Jake

Are we blaming Tony La Russa for Pedro Grifol's poor management again?

I wonder whether he's getting back onto the radar at all with his torpedo-fueled 138 wRC+ in the month of June and 118 wRC+ season. On a related note, although Nick Madrigal kept a good bit of prospect hype through his promotion to MLB, I always found it strange that: 1. He was announced as a shortstop by the Sox on draft day 2. He made his professional debut as a shortstop 3. He never made another professional appearance at shortstop after that one minor league game I don't think he was very likely to be even an above-average defensive MLB SS, but that's usually an "innocent until proven guilty" thing when a middle infielder moves through the minors.

I feel fairly confident that although a team can certainly mishandle their pitchers, by far the most important factor is the player himself. I don't mean this to victim-blame (my small-time baseball career was cut short by a bad shoulder), but just to say that the players brings important things to the table that are very important for his likelihood of injury: genetic/innate susceptibility (to oversimplify: how weak are the ligaments, cartilage, and so on), his throwing motion, his personal habits, etc. It's very difficult to change an advanced player's throwing motion so I tend to treat that as mostly set in stone; range of motion, the player's build and proportions, and deeply set muscle memory make big mechanical changes probably not worth pursuing by professional teams. So I tend to think the likely reason that the Sox kept their pitchers healthy better than basically everyone else for many years was that they were scouting/acquiring healthy pitchers. It's nice that they didn't screw it up and props to those who managed to not screw it up...but at the same time if you have the wrong guys on the staff I deeply believe there's not much you can do to avoid injuries entirely for a certain, large subset of players. As for the role of pitcher effort and overall stress on the arm from velocity, the evidence definitely seems to support caution around guys who throw with high velocity and those who throw with high effort. Unfortunately, it feels like the incentives aren't well-aligned on either side to deal with it. The vast majority of MLB pitchers are on very thin ice. They cannot let themselves get 5-10% worse and keep their jobs, let alone maintain hope for a significant payday in arbitration or free agency. So they go all out to try to keep their heads above water. Meanwhile, teams aren't very committed to many of these guys either and seem to see it as a better tradeoff to just burn through guys rather than baby a bunch of players who 1. may break down anyway and 2. may be too ineffective if they pitch in a lower-risk way. FWIW, the favorite "Coop will fix 'em" guys seemed to be the select few who had enough raw stuff that they could be successful if they backed off their effort just a little bit if it unlocked more command. I know Twins pitcher Brock Stewart from my playing days. He straight up says that to resurrect his career, he had to make changes to his training and approach that greatly increased the risk of serious injury. But for him, if he didn't do those things he'd be selling insurance by now. Since he saved his pro career by adding several ticks of velo, he hasn't reached 30 innings in a season. On the other hand, the innings he's managed to give were pretty effective. I think the Twins are accepting of the tradeoff and I'm sure the guy who takes his spot on the roster when Brock is hurt is rolling the dice in a similar way. For now, I think this is the cutting edge in MLB: look no further than the LA Dodgers who have 7 starting pitchers on the IL with arm injuries and another 4 relievers on the IL with arm injuries at the moment. Widespread practice seems to be maximizing effectiveness today because tomorrow's injuries are too hard to predict in comparison to today's wins and losses.

Wonder if her strategy is to score a (perhaps small) settlement from a White Sox organization that may "know" they are in the right but are worried about what topics may come up in the depositions.

Korey Lee hit a home run with an exit velo of 88.5mph today. Lee just surpassed Julks on the most extreme AAA batted ball luck leaderboard. Of course, #1 in all of the minor leagues for batted ball luck is Brooks Baldwin (at least, as defined by wOBA - xwOBA)

Have we gotten confirmation that Tauchman got hurt on that play? Any chance he got benched for making a bad baserunning decision?

FWIW, I think Schultz looked better than the box score will look. I didn't expect him to run a nearly 40% whiff rate across his arsenal, especially the sinker. Didn't get hit hard very often, homer was a cheapie, threw strikes. He got a couple big whiffs with his four seamer towards the end of his outing so I hope he can find a way to keep using that pitch effectively. He didn't get much out of his changeup but he really could have benefited from another pitch whether it was the changeup, a cutter, or something else.

That ump was clueless

Why are Noda's eyes red?

He's still under team control next season, we're running it back baby! (I honestly wouldn't be upset if they did that)

His hamstring is 0-fer on game-tying/go-ahead baserunning attempts from third to home

Amaya is rocking a 1.200 OPS in AAA by the way 😎

I guess Tauchman blew his hammy again on that play at home?

Capra would make more sense on a team that isn't platooning such a large portion of its players

Maybe somebody has figured it out and it's actually a good idea, but I'm unsure of the wisdom of the contact play.

So far it seems like Schultz has two strong pitches but once batters get to see it a couple times they don't have as much trouble handling them. The other offerings are rare and not really catching hitters off guard even when they are used rarely. I know they took the cutter away for now but that seems like the kind of pitch that would solve problems for him.

Don't know if it's the ball or the stadium but the cheap homers are crazy in AAA. That ball by Leon was a no doubt homer but it's an xBA of .076 in MLB.

Venable is crazy for letting White get into trouble. Great job by Quero

uh, what is this defense in Charlotte? Is Sergio cut out for this?

Colson looks like he's just guessing up there

Well Moncada was definitely on my mind as a guy who always had very dramatic reactions to pain but then usually stayed in the game. His countryman Alexei Ramirez was similar. The guy failing to hustle could have been a lot of different players. I've been scouring the game recaps and game threads from the Frazier era and so far am not seeing any plays that drew attention for a guy not running down the line.

Probably wouldn't be very hard to figure out which player he's talking about in the threatening the manager story based on the information he gave. Very shortly after he joined the team, very specific kind of play that happened to instigate it.

if I was pitching and gave up homers on those pitches in those locations I'd be very rattled

How in the world does Burleson keep doing this lol

Think we may be getting close to the end of the road for Rojas. I'm not sure that he's all out of decent MLB play, but I think he's going to have to go earn it on someone's AAA team. A solid week or so of play from Colson Montgomery in Charlotte might be all we need.