Posts Tagged ‘Chris Sale’

Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: December 7, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football, sports
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Pretty  much since the 2016 season the talk has been that the Chicago White Sox had to trade Chris Sale and start there rebuilding process. Now just about every team had been rumored to be in on Sale and you can’t blame them. It was looking like the Washington nationals where the front runner to land Sale, but they weren’t willing to give the White Sox two top prospects. In the end the Nationals where left holding the bag as the Boston Red Sox stepped up and gave the White Sox four of their Top 30 prospects for Sale. The Red Sox sent #1 minor league prospect Yoan Moncada, right handed pitchers Michael Kopech and Victor Diaz plus outfielder Luis Alexander Basabe to Chicago for Sale.

Sale was the 13th pick of the 1st round in 2010 by the White Sox. He made his debut that same year. Sale didn’t become a starter until 2012, but has finished in the Top 6 of the Cy Young voting since then. Sale is 70-47 as a starter. Sale has had over 200 strikeouts the last four seasons and led the A.L. in 2015 with 274 strikeouts. Sale led the A.L. in complete games last season with 6. It’s tough to give up a pitcher like Sale as he is a true ace. It will be a few seasons before we know how this trade will be evaluated. Moncada did play in 8 games and got 20 at bats at the major league level last season, but spent most the year in Double-A where he hit .277 with 11 home runs. It appears as though Moncada will play 3rd base, but he spent the majority of his time at 2nd base in the minors. Kopech finished last season at high Class-A where he made 11 starts going 4-1 with an E.R.A. of 2.25. Kopech throws 100 m.p.h. but is still a few seasons away from being a factor in the White Sox rotation. Diaz spent all of last season at Class-A. He pitched in 37 games all in relief and had 10 saves. Diaz record was 2-5 and his E.R.A. was 3.88. Basabe spent most of last season on the same team as Diaz before being moved up to high Class-A for 5 games. Basabe hit .264 combined with 12 home runs and 53 RBI’s. Basabe did steal 25 bases. Moncada is 20, Kopech is 20, Diaz is 22 and Basabe is 20; so while we may see Moncada in a White Sox uniform it will be a while before the other players acquired in this reach the major league level.

Sale will be added to a Red Sox rotation that features 2016 Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello, David Price and it looks like the other two rotation spots are to be decided between Clay Buchholz, Steven Wright, Drew Pomeranz  or Eduardo Rodriquez. Right now it doesn’t look as though the Red Sox other top pitching prospect Henry Owens will be in this battle.

While Sale was the biggest move the Red Sox made it wasn’t the only move they made on Tuesday. Earlier in the day they sent 3rd baseman Travis Shaw and minor leaguers Mauricio Dubon and Josh Pennington to the Milwaukee Brewers for set up man Tyler Thornburg. Shaw can play 3rd and 1st base hit .242 with 16 home runs with 71 RBI’s last season. Dubon is a shortstop who finished the year at Double-A where he hit .339 in 62 games. Pennington made 13 starts in low Class-A last season going 5-3 with a 2.86 E.R.A. Thornburg appeared in 67 games for Milwaukee last season gong 8-5 with an E.R.A. of 2.15. Thornburg did save 13 games, but blew 8 saves last season. Thornburg should serve as the Red Sox main set up guy and he did have 20 holds last season.

The other move the Red Sox made on Tuesday was the signing of Mitch Moreland to a 1-year deal worth $5.5 million. Moreland had spent his entire 7-year career with the Texas Rangers. Moreland had a down year average wise hitting just .233, but did have 22 home runs and drove in 60 runs. Moreland is a left handed hitter who has played mostly 1st base in his career, but he has played 45 games in rightfield. Moreland has a career .996 fielding percentage at 1st base; so it looks as though he may take over in the field and Hanley Ramirez will move into the DH role.

