5/19: Royals @ White Sox - 7:10 PM Start

[Heads22]

I'm fine with Kendall. Kelly's never been a closer.

[Soxfest]

Only 2 runs tonight 

[Quin]

5 minutes ago, Heads22 said:

he should work on getting taller as well

For real, we're getting mad at Vaughn for this now?

[Heads22]

https://twitter.com/JayCuda/status/1659744077074636802

 

[Heads22]

that was sexy as f***, yoan

[Capn12]

Sheesh Yoan, that was a beefy play.

[Quin]

God damn, Moncada with the sweet recovery.

[Heads22]

never a doubt

[Quin]

More of this Kopech please.

[Donny Lucy's Avocado Farm]

the Royals are really bad. 

[White Sox Park]

Pitching and defense . My kind of game in my kind of town.

[hankchifan]

4 minutes ago, Quin said:

More of this Kopech please.

Let’s keep him. Do not trade him at deadline this season.  He can be a very exciting, dominating pitcher.

[DoUEvenShift]

2 hours ago, joejoesox said:

Kopech is SO BAD

Thank you for your thoughtful commentary.

[Timmy U]

Kopech was every bit as good as Cease before he hurt his knee last year. Hopefully, this is him getting that groove back.

[Heads22]

i hope he gets it together.

 

for real though, it was promising when he was getting curves and changeups over early

[Autumn Dreamin]

Clase blows the save in NY, giving up 3 runs bottom 10 as Mets walk it off. It's his 5th blown save this year, more than all of last season IIRC.

[Timmy U]

1 minute ago, Autumn Dreamin said:

Clase blows the save in NY, giving up 3 runs bottom 10 as Mets walk it off. It's his 5th blown save this year, more than all of last season IIRC.

Bullpens, man. No consistency from year to year. Last year, he won the division for them.

[Heads22]

4 minutes ago, Autumn Dreamin said:

Clase blows the save in NY, giving up 3 runs bottom 10 as Mets walk it off. It's his 5th blown save this year, more than all of last season IIRC.

which makes it all the more annoying how we started

[almagest]

Offense needs to show up, but it's nice having the pitching carry them. Let's cream the Royals in the next couple now.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

1 hour ago, Timmy U said:

Kopech was every bit as good as Cease before he hurt his knee last year. Hopefully, this is him getting that groove back.

I often think people on this board beside a few forget that. I mean I understand peoples frustration with fire him ,DFA him, send him down, trade him for various FO people and players , but there was an awful lot of Kopech talk about making him a relief pitcher and it just mystified me.

The kid is still an infant starting pitcher and pitched a lot of really really good games last year before his injury. You just don't come back from a long layoff all that confident in the knee or the ability to pick up where you once were that easily especially when it was the 1st extended good starting pitching of your career in the majors.

 After all , baseball is a game we know requires a vast amount of patience with young players who have missed a LOT of time. Plus it's not like the Sox have a plethora of starting pitching. Reliever talk was so weird. Long way to go before I'd go there.

Edited May 20, 2023 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[caulfield12]

51 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I often think people on this board beside a few forget that. I mean I understand peoples frustration with fire him ,DFA him, send him down, trade him for various FO people and players , but there was an awful lot of Kopech talk about making him a relief pitcher and it just mystified me.

The kid is still an infant starting pitcher and pitched a lot of really really good games last year before his injury. You just don't come back from a long layoff all that confident in the knee or the ability to pick up where you once were that easily especially when it was the 1st extended good starting pitching of your career in the majors.

 After all , baseball is a game we know requires a vast amount of patience with young players who have missed a LOT of time. Plus it's not like the Sox have a plethora of starting pitching. Reliever talk was so weird. Long way to go before I'd go there.

The problem now is the limited control over Cease and Kopech if they go into another rebuild...they can hardly not that with how bad the division is, though. 

It also risks getting limited ROI when they're holding onto some of these vets due in pinning their hopes on  the top three Central teams falling back to them. 

Edited May 20, 2023 by caulfield12

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

6 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

The problem now is the limited control over Cease and Kopech if they go into another rebuild...they can hardly not that with how bad the division is, though. 

