Jack Parkman

Has anyone been drawn to a player who completely sucks and keep hoping that they can turn it around? Who doesn't like a feel-good underdog story right? I find myself drawn to 3 rebuild pieces in particular all because they have fallen out of favor and need to be rebuilt so to speak. Those guys are Giolito, Hansen and Rutherford. All have had doubters, and I hope all 3 of them are huge parts of the next Sox world series winner. EDIT: Thread title is about Giolito, not the other guys.

If Avi turns out to be a good player, he would end up being exhibit A for patience with whomever gets called to Chicago from the minors.

I guess we'd have to wait until mid-late August before we know what he is this year.

Avi was sucking to start the season. Honestly, I think the season could have snowballed on him if he didn't get hurt. The 8 week injury may have been the best thing for him, as it allowed him to reset like it was Opening Day again.

OMFG, Greg the voice of reason?? Wow.

The game vs. Oakland a couple weeks a go was a dominant performance. It isn't his fault Ricky sent him out there when it was obvious he was done to start the 8th This would have been his line if Renteria didn't send him out there in the 8th to get himself in trouble: 7 IP 5 H 2BB 8K. Better than anything that Lopez has thrown out there since May. Lopez has actually been better than I thought, but his success is predicated on his overpowering velocity. His offspeed stuff sucks. Giolito has wicked offspeed stuff. If he can learn to harness it, along with the fact he's found the mid-90s fastball again, the sky is the limit. It's all about secondary stuff. He has 2 60 grade breaking balls and a 50 change. That is better than most have. I don't know if he'll ever learn to harness his offspeed stuff, but if he does, watch out. I'm willing to give Giolito every opportunity to figure it out, within reason. I do realize that at some point you have to pull the plug. We're nowhere near that point. He has nothing to gain by going to AAA.

No, I think they have a lot of the same issues. Giolito has had much worse results in actual run prevention. Watch Lopez's starts. Lopez walks guys, Lopez actually gives up more hits. Lopez gives up more hard contact. Giolito walks more guys, and because he has a harder time finding the strike zone in general, gives up more runs. I see more potential in Giolito than I do in Lopez. Neither may be more than a 4-5 but I think that is Lopez's ceiling, where I think that Giolito's ceiling is a 2-3. I realize that Giolito is a project, and because of that, I'm willing to cut him slack on his performance. That is not indefinite. I want to see some consistency by the end of the month, and into 2019. I'm not shocked that he got shelled today, nor would I be shocked if he gets shelled Sunday vs. Houston. Neither are aces, but it offends my baseball intelligence to see people think that Lopez is anything more than a back end starter.

Umps are mindfucking him. Not completely his fault. He can't control umps calling pitches 4-6 in off the plate, that he should be taking anyway, as strikes. I'm ok with Moncada going after the Umps (verbally) and giving them a piece of his mind at this point. This is beyond ridiculous. Get tossed and go nuts Yoan. Stand up for yourself, because Ricky won't.

The bottom line is, I really don't care about Giolito getting lit up in a lost season when he's working out the kinks. 2019 is a different story, and if he's not performing by the ASB next year it is ok to write him off at that point. I'd rather give him as much time as they can to figure things out in the Sox organization before they use the option and then have to DFA him if it comes to that. They have that luxury, so why not use it? If he doesn't figure it out here, I don't think he ever will. Sending him to AAA now just shortens the window for the Sox to see if they can fix him. They need to give him as much time as they can to see if the light turns on.

Lopez is, but they're both bad, and that is my point.

He has the highest xFIP out of any qualified starter in MLB. He gives up tons of hits, strikes hitters out at the same rate as a soft tossing lefty, and gives up tons of hard contact.

Occasionally I go off the rails and let my negativity come out. It shows inconsistency, yeah, but I have more optimism than pessimism. I'm just trying to change my approach to life in general. If you ever read the Filibuster you'd know that I have Autism and I struggle with black and white thinking. It's either all good or hopeless. It sucks.