Not to be out done the other Chicago baseball team that just happened to win the World Series appears to have found their closer. With the prices for Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman get up around $20 million a season the Cubs turned to the trade market to get a closer. While it hasn’t been officially announced it’s being reported that the Cubs have agreed to send outfielder Jorge Soler to the Kansas City Royals for Wade Davis. Davis did miss some time last season with a forearm injury, but still converted 27 of 30 save opportunities and had an E.R.A. of 1.87. Soler appeared to be the odd man out in the Cubs outfield; so moving him makes sense. Soler also had some injury issues last season. He played in 86 games, hitting .238 with 12 home runs and 31 RBI’s. While Davis is in the final year of his contract Soler still has 3 years left on a 9-year $30 million dollar deal.

There where a couple of other signings yesterday. Carlos Gomez agreed to return to the Texas Rangers in a 1-year $11.5 million dollar deal. The Rangers acquired Gomez as a free agent on Aug. 20 after he had been released by the Astros. He played in 33 games for the Rangers and hit .284 with eight home runs and 24 RBIs. He had a .362 on-base percentage and a .543 slugging percentage. The other signing saw the Tampa Bay Rays ink catcher Wilson Ramos to a 2-year $12.5 million dollar deal, but the deal includes playing time incentives to make up to $18.25 million over the two years. Ramos is recovering from a torn ACL that he suffered last September; so he has to pass a physical for the deal to be completed.

Here’s how are NFL picks went for Week 13. Mr. Fantasy won another week going 12-3. Schaumburg Stu and I both had 10-5 records for the week while Dan the Man struggled going 8-7. Overall Schaumburg Stu still has the lead at 123-69. It’s looking like Schaumburg Stu is going to be tough to catch. Mr. Fantasy has moved into 2nd place by  a game as he is 118-74 overall with Dan the Man right behind him at 117-75. That of course means I am still in last place. My overall record is 110-82. I guess we’ll see how Week 14 goes for us.

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Let’s Call it Wednesday

Posted: August 17, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in Auto Racing, baseball, sports, Sports Time Radio, Uncategorized
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Back at the baseball trade deadline the Chicago White Sox some how managed to ignore the advice of the baseball pundits and experts that said they just had to trade Chris Sale. Sale is 27 years old and is signed through 2017 with team options for 2018 and 2019.  Now if the White Sox could have recieved five or six major league ready or close to ready young players then maybe they would’ve dealt Sale. I fully supported the White Sox hanging on to Sale and there’s no way I’m moving a pitcher of this quality. What I am wondering though; is Chris Sale out of gas? Sale was 14-3 going into the All-Star break. He’s made 5 starts since the All-Star break and he is 0-3 and the White Sox have won just 1 of his 5 starts. Sale has pitched 35 2/3rd innings since the All-Star break. He’s giving up 12 earned run for a post All-Star break ERA of 3.03. Sale game log  Of course maybe Sale’s not the problem and it’s the White Sox offense that’s just not doing the job. If you consider this a struggle for Sale; do you think the White Sox will trade him in the off season? Looking at the stats it seems as though it’s a White Sox offensive thing more than it is a Sale pitching thing. It would be difficult to see the White Sox deal a perennial Cy Young award contender, but I guess stranger things have happen. Ask our friend Schaumburg Stu about the Chicago Cubs trading Lou Brock to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Are we watching the San Francisco Giants fade out of the playoffs? The Giants lost their 3rd straight last night; 4-3 to the Pittsburgh Pirates. That loss with the Los Angeles Dodgers 15-5 win over the Philadelphia Phillies gives the Dodgers the lead in the NL West by a 1/2 game. The Giants are 9-20 since July 15th and haven’t been able to win more than 2 games in a row during that stretch. Even with the struggles the Giants have had and even with the Dodgers moving into 1st place San Francisco is still the top wild card team. The Giants hold a 3 game lead on the St. Louis Cardinals who hold the second wild card spot. The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Miami Marlins are 4 games behind San Francisco. With the troubles the Giants have had is it possible we see them slide all the way out of the wild card game. I’m sure you’ve heard the it’s an even year theory and maybe that’s what you’re holding onto if you’re rooting for San Francisco, but you have to wonder why this team has been tanking and not in the NBA way. You would’ve thought the return of Hunter Pence would be enough to get the Giants back on track. Pence was looking like an MVP candidate before he got injured. Pence has played in 16 games since returning from injury. He’s hitting just .203 with 1 home run and 4 RBI’s. As Pence gets more and more at bats and should return to form; will that be enough to get the San Francisco ship righted?

