SoxBlanco
-
Posts
2,845 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by SoxBlanco
-
-
38 minutes ago, maxjusttyped said:
Wong is a pretty good player. You aren't going to get him completely for free.
I know. I would like to add Wong. But when the payroll is apparently so limited, I don’t want to spend $10M on a second basemen, especially when it means giving up prospects.
- 1
-
If we make a trade, will Milwaukee pick up all $10M? And will they be requesting no top 30 prospects in return?
If so, then I’m interested.
-
1 minute ago, ChiSox59 said:
Man, was I excited when that happened. Little did I think that would be the largest FA signing they’d make during this window.
Me too. It was exactly what we needed at the time. Just like Nimmo this offseason.
-
November 21 is the day we made a big move early in the offseason in 2019 by signing Grandal. So who are we signing tomorrow?
-
1 hour ago, Bob Sacamano said:
Thread seems kind of unnecessary as there should be battles in spring training for spots. The active roster in the off-season is the 40-man roster.
Eh, it’s kind of fun to see what the 26 man roster might look like if the season started today and then how that evolves as the offseason progresses. I like the thread.
- 2
-
7 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:
Former Soxtalk poster Orlando. (AKA Orlando Quintana)
Orlando didn’t have any real connections, did he?
-
1 hour ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:
Funny story: when the Sox traded Madrigal and Heuer for Kimbrel, he told me about it in a DM 10 mins prior and I didn’t believe him haha
Do you have guesses on who runs that Twitter account?
-
7 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:
I'm here, 100%. At this stage of my fandom, I want literally nothing out of the C slot but excellent defense and the confidence of the pitching staff. Offense is bonus, and if you get a Realmuto, congrats on winning the lottery. But that type of guy is too expensive to buy and too hard to try to develop.
This is why I disliked the Grandal signing the moment it happened. I assumed he was going to hit (and he generally has), but Grandal has always seemed like the prototypical example of the edge case where analytics fails you because you don't recognize that the value a player provides is often mostly CORRELATED with the things you can measure, as opposed to literally represented in those things. For example, catchers that are elite framers and have great arms aren't valuable only because of those two characteristics, but because guys with those characteristics tend to also be great blockers, game callers, and leaders.
If you find an anomaly like Grandal, where he has the two things you can measure but every pitcher he's worked with hates him, and you know he can't block a ball in the dirt -- well there's a reason that the Sox were able to get him at the price they wanted to pay. Smarter organizations know how to interpret the numbers; they know what they say AND what they don't say. Rick Hahn seems like he just finally signed up for a FanGraphs paid membership and an intern gave him a StatCast login, and he's playing around for the first time, having to get things horribly wrong in order to learn how to make them right.
The Grandal signing made perfect sense because we desperately needed a guy who could work counts and take walks, and he has given us exactly that. Yes, his defense is not what you would hope for in a catcher, but if it was that detrimental to a team, Grandal wouldn’t have made the playoffs 7 straight years before 2022.
- 3
-
19 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:
He gets on base, which is great, but is far too often stranded on the bases or the front half of a double play. Yaz drawing walks does little to help the team score runs.
Maybe if we started hitting more home runs that would be different.
-
11 minutes ago, chw42 said:
The guy is so slow that it takes 3 singles to score him.
This is honestly the most concerning thing with Grandal. He might have been the slowest runner in the history of baseball last season.
-
9 minutes ago, Vote4Pedro said:
What have you seen from him to show he would magically break out of that slump? Having a catcher who can’t catch and now can’t hit doesn’t seem worth guaranteeing a starting position on a “championship contender” if he wasn’t making as much as he is he would have been DFA’d this off-season/end of last year. Was literally unplayable and he’s only a year older. Having a younger catcher who can handle a pitching staff and has a decent bat isn’t easy to come by. Depending on the cost I would be fully onboard
I haven’t seen anything, but I’m not claiming he WILL bounce back. I have no clue, and you have no clue.
What I do know is that Grandal is only 14 months removed from a time when he was completely carrying the team on offense. I don’t expect to see that Grandal again, but I do think a wRC+ in the 105/110 range is more likely than the 68 he put up last year.
