Dam8610

Why don't more teams play this deferred money game? The White Sox should do it with Cole, blow everyone else's offer out of the water with deferred money.

Why is plan B not Strasburg? 5/$150 should get it done and isn't much more than the 5/$125 they offered Wheeler. Get the ace.

https://www.mlb.com/news/stephen-strasburg-rumors Morosi says White Sox are a dark horse to land Strasburg.

I disliked that deal at the time, thought Semien would be a valuable player long term. Pretty sure I said as much at the time.

It's not worth it if you don't get him long term. That's trading assets for nothing. No extension, no deal. He can be had for just money next year if Boston asks too much.

Puig as a stopgap to Betts intrigues me. Of course, that means they'd have to get Betts.

Platoon him between C/1B/DH. Sign Grandal and Collins can be the 3rd C who spells Abreu at 1B and is primarily the DH.

Here's my crazy idea: Contingent on a 72 hour negotiation window in which Betts must sign a long term extension. White Sox get: RF Mookie Betts SP David Price $30 million Red Sox get: SP Carlos Rodon Any 4 prospects from the White Sox farm not named Luis Robert, Nick Madrigal, Andrew Vaughn, or Michael Kopech. Thoughts?

Would taking Price lower or raise the price on Betts, and would it be worth it?

At those prices I'd be tempted to go Rendon, Grandal, Abreu, Bumgarner, Keuchel. A cheaper, more White Sox version would be to substitute Puig for Rendon.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u6iZ27wA64NiZUyIruhD7FiAfvP_nuO6AsPjjVgK6a4/edit?usp=drivesdk Reasoning: Moustakas can start the season at 2B and be versatile, primarily playing 1B once Madrigal is up. The short term commitment also allows Vaughn to move into 1B quickly if he moves through MiLB quickly, or take a bit longer to develop if needed. I believe that signing Rendon for 3B and moving Moncada to RF is a better solution to RF than any RF available. Grandal upgrades C and DH simultaneously, allowing he, McCann, and Collins to split time between those positions and 1B. Strasburg is IMO the best pitcher on the market. Teheran seems like a value who could be a good mid rotation pitcher. Vizcaino looks like a decent bounceback candidate. Liriano is left handed, could potentially start in a pinch, and could potentially provide long relief in situations where starters have short outings, which we should expect with many young pitchers and pitchers coming off of injury like Kopech, Rodon, Cease, and Lopez. A more "realistic" scenario would be to replace Strasburg with Bumgarner, and a much more disappointing scenario would get rid of Rendon and possibly replace with Abreu.

Okay, now how do I edit it?

Does this spreadsheet load on mobile?

Evaluating your internal talent is a skill. The Astros have done very well at that.

Yes, that guy.

Have they? Look at the Gerrit Cole trade. Obviously Pittsburgh thought those were quality prospects, but everyone knows who got the better end of that deal because the Astros evaluated their internal talent well and dumped the pieces other organizations were overvaluing. Pretty much the same thing happened with the Verlander trade. Beyond their core, what have they gotten from their farm? Because it looks like the biggest contributions they've gotten outside of their core are getting lucky on Yordan Alvarez and trading overvalued assets.

One of the biggest keys to the Astros success was the success of Springer, Correa, and Bregman. For the White Sox, equivalents would be Collins, Madrigal, Vaughn (which says nothing of Robert). I think at least Robert, Madrigal, and Vaughn have to develop into core pieces for this rebuild to work. If they don't, they'll probably be scrapping this rebuild in a few years as well.

You're making an assumption that there's some artificial payroll ceiling of $160 million. If that's actually the case, then we might as well give up on the idea of competing save in fluke years and situations, because that payroll would rank 12th in 2019 MLB. If they're not willing to spend at least near the level of the top teams and they're not willing to out invest the other teams in analytics and player development, then there's no real path forward.

If you're going to be stubborn and insist that the team rigidly stick to filling perceived "holes", then Rendon is still one of the top bats available, and therefore viable as a DH. It makes much more sense to move the young versatile athletic budding superstar to a position of need where a quality solution isn't available on the free agent market and get a player that makes the team better than to try to fit square pegs into round holes, at least to me. Those four players would be a massive upgrade to the roster and make the postseason a very real possibility. The White Sox keep saying the money will be spent, that would be a way to spend it that would open a contention window.

I mean, if it were me, I'd move Moncada again, sign Rendon, sign Grandal, sign Strasburg, and sign another quality pitcher, say Keuchel. It's not ideal, but the talent at RF on the market isn't going to help the Sox be competitive, certainly not nearly as much as moving Moncada to RF and signing the two best position players on the market. This lineup and rotation could compete in 2020: Lineup: 01) 2B Nick Madrigal 02) RF Yoan Moncada 03) 3B Anthony Rendon 04) 1B Jose Abreu 05) LF Eloy Jimenez 06) CF Luis Robert 07) C Yasmani Grandal 08) SS Tim Anderson 09) DH Zack Collins (or pick someone else for this spot) Bench: Leury Garcia, Brian McCann, Danny Mendick Rotation: 01) Stephen Strasburg 02) Lucas Giolito 03) Dallas Keuchel 04) Reynaldo Lopez 05) Dylan Cease With Kopech and Rodon eventually available to replace any ineffective pieces.

Sign Rendon to DH, then. His bat is certainly worth it, as he's been a 3-5 WAR bat for several years.

Total is up to 9 now. Yoan 5.5, Tim 3.5

Sure, if he puts in the kind of work that Giolito did this past offseason and completely overhauls his mechanics and embraces analytics. That's what did it for Giolito. If he doesn't do something like that, I wouldn't hold out too much hope for it.

Didn't the White Sox reshape the market with Eloy's contract this past offseason?

http://www.tankathon.com/mlb Looks like the Sox are 9th now. A sustained losing streak could take them as high as 6, but I don't think they're catching the top 5.