chitownsportsfan

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 09:41 PM) Nice at bats by Avi I love his approach, not the best batter eye but his plate coverage is tremendous and he never gets pull happy. Eventually you want him to pull the ball more in the air but if he's a 300 hitter and the power only develops to 20 a year that's fine as well IMO.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 09:36 PM) Nice catch by Avi. Don't understand why most folks here don't like his defense. He's been solid the last month or so. But before that he was bad. I will be happy if he's run neutral the rest of the year and maybe +5 or so next year.

I'm not sure how RV came up with this lineup, but it's f***ing awful. Why would you give EAton the night off tonight and Boni at 2B is just asking for trouble.

QUOTE (Capn12 @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 09:06 PM) Guys who 'only' throw 92 can still have success by not chalking up big pitch counts early in games. Pitch counts are about the dumbest thing around to measure a guys ability to stay in a game, but it unfortunately is the metric that still some how reigns supreme. He has to find a way to find some efficiency. He's pitched more innings than Sale the last two years combined, what now? If you're gonna b**** about a guy that's thrown over 200 innings each of the last two years and will likely do so again this year -- then you will b**** about 95% of starting pitchers because there aren't many Jim Palmers and Nolan Ryan rubber arms left out there.

QUOTE (Capn12 @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 08:59 PM) If Q could be more direct at going after guys, who knows what his career W/L record would look like. 101 games career, 600 innings...these 20+ pitch innings have to be much less a part of his starts. You want him to turn into John Danks? He has a 92 mph heater. He works with what he has man. Being "more direct" would lead to gopherballs.

Jesus, he's one of the 20 best starters in baseball signed to a team friendly deal. Yea, if Boston wants to give you Bogarts and Betts for you him you drive him to the airport himself but short of being bowled over like that with an offer of young MLB ready starters -- f*** no you don't trade him.

lol at trading Q because as usual his defense sucks donkey dick. You guys need to appreciate him more. He could have gone off on his fielders a dozen times over the last few years. His body language is always neutral or positive. Dude has reason to be angry and he keeps it together.

QUOTE (Chris Sale @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 05:22 PM) I can't imagine they do either, but the White Sox offense is unimaginably bad. The White Sox are 30th in offensive WAR (with -1.4, the only team in the negatives), 29th in wOBA, 28th in Runs, 28th in Home Runs, 28th in Stolen Bases (and 30th in Stolen Base percentage), 30th in isolated power, and 26th in BB%, and (by far our best offensive metric) 22nd in batting average. There are teams that are arguably worse at certain facets of the offensive game, but there is no other team that has been so awful at so many components put together. Shuck has shown some promising ability lately, when Avi was out, and Boni was pretty solid at the top of the lineup for the Cubs at the beginning of last year. If they flop, they flop, but it's absolutely worth a try. OMG they've been so bad and yet here they are somehow still hovering around .500 If they just f***ing regress to some of these guys' career lines...

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 05:35 PM) Maybe his hips are tight and that's what leads to the poor motion at the end. Yea that's a good point. Get this man in Vinyasa class.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 05:16 PM) I'm really excited about Rodon, but he still has two big things to prove. First, we haven't seen him throw strikes consistently in the MLB and it was something he fought in his last year at NC State as well. The other thing is I'd like to see a third pitch. You occasionally see dominant starters that pretty much just throw two pitches, but it's not an easy route to success. Throwing a serviceable change about 15-20% of the time would make it infinitely harder for hitters to get comfortable against him. Since the comparisons to Sale are inevitable, it's worth mentioning that Sale had a very advanced changeup from the start and we never really saw him struggle with command. With that said, Rodon has his own advantages, namely that he's built like a tank and has a conventional, relatively low effort motion. His motion is sexy. The way he drives through his massive trunks for legs...well, yea. He's built like a linebacker.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 05:21 PM) He's our number 2 starter now I certainly have more confidence when he starts than Shark.

wow. The whole series? Seriously? Pardon me, but that is f***ing horse s***.