If you realize that he's working through another mechanical change since spring training, then yeah, they are. He's going to get lit up this year. Once I saw him walking guys like this, flying all over the place, etc. As long as he's making progress I really don't care about results, and the Sox probably don't either. That's all that matters. If you're looking at results, you're looking at the wrong thing with him. My complaint isn't that everyone think that Giolito sucks it is just that Lopez is right there with him in terms of poor metrics. and you get people talking about him like he's a future ace of the staff. Lopez has the worst metrics as a whole out any qualifed starter in MLB, and people talk about him like he's a demigod. I'm just asking for consistency. If you're shitting on Giolito, you gotta shit on Lopez too.

Nah, I just think this board in general is too hard on Giolito and too soft on Lopez. The whole board is schizo, because people don't look at underlying stats. People also don't use common sense on when there is a bad pitchers day and a Sox pitcher gets lit up. You have to write those ones off. This is a rebuilding year, Giolito is a project and results don't really matter. Growing pains were expected. This was always going to be a hard year to watch, unless Lopez/Gio/Moncada took off out of the gate and they didn't look back, Avi/Abreu had years like last year and Shields pitched like he actually has. I'm usually pretty negative about stuff, but I'm trying to be more optimistic about everything.

You could say the same about the other guy on the mound too. Just a bad day for pitchers. it happens. Neither guy got out of the 6th. Both Gennett and Suarez homers in the 1st inning were cheapies that were weather aided. They were pulled down the line to the smallest part of the park and are flyouts anywhere else. Duvall was off balance on that one and way out in front and it still went forever. I give him a mulligan for this one because it was just a horrible night for pitching. Meh.

His two starts this week were always going to be tough. He's facing a hot offense in a bandbox with hot weather, and his next start is in Houston. I was hoping he could make it out of both of these with 5 runs or less a piece because he's not quite there yet. Still getting closer though. With the way the ball was flying there tonight any mistake was going to be murdered and probably a HR. Giolito doesn't give up a lot of hits or HRs this year. His issue has been more with the walk and having guys on base when he does give up a hit. Look at that HR by Avi. that ball doesn't go that far on a normal day. Both pitchers are getting murdered with HRs. Walks are the difference in the score.

Ah, shit. Baby steps. 2 steps forward one back is still progress I guess.

If Gio gets out of the 5th unscathed and his pitch count is over 90, they need to go to the pen at that point.

I found it on MLB site after some digging. Lopez had an average spin rate of 2105 RPM in 2017. Averaging 2092 in 2018. Giolito had a 2115 RPM in 2017.

One thing I noticed about Giolito since he got his fastball velocity back is that he struggles with command in the 1st inning, and once his pitch count gets around 90. If he can get out of the first inning unscathed, he usually gives a good start numbers wise. If he gets killed in the 1st, he doesn't. He fixes the 1st inning jitters, I think he'll be okay.

I told you guys, Gio/Lopez made me do some data-driven research on stuff. These are spin rates on guys who get a lot of whiffs on fastballs MLB average(rpm) 2263 Verlander: 2606 Sale: 2332 Kluber: 2610 Scherzer: 2497 Kershaw: 2388 Cole: 2345 Severino: 2370 See anything in common with the Ace quality group? Sox Pitchers that matter: Rodon: 2243 Giolito: 2073 Lopez: 2092

Here you go. His spin rate is marginally better than Giolito. This is over the entirety of 2018.

Spin rate: Giolito: 2073 Lopez: 2092 MLB AVG: 2263 They both have a problem. I don't know if it is something that is even solvable.

I'm sure he does. If you could isolate starts when hes down in the low-mid 90s Lopez usually doesn't get out of the 3rd. Go look at the gamethreads. Lopez has to stay in 96+ range otherwise he's not an MLB pitcher either.

You could say the same about Lopez.