CaliSoxFanViaSWside

A quality rant.

I like Jesse Crain on the webcasts, maybe him or Pods.

Does being named Mendick mean he's a stud ?

Underhand toss from the 3rd baseman to the 2nd basemen ? You definitely saw it differently. 3rd basemen came in to field it did the single or double crow hop to set up his throw. No infielder worth his salt throws flat footed . He was moving forward because thats what you do with the crow hop.

You see it your way I see it mine. Most 3rd basemen whose momentum on the catch and throw was going towards onto the grass are not going to throw back towards 2nd base when they have a sure out at 1st. Too much can go wrong and you end up getting no one.

I thought it was great base running, Saw the 3rd baseman was going in front of the base on the catch and throw and with his speed beat the throw easy.

Over 80 and under 100 . Happy to help.

Of course I realize that but you had better have really good depth where you can make his absence be less painful when it matters most. He's not exactly a gazelle now so a 34 year old Martinez in the OF or whatever his age might be if he signed with the Sox and they somehow manage to get to the World Series isn't a great scenario. Great for the season and AL playoffs but too integral of a piece to have to put up with his defense when older or removing him for a defensive replacement only to lose his bat if a crucial game gets to extra innings after he's removed or limiting him to pinch hitting role. Just my preference right now to stick with a starting pitcher, that could change.

It's difficult to say now who to target. Too much depends on what happens this year with Moncada at 3rd , what Anderson does and how the OF prospects look So I'm thinking you can never have enough pitching so definitely a front line starter since our starters will all be so young .Plus everyone assumes Kopech will be back to full strength but missing a year will hurt and there's no guarantee he can come right in and pitch above average or even have the same stuff. Projecting Cease and Kopech to be our top starters is fraught with peril with both having had TJ surgery . Maybe Giolito's TJ surgery had an adverse affect on him in some way whether in mind or body or both that he just can't overcome.

He was making fun of Kenny Williams who basically said both those things which contradict each other.

The goal is to always win the World Series. Some very lean years makes us long for success but without achieving the ultimate goal it's just more failure but with better players.

I don't follow the Bulls or NBA either and the sport I always played the most was basketball. Love baseball but need other people or another person to play it. With basketball I could practice for hours at a time by myself. I could work on my off hand shooting and dribbling, my jumper , fadeaway, hook shot , banking, free throws, drop step, turnaround basically any offensive skill except passing.. Of course I was a huge Bulls fan in the Jordan era and even in the days of Chet Walker SLoan and Van Lier and Bob Love as a kid. Basketball fell victim to the Sox, Bears and the rising interest in the Hawks when they started doing well. It's changed a lot since the 3 pointer and guards took over from dominating centers. The players are so talented now that everyone can attack the rim and few big men can stop or intimidate them. Seems like now it's just an endless parade of 3 pointers and free throws.

I hate the idea of a DH type being one of our best hitters. If you ever reach the World Series in hurts you greatly in the road games and is especially bad if you don't have home field advantage.

The average fastball of a Major League Baseball pitcher reaches a speed of 91 mph. Efastball.com studies pitch velocity at all levels and collects data at all major-league games to reach that conclusion. https://www.sportsrec.com/501890-the-average-pitching-velocity.html Also this: At the MLB level, the average fastball velocity around the league, as measured by Baseball Info Solutions (and presented by Fangraphs.com), remained steady at 92.8 mph in 2018. Of course 4 seam fastballs are faster than 2 seamers so all these things should be taken into consideration . I have no idea if what i posted here is averaging both 2 and 4 seamers.

Want to show me a link that says everyone in an MLB bullpen throws 94 or most 96 MPH ? These hot takes you use as fact are misleading. K's are not only up because of pitching. You still need to locate the ball and have effective off speed pitches or MLB hitters will crush any fastball if they are sitting on it. Hitters now almost always take big swings . In the past a 2 strike approach meant something different than it does now. Bullpen usage and specialization is also a key factor . The number of pitchers teams use now as compared to being able to use hitters to counter moves is skewed in flavor of pitching. Here's a hot take. If you have 7 relief pitchers you should be able to carry 7 offensive bench players to even up the odds. Hitters fail most of the time any way. but give them more of a fighting chance against the pitching in the era of specialized relief pitching. Why should relief pitching have an advantage built into the game when hitting a baseball is already so hard ?

