Fans of a team that has just seen Matt Davidson return from 2 borderline DFA seasons to playable in MLB and are watching Yolmer Sanchez and Leury Garcia hitting in our top 5 for OPS, and to top it off have our top reliever as 27 year old TommyKahnle who for years had been unable to harness his control are about to write off a 23 year old former top prospect after a bad month. If you are currently bad you will be bad forever, good, good forever.

11 game hitting streak for Micker Adolfo..

 

Time for a Hawkism...

 

HELL YES!

 

If he stays healthy, he'll be in W-S soon.

Fans of a team that has just seen Matt Davidson return from 2 borderline DFA seasons to playable in MLB and are watching Yolmer Sanchez and Leury Garcia hitting in our top 5 for OPS, and to top it off have our top reliever as 27 year old TommyKahnle who for years had been unable to harness his control are about to write off a 23 year old former top prospect after a bad month. If you are currently bad you will be bad forever, good, good forever.

 

When's the last time the top right-handed pitching prospect in all of baseball got lit up in the major leagues for an extended stretch...then followed it up with a month of throwing up a 7+ ERA at the minor league level for over a month the following season?

 

Just curious if anyone can think of any relevant examples...especially someone Giolito's size and having already gone through one TJ surgery previously.

 

Luke Hochevar comes to mind, but he never made it as a starter. He did end up having a successful MLB career as a 7th inning set-up specialist.

I'm with you. He's FAR from a sure thing and as I've said a ton now he's a huge project at this point but he's still a very legit project. And Caulfield you have no clue where Gio's confidence is, it's a ridiculous assumption to say he's confidence is shot.

 

Yep. He's 22. He should stay at AAA all year and evaluate him next season. He will still only be 23. If he turns out to be a shorter Jon Rauch, so be it. Not all of these prospects Hahn acquired will work out. I much rather see Moncada raking and Gio struggling than the other way around if we were given the choice.

2 k's for Micker but 3 of 5 with a triple. Beautiful

When's the last time the top right-handed pitching prospect in all of baseball got lit up in the major leagues for an extended stretch...then followed it up with a month of throwing up a 7+ ERA at the minor league level for over a month the following season?

 

Just curious if anyone can think of any relevant examples...especially someone Giolito's size and having already gone through one TJ surgery previously.

 

Luke Hochevar comes to mind, but he never made it as a starter. He did end up having a successful MLB career as a 7th inning set-up specialist.

"Extended stretch"

4 starts and 6 games total is a lot more of a look than Daniel Hudson got in the middle of a playoff race.

 

If we want to argue "extended" is 4 weeks or 6 weeks or 8 weeks rather than 3-4, okay.

 

I'll obviously agree that Lopez got more of an extended stretch than Giolito, though.

 

 

Lots of hot takes in this thread. Giolito has never had a stretch like this in his entire minor league career and yet people think he's suddenly a 7.00 ERA pitcher cause why? It should be perfectly clear to everyone here that he's struggling as he works through his mechanical changes. He may not ever be the prospect he once was, but writing him off as a starter at this point in time is f***ing ridiculous. This was always going to be a process and people need to give it some time before jumping to conclusions.

Edited May 9, 20178 yr by Chicago White Sox

Wait a second, isn't Steve McCatty the pitching coach for Charlotte now?

 

In 2009, McCatty became the second pitching coach in Washington Nationals franchise history, replacing Randy St. Claire, who was fired, and McCatty was called upon to replace him after working at the Nationals' AAA affiliate. The Nationals fired McCatty and the entire coaching staff after the 2015 season.[1]

 

McCatty is the one supervising his mechanical changes? I'm assuming they brought him in to work with Lopez/Giolito because he was already familiar with both of them from his time with the Nationals?

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/comm...cago-white-sox/

 

Going back to this BA article from mid-April, it says all of the "interventions" are about fastball command/control and adding a slider...but nothing about mechanical changes.

 

Hmmm...

 

http://www.masnsports.com/nationals-pastim...own-tigers.html

 

So McCatty was credited with helping Strasburg and Jordan Zimmerman, but also took a lot of the blame for the Bryce Harper/Papelbon blow-up in late 2015. One would assume he was also blamed for the way Strasburg was held out from pitching in order to prevent an injury, which later blew up in their faces. Interesting.

Edited May 9, 20178 yr by caulfield12

Yeah Giolito is a big project. If he's still struggling like this a year from now I'll worry. I'll wait for him to adjust to his new mechanics, which could take months.

He's not changing his mechanics or throwing motion, though.

 

What he has been working on is more related to leg drive, downward plane, towel drills, etc.

