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Derek Shomon and Ryan Fuller's Approach to Hitting

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On 10/14/2026 at 7:51 AM, Falstaff said:

Why doesn't every player on the team have a 2-strike approach instead of swing from their heels?

Isn't it obvious the Sox are analytics driven? The management has no problem with all the strikeouts. Our guys I bet are encouraged to lift and pull. If the result is a HR or K that's fine. Isn't modern analytics all or nothing. It cares little about batting average and it shows. What did 5 guys hit over .300. What a joke. With two strikes it should go back to age/old philosophy. Choke up like Pete Rose and smash a single or double. Or if choking up on the bat isn't cool nowadays at least switch your swing to make contact and rap a hit. Kudos to BananaMan Peters for that one at bat this year when he fouled off what 15 pitches? Analytics make me sick. Fergie Jenkins, LaMarr Hoyt, Bob Gibson would laugh at the five-inning wonders called 2026 starters. A joke.

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  • I just think stuff like that is difficult to correct in season. How has the Orioles offense been since they fired Fuller? I love what the Sox are doing throughout the org on the hitting side. They hi

  • Chick Mercedes
    Chick Mercedes

    776 runs

  • The pressure had to get to them mentally. They kept trying to hit homers. Antonacci, Vargas at times were the only players content to make contact and get on base. Mune, Braden, Meidroth, Teel kept s

On 10/14/2026 at 8:50 AM, Falstaff said:

Just thinking about some of the base clogging Sox teams in the past that would take 3 hits to get a runner home from 1st base.

The good ole station to station baseball. Andrew Vaughn comes to mind.

8 hours ago, greg775 said:

Isn't it obvious the Sox are analytics driven? The management has no problem with all the strikeouts. Our guys I bet are encouraged to lift and pull. If the result is a HR or K that's fine. Isn't modern analytics all or nothing. It cares little about batting average and it shows. What did 5 guys hit over .300. What a joke. With two strikes it should go back to age/old philosophy. Choke up like Pete Rose and smash a single or double. Or if choking up on the bat isn't cool nowadays at least switch your swing to make contact and rap a hit. Kudos to BananaMan Peters for that one at bat this year when he fouled off what 15 pitches? Analytics make me sick. Fergie Jenkins, LaMarr Hoyt, Bob Gibson would laugh at the five-inning wonders called 2026 starters. A joke.

Sox fans complained when the Sox didn't use analytics. Getz did mention the strike outs in his presser so it will be addressed .

  • Harry Chappas changed the title to Derek Shomon and Ryan Fuller's Approach to Hitting
  • Author

I changed the title as it was 100% reactionary to seek the firing but I do think there is a debate to be had over this. I had never heard of either of these gentlemen before coming to the Sox and their approach seemed to be their undoing previously but let's hope there is some growth with them and the White Sox.


Edited by Harry Chappas

  • Author
8 hours ago, greg775 said:

Isn't it obvious the Sox are analytics driven? The management has no problem with all the strikeouts. Our guys I bet are encouraged to lift and pull. If the result is a HR or K that's fine. Isn't modern analytics all or nothing. It cares little about batting average and it shows. What did 5 guys hit over .300. What a joke. With two strikes it should go back to age/old philosophy. Choke up like Pete Rose and smash a single or double. Or if choking up on the bat isn't cool nowadays at least switch your swing to make contact and rap a hit. Kudos to BananaMan Peters for that one at bat this year when he fouled off what 15 pitches? Analytics make me sick. Fergie Jenkins, LaMarr Hoyt, Bob Gibson would laugh at the five-inning wonders called 2026 starters. A joke.

Analytics told us the Dodgers struggled with pitches over 96 MPH and they are out. Struggled is an understatement I think they were hitting around .200 as a collective.

Edited by Harry Chappas

The latest (yesterday) Jeff Passan (ESPN) podcast was a discussion of Why Hitting is so Hard this Postseason. Passan's guests were Alex Bregman and Joey Votto. Listening to these top hitters and how they think about the battle with pitchers, it really struck me was how fast the game is changing.

It's so much better that the Sox are now using analytics. But every team is using analytics and trying to get an edge.

I just went ahead and looked at Orioles fans thoughts in 2024 when Fuller got canned.

