Melky Cabrera — In a season where favorite players were traded away left and right, Cabrera may have been the saddest of all the departures. He doesn’t have the same deep emotional attachment that Quintana bore, but he was just a whole lot of fun to watch play baseball. In every move it was apparent that […]
Tag: Derek Holland
Holland Out; Fry and Moncada In
The White Sox announced three roster moves early on Tuesday afternoon. Taking them in turn: 1. The White Sox requested waivers for Derek Holland to grant him his unconditional release. It’s a sad result for a clubhouse leader who has been very candid about his struggles. Brought in on a one-year deal to rebuild his value, […]
Reynaldo Lopez’s second start ends conspicuously early
ARLINGTON, Texas — Before Reynaldo Lopez left Thursday’s 9-8 loss to the Texas Rangers with what the team called soreness on his right side, we got a good look at everything that makes him such an exciting young arm, as well as why his future as a starter is so hotly debated. First, the important […]
South Side Morning 5: Holy crap, that White Sox starting pitching
1. The White Sox have settled into the cellar of the AL Central, sitting comfortably with the Oakland Athletics as the bottom two teams in the American League. This is both unsurprising and inconsequential given the team’s goals both for this year and long term, but what is surprising is that the White Sox, according to […]
South Side Morning 5: Holland Daze
It was easier to say, “Sure! This rebuild stuff isn’t so bad!” when the White Sox were still winning about as much as they had in their contending years. Now they’ve won only one of their last nine games and it hasn’t been quite as fun, even if the existential despair has been significantly mitigated. […]
South Side Morning 5: Derek Holland is Sliding Back Into Relevancy
1. When Derek Holland is at his best, as he was in Thursday’s 8-3 win over the Royals, he’s keeping hitters off balance with a fixture of perfectly placed fastballs and offspeed stuff out of the zone. During his peak seasons, 2011 and 2013, the whiff percentage on his curveball was 21 percent and 23 […]
Derek Holland was both bad and unlucky, and both are worth mentioning
Derek Holland’s final line in Monday’s 7-4 loss to the Yankees pointed to a decent amount of poor luck. While the White Sox committed two errors on the night, the game particularly unraveled on a play that was ultimately ruled a hit, when Jose Abreu bobbled a soft ground ball hit by Jacoby Ellsbury on […]
South Side Morning 5: Dutch Courage
With a 2-1 victory in Cleveland last night, the White Sox continue their respectable start, moving to 3-4. Even with Chris Sale gone and Carlos Rodon on the DL, to date pitching is the strength of the team. Theoretically a staff ERA of 2.54 would get you more than three wins in seven games, but […]
Worrying about rotation depth
One of the problems the 2017 White Sox won’t share with their predecessors is a crippling lack of position player depth. Not because they have more depth than in the past, but because gaps on the position player side aren’t really a problem if you don’t care about winning games — if you lose a couple […]
Eating some of these innings
The White Sox may not have picked the best year to gut their pitching staff. Well, obviously they picked a great year to gut their pitching staff, since the free agency market is barren and all of their trade assets are worth their weight in gold, and worth more than their weight in prospects. This […]