The ESPN predictor has Sale 7th. The list in front of him is kinda neat:

Dallas Keuchel

Sonny Gray

Zach Britton

Luke Gregerson

Mark Buehrle

Chris Archer

Chris Sale

 

lol at that list

 

Christopher Kamka ‏@ckamka 10m10 minutes ago

 

Tonight will make 52 consecutive starts for Chris Sale caught by Tyler Flowers. All 26 last season, all 26 this season. #WhiteSox

I think this is the year that has soured me a bit on ERA. Sale is on pace to easily have the worst ERA of his career, but by pretty much any other metric he's having easily the best year of his career. Strikeouts are way up, walks are down, and if you look at his batted ball profile he's easily giving up the weakest contact of his career this year. Career-best FIP and SIERA, and he's throwing a lot more innings/start this season too. Problem is his .321 BABIP, which is significantly higher than his career average. Quintana also has a crazy high BABIP (.343, second highest in the majors after Gio Gonzalez), yet according to his batted ball profile he's also giving up the weakest contact of his career.

I think this is the year that has soured me a bit on ERA. Sale is on pace to easily have the worst ERA of his career, but by pretty much any other metric he's having easily the best year of his career. Strikeouts are way up, walks are down, and if you look at his batted ball profile he's easily giving up the weakest contact of his career this year. Career-best FIP and SIERA, and he's throwing a lot more innings/start this season too. Problem is his .321 BABIP, which is significantly higher than his career average. Quintana also has a crazy high BABIP (.343, second highest in the majors after Gio Gonzalez), yet according to his batted ball profile he's also giving up the weakest contact of his career.

 

Welcome to the dark side

I think this is the year that has soured me a bit on ERA. Sale is on pace to easily have the worst ERA of his career, but by pretty much any other metric he's having easily the best year of his career. Strikeouts are way up, walks are down, and if you look at his batted ball profile he's easily giving up the weakest contact of his career this year. Career-best FIP and SIERA, and he's throwing a lot more innings/start this season too. Problem is his .321 BABIP, which is significantly higher than his career average. Quintana also has a crazy high BABIP (.343, second highest in the majors after Gio Gonzalez), yet according to his batted ball profile he's also giving up the weakest contact of his career.

Just goes to show you how much our defense sucks. But end of the day, ERA matters, because it reflects what ACTUALLY happened. Bottom line, those runs were allowed.

Part of his ERA problem was having zero spring training. Using his higher than normal ERA as a defensive failure is incorrect IMO. He has had his games where he has been ripped very hard.

19 quality starts (team 14-5)

139.2 innings, 1.61 ERA, 86 hits, 26 runs, 25 earned runs, 22 walks, 187 strikeouts

 

7 non-quality starts (team 1-6)

38.0 innings, 9.47 ERA, 63 hits, 42 runs, 40 earned runs, 14 walks, 52 strikeouts

Part of his ERA problem was having zero spring training. Using his higher than normal ERA as a defensive failure is incorrect IMO. He has had his games where he has been ripped very hard.

 

When every single one of your starting pitchers has an ERA that is higher (and that in some cases is significantly higher than) their peripherals would indicate it is a pretty damn good sign that your defense is f***ing terrible.

The problem I have with using ERA as a measuring stick of "what actually happened" is that it's already trying to correct out all the runs given up as a result of errors. If you're going to try to adjust numbers to get a better idea of how a pitcher performed, why not just use the better metric in FIP?

 

 

19 quality starts (team 14-5)

139.2 innings, 1.61 ERA, 86 hits, 26 runs, 25 earned runs, 22 walks, 187 strikeouts

 

7 non-quality starts (team 1-6)

38.0 innings, 9.47 ERA, 63 hits, 42 runs, 40 earned runs, 14 walks, 52 strikeouts

 

I was told when throwing out similar stats from John Danks last year that that type of cherry picking is silly.

Looked like their best defensive lineup last night.

When every single one of your starting pitchers has an ERA that is higher (and that in some cases is significantly higher than) their peripherals would indicate it is a pretty damn good sign that your defense is f***ing terrible.

