Chicago White Sox

Oh no Joe Rock

Time to turn s%*# around right here

Don’t think so, but so far zero updates on him. He was dealing before the injury, which really sucks.

I’d say far away from Roupp right now given the Pride Night controversy. Not trying to be political here, but our clubhouse is firing on all cylinders right now and I wouldn’t want to bring anyone with baggage who might disrupt that.

Thanks man!

Just bought tickets and taking the whole family. Not sure how I convinced the wife given how fucking expensive tickets are for this series and the fact she is a diehard Cubs fan. Either way, super excited to be there today.

I believe Gray’s option is mutual and the $10M cost I mentioned includes taking on a $5M buyout. But given our payroll situation, I feel like we should be able to absorb some money to lessen the prospect cost in a trade.

The 1st place White Sox are coming off a huge stomping of the Dodgers yesterday and now have won three games in a row. As should be clear by now, this team feeds off the energy of our fans with the third best home record in the sport. And based on today’s pitching probables, they’re going to need the sellout crowd behind them. For the Dodgers today is a very tough Yamamoto. He currently has a 2.68 ERA on the season, but with a bit worse FIP & xERA of 3.43 & 3.42 respectively. He has a diverse arsenal of six pitches that make him matchup proof and tough against both righties and lefties. While the K rate isn’t eye-popping at 8.5 per 9, he’s got great control and is able to command his breaking balls well to generate chase. Whomever is in the lineup today will need to be patient and avoid chasing splitters & curveballs out of the zone. As for the Sox, we have Burke on the mound sporting a 3.88 ERA on the season with a 3.70 FIP and 3.71 xERA. While the overall results have been solid, he’s been very hit or miss with four of his last 8 starts with xERA below 2.00 and two above 7.00. The good news is the K rate is trending up with five of his last eight starts above 10 per 9 and his most recent start at 14.5 per 9. He will certainly need his best stuff & command against a Dodgers offense that impacts the baseball as they currently have the 2nd best ISO. While I think the pitching matchup is better on paper today than yesterday, it still won’t be easy. The one saving grace is we have a fairly disciplined offense who is capable of punishing mistakes. Yamamoto doesn’t give up a lot of HRs, but in this hot weather I think we can hit a bomb or two if we remain disciplined. If we can get five good innings out of Burke today, I like our chances with Taylor, Newcomb, & Dominguez all fresh and able to go four themselves. Gun to head, I’m predicting a 3-2 for our beloved White Sox. Let’s fucking go!!!!

I’ll go with Sonny Gray. He’s an old, somewhat expensive veteran SP who has seen a big drop in his K rate this year. Despite that, he’s still on pace for a ~3 win season and it doesn’t seem like his pure stuff has deteriorated all that much when looking at velocity & spin rates. The K rate is the lowest it’s been in years, but it’s always been very volatile and he’s be able to succeed when it’s down. From what I can tell, his sweeper & curveball are getting harder this year but without a material change in movement…I expect that to change with time. Hard to predict what his cost will be at this point. With a ~3 win projection and potentially $10M in cost for his final 1/3 of the season, you aren’t looking at any real surplus value. Obviously this a trade deadline deal, so you’re going to pay a premium just for the pure production regardless. However, if the Red Sox force teams to take on that money, it will keep the cost more reasonable. The other factor that could inflate prices is it potentially being a big sellers’ market. I’m not giving up any of the young guys off the major league roster or any of my top five prospects for a rental the caliber of Gray. I think a package built around Gabe Davis and an infield prospect (Lodise, Shelton, or Mogollon) is what I’d try to offer. Pitching has been our weakness at the major league level, so tough to give up Davis who isn’t too far out. That being said, with Adams and eventually Thorpe & Bush coming back alongside guys like McDougal, Smith, & Sandlin, I think we can afford to give up Davis to help augment the major league team.

Yup /thread

It’s wild that we are literally beating the f*** out of the Dodgers

Peters is studly

These Montgomery’s ain’t chasing that s%*#

Vargas!!!!

Hell yeah!

