White Sox have addressed their home run problem
Feels a lot longer than three and a half months ago when I wrote about the Chicago White Sox home run problem. At the time, the White Sox were staring down a -62 home run differential, but it did improve before the season’s end. The offense generated 182 home runs, which ranked 25th in baseball, and the pitching allowed 238 home runs ranked 10th in most allowed. While improving the differential by six home runs in the last two weeks of the season, the 2019 White Sox -56 home run differential tied for third-worst in franchise history.
| Season | HR Hit | HR Allowed | Difference |
| 1934 | 71 | 139 | -68 |
| 1949 | 43 | 108 | -65 |
| 2019 | 182 | 238 | -56 |
| 2017 | 186 | 242 | -56 |
| 1931 | 27 | 82 | -55 |
As the White Sox leave the rebuilding years behind and charter to contending waters, their front office should be applauded for the moves made this offseason. In five weeks, the White Sox have signed Yasmani Grandal, Dallas Keuchel, Gio Gonzalez, Edwin Encarnacion, and traded for Nomar Mazara. Yes, the White Sox had money to be spent, and even after the signings, they’re still below league average in payroll (estimated $117 million after Encarnacion signing). Who they have added is vital as the home run problem has been addressed, and if the projections come true, it should be a promising sign for the upcoming 2020 season.
Here are the breakdowns on how the White Sox have improved using Steamer projections from FanGraphs.
Starting Pitching
White Sox starting pitchers in 2019 allowed 157 home runs, third-most in the majors. Reynaldo Lopez allowed the most with 35 and followed by Ivan Nova with 30. The signing of Keuchel replaces Nova, and Steamer is projecting four fewer home runs allowed by that switch. A much more significant gain is if Gonzalez can carry a full season’s worth of work. Steamer is only projecting 24 starts out of Gonalez in 2020, with 22 home runs allowed. Hopefully, Gonzalez can exceed 24 starts as he’ll be taking the work away from Manny Banuelos, Ross Detwiler, and Dylan Covey. That trio in 2019 combined for 32 starts and allowed 44 home runs. That’s a big opportunity for the White Sox to cut down on the home run differential.
Keuchel and Gonzalez will help and (knock on wood) should be better than Nova, Banuelos, Detwiler, and Covey last season. Steamer is still projecting the White Sox starters to allow 155 home runs in 2020 because it forecasts an increase allowed by Lucas Giolito.
| Pitcher | Games Started | HR Allowed |
| Reynaldo Lopez | 28 | 32 |
| Lucas Giolito | 32 | 31 |
| Dallas Keuchel | 32 | 26 |
| Gio Gonzalez | 24 | 22 |
| Dylan Cease | 19 | 17 |
| Michael Kopech | 16 | 16 |
| Carlos Rodon | 5 | 5 |
| Dylan Covey | 3 | 4 |
| Bernardo Flores | 2 | 2 |
ZiPS disagrees with Steamer on Giolito’s output for 2020 as it projects only 23 home runs allowed for the White Sox ace. That’s about spot on where Giolito was in 2019 as he only allowed 24 home runs for the season. White Sox need Giolito to duplicate his 2019 performance to have a chance in winning the AL Central division in 2020, and if he can, the starting staff could see a decrease of 10-plus home runs allowed. Not a significant reduction, but it helps.
Another item to touch on when it comes to White Sox pitchers in 2020 is finding a way to cut the home runs allowed at Guaranteed Rate Field. Even though their metrics were better at home than away, White Sox pitchers allowed 141 home runs at Guaranteed Rate Field to just 97 on the road.
| Rk | Pitcher | HR Allowed at GRF |
| 1 | Reynaldo Lopez | 20 |
| 2 | Ivan Nova | 15 |
| 3 | Lucas Giolito | 14 |
| 4 | Ross Detwiler | 11 |
| 5 | Manny Banuelos | 10 |
| 6 | Josh Osich | 8 |
| 7 | Dylan Cease | 8 |
| 8 | Dylan Covey | 7 |
| 9 | Jace Fry | 5 |
| 10 | Ervin Santana | 5 |
| 11 | Alex Colome | 4 |
| 12 | Kelvin Herrera | 4 |
| 13 | Carson Fulmer | 4 |
| 14 | Hector Santiago | 4 |
| 15 | Juan Minaya | 4 |
| 16 | Aaron Bummer | 3 |
| 17 | Jimmy Cordero | 3 |
| 18 | Jose Ruiz | 3 |
| 19 | Carlos Rodon | 3 |
| 20 | Evan Marshall | 2 |
| 21 | Ryan Burr | 1 |
| 22 | Nate Jones | 1 |
| 23 | Odrisamer Despaigne | 1 |
| 24 | Caleb Frare | 1 |
Combined with the bullpen projections, the 2020 White Sox team is forecasted to allow 220 to 230 home runs.
