CaliSoxFanViaSWside

Frazier using right field a lot more lately. Making adjustments or just getting fully healthy ?

Dayum what a start, 1st 4 guys reach and double by Abreu and Avi HR ! 4-0 SOx !

QUOTE (SouthSide2004 @ May 20, 2017 -> 02:50 PM) On the field, I'd say a B so far. But overall he gets an A for his Robert recruiting efforts. Pretty much my thoughts. No matter what else he does the whole recruitment video thing is huge. Also , even though there's no way to prove it., you could debate how the 3 biggest break out players so far are all Latin in Avi, Leury and Yolmer. OK maybe Swarzak and Kahnle too but you get the drift.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 20, 2017 -> 06:42 PM) Ricky aiming high. Might as well. Pair Robertson with someone , maybe Ynoa to get Robles. . Nats need more than just a closer. Don't need Ynoa since Robert is already signed .

Once some managers start getting fired expect to see more Spanish speaking managers hired. Surprised there's not more already with so much Latin talent already in MLB.

Well I worked all day and hardly gave this a thought until my ride home. I was hoping to see he had signed with someone at least. Seeing it was the Sox of course made it even better. Whatever affiliate he starts with I'd assume he will start slow since he hasn't been playing but if by chance he starts hot I'd be impressed . Here's hoping he is too good for where ever he begins.

1st time the Sox have held an opponent to 1 hit in extra innings since...1903 !

