In their efforts to piece things together and stay competitive in the 2016 season, the White Sox made a big change at the catcher position. Tyler Flowers had been the starting catcher since the departure of A.J. Pierzynski, but the team opted to replace him with a platoon of veteran catchers in Dioner Navarro and Alex […]
Tag: Tyler Flowers
How Good Is Omar Narvaez?
Catchers are weird. Let’s get that out of the way up front. They develop in strange ways, at strange times, if they develop at all. And given that it is the most difficult position to defend on the diamond, the bar for offensive production is extremely low. The White Sox’ recent saga at catcher is […]
This is ‘The Year’ for Carlos Rodon
Carlos Rodon has flashed utter brilliance during his first two full professional seasons. The problem, however, is that it has come only in flashes. For a week or a month at a time Rodon dazzles us with his dominance on the mound only to have it followed by stretches of complete disappointment. His hot streaks […]
Year in Review: Carlos Rodon
The White Sox front office expected the team to compete in 2016, as did many fans. However, in order to compete the White Sox needed quite a few unlikely things to happen. One of those things was having Carlos Rodon grow into a top of the rotation starter. Rodon had a very encouraging finish to […]
White Sox catching gamble was doomed from the start
When the White Sox made the call to move away from Tyler Flowers in the offseason, the mindset behind the decision was likely that they were willing to sacrifice some defense for better offense. Moving on from Flowers made sense, as despite being heralded as a prospect whose bat would play even if his defense […]
Goodbye, Dioner Navarro
The White Sox have suddenly made as many trades in August as they did at the July deadline, trading Dioner Navarro to the Blue Jays last night. Despite Rick Hahn being coy about the offseason plan, this is an organization that has been gallingly passive in recent years. In that sense, it is a positive […]
Omar Narvaez: Symbol of Hope?
While it has been a rough season in many respects, one particularly disappointing aspect of 2016 has been–through misfortune and persistent organizational weakness–the lack of young players to watch with hopeful optimism. After all, once it’s clear a team’s immediate playoff fortunes have been dashed, the most obvious pleasure in continuing to watch derives from […]
Where Are They Now?
White Sox fans have long suffered the plight of watching this organization start players that the baseball world at large knows are best suited for other roles. You can only stretch one player so far, and you certainly can’t ask more of him than which he’s capable. Yet many of these “unsuccessful” White Sox players […]
Catching: A Concern
When I was younger, my friends and I would spend hours upon hours in the Michigan winters playing in the snow. One of our favorite games to play as a group was King of the Hill. We’d pile up snow as high as we could, and then half a dozen or so 10-to-12-year-olds would madly […]
South Side Morning 5: Chris Sale’s bizarre reign of terror
1. To date, we’ve had two starts of traditional-looking Chris Sale: one was a step away from greatness due to a command lapse and in the other he was just freezing cold. There has been one kitchen sink, 1,000 ways-to-kill-you masterpiece, and two starts where Sale has thrived with a couple of miles on his fastball tied behind […]