So it’s been a long time since we rapped at ya. Plenty to cover, spanning far and wide. Enjoy.
There is no way to dance around how the breaking story from respected and long-time Panthers reporter George Richards impacts us here. In short, Dale Tallon is reported to have used racist language while representing the Panthers as recently as their appearance during the preliminary round of the playoffs in Toronto. And while nothing is confirmed, and all the information I’ve received is third-hand, it’s from people I trust when they say that it’s bad. And that this happened recently in the current state of things in American society speaks to the degree of Tallon’s ignorance, defiance, or both.
This raises many questions on the professional side- like if it led to his ouster in Florida, or here. Or if the environment that John McDonough fostered here during his tenure with all of the enabling of rape culture and differing accountability based on a player’s value to a team, and to what degree these two mentalities fueled one another during their brief overlap in the front office here. Not to mention all of the larger questions of hockey culture at large that this asks among the already numerous ones that need to be addressed in the current momemnt.
But on a much smaller scale, this impacts the very existence of this site, as obviously our namesake is poking fun at Tallon and his infamous boning of the qualifying offers over a decade ago now. The previous incarnation of this publication and site had its own issues which were clung to for far too long out of stubborness, and the inability to learn the “Impact Versus Intent” lesson, which is an incredibly valuable one. And now that this issue has come up again, it raises the question of just where to go.
Obviously with Sam no longer steering this ship, the subscription model has been scrapped because the rest of us are doing this in our spare time, and it’s not the primary source of income for anyone. We were going to go back to ads to help compensate everyone for their time if the world ever got back to normal, but that may never happen. It becomes a matter of energy and resources to rebrand the entire site and start all over again, and that costs money to web developers. Not to mention the feeling of defeat that once again comes with this, that even if we overhaul everything, no matter what joke name we give it going forward will eventually get Milkshake Ducked and we’ll have to repeat the cycle all over again.
As of right now, I’ve instructed everyone else that we’re going to need to go dark for a bit and hash this out as a group with what we want to do. Hopefully something can be agreed upon that’s acceptable for everyone going forward, but I simply cannot promise anything right now. This won’t be the last you hear from us, even from here. If nothing else, there’d need to be a big Irish wake.
Be Excellent To Each Other.
Let’s be honest—it feels a little ridiculous to be writing about sports right now. We’re in the midst of a long-overdue reckoning with this country’s toxic legacy of racism and police brutality; the economy is a mess and we all know someone, maybe ourselves, affected by un- or under-employment; and oh yeah, a poorly understood and frequently deadly disease is still ravaging the planet. So yes, sports as a diversion or as something to expend energy on seems downright frivolous. To tell you the truth, I haven’t found myself ready or able to write much about them, even though there have still been plenty of things to say even with leagues closed down. I’ve not seen much reason to put my voice out there when there are so many more that deserve to be heard.
And yet here I am writing about soccer. I guess I’m grasping at some sense of normalcy, and while Serie A’s return can’t really be described as “normal” for a soccer season, I’m unabashedly excited to have this little piece of my life back. So I’m going to share it with you, whether you’re interested or not (and Sam’s not here to shut down my Serie A content so BUCKLE UP).
The German Bundesliga has been back for a few weeks now, and La Liga from Spain and England’s Premier League will all be back in action soon too. But, lots of Serie A games will be on the various ESPN channels because, well, they got a lot of time to fill. So what the hell is going on when this league re-starts? The title race is actually interesting for one thing, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Beginning with the End
They’re starting with the semi-finals and final of the Coppa Italia (which I’m sure is clear that it’s an Italian national tournament). It may seem odd to start with the end of a competition when everyone is rusty, but I think it’s actually a good thing—let the few teams still in it get this out of the way and then everyone can focus on the scudetto (league title) and whatever the hell the rest of Champion’s League and Europa League end up being. So this Friday, Serie A’s version of the Patriots, Juventus, plays AC Milan, who have been terrible. To be honest though, Juve wasn’t playing all that well before the world fell apart, and given that everyone is starting from such a weird place, I guess it’s possible Milan pulls off the upset. But it sure isn’t likely. Juve has too much depth and Milan is woefully short on that. Although, running into the suspension of the season, Maurizio Sarri was using Paolo Dybala, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuain as the attacking trio, and since that time Dybala got sick with COVID-19 for months on end, and Higuain showed up to training overweight and out of shape, so that front three that had been working so well may not be anymore. Still, I think they have enough talent to turn it on well enough to get past hapless Milan, but it will be interesting to see how their increasing age and slowness plays out now.
Saturday is Napoli-Inter, and as a Napoli fan I’m a bit terrified but also trying to be positive (and I’m just happy to see my fucking team again). Inter had been playing like shit right before the pandemic hit, losing to both Juve and Lazio in league play which basically ended their realistic chances at the scudetto. Napoli, on the other hand, after miserably underperforming for the first two-thirds of the season, were finally pulling their heads out of their collective asses. Our best center back, Kalidou Koulibaly, was hurt but should be back now, which would be a huge boost to our suspect (at best) defense. Thing is, Inter’s coach Antonio Conte loves to play the soccer version of the prevent defense. If Inter scores once (and they need two because Napoli is already leading in aggregate), they’re going to drop back and let Napoli dominate in possession. And Napoli excels at dominating possession but not finishing. They make one dumb mistake that leads to a goal when they’ve had 70% possession—it’s their specialty. So if Inter plays to their strengths they can probably take this, but it’s equally possible that the prevent defense blows up in their face if anyone on Napoli can finish.
