Southwest Sider

That was incredibly poor bullpen management. I always cringe when we use 3 relievers for 3 outs in the 7th. I understand matchups.. but rondon would have been a better candidate for the 8th. He didnt look good either but at least youre not going down with your worst reliever. ?

This is something I wasn't aware of. This changes my opinion completely. If he really is disappointed that he's not in Chicago yet, it could be a factor in his most recent struggles. Most concerning of all is like I said before, this is only his 2nd season above A-ball and he is struggling badly to find the strike zone. Is it boredom? Is it frustration? Or is it the fact that he still needs to develop? The kid seems mentally strong enough to overcome the idea that he should be in Chicago right now (even though he shouldn't). He will have to show that he can get the ball in the strike zone consistently at this point to even hope for a September call-up, which the Sox won't be particularly inclined to do. All signs should now point at a Kopech appearance next year at the earliest. The kid is going to have to learn to deal with adversity and part of that adversity may be the fact that he's disappointed he's not in Chicago yet. This is a nice post, and I completely agree. Some players have longer learning curves, and the Sox are in the position now where they can take their time with a player like Giolito and see what he's got until others start forcing the issue. That doesn't seem like it would happen until next year at the earliest, so he's got his time. As for Moncada, I'd be stoked if he were a complete stud already, but sadly he is not. The good news is that he has already had a decent hot streak this year, he just needs to get through this hump, make the adjustments he needs, and start crushing again. It will be supremely disappointing if Moncada doesn't become a perennial All Star, but we can't really worry about that until more time has passed.

I don't think he's stewing. He had plenty of great quotes over the offseason regarding where he stands in the organization. Paraphrasing here, but stuff along the lines of "Im going to work on my craft", "I dont mind playing in the minors because I'm not ready", and "If they do call me up, Ill be ready for it". I don't think he expects that it's his time yet, and any struggles he's having are most likely purely developmental rather than him being "bored". All this boredom nonsense is getting thrown around way too much with Kopech and Eloy. This is Eloy's first full season above A ball. Kopech is in the middle of his 2nd season above A ball. These guys simply aren't ready. Eloy's not bored, he's slumping like all hitters do. Now he needs to prove he can make the necessary adjustments in AA, get hot again, and crush his way into AAA. Kopech isn't bored, he's just too wild still and has a lot yet to prove in AAA. He absolutely has to stop walking people, and I highly doubt his wildness is caused by an underlying anger that he's still in Charlotte and not in Chicago. MK seems too mentally grounded to have a bother like that.

I don't think it's necessarily a terrible thing with the way things currently are. I think it could be improved beyond the addition of the 1 game wild card, though. As I said in my original post, teams that have really good 162 game seasons deserve better than 1 game to decide their fate. Some teams have really good seasons and don't even make the playoffs. Also, playoff baseball is interesting. Every team raises their level of play, focus. More of that is not necessarily a bad thing. You may feel like it drags on, that is perfectly fine to hold that opinion. I would argue that the addition of an NFL style playoff would not add too much playoff to where it would drag on and on, but also give you many interesting games and gives deserving teams a shot at a 3 game series to see who gets to play against the best in their respective leagues. As it stands now: 162 game season 1 game wild card 5 game divisional series 7 game championship series 7 game World Series With NFL style playoff: 154 game season 3 game wild card 5 game divisional series 7 game championship series 7 game World Series If anything, this style not only gives you many more interesting playoff baseball games to watch, but is balanced by elimination of 8 regular season games, which to me, seem like far more of a drag than playoff baseball games.

