South Side » Mark Buehrle http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com Just another Baseball Prospectus Local Sites site Fri, 11 Jan 2019 20:30:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 South Side Morning 5: Sad News for Zach Putnam http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/27/south-side-morning-5-sad-news-for-zach-putnam/ http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/27/south-side-morning-5-sad-news-for-zach-putnam/#comments Tue, 27 Jun 2017 07:19:24 +0000 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=6503 1. The White Sox announced Monday that reliever Zach Putnam underwent Tommy John surgery last week and will miss the remainder of the season. The usual rehab time for Tommy John surgery, of course, is 12-18 months, meaning it’s unlikely he’ll be able to pitch again until the 2019 season.

Putnam emerged as as a legitimate late inning bullpen piece for the White Sox in 2014 when threw 54 2/3 innings with a 1.98 ERA, and became a sinkerballing strikeout machine a year later when he posted a 11.8 K/9 in 48 2/3 innings. He’s failed to stay healthy, however, as he reportedly tried to pitch with a weak ligament that was discovered last year when he underwent surgery to remove bone chips. He’s thrown just 36 innings the last two seasons because of injuries.

“When they removed the chips, the ligament was not in great shape but Zach and his doctors thought it was worthwhile for him to try to fight back and pitch through it, which obviously he was able to do for a short period of time but ultimately the ligament gave out,” Hahn said. “Zach deserves a world of credit for doing everything he could the last two years to fight his way back to contribute in the bullpen. Unfortunately it didn’t work out for him.”

Putnam’s injury is devastating for a pitcher who bounced around early in his career before finally seeming to latch on with the White Sox. Originally drafted by the Indians, he bounced around from Cleveland to Colorado to the Cubs before sticking with the White Sox. The fact that he’s unlikely to be healthy enough to contribute again until he’s 31, and even that being far from a given because of the injury, is a frustrating development.

From the standpoint of the present and future White Sox, the bullpen came into the season as an expected strength with Putnam joining David Robertson and Nate Jones to form a dynamic late-inning trio. Despite two-thirds of that trio being derailed by injury, the bullpen has obviously been as good if not better than expected. Putnam would’ve been a likely trade candidate if healthy, and while this injury rids the Sox of that potential chip, the uncertainty that surrounds any bullpen arm, whether injury related or not, means his injury does little to affect the rebuild.

2. We knew coming out of the weekend that Carlos Rodon was back in Chicago and expected to rejoin the White Sox rotation this week. On Monday, we got a date as the left-hander will make his season debut Wednesday against the Yankees.

As Ryan Schultz wrote Monday, what Rodon brings the White Sox in the immediacy is innings for a depleted pitching staff. The rotation’s inability to pitch deep into ballgames has taxed a bullpen that has performed far beyond any reasonable expectations given the circumstances, and cracks in their armor were finally seen in Sunday’s loss to the Athletics. Even if the White Sox bring Rodon along slowly — he threw around 90 pitches in his each of his final three rehab starts — his presence will be welcomed relief for the, uh … relief.

More importantly, Rodon’s season debut offers another glimpse at what is hopefully another piece of the White Sox future. Given the patience the White Sox have shown with their plethora of prized prospects — not to mention those prospects’ respective struggles — there has been nary a sign of players expected to make up the core of the White Sox next contender thus far in 2017, save for Tim Anderson. Rodon’s injury was a setback as 2017 was supposed to be the year he turned the corner from potential front end starter to bonafide front end starter, but a solid and pain free final three months of the season will go a long way in offering more hope for the future.

3. As to whose place Rodon will take in the rotation, that is still unknown. The obvious candidate would be Monday’s starter, David Holmberg, who has filled in admirably during the last month despite playing a role in which he’s likely under-qualified.

Holmberg made six starts and never allowed more than three earned runs in any of them. The problem, of course, is that he couldn’t pitch deep into ballgames. Monday’s 5 1/3 inning outing against the Yankees was, in fact, his longest outing of the season and only the second in which he was able to complete five innings.