- 2
-
4 minutes ago, Vote4Pedro said:
Your current catcher cannot play on a major league roster and is making 18 million a year. Murphy is a young upcoming catcher. Pretty simple, but since the Sox are already linked to him a deal for him won’t happen
You are assuming he can’t play on a major league roster based on last year.
If we are willing to give up major assets to help the team, I’d rather give up those assets for a different position.
That doesn’t mean I would hate a Murphy trade, but I would need to see all the corresponding moves before fully getting on board.
-
18 minutes ago, Sarava said:
Grandal's salary is a sunk cost, whether he's on the team or not. And if he's on the team, whether he's the starter or a backup. You're paying the man either way. That doesn't mean you have to let the position rot like it did this past season.
Right now one of the worst players in baseball, and the worst player of the disappointing 2022 White Sox is slated to be the Sox starting catcher. They need a serious upgrade.
Grandal's number the past two years are pretty crazy:
2021: 375 PA, 158 wRC+
2022: 376 PA, 68 wRC+
Seems impossible to fall off a click that badly unless injuries are a significant factor. So the question becomes whether those injuries are lingering/permanent now. None of us know the answer to that question.
- 1
-
2 minutes ago, bmags said:
https://www.fangraphs.com/players/james-outman/24770/stats?position=OF
OUTMAN! OUTMAN! OUT MAN! OUTTTTTMANNNNNN
The people want the sox to trade for outman I'm hearing.
Is that 1.000 career BABIP sustainable? If so, I'll take him.
-
7 minutes ago, Vote4Pedro said:
He said it’s more likely they add via trade rather than free agency
Correct.
-
1 minute ago, black jack said:
Hahn has already said they're adding via trade not free agency.
No he didn’t.
-
19 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:
I know yesterday makes this no longer a financial emergency situation, but seriously, Grandal, Zavala, and Perez are your catchers and they should be. This is not a spot to be throwing more money at. Play out Grandal’s contract, get the last dregs of baseball out of his legs, and try to have Zavala and Perez ready as a cheap catching pair the following couple years.
Absolutely. And I'm not convinced Grandal is completely washed. I don't think he will ever be what he was in his prime, but I expect him to be much better than last year if he can stay healthy (yes, I know that's a big "if").
Hell, we're only about 14 months removed from a time when Grandal was completely carrying the offense.
- 2
-
3 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:
Why are we trading from an already weak system if we have $30M+ to spend on a handful of needs? Hopefully this is simple 4D chess that Rick is playing, but Trader Hahn trying to fix the roster is a scary proposition.
When I read that tweet, my first thought was…
”Nice, Hahn is already trying to get inside the agents’ heads by making it seem like we don’t need to sign any outfielders.”
-
4 hours ago, VAfan said:
The only good hitter on the team is Jimenez (with Abreu gone).
This is simply false.
- 1
-
6 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:
Since when does this franchise care?
Since the debacle last season.
- 2
- 1
-
4 minutes ago, maloney.adam said:
I don’t think it’s going to be any of those 4 for the OF. More like Pederson.
Zero chance it’s Pederson over those 4 guys. His defense is terrible.
-
7 minutes ago, maloney.adam said:
Yep. Colas and one of Nimmo, Conforto, Benintendi, Gallo.
Let the young guys battle for the 2B job, and sign a SP.
It’s a pretty simple offseason, actually.
- 1
-
I almost forgot about him. When is he scheduled to be fully healthy, and what’s the plan for him this year?
-
1 minute ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:
Who are some guys needing protecting?
Bryan Ramos, José Rodríguez, Yolbert Sánchez, Luis Mieses and Kade McClure.
Your 2023 Off-Season Plan
in Pale Hose Talk
Posted
Me too. We’re talking about a team that was the HEAVY favorite to win the division last year. Now all of a sudden the Sox are the third best team? No way.
Last year was literally a “whatever can go wrong will go wrong year”, with the worst manager alive on top of that. Now that manager is gone. Yes, so is Abreu, but other than that, it’s basically the same team. And hopefully the loss of Abreu isn’t as big, considering it could mean we have better outfield defense.
If I had to bet right now, I’m taking the Sox to win the division.