Chicago White Sox

The lack of news so far makes me optimistic he’ll be back with us here shortly.

He said batting ahead of Colson was unreal…my point is modern thinking is to bat the better hitter 4th rather than 3rd. I never suggested Benintendi should bat 3rd. However, who do you guys feel should bat in that spot instead of him? FWIW, here is how today’s lineup is faring against RHP this year (wRC+): Antonacci, LF = 140 Vargas, 3B = 98 Benintendi, DH = 91 Montgomery, SS = 121 Meidroth, 2B = 83 Gonzalez, 1B = 1.160 OPS in AAA Peters, CF = 123 Romo, CA = 116 Rikuu, RF = -4

Update: Everson Pereira is making good progress in his throwing program per James Fegan and a rehab assignment should be coming soon. If all goes well, my guess is he likely makes his way to Durham at some point for the Knights upcoming six game series. Apparently Venable said it would be a lengthy rehab assignment, so I’m guessing the target is around 14 games or so.

Update: Austin Hays has now played in two consecutive games at Charlotte and is a combined 2/9 with no XBH. He’s played one game in both LF & RF, which I’d view as a positive sign for his hamstring given they aren’t easing him back in by DH’ing. That being said, we’re probably looking at a 7 to 10 game rehab assignment given how much time he’s missed. The Knights head to Durham next week for a six game series and I’d expect that would be the last set of games for Hays if all goes well. My guess is the Sox are targeting a return of June 9th when they kick off a big series at home against the Braves. In terms of what that means for the broader roster, it feels like Acuna should be the guy to go first for obvious reasons. With Gonzalez now on the major league roster, there is also less of a need to have a guy who can backup SS. The other option would be Rikuu as I expect Hays to get a lot of reps against RHP (likely in RF) if he’s fully healthy. That would push Rikuu to a true reserve role with his only real utility vs. Acuna being LH. Candidly, I’m not a huge fan of their player, but would probably keep Rikuu until Pereira is back.

I think modern thinking is your best hitters bat 2nd & 4th

That’s definitely an option, but it would make Benintendi fairly useless that’s basically his entire role. My guess is they will use him at catcher once ready but maybe go with a 50/50 split rather than a full platoon to help ease him back.

Update: Teel was to begin a running program yesterday per Bruce Levine. His original timetable was 3 to 6 weeks for this new knee injury. He’s at just shy of two weeks right now, so hopefully he’s a bit ahead of schedule and closer to the low end of the range. If he’s ready in two more weeks, he’d miss the Braves & Dodgers series, but would be back for the Yankees & Guardians. I’d consider that a win at this point. The other question is when he returns, which catcher gets demoted to AAA? Romo has been the far more productive player and has been killing LHP, which is something Quero should be doing in theory. That being said, Quero has been heating up a bit with a 160 wRC+ since the Cubs series (some BABIP luck for sure though). Right now, I’d lean keeping Romo and letting Quero get everyday at bats in AAA.

First take is it feels like a crazy amount of injuries. Yes, there is a wave of TJS guys from last year who would still be rehabbing, but three of them have had setbacks and put their ability to contribute this year in question. Hopefully we can get updates on Thorpe, Bush, & Berroa at some point in the near future, but right now Mason Adams is the only TJS guy from last progressing well.

I’m not sure how this will go, but I felt like it may be a good idea to have a dedicated thread to both track injury related updates on key players and discuss the implications to the rest of the roster. Below is a list of 16 players currently on some form of IL who were or are expected to be part of the major league mix. Out for Season: Baldwin, UT - Elbow (4/1) Murray, IF - Shoulder (4/26) Vasil, RHP - TJS (Mar) 60 Day IL: Teel, CA - LCL (5/19) Bush, LHP - Shoulder (Apr/May) Thorpe, RHP - Appendix (Apr/May) Berroa, RHP - Elbow (Apr/May) Leasure, RHP - Forearm (5/27) 10/15 Day IL: Murakami, 1B - Hamstring (5/29) Hays, OF - Calf (5/1) Pereira, OF - Pectoral (4/28) Schultz, LHP - Patellar (5/24) Hicks, RHP - Lat (5/20) AAA IL: S. Smith, RHP - Rotator Cuff (5/3) McDougal, RHP - Flexor (4/29 Gonzalez, RHP - Lat (4/30)

She is unfortunately! But it was awesome she agreed to go!

I’m not sure I follow. Who else would play 1B? Vargas? If so, who plays 3B then? They are promoting Gonzalez to help against RHP while playing an IF spot.

Kelenic rejected being out righted to Charlotte and has elected free agency. He is gone.

Yikes Acuna batting 7th…kids soccer just a bit more appealing.

Convinced my Cubs fan wife to skip kids sports today and to go the White Sox game instead! What a fucking coup on my part!

This team has the 6th best run differential in May. Personally, I think we are much closer to the May team than the April one. As such, I don’t view YTD run differential as a good proxy for this team’s quality.

No he didn’t…he predicted he would outplay Vargas. Never once does he suggest Mead would be a “plus” player or anything akin to that.

Regarding Vargas, maybe an org that was broken to its core finally made the foundational changes that allow for the development of our young players. And yes, giving post hype guys playing time is a market inefficiency that rebuilding clubs can take advantage. The Sox acquired two previous 55 FV types and they are both now productive major leaguers with one being a legit star. The strategy not working every time (even though Acuna was never the same level of prospect) doesn’t change that fact. Neither does us moving on from one of said players given a rebuilding club picked him up and game him the runway he needed to develop. No fucking clue what Benintendi has to do with any of this.

Are these quotes from you when we DFAed Mead? Doesn’t sound like someone one who was confident Mead was going to be a plus player this year.

I guess I don’t view average as being mediocre, but that’s just semantics. I also think looking at YTD run differential lacks all context. This team is super young and is getting better. In May, we lead the majors in runs scored at 137 and are 17th in runs allowed at 112. That’s a 25 run differential for the month so far, which is 6th overall in the league and better than current ALC leader in CLE. I know you don’t like anything but full season samples, but unfortunately context is pretty important when assessing young players and an overall young team.

Funny you bring up two post hype guys developing into quality major leaguers after asserting it wasn’t a market inefficiency that could be exploited.

This is an absolutely absurd hindsight take. Dude put up a 64 wRC+ for us last year and I don’t recall you saying we should have kept him over Sosa. What’s funny is I actually said multiple times we should probably trade Sosa to open up a spot on the bench for Mead this year and even I can’t rip Getz for trading him. And Benintendi being on this roster isn’t Getz’s fault, it’s Jerry’s fault for being a dumb cheap f***.

Our team mashes LHP already. We are currently 4th overall in baseball with a 119 wRC+. Literally every member of the lineup is a monster against them. If we can find a way to keep Grichuk & Hayes, we could legit rock something like this: 1B: Murakami = 128 2B: Meidroth = 178 SS: Montgomery = 127 3B: Vargas = 231 LF: Grichuk = 299 CF: Hill = 142 RF: Pereira = 207 DH: Hayes = 131 (Y21-Y25 Avg) CA: Romo = 141

Schultz will bump him out of the rotation when he comes back.

And FWIW, Boston Smith is currently 4th in the SAL in wRC+ at 158. Yes he’s old for the league, but he’s also a catcher. Sucks we gave up a talented player in Mead before we could him another shot, but at least we got something back of interest. Rick Hahn would have cashed out on Mead for nothing.

It’s amazing that @Look at Ray Ray Run can’t admit he was at least partially wrong about Getz and instead calls the 4th best team in the AL mediocre.