You say these things and you’re excited. A whole month’s worth of content. “Good content!” you exclaim, all giddy with the anticipation for the words you’ll hammer out this month. It’s October and all the good teams are still playing, what else are you going to write about the White Sox?

And then you get your plan in place, which player is getting written up when, etc. You even make a spreadsheet outlining the whole thing! The more interesting players will get their own articles, and some of the guys who hardly played will be grouped together.

In theory, this sounds great. In practice, you get to days like today and you realize the error of your way. How the hell are you going to write an entire article about this motley crew of uninspiring part-timers?

The highlight of the season from this quizzical quartet came on May 3. Trayce Thompson had been reacquired about two weeks earlier after hopping from Los Angeles to Oakland, with a brief pit stop in New York. The Thompson acquisition wasn’t needle-moving, but it was cool because we knew and we liked him. He came up with the White Sox, battled through the minors, made it to the big club in 2015 and played well. He then played well with the Dodgers for a hot minute in 2016 after the White Sox shipped him West in a deal that netted them Todd Frazier. He was a homegrown thing with a famous brother who seemed pretty easy to root for, even if a few years riddled with injuries and some serious regression had taken the shine off considerably.

Before you started reading this or watched the above video, if I had asked you whose home run preceded Yolmer Sanchez’s infamous self-Gatorade bucket dump, would you have known it? Maybe you would have. After all, you’re probably a pretty big White Sox fan. But maybe it takes you a few beats longer than you expected. Either way, Thompson’s home run turned out to be one of just 14 hits he recorded with the White Sox in 2018. He hit .116/.163/.215 in 130 plate appearances, basically making Adam Engel look like Mike Trout. He was sent to Triple-A on June 20 and hit .213/.278/.363 the rest of the season.

What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t great. But Thompson gave us the start of Yolmer Being Yolmer. For that, I’ll always be thankful.

It took Ryan LaMarre four years worth of cups of coffee in the majors to hit his first career home run. After tiny, little, itty-bitty samples in Cincinnati, Boston, and Oakland, and a somewhat longer opportunity in Minnesota, LaMarre clubbed his first career home run in Detroit — just down the road from where he grew up — in one of the cooler moments of a season that was mostly bereft of them.

He also had a four-hit day at Yankee Stadium, and put up a solid .303/.324/.485 line in 71 major league plate appearances while jumping back and forth between Chicago and Charlotte a good number of times. LaMarre will be 30 years old before the start of next season, which is older than you probably think, and will likely be squeezed out of the organization before long given the glut of outfield options sure to make their way up the ladder before long.

The best thing one can say about Ryan Cordell and Charlie Tilson is that they played — well, I mean, kind of. Cordell, who seemed to be toward the front of the line in terms of outfield promotions after a solid Spring Training, broke his clavicle about two weeks into the Triple-A season and missed three months. It was a frustrating turn for a player who’s struggled to stay healthy throughout his career. Things looked less promising upon his return as he struggled to regain whatever he had working in the spring while putting up uninspiring numbers at both Double-A and Triple-A, and promptly went 4-for-40 after a September call-up.

You know Tilson’s story by now. Unlike Cordell he was healthy all season long, which was a good and cool thing after missing more than a year with a myriad of ailments. He spent a little less than two months in the majors and at times looked the superior option to Adam Engel, at least at the plate, hitting .264 with a .331 OBP and 8 percent walk rate. He hit for no power whatsoever with just two extra-base hits in 121 plate appearances. Tilson is not the most interesting player in the overall scheme of things, but why hedidn’t get more playing time, nor even a September call-up, remains a mystery to me.

Finally, there’s Matt Skole. The White Sox signed him as a minor league free agent last winter and he appeared in four games in late May/early June during a Matt Davidson disabled list stint. He went 3-for-11 with a home run. Skole is 29-years-old and pretty much the epitome of minor-league depth at this point. Think of him as like the position player’s Rob Scahill or something. As a DH/1B type, he’s in the wrong organization what with the White Sox plethora of guys who can’t play anywhere else.

Look, I told you it’s difficult to find anything interesting to write about some of these guys, alright?

Lead Photo Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Wins and losses don’t mean much this year but trolling the Twins is always worthwhile

— Nicky Beeps (@Nick_BPSS) May 4, 2018

1. We often get so caught up in who’s doing what and when and where in regards to the White Sox build toward contention that we don’t stop to appreciate a truly enjoyable game. Thursday’s 6-5 win over the Twins to open a six-game home stand was far from perfect, but when it comes to the aesthetic pleasure of watching your team win a game against a division foe, it was among the most satisfying of the season thus far. (Yes, I know there’s only been nine to choose from).

