caulfield12

Poor Jose Quintana. He deserves better. That's all.

Michael Fulmer of the Tigers has now pitched 32 consecutive scoreless innings. Imagine if Fulmer was pitching for the Mets, geez. Great scouting job by Dombrowski. Had bases loaded and only one out and got Cain to hit into a DP...tied 0-0 going to the 5th.

That wasn't predictable. Blow yet another opportunity with RISP and then the leadoff guy reaches. Q really deserves to pitch for a team that will support him offensively...just to see how good he could actually be.

The Indians were having so many problems with Shaw, there was lots of buzz (see Albers 2-3 weeks ago) about pulling him from the 8th inning set-up duties...but they simply don't have a capable replacement. He gave up a huge homer to Salvador Perez last series to cost them a game. Nate Jones and Indians' closer Cody Allen both warming up.

Harrelson knew the best option there was a wild pitch/passed ball. SIGH.

Cabrera 4/9 lifetime against Shaw. Frazier 0/3. Pitch around. Frazier beyond due...stating the obvious, especially with RISP. 0 for his last 14. Cookie over the middle of the plate, 9 times out of 10 he rips a double or homer there.

Desperately need a hit with RISP. Just for once, win a damned game for Quintana. Walk Cabrera to face Frazier?

Shaw has really been struggling recently, velocity is up but lacking in command/stuff. Making more mistakes over the plate.

Shaw has really been struggling recently, velocity is up but lacking in command/stuff. Making more mistakes over the plate.

1st major league steal for Anderson. Do they get the base after the game is over? They're pretty expensive and a lot heavier than you'd think.

Pretty good when your 5th starter has only given up 10 runs in 5 starts and already has 9 K's tonight in the 7th.

Lawrie closing in on the 220's and replacement level. Talk about Saladino getting some time at 2B will start pretty soon...or Sanchez. That will make GreenSox happy, one would think.

Quintana really slows things down when there are runners on base. Probably a function of having such a slim margin for error...that each of those pitches is so critically important. Since the White Sox have scored 4 runs in his last 6-7 starts or whatever that stat is.

The White Sox, Cubs and SF Giants are tied for the major league lead....19 games only surrendering 1 or 0 runs. Slight difference in their overall team records, though.

Yeah, Anderson K'ed on the high fastball. Can't believe we're nearing the halfway point in the season and we're still 3rd from the bottom in homers. 60, with 19 of them coming from Frazier alone. Who'd a thunk it? Timmy had a good approach that time, 2 liners in his last 3 at-bats with nothing to show for it.

Man, Frazier's BAA with RISP is abysmal. Bad luck there...

Lindor might just be the best young SS in baseball. You can make a case for Correa, Bogaerts, Diaz, C.Seager, Story, B. Crawford, Cozart, etc, but Lindor's defense is the best of that young group. Unless you consider Machado a true SS, then he's #2. Avila 4 for 19 throwing out runners now. Crazy that Q's still in the Top 5 AL for ERA, has only a 5-6 record and has only given up five homers the entire season. 2-0 with a 2.93 ERA against the Indians in CLE.

Flavum, that pretty much puts us in the same exact position as last year's team going into the All-Star break. Within hailing distance, but not really in it unless major changes are made...a couple of significant players added. If we're going to "stand pat" again, fine, leave Ventura as a lame duck. But I can't help thinking how frustrating it would be to surrender more minor league talent, only to waste it on a lame duck manager and then turn around and start over again next year. In the end, it's JR's business to run into the ground, but the way they've been running things this year, things might finally be changing. FWIW, it was 41-45 and 11 games behind KC at the ASB last year (49-50/49-51 at the end of July but still 10+ out). Now, the overall divisional lead will be a lot less in 2016, but we also only had KC and an obviously-flawed Minnesota in front of us, this year it's very easily going to be three teams, and the AL as a whole is even more competitive than even last year, with only TB/OAK/HOU likely to be out of it. KC will get Gordon back (like making a trade) and Detroit's definitely going to be doing everything in its power to compete. Where does that leave the Sox AGAIN?