Regardless of what happens, these are four powerhouses of the league all in various stages of growth, decline, and rebuilding-on-the-fly, so it’ll make for interesting viewing. And Juventus just might lose, so there’s that.
Ripresa
Now, what of the actual league play that kicks off (HAHA GET IT) on June 20th? The title race is the most interesting it’s been in a few years, and the current wackiness is just another element to that. Juve has won the last eight years and currently is top of the table with 63 points, but Lazio is right there with them with 62. It’s unfortunate because Lazio is the team of, by and for fascists, so you can’t actually root for these fuckers, even though they have the league’s top scorer in Ciro Immobile, who is entertaining as hell to watch. Anyway, it’s at least competitive and Inter is still making some noise in third. Atalanta, hands down the most fun team to watch and the league’s best Cinderella story, is fourth and it would be fantastic to see them pass Inter and make the latter sweat for the last Champion’s League spot next year (year? Season? Whatever length of time…what is time anyway?).
From there it’s a multi-car pileup in the middle of the table, but it means on paper the last Champion’s League spot is in play, plus the Europa League spots are up for grabs. Roma and Napoli are both in the running, as long as there’s no dramatic collapse on either side. Roma had also lost one of their best players to injury, Niccolo Zaniolo, who should be back before this whatever-end-of-a-season is over. In short, this season was already exciting and more unpredictable than usual, so seeing how it all sorts itself out should be a fun time in an already sports-starved summer.
Italy took a serious curb-stomping from the coronavirus, and their hardest-hit areas were the northern regions where most of these Serie A teams hail from. Atalanta in particular is the home team of Bergamo, the northern city that was the epicenter of the pandemic for a long time, as if we needed another element added to their story (and it’s another reason why you absolutely have to root for them in Champion’s League, outside of them playing against your team of course). No matter what happens, it’s a huge emotional lift for the country to have its calcio back. Remember, when Hank Scorpio asked Homer his least-favorite country, France or Italy, he followed up Homer’s answer with an astute observation—nobody ever says Italy.
We’re back once again in the midst of the lockdown with a very special Director’s Cut episode featuring friend Ashok Selvam (@Shokdiesel) of Eater Chicago to join us to discuss the talk of the sports universe right now in The Last Dance, as well as share his expertise in the brave new world that the restaurant industry and how best everyone can keep their favorite spots afloat. It’s a fun one, give a listen on any of the several hundred platforms we’re on. What the hell else are you doing anyway?
We all pretty much figured that MLB was going to do whatever it could to try and salvage as much of this season as humanly possible, and understandably so. Major League Baseball is a billion dollar business, and those folks don’t like to sit idly by and let that money go up in smoke if they have anything to say about it. So when Bob Nightengale posted this tweet earlier today my initial reaction was not one of surprise, other than at how long it took for some of these weird science ideas to start getting leaked to the press.
As far as creative thinking goes, this one fills the Corporate Bingo card for buzzwords. It’s MLB initiating a paradigm shift thinking outside the box while simultaneously sticking to their core competency (BINGO). Essentially the idea is that baseball will completely realign for a season, with the teams returning to their respective spring training homes in Florida and Arizona. The Florida teams will comprise the “Grapefruit League” while the Zona teams will form the “Cactus League.” Each league will be divided into three separate divisions based on their geographic location in those states. Now comes the point when you ask “Don’t the White Sox and Dodgers share a park, and would that put them in the same division?” The answer is twofold: Yes and Fuck. Here’s what the divisions would look like:
Cactus League:
Northeast Division – Cubs, Giants, Diamondbacks, A’s and Rockies
West Division – Dodgers, White Sox, Reds, Indians and Angels
Northwest Division – Brewers, Padres, Mariners, Rangers and Royals
Grapefruit League:
North Division – Yankees, Phillies, Blue Jays, Tigers and Pirates
South Division – Red Sox, Twins, Braves, Rays and Orioles
East Division – Nationals, Astros, Mets, Cardinals and Marlins
Right off the bat you can see there is some disparity in the talent levels in different divisions. If this were to be how it shakes out division wise the Yankees may as well just get a bye on the regular season and start right in the first round of the playoffs. The Northwest division in the Cactus League is also pretty bereft of quality, as none of those teams other than the Brew Crew even sniffed the postseason last year (and they got in by the last hair on their asses) . Meanwhile the East division is hilariously loaded as it contains both World Series teams from 2019, the Cards (who are always good for 88 wins), the Mets (who despite being hilariously run have a pretty deep vein of talent to mine), and the Miami Derek Jeters.
