VAfan

I wonder if all you TLR bashers are unhappy that the Sox are in first place, with the best record in baseball, have won 6 in a row, sweeping two division rivals in the process, while TLR has made some very astute moves?? I mean, does White Sox success, with TLR firmly at the helm, cause you consternation?? Or do you still nitpick, think the Sox are succeeding in spite of him, just so you can hold onto your prejudices? i see some very astute moves by TLR. Gave Billy Hamilton a start in CF against a lefty, and he goes 4 for 4 with a double, triple, and two singles, drives guys in and scores 3 runs. Today - I haven't seen the game - he makes a defensive play (or two) with men on base, saving runs and perhaps the game? Meanwhile, Jake Lamb gets a start to rest Jose from the beating he took yesterday, and he hits a HR giving the Sox enough of a lead to keep them ahead the whole game. Maybe he wasn't the best defensively, but did it cost the Sox the run he gave them? There are more moves I've liked, but I'll just leave it there.

The point of this post was to have the sabre guys out there try to break this down in much more detail than I did. I just think it is fascinating that you can go from first to last in HRs and increase your runs per game by walking more and striking out less. The Yankees lead in walks by a lot, but they are scoring more than a run less per game than the Sox. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned TLR, because that is an interesting part of it, but it's not why I wrote the post. I just want to understand why this new approach is working so well.

What has TLR done that is good for this team? This was RayRay Sun's question a few pages back. I just posted a thread about the Sox leading the AL in runs per game at 5.24, which is higher than their 5.10 average last year. They've gone from first to last in HRs, but they are still second in OPS+ because they lead the AL in OBP, and while their slugging is down, it's still 7th. A lot more walks, a lot fewer Ks mean more bats on balls with men on base, and that seems to have led to more runs per game. Now the players have to execute, but I seem to recall Tony LaRussa talking about cutting down on strikeouts when he took the managerial reigns. I just can't seem to find the article. So I believe he's had significant influence over the Sox new offensive approach. I'm sure TLR doesn't want the Sox to finish last in HRs, but if you can score without them, when you get them, it's a bonus. That seems better than having to have them to win.

In 2020, the White Sox finished 2nd to the Yankees in runs per game, at 5.10. How did they do it? Here were some rankings of various offensive stats. HR - 1st SLG - 1st OPS+ - 2nd Walks - 11th Ks (most) - 2nd OBP - 5th So, they hit a lot of HRs, but also struck out a lot and didn't walk very often. In 2021, the White Sox are leading the AL in runs per game at 5.24. But here are those same rankings. HR - 15th - or last SLG - 7th OPS+ - 2nd - tied with Houston and Boston, just behind MN Walks - 4th Ks (most) - 12th OBP - 1st So, the Sox went from first to LAST in HRs, but cut their strikeouts and increased their walks, so they lead by a good margin in OBP - .342 to .325 - over Boston. Even without the HRs, their slugging is still decent, and combined with the OBP, it keeps their OPS+ up. I just think it's a fascinating offensive transition to be playing a very different kind of game with many fewer HRs but a higher number of runs per game. Does this have something to do with Tony LaRussa managing the Sox? Here's an interesting article looking back at TLR's history in gauging what he might do this year with the Sox. You have to go to the bottom where he talks about fewer strikeouts. Now I don't really want to turn this into another Tony LaRussa thread, but it seems like the Sox' approach is night and day different than last year. So what do we attribute that to? Any how can it be successful with so few HRs so far? ********** Without too deep of an analysis, it seems pretty clear that if you have a high OBP, fueled in part by a much higher walk rate, and cut your strikeouts, that means you are putting more bats on balls with men on base, and that's likely to lead to more runs. It takes more work than just hitting the ball over the fence. But so far, it seems to be paying off for the Sox.

