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Hitting - 90 ABs + (Batter, Primary Position, bWAR (Plate Appearances) - Comments Starting Nine: Jose Abreu 1B 2.8 (262) - Top 10 MLB Finish, LeMahieu (2.9) lone AL hitter higher. Tim Anderson SS 2.2 (221) Luis Robert CF 1.6 (227) - dWAR > oWAR 1.0 vs. 0.8 Eloy Jimenez LF 1.1 (226) - Defense really hurt with a -0.6 dWAR Yasmani Grandal C 0.6 (194) - Doubled after final game (0.3). Yoan Moncada 3B 0.5 (231) - Hopefully he will regain full health next season, looked good to close the season. Nick Madrigal 2B 0.4 (109) - 7th best OPS among starters / key reserves, nice rookie year but needs improvement in baserunning and added gap power. Nomar Mazara RF -0.3 (149) - Adequate defense saved him from finishing last among the starters. Edwin Encarnacion DH -0.5 (181) - Brutal signing, would like the real story as to whether Hahn or Ricky continued to want him in the lineup after Labor Day. Bench James McCann 1.2 (111) - 50 more ABs at C or DH would have been prudent. Danny Mendick 0.6 (114) - Adequate fill in / reserve. Adam Engel 0.5 (93) - 50 more ABs at RF / LF would have been prudent. Pitching: (IP) WAR Starters Dallas Keuchel (63) 2.0 - Great first season with the Sox. Lucas Giolito (72) 0.8 - Nice season, flashes of brilliance. Key rotation piece. Dane Dunning (34) 0.1 - Nice exposure for the rookie, may need more seasoning in the minors to build on his success. Dylan Cease (58) 0.1 - Took the ball each time with mixed results, needs to gain command of his pitches to gain the next step. Biggest ??? coming into next season. Carlos Rodon (8) -0.4 - Should be joining Carson Fulmer as a former White Sox first rounder this offseason, unless he agrees to return as low $ / incentive laden contract. Reynaldo Lopez (26) -0.6 - Not sure he will ever be able adequately perform at the ML level. Relievers Alex Colome (22) 1.0 - Great season for future free agent, hope he returns. Codi Heuer (24) 0.8 - Excellent unexpected season for the 2018 6th rounder. Matt Foster (29) 0.7 - Excellent unexpected season for the 2016 20th rounder. Evan Marshall (23) 0.6 - Another solid season, hope he is on for the playoffs. Aaron Bummer (9) 0.3 - Injury major blow, though allowed Heuer and Foster to gain valuable exposure and experience. Garrett Crochet (6) 0.3 - High impact for a mere 3 innings, hope he can transition to a starter by 2022. Jace Fry (20) 0.1 - Adequate middle reliever. Gio Gonzalez (32) -0.3 - Likely the end of the road with the White Sox. Jimmy "Everyday" Cordero (27) -0.8 - WAR crushed on the final day, possibly his last as a Chicago White Sox. My final grades are B+ for the starting nine, B+ for the bench, B for the starting pitching and A for the bullpen, the sum of which is B+ for the entire class.

Says the grown man still pouting about us drafting Nick Madrigal every chance he gets. For your sake, I really hope the kid boinked your girl or something because this hatred isn’t healthy.

We cant realistically expect to win a game where we are running a pitcher out there who has World Series experience and a 1.99 ERA this season because we are facing Chris Bassit?

By that logic, you might as well include Eloy, Anderson and everyone signed to an extension as they block FAs.

Can't believe people want Rodon starting an elimination game if needed. Dude is toast. Gimme Crochet for 2-3 innings then go from there

Please, everyone, stop with the bullshit "equivalency". You can't just multiple the games by 2.7 and say that's what would happen in a full season. Baseball games aren't played on a calculator. They showed most of the year that they had the talent to win 4-5 more games than they did. Expectations change, they did not outperform when it was all said and done.

Then just post the thread, this isn't a column.

Cmon man. Half of us could be better than Mazara.

Why are we talking about game 3? Sox in 2 baby!!!

In other news, Rick Hahahan sucks at his job.

Holy shit, you've started more threads in your short tenure here than 99% of the posters do here.

