SB Nation - Freddy Garcia

Rosterbation-Mania!

U-God — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:18:10 -0000

More photos » by Ted S. Warren - AP

Raise your hand if you want to play for the White Sox next year. Esteban, please put your hand down. Seriously though, Esteban, you aren't welcome. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

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Over the past couple days, and inspired by the infamous U.S.S. Mariner post and the on-going reader input over at Sox Machine, I've been putting together my off-season plan. I tried to keep it as realistic as possible (no video game trades), especially in terms of payroll. Feel encouraged to leave your own roster plans in the comments section. U-God's 2010 plan lies after the jump.

Free Agent Acquistions:

DH- Nick Johnson, 1 year/5.5 mil

I love Jim Thome and always will. He is my back-up plan. With that being said, I would be thrilled if KW went out and got Nick Johnson. The 31 year old lefty has a career .849 OPS fueled largely by his .402 career OBP. Johnson also allows us to rotate Paul Konerko and Carlos Quentin in at DH as well. He does come with injury-risks, but using him mainly as a DH in combination with one of the premier medical staffs in baseball should counteract that. The injury risk combined with the down market should allow the Sox to grab him at a reasonable price for a year.

RF- Marlon Byrd, 1 year/4.5 mil

Byrd would be a very refreshing change of pace out in rightfield. He has posted an OPS above .800 each year since joining the American League and has been an above-average defender in right as well. His career high 20 homers last year will guarentee him a raise, though probably a modest one. Byrd also provides a nice stop-gap for our outfield prospects.

C- Brian Schneider, 1 year/1.5 mil

Schneider's days as a starter are over. He's a lefty-catcher who has had good success stopping opponent's run games (38 CS%). Being a backup drops his price tag and lowers his risk of getting hurt again.

1B/OF- Mark Kotsay, 1 year/1.5 mil

Bring him back. He was good after we traded for him and gives Ozzie more flexibility with his bench and lineups.

Contract Extension:

Offer John Danks the Jon Lester deal (5 years/30 mil). It's a back-loaded contract that buys out John's arbitration years and allows him to hit free agency at age 31. It may take more money to lock him up, but for simplicity's sake, I'm just going to use the Lester deal.

Batting Order:

DH- Nick Johnson, 3B- Gordon Beckham, LF- Carlos Quentin, 1B- Paul Konerko, C- A.J. Pierzynski, CF- Alex Rios, RF- Marlon Byrd, SS- Alexei Ramirez, 2B- Chris Getz.

That OBP in front of Beckham gives me dirty thoughts.

Bench:

C- Brian Schneider, 1B/OF- Mark Kotsay, UTIL- Jayson Nix, OF- Alejandro De Aza

Nix gives pop off the bench and De Aza gives Ozzie a speedy pinch-runner for late in the game.

Starting Rotation:

Jake Peavy-RHP, Mark Buehrle-LHP, Gavin Floyd-RHP, John Danks-LHP, Freddy Garcia-RHP

I like the idea of having Peavy and Garcia pitch back to back.

Bullpen:

Bobby Jenks-CL, Matt Thornton-LHP, Scott Linebrink-RHP, DJ Carrasco-RHP, Tony Peña-RHP, Jhonny Nuñez-RHP, Randy Williams-LHP

I wanted to trade Jenks, but his value is too low right now and I don't want a repeat of the Nick Swisher trade.

Other Costs:

$1 mil buy-out for Jermaine Dye

$.35 mil for Mike MacDougal, damn him

Team Payroll:

$96.65 mil, only .55 higher than last season's opening salary. All figures (except my FAs and arbitration guesstimates) taken from Cot's Baseball Contracts.

2009 Mets Transaction Register, Part 2

Eric Simon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:15:22 -0000

More photos » by Matt York - AP

Oliver Perez doing his impression of a Mets fan watching Oliver Perez pitch. (AP Photo/Matt York)

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And now, the dramatic conclusion of the epic, award-winning series that began last week.