He's managed them into first place, despite missing 2 of his most valuable players. The Sox are winning, and will keep winning. As I wrote above, it's not been perfect, and he would likely give himself a middling grade so far, but I think you can chalk most of that up to being a new manager for this team, and being out of the dugout for more than a decade. I expect we'll see Tony sharpen his game just like the players do as the season goes on.

So now you attempt to come off as smarter than me? It's these comments like "I'l try and make it simple for you." And "if you can't deal with that, I can't help you." Complete and total unnecessary crap. So many critics focus on things and claim they are "mistakes" when what they are are judgment calls. As I mentioned above, a judgment call is not necessarily a "mistake" and the alternative option wouldn't have necessarily worked out any better. What was a mistake, and was admitted to be one by TLR, was not knowing the rule about being able to substitute a runner for a pitcher in the 10th inning. But that was a new rule that many people might have missed, including the rest of the Sox coaching staff. It was also a mistake to leave in Foster too long in that one game, and Giolito against the Tigers when he was tiring. But none of those mistakes necessarily cost the Sox the game, even though they lost all 3. Meanwhile, do any of TLR's critics give him credit for anything he's done? He uses his entire club, for one. He's brought Vaughn along pretty well, letting him watch and learn while he eased him into the lineup. The Sox had Yermin Mercedes last year, but only TLR has used him. He put Danny Mendick in RF, and was quick to embrace Vaughn being able to play LF. There is zero evidence of any dissension in the clubhouse. He's been endorsed by all of the leaders of the team. The team is winning games and scoring runs near the top of the AL yet is last in HRs. Strikeouts are down; walks are up. The Sox have been in nearly every game. I don't think TLR is perfect, by any means. I expect TLR would give himself a middling grade so far on parts of his performance. But he's done pretty well overall, and has not let the loss of Jimenez and Robert derail the team at all.

Yes, TLR made a mistake, and he admitted it. It's not the only one he's admitted. That doesn't warrant even 1% of the ridicule he receives from fans. I think it's fair to criticize moves that TLR makes. What I find rather offensive is the way posters on here think they are smarter about baseball than Tony LaRussa. That's total BS. That's why I wrote that NONE OF YOU COULD MANAGE A MAJOR LEAGUE TEAM. So, if you want to question Tony, fine. I don't have a problem. If you want to try to come off like you are a genius and TLR is an idiot, I think you demean yourself, because that's total BS. TLR has made some mistakes. But he's also done some very good things, and he has the team in first place despite missing two of his most important hitters, a subpar start from Jose Abreu, his starting catcher hitting .113, every bullpen pitcher blowing something (other than Kopech), a very slow start from Yoan Moncada, etc.

You keep repeating a falsehood. Tony may have asked Dave Duncan about being pitching coach, but he knew he would turn him down. In other words, it was done as a gesture to an old friend and companion, but was not a serious ask. Here's the Duncan quote -- "He knew I wouldn't do it." “I have no desire to do that,” said the 75-year-old Duncan by telephone on Tuesday. “He asked me anyway but he knew I wouldn’t do it,” said Duncan, laughing.

Do you know what's so tiresome about all these "bash TLR" posts? You could likely write the EXACT SAME THING against every manager in MLB. Managers make decisions for reasons they feel like make sense at the time. They don't always work out. To say another strategy would have been better doesn't mean the other strategy would have worked, and therefore, it may not have been better. Now, we ALL second guess managers. That's the nature of being a baseball fan. But NONE OF US -- absolutely none of us -- COULD ACTUALLY BE A MAJOR LEAGUE MANAGER. So, by all means go ahead and continue to question TLR. But just know that you haven't: 1. Ever managed a major league game 2. Ever won Manager of the Year, much less won it as many times as TLR has 3. Been elected to the Hall of Fame. So, forgive me if I find most of the criticism of TLR to be misguided, shortsighted, over the top, and tiresome.

