We tend to get more blindsided by someone less interesting, like Hector Noesi in 2015 or John Danks in 2016, just falling apart, because we overlooked their underlying decay in the rush to write them off as “fine” and move on.  This is an analyst problem, but it doubles as a White Sox problem, since they have regularly been able to stand up to the rest of the league in roster spots 1 through 10, while taking a shellacking in spots 16 through 25.

So here’s a roundabout way of finally getting to Miguel Gonzalez, who began as a Spring Training minor league deal, debuted as a desperate backup option, had some moments of unease early on, and then transitioned into a nice back-end starter groove at the start of July so smoothly that there was barely any thought put into the assumption that he was “fine,” and would be in the back of the rotation going forward.

Gonzalez’s 135 innings of 3.73 ERA was good, but not good enough to draw quibbles that it was belied by a 4.65 DRA and that his 2016 cFIP was a below-average (albeit career-best) 104. Gonzalez even pitched so poorly on June 25 that the Sox managed to lose a game in which they hit seven home runs, but a 2.72 ERA over his last 13 starts appears to have blotted memories and concerns from that day out. And if it hadn’t, a rebuild would have done the trick.

Gonzalez has always boasted more command and confidence and cojones than actual stuff, has never so much as broke 7.0 K/9 in a season, and has never controlled contact in a way that would lead to pleasing metrics or hope for stable performance. He made his living attacking the zone with low-90s heat and dealt with the days where the barrels found everything as they came. Gonzalez’s biggest swing-and-miss offering has always been his splitter, which still left him without a great second offering to throw in the zone. That kind of fringy profile puts him in danger of a collapse if just a slight complication arises, like the late-2015 velocity dip that Cat Garcia noticed, which led immediately to him getting crushed down the stretch and being put on the outs of the Baltimore roster. 1-to-2 mph is enough to place most No. 4 starters into a crisis, and Gonzalez is certainly no exception.

Perhaps that’s why he was more willing than others to accept the approach of his new team as dogma. Don Cooper’s preference to have his guys “stand tall” and remain upright as much as possible through their delivery is well known, and Gonzalez told me early in the season it was a focus in the bullpen sessions. Sure enough, scouts say that was present through his strong close to the year. The delivery tweak allows him to get more torque in his hips, and while the velocity bump is slight (Less than one mph, but more importantly there was no second half fade), it gave him a crispness to his stuff he had lacked and sorely needed, particularly his slider.

Enigmatic for most of his career, Gonzalez’s slider became his primary breaking pitch again in 2016, giving him a bender more suited to his attacking approach and allowing to be more selective with his splitter as a wipeout offering. The fix is a physically sustainable, cleaner motion and Gonzalez is well-conditioned at age 32, but it’s not wholly transformative.

While he’s worked to earn the $5.9 million going into his pockets next season, he’s still right-hander with average velocity, low strikeout rates and unremarkable secondaries, who is a setback away from being a liability. A spike in walk rate early on will signal trouble is afoot with his delivery, and expecting more than another year or two of steady production seems unwise, which is academic since he hits free agency after 2018 anyway.

So, like most players not on their Top Prospects list right now, the Sox should be looking for opportunities to move Gonzalez. Unlike others, there’s no angst about Gonzalez breaking camp with the club, because grit-and-guile No. 4 starters are not something other teams should admit they have to trade for until they are forced. Gonzalez won’t bring back a haul but he should bring back value, and any value is worth the small cost of snatching him up when he had none and revitalizing his career. It won’t be enough of a contribution to put Gonzalez in the annals of franchise history, but during a stretch that has seen the Sox great attraction sent away, seeing a scuffling veteran come into the organization and turn out just “fine,” is a small joy that can no longer be brushed aside.

Lead Image Credit: David Banks // USA Today Sports Images

Rodon struggled early with command, which would plague him throughout most of the rest of his first season in the majors. In Rodon’s first outing, a chilly April night at U.S. Cellular Field, he allowed two earned runs and walked three Cleveland batters in 2.1 innings of work. He faced 13 batters in all and managed just one strikeout. He was simply stated, a work in progress.

As the season progressed, fans would watch with an uncertain eye as Rodon struggled with his command and the ability to harness a useable third pitch, even as he made his way into the Sox rotation after just three games working out of the bullpen. Rodon showed flashes of grand ability that were often muddled by his rookie struggles, but he possessed  a sharp slider, and good velocity — the type of brilliance that reminded Sox fans that the potential for success was certainly there and why the patience was necessary.

“You’re not going to be throwing 40-plus percent sliders for a long time,” GM Rick Hahn said of Rodon during his time in Triple-A in 2015, indicating that finding a third pitch was key to helping Rodon succeed as a starter. The command needed to improve on all his pitches, but most importantly, the changeup needed to develop into a strong third option.

“In our opinion, Carlos can be a front-end type starter, and it’s a matter of developing him along those lines and getting him there.” Hahn continued. A year and a half later, Rodon is showing the White Sox that Hahn was right.

“It’s a pitch I’ve been trying to develop since I’ve been in professional baseball,’’ Rodon said of his changeup after an outing this September.

That’s been the key to putting it all together for Rodon in 2016. In the first half of the season, the White Sox simply saw more of what had made many more impatient souls skeptical of Rodon in 2015; a 15.5 percent  HR/FB rate, a 4.50 ERA, and a .291 opponent batting average.

