Balta1701

Worst case scenario he plays through 2024 and then is a free agent. Smarter move but would require a GM throwing in the towel - take whatever money you can save to move Moncada's remaining contract. If you have to pay 1/2 of it, but you save $15 million, this is a smart move in the long term as it digs you out of the hole. There are teams that are pretty bad at 3b. The Yankees have a .605 OPS out of that position so far on the year. Counting what looks to be a buyout after a trade kicker came in, Donaldson would have about $13 million or so remaining on his deal at the deadline this year, Moncada would have about $30 million. Donaldson for Moncada gives the Yankees a 3b but clears out more than 1/2 of Moncada's deal.

If some team was willing to give up actual value for Jake Burger, while filling their DH role, I'm definitely considering this. He's 27 years old and has a couple of serious leg injuries in his background so holding him for several years is a risk, the odds of him being a huge contributor to the White Sox's next competitive team several years from now are low, and he's contributing positively right now which means that he's more useful to a team needing offense than he is to the White Sox right now.

He has minor league options remaining. They could have used one and pitched him in the minors for the year while keeping him away from free agency. If his WHIP stays above 2 for a while, they might end up using one anyway.

After 6 outings we have some data. Crochet came up throwing 100+ in 2020, but in 2021 his fastball dropped to 97. People were hoping he would come back as the 102 thrower and he hasn’t, he is throwing what he threw in 2021. He is throwing more offspeed pitches than he did in 2021. So far though his K rate has dropped from 28% in 2021 to 11% and his walk rate jumped from 12% to 26%. His WHIP is 2.37. His 5.68 ERA is actually quite a bit under his 7.83 xERA. With that kind of dominance I guess I can’t possibly suggest they needed to give him more rehab time. This is totally worth the service time.

I thought that was a great move at the time. A couple weeks later while trying to see why he was doing so bad all of a sudden I looked at more than the top line on his stats and realized my mistake. With the Cubs he had been sporting career low BABIP and HR/FB rates, things suggesting his first half was hugely lucky and his second half would probably be no where near that good. Had I bothered to look at anything other than his ERA, I would have suddenly been way more concerned. Then I realized…the millionaire GM missed that also. Never scrolled past the first line of his Fangraphs stats.

But no team is going to give you that at the trade deadline if he is still showing a decreased fastball and dramatically worse performance. You can ask for that all you want and teams will just look elsewhere. You cannot make other teams do things that are bad for them just because you want them to, they will either expect him at a huge discount compared to what he would have returned last offseason or they will just find other options. The only way he is worth that "Very nice package", anything that would really help the White Sox, is if he finds a groove very soon. He certainly could, but teams will only give up multiple top prospects for him if he does so. Right now, he doesn't help me win a title the way he's performing.

Dylan Cease should not be a guy the White Sox trade this season given his current performance, as no one will give up what it should take to get him - multiple top 100-ish prospects. Let's look at why. Dylan Cease's FIP this year is 4.4, his expected ERA based on stat cast is 4.63, his 4.88 ERA isn't out of line with that. His K-rate/9 of 9.77 is well down from the 11.1 last year and the 12.28 in 2021. His walk rate is his worst since 2020. The average exit velocity he has given up is the worst of his career. His fastball is down a full 1 mph from last year. Furthermore, last year his fastball started poorly but improved a lot by May, this year May was not obviously better than April. Right now, the White Sox would ask for a very high price for Dylan Cease, and anyone asking about him would expect to get him at a massive discount because not only is his ERA bad but the underlying numbers also suggest that he's not a very good pitcher. This could of course change if he were to pick up his velocity and find a groove over the next 2 months, but right now, Dylan Cease will not return anything of substantial value because he's not a particularly strong pitcher. If he doesn't find a groove very soon, then holding onto him through 2024's trade deadline and hoping for better results with a different pitching coach seems like the appropriate strategy. If Cease does find a groove, then the White Sox will win a couple more games and that will be all Hahn needs to justify that "If we keep playing like this we'll be right there at the end" (Rick Hahn, 2015).

