Chicago White Sox

Alright boys, it’s been an ugly start to the season with the Sox winless after two and those losses coming against a not great Tigers team. However, there have been some positives to cling to in the early goings. Crochet was electric and went six. Soroka was bad but was able to get through five. The bullpen has generally been very good outside of Leone. We saw the bats come alive a bit more yesterday and Robert has demonstrated significantly improved plate discipline. This isn’t a good baseball team by any stretch, but we don’t need to be good to win a game against the Tigers and as such I say why not fucking today. Without seeing lineups, it’s a bit challenging to comment on today’s matchup. I will say the Sox have barely faced Flaherty in the past and the Tigers haven’t faced Fedde since he added a sweeper, so let’s treat this like a clean slate. That being said, Flaherty is coming off a really nice spring with increased velocity and has historically been much stronger against RHs. As such, I think Shewmake should get a second straight start at SS and I’d also use Sheets at DH ahead of Eloy today given some dumb situational hitting yesterday. I haven’t gotten to see Fedde pitch since signing with us, but am very excited to see this new Bannister endorsed version. I am very familiar with the pre KBO version of Fedde and was never impressed, so hopefully the difference is immediately clear. Either way, hopefully he can give us five or six solid innings today while actually flashing a little bit of stuff. Would be great if he could be a little more than a back of the rotation innings eater. I don’t plan to do any bold predictions today, but I do think we pull off the win on this beautiful Easter Sunday. Let’s fucking go!

What’s crazy is that Yoan put up a 5.5 fWAR season in 2019. While he got a little lucky with the bat that year, his quality of contact was insane with his average exit velocity sitting in the 98th percentile. Combine that with plus plus defense and above average base-running and we had a star on our hands. As just a 24 year old, there was reason to believe Yoan could offset the luck regression with better swing decisions and maintain that level of production moving forward. Unfortunately after signing his extension and after getting COVID in 2020, he just couldn’t replicate that performance, partially due to health reasons and partially what I attribute to drive. It also didn’t help that the dude constantly mixed up his offensive approaches, flexing between extreme patience and the balanced aggressiveness he demonstrated in 2019. Despite that, he did post a 4 fWAR season in 2021 on the heels of a career best 13.6% walk rate. Yoan will forever be considered a bust in White Sox history, but that will always be due to not achieving his vast ceiling rather than being a complete flop like so many Sox prospects before him. I truly believed that Moncada & Robert would regularly put up a combined 10 fWAR seasons and it’s sad we’ll never get that level of production even once. Such a waste of physical talent, but alas that’s the 2022 & 2023 White Sox in a nutshell and Yoan is certainly the poster boy.

I really don’t think “bullpen” is my concern after watching today’s game other than Pedro viewing Leone as his go to guy.

Depends on how tomorrow goes. Will get damn near impossible after four or five series.

Honestly, I don’t like losing in general, but I can take some solace in knowing that every L is getting us a little bit closer to the end of the Grifol era.

What’s weird is that Leone is Pedro’s new Shaw but Shaw is also on the roster. I wonder if Getz forgot to tell Grifol they went with nine relievers and didn’t bring Nastrini with them.

Embarrassing set of at-bats there

I could definitely live with that.

Just for the record, I hate this extra innings bullshit. At least allow one normal inning before you go to this garbage.

So fucking true unfortunately…just more annoying than usual given Pedro & Getz hyping up the baseball IQ of these guys

And still no runs!

absolutely embarrassing…these guys remain completely incompetent in these situations despite Grifol claiming they’re always ready to execute the small things thanks to their great baseball IQ. I can’t wait for every meme bet of the Hahn core (except Robert) to be gone.

It seems painfully obvious that Getz will need to take Maldonado out Old Yeller style at some point and likely before the All Star break. I wanted to believe that there was some part of Martin’s game that was still there like “pitcher handling” but not sure that even matters when the dude looks like Kung Fu Panda after a week long dumpling bender. Hopefully Lee gets a shot while Stassi and can give Pedro a compelling reason to use his bestie Maldonado as little as possible.

Shoemake!

Wait, is Eloy already out?

Robert bomb!!!

This is complete bullshit and it’s incredibly annoying and arrogant that you continue to make these claims. There is literally nothing worse than the board crusader who fights the good fight against theoretical comments never actually said. You’re 100% welcome to have a different opinion than the majority of the board without constantly needing to fabricate others’ viewpoints in some bizarre attempt at belittling the rest of us.

Bold predictions: Soroka goes six innings with only two runs allowed Leasure makes his major league debut and is perfect Brebbia & Wilson combine for two scoreless innings Maeda goes five allowing zero runs and one base runner Fletcher has a clutch two RBI double in 7th to tie game Robert hits a walk-off solo shot off of Lange in the 9th Pedro gets cocky in post game and hints at playoff run

IMO, she’d be suing the White Sox if she got shot inside the stadium and had nothing to do with it. I think the fat fold theory still holds true.

That Yolbert signing was particularly awful…at least Cespedes had some tools to dream if it clicked

Does him not being part of the Opening Day roster impact our ability to receive draft compensation if he performs well?

? Schultz threw like 3 innings a start last year prior to being shut down. They gradually worked up from 2 innings a start to 4 innings. What does this have to do with Crochet who just threw six right out of the gate and who is currently on pace to throw 198 innings (SSS are fun!).

The Barons should be pretty fun to follow if their roster plays out something like this: Lineup: 1B: Elko 2B: Chapelli* SS: Popeye 3B: Ramos LF: Burke CF: Tatum* RF: Veras DH: Gladney CA: Quero# Rotation: Thorpe Eder# Iriarte Bush# Adams

Hot takes at zero games? Not sure what you’re trying to say there, but no one is saying you can’t enjoy how the pitching looked today. I also liked how the pitching looked today! The only difference is you decided to come out guns blazing after a single start and try to clown on people who are worried that Crochet going from basically never to starting before to pitching 120+ innings may not work out health wise. I actually respect your optimism, but your need to constantly justify everything Getz does (even if it means making up your own narratives to support) is a bit bizarre.

Developed him how? Doesn’t he have like 12 total minor league innings to his name, all of which came last year? And Crochet looked amazing today which is great to see. But him going deep in one start doesn’t change the concerns about his ability to handle a significant workload as a starter. If he can go five innings every start over the course of a season that would theoretically be amazing, but it would be unprecedented and likely result in an injury at some point. As such, it’s way too early to make any calls here. I think we can agree we all want this to work, it’s just more of a matter if this approach will work. Me being wrong here would be fantastic though.