White Sox Pregame Notes: Andrew Vaughn struggling to pick his pitches (2024)

It can feel oversimplified when hitters say they need to swing at strikes, or hit their pitches, but Andrew Vaughn’s eighth inning at-bat Tuesday night buttressed hitting coach Marcus Thames’ main point about his offense.

“First and third, gets a first-pitch fastball right where he wants it and we take it,” said Thames. “Then we swing at two fringe sliders. We have to get him back to having that confidence and swinging at his pitches.”

There’s not a single smoking gun in terms of approach issues for this White Sox offense, especially compared to previous seasons. They’re middle of the pack for both swinging at pitches in and out of the zone, and the rate of pitches in the zone they see. They simply lack the talent level of previous Sox lineups where merely average plate discipline would have been a boon.

Their overall lack of production magnifies anecdotal examples like Vaughn’s failure to bring in a run home from third Tuesday night. But Thames’ current work sounds tilted toward the psychological component of being a hitting coach, rather than swing decision development for a lineup that has largely been in the majors for years on end.

“We have to keep him as positive as possible, he hasn’t been in a rut like this since he’s been in the big leagues,” Thames said of Vaughn. “He’s getting pitches to hit and when he’s late, the ball goes on the ground. When he’s early, his bat path works to get the ball up in the air. We did some drill work in the cage earlier today. Hopefully he can trust it and take it into the game.”

Pedro Grifol said Tommy Pham is playing corner outfield Wednesday night for Triple-A Charlotte, and will play center field on Thursday. Beyond that, he wasn’t ready to say.

While Brad Keller had another solid outing with the Knights on Tuesday, Jonathan Cannon and Erick Fedde are the scheduled starters for this weekend.

Martín Maldonado had been Garrett Crochet’s consistent battery mate up to this point this season, but Grifol always insisted he didn’t believe in keeping strict starter-catcher pairing. But it’s hard to miss this part of the manager’s answer when talking about sitting a guy who is 2-for-42 on the season.

“Our responsibility is to put the best lineup out there we think can help us win baseball games, and today [Korey] Lee’s going to get an opportunity,” said Grifol.

Per Statcast framing metrics, Lee does not grade out much better than Maldonado on the whole. But his best area is just below the zone, which looks to be a function of the Sox pitching staff.

“We’ve been working on framing the top-of-the-zone pitch,” said catching coach Drew Butera. “The game has kind of gone from four-seamers at the top to more sinkerballs. You look at our staff, there are a lot of sinkerball pitchers, but our bullpen likes to pitch up. So how do we put Korey in the best position to maximize the low pitch really well and the top pitch too?”

While I am personally of the mind that a manager who matches bullpen choices to good swing plane matchups for his relievers is the sort of decision-making the White Sox need more of, there’s something to be said for everyone knowing their role. But Tuesday night’s tragedies did not sway Grifol out of the approach that their roles will be based on specific parts of the opposing lineup, rather than the inning.

“I like leveraging guys to where we feel the highest leverage to our highest leverage pitcher,” Grifol said. “Sometimes you can do it that way, sometimes you can’t. But yesterday we had it set up to where we wanted the top of the order whenever it came up, whether it was the eighth or ninth, we wanted [Michael] Kopech against the top of the order. We had him warming up in the seventh in case we needed a strikeout to end the inning. [Jordan] Leasure got that last out, he was already and then it was [Christian] Vasquez and the top of the order. That’s how we planned it. We actually liked the matchup between [Steven] Wilson and [Byron] Buxton and that part of the order. It just didn’t work out.”

Director of player development Paul Janish said last year’s second round pick Grant Taylor, selected out of LSU in July while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, is sitting 97-100 mph at the team complex in Arizona. Janish expects Taylor to be ready to head out to an affiliate in May, and he doesn’t think Kannapolis will be the only affiliate he’ll pitch at this year.

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