Jack Parkman

idk where to put this, but perspective for everyone with an athletic subscription: https://theathletic.com/353112/2018/05/14/gammons-rebuilding-can-be-a-painful-process-something-the-white-sox-and-other-teams-know-too-well/

The bottom 3rd of the Sox order......where rallies go to die.

This is ESPN you're talking about. To them, Chicago only has an NL ballclub.

To be honest, I don't think he'll have a good market, so I wouldn't trade him. However, I wouldn't re-sign him either, unless he had a horrible market, or wanted to do a QO acceptance or something like that. He'll be 33 during the offseason that he is a FA, so I don't think it is in the team's best interest to sign him. Collins or Zavala can take over if one of them doesn't stick at Catcher. Would it be nice to have him here for longer? Yes. But the dude should get his and I wouldn't blame him for leaving, nor would I make a fair offer based on aging curves so w/e. Godspeed Abreu. He'd have to accept like 2/30 or something like that and I think he could get more dollars and years on the open market.

Yeah, I didn't know the 4th year option was a thing.

BTW, my comments with regard to Giolito and Fulmer and being DFA were strictly options based. It wouldn't even be a consideration until the end of ST 2019. If they both go down and still look bad at the end of next spring, they're out of options and a decision would have to be made. What sucks is that Giolito has to either sink or swim in the bigs at this point due to options and such. He's so inconsistent. Also, he's not missing bats. I also don't understand how a pitcher who is 23 can lose 5 mph on his fastball and not be hurt.

What's interesting about Giolito is that he doesn't give up a lot of hits but when hitters do make contact it gets hit HARD.

If he's injured he needs to tell someone. It would explain a lot. If he does make a trip to the DL idk what took him so long to tell somebody.

I don't want him to fail. I want him to succeed. I'm more complaining about those who all want to send him down because they have to be really careful if they use his last option now. They are bad and don't have any better options anyway, so it doesn't hurt that much to have him learn on the job so to speak. If he had 2 options fine send him down. But he doesn't. Earlier I didn't realize he only had 1 option left. This completely changes the equation.

Ditch the curve, Lucas. Your slider is good enough.

I'm not either, but it is kinda hard when they're out of options and bad at the MLB level. It will be a hard choice for the FO

I honestly don't know if we should even care if they have to DFA Giolito and Fulmer at the beginning of next season because I think it is pretty clear that if they ever figure it out it isn't going to be here.

I take back what I said earlier about Giolito. If he can get his fb to sit 93-94 with the kind of movement that he's showing tonight on it he could still be a very good pitcher. He's got the same problem as Fulmer currently in that his fastball moves so much that he doesn't know where it is going most of the time.

If he threw with his left hand he'd be ok. But he throws with his right hand. Ever since pitchers have been throwing harder than ever that has an effect on MLB hitters too. 10 years ago the bare minimum was 87 for LHP and 90 from RHP. Now it is 89 for LHP and 92 for RHP. In today's MLB I won't even consider anyone a true prospect as a LHP unless they average 91 and a RHP unless they average 93 until they prove they can get hitters out at the MLB level for 2-3 seasons. We all thought Q was going to get figured out until he proved otherwise. 90-91 from a RHP looks like a beach ball to MLB hitters now and 88 looks like one from LHP. We have to adjust our expectations. Dunning is in the 90-92 range so he's marginal at this point. Breaking stuff doesn't mean anything if hitters can use your fastball as a launching pad.

I know about dead arm periods, but I think this is more than that. You don't have 3 dead arm periods in the first 7 weeks of the season. When it comes to command/control, sure, I've seen that a ton. When it comes to velocity/movement I haven't seen that happen with young pitchers. Usually velocity and movement decrease with age, and ability to command/control the zone increase.

Not that I'm aware of. It is weird that he goes from 96-98 to 91-93 from start to start. Young pitchers with less mileage on their arms shouldn't be having this problem.

The next question is what to do with Giolito if he continues to suck. If he goes down, then he's out of options and must make the team in 2019 out of spring or the Sox risk losing him for nothing. To be honest, the Eaton trade, which looked like a haul for the Sox in return for a good player for Washington, now looks like a whole lot of nothing for both sides. Dunning has marginal stuff, Lopez can't keep his stuff from start to start and Giolito is a shell of the prospect he once was.

I don't think I've seen a team have 9 runs on only 4 hits in over a decade and a half.

How does that happen? I have never heard of that before.

Like I said earlier, if you send Fulmer or Giolito down you have to be prepared to lose them for nothing. Either or both are out of options if they go down.

They're both out of options if they go down at all this season. Both made their MLB debuts in 2016.

Also, if Giolito goes down at any point this season he has used all of his options. At that point, it would be 2019 MLB all season or waivers. This is why I said earlier it wouldn't shock me if he got traded. EDIT: Fulmer too. This is their last chance pretty much. They're going to get the whole season at the MLB level.

No, I meant end the season with 82+ wins silly.

I predict 23/25 of the current MLB roster are not on the Sox the next time they are above .500. The only exceptions are Moncada and MAYBE Anderson.

Is Carl Skanberg his pseudonym? PaleHose 6-12 was the greatest Sox comic of all time.