Look at Ray Ray Run

Moncada was the #1 prospect in baseball coming off one full season in the big leagues. Mazara was a top 20ish prospect coming off 4 seasons of big league play. The scenarios are nothing alike.

It's literally nothing like that. Also, teams lose trades and give up on players too early ALL the time. I never understood the concept that if they want to give him up, hes no good.

Assuming all teams know 100% more than a very educated member of the baseball public is also assuming the Colorado Rockies ceased to exist.

Said he was going to be an elite defender this year after all the off-season work; I have learned to not doubt the guy when he puts in the work.

The latest piece by Fegan about the pitching staff, technology, Cooper and more importantly Giolito was fantastic. Cease changed his delivery and looks a lot like Giolito; as he spent all off-season working with Giolito to fix his spin and balance issues. His grip issues and etc. His glove being far from his body through him off balance. Lopez, who had turned down Giolito's offer last off-season (to which Giolito said he felt he'd never come around) and worked out in DR, took Lucas up on the offer this off-season. He also went to learn about maximizing his spin, command and etc with modern new-age tech that Lopez wasn't a big believer in prior. Giolito also made changes; to his slider grip, and he worked all off-season to find that old 12/6 hammer's release point to throw it for strikes. And Carlos Rodon has been using all the new Sox tech to learn how to use his lower body more (he always stood so tall) to tech stress off his legs. This is obviously a spring training fluff piece in a way, but players believe when other players have huge turnarounds like Giolito. They bought in, and who knows how well it may benefit the team going forward.

The Tim Anderson hater/doubters will eat crow yet another year. This year, Anderson will be even better than last. Bet on it.

He certainly doesn't have better contact skills.

Eloy is going to press the issue, but I think the handedness may lead to Grandal there followed by EE. I'd rather Eloy hit 4th, and I don't think handedness is as important anymore with the 3 batter rule. With Moncada 2nd, and Grandal 5thish, you could bat Eloy 4th and not have to worry about 3 consecutive righties.

4th and 5th are more valuable lineup spots than 3rd. That said, I tend to side with you in the analysis... I like my best guys getting the most AB's, but analytics do show that Eloy hitting 4th and Abreu 3rd would generate more runs than the opposite.

If you would have told me two years ago, that the White Sox would be projected to be .9 fWAR shy of the Cubs in two years, I would have called you crazy. I love that the Harper and Machado teams come in just behind the Sox as well. White Sox 39.9 83.56 Padres 39.6 83.26 Phillies 38.4 82.06

Ortiz criticizes Fiers and calls him out; people act shocked. Ortiz is a proven and known cheater himself - of course he doesn't want teammates blowing whistles on cheating scandals.

This makes very little sense though, imo. Vaughn actually gets to more power, arguably, than his build/raw power would show he has. Given his size and stature, it's amazing he generates as much power as he does. I don't think he has any issues maxing out his power, I just think the max on his power might be lower than big power hitters because he's just not a very big guy and produces leverage in a different way. Freddie Freeman is a nice comp; when healthy, Freddie is one of the 10 best hitters in the game. Who cares about 28 or 35 or 42 homers honestly if you're as productive as someone like Freddie.

I think that means in general - meaning they see their peak payroll in the 160-180 range but they have no plan to he there tomorrow or this year given that guys pay raises are likely factored in, as well as the addition of future FA. Not sure why spending on a 1 year deal would impact that but maybe money saved today is money spent tomorrow for Rick.

I would guess maybe they had a budget for the beginning of this year - taking into account potential mid season adds and further FA and arb commitments in the future - and maybe they're near that ceiling. I doubt it prevented them from signing Brock Holt though. It's hard to say because Bruce has no idea what's happening.

Lol I thought the same thing about texting and driving. His day before camp video he points out Abreus leadership individually. Found that interesting.

This. He is an employee of something the Sox own but he is not an employee of the White Sox.

10-15 pounds shed for a regular PP 20-25 pounds shed by catchers Typically want to report about 10 pounds over your playing weight (muscle wise) as you won't lift with Much intensity or frequency as the season goes on.

Pal, you're using one defensive metric when they are all volatile. You should be using a culmination of all the data: FG: Puig: -7.1 and -8.5 Mazara: -4.3 and -8.1 FG DRS: Puig: 0 and 6 Mazara: -4 and -4 FG RZR: Puig: .879 and .919 Mazara: .919 and .907 FG OZR: Puig: 70 and 58 Mazara: 57 and 51 ARM: Puig: 4.9 and -1.8 Mazara: -2.6 an 6.1 UZR: Puig: -.7 and -3.6 Mazara: -2.7 and 2.1 Puig and Mazara are very similar defensively as noted by numerous metrics that show Mazara better in some areas and worse in others. Mazara makes the routine play with greater frequency, while Puig makes the spectacular play with greater frequency.

