Balta1701

The story last year in Houston was that Maldonado being great at calling a game was assumed: so much so that the manager got outraged if there were any questions about that. Some guys did use him as their personal catcher, Framber Valdez included. With Valdez they were happy to credit him when he had a good first half, but had no comments when he had a bad 2nd half. Their young starter Hunter Brown clearly worked better with Diaz who he had thrown to in the minors, but Brown was forced to work with Maldonado in the 2nd half to get ready for the playoffs when Maldonado was guaranteed to start (despite Diaz being better offensively and defensively by a lot). Brown struggled with this and eventually did not make their playoff rotation. None of that could ever be Maldonado’s fault though because everyone knows he calls a good game and that can’t be questioned. There are hints that this led to organizational friction last year. Dusty had barely retired before new GM Dana Brown took the unusual step of declaring Diaz his 2024 starting catcher over 5 months from opening day. So you will hear that Maldonado calls a great game. Whether that’s true or not, it will never be questioned, and the only thing that will give Lee an opportunity is injury, if last year is any indication.

Fwiw, this is exactly how Maldonado was treated last year. Way better catcher offensively and defensively in Yainer Diaz constantly on the bench because Dusty has to have his veteran catcher.

Regardless of exactly why, the league has been super clear on this. Clevinger was actually a pretty good pitcher last year when healthy. Despite teams being desperate for pitching last year, he wasn’t moved at the deadline when the white Sox could have paid part of his contract, he wasn’t picked up on waivers when a team would have owed him about $6 million for September and the playoffs, and he’s unsigned now. The Dodgers gave up two actual pitching prospects to take on nearly $10 million for Lynn and Kelly and despite their rotation being a bunch of corpses by September they wanted no part of him. Someone may still sign him, but from the perspective of the White Sox, if they sign him and he’s quite good, he’s still likely untradeable. You spend money on him, get 150 really good innings, and zero guys who could contribute to your next winning team. The White Sox are better off using those innings on waiver claims and churning that 40 man roster Spot for the year. While not guaranteed, at least that gives some chance of finding a piece that improves Them long term.

Missed this one last night. Clevinger most certainly does not take the ball every 5th day, he missed nearly all of July last year and has had TJS twice.

Back of the rotation sinkerballer, started in Pittsburgh, I believe Colorado last year.

Yeah this was right before the Cubs traded for him. I do think teams are paying more attention to this now, thanks to both stricter league policies and incidents like Bauer and Clevinger where teams didn’t do their homework before a signing.

There is almost no version of a merit based promotion where I’d say that a guy who has barely pitched in AA should come north based on a few innings against inconsistent lineups in the spring. Send him to BHam and if he’s dominant for a month move him to Charlotte. If he’s dominant there for two months, great let’s see him at the all star break. Thats merit based promotions.

You mean, um, Santos?

While possible, an appearance in 2025 is very aggressive for Zavala. He is 19 currently and has 50 plate appearances in High A ball. A normal pace for him would be High-A for most of 2024, AA for most of 2025, some time at AAA in 2026, and a big league debut that year. He could be better than this, but rushing guys up based on the needs of the big league club rather than giving guys time to grow up is very much a Hahn thing. Quero, as a catcher, is also a guy who could easily be a 2026 callup, giving him more time to be comfortable with catching. That would be repeating some levels for him, but with a catcher who you expect to be a good defender, that can be important.

Some guys do spike in their velocity but it isn’t all that common at this level, usually velocity goes the other way as they get older. If he’s in the high 80s this does seem down even from the scouting reports on him last year, that could be something he recovers during the year, unless there’s a health issue?

I think the spin rate doesn't' show up on the changeup specifically, but he never got anything like that ridiculous changeup without the sticky stuff. The spin rate drop shows up on the fastball, but the movement showed up on the changeup.

I am likely teaching a class over the summer so ditching the class costs me money for a replacement. Is there some big financial reward in whatever you're asking?

That....makes way more sense than I want to admit. I'm leaving.

