CaliSoxFanViaSWside

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 06:59 PM) Eric Cooper is a joke back there. Usually you don't like young pitchers (players in general) complaining about calls, but Giolito was completely justified. And he did it when he was pulled. I like it. Gabe Morales is the home plate ump tonight.

I was watching the game and after an 0-1 fastball that was right down the middle at the knees to Sandoval in the 3rd inning was called a ball and Sandoval then proceeded to hit a 3 run HR I decided to rewind my DVR and check the ball/strike calls against the pitchcast calls. I don't think pitchcast is the end all be all . I acknowledge it could be wrong.So I told myself in order to have a strike that was called a ball , the ball had to be mostly or 3/4 or more of the ball had to be in the zone ,according to pitchcast. On borderline pitches like just 1/4 or a sliver of the ball in the zone I gave the benefit of the doubt to the umpire, The home plate umpire was Gabe Morales and right from the get go it was pretty obvious he was not going to give Gio the low strike . Now some of you may blame the framing by the catcher but most of the bad calls were on fastballs and Gio being as tall as he is certainly has some downward tilt on low fastballs that will drag a catchers glove down. I happen to believe a fastball should be the easiest pitch for the ump to accurate call. 1 .1st inning a fastball to Span at the the knees was called a ball probably a 4 seamer 2. A fastball to Hundley was down and in perfect pitch but called a ball , maybe a 2 seamer . 3. 2nd inning to Mac Williamson again down and in great pitch called a ball.Williamson then got on 1st with the error by Davidson. 4 With Williamson running Gio throws a fastball right down the middle low but whole ball easily in the zone , called a ball but Williamson caught stealing for 3rd out. 5. This was the pitch to Sandoval where instead of 0-2 it was called a ball changing the whole complexion of the AB. 6. 6th inning 0-1 curve to Posey called a ball clearly in the zone. After that Moncada missed the pop up and then things really got out of hand. 1-2 pitch to Hundley a nasty curve/slider and according to pitchcast its in the zone but pitch caught way off the plate and low . I will not count this as a strike. It's doubtful many umps would've called it a strike Ump gets the benefit of the doubt over pitchcast. 7. Pitch to Pence again a beautiful low fastball fully in the zone on 0-1 pitch. Steve Stone mentions Gio not getting low strikes. Pence walked on 3-2 pitch that was another well located fastball away and waist high . This was a pitch where pitchcast said caught the zone slightly but because I'm trying to be unbiased will call a ball and Crawford out at 2nd since he was going on the pitch. Will never know if he would've been out or safe since he may have slowed up when he saw ump didnt raise his arm for the strike. So instead of being out of the inning there's still 1 out and bases loaded. Gio is removed , gets ejected, angry at lack of strike calls no doubt. Renteria ejected sticking up for Gio So in my estimation thats 7 great pitches, the kind you want your pitcher to make all low or low and in strikes that were called balls and 2 others that maybe couldve been called strikes but weren't that the ump gets the benefit of the doubt over the pitchcast indicator.. There were also 1 or 2 others that caught a sliver of the plate called balls that I did not list.

That 0-1 fastball to Sandoval that was right down the middle at the knees and was called a ball changed the whole dyanmic of that AB. Damn ump. Still Lucas needed to realize with 1st base open he could still mess around with him and go after the next hitter if need be.

Maybe Tito Polo can wow everyone in CF in AA/AAA next year and become a legit candidate for the gig .

