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The Chicago White Sox are keeping James Shields in their rotation for the time being, but that could change when the calendar turns to September.

 

Shields absorbed another pounding in his last outing on Friday, allowing seven runs and eight hits over 4 2/3 innings in a 9-0 loss to Oakland. The 34-year-old Shields has a dismal 17.36 ERA in four August starts, and opponents are hitting .452 against him in that span.

 

Shields is scheduled to make his next start Wednesday against the Philadelphia Phillies, but his role could evaporate once September call-ups arrive. Paul Skrbina of the Chicago Tribune reports the "team is stretching out Carson Fulmer at Triple-A Charlotte, and several others could make spot starts in Shields' place.”

 

Shields, acquired in a June 4 trade with the San Diego Padres, has struggled for most of the season, but he appeared to have turned the corner with a 1.78 ERA in five July outings.

 

Shields is in the second year of a four-year, $75 million deal, although the Padres are on the hook for about half of the remaining salary.

 

 

At some point it does no one any good to have him go out and get pounded. If he can't straighten out, Sit him down and hope some time off does the trick. I still think his head basically facing the first base dugout on release may be something that is pretty correctable and might make a difference. If he has some command, he still has enough to be a back of the rotation guy IMO. But if he continues to throw meatball after meatball, he has no chance.

He has a 7.62 ERA with the White Sox. That's a f***ing AVERAGE.

 

I suppose that means if James Shields goes out on the mound, if we don't score EIGHT RUNS, on average, we lose.

 

Is this the worst acquisition in the history of major league baseball?

James Shields - The Human Roller Coaster.

That blurb is total speculation. I listened briefly to WSCR this AM and on the update they said Ventura said that Shields would remain in the rotation. Honestly, I don't think they have anyone considerably better.

Who are they going to replace him with? Its not like hes holding some prospect back. Might as well keep sending him out there and helping your draft position. They are about 7 games ahead of a top 3 pick, Shields is just the kind of guy to get you into contention for that.

I hope not, he is fun bad now. I want to see that ERA in the double digits.

Realistically the Sox have only a few options here. Taking him out of the rotation now is the worst of the moves.

 

Your biggest goal is to pitch him until he gets through whatever is messing him up. Taking him out of the rotation makes that much harder. If you can get him into some sort of a stable recovery mode, then you either have a solid starting pitcher, or you have a trade asset.

 

Who are they going to replace him with? Its not like hes holding some prospect back. Might as well keep sending him out there and helping your draft position. They are about 7 games ahead of a top 3 pick, Shields is just the kind of guy to get you into contention for that.

Assuming Gonzalez is back soon, Ranaudo, although he is pretty bad himself.

He has a 7.62 ERA with the White Sox. That's a f***ing AVERAGE.

 

I suppose that means if James Shields goes out on the mound, if we don't score EIGHT RUNS, on average, we lose.

 

Is this the worst acquisition in the history of major league baseball?

 

But we got him for a bargain! Only paying him $10 million a year....

 

What an embarrassment for whomever was pulling the trigger on that deal (which we will never know who b/c there is no accountability).

 

With the $12-$13 million off the books from LaRoche and $15 million for Danks next year, we could theoretically use that $25 million per year to sign a big FA bat (assuming the FO was resigned to doing so) without our salary cap being really impacted. We now can no longer do that b/c we replaced Danks horrible K with another horrible K for the next 2 years (you literally can't make this stuff up).

 

At least we have an extra $12-$13 million to sign another middling, aging veteran FA.

Is this the worst acquisition in the history of major league baseball?

The D-Backs gave up good players to get Shelby Miller, who is hilariously in the minors right now. That trade was much worse, though Miller at least has youth on his side and has bounced back from a bad year before. The only bounce Shields is getting is of the dead cat variety.

 

But that's the best thing I can say about the Shields trade - that it wasn't the worst in the history of baseball or even this year. The worst thing I can say is that it was obviously a bad idea from the word go and a singularly fire-able offense.

In September, Shields shouldn't be alone in losing his spot.

