Look at Ray Ray Run

Pal, weren't you just saying how they weren't going to start as slow this year as the past two because they were better off this year?

Exclusive entry to the pre-game Crawl beginning at 11:30 p.m. (Crawlers only until 1:40 p.m.) Please note, you must enter the Stadium by 1:00 p.m. to participate in the Crawl. Sheesh, 11:30 pm until 1 PM the next day!!

Definitely promoting the director of player development of that team!

The White Sox are hitting 209 as a team. Why would they be expected to hit 267 with RISP? Last year they hit 232 for the year.

99 pitches thrown, 5 put in play. That's insane.

I honestly feel kind of embarrassed for both John and myself when he does things like that. Turning on the away feed!

Because only cheap organizations that are penny pinching manipulate service time with a guy like him. Good organizations, which this wants to become, play their best guys and don't mess with development because of service time games.

How about you just play your best 25 and keep the ones that are good.

If you want to look at what an actual optimal usage of an arm looks like, look at Andrew Miller from about 2014-2017. That's how you don't let the inning tie down the usage, and focus solely on optimizing for leverage. It's also fascinating to me that you haven't put together that blindly using a pitcher in the 9th inning (which you call out as bad practice) is the exact same thing as using a pitcher blindly in the 1st. The difference between is at least with the 9th you've guaranteed it is high-ish leverage and winnable. This will be my last comment on this as I've been going on about this for a few days. If you want to argue this is good for development or etc, fine. Arguing it's optimal for winning games is factually incorrect. As for the below, my guy. Just pull the starter earlier then! There is zero data that says 1-3 have better success in the 1st inning than later innings. The reason you see the most runs scored in the first inning is because it's the ONLY inning where both teams are guaranteed to have their 1-3 bat.

No it's not. Leverage is about the outs given impact on the games expected result. People either need to use a different word or stop misrepresenting what leverage is. You even said it's smarter to use your best reliever as an opener than it is to pay a starting pitcher 150 million. I honestly have no idea what anyone is talking about here. It's obviously much better to have a great starting pitcher than it is to have to use your best relief pitcher in the 1st inning. Using Taylor in the 1st versus in the 7th does not absolve your need to complete the innings in between. All it does is completely remove the flexibility you had with Taylor previously. And yes, it's absolutely guaranteed that the teams 1-3 hitters will come up again. The highest leverage situations aren't always verse the top 3 hitters in the lineup either.

Brutal news, agreed. Was looking forward to seeing if CWS was right on Baldwin!

In what world is that a very solid outfield?

No, it's not in fact better than him coming in later in the game in high leverage situations. You can also face the top of the order later in the game. The rotation still has to face those guys. They either do it twice early in the game or twice later in the game. In fact, you could bring Taylor in relief for the 3rd time through the order. What a concept! Having Taylor open 70 times means it's very likely he pitches in 40ish games that are pretty meaningless given this teams expected win %. There's nothing innovative about applying bad math. Being different just to be different doesn't make it smart.

There's nothing innovative about this.

hard to hit when it's cold like this.

I have no interest in going back and forth with an LLM.

If you can't measure it, I'm skeptical because you can't predict it or validate it. I'm OK with manager feels and reading a player, but in this case the data is pretty black and white. Either way, it seems others are moving the goal post. I brought up it could be routine or developmental, but I won't give this team the benefit of the doubt. I don't think anyone is arguing its optimal so...

I think it's crazy because it's just so obviously not optimal but as I also noted, the sequence with which your pitchers pitch has a very small impact on the runs scored so it's not killing the team overall. This just means your starter gets hit in the 6th instead of the 1st or some lesser reliever faces that group in the 7th. The most egregious part is the situations where it matters heavily favors flexibility and availability which you take away with opening with him, but taylor pitching in general is a net positive regardless of when. I've been arguing forever that your best reliever shouldn't be locked into the 9th inning since it's the same concept, but at least there you're rarely wasting them in blowouts unless you want them to get work.

It didn't lead to two wins.... come on now ha.

Not trying to come off as a dick, but everything you're arguing is subjective/situational and it's merely the positive side of the outcome which no one said has no positives. It's just those positives are outweighed by the negatives and/or what you're giving up. What's confusing me is many who keep defending this action, and arguing its utility also agreed/argued that it might be based on developing taylor and not wins and losses. Which... at least makes some sense but runs counter this argument. I also have no idea why the Sox are receiving the benefit of the doubt on something that runs counter the value add metrics as if they have out smarted everyone.

Meidroth's changes (if that's what we'll call them) aren't looking promising so far. I don't know if he's trying to sell-out for some kind of power (although his swing speeds are the same), but it's greatly impacting what he used to do well. His overall contact rate is down 10% YoY, which puts him in the top 15 biggest drops so far. We still need another 25ish PA's to really say it's indicative of an actual change, but he's going to have to have a great stretch to get that number back to being great. His 23.5% K rate is also up 9% over his previous mark. Bring up Antonacci!

It's gotta be hard being right as often as you are and having to educate everyone. Very kind of you!

We use different ways the evaluate players, and that's OK. Just no point in going back and forth, especially putting leasure in the same class as Taylor.

He's by far their best and most talented.

Yeah, I mentioned this as well. This seems like the one reason that makes some sense. Everyone else is basically using sequencing variance as an example/reason why it could be smart. They are mistaking, imo, possibility with reasonableness. Just because sequencing luck can work in your favor, doesn't mean its the best strategy. You can lead the league in sac bunting and runs scored, but it wouldn't make sac bunting Smart for maximizing scoring.