The one I remember? The 1983 motto -- "Winning ugly." Link

I think the jury should be out on TLR until the end of the season. The Sox aren't going to fire him, so we're all going to be along for the ride this year, for better or worse. I can question some of his decisions, just like anyone else. I just think there is a lot more to baseball managing than lineups or pitching changes or in-game adjustments. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that we don't know about. The Sox have lost some very close games. The bullpen has not performed the way anyone expected. We've lost two of our best players in Robert and Jimenez. Yet our starting pitching is lights out, we're in nearly every game, and we're in first place. Dave Martinez was an idiot manager who finished around .500 with a seemingly loaded Nats team in 2018, then started horribly in 2019 with lots of people calling for his head. Then Baby Shark happened and Martinez suddenly was a genius, especially the way he managed the postseason without much of a bullpen. In the meantime, let's celebrate what's going well -- like Carlos Rodon!! And Dylan Cease!! And Michael Kopech!!!

I just stumbled upon a Baseball Reference chart I hadn't seen before. It ranks teams by WAR by position. Sox are: Overall - 3rd, 1.4 All Pitchers - 10th, -.0.7 Starters - 2nd, 0.9 Relievers - 12, -1.7 Non-P - 1st 2.1 C - 9th, -0.3 1B - 7th, 0 2B - 4th, 0.2 3B - 2nd, 0.6 SS - 3rd, 0.5 LF - 9th, -0.3 CF - 6th, 0.3 RF - 2nd, 0.3 OF all - 9th, 0.3" DH - 1st (tied), 0.8 *********** Some observations. 1. Having the starters rank this high is very good, since most people going into the season would have thought our starters were the shakiest part of the team. (And they were the worst group last year.) But with Carlos Rodon pitching lights out, Dylan Cease throwing the first shutout of his life, and Michael Kopech being devastating, the back end of the rotation seems like it may be as good as the front end. So when Giolito, Keuchel and Lynn sharpen up, this could be a devastating staff that can go on some nice winning streaks. Both the 1983 and 2005 Sox 99 win teams were driven by their starters. There is a lot of potential in this group. 2. The bullpen is not going to remain this bad. When they sharpen up, the Sox are likely to move to the top of the overall WAR ranking. 3. Yasmani Grandal is not going to continue hitting .120. He ranked 2nd in the AL in WAR last season. Another area where the Sox will improve. 4. Jose Abreu is not going to finish 7th. He was first last year by a wide margin. 5. Seeing Yoan Moncada 2nd after such a miserable offensive start to his season is impressive. He brought up the rear last year with a 12th place ranking. 6. Tim Anderson is good, but can and will be better. He finished 1st last year. 7. Left field is obviously the biggest hole (other than catcher) in the lineup. We need Engel to be healthy, but by late in the season Eloy's return will fill this hole. (Don't expect him Eloy to DH much when he returns.) 8. This is a surprisingly low ranking for Luis Robert, who has made strong offensive improvement. But he still has Mike Trout ahead of him and Byron Buxton has been having a year for Min. In the end, the rank will matter less than the final WAR number. 9. Adam Eaton has very adequately filled a big hole from the 2020 team. 10. The Yerminator has filled a DH hole the Sox have had for more than a decade. Overall: The Sox are underperforming where they should be if you look at run differential. I'd blame most of that on bullpen failures in close games. But the Sox also have studs like Jose Abreu and Yasmani Grandal underperforming, which will not continue. Mercedes will return to earth, but the Sox should have more than enough offensive improvement from other guys to compensate. Meanwhile, the starting pitching from the back end has been a revelation, with Carlos Rodon looking like an ACE, Michael Kopech looking even better in shorter stints, and Dylan Cease perhaps finally having the light go on. Once the bullpen comes around and the offense heats up, the Sox should be able to sustain some nice winning streaks.