If you go by ZiPS win projections the divisions stack out like this:
NE – 394
W – 434
NW – 376
N – 388
S – 415
E – 423
What does that mean for the baseball teams of Chicago? I’m glad you asked, I’ve been super bored these past few weeks. For the White Sox, this kinda sucks as they share a field with the unholy terror that is the Dodgers they’re plopped in the middle of the most difficult division in all the land. After the Dodgers the revamped Reds are there, plus our old friends the Tribe and the Angels, who have the greatest baseball player ever to play the game. Out of the entire division, not a single team is forecast for less than 81 wins (the Reds) and pretty much everyone expects them to outperform that. The silver lining for the Sox here is that getting to play out the season at the Camelback Ranch might help some of the pitchers control the long ball, as the dimensions there are larger then the bandbox that The Down Arrow has become.
For the Cubs, the new division alignment paints a much rosier picture for them. They get to ditch the two teams who are seemingly always nipping at their heels (Brewers and Cards), and the exciting new club (Reds). Those get replaced with a couple teams the Cubs should easily be able to punch down upon, namely the Giants (69 projected wins) (nice), Rockies and Dbacks. The ZiPS model that projected a whopping 72 wins for the Rockies obviously didn’t take into account them not getting to play on their orbital platform for at least half the season so that’s definitely high. The only team that could give the Cubs fits would be the A’s, where the change of scenery moving from their cavernous stadium to a spring training field could bump the shit out of their hitter’s numbers.
What the article doesn’t really go into are the nitty gritty details of the plan, other than to say that the universal DH would be implemented (good) and the entire season would be played in Arizona and Florida. The World Series would be played at one of the domed stadiums in Florida in early November. It also doesn’t say anything about how the league will handle positive tests for the virus, as it wouldn’t take much for the season to fall apart with one or two infections among teams. It also doesn’t mention how the league would handle it if sanctions were suddenly lifted, allowing teams to return to their home parks.
Also, I don’t think the plan takes into account the average Arizona summer temperature of 489 degrees Kelvin. The Dbacks can make it work down there because their stadium has a roof and air conditioning. Camelback Ranch has neither of those two things, which might help kill the virus but also could take a few players with it. While watching Trevor Bauer spontaneously combust on the mound would be fun, having Yoan Moncada pass out from heat stroke is slightly less so.
Florida presents it’s own set of problems, as there is a reason both their stadiums are also indoors. Thunderstorms pop up at the drop of a hat down there, which leads to an increased chance of rainouts in an already condensed season. There’s also the issue of August-October being hurricane season in FL, which makes baseball hard to play when half your stadium and equipment have been blown into the Gulf of Mexico. Plus you know at some point alligators are going to run off with at least one member of the Mets pitching staff. Also factoring in is that their state is being run by a moron. Being able to shit on other state’s governors is nice for a change. I can’t tell you how weird it is to have the governor of Illinois on the news for doing a good job as opposed to being sentenced for 39 counts of fraud. I digress.
All things being equal I think this idea has some merit to it, but as currently presented it’s a little too half baked to be workable. If Southern California were to become available along with the domed stadiums in Georgia and Texas I think you might have something to work with. I get that you want to keep travel to a minimum, but if you are having all these players in hotels for at least the first part of the season the risk for exposure isn’t going to be any more than a chartered airplane.
This is a good first effort for the MLB brain trust, however. I honestly feel that some form of an MLB season is within reach, and if this first attempt leads to better and better ideas down the road then more power to them. I think everyone wants to watch baseball in some form this season, and out of the Big 4 professional sports MLB has the best chance of making it work. Hockey, basketball and football are all too close contact right now to realistically have a chance at limiting the spread without some form of vaccine. There’s still a lot of hurdles to clear, but today was a step in the right direction.
We’ve reached the end of the position player portion of these previews and let me thank you, dear reader, for coming this far. The following list will include a few guys that might never see an at bat with the big club, but dang it the MLB added an extra roster spot and I wanna write about THE YERMINATOR. The 2020 team may finally resemble an actual Major League Baseball™ club, which means that guys like Adam Engel and Danny Mendick won’t need to try and make you stop hating them because they were forced into more playing time than they should’ve ever had. No, we finally get to see them in roles that they’re suited for, supplementing the roster, playing every few days and dare I say…maybe excelling at it???
Adam Engel
2019 Stats
.242/.304/.383, 6 HR 26 RBI 26 R
.296 wOBA 84 wRC+, 0.8 WAR +2 DRS
LAST WEEK ON NITRO: Engel found his way into 89 contests last year and posted a mildly respectable 84 wRC+ in his 248 part-time at bats. He found himself part of a five-six headed OF monster as the Sox churned through Him, Charlie Tilson and Ryan Cordell to fill space and eat time until they would employ real MLB players in their positions with Engel pacing the field (not that there was much of a bar). His real value was realized, as always, in the field where he was one of few Sox to actually SAVE runs in 2019.
TOO SWEET (WHOOP)/YOU FUCKED UP!: So as I stated above, Engel should finally be in the role that best suits him – fourth outfielder. His defense in the OF is still the best on the team until Luis Robert proves it otherwise. He should not eclipse 75 at bats. He will see plenty of time as the late inning replacement for one of the corners, and for my money it’s Nomar Mazara being lifted. Maybe he’ll get some pinch running chances too and can boost his lackluster three SB from 2019. The only way Engel hurts the team is if he’s forced into another 250+ ABs somehow, and with Garcia the real super utility on the team I don’t see how that’s possible.
