believe what Correa said is the truth. He has been very candid through the whole thing. Edit: Here is the video of Altuve looking pissed at the dugout after a bang: https://twitter.com/adams_at/status/1402342356456722434?s=21 As for the sign-stealing scheme as a whole, there isn't really any evidence that it worked to begin with. If you look at the stats, the Astros hit .279 at home and .284 on the road. Every stat was better on the road than it was at home. The truth seems to be that the Astros can just flat-out hit. They thought this sign-stealing scheme could make them even better, but in reality at best it seemed to have very little effect at all. I think it's been proven not only in the stats, but also that their team can still absolutely rake even after all this stuff came out.

How did both of you end up spelling condescending wrong for shame

Abreu is hitting .251/.330/.404 vs RHP with a 105 wRC+. That's not going to get it done.

Yermin shouldn't DH against a righty. Maybe you throw him in there against a soft tossing lefty, but he's totally unable to handle ML pitching right now. If you have to, send him down to AAA to figure it out, cause having him hit .150 in the majors isn't helping anyone. Lamb should DH vs. righties as much as possible, but stop putting him in the 2 spot. He's a total liability on defense and really shouldn't be put in OF, especially if you plan on playing Goodwin in CF. The combination of Goodwin, Vaughn, and Lamb might be the worst defensive OF in baseball. Play Engel as much as possible. We need him to anchor the defense in CF and he's hitting well enough against RHP that he shouldn't strictly be a platoon player. Especially when your other options in CF are Goodwin and Leury. Against RHP, I'd go Lamb at DH, Goodwin in LF, Engel in CF, and Leury in RF. You can even give Collins ABs at DH and have Lamb in LF if we don't have a fly ball heavy starter on the mound. Against LHP, Vaughn needs to be in the top 5 of the lineup. I don't care if it's 2, 3, or even 5, he belongs in there against lefties. He's one of our only guys who's had success against high velocity this year.

You have been completely exposed and embarrassed.

The thread in question.

You'd better look again @ Vaughns slugging vs RHP: Vaughns Splits Vaughn ain't slugging an otherworldly .726 vs. RHP. Hes slugging a putrid, anemic, NL pitcher-level .242 vs R as R. That's NOT his batting average. That's NOT his OBP. He's slugging a shitty .242 vs. RHP. If Leury were doing that, people would be losing their fucking shit over it on these boards. And thats one reason why Vaughn has to be sent down. He sucks out loud vs. RHP at an almost-entirely offensive position. While burning through his controllable years, and not really learning anything. This org has asked Vaughn to do the impossible, and its perfectly fine to admit that he's just not yet ready. Especially, in a "Win Now" season. Now, insofar as Escobar goes, I'd take him. He's even played LF in the past, so if you'd want to put him there, fine. He'd fucking be better than Andrew Vaughn is right now vs the ~75% or so MLB pitchers that are RHP.

Tim Beckham has served his suspension per a White Sox source. He could be added to the roster whenever.

You're special They're in first place. You're insinuating that they're 5 under .500 and in 3rd. They got swept by a good team. The 2005 team got swept 4 times . Fucking relax dude

Reinsdorf will get them no help when it can make the biggest impact. Then predictably they swoon which Reinsdorf will use as an excuse not to do anything. Wash, Rinse, Repeat for 40 years. If anything, Hahn will be selling. He works for an owner who admitted to being P.T. Barnum 2.0.

I'd give up either of them before Ramos or Rodriquez.

Welcome to the Jack Parkman Panic Attack Fan Club.

Ya don't say???

Ron needs to be sent down. This wasn't even a good attempt. He's just going through the troll motions now.

even I wouldn't post this

The other red flag is that the Astros' almost never look really fooled on a pitch.

https://www.mlb.com/prospects/stats/affiliates?teamId=145&date=06/22/2021 Let's get some wins!

I am both shocked and dismayed. I think it's the 1st time in the history of my many years on Soxtalk that someone has actually said this to me. For that you get an emoji of love !

