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I think Gavin Sheets as the headliner for Sean Manaea made lots of sense if the White Sox then signed Conforto or added a different LHH outfielder. I'm not sure they can trade Sheets right now without doing that because they have to get more left-handed. It's imperative. Also from what i've heard, Sean Manaea would love to be with the White Sox and likely returns to the midwest in free agency regardless. This trade isn't up to him though obviously.

Didn't he just Monday say......

It's funny. People see the obvious loss of production and development when you put Crochet into a limited role and limit his innings and growth, but want to do the exact same thing to a guy with just as high of a ceiling in Andrew Vaughn by turning him into a weakside platoon hitter. Andrew Vaughn should have 500 ABs by himself this year. Period. End of story.

I kinda wish Romy was starting at 2B over Harrison.

I honestly can't decide on how much I like Sheets. I go back and forth. One day, I'll be thinking, "Sheets had some solid numbers, but it was against very favorable matchups, and the pitchers will adjust. Trade him now while he's at his peak." Then the next day, I'll think, "Man, Sheets didn't just have good numbers...he had some good-looking at bats. He knows how to work the count and take his walks, and he's only going to get better. He also had some HUGE hits last year in key spots. He could be the lefty power bat that we so desperately need."

Jack, this is a stupid fucking question and you know it.

As someone who works, but doesn't go to weeknight games, I love this. It means I can watch a whole game without getting to bed late.

And trade Bellinger for Kimbrel

It's insane enough that it made a Caulfield paragraph totally on point and accurate.

Love the organization selling us on the importance of great contact skills for the 35 year old nick madrigal.

Money. JR doesn't like eating money. Hahn doesn't want to give him away. If the Sox were an effective organization they would have eaten 3m or so to get a better return three weeks ago.

That is not true. The problem with not offering the QO was not getting the pick when he went elsewhere. Rodon was never accepting the QO.

Huge grain of salt/FWIW, but have a good buddy in Chicago who claims there's a Sox scout at his gym that he got to talking to, basically confirmed all our greatest fears, scouts are all furious about the offseason, zero offers for Kimbrel, his $ is preventing any payroll add, Harrison was their 4th choice. Good times.

Sheets quite literally IS the DH as things stand. He'll DH 90%+ of the time against RHP. Only days he wouldn't are days Grandal needs to DH and a righty happens to be on the mound. Maybe they stick him in RF those days and give AV a breather. Trading Sheets right now without an immediate plan to acquire a left handed hitting RF and rotate Eloy/AV between LF and DH is simply something they cannot do right now. Again, moving Sheets for Manaea is great and dandy if you're prepared to signed Conforto. But that will also require dumping Kimbrel. Seems like a lot of moving parts to save for the last 8 days of ST.....

They need more and it's really obvious.

It was a year and half of Berrios. And Berrios is a much better pitcher than Manaea.

I know most here don't believe it, but this is a top 5 team on paper. Taking this winter off didn't change that.

As someone who already doesn't like going to weekday games, I like it. And if I were to go, I would arrange to leave work early. This actually makes it more likely for me to go.

Yeah, I think there's something to being more critical of the teams you follow/love. I also think that ties into the difference in opinion between fans and national writes. Many of us here watch most, if not all of the Sox games, so we are all too familiar with the roster and its strengths and flaws. Then you have someone like Jim Bowden's write up from the Athletic, as quoted above, and there's not a single mention of starting pitching. Nothing about losing Rodon, nothing about hoping Kopech can provide a significant increase in innings from his 69.1 IP from last year, nothing about the lack of depth. It's just a really high-level, borderline lazy view of the offseason IMO.

So, I've tried to be realistic with the constraints and place of the team and stuff blah blah. Immediately following the loss I actually felt good about running it back in general. That last game featured Sheets hitting a home run for our lone run, and the night before there was a beautiful double from Vaughn. Tepera was nails in the playoff. But running it back meant re-signing 'Los. And so they are just worse than last year. I do absolutely love Joe Kelly. The handling of the Rodon QO is terrible. I am not swayed at all by the health stuff. The worst case scenario is just a 1-year deal. The best case scenario is it's a 1-year deal where he again throws like an ace. The next best case scenario is he declines, signs elsewhere, and your extremely barren farm system that cannot produce enough bullpen arms and utility players gets another $1 million in budget for the next draft. Inexcusably bad. Kimbrel, just incredibly dumb. He seems miserable, I'm miserable because he seems like a whiney baby and hate watching him pitch, but I actually do think picking up his option could have worked out fine. I didn't even value the money, I actually thought, and still believe, that paying off $4-5 million of his contract (putting him at $12 mill) would bring back more value to the org than merely getting $15mill cash. But the worst thing instead happened in that they misread his value, and now are paying $32 million for two relievers (but $18 million for a starter? Oh my heavens but he could get hurt!!!) Then second base. Ooh how this hurt, especially being a leading proponent of trading madrigal because you can get by finding second baseman cheaply found its major flaw in that argument: That assumes you have a competent front office. The cheap second baseman were there, even if you didn't want $10 million tied up in escobar, Adam Frazier and Joey Wendle provided high contact 2b that hit well against RHP. Not incredible guys, but Madrigal wasn't incredible. He was a nice complement though in approaches, which these guys also found. Instead they now have 2 powerless RHH second baseman who aren't very good against RHP. And they are paying $10mill for the privelege. I don't even give an F for conforto. The rest of the F goes to how they are handling their scouting. This is the 500th time posting this, but the white sox are at a disadvantage in that they are the stupidest FA team among the non-competitive balance teams, but do NOT get extra picks and INTL budget. And our current Scouting Director and Marco Paddy have been running a strategy going after small volume of what they deem higher impact talents. The result is bringing in smaller classes. And it's such a wonder why they are 30th already? The depth is once again the issue. They cannot operate this way for the "sustained success". They aren't idiots, but they are worse than 28 other organizations at this. And yet the team looks pretty great still. Hell, the rockies made a world series in 2008 or something. It happens. Forgot to mention I gave an F grade.