Fast forward to now. It’s still just the second half of Rodon’s second season in the majors, and he is pitching to a 2.52 ERA, has lowered his opponent batting average to .236, and has worked on commanding the strike zone — lowering his walk rate from 7.8 percent in the first half to just 5.9 percent in the second half.

It all came together at once, the third pitch, and the improved command, and the ability to deceive batters via strong sequencing.

“It’s a pitch I’m definitely going to use more often,’’ Rodon said of his newfound confidence in his change.  “The changeup gets them off my fastball and makes it seem a little harder. It opens up the plate for me to throw heaters in there, and they just beat it in the ground or pop up.’’

Check out the progression on Rodon’s changeup, as well as his slider, in the second half of 2016:

That’s quite the improvement, and certainly evidence of where Rodon’s exceptional second half success has stemmed from.

The proof is in the numbers as far as Rodon’s command of the changeup goes as well, in the 2015, Rodon’s changeup was seeing the zone just 27.7 percent of the time he threw it, causing his walk rate on the pitch to climb to 15.6 percent. In 2016 though, Rodon is throwing the pitch in the zone with 35.7 percent frequency, and has seen the pitch’s walk rate dip to just 6.3 percent.

As far as the slider is concerned, Rodon now has a 47.4 percent strikeout rate and a four percent walk rate on the pitch in 2016, as opposed to just 44.7 percent strikeout rate and 8.3 percent walk rate in 2015. These may seem like small variations to some, but these incremental gains in baseball can help a pitcher make large strides towards success.

“If you have three pitches a hitter has to worry about, it makes you so much better. And now we found out we can throw the slider back door (to the outside corner to right hand hitters) so that helps us a lot. He’s been pretty good.’’ White Sox catcher Omar Narvaez said of Rodon.

There hasn’t been a lot to look forward to as the days roll onward on the South side, so keeping a watchful eye for the future is the goal. The improvements that Rodon has made over the last several months have helped him become the well-rounded pitcher that baseball expected him to become for the White Sox back in June of 2015. His developmental path may have put his flaws and struggles in the spotlight, but all it took was a little patience and faith to see Rodon’s true talent and success unfold.

Photo courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

If Rodon wants to be like Chris Sale and Jose Quintana–who are both holding righties to a sub-.700 OPS this season–like he said after Tuesday’s game, he will to need to build out his set of tools for attacking right-handed hitters.  Since he’s returned from the disabled list, that’s clearly been a focus.

Per Brooks Baseball, Rodon only used his changeup slightly over six percent of the time before going on the disabled list in early July, with five starts where he threw the pitch once or twice all game.  Since returning, that’s jumped up to over 17 percent–much more a legitimate tool than a show-me pitch.

But since Rodon is going to face an overwhelming majority of right-handed hitters for the rest of his career (81.7 percent of his batters faced this year), and since his slider is his most elite tool, he can’t spend the rest of his life trying to get by primarily with his average change.  Like Sale, he is going to need to be able to utilize his slider for different purposes and in different ways than simply a super-hard, wipeout offering that destroys lefties but has diminishing returns elsewhere, and it sounds like there was some realization of that in process Tuesday.

Not that the fire to see more Omar Narvaez needed any more stoking given the type of year Dioner Navarro has had at and behind the plate, but this quote Rodon gave Dan Hayes about Narvaez adjusting mid-game to try to use his slider as an outside corner strike-grabber is eye-opening, both for Rodon’s comfort in altering his approach and the implied framing work:

“The slider wasn’t working too good down and in, they’d take it, so Omar set up a tad outside and just brought it back in,” Rodon said. “It was nice. It was huge. Had something to gauge off of to get that slider off the outside corner and it worked out well.”

However, this may be overthinking it all, or at the least, focusing on details rather than the big picture.  When Collin Whitchurch spoke to Don Cooper at the beginning of July, the legendary pitching coach didn’t speak about varying his slider, implementing the change, learning a cutter, manipulating gravity with his mind, cooking waffles with his feet, or anything complicated.

“We’re just trying to get more strikes out of him,” Cooper said. “He’s got a great slider and the fastball can be good when he’s locating. If he can get ahead in the count he can be deadly.”

Rodon needs his changeup, and he needs a varied slider which can add some deception with his change because they can overlap in speed when he throws the softer version on the outer half, but his fundamental truth is that his stuff is good enough that he’ll never be in too much trouble if he stays ahead and just gets in the zone.

Cooper put a target of the league-average 60 percent first strike percentage for Rodon.  He’s still well below that at 51.8 percent for the year, was 13 of 24 Tuesday night, and has been mostly abysmal at it (under 50 percent) since returning from injury.

Pulling away from the numbers and re-watching Rodon’s Tuesday start, what strikes me is not that he uses his changeup at equal measure as his slider, but how much heavy lifting he left to his fastball.  Last year, Rodon seemed to be adjusting to how rarely major league hitters chase compared to his previous competition.  Now, he understands that he has a fastball that averages 95 mph (at least it did on Tuesday) and that he can live with the damage it incurs in the zone, particularly given what it allows him to set up on the edges with his off-speed stuff.

Instead of staying away from damage with it like every other pitch, Rodon now uses it to attack right-handers inside, allowing him to get weak swings on off-speed stuff when he stays away.  His one strikeout with the slider Tuesday came after busting Carlos Ruiz in hard, sneaking a changeup for a called strike, then getting a whiff on a not very good high slider for which Ruiz just didn’t have the timing after working to protect his inner half.

