White Sox decline to tender Tyler Flowers and Jacob Turner

[OmarComing25]

Some of this data and the anomalies may also be explained by exit velocity off the bat. A line drive is a line drive whether it's going 75 MPH or 115 MPH. If he wasn't hitting the ball as hard, that would explain some regression in his BABIP.

 

Some of those numbers have become available to the public, but I don't think all of them are yet. You are correct that, on the surface, it appears that it was a bit unlucky for Ramirez to have the season he had given the circumstances.

True, and Baseball Savant only has data on that from 2015, and Fangraphs soft, medium and hard percentages aren't descriptive enough.

 

http://baseballsavant.com/p.php?id=493351&...r&year=2015

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...n=SS#battedball

 

Here's Alexei, his soft-hit% was up this year, but if you look at 2011 it appears he made much softer contact yet his BABIP was much higher than it was this year.

 

For exit velocity, he was below league average, but he still looks like he got a bit unlucky, he hit .127 when his exit velocity was between 85-89 MPH (around league average), and he was 29 for 167 (.173) in the 70-90 MPH range. Compare that to Abreu, who was 30 for 109 (.275) in that same range.

[Swingandalongonetoleft]

Daryl Van SchouwenVerified account

‏@CST_soxvan

Hahn on Flowers: "We saw opportunity to improve club from offensive standpoint. This move done as part of a plan."

 

A plan!!!

[Whisox05]

Chris Sale had some questions for Rick Hahn after Tyler Flowers' non-tender so he called the White Sox GM Thursday. Had a good talk.

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/672820537433923584

 

Sale was disappointed by Flowers' non-tender and stressed how that pitcher-catcher bond is taken for granted. But excited to work with new C

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/672821103744561152

 

Remember Flowers has caught every pitch thrown by Sale in the last two years

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/672821223449989120

 

Sale on the talk with Hahn: "We weren’t yelling at each other. We weren’t angry. We were just figuring out what was going on."

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/672821323802869760

Edited December 4, 2015 by WhiteSoxLifer

[GGajewski18]

Chris Sale had some questions for Rick Hahn after Tyler Flowers' non-tender so he called the White Sox GM Thursday. Had a good talk.

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/672820537433923584

 

Sale was disappointed by Flowers' non-tender and stressed how that pitcher-catcher bond is taken for granted. But excited to work with new C

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/6728...433923584"]

 

Remember Flowers has caught every pitch thrown by Sale in the last two years

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/672821223449989120

 

Sale on the talk with Hahn: "We weren’t yelling at each other. We weren’t angry. We were just figuring out what was going on."

https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/672821323802869760

 

Nothing to worry about here. It's a business, Chris knows that. Sounds like a good constructive meeting.

[Feeky Magee]

Just noticed sorting through Baseball Reference's WARP leaderboard (which includes catcher framing) that they have Flowers as the 5th-most valuable player in baseball this year. Welp.

 

 

[bmags]

Flowers to me was the epitome of the flawed execution by Hahn with the last group, where he took a club weakness and replaced it with essentially probable veteran marginal upgrades. In the future, if we are going to get rid of someone providing average production to the club, we better do it with a big jump in talent. Our journey to upgrade ended up shuffling out players we'd have been better off keeping for players we hoped would replicate career years that never came.

[ChiSox59]

Flowers is hitting .331? Lol. The guy that played for the Sox couldn't hit his weight.

 

Moving on from Flowers to sign an Aliva / Navarro platoon was a mistake, but I don't fault Rick for moving on from Tyler. He'd been here awhile, and outside of game calling and framing, he was a bad baseball player. His OPS+ with the Sox was 84. OBP .289. He was offensively inept.

 

Some guys develop under different regimes, and that is certainly the case with Flowers (to this point). I'm not losing any sleep over it.

[Bananarchy]

It would hurt a lot more if Flowers were younger.

[TheTruth05]

Flowers is hitting .331? Lol. The guy that played for the Sox couldn't hit his weight.

