chitownsportsfan

6pm start in Chicago, 4pm for us west coasters.

Go figure the one position the Sox would find a useful starter would be catcher, the hardest to find. Well, I'm not complaining. If he works his ass off this offseason on his receiving he could be looking at a potential ASG appearance next year. He's always had a really good approach at the plate and its bearing fruit.

I'm still worried about Rodon's stuff long term, but he's making it work with what he's got. Continued command on his fastball will be key if he's going to have problems with his offspeed pitches.

that was pretty slick. Yolmer with the pick and pivot and Yoan just rifled that ball, had him by two steps.

WOW!

jesus not even close, too bad the Sox don't have a good bullpen.

Rodon reminds me somewhat of Buehrle.

well, not good, but watchable at least.

fuck yea tim.

wow, what team is the White Sox?

Baseball is broken.

I cancelled my MLB.tv, you're welcome. I'm a streamer now, yikes.

You don't get where Yoan has without some talent in the bones. Kid needs to just keep grinding. Baby steps. I keep repeating it but he hasn't cratered, he could have cratered this year, offensively and defensively but he didn't. The strikeouts are ugly but he has stayed afloat.

Look's like the proverbial "fire" has been little under Yoan's ass. As an old meathead, that gets me a little fired up. COME ON KID. Go Sox, this is fun.

almost like they are all young players trying to break into MLB...

Wow, Torres is almost down below 800 OPS, after that hot start he's been bad.

I'm sure a number of FOs have data on exit velocity and spin rate and any correlation (and causation) between the two.

Keeps the hard contact down even at those velocities. I'm not a huge spin rate guy, or at least wasn't coming into this year, but based on the visual evidence so far hitters have a tough time squaring up his fastball, even at 94-95 and down the middle up. When I heard about his spin rate (apparently it's best in the majors currently) it made perfect sense. Lopez throws those 95 mph heaters and they get crushed. Kopech seems to be able to get away with it. Again, I was not tuned into to spin rate before this season and had no idea what a "rising fastball" really meant, but I read some articles on it and it seems to be a thing, even if the ball isn't really rising, just not dropping throws hitters off.

He moved Eloy up to full A and now has him #2 in all of MLB. Sickles puts his work in if he thinks he's #2 in all of MLB (behind Vlad Jr) then that's a pretty damn strong endorsement. He also moved Kopech to a full A, making him a top 8ish overall (IIRC Sickles only gives about 8-10 full As at any given time). Rest of the rankings seem to reflect Sickels' conservative nature. Basabe in particular didn't move up after his strong season.

The only thing positive about Lopez and Gio's years is that they have managed to mostly stay healthy and get MLB innings under their belt. Both should end up around 170 IP this year. Need to see some big jumps in their peripherals next year. Neither guy currently has anything better than 5th starter stuff. That said, the Sox really just need to find a 4th and 5th starter out of Gio, Lopez, Dunning, Hansen, Cover and anybody else they got on the farm or can acquire via FA/Trade. At the top it looks like you've got Rodon, Kopech and Cease starting in 2020 and that looks like a pretty damn good big three on paper.

I saw Fangraphs finally has him at .1 fWAR! He's a shitty 4th OF on a decent club, if even that. Fangraphs doesn't think much of his defense.

I like that it appears he'd rather give up a weak hit (or a solid one) than walk anybody. The 3-0 fastball with the bases juiced that he put top of the zone right down broadway was a good example of that mindset (and skill that allows it). So was the eventual double play on a well placed fastball down. The spin rate is huge for Kopech. Allows him to dial it down to 94-95 for better command and still be successful.

looks like a sweep on paper!

I'm a little worried about his peripherals. They aren't great. That said, his hard hit rate is at like 10%. He might be walking too many and not striking out an ideal amount of guys but whatever he's doing to get them off balance is mostly working. From the little I've observed it seems he's finally got good fastball command on a consistent basis.

Yea it def looks "grand", agree with that. We used to drive by the construction (and the old stadium) almost every day for work, saw it go up in real time. Agree with Citi, Citi is a cool stadium. I like the Jackie Robinson area when you walk in and the views of the city from the upper deck are pretty sweet.