Balta1701

They had the second highest swing rate in baseball last year next to Detroit and the second highest swing rate on pitches out of the strike zone, again to Detroit. Regardless of everything else here, “free swingers” is an apt description.

Overall, they could have been smarter the entire time. If I can see points where they are making a mess, they should be able to see it too. 1. 2019 on they started spending like drunken sailors, more than $50 million added on guys like Alonso, Herrera, Colome. This was just plain stupid, they wasted money and players they would need. 2. failure to think long term in those years - failing to invest in scouting and preparation for when it was needed, infamously failing to make use of the international market to the point that they used money from it to bribe the Rangers to take on Nate Jones’s deal. 3. Failing to recognize their own limits the last several years. Drafting a guy and shoving him into the bullpen because we gotta compete right now. Wasting a year of control on Kopech in the bullpen. Trading away a guy for Lynn. Extending Lynn. Signing Grandal. This is the “death by a thousand cuts” item. Even if things make sense in a vacuum, if you don’t do the math in advance, maybe committing 10% of your payroll to Lynn, 10% of your payroll to Grandal, 8% to a closer is a riskier strategy than we acknowledged when each one was considered in a vacuum. The only thought was always “what is best this year”, never how to maintain a roster long term. 4. Spending fully up to their limit before 2022 and committing money for multiple years. Both you and I were genuinely surprised that they went to the payroll we saw, we expected lower numbers because there was obvious risk of overcommitting. They assumed 2022 would be such a success due to their genius that they wouldn’t have to worry about any downside risk on anything they did. 5. Adding salary to their roster at the 2022 trade deadline rather than clearing it. Their team was uncompetitive but they refused to admit it. I could recognize the possibility of a salary cut as of July last year and how useful it would have been to clear payroll, but they did not. Again, this was a setting where they sacrificed the future for the present, they said that they were in such a great spot that they could afford to hurt 2023 to continue on the path for 2022. 6. Acting like a capped out NFL team this offseason. If they had only $17 million to spend, the answer wasn’t to spend $27 million but defer 1/3 of the cost to later years. They continually barreled ahead on the same path and then were stunned when it turned out the highway ended. They could have diverted over and over again, but every time they made the choice to sacrifice future years for right then and to keep doing things their way. Now the bill is due.

I still dispute that he treats this like a business. As a business it does a terrible job! The so called competitive white Sox have a stadium 1/3 empty in what is supposed to be a competitive year. They don’t invest in things that could have very large returns because of their owners biases - like the international signing market or in advance scouting or in Bryce Harper. They’re a business that hates their customers and believes they’re right and everyone else is wrong. They’d rather lose money than do things someone else’s way. Id have fewer complaints if they actually ran like a business. At least that behavior I can understand. It isn’t always successful, sometimes things I don’t like will happen, but at least I would understand chasing a maximum overall profit.

$4.5 million for Taylor this year.

What’s the difference to him?

I think they will try to rush him back by May. I think the longer you give him the better it is. There are many examples of people like Severino and Syndergaard who have the surgery in spring training of a year and then barely pitch the entire next year - they threw 6 and 2 big league innings a full year after their surgery, respectively. We saw this with Rodon, he had his in May 2019, tried to come back in September 2020 and he was simply useless in a couple of relief innings. This is absolutely the norm for this surgery right now, guys coming back and trying to throw max effort after 14 or 15 months see poor results and a lot of pain. I think simply healing all the way is a 12 to 14 month process maybe longer for some guys. Once that is finished, you need to build your whole body back up into pitching strength, which often takes months or even a full offseason. I think we saw Verlander have success because he had the surgery, had 12-13 months to heal, and then did a full and complete offseason training routine. I think Rodon came back strong in 2021 because he completed a full offseason training routine and had his body fully together and in shape. Just because your elbow is now fine doesn't mean you have strengthened your legs and you have your full mechanics back. I think in reality you shouldn’t count on Crochet for anything this year, you should assume it’s basically a lost season for him. He may well contribute more than that, but pushing him to do so isn’t likely to produce world beating results and may backfire. If you are counting on him to save the bullpen, look at the guys who threw 6 innings before winding up on the IL again and let me know what your plan is if that happens to Crochet. So personally, I’d bury him in Birmingham and bring him back super slowly once he was ready to see live hitting, and I’d just keep him there, I’d burn an option and not try to count on him for the big league bullpen at all. I would take any innings he could give and try to turn them towards long term development, rather than desperately trying to save the big league pen. This is way more consistent with how long the recoveries have been from TJS over the past 5 years. If there was a spot to call him up in September and his body was in good shape, fine, September callup when the rosters expand. I don’t expect the White Sox to do anything other than try to desperately pull every inning out of him that they can for this years’ big league pen.

I have found 0 guys recently who had TJS and reached an active roster in less than 14 months. That means early May would be extremely aggressive with his return.

Worth noting that pre injury he spent 2021 throwing a 96.8 mph average fastball, so he wasn’t blowing people away throwing 100. If we want him to develop a third pitch, we have to put him on a path where he could. When the White Sox put him back in the bullpen that will make the decision for him, and that doesn’t mean he couldn’t - it means the White Sox were too desperate for arms.

