Baseball

Series Preview – Rangers at White Sox: Lone Star Falling

By Andy Jonathan 952 0

VS

RECORDS: Rangers 63-65 / White Sox 57-69 (nice) (not really)

GAMETIMES: Thursday/Friday 7:05,  Saturday 6:10,  Sunday 1:10

TV: Thurs/Fri/Sun NBCSN,  Saturday WGN

BECAUSE GOOD IS DUMB:  Lone Star Ball

 

Hot damn that was an awesome game to take the series from the Twins yesterday. Gi0lito was absolutely dominant in mowing down 12 Twins, who are the league leaders in team slugging percentage. Lucas truly has gotten his ship righted and the home stretch here should feature the Sox having a chance to win anytime he starts. Unfortunately for us, he’s not going to be starting at all this series, so hopes for a series win or split rest with Reynaldo Lopez and Ivan Nova. Thankfully this is not the same Rangers team the Sox faced back in June.

Since the last series with the Good Old Boys from Arlington, things ain’t so good no more for the Rangers. Turns out the team everyone thought was smoke and mirrors was actually comprised of smoke and mirrors. In the first few months of the season, the Rangers were 8th in the AL in hitting and 8th in the AL in pitching. All in all not a bad place to be, as with a little luck being in the middle of the pack everywhere allows you to compete.  They weren’t able to stay there however, as since July the Rangers have slid considerably down the Hill O’ Regression. They dropped to 11th of 15 in hitting, but managed to only slip to 9th in pitching. Some of the slide in hitting was (unbelievably) Hunter Pence hitting the IL, as he had miraculously been able to kick Father Time in the dick and post the type of numbers that hadn’t been seen since he first showed up in the Bay Area eight years ago. The other dagger was Joey Gallo hitting the injured list as well with a fractured hamate bone in his hand. While that sucks for him (and if I’m being honest, baseball as a whole as he was basically the AL’s version of Cody Bellinger before he went down) and the Rangers, it did result in this quality Twitter thread when TR Sullivan accidentally typed “hamster bone” instead of “hamate.”

Since the All Star game, the Rangers have had the same type of success as the White Sox, going 17-27 in that stretch, and now find themselves way outside of the playoff picture looking in. Much like the White Sox, they largely stood pat at the trade deadline. One of their only moves was to acquire Nate Jones on a flyer from the Sox for a couple of low-A minor league players. Veterans that could’ve fetched something at the deadline such as Pence and Shin-Soo Choo have stayed. The younger players here are somewhat of a mixed bag, as Danny Santana and Delino DeShields have been playing pretty well, but Rougned Odor and Nomar Mazara have shown to be only slightly above replacement level. Elvis Andrus is still a plus-level player at shortstop, but has entered the dreaded Year 30 season and we all know it’s a rocket sled to obscurity from here on out.

On the pitching side, Lance Lynn and Mike Minor have been able to continue their solid run and keep the rotation afloat for the most part. The other trade the Rangers made at the deadline was to acquire Kolby Allard from the Braves for the lead singer of Coldplay, Chris Martin. Allard was a pretty highly ranked prospect arm for the Braves, but they have a lot of those and Allard was deemed expendable. He’s been decent for the Rangers so far going 1-0 in his first three starts, two of which featured him giving up three or less runs. The other was six. He’s similar to Dylan Cease in that he features a plus fastball and curveball, and an above average changeup. When he can control his fastball up in the zone his stuff is pretty unhittable. Allard will go on Saturday against Nova in what I guess will be the marquee pitching matchup for this series?

As for the Sox, after their solid series victory against the Twins they come home having gone 3-4 on the seven-game road trip. Some very good starting pitching, and some very not good bullpen pitching makes that number what it is. The Sox bats have come alive as well, with Jose Abreu hitting .345 with four home runs and 15 RBI in that span. The Sox should also get Yoan Moncada back from his hamstring stint on the IL, which will hopefully move Ryan Goins over to 2b and planting Yolmer firmly on the bench, waiting for his chance to come in and bunt. Ross Detwiler gets the 5th starter spot this time around, and if he can replicate what Hector Santiago did in his start against the Angels I’d be OK with that. Dylan Cease gets another shot to keep the ball in the park, as he tries to straighten the learning curve out (pun intended).

