Look at Ray Ray Run

SP are creatures of habit. Routines matter to a lot of starters. This is one valid non-analytical thing that teams need to take into account.

Hes not good.

Yes, it was clear to me that eloy was really working on getting ready for the season - letting the ball get real deep before attacking. He was a little late on the fastball but seemed to find his timing today.

Yes, watch approaches and mechanics - not results. Giolito was cy young last spring. Good players will likely work on things they feel they struggle with. Pitchers will some times throw an abnormal amount of a certain pitch that they are developing. Etc Etc.

Not a huge fan as most of the publically available data doesnt really show an advantage but the Rays are sharp and I imagine they have some data supporting it. I just want to point out that the Rays didnt use it with Snell on the mound so based on their data the match up edge is negated if the starter is good. Which makes me think that the bullpen stater in general is worthless if your staff is talented but if you throw out guys who have only 1 or 2 average or + big league pitches, then not letting them see the heart of the order three times helps - heck maybe even 2. The advantage has more to do with the heart and top of the lineup not seeing a starter three times - more than it has to do with righty vs lefty match ups. Limit their exposure to the best hitters while making the hitter see at least 3 arms in 4 at bats. As I said, if your starter is even league average though, might as well scratch the closer starting.

No, he wasnt brought in for manny. Yes, he had a weird inning.

Yeah, you could teach a clinic on letting the baseball get deep before engaging based on that swing and approach on that pitch.

That's some easy power right there.

Lambert is going to sky rocket himself up rankings this year.

You would play through a jammed thumb during the season. A jammed thumb is something you play with quite a bit in your career. During spring it makes no sense to play through it though. I would say, no more head first slides though. Enough is a enough. They should weed themselves out of the game.

Cease is going to be moved along as slowly as humanly possible as the Sox would like to get him some big league looks late in the season assuming nothing derails his path. They made it clear that Cease would probably be the least used arm in spring this year.

How? He was 8th in baseball in 2015 with 15.1 with the White Sox. The next year - his first in Atlanta - he was 17th at 8.1. Then in 2017 he was 3rd at 30 Then in 2018 he was 4th at 13.0 Flowers didn't dramatically improve with Atlanta - don't forget, just as with all defensive metrics they are volatile and using a year end number isn't wise. He wasn't twice as good in 2017 and then half as good in 2018. He has been really good since his last two years with the White Sox. Your point is misguided. The White Sox traded for Flowers from Atlanta - at the time, he was a bat first catcher who struggled behind the plate. When he left the organization to go back to Atlanta, he had clearly turned into one of the best framers in baseball. That was under the watch and advising of the White Sox; however much you want to discredit that.

yet, this is the same organization that took in Tyler Flowers and turned him into an elite framer. Navarez is 27 years old - he's a bad receiver. That is not going to change at 28.

That just means those players are off, not guaranteed injured, but of course injured players will always be on their as off.

Mark Buehrle worked out OK there - although he threw more fly balls, but that isn't really a good thing in that ballpark.

Lopez showed some serious improvement with his k-rate as the season went on. Lopez is someone who if you took a dive into his numbers as the year went on, he showed vast improvement. His slider had more bite and he threw it more down in the zone. Lopez struck out 65 batters in his final 66 innings pitched - running a k-rate of pretty much 9.0 - he did this, while reducing his walks (only 20 in his final 66 innings) to 2.72. He also ran a WHIP of 1.07 - while his BABIP was slightly suppressed at .250ish, he should run lower BABIP's given his high FB rate. It's surprising to me that Fangraphs have pigeon holed Lopez given his significant improvement as the year went on.

Bucholz hasn't thrown over 139 innings in a big league season since 2012 and he's gonna be 34 years old.

Mendick was on the Fringe Five leaderboards at fangraphs last year. His k/bb rate is really good and dont forget he played in Birmingham last year and it's a real tough place to hit. He is solid all around and could be a later bloomer.

No one falls in love with their shitty players quite like Bulls fans.

Yeah RJ barret is the difference between a 20 win NBA team and a competitive one. My goodness...

Tim has the talent to have a 780+ ops with top tier defense at short which is closer to a 5 WAR player. I could see Tim having a peak year going 30-30. His hands and wrists are so damn good. Walking a little more would be nice undoubtably.

Tim Anderson is a better defensive player than Nick Madrigal. If they both played SS Tim would be superior. Madrigal might be a gold glove 2nd baseman but he doesnt have the arm or the range of anderson.

Hes gonna donate money to the team to help? Because regardless of how much he recruits, players will go to whoever offers the most money.

I just dont see it with rondon. Poor defensively and doesnt walk or make enough contact. I like betting on the guy who can add value in multiple aspects of the game. I think rondon will get plenty of chances to show his worth this year.

The White Sox would be the dumbest organization in baseball history to give him a long term deal heading into Tommy John surgery when he had already missed 3 entire seasons of his career due to injury. He's not young (he's 30), he had serious shoulder problems that caused him to miss two full years, and now he had Tommy John. He's not in good shape, and when he did pitch his peripherals were always much better than his actual outcomes.