Offense
While adding Keuchel and Gonzalez will help bring a slight reduction in home runs allowed, the biggest gain comes from adding Grandal, Mazara, and Encarnacion. Especially the latter two as White Sox designated hitters and right fielders were awful in 2019.
Edwin Encarnación has hit 30+ HRs in eight straight seasons.
— Collin Whitchurch (@cowhitchurch) December 26, 2019
In 2019, he hit 34 HRs and was worth 2.5 WARP.
In 2019, White Sox DHs combined to hit .197/.275/.342 and were worth 0.0 WARP.
Maybe other guys were preferable, but tough to hate this signing.
White Sox DHs in 2019: 17 HR, .356 Slug pct.
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) December 26, 2019
No AL team had a lower Slug pct at the DH position, and only the Tigers had fewer HR (16).
Edwin Encarnación in 2019: 34 HR, .531 Slug pct.
Steamer is projecting double-digit gains in home runs at right field, catcher, designated hitter, and center field for the White Sox. Encarnacion is projected for 33 home runs, followed by Grandal at 26 and Mazara at 25, which would be a career-high for the former Texas Ranger. Add in Luis Robert’s rookie forecast of 22 home runs plus another year of Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada, and Tim Anderson, and the projected home run total is 260 for 2020. The franchise record is 242 home runs hit by the 2004 White Sox.
| Player | 2020 Projected Home Runs |
| Edwin Encarnacion | 35 |
| Eloy Jimenez | 33 |
| Jose Abreu | 32 |
| Yoan Moncada | 27 |
| Yasmani Grandal | 26 |
| Nomar Mazara | 25 |
| Luis Robert | 22 |
| Tim Anderson | 21 |
| James McCann | 11 |
| Leury Garcia | 8 |
| Nick Madrigal | 6 |
| Zack Collins | 6 |
| Adam Engel | 4 |
| Danny Mendick | 3 |
| Daniel Palka | 1 |
If that projection comes to fruition, the White Sox will go from a -56 home run differential in 2019 to a plus-28 home run differential in 2020; an 84 home run swing. Based on 2019 league results, 260 home runs would have an estimate run total of 845 (Math details; Y=1.8318x+368.49 which x= home runs), which will be needed as Steamer projects the 2020 White Sox pitching staff to allow 826 runs. Using a handy Pythagorean Expected Wins calculator and that run differential total would put the 2020 White Sox record at 83-79. Short of the win total to win the division, but if run prevention efforts find a way to chop 100 runs off the projected 826 total, that record boosts up to 93-69.
There are ways that the White Sox can still improve upon their home run problem, especially on the pitching side, but the work that Rick Hahn and the front office have already put in this offseason will help quite a bit. Manager Rick Renteria only had five above-average hitters to work with last season (wRC+ or OPS+ >100). He might have as many as nine above-average hitters if Mazara, Robert, and Madrigal break out in 2020. Or, maybe the White Sox sign Yasiel Puig to help out in RF with Mazara. Either way, there are good reasons for White Sox fans to get excited about this team’s chances of contending in the American League Central while watching more flyballs leave the park.
Author
Team playing 81 games in a home run park, is going to finally field a team capable of hitting lots of home runs…. gasp. Been waiting on this for a long time. Also hope the newly acquired gio and dallas combo helps keep more balls inside the park on the flip side.
Love those home run projections and not to nitpick but Eloy hit 31 minus a couple months last year, he should cruise passed 33 if he is healthy.
The projections almost certainly do NOT have Eloy playing a full ~155 games. They always account for missed time.
FYI the projection is Eloy plays 141 games
It’s almost as if the FO used data to both identify and solve a major deficiency.
Another opportunity to gain ground would be to move Lopez to the bullpen. I’ve never liked him facing a team for the third time though the order and think his stuff would be most effectively used as a setup man, maybe the 7th inning to start. Here is what the top 4 of the rotation looks like:
Giolito
Keuchel
Cease
Gonzalez
Is it possible to find an effective 5th starter out of Kopech, Rodon, Dunning, or Flores? I realize that the first three are coming off injuries and can’t be relied upon starting opening day, but perhaps there is a solution that can be cobbled together (closer game?). I think you’re just repeating mistakes by running Lopez out there every 5th day.
Nothing is written in stone. This will be the first season in a while where the Sox are trying to compete. Hopefully every young pitcher take a step forward, but the org will need to make adjustments, if necessary
Oddly enough, I’m pretty sure Lopez was the best starter on the team when facing a team the third time through the order.