It absolutely is, but I think it's been less of a problem for Sale. His K-rate has to signify that.

 

Sale's ERA is a little higher because he's allowed big innings. His peripheral stats remain great because of how dominant he is when he pitches well.

Part of his ERA problem was having zero spring training. Using his higher than normal ERA as a defensive failure is incorrect IMO. He has had his games where he has been ripped very hard.

I agree he had his games where he was ripped, but I am referring to the comment on ERA vs. FIP and other metrics. Similarly, we saw Shark has also had extremely wide FIP vs. ERA measures, which along with the wealth of defensive data out their (which suggest for the larger pat of the season we were historically bad and for a portion of the season have been just lousy). Bottom line, this was a really poorly build team to put around a strong rotation. And I b****ed about the defense all off-season, so from that perspective, I'm not being a hypocrite.

 

I did think this team would hit better then it did, so obviously, I can't say I predicted that nor did I predict us to be this bad.

I was told when throwing out similar stats from John Danks last year that that type of cherry picking is silly.

Not the same thing.

 

1, flavum's not trying to prove a point, he's just putting the info out there.

2, Sale is still having a fantastic season despite his handful of bad outings, whereas John Danks last year... wasn't.

Edited September 2, 201510 yr by shysocks

Keith Law has Chris Sale as the Cy Young winner in his predictions column. Also had him finishing 4th in MVP voting.

 

AL Cy Young

 

1. Chris Sale, SP, Chicago White Sox

2. Dallas Keuchel, SP, Houston Astros

3. David Price, SP, Toronto Blue Jays

4. Chris Archer, SP, Tampa Bay Rays

5. Corey Kluber, SP, Cleveland Indians

 

Sale is leading the world in strikeout rate, leads the majors in strikeouts and does all the other things a starter needs to do to be good. He has mostly been better than he was last year -- his home run rate is up, but his strikeout rate is way up and his walk rate is slightly down -- but his ERA is a full run higher because, well, that's baseball. I believe these awards should go to the players who produce the most value, which I interpret as focused on the things they can control. Keuchel would still be an excellent choice if you wanted to flip them.

 

 

Part of his ERA problem was having zero spring training. Using his higher than normal ERA as a defensive failure is incorrect IMO. He has had his games where he has been ripped very hard.

I'm not saying it's all defense, but when all your starting pitchers have a pretty big gap between their FIP and ERA, there's clearly something there. If you look closer, all the pitchers on our team that are significantly underperforming their FIPs have higher flyball rates with the exception of Dan Jennings. The guys who have bigger groundball rates (mostly the bullpen pitchers) either have smaller gaps or are outperforming their FIPs. Our infield defense has overall been OK, and much better since Saladino came up. Our outfield defense has been really awful, so it makes sense that our pitchers that have higher flyball rates are getting burned a lot more by our horrible defenders in the outfield (and bad defense in the outfield means almost every extra hit given up is going for extra bases). When it's consistent across multiple pitchers on the same team, then it's clearly a trend. Also, it's not like Sale has established a career trend where he's consistently underperformed his peripherals. So I'm not saying his higher than usual ERA is 100% on the defense, but they've definitely been a big culprit here.

Edited September 2, 201510 yr by OmarComing25

Keith Law has Chris Sale as the Cy Young winner in his predictions column. Also had him finishing 4th in MVP voting.

 

AL Cy Young

 

1. Chris Sale, SP, Chicago White Sox

2. Dallas Keuchel, SP, Houston Astros

3. David Price, SP, Toronto Blue Jays

4. Chris Archer, SP, Tampa Bay Rays

5. Corey Kluber, SP, Cleveland Indians

 

Sale is leading the world in strikeout rate, leads the majors in strikeouts and does all the other things a starter needs to do to be good. He has mostly been better than he was last year -- his home run rate is up, but his strikeout rate is way up and his walk rate is slightly down -- but his ERA is a full run higher because, well, that's baseball. I believe these awards should go to the players who produce the most value, which I interpret as focused on the things they can control. Keuchel would still be an excellent choice if you wanted to flip them.