Danny Mendick
2019 Stats (AAA)
.279/.368/.444, 17 HR 64 RBI 75 R
.355 wOBA 109 wRC+, 0.2 WAR
LAST WEEK ON NITRO: Mendick put together a very fine season at Charlotte, earning himself a September call up and 40 plate appearances with the big club. The audition was successful enough to keep him on the 40-man and in the conversation for a bench spot, something that became a near lock when the team decided to non-tender all-around great human/fan and clubhouse favorite Yolmer Sanchez. Danny showed a keen batting eye, with a very respectable 66:96 K:BB ratio while displaying decent power in a .166 ISO. He’s also versatile in the field, capable of manning any INF position and doing it well (+1 DRS combined at 2B/SS/3B).
TOO SWEET (WHOOP)/YOU FUCKED UP!: Mendick is in a slightly different position than Engel in that he could see more playing time early, especially if the highly touted Nick Madrigal struggles to open the year. The way this Spring is going, no one has staked their claim on the 2B job and that means Mads is likely ticketed for Charlotte until May. Mendick will see more opportunities early since his main competition at 2B is Leury Garcia, and he’ll be spelling Robert/Mazara more than I think many want to believe. Mendick could keep Madrigal down for longer than anticipated with a hot start and some of that power he displayed in 2019; he could also see himself demoted to spelling Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson very infrequently if he’s terrible and Madrigal earns a promotion sooner than anticipated or Leury take the gig in full.
2019 Stats (AAA)
.317/.388/.581
23 HR 80 RBI 54 R, 153(!!!) wRC+
LAST WEEK ON NITRO: The Yerminator burst into Sox fans hearts with his towering moon shots straight out of BB&T Stadium in Charlotte. Mercedes has worked his way from the AAA phase of the 2017 Rule 5 draft into the conversation for a roster spot in Chicago via his ability to absolutely destroy pitches, something he’s never really struggled to do. The issue is that our pal Yermin here hasn’t really had a position to call home on the diamond, though Rick Hahn and Co. will tell you he’s REALLY worked on his receiving and if a totally capable backstop. Yermin himself would tell you he can handle 3B, too, but Yoan needn’t break out a different glove. If Yermin did enough in 2019 to secure a roster spot it’s to pinch hit and be the emergency catcher.
TOO SWEET (WHOOP)/YOU FUCKED UP!: Yermin finds glory in 2020 simply by making this team. Zack Collins is what he is and that isn’t changing IMO, but he’s wasted without regular playing time so he’s headed to Charlotte leaving Mercedes in pole position for the newly minted 26th spot. Say he clubs 8-10 dingers in 70ish at bats, a few of which come as walk offs and Yermin reaches Sox legend status. I don’t really see a scenario in which this goes south; he’s either good enough to make the team or he’s back putting on a show for the Knights faithful in AAA.
[FILE NOT FOUND 404]
LAST WEEK ON NITRO: Ol’ Nicky D would like for you to believe 2019 did not happen. He labored through an atrocious stretch to open the year in Chicago that lasted just 21 games, got demoted to Charlotte for another 17 forgettable contests and finally called mercy and had shoulder surgery before being released in June. The Sox brought their familiar face back on a minor league deal in December and have seen him work hard in Spring to throw his hat in the ring for that final 26th man spot.
TOO SWEET (WHOOP)/YOU FUCKED UP!: Keeping with the theme here, simply finding his way onto the MLB roster would be the top of the mountain for Delmonico. Returning to the MLB after the disastrous year and a half he spent with the Sox that preceded this Spring is enough, and he’d simply be asked to spell an OF here or there, maybe pinch hit a time or two. You fucked up if you’re actively rooting against him for some reason. Get a life.
PALKAMANIA
LOL, if Palka is somehow on this team, we’re all gonna be so fucking sad at what became of the 202o season that I’m not even going to entertain the idea of writing about it. He’ll always have #fromthe108 from 2018, I guess.
Prediction: Mengel will make up the main bench spots behind James McCann and Leury and I’m going to go ahead and anoint Yermin Mercedes the first ever White Sox 26th man. He can catch in a pinch, he can flat out hit, and he’s an absolute unit. TOUCH ‘EM ALL, YERMINATOR!
(Feature Photo credit to @zsoxwood)
Funny, when you’ve been doing this 12 years, you think about the end a lot. And then it gets here, and you still don’t know what to say.
So I guess it’s best just say it. Today is my last day captaining the good ship FFUD. The time has come for me to move on. It’s probably been so for a while, and finally an opportunity came up that I felt like I had to take. And that opportunity is that I have been hired to help resurrect Deadspin.
I know. I know the face you’re making. I made the same one when I got the first call. And believe me, this was not an easy decision. You know everything that would have gone into it, and I wrestled with it for a long time (and made McClure’s life hell with my Hamlet-like demeanor). Still, if you’re here, and you’ve read this site in its various incarnations for 12 years, you know me. You know what I do. And you know I wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t been promised I would get to do everything I’ve done this entire time. And over several phone conversations and emails, that’s what I’ve been promised and assured. If that changes, we’ll deal with it. But that’s what I’m heading off to.