That’s a fun snapshot, but if this year of Rodon has taught anything, it’s that pitching development doesn’t always have that sort of satisfying cause and effect of immediate results.  If we draw back we can see how Rodon has progressed and matured, but he remains a wunderkind with a difficult development profile that could easily remain frustrating, until the  time comes when it suddenly is not.

Lead Image Credit: Mike Dinovo // USA Today Sports Images

While the Sox pitching development has earned much benefit of the doubt, and rushed many an arm to the majors that surprised everyone with its precociousness, Cassidy was skeptical. Burdi has had a fastball ready for high-leverage major league innings for years now, and solid secondaries, but Cassidy felt the command was not developed enough yet.

Enough to help, that is.

In the wonderful world of a month ago, the Sox were still ostensibly trying to win in 2016, and the arrival of a rookie to the bullpen had to be weighed on the merits of their ability to improve the team, and how it compared to the impact and cost of looking to acquire a more veteran arm.

Now, those complicated times are gone. The Sox’ playoff hopes have met their maker, and what little ambiguity the front office left about that in their words has been completely borne out in their actions. Now, the standards for judging Burdi’s arrival have changed, as has our level of mystery about its imminence.

Was just told Zach Burdi is getting called up this week after one more appearance in Charlotte #whitesox

— whitesoxdave (@barstoolWSD) August 14, 2016

Hearing rumor that #WhiteSox prospect Zack Burdi will get the call to the majors after one more appearance at Triple-A Charlotte.

— Jesse Burkhart (@jesseburkhart) August 16, 2016

Obviously this is not an official announcement, but Dave Williams and FanRag have both been accurate this year.

Burdi’s work since becoming a professional has not been without flaws nor lapses of control, but he’s remained overpowering despite being aggressively challenged.  He struck out 24 of the 64 hitters he faced (37.5 percent) in Double-A as a 21-year-old, and despite being promoted to Triple-A near the end of the stretch, Burdi has not allowed a hit to any of the last 39 hitters he’s faced (though he’s walked five).

Like Carlos Rodon last year, there’s only so much development that can take place at the lower levels of competition when a pitcher has stuff that is simply overwhelming to his competition. Whatever command Burdi is able to add is not going be any easier to achieve at a level where no one can touch his fastball, even when he splits the plate with it.

Unlike Rodon, Burdi will be joining the majors to pitch in relief, will very likely be auditioning for a relief role in 2017, and is less encumbered by trying to serve to dual roles of developing his third pitch while also fighting for survival against elite competition, and the prospect of him working with directly with Don Cooper should only cause so much concern about his development in the first place.

The initial results will likely be rough, and the young right-hander will probably get the most intense taste of baseball failure of his life, but the Sox are positioned to endure it without consequence. There are plenty of rookies already in the Sox bullpen, and even a fair share of DFA candidates in a group that doesn’t have anything beyond David Robertson, Nate Jones and Carson Fulmer that is indispensable.  Making room should not be an issue.

It’s certainly fast, it’s certainly another White Sox rush job of a vaunted prospect, but there are enough issues coming to the South side in the next few months that will merit concern and scrutiny, and we needn’t waste any of it on Zack Burdi.

Lead Image Credit: Jamie Rhodes // USA Today Sports Images

That summary is probably selling the changeup work short. Brooks Baseball had Rodon throwing his changeup 19 times, painted the armside corner a few times and even got three whiffs on it. If that usage total holds up, it would be a season-high, and an about face from the disappearing act his third pitch was making–he threw less than 19 times in his last four starts combined–as Rodon scuffled through the end of the first half.

Between nearly a month off to evaluate and focus on adjustments for the second half, and working with recent callup Omar Narvaez for the first time Sunday, change (heh) seemed afoot, which only put into further relief how stagnant Rodon had been prior. He had been getting tuned up by right-handers to the tune of a .309/.376/.502 coming in, where his profile of ‘huge slider, everything else in development’ is naturally built to struggle.

While missing a call or two, or even an out seems like something someone who can touch mid-90s from the left side with an elite breaking ball should pitch over, Rodon’s matchup issues actually make him the most vulnerable to the way the White Sox have bled value out of his work. After experiencing his late-season turnaround in 2015 under the stewardship of Tyler Flowers, he’s floundered in his work with Dioner Navarro (6.96 ERA in seven starts and eight home runs in 32.1 innings), who has ranked near the bottom of the league in framing. To avoid the BP stereotype of thinking that framing is swaying the results of every game, the rest of Rodon’s defense isn’t treating him any better.

The average defense gets outs on 73% of ground balls hit against a P

White Sox d has gotten outs on only 59% of grounders vs Carlos Rodon

— Mark Simon (@msimonespn) July 11, 2016

In each case, Rodon creates his own problems. The exit velocity on his groundballs is at the top of the league, suggesting he’s getting scorched by land and air, and framing for a guy who misses his spots, depends on chasing and is generally too wild to earn the benefit of the doubt is certainly no treat.

In Rodon, the Sox have an odd case for themselves, nor someone who fits alongside smoothly Chris Sale and Jose Quintana. It’s hard to say that someone who is only 23-years-old with nearly 240 major league innings is a slow study, but he’s lacked the rapid upward progress of the typical fast-tracked Sox pitching prospect, and even more rarely, seems like his performance and value is actively suffering with his current setup with the Sox, rather than profiting.