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 11:18 AM) First I don't think anyone is parti, ularly excited about any of our CF's as whole until you get down to Luis Robert, maybe Rutherford if you think he can stay there... Other than that we have a pile of perfectly imperfect players to run out there. With the way the roster looks to be built going forward probably including some pretty defensively questionable players in LF, RF, 2B, SS and 3B at least, the whole reason I want Engel to have a chance at succeed in CF is because he is by far the best defensive CF we have with a chance at playing next year. Yep Sox got a whole lot of nothing in CF for sure. No one stands out in any way except Engel with his glove. So many guys coming and going due to injuries and multitude of candidates. Someone needs to grab the bull by the horns. I just like Leury as the better option in CF because he comes closest to being above competent with both glove and hitting. Don't see him as a corner OF because LF is probably the safest place to put a big bat with questionable defense. Don't like OF's that have only a little power over 3 positions. Somebody out there has to produce 25-30 HR's.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 10:35 AM) It's much easier to wait on a player when your team isn't competing and knows that at the start of the previous offseason than when you insist the player will be the #5 hitter on a contending team and build your entire team around that assumption. In his first 331 big league PAs, Leury put up a .462 OPS. He has the better bat - now, because he was given a chance in the big leagues over 4 seasons. He's also 26, interestingly enough. Leury put together a good season in the minors last year. Not sure Engel has as recent of a good showing . That season for Leury stood out Then it showed this year in the bigs whatever he found was sticking around. I love Engels D but he just has no pedigree anywhere of being a good hitter. Wasn't an outstanding college player, wasn't drafted high, no outstanding minor league seasons. I am not predicting he will never make it . It's pretty long odds is all. Leury is 26 but as you said he was given chances before he was 25. Engel will not get 4 seasons over the age of 25 I think he has less chances next year. Sox have to start weeding guys out especially when they run out of options.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 09:27 AM) Yeah, I just threw that out there for s***s and giggles. Read the name and all the shows you named came to mind. No surprise you picked up on it. I'm fine with Engel in CF. Let him play until he shows the job is his or until someone takes it from him. I don't think Engel has a serious threat for CF until Polo comes in the picture mid summer next year. Tilson, May, Leury aren't going to push Engel out of CF so Engel has his opportunity. Let's see what he does with it. I'm actually surprised so many would rather see Engel in CF over Leury. I am a huge fan of great defense especially in CF but now Leury has the better bat and certainly has the speed to play the position well if not the fundamentals . I was pining for Jackie Bradley and Buxton for a long time. I'm happy Engel is getting a shot and all but he needs to show something with the bat soon. Next year the Sox OF will be pretty crowded Avi got plenty of opportunities. He was Mr. 9 lives but he was under 25 years old . It's easier to wait on a much younger player . Engel will be 26 at the beginning of spring training for the 2018 season.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 06:37 AM) I knew Ken Berry could sing, dance and act but didn't know he could play CF too. Ha, pretty cool! Anyways... Two reasons for taking the wait and see approach with Engel. 1) Brian Anderson 2) Trayce Thompson. It doesn't really matter because once Tito Polo arrives we won't remember what an Adam Engel was. I'd say your Berry joke was lost on most of the audience. The former F-Troop star , Mayberry RFD and the Carol Burnett spinoff Mama's Family star was hardly a household name. The Sox Ken Berry might be slightly more well know on a Sox forum but he played so long ago. I know the old timers here remember the "Bandit" . That nickname derived from robbing HR's . The baseball Berry was a technical consultant and also made a cameo in the baseball movie of the 1919 White Sox , Eight Men Out. I always put in my 2 cents about him because he along with Joel Horlen were my boyhood favorite Sox players. If anyone ever thought the actor and ball player were one and the same you wouldn't be alone as crazy as that sounds. http://www.fangraphs.com/tht/card-corner-1...ry-and-f-troop/

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Sep 7, 2017 -> 12:28 PM) I'm afraid we're gonna win the majority of those games with Rodon/Lopez/Giolito facing those offenses Nah Rodon out now . Wouldn't surprise me if he didn't pitch again this year. Lopez is 0-3 and both he and Giolito are capable of getting lit up or the Sox offense shuts down. And there's always the bullpen to the rescue.

Looks like Engel's latest bat position experiment is over. Tonight he went back to holding the bat up higher again. 1-3 HR and no K's. Progress ?

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Sep 6, 2017 -> 06:46 PM) Lopez has pitched a really nice game. Yep/ Too bad the defense has been subpar. He could've had 10-15 less pitches to this point.

