Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale is out for 2020, if the season happens, after undergoing Tommy John surgery. But, of course, I never miss an opportunity to mention my favorite former White Sox pitcher of all-time, so ...
I was reading Baseball Digest recently when I learned that Sale has the best strikeout-to-walk ratio of all-time among pitchers with at least 2,000 career strikeouts.
Sale reached that career milestone in 2019, despite having a down and injury-plagued season.
Here is that leaderboard. Four of the top seven pitchers are active:
1. *Sale: 2,007 Ks, 374 BBs, 5.37 ratio
2. Curt Schilling: 3,116 Ks, 711 BBs, 4.38 ratio
3. *Max Scherzer: 2,692 Ks, 618 BBs, 4.36 ratio
4. *Clayton Kershaw: 2,464 Ks, 577 BBs, 4.27 ratio
5. Pedro Martinez: 3,154 Ks, 760 BBs, 4.15 ratio
6. Dan Haren: 2,013 Ks, 500 BBs, 4.03 ratio
7. *Zack Greinke: 2,622 Ks, 667 BBs, 3.93 ratio
Editor's note: I apologize for the radio silence on this blog as of late. I don't want to get caught up in the speculation of whether there will be a 2020 baseball season. I don't know. You don't know. Nobody knows, so why spend any time on it? I will try to do a better job in May of posting things that I find interesting about the great American game.
One of the things I'll be watching when baseball returns is whether home run totals continue to spike in video game-like fashion, as they did in 2019.
Most of us already are familiar with the absurd numbers. The 2018 New York Yankees set a single-season home run record, hitting 267 as a team. That record lasted one year, as four teams surpassed that total in 2019.
The Minnesota Twins hit an almost-unbelievable 307 homers as a team, followed by the Yankees (306), Houston Astros (288) and Los Angeles Dodgers (279).
Individual home run totals reached ridiculous heights as well, with 58 players totaling 30 home runs or more. How much of an outlier is that? Consider this chart:
Players with 30-plus home runs 2019: 58 2018: 27 2017: 41 2016: 38 2015: 20
A whopping 31 more players hit 30-plus homers in 2019 when compared to 2018. That total of 58 is even more than 2000, perhaps the height of the steroids era, when 47 players topped the 30-homer plateau.
Then there's this:
Players with 40-plus home runs 2019: 10 2018: 3 2017: 5 2016: 8 2015: 9
Ten players hitting 40-plus homers in 2019 pales in comparison to 2000, when 16 guys reached that milestone. But it's still a significant jump to go from three 40-home run hitters to 10 in one year's time.
Here's something else crazy to chew on while you're waiting out the COVID-19 pandemic: Before 2019, only 47 teams in the history of Major League Baseball hit 226 home runs in a season. In 2019, the league *average* was 226 homers -- that's equivalent to 25 home runs per spot in the batting order.
We already know we won't have a full 2020 season to use as a point of comparison, but if baseball resumes and we have, say, a 100-game season, if you see teams getting up to 140 or 150 home runs as a lineup, that's about the threshold where we'll be able to say the long-ball trend has continued.
My favorite memory of Ed Farmer involves a day when I never actually saw him: Aug. 20, 2016.
My girlfriend, Jen, and I had tickets to a ballgame between the White Sox and the Oakland Athletics. We were sitting at ChiSox Bar & Grill on 35th Street eating dinner before the game, when the restaurant manager approached us and asked if we'd like a ticket upgrade.
Umm ... sure!
Turns out Farmer didn't have anyone to take his tickets that day, so he told the restaurant manager to give them to people who looked like true Sox fans. Well, I'd like to think we qualify, and we ended up sitting right behind the Sox's dugout for that game.
We had an awesome view of Chris Sale tossing eight innings of three-hit, shutout ball as the Sox defeated Oakland, 6-2, that night. Somewhat amusingly, Ross Detwiler -- current Sox roster filler -- took the loss for the Athletics after giving up six runs on 10 hits over four innings.
Thanks for the great seats, Ed! I've never forgotten it!
Sadly, Farmer died Wednesday night at his home in Calabasas, Calif. He was 70 years old.
I could tell you about how Farmer was a native South Sider who grew up dreaming of playing at Comiskey Park, and how those dreams came true during an 11-year playing career that included an All-Star Game appearance in 1980 as a member of the Sox.
And I could tell you about his long broadcasting career with the Sox, which began in 1991 and continued until spring training this year, when Farmer had to step aside because of his declining health.
But instead of listening to me babble, let's hear from Farmer in his own words about a life in baseball:
RIP, Ed. Your activities here will not be forgotten.
Let's stay optimistic that the 2020 season will start someday, even though there's a reasonable chance that it won't.
Michael Kopech recently was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte, which cut the White Sox's roster down to 27, which means we have a reasonable idea what the 26-man roster would look like if the season were to begin.
Wondering which of these 27 wouldn't make the cut? Welp, Rodon is still recovering from elbow surgery, so he'd be headed to the injured list if the season were to actually begin.
You can look at these other 26, and it's pretty close to your team. Hamilton may end up in Charlotte to get the pitching staff down to 13, and another position player (Nick Madrigal) could be added.
It was disappointing that the White Sox were rained out Wednesday. The Sox were supposed to play the Colorado Rockies in Cactus League action, and Lucas Giolito, Gio Gonzalez and Jace Fry were all scheduled to pitch.
Each of those three pitchers is coming back from an injury that sidelined them during the early part of camp, and I was eager to see how close they would look to being ready to start the season.
Alas, Mother Nature had other plans.
But, speaking of returns from injury, how about Michael Kopech on Tuesday? Sure, the Sox lost, 9-2, to the Texas Rangers, but it was actually an encouraging day for the South Siders and their fans.
That's because Kopech looked like he did before his elbow injury. He needed only 11 pitches to work a 1-2-3 first inning. His fastball consistently hit 98 mph-plus on the radar gun, and his heater topped out at 101 mph -- his final pitch striking out Greg Bird looking.
After missing the zone on each of his first two pitches, Kopech fired seven of his final nine over the plate and ended the inning quickly. Kopech admitted that "adrenaline was a factor" with the high velocity, but hey, at least we know it's still there after surgery. It will be an exciting time when Kopech returns to the mound at Guaranteed Rate Field for the first time since 2018.
One of the things I like about the Baseball Digest season preview is it comes out a little later than the other ones. That means it takes trades and other roster moves that happened late in the offseason into account.
For instance, this magazine has Mookie Betts as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers -- not the Boston Red Sox -- and that makes it different than some of the other ones I've read.
I try not to give away too much about these magazines' predictions -- copyright infringement and all -- but it's been quite unusual to read positive thoughts on the White Sox.
Baseball Digest has the Sox finishing second in the American League Central behind the Minnesota Twins, a forecast that is both optimistic and realistic.
The magazine notes that the Sox have the longest postseason drought of any team in their division, and the second-longest drought of any team in the American League. It also refers to "octogenarian chairman Jerry Reinsdorf," which is quite amusing, and notes that Reinsdorf and general Rick Hahn were out to end that postseason drought with significant moves this offseason.