January 22, 2009

Signed Freddy Garcia to a minor league contract. Garcia was competing for the fifth starter/long man role in Spring Training, but he was first terrible and then hurt (or maybe it was the other way around). Upon his return, he stunk in two starts for Buffalo before being waived and picked up by the White Sox where he posted a 2.90 tRA in 56 innings. That should be enough to get him a Major League deal in 2010, maybe even from the Mets!

January 23, 2009

Signed Rob Mackowiak to a minor league contract. Appeared in two games with Triple-A Buffalo and zero with the Mets. He was pretty solid on a fantasy team I had five or six years ago, but has never really been an above average player and could be done as a big leaguer at age 33.

February 2, 2009

Signed Oliver Perez for three years/$36 million. Analysis here. A day that will live in infamy, as the Mets offered three more years and thirty-six million more dollars than anyone else to secure the rights to one of the least dependable -- but most mature! -- pitchers in baseball. Perez's 6.94 tRA, -0.7 WAR and 1.92 WHIP would have been vindication enough, but he topped that off by spending three-fifths of the season on the disabled list. Given his negative win value, perhaps that was actually for the best. At roughly $4.5 million per win, Perez would have to be worth 8-9 wins over the next two seasons to justify his contract.

February 5, 2009

Signed Elmer Dessens to a minor league contract. Dessens should never have seen the light of day, but with injuries and ineptitude swallowing the Mets' 2009 season, Dessens managed to appear in 28 games in relief, showing decent control and a proclivity for groundballs (yet he still allowed five homeruns in 32.2 innings). He wasn't the worst pitcher the Mets had, and was probably quite a bit better than expected, but more playing time should expose him as a below-average reliever.

February 11, 2009

Signed Jose Valentin to a minor league deal. Didn't play a professional game in 2009. Maybe check the Ground Round?

February 13, 2009

Signed Ramon Martinez to a minor league deal. Hit .167/.182/.214 in 44 plate appearances with the Mets. Had a -2.6 UZR at shortstop in limited action.

February 14, 2009

Signed Livan Hernandez to a minor league deal. A longshot to make the club, Hernandez out-pitched Freddy Garcia in Spring Training and joined the Mets in the season's second week. Apart from a few good starts against the Nationals, Hernandez was mostly pretty bad, even for a fifth starter. He also loved donuts.

February 27, 2009

Signed Ron Villone to a minor league deal. Villone never pitched for the Mets and was nothing special after Washington picked him up. He's from Englewood, NJ, for whatever that's worth.

March 10, 2009

Released Duaner Sanchez. This move seemed smart at the time, looked dumb when Filthy shut down the Mets in the opening series at Citi Field, but went back to looking smart when the Padres likewise released Sanchez after running up a 9.00 ERA and 2.36 WHIP in 11 innings.

March 14, 2009

Claimed Fernando Nieve off waivers from Houston. Some Nieve analysis here. Not a bad gamble. Nieve was only 26 and throws in the mid-nineties, and managed a 2.95 ERA in seven starts with the Mets. Unfortunately, he walked too many and struck out too few to believe his low runs allowed rate is at all sustainable.

March 30, 2009

Signed Ken Takahashi to a minor league contract. Some analysis of one of his appearances here. Tak wasn't terrible, and was fairly dominant against righties in limited action. He was released yesterday, so, smell you later, Tak.

April 5, 2009

Signed Gary Sheffield as a free agent. The Mets paid Sheffield the league minimum (actually, a prorated portion of the league minimum) while the Tigers picked up the rest of his $14 million salary. Sheffield was worth 1.8 WAR offensively, though his defense in leftfield was woeful. UZR has him at -11.1, though it's not clear how much that is affected by the fact that UZR is still using Shea Stadium's dimensions. If that mark holds, Sheffield's overall value, including defensive adjustments, was barely above replacement (0.2 WAR). He could still be a useful designated hitter somewhere.

April 11, 2009

Released Marlon Anderson. Boo to the yah. Anderson was decent as a pinch hitter with the Mets in 2005, remarkable in 77 plate appearances after they claimed him from the Dodgers in 2007, but all kinds of terrible in 2008 and made four hapless pinch hitting appearances in 2009 before mercifully getting the heave-ho.

April 25, 2009

Signed Mike Lamb to a minor league contract. Played almost a full season in Triple-A and didn't hit a lick.