I know the challenges are massive. And I know they very well may be insurmountable. I know some will be disappointed, if not more. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. And I think given time, I can write stuff that will stand above and on its own. I at least have to find out. If you’ll allow me a metaphor, as much fun as this has been and as much as it’s meant to me and others, it’s limited in scope. I’ve been around the relegation zone and mid-table. I want to play Champions League football. This feels like my chance.
And while this has been a labor of love, it has not been a living for a while. You can only do that for so long. This is a chance for me to make a living again, and to have some things that I’ve never had. On some level I’m sure you understand.
So that probably leads to some questions from you. I’ll try and get through them. Yes, FFUD will continue. This is still a unique and wildly talented collection of writers, and they’ve expressed that they want to carry on (especially the White Sox contingent. Can’t imagine why). But we recognize that things will change, i.e. they have real lives which I never did and can’t provide the same or amount of content I did, at least at first.
So I’ve stripped off the subscription model (at least I think I have, tell me if I haven’t) and this site will be ad-based again. Some of the gameday stuff that I did will drop, but everyone here is going to do their best to keep this a bastion of original and entertaining thought. I have no doubts that they will. I’m really excited to see where it goes from here.
So, if you’ve recently signed up for a year subscription and you feel you’re getting shortchanged, no worries. Just email me at committedindian@gmail.com in the next few days and we’ll work out a refund.
The podcast will keep going as well, and I’ll continue to do Desipio’s as well when asked. We’ll figure out the former over the next week or so, might need a week off to totally figure it out.
It has been an honor to serve all of you from the original program/newsletter/drunken rag thrown at you by a derelict in the snow, to SCH to CI to here at FFUD. Anyone who says they don’t have regrets is full of shit, because we all make mistakes. There’s plenty of things I wish I’d done better either professionally, personally, or business-wise. But I know I did my best and what I thought was right at the time, and the wonderful thing about all of you is you never asked more of me or us than that. I hope you’ll continue to do that with the staff that remains here.
It’s hard to believe it’s been 12 years, which flies by when you don’t ever feel like you’re really working. We’ve had an incredible time together, which I hope will continue in bigger pastures. Three Cups, a Cubs World Series, and…like a Sox draft pick? I don’t know, I’m sure they’ll tell me.
I’d like to think I’ve written some things people really enjoyed and remembered, and hope that I still will. I’ve met some incredible people and made lifelong friends., It’s hard to believe that the guy I started this all with while never having met him, I stood in his wedding two years ago and he’s about to have his first child, while I’ve…well, I’m still the same piece of shit I was then but like, I eat a little better?
Matt, Feather, Slak, perhaps too many others to count that I get to keep forever. All of you who took the time to write to tell me how much you enjoyed our work, and even those who took the time to told me to go fuck myself (I mean other than my immediate family), believe me when I say I read them all and they always made a difference. I’m humbled and delighted to have made even the smallest one in your fan experience.
Signing off. #YNWA (suck it, Kills).
Continuing our trip trough the outfield, we now come to the most exciting White Sox prospect since, well, last year in the form of Luis Robert. Although, with all due respect to Eloy Jimenez who is universally loved by myself and all Sox fans with a right mind, Robert represents much more hope and potential than Eloy did at this time last year. Similar to Yoan Moncada, the growth and play of Robert is going to be the true key to the White Sox reaching their goal of winning a championship, be that in 2020 (however unlikely that may be) or in the future.
2019 MiLB Stats
.328/.376/.624, 30 HR, 92 RBI, 32 SB
5.1 BB%, 23.4 K%
.396 wOBA, 136 wRC+ in AAA (29 games)
4 Total Errors across all levels
Last Week on Nitro: Robert basically became a real life video game character in 2019 posting just stupidly good numbers at every single stop he made in the minors. As a 21-year-old repeating High-A, he was a pitcher’s worse nightmare put up an obscene .453/.512/.920 slash line with a 305 wRC+ (!!!!!!!!!) in 19 games there to start the year. None of that was a typo. Go back and re-read it. Okay, now catch your breath, because it doesn’t exactly get less impressive. In AA at Regents Park (the one that suppresses offense) he slashed .314/.362/.518 with a 155 wRC+, and then he moved to AAA where all he did was go .297/.341/.634 with a 136 wRC+. Ho hum.
The more Robert tore up the minors last year, the more I wrote about calling him up immediately. In the end, the Sox did not do that obviously, which we can argue about until we are blue in the face but they ultimately *sorta* made it okay by signing him to an 8-year contract extension that virtually guarantees he will be on the Opening Day roster. These contracts are basically the Sox bread-and-butter, as they’ve now done these with Robert, Eloy, Moncada, and Tim Anderson after having done it with Chris Sale and Jose Quintana which then allowed them acquire a great deal of those players. But in Robert’s case, it’s especially good because A) the Sox have their guy with “best player in the world” potential locked up for 8 years and B) we as Sox fans get to enjoy the shit out Robert’s torrid start to Spring Training (.370/.433/.603 line in 30 PA’s) without the grain of salt that he’d be starting 2020 in the minors. Robert is far from the only source of hope Sox fans have for the future of this team moving forward, but he is perhaps the greatest personification of the hope that this will finally come to fruition.