Those are all just nonsense allegations from some guy selling a book. I mean, vibrating Band-Aids? C’mon. P.S., Codebreaker was simply a computer program that would crack the catcher’s signs. Every team in the league had a guy in the back doing it by hand. They would watch the catcher and try to figure out the signs and relay it to the rest of the team so that when they got a runner on second, the runner could alert the batter. Every team in the league does this. The only difference is that the Astros had the help of a computer program to crack the signs instead of just a guy figuring it out on his own. It had nothing to do with the trash can banging in 2017.

Alrighty - I’m sold. Escobar + an arm for the pen + another bat... because why not.

Don’t worry about the Indians. They’ll go 9-11 and the Sox will go 12-6, and we’ll have a 6.5 game lead at the break.

Filled in for a few games circa 2005, perhaps earlier. Gordon’s stint reminded me of Donn Pall in that they’re both likable and fun personalities, but trainwrecks when it comes to broadcasting skills. If you catch an ‘05 re-run with Donn Pall, it’ll be a trainwreck you can’t move your eyes away from.

You can tell the first one was a copied pre-formatted response withe the extra spacing in it. It's someone who is closely following Houston and adding these responses as more of a PR campaign. Personally I feel like posters on Soxtalk deserve to know that this isn't regular message board content.

They need the thump everywhere in the lineup. I just broke it down by Slugging Percentage because OPS is propped up by walks in our LHH's. But when Madrigal is your top Slugging guy against LHP ,besides Vaughn who blows everyone else away vs. LHP you need help badly. Abreu was probably ahead of Madrigal when Nick got injured but he isn't anymore. Plus everyone thinks the Sox are some juggernaut against LHP but that isn't even true anymore. Escobar instantly becomes one of our best hitters from both sides of the plate despite his low OBP because he can hit HR's. Against RHP I'd put Moncada, Grandal, Escobar ABreu , and hope to get more 2 and 3 run HR's that way because of Grandal's and Moncada's ability to take a walk. Against LHP I'd have a 3 4 5 of Vaughn, Abreu and Escobar.

It was two seasons, 2017 and some of 2018, and there is zero evidence that it was done in the playoffs. It’s also not feasible that it was done in the playoffs as the crowd is way too loud. Also, the opponents changed signs constantly in the playoffs.

I only watched a little this weekend, but Benetti “interviewing” his color guy gets a little old for me. I’d rather he just call the game and let the color guy comment. A little bit of silence and ambient sound isn’t the end of the world on a baseball TV broadcast.

Also ask yourself why Nightengale...

For the record- I think we can do better than Escobar but I’ll take him.

what a fucking bizarre hill to die on lmao

Escobar reminds me of the kind of guy who comes here and falls off a cliff offensively

That really does explain it all.

Wait, you were serious about him having a lot of twitter followers? No wonder White Sox twitter is a dumpster fire.

I don't really disagree with you and I hate that guy as much as anyone (probably more) but I like to think we could get both Escobar and Marte, plus a quality MR type and a quality LR/spot starter -- even at full salary relief -- without having to give up a star prospect. And ultimately, as Sox fans all we can do is hope (this part can't be said here because of the rules) as soon as possible. But until that fabulous day happens and we get party/jump up and down with joy, we have to root for the parts we like to still be great even in spite of the other parts we don't like bringing the ship down. Case in point: Starling Marte + Ross Detwiler for Charlotte pieces. Now we have a high-end starting RF plus a guy who can eat up extra innings in garbage time without shitting himself unlike Marshall. Then, Escobar + Soria for probably another Charlotte piece and some low-end stuff. We get a 2B/LF/DH/bench bat and a guy who actually has enough pitches to function as a MR unlike Foster. Bam, we're better. Ultimately we are going to live and die off of our starting rotation and bullpen in the playoffs, just like basically every team in every year. If Rodon and those guys are lights out, and so is Hendriks, and if Bummer and Heuer get it together, then we can win it all. If those guys are bad, we probably won't. But at least we will have the talent.