QUOTE (BrianAnderson @ Sep 6, 2017 -> 12:22 PM) Thanks. I'm not trying to come off as a dick or attack anybody on the board. I'm here reading daily, posting semi-weekly. I just can't stand the topics sometimes. And I get it's because of the state of the Sox. We want ANYTHING to be excited for. I just think there are levels to that. Yolmer was a legit discussion when he was named Carlos and was 23. Saladino was a legit discussion after he did well for a full year. Engel is not a legit discussion cause he's never done anything. Delmonico isn't legit cause its been a few weeks. I'd much rather have conversations about free agent classes, the approach of Renteria with the bullpen or bunting, how Giolito is mixing pitches better, or Moncada's approach at the plate and the positives and negatives that may bring down the line. Instead I feel like this board sometimes reverts back to the lowest common denominator of "Engel made a nice catch" which then equals "can he be our everyday CF?" s*** I get it. It's painful. I just want more baseball analytical discussion than sometimes what happens on this board. If not give me discussion on Giolito, Lopez, etc. rather than Delmonico and Davidson Hey we are mostly fans first. We have our favorite players and not all the time are they good. Allow us some whimsy .We are fans not scientists. scouts or mathematicians. As some of us like to say Lighten up Francis .

QUOTE (GenericUserName @ Sep 4, 2017 -> 11:55 AM) The league said they would be trying to prevent this, but its kinda hard to figure out exactly how they are going to determine if things were pre-negotiated or not, especially for a team like the White Sox which just signed a guy without a full year of service time to an extension. Hey maybe there was an ulterior motive to giving Anderson that contract. Call it the Otani Plan. It sets a precedent that you can extend a players contract with minimal servicetime where the league didn't step in and void it. I know I am delusional but just because the most the Sox can offer is $300K shouldn't mean they shouldn't pursue their 1% shot at him. Life is often stranger than fiction. Ya never know.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Sep 6, 2017 -> 11:42 AM) Agreed. We could use a backend SP and some relief arms, but we have plenty of guys that need at bats. Don't really see the point in scrap heaping bats. Minors deals? Sure, go to town. But we need to continue to give Davidson, Delmonico, Leury, Cordell, etc., etc., at bats. Hope Cordell isn't the next Tilson. I think most of us expected to see him this year but it never happened. On June 30th he was placed on the 7 day disabled list retroactive to June 27th. He didn't play at all when the Sox traded for him on July 26th. He didn't play at all for Charlotte the rest of the season. That's over 90 days when he was originally placed on 7 day DL .

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Sep 6, 2017 -> 07:37 AM) I found the Infield Hit stat on Fangraphs. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...0&sort=11,d Here are the leaders by percentage. Avi is 3rd behind Altuve and Story. Thank you so much ! I can see Avi is 3rd in IFF% .Also third behind Altuve and Bogearts in number of infield hits. Also see Story and Altuve with bunt hits while Avi has none. If you eliminate bunt hits looks like Avi would be first in IFF% or as I like to call it unintentionally weak contact but the speed to take advantage of it.

Still no idea why this was ever in Soxtalk. Was it supposed to be at GRF ? Chance the Rapper ties ? Still oddly out of place.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Sep 6, 2017 -> 08:34 AM) This is the biggest contradiction ever. Saladino, Sanchez, and Alvarez have never hit more than 9 home runs in a season, yet they apparently have the potential to hit 25. Engel has never hit more than 7 home runs in a season, yet he's the one out of the four that's apparently not going to figure it out and become a sudden home run hitter, despite being the youngest. This was either a remarkably poorly informed post or a troll attempt. Sometimes I am truly astounded with peoples inability to detect sarcasm. All he was doing was pointing out that we wish and pray and hope for guys who in his opinion don't deserve it which is Saladino, Sanchez along with Engel. Edit: Realize this was answered and is no knock on you Jose . Sarcasm is one of those things that is harder to pick up in writing I guess because you can't hear tone of voice. I just see it a lot here .

