Rowand44

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 27, 2017 -> 06:02 PM) There is not "plenty" of real talent that will be here early. There isn't even close to enough early talent to replace the talent we have lost over the last year, let alone enough to overcome the 10 extra games that this team was missing the playoffs by. They will also not be spending s***ton of money until the team after the team is actually competitive. I mean out of the four base players you listed for now, 3 of them have fairly significant questions marks associated with them. Abreu is literally the only guy in our line up that can be called anything close to a known quantity. Tim Anderson has regressed significantly. It is the personal problems off of the field, or did the league figure him out? Avi put up 3 incredible months so far, but is that really him? Moncada is another who could well be taking his lumps for a period of years. The rest of the roster early on is going to be guys that if everything goes right are 45's and 50's. Past that? The starting rotation is going to be weighted by Shields and a bunch of unknowns. The bullpen is going to be a horror movie hodgepodge of reclamations, the inexperienced, and rookies. Literally everything has to go right for this team to be able to win 90 to 95 games in 2019. You are absolutely right that I don't see that happening. Looking at the rebuilds around baseball that have happened already, I don't see that as crazy. The rotation at least on paper is going to consist of: Rodon, Kopech, Rey, Gio, Adams/Guerrero/Stephens/whoever all of which will most likely spend sometime in the bigs in 2018. That's 3 of our top 10 prospects just right there. And of course all these guys have giant ?'s that's how this is going to be, nobody is arguing that. That doesn't mean Moncada can't be a superstar by then or Anderson got his s*** together or one of Gillaspie, Cordell or Delmonico have become solid major leaguers. Maybe Leury and Avi are for real. They don't need 9 superstars by then. I'm honestly not even going to speculate on the bullpen yet. There's a lot of our minor league pitchers that might be in there at that point and if anything the Sox have proven they can take some random ass guys and make them good relievers. And I couldn't disagree more about free agency. They're going to be players in the 2019 field, I'm not saying they're going to bring in Manny or Bryce but they're going to start dipping their feet in the pool to bring in some guys who can be part of the long term plan. If they see the arrow starting to go way up on Rey and Gio and Moncada and Kopech by the end of '18 and think Eloy is going to be ready at the beginning of '19 they're going to start filling in some holes to make that team competitive. It's not ridiculous that you don't see this stuff happening, it's ridiculous that you keep running around telling everyone there's absolutely 0 chance they could be a contender in 2019. I'm certainly not betting on it but that rotation has a chance to be phenomenal and who the hell knows what can happen if that is indeed the case.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 27, 2017 -> 04:54 PM) Most of the real talent will be making its major league debuts in 2019 and 2020. Giving them a couple of years is optimistic already. There's plenty of "real talent" that are going to be making their debuts between now and the end of 2018. Our rotation is going to be stacked with "real talent" who debuted before 2019. The offense is going to be slower paced but there's a chance that you at least go into that season with Moncada, Anderson, Abreu and Avi as a starting block and a s*** ton of money to spend. Like I said, I'm not expecting 2019 to be the year but the pitching staff has a chance to be incredible so you just never know. Well you do I guess.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 27, 2017 -> 04:42 PM) What odds would you like on the Sox having a playoff team before 2020, and how much would you like to put down? 5:1? I've said 8 billion times that I don't expect them to make the playoffs in 2019 and I think 2020 is the most realistic timeline. That said, there's going to be a boatload of talent on that 2019 team and some with at least some service time underneath their belts and to say they have absolutely 0 shot to make the playoffs is just wrong. It'd be a year ahead of time for sure but things like that happen too.

QUOTE (Buehrlesque @ Jul 27, 2017 -> 01:07 PM) This is plain old untrue. It's absolutely untrue but good luck getting him to admit that.

Damn, I just saw the video of that kid getting smacked in the face, hope he's ok cause that looked bad.

Beltre is the best person in the history of people.

What a night for the pitching studs.

Never thought I'd be excited to have Leury back. Very interested to see if he can keep on doing what he's been doing so far this season.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 26, 2017 -> 04:53 PM) Garcia last 7 days: BA 0.125, .285 OPS Garcia 7 games before that: .296 BA, .863 OPS (crosses AS break) And the 7 days before that? Just too small of a sample size to make anything out of that. He was struggling mightily before the All Star break, had a nice run for a few days after the break and started struggling again. What does that mean? I don't know but like I said, it is just interesting timing.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jul 26, 2017 -> 04:49 PM) It's his thumb Mr Trump LOL Ok.