Rodon is one of the few places to look for where the 2016 Sox failed get production from their core to drag up the weaker portions of their roster, and is among the most important players on the team as far raising the ceiling for the 2017 club. The White Sox seem both doomed for this season and straddling the fence as far as their future, but Rodon’s final two months, and getting him squared away with a catcher, changeup and mechanics he can thrive with, can do a lot to determine how the Sox should evaluate their chances going forward.

Lead Image Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn // USA Today Sports Images

Well, six weeks later and the question I asked has most likely settled into its inevitable answer: Though the success Latos was displaying lasted until his start in Texas (subsequently, also when everything else began to unravel for the South siders), it appears that now we have seen more bad starts than good, that the real Mat Latos has arrived and might be here to stay.

In the month of April, Latos had a shining ERA of 2.18, struck out sixteen batters, and allowed just six earned runs the entire month. Sure, among those runs were three home runs, but heavier home run totals were something that was anticipated due to Latos’ poor fastball command — something the White Sox were aware of going in.

In May, the major differences in Latos’ performance was abrupt. Latos didn’t see a drop in strikeout rate, as his strikeout rate stayed nearly identical from month to month. It’s common knowledge that these days, Latos is not the type of starter who stacks up the Ks every night. The major difference in May was that Latos saw a drastic rise in his walk rate, coupled with a large decrease in his strand rate — a combination that can never lead to any good. Take a look.

Some of the numbers Latos posted in April such as his strand rate and ERA were obviously not sustainable for extended periods of time unless he suddenly morphed into Chris Sale overnight, but that being said, I’m not sure anyone expected to see this large of a disparity in his performance from one month to the next.

Command has been a growing concern for those interested in Latos since he injured his knee, which mostly thought to be the origin of his poor mechanics. The problem with the White Sox taking on a pitcher such as Latos, whose main issue is mechanical, is that we can’t be quite sure that the old school, pitching-from-feel master Don Cooper is the man to make the significant changes that Latos needs to succeed in his current form. Latos has it in him, he’s demonstrated that in the past over the course of his seven-year career, and though he’s endured a major knee injury, it’s possible to reinvent yourself on the mound with the proper repertoire and guidance. Latos just has not been able to do that, and his command has suffered for it, something that his new low velocity style of pitching is not equipped to compensate for.

Latos mainly relies on four pitches: his fastball, sinker, slider, and splitter. All of these pitches have flaws that are visible to the naked eye, and could some tweaking to lead to better results. Starting with his fastball and going down the line, let’s look at the major issues each of these pitches has.

Fourseam Fastball

Latos has used his four-seamer 32 percent of the time in 2016, making it his most frequented pitch and of course, his most troublesome. Take a look at the map on the left, his location on all fastballs thrown in 2016. Latos lives high and away to righties, but he also lives pretty much in the middle and upper portions of the zone, something that as the map in the middle characterizes, is not fooling batters. The middle map shows how many whiffs per swing Latos’ fastball is inducing, and as you can see, he’s created virtually zero deception with the pitch, leaving the hitters whiffing on just a neat and tidy area right over the heart of the plate. Finally, the last map shows us which of these pitches batters are making quality contact on, and it’s — as expected for a pitcher who throws his fastball at 92 mph in upper portion of the zone — the high fastballs and the ones Latos leaves right down the middle that get him into trouble.

None of this is very promising for a low velocity, pitch-to-contact type who uses his fastball as often as Latos does. The main reason Latos had a strong stride of success in April with his fastball is because he was keeping it low in the zone, which he something he needs to work to continue. Once May rolled around, Latos began elevating the pitch, and as a result saw his batting average on the pitch rise by 55 points.

Sinker

The location of these sinkers looks odd. That’s because a quality sinker should not be located where Latos is leaving it, and certainly not when it’s his second-most frequented pitch. Latos has thrown his sinker with 25 percent frequency in 2016, and as you can see, it’s not inducing a ton of whiffs when batters are swinging at it. The sinkers that aren’t breaking well and end up being located over the heart of the plate are being crushed, and the ones that Latos is leaving off the plate are going for balls (Latos’ sinker has gone for a ball 38 percent of the time so far in 2016). Hitters are swinging at the pitch with 44 percent frequency, while whiffing on it just under five percent of the time. I know what you may be thinking, ground balls, right? Not really. Latos is only inducing ground balls with his sinker around nine percent of the time.

Latos’ sinker is currently seeing the least amount of vertical break it’s seen in his career, which has something to do with why he’s not seeing the ground ball results you’d expect to see out of the pitch, while the horizontal movement on his sinker has gotten progressively worse over the last four years. More vertical break = more ground balls is the key for Latos on a offering that’s meant to induce contact outs.

Slider

Well, maybe this is a pitch that Latos is seeing bit more luck on: the slider. This is Latos’ third most frequented pitch, thrown 17 percent of the time in 2016. Latos is currently earning a nearly a 15 percent whiff rate on it, but is also allowing a .324 batting average and .559 slugging percentage on it, so maybe not so much luck in contact department. But hey, at least when the pitch isn’t being punished for hanging over the plate, he’s getting batters to swing at it when it’s located low and nearly in the dirt. There’s always a bright side.

Latos’ slider has been all over the plate this season, but in April, he was doing a better job of keeping in the lower half of the zone which led to less of the contact you see in the batting average map above. That’s more indicative of the result he’s seeing when he leaves the pitch high in and around parts of the plate that sliders shouldn’t ever be allowed to see, which has happened more frequently in May. Keeping the slider low and continuing to induce those whiffs is all Latos has to do to see more success with this offering. If only it was that easy.