Still, he did about as well as one could ask given the circumstances. Whether he’s shipped back to Triple-A on Wednesday or kept around as a bullpen piece, he should be given credit for hanging around in a tough situation.

4. Ozzie Guillen was present Saturday for Mark Buehrle’s jersey retirement, and is usually the case at Ozzie Guillen-attended events, he was among the most quote-worthy people in the house.

One of the more interesting subjects he touched on, however, was Avisail Garcia. Guillen mentioned running into Garcia during the Venezuelan Winter League and speaking his mind to him, as Guillen is wont to do.

“I saw him batting seventh and I was all over him,” Guillen said. “I said ‘You should be embarrassed you’re batting seventh in winter league, you have to be third, or fourth. This is winter league.’ When you go to there and you play in the big leagues, it makes it easier. Now he’s picked it up. Hopefully he will keep it up. Hopefully he’ll keep it up and make some money. That’s what we want. Some cash. Take it home.”

Speaking of Garcia, he’s up to fifth in American League All-Star voting for outfielders, ahead of the likes of Mookie Betts and Jose Bautista and a little more than 300,000 votes behind third place George Springer.

I’m hesitant to get too “fanned up” for the White Sox in this space too often, but while the prospect of Garcia representing the White Sox at the All-Star Game is an insane reality I have already come to grips with, the idea of him winning the fan vote and being a starter is within reach. This is the world in which we’re living. Screw it. #VoteAvi.

5. James Fegan interviewed every White Sox pitcher about their first career strikeout for a piece over at The Athletic. It’s worth your time for callbacks to former Braves catcher Javy Lopez and a few guys not remembering all the details of their first strikeout as well as one would think. It’s worth your time.

That piece coupled with Mark Buehrle’s jersey retirement got me wondering who Buehrle’s first career strikeout was. The answer is Jose Hernandez of the Milwaukee Brewers, pitching in relief in the ninth inning of a game the White Sox won 11-5 on July 16, 2000.

Lead Photo Credit: Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

]]> http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/27/south-side-morning-5-sad-news-for-zach-putnam/feed/ 1 Mark Buehrle was awesome http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/23/mark-buehrle-was-awesome-2/ http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/23/mark-buehrle-was-awesome-2/#comments Fri, 23 Jun 2017 06:30:10 +0000 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=6480 Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Feb. 24.

I did a Q&A with C70 at the Bat the other day in which they quickly preview all of the teams in the majors with bloggers or writers who cover those teams. The last question posed was “Who is your favorite White Sox player of all-time and why?”

This question has likely never been too difficult for White Sox fans of a certain age. I turn 30 in three weeks so I was a young, impressionable fan during the heyday of the greatest hitter in White Sox history, Frank Thomas. So that’s my answer, and it’s relatively easy to figure out why.

But when that question is posed, and it’s something that is brought up from time to time during random fan banter, the guy who always comes to mind next, after Thomas, is Mark Buehrle, whose No. 56 the White Sox will retire during a pregame ceremony before a June 24 game, the team announced Thursday.

Buehrle’s on-field accomplishments are what brought him to the point of becoming the 11th player in franchise history to have his number retired, but those only speak partially to what endeared him to fans like myself.

Fourteen straight seasons of 200-plus innings pitched (the first 11 of which came in a White Sox uniform), the no-hitter, the perfect game, the World Series relief appearance and save, those are the highlights of his career. They’re the feats for which he’ll most be remembered in the records and history books.

The unparalleled Christopher Kamka summed up a lot of this today:

But what made Buehrle so special — so danged popular — was the fact that he seemed like your neighbor. He wasn’t a freakish athlete who looked like he was created in some sort of super-athlete science lab. He made you believe you could play in the majors, and also helped remind you that baseball is a game and is supposed to be fun.

Buehrle’s journey to the majors, let alone the success he achieved, is somewhat hard to believe. Baseball America’s Matt Eddy researched the likelihood of MLB Draft picks making the majors back in 2013 by analyzing draft picks from 1987-2008 and found that only 6.8 percent of draft picks selected in the 21st round or later ever make it to the majors. Buehrle went in the 38th round in 1998. Not only that, he made only 38 appearances and threw only 217.1 innings in the minors, skipping Triple-A altogether. After a 51-inning debut pitching mostly in relief, he entered the rotation in 2001 and immediately became a 200-inning fixture.