I mean, there just aren't a lot of good left handed starters right now in the AL and NL Central. However, our combined OPS against all lefties is far higher than it is against righties. Here's the lefty starters we've faced (WAR values are fWAR) Danny Duffy - 0.5 WAR Kris Bubic - 0.5 WAR Brett Anderson - 0.6 WAR Tyler Alexander - -0.1 WAR Matthew Boyd - 0 WAR Tarik Skubal - - 0.1 WAR Jon Lester - 0.3 WAR Steven Brault - 0.8 WAR Rich Hill - 0.7 WAR I count a total of 3.2 WAR. Also Tim Anderson alone put Matthew Boyd into negative WAR territory. Yes, none of those guys were elite, but there just weren't a lot of elite left handed starters this year. If you go look at the Pitcher WAR leaderboards, the first lefty that pops up is freaking Marco Gonzales. Are the A's lefties better than most of the guys we faced? Probably. But does that mean our numbers against lefties are just propped up by bad pitchers? Doesn't appear so.

It would actually be irresponsible for us not to forfeit these games. Can we just save money on the flight and send an apology note?

On second thought maybe we should leave them both off and recall Burdi.

Giolito on 1 day rest.

Truthfully, I haven't paid an exceptional amount of attention to baseball outside the Central this season. So I started looking into the A's a bit. It became clear very quickly that the West was dreadful this season. The A's played 54 of their 60 games against teams that finished below .500. And in the 6 games that they played against teams over .500, they were 2-4. I'm sure part of that can be attributed to the fact that the Dodgers and Padres were bludgeoning everyone all season long, but 54 is excessive. It feels like a just a couple weeks ago the White Sox record was being called into question for loading up wins against the Tigers, Royals, and Pirates, but all that only amounted to 28 games.

Swap Leury for Mazara and you've got yourself a deal.

Players I want to see tomorrow Tim Yoan Yasmani Jose Eloy Luis James Leury if healthy or Engel Nick

The team quit having fun because 1) the manager didn't do a good job keeping the clubhouse on an even keel. They rode way too fucking high on their own supply at times this year. And 2) the same manager that let the good times roll wasn't capable of putting the team in the best position to win on a nightly basis. This manifested itself when the team played better clubs and wasn't hitting the leather off the ball every night. I've said it a million times chemistry comes from winning, not the other way around. That said, it's the manager's job to keep the clubhouse grounded and not let the team get too emotionally high or low during a season while putting them in the best position tactically and strategically to win every night: can anybody say Renteria did that this year? Hell no.

It should be noted that this team quit having fun the last couple weeks. Was that RRs fault or was the pressure too much for them? Did they give up on RR? I think they should find out what the players want.

As far as I am concerned, this season is legitimate unless the Cubs win it all. Then it's a huge asterisk.

What the hell????? When did the Yanks get deGrom????? This isn't fair. ?

This could really come down to what happens in games 1 and 2. If both Giolito and Keuchel can go deep in their games (with perhaps Marshall and Colome the only pen arms used), then a bullpen game in game 3 makes a lot of sense. Foster and Heuer can both go multiple innings, and Crochet probably as well. Then you have Bummer and see where you are. If the bullpen gets somewhat taxed in the first couple games, though, you pretty much have to go with Dunning in game 3 and hope he can give you at least 5 quality innings.

Sounds like the A’s rotation will be (1) Manaea, (2) Bassitt, & (3) Luzardo. We haven’t faced the first two guys much, but here’s how our players have performed in their careers against them: Manaea: .154 OPS across 53 plate appearances Mazara: 4/17, 3 K, 0 BB, 0 XBH, .513 OPS Encarnacion: 1/8, 4 K, 0 BB, 0 XBH, .250 OPS Dyson: 1/9, 0 K, 0 BB, 0 XBH, .222 OPS All Other: 1/19, 5 K, 0 BB, 0 XBH, .125 OPS Bassitt: .314 OPS across 60 plate appearances Abreau: 3/12, 2 K, 0 BB, 0 XBH, .500 OPS Sanchez: 0/8, 3 K, 0 BB, 0 XBH, .000 OPS Anderson: 2/6, 1 K, 0 BB, 2 XBH, 1.000 OPS Moncada: 1/6, 0 K, 0 BB, 0 XBH, .333 OPS Mazara: 1/6, 2 K, 1 BB, 0 XBH, .452 OPS All Other: 2/19, 4 K, 2 BB, 0 XBH, .333 OPS Very small sample sizes, but surprisingly ugly nonetheless. Also, note that none of our hitters have ever faced Luzardo.

At least we only had 3 guys (Eloy, Madrigal & Leary) get injured sliding this year. It’s super hard to slide without getting inured.

Here is another thing to note. The ALDS starts Monday October 5th. So there is no reason we should be using any bad pitchers. We can go all out in a potential game 3 for a short leash day. Hell, if we win game one and have a lead in game 2, we may want to go all out to win game 2. That would give us 4 days of rest.