May 30, 2009

Traded Ramon Castro to the White Sox for Lance Broadway. Trade analysis here and discussion here; Castro's greatest hits here. I always liked Ramon; he had more pop than can usually be expected from a catcher, and he was big and huggable. He was also oft-injured and rumored to be difficult to deal with. He hit .184/.262/.382 with the White Sox (he also caught Mark Buerhle's perfect game). Broadway was terrible in Triple-A and with the Mets; his greatness may not extend beyond his naturally porn star-ish name.

June 5, 2009

Claimed Pat Misch off waivers from the Giants. His 4.12 ERA in 22 appearances -- including seven starts -- isn't supported by his peripherals, as Misch struck out just 3.5 batters per nine innings while walking 2.9 and allowing 1.4 homeruns. Could be worth an emergency start, but if he makes 22 appearances again the Mets are in trouble.

July 10, 2009

Traded Ryan Church to the Braves for Jeff Francoeur. Trade coverage here, here, here, here, and here. To his credit, Francoeur was worth around 1.6 WAR with his bat after the trade (his defense dragged that down a bit); Church was worth around half that in half the playing time with the Braves. 2010 is Francoeur's final year of arbitration eligibility, though there's always the (horrifying) possibility of the Mets signing him to a multi-year deal. I genuinely want Francoeur to succeed and he seems like a nice enough guy, I just find it hard to believe that he will ever be even an average big leaguer given his steadfast refusal to use the strike zone to his advantage.

August 6, 2009

Traded Greg Veloz to the Nationals for Anderson Hernandez. Hernandez is a replacement-level shorstop and slightly better than that as a second-baseman (the difference owing to his above-average defense at second). He can't hit and probably never will, though it's not as if Veloz is anything to write home about.

August 25, 2009

Traded Billy Wagner to the Red Sox for Chris Carter and Eddie Lora. More here. The Mets cleared around $4 million and picked up a couple of warm bodies. Carter could be useful against righties.

Wednesday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:07:20 -0000

More photos » by Morry Gash - AP

Casey McGehee, seen here being congratulated by Felipe Lopez after hitting a home run in July, was the National League Rookie of the Month for September.

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Some things to read while learning a new skill.

It's a light news day, so the biggest story is probably the unveiling of 2010 ticket prices, which I'm having a hard time getting developing an opinion about either way. Prices are going up slightly, but not enough to really get upset about. (FanShot)

That might have been the most lackluster opening paragraph in a Mug all year. Maybe I need to check into Casa de Machado's starting lineup from yesterday.

Casey McGehee was named NL Rookie of the Month for September, a pretty fitting cap on a surprising season for a guy who quickly became a great story (FanShot).

Speaking of rookies, Alcides Escobar will technically still count as a rookie next season, as he narrowly avoided the 130 AB cutoff. Mat Gamel, on the other hand, spent more than the maximum 45 days on a major league roster this season, so he's not eligible.

Speaking of Escobar, Chris Mehring of Rattler Radio received the latest copy of Baseball America and noted that Escobar was the first team shortstop on their all levels all star team this season. Brett Lawrie was also the second team second baseman, and Eric Farris and Evan Anundsen made the all Advanced-A team.

Speaking of shortstops, Adam Guttridge of The Hardball Times took a first look at attempts to project J.J. Hardy's performance for next season, and thinks the team that eventually acquires him from the Brewers is going to get a great deal.

With the regular season officially over, it's time for Plunk Everyone to look back at the season that was. Jason Kendall, Dave Bush, Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder and Felipe Lopez all make an appearance in their NL awards.

Fielder and Braun also show up on this somewhat more prestigious list: The top ten batters in the majors, ranked by OPS+. Fielder finished third, behind Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer, and Braun finished tied with Ben Zobrist for tenth place.

These probably don't go together, but I'm lumping them together anyway as "Power Rankings and whatnot:"

WhatifSports ranked the Brewers #16 in their final power rankings of 2009.
The Dugout Doctors ranked Bernie Brewer as baseball's fifth best mascot.

