Cactus League Game 7: White Sox at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Dylan Cease, 6:40pm
Night baseball for the first time in quite a while. Should be a fun match-up of the command/weak contact style of Marco Gonzales against Dylan Cease’s stuff-over-everything, sitting-97, strikeouts, walks, and hard-hit contact approach. You really couldn’t pick two more dissimilar approaches, and it’s funny how both land near the same place in terms of overall results, at least by ERA. Gonzales got there by stranding runners, pitching to (weak) contact and pitching around long-balls that he’d give up when he’d challenge hitters, especially with no one on. Cease has had awful HR problems in the past, but posted a 3.91 ERA thanks to a gaudy K rate approaching 32%, an improved though still-not-good walk rate, and fewer HRs than you’d expect given the amount of hard hit and elevated contact he gave up. Add it all up, and FIP (and PECOTA) thought Gonzales was extremely lucky, giving him a closing-in-on-replacement level grade, whereas it thought Cease was essentially Robbie Ray, and that his solid ERA *undersold* his performance. Still, Gonzales has been doing this now for years. FIP is probably never going to buy it, and I still think he must’ve done something mean to PECOTA years ago, and it’s keeping a grudge. I’m not too worried about it, though.
It’s been about a week, so I’m trying not to read too much into things, but I’m bound by the code of preseason blogging to note that the M’s are hitting .194/.288/.316 thus far. The starters haven’t logged as many innings, though more so than they would have in a normal year. Peoria’s a lot more of a neutral park than many others in the Cactus League, but then, the M’s pitching numbers are similarly poor. I wouldn’t think much of it if it weren’t for the M’s struggling precisely in hitting for average in recent years. No, Jesse Winker isn’t going to keep hitting the way he is, but I’d love to see some signs that guys whose hit-for-contact/average numbers have tailed off – especially Mitch Haniger – will bounce back. We can all laugh about this after the M’s have an Arizona special game with like a 19-7 scoreline (Texas already won a 25-12 game this spring).
I still assume that the White Sox are just a better overall team than the Mariners, not that it’s especially meaningful. I think most people assume the White Sox win the AL Central, and thus aren’t really competition for one of the wild card spots. That said, it’s interesting to go through some of the projections: these teams are closer than I would’ve thought. The Sox have the edge at C, SS, 3B, CF, while the M’s are slated to be better at 1B, 2B, LF, RF. I’d note that the Sox have the best rated position player, in Luis Robert, but the projections for Julio Rodriguez are so incredible, that it’s kind of close; you could really close the gap just by starting Julio on day 1 and increasing his MLB PA totals.
To be fair, the White Sox advantage is really on the pitching side, with sizable advantages in the rotation AND the bullpen. As I looked at the other day, though, the M’s pitching staff could shave 40-50 runs off of their projected totals by not wasting innings on replacement level players and with modest growth from the likes of Logan Gilbert, who looked brilliant yesterday, and the debut of Matt Brash/George Kirby. That said, given the Sox lead in true talent, you could see them blowing their own projections out of the water. It was kind of a throwaway line, but Dylan Cease really could put it all together the way Carlos Rodon did last year. Still, the guy I’m most interested in is Robert. The tools are off-the-charts, but we just haven’t seen that much of him in the majors, and what we’ve seen is somewhat contradictory. It’s kind of like Kyle Lewis, really, only with the injury concerns a bit more towards “it’s an issue” versus “verging on apocalyptic.”
1: Frazier, 2B
2: France, 1B
3: Haniger, RF
4: Winker, DH
5: Suarez, 3B
6: Rodriguez, CF
7: Crawford, SS
8: Kelenic, LF
9: Raleigh, C
SP: Gonzales
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