But specifically on the subject of the 2018 draft it’s difficult to figure out which guys you are hoping will still break out. The White Sox had 4 high school picks in their first 32 rounds, so it is difficult to say they have lots of young guys still up and coming. Saying that high schoolers wouldn’t be ready yet doesn’t say much when you don’t draft them. They also traded 4 of their first 6 round picks for the successes of the past couple seasons, so it is also difficult to see them having many high ceiling guys remaining. A breakout is still possible, but overall, the White Sox’s haul from this draft is Craig Kimbrel, Cesar Hernandez, Nomar Mazara, Romy, and a couple guys who had TJS.

Neither Sosa nor Colas were obtained by the 2018 MLB draft. It seems extremely odd to bring them up as examples of why we shouldn’t be down on that draft yet.

I’d be willing to bet that they have a similar result in 2021 with Dunning instead of Lynn. #3 seed, first round exit. If you want the Sox to operate like the Rays, and you want to complain about how there’s no depth to replace injuries, look at all the trades they made where they gave up talent and also took on salary. I come up with half a dozen starting in 2019. Some were good on paper, some were bad on paper, some worked out bad, some worked out good, but the consequence was always loss of depth and less money to spend. That deal type is the opposite of the Rays, the opposite of building depth. They could have overcome that with good drafting or with more spending, but they’ve been bad with both. If you’re going to do deals like that, then either you better win, you better have a reserve to use, or you better be ready to rebuild.

The problem at the time was that you can only make so many moves like that when you have a limited budget and no spare talent coming up to replace what they traded away. They gave up 6 years of control for 1 year and took on salary. It was a risky move in that context. If they had extra talent coming up, fine. If they were willing to put a lot of money on the line, fine. But, they were already running low on talent at the time, and they were doing things like putting their #1 draft picks in the bullpen rather than developing them as starters.

The good news is no one in the AL Central will be signing him.

Neither Cease nor Kopech is really worth moving to my eyes right now, barring them getting on a big roll in June and July. They’re just not performing well enough to produce a strong return. Hold onto them and hope that with a new pitching coach at least one of them has better results in the 2nd half or next year, making them movable for real value.

Lynn is like several guys on this roster, you will want to move them while saving as much as possible, and if that’s $1 million by a team that is desperate for a 6th starter or who is willing to try him in the bullpen, that’s $1 million you save.

Cease and Kopech have 2 years of control remaining after this one. There is no “next 3 years” for them.

Continues to be throwing his weakest fastball since he came back from TJS in 2017.

Naw, this is the kind of stuff that happens all the time. It's usually something like $25k - if there's an opportunity for big league time with another team, for a veteran guy stuck in the minors, usually the team holding him will want to trade him and let him have the shot. This kind of move maintains goodwill with future veteran free agents. If you try to hold onto a guy and deny him a chance at a couple weeks in the big leagues elsewhere, then future veterans will be more skeptical about signing with you.

There is no way the people in that row of seats thought they had any chance at a HR ball.

He did, but the White Sox traded him for "Cash Considerations" to Detroit, so he's there now.

Kenny Williams literally said that on the radio the morning after Machado signed. In the same interview he said the White Sox couldn’t guarantee 2027/2028 to Machado because they had to be prepared to sign their next core and also insisted that their 8/$250 offer with 2 team options was actually worth more than the Padres offer because the team options would pay more money if they were picked up. I believe some of us noted this contrast at the time, it contributed to them being called clowns. (He also said the White Sox don’t do player opt outs).

Missed strike to Grandal. Didn’t matter. Helluva play.

Reinsdorf also hired Kenny Williams as the GM, and while he wasn’t great, he wasn’t the worst in the league. He was a gambler, you’d wind up with surprisingly good years and stunningly bad years under him, leaving the team about average with a regular chance at the playoffs. That is such an upgrade from Rick Hahn it isn’t funny.

I don’t think too many teams have 20 games where they’ve scored 5+ and 35 with 4 or fewer.

I mean yeah it does, we Don’t want him to struggle and he doesn’t want to have a bad first night back. It won’t decide a division, but rushing him back so that he could pitch on a holiday with a good crowd, eh.

Props to Benintendi for getting to that.