Jayson Stark wrote a nice article on the Athletic highlighting some key points about MLB Expansion. The issues are things like: -Resolution of Tampa Bay and Oakland stadium issues -What two cities would get the MLB team? -Realignment that might eliminate the AL and NL -League wide adoption of the DH -Reduced regular season (154 games), added playoff round These are all topics and talking points that we can have in this thread, please feel free to discuss any of them. I will be discussing the idea of added playoff rounds in my post. Personally, I've been a proponent of reducing the regular season in favor of more playoffs for quite some time. The added wild card game is a step in the right direction, and it makes for an exciting game indeed, but teams that do well enough to earn a Wild Card spot deserve far better than to have the fate of a 162 game season decided on one game alone. Expanding to a 16 team playoff format ala the NHL is not a terrible idea, in my mind, especially if the league expands to 32 teams. This is a double edged sword however, as there would quite possibly be years in which teams with records under .500 would make the playoffs. This isn't going to be the best example because in a 16 team format leagues, divisions would be realigned, which would no doubt change where these teams do end up. But, in an arbitrary playoff format Top 1-8 in the league, the following AL teams would have qualified for the playoffs in 2017: Indians 102-60 Astros 101-61 Red Sox 93-69 Yankees 91-71 Twins 85-77 Rays 80-82 Royals 80-82 Angels 80-82 Do the Rays, Royals and Angels really deserve to participate in the postseason if they lost more games than they won? This alone is a compelling argument against a 16 team playoff format. On the other hand, if you look at the top 8 teams in the AL in 2016 you get this: Rangers 95-67 Indians 94-67 Red Sox 93-69 Orioles 89-73 Blue Jays 89-73 Tigers 86-75 Mariners 86-76 Yankees/Astros 84-78 One could make arguments that the bottom 4 of the top 8 might deserve a playoff spot, for they did indeed win more games than they lost. The disparity in the league wasn't as great in 2016, and other teams had decent years. For some, the records of the Tigers and Mariners in 2016 won't be considered 'enough' for them to deserve postseason berths. That is completely fair. For others, they might view the fact that those teams were able to get through the long season winning 10-11 more games than they lost, and a postseason berth should be available for them to get a chance to take down a team with a better record. Expanded postseason may have an advantage especially in seasons where the disparity between the top teams and the second tier teams is less significant. But in seasons like 2017 where there are 4 cream of the crop teams and the next tier is meh, could make for a less interesting postseason, or at the very least a highly predictable first round. The other option is an NFL style playoff format, with 1 or 3 game wild card rounds. This may be a better fit for the MLB. With 3 game wild card rounds, the top teams would get a chance to rest up, and set their rotation. But again, this is a double edged sword as the top teams may also not be interested in having a 4-5 day break between their last game of the season and their first of the playoffs. Is that enough time for rust to settle in on a team? Again, I would argue that a team that does well enough to make the postseason deserves better than 1 game to decide their fate, so for me the 3 game wildcard round is more enticing. There really doesn't seem to be any clear or right answer. Whatever the case is, Manfred will most certainly push to get an expansion/realignment and adjusted playoff format completed in his time as commissioner. Stark believes it is not a matter of if, but when. MLB will have some interesting decisions to make. At the end of the day, I am excited for the potential expansion of MLB playoffs, however they decide to go about it. I think it will be good for the game and ultimately more teams will "go for it" instead of rebuild, and some of those teams could end up being great stories like the 2005 White Sox. With such a constricted playoff format as is, teams are forced to try and become 95+ game winners to ensure that they make the playoffs. This is incredibly hard to do unless you amass a serious amount of young talent like the Cubs, Dodgers, Astros, Red Sox, Yankees, Indians... well you get the idea. As such, you end up with situations like the White Sox and Tigers have had to face. These teams could have theoretically put together 85-90 game winners if they continued with the status quo, but both of these teams had to take a long look in the mirror and face the fact that it is harder to put together a MLB playoff team year to year than ever before. The rebuilding strategy has produced teams that dominate the league, and are marginally better than teams that take a year to year approach, thus occupying most of the few available playoff positions. Look at the AL standings this year and you already know this, 4 of the 5 spots will be Boston, New York, Houston and Cleveland. Seattle and LA are the compelling teams that take a year to year approach that seem like they will vie for the 5th spot, but even then, may be relegated to 1 game to decide their fate. With that in mind, it is clear that taking a year to year approach is incredibly risky, as you need to have an overachieving kind of year in order to potentially play only 1 playoff game. Rebuilding to become the next top team indeed becomes a better long term strategy. Assuming Houston wins the division this year but Seattle only falls slightly short of them in the standings, Seattle would deserve a far better fate than 1 game. Expanding the playoffs, eliminating 1 game wild card would go a long ways towards stopping teams from intentionally being bad in order to be good in the future. It would empower more teams to go for it, and not blow up their cores. I guess us White Sox fans can be happy that an expanded playoff format is down the road, when we are supposed to be sustaining success, rather than having already happened and emboldening our front office to continue to try and win with the old core and year to year approach we took for so long.

Boy, it's nice to have a lot of pitching prospects. Fortunately, we're not relying on Lucas to become a permanent member of our rotation on the next competitive Sox team. That said, it's also nice to be able to give him every opportunity to succeed. There are strange advantages to tanking, sometimes. No doubt, Giolito would be in AAA if the Sox were trying to win games. Ultimately I will trust whatever decision the Sox make on him. They may believe that he could be turning the corner soon, and that sending him to AAA now with the different baseballs would be pointless. Whatever it is, I'm rooting for him to make our process of boiling down our next competitive rotation easier, even if he ends up being the #5 instead of the #2 we had hoped. His shortcomings make the Eaton trade look even better. I know that sounds weird, but being able to get 2 more pitching prospects... essentially lotto tickets was key. You have a good shot of at least 1 of those guys making it, and if that happens, that is great and it was a good trade, Eaton's unfortunate injuries notwithstanding. All I think about when I start to get frustrated by Giolito or Fulmers shortcomings is the following: Kopech Lopez Giolito Fulmer Covey Hansen Cease Dunning Stephens Adams That is pretty decent starter depth, and it's not even a complete list. It's basically 10 lotto tickets. If you hit on 50% of them, you have your rotation. Some of them even carry better odds, like Kopech, Lopez and seemingly Hansen, Cease and Dunning. There could also be more Covey types who throw themselves into this mix, or Quintana types who come out of nowhere. We are relatively insulated to the potential failure of Giolito. It is nice that we aren't depending on him to hit his ceiling. Giolito strikes me as the kind of guy who with age and baseball wisdom will overcome mental problems and let his skillset do the work. Let's just hope it happens sooner rather than later.

