Balta1701

0/21

Aside from Madrigal being out, the lineup was generally healthy. Engel had a shoulder issue that was cleaned up after the year, but he continued playing - and LaRussa once pinch hit for him with Cesar, put Leury in RF afterwards, and it led directly to a double that put away a game.

3 righties.

Charlie Morton?

Normally I’d say that it’s never good to fall behind, but the way they came out yesterday is so unusual for a team that wants to compete that I’m not sure what the answer is.

They regularly reinforce themselves from their minor leagues, and then selectively add to their big league roster. This is absolutely key. It is why they beat us last year. It's why their payroll hasn't had to get out of control to stay competitive - only 2020 did they have a higher (projected) CBT number than the White Sox this year.

Well Verlander was extended twice in the offseason, but one offseason one I forgot was Gerrit Cole.

Michael Brantley, Justin Verlander, Zach Greinke come to mind. They also supported those signings/trades through regular additions of minor leaguers after their first wave arrived, including Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, Jose Urquidy, Framber Valdez, Luis Garcia, and this year Jeremy Pena and Chas McCormick are off to solid starts for them.

JMO - Absolutely.

Haseley will not be on this roster tomorrow. Why is it a problem if he doesn’t have consistent at bats?

This is basically a shotgun blast. There’s almost zero correlation here? If anything, eyeballing it you might say the relationship is inverse based on this plot, lots of barrels equals low BABIP, but that’s a stretch too. This argues that lots of barrels does not relate to extra hits.

But the “scientifically” part of that is the calibration based on previous results. If it’s not the weather but instead it’s largely the ball, then the correct way to say it would be that the white Sox had lost 4 HR due to the ball, and those would only come back if they resinserted the Happy Fun Ball again this season. If it was just the weather, then it would be likely to be an every year phenomenon, which this isn’t. I would also bet the other was that fly ball Anderson hit to the wall against iiRC Tampa.

Please don’t misinterpret this as meaning “Robert will go hitless the rest of the year”, but something worth considering is that the relationships between exit velocity and results have to be calibrated based on previous results. If the balls are behaving differently in flight, then projections based on previous results would be far less accurate, and the statistics suggest exactly that early this year. From Passan’s insider piece yesterday: https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/33766486/why-home-runs-vladimir-guerrero-jr-best-hitter-world-answering-20-early-mlb-questions

As of now, the White Sox’s OBP is 29th in baseball. Thank goodness for the Reds being awful. They are also 29th in walks. The Reds have a dozen more, and there’s a big dropoff after team 28. Boston: 29 White Sox: 24 Kansas City: 20

Ok he’s officially 5th in pitches thrown a guy from the Marlins also passed him narrowly yesterday. https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/player-stat/pitches-thrown

I think pretty much everyone at the start of the offseason understood that “a bullpen arm to replace Tepera” was a solid need that couldn’t be ignored. Graveman is off to a solid start in that role, so right now that decision seems hard to question. Even though a few guys are off to decent starts, which out of Ruiz, Bummer, Foster, or Sousa do you want as your close game 8th inning guy? If the White Sox didn’t sign a guy like that they’d already be looking to trade for one after Bummer’s iffy start.

Also Serious compliments for whoever is running the Bulls Twitter feed

He can barely stand.

At the very least, those add up to about the same money.

Still the foot injury.

Kelly, Harrison, Velasquez, and Cueto.

He’s at highest 4th in pitches thrown. (Might be some other guys who pitched today).

Or react in the middle of the first game when things went to hell. Or at least don’t hit Harrison, Haseley, Leury in the 123 spots. That’s just standard LaRussa bullplop. I can only get outraged by it so often at this point.