Just how satisfying was it?

Never change, @CarlosSan29. pic.twitter.com/LxUE0ypB87

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) May 4, 2018

2. Trayce Thompson’s walk-off homer off Addison Reed capped a comeback from down 5-1 after just four innings. The offensive heroes were Thompson and Daniel Palka, the latter of whom the White Sox claimed off waivers over the offseason from Minnesota. Palka’s had an interesting start to his White Sox and major league career. The 26-year-old has been a free-swinger through his 24 plate appearances since replacing the disabled Avisail Garcia two weeks ago, showing he can do damage when he runs into a mistake. His solid if unspectacular track record in the minors shows enough promise, even if he’s older than most rookies, and the White Sox lack of ready-made outfielders in the minors until they decide Eloy Jimenez’s time has come means you can add him to the list of players looking to prove they’re of major league caliber going forward, whether it’s with the White Sox or not.

We know Thompson’s story already, but the walk-off shot came at a good time for a player who hasn’t exactly made the most of breath of fresh life his career was given when the White Sox re-acquired him a few weeks ago. The home run was his fifth hit since joining the White Sox, three of which have left the ballpark. Thompson, like Palka and a few others, is being given an opportunity that might not be afforded him on a team constructed a little differently, and with Nicky Delmonico’s slow start and Adam Engel’s offensive ineptitude, now is as good of a time as any for him to prove he belongs. Thursday’s home run was just a single shot at the most opportune of times, but it was a step in the right direction.

3. That the White Sox won despite their most consistent starting pitcher thus far having a rough night is a testament to both the offense, and Reynaldo Lopez readily admitted he didn’t have his best stuff on Thursday.

“I think that today none of my pitches were working as they were supposed to work,” López said through team interpreter Billy Russo. “It was a constant battle for me. I have to battle, I have to grind through it and I’m finding ways to just get an out. It was with all my pitches. Today it wasn’t my best stuff and it was a battle.”

A day after Lucas Giolito flipped the script on his walk-heavy April with seven strikeouts, Lopez turned in his second consecutive start where he simply wasn’t missing bats. He induced just two swinging strikes in his 83 pitches and a fastball that has sat 95 for most of the season averaged just 93 mph on the day.

Lopez has been something of an early-season revelation considering the questions about his viability as a starter as well as the struggles of the staff as a whole. We’ll see yet whether Thursday’s struggles were a blip or part of a long-term concern.

4. Waiting for the inevitable tide to turn on Matt Davidson’s hot start doesn’t have quite the same feel as when he did the same (and it never came) with Avisail Garcia a year ago. Davidson’s prospect pedigree and lack of a long-term opportunity to date make it entirely possible the hitter he’s been for the first five weeks of the season is close to the new norm for him. No, he’s probably not going to OPS close to 1.000 long term, but he’s only three walks away from matching last year’s season-long total, and had another two-hit game Thursday including a double that drove home the tying run.

We’ve said it on a number of occasions, but while Davidson’s strikeout numbers are always going to be hefty, him bringing it down just a smidge (he’s at 30 percent on the season after 37.3 percent a year ago) while upping the walk rate (8.3 percent compared to 5.9) and remaining powerful (you really need to numbers on this one?) will make him a much more valuable player than we ever would’ve imagined even a few months ago.

5. Welington Castillo was a late scratch on Thursday with what Rick Renteria said after the game was because of a ball he took to the “personal region of the body” last week. Given that Castillo was disables twice a year ago because of testicular injuries, one obviously hopes bad luck hasn’t struck the White Sox catcher twice. While Castillo’s defense hasn’t graded out particularly well thus far this season (he’s second worst in the league, per FRAA), Omar Narvaez’s defense also leaves a lot to desire, as evidenced by the pair of passed balls that aided the Twins’ first two runs of the game. Regardless, Castillo presents quite a bit more offensive upside than Narvaez, and while Kevan Smith is a capable injury fill-in if Castillo is forced to the disabled list, losing him for any amount of time would be a considerable blow.

Lead Photo Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

There’s not much to say about this other than the obvious: It’s a terribly scary situation. Farquhar is, by all accounts, an earnest, humble, and endearing guy, something we’ve learned in the just nine months he’s spent with the organization.

BP South Side joins the rest of the baseball community in sending our thoughts and well wishes to him, his wife, and their three children.

2. There were actual baseball games played this weekend, of course. The White Sox were swept by the defending World Series champion Houston Astros, getting outscored 27-2 over the three-game series.