TOO SWEET (WHOOP WHOOP): Let’s just go full-torqued for this one, because it’s best-case scenario after all. How incredible would it be if Luis Robert just… didn’t stop hitting? Imagine this guy comes up and just posts his 2019 AAA slash line with his 2019 MiLB home run, RBI, and stolen base total? He’d be damn near a 7-win player! Fuck a Rookie of the Year, he’d be in consideration for the fuckin’ MVP. The thing about this is that it is kinda… not all that unrealistic. Okay, the 7-win player is a bit aggressive, but even for a rookie with a lot of swing and miss in his game and walk numbers that are not huge, a lot of projection systems just keep pumping out huge projections for Robert. PECOTA projected him as a 4.0 WAR player. Steamer projects him at 3.0. ZiPS has him at 2.5, but that’s with a 100 wRC+ projection as well. If he hits above league average, these projetion systems are saying his *floor* is a 3.0 win player. His ceiling is astronomical.
I am going on a limb andthe record here – if Robert is a 4-win player or better in 2020, the White Sox are winning 90+ games. That may be a bit optimistic, but I truly believe it. This will be dependent on Eloy turning his late 2019 production into full season 2020 production, Moncada hitting the numbers I droolingly predicted he will last week, the pitching holding up, as well. Again, optimistic. But I believe these things can happen – hell, it happened for the 2015 and 2016 Cubs for the most part, if you use the proper parallels – and if they do, the Sox are gonna be fucking dangerous this year.
YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!: Firstly, I fucked up because I got vacation brain and thought that this post was supposed to go up today, but it was actually supposed to be yesterday. So, apologies, dear reader. For Robert, though, fucking up in 2020 is both unfortunately a realistic possibility and also somewhat easy to diagnose how it would go wrong. For all of his incredible traits as a hitter, Robert is just not patient. He’s aggressive almost to a fault, and that has subsequently led to some speculation on how he will translate to MLB as a rookie. The fact of the matter is that he really is just too good and too advanced as a hitter to have ever been challenged by minor league pitching.
The somewhat silver lining there is that we cannot be 100% sure if the low walk rate and hyper-aggressive approach were an all-out lack of patience or just the result of being better than any other hitter those MiLB pitchers would face. Essentially, was he just not willing to walk, or did he just decide that hitting a dinger was way more fun so he was just going to put the pitcher out of his misery? To that end, Robert has shown a good amount of discipline in spring training so far, but I also am not going to put a ton of stock in that beyond simply hoping that it will continue into the year. If he can’t show some discipline, I think we are looking at situation similar to what happened to Eloy early in 2019.
BAH GOD, THAT’S ROBERT’S MUSIC: Is it too much of a cop-out for me to say I think he splits the difference here? Normally I don’t buy into projection systems too much because, while I am a fan of using the advanced stats and analytics, I also am a “let them play the damn games” guy, but I do kinda like the Steamer projection for Robert in 2020 – .273/.318/.488 with a 111 wRC+. I am cautiously optimistic he can walk more than 5% to get that OBP up a bit, and think he will steal more than Steamer’s projection of 22 bases to bring the wRC+ up, but overall I think that is a solid prediction for Robert this year, so I will just go with that. More generally, I think he will be in the realm of .270/.330/.500, which really would be an amazing rookie season, in my opinion. Although don’t rule out the whole 7-win player thing either, cuz it could happen. Let’s hope!
If you truly want to be enraged, this piece from Scott Powers ought to do it.
All three members front and center of the administration, as it were, take turns showing their ass and incompetence in this. When you really get a look at who is steering the ship at all levels, you’ll be left with no faith that any of this is ever going to be fixed. This isn’t the captain failing to spot an iceberg at night. This is three people who don’t know what an iceberg is. Let’s go through the utter slime spilling from each of their mouths.
“I think going forward it’s pretty important that we have to know who we are,” McDonough said on ESPN-1000’s “Hockey Show” on Feb. 8. “We have to know where we’re going. I think we have to do our best to get back to great. But we have to do it in the right way. There has to be a process to it. We’re in a bit of transition right now. Where we are right now is not unexpected.”
If every Hawks fan didn’t drink a gallon of paint thinner upon reading this, I’ll be surprised. Anything to ease the pain.
First of all, this doesn’t mean anything. I’ll tell you who you are, Mr. McDonough. You’re an NHL team that plays in Chicago. There. Done. Boy, that was easy. And you’re not a particularly good one. All of this “right way” and “process” gobbledygook is just someone who doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about trying to sound smart. I’m a little surprised he didn’t find a way to work “synergy” and “proactive” into the conversation. It’s been three years of this horseshit, and just now they’re thinking about “a direction.” Left at Albuquerque, dimwit.