Splitter

The fourth and final pitch that Latos most frequently uses is his splitter, which he offers at an 11 percent clip. Mostly used as a pitch to chase out of the zone when he’s ahead, Latos actually has a good amount of success with his splitter when it’s well located and has the correct breaking action. As you can see from the batting average maps, that hasn’t been happening all that much, leaving Latos vulnerable to letting runners score when he’s in a two-strike count.

Latos has actually seen a increase in success with the pitch in May, inducing ground balls on it at a 14 percent clip and whiffing batters near 17 percent of the time. So there is at least one pitch that Latos has potential to keep in good standing.

The largest concern with Latos from month-to-month is the fact that he went from having shaky command, but still able to induce good contact outs while keeping the walks to a minimum, to becoming a pitcher who is most likely suffering the plight of mechanical issues rearing their ugly head and making his passable command worse, leading to walks and the inability to hold the runners that he puts on base. Latos is currently seeing the lowest outside the zone swing rate on his pitches of his career, at just 28 percent, as well as the lowest overall swing rate. His swinging strike rate is at just 6.8 percent, a career low, while his contact rate is at a career-high of 85 percent; not exactly a recipe that lends itself to success.

One can only hope that Don Cooper is able to supply the type of assistance that Latos needs to salvage even a decent if unspectacular season on the South side. With John Danks gone and Miguel Gonzalez at this point showing more potential for success, Latos could become the biggest liability in this rotation.

The real question remains however, is he a worse option in the rotation than Erik Johnson, or whomever else is lurking around in Triple-A? I’m not sure I’m quite ready to give you a concrete answer on that yet.

Lead photo courtesy of Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

White Sox fans shrugged and went along with it, but due to Latos’ prominent home run tendencies and extensive injury history, Sox fans could be holding their breaths to see how the situation unfolds. There is a certain type of warranted curiosity here, seeing as Latos was once a fairly decent starter during his early years in San Diego and Cincinnati. Unfortunately, a barrage of injuries has robbed Latos of his vintage form.

But in his debut start in a Sox uniform last Thursday, Latos successfully executed six innings of one-hit, one-walk baseball. It’s safe to assume that many of us were pleasantly surprised by the outing, however it’s still just one start that presents its own reasons for apprehension. Can we trust this version of Mat Latos to continue to show up on the mound every five days? Only time will truly give us a more decisive conclusion of that question, but in attempts to gain a little more perspective right now as to whether this was a flukey one-time baseball thing with impeccable false hope-inducing characteristics or if there are some underlying indications that this Latos is here to stay, we’ll look a little further at Latos’ outing against the Athletics.

These maps from Brooks Baseball indicate the type of pitches thrown (left) and their result (right) throughout Latos’ entire start on Thursday. This may look like the zone maps for a pitcher who wasn’t locating his pitches well, however Latos was able to put the ball where he wanted it when it became necessary, and used the proper pitches to get himself out of jams. The question is now, how often will that continue to be the case, why did he get into jams, and how lucky was Latos?

Latos threw 30 sinkers (60 percent for strikes) and 26 fastballs (73 percent for strikes) against the A’s, according to the PITCHf/x data. These were the two most frequent pitches of the six types Latos threw. Latos induced swings on 57 percent of his fastballs and 43 percent of his sinkers, and most of those swings creating contact for the flyball outs. However, these pitches were located more in the lower/ middle half of the zone — which is living on the edge seeing as pitches located in this area can easily turn flyouts into home runs when thrown to the wrong batter at the wrong time or in the wrong ballpark. Latos induced six flyball outs, but if you watched the game, you can easily see that many of those balls were hit quite hard and some were taken all the way to the warning track, which left me a bit skeptical. It seems possible that there was a bit more luck on Latos’ side than not for those six outs.

However, the bright side of that is that nearly all of the groundball outs that Latos induced (6) came on well located, low fastballs and sinkers, save for one slider out made by Marcus Semien. When Latos was keeping the ball down, or in on the hands, he was able to make quick outs in a far less risky manner, something that he will need to do more often and with consistency to maintain success in U.S. Cellular Field. (Don Cooper vehemently stated to me at SoxFest that he is working with all of his pitchers to keep the ball on the ground as much as possible, because as we all know, flyballs easily turn into home runs at The Cell.)

One important thing to note is that when Latos found himself in hitter’s counts from sinkers and fastballs off the plate (as you’ll note in the maps above, almost all of the pitches off the plate and high above the zone are sinkers, along with a few curveballs and sliders went awry), he would quickly go to his secondaries — his slider and his splitter — to work on getting ahead in the count. Take a look at the numbers on those pitches in 2-0 counts:

Pitch Outcomes – from 04/07/2016 to 04/08/2016

and then in 3-0 counts:

Pitch Outcomes – from 04/07/2016 to 04/08/2016

Considering that Latos only threw 11 sliders and 10 splitters total that day, it becomes obvious that these were his go-to out pitches, and judging by the numbers you see here, they worked.

Latos also threw 7 curveballs and 3 changeups during the outing, but both pitches would be considered unsuccessful. Only two of his curveballs and one changeup ended up in the zone. The curveball clearly wasn’t getting the break that he needed (note the location in the maps above), which could lead to trouble, but seeing as Latos’ other secondaries worked well for him it’s not entirely neccesary that he employ the curveball all that often right now.

