Archive for White Sox

The main reason why the Astros have been able to survive and thrive despite the departure of a large percentage of the core of their 2017 World Series-winning team is their success in developing their young talent. One of the most prominent of these players, Kyle Tucker, had his breakout season in the shortened 2020 and cemented those gains with a .294/.359/.557, 4.9 WAR 2021 campaign that saw him get his first MVP votes. With Tucker heading to arbitration this winter for the first time, the Astros discussed a long-term contract with their incumbent right fielder in recent weeks, but the deal has apparently fallen through.

The Astros recently spoke with Kyle Tucker’s camp about a contract extension, but the sides were unable to come to a deal and are no longer engaged, sources tell me and @brianmctaggart. Tucker will become arbitration-eligible for the first time at the end of this season.

— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) May 16, 2022

While it hasn’t worked out, it’s the right idea. Teams want to lock up their best young players, and many players, especially before they get that first big arbitration bump, are interested in mitigating their personal risk. Wander Franco was more likely than not to beat the $182 million he’ll receive from the Rays and the team they trade him to around 2029, but it also provided him some real security, given he’s still a couple years from arbitration. These types of deals can be win-win.

So who should be the next players to get inked for the long haul? Here are my favorite picks. For each, I’ve included their ZiPS projections for both performance and a fair contract; after all, I don’t own a team, so I don’t have the motivation to pitch any absurdly team-friendly agreements like the one Ozzie Albies signed with the Braves. I’ve also omitted Juan Soto since we’ve already talked about him and a long-term deal quite a bit, most recently in Jay Jaffe’s piece before the season that already has the ZiPS projections. If you want a figure, let’s just say 10 years and all circulating US currency. Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series is back for another season, and once again, we’re hearing from pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features a pair of southpaws — White Sox starter Dallas Keuchel and Brewers reliever Brent Suter — on their changeups.

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Dallas Keuchel, Chicago White Sox

“A changeup was the first pitch I learned growing up. My dad never let me throw a breaking ball. He just had me split my fingers and try to throw a fastball as hard as I could. That was probably … let me think for a moment with my Rolodex here. I was maybe eight years old? Regardless, I don’t know how many miles per hour it was off, but it had some good deception and movement, so that’s what I rolled with through a lot of my childhood.

“I didn’t grip it like a palm ball, but a kid’s fingers are obviously smaller than the baseball, so we just tinkered with splitting the two fingers. What stuck was splitting three fingers together, instead of a circle change. It’s more of a three-finger prong changeup. When I say prong, what I mean is like a fork. But it worked well for me. It just kind of rolled off, and I’d get some whiffs and some weak contact. Read the rest of this entry »

Taylor Davis plans to stay in the game once his playing days are over. Currently on the roster of the Indianapolis Indians — Pittsburgh’s Triple-A affiliate — the 32-year-old catcher intends to become a coach, a manager, or a decision-maker in a front office. He’s already received overtures for one of those positions.

“The question does get asked,” said Davis, whose resume includes 22 MLB games over parts of four seasons. “It’s something that started even before I got to the big leagues. The first time I got asked if I wanted to coach was in 2017. That was early in the year, and then I ended up making my debut later that season. Obviously, I want to play for as long as I can, but after it’s done, doing something within the game is what I want.”

Managing might be his primary down-the-road goal, but the erstwhile Chicago Cub would also be well-suited for a corner-office role. Asked about that possibility, Davis said that he’d be equally happy wearing a polo shirt or a uniform. Roster construction and “the whole business side of the game” are among his interests. So is the data that influences, and often dictates, the decisions that are made.

“I dive into analytics probably more than the average player,” the veteran catcher explained during spring training. “I try to understand where teams are coming from, where agents are coming from, and where a player is going to come from in terms of analytics. It’s a piece of the puzzle that’s become increasing important.” Read the rest of this entry »

Liam Hendriks got shelled last night. After it looked like the White Sox had put the game away — they led 8–2 after the bottom of the eighth inning — the Guardians made things interesting by stringing together hits, errors, and walks to trim the deficit to 8–4. With two outs, Tony La Russa called for Hendriks, who promptly surrendered a single and a grand slam to tie the game.

It was the the first blemish on what otherwise would have been a sterling week for Hendriks. From May 2 to May 7, he’d been an absolute workhorse, making five appearances in six days without allowing a run. We’ll probably never know whether Monday’s game — his sixth in eight days — was affected by fatigue; Hendriks wouldn’t likely admit that even if it were the case. But it’s reasonable to wonder whether something could have gone differently, somewhere in the sequence of events, that gave the White Sox a better chance of hanging on last night.

Six games in eight days is an effective cap on reliever usage these days. No reliever has thrown seven games in eight days in the past three years; six games in eight days has happened 23 times over that same stretch. Hendriks himself accounts for three of those, with the rest a hodgepodge mix of closers and low-leverage middle relievers and Raisel Iglesias as the only other pitcher with multiple entries.
Read the rest of this entry »

Shelley Duncan has a job befitting a longtime FanGraphs reader with deeps roots in the game. A big league outfielder/first baseman from 2007-13, the 42-year-old son of legendary pitching coach Dave Duncan is the Analytics Coordinator for the Chicago White Sox. Hired for the in-uniform position in November 2020, Duncan previously managed in the Arizona Diamondbacks system and served as both a field coordinator and a special assistant of baseball operations with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Duncan discussed his current role, and the way analytics are changing the way teams game plan, when the White Sox visited Fenway Park over the weekend.