If thats right it would be in large part because of the starts he never even made it to the 3rd time through after getting his teeth kicked in much sooner than that.
But what is so frustrating about Lopez is while, logically, you look at his profile and see a guy that could play up in the pen – the on field production has been opposite of that. He gets better the longer he goes in a game.
Yeah, I don’t mind them running Lopez out there. With the eye-test, he seems so close to putting it together at times—so many moments of brilliance.
Even if he doesn’t put it *all* together, he still has the makings of a pretty decent 4th or 5th starter. He’s put up 2.3 fWAR each of the last two seasons. For what it’s worth, Keuchel has only bested that number once since 2015 (his 3.3 fWAR 2018). Lopez also looked much better in the 2nd half of 2019, with a 4.18 FIP and 8.69 K/9. He at least deserves another half or so of starts to see if he can make the necessary adjustments.
If Lopez made it to the third time through the order, it meant he had his stuff and was doing really well most times. His disasters were more never finding his stuff and getting knocked out from the get-go.
If If Renteria stops calling for bunt, I’ll take the over on the HR projection
Lots of teams only have 5 above average hitters. The problem is the Sox had at least 6 hitters that weren’t just below average, they were so bad they had no business being in the league. As much as I hate the bunt, it’s hard to argue against when some of the hitters hit like pitchers.
I’ve been a big detractor of Renteria. But yeah, its no shock that Yolmer Sanchez bunted so much, and I’m not gonna complain when guys like Yolmer and Cordell are asked to bunt.
There were plenty of situations where calling for the bunt was stupid regardless of who was hitting. There’s plenty to criticize Renteria for here without the cover of crappy players.
My extremely extremely generous interpretation was always that the best time to really learn to bunt is during a live game situation. And during a rebuilding year the games don’t matter and losing is almost a good thing.
And since there could someday be a situation where a bunt really is needed, it was worthwhile to have them practice those bunts during live games even though the analytics said not to. That’s at least what I told myself during the last two years to make it more enjoyable to watch.
We will see if the bunting continues during a contending year.
That’s generous to the point of being nonsensical. If Renteria was prioritizing some garbage rookie getting practice bunting in a live game over actually WINNING the game, then he should have been fired already.
Again, this is my in-universe explanation.
He can’t reasonably ask Timmy or Yoan to practice bunting in live games and not also ask Cordell to do it.
Plus, you never know which garbage rookie will potentially break out. Hypothetically Cordell / Tilson / etc still has potential and that’s why we were giving them ABs.
He shouldn’t be asking any of them to practice bunting in live games when the situation clearly demands otherwise. That’s my point.
I’m impressed with what the Sox have done with the lineup. Count me as one that likes the move for Mazara.
Tell me who is likelier to become a solid MLB RFer? A 24 y.o. with 79 career big league homers and a slash line of .261/.320/.754 after 4 years of MLB experience or…guys a year younger (Basabe,Adolfo, Rutherford, Gonzalez, Walker) that haven’t played their way out of AA yet?
And, they did their best with the rotation after Wheeler took a lower offer. It’s too bad, but not their fault, that Wheeler and Keuchel would look a lot better. However, there is still no depth here. With an injury and poor performance they would be in trouble.
I don’t think they make the playoffs without improving the bullpen and starting pitching depth. If Covey, Fulmer, Banuelos, Ruiz and Vieira throw any pitches for the Sox it’s gonna be a dissapointing season.
There are still many inexpensive pitching upgrades out there for this team. I’d like to see them add a swingman like Mchugh or Cashner and then two veteran relievers with some closing experience like Ciskek, Kintzler, Strop or Harris.
They would have a real shot at the playoffs after that! C’mon Rick, finish the job!
The problem with mazara isnt that hes blocking anyone of significance, it’s that there were better options to be had in FA.
Unless you get a superstar there’s always better options. The point is that they made a huge upgrade there very inexpensively which allows them to spend more in greater areas of need. The lineup will definitely be good enough now.
It’s pitching that’s holding them back and where they need to invest.
And, my other point is, I can see Mazara getting better. He’s only 24. And, the Sox must believe the same. Who’s the stud that Texas has replaced him with?
And, with the Sox bullpen today they wouldn’t beat anyone in the playoffs.
I think you are too fixated on the fact he is only 24. He has had over 2,000 major league at bats. Guys with that type of experience that have been mediocre aren’t real strong candidates to breakout
Looking at similar batters thru age 24 on baseball reference, you’ll find Harold Baines, Jay Bruce, Dwight Evans, and Andre Dawson. The narrative that young guys with lots of at bats don’t break out is not cut in stone. David Ortiz and Jose Bautista were both late bloomers.