Did not address RF, again - F. Did not replace Rodon - F. Did not add a LH power bat - F. Did not upgrade 2B - F. Did not bolster depth anywhere - F. Craig Kimbrel - F. Did little to nothing to fix this clubs shortcomings to fare better against other playoff teams - F. Hell of an off-season White Sox org!

Picking up the option on Kimbrel then letting Rodon walk for nothing outweighs everything. That is a firable mismanagement of assets and at a minimum pure baseball stupidity.

For T-Mobile and Metro users on Tuesday, April 5th on the T-Mobile Tuesdays app! Don't miss it!

Watch the way most pitchers are finishing now. They stand nearly straight up and dissipate the forces by spinning on their plant leg. This was mostly developed by Mike Marshall with some modifications. We used to teach bending forward and finishing with your head towards home plate so everything is going straight. There is more momentum when you spin so it increases velocity. However that sideways motion adds force on the shoulder in that lateral direction which is more on the lat than the previous motion.

The Thome comment made me curious, so I checked. Since 2006 (minimum 250 PAs), the 3 best offensive seasons (wRC+) by a White Sox non-Thome left-handed hitter are held by... Omar Narvaez, Adam Eaton, and AJ Pierzynski

Time to log off the internet for today.

Adolfo impressed me nearly every at bat. And yes, Romy over Harrison should have happened.

Um? He so full of shit. Ugh, my brain hurts.

Makes no sense that the sox would trade kimbrel at the break if he'd built up his value. They'd then be trading a rental reliever to a team in a race they're also in They'd be hurting their own big league roster

Celebrating: Eloy made a catch without dying.

Much like the White Sox, they are content to have a seat at the table, but never seem to close.

Seeing as though Kenley just recently signed for 1/$16M, I think its pretty safe to say that Kimbrel's deal is right around market value. He probably has no surplus value, and they'd have to eat $ to get a real return. But I am sure there are a few teams who would happily take Kimbrel for nothing (LAD, BOS, Phils, Mets, TOR all come to mind off top of my head). Sox probably aren't willing to accept nothing in return and would rather wait until someone is willing to overpay. Maybe that day comes, maybe it doesn't. But I'd rather roster Kimbrel than give him away for nothing assuming that $ isn't immediately reinvested into the team.

We could have had Carlos for 18 per year, not sure why people throw around his SF giants number.

Moncada and Grandal exist.

So no left-handing hitting is ok?

I actually think Mystery Team might contend for a Wild Card spot this year. They have been very involved in the last few offseasons.

I would have no problem with it if it also meant Kimbrel is dumped and Conforto is signed. I’m not cool with Jake Burger being our everyday DH.

Their choice of Kelley/Thompson/Dalquist + Adolfo.

The rumor is that Roger Bossard was heard yelling out a few times last year when it was after 10:00 pm....."GET OFF MY LAWN!!"....they are trying to avoid such altercations this season.

Just stashing this here. If you took a straight Sheets/Vaughn platoon, here were their combined numbers against opposite handed pitchers. 301 PA, 265 ABs, 70 hits, 33 1Bs, 18 2Bs, 0 3Bs, 19 HRs, .265 BA, .354 OBP, 552 SLG, 906 OPS Projected to 500 PAs, assuming they balanced out with the pitching matchups. (They are close enough in their numbers that it's a reasonable extrapolation.) 500 PAs, 440, ABs, 117 hits, 55 1Bs, 30 2Bs, 0 3Bs, 32 HRs, .265 BA, .354 OBP, .552 SLG, 906 OPS. Where would that rank on the team? OPS - 3rd. Behind Robert and Grandal SLG - 2nd - Behind Robert OBP - 4th - Behind Grandal, Robert, Moncada. Just ahead of Abreu. HR - 1st - ahead of Abreu Granted, Vaughn/Sheets are better at DH or 1B, but given this production, if Grandal is DHing or playing first when he can't catch, then either Sheets or Vaughn also need to be in the lineup, and they aren't putting Abreu or Jimenez on the bench. RF is where they need to play.

Appears this is just for April. I'd go as far as to extend it to May as well. It's a smart move in so many ways. a) school - kids are in school. if you want to increase the chance of kids/families at the park this type of move helps. b) weather- the earlier you start, the more sunlight you get, and the more warmer innings you get c) kids - kind of under the first point, but if games are 3 hours+ this is perfect. now you can watch a game all the way through. build your fan base.

I think most outsiders see a team that has the highest payroll in team history and in the top 25% of the league. They also see a roster that heading into the offseason was easily top 5 in the game. They see a team with the best pen in the game, and a top 5 rotation and lineup. They see an opening in RF, but a former top prospect in the game that the Sox have penciled in, as well as a couple other interesting guys in Sheets and Engel to fill the gap, with another former top prospect just added to the mix. They see a 2B opening that needed to be filled with a vet, and it was. We all just had higher hopes. And rightfully so. But I am not surprised outside publications aren't as harsh on the Sox offseason as we all are. The Sox are still really, really good and are a better team than last year IF the key players stay healthy.

Zavala needs to be dfa. Bad hitter, bad catcher. Nothing to really like there. Did Stievers spot open up yet?

This is a legit insult to Tim Anderson.

I like the Graveman and Kelly additions. I'm okay with Harrison (I think he'll be more valuable than people think). I don't get the Kimbrel pick-up, especially now that it looks like he will not be traded. And not offering Rodon the QO is a major head-scratcher. The rest of the above referenced moves...meh. As of right now, the off season is a D.