If you doubled the White Sox's win total at the 81-game mark, they would finish the season 52-110.
If you take the same data from the first half and run it through ZiPS a million times, the White Sox would finish the season at ... 53-109. I don't know why Dan Szymborski goes through all the trouble.
With the White Sox no longer in the realm of the historically miserable, I'm more interested in how ZiPS perceives the Rockies. The White Sox both hurt and help the Rockies' cause by taking two of three in Denver, which is enough to improve Colorado's winning percentage, but not enough to shake them out of a pace that is worse than the White Sox's 41-121 record in 2024.
ZiPS isn't willing to concede that fate, though, forecasting 49 wins despite a current pace of 38. Then again, projection systems are naturally inclined to pull outlier cases toward the median until the evidence becomes impossible to simulate through. It gave the White Sox just an 8.1 percent chance of losing 120 games when they started the year 3-21, and it wasn't until August that it started putting the record within range of the median outcome.
Baseball teams just aren't supposed to be this bad, and for nearly the entirety of the modern era, they haven't been. If this is the effect of a stratification of baseball rather than coincidence, and teams will regularly be making runs at 120 losses, it'll be fascinating to see whether the algorithms will be able to recognize it.
Spare Parts
Coors Field, not Rate Field, is the site of disaster tourism this year, with the series between the two worst teams in baseball bringing Sam Blum out for it. As rough of shape the White Sox are in, they were at least able to trade their way into building some interest. It's hard to see the Rockies being able to do the same.
On one hand, it's shocking to see the Nationals fire their GM and manager a week before they make the No. 1 pick in Sunday's MLB draft. On the other hand, it's equally surprising that they kept their jobs as long as they did. You might remember all sorts of discontent between Mike Rizzo and the Nationals when he used the White Sox's opening for leverage back in 2023, and it's not like they've been meaningfully better since. In other White Sox-adjacent news, Miguel Cairo could get his second interim manager gig.
- Sources: Guardians' Luis Ortiz subject of gambling investigation -- ESPN
- The suspect pitchers in MLB's gambling investigation of Luis Ortiz look not great -- Defector
In the middle of the Cleveland Guardians' 10-game losing streak, ESPN reported that Major League Baseball was investigating Luis Ortiz due to some heavy gambling activity around a pair of first-pitch sliders that missed the zone to start innings. The first came in the second inning on June 15, and the second opened the third inning on June 27. While the pitches themselves would fail to look noteworthy over the course of a 100-pitch start, they did stand out for having outlier release points.
Jesse Rogers' survey of league executives' best deadline stories includes Chris Getz dealing with a GM that wouldn't stop calling during his uncle's funeral:
"There's a GM out there who if there is interest, he doesn't stop calling," Getz recalled. "So I told him my uncle had passed away and I have his funeral, but don't worry, we're going to do the deal. I'm not going anywhere other than the fact that I'm a pallbearer at my uncle's funeral. I need a couple hours. He says, 'Cool, I got you.'"
The funeral started, but the calls didn't stop.
"My phone is ringing at the funeral now," Getz said. "It wasn't actually ringing when I was carrying the casket, but it was close enough. I told people at the celebration afterwards what was going on and they were like 'Hey Chris, Uncle Mike would have absolutely loved that you executed a trade at his funeral."
Squaring up the White Sox's transaction page against the date of the funeral service, all of that urgency didn't seem to be necessary. Hours after the mass, the White Sox announced the acquisition of Max Stassi.
- Kansas City arts groups 'left reeling' after Missouri governor slashes millions from budget -- KCUR 89.3
- MLB policy hurt Royals' ability to honor Negro Leagues. Will it change? -- Kansas City Star
Among the vetoes that Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe issued axed $12.2 million of support for Kansas City nonprofits, including $750,000 earmarked for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. He did sign a legislative package including hundreds of millions of dollars of financial aid to keep the Chiefs and Royals in the state with new and/or improved stadiums, though.
If there's any good news from this story about how the internet giants are narrowing access to news sites year after year, whether by deprioritizing links on social media or providing AI summaries at the top of search results page, it's that outlets with these characteristics are said to have the best chance at survival:
The whole premise of internet publishing — that you could reach audiences far and wide — is starting to crumble, forcing publishers to reevaluate what kind of stories they produce and what kind of readers they want — and, ultimately, to think smaller and more bespoke.
And:
So what’s working? Original reporting can break through the noise and even overcome, at times, the hurdles that social-media companies have created. Publishers now place a premium on content that reinforces their voice and sensibility.
And:
With some exceptions, the current media environment favors publications with focused offerings that play to their strengths and cater to the most dedicated audience members.
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