Chick Mercedes

He may have got the narrative from Getz who said the goal is to get him in the pros and see where he ends up in 2021. So that’s completely in line with expectations if all goes well at his age.

I miss the days where nobody would have been surprised at this . I remember going to games where if there weren’t fights by groups of drunk adults, that might have been odd . Good times. But I was a kid then enjoying the chaos. Disco demolition era, even prior. Hating on the Cubs with their school kid crowds chanting “We want a hit!”

The Sox are a collection of supremely confident people up and down the lineup. Nick would fit right in with Eloy saying he’ll be the MVP and calling Robert Mike Trout. Moncada making music videos. TA declaring himself the best SS in the league. I’m guessing they aren’t near this petty to have any issues. Moreover they like to have fun. The comment was crazy, reacting to it like this was very natural from a tight group.

Yoelqui looks good in camp according to Getz. But this was an interesting quote fwiw: So what lies ahead for Cespedes in the immediate future? It will be proving himself at a yet-to-be-determined minor league level to open the season. “The hope is to get him to a full-season club, hopefully get him off to a nice start and see where it ends up in 2021,” Getz said. https://www.radio.com/670thescore/sports/chicago-white-sox/yoelqui-cespedes-on-a-mission-in-white-sox-camp

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/coronavirus/white-sox-fans-drink-the-most-of-any-mlb-fan-base-study-shows/2453770/

^^^^ Well I had no problem with people looking at him as a possible Paul Goldschmidt type of potential (if you wanted to look at other right handed first basemen), but again, we're talking about a much smaller player than Paul Goldschmidt. Vaighn has some proving to do at his size. Definately optimistic, but again, I wouldn't want to be too ready to hand out big rookie deals to players that don't fit classic physical profiles. That's where the line should be drawn, and more of a wait/see approach is used. I get the year of service issues. But there is less given upside than with some other players the Sox have done like this.

Agree, and the Sox haven't had the best of records on second basemen recent decades. I'm pretty confident about Madrigal being a team glue guy that may captain the team some day, and play D. But he doesn't seem like a can't miss in terms of being worth a big up front deal in an era that doesn't emphasise batting average. Like, I'm not sure he becomes a mega contract guy on his next deal if the team just let it play out.

The biggest concerns I could come up with were his size and right handed status affecting his range at first, and also why didn’t he rake in the minors. Otherwise his floor seems to be an above average first baseman/DH, upside indeterminate. Anywhere from Greg Walker to Encarnacion?

Just realizing how vulnerable the catching is this year. Love to get a look at that Cuban SS this spring. But I guess that is premature.

Delicious

Fair enough

Hmm. IIRC, I think most AL playoffs teams had 2 or more main starters with ERAs 4 or above. I'll have to go dig for stats. But with the Sox bullpen, I'm pretty optimistic about them shutting teams down after 5, pitching with leads due to the lineup, and more likely than not of not being being overused. There are a lot of arms.

if all Cease did was to maintain what he did last season, then that alone would be amazing for a 4th starter which might be enough for a WS run if the big 3 do their jobs. Hell, Cease could regress slightly and they'd still be ok. Team goes WAAY over the top if Rodon or somebody else is just league wide average as a 5th starter.

Just want to add an Amen. Usually I look at the team with rose colored glasses, and then by the end of the season...well you wonder why you didn't see the holes. But since the youth movement began, I'm more realistic every year because the previous organizational philosophy has been a failure, and you feel burned. After my namesake was traded I even quit on the team for a couple years, that was the final insult. But the clear direction the team has taken gives me something to hold onto ever subsequent season. As fans, all we ask for is a coherent pklan that makes sense. It isn't perfect as far as the way the scouting works,, but we don't demand perfection. The big team holes are clear, but the other slots have clear reasonable answers. And the holes are not being filled by players aquired via short term thinking. I do believe Hahn and co are long term planners. And the talent on the big club is young but fairly proven and exiting, and I am optimistic. These holes in the rotation are 1st world problems

For the most part, teams don’t take their best rotation prospects and stack them in their MLB bullpen. I don’t get it. We don’t even need them. If you’ll pitch them out of the pen this year, then why not instead get them ready in the minors to start later in the season if bad things happen? If they are still thought of as starters.