The overall take away here is that Latos looked good, and due to the fact that he no longer has the velocity to be a strikeout pitcher, he thrives on creating weak contact outs and keeping his pitch count low (which he did, only showing 88 pitches over 6 innings). His weakness will be the mistake pitches he leaves in the heart of the zone, and in the future batters won’t be a friendly to those as the Athletics were. He will also struggle during the times when he gets into two and three-ball counts and isn’t able to reconcile the situation effectively, via an out pitch or a well placed fastball or sinker that creates out-making contact.  His mehods worked well in this game, however, I’m not sure I see them consistently working for an entire season. But if he can continue to keep the ball low, create groundball contact, and keep his secondaries sharp, then perhaps Latos won’t be as chaotic as we had imagined him in the four spot. Latos’ next start will be tonight against the Minnesota Twins, which could be a good test despite their struggles.

Photo courtesy of Kenny Karst-USA TODAY Sports

So, yes, it’s been quite the exciting three weeks.

But the show must go on, and the regular season is still rapidly approaching. The White Sox have made their second group of cuts this week, and with each round of cuts we are better able to infer answers to the remaining roster questions that have been looming throughout camp.

Here is what I have found to be the most pertinent stories from camp. And, thankfully, these topics have to do with actual baseball.

The White Sox have “Hit the ground running”

The common theme and one of the largest take aways from SoxFest 2016 in January was that the organization felt it was important that they “hit the ground running” in Spring Training this season. Of course, every team finds it important to leave camp on a high note going into the regular season, but this is especially important for the White Sox in 2016.

It’s no secret that the White Sox have failed to leave Arizona with a winning record during the last few Springs, as recently as last year posting a record of 12-17-3. As a club that has finished with poor regular season records, including a 66-win campaign in 2013 and two fourth-place finishes in 2014 and 2015, they need the confidence boost now more than ever.

“And it’s true to some extent because the numbers here do not count for the season. But for us, especially for us who had a bad season last year (76-86), to have that kind of start to spring training is good because it gives us confidence.’’ Jose Abreu told reporters through a translator earlier this spring.

The Spring has looked promising thus far, with the White Sox currently over .500 and sitting near the top of the Cactus League standings. As much as these numbers don’t count towards any significant strides, they do matter from a different standpoint. This is a crucial year for this organization. When asked at SoxFest whether or not the team would consider a full-fledged rebuild at the end of the season should they face another turbulent year, Rick Hahn responded by stating that all options will be on the table.

However, getting off to a good start early isn’t simply about winning games or good stat lines. Having what is often referred to as a “winning culture” in your clubhouse is a key component when attempting to head into the season with your best foot forward.

The culture that Hahn and Ventura have helped establish and cultivate during the past offseason seems to have a significant chance to help aid the mentality of this team to be just that — a team, and perhaps a winning one. With additions such as veteran leader Jimmy Rollins and his desire to unite a clubhouse while remaining humble, this team has already worked to manifest unification.

While what has been happening on the field is a great start, what is happening off the field could possibly be a better “hit the ground running” start than any Cactus League standing is able to offer up.

Carlos Rodon is stepping up

Sometime it can be easy to forget that on Opening Day 2015, Carlos Rodon was just a 22-year old prospect in the White Sox minor league system. Now, after stepping up to post 139 innings of work in his rookie season, Rodon will enter his second year with the club, but this time he will play an essential role in the Opening Day rotation. Rodon has worked hard at perfecting his craft this offseason, with pitching coach Don Cooper’s careful instruction, in order to accelerate his path to becoming the pitcher he is capable of being.

In his first two outings of the Spring, Rodon did not allow a run, and surrendered just three hits during seven innings of work.  However, in his last official outing on March 16, Rodon surrendered four earned runs on seven hits, one of them being a home run.

Rodon continued to struggle in a B-league game this week. He gave up three runs on seven hits and issued six walks, while also striking out six. “The last outing wasn’t that great, but the two before that were spot on, which is surprising because they were the first two outings I had,” Rodon told the media after his unofficial outing. “It seems like I’m getting stronger.”

Remember, though these last few outings may seem troubling — it’s still Spring Training.

Fastball command was the primary cause of Rodon’s recent issues, which he pointed out to the media that he was not pleased with. The White Sox are working to help Rodon perfect his pick-off move as well by supplying him with base runners.

Rodon is more than capable of being a third starter in this White Sox rotation, and we can be certain that he will continue to attempt to demonstrate that while harnessing his fastball command through the remainder of Spring Training.

As the White Sox seek bench options, Jerry Sands and J.B. Shuck deliver

The assembly of bench roles is one of the most fascinating stories to watch during Spring Training each year. So much of a roster’s bench construction simply has to do with luck; who has the best spring and looks to have a strong momentum going into the regular season.

For the White Sox, right now that seems to be outfielders Jerry Sands and J.B. Shuck. Sands is a newcomer who was selected off waivers from the Cleveland Indians in late December. Along with Shuck, he will be battling for a spot in the bench with Carlos Sanchez, Travis Ishikawa, and Matt Davidson.

With Shuck and Sands both out of options, they came to camp with the need to present a case for themselves to make the 40-man roster early on. But with both showing decent potential right out of the gate, they look to be the most likely to make the cut.

Shuck fit into his bench role well in 2015, serving as an average defender in all three outfield positions in 2015, and posting a TAv of .263 in 79 games. Shuck also proves a valuable asset off the bench as a left-handed bat. He has nine hits and two RBIs this Spring.