Mazara made adjustments to his stance and had an .859 OPS in the second half. He hits the ball very hard when his timing is right. I like this move; it’s a one year chance to straighten him out. If it doesn’t work, the Sox can go back into free agency next year instead of being locked into a long-term deal. Castellanos would be a terrible signing to play right field (he does all his damage against lefties and can’t play D). Puig has issues, and Ozuna doesn’t have the arm for RF.
There is a credible path for the Sox to get close to 3 WAR out of right field, and it is a Mazara/Leury Garcia platoon. Mazara has a career .271/.337/.462 line against RHP and was .288/.344/.500 against RHP last year. Leury has a .285/.311/.372 career line against LHP, but last year was .311/.344/.443 against LHP (remember Garcia had a few seasons of bad hitting before he figured it out). He had a .333/.349/.444 line against LHP in 2018. You put them both together and have Leury play defense in the last innings, and you got 3 WAR in right field.
The Sox would have had to pay Castellanos or Ozuna to get close to 3 WAR. The Sox being cheap, they probably would have forgone paying other players if they had to pay for right field. Hahn should get some credit for patching together some major league production in right, and now having some extra resources to improve the bullpen or improve the team in other areas.
I’m with you on Mazara and I don’t get the reluctance to allow that he may be poised for a break-out season. There aren’t many 24 year old players who have compiled 4 years of major league play. There seems to be ample reason to view his production thus far as a result of inadequate coaching after his being rushed to the Majors. JD Martinez didn’t really “break-out” until his age 27 season; Encarnacion didn’t have a season with a higher than +1.6WAR until his age 29 season when he became a +5WAR player. It seems that even his Texas coaches view the flaws in Mazara’s approach as correctable and anticipated improved production; they simply failed to get him to “buy into” revamping his approach within a time frame that worked for them. Mazara is really a low-risk/high reward gamble the Sox can well afford to take.
If Mazara doesn’t break out until his age-27 season he’ll be doing it on another team.
Those comparisons are based more on raw numbers, not rate or era/park/league adjusted stats. Compare Mazara’s OPS+ or wRC+ to any of those players through their age-24 seasons and you’ll find he’s just not in the same conversation.
The point is the Sox don’t need him to break out. If he plays as well as last year, he is a good platoon player. There has to be a pretty high likelihood he will be as good against RHP as he was last year. His age is a factor in that as he is no where near his decline. If he puts it all together, great. His upside is tantalizing, but his floor is perfectly adequate for next year — something Hahn has alluded too.
Last season is the only one in his now four year career where he posted an OPS over .800 against RHP. 2019 also saw the widespread deployment of the bouncy ball, and the bump in SLG is the only thing that changed substantially in Mazara’s triple slash against RHP. I’m highly skeptical, personally.
I suppose I get your skepticism but there’s a reason Mazara was ranked a top 25 prospect and there are good reasons Texas and White Sox coaches consistently speak of “untapped” potential with regard to Namor. There are also reasons he became a major league starter at age 20. His improvement last season against RHP suggests he’s making adjustments in his approach.
The success the Sox have had with getting Moncada, Anderson and even Engel to improve their hitting mechanics might lead them to believe that they can get through to Mazara where Texas didn’t. Even if you’re “skeptical”, taking a risk on Mazara isn’t a stupid or bone-headed move. It’s much like the risk Detroit took signing JD Martinez after he had under-performed during 3 years with Houston.
I’m trying to be optimistic about Mazara, but his situation is nothing like Detroit and JD. The Sox traded a prospect for Mazara and barring another acquisition plan on making him the everyday right fielder. Detroit signed JD for nothing and sent him to AAA before bringing him up to fill a hole. The Sox are taking a risk, Detroit took none. It was basically like the Sox signing Cheslor Cuthbert.
I agree the Sox are taking a slightly greater risk than did Detroit but Mazara has better numbers than the -1.1 WAR JD put up his final year with Houston. If Mazara simply continues his past level of play with slight improvement based on experience, he’s a .260 hitter with 20+ HRs who has streaks of elite production. That’s a significant improvement over what the Sox got last year from RF and good production from a left-handed hitter in the lower third of your order. It’s a high floor/high ceiling acquisition.
His career wRC+ is 103 against RHP. Last year it was 110. Bref does not have a similar metric for career OPS+ against RHP but probably likes him a little more. His sOPS+ against RHP last year was 123. You can be skeptical all you want, but it is hard to say he is not above average against RHP.