There are three hot stove notes today that pertain to the Brewers in one way or another:

The Brewers can almost certainly be considered the early favorite to sign Doug Davis, especially considering he's not expected to return to the D-Backs.
The Padres may be looking to sign a center fielder this offseason, and Mike Cameron's name has come up.
The Astros exercised their half of a mutual option on pitcher Brian Moehler. If Moehler accepts (and it's pretty likely he will), he'll make $3.5 million next season. He'll be 38 before spring training and posted a 5.47 ERA in 154.2 innings this season. Don't be surprised if this is mentioned as justification for bringing back Braden Looper: If Moehler, who is older, posted a higher ERA and pitched fewer innings than Looper, is actually worth $3.5 million, then $6.5 million for Looper can be spun as a decent deal.

Elsewhere on the hot stove:

White Sox: Exercised 2010 options on pitchers Freddy Garcia and Matt Thornton.

There was only one major league game yesterday, but it was a classic. If you missed it, you can relive it through the FanGraphs Win Expectancy Graph. Coming into the weekend, I didn't really have a strong rooting interest in the Twins-Tigers race, aside from a slight inclination to see the Twins win so we'd keep getting baseball analysis from Aaron Gleeman's mom.

With that said, the Tigers (and Major League Baseball's) handling of the Miguel Cabrera situation made me a whole-hearted Twins fan for the day yesterday. After the game, Cabrera seemed to understand the gravity of the situation, but that doesn't change the fact that he shouldn't have been allowed to play. Furthermore, Jim Leyland's decision to brush off questions about a domestic assault investigation by calling it "gossip" is absolutely deplorable.

On a lighter note, yesterday's game did give us a preview of the upcoming TBS playoff coverage, and the early reviews aren't very good. I've probably seen a dozen or more complaints about Chip Caray this morning, but he was only the second worst part of yesterday's broadcast to me, behind the incessant airing of the same commercial for George Lopez's new show. By the end of the divisional round, even Frank Caliendo is going to be sick of it.

It's a rough week for anyone who works in the front office of a baseball team, as firing season has clearly opened. Paul DePodesta, the Padres' Assistant GM who's been fired as a GM once himself, has an inside view of what it's like to work in a business where friends can come and go so quickly.

Need a mental warmup today? Try naming the career home run leaders by last initial. (Hint: There are two former Brewers.) I got 13, but also got frustrated and gave up with over four minutes left.

Once your brain is warmed up, turn it on to this task: The Eastern League team formerly known as the Connecticut Defenders is moving to Richmond, and they need a new name. Their existing options universally suck, so CNBC's Darren Rovell is asking for your help to generate some new ones.

Happy birthday today to Tim Unroe, who appeared in 48 games as a Brewer between 1995 and 1997 and turns 39 today, and to West Bend native Ryan Rohlinger, who turns 26.

Drink up.

White Sox pick up option on Garcia

Eli Greenspan — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:35:39 -0000

More photos » by Carlos Osorio - AP

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The White Sox excercised the 2010 option on pitcher Freddy Garcia, SI.com is reporting. Garcia will earn a base salary of 1 million dollars with a possible 2 million dollars in incentives. Garcia posted a 4.34 ERA in nine starts with the White Sox this season.

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Freddy Garcia	3-4	9	9	0	0	0	0	56.0	56	27	27	4	12	37	4.34	1.21

Garcia will likely be an option in the back-end of the rotation.

Anything is Possible! Tigers 12, White Sox 5

Ian Casselberry — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:55:23 -0000

More photos » by Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

Curtis Granderson can't believe the comeback he and his Detroit Tigers staged in Chicago on Saturday night.

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Now that was a comeback.

The Detroit Tigers have rallied plenty of times this season when they were behind. But what they did Saturday night in Chicago stands apart from those other revivals.

We've seen pitching duels where Detroit finally broke open a close game by taking advantage of an opponent's inferior bullpen. We've seen game-tying hits and home runs. We've seen walk-off wins. And we've enjoyed many celebrations along the way.

But had we seen anything like this? Down 5-0 after four innings, on the road in hostile territory? Against a pitcher who hadn't allowed more than three runs in his last six starts? With an offense that hadn't scored a run in its last 14 innings?

