CaliSoxFanViaSWside

Until he needs TJS.

Ok Cool all done. Send it to Getzy, not to be confused with the fired Bear Offensive Coordinator.Now tell me what our Top 15 prospects look like ? Do all 4 make it . I'm thinking yes.

Basically this is the off season to low ball the downtrodden because almost every year recently baseball has faced financial crisis ;COVID, labor problems and the RSN stuff. The top guys keep getting the big bucks and your last season means more than anything right now. But even a guy like Snell who had a pretty good last season has enough red flags to warrant caution. You'd think Cease would be a top guy but he's closer to what Snell is without the great last season. Cease does have the durability factor over Snell . TA has to decide on a lower AAV but multi-year deal or a 1 year prove it deal. If he's financially sound still with millions in the bank and sound investments he can probably afford to take a 1 years prove it deal to maximize future value by putting together a good season but his time is running out. Can he get his head out of his ass and still hit without being a bad fielder and bad teammate ? Lots of baggage with TA. He's going to need one guy somewhere out there to believe in him.

I'm glad you took a stab at what surplus value or future value means because I've been wondering. For a guy like Cease he's a young veteran MLB pitcher with a 2nd place Cy Young finish recently. The fact that he's an established high level , durable pitcher in MLB with 2 years of control and low salary means a lot more than prospects who haven't proven any thing except being able to impress talent evaluators. Sure each prospect has a ranking based on skills and performance , ceiling and floor based on projected best guesses on future ability to adjust to the top level in the world and 6 years of control. But we all know that because baseball is the hardest sport to make projections of value of prospects because it's a sport where physical abilities are not the most important thing. Your ability to be a chameleon means almost as much. Those who can adapt to the top environment are the ones who succeed. However, that's a skill that can't be assessed. How fast you run, how strong or how quick your bat is takes a back seat if you can't handle the mental pressure learning you my not be the stud you thought you were for the last 10+ years of playing baseball collecting accolades inflating your ego . Every level you advanced you become a nobody again until you are so close to the top where the difference between AAA and MLB can blow your confidence away . This is why you offer multiple prospects with enough questionable future value to match the established MLB player future value. If you get Cy Cease his future value is worth way more. You get 2023 Cease it's worth way less. This is what makes this trade so intriguing. With the O's Beavers may end up being better than Cowser or Kjerstad. Maybe his future position in the rankings surpasses the highest Cowser or Kjerstad has acheived.Westburg may be better than Mayo. It's a lot harder to get future War stats playing 1st base. People talking about holding onto Cease if the return package doesn't meet expectations because you need the top 2 prospects you get to have the best chance of achieving MLB future value or you don't make the trade and pitch Cease into the season are missing the point. Getting 3 prospects who are capable of being good MLB players is very important to the Sox future. Getting Basallo ,Mayo, Cowser or Kjerstad may not be any better than getting Westburg, Beavers, Ortiz , Bradfield or Norby. I'd take the biggest quantity package I could get from the O's top 10 prospects list and try to include unranked guy with helium and guys who aged out of the top prospects or a guy who has a risk or being 1st base only. Get as many as you can . They are pretty much all looking better than Colas and Sosa at this point and that includes Ortiz. Having some of us laughing at a guy who professional talent evaluators once had ranked pretty high is just weird. Knowing how bad our system has been at development really screws with our heads in these trade scenarios. We want the highest ranked guys we can get as if that will insulate us from having to develop them and screwing them up . Once you fall off the list it's like you become worthless because the Sox can't fix you. You automatically become Colas, Sosa or Vaughn, Madrigal, Collins ,Fulmer, Crochet and Kopech. Just make sure we get some lefties please and make the trade before the season starts.

Great 52 yard TD run by Josh Allen !

I don't think that's particularly shocking if the DR is the main source of Latin American talent and the majority of the better DR prospects have agreements a year or 2 in advance. JR wont play in those waters. Nothing's changed. Too bad they traded Tatis Jr. That could've been a game changer in regards to being more receptive to DR prospects. Instead it's business as usual with JR making the rules.

Someone could ask Duquette if he feels it is as good as the package he proposed from the Yankees.

I think I've seen like 5 people tell him this and yet in any post when he talks about TA it's as if he's still on the Sox. @greg775 Tim Anderson is not on the Chicago White Sox anymore.