Much like the past few series, if the Sox can keep the ball in the park they stand a decent chance of at least taking half these games. Getting Yoan back at the hot corner should provide a boost to the Sox offense, and hopefully it can carry them to a series win.

Don’t Stop Now Boys.

Baseball

Rick Hahns Sox Fans More BS at MLB Trade Deadline

By Wes French 981 0

Rick Hahn, Kenny Williams and the White Sox front office either think you’re stupid or just don’t care. Definitely on that spectrum somewhere, closer to thinking you’re stupid.

The MLB’s new lone trade deadline came and went Wednesday afternoon with exactly one trade to file for Hahn, KW, and Co. No, they didn’t cash in on closer Alex Colome. Jose Abreu gets his wish to continue building on his 0.4 WAR in Chicago. John Jay is still here to amass AB’s for his free agent binder this winter. Welington Castillo remains at best the third most popular BEEF on the Southside (after Loaf #fromthe108 and the Italian Beef+Giardiniera pizza at Beggar’s in centerfield). The Sox, in fact, traded no one from any active roster at any level of their organization on Wednesday. So what the hell kind of trade did they make?

The Chicago White Sox at 46-58, good for eighth worst in the MLB, 13 games out in the wild card and 16 games behind  Minnesota for the division, traded recently operated-on Nate Jones, $750k (to cover half Jones remaining salary) AND $1 million in international bonus pool money to the Texas Rangers for a couple of not-really-prospect pitchers that are highly unlikely to become the CWS version of the Fernando Tatis Jr. debacle. Joe Jarneski is 19, coming off of Tommy John and actually not atrocious thus far in the Arizona League. Ray Castro is 22 and pitching poorly in the Dominican Summer League. Wooooooooof.

The Sox are not good right now, but you can see some potential both on the horizon and in the here and now with players like Lucas Giolito, Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Tim Anderson and Dylan Cease waiting for Luis Robert, Nick Madrigal, and Andrew Vaughn to join them in Chicago. The system isn’t exactly stacked after those three, though, with a slow development year and/or injuries to most of the second and third tier prospects. They could have moved out any of the mediocre veteran players on the roster for literally anything and come out looking good, having added more overall talent to the farm. Maybe there really just were no takers for veterans on cheap, expiring deals…and if it’s about opening a 40-man spot, those same players can be stuck on waivers in August, which still exists, freeing up space for Robert and Madrigal. But then their service clocks would start, which is not the White Sox way. It’s all about control, you see.

Why, then, Rick Hahn thought it best to trade away roughly half of their remaining international bonus pool to jettison only $750k owed to a reliever on the 60-Day IL (that can simply have his option declined in the November) is beyond me and everyone else. $2 million on the international market is nothing to dismiss. Money that could have been used to bring in anywhere from one to a handful of very raw but very intriguing young talent to a system that the Sox front office is very clearly going to lean on a great deal going forward. Yes, the international signing system is incredibly messed up, with most top talents locked into hush-hush deals years before they’re even eligible or are straight up hidden from other teams. Looking at you, Detroit. Weirdos. Still, there are plenty of talented players still unsigned and more that could become available later in the signing period that lasts until June 15, 2020. This is an inexcusable waste of resources.

Rick Hahn gave the kind of quotes you could most easily expect him to spit after the deal, playing like he’s smarter than everyone in the room with a dig at the pre-deadline articles being wrong and trying to bump this as a cost saving move while adding “depth” to the system:

“(Jones) was not, I think, on anyone’s hit list or predicted in trades in the columns you’ve been writing, but we had the opportunity to add a little bit of depth to our pitching staffs in the lower levels of the minors as well as trade a little bit of economic savings as we move forward.”

In reality, this is about the guy signing his checks saving $1.75 million; the amount they won’t pay Jones and won’t spend on future talent. The roster space they opened on the 40-man won’t be used on Luis Robert. This had nothing to do with getting better at baseball.

“That money will be spent.” 

That was Rick Hahn after the Sox finished second to San Diego for Manny Machado’s services. It apparently will not be spent on cheap, controllable talent. And you can bet if they won’t spend on that they won’t spend on the top tier players that hit the market. I foresee a lot of second place or worse finishes ahead on the Southside.