QUOTE (soxforlife05 @ May 17, 2017 -> 12:20 PM) Exhibit A: 2016 Tyler Saladino vs 2017 Tyler Saladino About a 4 year difference in their ages. So Tyler doesn't fit into the youngster category.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 17, 2017 -> 10:22 AM) Coming into the season, Saladino was the obvious best choice at 2B. He'd really earned his spot there. In the ST action I saw, he looked like he might be the most competent hitter on the team. Since then, you've had a combination of his terrible hitting and Yolmer's good hitting cost him some major playing time...and there's a chance when Moncada gets called up, Saladino is shipped out. With that said, we're 6 weeks into the season and good plays sometimes play bad for 6 weeks. I try to look for indicators of whether something has changed beyond how many balls are falling in for hits. Plate discipline Let's start with the most basic way of digging deeper than the OPS-type stats. He has gone from 4.7% BB% (2015) and 4.1% BB% (2016) to a much better 10.7% BB% this year. That change is the only thing keeping him afloat, if you can call where he is afloat. His O-Swing%—the portion of balls outside the strike zone that he swings at—has dropped a bit from an already-low 27.5% and 26.8% to 24.5% this year, which might partially explain the elevated walks. The next obvious thing to look at his strikeouts and they aren't pretty. His K% this year is 27.9%, way up from 19.4% last year and 20.1% the year before. He was consistently around 15% in AAA. Striking out a lot more than normal is a sign of 1. someone who may not be having bad luck and 2. someone who has changed something at the plate. Making contact Digging a touch deeper, there's an obvious explanation for the strikeouts: He's making less contact. Overall, his contact rate is at 77.5%, down from 84.2% last year and 84.6% in 2015. When you look more closely, it's even more alarming. We know already that he's shown better discipline in terms of laying off non-strikes, something that has always been a strength of his. Still, if he never makes contact on balls outside the zone, that could still result in strikeouts...but that hasn't been the case. His O-Contact% (contact on pitches outside the zone) is right at career norms and up from last year. Instead, it's his ability to make contact on strikes that has deteriorated. He had identical 90.9% Z-Contact% in 2015 and 2016, which means he made contact on 91 out of 100 strikes that he swung at. This year, it's down to 81.7%, which isn't super low in general but constitutes a major dropoff. It's the worst on the White Sox and in the lower portion of the league, though it should be said that plenty of good hitters have similar issues swinging and missing at strikes. It may actually be the case that has helped him draw more walks as the whiffs draw him deeper into the count. He has also cut back on his swings at pitches in the zone, from 67.7% last year and 62.1% in 2015 to 58.6% this year...overall, he swings less. I actually find it troubling that he is more selective in the zone and yet swings and misses more. With that said, maybe this is all so he can hit the ball with power. We can see if that's panned out at all. Quality of contact Let's turn to Statcast. One of the new toys we can play with is xwOBA, which is a predicted wOBA (a cousin of wRC+) based on the quality of the player's contact (exit velo and launch angle) along with his K% and BB%. If his xwOBA is way better than his wOBA, we can say he's perhaps been unlucky. Well, that doesn't pan out. His xwOBA is .239, worse than his actual .270 wOBA. Both figures, based on FanGraph's wOBA rules of thumb, are below the "awful" threshold. It is meant to be similar to OBP in terms of what constitutes a good number. So that isn't good. Let's compare to the past two years. Last year his xwOBA was .278, well below his actual .315. In 2015 his xwOBA was .270, close to his actual .262. So the past two years he has outperformed his xwOBA by a similar amount, something faster players tend to do. But take note that his xwOBA last year was quite a bit better than this year, which is important, since it corresponds to a big change in production. In fact, his xwOBA from 2016 to 2017 has worsened by .039 and his actual wOBA has worsened by .045, which is likely no coincidence. Fly balls He's actually hitting the ball higher this year, with an average launch angle of 10.9 degrees, up from 7.9 in 2016 and 5.9 in 2015. Some have argued that this should improve his results, but the swing changes a player might implement to hit the ball higher could have major drawbacks. This also gibes with his substantial increase in fly ball rate, from 23.5% in 2015 and 28.8% in 2016 to 39.7% this year. And he hasn't been popping up more than normal, his 7.4% infield fly per fly ball rate is equal to 2016. Most of his increase in fly balls has come from his groundballs, which have dropped from 53.6% (2015) and 51.3% (2016) to 42.6% this year. His line drives have dropped from 23.0% (2015) and 19.9% (2016) to 17.6% this year, but this is a notoriously finicky stat and the change from last year isn't huge. Exit velocity is down to 84.8mph this year compared to 85.7mph last year, but I don't consider this a very big change and neither is very high at all. If you restrict exit velo to fly balls and line drives, he's hitting them harder this year at 89.3mph than last year at 88.8mph. Still trying to tease this out, his fly balls are launched at a much higher angle (40 degrees) than last year (33 degrees). I should say that while there's not a ton of literature on this, balls hit at a 40 degree launch angle do not fare well and rarely become homers. High flies that do not become homers are usually caught. In other words, Saladino has increased his fly balls but has done so with worse contact (despite being hit harder!). According to xStats.com, about 23% of his balls in play have had a launch angle at or greater than 40 degrees, which is categorizes as "popups." Only 12.8% and 10% were hit at that launch angle in the past two years. He's hitting those balls harder (83.7) than past years (77.6/77.3), but it doesn't matter how high your easy flies are. What's going on? You might say that last year was the fluke. His .587 OPS this year is pretty similar to his .602 OPS in 2015, his first MLB playing time. But we've already started to see that in some important ways, his 2015 and 2016 were much more similar to each other than 2015 and 2017 are. This year, he has a been a very different hitter than in the past. What I can't say is why that has happened or if it has changed. With Yolmer hitting well and Moncada on the way, he might not have long to show us whether he can change. But he's not been unlucky and this is not a return to some pre-2016 norm for him. Good job with all the stats but without conclusions it's pointless. As Fathom just said and I said 4 or 5 days ago it looks like he's trying to pull more and when I started to read all the info you posted I was hoping you would look at his spray charts this year and in previous years to indicate where his hits or outs are going. He just seems to be a better hitter when he is thinking right field or up the middle as opposed to left field.

QUOTE (soxforlife05 @ May 16, 2017 -> 11:33 PM) Sanchez is a utility player was a AAAA type player until his hot streak. Ride him until he goes cold then it's Delmonico time. Or.....branding young players as failures, utility players or AAAA players because they don't find success right away at the highest level is silly? Yes it is a hot streak or maybe it's a breakout . I understand the need to analyze or tap the scout in all of us but it isn't very astute to say what you see is what you got forever.