Buehrle isn’t a Hall of Famer, and was far from a perfect pitcher. His strikeout numbers were never impressive. His FIP was always higher than his ERA, and he relied on his defense quite a bit. But he always ate innings and almost always found success, posting a WARP of 3.0 or higher in seven of his 11 full seasons with the White Sox, and was above replacement level in every season except for one.

When you watch Chris Sale pitch, you see his raw skill and exclaim, “how did he do that?!” When you watched Buehrle pitch, you saw him dot corners, induce weak contact, and fool hitters with mid-80s slop and mutter “how the hell did he do that?”

Buehrle was great because of the accomplishments, he was great because of the consistency, and he was great because of his generally pleasant demeanor. And that, ultimately, is what leads us to the honor he’ll be given this summer.

Lead Photo Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

]]> http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/23/mark-buehrle-was-awesome-2/feed/ 0 Mark Buehrle was awesome http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/24/mark-buehrle-was-awesome/ http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/24/mark-buehrle-was-awesome/#comments Fri, 24 Feb 2017 08:34:57 +0000 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=5716 I did a Q&A with C70 at the Bat the other day, which I believe will be running next week, in which they quickly preview all of the teams in the majors with bloggers or writers who cover those teams. The last question posed was “Who is your favorite White Sox player of all-time and why?”

This question has likely never been too difficult for White Sox fans of a certain age. I turn 30 in three weeks so I was a young, impressionable fan during the heyday of the greatest hitter in White Sox history, Frank Thomas. So that’s my answer, and it’s relatively easy to figure out why.

But when that question is posed, and it’s something that is brought up from time to time during random fan banter, the guy who always comes to mind next, after Thomas, is Mark Buehrle, whose No. 56 the White Sox will retire during a pregame ceremony before a June 23 game, the team announced Thursday.

Buehrle’s on-field accomplishments are what brought him to the point of becoming the 11th player in franchise history to have his number retired, but those only speak partially to what endeared him to fans like myself.

Fourteen straight seasons of 200-plus innings pitched (the first 11 of which came in a White Sox uniform), the no-hitter, the perfect game, the World Series relief appearance and save, those are the highlights of his career. They’re the feats for which he’ll most be remembered in the records and history books.

The unparalleled Christopher Kamka summed up a lot of this today:

But what made Buehrle so special — so danged popular — was the fact that he seemed like your neighbor. He wasn’t a freakish athlete who looked like he was created in some sort of super-athlete science lab. He made you believe you could play in the majors, and also helped remind you that baseball is a game and is supposed to be fun.

Buehrle’s journey to the majors, let alone the success he achieved, is somewhat hard to believe. Baseball America’s Matt Eddy researched the likelihood of MLB Draft picks making the majors back in 2013 by analyzing draft picks from 1987-2008 and found that only 6.8 percent of draft picks selected in the 21st round or later ever make it to the majors. Buehrle went in the 38th round in 1998. Not only that, he made only 38 appearances and threw only 217.1 innings in the minors, skipping Triple-A altogether. After a 51-inning debut pitching mostly in relief, he entered the rotation in 2001 and immediately became a 200-inning fixture.

Buehrle isn’t a Hall of Famer, and was far from a perfect pitcher. His strikeout numbers were never impressive. His FIP was always higher than his ERA, and he relied on his defense quite a bit. But he always ate innings and almost always found success, posting a WARP of 3.0 or higher in seven of his 11 full seasons with the White Sox, and was above replacement level in every season except for one.

When you watch Chris Sale pitch, you see his raw skill and exclaim, “how did he do that?!” When you watched Buehrle pitch, you saw him dot corners, induce weak contact, and fool hitters with mid-80s slop and mutter “how the hell did he do that?”

Buehrle was great because of the accomplishments, he was great because of the consistency, and he was great because of his generally pleasant demeanor. And that, ultimately, is what leads us to the honor he’ll be given this summer.