A wRC+ of 103 as half of a platoon is pretty uninspiring and largely defeats the whole point of a platoon. You’re not trying to find adequacy between two players at one position, you’re trying to create a two-headed beast.
Adequate is the debbie-downer interpretation of the numbers. The optimistic interpretation is his OPS+ last year, which was 23% better than league average.
23% better than the league split, not the league in general. If you got the same production out of the other half of the split, their collective OPS+ would be something like 110-115. That’s decent, but hardly something you create a platoon for.
Leury’s would be closer to 100 assuming the league does better against lefties than righties? Decent is decent. This may be their worst position if everything goes right. The Asgros got to the World Series carry a below average Josh Reddick. The platoon seems good.
I think my issue is that I’d expect a worthwhile platoon to produce better than Castellanos by himself if they’re playing advantageous matchups. Otherwise, they’d have been better off just getting Castellanos.
You have to put some weight on Leury Bsr/Def when he’s in, the cost savings (assuming they’re applied elsewhere which is something of an assumption, indeed) and the point many have made about flexibility to participate in next year’s FA class. Unless by “better” you’re just referring to offense in ’20.
Sure, there are other things to consider, but yes, i believe Castellanos would have been a better option unless you actually believe they can and will win a bidding war for Betts or Springer next year. (Spoiler alert: I don’t believe they will.)
Also, it hurts their roster flexibility when they have to use two players to make a halfway decent platoon at a non-premium defensive position as opposed to just getting one guy.
I mean, Edwin Encarnacion didn’t break out until 29.
Mazara will probably be good eventually. It will probably not be next year. I don’t mind the trade, and since we can’t know what the Dogers were demanding for Joc or what the Pirates were demanding for Marte we can’t really criticize.
Puig on a 1 year might have been superior but I’m not upset.
I would love if the Sox got Puig also. He could guard against Mazara sucking or EE falling off a cliff. Don’t know if he would come here without a guarantee of regular playing time though.
Yeah, Puig has outproduced Mazara’s best year even in his worst, most injury-riddled seasons. I don’t see why he’d agree to taking a back seat to him or just about anybody.
I think the bullpen can be a strength of this team by midseason. I’d still like to see them add one more veteran to the pen (Harris, Hudson…), but they have plenty of options available. Colome and Bummer should hold down the back end, hopefully Herrera is healthy, and Burdi, Hamilton and Tyler Johnson have plenty of upside. That’s 6 potential strong options, and adding a vet would make 7.
Several teams had very successful years with a bunch of no-names in their bullpen. The Twins, Rays, Braves, Oakland, even the Dodgers had a bullpen of mostly no-names that they mixed-and-matched to be effective. The Sox have plenty of potential options- they need to find 5 or 6 that they can rely on.
“And, with the Sox bullpen today they wouldn’t beat anyone in the playoffs.”
The 2019 Nationals would have said that in June. Bullpens are a fickle thing.
Meh, at minimum he’s a low cost big improvement that required a barely prospect. Obviously it’d be great if they had Mookie Betts out there in RF, but he’s still a significant upgrade.
The Sox of the Sale / Quintana era had far too many massive holes, at least Mazara is a competent half of 2/3rds of a platoon.
Worst case scenario is that it’s a temporary stop-gap until George Springer hits free agency.
There weren’t really any great options in FA. It was either Puig, Ozuna or Dickerson and they’re all flawed in their own way.
Fulmer – how does a guy go from best college pitcher in his draft class (per Peter Gammons) to probably can’t grab the last bullpen spot? And no significant injury.
Extremely faulty pitching mechanics that play havoc with his control, a stubborn refusal to stay with adjustments that may seem uncomfortable initially and a loss of confidence from being rushed to the Majors amid high expectations: that’d be my guess.
What’s most troubling is that while many scouts said he was almost certainly going to be a reliever in the long run with his herky-jerky delivery, most all of them thought he’d be an impact reliever at a minimum. That he can’t even stick on 25-man at the back end of a bullpen does not speak well to the White Sox farm system.
Perhaps fault lies with the Sox minor league coaching staff but some reports suggest that Fulmer resisted efforts to correct his “herky-jerky” delivery. It certainly seems to have been a mistake to put Fulmer on the “Chris Sale path” of being rushed to the Majors while dealing with pitching mechanics on the fly.
This still does not reflect well on their minor league coaching staff.
I agree with you in this case. What worked with Sale clearly didn’t work with Fulmer. That may be why the team now seems inclined to err on the side of keeping prospects in the minors longer: that and service time manipulation.
Fulmer was rushed because they were grasping at straws and had zero depth in their system to draw from ahead of him. Any team with a healthy farm system wouldn’t have even considered bringing Fulmer up so quickly when it was clear he still had a lot to work on.
