Baseball

Series Preview – Rays vs. White Sox: Missing Out On The New Wave

By Sam Fels 1292 0

vs.

RECORDS: Rays 7-3   Sox 3-5

GAMETIMES: Monday-Wednesday 1:10pm

TV: WGN Monday, NBCSN Tuesday and Wednesday

DOING 40 IN THE LEFT LANE WITH THE BLINKER ON: D Rays Bay

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Ian Snell vs. Carlos Rodon

Charlie Morton vs. TBD

Tyler Glasnow vs. Reynaldo Lopez

Probably Rays Lineup

Austin Meadows – RF

Yandy Diaz – 1B

Tommy Pham – LF

Daniel Robertson – 2B

Avisail Garcia – DH

Mike Zunino – C

Kevin Kiermaier – CF

Willy Adames – SS

Christian Arroyo – 3B

(Meadows, Diaz, and Robertson platoon, so Brandon Lowe and Ji-Man Choi are likely back in against a righty)

 

Probable Sox Lineup

Leury Garcia – CF

Yoan Moncada – 3B

Jose Abreu – DH

Yonder Alonso – 1B

Eloy Jimenez – LF

Daniel Palka – RF

Welington Castillo – C

Tim Anderson – SS

Yolmer Sanches – 2B

 

When facing the Rays, you usually get to see the path baseball will probably take and get an “opener” or two (Lord knows I could use an “opener” today). But the Sox will get three of their actual starters this week, in three matinees meant to avoid the April chills at night. And one of them just happens to be the reigning Cy Young winner. So that’s nice.

The Rays have jumped out in front of the AL East, with the Red Sox having something of a wobble in their season-opening West Coast trip and all the Yankees being broken. And they’ve done it by their rotation being excellent so far, with all of Snell, Glasnow, Morton, and Yonny Chirinos throwing darts out there. Snell, Morton, and Chirinos are all striking out over 10 per nine innings, and Glasnow isn’t walking anyone to make up for his still-good-but-not-as-good strikeout numbers. Which is weird coming from Tampa, as they’ve sort of specialized in recent years how to get around not having any rotation at all. This is Dylan going electric, man!

It also helps to have three relievers who haven’t given up a run as the Rays do in Jose Alvarado (and his magic fastball), Diego Castillo, and Adam Kolarek, along with Jalen Beeks (Wonderful news, Beeks!).

Which is peachy keen, as the Rays aren’t scoring much, and don’t really project to. They only have 34 runs on the year, which is plenty enough when you’ve only surrendered 19 in 10 games. No other team in the AL has given up less than 26. Diaz, Kiermaier, and Choi are the ones who have started the season hot, but other than that you’re going to be scratching your head at the rest of the lineup. That’s the Rays way. Tommy Pham is here and he’s not complaining yet, but it isn’t May yet either. This team gets by on catching everything though, which they do. That is when their pitchers actually allow a ball in play, which isn’t all that often.

The Sox will hope Carlos Rodon can build on a very promising start to the season, and Lopez can find it. They’ll take any pitching they can find, as they spent the last two days getting it upside their head from the Mariners. Moncada only had one hit on Saturday and Sunday, so clearly he’s now a bum again. Fifth Feather is already chewing his nails about Eloy, so a breakout from him would be welcomed as well.

 

 

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Mariners vs. White Sox: Different Sides of the Same Coin

By Adam Hess 1266 0

vs.