I haven't been watching this thread, but I find the endless bitching about TLR to be mostly tiresome, shortsighted, overblown, and off the mark. Do I think TLR's managing has been flawless? No. Do I want to see Leury Garcia playing every day? No. Do I get frustrated by all the early season bullpen meltdowns? Yes Would I make different choices if I were the manager? Yes. Nonetheless, I remain convinced that Tony LaRussa knows a lot more about baseball than every one of the commenters on here. I also know that baseball is a long season, and sometimes decisions that seem wrong in the short term, are not necessarily wrong in the long term. I also know that managers only do so much. They don't actually pitch or hit the baseball, and most of the Sox losses have come because the players themselves have failed to match up to their expected levels of performance. So to go on and on about one game where TLR left in Giolito too long and later admitted to his mistake, as he did in an earlier game when he left Matt Foster out to get roasted is what I find tiresome, shortsighted, overblown, and off the mark. Look at TLR's 1983 club. They were only 40-37 at the break. They went on to win 99 games by going 59-24 after the ASB. The reason I bring that up is that sometimes a ballclub needs a bit of time to find its groove. I think this team, with so many young developing players, fits that profile. The 2005 Sox team that also won 99 games was quite different. They were front runners and came strong out of the gate, held on against a furious Cleveland rally in August-September, and then caught a final wind with a 16-1 finish through the World Series. Are the Sox going to win this Division? Yes. Nothing TLR or the players have done up to this point is going to prevent the Sox from reaching that initial goal. At that point, you can start fretting about in-game decisions with playoff games at a high premium.

It's only April, but I think the jury is in on this pre-season debate as well, just like the Eaton v. Pederson dust up seems settled. So many commentators thought the Sox overpaid for Hendriks, when they had multiple in-house options, while the Twins were hailed as the smarter front office by waiting on Colome and getting him for a much cheaper price. Anyone still think that? Hendriks has not been lights out, by any means. He's already blown two saves, though the Sox bailed him out by winning the last one of those in the bottom of the 9th. But does anyone still think the Sox had an alternative to Hendriks in house? Bummer? He's been pretty bad. Marshall? Look at his ERA. Heuer is the only one who could have potentially closed, but if you took out Heuer from the crew getting you to the 9th, the Sox would be much thinner, and an area we thought was strong would have been much weaker and likely cost us more games than it has already. So, I remain glad the Sox paid to get Hendriks to solidify the back end of the bullpen and let the rest of the guys focus on set-up work. I also don't think the Sox "overpaid" for Hendriks. They paid the market rate. Had they offered any less, he would have gone elsewhere and we would have been scrambling for alternatives. Meanwhile, the "smart" Twins have been crushed by using Alex Colome as their closer. He lost another game last night on a 2-run 10th inning homer. It's not all been his fault. The 2 infield errors in a 13-12 loss to Oakland were on his team, though he walked 2 guys to make those errors meaningful. Chalk another one up to the Sox front office.

So far, it looks like the front office didn't blow it by locking up Eaton early before he was taken. Eaton is actually leading the Sox in RBI right now. Adam Eaton 2021 32 CHW AL 17 76 66 14 17 4 0 3 16 1 0 7 16 .258 .355 .455 .810 131 30 Joc Pederson 2021 29 CHC NL 16 61 51 5 7 0 1 1 4 0 0 7 20 .137 .262 .235 .498 41 12 And then there's Nomar Mazara 2021 26 DET AL 12 40 38 3 9 0 0 2 5 0 0 2 7 .237 .275 .395 .670 89 15

Look at his splits, 7 days, 14 days, they are both solid. The 28 day splits include his torrid start, so he's not hitting that. But over the 7 and 14 days, he's .333 BA and over .500 slugging. Who knows how he'll end up, but I think the more people doubt him, the more determined he'll be to succeed. Plus, it's not just his bat that helps the team. His energy is ultra positive. Helps replace some of what the Sox lost in the dugout when Eloy went down.

It is way to early to draw conclusions about Nick Madrigal. He's still essentially a rookie.