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Sep 5, 2017 -> 03:14 PM) FWIW I checked out Avi's xStats and they were better than I thought they were going to be. He's shown some real positive change compared to last year. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14rW...K-cXP4cs8qc97I/ His xOBA is .349, and while it's quite a bit lower than his current .366 wOBA it's still well above average. His "expected" batting line based on exit velocity and launch angle came out to .291/.342/.478, which would be a wRC+ of about 118 or so, which is still top 10 for all RF on the year. Unsurprisingly his xBABIP is quite a bit lower at .336, but that is partially offset because xStats believes he's been unlucky on his power this season, seeing as how his SLG barely drops at all despite the decent sized drop in AVG/OBP. His xOBA in 2016 was .321 which was quite a bit higher than his actual 2016 wOBA of .302 so you could say xStats saw some considerable improvement coming this season anyway. Also, xStats tends to slightly underrate guys who get a lot of infield hits and Avi's infield hit% this year (12.2%) is double the league average rate, and for his career he's solidly above league average (~9%), so you could even argue that his expected batting line should be higher. I have been saying Avi's had a ton of infield hits and had to be among the leaders. Does xStats have a top 10 in infield hits and if so where is Avi on it ?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 5, 2017 -> 05:02 AM) It is also worth pointing out that his worst stretch also overlapped his injury before he went on the DL. Exactly and I think it bothered him for a long time even most of August since he wasn't really hitting for power l I haven't looked up the injury date(s) and cannot remember what caused it. A HBP followed by a few more HBP ? All around the hand /wrist area ? I know while watching the August games if he got jammed quite a few times I saw him shaking his hand either in the a batters box or after running down to first base. Only with his recent triple and HR did I start to think ,hmmm maybe his hand is feeling better now. I know it's hard to imagine someone with a hand/wrist hurting hitting .423 for the month but a loss of power is often associated with those kind of injuries. Kind of scary to think he might have learned to be an even better hitter because of the injuries. He may have just been relying on what he knows he has always done best and that's hit up the middle and to the right side . His triple was off the right field wall and HR also to RF.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 4, 2017 -> 08:30 AM) I will say this much. I don't think most of baseball has bought in to Avi Garcia yet, or someone would have offered enough to pry him away from the Sox during the firesale. I am not quite sure if he is a victim of the lack of value in offensive only players that happened this year, or if it is more of just no believing in him as of yet. It will be interesting to see what his value is during the winter. He started the season very hot but every month his BA declined so right before the trade deadline is when he bottomed out. Everyone around here was saying there's the regression we have been predicting. Then August came and he hits .423 for the month. His slugging wasn't as high as April but the OBP was higher so OPS ended up close to the same for both months. Over 1.000 .

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Sep 4, 2017 -> 05:33 AM) Jace Fry is getting called up today per his agency Interesting choice. The lefty reliever showed improvement in AA although he walked a few too many. Most likely will be used as a situational lefty.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Sep 3, 2017 -> 09:00 AM) Avi doesn't have the trade value yet. If the idea is to trade Avi then give him all of the 2018 season to boost his stock and then dangle him on the trade market over the 2018/19 winter as a much cheaper alternative to signing Harper. If the idea is to keep Avi long term, let's see how he performs next year and go from there. Great thing about Avi is that there's no pressure to trade or extend him. Just wait and see.. Couldn't have said it better. Even being Avi's biggest supporter it would be wrong to extend him based on one good year . They jumped the gun on Anderson and it still may work out but still need a larger body of good performance to extend him.

QUOTE (ron883 @ Sep 3, 2017 -> 06:33 PM) Really want to respond to this post on there. That thread conveniently stopped on 8/31. When you include the last start with Dunning throwing a 7 inning 1 hitter ,Gio and Lopez last starts that board should be eating a lot of crow and humble pie for breakfast. Could even throw in Gio's whole body of work actually. Send them this https://www.mlb.com/gameday/rays-vs-white-s...rap,game=492145 But I don't want to be that dick.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 2, 2017 -> 11:54 AM) Unless he signs for penalty-box money, the Sox literally can't get him because they blew past the cap with Robert. I don't think he'll sign anywhere that he can't hit, and I don't think it's likely that a team will let him play in the field. IMO, the early frontrunners have to be Texas and NYY. But who knows -- anything can happen. Literally can't get him ? He can still sign for 300K can't he ? I know it sounds ridiculous but in the context of the highest amount he can be offered it's not a big difference. If he becomes a major leaguer right away wouldn't his minimal salary be added to the bonus pool money and he would be under control for the normal amount of time? A promise to let him attempt to be an everyday player and starting pitcher seems like something that other teams wouldn't promise. Also do we think part of the offers to him will promise to extend or renegotiate his contract or is that not kosher ?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 3, 2017 -> 04:56 PM) So what part of his approach do you like? He swings at terrible pitches and maintains a groundball swing path after five full seasons. Help me out here on that "maintains a groundball swing path" thingy. On baseball ref under Ratio batting I found GO/AO which is ground outs to air outs. I noticed it was 1.38 which was a lot different than last years 1.90 and the lowest (or is it highest )of his career. Want to explain that to me ? I know so little about these things.