 

Moving on from Flowers to sign an Aliva / Navarro platoon was a mistake, but I don't fault Rick for moving on from Tyler. He'd been here awhile, and outside of game calling and framing, he was a bad baseball player. His OPS+ with the Sox was 84. OBP .289. He was offensively inept.

 

Some guys develop under different regimes, and that is certainly the case with Flowers (to this point). I'm not losing any sleep over it.

 

 

It would hurt a lot more if Flowers were younger.

 

It's interesting to see Flowers develop into a good player but all of this written above is why I honestly can't blame the Sox letting him go when they did. He may have never become that player here. Whether that speaks about the coaching he received with the Sox or his own personal developing we'll probably never know.

[bmags]

It's interesting to see Flowers develop into a good player but all of this written above is why I honestly can't blame the Sox letting him go when they did. He may have never become that player here. Whether that speaks about the coaching he received with the Sox or his own personal developing we'll probably never know.

 

Maybe not but they replaced him with worse production than even he provided as a white sox.

[TheTruth05]

Maybe not but they replaced him with worse production than even he provided as a white sox.

 

They wanted more offense from the C position,something Flowers was severely lacking. They sure didn't expect Navarro having the worst year of his career. Oh well.

[steveno89]

They wanted more offense from the C position,something Flowers was severely lacking. They sure didn't expect Navarro having the worst year of his career. Oh well.

 

Can't blame the Sox for ditching Flowers, he was bad in 2015 and nobody could predict the bounce back he is having in Atlanta

[steveno89]

They wanted more offense from the C position,something Flowers was severely lacking. They sure didn't expect Navarro having the worst year of his career. Oh well.

 

Can't blame the Sox for ditching Flowers, he was bad in 2015 and nobody could predict the bounce back he is having in Atlanta

[Hatchetman]

Suspect he was part of the "bad clubhouse crew." RIP

[southsider2k5]

Flowers is hitting .331? Lol. The guy that played for the Sox couldn't hit his weight.

 

Moving on from Flowers to sign an Aliva / Navarro platoon was a mistake, but I don't fault Rick for moving on from Tyler. He'd been here awhile, and outside of game calling and framing, he was a bad baseball player. His OPS+ with the Sox was 84. OBP .289. He was offensively inept.

 

Some guys develop under different regimes, and that is certainly the case with Flowers (to this point). I'm not losing any sleep over it.

 

I know there is some hard core hindsight going on here, but there was literally not a single person who wanted the Sox to keep Tyler Flowers. None.

[bmags]

They wanted more offense from the C position,something Flowers was severely lacking. They sure didn't expect Navarro having the worst year of his career. Oh well.

 

Trying to upgrade your offense (marginally) while severely undermining your good pitching is exactly the whack-a-mole that epitomized the white sox failure from the 2014 accelerated rebuild.

[Hatchetman]

I know there is some hard core hindsight going on here, but there was literally not a single person who wanted the Sox to keep Tyler Flowers. None.

 

not true. the Southside Sox "intelligentsia" had a s*** fit when he was released. main argument was outstanding pitch framing.

[ChiSox59]

I know there is some hard core hindsight going on here, but there was literally not a single person who wanted the Sox to keep Tyler Flowers. None.

 

 

Mmmhhmmm.

[Jose Abreu]

I know there is some hard core hindsight going on here, but there was literally not a single person who wanted the Sox to keep Tyler Flowers. None.

I wanted us to keep him not because I thought he would break out offensively, but because his framing/game managing alone + occasional home run already made him one of the more valuable catchers in the league. Catchers who are good offensively are not easy to find in the first place, so when you have one who's great at framing and only subpar offensively, that's a solid catcher. I guess we learned that the hard way here.

[TaylorStSox]

I know there is some hard core hindsight going on here, but there was literally not a single person who wanted the Sox to keep Tyler Flowers. None.

I did. I certainly wasn't motivated enough to make a stink, but I thought he was a valuable catcher, if only for how well he handled certain pitchers.

[greg775]

I know there is some hard core hindsight going on here, but there was literally not a single person who wanted the Sox to keep Tyler Flowers. None.

