Greg Hibbard

sitting Moncada to avoid the record seems dumb since he's extremely unlikely to get 13ks in 7 games.

Big Inning Shields is back

also Ortiz' numbers are over 1500 ABs.

I think it's interesting to look at David Ortiz' Minnesota numbers (he was about to turn 27 in his last season as a Twin, same age as Palka now) (this was done sorta of longhand, but I doublechecked and think it's correct) .266/.347/.461/.808 with 58 homers, 108 doubles, 3 triples afterwards we all know what he became when he went to Boston.

Exactly the same, for me. HR are just so so valuable and if you can pile up the numbers Palka can in that few ABs, it's skews things incredibly.

As much as folks have been ragging on the front office / organization for various things, how about a little credit for identifying and sticking with Palka? His September line is now .289/,373/.756/1.128 with 7 HR in 14 games. The other scary thing about his stats is this: Before July 3: 7 HR in 177AB July 3 to now: 19 HR in 205 AB Those seem like absolutely unreal numbers. I never thought anything of this guy until about August, other than freakish power and negative defense. With the recent surge, it's clear to me that the HR numbers are just too good not to give this guy a shot as an everyday DH in 2019,

Why not just call it a year for Jose.

It is funny that Benetti made a very awkward unexpected reference to a popular television show.

Omg did Jason just make a reference to The Wire with that home run call

Anyone else think that Palka is now gonna be the everyday DH in 2018?

I had a hunch it was like this, but the splits are a little unreal Moncada .203/.273/.322/.595 day games vs. .244/.329/.445/.774 night His numbers over the last 24 games are pretty solid .270/.337/.416/.753 with 25 strikeouts

Despite that 7 game losing streak the team is still .500 over the last 56 games. Pretty remarkable given the struggles and injuries to various key players.

Many of Yoan’s strikeout woes were due to him taking way too many pitches, not because he was swinging for the fences, necessarily.

Just 24 strikeouts in his last 103 PAs his weird power outage (1 HR and 1 3B in his last 86 PAs) has rendered him with the bizarre September slash of .293/.356/.341/.697

First 3 hit game for Yoan since like....May?

Would be nice to see our guys feast on a really bad team tonight

Nice hustle by Moncada to get that single and RBI

Arenado after 2019 pls. That's all I want

Mondesi’s showboating last night giving Avi a single, and lack of heads up base running tonight, kinda rubs me the wrong way.

That's a hidden part of my point - nobody would say Joe Crede wasn't an absolutely invaluable part of the 2005 championship. He was a huge part. Moncada and Anderson can be two cogs with Jimenez, eventually Kopech, Cease, Giolito, Lopez, hopefully Madrigal and Robert in the 2022-2024 window we are ramping up to. As well as whatever FA we are bringing in. Could you imagine bringing in Arenado after next year?

I agree with your point before about Crede having the luxury of being developed, because we didn't need his offense. That's an excellent point. The interesting thing about Crede, though, was that he emerged as a real offensive threat when many of those power hitters left (Lee, Ordonez were gone after 2004 and Thomas missed most of 2005). You would think it might be the opposite, because he no longer had so much protection. Remember the 2005 team was really a pitching team more than a power hitting team. I think your point about Moncada and pressure is also a good one and I think Jimenez will take a great deal of pressure off of that when he comes up.

Balta, I had to go back thirteen years because the 2005-2011 teams that was consistently competing for a divisional title was in large part retooled with FA from outside the organization. Podsednik, Pierzynski, Garcia, Contreras, Jim Thome, even Nick Swisher was brought in as a supposedly "proven" veteran. Outside of Beckham and Ramirez, who did we really even attempt to develop in that era? Maybe Brian Anderson who Guillen later admitted he actually didn't like for entirely non-baseball reasons? After Guillen left, the 2012-2015 strategy was still locked into the retool mentality - Abreu came up and was ML ready, but guys like Dunn, LaRoche, Melky were guys who were brought in, not developed. This is really the first time since the late 1990s early 2000s we have really tried to develop talent from the minor leagues organization wide.

In the wake of the Kopech injury, as the season has turned more and more meaningless, I've been thinking a lot about Moncada and Anderson's numbers and whether they are "good" or not. What's strange about this is that 20 years ago, I would have thought for two young players 18ish homers and 40+ xbh, as fairly good, batting average aside. Add in Moncada's walk rate and Anderson's stolen bases, and some of their respective defensive plays and upside, and I think years ago many would have thought "these players are just fine, they just need time" However, that's NOT what's going on. The board is at least somewhat divided on whether both are going to be as good as they can be to significantly contribute to this team. Then I thought about Joe Crede. Joe Crede was one of the most frustrating players to root for from 2003-2004. After his rookie season of 2002 (he had a handful of PAs in 2000-2001), he had a very difficult time keeping his batting average, on base percentage, and OPS high enough to be acceptable for the next two seasons. He also had a difficult time keeping his WAR up, even with his defensive prowess. In his first 279 MLB PAs, he did very well - an over .800 OPS, great defense, tons of promise, WAR of 0.8 (with only 40% of a season). However, over the next 1123 MLB PAs, from 2003-2004, he did NOT do as well: a .251/.304/.424/.728, with a combined WAR of 3.2, averaging 1.6 per season. It obviously wasn't horrible or anything, but it wasn't something that I think White Sox fans felt they could necessarily live with as a long term option. My recollection was that fans were pretty unsure about him, in general. His two saving graces were his ability to hit homers and his defense. In 2003-2004 Joe Crede was 25 and 26 years old, and at the end of that time he had 1402 MLB PAs to his credit. As of the end of 2004, his stats were: .256/.304/.434/.738 career. Not bad, but just a seemingly just little above replacement. His career WAR was roughly 3.8 at this point. HOWEVER.... The next three complete seasons (and the injury shortened 2007) that Crede played were his best, and indubitably he was utterly essential to our championship run. I don't think anyone would argue that if we didn't have Joe Crede we would have won the 2005 championship. His combined 2005-2008 stats were: .258/.308/.453/.761 and his WAR over that span was 7.6 - twice the value of the previous four years over about the same number of PAs. All of this is to say that Moncada's WAR is currently 2.4 for his career at just 23 with about 800 PAs, and Anderson's is 4.5 at 25 through a little over 1400 PAs (ironically exactly the point Crede broke out himself) I think because Moncada was acquired in the Sale trade and we all expect instant gratification for players there is very little patience for MLB development. However, I think Crede (even as a lower rated prospect initially) is a great example of a player who gave us well over 1000 PAs at the MLB level before he was able to truly break out. Thoughts?

The Covey death march reminds me of Gordon Beckham’s last stand when will it end

So what you’re telling me is that a player willingly sat out a meaningless game 162 because he didn’t care if his team won or lost that game to preserve personal stats. It seems you are reinforcing the argument that the player wouldn’t care if the team lost 99 or 100 games.