I was big on Fulmer so I’ve no problem criticizing how he was handled. But, they had just had success doing almost exactly the same thing with Sale who also had an unorthodox delivery. More importantly, they seem to have learned from their mistake.
There are several differences with Sale. For starters, one of the reasons teams allegedly avoided Sale was ostensibly because he was supposedly going to have a big bonus demand, and it’s been speculated that part of the White Sox being able to get him without breaking the bank on his bonus was by promising to fast track him to a major league salary as a reliever.
Also, Sale didn’t spend much time in the minors, but he was making an absolute mockery of it. Yeah, 7 appearances at AAA is not a huge sample size, but 21.3 K/9 is pretty hard to ignore even then.
@Trooper, I’m not sure we disagree on anything here except that maybe I’m a tad less critical of White Sox minor league coaching than you seem to be. I’d be among the first to say the team seriously mishandled Fulmer. I do think they’ve learn something from their mistake and also Fulmer seems uniquely resistant to changing his mechanics.
So was Giolito until somebody not within the organization was able to fix him. Maybe Fulmer wouldn’t have made it as a starter anywhere in the league, but what I saw of him from footage of his college days should have made for a decent reliever from day one.
I agree with you. But, I think Fulmer definitely wanted to remain a starter but resisted changing his delivery. A conflict of that sort seems to have been a large part of the initial problem and things just got worse. Too bad, the guy has “good stuff”. I just hope the Sox have learned from this obvious mistake.
Except he did change his delivery. It was obvious, and the results were hideous. His velocity wasn’t dropping because he was doing that on purpose.
I’m no pitching coach and I am not party to discussions about the problems Fulmer had integrating changes into his delivery. He’s trained with the Driveline crew and works out with Sonny Gray and still he struggles in AAA. I hope he works it out.
I don’t know if he never could have succeeded or if the Sox have broken him to a point where he can’t, but his failures do not appear to be entirely of his own making.
I think everyone in the Sox organization would agree that Fulmer’s development was mishandled. They do seem to be taking greater care with more recently drafted pitching prospects.
Pretty remarkable statement given most of them suffered catastrophic injuries or regressed terribly in the last two years.
oh look, the @Trooper tag emails me now!
You lucky devil, you.
Who dis?
last time I saw him, I thought he was a homeless person. I put a dollar in his cup. As it turns out, it was his beer, and for that I apologize.
That’s pitching, or maybe weak college pitching in the 2015 draft. There were 2 other college pitchers taken before Fulmer, one (Dillon Tate) is with his 3rd franchise and Fangraphs has him ranked 26th in the Orioles system. The other (Tyler Jay) is with his 2nd team and has not pitched above AA.
Madrigal 6!
Five are inside-the-park.
Are we using Little League scoring?
If the uniform fits…
That prediction was being overly generous….
Yes Yes & Yes ( finally )
Add a Puig to RF. Adam Frazier like mentioned yesterday. JD Martinez in July. Mookie Betts next year.
The #WhiteSox, making dramatic improvements after spending $195.5 million in free agency this winter, will now focus on improving the bullpen. They’re not actively involved in the free-agent derby for OFs Yasiel Puig or Nick Castellanos, saying they’re committed to Nomar Mazara
I just chuckle at the propaganda coming form the organization via Bob Nightengale. Say Bob they don’t even have a league average payroll right now so please spare me the meaningless 195 million dollar figure. I really get annoyed when owners try to play fans for fools.
“The White Sox spent $195.5 million!” (Spread across a half dozen players and 10-12 player seasons over the next four years.)
I don’t think that’s so much ownership spin as much as it’s Nightengale’s financial illiteracy. I mean:
The Marlins only paid them $27M before trading them all.
Fair enough …I didn’t realize he has a history of making that type of commentary
Yes, my comment was more directed at Nightengale’s idiocy than the organization’s messaging. While I’m sure the White Sox are happy for him to be so disingenuous, I agree this is probably mostly a function of lazy “journalism”.
At J-school this is called the “bias of large numbers” and it’s something you’re supposed to avoid (but no one does).
The urge to find the most sensational way to make a number seem big just because.
Never mind that three teams spent more than that this offseason on a single player.
OT, but what would be the appetite for emptying the farm for Josh Hader? Bummer was great last year, but resting our hopes this season and beyond on Bummer, Colome and the hope that a few of the minor league guys end up being great makes me uneasy. I’m not crazy about giving up Vaughn though, and he would certainly headline any package for Hader.
I think that type of acquisition waits until the trade deadline. The Sox can stock their bullpen without emptying the farm. Trading for Hader is a “we know we will be in the playoffs” move.