There is zero chance the white sox take on salary. JR is still on this planet. It's either prospects on the way out for things that don't fiscally cost us a lot. Or mediocre players who make TLR tingle in the right place.

There is zero chance they upgrade. JR spent money on a FA for RF. Unless Eaton is out for the season he is going to be out there. We trotted out a terrible OF into the playoffs last year. He will do the same this year.

There is absolutely zero evidence that Altuve or anyone was wearing any sort of electronic device. That was completely made up out of thin air by Jomboy on Twitter, and because there was a fervor of Astros hate at a fever-pitch, everyone ran with it without a single shred of evidence. I mean, just think about it. If Altuve wasn't even willing to have anyone bang on a trash can while he was batting, do you really think he'd put some kind of wire on? And if the players were wearing a wire, do you really think they'd try to rip his shirt off? It makes absolutely zero sense, and is one of the sillier conspiracy theories in sports. Astros players would sometimes rip the shirt off of a player who had a walk-off hit. Altuve didn't want them to do that after having a walk-off homer to send them to the World Series on national television. That's all it was.

He hit a walkoff home run. His teammates tried to rip his jersey off. As he rounded third to the team pile he signaled them to not rip it off. As he hit the walkoff, of course Rosenthal wanted to interview him after the game. He had to first run to the clubhouse and change into a t shirt and then took the interview. When asked about taking his jersey off or whatever, he asked Rosenthal to repeat the question - something liars do when thinking of an answer. He then said he was shy and his wife wouldn't want him to have his shirt off. There were dozens of pictures of him shirtless posted on his social media. Something was very sketchy there.

Thing is though and I think most of us know this. Parkman wouldn't mind this. He thinks the season is a lost cause anyway. That's just not even operating like a small market. That's being reactionary and acting like an idiot.

And what about the evidence that suggests that Altuve was wearing a wire? Remember when he grabbed his shirt, for fear that his teammates would tear it off, while celebrating a walk off homer?

Yuck. If this is our big trade we’re screwed. I don’t have any faith in this front office making more moves that potentially add more payroll.

Honest question, is Escobar really an upgrade over Mendick?

The lost players have been slightly more impactful for the White Sox, but the Astros have had 60% more games spent on the IL by players than the White Sox. The White Sox have had 471 man-games spent on the IL, the Padres have had 1106. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/disabled-list/cumulative-team/

Kyyle from the TOP ROPE!

Maybe from your bench guys, but not your starting 1B MVP 3 hole/cleanup hitter. Nope.

Fun to play GM. I'll bite: 1. DH platoon - Vaughn vs LHP and either Lamb, Grandal or Collins vs RH pitching Vaughn sits on the bench against RH pitching. 2. LF : platoon - Leury, Goodwin, Lamb 3. CF: Engel . occasional starts by Goodwin. 4. RF: Leury and Lamb until Eaton returns. 5. Eloy plays LF when he returns. 6. Robert back to Center, unless he is not running at 100%. Then I would leave Engel in CF and at least temporarily play Robert in RF where there is less ground to cover. That could also minimize re-injury. 7. Minimize inning killing double plays. Three innings were killed in the last game with DPs. I don't care if they hit and run, attempt steals or even bunt. Almost anything is better than those double plays. 8. Our Relievers have to throw strikes early in the count. They are getting behind too often and surrendering to hitters when they have to throw a strike. 9. Hitting coach has to have a more coherent plan for our hitters depending on the starter we are facing. Personally, I am not in favor of first ball fastball hunting. 10. Mendick and Leury platoon at second is fine for the moment.

Look, getting a ~90ish wrc+ vs RHP shouldn't be that hard to find. At least, at LF. But right now, Vaughn is a problem. And waiting on him to figure it out may or may not work for this season. He's worse right now than other players in the roster, let alone some random rental that shouldn't cost that much. Someday, he'll be a big part of this team. But this team is in free-fall, in part, because this offense is seriously flawed.