The Kids Can Play

I said Ruiz needed be DFA after the last bad outing and now with this even worse debacle outing he needs to absolutely 100 percent be F*@#ing DFA tonight. In three outings he has 2 innings, 6 hits, 7 ER's, 3 BB's 31.50 ERA, Whip 4,50, 2 HR's. His fastball is much slower than in previous years and still has zero movement. His slider is pathetic and not a major league secondary pitch. Let me remind everyone he was bad last year as well In 2022 he had a 4.60 ERA, 1.42 Whip. Let's quit with this nonsense he will turn it around and he is just off to a bad start and it's only 5 games in. This once again, is all on Rick Hahn and his front office of scouts and executives who have no clue in how to identify pitching talent, then drafting or trading for it and then finally and most importantly, then coaching and developing it. Only with a loser POS owner like JR, can an inept GM like Hahn still have a job.

194 .282 .286 .568 Let's hope the Giants stay bad today. In 3 games besides being 1-2, they are averaging 2.3 runs a game which is tied for 6th worst in MLB. They have a stat line of: 194/.282/.286/.568. Most importantly, for a strong strikeout pitcher as Kopech is, the Giants hitters lead the Majors in most strikeouts with 41 K's in 3 games or 13.67 K's per game. Time to bring your A game Michael!

I agree with you that TA would be a better #2 or even #3 ideally. However Pedro isn't going to move TA out of the leadup spot anytime this year and screw with TA's head or the team's great team morale he has already quickly changed and recreated prior to the previous POS manager. I agree Yoan needs to bat higher but I think at #2 where he has batted before and especially now with his high OBP and contact rate. The whole here key is Robert. If Robert can once and for all learn to be a more patient and disciplined early in the count, he could be a killer at #3. Imagine if TA and Yoan get on consistently before Luis. With any type of player discipline, Luis could be seeing more great pitches in the zone to crush, which we all know he can do on balls in the zone versus out of the zone. I get it's only four games, but TA is .389 BA/450 OBP and Yoan is .444 BA/.474 OBP. Robert's at .263BA/.263OBP would go up big time if he was behind two guys getting on more often and a Eloy and Vaughn hitting behind Robert. However the bottom line is #2 is not a good spot for Robert. I am confident Grifol will figure out the best Sox lineup. He is a rookie manager and it's only his 4th game. The POS manager from last year had two years of making lineups and couldn't ever figure it out, so let's be patient with Pedro.

First home game is always exciting! I am expecting Kopech to bring a strong start today and the bats coming alive even more. The bullpen better clean up their sorry ass outings.

My thoughts from the season opening series: Great split against the defending World Series champions and one of the best ML teams in baseball on the road. Much more patience and growth today from Robert at the plate. Moncada is simply crushing it! Maybe he needs to be at the three spot. As I suggested in a previous post before the season, the no shifting in 2023 is going to help Grandal a lot this year in getting more hits. Colas is going to contend for Rookie of the year. Once he learns to hold off on all the breaking pitches, he will be a beast. All four starters were solid. Cease looks like his sights are set on winning the Cy Young and not coming close. If we had a good bullpen we could have gone 4-0.

They have every right to get on him. Once again he is chasing way too pitches early in the count and getting behind. Pitchers now know to not throw Robert anything in the zone on the first few pitches. Yes, Robert will be fine once he gets more patient (which hopefully he and better learn) at the plate and wait on those early terrible outside the zone pitches, to get ahead in the count, so he can go attack the fastballs and be the hitter we know he can be.

Every year we keep Ruiz and he sucks. Every time he goes in a game you know something bad is going to happen. His fastball is now slowing down and it's never had any movement, nor could he pinpoint the pitch to the right part of the zone. His secondary pitches are also weak and pathetic. Please DFA this loser and bring someone else up. I am sick and tied of watching the other good teams show how they can properly evaluate and develop good bullpen pitchers and we keep failing miserably in the front office, scouting and coaching departments.

Don't Stop Now Boys! This is a different attitude team and with a solid manager as the leader. I think the bats come alive tonight in a big way!

