The guy has been an absolute black hole on offense this year.  His chase rate is way up and his zone contact rate is way down over his career numbers.  His hard hit percentage is also one of the worst in the league.  Real good combination of peripherals for a middle of the order bat right there.  

The book is also out on him that he can no longer pick up a slider, where he once hit mid .200s against sliders (with a respectable ops as well), he is hitting a really impressive .100 this year (also down from last year where he hit .180) against them.  His k rate is an astounding 45% against the pitch (again compared to low 20% a cpl years back).  Teams now realize this and hes seeing Over 10% more sliders than he was in his heyday with the jays.  Combine this with the fact he can no longer get around on fastballs, and its clear in my mind hes done as a major league player.  

Yet rickey continues to hit him 4th - 6th in the lineup.  Does he really expect edwin to turn it around?  Is he really going to kill us in the postseason by continuing to bat him in the middle of the order?  Yolmer would be a better DH than Edwin at this point.
 

 

Edited September 9, 20205 yr by ChiSox1917

Maybe he has. Last 14 games his OPS is .884

Since august 15 EE has a 112 wRC+. Average is still low but power and walks have been there.

That is not great but ok at DH.

Edited September 9, 20205 yr by Dominikk85

4 minutes ago, Dominikk85 said:

Since august 15 EE has a 112 wRC+. Average is still low but power and walks have been there.

That is not great but ok at DH.

And in the last week his wRC is 92.  He had a one week stretch from the 22nd to 29th in which he had decent results, however even during that stretch his average exit velo was a paltry 85mph.  

id chalk up any recent success hes had to a bit of luck.  His peripherals still suck

 His K rate is up but his hard hit rate is 37% and his barrel rate per PA is 9.9 which is 4th on the sox only behind jose eloy and robert and ahead of tim, grandal and moncada, that is pretty solid. His launch angle isn't changed much either. Weak contact is up but hard contact is pretty good and weak and medium contact really has the same outcome. He is declining but still his babip shouldn't be that low.

Edited September 9, 20205 yr by Dominikk85

Yes.  He will get going out of town at the end of the season

His last 14 games his OPS is .900 and he has 6 HR. Give him time. It's middle May for him

He's been doing alright.  It's too bad you can only play one DH tho.  In hindsight Sox had enough DH types probably should have tried to bring in more pitching.

In a 60 game season, his slow start is definitely magnified. But as I've said (and others) he is a notorious slow starter. It just sucks that this year or all years it isn't good for slow starters. 

Thanks @raBBit for this graph a couple days ago.

He is getting it going.  You can already see harder contact happening more frequently.  Hopefully it is a good sign for October.

3 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

He is getting it going.  You can already see harder contact happening more frequently.  Hopefully it is a good sign for October.

Small sample size, but he already has five barrels this month (31.3%) and an average exit velocity of 90.3.  He’s still striking out way to much (25.9%), but at least the quality of contact is getting better.

I like that he is getting it going but I would probably hit him after the middle of the order/before the weaker part (RF platoon/Madrigal) in the 7 spot to drive in anyone else the bigger bats left on base.

On 9/9/2020 at 10:22 AM, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

His last 14 games his OPS is .900 and he has 6 HR. Give him time. It's middle May for him

This. relax people. when he's hitting massive, clutch home runs in the playoffs people will be fawning to resign him. The board is so fickle from one day to the next. it's baseball, he's on a one year contract and offers something to the team. find something else to complain about.

Obviously he's kinda old, but Jose Abreu has been in so many similar slumps. The good news is when EE is hot we can just have him carry us a few weeks (imagine if this is in the playoffs)

On 9/9/2020 at 10:33 AM, chitownsportsfan said:

He's been doing alright.  It's too bad you can only play one DH tho.  In hindsight Sox had enough DH types probably should have tried to bring in more pitching.

Hahn spent $17M on the last two Free Agents, EE and Cishek, already had Grandal, McCann, Abreu, Vaughn and Jimenez on the 40 man.

By that time most of the big names were gone beyond the pricey Ozuna and Castellanos, and Hahn's Mazara gamble made better sense in terms of $s and flexibility.

Brad Miller ($2M) & Jeremy Jeffress ($0.9M) were two low cost signings after the Sox were done that turned out to be good 2020 signings (both 1 year deals so FA again in 2021).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/2020-transactions.shtml

Hope Encarnacion finishes strong, but not strong enough for any temptation to pick up the club option (or sign outside of the option at a lower rate). Current 26 man roster options plus Vaughn makes Parrot expendable.

I'll review the 2021 Free Agents and post good market and bargain FA candidates after the off-season. I don't project the White Sox to sign a $10M+ FA this off-season beyond the possibility of Colome, pressed in part due to the injury to Bummer. Taijuan Walker & Anthony DeSclafani may be affordable options to bolster the rotation at first glance.

5 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

I don't project the White Sox to sign a $10M+ FA this off-season

Why? Don’t we have like 40M coming off the books?