I really enjoyed it. Some of the food were very reqsonably priced for being at a baseball game. Lots of drinks and beer selections. Got to sit outside but it was a small crowd the day i went. Sorry for the brief message, not much internet here.

I hope all this injury and freak injury variance is behind us when we're ready to compete. This is another gut punch to the fans and Carlos Rodon if it turns out he is concussed.

You kiddin? Ricky's probably gonna play Gonzalez this afternoon.

That bunt was just an awful decision, even if it would have worked. The potential for disaster with that bunt is too real, and the worst case scenario indeed played out. Yolmer bunted at ball 1. Yolmer couldn't dig himself out of the 0-2 hole. Abreu got walked, and then it was left to one of our worst hitters. The fans last night deserved better, they deserved to see their team go down swinging instead of giving pitches away. I've gone from neutral on Rick, to now not a very big fan. All I ask from Rick now is get these kids playing hard, playing the right way, and striving for the W every day. At that point hopefully we will have found a new manager.

Despite his command issues, I am pleased to hear that his stuff is good and/or back. I feel like you have a harder time fixing a guy with bad stuff then a guy with bad command. He still has a chance in this league.

Hopefully he can go figure out his command in lesser pressure situations, but baseball is still baseball even in AAA and you are trying to win ballgames. I'm rooting for him to come back sooner than later.

I bet the Sox will be a good spoiler team later in the season. For now, this is just a bumpy ride.

For you statheads (requires an Athletic sub): Article by James Fegan https://theathletic.com/348073/2018/05/09/double-a-birmingham-pitchers-are-embracing-pitch-data-as-they-try-to-move-up-the-white-sox-ladder/ Talks about how Chris Getz has brought in Trackman data such as spin efficiency, vertical drop, and carry for our young pitchers to use and learn from. Features quotes from Jordan Stephens, Spencer Adams, Ryan Burr and Ian Hamilton. One notable quote from a player suggests that our pitchers are competing with each other based on data being given to them by the coaches. Pretty cool article.

Gotta do something to entertain yourselves when at a game like that, I guess. It's not the Sox fans who suck, it's the team.

Why does this thread get bumped every time Moncada gets a hit? Anyways, he has easily looked like the best hitter on the Sox in the Oakland series.

Moncada has had a great night. Wow!

Cahill isn't this kind of pitcher anymore, our guys are just mentally f***ed.

I think even the Oakland crowd is bored of this game. Too bad our team couldn't make it a little more exciting for them.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Apr 17, 2018 -> 09:30 PM) That's a good idea, especially since the rainouts would mean that Fulmer or Giolito would've been good to go Maybe they would have been blasted too, but this experience would be much better served with one of them.

Lopez, Giolito, or Fulmer should be pitching this game... just to get a taste of playoff atmosphere.

For my money, Adam Engel has at least a half of a season. I want to see if he can make the adjustments that he needs to make to be a MLB regular. In all likelihood, he probably won't, but before giving up on him I think he should be given an extended look. If he's been in a slump for the entire season at the halfway point, then yeah let's go ahead and try another option. These are the luxuries a rebuilding team can have. Give Adam the time he needs to make the necessary adjustments, see if he does it, and if not, sucks for us and Adam but we can then give Cordell or Tilson a shot. My half season suggestion may be too much for some around here, I understand. 1/3 of the season should be ample amount of time as well.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Apr 16, 2018 -> 10:34 PM) Nice pitching that inning, honestly Yeah that will happen when you let pitchers off the hook enough. They start gaining confidence and actually pitching well.

I have the highest of expectations for Moncada as well, as should everyone here. At this point, if you are so unhappy with his production that you just can't stand yet, I'd say take a step back. You are following it too closely. Scrutinizing every game, every at bat, every pitch. You can't do that. Seasons and careers are judged on the whole. I'm also disappointed with his slow start, but not surprised and definitely not upset. Prospects need time to prove what they are going to be. Even IF he was lighting the world on fire, he hasn't standardized how his career trajectory is going to go. We all thought Beckham was the next big thing after his rookie year and look how that worked out. My point is is that you simply cannot make any judgments on Moncada yet because he hasn't been around long enough to prove what he's going to be. It took Beckham at least 3 seasons, maybe 4, to prove that his rookie season was a fluke and that his 2nd season wasn't just a sophomore slump. To that end, it is a pointless mental exercise to come here and post FUD about his career when he hasn't even played 1 whole MLB season. You are wasting yours, and everyone else's time by doing this.

I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but from where the Sox were a few years ago at developing hitters to the direction they are finally seemingly going... is incredibly encouraging. One example, and I realize he hasn't exactly proven himself completely yet, is Yolmer. Back in the dark days a prospect like Yolmer may never have made it as a hitter, and it really looks like he may turn into a nice player for the Sox. Maybe the scouting has also improved drastically, but we are so quick sometimes to denounce coaches for a players failures, that I feel like we should also attribute some successes to coaches. Steverson has to be responsible, to some degree, for Yolmers continued development at the MLB level. It's not just Rick Renteria.