A definite Yes for one big reason, which was his control and efficiency in pitches thrown. We all know his dominance as a strikeout pitcher is as great as any pitcher in baseball. However what was impressive last night was the fact he had zero walks in 6.1 innings. He only threw 86 pitches. Last season Dylan threw the second most pitches per innings in the ML for all starters at 16.96 pitches per inning. He also led all ML starters in BB/9 at 3.82. Of course the 10K's and only 2 hits given up was awesome for 6.1 innings, but the zero walks is not only amazing, but it clearly shows the incredible improvement and hard work he put in the off-season, towards establishing himself as being the "best pitcher on the planet" as Buster Olney reported last night.

All sound and excellent points. If most of the above points are met, then of course we can be a playoff team and WS contender. The biggest thing they need to do is get off to a huge successful start and let the momentum build. As far as the no shifting rule and how it will affect the Sox. I personally think the Sox will do better because it. Grandal for one, made a lot of hard outs only because they shifted on him. This year many of those hits will now be singles. As we know, the Sox hit a a lot of groundballs for outs. Many of them were in the shifted infield. Of course none of us know what will happen this year due to the non shifts, but it's my opinion we won't be hurt by it as much as other clubs.

Big was the criteria just as the original poster stated. He called Eloy big at 6'4" 240 lbs. and that was the reason he was always injured with his pulled muscles. As a result, I posted players who have the similar size and weight and played a pretty full season unlike Eloy's pathetic 84 games.

Hoskins wasn't done for the season last year and played 156 games to Eloy's 84 games.

First of all they weren't all first baseman. Secondly the poster made the claim that the reason Eloy gets injured so often is because of pulled muscles that all big men seem to have. I was establishing the fact that being a big and/or tall baseball player has nothing to do with getting injured.. As a result I wanted to show the fact that tons of big men play close to full seasons. Plus Eloy's injuries sometimes have been just running down the first base line. The players I listed also run down the line often and obviously stay healthy and played a more extensive season than Eloy ever has.

You could not be more incorrect on stretching can decrease speed and power. Go watch the world class track sprinters at world class events and see how much they stretch. Btw, if you ever went to a game when Abreu played for us, his stretching before the game was quite extensive. He also was stretching before every at bat in the on deck circle. In fact all the baseball players on all teams stretch.

That is a bunch of crap! Eloy has a lot of problems with pulled muscles but it's not because he is a big man. Not all big men have these issues. Playing more games is a matter of training properly in the off season and stretching properly every game. This means proper stretching not only before the game, but throughout the entire game. Eloy is is 6'4" 240 lbs and played in only 84 games in 2022. Let's compare Eloy to the other "Big Men" in baseball from the 2022 season: Matt Olson 6'5" - 225 lbs - 162 games 100% Pete Alonso 6'3" - 245 lbs - 160 games 99% Vladimir Guerrero 6'2" - 245 lbs - 160 games 99% Freddie Freeman 6'2" - 220 lbs - 159 games 98% Austin Riley 6'3" - 240 lbs - 158 games 98% Jose Abreu 6'3" - 235 lbs - 157 games 97% Aaron Judge 6'7" - 282 lbs - 157 games 97% Nathaniel Lowe 6'4" - 220 lbs - 157 games 97% Shohei Ohtani 6'4" - 210 lbs - 157 games 97% Rhys Hoskins 6'4" - 245lbs - 156 games 96% Eloy Jimenez 6'4" - 240 lbs - 84 games 52%

There are not any reports posted that specifically tell you how many players have collectively played in 82% of their games since 2018. If there are I can't find them. However I can give you an idea of how many players played 82% of their games in each year since 2018: YEAR 82% of MLB Games Played (133 games) 2018 145 players 2019 128 players 2020 150 players (60 games) 2021 128 players 2022 122 players Several of the White Sox players should be setting their standards much higher and trying to achieve over 90% or more of their games played. Looking at the MLB in just the 2021 and 2022 seasons, players playing over 90% of their games: 90% (146 games) 2021 71 players 2022 65 players 95% (154 games) 2021 29 players 2022 27 players 98-100% (158-162 games) 2021 18 players 2022 13 players Note, the Houston Astros who won the WS title last year had 6 players play over 82% of their games and 3 players play over 95%, as opposed to the White Sox who only had 3 players over 82% and only one player (Abreu) over 95% of the games played. The top three Sox returning players for games played last year are: Vaughn 134 games Sheets 124 games Moncada 104 games The bottom line is heading into 2023, if the Sox are going to be successful and be a playoff contender, which we all hope happens, then they cannot have the players below playing in the amount of games that they played last season: Moncada 104 games 64% Grandal 99 games 61% Robert 98 games 61% Jimenez 84 games 52% Anderson 79 games 49%