Lead Photo Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

]]> http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/24/mark-buehrle-was-awesome/feed/ 2 When is the next time a Hall of Fame plaque will feature a White Sox cap? http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/01/19/when-is-the-next-time-a-hall-of-fame-plaque-will-feature-a-white-sox-cap/ http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/01/19/when-is-the-next-time-a-hall-of-fame-plaque-will-feature-a-white-sox-cap/#comments Thu, 19 Jan 2017 15:59:38 +0000 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=5484 When Frank Thomas was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014 it was the culmination of the career of one of the greatest players in White Sox history.

It was also likely the last time for the foreseeable future we’ll see a player enter Cooperstown with a White Sox cap adorned on his plaque.

Despite a lack of team success for the better part of the team’s history, the Sox are far from deficient when it comes to inductees in the Baseball Hall of Fame. 12 different players have gone into the Hall of Fame with the White Sox as their primary team (this is including Carlton Fisk, who has a Red Sox logo on his cap but whose primary team is listed as the White Sox), tied for the seventh most all-time.

In fact, since the first Hall of Fame class in 1936, the White Sox have never gone more than 14 years between Hall of Fame inductees, with Thomas breaking the latest streak after 14 years between him and Fisk.

That said, after Thomas, finding the next White Sox Hall of Famer is an incredibly difficult exercise.

There are plenty of players who have or will enter soon who spent some of their careers with the White Sox, mind you. Tim Raines had four successful seasons in Chicago, and Jim Thome will likely join him in his first year of eligibility next year. But logos for the Expos and Indians will likely don those two caps.

So, who is the next White Sox inductee? That’s pretty tough to figure out.

The recently retired

The only two players from recent White Sox history who will generate any sort of Hall of Fame discussion are Paul Konerko and Mark Buehrle, and, unfortunately, both likely fell short of Hall of Fame-worthy careers by varying degrees.

Both are incredibly beloved on the South side, and that’s perfectly fine. Statues, number retirements, all that is great! Konerko and Buehrle are White Sox legends, but that doesn’t necessarily make them baseball legends.

When guys like Fred McGriff, Larry Walker, Mike Mussina, and Curt Schilling are having trouble sniffing 50 percent of the vote, Konerko and Buehrle just aren’t going to cut it.

The recently traded

The most obvious candidate for next White Sox Hall of Famer until about six weeks ago was Chris Sale, and even then, it still might be!

Sale spent the first seven years of his career with the White Sox, tossing 1,110 innings, won 74 games with a 3.00 ERA while accumulating 31.1 WAR. The path to him entering the Hall as a member of the White Sox is tricky, however.

Step 1: Become a Hall of Famer. This one’s easy. While Sale has been stellar through his first seven seasons, it will take a lot more before we start buying tickets to Cooperstown.

Step 2: Bounce around. It’s safe to say if Sale spends more than seven years in Boston, that’ll wind up where he’s most remembered.

Step 3: Don’t be too good for Boston (or wherever he plays after Boston). Randy Johnson played 10 years in Seattle and eight in Arizona, but he wore a Diamondbacks hat in his plaque because, as good as he was for the Mariners, Johnson won four straight Cy Young awards and a World Series in Arizona. That stuff matters. If Sale only plays a few years in Boston but rips off some Cy Young seasons and a World Series or two, it’s game over.

So, yeah, a lot needs to happen. But the chances of Sale wearing a White Sox hat at his 2032 Hall of Fame ceremony are still there.

The current roster

It’s safe to say if someone on the White Sox as currently constructed winds up in Cooperstown it will take quite a bit of A) luck and B) time.

There’s Jose Quintana, of course, and there’s at least one alternate reality out there where he spends the rest of his career with the White Sox. He’d have to become a Hall of Famer, of course (I’m going to stop pointing that out for the duration of this article, because you get it).

Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech, Reynaldo Lopez, etc., etc., you get it. If one of these guys becomes a Hall of Famer, it won’t be until, say, 2037 at the earliest. A 23-year drought!