So, I think Rodon's performance so far deserves its own thread. Here's a couple links to get the discussion going: Carlos Rodon Isn't a Finished Product (from 5/21 Fangraphs) Inspired Rodon Showing Improvement (ESPN 6/9) Some good quotes from everyone's favorite receiver in that 2nd article: What do you guys think of his performance so far? Obviously he's been impressive but he's lacked command at times and seems to be struggling to add his changeup at the MLB level. Will he follow Sale as a power guy that develops a great changeup? Should he even really be focusing on that but perhaps more on his fastball command? What do you see as his peak years? Will he be the next great Chicago starter?

thanks I was going to run a bandwidth test but it loaded the picture in .2 seconds so I think I'm good

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 01:10 PM) Nick Schaefer ‏@Nick_TCS 1h1 hour ago White Sox are hitting .167/.286/.250 with bases loaded none out this year. 1BB, 4Ks, 2GIDPs. Some really bad approaches IMO but partially it's just that this team doesn't have very many good fastball hitters. Outside of Avi and LaRoche and Jose when he's locked in, most of our guys can't turn around fastballs and for the most part the Sox have been challenged, and failing, to hit good fastballs with the bases loaded.

At various points this year the Sox have pitched pretty well. This is another of of those times. The problem, obviously, is the offense. The defense has largely stabilized and I would continue to trot out Beckham and Sanchez more often than not at 3B and 2B. The problem with Sanchez's bat isn't necessarily even that it sucks, it's that the rest of the lineup isn't good enough to carry a guy that's all glove no hit. In theory, if Melky and Alexei pick it up a bit (and Jose goes back to elite masher and not just solid) then his line (which will improve) won't look so awful. I'm rather optimistic right now given how well Rodon and some of the pen pieces are pitching that if the offense can just get to "mediocre" the Sox might have a decent chance at 85-86 wins and hell that might be enough for a 2nd wild card.

Rodon doesn't have Sale's height or ridiculous arm angle and that's a big advantage for Chris as I think it adds a tick or two to the listed speed on his fastball in the hitters' eyes. Chris also has learned to vary his fastball speeds and has (most starts) pinpoint command of it. Chris can pitch off his fastball and I'm not quite sure Rodon can, because he doesn't really know where it's going all the time and it tends to hang over the zone. One thing Rodon does have over Sale is the ability to change the tilt on his slider. What Eminor said was accurate that Chris' almost always breaks wildly and over the zone (which is great, good luck hitting it even if you know it's coming) but Rodon can vary the speed and tilt to RHB and in theory should be able to get by with only 2 pitches more often than not if he has good command that night. That said, developing a changeup, as with all pitchers, will be critical for Rodon's long term success. He'll be good with a decent one, he'll be great to excellent with a good one.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 9, 2015 -> 02:01 PM) They lost their 2nd and 3rd round picks and ability to spend the corresponding slot values for signing Robertson and Melky. Any chance there's a take back if his OPS is under .620 on the day of the draft? Shakin' my head.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 9, 2015 -> 12:02 PM) I think that was as good as I've seen Sale. Slider was as elite as it gets, FB touched 99, changeup was off early but he found it the third time through the order. Back-door sliders all night to get ahead, dotting to lower outside corner with the FB. Completely unfair. The way he was painting the black with his changeup to RHB was the most impressive part IMO. Yea the velocity was there on his FB and the bite on his slider but the command on the changeup was ridiculous. When a guy comes at you with an 80 fastball, 80 slider, and 70 changeup from a funky 6-6" delivery, just grab some bench.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 8, 2015 -> 11:34 PM) Avi found his power stroke! 296/351/453 iso up to .157. He's looking sexy. If he can hit 280/330/450 on the year that's a great step imo. Could see a prime of 300/350/520. THat's pretty damn good in today's s*** run environment.

Tate drops to the Sox I will be very happy.

Fish in a barrel here. Pass.

QUOTE (Doc Edwards Shot @ Jun 8, 2015 -> 11:11 AM) Too many people wearing rose-colored glasses around here. There's no reason at all to believe that this team is suddenly going to go on a major run and play .600+ baseball for an extended period. I'll have to see it to believe it. Yea the season is in the toilet. Unless they rip off 20/30 now, they aren't going to turn it around. I see stuff like "well in 1984" or "one time this awful team turned it around" -- well yea, but how about the countless teams that were bad in June that were bad the rest of the year? The Mariners and White Sox have to be neck and neck for most disappointing offense.

Viciedo could have done better than Melky. You can only laugh.

I'm sick of seeing Choo 2-0, 3-1.