RECORDS: Mariners 7-1, White Sox 2-3

DATES AND TIMES: Friday 1:10, Saturday 1:10, Sunday 1:10

TV: NBCSN Chicago Friday, WGN Saturday and Sunday

WHY IS IT ALWAYS RAINING?: Lookout Landing

PROBABLE STARTERS

Yusei Kikuchi vs. Reynaldo Lopez

Mike Leake vs. Lucas Giolito

Wade LeBlanc vs. Ivan Nova

Probable Mariners Lineup

1. Mallex Smith (L) CF
2. Mitch Haniger (R) RF
3. Domingo Santana (R) LF
4. Jay Bruce (L) 1B
5. Omar Narvaez (L) C
6. Tim Beckham (R) SS
7. Ryon Healy (R) 3B
8. Daniel Vogelbach (L) DH
9. Dee Gordon (L) 2B
Probable White Sox Lineup
1. Leury Garcia (S) CF
2. Yoan Moncada (S) 3B
3. Jose Abreu (R) 1B/DH
4. Yonder Alonso (L) DH/1B
5. Eloy Jimenez (R) LF
6. Daniel Palka (L) RF
7. Tim Anderson (R) SS
8. James McCann (R) C
9. Yolmer Sanchez (S) 2B
For the past severeal years, it had started to seem like in the modern age of baseball, there are only two types of teams: teams that were trying to win, and teams that were trying to lose. The Moneyball era went to such an extreme so quickly that the way teams approached roster construction basically meant either you were going for it or you were intentionally tanking. The White Sox were, for a few years, in the former, constantly trying to win but always failing miserably, until they just decided to embrace what they were and start losing on purpose, but with purpose.
Over the offseason, the Mariners started to look like they were falling into the latter category, as they traded a few of their key players from 2018 away for younger, more controllable players or prospects. They started tearing down what looked like a damn-near elite bullpen by sending Alex Colome to – hey, us!, for Omar Narvaez, who was the Hawks best-hitting catcher from last year but a total butcher behind the plate. Then they traded Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to the Mets for top prospect Jared Kelenic.
However, what started to look like a rebuild quickly became more of a re-tool, as they traded Ben Gamel to Milwauke for Domingo Santana, because if there are two things the Brewers definitely needed, it’s left handed hitters and outfielders. That was less a move for the future and more a move to address something they needed now. Then they went out and signed Yusei Kikuchi, who was the best pitcher left in Japan after Shohei Ohtani came stateside, to a really creative contract that will keep him in Seattle for either three, four, or seven years, with both sides having options. Given that Kikuchi is 27, this was another move to build for now.
So in reality, what the Mariners did was build a team that could compete this year, but just for significantly less money. Clearing out the Cano contract may have cost them 2018’s best reliever in baseball, but so far the results have been fine. They took Oakland to task in the opening series in Japan back on March 20-21, and then smacked the shit out of the ball against what’s supposed to be a dominant Red Sox rotation before taking a two-game sweep against the Angels. They weren’t exactly designed to win in the same way as Boston or Houston, but they weren’t designed to lose either.
The thing that is so frustrating about watching how the Mariners went about this rebuild/re-tool movement this offseason was that the White Sox absolutely had the ability to do the same shit. Sure they missed on Machado, but had they been willing to open the checkbook up a bit and made moves like adding Santana and Kikuchi, or even some smaller moves like the Phillies made pre-Bryce Harper, they could’ve won this terrible AL Central. Seriously, looking at that Seattle roster, there’s almost no way they couldn’t win 95 games against this division. Instead, the Sox decided that they wanted to be even cheaper than Seattle and still not be good. Hooray!
For this weekend, at least, we just need to pray their bats cool off a bit and their pitching doesn’t stop what Yoan Moncada is doing. Simple!
Baseball

Turns Out You Can Change Yoan’s Mind

By Sam Fels 1372 0

As usual at this point in the season, not even a week in, it is folly and silly and other words that end in -lly to draw any grand conclusions. Anyone can have a hot week. Still, with as much riding on Yoan Moncada this season, we’ll forgive any Sox fan from having a chuckle at his first few games of 2019 (and basically we mean Fifth Feather, who needs all the chuckles he can get).

Last year did not go as a first full-season should for Yoan or anyone as prized as he is. He struck out a ton, played second base like he was being attacked by bees, and when he did make contact a bit too much of it was on the ground. Thankfully , this year has started in opposition to all of that.

Moncada has been something of a curious study because he clearly has a very good concept of the zone. He walks over 10% of the time. The natural conclusion is that with that kind of eye he should be able to get the bat to the ball whenever he wants. It doesn’t always work that way, and this is where Adam Dunn flashbacks occur for Sox fans. In addition, Moncada let a lot of pitches just go by him in the zone, only swinging at 60% of pitches in the zone (league-average was 66%). He was a bit too choosy, which if you have a Jewish mother like I did you’ve been yelled at about frequently.

That’s gone out the window so far, as Moncada is swinging at just a tick under 70% of the pitches he’s seen in the zone, and making more contact on them (85% this year to 80% last). Which is leading to some pretty hilarious numbers. The one that jumps out at me is that of Moncada’s contact, only 5% of it has been considered soft. Last year that was at 14%, which isn’t awful but clearly cutting that by nearly two-thirds is something to note. That mark is almost a quarter of the league-average.

To boot, Moncada is getting the ball in the air far more so far, at 52.9% of the time (40% last year). Now, Moncada isn’t going to carry a 22% HR/FB ration all year, and if he does it surely means the end of us all. But clearly, the fly ball revolution has now absorbed him into the cause.

As far as approach, a big difference we’ve seen this year so far is that Moncada isn’t helpless against a change-up. Last year, Moncada whiffed on nearly half the swings he took at change-ups, hit .205 and slugged .351. This year, on an admitted limited sample, he’s only swung and missed at 11% of the swings he’s taken, is hitting .500 and slugging 1.000. The obvious conclusion is that Moncada isn’t jumping at the ball the same way and being content to take a fastball out to left. Not rally the case here, as Moncada doesn’t really do much when he hits the opposite way but is murdering the ball when he pulls it. Either way, the Sox will take it.