I also love this, “I think we have to do our best to get back to great.” Oh you do, do you? Fucking groundbreaking! What a discovery! Here every other NHL team is straining and scratching just to get their teams to “watchable.” But here comes Albert/Aristotle/Confucius McDonough and he’s got a new idea! He’s gonna strive for great! ELECT THIS MAN PRESIDENT OF THE GODDAMN UNIVERSE! HE WILL GUIDE US TO NEW HEIGHTS WITH HIS BRILLIANT AND TO THIS POINT UNHEARD OF IDEAS! ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS WILL TREMBLE AT HIS ACUMEN AND LAY DOWN THEIR PHOTONS!
Secondly, if this is not unexpected, then why did you fire Quenneville? If this was all part of your process, why wasn’t his performance up to par? And the day you did that, mind, you said this was a playoff roster. It’s going to miss the playoffs by open lengths for a third straight year. You expect us to buy this?
Do we know if McDonough is capable of tying his shoes?
Then it was Stan Bowman’s turn to open his mouth and remove all doubt.
“There’s no question we’re positioned better down the road,”
Well… I have a question. What does a second and third round pick guarantee exactly? They’re lottery tickets. Sure, they could position you better in the future. And those players could end up with a squeegee in their hands in four years. Do they really think Slava Demin is going to change the Hawks’ fortunes? Those 23 points in two college seasons he’s played must’ve been really impressive.
But for where we’re at right now, it’s important to try to build up some assets and build for the future, and I think we’re in a better position to do that now than we were yesterday.”
If that was the goal, then Brandon Saad and Corey Crawford should have also been shipped out for whatever you can get. If gaining assets and solidifying the future was priority one, then you do that as much as humanly possible. If your aim is two or three years down the road (and we’ll get to that in a minute), then these players probably don’t matter to you. But what Stan did was half-ass it. Which he’s been doing for years. They didn’t pick a road, just paid lip-service to it while pointing in various directions to look like they’re doing something.
We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.
“The biggest thing is in today’s game is having young players play an important role,” Bowman said. “I think the last couple years we picked in the top 10 the last two years. We hadn’t picked there I don’t know how many years it was, probably since we picked Patrick (Kane). So I think that’s where you get some of those high-end players. I think the challenge is to try to get as many of those as you can and then build from that way out. Luckily, we still have some other established players that are difference-makers.
Certainly hard to trade for. I guess it happens rarely when they become available. You typically have to draft them or develop them. Maybe trade for them or sign them as free agents.
“There’s no shortcut to it other than drafting and developing those players. Then the question is how do you acquire those? That’s what we’re trying to do, trying to acquire either young prospects or draft choices we can use to find that next group.
I’m going to need to go lie down.
Let’s try and clear this out as best we can. Do you know how many top-10 picks anchored the Hawks’ Cup teams? Three. Toews, Kane, Seabrook. Keith was a 2nd-rounder. Bolland too. Same for Saad. Crawford as well. Hjalmarsson a 4th. Kruger too. Shaw a 3rd. Should I keep going? Good, because if I do my organs are going to bindle-up and thumb it out of my body.
Aside from Kane and Toews, the Hawks have two top-ten picks in the lineup now in Dach and Boqvist. How many more do you need, chumley? You have to do more than just hit in the first round. And you just turned down the chance to take more spins at getting those impact players. DeBrincat is the only player taken by the Hawks beyond the first round to have any impact in six fucking years, and that’s just going back to Vinnie Hinostroza. You probably have to go back to Saad in 20-motherfucking-11 to find a true one.
So you want to tell me more about your development system, Stanley?
Also, just off the top of my head, here are genuinely impactful players that have either been traded or moved as a free agent in just the past couple years: Taylor Hall, PK Subban, Jacob Trouba, Ryan O’Reilly, J.T. Miller, Erik Karlsson, Joe Pavelski, Tyson Barrie, Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, John Tavares, Phil Kessel, Jason Zucker, Jeff Skinner, Nino Neiderreiter. Funny, none of them went to the Hawks. Maybe Stan was too busy figuring out his formula and McDonough was trying to find a compass so he could learn how to use it so he could point the Hawks in a direction. That’s if he can figure out who they are first, of course. Seems to me you can find impact players in all sorts of ways.
“Yeah, I think if it was something that was known, if we knew exactly what the future held then you could have that conversation, but it’s just a lot of guesswork on everybody’s part as far as nobody knows what our team’s going to be year to year,”
That quote right there is a fireable offense.
You’re the GM. You’re the one plotting the course. You’re supposed to know exactly how long it’s going to take for the Hawks to compete. It’s supposed to be laid out in your office. You’ve had three years of serving up trash, and you still can’t say how long it’s going to be? You’re supposed to know exactly when every prospect should be reaching the NHL. How much time they need in junior/college, AHL, and then your team. You know when every contract is up, and who will be a free agent every year from here until the ocean swallows us all (do I need to tell you about CapFriendly.com?) Tell you what, we’ll all turn our tickets back in and you can call us when you’ve got it figured out.
The Hawks have wasted three years, and are now not just telling the fans but their veteran players who actually eat the shit every night of losing that they don’t have a plan or an idea when they might be able to stop eating shit. Also, and I didn’t include quotes for this, but Stan goes on to say he doesn’t feel the need to talk to Toews, Kane, and Keith about what the plans are, exactly a year after he said that’s exactly what he would do. Which is probably best, because Keith might knife him at this point.
