Chicago White Sox

Taylor here?

Tie game boys!

Need at least one here!

f*** Wacha…time to end his day right here

Honestly, I’ll take it. Weren’t winning anyways without scoring at least one.

Not good

Throw strikes!!

I think they want Quero to work on things in a stress free environment.

That was fucking incredible!!

Harold Baines may be the most boring person in baseball history

Did Roch have extreme home-road splits as well then?

I really hate Sal Perez also, why is Chuck wearing a dress s%*# under his jersey

Yeah, clearly you can’t be rational on this subject. A 40 hit grade for someone with Roch’s contact, hard hit, & barrel rates is simply laughable. A 50 grade on power is also a joke given his HR output, his 90th percentile & max EVs, and what every single talent evaluator has said about the kid. I get his speed isn’t great but a 40 grade feels very intentional to further devalue the prospect. It’s totally fine if you prefer Lackey, but these Roch takes are absolute garbage. And you can’t even comment on Lackey’s home/road splits…lol. Again, may or may not be a big deal, but something of interest that I figured you’d have some take on.

He should be, but I think Sandlin is better than Fedde right now.

It’s fascinating to see so many Sox fans here write-off young players if they don’t produce right away or go through a slump. I’ve seen multiple posts of Jacob Gonzalez needing more “seasoning” in AAA because of his recent struggles, when his next step of development needs to be at the major league level. Braden had a bad week and there was similar commentary. People are now writing off Meidroth as a utility man because of an admittedly very bad June. One poster claims Quero has lost all trade value because of a bad 2026 season. Some of these guys will flop or underperform, but short term failure is not a death sentence like many here think.

This unwritten rule s%*# that comes with professional sports is so stupid. Like should Venable actively tell players to tank their stats so the Royals don’t get some hurt feelings? I guarantee the guys loved Venable for challenging that horrific double play call last night.

Also, speaking of Bazzana, the Guardians’ draft reflects the art of possible with the 1.01 pick and a strategy I’d like to see. They went $1.6M under-slot with the 1.01 and were able to land three HS arms with bonuses in the range of $1.8M to $2.6M. They did have a comp pick, but remove Jacob Cozart, a college catcher they took in the 2nd round and our picks line up very well with them. Beyond the aforementioned players, they went with all college pitching. To me, that’s 100% the playbook but try to get one prep positional guy in lieu of one HS arm.

I’ve always been on the Roch train. No matter how hard you’ve tried to slander his physical talent, the kid has four plus tools. We’re talking about a no doubt high-end defensive SS with both power and elite bat-to-ball skills. You simply don’t see players like that very often in the college ranks anymore. Look at the 2024 draft for example. The top college infielders were Wetherholt & Bazzana, two 2B who are on pace for 6 & 4 win seasons respectively as rookies. Roch is a better prospect than both of them, simply because of his ability to be a legit major league SS. I will continue to cite prospect fatigue and a disappointing junior season (but still really good!) as the reason some are undervaluing him. And to be clear, I’m not looking to discredit Lackey. He’s a hell of a prospect no doubt, but I don’t love the idea of drafting a catcher at the 1.01 and his lack of broader production scares me just a bit. I also find it interesting that people constantly rip Roch for playing against weak Big 10 competition but no one talks about the advantage that Lackey got from playing half his games at Georgia Tech’s home park. I just saw this note on BA but 15 of his 20 HR’s came at home and his OPS was nearly 400 points better than it was on the road.

@Look at Ray Ray Run - Admit you didn’t know this and now are Team Roch!

I’d like to see someone on the Sox beat up Sal Perez and make Caulfield cry

Sounds like there is some chance Murakami doesn’t need to go on a rehab assignment whenever he’s back to 100%. While I still expect it, Venable said that access to Trajekt machines allows for guys to get back in game speed without having to face live pitching.

So what’s the plan with Sandlin? Overall was good last night and if exclude the 4th where he was probably rusty from sitting so long he had five scoreless with five K’s and zero BB’s. I think he showed enough last night to get another start. With nine straight days of games coming, I’d strongly consider going with a six man rotation over the next week. Martin & Kay will start the next two games against the Royals. That leaves Burke & Fedde to start games 1 & 2 against the Orioles, who are definitely better against RHP than LHP. Fedde isn’t ideal for this matchup, but I think we can get by with some creativity there. Newcomb is pitching bulk innings every three or four days. Assuming he gets a couple in relief of Martin tonight, he’d be on schedule for next appearance after Fedde. I think a lefty opener, followed by Fedde and then Newcomer is workable. Game 3 against the Orioles becomes the choice then. Schultz should be ready to go for that start. However, the following night kicks off a series against the Guardians who are obviously the more critical opponent. They are also very weak right now against LHP with their best hitters against them on the IL. If I’m Venable, I’m pitching Sandlin in game 3 vs. the Orioles and letting Schultz take game 1 against the Guardians. He’d then be followed by Martin & Kay, which is a very favorable pitching matchup for us against our biggest divisional threat. And if Sandlin succeeds, this allows him to naturally replace Fedde the next go around and be in line for a revenge start against the Red Sox at home. Fedde has pitched fairly well all things considered, but the dude is a ticking time bomb and will eventually implode if we keep using him as a SP. He’s also not eating up a lot of innings (six of his last eight starts under 5 innings), which is taxing a much depleted bullpen. Sandlin to me is a likely upgrade, even if he’s likely to be inconsistent and have some poor starts in the near-term.

Will said he wanted to reward Vargas for his hustle and give him the RBI. He also wanted to keep stretching the Royals bullpen.

I’m officially team Roch.

Hagen