A lot of Dodgers players and coaches hated Puig so this is a bad example.

I never said he had untapped potential defensively; I've said, he has been practically the same quality defender as Puig the past two years, so using Puig's defense over Mazara as a crutch for this decision is disingenuous and not valid. He's also not a DH period; he's a slightly below average defender in RF over the course of his career. He's not horrible, he's not good, he's not average. He's below average, but he's certainly not an assumed DH at this point of his career. Also, his range isn't bad at all; no idea where you're getting that. His RF/9 over the past two years is right around league average.

I'm really not ready to say that Eloy can't be a passable option in LF. It's not a demanding position, and if Eloy can just get to balls to his left and catch the routine ones, Robert may be able to make up for his lack of range in the gaps. Eloy clearly works really hard, and hard work may be able to overcome his lack of skill out there. He's not a slow player by any means. Puig simply hasn't been better the past two years defensively than Mazara, so what he did prior is really irrelevant. Puig's career is on a downward trajectory - the same cannot be said for Mazara. When players are comparable in their projections, the intangible of being an asshole needs to be accounted for. We can just agree to disagree here.

Yeah, you're banking on Abreu here and that's a lot to ask of him; given that he, supposedly, was not a big fan of Puig and his attitude dating back to Cuba. I do think Abreu has the respect, and part of his value is being able to reel people like this in, but I just think it's risky given the comradery that has been generated between Robert/Moncada and Abreu.

Machado is an asshat; he was an asshat in Baltimore; he was an asshat in LAD; he is an asshat in SD. His effort has been called into question multiple times in his career; although, those corresponded with losing teams and seasons, something the White Sox were not planning to have a lot of had they signed Machado. His attitude has always been self centered, and his actions have always been self fulfilling. This is nothing new; everyone knew this about Machado, which is why some were likely not interested. While many ballplayers have career years before FA, you could bet that Machado would be one before it even happened. Expecting Machado to return to that level of commitment and dedication after being signed was never a guarantee.

1. Puig has not graded out better than Mazara in the outfield for the past two years. 2. The Sox will be weak on the corners defensively regardless, and the production of the outfield defensively is going to be tied to the greatness of Robert - you are hoping that Robert's world class range can hide the range deficiencies on the corners. 3. Puig has had regression YOY for the past three years. Mazara still has untapped ceiling. I would rather give Mazara one more chance than giving Puig significant time in hopes of him capturing production from 3-5 years ago.

Yeah, I think I've been pretty adamant that Robert has the highest floor of any prospect in baseball - I'd put him ahead of Wander because Wander hasn't gotten past A ball yet. This is exactly why I felt people saying Robert had a lot of risk attached were just wrong. I don't want to say his floor is Mike Cameron - because Cameron is just below HOF level player - but that's around where it is. He doesn't have the OBP skills of Mike (pertaining to walk rate), but he has more raw power. Robert's defense and baserunning could realistically be worth 3 fWAR alone, meaning if his bat plays even to average or above, he's a 5 fWAR player year in and year out. I had been following/reading/analyzing Robert's defense for the previous year - as Dan noted, they track defense via gameday and etc - and I had said I had Robert as the best defender in the minor leagues last year. Apparently, I was wrong as Dan had him as the second best but that is just semantics. I don't think Sox fans realize how fun it is going to be to watch this guy play CF. I just hope he doesn't get hurt playing out there because he covers so much damn ground, and he runs through everything regardless of where it's hit. I'd argue, and some would contest, that Robert is a better defensive outfielder than Engel and Sox fans have loved watching Adam. Robert looks so effortless out there. As a life long Center Fielder myself, the only better defensive CF prospects I can remember in my lifetime are: 1. Byron Buxton 2. McKay Christensen 3. Kevin Keirmeier 4. Andruw Jones Robert is comparable to all of them, but he hasn't done it professionally for as long as those guys had by the team they debuted. It's a damn shame Chistensen just couldn't hit so he never played enough games to actually analyze his defensive metrics in the big league. They were just blah for his SSS, but he was spectacular in the minors and that catch he made in the big leagues, diving head first over his left shoulder onto the warning track, was still one of the best catches I've ever seen in my life.