They’re on a seven-game losing streak and have lost 12 of 13. They’re 2-14 in April after winning the first two games of the season against the Royals. Feels like a million years ago, doesn’t it? In seven of 18 games, they’ve scores 0 or 1 run, and their -56 run differential is worst in the American League, tied with Cincinnati for second worst in baseball, and only two runs better than Miami.

The White Sox aren’t good, folks!

3. The White Sox being bad isn’t necessarily unexpected, but it’s the way in which they are bad that’s concerning. The rotation was expected to be iffy, but to date that unit has collectively walked more hitters (62) than it has struck out (60).

The biggest issue is with Lucas Giolito, who had his fourth consecutive subpar outing to start the season in Saturday’s loss, and one that was significantly worse than the first three. After that start, in which he gave up nine earned runs and walked seven in just two innings, he’s now walked 19 in 20 innings this season and sports a grotesque 9.00 ERA. His mechanics are out of whack, and the consistent velocity he displayed all spring is nowhere to be seen. What Giolito needs to do to be successful is clear — particularly to the pitcher himself — but any sign of him putting what is preached into practice has yet to be seen.

Reynaldo Lopez, on the other hand, has looked quite a bit better than most projected even after Sunday’s four walk/two strikeout performance in a loss to the Astros. His strikeout rate is healthy, but he’s now walked 15 in 24 innings and his sparkly 1.50 ERA is aided, in part, by an unsustainable strand rate and BABIP against.

2018 is much more important for folks like Giolito and Lopez taking next steps in their development than for wins and losses. While it’s still early, that aspect of the season is off to a questionable start.

4. How about some positives? Yoan Moncada is starting to get on base at a respectable clip. Even with a 1-for-7 weekend against Houston, he drew a walk in two of the games and, going back to the last two games against Oakland, has four walks, three stolen bases, and two home runs in his last five games. Baby steps? Sure. Moncada’s .214/.329/.400 line isn’t what you’d hope for from a former global No. 1 prospect, and yes, he’s still striking out at an insane rate. But the odds are still with him being a significant contributor over the long haul, and methinks the numbers will start to show that before long as well.

It’s kind of weird considering the White Sox offensive struggles as a whole, but when you look up and down the lineup it’s hard to be all that disappointed with several of the regulars. Tim Anderson has drawn seven walks and has eight stolen bases. Matt Davidson is tied with Moncada for the team lead in walks despite his numbers beginning to dip after his scorching start. Yolmer Sanchez has six extra-base hits already and somehow leads the team in batting average. Jose Abreu has been, well, Jose Abreu.

And then there’s Avisail Garcia. The 2017 All-Star is at .225/.243/.310 with 17 strikeouts and zero walks thus far. The weak contact that plagued the seasons prior to last year’s breakout is back. There was a lot of noise in Garcia’s surprising season a year ago, but the fact that it never subsisted brought some hope that, even with some minor regression, he’d still be a valuable player for the foreseeable future. That still may be true, but right now, it’s not happening.

5. Welcome back, Trayce Thompson! I’ve always had a soft spot for the 27-year-old outfielder the White Sox re-acquired last week, as despite his flaws he seemed easy to root for. His debut with the White Sox in 2015 went better than anyone could’ve expected, and is one of the reasons they were able to package him in acquiring Todd Frazier the following offseason, but he hasn’t been the same since, save for a hot start to 2016 with the Dodgers.

Thompson homered in Saturday, his first start since his return, and it will be interesting to see how the White Sox deploy him between spelling Nicky Delmonico or leapfrogging Adam Engel entirely. If he could just go ahead and return to that 2015 form, that’d do nicely.

Lead Photo Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

During a time when the White Sox farm system was a barren wasteland of low-ceiling whatever or unfulfilled potential, he actually kinda sorta made it.

Saladino, who the White Sox drafted in the seventh round in 2010, never once appeared in Baseball Prospectus’ Top 10 White Sox prospects list. And we’re talking about years where the Top 10s were littered with guys like Keenyn Walker, Jared Mitchell, and the recently departed Courtney Hawkins. You scroll back through the years of Top 10 lists and you find a who’s-who of journeymen or guys who flat-out never made it.

Saladino wasn’t on those lists for a reason. He was one of those low-ceiling whatever types. He got solid defensive marks but was never supposed to hit. And he didn’t hit, at least not for a while. After a strong debut season in High-A in 2011, he spent the next three years bouncing between Double-A and Triple-A, never hitting enough to muster any excitement.