The worn out pen can't be blamed on ricky though. In the contrary ricky actually protected his best pen guys by often putting in weaker relievers in tough spots which set up the team to fail but protected the arms of the best relievers. The actual problem was the sox only have 2 starters who can go more than 5 so the pen was used a lot. Had Ricky run the pen like the forum wanted him to do which is basically treat every game like game 7 and never put in a bad reliever in a tough spot the pen would have already been worn out after 30 games. Ricky made some bad moves but I also felt he protected colome, foster and heuer which were the only reliable relievers over the season after the bummer injury reasonably well by not using them all the time. If the forum could have decided those 3 and bummer when available would have pitched every game but then they would have been dead by the all star break. If you have a season with very few off days, starters who can't go deep and really only 3-4 relievers who are good managing a pen is a tough task. He could have gone dusty Baker and always use the best guys but that would have killed the pen.

So first, I hope someone reading this appreciates the irony of you defending restaurant visits on a Baseball forum and also talking about personal responsibility in the same post, where the last issue with restaurants in MLB was a team banishing 2 players to the minors and trading one because they went to a restaurant after a game and the team judged that such an outrageous betrayal that they would not play with those players again. Second, this is a damned lethal, dreadfully harmful virus. 300,000 Americans will die of it in 2020, maybe more if we keep opening more things up. Please tell me how on earth the binary “this is bad” is the wrong thing. Is a good middle ground more dead Americans than that? Come on. We are witnessing the worst mass casualty event for Americans in a single year since the civil war right now. You want to complain about me being an absolutist about literally hundreds of thousands dead and millions seriously damaged where they will be affected for who knows how many years being awful and something we should not just be ok with? Go ahead. This is awful and that is my binary position. Argue that I’m being too absolute about that. Third...going to a restaurant or a bar, you are not being personally responsible. The Cleveland Indians recognized that. You are relying on everyone else being responsible and keeping masks on, not going out if exposed. If they don’t do that, you could do everything right and still get it. You literally added the “unless they are taking a drink” exception to your post, and if a person has it, that’s plenty to infect you in that enclosed building. And then you become a transmission vector. You kept your mask on, but someone else took a drink and now you got it, so where were you irresponsible? When you went out in the first place, which you just excused and justified to defend your favorite winery. That’s the horrible part of this. If you want to be personally responsible then you can do nothing. You cannot visit your favorite bar, because you already made a risky choice. And if even one of your relatives or neighbors does the irresponsible thing of going to a bar or restaurant, your personal responsibility lecture does nothing, because they can get you. And that’s where the contradiction comes in. You are so used to blaming people for their failures with the personal responsibility trope that there’s no context for a problem that only is fixed if we all do the right thing. You need communal responsibility. You need someone else to do the right thing. If you only care about what you want to lecture about, your individual responsibility, then going out is a mistake. We can demonstrate this statistically that people going to restaurants get sick. And there is the problem. I don’t want your favorite restaurant to die, but I also don’t want another 14,000 Texans to die this year from it. Restaurants are not safe if there is uncontrollable transmission. Every time someone else gets it, that is another reason for me to not visit any site as a high risk individual. My money can help keep these places open but I havent had restaurant food in 7 months. The right answer was the same one in April. You love a restaurant? They are not a safe place to be during uncontrolled transmission. They have to close. Even outdoors is a risk. But keeping them from failing is now a community responsibility. People die when they open and I hope you are not seriously going to try to justify those deaths as some middle ground. So restaurants have to rely on takeout and the government has to spend money to keep them from failing completely. That keeps being included in the bill Democrats want passed, but Republicans specifically are blocking aid to restaurants. Is it a binary to note that Democrats passed that aid in May and nothing has happened because the Republicans don’t care? End uncontrolled transmission then you have a shot at keeping those places open, but again that requires far more work and far greater restrictions, and the idea that we need to control this is just labeled an “extreme position”, so this person with a compromised immune system will continue being as responsible as they can be and hope that they can leave this community before they get him sick. And if your restaurant fails...well you can’t lecture me about personal responsibility. So in the end, Texas has opened stuff up again, half their restaurants will fail anyway because a lot of people are being responsible and there is no support, and we will hear lectures about personal responsibility when that trope means everyone must stay inside until community transmission stops. So ironically, you get to choose. Which is important to you. Do you want to lecture people about personal responsibility, or do you want every public gathering and restaurant to shut down? Because just like for the Cleveland Indians, that's the binary you set up. If you're ready to accept that this is a communal, nationwide problem that we all have to solve together then we have a way out. Get case loads down to a reasonable number where every one can be tracked and traced. Create a legitimate tracking and tracing program where opening new things doesn't lead to new transmission. When cases pop up, treat every one as a challenge. Isolate people who are sick and provide them available health care. Pay to keep businesses from failing while we develop this system. Or alternatively, lecture people about personal responsibility while trying somehow to justify behavior that is demonstrably irresponsible, and just look the other way as the body count climbs...like we're doing right now. I hope that this isn't the middle ground you want..