It also risks getting limited ROI when they're holding onto some of these vets due in pinning their hopes on  the top three Central teams falling back to them. 

Kopech isnt a FA until 2026 so there is plenty of time for him to become a much better starting pitcher and by turning him into a relief pitcher you ax all of his potential as a starting pitcher and most of his value. There was really no reason to currently talk about him becoming a reliever.

Great FA starting pitchers get big money that the Sox never attempt outside of Wheeler. Hendriks signed with the Sox so I'm sure that will drive home the point.

 He could be worth a lot more than he is now so why destroy that by putting him in the pen ? They do need starting pitching and better ROI when trading and there aren't many guys left on the Sox who will command a lot in a trade.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Kopech isnt a FA until 2026 so there is plenty of time for him to become a much better starting pitcher and by turning him into a relief pitcher you ax all of his potential as a starting pitcher and most of his value. There was really no reason to currently talk about him becoming a reliever.

Great FA starting pitchers get big money that the Sox never attempt outside of Wheeler. Hendriks signed with the Sox so I'm sure that will drive home the point.

 He could be worth a lot more than he is now so why destroy that by putting him in the pen ? They do need starting pitching and better ROI when trading and there aren't many guys left on the Sox who will command a lot in a trade.

Well trading him now makes no sense...but the timing to rebuild the rotation going into 2024 and then again 2-3 years from now is really suboptimal. That's simply because every year you wait things out with Cease and Kopech decreases their trade value pretty dramatically. 

 

Giolito is arguably #5 on the current FA list.  Urias and especially Snell have been bad.  Nola's the only other guy and he might be just as risky as Lucas because his price will be even higher based on his more recent success coming into 2023. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

4 hours ago, Heads22 said:

 

 

For those who didn't click on it :

Michael Kopech is the first pitcher in baseball history to finish a game with 8.0 IP & 10+ SO while facing the mimimum number of batters (24). Hmm don't know why the tweet showed up when I used your link when I didn't see it in your post.

Anyway ,nice but kind of useless. That's just modern baseball. The other pitchers, however many there were, who went 8 innings and K'd10+ facing the minimum, probably went out there for the 9th.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

15 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Well trading him now makes no sense...but the timing to rebuild the rotation going into 2024 and then again 2-3 years from now is really suboptimal. That's simply because every year you wait things out with Cease and Kopech decreases their trade value pretty dramatically. 

 

Giolito is arguably #5 on the current FA list.  Urias and especially Snell have been bad.  Nola's the only other guy and he might be just as risky as Lucas because his price will be even higher based on his more recent success coming into 2023. 

I don't think it decreases dramatically. It depends on how well they pitch. There's a finite number of prospects teams will give up in a trade. Obviously, it becomes less with each passing year , however teams will still pay a premium for top of rotation guys for a chance to win a World Series. There's still plenty of time left in this season for both Kopech and Cease to right their respective ships IF you wanted to get good value this coming off season. But I suspect the Sox will hold onto them given their dearth of starting pitching with Gio and likely Lynn gone at the trade deadline.

I know a lot of people can't resist speculating about trades and player's values but for the moment we are still talking about Hahn doing the trading and the Sox scouting department evaluating players to trade for.

I couldn't convince a whole lot of people here that Outman was worth trading for because he was unranked but so far ( and I DO stress so far) , he actually would've been worth trading for. MLB is full of stars who never looked like they were worth much or their trade value took a big hit at some point.

But it's imperative , if the season is a lost cause by the 2023, deadline to get as much as you can for Gio. It would make things easier if the Twins ran away with the division. The worst possible scenario is the Sox actually getting back into the race at least as far as Gio or Grandal is concerned. Conversely getting back into the race would also mean a lot of the players are doing much better and increasing their worth. I certainly wouldn't be upset with losing Gio, Grandal , Graveman and Kelly in trades if at the same time TA, Benintendi, Robert, Vaughn, Eloy, Clevinger, Cease, Lopez, Kopech, Moncada, Colas, Sosa, Crochet and Hendriks all picked up their games.