Balta1701

With the way that option is structured you pretty much only use it if you’re confident he won’t be pitching next year. If the elbow problem this year drags on, and he misses a lot of second half time, that’s when you’d think about it, if that were the only thing going on.

Yikes

If we were being harsh, he has a known elbow issue that has flared up the last two seasons already. There is a decent risk of him missing the entire season, and right now you have to say it seems likely he will miss a month somewhere in 2024. If he has any setbacks in the second half of 2023, you would definitely consider using that option if it weren’t for the other things going on.

His elbow is apparently a long term concern, we learned that last year. I believe he is actually pitching through a long term elbow injury. That’s why they were ultra cautious with him and gave him months of true rehab after he was cancer free. Bringing him back only weeks after chemo with little actual game experience would be nearly criminal, you’d be needlessly risking that elbow flaring up.

If a desired prospect return requires another team making a clear mistake; then they probably won’t do it and it won’t be worth thinking about. The Orioles are a super young team with a deep system that is competing for a wild card. If they make trades, it should always be for guys that help them over several years, or it should only feature spare parts, not their top guys. It would be super dumb of a GM to dismantle his system by trading for guys who are expensive and who aren’t controlled (Cough Cough Cough). Those moves destroy both your depth and your financial flexibility, they are moves that bad GMs make. Not to mention — what other valuable player do the White Sox have they can package with Giolito? Kelly or Lopez? Burger? If they aren’t moving Cease, they don’t have anything that is worth a top 100 prospect even as a package unless a team dramatically overpays.

The other comparison from last year is Jose Quintana. He had an ERA of 3.50 in the first half and his peripherals supported a good performance. He was cheap, and under control for 2 months. The return in this trade was Malcom Nunez, who was top 10 and/or top 20 in the Fangraphs and MLB.com lists of Cardinals prospects (therefore well outside the top 100) and Johan Oviedo, who was a top 10 prospect in the Cardinals system but who had some time spent struggling in the Cardinals rotation and been moved to the bullpen. He's back starting for the Pirates now. Basically, that deal was two "top-10 in the Cardinals system" guys for Quintana, one of whom was big league ready. Didn't return a top 100 prospect, but would return 2 guys who are probably top-10 in the White Sox system or at least comparable to that level. This is, to me, probably comparable value to what you'd expect for 2 months of Giolito, unless the market is much stronger than it was last year.

I don't care if he's blocked...Ortiz is currently #65 on the MLB.com rankings. You just don't get that kind of return for a good starting pitcher with 2 months of control. The Orioles definitely would make sense for the White Sox as a trading partner, they have top flight position players who could help the White Sox, but the O's shouldn't be trading for guys like Giolito unless they get them cheaply. They should be trading for guys like Cease, and that matchup works - 2 of the Orioles top prospects for Cease is a quality start to a deal.

So only one starting pitcher has a win in the last 3 years? Somehow I’m not interpreting this correctly.

If I counted right, this is the 10th time this season where the White Sox have been 13 games below .500, out of 87 games. I count 17 times when they’ve been 12 games under. One might start thinking they are about this bad.

Apropos of nothing, how weird does it seem for a team to have an Offday on July 3? Like; this is holiday week money.

If you want an in depth version of the history of this guy and this thing, the New Yorker article was excellent. https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-titan-submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen

In the Past 24 Hours, the White Sox won 1 game and Luis Robert made the all star team and theres so much excitement among a group of the most loyal white Sox fans that no one has bothered to make a thread about either. Obviously we need to stay the course, it’s the best way to make there be no fans left. Then we can finally move the team.

Let’s never forget that a Kopech who is often injured and who struggles with his command was one of the likely results of how the White Sox treated him. Guy hasn’t pitched competitively in 2 and a half years. The last time he was out, he struggled with command until July, it took him nearly 100 straight innings as a starter to find good control. In June he had a game where he walked 6 I think, then he cut that walk rate a ton in July. This profile says the guy needs innings, repetition, in a lower stress setting like AAA. if he doesn’t get them, the risk is he will struggle with control and with health, but hey maybe you get that precious middle relief. And now? He struggles with exactly those things, who could ever have seen that coming? When you make a lot of decisions that could sacrifice 2023 to make your 2021 team better, you can’t be all that surprised when some of those moves turn out to actually hurt your 2023 team.

While I get the concept…they don’t have the resources to sign a $20 million salary pitcher this offseason. They have 2 starters under contract and a team 13 games below .500. Because of salary increases already on the books, they have about $30 to $40 million to spend to get back to this years’ payroll. If they just wanted to keep this years roster together, they’d have to increase payroll compared to 2023. They just don’t have money for Giolito.

I don’t think the Edsel was a useful marketing tool liked because management didn’t feel they should have to take questions.

I think it’s quite obvious that Tony was key in the signing of Joe Kelly, they literally told us that. I’d try to track down the tweets on that but well, Twitter. Tony was probably involved heavily in the Leury signing. The other big moves that offseason were picking up Kimbrel’s deal and moving him for Pollock, letting Rodon walk, signing Graveman, and the desperation signing of Cueto after Lynn got hurt and they realized they had no backup plans. Graveman - that’s a classic Hahn signing. Kimbrel? That sure seemed like Hahn trying to cover up his mistake. But, these signings hurt but they didn’t kill. You can’t look at the white Sox and say “this one deal is the biggest problem”, this situation is the result of issues and failures going back to 2017 and even before. Bad drafting, failure to use the international market effectively, overspending on bullpens, failure to develop depth, compounded by individual moves that were either awful at the time or that got bad over time. Tony LaRussa didn’t draft Crochet and then bury him in the bullpen so they have no starting depth. Maybe Tony LaRussa put Kopech in the pen so his arm isn’t conditioned, but that sure is consistent with Hahn’s moves. Tony LaRussa didn’t fail to use international money. Tony LaRussa didn’t draft Vaughn and Madrigal, and he didn’t get nothing else out of those drafts.

The last time he said this about Anderson and the leadoff spot he moved him two days later.

I cant say for sure they’re losing money, but boy, with this payroll and this low of attendance there’s no way they’re making the kind of money they want to bring in.

Both of these guys are top 65 prospects right now on MLB.com. That’s more than Giolito is worth with only 2 months of control. They could be key pieces of a deal for Cease.

Apparently Ted Turner went 0-1 as manager.

2013 me says “welcome!”

Naw, they’re worse at retooling on the fly, so we will definitely do that.

They released him last year. The White Sox claimed him then re-signed him for an extra $3 million.

I love these “this part of the schedule is super weak” and “here’s our chance to make a move” threads. Literally none of them have worked! What a great summary of the Hahn plan.