I would like to thank this post and those who enjoyed this post for my 1,000th piece of flair. Office Space shout out.

Lost meaning / importance at this point with literally a team in the bottom half of MLB is now a "playoff participant", and two teams two games under .500. Playoffs used to signify a quality season, wild card cheapened it, 16 teams destroyed it. Now it's worse than the NHL (31 teams) and tied with the NBA (30) as the least meaningful regular season.

First off, I congratulate Ricky for getting us into the playoffs and helping return the Sox to some sense of relevance. He should get some consideration for MOY. However, I do think the Sox should have reservations regarding his ability to guide this team going forward. The last week has been brutal. I will give him credit for creating the culture where the players felt comfortable and some of them did blossom. But now it is about winning, not developing. The only culture should now be about wins and losses, especially in September. You had to pinch hit for Nomar tonight. You had to bring in better pitching options late in winnable games. You have to win the game now for there is no tomorrow. Is Ricky capable? This past week says no.

Everything but the House of Horrors and Ricky Renteria plays to the Sox advantage. Alliteration is our enemy.

Sounds like their fans are about just as crazy as us White Sox fans.

It’s the playoffs for the first time in Renteria’s career. He’s rested guys for injury and tried to preserve others late in the season. Bullpen use during the season is not all about putting the best pitcher out there everyday because you have to think about the next day or the playoffs. I’d say nows the time when we really get to judge Renteria’s game decisions.

Nice thread RR but you are not the MOY. The Sox won despite you and that worthless pitching coach.

Kid has a 115 wRC+ as a rookie and prospect junkie @Harold's Leg Lift is so bitter they didn’t take a high ceiling guy at #4 that he’s going to spend the rest of his life making stupid and/or false comments about him. Fucking weird as fuck.

This thread is burning hot....

Desperately need a RF this offseason

I would like a refund on Encarnacion, Gio Gonzales and Mazara. a waste of about 17m that could have been spent on a pitcher the like of Mehta or someone of that stature. And whatever we're paying Renteria is also TOO MUCH. We need to invest in a REAL MANAGER, another quality starter to go with Giolitto and Keuchel. Lopez obviously is not the answer, who knows if Rodon will ever return to his old form. Cease and Dunning?? Not sure if they have what it takes and if by some miracle, Kopech can play MAYBE that's the answer at the 3 or 4 slot. We don't know the plans for Crochet yet. I don't know who's on the market during the winter. If anyone knows please post it. Saving grace is the Parrot Head is here this year and gone. Don't know about Gio G's contract, but gut him loose. Cease and Dunning needed a this year in the minors, but it is what it is. They may develop next year. With this offensive, 1 more stud starter and we will win the Central easily next year. It might by Kopech, it might not be. Maybe Cease/Dunning combine as a 5th starter throwing 4 innings each. LOL, only kidding!!!! We need as i've said in another post, RESIGN MCCANN!!!!! he and Yasmani can trade off catching and DH.

Surely science and technology has improved over the next two decades to make this feasible for Eloy's remaining tenure in Left Field.

It sucks cause I thought he turned a corner after his starts against Cleveland and Minnesota. But after he gave up the Bote homer today, he went back to his usual shit.

They'll just tear it down in a few years.

Why would we need to when we have Crochet and Bummer already? In what situation would you throw Rodon ahead of those 2 guys in a high leverage situation? Especially in the playoffs, where you throw your best guys regardless of how little rest they have.

That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard 0_0

I just don't see the W'Sox beating them, that's all. Their a competent team and we aren't. Oakland is not on playoff level after losing Chapman. They find ways to win, but they don't have shit. Twins have a good enough SP with a legit offense and a team that didn't limp itself down the season. White Sox look like pretenders right now.

It's obvious at this point that Cishek is a reader of this board and doesn't have any real sources. He just reads what people are speculating about on here and pretends he has sources.

That's why Engel needs to start in CF, Robert in right, Garcia in LF, and Eloy as DH.

This team doesn't have an on/off switch. Momentum matters. We are playing the worse baseball out of any team in the field right now. Its nothing to be happy about.

Creepy...as...fuck