So you're saying because of steroids there were older better players to choose from ? Are you saying any success the Sox had in acquiring value on talent in the past means those players were on steroids ? Free agency has become less productive compared to what ?

Probably not a good idea to compare a World Series winning team from 14 years ago to a 100 loss team now. Strikeouts throughout baseball have skyrocketed since 2005 not just for the White Sox . When you are a 100 loss teams you are going to be at the top of a lot of bad statistical categories.

I was just pointing out that good value can be found any year . It obviously becomes more important in rebuild years. Konerko was traded for Cameron right?. They both were young and it worked out for both sides. Jenks was a good value find. Iguchi came out of nowhere.Dye's production exceeded his cost. I also mention them because KW was GM then Hahn was assistant GM so they have some history of finding gems that worked out just not many recently. Maybe they used up their quota with the baseball gods to win us a World Series. The question becomes how did they find gems in the past ? Better scouting ?.More luck? A better plan or vision ?

I didn't mean to put you on the spot . It's just like I said though , you named a handful among 30 teams. it's all easier said then done.Once we found Quintana that was under the current regime wasn't it ? What about Quentin, Thornton, Jenks. Seems like a lot of guys from 2005 were those types of value. Iguchi, Dye, Konerko and probably more.

injuries have derailed it. The train can be put back on the track. Your fantasy of the ideal rebuild is just that a fantasy . You can map it out however you want in your head but the reality is always going to be that prospects flop and get injured and roster building is always in a state of flux.

So you're saying that you would have signed Shields and a bunch of cheaper relievers while at the same time pursuing Machado while also not signing Alonso and Jay ? Revisionist history until you can show me when you laid out your plan when the off season started. Also I still don't see the point of crying over spilled milk. Was the point of this off season to spend as little as possible while pursuing a whale so that whale could play on another 100 loss team while also having spent so little that there's no chance to turn any of your cheaper guys into prospects and also hurt the young arms in the process ?

Oh please.None of the prospects that we were all so high on have even played 2 full seasons yet while most haven't even seen the majors . Kopech had a brief cup of coffee No Cease No Eloy, Robert, none of the OF prospects . The rebuild failed because Moncada,Giolito and Lopez didn't become instant stars and we didn't sign a whale ?

Well those 2 years you're talking about were the 1st 2 years of the rebuild and isn't the idea to be bad and get high draft picks? Granted drafting isn't their strong suit nor is being successful in free agency. Yes it sucks that attempts to find a gem amongst the rhinestones hasn't worked out but isn't that the case with most teams? I know my baseball expertise isn't good enough to find the handful of guys over the last 2 years who have given teams value Jed Lowrie blossomed in his age 33 season and continued it last year. Outside of him I'm hard pressed to think of anyone. Maybe you can find more but younger guys because I doubt the Sox were looking too hard for over 30 guys. Like Balta is fond of saying about free agents , the majority of them flop even the inexpensive ones. . So seems most teams are bad at picking productive free agents not just the Sox. It gets even harder when you are shopping the bargain bin. Twins were a good example of that last year. It makes it harder when you start looking more for offense than you do for defense. My own personal philosophy is find the undervalued good defensive players and do what you can to get the hitting to catch up.That's why i thought Jackie Bradley jr was worth a shot 4 -5 years ago when he wasn't hitting in his 1st couple years. It's why I still like Byron Buxton. It's why I can still tolerate Engel when most can't. The young relievers are still young. Throwing them into the fire in stressful situations isn't a great idea . Let them develop pitching the 5th, 6th or 7th innings . I like vets around them eating up the stressful innings . Maybe a few of the young guys do well in their roles and then can be moved into the stressful innings and eventually take over the spots of Herrera and Colome. I'm not exactly thrilled either how things worked out but there's no choice but to move on and hope we draft better and sign productive free agents and we get some good surprises from our farm system. The history isn't great for those things but it's not like anyone signed this year is a long term piece they were just roster fillers or enticements for Manny. Most get upset because Hahn said no stop gaps but looking at it realistically roles had to be filled just to field a team that wasn't going to lose 110 games . Those aren't stopgaps they're placeholders. Small difference I know. The meaningful decisions are yet to be made . Strike 1 on that front but more pitches are coming and all I can do is hope we get some hits.

I read that too. I forgot .

Plus there was another post somewhere around here about jersey sales or something going way up so anything with Harpers name on can be continually counted.