No bunt

Dreaded leadoff walk!

Really need to get something going here

Lodise with a three run bomb.

He did and the last update was he was throwing again, but that is a super vague update for someone on the recovery from TJS.

Wow, lots of update as of late. Hopefully we can get most of these guys back by the end of the month. Still haven’t seen much on Thorpe, Bush, or Berroa.

Five of the nine negative fWAR players you highlighted were guys planned to be on the Opening Day roster by design. Them sucking has nothing to do with our minor league depth. They have combined for -1.8 fWAR or 75% of the negative value of the nine players you referenced. Three of four true “depth” guys have less than 35 plate appearances each. Again, when I say your arguments ignore important context, these are both great examples of that. Also, one of the four is Reese McGuire who was picked up off the street to fill in when Teel went down. He put up -0.2 fWAR across 34 total PA’s before being released and replaced by AAA catcher Drew Romo who has provided 0.4 fWAR since his call-up. As such, net value of the “next man up” at the catcher spot is a positive 0.2 fWAR. Not a huge benefit, but better than replacement level. Two of the other guys are Kelenic & Rikuu. Clearly those guys failed to fill in for Hays & Pereira’s injuries in a positive manner. That being said, they were part of a broader OF depth strategy that included Peters (who has been a home run) and Montgomery (whose 0.3 fWAR has already offset the two negative guys), amongst others. Overall, we’ve been able to minimize the damage of losing Hays, Pereira, & Baldwin even if some individual pieces failed to do the job. I could also cite Gonzalez coming up for Murakami and doing an admirable job as support of my argument. Before that call-up, Lamont Wade also was a depth piece in AAA who would have been an option to fill in. This is obviously just looking at this year, but the points still hold. When time permits, I will look through the Hahn years to highlight specific examples of when a lack of depth hurt us. That being said, I’m sure it will fall on deaf ears as your points above continue to lack critical context to the debate at hand and are often moving the goalposts from the original point.

As usual Ray, you continue to cherry pick stats to sell your arguments. How many injuries did the 2021 Sox have vs. this team? How many of the guys who were negative contributors were the planned starters and not guys called up to replace them? All this context matters…I too can make up narratives by cherry picking which figures to use and what info to ignore. I really miss old Ray who was thoughtful & detailed in his analysis, this new version who just lazily rushes for the most negative take possible “stinks”…

My point is pretty simple. Under Hahn, we routinely had zero depth in the upper minors. As such, when core players went down with injuries, we had no one to fill and even provide replacement level production. Getting negative value out of a position while trying to compete is a big fucking problem. This offseason, Getz went out and added depth where could. Tristan Peters was added to serve as insurance in the OF while Tanner Murray was added to serve IF as insurance. Both were viewed as AAAA types and came dirt cheap, but offered some floor and the ability to cover a variety of spots. Sure enough, one of our main CF options in Brooks Baldwin went down in camp and was ruled out for the season. This opened up a slot on the Opening Day roster for Peters and he’s run away with it. As has been discussed in numerous threads, his offense is going to regress some, but when his defense is this good he’s still a positive value player. For comparison, Evan Carter & Jacob Young have provided similar defensive value and have wOBAs of .286 & .299, which has resulted in fWARs of 0.9 and 1.3 in CF respectively. If we assume just the midpoint of that for Peters, he’s a 2.5 win player even as a strict platoon guy. One last thing, but your claim “that his speed & defense wasn’t a secret” is simply not true. He never once had the reputation of eventually being a 98th percentile range OF and top 5 to 10 defensive CF in the majors. If he did, he would not have gone for cash considerations and only started a 1/4 of his minor league games in CF. And this isn’t a guy who “couldn’t hit”. He was literally known as tweener OF with a plus hit tool and good eye, but questionable power. He had multiple seasons with above league average offensive production, including his final season in AAA. Your description is filled with revisionist thoughts and doesn’t actually align to reality.

Yes, sucks not having Murakami for this series given we’re facing both Sasaki and Yamamoto. Would have been fun matchups to watch.