2015 MLB Draft: One last look before the speculation ends

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The thing about projecting the MLB Draft, which begins with the first two rounds tonight, is that, like most drafts, it's a fool's practice. As Ben Lindbergh noted on Grantland last week, nobody gets anything right. Even Kevin Goldstein, for years one of the top prospect minds in the game who now works for the Houston Astros, only got 18 picks right over a six year period, and in 2010 only got the No. 1 overall pick correctly before whiffing on every other pick, as noted in Lindbergh's piece.

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The Catbird Speaks: How could you not be complaining at this point

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James, Collin, Ethan, and Matt once again lament the state of the White Sox, their failed pieces, and who among them may be candidates for trade with such potential trade partners as the Dodgers, Astros, and the Cubs. Some last minute opinions on who the White Sox should target in the 2015 draft are offered before things get de-baseballed and challenges are issued. 

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TCS Morning 10: Say, those WERE a lot of Rodon strikeouts

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Carlos Rodon split the plate with the first fastball he threw to Delino DeShields, and after getting taken into the gap for a leadoff double, he looked lost missing badly with fastballs and walking Shin-Soo Choo.

And then just like Chris Sale the night before, Rodon snapped into place. Or it's better said, his slider took control of the game. The only run he allowed all night came that same inning, when he completely overwhelmed Prince Fielder, only for that brilliant hitter to poke an off balance seeing-eye single through on him. No one else fared better. Rodon's slider filleted everyone, overwhelming a lefty-centered lineup, covering up his walks, putting away hitters who fell behind, enticing swings from hitters who were ahead and had to know the slider was coming. He recorded 10 of his first 15 outs via strikeout, and braved six outstanding innings with two pitches, and really only one pitch worth worrying about.

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TCS Morning 10: Back to feeling awful about Samardzija, Sox again

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It would have been nice to realize while it was happening that May was Samardzija's hot stretch of command. Instead, I didn't realize until his last two starts that he was beginning to look as advertised, and now he's pounding the zone with mistakes on the upper half again and getting pounded in return. Samardzija was annihilated for nine runs on 12 hits in five-plus innings in Tuesday night's 15-2 demolition in Arlington, but probably could have taken the game into the seventh if they wanted to stretch his pitch count. He was so efficient at pounding the zone with pitches to drive, floating every cutter and slider over the center of the plate, that he still was on 95 pitches despite facing 28 batters on the night. 

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TCS Morning 10: On to Texas

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The cruelest mockery: The Rangers will mark the arrival of the White Sox in Texas by calling up the type of fearsome, high-ceiling, top-10 offensive prospect that the Sox have been unable to generate in over a decade. Joey Gallo will reportedly be called up to the big club on Tuesday, straight from Double-A.

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TCS Morning 10 is a work-in-progress

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What the hell got into John Danks? What got into the White Sox in general? How have the Astros been winning? Danks' shutout was very him; a combination of his best control, consistent contact but avoiding the huge, deflating bomb, and a definitively weird event that kept his tab empty. In another world, Jonathan Villar's triple-that-wasn't-quite-an-inside-the-park-home-run is a lineout to center that Adam Eaton reads correctly, but let he who has not allowed the speeding bullet over his outfielder's head cast the first stone.

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TCS Afternoon 10: Oh yeah, Chris Sale exists

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Not to be even momentarily outshined in the rotation by Jeff Samardzija, Chris Sale overcame a dreadful history against the Baltimore Orioles (who came in the game hitting .352/.436/.614 off Sale for his career) for his finest outing of the year, striking out 12 O's over 7.2 shutout innings. His now 3.66 ERA is only barely better than average (108 ERA+) which reiterates what we addressed with Samardzija yesterday: even if the putrid White Sox offense is possibly an overwhelming yoke for this team to bear, they should start getting more of their fair share of extremely low-difficulty games handed to them by the top-half of their rotation.

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White Sox Draft Ruminations

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There is a certain futility to speculating about the MLB draft.  For one thing, baseball prospects, unlike those in the NBA or NFL, for example, are so many years away from ever making it to MLB - if they ever do at all. Then you have to factor in for years - like this one - where there isn't a clear cut Top 2 or Top 3 or Top 4 and chaos reigns. As opposed to say, last year, where there was a pretty clear Top 3 and the only question was their sequence. Then you have to take into account the different valuations that different organizations place on tools, present baseball skill, cost, positions of need, etc. etc. And, what's more, it's not like teams necessarily have anything to gain from telegraphing the players they're interested in - and you could argue it is quite the opposite. Still, while forecasting specific players may be quixotic, there are still inferences you can draw from a team's general draft philosophy. 

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TCS Morning 10: A Smardj shall lead them

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With all his early struggles, it's hard to conceive of Jeff Samardzija being the model of relative stability in the White Sox rotation, since he comes off as someone just kinda crossfire flinging the ball in the general direction of the plate on his best days, but seven innings of one-run ball in Toronto Wednesday was his fourth start of the month where he went at least that deep into the game, and all of those outings were quality.

