As a lauded 21-year-old catching prospect, Cuban-born Edgar Quero is in a communication-focused role in his second language. If a Zoom call with beat reporters is any indication, he's approaching it with disarming bluntness.
For example, after a gangbusters April where Quero hit .279/.363/.544, but followed it with a .167/.272/.244 line in May, were you curious what was going on with him? Especially now that he's rebounded with an absurd .546/.615/.909 start to June that earned him Southern League Player of the Week honors?
"My timing in the box was a little bit fucked up," Quero said on a Zoom call, a few hours before extending his 11-game hitting streak.
Asked and answered, I'd say.
More specifically, Quero said he tried to focus on his plate discipline and being more judicious on pitch selection during his slump, in lieu of not feeling on time to drive the ball the way he'd like. He drew 11 walks in May, which is a season-high at this point but likely to be eclipsed if he keeps pulverizing the ball. Catching prospects develop uniquely, their offensive profiles can bounce around based on how their legs are feeling and as you can see, they can run hot and cold at the plate. But Quero is the rare Sox prospect who can draw 11 walks in a month and lament that his rate is down from last year.
And since he was optimistic in spring that his leaner body would allow him to rotate his hips faster in his swing, it seemed worthwhile to check in on that as well.
"I feel like a little better compared to last year because I was a little fat," Quero said, cracking himself up slightly at this point. "I feel like I can play every day. Right now, I have 12 games in a row so I feel like, normal. I know I can play every day right now. I want to play every day. I don’t want to be that guy who plays two games and rests the next day."
Honestly, letting Andrew Vaughn play through the pain of a sprained left ring finger did not sound like an encouraging project when Pedro Grifol announced it as the plan going forward last week at Wrigley Field. This audience has seen Paul Konerko laid low by nagging hand pain, and Vaughn wrangling with the worst start of his career did not seem like a stronger opponent.
But lo and behold, since returning, Vaughn has resumed what is now a 11-game hitting streak. You wouldn't be alone if it felt like that number snuck up on you -- especially since he got hurt in the middle of it -- but he's been legitimately hot, if swing-happy, over the streak's duration (.364/.391/.636). After Tuesday night's solo shot, Vaughn actually has scored in every game he's played since returning from injury. Would Vaughn be willing to play through a sprained finger for the rest of his career if he meant he scored a run in every game?
"Yeah, sure." said Vaughn.
And to think he considers himself a feel over numbers guy.
Rather than sprain a new finger on Vaughn's hand every week and see if his average exit velocity gains a mile per hour each time, Sox coaches have been pointing to his average exit velocity being on the uptick into the low-90s for the last month or so. And Vaughn's expected wOBA per Statcast is up to .314 for this year, which is within arms reach of the .319 he posted each of the last two seasons.
That's not enough to book him to still make the leap that Chris Getz suggested was in the offing in spring, but suggests Vaughn is closer to his normal baselines than uh, occasional calls to send him to the minors might have suggested.
"Vaughny never really did concern me," said Grifol, who self-admittedly tends not to abandon faith in a player easily. "You can hit the ball to right field, you can hit the ball to right-center but you've also got to pull some balls because if not, you become a little easier to pitch to. Watch him now and now he's line to line. His power is over there to right-center, balls are leaving the yard, exit velocity is increasing. I wasn't too concerned for him. I really wasn't. I just wanted to make sure he continued to do the work and these guys continue to get creative with him. It's just going to happen."
Two and a half months into the season, Korey Lee is still No. 1 with a bullet atop the Statcast pop time leaderboards, averaging a cool 1.85 seconds to second base.
For the most part, the developmental victory lap belongs to Lee's parents moreso than the White Sox; the gap between Lee's league leading 89 mph average velocity and Christian Bethancourt (87.6 mph) in second place, is the same as the gap between Bethancourt and seventh-place Yainer Díaz (86.2 mph).
If you've ever wondered how much of a role pitchers have in holding runners, Lee has thrown out just nine of 47 potential base thieves this year, along with a pickoff. Lee's average pop time on successful steals of second against him (1.86 seconds) would be tied for the second-fastest pop time in baseball.
But Lee has shaved a little time off his average exchange with his work alongside catching coach Drew Butera, and believes eliminating rushing and just focus on clean transfers has allowed him to throw from a consistent sturdy base.
"I've always been able to be athletic back there, I think it's just simplifying the move in order to make it the most consistent," Lee said. "It's just trying to get the ball. That's the most important thing. If you have the ball in your hand you have a shot to get them out, and if you don't have the ball in your hand, you can't throw it down to second."
A tidbit I definitely did not mean to leave out of a recent story on pitching prospect Sean Burke is that he has shifted his placement on the pitching rubber toward the third base side.
The shift came at the suggestion of John DeRouin, who is on the University of Arizona coaching staff but overlapped with Burke during his amateur days in New England. The idea behind it is to add a little crossfire element from Burke's six-foot, six-inch frame to help him make his four-seamer formidable when he tries to place under the hands of left-handed hitters, who tattooed him for a .290/.402/.652 line while he was pitching through shoulder soreness last year.
"Lefties it's coming from a wider angle, righties it's coming almost with the ball starting in-line with their body, and it kind of gives them a different look," Burke said. "Once I made that adjustment it took about a week or so for me to get used to it. But now that I'm used to it, I feel like I'm able to drive stuff to the glove side. I'm able to feel really sharp with my breaking stuff."
I just picked four items that were interesting to me, but I would hate to give the impression that this is not a historically awful team everyone is watching. Since the open of the Brewers series, the White Sox bullpen is running a 9.47 ERA.
That's come via 63 hits, 20 walks and five hit batters in 38 innings. They have blown nine saves in that 11-game span, in which they have gone 2-9 as a team. As a whole, the White Sox bullpen has the third-highest ERA (4.90) in the game and the second-highest walk rate (11.5 percent).
As an incurable optimist, that this stretch has still not quite made the Sox bullpen the worst in the sport suggests that maybe they're not wholly incapable of protecting a small late lead ever again. Sox relievers have suffered a .472 BABIP against them over this 11-game stretch, during which time they posted a 4.30 FIP; only slight below-average.
Of course, the Sox defense is last in baseball in team Defensive Runs Saved, Outs Above Average...
