As the “Rally Squirrel” becomes the latest hero of the Twins’ season, here are some items from around the AL Central…
- There have been multiple indications that a new contract between the White Sox and impending free agent Jose Abreu seems inevitable, and the first baseman gave another today, telling Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times that Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf has all but officially promised a new deal. “Jerry several times has told me and my family that I am not going to wear a jersey other than a White Sox jersey,” Abreu said via a translator. “I believe him. I believe in his word. And like I said, I’m very happy with and loyal to this organization. Hopefully everything is going to pan out.” The veteran slugger is still an above-average bat, though his 109 wRC+ (from a .273/.313/.496 slash line over 536 PA heading into today’s action) represents the lowest mark of Abreu’s six MLB seasons.
- Danny Duffy “felt good” after tossing a 65-pitch simulated game on Tuesday, the Royals southpaw told Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star and other reporters. Depending on how Duffy feels today, K.C. could activate him from the injured list or potentially get him into another sim game before he returns to the active roster. Since Duffy noted that he only started jogging on Monday and “probably the most I’ve ran was at 80 percent,” he and the team could decide to wait a bit longer before an activation. Duffy’s IL placement retroactively dates back to August 4, as the veteran left-hander is recovering from a left hamstring strain.
- Tigers right-hander Beau Burrows is recovering from a left oblique strain and has been shut down for the remainder of the season. As Chris McCosky of the Detroit News writes, the injury concludes what has been a trying season for the pitching prospect, as Burrows also dealt with a shoulder issue at the start of the year and posted a 5.51 ERA over 65 1/3 innings at Triple-A. Like many minor league hurlers this season, Burrows has had trouble keeping the ball in the park, surrendering 12 homers over those 65 1/3 frames. Burrows, the 22nd overall pick of the 2015 draft, received some top-100 prospect attention from Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com prior to the 2018 season, but his stock dropped after only a decent year at Double-A. It all adds up to a tricky offseason decision for the Tigers, who now have to choose whether or not to add Burrows to the 40-man roster in order to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. Detroit has multiple prospects that are Rule 5-eligible and only a certain amount of open space, leading McCosky to wonder if they would still protect Burrows if his future (as some in the organization believe) is ultimately as a relief arm.
- Burrows isn’t the only question mark within the Tigers’ crop of young hurlers, as Franklin Perez is still trying to get on track from the shoulder problems that have essentially cost him two seasons, Lynn Henning of the Detroit News writes. Once seen as the centerpiece of the trade package the Tigers received for Justin Verlander two years ago, Perez was a consensus top-100 prospect heading into the 2018 season, and MLB.com still had him 78th on its top 100 list prior to this season. Since the start of the 2018 campaign, however, Perez has tossed just 27 total innings amidst multiple trips to the injured list. Adding to the frustration, Henning writes, is the fact that doctors have been unable to find any underlying structural issue that would explain the pain Perez has felt in game action. Perez doesn’t turn 22 until December, though it remains to be seen when (or even if) he’ll be able to pitch on a consistent basis, let alone effectively enough to get him back on a path to the big leagues.
There is zero chance that Burrows isn’t placed on the Tigers 40 man roster when the time comes.
Agreed
If they are going to sign Abreu, they may want to do it now, before his impeding hot streak bumps his overall numbers and makes him more attractive, thus driving his price up.
They. Drag. Out. Everything.
K.
Dumpster Divin Jerry!
not even remotely applicable
@Banesays
My apologies to Bill Smith and his idiotic comment below. I take his award away and give it to you Bane.
Congratulations, Bane, you just won the Idiotic Comment of the Day! In fact, you have a strong shot at the Idiotic Comment of the Year award.
How is it not relevant? He goes on EVERY Cubs article and says the same about Theo. I could give a rats behind if you think my comment is smart or not. I’m making fun of that moron 311. If you can’t catch on to that, then you deserve your fake award.
@Banesays
How in any way, shape, or form is keeping Abreu considered a dumpster dive? I am at a complete loss to your poorly developed logic. WOW!!!
BTW, I’m not exactly sure how I was supposed to connect chitown311’s post of “K” to your reasoning behind your incredibly moronic reply.
Nothing wrong with a good dumpster dive comment, but a bad one?
Children
please!