Thank you. Helped me find the thread for it right here in Soxtalk https://www.soxtalk.com/forums/topic/112965-oscar-colas-story-is-this-true/ Right under my nose the whole time. The link is re: Colas' crisis near the end of June '22. 7 pages of our opinions on what happened. My best guess is he's missing family , still in A+, lots of stuff on his mind , feeling lost, stranger in yet another strange land for him. All kinds of new people in his life.. language barrier. Basically overwhelmed and he lashed out in a public way , in the wrong way as a cry for help. It honestly seemed like it was over pretty quickly. Maybe he got help from coaches . Some players need more attention than others. Or he thinks he's entitled to more than he was getting and was being a prima Donna. ? That basically sums up the 7 pages. But we never did find out why he said he was tired of being treated like a slave. I think the 2nd thing about his soul hurting was probably closer to how he really felt.

Lots of stuff gets you jumped on, LOL. Balta is the king of being jumped on . I've had my fair share too but I get proved right often enough that it doesn't phase me much . There isn't any right or wrong in how optimistic or pessimistic one can feel when it comes to your favorite sports team. Hey if someone says they want some of what you're smoking look at it this way. They want to be optimistic too and if what you're smoking can do it , they will take that high to feel good.

No because others remember it too. That's I brought it up in the 1st place because someone else mentioned it and I asked for confirmation or a link to see what the exact story was. I wasn't sure the reason why Colas was upset

It took me forever to find it. Still can't find a thing about his supposed hissy fit about quitting because of something something on Instagram about maybe not getting promoted fast enough ? Google search has to be worded just the right way to come up with stories that surfaced for a brief moment then are forgotten. I tried a lot of different combination of words.

I love to be positive when the situation warrants it but a SP rotation and BP of cast offs , a bunch or guys who can't hit a lick doesnt inspire a lot of confidence. 90, 100 ,110 ,we're just splitting hairs about the variances of losses. What level of bad we reach this year's is inconsequential when the purge of the roster will continue next year. When Robert get traded I don't know but it will happen. Maybe when it does the Sox will have some players develop to give the Sox some actual talent and a better record. If JR is still around maybe he spends money. What we do know is that it's never enough and that big changes in scouting and player development has to happen to compete in this day and age. I have a really good idea about how bad the team was last year I just have trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for a few years.

He was bad on a lot of levels with errors and fundamental mistakes. He's also not that much faster than Sheets, 33 percentile to 38 for Colas according to Baseball Savant Sprint Speed. If you go according to OAA or RAA he was average but those stats normally require a larger sample size. He also had near collisions or partial collisions with Andrus and Remillard. He did have a few very nice assists including the one where he gunned down Kepler at home on that 101 mph throw. Apparently a -10 OAA is Ok for Benintendi because he didn't kick the ball around miss cutoff men or not communicate with the infielders.

I don't think I ever said the previous hype we heard didn't include defensive hype too. It's just in random talk by basically anyone connected to the Sox that yes offensively and defensively he was ready and brought a lot to the table on both sides of the ball.

Yes I just posted in the Rafael Ortega thread sort of going over a few Colas things just to get readers here up to speed on someone who there is a lot of speculation about. I probably should have posted it here but there was also Colas discussion in that thread.