BIG No for me. If the cost is something like Dunning + Collins + Basabe/Rutherford or something, I cannot get on board for that. Which for 4 years of hader, I feel like that would be the minimum.
Too often we have seen Bullpen flamethrowers… Flame out. How’d trading for the young cost controlled Edwin Diaz work out for the Mets?
That is the sort of trade you do not make when you only look very good on paper. You can only make that trade when you actually look very good on the field. Way too much year to year variance/risk on bullpen arms for a team that won 72 games last year to fork over a bunch of prospects for a reliever, even one as good as Hader.
If we’re leading the division in July and Colome has majorly regressed or something, then you consider it if you truly think you can compete with the Yankees and Co.
Think about what it took for the Cubs to get a half season of Chapman. Apply a similar cost to Hader, if not a greater cost.
Keep in mind that Baseball America had one scout put a 70 hit / 70 power grade on Vaughn (future hall of fame), and another scout put him ahead of Pete Alonso. They expect him to probably be top 5 prospects in baseball by next year. Basically Eloy but playing 1B.
Until we know for sure if Vaughn has potential to be that good we can’t afford to trade him.
You’ve hit it exactly. I’ve heard Vaughn describe as Trout without the speed and defense. I’m guessing the comparison is over-blown but you’ve got to keep this guy until you see what he does in the Majors.
Comps like this are the reason comps in general are terrible
I’d take the under on that, if only for my own peace of mind.
Eloy should hit more than 33 homers. At least 38 at a minimum.
RF is open because mazara could start in AAA to gain an extra year of control.
I don’t think it works that way, fasteddy. Mazara’s got two years of control and then free agency, no matter where he plays.
My bad I read his service time was manipulated in texas?
I believe you are correct and tommytwonines is wrong here.
https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/rangers/2019/08/02/once-considered-a-pillar-of-the-future-nomar-mazara-s-future-could-be-in-question-after-rangers-recent-roster-moves
Nomar is at exactly 4 years of service time. The rangers did not manipulate his clock, but if we sent him down for about 3 weeks we would get another year of (at arbitration cost) control.
I’m not sure how valuable that would be.
Ironically we could justify doing it now, but it probably isn’t worth doing because Nomar isn’t that valuable to us.
Later, if Nomar starts playing well enough for us to want the extra year of control, it will be impossible for us to justify sending him down.
I believe the Twins engendered a whole lot of really bad juju with Buxton over something similar. They kept him to the minors (I believe during a rehab stint) in a pretty blatant attempt to manipulate his service time.
sox papertrial to the front of the class. reading mazara can’t hit lefty’s making platoon RF definite. he needs help now so I’m ok with AAA.
happy new years to all my Sox fan friends.
Is this accurate? Mazara could be a three-year versus two-year option? Seems late in the game for that type of manipulation. Can the Sox do that with Kopech? What are the differences?
When we first got him I actually thought it was three years. I really hope they don’t try to squeeze another year out of him in this fashion, though, because there doesn’t appear to be much to gain from doing so other than bitterness.
Kopech has pitched all of 14.1 ML innings and coming off TJS. Perfectly reasonable for him to start at Charlotte. Let’s just hope he gives reason to move up instead of having Burdi’s results last season
At a minimum he has his velocity back already, which is the biggest problem Burdi’s had since TJS.
Can the Sox do that with Kopech? What are the differences?The Sox can definitely do that with Kopech. I don’t know if they will try. They would need to shave about 9 weeks off his clock I believe.
Since he might be starting in AAA anyway just on rehab, it’s very much possible he pulls a hamstring or something and is out for a few weeks and then the Sox management decide keeping him down another month is too tempting to resist.
Especially since we will (hopefully) have a legitimate 5-man rotation going at the big league level, and we had originally called him up in August 2018. He wouldn’t have a very good grievance case.
Maybe this could be used as a bargaining chip to work out an in-season extension?
As for the differences? AFAIK there are none. Service time is service time. The longer a player has been up though the more blatant it is when you manipulate it.
I could be wrong here but I think his rehab time counts as mlb service. They would need to actually option him after that and then hed need to spend all of that time down in AAA.
@Eagle Bones
Kopech’s DL time does count as service time and we would need to option him. He has spent about 1 year and 6 weeks of service time.
If we want to reclaim a year we need to option him, and then send him down for those six weeks to get him back to 1 year even, and then keep him down another 3 weeks like we will for Robert/Madrigal — if that makes sense.
So about 9 weeks total. I don’t know the exact number of days.
@John SF Thanks for the info.
If Kopech looks good in spring, they should put him on the mlb roster, get his innings, shut him down most likely when Rodon comes back.