He definitely was a Soxtalk whipping boy. People despised him. Glad for him that he's doing well. He'd go into horrendous 1 for 40ish type slumps (Avi is halfway through a doozy now) but he was a likeable player cause of the occasional bombs he'd hit.

 

With the advance of the framing stat for the advanced statniks, he'd be very popular now if he was still with the Sox. Pitch framing had not yet become a big deal until his final year with the Sox. Now he'd be proclaimed acceptable to good by the stat people if he was just starting his Sox career.

Edited June 28, 2017 by greg775

[thxfrthmmrs]

Flowers to me was the epitome of the flawed execution by Hahn with the last group, where he took a club weakness and replaced it with essentially probable veteran marginal upgrades. In the future, if we are going to get rid of someone providing average production to the club, we better do it with a big jump in talent. Our journey to upgrade ended up shuffling out players we'd have been better off keeping for players we hoped would replicate career years that never came.

 

Come on dude, not even sure if it's sarcasm.

 

I don't know what Hanh has to do with this because ironically, the Braves did exactly what Hanh was doing, took a weakness and made marginal upgrades, and Tyler Flower turns out to be one of the best catchers in the league the last 2 years.

 

Even more ironically, one of the "marginal upgrades" we brought in to replace Flowers was injured and didn't perform last year. But now that he's healthy, he's also one of the best catchers in the league this season.

 

If the bolded part was easy, every team would be doing it right? And we're talking about catcher, of all positions. It's one of the hardest positions to replace with "big jump in talent".

 

All in all, we had talents and potential at the position the past few years, we just did not have the right coaching staff to unlock them. But truthfully it fits in with the trend the past decade for the Sox, every position player we brought in end up having their worst season as a hitter. I'm glad we sort of reverse that trend this year with several young guys having breakout years.

[bmags]

I never said implied it was easy, but shuffling around veterans hoping to catch lightning in a bottle in age 30-34 seasons isn't a good strategy. It's not surprising sox get burned. Moving forward, I would hope they have the organization with enough depth that they can fill below average production internally, because

"I'm glad we sort of reverse that trend this year with several young guys having breakout years."

 

Is not surprising to me in the least. And those years would have never happened because we'd have austin jackson in center and brandon phillips or some s*** at 2b.

 

If we are going to the market, relievers and sp 5-6-7 depth aside, let's use it to get something we can't get within our system.

 

Pretty confident we will be able to create negative WAR catchers for the foreseeable future.

[greg775]

I never said implied it was easy, but shuffling around veterans hoping to catch lightning in a bottle in age 30-34 seasons isn't a good strategy. It's not surprising sox get burned. Moving forward, I would hope they have the organization with enough depth that they can fill below average production internally, because

"I'm glad we sort of reverse that trend this year with several young guys having breakout years."

 

Is not surprising to me in the least. And those years would have never happened because we'd have austin jackson in center and brandon phillips or some s*** at 2b.

 

If we are going to the market, relievers and sp 5-6-7 depth aside, let's use it to get something we can't get within our system.

 

Pretty confident we will be able to create negative WAR catchers for the foreseeable future.

Leaving this horses*** organization certainly has helped Tyler. It did not help Beckham, however. I am of the suspicion Tyler is happy he's not a member of the White Sox any more. I'm sure he does miss this great city though. Chicago is paradise compared to Atlanta cept for the brutal winters.

[Eminor3rd]

He definitely was a Soxtalk whipping boy. People despised him. Glad for him that he's doing well. He'd go into horrendous 1 for 40ish type slumps (Avi is halfway through a doozy now) but he was a likeable player cause of the occasional bombs he'd hit.

 

With the advance of the framing stat for the advanced statniks, he'd be very popular now if he was still with the Sox. Pitch framing had not yet become a big deal until his final year with the Sox. Now he'd be proclaimed acceptable to good by the stat people if he was just starting his Sox career.

 

We were well aware of his framing skill. He was so bad at everything else that it wasn't worth it.