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Sean Burke Opening Day Starter


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  On 3/16/2025 at 6:17 PM, Snopek said:

Huh. Very cool for him. Even though I thought Davis Martin deserved it.

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If you want to maximize opportunities to win, bad teams do their rotation wrong.

Instead of matching your 1 starter against a good teams top starter and 2 against 2, 3 against 3 etc., you should do it backwards. 5 starter against their #1, 4 against #2. That way your best starters are facing their worst starters and your worst are against their best. If you match 1 against 1 and 2 against 2, etc., you likely are always pitching against a better pitcher.

It's a matchup contest. You don't put out a bunch of lefties to face Crochet. Maximize your chances to win matchups in starting pitching at least . Your lineup will always be worse.

Edited by CaliSoxFanViaSWside
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  On 3/17/2025 at 10:01 PM, ptatc said:

I'll be stunned if Perez, Davis or Smith spend any time in Charlotte.

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Probably a smart call, majority being 3 of the 5.Not likely for Perez, Shane Smith ( as of yet not officially named a starter,  but likely,)  cannot be optioned to Charlotte. So of  Martin,  Burke and Cannon only 1 of them has to avoid Charlotte as a demotion . Rehab assignments obviously will not count as "ending up back in Charlotte"  as it was implied as pitching badly enough to get demoted).

If Bryce Wilson is named a SP over Smith that changes the dynamic but I don't expect that to happen .

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  On 3/17/2025 at 6:54 PM, WestEddy said:

Who's not being realistic? Burke has a high ceiling. He had more of a starting pitching repertoire going into his opening day than Crochet did. Crochet's the better pitcher. Nobody debates that. Crochet being a better pitcher doesn't mean that nobody will ever be a good pitcher again. If it was up to you and your group of "experts", Crochet would be starting this year in AAA, building his workload up to a 2025 ceiling of maybe 120 innings. So, you didn't even think Crochet was Crochet a year ago. 

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Exactly .There are levels to " breaking out". You can  break out as a rookie just by pitching well enough to compile good enough stats to be considered as an MLB starting pitcher the next year such as Cannon did. Both Cannon and Crochet broke out,  just in different ways . Cannon broke out from being a minor league pitcher to being an MLB who stayed in the rotation long enough and did well enough to be considered as part of the rotation this year.Granted it's on a terrible team but he held his own against non terrible teams last year. He wasn't pitching against any 121 loss teams.

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  On 3/17/2025 at 8:12 PM, PaleAleSox said:

Yeah that seems like revisionist history. There was a ton of "what are they doing to him?"

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Optimists and pessimists were united for once in their belief that he' d either get injured again or wouldn't  pitch over around 100 innings.

When ptatc says what happened was borderline miraculous ,he 's right.  No one could find anyone who did what Crochet did with a similar background . Anyone acting like Crochet being a sucessfull starting pitcher was just a matter of time because he had an arm that could throw 2 pitches hard and accurately  with his injury history,  not having started since his injury filled college career is just pretending to be smarter than everyone else and blaming the Sox for his injuries. It's highly likely without him being as physically mature and stronger now that he would have been injured starting or relieving back when he 1st started his professional career.

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  On 3/17/2025 at 8:45 PM, Tony said:

I'm not either, I'm incredibly checked out of White Sox baseball, just crazy that Sean Burke is an Opening Day starter for a team in 2025. I hope he's great, but just wild. 

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It is kind of crazy but some see it as crazy in a good way .

Obviously he doesn't have the body of work that 99.8 % of Opening Day starters in baseball history have because the team is so bad.

The good thing is given the opportunity some players are in the right place at the right time like Crochet was last year. Can Burke step up and have a successful season ? All he really needs to do is pitch as well as Cannon did last year with stronger K numbers. He might not pitch as many innings as Cannon though.

But if you can envision a  future rotation of "stuff" pitchers Burke is capable of being in a rotation of Schultz, Hagen Smith, Grant Taylor, and Shane Smith in the not too distant future , health permitting of course for all of them . That has the potential to be a strong starting 5 if you don't like the potential of the guys who throw softer.

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Unlike Burke and Cannon, Smith was actually successful at upper levels of minors. Burke had three good starts at MLB level but 6 ERA and 1.49 WHIP at AAA. Cannon had ERAs over 5.5 and whip over 1.5 at both AA and AAA. He's been getting absolutely torched in cactus league play. I'll give him credit for being fairly solid last year but given his mediocre stuff I think it more likely he returns to those kinds of numbers in the future.