Everyone including myself thought the pick up of Eduardo Nunez was a great get for the Giants. In 17 games for San Francisco Nunez is hitting .214 with 1 home run and 3 RBI’s; on the plus side he does have 2 triples. Is it possible that coming from the last place Minnesota Twins and joining a 1st place team has mounted pressure on Nunez and he’s struggling to deal with it. Nunez isn’t the only Giants trade acquisition that hasn’t really worked out. Matt Moore is 0-2 in 3 starts with an ERA of 4.50 over 18 innings. Left handed set up guy Will Smith was brought in to help settled down a bullpen that’s been missing the retired Jeremy Affeldt. Smith has appeared in 7 games covering 3 2/3rd innings. Smith is 0-1 with an ERA of 12.27 and has blown a save chance. These looked like three very good moves by the Giants and as of right now they just haven;t worked out. Now there’s no reason at all that Nunez, Smith and Moore can’t return to the form they had when they where traded for. If they could rectify their issues since coming to San Francisco there’s no reason the Giants can’t get into the playoffs as either a wild card team or even the NL West winner. Of course once your in the playoffs anything can happen.

Now the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series had last weekend off, but the X-Finity Series ran the Mid-Ohio Challenge at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Saturday. Now we Don’t talk about the X-Finity Series at all, but I wanted to bring this race up because if you didn’t see it they kept the race going even after it started to rain. The race started out under sunny conditions, but that only lasted two laps as the rain started and the drivers ended up coming to pit road to put there rain radial tires. Now the rain made for a different style of racing that we’re not use to seeing in the Sprint Cup Series. It made for an entertaining race as the cars where sliding into and around every corner and sometimes even in the straight-aways. When it was all said and done Justin Marks got his 1st career X-Finity victory. Sam Hornish Jr. finished 2nd about 4 seconds behind Marks. Ryan Blaney was 3rd, Ty Dillon was 4th and Justin Allgaier round out the Top 5 in 5th place.

The Sprint Cup drivers return to the track for the Bass Pro Shop NRA Night Race at the Bristol Motor Speedway. The Bristol Motor Speedway is a concrete shirt track as it’s just a little over a half mile. It’s 0.53 miles around to be exact. Carl Edwards won the April race at Bristol. Will Edwards get another Bristol win? Will we see someone who already has a win get to victory lane? Or will we manage to get a driver looking for his first win this season and a way into The Chase. Including Saturday nights race there are only 4 races left before The Chase starts. So drivers looking for a win to get into The Chase are quickly running out of time.

The Big Jack

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Let’s Call it Wednesday

Posted: August 3, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in Auto Racing, baseball, NASCAR, sports, Uncategorized
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Baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline ended Monday afternoon and there where a lot of players that ended up changing teams. Now I’m not going to try and breakdown every trade that happen, but I want t talk about the way the trade deadline was rated. As you know by now they either rate a team as a trade deadline winner or losers. The one team that everyone seemed to continue to jump on and make sure everyone knew they lost at the trade deadline was the Chicago White Sox. Now the White Sox did trade set up man Zach Duke to the St. Louis Cardinals for minor league outfielder Charlie Tilson. This deal was not enough for the experts or anyone breaking down the trade deadline moves and the White Sox got the brunt of it.

The reason the White Sox where being considered the biggest loser at the trade deadline is the fact that they didn’t trade starting pitcher Chris Sale. This of course is just a huge joke. Sale is one of the top pitchers in baseball and to trade him you’d have to get quite a bit in return. There’s no way the White Sox should’ve traded Sale anywhere unless they could’ve gotten 5 prospects Double-A or higher who are major league ready. Now you’re really limiting which teams you can deal with by handling it that way, but you have to get value if you’re going to move a talent like Sale. So the White Sox couldn’t get a deal done for Sale and I don’t know why it’s such a bad thing for them to hold on to him.

