caulfield12

Classic shift inning. Imagines Greg775, sitting at home, imagining some of those balls are going through...but not so much.

Think the Cubs would like to have Candelario back about right now? Also, rooting hard for Mike Cameron's son Daz to be able to stick in the big leagues. 0/9 so far.

Slowed down his body/arm action a bit on that first change-up to Reyes. You wonder why hitters don't sit on that one pitch, when he's throwing it 36% of the time, but that only works if you can get ahead in the count. Starting off dominant with those 96 MPH high riding fastballs, 2 batters, 2 k's, swinging outside of the zone...looks like White Sox typical at-bats the last decade, actually.

https://theathletic.com/2057659/2020/09/11/bowden-an-early-ranking-of-the-top-15-free-agents-this-offseason/?source=dailyemail Bauer has continually said publicly that he’s not interested in signing a multi-year contract and only wants to sign one-year deals for the rest of his career. We’ll see if he holds to his word as he’s certain to get several multi-year offers. If he does sign a one-year contract, it will be among the highest paid in the game on an average annual value basis. He’s had a terrific year with his spin rate spiking across the board and some career-best numbers. However, in his nine-year career, his ERA has been under 4 only three times including this year and under 3 just twice. So if he does sign long term, don’t expect those numbers to come close to a one-year pact. He’s the best starter in this class because of his platform year and teams will be lining up, especially if he keeps his word on only wanting a one-year contract.

https://theathletic.com/2054996/2020/09/09/five-baseball-things-the-red-hot-al-central-the-yankees-struggle-and-more/?source=dailyemail

https://theathletic.com/2049832/2020/09/08/could-eloy-jimenez-and-luis-robert-join-the-300-home-run-club-how-about-500/

He's at 0.6 fWAR pretty sure, I had just removed him from my last post because it would have constituted 15 names, and NOBODY in their right mind gets excited about the likes of Duvall or Cole Kalhoun, right? Statistically, he's barely a match for Canha and Robbie Grossman. Eloy and Harper are just ahead, at 1.0 fWAR numbers so far on the year.

Wil Myers and Conforto are at 1.8 and 1.7, respectively. I've already beaten the Myers thing to death, SD would like to cut his salary after this year...but they're certainly not desperate to move him now since his OPS is almost 1.000 again. Poor Adam Eaton's at -0.3. Kole Calhoun at 0.6. Adam Duvall? Nah. Gallo's not an easy get from the Rangers, but they might be open to moving him, you never know. Ozuna's really had a good bounceback year. Castellanos, despite starting white hot, is back to his usual below 1.0 territory. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=rf&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=2020&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2020-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31 Springer's 19th overall (expanding the field from just RFers), tied with Mark Canha and Robbie Grossman, an interesting trio there. Starling Marte and Nimmo, pretty darned familiar names in discussions the last couple of years. And still a bit leery about Michael Brantley at this point in his career...depends on limiting years/price, obviously. Would love to hear what Keuchel has to say about Mr. Springer behind closed doors. Altuve's obviously even more of a concern, if you look at his dramatic falloff statistically. 14 names. Overall rating in terms of name dropping on a historical basis, B-/C+.

I mean I completely missed game due to teaching, and just opened the box score. To me, this was a better way to lose than our established closer collapsing against the Pirates, who have actually been playing better recently. Josh Bell and their RoY candidate LFer have been garbage for the majority of this season, fwiw.

On the plus side, it wasn't Colome that blew it? Who ever would have expected Marshall and Detwiler to be high leverage relievers? Cordero? Otoh, stretching McRae out will be the late season equivalent of rostering Drew Anderson at some point soon...

More details to come as available...5 IP, just 49 pitches, 2.19 ERA.

Thanks for practically guaranteeing we will finish in 1st or 2nd, lol. Since it very much won’t be a disappointing, what if feeling like 2006 if we were to still qualify as the 7th/8th team in the AL field. Btw, if you didn’t have me, 1/2 your likes would suddenly disappear, so extremely grateful for the opportunity to advance that count. Please run the simulation of SoxTalk Leaderboard without me, see how the rankings shift. Interesting stuff. Personally, I’d rather be known like CWS, Southsider2k5, Fathom, Dick Allen, Balta, Bmags and even Look @ Ray Ray Run for their areas of expertise, but it is what is...

So if we finish in third place (just as likely as third based on head to head records in 2020), we still get a 3 to 5 game playoff series, guaranteed? Because it feels like it could still be very much like 2006, when we finished with 90+ victories and managed not to make the playoffs because Detroit and Minnesota were so good that second half. So that’s really great to know there won’t be any one game, sudden death elimination exits despite an expanded, 16 team playoff field.

https://www.mlb.com/news/luis-robert-reacts-to-five-star-catch

Well, we could very easily be eliminated in a single game after being one of the best 8-10 teams in MLB. In any other division (with one possible exception,) we’d at least be getting a guaranteed playoff series.

https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/news/luis-robert-makes-amazing-diving-catch

AL East 3 games over Toronto, 3 1/2 games up on Yankees AL West 3 games over Houston, 8 games up on Seattle NL East 3 1/2 games over Phils, 5 games up on Marlins NL Central 5 games over Cardinals, 6 games over Brewers NL West 1 1/2 games over Padres, 6 games over Rockies (only comparable division with White Sox that would have three top teams, although can certainly argue for the Yankees, Blue Jays, Rays trio, too.)

Should have been JUST OUT by a 1/1000th of a hair. No review. Great great attempt by Anderson.

This is like all the arguments the last 5 years over the top 2-3 hitters in the Cubs' line-up, like Schwarber, Rizzo, Bryant, etc., hitting 1st or 2nd.

And Abreu MVP talk is an issue of recency bias...although you can argue the same thing with Anderson and Robert, obviously.

Then we're arguing some "intangible/immeasurable" quality like clubhouse leadership/guidance/mentoring. Abreu has definitely improved his defense, but Robert is likely to win the AL Gold Glove in his rookie season. Imagine the White Sox outfield without Robert out there? We can easily imagine McCann, Grandal, EE, Collins, Vaughn playing first, otoh.

That looked like it clipped the chalk....no review RENTERIA? Non-reviewable? If it's fair, he gets a single? Double?

fWAR says Rendon and Nelson Cruz are ahead of Anderson/Robert, but neither of those guys are winning AL MVP...well, it would be difficult to take a full-time DH with past PED's issues over Tim Anderson (who has missed a number of games) or Luis Robert. The funny thing is how close the AL ROY race is now between Robert and Lewis (SEA), where you could make an argument Robert could lose RoY but somehow win the AL MVP, because of his importance defensively. Abreu, btw, is 17th overall in fWAR, which is huge with the limitations on 1B fWAR. Maybe the biggest stories in that Top 20 fWAR list are YAZ and Ian Happ coming out of seemingly nowhere.