The pic may not matter. But it perhaps signals in his mind that we don’t have him locked up yet

By the odds, probably correct. Throws harder, but needs to work on secondary pitches. This does not seem like an optimal way to do that. Maybe the plan is, he doesn’t need to have a wide arsenal out of the pen. But if you want him to be a starter ASAP want him stretching out in the minors working on his pitches. They don’t even need him with the quality of this pen, and with Lopez and Rodon available. And there is no reason he can’t get his work in first at AA AAA and come out of the pen for the playoffs if things change. The context of this makes one curious what they really think of him as a starter. They have always said, needs of the club will never cancel out the need for properly developing prospects. Yet this plan basically ignored that rhetoric.

I could do both, if you ever elucidate a good argument for doing so. Message me, this is OT.

I'm not saying don't get Bauer. But on planet earth, that wasn't happening, Jerry has closed his wallet. So Cease is as good as any other ideas

Yoelqui is older more ready to play, and less of a question mark as some other younger prospects with higher upsides. Hence his high rating. Last I read Yoelqui was the number one prospect on one list, 10th on another. Paddy. Well he's gotten us Robert, Abreu, and my namesake. That's pretty good. But he doesn't get much room to work volume prospects. It's not his fault, the team had a different (Reinsdorfian Williamsesque) approach aside from those bigger fish. For example the Cuban SS (Sanchez) they just signed for 2 million seemed like a better idea to them than signing 4 Dominicans. High floor low ceiling. From what I uderstand they may be adjusting that. For the love of God I hope. I don't have much belief they will. They seem to be ready to give Colas 3 million.

Fair enough. But for a candidate to compete for a 5th man, it can work out as a bridge to Kopech. Not many teams stretch to 5 with a bunch more certaintly than this. Our offense is gonna carry us through it all. Personally I don't think Rodon was physically ready to pitch after all the down time issues. Velo is one thing, fitness and command is another. Hes throwing 96, and has had some time now to get his work in. We'll see.

with this offense, the team can afford to pencil in Cease without looking toward some of the other mediocre pitchers people wanted to aquire. That's the whole thing. Sure, you'de ideally like to find a superior alternative. Who was that? Bauer?

Indeed. I don't know how it was supposed to affect us differently, but we do have a fair amount of pitchers that would rather miss bats than pitch to contact. Cease could benefit though with his homer issues. Anyway, the league should not be deadening the ball in a world of shrinking revenues.

The part of this extended search for a #4, #5 guys is something which has left me a little confused as to why. I completely understand the desire to get 4 studs with an ERA of under 4 in the rotation. But some of the candidates mentioned in deals haven't been that in awhile, like Quintana. Cease and Kopech easlily project to be pitchers with reasonable ERAs for # 4, 5 starters. Hell ,even Rodon. Who else around the league at a reasonable price can be penciled in projecting better raw stats among all the pitchers mentioned? Certainly we may have to bridge to get to Koppech later in the season. But I don't see the need to look around past those 2.

Again, I'm not sure if it is right to engage along these lines, but if a new member can't be able to respond to incoming hostility toward a viewpoint that is willing to have a different preference than what the Sox have done in a couple cases, that's up to y'all to decide. I post a lot on the forum of a different Chicago team that has much more posts than this one, but if a new member came in and was forced to defend himself against other members over a reasonable username, the mods there would't try to intimidate him/her over this, I'm sure of that. I sure didn't want to have to talk about any of this. If you had a problem with anything that is going on, you should have messaged me instead of joining in to the derailment which was unfortunate, and I probably shouldn't have indulged either, but at that point I thought everyone was playing. I'm done talking about this here in this thread. Message me if you have anything further please.