I guess they were due. In a big way.

Remember last weekend, when the Tigers got all those singles against Carl Pavano, but only scored two runs? It was a bit of a different story Saturday night versus the White Sox.

After only getting one hit off Freddy Garcia in their first four innings, Detroit began to chip away at the 5-0 deficit Nate Robertson left them with. Miguel Cabrera broke the seal with a solo homer in the fifth. But that was just the beginning.

Cabrera drove in two more runs in the sixth, cutting the margin to 5-3 and suddenly making a Tigers comeback look possible. That possibility became reality in the next inning.

Four of the first Detroit batters hit singles, driving in another two runs to the game at 5-5 and chasing Garcia out of the ballgame. Tony Pena took over and promptly gave up another two singles, bringing in two more Tigers runs. The comeback was complete.

But apparently, the Tigers wanted to make sure this one stuck. In the eighth inning, Detroit strung together four straight two-out hits (fueled by Curtis Granderson's triple that was almost a homer), each of them driving in a run. The team that was down by five and looked flat-lined was up by six, with a more than healthy heart rate. Granderson finished off the avalanche of runs in the ninth with a RBI single.

Could there have been a more important win this season? Had the Tigers lost on Saturday (and taken a series loss for the second straight weekend), their lead in the AL Central would be a mere one game. And depending on what happens Sunday, they could've found themselves tied for first place as they play the Twins beginning on Monday.

But instead of a demoralizing loss, the Tigers rallied triumphantly. Perhaps their most inspiring win in a season full of stirring comebacks.

Roar:

Yes, the offense roared mightily. Cabrera went 4-for-6 with four RBIs. Placido Polanco went 3-for-5 with two RBIs. Gerald Laird and Magglio Ordonez combined for five hits. And Granderson broke out of a 2-for-22 slump with a 3-for-6 night and three RBIs.

But a comeback like that doesn't happen without the pitching also shutting the opponent down. And the Tigers' bullpen put some serious clamps on the White Sox over the final 5.2 innings. Most important was Alfredo Figaro, who took over for Robertson in the fourth and allowed only one hit in almost three innings of work. If baseball teams handed out game balls, he'd get one.

Comment of the Night:

On a night in which more than 1,300 comments were posted in the GameThreads (almost 1,700, if you count the Afterglow thread - and I didn't post any comments!), this wasn't easy. And I may well have not gotten this right. There was a lot to scroll through.

But kudos to you for sticking this one out. The Tigers definitely rewarded you for your fandom.

Freddy Garcia

turned into a pumpkin. And Miguel Cabrera, Curtis Granderson and Magglio Ordonez are all gods among men

by ChrisDTX

And your runner-up, with visual aid. Thanks to everyone who spent their evening with BYB, and participated in one hell of a night. You guys are truly amazing. And this fun had better continue.

Brushing Up On Freddy Garcia

colintj — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:00:17 -0000

More photos » by Kathy Willens - AP

Don't let them see you sweat.

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Can a pitcher actually succeed as a starter (or at least stave off replacement level) without breaking 90 mph with his fastball? Certain lefties, I suppose, have the capacity. Outside of the end of Greg Maddux's career, though, there are vanishingly few examples of right handed starters making any kind of career out of junkballing. That's the only way Freddy Garcia is going to make his bones at this point. And, surprisingly, he's posted a well above average FIP in 6 starts so far, including 2 against the Red Sox and 1 against the Yankees. What the hell, right?

It's common knowledge that throwing hard is desirable and the Tigers, for one, have made a season out of throwing hard and harder. How to pull off the opposite? Fortunately for us, Dave Allen exists.

In his own words, regarding the graph below:

To see how these two factors interacted I plotted fastball success by horizontal location for three groups of four-seam fastballs: all fastballs, those over 95 mph and those under 87.5 mph. The result below is just for those pitched to RHBs, so the inside is negative numbers and outside is positive numbers. The error bars are the shaded bands. The run value is the change in run expectancy so negative is better for the pitcher.