Then you also have Cueto, an even more accomplished pitcher than Shark, struggling just as mightily in the same division. And pitching extremely well after he escaped it. You had four pretty darned good offenses in the division last year. At least on paper.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 17, 2016 -> 08:11 AM) Frazier has a .191 BABIP. You would think that a torrid stretch is coming. Rodon would not have signed if he weren't in majors last year. This was the price of poker. Therein lies the problem...because of Boras, he probably came up at least 2 if not 3 months too soon. Of course, it's easy to say that NOW, because he did finish the year quite strongly his final 10. Then again, some of those starts were against teams with AAAA rosters or playing out the string. Would have to look back closely at the game logs. And, it's also easy to say in retrospect Beckham was rushed because of what happened after 2009...and, we can say the same thing about Tim Anderson if for some reason he never makes an All-Star team. There's no clear right or wrong way to treat prospects. Each one is individual and unique.

Robertson is close to an elite reliever (but not quite, probably 6-8) who is paid Top 3-5. The only thing you can see about Lawrie is this...career OPS of 732 and he's at 696 currently, which is underproducing (although he'd been in the high 700's for most of the season until slumping recently). His first two years in TOR were very good, and then's been about a 2 WAR player on average the last 3, with that number looking close to a 1 projection this season. Saladino's a career 629 OPS who just happens to be at 694 right now...or 02 points behind Lawrie. The funny thing is Saladino's a year older than Lawrie, but Lawrie's been in the majors for five plus years already. Tyler projects to a slightly higher OPS this year because of his defensive ability, but it's also unclear that he can put up a 2 OPS playing everyday at 2B. Not to mention the fact that Saladino's minor league OPS is much lower than Lawrie's. Overall, with the numbers Saladino and Sanchez put up offensively last year, it's understandable that Hahn would try to upgrade offensively if he could do it at little cost, which certainly defines the Lawrie deal. And it didn't preclude him from having Saladino or Sanchez still around if Lawrie continued to regress (which may or may not be happening right now). Overall, it's hard to see a significant difference in how the Sox played this out....Lawrie in the past has been a 3-4 WAR player, projected to be around a 2 and Saladino...it was hard to imagine him even as a 2+ until the last month or so.

Round up all the white Christians who are anti-gay...you'll have at least 30-50 million in jail cells. Don't hear any Republican politicians touting this brilliant idea. Actually, their "for profit" prison patrons (oodles of PAC donations) would love to get the extra customers to profit off of. That idea seems insane, right? Well, so should rounding up those who follow another religion, at least if you believe in the Founding Fathers and the intentions behind the way in which the US Constitution was written.

GREENSOX: You're talking Trout, S.Marte, Betts, Bradley, Jr., George Springer, Ian Desmond, Fowler, Pillar, Piscotty, Duvall, Yelich... The players who can contribute both offensively and defensively. Maybe Pearce is the closest right now to being available, but he's not a great defender by any stretch. Logan Forsythe, Marcell Ozuna, Kiermaier, Michael Saunders, G.Polanco, Leonys Martin, your next tier. That leaves Reddick and Cargo again, unless you want to gamble on Ichiro having a seventh life. Do you see anyone who the White Sox have the pieces to obtain that meets your qualification/standards?

But every team in the division can make that same argument, right? If the Tigers' bullpen hadn't completely imploded for a month and JD Martinez/Upton not gotten off to such terrible starts. If KC hadn't already had to use ten rookies, and not just put them on the roster, but nearly all receiving regular playing time. If Michael Brantley and Carrasco and Salazar hadn't gotten hurt, and Byrd and Almonte suspended for PEDs. If they hadn't lost 4/6 to the Twins when the other three teams had 0 or just 1 loss to them so far. In the end, we're probably exactly where we belong to be.

Well, it would make sense for a number of reasons. We would be guaranteed to control Myers' rights through 2019, at a time when we're losing Lawrie/Frazier/Cabrera in all likelihood. The only players you can pencil in past next year are probably Eaton, Abreu and Anderson, so that's a lot of line-up to replace. Morneau at DH and Myers in RF, Eaton in CF and Melky in LF would give them their best possible offensive combination by far. You'd be taking Garcia and Shuck (currently) and replacing it with two far superior (theoretically, in Morneau's case, as of now) hitters, not to mention Jackson would be perfect off the bench as a 4th OF/defensive sub like last year with the Cubs.