The White Sox are 51-55 and find themselves 10 games behind the Cleveland Indians in the AL Central. They are 7 1/2 games out of a wild card spot, but they have 5 teams they’d need to jump to get one of those spots. It’s starting to look like the White Sox will not be a playoff team; so it’s a viable option to deal Sale, but if and only if your asking price is met. Sake is just 27 years old. He is 14-4 with an ERA of 3.17 in 20 starts. He has 3 complete games this season with 1 of them being a shutout. He has placed in the Top 6 of the Cy Young voting the last 5 seasons and he’s sure to end up there again. He led the American League in strikeouts last season and is currently 2nd this season with 133 strikeouts. So Sale is the best player on the White Sox and would easily bring the most in return if traded, but since the White Sox didn’t trade him they’re losers.

How about a team that is 10 games under .500 at 48-58. They’re 13 1/2 games out in their division and 10 games out of a wild card spot. Now this team didn’t trade it’s best player and they could’ve gotten a lot in return for him maybe even more than the White Sox would’ve gotten for Sale, but I didn’t hear this team lambasted like the White Sox where and put into the loser bracket. Why did no one jump up and down on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for not trading Mike Trout? Aren’t the Angels farther away from competing than the White Sox are and couldn’t a rebuild really get started by dealing Trout for a boat load of prospects. Let’s keep looking for another team.

How about the 43-64 Arizona Diamondbacks. They are probably the most disappointing team in baseball this season. Now they paid big, big money for Zack Greinke in the off season and they also have Paul Goldschmidt on their team. Even though the Diamondbacks are going nowhere this season Greinke and Goldschmidt are still both with the Diamondbacks. It was just laughable that the White Sox where expected to move Sale, but these other under performing teams aren’t expected to move their best players to fix there teams. Are these guys just upset because Sale had that clubhouse freak out and cut up those throw back uniforms and that’s why he has to be moved. Either that or they where secretly rooting for Sale to be dealt to a team they want to see win and he could be the piece that puts them over the top. Anyway the guys breaking down the trade deadline where way, way out of line putting the White Sox where they did and expecting them to just more or less give away a top pitcher in baseball. Stupidity just plain and simple stupidity.

On Sunday the NASCAR race was postponed do to weather and moved to Monday. There where just 21 laps left when the Monday race had to be red flagged because of fog with rookie Chris Buescher in the lead. Buescher had to wait 80 minutes as the NASCAR officials decided what to do. With threats of severe weather and no lifting of the fog, NASCAR decided to end the race and Buescher had his very 1st Sprint Cup victory. Buescher along with 3rd place finisher Regan Smith hadn’t made their final pit stops when the caution flag came out for that fog at lap 132.  The drivers stayed on the track under caution for 7 laps as NASCAR decided to throw the red flag at lap 139. While there was some rain in the area the majority of the drivers pitted either because they needed fuel or because they thought the race would go longer. No one could predict the fog rolling in and ending the race. Buescher became the first rookie to win a Sprint Cup race since Joey Logano did it in 2009. What can be considered an odd win for Buescher had to use an odd Victory Lane. They moved Victory Lane into the garage since NASCAR couldn’t use the real Victory Lane because of the threat of lightning. While Buescher did get the win he hasn’t yet qualified for The Chase for the Sprint Cup. Buescher sits six points behind 30th-place David Ragan in the Sprint Cup standings. A driver has to be in the top 30 to qualify for the Chase via a race victory. Buescher has 5 races to make up those 6 points and get himself into the Top 30 in points and qualify for The Chase. NASCAR Schedule

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Let’s Call it Wednesday

Posted: July 13, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, sports, Sports Time Radio, Uncategorized
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On Monday Tim Duncan retired from the NBA after 19 seasons. Now after a career like Duncan’s you might expect a little fanfare to announce his retirement. There was no gigantic goodbye press conference called. There was no cool Instagram video posted. There was no picture on Twitter making the announcement. As a matter of fact I don;t think social media was involved in making the announcement at all. So how did Duncan go out; the San Antonio Spurs out out a simple press release announcing his retirement. It’s almost the way you’d expect Duncan to go out. While Duncan wasn’t looking for the spotlight as he was retiring and didn’t seem interested on having one more retirement type season, but after the career he had if he would’ve wanted that who could’ve blamed him.