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Important stuff from a 6-0 game the Sox lost to the Blue Jays because scoring was required

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After Adam LaRoche read the riot act on the White Sox offense Sunday, calling their performance "embarrassing" and acknowledging that they had been making "good pitchers look great," the White Sox squared off with the Blue Jays and....really showed everyone what he was talking about.

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The AL Central and the MLB Draft: A recent history

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The success or failure of teams in the MLB Draft is difficult to determine. The main reason for this is because it takes so long for most draftees to reach the majors, and players shuffle from team to team so often (whether it's by trade or otherwise) that looking at a particular team's draft class for a particular year will often only yield one or two players who actually made an impact on that team's major league roster.

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Important stuff from another 8-1 loss to the Twins on the darkest timeline

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The Astros and the Royals are the American League's very best, the Twins are hitting with vigor and purpose again, and the Sox can't find anyone who can even slug .500, or catch line drives hit right at them, or string hits together off No. 6 quality starters from the Minnesota Twins. Or anything.

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State of the Offense: Still A Tire Fire

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I last addressed this issue on May 2nd. At the time the White Sox had played 20 games and they were sitting at 8-12.  The offense was vying with the comical tragedy that is the 2015 Philadelphia Phillies for the title of Worst Offense in MLB. At the time they were hitting .242/.292/.345 as a team. It's been another 20 games since then, and we've seen a streak that included the best baseball they played this year, Carlos Sanchez has replaced Micah Johnson, and well...let's check it out.

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Why can't Melky Cabrera hit right-handed anymore?

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The selling point for bringing Melky Cabrera on board over the off-season was simply that he was a left fielder with a pulse, but a fringe benefit was that his switch-hitting abilities provided the Sox with a reliable everyday solution. Instead, they have gotten this rarefied craziness (Through Thursday).

Vs. RHP: 127 PA, .307/.362/.351

Vs. LHP: 40 PA, .081/.103/.081

That's uh, a little skewed. Is this sort of thing normal?

CAREER Vs. RHP: 3549 PA, .291/.341/.416

CAREER vs. LHP: 1475 PA, .271/.329/.398

No, it's not normal. If a switch-hitter regularly OPS'd under .200 from one side of the plate, you would take it upon yourself to calmly and courteously inform him that he is not, in fact, a switch-hitter. And it's a measure that isn't out place even this early in the season, if someone is coming this close to literally giving at-bats away.

The problem with this, as with Adam LaRoche's intense platoon struggles, is that the White Sox roster is ill-prepared to make this sort of adjustment or accommodation for Melky. We don't know how good he would be hitting left-handed all the time, and the bench is almost entirely composed of guys just trusted to field the position well. J.B. Shuck, a lefty, had reverse splits that one moment in time he was a decent regular, which is looking particularly far off at the moment. Trayce Thompson is the presumptive next outfielder up in the farm system, and is right-handed, but is also Trayce Thompson, and might never actually be ready to produce in any way against MLB pitching. There is no lefty-killer waiting in the wings.

And all this is coming without any real understanding of the why. Again, as with LaRoche, while Cabrera is still a worthy starter with the platoon advantage due to on-base ability, but he's been struck with the same baffling power outage affecting the entire roster. This is a guy who hit 18 home runs while playing Kauffman Stadium four years ago, who is now currently sitting on three extra-base hits on the season. Dodgy batted-ball data that I don't trust and certainly don't have enough familiarity enough to determine what is a fluke, has 10% of Cabrera's hard hit balls becoming medium hit. What this means for his long-term prospects, is a more hard to pin down concept.

Injury would be a fun all-encompassing explanation--he played like a ghost of himself in 2013 too before a tumor was discovered--but there's been no hint of rumor on something like that. Age is likely why LaRoche can't hit lefties anymore, and it would make sense that Cabrera's non-dominant hand is what would slip as he begins to decline in his 30's, but "decline" typically does not equate to "instantly disappears."

Bad luck has been a specter on all of the Sox early-season offensive struggles and there's a risk to overreacting to everything that's going in, but a problem so specific and extreme can be a test case for how Robin Ventura, Todd Steverson and Co. are addressing and responding to things they have a power to change. With a veteran with a baseline for performance is wildly failing to meet expectations, is he replaced or aided in recovery, or does he languish as a lesser value than what the Sox front office paid for? The question has a lot of applications beyond this one.

Important stuff from a 3-2 coming out party for Jeff Samardzija

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Jeff Samardzija had Torii Hunter struck out in the first inning, he had fooled him with a tumbling sinker that looked like it had slid under his desperate lunge, only to have it dribble out between Geovany Soto's legs and was called a foul tip. Two batters, and maybe five minutes later it was 2-0, after Samardzija had blown his two-strike count to Hunter, allowed him to score when he blew an 0-2 count to Joe Mauer for an RBI double, completely fell asleep as Mauer got a running lead and stole third, which allowed him to score on sacrifice fly.

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