Colas has a cannon for an arm also. He threw out a runner at home that was 100.9 MPH which I think was the highest in MLB last year. So this post is going to try to fill you in on as much as I can gather about Colas but it isn't easy since I don't speak Spanish and a lot of things about him are hard to find on the internet as strange as that seems. But there is a lot of strangeness in the whole Colas saga. However lets try to look at everything about him as objectively as we can while keeping in mind there is a lot as fans that we don't know about him that the coaching staff does. This is what I know. The Sox hyped him to the fan base as the opening day RF for 2023. At that time we as fans ( me especially) bought into the hype. We barely heard anything about how bad his defense was. Now the hype train is in reverse. Now we are hearing his fundamentals suck in all aspects of his game, base running, plate discipline, focus ,hitting the cutoff man from Grifol and Getz and according to Grifol he thought it was very important for him to play winter ball. Now it was Hahn mostly doing the hype train full steam ahead. But we also have to remember that Getz was in charge of preparing minor leaguers. Getz was the guy who did Project Birmingham. They did a whole series of videos on Project Birmingham and one of those videos featured Oscar Colas. I went back and watched it . Doug Sisson (Minor League Field coordinator) talked about how much time Colas and missed and also said that from talking to Colas that Colas said he was mostly a 1st base/pitcher who didnt play much in Japan. So we know he missed a lot of development time and wasn't really a RF. We also know that in preparing for the 2023 season Colas went to Miami along with Robert and Romy Gonzalez to work on mostly his hitting ( guessing this) and plate discipline with some of the Sox coaches ,Tosar and I can't remember if any other coach was involved there. So what have we seen? The Sox had all of 2022 to assess Colas fundamentals and focus on making their best hitting prospect better in all his red flag areas that Grifol is so fond of pointing out. You would have to think they were aware of these things, unless you want to chalk it up to how poor the Sox are at development, yet they still stuck him out in RF Opening Day 2023 and thought his hitting could make an impact and that his arm could make up for his lack of fundamentals in the field. Grifol also made it very clear that he thought Colas had to play winter ball which Colas decided not to do. What is not well known is that Colas' wife was in her last trimester of her pregnancy and Colas decided he'd rather be with his wife for the birth of his son. Now despite how bad Colas was in the field it's not easy to ascertain just how bad he was due to how you view defensive metrics. He certainly had his share of errors (6) which I think led all RF's. I was watching a CHGO podcast about Colas and they put up a graphic with all the Sox outfielders showing runs prevented. I have no ideas what actual defensive stat they used to determine this (wasn't DRS) . But they had the Runs Prevented for both Colas and Sheets at 0. Robert was 11 and Benintendi was at -10. DRS had Colas -4, Sheets -5 Benintendi -3 and Robert 6. OAA (Statcast Outs Above Average) and RAA (Statcast Runs Against Average) found on Fangraphs under Advanced Fielding on the players individual page are very similar and those numbers ALMOST what it seems like what CHGO was using . I say almost because most of the numbers from OAA and RAA reflect the numbers CHGO used except Sheets was a -2 in both OAA and RAA while CHGO had him at 0. Benintendi's OAA was -10 but his RAA was -9 so CHGO used his OAA. Robert's OAA was 13 and his RAA 11 so CHGO used his RAA. Colas was 0 in both OAA and RAA so no matter which one CHGO used they got it right. So there are minor discrepancies from the Runs Prevented graph that CHGO used . That's the best I could come up with. As far as his hitting goes why he was so bad is anyones best guess. The Sox DFA'd Remillard and Carlos Perez and those 2 guys actually hit better than Colas. How is that even possible? Obviously Remillard and and Perez were better at plate discipline and contact and both had way more experience facing AAA pitching but are those the only reasons ? Despite missing so much time he hit very well in A+ and better in AA and in the small sample size at AA the numbers were good. His approach against LHP was impressive in AA. He hit .362 with a .569 Slg. % against LHH in his 51 games using all fields. Most of his power came against RHP . You can seriously ask the question did his preparation in Miami prior to ST actually make him worse trying to implement what he learned or did he not apply what they were trying to teach him ? The message to Colas is clear. Work on your plate discipline and fundamentals. His performance in both seems to warrant a strong message but we don't know what else is in play here. Grifol and Colas said there was a certain amount of anxiety with Colas and Grifol wanted him to "dial down the intensity level". What we clearly don't know is how they perceived him in view of the Culture problem in the dugout. Olivia Finestead the mother of one of Mike Clevinger's children and his main accuser of domestic violent against him posted two stories involving Clevinger's teammate Oscar Colas . She captioned the first 'Meanwhile ...' showcasing Colas liking a litany of her photos. She then took a screenshot of Colas's profile, urging Clevinger to usher his colleague away. 'Mike get your teammate off my page,' she captioned the story. Make of that what you will. A lot of beautiful women get a lot of likes from many men on social media. But you do have to question Colas' judgment in doing this knowing he is a professional athlete open to high levels of scrutinization. There was also some level of frustation that Colas expressed about something around mid season. What he was frustrated with is very hard to pin down. If someone wants to take a crack at it and can provide a link, it would be appreciated. Some articles I referenced. https://www.sportsmockery.com/chicago-white-sox/grifol-and-getz-call-out-oscar-colas-for-lack-of-fundamentals/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/mlb/article-11977643/White-Soxs-Mike-Clevinger-avoids-awkward-question-Kanye-Wests-Gold-Digger-walk-song.html https://www.southsidesox.com/2023/9/15/23874158/chicago-white-sox-oscar-colas-no-mas-alas The last article I didn't read until after I finished writing the above but had to chuckle at the writer saying this "Or maybe he did learn. Maybe — and this is an added scare to an already scary situation — maybe the White Sox player development is so incredibly horrible that it defundamentalizes, making players unlearn what they already know, to get worse." which is a very speculative question I asked above.