311’s wasn’t towards my comment. I am TROLLING HIM. I don’t know how hard it is to comprehend that.
No one is misunderstanding your intentions. We just reppin our boi!
@Banesays
Gotcha. Next time I’ll try to remember to bring my mind-reading skills to the table.
And keep up the good work trolling. We can never have enough Cub trolls on our message boards.
Just like we can never have enough delusional Sox fans think that Jerry will actually open his checkbook.
@Banesays
Did you eat lead paint chips when you were a kid?
It would explain a lot.
The White Sox will let Abreu test the market
with a “let us match any
offer” note pinned to
his chest. Then when
Abreu sees how little
teams value corner
infield sluggers he
will return to Chicago
with his tail between
his legs, so to speak.
And Jerry will enjoy
his discount…..
Sorry Jorge,
But it says, “will never wear another uni than a White Sox uni” (roughly).
So you can’t apply typical free market strategy to this. A lot of teams are watching how we do our business, and our rebuild plans. Abreu will be on the White Sox for 3 more years minimum. The ensuing contract is probably going to be unusual and very interesting.
extremely likely Burrows is not only selected in the rule 5 draft, but selected 1st overall. Luciano, Cordoba, ane Torrens were picked out of the low minors, im sure a team will pick up a well regarded pitcher who could possibly start for them in short order.
Whoever takes him will give him back after he gets shellacked in his first few starts, if that’s how they use him. Talented player, but he has A LOT of adjustments to make before he can start in the bigs.
then perhaps its the Brad Keller route. tell me its impossible for Burrows to be held onto and actually br productive when Keller struggled in AA in 2017, has yet to see AAA, and did not have to deal with the juiced balls of today’s AAA.
Great. I look forward to a $15mil. 2021 Jose Abreu mirroring 2013 Paul Konerko, but with worse defense, while the Sox are trying to contend..
they could always DH him.
If Abreu can’t force the White Sox to sign him for sentimental reasons he might be able to shame them into a K. Looks like Reinsdorf is taking charge on Abreu. Maybe He can slip a diminishing skills clause in his K. Sounds like Rick Hahn must have to ask Reinsdorf if he can take a p***.
Owners own.
This could be an interesting contract, and one for more than 3 years.
Sentimentality has nothing to do with contract negotiations. If it was, he would have been offered an extension months ago. It’s business… veteran 1B with an expiring contract on a rebuilding team has very little leverage. The organization loves Jose, but there’s a process they adhere to sentimentality doesn’t cause them to overpay unnecessarily. $24MM over 2 years would be fair market value, maybe add a nice signing bonus and incentives to sweeten it.
Please excuse the errors, my iPhone owns me.
You
are
excused!
@Bill Smith
Abreu looks washed up already, doesn’t he? 28HR, 96 RBI, .276 BA, .815 OPS sure are ugly numbers so far. I can’t believe the Sox haven’t DFA’d him, let alone discuss keeping him on past ’19.
And how dare Reinsdorf stick his nose in the Sox activities. I can’t believe JR’s gall to even have this conversation with Abreu. JR obviously doesn’t know his place. After all, he’s only the owner of the team.
I haven’t done this in a while, but congratulations, you just won the Idiotic Comment of the Day!
Owners
gotta
own!
@pplama
Are you assuming Vaughn won’t be up in Chicago in ’21?
By ’21, I’m guessing Abreu will be strictly DH’ing, spelling Vaughn at 1B maybe 15 to 20 games a year.
How could the tigers risk losing a young Prospect when their roster is loaded with garbage. Beckham, rodriguez, Mercer, hardy, cisnero, McKay, Alexander, verhager, Peterson, carpenter, stumpf, zeininger, Even hicks could probably pass through waivers.
Ronny, McKay, Alexander, VerHagen, and Carpenter are all pieces that they’d like to have around. They’re all talented guys who are versatile, all they need is work.
theyre keeping Ronny and Alexander for sure, but McKay is replaceable, and VerHagen has already been successfully outrighted this year.
Starting to look like the Tigers got fleeced on the JV deal. Perez is a head case, Cameron is striking out at a ridiculous rate, but Rogers was a good add. Just wish he wasn’t alone.
I will wait on cameron until after next year. I think if he is at aaa another year he should improve quite a bit. You can see speed and power and solid defense. He just needs to catch up to the speed of the game. I think he will get there.