If exit-velocity is your thing, Moncada’s average has risen from 90.6 MPH to 96.1 this year. Last year, the leading average exit-velocity was 94.7. So yeah, he’s cracking eight different kinds of shit out Rawlingses everywhere. Also, if you’re into this kind of thing, his barrel-percentage is nearly double so far over last year.

Again, anyone can have a hot week. And his .467 BABIP is not anything less than astronomical. But the changes in approach and the volume of contact (loud, not amount) suggests he will always carry a higher BABIP than normal, and that these changes are around for a while.

Baseball

Series Preview – White Sox vs. Royals: …Adds Up At The Bottom

By Sam Fels 1498 0

vs.

DATES AND TIMES: Thursday 3:15, Saturday 1:15, Sunday 1:15

TV: NBCSN Chicago Thursday and Saturday, WGN Sunday

YOU WANNA TALK SOME JIVE?: Royals Review

PROBABLE STARTERS

Thursday: Carlos Rodon vs. Brad Keller

Saturday: Reynaldo Lopez vs. Some Whatsit

Sunday: Lucas Giolito vs. Some Whosit

PROJECTED WHITE SOX LINEUP

Yoan Moncada – 3B

Yolmer Sanchex – 2B

Jose Abreu – DH

Yonder Alonso – 1B

Eloy Jimenez – LF

Daniel Palka – RF

Welington Castillo – C

Tim Anderson – SS

Adam Engel – CF

PROJECTED ROYALS LINEUP

Adalberto Mondesi – SS

Whit Merrifield – 2B

Alex Gordon – LF

Jorge Soler – RF

Ryan O’Hearn – 1B

Hunter Dozier – 3B

Lucas Duda – DH

Martin Maldonado – C

Billy Hamilton – CF

Yeah, we’re gonna do this all season. Fuck it.

Despite most Sox fans protests and wishes, they will actually commence and play out a season this spring and summer, and it starts with a pretty soft landing in Kansas City. The Royals might be another team along with the Tigers the Sox can definitely look down on when all is said and done. That’s not saying much, but hey, it’s something. Can you believe it was only three and a half years ago the Royals were in consecutive World Series?

We’ll start with the Southside Nine, who will see Carlos Rodon and his quest to not end up in the bullpen start on Opening Day for the first time. Rodon’s search for a third pitch will go a long way to seeing that quest completed, and maybe also help him find the ability to strike out anyone which he lost last year. What’s scary is that Rodon had his nothing-year last year with a seriously depressed .242 BABIP against, which means he was pretty lucky to even get to that. Rodon’s one year of control in ’16 saw him throw more fastballs than he ever has, and he’s probably going to need to get back to that to have any control.

The main attraction for Sox fans will be of course the unveiling of Eloy Jimenez in left, and he’ll pretty much be the raison d’etre for the entire season with Michael Kopech suffering a case of elbow twang. There’s the hope that Yoan Moncada’s keen eye can finally sync with his hands and actually lead him to make contact more often and turn into what was projected. At least he won’t hurt anyone, or less people, at third base than second. Lucas Giolito will trot out his truncated motion for real for the first time, hoping that will allow him to find the strike zone more than once every couple of minutes.

All of that still adds up to a lot more than the Royals have going on, which you can tell by the fact that a Rule 5 pickup last year in Brad Keller (Old Man Keller’s boy, in case you’re asking) is going to take the ball on Opening Day. They still haven’t said who will follow that, and it might be Homer Bailey, which is just another word for “inferno.” Danny Duffy is hurt, and after that Jakob Junis and Jorge Lopez will try and make up the difference. Keller gets by on getting a ton of grounders, and much like the rest of the staff he doesn’t get a lot of Ks. But he kept an inordinate number of fly balls in the park last year, and Kauffman Stadium helps with that, but it won’t be that low again.

As for the lineup…well, they’ll run a lot? Between Mondesi, Merrifield, and Hamilton they could eclipse 120 steals right there, which would come close to leading the league alone. That’s assuming they can get Mondesi and Hamilton on base enough, which they can’t. Mondesi might get there if he goes Willie Mays Hayes and just keeps everything on the ground, but don’t count on it. As for the rest. Alex Gordon died and they have the worse Dozier. Jorge Soler is going to wheel out there along with my charred hopes of a modern-day Vladimir Guerrero (I guess I have to put Sr. now) with plate discipline, as that’s what I thought he would be only like three years ago. We’ll always have the ’15 playoffs, Jorge. And that homer against Pat Neshek in St. Louis that still hasn’t landed. And he’ll flash it just before something else on him falls off in May and he’s done for the rest of the year.

No, there’s no Manny Machado. No, there isn’t that much to watch other than Eloy until Cease and Madrigal arrive. But it’s better than it was. Off we go.