Jake

I'd give Fulmer plenty of time to work through things and try to find some consistency as a starter. He's got the stuff to make it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 6, 2017 -> 11:15 PM) That includes A-ball and a week off for his hammy, and only like three games in AA. Much as I'd like to find optimism, that's a pretty empty selection. Wait until he's been in AA hitting again for a few weeks. Here's what I'll say. Many of us were rightly alarmed when in his first 25 games, he struck out 60 times in 105 PA with just 3 BB. In that stretch, he had at least 1 K in all but 2 of them. In 18 of the 25, he had 2 or more Ks. It was about as bad as you can play and when it comes to strikeouts, we know we don't need a big sample size to know something is going on. He never had a 2-game run without at least one of the games having 2 or more Ks. I've really never seen a player play so badly, we're talking about yips level problems with contact. So after striking out 7 times in his first 12 PA in his rehab assignment down in Kannapolis, it seems like something changed for a guy who had no hope of putting the ball in play before. He's played 14 games since. In that time, he's had 59 plate appearances and 10 K (17%) while hitting the ball a little bit (18 for 53, 2 HR, 3 2B, ~.915 OPS). In 7 of those 14 games (half!), he's had zero strikeouts. He has struck out multiple times in only 2 of those games. If you want to split his season into two halves, he has 46 more plate appearances to go since the game where I drew the line to reach the same amount of PA in his first 25 games. He could strike out in every single one of those 46 plate appearances and would still have a lower K rate in the second 108 plate appearances. I don't think the talent difference in A-ball (where 10 of those games occurred split between Kannapolis and W-S) explains the change. Anyway, the point I was trying to make may have not been clear. I've had little optimism for Hawkins as a MLB player for a while now. But the horrendous start to the season was crazy and I've never seen something like it. I've taken a rooting interest in seeing Hawkins fix what looked a lot like a hitter's version of the yips to the point where he could at least just languish in the minors until he wants to hang it up or become a pitcher.

Last 11 games for Courtney Hawkins (multiple levels): 12 for 37, 2 HR, 4 BB, 6 K (!)

I think it should go to the league that won interleague play.

His ability to take walks is a major, plus-plus tool that ought not be ignored.

There's real smoke with this—somebody involved with the loan application knew they were bulls***ting—the only question is whether Jane Sanders was merely negligent or actually knowingly participated in the deception. The alleged pressure from Bernie, though, seems purely politically motivated and the public record doesn't provide a shred of evidence.

The individual market was so rotten pre-ACA that if they repealed ACA now, it would be such a killer for the economy. Only a crazy person would walk away from employer insurance to do something like start a business or take work as an independent contractor if they felt they had any potential need for health insurance.

Illinois will never fix its budget issues without a progressive income tax.

Dude needs the extended release if the stress of it running out in the middle of the day was bothering him

What is Courtney Hawkins's injury? He's fallen so far that nobody bothers saying what's wrong anymore.

What I'm not seeing with Hanson is the ceiling to justify the kinds of rankings he was getting as a MiLBer with non-great production.

Would be very hard to justify taking away any playing time from Leury in favor of Tilson at this point. Tilson's best bet is a worse than anticipated prognosis for Leury or a quicker than expected trade of Melky

I have a feeling he more than some others will be slow to adjust to the grind of catching every day over a 100+ game season.

Going to be some tough decisions when Leury and Saladino get healthy.

When an off-the-radar player with no acclaim is traded away and many years later resurfaces as good, it's worth putting things in perspective. It's hard to say whether there's something obvious like this for Devenski, but you have to consider the possibility that the player would not have developed successfully in the original organization. I'm sure Yankees fans are pissed they let Jose Quintana go, but there's a good chance he was going to be in single-A and possibly pitching in relief had he stayed in their organization. Instead, he got modestly hot as a starter in Birmingham and then benefited from a surprise situation when the Sox both had a roster opening and had a doubleheader on the same day, leading to a callup of both their AAA and AA starters scheduled that day. The luck continued when the Sox scheduled starter had a rotten start and they had a need for their emergency reliever, Quintana, who subsequently pitched so well in his long relief appearance that the Sox kept him up. Even in the best of circumstances with the Yankees, his timeline would have been significantly delayed, probably by two years. Compare that to a guy like Moncada who is probably so clearly talented that it matters very little which team he plays for because he'll do well regardless of opportunity and coaching.

I would like to figure out what's going on with his defense, because last year he really was good. Maybe this or that stat overrated him, but he was at minimum a major league average SS defensively last year. But now he has a serious error problem—maybe it's all in his head. The offense it makes much more sense to be patient with. He's now played more in the MLB than any other single level. We've never let him really grow within a level and he hasn't really had to deal with a scouting report being out on him and executed well.

Please let all those Sunday games be Hawk and Wimpy

Big question remaining is his defense. To compare him to another late bloomer, is he going to be like Jose Bautista as a defender or can he be more like an average outfielder? Has big implications for his future value as well as how much his newfound stroke has to be for real vs. just a slight improvement

I still think the Samardzija trade was more obviously bad at the time it was made, but that was in large part due to the loss of Semien who would have filled the 2B hole that has been gaping since he was traded (and before that). Injury aside, Chris Bassitt may well be a nice piece we lost there too.

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.

Some folks are being deliberately obtuse. You're not going to prioritize Yolmer over Moncada, but as part of the rebuilding process you do want to give young players a chance to figure things out. Having a guy like Yolmer turn into an starter-caliber player is the kind of thing that is supposed to happen in a rebuild. So the predicament is not whether you hamstring Moncada's development for the sake of Yolmer, but how you find something approaching full time ABs for Yolmer on the team once you have Moncada up and still have Frazier on the team (and Davidson still deserving of some ABs). For now, it's safe to say that Yolmer has earned a chance to take Saladino's ABs away, but it's not like there's an obvious way for either one to get many ABs once Moncada arrives. I'm interested to see how Renteria deals with it when the time comes. If we slow-play Moncada's call up into July, though, it's obviously possible that Yolmer will have cooled off so much that we don't see the need to get him more than 2 or 3 games a week by then.

Yolmer probably isn't this good, but he's also not as bad as his previous years' performances would suggest. It will be tricky to find him at-bats once Moncada is up.

How has the weather differed thus far?

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 15, 2017 -> 02:16 PM) That's a long time even if they need to do a scope and remove the loose bodies. But with the way they have been treating injuries this year, anything is possible. You'd think they would be less likely to have Soto out longer than needed because he's on a 1-year deal and would be hoping to get back as soon as he can so he can build his resume for next year.

8 homers so far for Keon Barnum is....something.