8 minutes ago, hi8is said:

Why? Don’t we have like 40M coming off the books?

 

Actual salary is $50M this season, and the White Sox are committed to nearly double ($89M) after the other FA money drops, assuming a full season and no negotiated salary reductions, or owner lockouts / player walk-offs heading into the off-season CBA. I don't believe there will be COVID clarity until scheduled Spring Training, at the absolute earliest, and possibly not until the CBA is over.

Edited September 11, 20205 yr by South Side Hit Men

13 hours ago, BrianAnderson said:

This. relax people. when he's hitting massive, clutch home runs in the playoffs people will be fawning to resign him. The board is so fickle from one day to the next. it's baseball, he's on a one year contract and offers something to the team. find something else to complain about.

We’re 70% of the way through the season and hes been a replacement level player.  People on here complaining about mazara, yet atleast he has a positive WAR.  Encarnacion is the one guy we should not be “relaxed” about given where hes hitting in the lineup

7 hours ago, ChiSox1917 said:

We’re 70% of the way through the season and hes been a replacement level player.  People on here complaining about mazara, yet atleast he has a positive WAR.  Encarnacion is the one guy we should not be “relaxed” about given where hes hitting in the lineup

"70% OF THE SEASON"... as if we haven't played just 40 games due to a pandemic and no spring training. 

But keep selling it. 

7 hours ago, ChiSox1917 said:

We’re 70% of the way through the season and hes been a replacement level player.  People on here complaining about mazara, yet atleast he has a positive WAR.  Encarnacion is the one guy we should not be “relaxed” about given where hes hitting in the lineup

Where he is hitting in the lineup is a Ricky issue. I'll echo the 70% of the season thing. it's semantics. 45 games into the season is what? mid-may or so? 

Look at his splits for his career. he starts slow historically. throw in a truncated spring training? based on his career trend line he should be heating up just in time for the playoffs which is a good thing. who cares about the regular season when everybody gets in?

April - .236ba/.430slg/.752ops

May (where we are now) - .250ba/.496slg/.827ops

June - (playoff time) - .277ba/.554slg/.932ops

Obviously it's not great right now, and we have McCann too, so yes, probably he should be rotating a bit more, but he's got a long track record, whcih even at his age should hold some water. But it's a one year deal - this isn't like adam dunn.

 

What would I do? mix in mccann more, move EE down a slot or two. Get EE 4-5 games a week still. hes the type of power bat that can really make a difference come october. 

It is pretty simple. If he gets hot during October, the White Sox can surprise and he becomes a legend. If he stays inconsistent and strikes out in key moments, it was a good FA idea that didn't pan out and he is no longer a White Sox player. The terms of his contract were perfectly orchestrated with Vaughn's timing and potential to free up some $$$ off the books for 2021. It is going to be an interesting next 3-4 weeks. I really wish he would be batting 6th though. 

2 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

"70% OF THE SEASON"... as if we haven't played just 40 games due to a pandemic and no spring training. 

But keep selling it. 

He has never started this bad in a season before.  His peripherals (k rate, exit velo) are significantly worse with this “slow start” than his slow starts in prior years.  In prior years slow starts, his k% peaked at about 35% early in the year, this year its up over 40%.  His chase rate is also significantly higher this year than his other “slow starts” while his zone contact rate is down compared to them.  His peripherals with this slow start are much much worse than in prior years.  

But yeah, lets just keep hope he heats up.  Maybe he’ll heat up to being a league average DH this year.  Oh boy.  

1 hour ago, EloyJenkins said:

It is pretty simple. If he gets hot during October, the White Sox can surprise and he becomes a legend. If he stays inconsistent and strikes out in key moments, it was a good FA idea that didn't pan out and he is no longer a White Sox player. The terms of his contract were perfectly orchestrated with Vaughn's timing and potential to free up some $$$ off the books for 2021. It is going to be an interesting next 3-4 weeks. I really wish he would be batting 6th though. 

Thats the point though.  Hes KILLING us hitting 4th/5th.  With anderson, moncada, abreu, grandal, eloy, and robert, he should be hitting no higher than 7th at this point (8th against righties).  
 

 

10 hours ago, South Side Hit Men said:

 

Actual salary is $50M this season, and the White Sox are committed to nearly double ($89M) after the other FA money drops, assuming a full season and no negotiated salary reductions, or owner lockouts / player walk-offs heading into the off-season CBA. I don't believe there will be COVID clarity until scheduled Spring Training, at the absolute earliest, and possibly not until the CBA is over.

You’ll either be a profit or a fool on the basis of this post.

His peripherals are worse but they did get better in the last weeks. Since August 15 his xWOBA is. 375 which is better than his actual wOBA in that time frame (.329).

 

He still isn't great but he has been an acceptable DH the last month plus he actually was sitting some games.

Just let him share DH with the two catchers till the end of the year and then let him walk.