The actual answer

The next player to enter the Hall of Fame with a White Sox cap on his plaque will be Minnie Minoso. Some how, some way, Minoso, who died in 2015, will be elected to the Hall of Fame. And it will be long overdue.

Despite a worthy resume, not to mention his significant cultural impact to the game as the first black Cuban to play in the majors and the first black player in White Sox history, Minoso never garnered more than 21.1 percent of the vote from the BBWAA ballot before falling off the ballot after the 1999 cycle.

The most recent opportunity the Hall had to elect him was in 2014 when the Golden Era committee failed to elect any of its 10 candidates. Minoso garnered eight votes from the 16-person committee.

Minoso’s next opportunity will come when the Golden Days committee votes again in 2020 (the Hall recently altered its Veterans Committee standards), and unless those panels come to their senses sometime soon, the next time we see a Hall of Famer come from the White Sox is likely far, far away.

Lead Photo Credit: Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports

]]> http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/01/19/when-is-the-next-time-a-hall-of-fame-plaque-will-feature-a-white-sox-cap/feed/ 3 A possible Sale farewell http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/09/28/a-possible-sale-farewell/ http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/09/28/a-possible-sale-farewell/#comments Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:27:08 +0000 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=4834 Writing topics don’t come easily these days, so it would behoove me to not ignore the obvious one offered by the Daily Herald’s Scot Gregor Tuesday night.

For Chris Sale‘s departure, the angst is all theoretical. He’s under contract for a while still, and is thus not a traditional trade candidate. There are no specific rumors surrounding him, they’re not actually rebuilding and stripping assets until they say they are, and doing so would be a dramatic turn against type for the franchise.

As far as dread of an imminent departure, Sale has nothing on Mark Buehrle‘s final start on a cold, rainy night in September at the end of the miserable 2011 season. Buehrle’s 12 seasons with the club were capped with a game so poorly attended that a fan was able to spell out “56” with white sheets on empty seats out in right field. Sale dread probably doesn’t even compare to Buehrle’s trade scare in 2007 as the team tanked and his contract situation left his future unresolved.

Perhaps Sale just isn’t Buehrle, a pitcher who was more of a fan favorite than a franchise player in raw value. His staying always required sentiment to remain in the calculus longer than was most efficient, and thus always seemed like it could end because it had to.

Sale’s departure is more about a dark view of a franchise; that the organization has declined so much that such an awful thing as trading away a homegrown star–and not even for the traditional reason–is possible. As much as an actual rebuilding plan would be a clear direction for the team, and in that sense, a breath of fresh air, it would be a confirmation of the worst view of the past two years.

It would seem to confirm that 2015 and 2016 efforts really represented the limit of what the Sox were able to do–and spend–to compete, and that they somehow believed they were both at the precipice of pushing for playoff contention and just totally gutting the team because contention was impossible and its pursuit pointless.

Sale would be leaving during a mystifying time. For seven-straight starts, he’s allowed two runs or more, which is the longest streak of his career. Six starts was already the longest streak of his career. It’s hardly been a bad stretch: he’s put up a 3.40 ERA, averaged well over seven innings per start, six of the starts have been quality and his 62/6 strikeout-to-walk ratio is heavenly. But normally dominant starts are more frequently…dominant, and Sale, with his three ideal pitches, hardly seems the type for an unglamorous and yeoman’s approach.

He always has been  somewhat inscrutable, but every step forward we take in understanding him–mechanics that look awful but are actually pristine, varying velocity that’s actually intentional, shirking of strikeouts that’s something other than disastrous–what he knows about himself and his competition and what he’s adjusting to and why, still feels like a mystery I try to find another clue for every five days.

Maybe this is speaking from a place of privilege having already witnessed a World Series team, but are they more special than a generational player? Are they more fascinating? Do we have more to learn about the game from a team that grapples it way through a playoff gauntlet, beating long odds, than from a player who possesses the ability to tilt the odds singlehandedly?

Sale could leave. I doubt it, but he could, but even if he stays, the mounting dread of missed opportunity will remain.

 

Lead Image Credit: Matt Marton // USA Today Sports Images

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