And here's Velocity vs. Vertical Location:

Command is obviously a great equalizer, as batters simply have little problem recognizing a fastball out of the zone. All of the difference comes in what happens when a strike is thrown. What really sticks out is that the below average fastball's best possible location is no better than a grooved average fastball. So, there's a lot of pressure to throw strikes when Freddy throws his fastball AND to avoid throwing his fastball as much as he can. If he's going to be average, he's got to make it up with his off-speed stuff.

So let's refer to that platoon splits by pitch chart I've been using recently. To compensate for his crap fastball, he's got to have a good change/split and a good slider. I pulled up his most recent start against the M's and his excellent start against the Red Sox on Brooks to see what it looks like Garcia's tossing. He's throwing a splitter from what I could tell. He starts on that grip and changes off it much like Contreras did with his forkball. He's not throwing a ton of them and the early returns are pretty meh. In case you're wondering what to look for, Dave Allen summarizes:

Changeups that have very little movement (close to 0,0) get crushed. Those with extreme vertical movement, either lots of rise or lots of sink, are very successful. Since changeups are thrown in opposite handed at-bats even those with neutral run values are good pitches.

Freddy's splitter isn't really either of those. As Allen says, getting out opposite handed batters is a difficult task anyway so having a merely average change/split is useful. But the exercise here is to see if Freddy's got the stuff to be average-ish. Against lefties, we should really expect him to struggle. That hasn't happened so far, in fact the opposite has been true. In '09, Señor Sweaty has allowed a .191/.263/.382 line. The culprit is a minuscule BABIP, 70 points below his career average. If all we do is add that 70 points back in, the slash line becomes .261/.333/.452. That's more or less what I'd expect to see in the future. He'll have to cut down on free passes significantly to achieve average performance with his current stuff.

So he's going to be vulnerable to lefties. If he can really shut down same-handed batters, he might be able to make up the difference. And here, there's actually some hope. For one, his contact rate allowed is still quite good and in line with career averages. This suggests a good slider that's generating whiffs; obviously it's not the fastball doing it and he simply hasn't thrown enough splitters for them to be primarily responsible. Compare Freddy's contact rate to qualified starters in '09. He'd be right up there with enough starts. Putting the Brooks chart side by side with yet another Allen chart, it seems at least possible Garcia's slider is in a smallish sweet spot. In his wee sample size, he's had BABIP issues against RHB. If it were a more reasonable .300, he'd have a .253/.282/.405 slash line against. That would be pretty useful and it's probably a lot more than we can expect. Put simply, I have a hard time believing he'll be able to keep his BABIP and ISO down with such a hittable fastball.

So he's not going to be average. I don't think SSSers were really holding out hope for such. After all, dude's had shoulder problems and can't break 90. The consensus seems to be that he's very cheap, so why not give him a go? It's just $1MM, right? And, certainly, there are hints that he's better than replacement level. And all he's got to do is take the ball until Dan Hudson's ready. If Kenny does go that route, I'd really like to see him bring on a lefty long man who can clean up for Freddy when he inevitably gets bombed by lefty-heavy lineups.

White Sox Have .500, Playoffs in Sight

The Cheat — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:21:57 -0000

More photos » by Elaine Thompson - AP

Look at this Quality Start throwing Mystery Father

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No time for a proper recap... After greeting General Soreness with an extended BP session and allowing 3 runs in the second, Freddy Garcia settled down to throw his 5th consecutive quality start. Oh, and Jake Peavy is starting FOR THE WHITE SOX on Saturday. Can the playoffs be far behind? I think not.

Series Preview: Chicago White Sox @ Seattle Mariners

Jeff — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:37:51 -0000

Seattle: 74-70
Chicago: 71-73

SUMMARY

	MARINERS	WHITE SOX	EDGE
HITTING (wOBA)	-89.1 (29th)	-62.7 (26th)	CHW
FIELDING (UZR)	72.5 (1st)	-38.7 (24th)	SEA
ROTATION (pRAA)	-28.7 (23rd)	61.8 (6th)	CHW
BULLPEN (pRAA)	-24.6 (29th)	30.2 (3rd)	CHW
OVERALL(RAA)	-69.9	-9.4	Chicago

Just another series where we play a team with a worse record and a better overall performance. It's rather remarkable just how poor Chicago's position players have been this year; where the Mariners have at least been able to catch the balls hit at them, the White Sox haven't been able to hit or field, with the result being a group worth something like nine or ten wins below average. What's been able to keep them on the fringes of the race is an outstanding pitching staff led not by a few stars, but by a lot of guys who're average or better. Among them is Matt Thornton, who ranks near the top in pretty much every meaningful reliever metric. How I wish I could have a do-over on that one. Sorry for blasting you so much, Matt. I was young. I was stupid.

