Balta1701

But take what you say and turn it the other way. If the White Sox would have been better off limiting Crochet to 50-60 pitches for the first month and building up slowly to 100, and they don't do that, and then he gets hurt - how many people are going to say "Damn they were irresponsible again" versus "oh well I guess he couldn't' handle it"? Almost everyone is going to say the latter, even if the former were true. And second - yes, it is absolutely the coaches and athletic trainers jobs to know body mechanics, pitching, rehab, and recovery schedules more than an athlete. We know this from every sport, elite athletes will push themselves as hard as they can without recognizing where it puts their body's long term health at risk. NFL players will push themselves to get back on the field through concussions. Baseball players will ignore the pain in their elbow. This is a clear part of an effective coach's job and of an effective organization's job. Reynaldo Lopez in his opening year felt something a little weird in his elbow. The trainers came out, he said he was fine, they went in. Jose Abreu walked to the mound, asked him what was up, he said he felt something weird, Abreu immediately called the trainers back out, they took him out and he went on the 10 day IL just to make sure something small didn't turn into something big. While the trainers needed to do a better job, this was Jose Abreu being the adult in the room and not letting his 23 year old starter overexert himself and hurt himself long term. The correct person in this scenario was Abreu.

No, but I believe it could easily take 2 full years for a pitcher to build up an arm from being a reliever to a starter. I also believe that true TJS recovery to get back to the point where the body can handle pitching at all takes 18 months, unless this new technique changers things. TJS followed by building up the arm of a guy who has never been a starter before definitely seems to be a 3 to 4 year managed process.

There is no version of "arm rehabilitation" that is a substitute for throwing in actual baseball games, and there's no way on Earth he got his arm in any sort of condition in 2023. They pushed him way too hard because Rick Hahn needed him to save his bullpen and that caused shoulder inflammation - in what was absolutely the most predictable series of events I have ever seen in my life. He has to throw in actual baseball games regularly to build up his arm. This process will not be completed this year, it probably won't even be completed next year. Using him as a starter and seeing him have some success is step 1 in this, however the only reason I can't say "I'm surprised they are using him this aggressively with 87 pitches on opening day" is that I'm so used to having them do super reckless things with Garret Crochet already that not surprising at all. Perhaps baffling is a better word.

They're going to push him to like 80 pitches unless he's getting shelled.

No, they have only 1 scheduled Offday before April 11. They will need their 5th starter soon unless there’s a rainout. They wrote that they would do something stupid like pitch Crochet on normal rest in game 5 and call up the 5th starter for game 6, rather than giving Crochet extra rest (obviously with his history as a reliable innings eater he doesn’t need an extra Offday betweeen any of his first 3 starts).

And sacrifice the vital element of surprise?

Y'all be writing that without realizing that this is the official policy of the White Sox. Both in game and front office.

How about “this is super weird as presented and for it to go this way a whole lot of safeguards have to break down in a very peculiar way.” Between the bookie giving a $4.5 million credit line to a guy who probably wouldn’t make that much in 10 years and these transfers not setting off alarms with Ohtani or anyone he employs, it seems worth some real skepticism to me that this is the whole story. Is that fair?

I really wish I could convince myself that the Royals will take a leap this year as I believe they spent as much or more in FA as any other AL team this offseason (in terms of 2024 spending).

If they’re not certain how the schedule is going to go, can they actually have him pitching normal games at Charlotte?

Minnesota has 2 rain outs not made up? Bad weather forecast for next week?

1. Yes, Martin Maldonado can be a downgrade from the catchers spot last year, because he was worse than the White Sox’s catchers last year. Imagine Grandal except he also doesn’t walk and you have to constantly hear what a great job he’s doing, that’s what Maldonado was last year. Hopefully Lee can do something with this opportunity. 2. Nicky Lopez had an OPS last year 30 pints lower than Elvis Andrus last year .630 is not “way less bad” than .660. 3. Note how much of your concept Is “maybe they will all break out this year”. That was supposed to be a part of their competitive team last year! We heard that all the time. Maybe it happens this time, but with this coaching staff and the GM having no control over rushing people upwards I will believe it when I see it. 4. You’re right, that bullpen performance last year was unusually bad for the resources put into it. However. Same coach, same pitching coach, less talent. Will count it as improved when it is improved. 5. The Sox have some downside risks too. Luis Robert was their only real contributor last year, and he counts as injury prone and likely difficult to coach. Room for improvement if healthy the whole year, but where are they without him or if he slows down a tiny bit? 6. The White Sox had fewer WAR and a worse run differential than the Royals. They only wound up in 4th place because they were a little lucky and the Royals were unlucky. That could repeat this year, they get lucky and it carries them to 65 wins, or a team with better talent could also drop into the 50s, even if you believe they have better talent. I’ve seen way too many people give credit to a GM who was making poor moves that made people feel good only to proclaim no one could have seen issues coming when they happened. So personally, I still think they’re crap and the jury is out on whether they have learned any lessons from how they got into this mess. That last part is all I’m interested in this season, and the rushing guys upwards who haven’t earned it does not give me any confidence.

I think they probably had plenty of interested parties, but Grifol told them what a great job they were doing and played to their already-existing prejudices about how baseball should be run.

I understand Joe Espada wanting no part of this, but I can't believe no one else was willing to go for one of only 30 MLB manager jobs. Maybe no one else wanted it at the salary Reinsdorf was willing to pay, but that's different. Weren't there a ****ton of reports about Bruce Bochy being interested?

If they were talking about him being ready why were his minor league numbers not better? Do those coaches just not know what they're doing?

Especially now with the low but nonzero chance at extra draft picks, combined with how the whole org looks, I'm not going to get bent out of shape about service time. I am getting more bent out of shape about the fact that he really doesn't seem to have earned it. ERA over 4 at AA all year last year, including once traded, 4 starts at AAA, ERA over 4. This feels like a guy being rushed to the big leagues by default, because there's an open spot, not because he's actually been good enough to earn it.

Assuming you pretend yesterday didn’t happen.

Ah Ty. Colson hasn’t been healthy yet either I guess.

At some point it would be nice to have a team where paying for this type of player made sense, but just in general the comment was that they’d rather extend Robert than Cease. Right now Cease has been healthy since he was called up while Robert has had one major surgery and at least one minor injury costing him several weeks over the last 3 seasons. If I had to gamble on who would be more likely to contribute at age 33, for now wouldn’t Cease be the obvious answer?

With his injury history?

Let’s just remember that Cease’s agent is Scott Boras, so an extension isn’t going to involve any massive discount.

No, that’s why I said 1/2 of a season, referring to 1/2 of a season.

Great. He has 27 games at AA with an ERA over 4, 4 games at AAA last year also with an ERA over 4. Send him to AAA and call him up when he starts impressing. Thanks for agreeing, entire career makes it obvious.

How about that 12 innings in spring training isn’t a good way to make a decision about whether or not a guy is ready for a callup?

Cease’s money for 1/2 of the season is basically one Martin Maldonado.