Sit him for who, exactly? He's still at 97 OPS+, which is better than everyone else who could play 1B today. The Sox have a thin lineup already without Jimenez and Engel, and resting Anderson in game 2. Plus, he's very good defensively at this point.

Sox should extend Rodon, as he's entering his prime years as a pitcher. He may be represented by Boras, but Rodon will want to play for the Sox, believing they will be contenders for all of the years in any extension. I think they should also extend Lynn for a couple of years to negate the years imbalance of the trade of Dunning, and because the Sox can use an innings eater like Lynn. But if you keep Rodon and Lynn, and Kopech moves into the rotation, who gets squeezed? Dylan Cease or Dallas Keuchel?

Just need the offense and the bullpen sharpness to be there. The Sox have been in every single game.

I thought off of spring training that Rodon should have been ahead of Cease in the rotation. If this is the new Carlos Rodon, he'd have to be in the top 3. I hope he's going to be fine all year, because what he's throwing will play very well. I think the Sox should even extend him.

I'm as frustrated as anyone over the bullpens performance so far, but I think they will be fine as they get more use.

A quick look at baseball reference gives a snapshot after 8 games. Here's the rank of hitters in OPS+ Mercedes - 308 Grandal - 148 Collins - 121 Robert - 113 Abreu - 100 Eaton - 100 Moncada - 97 Madrigal - 95 Hamilton - 91 Vaughn - 71 Anderson - 66 Garcia - negative 43 Here are the starters by ERA Lynn - zero Rodon - zero Giolito - 4.22 Cease - 5.79 Keuchel - 7 Bullpen by ERA Kopech - zero Crochet - zero Bummer - zero (first game meltdown was unearned runs) Heuer - 2.45 Ruiz - 2.7 Hendriks - 7.71 Marshall - 9.82 Foster - 27 What conclusions can you draw from this? Hitting - Mercedes is carrying the offense at the moment. - Grandal and Collins are hitting quite will - Grandal with the high OBP, Collins with more power - Abreu isn't warmed up yet - Eaton is league average, which is an improvement over Mazara. - Moncada looks much worse than this number, because he's picked it up in the last couple of games. - Madrigal isn't hitting as well, but his OBP is very high. - Vaughn is getting acclimated to MLB. - Anderson is off to a slow start. Getting normal Anderson back will jump start this offense. - Garcia is having an awful start, but isn't really this bad. TLR should look for every opportunity not to play him. Mendick is a better choice until Anderson returns. Starters - They need to go deeper into games. - Only Keuchel is off, but he did pretty well in his second start until the 6th. - Rodon's first start looks very promising - Cease still has a lot of work to do - Giolito will be better than this Bullpen - TLR hasn't figured out the rhythm to get Hendriks into the right situations yet. - Kopech and Crochet look awesome and are real weapons - Sox need Bummer to settle in and be a force in the 8th - Heuer as the 3rd guy (outside future starters Kopech and Crochet) is solid - Foster and Marshall aren't this bad - Ruiz might pitch his way into a bigger role, reprising Cordero's job from last year. Overall The Sox are a work in progress. Defense has been bad. Starters are getting stretched out. Hitting has been streaky. The team needs to be healthy - Anderson and Engel's return will improve the team a lot. The bullpen and TLR haven't been in synch. but they will get there.

No. Mendick got 114 plate appearances last year. .243/281/343 was his line. He's may have a game or two where he looks like he can hit. Don't let it deceive you. He can't. That's why the Sox picked up Lamb, because they didn't want Mendick subbing for Moncada when he needs a break. Mendick is the guy you bring up when someone goes on the IL, and even then you hope you don't have to play him too much.

The question is not whether Vaughn can hit better than Mercedes, but whether he can hit better than the outfielders the Sox have healthy right now. I would take him now over Williams and Hamilton (before he got hurt). The only place to develop his hitting is in LF because he's not outhitting Mercedes at the moment.