Needs to be changed soon before we get swept by the Angels .

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 16, 2017 -> 11:17 PM) I would like to reiterate what I said earlier that Melky can not get out of here fast enough. On the Angels broadcast I didn't see Melky fall. Nor did the announcers mention it. All I saw was a huge gap in left center and Anderson sprinting a mile to try to catch it and Leury over running it.If Melky fell why be upset? It's possible to spin your wheels and fall especially if he fell right away when starting his sprint.

Kahnle against Trout with Trout trying to extend the consecutive games homering to 5. Mr. K !

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ May 16, 2017 -> 10:19 PM) Like Hawk was saying, I like the gamesmanship of Narvaez' fake bunts. But Saladino should have worked a count with the surprise of the bunt gone and the pitcher not having the best control Willy Garcia would've been an easy out at 3rd on the other bunt, Kinda went to the well once too often. With the infield in the likelihood of a less then perfect bunt working was less. Let the hitter hit with a man on 3rd and one out.

Long way to go before it's even necessary to discuss this. However I do love the idea of too much talent.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 15, 2017 -> 10:34 AM) Few tidbits: 1) in 187 games, Saladino has now been worth roughly 10 runs above average with the glove. He's probably not a starter but he's certainly a useful player and could be trade bait, especially if he starts hitting. One worrisome thing is that his BABIP isn't the issue, it's roughly at his career norms. He's just not making good contact. His K% is higher than Avi's. 2) Sanchez is rocking a .397 BABIP which isn't going to last but unlike most players he's a guy that has benefited from more ground balls. He's hitting more on the ground hard this year and has found some holes. Like Leury he's found a way to cut his K% significantly, down to 19.7% which does give some hope he's figured something out. 3) Todd hasn't let his problems at the plate affect him defensively, where once again he's rocking an above average glove at 3B. Todd isn't a 4 WAR true talent player but he still is about a 2 WAR player, someone, maybe the Red Sox, could use him as we get into summer. All in all after almost 25% of the year there's certainly enough bright spots to where you can squint and see a really good 2019 team if the Sox can make some moves to bolster the OF and the SP prospects mature. I didn't mention Narveaz in the tidbits but he is a very unique player and could be a great backup C or even part time starter on that team. He is a poor man's John Jaso perhaps. he is rocking a .35 ISO but somehow is also rocking a 17.1% walk rate and despite a .228 BA a wRC+ of 84 because of all those walks. Re Saladino. I don't know his walk rate but he seems to always be working the count. I'd also like to see his spray chart from last year. I think he is a much better hitter when going to right field. Maybe he got pull happy after the spring training HR's .

Gun on Angels broadcast says Infante 's fastball is 97 MPH.

Hit and run results in 2 run Abreu HR to right center !

Sox hitter's lifeless through3 . Probably need Asche .

Pelfrey goes to a 3-2 count on all 3 batters but gets them all .

QUOTE (reiks12 @ May 15, 2017 -> 03:51 PM) Interested to see what Solorzanos line is tonight Not good.

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ May 15, 2017 -> 06:00 PM) AAAA guy. He was completely overmatched in the bigs. Facetiousness by Mr. Kalapse .

It's the food and beer , mmmmmmm .

The Three Garcia's of course.

Also this needs to be turned into the Avi for All Star game thread . Recent article listing AVi as one of 4 players with a chance to make their 1st AS game. http://calltothepen.com/2017/05/07/mlb-4-p...ame-appearance/ An excerpt : So far this season, Garcia is hitting .362/.407/.571 with five home runs, 24 RBI and 18 runs. His .366 batting average ranks fifth best in MLB and second best in the AL, behind Starlin Castro. Garcia’s 1.4 bWAR currently leads all other Chicago White Sox players in 2017. Garcia also leads in an array of White Sox categories including home runs, RBI, runs, hits, triples, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS and OPS-plus. Looks like voting has already started and here is the link to the ballot https://www.mlb.com/all-star/ballot