OmarComing25

We may be behind a bunch of teams but everyone has basically been staying around .500, so if you go on a 7-3 run or so suddenly you'll be right on the cusp. There's not really any "easy" wins in the AL, but there's not really any great teams either.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jun 11, 2015 -> 01:41 PM) Avi somehow lost .2 fWAR last night. Sometimes I'm really not sure how the defensive metrics are working because was he expected to catch the ball in the 9th? That was a smart play keep the ball in front of you don't turn a single into a triple, even with a 2 run lead you just don't want to give away runs. How does one defensive play have that much of an impact on his WAR?

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Jun 11, 2015 -> 10:11 AM) The Sox seriously drafted a Reinsdorf? lol He wouldn't have been drafted had it not been for his name. It sucks that a more deserving player didn't get a chance because of that. Last pick in the draft though, who cares.

Hell two of the baseball experts out of six on Grantland picked us to lose in the World Series to the Nationals.

Unfortunately we only have 1 series from now until the All-Star Break against a team with a losing record, and that's the 28-30 Orioles. But I feel much better about facing good teams outside the ALC, we always seem to play them well.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 07:13 PM) The projections didn't like us because we had huge offensive holes at catcher and second base, with question marks elsewhere, horrendous defence/baserunners and huge holes at 4 and 5 in the rotation and just an okay bullpen. I wouldn't say that's anything close to great on paper. I called it as an under .500 team preseason. Yes but my point is that even though the projections were pretty bad and pessimistic, most of the guys are still not even hitting them. Our black holes at second and catcher have been even blacker than expected. Only Avi (and Shuck somewhat) is significantly outperforming his projections on offense. LaRoche, Beckham and Soto are right there, and then everyone else is under. Abreu, Eaton, Sanchez, Flowers, Bonifacio, Gillaspie, Ramirez, and Melky are all performing significantly under their projections from all three systems. So my point is that even if we might have looked bad on paper, we've performed significantly worse than expected on offense, even if you were pessimistic about this offense I doubt you could have expected it to be anywhere near this bad (our position players collectively have a negative WAR for crying out loud). The good news is that even with that underperformance we're only 2 games under .500. If those guys above can just hit to their bad projections then that would be a big improvement over what we've seen so far.

Sox defense let Q down once again but he was able to overcome it. Our rotation is looking good. If only Erik Johnson can keep it up and eventually replace Danks.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 10:29 PM) Exactly. It's nice to see Sale getting all this national attention this week, but Quintana (not necessarily this year, but in general) deserves some too. Even this year Quintana's FIP is still pretty good, it's in the low 3s. He's also top 30 in WAR for starting pitchers on the year. He's been let down by defense and a bit of bad luck (high BABIP).

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 10:25 PM) The casual fan sees his 4.28 ERA (before the game, now it's 4.00) and assumes that he's trash, I guess His 2-6 record probably jumped out at them too. But it's not like he's a rookie, he's been great for several years. He was top ten in WAR among starting pitchers last year for crying out loud.

Was just reading an Astros board and they were complaining about once again being shut down by a "horrible pitcher". Quintana really gets no respect.

Score two more then put in Guerra.

With Avi and Abreu hitting bombs lately and LaRoche doing well the last few weeks, if we could get Melky, Alexei and Eaton to approach their 2014 numbers our offense wouldn't look bad.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 10:06 PM) Not to jinx the 9th, but the Sox have done a great job of limiting home runs by the Astros in the 6 game series. Jennings was only person to give one up, I believe. Duke last night to Correa.

Just looked at our schedule and there's only one series from now until the All-Star Break against a losing team, and that's Baltimore who's just under .500.

He's struck out the side a bunch of times already this year, he's been nasty. Gave up a few HRs early on but other than that has been straight filth. Last year his K/9 was 7.6, this year it's 13.7. Big difference.

With that bomb Soto's OPS is now almost 100 points higher than Flowers'. I was also looking at the one thing Flowers has done well this year (pitch framing), and Soto is right behind him in that. Basically there's no reason Flowers should get more playing time.

If we have a lead going into the ninth, does Robertson pitch again? Or do you go with Putnam?

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 09:30 PM) Any OPS under .800 for your clean-up hitter is never anything worth writing home about. I understand that, but he's being lumped in with guys with OPSs around .600, it's an unfair comparison. His numbers since the beginning of May are also more than adequate.

LaRoche now has a .778 OPS, when will posters stop including him in the list of underperformers?

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 09:17 PM) I'll be frank, if I was Quintana I'd slug a couple of the position players. Despite how bad our offense has been this year, I can't comprehend how he consistently gets 1 to 2 runs of support a game. Dude deserves way better. We score almost 2 runs per game less for him than the next starter on our team.

Quintana is dead last in the majors in run support. Under 2 runs per game. I know our offense blows but they score 4.82 runs a game for Sale (and most of those are a waste unfortunately). Why do our hitters hate Q so much?

Blue Jays have won 8 in a row, now 1 game above .500 and they have the second best run differential in the MLB. Will we ever have an offense as good as theirs?

Beckham at short? When's the last time he played there? I don't mind the weird lineup, when the offense sucks this bad for this long shake it up and see if you can provide a jolt.

I knew there would be growing pains but I'm pretty impressed so far. His FIP (3.30) is pretty good too despite the walks (though that's largely due to his only giving up one dinger so far). He struggled mightily with his command early on but his last few starts he's really cut down on the walks. He's already good enough to be a good middle-to-back end of the rotation guy, and if he improves his command and changeup he could be dynamite. Certainly a hell of a lot better than watching Noesi every 5th day, that's for sure. Thank you Marlins/Astros.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 12:11 PM) At various points this year the Sox have pitched pretty well. This is another of of those times. The problem, obviously, is the offense. The defense has largely stabilized and I would continue to trot out Beckham and Sanchez more often than not at 3B and 2B. The problem with Sanchez's bat isn't necessarily even that it sucks, it's that the rest of the lineup isn't good enough to carry a guy that's all glove no hit. In theory, if Melky and Alexei pick it up a bit (and Jose goes back to elite masher and not just solid) then his line (which will improve) won't look so awful. I'm rather optimistic right now given how well Rodon and some of the pen pieces are pitching that if the offense can just get to "mediocre" the Sox might have a decent chance at 85-86 wins and hell that might be enough for a 2nd wild card. If Samardzija can pull his head out of his ass and just come close to what we expected of him then we are very solid 1-4 and Danks can even throw a gem every few starts or so. It really is quite amazing that we're only 3 under .500 with the offensive output so far.