Look at Ray Ray Run

How is it a bad example? He was a 1.1 WAR player through 140+ games played.

Do you think Hahn's prospect trading and trading for prospects has been a massive failure? I certainly don't. If you are going to point to Tatis, that's laughable. Every team in baseball has been snake bit by a deal like that in their existence. Friedman traded the ROY superstar for Josh Fields. Shit happens. The Sox MiLB evaluations really haven't been bad. Their MLB evaluations have been bad though.

The problem is, you've drawn conclusions on Mazara's career based on his performance as a 21-24 year old big leaguer. I don't trust their big league scouting for position players, so I am hesitant, but people really need to stop acting like Mazara's true talent ceiling is that of a 1 WAR outfielder.

I mean, when Dickerson was 26 he was a .6 WAR player, when he was 27 he was a 1.1 WAR season. Guys get better.

I definitely see this angle as well. The Sox absolutely don't deserve the benefit of the doubt on this, but if it was an organization we respected (lol) I think we'd see this as writing on the wall for a pivot to another area of spending.

You'd trade Tim Anderson's contract and 5 years of great control + a prospect for 2 years of Carlos Correa?

Hard to call a 25 year old a reclamation project. Fans love the 23-24 year old prospect, but they hate the future for a 24/25 year old big leaguer. That's just the irrational nature of being a fan and loving your young guys. No one can possibly argue that the ceiling for Steele Walker is higher than the ceiling for Nomar Mazara.

I just can't get up in arms about the pitching situation. They went after their guy and offered him more money. They didn't get him. I think the team obviously needed to have a plan B and if they didn't, that's horrible management and they should be lambasted. But missing on Wheeler doesn't mean they should overreact and sign Bumgarner for 100 million.

This would be one of the main reasons you'd pivot to Mazara IMO; to allocate your funds to a better player at another position than overpaying for Ozuna/Castellanos.

Robert is such a monster ? 2.5 WAR in 121 games. My lord, he's on a 3.8 WAR pace, projected, as a rookie in his first full season. Obviously like Tim and Moncada to beat their projections again.

Maybe, and I would like them to push more into the middle this year obviously. They're not the favorite for those guys, but I'm just not a big fan of signing a guy to a huge contract just because. Castellanos and Ozuna have question marks, as does Mazara. One requires a lot bigger commitment to see what happens than the other guy.

This is a silly assumption.

I mean, Bauer is every bit as good as Zack Wheeler.

Tim could have lost 10 points of his wRC+ last year, and if he played SS like he did his third year in the league he would have been on a 5.5 WAR pace; so he actually would have been a better overall player. Tim could become a superstar if his bat grows none and his glove returns to the levels he's shown he's capable.

Yeah, but I think his power and ISO could continue to grow. His k-rate has been plummeting, and his ISO has been growing. He gets his ISO up to 190 and his walk rate goes up a smidge, and you're actually looking at a better offensive season despite the BABIP regression. Also, if they keep these baseballs there's honestly no guarantee his BABIP comes down. Something like 4 of the top 10 BABIPs in the last 3 decades happened last year because of the baseballs.

I mean, Nomar Mazara's hands are no where near as good as Tim Anderson. If Mazara is off balance at the plate, it's an out. If Tim Anderson is off balance at the plate, he can be productive still. Tim needs to walk more - not a lot more, but his aggression needs to improve a little bit if he wants to sustain his success over a long period of time. I have no doubts Tim can succeed like this as long as his physical gifts are in their prime, but those will eventually diminish and his approach needs to be ready for that.

Yeah, he just needs to worry about hitting the ball in the air to maximize his profile. Launch angle is just a hot term for lifting the baseball/hitting it in the air. I don't think you can hope he's Frank Thomas - hitting a ton of line drives but his power is so massive they are homers. I think he needs to lift the ball, but his launch angle is irrelevant if he's lifting the ball in general.

I'm sure the team has a plan; regardless of how incompetent you feel they are, they aren't making these moves in a vacuum. Each move, in an off-season of this magnitude, should have another purpose tied to it. Given how supposedly involved they were in the Castellanos/Ozuna market, this pivot leads me to think they want to spend that money elsewhere. Or, they want to wait out the Castellano/Ozuna markets like I said I'd do, and maybe this doesn't deter them from signing one of those two if their prices plummet. I doubt that happens, and I think they believe both will get somewhere near their demands, but who knows?

Call me crazy, but I think we see another step forward for Tim Anderson this year. Tim was able to make a huge change last year to his profile, and it propelled him forward. The guy has improved so much, and I just don't think he's done growing. I wouldn't be shocked to see Tim with a WAR around 5 next year. I think his defense takes a huge step forward, and I wouldn't be shocked to see better at bats out of him in general knowing that his main focus this off-season is controlled aggression. He learned to find his pitch and attack it, now he needs to shrink that down and work counts a little more. I have at on of faith in Anderson; I know its superlative, but his bat speed and hands are just other wordly.

No one can possibly argue that Nick Castellanos is worth 8 times more than Nomar Mazara IMO.

I agree 100%; I don't want them spending just because they said they would even though they lost out on their prized guy (Wheeler). That said, Wheeler couldn't have been the only move they wanted to make, and they should be able to go above their valuation on their second favorite starter this off-season to acquire him. If they want to take on salary and move Madrigal and sign REndon, at least that's a plan too.

It seemed to make sense with the Mazara trade. It's the one thing that has made sense about that trade. If the White Sox thought the market for Castellanos and Ozuna was too much (80-100 million) and they figured they'd rather get a cheap RF and spend all their money on Rendon then whatever. I don't love moving Yoan back to second, but that frees up Madrigal (who I love) to be traded for a controllable arm. This plan makes a lot of sense, but the Sox have to execute it now.

The Sox could certainly do worse for the 6th/7th hitter in their lineup.

I'll be upset if they don't spend some more money. They don't need to spend it all if they love Springer or something for next year, but there's no point in acquiring a bunch of financial flexibility with years of failure only to not spend the money. This team was running 130 million dollar payrolls 14 years ago; it's embarrassing that they aren't near that number yet because in reality they should blow past that in the next few years.

Yeah, his numbers were likely driven down this year because he swung at more pitches out of the zone and also made more contact on those pitches - leading to a lesser quality of contact on those pitches. In general, and this is the weirdest part of his profile, his zone contact rate has gone down 4 years in a row while his out of zone contact rate has gone up 4 years in a row. That's a really weird profile.