The White Sox open a series against Minnesota with a doubleheader, one of two remaining on the schedule. Tony La Russa seems to have a pretty easy setup for this one, at least if the freshly extended Lance Lynn can take care of business in Game 1. Reynaldo López starts the nightcap, and the game's seven-inning nature turns four innings from López from a failure to a triumph.
As long as the White Sox's starting pitching remains stout with the middle-relief picture dicey -- and Friday's game against Houston suggests peril at every turn before Michael Kopech and maybe Garrett Crochet -- seven-inning set up as well for the White Sox as anybody. And with the White Sox set to bring back at least four-fifths of the rotation next year, it'd seemingly be in the White Sox's interest to maintain this arrangement.
Alas, Rob Manfred said over the All-Star break that both seven-inning doubleheaders and the runner on second to start extra innings were COVID-19 measures that will be on the way out as soon as 2022, at least barring heavy resistance from the MLBPA.
In a follow-up item in his notebook, Bob Nightengale reinforced the notion that seven-inning doubleheaders are on the way out, but he said the Manfred Man on second could stay, with an alteration:
While the seven-inning doubleheaders are likely going away for good in 2022, as commissioner Rob Manfred said, the extra-inning rule likely will stick around, although modified. Instead of teams starting the 10th inning with a runner on second base, it’s quite possible that it begins an inning or two later.
Part of my objection to Manfred Man is how suddenly the game swings to arcade mode after what's probably a tense ride through nine, or at least the later innings of regulation. The 12th inning sounds like a reasonable time to push teams toward a conclusion.
SPARE PARTS
In his summary of the White Sox's potential paths over the next 12 days, James Fegan references what's allowed for Michael Kopech for the foreseeable future:
“I’m cleared to go back-to-back or multiple innings; one or the other,” Kopech said. “I’ve come back feeling a little more explosive, a little bit better. And pitching wherever they need me is a relief. I like going out there and getting to be competitive in late innings. But ‘whenever they need me’ is kind of my mindset right now. My last few have just been later. It’s been cool.”
Dan Szymborski projects Lance Lynn's performance through 2028 and doesn't see dominance, but he also doesn't see Lynn encountering a significant age-related drop-off until 2026.
The ZiPS projections liked Lynn to have a gentle decline through his 30s, but not one that was likely to merit a gigantic payday. The aging curve for pitchers tends to be more attrition-based than for hitters, but a long-term deal for Lynn would start to get him into his late 30s, where you do start seeing a significant dropoff in skills along with the playing time. ZiPS would have given him a longer-term deal — four years, $84 million — but the $45.5 million projection for the next two years is not a galaxy apart from his $38 million guarantee.
PERTINENT: Lance Lynn extension shows White Sox can sell themselves
The Twins are at a crossroads with their best position player and pitcher, as both are on track to reach free agency at the end of the 2022 season. Ken Rosenthal says the Twins are trying to pressure Byron Buxton into signing a contract extension that, given Buxton's densely populated injury history, is hard to reconcile as a great or terrible idea:
The team’s latest offer to Buxton is in excess of the $70 million the Yankees awarded center fielder Aaron Hicks over a seven-year extension in Feb. 2019, sources said. Buxton, 27, likely will be dealt if he rejects the proposal, if not by the July 30 trade deadline — he currently is on the injured list with a fractured left hand — then this offseason.
Now here's a case where a reported contract offer sounds low without giving it much thought. The Marlins supposedly offered Starling Marte a three-year, $30 million extension and won't go any higher, so count on him being part of the free-agent pool unless another team acquires him and extends him.
Rob Arthur went through Retrosheet's database to see how much starting pitchers could swing attendance figures when controlling for other aspects, and found a tie between star pitchers and home attendance boosts, and the inverse.
Above is a sampling of some of the top pitchers over this timeframe, and how much they boosted attendance per game in home games. These effects are regressed depending on the number of games a pitcher started, so it stands to reason that playing time as well as fame are factors in affecting game turnout.
There are also players who suppress attendance, albeit typically by smaller margins. Because everything is quantified relative to the average attendance, it’s not fair to say that these players are actively driving fans away from the ballpark so much as yielding less interest than an average pitcher on the bump. For example, Nick Pivetta is associated with a 2000-fan deficit in attendance, presumably not because people are avoiding his games so much as because their reaction to his starts is likely to be “Who’s Nick Pivetta?” Of course, for a handful of back-of-the-rotation players, there probably is some desire to skip their games altogether, considering they can sometimes be penciled in as near-guaranteed losses.
This story came to mind when watching more than 100,000 people in the stands over three games between the White Sox and Astros at Guaranteed Rate Field. While fans might want to see Lynn, Carlos Rodón and Lance Lynn more than Dallas Keuchel and Dylan Cease, the Sox don't have a starting pitcher that makes one roll their eyes and think about waiting for tomorrow if all the other elements are in place for a pleasant night out.
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SOX MACHINE STORE NOTE
Today marks the last day of the preorder window for Sox Machine ballcaps. I'll be turning off preorders at noon on Tuesday in order to place a bulk order this week. I'll be including a few extras at each size for those who didn't get around to it, but preordering leaves nothing to chance on your end, and makes it easier to accurately gauge demand on my order.
(Photo by Arturo Pardavila III)