The general sentiment was for a more small ball, contact approach. Looking at how the last two years went for them, i bet they regret it.

I also saw this Fuller quote about RISP in 2024:

“(They) dont need to hit a home run. A single here is just as good as a home run, because we score the guy, and we get a guy on first base and we keep the momentum going”.

On 10/10/2026 at 10:03 PM, Boopa1219 said:

The pressure had to get to them mentally. They kept trying to hit homers. Antonacci, Vargas at times were the only players content to make contact and get on base.

Mune, Braden, Meidroth, Teel kept swinging out of their shoes every fucking time.

Idk if I'm ready to give them the excuse that they performed awfully because "they kept trying to hit homers", maybe I thought that early on but watching those at bats again, they just looked completely incapable of hitting high velocity

so then I went and listened to SoxMachine's interview on Foul Territory and found out that the Sox are one of the worst FB hitting teams in baseball when the velo is 96+ (they rank 30 of 30 in K% on 96+ FB, and 30 of 30 in batting avg vs 96+, at .205) and that validates my current belief: they can't hit good fastballs, the location doesn't even matter all that much.

whether it's approach related, or their game prep, only the Sox know that

Edited by joejoesox

edit: misread the box score, 5.0 IP, 9 Ks, 2 H, 1 BB

Edited by joejoesox

4 hours ago, reiks12 said:

I just went ahead and looked at Orioles fans thoughts in 2024 when Fuller got canned.

The general sentiment was for a more small ball, contact approach. Looking at how the last two years went for them, i bet they regret it.

I also saw this Fuller quote about RISP in 2024:

“(They) dont need to hit a home run. A single here is just as good as a home run, because we score the guy, and we get a guy on first base and we keep the momentum going”.

We've already lived through the more contact approach in 2021 and 2022. It didn't work for us. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the offensive approach we have as a team, people are just overreacting to a historically bad 3 game sample. There's also not much coaching and approach can do when you have 2 guys who just swing and miss a lot in Colson and Mune. That's more or less a talent issue. Coaching can help them mitigate that here or there, but they can't make contact for them.

Edited by chw42

19 minutes ago, joejoesox said:

also, Gavin Williams will win the AL Cy Young next year. did you see that game vs TB? 5.0 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 13 K, that's 23 K's extrapolated over 9.0 IP (probably around 17-18 given hitters have more success the more times through the order, still ridiculous)

5 IP, 9 K. Maybe you were looking at the Guardians team total of 13 K?

But still, you’re right that the dude is an absolute monster and a problem.

He’s always had massive talent but struggled with inconsistency. Sure seems like he’s put it all together.

37 minutes ago, Snopek said:

5 IP, 9 K. Maybe you were looking at the Guardians team total of 13 K?

But still, you’re right that the dude is an absolute monster and a problem.

He’s always had massive talent but struggled with inconsistency. Sure seems like he’s put it all together.

my bad, yeah that was what I saw, the team Ks, I'm pissed that Cleveland got him literally right after we picked colson

19 hours ago, greg775 said:

Isn't it obvious the Sox are analytics driven? The management has no problem with all the strikeouts. Our guys I bet are encouraged to lift and pull. If the result is a HR or K that's fine. Isn't modern analytics all or nothing. It cares little about batting average and it shows. What did 5 guys hit over .300. What a joke. With two strikes it should go back to age/old philosophy. Choke up like Pete Rose and smash a single or double. Or if choking up on the bat isn't cool nowadays at least switch your swing to make contact and rap a hit. Kudos to BananaMan Peters for that one at bat this year when he fouled off what 15 pitches? Analytics make me sick. Fergie Jenkins, LaMarr Hoyt, Bob Gibson would laugh at the five-inning wonders called 2026 starters. A joke.

A few things haven't changed. There are still 27 outs and the team with the most runs win. While I agree with you more than most people here, (at just 10% of the time), I'm going to disagree with you here.

Even back then they were using the best statistics available. They were using the best science available. Most of those guys even quit smoking in the dugouts. Baseball has been statistics driven forever. The entire fantasy sports industry started with baseball. This is an evolutionary change not revolutionary.

Having guys pitching eight or nine innings like it's some silly machismo dick measuring competition is just kind of a silly waste of resources. Baseball will be really exciting when we expand rosters and platoon like football.

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