The timing sure is interesting. He's been struggling for a bit now. Is it his thumb? Is it just regression to the mean? Probably a little of both but impossible to say for sure either way.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 25, 2017 -> 10:19 PM) From what we've read, all relievers have sketchy track records. You can't have it every which way. Robertson had a fantastic track record and he was worth s*** because he made some money. Kahnle had control, but his control was worthless because relievers are erratic and he will eventually turn into suck, no doubt, anyway. Swarzak has no money committed to him, has been dominant, has outstanding stuff, but is worth nothing because he has no control. These are all horses*** justifications for getting s*** value out of our relievers a week ahead of the deadline. You've legit lost it in this thread dude. I'm going to step away from this one myself.

Swarzak is a 31 year old, free agent to be reliever with a bad track record. He also happens to be one of the best relievers in baseball for 4 months. The point is, there's a lot of positive and a lot of negative when it comes to him and because of that it was always going to be difficult for anyone to get a decent gauge of his actual trade value. As others have said, moving him needed to be done and Rick thought that was the best deal out there. Who knows what Cordell will become but calling people sheep because they're happy with the return is a tad bit excessive.

I suppose Stephens is allowed a bad start. EDIT: Also, has the best farm system in baseball ever produced the worst lineup for a team? That Barons lineup is something.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 25, 2017 -> 08:19 PM) The Sox were never going to get a comp pick for Swarzak. They'd have to potentially commit $18 million or so to get a comp pick for him. They had to get what they could, and they got a solid prospect for him. I don't love this move, but as I said earlier, I'm perfectly fine with it. Had a brain fart, thanks for the correction.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 25, 2017 -> 08:03 PM) See, I couldn't disagree more. I don't like this much at all. We've already got like 2-3 guys that can play center field. Presumably, this guy will come up and play left when Melky is gone, but Adam Engel is actually deserving of playing time right now and I think when Garcia returns, he deserves another chance as well. Would have much rather gotten an intriguing arm or something. I get the Swarzak was signed as a minor league FA, but let's not ignore what he accomplished up here; nor should we ignore his stuff. Dude can bring mid-90's heat with a wicked slider that he currently has penchant for locating wherever the hell he wants. I'm frustrated by this idea of comparing the value a player had when he was initially signed with the value he received back when traded. What we need to be considering is the value the player has given his current performance. If that means we get some mediocre prospect who might become a 4th OFer if he's lucky, I'd prefer to just f***ing let the guy close for the rest of the year and see if he'll resign with you. I should probably wait until I actually see this guy play, because it sounds like he is one hell of an athlete, but we are not short on athletes, from what I understand. I was completely with you on the last deal but don't agree with you here. Thought I do completely agree with the bolded. One, I like Kahnle's stuff a lot better but even so the big difference is the control left. If Anthony continued to dominate the rest of this season then I'm guessing he ends up elsewhere in the offseason. Comp pick and all that jazz but I like taking a chance on a guy like this for 2 months of Swarzak.

In all seriousness, dude has hit at pretty much every stop so I'm intrigued. Odds of him becoming a major league regular aren't great but worth the chance for a rental reliever, albeit one who has been great so far this year.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 25, 2017 -> 07:24 PM) Keith Law is not a Cordell fan. I think at this point Rick is just trying to acquire assets that Law doesn't like.

Guys we've been doing this same song and dance for years now with Greg. That's not a shot at greg but his mind isn't changing here.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jul 25, 2017 -> 04:41 PM) Tie goes to the runner, except in replay I guess. Probably cause that's not a real rule.

SD was awesome when we had Styles-Cena, Talking Smack and the Miz but since all those things are no longer...

I've read nothing but bad things about the Jinder-Randy match until I came here ha. Interesting.

That's an absurd prospect package dude.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 21, 2017 -> 03:35 PM) Well, hate to break it to you, but they'll be active in the Rule 5 draft. They'll take at least one if not two guys. Not to mention the minor league portion.

Seriously what would the Bulls have traded to get Kyrie? It wouldn't have happened.