 

Are the words his or yours?

Keith Law has Chris Sale as the Cy Young winner in his predictions column. Also had him finishing 4th in MVP voting.

 

AL Cy Young

 

1. Chris Sale, SP, Chicago White Sox

2. Dallas Keuchel, SP, Houston Astros

3. David Price, SP, Toronto Blue Jays

4. Chris Archer, SP, Tampa Bay Rays

5. Corey Kluber, SP, Cleveland Indians

 

Sale is leading the world in strikeout rate, leads the majors in strikeouts and does all the other things a starter needs to do to be good. He has mostly been better than he was last year -- his home run rate is up, but his strikeout rate is way up and his walk rate is slightly down -- but his ERA is a full run higher because, well, that's baseball. I believe these awards should go to the players who produce the most value, which I interpret as focused on the things they can control. Keuchel would still be an excellent choice if you wanted to flip them.

 

This looks more like a prediction of how Keith will vote rather than a prediction of how the overall voting will turn out.

This looks more like a prediction of how Keith will vote rather than a prediction of how the overall voting will turn out.

Either way, it's nice to know that Sale will have at least one first place vote.

Sale's current contract runs through 2019 with team option years for 2018 and 2019. Barring something catastrophic, those options will surely be picked up. However, after that, he is a free agent. My question is if you guys think that the Sox would pay him $200 million or whatever he'd want or if he'd leave and go elsewhere? It's a tough question, I know, but I'm just wondering what the Sox would do in that situation.

 

I was thinking about it earlier today, and I was interested in knowing what you guys would think.

Sale's current contract runs through 2019 with team option years for 2018 and 2019. Barring something catastrophic, those options will surely be picked up. However, after that, he is a free agent. My question is if you guys think that the Sox would pay him $200 million or whatever he'd want or if he'd leave and go elsewhere? It's a tough question, I know, but I'm just wondering what the Sox would do in that situation.

 

I was thinking about it earlier today, and I was interested in knowing what you guys would think.

He'd definitely go elsewhere if the White Sox did not make him a fair contract extension offer worth several hundred million dollars, assuming no major injuries.

 

Whether the White Sox can offer him something that keeps him from hitting the market before the end of the 2019 season I don't know and won't guess. They'll be looking at a new TV contract in 2019, so if people are watching they'll have the money to afford him...but whether they'll be locked into other contracts or simply still not competitive is something I can't guess.

He'd definitely go elsewhere if the White Sox did not make him a fair contract extension offer worth several hundred million dollars, assuming no major injuries.

 

Whether the White Sox can offer him something that keeps him from hitting the market before the end of the 2019 season I don't know and won't guess. They'll be looking at a new TV contract in 2019, so if people are watching they'll have the money to afford him...but whether they'll be locked into other contracts or simply still not competitive is something I can't guess.

Thanks for the response. I figure an extension is crucial if they want to lock him up very long term, as I don't see the Sox outbidding teams like the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Cubs/Etc if he hit the open market. I'm hoping that Sale would give the Sox a "hometown discount", but who knows if he actually would.

Thanks for the response. I figure an extension is crucial if they want to lock him up very long term, as I don't see the Sox outbidding teams like the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Cubs/Etc if he hit the open market. I'm hoping that Sale would give the Sox a "hometown discount", but who knows if he actually would.

I'd guess that Sale wouldn't have any good reason to give a "Hometown discount" when he's looking at a $250 million deal or something like that...at least not a big enough one that it wouldn't still be "enormous amount of money over a decade".

 

What you might be able to get away with, if you're willing to put $200 million+ on the table, is getting him signed long term after 2017 or 2018 before he hits FA, and getting at least a non-zero discount that way.

But his violent motion will make it impossible for him to pitch that long without undergoing multiple Tommy Johns!

Edited September 5, 201510 yr by Jose Abreu

But his violent motion will make it impossible for him to pitch that long without undergoing multiple Tommy Johns!

Lmao. Gotta love the naysayers.