Sands proves valuable to the White Sox bench in his ability to play first base, a bench role that has recently been vacated by the departure of Adam LaRoche. Sands has dazzled recently in Spring Training, hitting two home runs in the White Sox win against Oakland on Saturday. Sands has hit 3 home runs and has 8 RBIs so far this Spring.

While the the race to fill the final few bench spots will likely take place right up until the Sox are set to leave camp, Shuck and Sands are both making significant strides to carve out a space for themselves on the Opening Day roster.

With the departure of Erik Johnson, Mat Latos looks to be the White Sox fifth starter… for now

Mat Latos made his first start at White Sox camp on Tuesday, and the final line was a bit disconcerting. Having watched the game, I can say that the first few innings went well. But by the third inning, contact became an issue for Latos in the form of fly balls and home runs — something that could be a concern in the small hitter friendly confines of U.S. Cellular Field.

However, perhaps we should be looking at Latos as the lesser of the two (or three, or four) evils. At least with Latos, the concerns are not veiled. He has struggled with mechanics since his injury, and he tends to allow a few more fly balls than optimal. Neither of these issues are a surprise.

On the plus side, Latos was able to get ahead in the count, starting off a good portion of batters in a 0-1 count, and induced quick outs when he wasn’t hitting the middle of the zone or letting his breaking pitches hang. So there is potential for success there, and again, this was just his first outing of the Spring.

But it’s become more evident in recent days that perhaps the real question in the fifth starter debate is not who will fill the position best but instead “Who can hold down the fort until Fulmer gets here?”

Pitching coach Don Cooper eluded to Carson Fulmer reaching the majors sooner than anticipated earlier this week when he stated that he believed Fulmer was ahead of where Rodon was this time last year.

Well, in that case, we see the path that Rodon took to the majors, and should Fulmer be paces ahead of Rodon’s progression, we could see him take the mound at U.S. Cellular Field before they stop the hot chocolate sales. So, don’t fret, we may have another recent draft hero coming to save the rotation yet again.

Lead photo courtesy of Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

1. Johnson was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte along with Tyler Danish and Steve Lombardozzi, and making it nowhere near the final roster cuts in his bid for the fifth starter slot; a race in which he was virtually unopposed at the start of February.

Worse yet, Mat Latos hasn’t exactly rolled in and restored his halcyon days; he won’t even make his full Cactus League debut until Tuesday afternoon. This demotion is about Johnson, who is at least commanding his secondaries better than last September even if they haven’t regained much bite, but had his sloppy mechanics return and his velocity lag through the Spring.

Don Cooper was charitable, saying he was happy with Johnson’s progress and that his main issue is with fastball command, and that this move is about letting Latos and Johnson have the most time to prepare for where the organization plans to have them start their season. But this is a phenomenally weak back-end of a rotation to get forced out of with weeks left in Spring camp.

Johnson has completely mastered Triple-A and is 26-years-old, so a very quick once-over makes his career look unfairly stalled; someone for whom a #FreeErikJohnson campaign would get launched a few years back due to his burly minor league stats and how they projected to major league action without context. The visuals of Johnson don’t match, however, and he just doesn’t flash an area where he excels at the major league level, be it bat-missing stuff, control or sinking action.

2. For contrast, Cooper is far less reserved and measured when talking about 2015 first-round pick Carson Fulmer, whom he claimed is ahead of where Carlos Rodon was his development path at this point in his career…the same Rodon whose major league experience relative to how recently he was drafted is beyond any recent comparison.

One interpretation of this could be that the only way for Fulmer to be more advanced than Rodon is to break camp with the team, since Rodon debuted in May the year after he was drafted. Another could be that Rodon was still very raw when he got called up to the major leagues and subsisted off pure tools without being able to throw a changeup or a strike, and this isn’t really the ideal path for Fulmer, even if Cooper likes his cutter and changeup with all of his heart.

He’s not actually going to break camp with the team, but with Mau Rubio of 2080 Baseball suggesting him starting in Triple-A as a real possibility, Fulmer could easily leapfrog Johnson as the next option in the rotation down from the Latos-John Danks pairing even before the All-Star Break. It sounds like desperation, but the Sox’ strength lies in quickly enabling polished college arms to compete against major league hitters. A rushed Fulmer is a much better bet to boost their team ceiling than Tim Anderson being rushed to aid a broken situation at shortstop, and Johnson doesn’t look like he’ll boost the ceiling much at all.

3. Speaking of  starting shortstop, it’s probably Jimmy Rollins?

“Robin Ventura says he knows who will be the White Sox starting shortstop in Oakland… He declined to tell us today.”

-Scott Merkin

Rollins has higher upside (so to speak), pedigree, veteran status, etc. The White Sox should want him to win the job, as he provides the most offensive potential and allows Tyler Saladino to slide into a super-sub role for which he is better suited.

Saladino winning would be contingent on Rollins being obviously toast in Spring and the Sox just deciding to concede the affair and punt the position offensively. That would not be a decision to rush to with this much time left, whereas deciding that Rollins looks healthy and fresh, and should just prepare for a starter role would be. Ken Rosenthal has a piece detailing how Rollins is hopeful that adjusting to the shifts being thrown at him was behind his offensive uptick after a slow start in 2015.

On the other hand, Tyler Saladino is murdering the ball (.286/.375/.810 in Cactus League). This means nothing, but declaring a position battle over and done while a guy is lighting up the place reveals the whole enterprise to be a sham, and maybe that’s why Ventura is silent right now.