The Mariners are playing for pride and a .500+ record. The White Sox are still trying to squeak into the playoffs, and though they're 6.5 back, they still have six more games against Detroit, so not all hope is lost. It's not much, but realistically, this will probably be our last chance to play spoiler, so here's to making a difference. Let's give Chicago as dull a final few weeks as ours.

GAMES

Game 1: Freddy Garcia vs. Ian Snell
Game 2: TBA (Carlos Torres? D.J. Carrasco? Daniel Hudson?) vs. Ryan Rowland-Smith *
Game 3: Gavin Floyd vs. Brandon Morrow

Garcia was a workhorse for Chicago from the minute he got traded, throwing nearly 550 innings over two and a half seasons and helping the Sox win a World Series. He then got sent to Philadelphia in December 2006 and promptly came apart. He's only made 19 Major League starts in the three years since, but he seems to have worked his way back, and in the early going so far he's been pretty difficult to hit, with a 74% contact rate and what Fangraphs lists as a five-pitch assortment. The velocity isn't really there anymore, and he has a difficult time breaking 90, but he should nevertheless have the advantage in a matchup against Ian Snell, who gets rattled when he tries a new cereal.

Chicago hasn't yet officially announced a starter for Wednesday. Two of the candidates are interesting. Three of the candidates could own us.

Thursday brings us a matchup between a guy who's finally learned how to pitch and a guy who's still trying to. Floyd's strikeout and contact numbers are significantly better than they've been in the past, and as a result he's actually somewhat earned his shiny ERA. The four-year contract he signed in March looked kind of stupid then, but looks terrific now. Morrow, meanwhile...God, whatever.

White Hot White Sox Streaking Back To .500

The Cheat — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:43:34 -0000

More photos » by Jim Prisching - AP

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Hold onto your hats White Sox fans, the Chisox are not done yet. With an exciting extra-innings victory over the Athletics Wednesday, the Sox, winners of 7 of their last 9, pull withing 6.5 games of the lackluster Detroit Tigers. And just wait until Jake Peavy joins the rotation...

HAHAHA

I couldn't even make it to a second paragraph. The Sox are still relatively talented team stringing together a season full of ugly performances even in victory. Wednesday's win over the Athletics was another prime example. The Sox had a number of standout performances erased by newly acquired, yet already considered chronic underachievers. To the bullet points.

The Good

Freddy Garcia used his varying assortment of slop to frustrate the anemic Athletics lineup.
Scott Podsednik extended his hit-streak to 10 games with a 4-hit night
Ozzie Guillen turning to Bobby Jenks in the 9th inning of a tie game, then running him back out there for a second inning of work (even though things got a little bit scary).
Chris Getz made a great deke on Scott Hairston in the 13th, then got back to cover first to turn the foul-pop-into-DP
AJ Pierzynski looked like a real catcher shutting down the running game in the late innings
Oh and he had the game winning double off the wall in the 13th

The Bad

Podsednik has undoubtedly been the Sox most valuable outfielder this season, which means he's coming back next year... when he is much more likely to be '06-08 version of himself, which, as we all remember, is exponentially more frustrating than the good '05 and '09 versions.
Tony Pena may have earned himself a new nickname of simply "Mahoney," the fat pitcher from the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial, though Not Brandon Allen works for me too.

The Ugly

Alex Rios lost his last remaining supporter -- I'm not sure who it was -- with his 13th inning error on a routine flyball. I'm sure e-gus would be capping it for us were he not busy getting his fill from the free night in the Jim Beam Club.