If he’s struggling in March and needs AAA time for more than month, different story. 9 weeks in the minors seems like a lot, though.
Go Puig
Amazing. All this hand-wringing over Mazara when the pitching is this poor. His floor is better than anything the Sox have had there in a while.
If the Sox miss the playoffs it will have nothing to do with Mazara end everything to do with having an average or below pitching staff.
The bar is not, “is Mazara better than Tilson/Palka/Cordell/Jay/Leury/Rymer Liriano/Willy Garcia/J.B. Shuck/Alen Hanson/Jason Coats/etc.”, but rather, “is Mazara better than Puig/Castellanos/Calhoun/Ozuna/etc.?” Just because they got better doesn’t mean they couldn’t have done better. Also, the pitching staff, while shaky, has a lot more upside and depth right now than right field.
I agree that “is Mazara better than….” is not the bar; but, it is significant that Mazara’s floor is above replacement level. That’s a significant upgrade at the position. Equally significant is the upside that should Mazara respond to instruction and make changes in his swing, then he becomes a much better fit than does any available free-agent right-fielders.
Critics of Namor seem to view the trade as Hahn settling for a mediocre, cheap improvement when better was available. I see it as recognizing the shortcomings of the available free agents and choosing the option with the highest likelihood for improvement. Mazara will very likely improve his approach to hitting (he seems to have been in the process of doing so when he suffered an injury); Castellanos, Ozuna and Puig aren’t going to become left-handed hitters and Calhoun isn’t going to grow younger.
Understand that my problem with Mazara is not the player himself, but that the White Sox had aspirations so low for the position they were willing to settle for a guy who is a 0-1 WAR player with an outside shot at being better than that. But your faux-pas with his name makes me rethink my position somewhat because this is just ripe for all sorts of Sub-Mariner references.
I’ve always been more of an Aqua-man fan myself. The thing is that Nomar isn’t a typical +0.7 WAR player.
I’m sure there’s some people who thought similarly about Jurickson Profar.
Oh! This goes well with the pun I was already planning. Whenever he hits a homerun I was going to shout “huzzaruh!”
Jesus christ, ownership has done a fantastic job of lowering expectations. His floor is above replacement level? Is that really something were pointing to as a plus now?
@Eagle Bones. Yes. Real world GM’s can’t limit themselves to acquiring only proven, guaranteed +4 WAR players. Houston released JD Martinez after he compiled a -1.1WAR season. Detroit acquired Martinez on a minor league contract because his floor was below replacement level. Martinez’s ceiling proved to be much higher. It’s not a question of lowered expectations; it’s and adult understanding of how the world works.
“Minor league contract” is kind of different than “starting outfielder”.
This off season, including leaving right field as a work in progress, would be totally fine with me if we could count on a Betts or Springer FA acquisition next year. Anything short of that is playing to an AL Central division ceiling, with Twins-like results every time they have to play the Yankees in round one.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/12/latest-chatter-on-shogo-akiyama.html
Wonder how much of Myers’ salary the Padres would be willing to eat if they got Akiyama. He doesn’t really have big splits, but he’s consistently posted strong numbers against LHP despite playing half his games in PetCo and might be a good complement to Mazara. Of course, the Padres would have to eat, like, 75-80% of his remaining contract before I’d even consider it.
Maybe bad contracts are just karmic justice
I was pretty intrigued by the Puig possibility. It made a perfect storm of sense.
1. We had/have opening in right.
2. We are short on D.
3. We could use a little attention-getting star power and flair.
4. Puig on a prove it one year deal? If he ever would be motivated to prove he’s a star and prove he’s a good teammate so he can get a bigger contract, now would be the time.
On a one year deal, if he pans out – great. Both sides win. If he doesn’t, you’re free of him going forward and you still have Mazara signed for another year. Also you’d be covered in right and move Leury to full on utility to back up the infield and save us from rumors involving Yolmer and Gordon Beckham.
All your points on Puig are great. I totally agree that we should sign him. Doing so would give us a chance to see what we really have in Mazara, without us being in a situation where he has to play every day. I would be fine with Mazara playing about 60 or 70 games this season, mostly when we are facing pitchers who are good matchups for him.
Mazara or Puig also would see some action in left field, because the odds of Jimenez going through an entire season without some type of injury aren’t very good. And signing Puig would prevent us from having to play Garcia or Engel for extended stretches if an outfielder does get hurt.
How do you see what you have in Mazara if he rarely plays? If he is still trying to be something, he needs to at the very least face all RH. And Puig won’t want a 1 yr deal to prove himsslf unless he is playing every day.