I see they sent Coats down for Avi...not sure what they point there is really.

Given that Shields has seen his velocity drop over the past few years, it might make sense to cut back his workload since it isn't exactly important that we get innings out of him.

Realistically the Sox have only a few options here. Taking him out of the rotation now is the worst of the moves.

 

Your biggest goal is to pitch him until he gets through whatever is messing him up. Taking him out of the rotation makes that much harder. If you can get him into some sort of a stable recovery mode, then you either have a solid starting pitcher, or you have a trade asset.

At this point I think letting him pitch at all is the worst possible option. This is just epic bad. I can't remember any SP having two spectacularly bad stretches like Shields has had this year. Opponents hitting .452 against him in August!! 17.36 ERA!! That is mind boggling.

At this point I think letting him pitch at all is the worst possible option. This is just epic bad. I can't remember any SP having two spectacularly bad stretches like Shields has had this year. Opponents hitting .452 against him in August!! 17.36 ERA!! That is mind boggling.

 

If you believe this season is over, what is the downside to Shields pitching? It isn't like he is blocking someone.

Realistically the Sox have only a few options here. Taking him out of the rotation now is the worst of the moves.

 

Your biggest goal is to pitch him until he gets through whatever is messing him up. Taking him out of the rotation makes that much harder. If you can get him into some sort of a stable recovery mode, then you either have a solid starting pitcher, or you have a trade asset.

You're kidding, right?

 

He could have a respectable ERA from now until the end of the season and no team would touch him with a 10 foot pole. Not a chance. The Sox are stuck with him.

You're kidding, right?

 

He could have a respectable ERA from now until the end of the season and no team would touch him with a 10 foot pole. Not a chance. The Sox are stuck with him.

 

Yep, he's our latest incarnation of Adam Dunn. He is Sox property until the bitter end, a lemon out on the highway.

 

Hopefully Kenny can bully this f***tard into retiring too.

The crazy thing is that when he was supposedly pitching well, he had a completely unsustainable stretch of 0 for 32 against with RISP.

 

When you look at his Sox numbers and consider that, it's almost unfathomable how much worse the numbers could actually be.

He has a 7.62 ERA with the White Sox. That's a f***ing AVERAGE.

 

I suppose that means if James Shields goes out on the mound, if we don't score EIGHT RUNS, on average, we lose.

 

Is this the worst acquisition in the history of major league baseball?

 

But if you take away his bad starts, he has a decent ERA. That's all I heard from people around here for months on end.

But we got him for a bargain! Only paying him $10 million a year....

 

What an embarrassment for whomever was pulling the trigger on that deal (which we will never know who b/c there is no accountability).

 

With the $12-$13 million off the books from LaRoche and $15 million for Danks next year, we could theoretically use that $25 million per year to sign a big FA bat (assuming the FO was resigned to doing so) without our salary cap being really impacted. We now can no longer do that b/c we replaced Danks horrible K with another horrible K for the next 2 years (you literally can't make this stuff up).

 

At least we have an extra $12-$13 million to sign another middling, aging veteran FA.

 

The crazy thing is if we didn't make the Shields trade and instead dumped Robertson at the deadline we'd have the $25 mill for Cespedes without adding anything to the payroll. Burdi could probably perform comparably to Robertson next year. But that would be too much to expect our front office geniuses to work something like that.

Edited August 23, 20169 yr by soxforlife05

Realistically if the Sox do the rebuild thing and deal Q/Sale in the offseason for an infusion of young talent, Shields could be in the 2017 rotation. At the very least he can eat innings, he can be the Sox version of Edwin Jackson when he was on the Cubs during their rebuild.

Hopefully Kenny can bully this f***tard into retiring too.

 

That would be one of Kenny's better moves.

 

Yep, he's our latest incarnation of Adam Dunn. He is Sox property until the bitter end, a lemon out on the highway.

 

Psst, the Sox traded Dunn to the A's at the end

Hopefully Kenny can bully this f***tard into retiring too.

 

Nothing says great post like combining retard and f*** into one word.