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David Laurila: Your title is Analytics Coordinator. What does the role entail?

Shelley Duncan: “It’s a position that is starting to become more popular with some teams, to have somebody in the dugout that can help other staff members, and players, with information. You can translate information and be an intermediary between them and the analytics part of the front office. You’re not replacing any of the relationships, or any of the jobs, just being a source for everyone.

“There are so many areas of focus on a baseball field that involve information. Whether it’s players knowing stuff about themselves, about the opponent, decision-making during games, advance work… half of the advance work is digging into numbers and information, and then blending video. One guy can’t do all that — I can’t do all that — but what I can do is support everybody with my experience and knowledge, including the work I do with the analytics department.”

Laurila: I assume you’re consulting with the analytics department on a regular basis… Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Marsh has an engaging personality and an innate ability to square up baseballs. He also has untapped potential. Rated as the top prospect in the Los Angeles Angels system prior to last season, the bearded, 24-year-old outfielder is building on a 2021 rookie campaign that saw him put up an 86 wRC+ over 70 games. Logging regular playing time in a dynamic L.A. lineup — this within an MLB-wide environment that is evoking memories of 1968’s “Year of the Pitcher” — Marsh is currently slashing .253/.318/.453 with four home runs and a 127 wRC+.

His offensive profile is more table-setter than bopper. Describing himself as a “gap-to-gap, doubles guy,” Marsh explained that while he’ll run into a ball from time to time, home runs are accidents. Line drives are his goal, which is precisely what the Angels want from him — and have wanted since taking him in the second round of the 2016 draft out of a Buford, Georgia high school.

“They’ve preached for me to keep my hands above the ball, and not be getting underneath and scooping it,” explained Marsh, who is listed at 6-foot-4, 215 pounds. “That type of deal. I’m not a strong, strong guy. I’m tall, but the barrel tends to lag sometimes, so I really need to stay through, and on top of the ball.”

Marsh went on to say that he views himself as a scrappy player whose role is to grind and get on base in front of “a lot of special players.” And while it’s true that he’s not in the same class as teammates such as Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, or Anthony Rendon, he nonetheless struck an excessively-humble tone when assessing his own talent level. Read the rest of this entry »

On May 1, the Twins beat the Rays while the White Sox saw a late-inning comeback attempt against the Angels foiled. There was nothing particularly newsworthy about these games, but they did have a significant impact in the ZiPS projections: for the first time since early 2021, the White Sox were no longer the favorite to win the division.

Before the season started, ZiPS saw the AL Central as Chicago’s to lose, a calculation that was not going against the conventional wisdom. With a 61.9% projected chance of winning the division, ZiPS had the White Sox with the second-best divisional crown probability of any team in baseball on Opening Day, just below the Astros and their 62.8% chance of winning the AL West. And that projection had been even sunnier a month prior. When the lockout ended and we started Hot Stove League II: The Legend of Manfred’s Gold, ZiPS gave the White Sox a 10-game lead in the division and a 70.7% chance of finishing first in the Central. The team ZiPS was most worried about, from the point of view of the Pale Hose, wasn’t the Twins, but the Guardians, a team that didn’t even project to reach the .500 mark.

Amid the flurry of moves leading up to the lockout, Minnesota was very quiet, with Dylan Bundy as the club’s “big” signing. But once the lockout lifted, the Twins got into gear, picking up Sonny Gray, Gio Urshela, Gary Sánchez, Chris Paddack, Emilio Pagán, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa and trading away Josh Donaldson, Taylor Rogers, various prospects, and… Isiah Kiner-Falefa. The Twins also shocked the baseball world by getting Carlos Correa, one of the winter’s prime free agents, to sign a three-year contract worth $105.3 million, with opt-outs.

By the time all the roster shakeups and offseason moves finished, ZiPS had Minnesota’s 13-win shortfall against the White Sox down to just five wins. That’s a respectable cushion, but not one that will provide padding for all butts in all situations. And as I noted above, said cushion was all but gone by the beginning of May, though after two losses by the Twins and a win (and an off-day) for the White Sox, Chicago has narrowly taken back the lead in the projections:

Chicago is the very slight favorite right now, but that can hardly be taken as a victory considering it represents basically a quarter-of-a-division crown that has evaporated in the last two months.

Some, but not all of the differences can be attributed to injury. Yoán Moncada was injured the day I ran the projections, though it didn’t look significant at that point. Eloy Jiménez is out as well, likely for a couple of months at least, and Lance Lynn is yet to make a start. Andrew Vaughn, one of the team’s few offensive bright spots, is also out with a bruised hand, though that looks far less serious than Jiménez’s hamstring.

But the Twins have their own recent injuries as well, in Gray, Bailey Ober, Jhon Romero, Miguel Sanó, and now Correa, who left Thursday’s game with a potentially fractured finger on his right hand. You always expect some injuries in the course of play; everyone being healthy isn’t the baseline expectation for anyone being realistic. The White Sox have good pitching depth that’s helped them survive Lynn’s absence and a brief IL stint by Lucas Giolito, but some of the offensive struggles (13th in the AL in runs scored) have to be chalked up to poor planning by the organization, and that’s not something you can attribute to poor luck.

Entering the season with a major hole at second base was a choice, not something fate thrust upon them. I thought at the time of the Craig Kimbrel trade that giving up Nick Madrigal was reasonable, something that many of you disagreed with at the time (and so far, it’s looking like I’m the loser in that debate). But my feelings about that trade would have been very different if you told me in advance that the White Sox were basically going to shout “Pass!” when it came to finding a replacement and would roll with a Leury García/Josh Harrison combination. No team we projected with a winning record had a worse depth chart projection at second entering the season.

Similarly, in right field, our preseason depth charts had the Sox above only two other squads projected to finish above .500. Picking up AJ Pollock was a good development, but the rest of the outfield consisted of two young players who missed a lot of time in 2021 with serious injuries (Jiménez and Luis Robert), Pollock has a lengthy injury history himself, and Vaughn was still a bit of a question mark. It only took a few injuries to stretch the team’s depth in both the infield and outfield.

Baseball’s new playoff system should have the White Sox determined to do more than coast to the divisional crown; with the weakest division winner put into a short wild-card round, ZiPS projected them as being the biggest loser in a 12-team playoff format. The good news is that, despite the problems so far, ZiPS sees Chicago’s decline in rest-of-season roster strength as a small one, from .531 to .527 before the strength of schedule is taken into consideration; the Twins have only improved from .508 to .509. The problem is that the good news is also bad news: ZiPS thinks that the relative strengths of the two teams aren’t drastically different than a month ago and still sees the division as a coin flip. To get the White Sox a comfortable division lead, you now have to think the White Sox are considerably better than their preseason projection.

In short, the White Sox need to be better than they are now to regain the projected ground they lost. Even with a second wild card, that’s not necessarily a simple fallback position; ZiPS sees the average second AL wild card being an 89-win team and the average AL Central victor an 88-win team. What this means is that the Sox ought to be incentivized to be aggressive rather than reactive. Robinson Canó may be toast, but the chance that he isn’t is certainly worth the risk of a minimum salary. Don’t wait for another team to acquire Ramón Laureano in July before making an underwhelming counter-move; be the team that snags him in the first place, as quickly as possible. Get away from the idea that the contributions from any position are “enough” and adopt the mindset of brutally grabbing any opportunity that arises in the coming months. That’s what the Dodgers do.

The White Sox didn’t expect to be in a tight divisional race in 2022. They are now, and it’s time for them to act like it.

Jared Kelley has one of the more-intriguing arms in a Chicago White Sox system that has graduated much of its top talent to the big leagues in recent years. He might be best described as promising but raw. Drafted 47th overall in 2020 out of Refugio (Texas) High School, the 20-year-old right-hander came into this season having thrown just 23.2 professional innings. Moreover, he’d put up a 7.61 ERA in the lowest rungs of the minors while battling minor arm issues.

Despite the spotty early track record, Kelley’s ceiling is high. A ballyhooed prospect as a prep, he possesses a high-velocity fastball and a trio of developing secondaries.He’s off an up-and-down start in the current campaign. In his first outing with the Low-A Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, Kelley allowed just one hit, and one run, over three strong innings. In his second, he allowed eight baserunners and three earned runs over just one-and-two-thirds innings.No. 6 on our newly-released White Sox Top Prospects list, he discussed his early career development and how he’s adapted his repertoire.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with with your repertoire. What are you throwing now?

Jared Kelley: “I’ve been working on a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a slider, and a changeup. The sinker — the two-seam sinker — is the newest pitch.”

Laurila: I want to hear about the two-seamer, but first, I recall reading that you also throw a curveball.

Kelley: “I don’t throw a curveball anymore. I used to throw a curve, but it was more like a slurve. I don’t think it was going to play at the next level, so we changed into something a little bit harder, and a little bit easier for me to repeat.”

Laurila: When did that happen? Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago White Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Jordan Brewer, OF, Houston Astros
Level & Affiliate: High-A Asheville Age: 24 Org Rank: TBD FV: 40
Weekend Line: 7-for-11, 3 HR, 2B, 3B, 2 BB, 1 K, 2 SB

Notes
Brewer has always had big tools (plus-plus speed, above-average raw power, a plus arm) and some late-bloomer qualities. He was draft eligible in 2018 at Lincoln Trail JC in Illinois and went unselected, but emerged after he transferred to Michigan and went in the third round in 2019. Brewer has barely played pro ball due to a combination of the pandemic and injuries, including a knee surgery. Even though he’s already 24, you could reasonably hope things will click for him on a delay because of the atypical amateur path and all the missed reps in pro ball. Brewer’s start to the 2022 season is what it would look like on paper if that was actually happening. He’s halfway to his 2021 home run total after just six games. Read the rest of this entry »