Moncada playing in 581 games of 708 possible games since the 2018 season isn't that great to be honest. Whether you want to call Yoan soft or injury prone, his ability to play daily games often since 2018 is a far cry from some of the more durable MLB players since 2018. The league leaders who have played in over 90% of their possible games since 2018: Player Games % of total games Freddie Freeman 698 .985 Marcus Semien 697 .984 Paul Goldschmidt 686 .968 Whit Merrifield 667 .942 Tre Turner 651 .919 Francisco Lindor 647 .913 Dansby Swanson 641 .905 Comparing Yoan to Eloy, Anderson, Robert or Grandal and making him seem like a warrior is irrelevant and ridiculous. We already know the White Sox players are probably the most injured team in baseball. Hence why the front office keeps replacing the training staff members. We should not be concerned about comparing Moncada to other often injured Sox players and giving him some "A" grade for playing 82% of his possible games....as compared to his teammates who are always constantly injured as well. I think Moncada and all Sox players should be compared to the ML players high standards of durability that play over 90% as mentioned above. Btw, if WE were to use 2019-2022 or 2020-2022 the above over 90 percent list is even larger.

You're right and unfortunately for Sox fans, until the uncaring and demented POS owner and his pathetic loser executives RH and KW are gone, the Sox will never learn from the successful organizations in how to build a WS contender.

So very true, but only under our POS loser owner could a GM like Hahn keep his job with the horrendous job he did with the infamous rebuild now going on 7 years. Most quality and smart owners by now would have fired Hahn's ass!

By now this demented POS owner must finally realize to some degree, it was a huge debacle hiring his drunk buddy. However Reinsdorf as we all know, has a massive arrogant ego and would never admit his insanely stupid decision to the fans. media or probably even his family. Sadly if Reinsdorf doesn't truly see what a colossal f*** up hiring TLR was, then it clearly solidifies that this dysfunctional organization will always be a joke and never a winning WS team as long this POS man owns this team.

It's a state of mind for these pitchers and once they get used to it, they will make the necessary adjustments and be fine. Pitching quickly wasn't a problem for Mark Buehrle or Greg Maddux to name a few...and they were always very healthy.

So true and pathetic that it has come to this! Sadly this Mantra won't change until the team is sold and the Three Stooges JR, RH and KW are gone!

I don't need to be careful or worried. In fact I wish for a new owner more than ever now. It's kind of hilarious you would be even hint that new owner could be worse than the POS Reinsdorf. If indeed you are supporting Reinsdorf and implying a new owner could possibly be worse than Reinsdorf, then you clearly have not been following closely the demise of this team.

Three simple reasons: Demented loser owner JR who doesn't give a s%*#! Worthless Kenny Williams. Incompetent POS GM Rick Hahn

I agree 100 percent and besides working on a better diet, maybe he should choose not to play in the WBC like Dylan Cease just did. Imo, Dylan did the smart thing and realized as much of an honor as it is to play in the WBC representing your country, it is a far wiser decision to bypass the WBC and spend that valuable time getting in the best shape possible and avoiding any injuries heading into the 2023 White Sox season. Dylan is only 27 yrs old and made a smart and mature decision for his White Sox team to bypass the WBC. It seems that Lance at 35 yrs old, with bad knees and overweight, maybe should have considered the same thing. Let's not forget Lynn is being paid 18.5 million a year to pitch for the White Sox. Every single Sox fan will be screaming what a dumb decision it was to play in the WBC, if Lance for some nightmare occurrence gets some serious injury, which would cause him to miss time at the start of the Sox 2023 season.