If you swapped Bulls and Hawks management for a month, would anyone notice?
Oh but don’t you worry, dear reader, because Jeremy Colliton got to spill industrial waste over his bottom lip and will have a Hazmat crew called in to clean up.
“My responsibility is to push these guys to play at their highest level every night, and particularly the young players, to give them opportunity to improve and couple that with feedback and accountability, as far as what they’re doing every day, so they can take a bigger and bigger role,”
I can’t.
This comes merely hours before Colliton called out his players for the second time in a week for not playing hard enough, for not paying attention to the details, for doing their own thing. Dylan Strome is on a wing. Adam Boqvist won’t move his feet with the puck in his or the neutral zone. Kirby Dach spent half the season on the fourth line. Dylan Sikura isn’t even here for Matthew Highmore. Lucas Carlsson was called up after Dennis Gilbert and then scratched for Nick Seeler.
Let’s go about it this way. Which young player is better now than when Colliton showed up? A grunt like Matthew Highmore? Valhalla here we come.
The goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain, my friends.
The people in charge don’t want them to do anything. The masses still love them. And the players themselves are going to have to force the powers that be to pay attention and make them do what they should have done long ago. The Chicago Cubs, the players that is, are the Yes Movement. And we’ll start with perhaps the emotional heartbeat of it, and perhaps the second biggest surprise at still being here, Willson Contreras.
Willson Contreras 2019
105 games, 409 PA
.272/.355/.533
.368 wOBA, 127 wRC+
9.3 BB%, 24.3 K%
-0.3 Defensive Runs
2.7 fWAR
Amidst the constant trade rumors, all the other horseshit that went on with the Cubs during the season and in the offseason, it’s pretty easy to forget that Willy was the best offensive catcher in the NL last year, and would have been for all of baseball except for whatever the fuck happened to Mitch Garver last year. Since he came into the league in 2016, Contreras’s 117 wRC+ is only behind Grandal (118), Sanchez (123), and Garver (128), and the latter two don’t have nearly the amount of time in the league. That’s what you’re dealing with. Contrerases don’t grow on trees, and that the Cubs would so willingly toss him overboard out of terror of what he will rightly earn is bordering on ludicrous.
YES! YES! YES!: The questions about Willy always revolve around his framing. He hasn’t been very good at it since his rookie year, when he was, and because his arm is so good and he’s never been shy about showing it, he’s kind of rendered it almost useless as a weapon. So overall his defensive numbers have suffered Runners simply don’t go on him, and they rarely venture too far off the bases and if they do they’re hyper-aware of making sure to not get picked off. Keeping runners anchored has value, but not as much as value as cutting them down altogether. So if Willy is going to raise his overall value, it’s going to come from stealing strikes.
The Cubs had David Ross work with Contreras last spring training to try and improve it. He got better as the season went along by most measures, According to Baseball Savant, he was actually just above water in it. The Cubs have brought in Craig Driver from Philly to improve it even more, as he worked magic with JT Realmuto and others.
Because Willy is going to hit. He always has. 2018 seems to be the aberration, but his hard-contact rates bounced back up last year to near 40%, and considering he’s in his prime there’s no reason to think that won’t remain the case. And he’s never going to have that 9% HR/FB rate again as he did in ’18.
The thing with Willson, and he’s taking on more of this because of how the whole team does, is there’s always worry about how much he makes contact. The thought is you can strike him out in big spots if you need to. And it’s not totally wrong. Willy has always been below the league-average in contact rate, and more swing and miss. His 92 wRC+ in high-leverage situations, along with a 31 K%, suggests that when pitchers lock in, they can get him. But that’s if you buy into “clutch” or not.
So the big thing at the plate, instead of behind it, will be if Willy can improve his contact rates, especially in big spots. That means he’s got to be better high in the zone, and especially above it. You can beat Contreras with high fastballs either at the top of the zone or above it, and he’s going to have to lay off the latter more often to get the pitches he can crush.
You’re A B+ Player: The way it goes wrong is A. Willy is traded midseason, which we can’t rule out, or B. all of the things above don’t happen. Willy can’t nail down improvements in framing, and this rotation is going to need all the help it can get. And Contreras continues to chase high fastballs above his hands, especially in the big spots, and he can’t get that K-rate closer to 20%. The 25% of last year seems on the high side, but he’s never been below 22%. Willy takes his walks, he just needs to get more balls in play. Do that, and he’ll be an All-star again and the Cubs lineup goes from pretty good to bordering on frightening.
Endgame: Willy is going to be one of the most important Cubs, because he always is. And he’s going to hit. And given how his framing numbers arced up last year as the season went on, that should continue, though he’s never going to be Grandal or Flowers in that category. And Willy is the type to take the trade rumors and the noise and turn into a giant middle finger toward opponents and his own bosses. While he’s not the best player on the team, he seems to be the measuring stick. When he’s ticking over, the Cubs are good. When he’s hurt or struggling, so are the Cubs. He keeps things lively.
As he gets deeper into arbitration, and deeply set on proving how valuable he is to the team, I would expect big things from #40. And I would expect it to be loud. Because Willy doesn’t do quiet.