But the White Sox were bad, of course, and his advanced age and defensive versatility meant he was going to get a shot eventually. An guess what? In 2016 he hit! A .282/.315/.409 line with the ability to be a plus-defender at third base, shortstop, and second base made him valuable. In just 93 games, he was worth 1.4 WARP, and even at 26-years-old, it was possible that maybe he had found his niche as a major leaguer.

That very well may be true. In acquiring him Thursday for cash considerations, the Milwaukee Brewers got a player who still provides that defensive versatility, and he could be a valuable asset in case of injury or as a late-inning replacement for a team that is very clearly aiming for contention. But Saladino’s body betrayed him over the last year-plus, as a back injury ruined essentially all of 2017 for him, and with the emergence of Yolmer Sanchez playing essentially the role they once envisioned for Saladino, the acquisition of Yoan Moncada, and the presence of Tim Anderson, they just didn’t really have a place for him anymore. And nearing his 29th birthday, it was clear the potential for him being a piece on the next supposed White Sox contender was no longer there.

Those aforementioned prospect lists? A name that was prevalent on them for a number of years was Trayce Thompson, whom the White Sox reacquired from Oakland in a move that coincided with the departure of Saladino.

Thompson has bounced around a bit since the White Sox traded him to the Dodgers in a three-way trade that brought in Todd Frazier, and he’s struggled to stay healthy. After a 2016 season in Los Angeles where he was roughly league average, hitting for a bit of power and providing versatility in the outfield, injuries derailed him. Since that season, he’s had a grand total of 62 big league plate appearances between Los Angeles and Oakland.

The White Sox’s interest in bringing back Thompson isn’t surprising, given their history with him — he spent the first six years of his career in the organization — but where he fits into their plans is less clear. With Adam Engel once again scuffling at the plate, he could be given an extended look in center field, or at the very least be an upgrade as a defensive replacement/occasional starter in Nicky Delmonico’s stead in left field.

Lead Photo Credit: Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports

The deal would come at the cost of two White Sox top prospects, Micah Johnson and Trayce Thompson, and the departures would serve aa reminder of the South Side’s once barren farm system. The two would end up being sent to Los Angeles in the deal. However in baseball, you have to give a little to get a little, and Frazier was fair return for the currency spent.

After a 2015 season that was held such high hopes faltered, the rose-colored glasses came off this past winter. White Sox General Manager Rick Hahn knew that this organization had not yet filled all of the deep holes that had been dug on the infield, and more specifically, the one at third base.

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, the White Sox have had a steady procession of players take the helm at third over the years, none of which produced at levels near sufficient enough to insure permanence. White Sox fans watched as Hahn welcomed in fresh new faces during the offseason of 2015 in the form of a first baseman, relief arms, and left fielders; yet all fans genuinely wanted was a player that could be relied upon at hot corner. After realizing that the internal options that had been set forth were not likely going to be the answer, Frazier came into the picture and things started coming together.

The Frazier deal broke up the band on a rebuilding Cincinnati team who are just a few more all-out losses away from pressing the “blow it all up” button with the veterans they still house, who are currently worth more in prospect return for the future than in contribution to a futile NL Central Division race now. Frazier, who turned 30 this offseason, hasn’t much peak production time left in the tank and is much better suited to a team who is looking to win now. That team is the White Sox.

All the pieces of the puzzle seem to fit. The Reds needed prospects, the White Sox needed a productive third basemen, and Frazier is best delegated to a role in which the skills he possesses can be used in a push for a playoff race. Now that everyone is satisfied, the question becomes what sort of true talent should the White Sox expect out of Frazier in 2016?

About Last Season

Frazier had an aggressive first half of the 2015 season, in which he hit an uncharacteristic line of .284/.337/.585. For a bit more context as to what exactly those numbers merited, Frazier’s peripherals were even more telling of Frazier’s sudden emergence. Frazier was suddenly blowing the league away with his newly unleashed power stroke, and posted an ISO of .301, coupled with a wRC+ of 146 and striking out just 17.4 percent of the time, about 4 percentage points lower than his career total. Baseball was suddenly enamored of Frazier, and this all came to it’s gaudy pinnacle at last year’s Home Run Derby. Those who hadn’t heard a lot about the so-called “Todd Father” wanted to know more, and those who had heard of him were either begrudgingly befuddled by his endless display of power (ahem *raises hand*) while those who had been on high on him from the start were preparing the best way to say “See, I told you Frazier could hit.”

But as compelling as Frazier’s first half of 2015 was, we can’t simply look at these numbers in isolation to get the best understanding of what we should truly expect of Frazier going forward.