San Antonio selected Duncan with the #1 pick in the 1997 draft. Duncan entered the NBA after winning 3 player of the year awards in college. He was named AP Player of the Year, Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year and he also won the John R. Wooden Award. Duncan then went on to win the 1997-98 NBA Rookie of the Year award. That was just the start of the awards that Duncan would win throughout his career. He won 5 NBA Championships with the Spurs and was named Finals MVP. 3 times. He won 2 NBA MVP. awards and he did it in back to back seasons; 2001-02 and 2002-03. Besides winning the MVP twice Duncan finished in the Top 5 of the voting 9 other times. Duncan also made 15 All-Star teams and was named MVP of the 1999-00 game. Duncan played in 1392 games; he averaged 19.0 points per game, 10.8 rebounds per game and 3.0 assists per game while playing an average of 34 minutes a game. Duncan should go down as one of the best to every play the game and I’ve even heard some experts mention he should be in the Top 5 all-time. One of the things I found more interesting about Duncan’s 19 year career was the fact that he played all 19 of those seasons with one team and he had the same head coach Gregg Popovich for all 19 of those seasons. By comparison Kobe Bryant just wrapped up a 20 year NBA career that saw him play for 10 different head coaches. That begs the question; will we ever see a player with this long of a career play for just one head coach?

Now there is no better All-Star game than the Major League Baseball All-Star game. It’s far and away the closet to the actual game that is played during the regular season. While the National Hockey League did improve their game last season and it was a lot more watchable than it had been. Of course it is a three on three game and it’s different than what they do in the regular season. The National Football League Pro-Bowl is a huge joke. In a way it’s almost understandable. Football is a very physical game and the last thing a team or even a fan base needs is for it’s Pro-Bowl player to get injured going all out in an All-Star game. The biggest joke out of all the All-Star games has to be the fiasco the National Basketball Association puts on. There is absolutely no defense played and you have to believe sooner or later we’re going to see an NBA All-Star team score 200 points in the game. Baseball is so different because it’s difficult to fake. In the other All-Star games you can make it look like you’re trying without really trying. In baseball though there’s still a pitcher on the mound and unless he’s willing to serve one up t the hitter and make himself look bad he’s going to pitch to that batter like it’s a regular game. Ever now and then you get a blowout in the MLB All-Star game, but the majority of the time you get a close well played game like last nights.

Tuesday on the Sports Time Radio podcast Dan the Man selected the National League  to win the All-Star game. Of course we know by now that he was on the wrong side of that pick as the American League  picked up a 4-2 victory to claim home field advantage in the World Series. What I still don’t know and I haven’t been able to find out is; why was the NL the visitors? I thought for sure with the game being played at Petco Park in San Diego that the NL would be the home team. I’ll have to do a little more research and try to figure it out. Now the NL got off t a quick start as Kris Bryant hit a solo home run in the Top of the 1st off of Chris Sale to give the NL a quick 1-0 lead. The A.L. turned it around in the bottom of the 2nd inning getting a solo home run by Eric Hosmer to tie the score and then a two-run home run by Salvador Perez put the AL up 3-1 and it turned out to be a lead they would relinquish. Hosmer and Perez both hit their home runs off of their former teammate Johnny Cueto. The AL added a run in the Bottom of the 3rd inning. David Ortiz drew a walk and then Edwin Encarnacion came into to run for him and allow Ortiz to walk off the field to a big crowd reaction in his last All-Star game. Xander Bogaerts doubled to put runners on 2nd and 3rd for the AL It was Hosmer again who came through for the AL with a single to left field off of Jose Fernandez to bring Encarnacion home and put the AL up 4-1. The NL did get a run back in the Top of the 4th inning. Buster Posey drew a one out walk. Anthony Rizzo singled moving Posey to 3rd base. Marcel Ozuna singled to center off of Aaron Sanchez to drive in Posey and cut the AL lead to 4-2. The NL got 10 hits in the game with Daniel Murphy being the only guy with 2 hits. The AL got 8 hits in the game with Hosmer and Jackie Bradley Jr. each getting 2 hits. The AL used 10 pitchers in the game with Corey Kluber getting the win and Zach Britton picking up a save. The NL used 9 pitchers in the game with Cueto being the pitcher who took the loss. Hosmer was voted the games MVP.

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