Earlier this month, Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated noted that the usage of automated ball-strike technology in spring training required players to take accurate height measurements in order to compute the vertical boundaries of their strike zone.
Those following the White Sox immediately thought of Andrew Vaughn and as we discussed on Tuesday's podcast, the updated White Sox roster page now shows him as two inches shorter from his previously listed height of 6 feet even. That led Sox Machine reader Jorge Fábregas (probably not the former White Sox catcher) to wonder who else has been living a lie, although he put it less judgmental terms.
Using a cached version on the Wayback Machine of the White Sox roster page from Feb. 25, here are the changes for the players in major league camp, starting with those who actually gained from the reassessment.
Taller now
| Player | February | March | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dominic Fletcher | 5-6 | 5-8 | +2 |
| Jairo Iriarte | 6-2 | 6-4 | +2 |
| Andrew Benintendi | 5-9 | 5-10 | +1 |
| Brooks Baldwin | 6-0 | 6-1 | +1 |
| Mason Adams | 6-0 | 6-1 | +1 |
| Noah Schultz | 6-9 | 6-10 | +1 |
Loyal Sox Machine readers learned last September that Schultz grew an inch back last September, and Iriarte might be in that same boat of being initially measured when he was a teenager. The others are new. Baldwin growing an inch supports the late-bloomer theory I mentioned in our top prospect list, Fletcher's gain means he's no longer in Jose Altuve territory, and Benintendi is now as tall as ...
Shorter now
| Player | February | March | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew Vaughn | 6-0 | 5-10 | -2 |
| Korey Lee | 6-2 | 6-0 | -2 |
| Matt Thaiss | 6-0 | 5-11 | -1 |
| Lenyn Sosa | 6-0 | 5-11 | -1 |
| Wilfred Veras | 6-2 | 6-1 | -1 |
| Fraser Ellard | 6-4 | 6-3 | -1 |
| Shane Smith | 6-4 | 6-3 | -1 |
| Tim Elko | 6-4 | 6-3 | -1 |
| Bobby Dalbec | 6-4 | 6-3 | -1 |
... Andrew Vaughn, whose listed height now seems like it's actually in the neighborhood. Korey Lee also lost two inches, but maybe that explains how he's able to unfold himself quickly enough to have the league's best pop time.
All in all, there are more players who are shorter than originally thought, which makes sense. There's incentive to boost listed heights, and then the players that come into the league are standing around a bunch of false reference points. If this is the new standard, then it bears watching to see how college heights compare to the spring revisions.
Spare Parts
Following up on the last Spare Parts, the Sun-Times says enough employees took a buyout to avoid layoffs, but they still lost 20 percent of their employees. Sports took a big hit. Along with Daryl Van Schouwen taking a buyout, Annie Costabile, Mark Potash, Rick Telander and Rick Morrissey are all leaving.
Usually I rephrase jargon, but we're putting it out there as stated because given the general customer satisfaction level with Fanatics, this doesn't seem like something to trumpet. Yet given that Fanatics seems to have a monopoly-grade hold on sports merchandise and is expanding into other areas (tickets, sportsbooks), this seems closer to inevitable than a choice the White Sox actively made, even if they're just the sixth team to strike this sort of deal. We'll find out more when Josh goes to food day at the ballpark Wednesday.
Keith Law talks about his looks at numerous White Sox prospects during the Spring Breakout game against the Rockies, but everything more or less jibes with the general scouting reports. The departures are on the defensive side, and they're ... pleasant? He said Edgar Quero "flashed a plus arm multiple times," and also remarked on Colson Montgomery's throw from deep in the hole.
The White Sox are now getting dunked on by the usually staid AP headline.
Three years seems like too early to declare a curse, but a baseball from the 1919 World Series that was found in the Tribune Tower in 2022 was put back there in hopes of ending the White Sox's streak of increasingly disappointing seasons.
- There's something happening here -- Baseball Prospectus
- Defending from the bench -- Baseball Prospectus
A couple of weeks ago, Russell Carleton posited that a team built entirely of replacement-level players can now be expected to win more than 50 games. That's pretty shocking after a season where the White Sox only won 41, but when Carleton subsequently explains that the strength lies in replacement-level players usually being very good at catching fly balls, and thus increasing a team's defensive efficiency, it becomes more apparent why that particular boat resisted the rising tide.
By buying on the open market, the Dodgers are able to turn into sellers on the trade market by dealing the younger players they just blocked.
Max Stassi never played for the White Sox last year, as his attempt to return from hip problems stalled out after five games with the Charlotte Knights in April. He ended up undergoing another hip surgery, the same kind that Patrick Kane had, and his spring with San Francisco is off to a promising start. Also, his son has started breathing on his own, just short of his second birthday.
