Series Preview: Chicago White Sox @ Seattle Mariners

Mariners current draft spot: 5th

The offensive barrage continued and good thing too because the run prevention people didn't exactly excel to the best of their ability.

Because it's finally not us, here's a rundown of some of Chicago's contracts:

Jake Peavy (often injured): see below
Alex Rios (terrible): $12M with three years and $38M remaining
Adam Dunn (terrible): $12M with three years and $44M remaining

Meanwhile, Mark Buehrle is slated to be a free agent this winter.

Fri 26 Aug 19:10
CHARLIE FURBUSH*	JAKE PEAVY

Almost regardless of how well Casper Wells ends up being, it feels a little to me that Charlie Furbush needs to succeed as a back of the rotation starter in order to not feel bad about the Doug Fister trade. Since the PTBNL was Chance Ruffin, switching out Fister for a pair of relief arms is underwhelming. I don't know why Wells and Francisco Martinez don't seem to factor into my emotional equation. Perhaps it is a pitcher vs not-pitcher barrier. Whatever it is, I'm left with placing probably too much hope on the narrow shoulders of Furbush.

Jake Peavy is a little over half way through his 3-year/$52-million contract that he signed with San Diego. He's making $16 million this season, $17 the next and has a $22 million club option for 2013. For that he's so far been kind of good. More on the okay side, but definitely above average by smart metrics. However, his run average is decidedly poor thanks in part to a bad strand rate.

Sat 27 Aug 19:10
MICHAEL PINEDA	JOHN DANKS*

John Danks is having another John Danks year. In his five full year of starting for Chicago, Danks has posted a strikeout rate each time between 18% and 20% and a walk rate between 7% and 9%. Aside from his first season, his ground ball rate has been either 43% or 44%. Whereas Michael Pineda will surely work on endurance and his changeup, here is a sneak peak at John Danks' offseason to do list:

1. Buy new wool socks for winter
2. Continue being John Danks
3. Consider growing hair

Danks is a free agent after next season and would be going into just his age-28 season. Start readying yourself now for the inevitable "woah, John Danks got a lot of money" reaction.

Sun 28 Aug 13:10
JASON VARGAS*	GAVIN FLOYD

Jason Vargas started a year ago almost to the day. The game was against the Twins and Scott Baker and at the time, I compared the two, noting that "Jason Vargas comes from the Scott Baker mold but had his polarity reversed and lost some strikeouts along the way." I honestly have no idea what I meant by the polarity thing, but Vargas was very similar to Baker numbers-wise except for the strikeouts. Oh, wait, Baker's right-handed! That's what I meant. Haha, clever. Anyways, while Vargas remains about the same pitcher albeit with slightly more ground balls, Scott Baker has gone with the times and improved his strikeouts and walks and become even more of a solid middle to top rotation pitcher. Now I wish we had Scott Baker. How does Scott Baker miss so many bats with his middling fastball? You're more interesting than Jason Vargas, Scott Baker.