I'll have much more on Rios at some point here down the stretch. I've had the same thought I've seen OM express in the comments over the past week about his batting stance ever since about Rios' 3rd game in a Sox uniform. But that really brings up a bigger issue, and I'm waiting for all the juicy quotes to roll in.

In any case, Rios looks like complete garbage in almost every phase of the game. They asked him to bunt -- the $60M extra-inning bunter -- in the bottom of the 12th(?) and even though he got the job done, it was one ugly effort. And that was before his gaffe in the 13th. He's just a complete mess right now, and the Sox don't have anyone who's qualified to fix him.

The Meta

SB*Nation has launched a brand new sbnation.com. The old sbnation site was simply a directory of all the blogs in the network with a few (like 3) story links tossed at the top. The revamped sbnation.com will seek to do on a national level what each SB Nation network blog already does for its team or sport: provide the most timely, engaging and highest quality fan perspective information and conversation on the web.

I'm not entirely sure how it's going to work, since I didn't get to participate in any of the testing. What I can tell you is there is a dedicated team of editors working on providing quality national coverage which includes links to traditional media as well SB*Nation blogs and non-network blogs alike. The left-hand column appears to be some quick-hitting commentary from the editors, while the middle column, the one with all the pretty pictures, is SB*Nation's take on the constantly updating nature of sports news. We're calling them StoryStreams, and they are constantly updated stories that will feature plenty of linking to SB*N and non-SB*N source. Best of all, you can add to stream with links to breaking news or relevant commentary, just click the "promote your post" link in any stream.

Freddy Garcia Just Knows How to Pitch with a 10-run Lead

The Cheat — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:47:27 -0000

More photos » by Nam Y Huh - AP

Freddy Garcia enjoys a dozen runs of support

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I almost forgot that watching baseball could be fun. After not seeing a victory for two solid weeks, I've seen back-to-back well pitched games that were highly entertaining for different reasons, and the first 3-game win streak in over a month. Thursday against the Cubs, it was fun to watch another team commit the type of errors that have plagued the Sox this year, and for the Sox to actually take advantage. Tonight, we got to see the major league debut of Daniel Hudson (more later), a bit of Tyler Flowers, the continued surprisingly effective Freddy Garcia and laugher in the White Sox favor.

Garcia is playing his way into earning himself a callback with the Sox next season. It's a bit ironic. Back when Garcia was reportedly fielding offers from multiple clubs, I had the feeling that he would be most effective in a White Sox uniform, that due to a number of factors (familiarity, comfort, coaching, etc. ) his performance would he sign with a non-White-Sox team would not be directly analogous to his performance were he on the Sox. Then he underwhelmed from the first pitch he threw in NY, earned his release, and eventually caught on with the Sox who threw him almost exclusively in their rookie leagues. By the time he got the call up to take a spot in the Sox rotation, I had abandoned my pre-season theory. So Garcia can just continue to prove me wrong, or right, I don't even know anymore.

Aside from the Sox offense teeing off on a pitcher they're supposed to tee off on, Daniel Hudson's major league debut was the highlight of the evening. Hudson didn't disappoint. He hit the first batter he faced after getting ahead 1-2, but went on to retire the next six batters he faced, though, admittedly, they represented the bulk of Boston's bench and their own September call-ups.

Despite the hit batter -- he just plain held onto the ball too long -- Hudson's control was good, and the scouting reports accurate. He worked down in the zone with his fastball, and when he missed he missed low. Even the hit batter was on the foot. He was sitting at about 93MPH with the fastball, which is a little faster than the reports from Charlotte, but not out of line with his mid-season readings. I was most impressed with his changeup, which looked like a plus pitch to me. And though his slider underwhelmed my eyes through the TV -- it looked more like a straight, back-up slider rather than the sweeper you'd expect from a guy with his delivery -- the hitters didn't seem as unimpressed.

As the Sox eventually fall out of the AL Central race, they'll have plenty of guys ready to stake their claim to the list of 5th starter candidates for next season. Jim highlighted Carlos Torres' strong effort yesterday, before Freddy cemented his place in the conversation today. Throw in DJ Carrasco, who is at least deserving of being in the conversation, and hard-charging Hudson, and the Sox suddenly seem like they might have some starting depth.