4. The post-Drake LaRoche era has begun in earnest.

“Today was the first day since Tuesday without a single question about Adam LaRoche, Drake LaRoche or the clubhouse.”

-Dan Hayes

This is half the players being more or less sworn into secrecy by ownership and half the beats having mined what they could out of the locker room, save for testing how angrily they could get someone to decline comment. That doesn’t mean the well is entirely dry, though, since Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell had wonderful insight on LaRoche in a Q&A session with readers.

“This is a tough one because LaRoche is such an extreme case. He’s not like anybody else in baseball — or any other sport. Adam is a very nice man to talk to. Absolutely sincere. But he thinks it’s still 1858. If LaRoche had been along with DiCaprio in The Revenant, it would have been a buddy-trip comedy. That’s what LaRoche would consider a routine off-season Camping Trip.

…

Tons of players have brought their kids into clubhouse. But, as far as I know, not 100 per cent of the time — or anything like it. I’ve never seen a player make his son, now 14 years old, into the 26th man on the team with a locker of his own. That’s just as “unusual” as it appears, in my book.”

There’s actually so much more Boswell got into on LaRoche, so go read it.

5. And definitely DEFINITELY read Eno Sarris at FanGraphs pinpointing a single foul ball that Paul Konerko hit off Zack Greinke in 2009 as a checkpoint in the development of his post-2010 approach that rejuvenated his career.

Not only could you make a book out of just Konerko discussing hitting and the adjustments he made through his career, you could probably get all the quotes out of him that you needed in a single weekend.

Lead Photo Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski // USA Today Sports Images

That leaves reclamation project Erik Johnson, newly acquired starter Mat Latos, and waiver wire addition Jacob Turner in the running. Turner comes to the club on a 1-year $1.5 million deal, and is out of options.

We can see already that perhaps Erik Johnson’s control issues are too vast for him to mitigate before the start of the 2016 season, potentially already having sealed his fate for 2016. While Mat Latos may not bring his career-best numbers to the South side this season — he’s still an established big league starter. That’s a track record that a young 25-year old Turner does not yet possess.

So what’s the case for Turner then? He seems to be the odd man out in this situation.

Not having pitched in the major leagues since 2014 due to a right flexor strain, his role in many organizations would likely be defined as “open to interpretation”. When baseball last left off with Turner, he was three years into a major league career that has landed him in Detroit, Miami, briefly on the North side of Chicago, and now on the South side of Chicago. In only two of those seasons, 2013 and 2014, had he served as a starter.

Coming to a club where you’re competing for a fifth rotation spot with someone such as Mat Latos could serve to hinder your hopes of establishing yourself as a back end starter if you’re still somewhat of a newcomer. Due to the context of  his situation coupled with the organization Turner is coming to, his skills seem best delegated to the bullpen right now.

The thing is, that’s okay for Turner. His makeup is one that can swing either way, possibly leaning towards the idea that working out the bullpen may be the best way to maximize his success. Turner can be good in short bursts, as we saw during his first White Sox start earlier this month, as well as his first start back from his injury. Turner cruised through two innings in which he only allowed one walk and one hit. He demonstrates decent velocity, which is always preferred in a bullpen role, his fastball topping out at 94.4 mph in June 2014 and 94.9 on the radar gun this Spring.

The main concern I have with Turner, whether he be in the bullpen or rotation, is the amount of contact he allows coupled with the lack of strikeouts. With a sinker and a curveball in his repertoire, he is a heavy groundball pitcher, posting ground ball rates as high as 52 percent with Miami, but a K/9 rate of just 5.6.

Turner posted a low walk rate of 2.6 BB/9 in 2014, coupled with a WHIP of 1.60 — which together serve as evidence that indeed, contact is an issue for him. Take a look at these batting average zone maps on two groups of pitches for Turner in 2014:

The zone map on the left is the batting average on his most frequented pitches, his fastball, sinker, and slider. The zone map on the right is his secondaries, his changeup and curveball. Contact. Lots of contact in the middle of the zone, and low and away to lefties.

A piece by Dave Cameron at Fangraphs posted in August 2014, suggests that Turner also does poor against — ca-ching — left handed batters. Cameron suggests that “barring some dramatic improvement from either his change-up or his curveball, he profiles best as a middle reliever.” Well, unfortunately, Turner would not see another major league season after the conclusion of 2014, the season in which Cameron wrote that piece. So we have yet to see if his change or curve have at all improved, perhaps making him a more effective starter with a strong weapon to use against lefties.

For right now though, Cameron is right, Turner best profiles as a reliever. If he can keep the ball on the ground, and begin to limit his contact a bit more, he will have a shot at being a good middle relief option for the White Sox in 2016.

The fate of the White Sox rotation will soon take definitive shape, and right now Latos is my guess to inherit the last rotation spot. Latos may not have been the most effective starter in 2015, and he may not prove to be any better than his competitors at the position, but having pitched 100+ innings for six of his seven year career while showing past ability to post ERAs in the mid to low 3.00 area, he seems like most logical option for now.

Turner may have skipped a year of baseball during a key time in his role development, but if he can pick up where he left off without showing regression and continues to work on limiting contact and raise his strikeout levels, he’ll be able to find himself a nice niche in the majors; be it in a starting rotation or a bullpen role. And remember, he is on a $1.5 million one-year deal in 2016, so the White Sox can always re-up if they feel he’s showing promise and potential.

Lead photo courtesy Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports