We tend to take the greatest players for granted, so it ought to tell you something when even one of the established elites is raising eyebrows. Chris Sale’s one of the very best starting pitchers in the world, of that there’s no question, and still he’s recently been generating all kinds of positive attention. Just Monday, he struck out 14 against the Astros in eight innings. It was his fourth consecutive start with double-digit strikeouts, and his fourth consecutive start with at least 20 missed bats. I won’t go through the specifics, but in terms of unhittability, Sale just tied one record with Sandy Koufax. He set a couple new all-time White Sox records, and he became the first pitcher to do a particular something since Randy Johnson. This is Chris Sale at the top of his game, and no one’s allowed a lower contact rate over the season’s last month.

Sale has established a few new personal bests, which, again, is a difficult thing to do, when you’ve been as excellent as he has. It seems like forever ago that he owned a near-6 ERA and people were wondering whether something was wrong. He’s yielded eight runs in six starts, he’s on a career-low FIP, and he’s on a career-low xFIP. When you look at the overall picture, at this point Sale looks more or less like himself. But underneath, you can see him evolving, and now Sale’s turned into one of the rarest sorts of pitchers.

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Eight Major League Baseball teams won an initial victory on Wednesday in two federal lawsuits contesting MLB’s minor league pay practices under the minimum wage and overtime laws. At the same time, however, the judge denied the league a potentially more sweeping victory in the cases.

The two lawsuits were filed in California last year by former minor league players who allege that they received as little as $3,300 per year, without overtime, despite routinely being required to work 50 or more hours per week during the playing season (in addition to mandatory off-season training). MLB and its thirty teams responded to the suit by challenging the plaintiffs’ claims on a variety of grounds. Wednesday’s decision considered two of these defenses in particular.

First, 11 of the MLB franchises argued that they were not subject to the California court’s jurisdiction and therefore must be dismissed from the lawsuit. Second, all 30 MLB teams argued that the case should be transferred from California to a federal court in Florida, which they argued would be a more convenient location for the trial.  In its decision on Wednesday, the court granted MLB a partial victory, agreeing to dismiss eight of the MLB defendant franchises from the suit due to a lack of personal jurisdiction, but refusing to transfer the case to Florida. Read the rest of this entry »

Carlos Rodon is attempting a very rare transition. Less than a year removed from starting at North Carolina State, Rodon is attempting to navigate major-league lineups at just 22 years old. Only Jose Fernandez, Shelby Miller, Michael Pineda, and Julio Teheran have pitched 150 innings in rookie seasons at Rodon’s age or younger in the past five years. Rodon has now made six appearances in the majors after making only nine in the minors. His 22.1 major-league innings have already surpassed the 22.0 innings he pitched in Triple-A since signing with the White Sox last summer for over $6 million after the team made him the number three pick in the draft. Rodon’s slider and fastball are major-league ready, but he has yet to challenge hitters consistently or rely on an offspeed pitch, leading to almost a walk per inning. Rodon is already the White Sox’ fourth-best starter behind Chris Sale, Jeff Samardzija, and Jose Quintana, but he is not yet a finished product and still has some development ahead of him in the majors.

Rodon has the potential to accomplish a feat even more rare than the one performed by Fernandez, Miller, et al. No pitcher in the last 15 years has been drafted from college, made their debut within a year of signing and pitched at least 150 innings at 22 years of age or younger. The last player to achieve what Rodon is attempting was Jeff Weaver in 1999 for the Detroit Tigers. Weaver made 29 starts, had a 5.55 ERA and 5.22 FIP on the way to a 1.6 WAR season. In the last 30 years, the only other pitchers to do the same were Jim Abbott in 1989, Bobby Witt in 1986, and someone White Sox fans should remember, Jack McDowell, who made his debut shortly after the draft in 1987 and made 26 starts in 1988 for the White Sox before winning the Cy Young four years later.

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Over the weekend, the White Sox scored 16 runs against the Reds in three games, and just Sunday they got the best of the impossible Aroldis Chapman, walking off after three consecutive hits. With that in mind, this would seem a funny time to be critical of the White Sox position players, but then, for one thing, the season’s been a lot longer than a couple days. And, you know what? So much content is published with timing in mind. People write about a player after he has a big game. It’s natural, but you can think of it as a form of bias. In this post, let’s not be swayed by recency. Most recently, White Sox position players have been good. Let’s knock ’em down a few pegs!

You already know it’s been a struggle for the Sox, and after spending the offseason trying to build a contender, already they’ve approached a decision point. It’s not time yet for the Sox to pull the plug, but it’s an increasingly likely outcome. At this moment, the White Sox sit dead last in the majors in team WAR, which means they rank even behind the Phillies. People have their differences with WAR, but history shows that WAR and team performance are very closely connected. Good teams don’t rank last. (Good teams don’t rank close to last.)

On the pitching side, things could be better and they could be worse. The team sits in the middle of the pack, which seems appropriate for such a top-heavy roster. There are clearly good pitchers, and there are clearly replaceable pitchers. But as for the position players, collectively it’s been a nightmare. By WAR, the Sox are in last place, and they’re in last by more than a full win. By WAR, the Sox have performed below replacement-level. This is a disaster, so let’s break it down.

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I wrote yesterday about the uncertainty surrounding the #1 overall pick, but that doesn’t keep scouts from trying to figure out who will go in the subsequent picks. It’s way too early to have any real idea what’s going to happen beyond the top 10-15 picks, but the buzz is growing in the scouting community about how things will play out and you people are sustained by lists, predictions and mock drafts. You’re welcome.

I’d bet it’s more telling on draft day to make judgments using the buzz and all the names I mention, rather than the one name I project to be picked, but you guys already don’t read the introduction, so I’ll shut up. For reports, video and more on these players, check out my latest 2015 MLB Draft rankings, or, if your team doesn’t pick high this year, look ahead with my 2016 & 2017 MLB Draft rankings.

UPDATE 5/11/15: Notes from this weekend’s college games: Dillon Tate was solid in front of GM’s from Arizona, Houston and Colorado. Dansby Swanson was even better, in front of decision makers from all the top teams, including Houston, who may still be debating whether they’d take Swanson or Rodgers if given the choice (Rodgers’ season is over). Carson Fulmer did what he usually does and probably has a home from picks 7-17 depending on how things fall on draft day, with an evaluation similar to Marcus Stroman and Sonny Gray as previous undersized righties with stellar track records and plus stuff.

Andrew Benintendi went nuts at the plate again (I’ll see him and Fulmer this weekend). And, finally, Jon Harris was excellent, rebounding from a not-so-great start, so, at this point, I would make Harris the 9th pick to the Cubs and slide Trenton Clark down a few picks, but still comfortably in the top 20. I also updated the 2016 MLB Draft Rankings as a few top prospects came off the DL and impressed, further strengthening the top of that draft, which is far and away better than this year’s draft.

1. Diamondbacks – Dansby Swanson, SS, Vanderbilt
I wrote about this more in depth yesterday, where I wrote it’s down to CF Garrett Whitley, C Tyler Stephenson and CF Daz Cameron with some chance RHP Dillon Tate is still in the mix and SS Dansby Swanson possibly involved. After writing that, I heard that Arizona is definitely considering those prep players, but teams don’t think they’ll pull the trigger on a way-below-slot prep option and they are leaning college, with Tate and Swanson the targets and SS Alex Bregman also getting some consideration as a long shot.

I’ve heard Arizona wants a hitter here and GM Dave Stewart was in to see Vanderbilt last night. I had heard they were laying in the weeds on Swanson, so, for now, I’ll go with Swanson here. To be clear, Arizona hasn’t made any decisions yet, so this group could still grow or they could change course. One scouting director told me yesterday when asked what he thought Arizona would do that “it sounds like they are going to do something crazy.” Until a few hours before this published, I had Arizona taking Whitley, so this is still very much in flux. There’s also some thought that Tate or Swanson were the targets all along and the rumors of cut-rate high school options have just been a ploy to get the price down–you can pick your own theory at this point.

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If there was one overarching theme of this last offseason, it was the surprise push towards contention from a lot of teams that didn’t quite look quite ready to win. The Padres were the most aggressive unexpected buyer, eschewing rebuilding to instead load up for a run in 2015, but they weren’t the only team to decide to capitalize on the current unprecedented level of parity in the sport. Over in the AL, the White Sox made a similar series of moves, bringing in Jeff Samardzija, Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche, David Robertson, and Zach Duke in their offseason makeover. With Chris Sale and Jose Abreu at the top of their games, Rick Hahn decided to push in on 2015 and see if they could follow in the Royals footsteps.

The pre-season forecasts, though, never really bought into it. On Opening Day, our Playoff Odds page had the White Sox going 78-84, with just an 8% chance of winning the AL Central and a 6% chance of winning one of the two Wild Card spots; the Rangers and Twins were the only AL teams with a lower chance of reaching the postseason. There was a scenario where things broke right and the White Sox became legitimate contenders — the Astros are currently in the midst of that scenario at the moment — but it was going to require the team’s role players step up and fill some of the areas where the team was expected to get replacement level production.

That hasn’t happened.

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Before this post gets published, the White Sox and Orioles will begin a baseball game in Baltimore played before no one. The few scouts in attendance will keep to themselves, and those watching from elsewhere will be unheard. There will probably be birds, and birds are always making noise, but we’re generally pretty good at tuning them out, because they never shut up. Two things, before going further:

(1) Of course, what’s going on in the rest of Baltimore is of far greater significance than what’s going on inside Camden Yards. For every one thought about the baseball game, there ought to be ten million thoughts about the civil unrest, and what it means and what’s to learn. My job, though, is to write about baseball, and so this is a post about baseball. I am qualified to do very few other things.

(2) The game will be played under extraordinary circumstances, but it’s also one game. A sample of one is, for all intents and purposes, no better than a sample of zero, so we’re not going to learn much today. We’d need a few thousand of these to really research and establish some conclusions. The post basically concerns the hypothetical, inspired by what’s taking place.

Home-field advantage exists in all sports. It’s a known thing, to varying degrees. The first thing that occurs to most people, as far as an explanation is concerned, is that the team at home has people yelling in support of it. The team on the road, meanwhile, has people yelling other things at it. The average person prefers support over mean and critical remarks. Now, consider the game in Baltimore. Strip the crowd effect away completely. What could that do? What might we expect of the home-field advantage of a team that plays with no fans?

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As Kris Bryant heads to North Side of Chicago to make his debut, the lack of movement on the South Side has merited much less attention. Carlos Rodon remains a starting pitcher in Charlotte as the White Sox use two currently inferior pitchers in the rotation. Much of the same arguments for keeping Kris Bryant down apply to Rodon. By keeping him in the minor leagues, the team can gain an extra year of service time. A couple starts during the course of the season is not likely to make a huge difference for the White Sox’s season.

Whether those arguments are valid as they apply to Rodon are moot now. The time needed to keep Rodon down is over, and the White Sox still haven’t named a starter for Sunday afternoon, but they have eliminated one name:
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Hello! The baseball season just started. We’ve gone from one Sunday to a second Sunday, and we still aren’t allowed to do anything with statistics because nobody cares about them yet. While, in theory, spring training is supposed to get everyone ready for the year, the beginning feels like an extended spring training, a transition period following a transition period, and at this point the standings mean nothing. If you were to ask a player today about the wins and the losses, you’d get laughed out of the clubhouse. It doesn’t just feel like there’s a long way to go — it feels like there’s the whole way to go. Also, the Indians and White Sox are four games back of the Tigers and Royals.

It happened fast. It happened before anyone cared, but the White Sox have been swept by the Royals, and the Indians have been swept by the Tigers. Series conclude every few days, and standings change literally every day, but this is notable because the AL Central has four teams who’ve been thinking about the playoffs. The same four teams are still thinking about the playoffs, but as much as you want to say nothing matters yet, everything matters. This is my most- and least-favorite post to write every season.

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We’re halfway done, with the wests — both NL and the AL — and covered NL Central yesterday. Today, we tackle the AL’s version of the country’s heartland.

The Projected Standings

With no great teams and only one franchise not really trying to contend this year, this is one of the most up-for-grabs divisions in the sport. Our forecasts suggest that there are two tiers within those going for it, but I think things might be a bit more bunched up than the numbers above suggest. Let’s go team by team.

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