I gave up on Perez.
Roger’s should gradually get better. I think if they pick up alex avila to back him up, he could really improve.
For this site or any other to even suggest that this is Jose Abreu’s worse season of his career simply based on some advanced analytic number is pure crap. In 3 less games and a handful fewer PA’s Abreu has already exceeded his entire 2018 season HR total by 6 and his RBI’s by 18 along with a better BA and SLG number. Following this afternoon’s game versus the Twins Abreu has already slugged 28 HR’s and amassed 96 RBI’s and has another 6+ weeks of 2019 to add to these numbers.
Abreu has also already surpassed the 25 HR’s he posted in 2016 and is a virtual lock to produce the highest RBI total of his 6 MLB seasons, blowing by the 107 he produced in his 2014 ROY campaign. He’s done all this with a 2019 White Sox offense that is still below average. I can only imagine the numbers he might produce as soon as 2020 with Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal sitting atop the White Sox batting order along with a healthy Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez and Tim Anderson complimenting him for a full season.
Player hits home runs, just like every other player in baseball this year.
Story at 11.
Only 10 AL players have hit more HR’s than Abreu as of this post. He is also alone in 3rd place with his 96 RBI’s, 5 off Rafael Devers league leading 101 and just 2 behind Mike Trout’s 98.
@Aaron Sapoznik
What are you doing? You’re using tried and true stats to support your argument. You can’t do that! Why aren’t you using advanced analytics to support your argument? Get with the program! LOL
@pplama
Player drives in 96 runs with an underwhelming lineup, just like every other player in baseball this year.
Story at 11.
You Cub trolls crack me up.
Breaking Alert!
Guy who doesn’t understand peripherals attempts to argue positive RBI totals with “underwhelming” line-up!
So players should avoid driving in runs? Follow-up story at 11:30.
@WereAllJustGuestsHere
Awesome reply! Thank you.
@pplama
You just confirmed what I suspected, you’re one of those “analytic experts” who lack common sense. Thank you for removing any doubt.
BTW, I’m not saying all analytic experts lack common sense (that’s definitely not the case), but you certainly do based on that reply.
@Aaron Sapoznik
So many players would kill to have Abreu’s “career worst” numbers if his season ended today, let alone what he will add to these numbers over the next 36 games.
Advanced analytics have their place and can be very useful, but so many times they are misused and distort the story. I love the other day when a writer suggested Colome had the peripherals of an average middle reliever. The writer was just doing his job, comparing numbers, albeit without using common sense. Or someone suggesting Madrigal’s game wouldn’t translate to MLB because his ISO was around .100, even though he’s not a power hitter. Or someone suggesting McCann wasn’t good behind the plate using pitch framing as his argument, as if that’s the standard to use for catchers.
Analytics are simply tools. So many times people don’t use any common sense when using these tools for their arguments.
have to agree there. dont need advanced stats to tell me what the basic stats say.
Abreu’s stats are great this year, he is in the best shape that I’ve seen in his 6 years, his veteran leadership & desire to be a lifelong White Sock is both baffling and awesome considering they haven’t sniffed the playoffs since he arrived. I would like to see him signed to a 3 yr deal soon after season ends. The last week of the season Abreu was facing Clevinger who was dealing, Jose ripped a shot down the left field line on a 97 mph pitch belt high in off the plate that only 10 hitters in MLB could have gotten to and/or kept fair. Diminishing skills my ars ! Sign him, Castellanos & Gerrit Cole no team will be looking forward to playing the Sox in 2020. See if San Diego will give us Tatis, Jr. back for Tim Anderson and you can even throw in Rodon who i don’t ever believe will pitch a full season.
I’m hoping the Sox resign Abreu to a two year deal. He’s a fine man, an experienced veteran slugger and I think he will be an excellent influence on our young players. Jose has played only on losing teams in Chicago and deserves to be on the winner the Sox will field next year. He is heading for another 100+ RBI season.
The Sox are in competing mode in 2020 so keeping Abreu around makes sense.
I don’t know about competing but I’d like Abreu at first base batting behind Miggy
We know your Tigers won’t be competing in 2020 “tradepartner” but the Sox will be. Miggy should retire at the end of this yr