Lots of speculation by you here. Personally I just think his fastball is unplayable. No command and horrible spin rate (assuming it hasn't improved)

 

He was the top pitching prospect in baseball as recent as 2 years ago and all of a sudden he couldn't command or spin the baseball. Mechanical changes aside, the results so far is far worse than you'd expect someone who has the TOR stuff and trying to revert back to similar to how he's pitched his whole life.

 

This leads me to believe that he may be hurt and he doesn't even know it. I read a story on Mark Appel in the offseason on how he noticed something changed about his arm after he was drafted that affected his command and he didn't know what the issue was. It was only last year that he was diagnosed with a bone spur and had to have surgery to remove it. This is a bit of a different situation, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that Giolito might be hurt.

Fans of a team that has just seen Matt Davidson return from 2 borderline DFA seasons to playable in MLB and are watching Yolmer Sanchez and Leury Garcia hitting in our top 5 for OPS, and to top it off have our top reliever as 27 year old TommyKahnle who for years had been unable to harness his control are about to write off a 23 year old former top prospect after a bad month. If you are currently bad you will be bad forever, good, good forever.

 

seriously, thank you. The amount of sky falling and writing off of Giolito is absurd, plenty of top prospect pitchers have had to start from scratch with their mechanics, Gavin Floyd and Roy Halladay come to mind.

Yeah Giolito is a big project. If he's still struggling like this a year from now I'll worry. I'll wait for him to adjust to his new mechanics, which could take months.

 

This was to be expected and yet it's doom and gloom 1 month into the season,even with his velocity creeping back up.

This was to be expected and yet it's doom and gloom 1 month into the season,even with his velocity creeping back up.

 

For Giolito to be doing an Eric Johnson impression was expected?

 

I don't think anyone said that the day of the trade...nor were the words "a total work in progress" commonly bandied about.

seriously, thank you. The amount of sky falling and writing off of Giolito is absurd, plenty of top prospect pitchers have had to start from scratch with their mechanics, Gavin Floyd and Roy Halladay come to mind.

It's not absurd any more. He got knocked around last September, knocked around in ST, and knocked around in 5-6 starts at AAA. There is a better word than "absurd", but I don't know what that word is. Remember, Sox gave up a pretty good player for those three pitchers, and Giolito was the headliner.

Why hasn't Asche been DFA's and Delmonico called up yet?

Mostly because you don't take a promising player and sit him on the bench for 50% of the time. Asche is a flyer guy and who cares if he gets rusty on the bench.

He's not changing his mechanics or throwing motion, though.

 

What he has been working on is more related to leg drive, downward plane, towel drills, etc.

Where is this mentioned?

This may have been pointed out already, but reports of Adam Engel's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

 

Up to .213 .304 .427 on the season, strikeout rate ~25%, walk rate at ~11%. He may be Drew Stubbs Jr yet.

For Giolito to be doing an Eric Johnson impression was expected?

 

I don't think anyone said that the day of the trade...nor were the words "a total work in progress" commonly bandied about.

 

2-3 months of reverting his mechanics from his crappy altered mechanics, regaining his velocity,working on his command = Erik Johnson 2.0?

 

Give the guy a couple months,hell the whole year. What's the rush?

 

Of course we all want results and he's been a peg above atrocious but there are some decent signs and if he gets his command working people will forget his struggles.

2-3 months of reverting his mechanics from his crappy altered mechanics, regaining his velocity,working on his command = Erik Johnson 2.0?

 

Give the guy a couple months,hell the whole year. What's the rush?

 

Of course we all want results and he's been a peg above atrocious but there are some decent signs and if he gets his command working people will forget his struggles.

 

Right!? Dude is 22! It would be a different story if he was 26/27.

It's still way too early to make determinations on Giolito. Fegan, Bilek, and multiple others had good stuff on him last night but I can't tweet right now. Giolito said the results are trash basically but he's trying to figure things out and feels positively about the changes made. From watching his starts this year, it's all command. His stuff is plenty good enough. The Curveball and changeup are still good. He can live 93-95 MPH but he's having issues commanding everything and he's struggling to repeat his delivery. He's 22 years old. Writing him off is very short-sighted. He will be probably be in Charlotte for the rest of the year and that's fine.

 

https://theathletic.com/59236/2017/05/09/lu...e-yoan-moncada/

Edited May 9, 20178 yr by Y2JImmy0

This may have been pointed out already, but reports of Adam Engel's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

 

Up to .213 .304 .427 on the season, strikeout rate ~25%, walk rate at ~11%. He may be Drew Stubbs Jr yet.

That's awesome. Rumors of any prospect's demise are usually just a bunch of shots fired into the sky.

That's awesome. Rumors of any prospect's demise are usually just a bunch of shots fired into the sky.

 

Except in the case of Courtney Hawkins.

The story of Engel is his constant tweaking though, right? Even if this sticks it's what happens when he cools down again.