Naw, he could just make that change work repeatably when his hand was coated with spidertack. His spin rates and career progression are super clear. He started working with Katz, Katz's big thing was sticky stuff. Giolito immediately developed a super aggressive changeup that destroyed people for 2 years, including a no-hitter. He lost that Change on June 15, 2021. He tried to come up with other arm slots, different pitch rotations to overcome it, it was acceptable, but not nearly as dominant as he was with the sticky stuff change. Ethan Katz parlayed this into a major league pitching coach job and got either 60% or 80% of his starting pitchers using the same sticky stuff, and all of that changed when MLB instituted hand checks, leading to 1-week spin rate drops for 3 of his starters all at the same time and a 4th who threw mostly a 2-seamer and whose career suddenly self destructed.

Please stop.

Lucas Giolito did not benefit from anything prior to the 2019 season, where a non-MLB pitching instructor named Ethan Katz instructed him in the benefits of using Spidertack to enhance the grip and spin of his pitches. This commentary on Giolito's success from 2019 through June 14 2021 needs to seriously stop, it's ignoring what we know happened. Thorpe is not going to follow Giolito's lead and have success using sticky stuff. That magical changeup disappeared in one day and never returned and that day was June 15, 2021, the day the sticky stuff ban started. Giolito tried to work around its loss with inconsistent success, with more focus on his fastball and slider than on striking people out using the change. You are making me remind people that Josh Donaldson was right, Giolito's pitches were more hittable when less sticky.

I can mentally excuse Hahn being an idiot and not doing a quality background check last year. I'm not sure its true, but that's how they presented it. Signing one of these guys willingly would make me seriously consider whether that's it, that they think I'm not the kind of fan they want, and other people I consider toxic are their real market.

You're completely right. This won't just affect the White Sox, it will affect any trade market for him. We saw it this year, he was pitching well enough for someone to absorb a portion of his salary, and no one wanted him at all. There might be a level of performance where this doesn't matter, where he's literally the best pitcher in the AL in the first half, but outside of that, if he's good but not great, at best you're lucky if someone will take him at all. You can't expect that giving him 100 innings in the first half is likely to strengthen your system, we have seen that in both the deadline and the offseason. Michael Lorenzen on an $8 million a year deal is more likely to be tradeable than Clevinger on a $2 million a year deal, and I am totally fine with that.

I can think of a couple specific ones.

Nobody wanted him last year either, regardless of the White Sox throwing in money. No one wants him now. The market is speaking clearly, you cannot get anything back for him. There are far more tradeable options.

I could absolutely see them dropping into the 50s. They are terrible on paper, they might have a lower OBP than last year's terrible OBP, and regardless of how "high character" some of these guys are supposed to be, I have no confidence in their coaching staff. But, it's baseball, random luck does things. The White Sox had fewer WAR and a worse run differential than the Royals last year, but finished ahead of the Royals by quite a bit, because the Royals last year dramatically underperformed. If they came out with 65 wins I wouldn't be surprised, if they came out with 55 wins I wouldn't be surprised, if they came out with 75 wins I might be impressed by the coaching staff and GM because I'd guess that took improvement from some of the young guys.

They've clearly picked a set of directions to take this offseason, some of which is positive (they didn't trade for Perez! No long term horrible deals!) some of these are questionable (spending decent money on their Vetz, trading away guys like Mena for reasons we don't get, blinking on this trade rather than trying to maximize the return). Like it or not, Getz brought in no success at all in his last job and clearly failed upwards. He doesn't have a record that gives any reason to have a confidence in him, so if a deal looks questionable on paper, we're going to write those questions now. We cannot tell how he is going to work based on the returns so far, they might have nailed this trade and wound up with several good players. If they did, the heat will vanish and he will get compliments. If they did not, then the only reason there won't be heat on him is that they'll be down to precisely 23 remaining people in the Chicago area who care any more.

While the OBP part is nice, this part is the big concern. The bat needs to develop to be elite if he's going to drop to a corner outfield spot.