Frazier can hit for power, and he does so well, but the first half of 2015 should not be looked at as more than an outlier than anything until we see it return at a more consistent rate. Frazier’s 2015 stat line at the end of the year (.255/.309/.498) looked more in concert with his career totals than reflective of what had happened from April-July, that being due in part to the lopsided totals he had between the two halves. Had Frazier produced at the rate he had during the first half and then saw his production normalize in the second half, you’d still see 2015 reflected as a strong campaign. However, due to the fact that his numbers actually became weaker than the norm in the second half (.224/.274/.390), when you put the two totals together, the season didn’t look like anything to write home about, with the exception of his power numbers.

Take a look at Frazier’s totals over his years in the majors. I’ve left out 2011, his debut season, as he only played 41 games at the major league level that year.

The data is somewhat puzzling as there seems to be no real consistency as of yet, except for the fact that Frazier has always produced to at least league average numbers, minus the poor year he had in 2013. So maybe that’s the consistency; Frazier is good at being average and perhaps a bit above in the power department.

Well, then what was the magic formula that Frazier stumbled upon early last season?

Some leading evidence was found last season pointing to what Frazier’s first half dominance could have been attributed to. The first finding being that Frazier was putting the ball in play to his pull side at a dramatically improved clip in 2015. Frazier was also hitting high fastballs for power and doing so quite often. But what’s most interesting is the pull power production. What this tells us is that last year, pitching inside to Frazier in attempts to jam him and make weak contact on balls wasn’t working when mixed with his exceptional power surge, and attacking him with pitches high in the zone in attempts to lure him into easy flyball outs wasn’t working either — his power would simply dominate and take these pitches either into the gap or out into the seats, the opposite of the pitcher’s intention.

The linked-to piece on his power is worth a read, as it delves further into theories of what could have caused Frazier to not just suffer a second half drop off but to perform below his true talent levels. So what does this mean for now?

Focusing on Now

An interesting note from a piece on pull hitter tendencies tells us that over an extended period of time (or perhaps in Frazier’s concentrated all-out-blitz phase), pitchers begin to recognize what a particular hitter is doing with the ball and adjust accordingly, locating pitches to areas of the zone where it becomes harder to pull with authority, and thus returning the idea of pitching inside to hitters in attempts to induce weak ground ball contact to its roots.

This became true in Frazier’s second half, as the Fangraphs piece linked above indicates. The piece shows us that Frazier’s groundball rate was unusually low in first half in favor of a higher flyball rate. It then shows that in the second half Frazier’s ground ball rate went back up to his career norm, while the flyball rate took a drastic dip. However, Frazier’s pull rate continued to spike in the second half, this time to an unprecedented level. A recipe for pulled ground balls and a power outage? You bet.

Unfortunately, though it’s still a small sample size, we’re seeing this happen again for Frazier. Check out his heatmap on ground balls so far for 2016:

Frazier is still rolling over on those inside pitches, but the good news is that he’s still making productive contact in areas of that zone that aren’t just high or inside, indicating that he too, will make proper adjustments. Take a look:

Baseball after all, is a game of adjustments. If we didn’t have things such as this to track all season, the game would become quite routine and predictable. Where’s the fun in that?

It’s Best to Never Panic

Sure, Frazier is 30, and there may be a small community of folks thinking that he’s peaked and it’s all done for, but not to worry. It’s too early to draw any conclusions, and as research has shown, power is an “old-player” skill, as opposed to speed and on-base ability which are “young player” skills, normally peaking around age 26-28. Power however,  lasts, and lasts.

Given that his true talent lies somewhere around league average coupled with plus power skills, Frazier (who is 25th in AL slugging percentage from 2012-2015) is just getting started in 2016. Will he find a new approach to put his power to good use? I’m going to say yes, Frazier may have had an exceptionally flukey first half last season, but the numbers don’t lie and the ability is there. It’s also worth keeping in mind that Frazier is coming to an entirely different league which does call for a bit of adjustment; many of these AL pitchers Frazier is seeing for the first time.

Frazier was simply ahead of the curve in early 2015, and the league adjusted to his findings. Perhaps Frazier’s power comes in short and unpredictable bursts that eventually all level out over the course of a season. Even with inconsistencies on offense, Frazier still delivers solid defense at third base and a positive attitude in clubhouse, all during a season that’s so far shaping up to be a promising one for the White sox, and there’s no doubt Frazier will be part of the effort on all fronts.

Photo courtesy of David Banks-USA TODAY Sports