Jake

The ball Meidroth hit was way in off the plate. Impressive that he could square up a pitch thrown there (and keep it fair)

From watching Plesac for years on MLB Network, the one thing that is most obvious is that he really does not take himself seriously at all. And I mean that in the positive sense. He takes his job seriously but he's not too good for anybody.

Interestingly, per Statcast, Steinbrenner Field is not playing all that offense-friendly so far this season. Huge boost to homers but not to other types of offense. The "environmental factors" (temperature, humidity, prevailing wind, etc.) suppress fly balls by 4 feet relative to average.

The Christopher Morel Experience

He's got a big problem chasing high heat. It's a simple problem so you'd think he might be able to figure it out. On the other hand I watched Vaughn battle it for years with no luck (although Vaughn tended to foul them off).

Revenge for denying us our destiny

I was never a Gavin Floyd hater, but I bet the way I feel towards Burke is how some of you felt about Gavin Floyd

Baldwin's:

Where Vargas's ball would have left the park:

April 23, 2025 IYKYK

My gut feeling is that the union does not have the mettle to fight the owners hard enough to prevent a salary cap if the owners do indeed push hard for it. They will roll over in exchange for stuff like higher minimum salaries, minor amenities around travel/etc., and a few boosts to minor league life. I hope I'm wrong but they've been getting stomped as of late. Union brought in the best guy possible to help Tony Clark but it seems like the players just aren't buying the anti-cap argument. I think adding minor leaguers to the union will only add to this problem as they can be "bought" easily via concessions that owners don't care about.

Colson...welcome back to Earth

6 whiffs in 11 swings for Taylor

Yeah that seemed like a good time to let Baldwin hit.

That's a pretty interesting find on the Vargas vs. lefty fastballs split. I'm not going to ring the alarm on it just yet (helps that he hit a double on a four-seamer around the time that was posted). He's hitting lefty sinkers well for one so it's not like he's completely unable to hit their velocity. He's also hitting right-handed four seamers well. Some guys end up with reverse splits but it's really unusual for reverse splits to happen because a guy can't hit a straight fastball against oppo-handed pitchers even though he can against same-handed ones.

I can't believe that ball didn't leave the ballpark for Quero.

Colson looks like he's been playing 3B his whole life

Surprised to see Oneil Cruz gets above-average marks from the defensive metrics. Speed is a hell of a weapon for an outfielder. But it won't help if he kills himself out there.

On Yoendrys Gomez: shockingly good numbers for a Charlotte starting pitcher this year. I'm not sure that I buy he's going to give the White Sox value as a starter. Prior to coming to the Sox, I didn't see much to like on the statsheet for Gomez. But Statcast gave a clue what the Sox were looking at: some exceptional movement on his sweeper. The rest of his arsenal didn't seem like anything special but you can go a long way with a great sweeper if you use it right. He also has huge drop on his curveball but that's less of a weapon nowadays. Fastball is pretty average. He has a somewhat unique release point which is something Bannister has mentioned as appealing in some other Sox pickups. In AAA, Gomez is getting an incredible 51% whiff rate on the sweeper. Batters are hitting .040 against it. His four-seamer is performing okay too, maybe because hitters are worried about the offspeed. He's getting 40% whiff rate on his curveball too but some of the contact has been hot against it. He basically only uses the curve against lefties. He's mixing in a changeup and non-sweeper slider but they both appear to be crappy pitches. So I see a glimpse of a guy who could thrive in a bullpen role in which you can protect him from seeing too many lefty hitters and let that sweeper eat. Kind of a Steven Wilson profile although I acknowledge that doesn't sound very exciting.

This is a nice start from Civale, so far.

Well I think Lenyn is very much not pigeon-holed into being at 1B/DH although I agree that he's unlikely to have the mobility for even marginal SS defense anymore. There's definitely some lid on Lenyn's potential because of his approach...he'll never run a high OBP even if he's hitting really well. Think Tim Anderson at his peak running high averages but never walking. In that respect Vargas has a higher ceiling because he takes great at bats. That said, I don't really want to use "Miguel Vargas" and "high ceiling" in the same sentence either (I say this as a Vargas fan). I hope the Sox just assemble a critical mass of MLB-quality players and work out the particulars later. I do have a hunch that Getz may have a pretty specific vision of the kind of player he wants on his team and Lenyn Sosa doesn't fit it. My opinion is you shouldn't let that get in the way of fielding the best team you can, especially given that Getz has already remade the team/organization to not be full of guys who swing at everything anymore. But if Lenyn gets moved, there's no doubt in my mind that it would reflect Getz becoming dogmatic about the archetype of hitter he wants on his team. As a sweetener in a LouBob deal, I think it's a little crazy. By any sort of cost:benefit model Lenyn should be way more valuable than LouBob on the trade market. LouBob is the Lenyn sweetener!

Nice job by Colson. I think he's destined to be a strikeout guy, but not all of them are created equal. Some of them are able to adjust to a situation and make contact when it really buys you something

I don't understand the desire to trade Sosa. Would you advocate trading Vargas? Because they are the same age and have the same contract status in terms of time to free agency. I'd be surprised if Getz thought Vargas was so old/close to FA that he should be traded. Not sure why Lenyn would be treated differently. I know Lenyn has a penchant for frustrating mental lapses in the field, but he's also more versatile defensively than Vargas (and just better with the glove in general, other than perhaps 1B where Lenyn seems to have a mental block). There's a non-trivial chance that Lenyn produces more value than any other infielder on this roster in the next 5 seasons. If the thought was that teams wanted to pay a huge cost for Lenyn, maybe you think about it. But I doubt they're banging down the doors. You'd be hoping the return turns into a Lenyn Sosa type of player.

Yeah he's just doing the extreme Chicagoland name thing. Lou-ee Roberts baby!

I'll give the Sox minor league development folks a thumbs-up on Colson's defense. Always nice when a guy is pegged as a question mark with the glove but he ends up being better than advertised. We'll leave discussion of his bat for another day