Colas is actually somewhat similar to the LH OF prospects they are trying to get. Colas was ranked as high as #78 on Pipeline I think for 1 year in the minors. He obviously never had the pedigree or multiple minor league seasons as Cowser and Kjerstad nor ranked as high and without on base problem Colas had and was coming off a long period of inactivity but he ended up making the most of that 1 year as a hitter. Of course he was worse fundamentally as a fielder than most of us knew but then again what do we know about Cowser and Kjerstad's OF defense also ?

Want to give me a trade scenario that is fairly equal to what Seattle gave up and got back ?

What exactly could they have done to bring in long term contributors ? The 2 best bets to accomplish that are Cease and Robert.

That's clearly not the plan or even possible and would make 0 sense. They won't throw good money after bad on a lost cause.

Sale had 3 years of control was fairly inexpensive and had 5 straight years of finishing high in Cy Young voting. To me it's still surprising they didnt get more than they did. I mean you can make an argument the values were about the same but when you're getting one of the best pitcher in baseball with a lowish salary and 3 years of control I would expect to get more value since despite high rankings Moncada and Kopech hadn't proven anything. No matter how you determine the value of prospects they cannot be expected to perform at a Sale like rate. You hope the value eventually spreads out enough over 4 players the Sox got to fill more holes at a level of competency that requires you to fill less holes in the future but that's a huge risk. Boston's risk is that since they only got 1 player that his arm would hold up because if it does that one player could be worth more in a couple of seasons that the combined worth of prospects who often fail despite rankings and minor league accomplishments. Eaton had 3 years of control and they got the Nats top 3 pitching prospects. Q had 3.5 years of control left. Hard to rank them but I'd say Eaton, Quintana, Sale As far as which one helped the window the most Id have to say the Eaton trade since Dunning was traded for Lynn who eventually reupped with the Sox . All 3 of Giolito, Lynn and Lopez had strong seasons in 2021. Moncada's best year was 2019 before the Sox started making the playoffs. His 2nd best year was 2021. Kopech also had a nice 2021 but mostly as a reliever since 2021 was the year he came back from TJS. Eloy's best season to date was the Covid year of 2020 when he played 55 games which equaled the amount of games he played in 2021 because of injury. Cease had the breakout year in 2021 With all that the Sox probably dont even make the plaoffs in 2021 had it not been for Rodon's 1 year of $3M excellence.

TBD

Exactly. espcially ifyou have an owner who isn't willing to spend to get finishing pieces you need to win the World Series. The O's have a lot more prospects depth than the Sox ever did and theoretically that means their window will be longer. If your goal is to win the World Series that strategy may fail, if you rather just be a contender for multiple years and hope it's good enough to win a WS have at it. Their starting OF from 2023 all need to be replaced soon. They all had 2.5 or more WAR in 2023 . Can that be duplicated when plugging in prospects who often need a year or two while adjusting to MLB pitching ? The O's had the same result as the Sox in their 1st year of their playoffs. In our second year battling a bunch of injuries the only thing that sustained the Sox was the pitching of Cease, Lynn, Giolito. Rodon and Hendriks (with Rodon costing only $3M). It fell apart because Rodon was gassed. They only played .500 ball in the 2nd half and they continued to play .500 throughout all of 2022 without him. Counting on a young SP staff to stay healthy and also perform beyond expectations while also adding prospects to the starting lineup is not a serious WS contender and can be a recipe for a quick decline especially in such a competitive division. Whether or not they trade with the Sox they face the same dilemma.

But offers can be underwhelming on the surface and always have a chance to be better than expected. He gets hurt then it's wait till next year and his value tanks even more where your underwhelming package from now is worth a lot more than what you'd get at trade deadline 2025. In any trade for Cease the likely outcome is 1 guy pans out anyway. You do your best to mitigate that outcome but it's not guaranteed. Among the trades in the 1st rebuild rank them in order of the best return , Sale, Quintana or Eaton ? Keep in mind how much service time each of them had left , not just the return.