Strong chance neither of them make it past 12-15 starts with Thorpe, Iriarte and Nastrini waiting in the wings. If any of Burke, Cannon or Davis make it to 25+ starts anywhere approaching average that would be a win imo.

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  On 3/18/2025 at 3:25 PM, 46DidIt said:

Unlike Burke and Cannon, Smith was actually successful at upper levels of minors. Burke had three good starts at MLB level but 6 ERA and 1.49 WHIP at AAA. Cannon had ERAs over 5.5 and whip over 1.5 at both AA and AAA. He's been getting absolutely torched in cactus league play. I'll give him credit for being fairly solid last year but given his mediocre stuff I think it more likely he returns to those kinds of numbers in the future.

Strong chance neither of them make it past 12-15 starts with Thorpe, Iriarte and Nastrini waiting in the wings. If any of Burke, Cannon or Davis make it to 25+ starts anywhere approaching average that would be a win imo.

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But it's never ALL about numbers when you're in the minors. It's about development and we tend to forget they are not finished products.

Again being in the right place at the right time when you overcome injury , your body matures and you get the right guys teaching you can make a world of difference. It's difficult making changes and finding a new path.

Very few pitchers master command in all 4 quadrants with different pitches from the same arm slot .The closer you get to it the better you become even without the best stuff.

 

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  On 3/18/2025 at 7:12 PM, 46DidIt said:

In Burke's case, a guy issuing 5.5 walks and 2 HR per nine at AAA, usually doesn't have a lot of success at major league level one off season later

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He has the fifth best stuff in the organization, but lack of command/control/stamina has destroyed thousands of stuff guys in baseball history or at least turned them into relievers.

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  On 3/18/2025 at 7:12 PM, 46DidIt said:

In Burke's case, a guy issuing 5.5 walks and 2 HR per nine at AAA, usually doesn't have a lot of success at major league level one off season later

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Boom.  This would be an opposite side of the spectrum when looking at Burke’s background in the minors.

Hopefully he magically figures it out but walks will likely always be an issue for him.

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Honestly, watching Burke in AAA he started the year off very rusty. There was a very noticeable improvement in his command. He's likely always going to have above average walk rates, but his last 4-5 starts in AAA I don't think he had a single non-competitive AB where he just walked someone on 4/5 pitches. He has the stuff to make mistakes at the big league level, someone like Cannon had zero room for error, but Sean can just let a 98 MPH, 7+ extension, 18+ IVB rip over the plate and he's still going to get swings if its anywhere near the zone. That has some serious staying power when you have the stuff to widen your margin of error.

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  On 3/18/2025 at 7:12 PM, 46DidIt said:

In Burke's case, a guy issuing 5.5 walks and 2 HR per nine at AAA, usually doesn't have a lot of success at major league level one off season later

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First 12 starts for Charlotte:

  • 39.2 IP | 5.67 ERA | 12.3 K/9 | 6.8 BB/9 | 1.80 K/BB

Last seven starts for Charlotte:

  • 32.0 IP | 3.66 ERA | 13.8 K/9 | 3.09 BB/9 | 4.45 K/BB

Four appearances with White Sox:

  • 19.0 IP | 1.42 ERA | 10.4 K/9 | 3.3 BB/9 | 3.1 K/BB
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  On 3/19/2025 at 12:19 AM, mac9001 said:

Honestly, watching Burke in AAA he started the year off very rusty. There was a very noticeable improvement in his command. He's likely always going to have above average walk rates, but his last 4-5 starts in AAA I don't think he had a single non-competitive AB where he just walked someone on 4/5 pitches. He has the stuff to make mistakes at the big league level, someone like Cannon had zero room for error, but Sean can just let a 98 MPH, 7+ extension, 18+ IVB rip over the plate and he's still going to get swings if its anywhere near the zone. That has some serious staying power when you have the stuff to widen your margin of error.

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  On 3/19/2025 at 12:33 AM, Chicago White Sox said:

First 12 starts for Charlotte:

  • 39.2 IP | 5.67 ERA | 12.3 K/9 | 6.8 BB/9 | 1.80 K/BB

Last seven starts for Charlotte:

  • 32.0 IP | 3.66 ERA | 13.8 K/9 | 3.09 BB/9 | 4.45 K/BB

Four appearances with White Sox:

  • 19.0 IP | 1.42 ERA | 10.4 K/9 | 3.3 BB/9 | 3.1 K/BB
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You guys convinced me to be slightly more optimistic on Burke, although I'm still advocating maximum overall pessimism where I can in the interests of public mental health

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