If I were in charge of this team, I would absolutely be trying to turn him into a starter, because it’s worth the effort. I looked back at “guys who had TJS, what did they do if they came back 14 or 15 months later” and the results were terrible. A majority of guys were effectively useless, the last time someone had TJS in spring training and came back for a decent second half was Rafael Montero in 2019. Despite a couple dozen guys having TJS early in seasons since then, it’s very rare for guys to be even remotely useful the next year. If guys are useful, it’s once they heal fully after 14 or 15 months then take a full offseason to get into shape, so 20 months or more after the surgery. Many guys come back sooner than that and then struggle with other injuries during that first year, probably because they haven’t had a chance to get their whole body into pitching shape and get the feel back for everything. Given that, if I were in charge, i would take my time with him. When he is ready to come back I would send him to the minors, and burn an option after his rehab stint ends. Maybe even BHam rather than Charlotte. I’d get him on a starter schedule and maybe start with 2-3 innings a game, maybe get to 5 innings on starts by September. If he’s healthy enough, get to 50 or 60 innings total, and use the fact that it’s the minors to reduce the stress on his body. Then, he’s set up to maybe have a shot at throwing 110 or 120 next year - and I would absolutely think about starting him in Charlotte and burning another minor league option to do it. What do I expect the White Sox to do? Especially without Hendriks, they will rush him back to the bullpen as fast as possible and hope for the best. That will leave him in the bullpen permanently because he won’t even start building up innings this year, especially if some other injury or soreness crops up, which is very typical for guys less than 2 years from TJS. I fully expect people to say “how can we have this many injuries no one could have foreseen this we are snakebit again” when he sprains an ankle or something.

I don’t know this guy specifically but it’s interesting to me to see guys with decent local followings pick up that this is a legitimate possibility:

Jermaine Dye was an awful terrible no good defensive RF once he had all the leg injuries.

One I really wish people would understand- they need WAY more than just to stay healthy. They lost some to injury last year, but they offset a lot of their injury losses with ridiculous performances from Cueto, Andrus, Zavala, and a couple others - some of those you would never repeat if you replayed the season a thousand times. And no matter how many dumb decisions their manager made, they also outplayed their projected record by several games thanks to a stellar performance in 1-run games - either surprisingly lucky or some actual decent coaching. And from there, they’ve lost Abreu, now they’ve lost Hendriks. Their ZiPS record is below .500 and in third place in the division, and that includes a lot of guys being healthier than last year and pretty well justified expected numbers. That didn’t include Benintendi, but it has the White Sox with one of the best bullpens in baseball led by their top reliever, Hendriks. They need a lot of guys to return to form or even break out. If Robert is only a .790 OPS guy but healthy (same as last year before the wrist injury), he’s a very good player, but not an all star in this league and that doesn’t make this a title team. If Vaughn puts up a .815 OPS, that’s better than any year of his career and pretty weak for replacing Abreu. That’s where ZiPS has them both, and neither were great. If Giolito isn’t strong without the sticky stuff, then their rotation is pretty weak. If Lynn and Kelly are healthier but have inconsistent stretches because of their ages, that’s not a health problem and it is a huge issue. If Moncada has fewer injuries but still hits .230, that’s not a strong 3b. If the rookies aren’t really good, then they have several lineup black holes. I can keep doing this, there’s SO MANY. Grandal. Eloy. Bummer. Anderson (see his defense last year). Their entire bench. On top of that, Cleveland could absolutely be better than last year. Super young team, extremely talented, one of the leagues best coaches, they could win this division even if a lot of things go right for the White Sox. The division could easily be stronger than last year, the White Sox beat up Detroit and Detroit was WAY more injured than the White Sox - we had a series against them when their top 5 starting pitchers were on the IL. Just imagine the losing streak if that happened to the White Sox, it might be 25 games. If Detroit plays better, that’s a big worry, and you no longer get 19 games against them, you get to face all the NLs teams including the NL East. They need tons of guys to return to form in things that had nothing to do with injury. Plus, they need tons of guys to break out into what they’ve never been. And then they need other teams not to step up and outperform them. Just to talk about this as a 90 win team they need nearly everything to go right. Not just injuries, almost no one can disappoint, which is a tough standard. It isn’t impossible, it could absolutely happen, but it is way more than just staying healthy. No one should underestimate how much needs to go differently here. If they are healthier than last year but everyone performs like they did last year they might finish in 4th place. They need these guys to fundamentally transform into different players from what they were last year. That’s why it’s not just health, it’s a setup where Grifol will absolutely deserve manager of the year if it happens. He has to coach a lot of guys into players that they have never been or where you’d be stunned if they pulled it off at their ages. It can happen, but boy after last year I hate hearing people talk about how simple this will be, how all it takes is a little better health, and how they don’t respect our opponents after all the braggadocio last year about how easy it would be and how that worked out.

While that’s true, they also need offense. They outscored the White Sox by a measly 10 runs in 2022 and that’s not very good.

Only if a guy steals a base or advances based on a wild pitch, never if they just come up in that situation.

He looked really sharp at the end of the year? This sounded like news to me and it was. Over his last 4 starts, ERA of 3.70, FIP of 3.93. That included a 6 run pounding by the Guardians during the series they needed to sweep, followed by giving up 10 hits in 5 innings to Minnesota after everyone was out of the race. His K-Rate over those 4 starts was also pretty darn low for him. He did have a 2 month stretch of really good outings from the start after the All Star break through mid-September before a disappointing last 4 starts, particularly when the pressure was on. At least at the time I attributed the positive stretch to him finally getting into game shape after "madly rushing through a 3 start spring training because the team was so desperate for pitching depth" affecting his May and June performance. If this was something he was working on the last couple starts, it doesn't show up as a positive in the statistics.

Without a strong playoff run, on paper they have more holes to fill next year with the same amount of money and a roster that is again older. That's the straightforward, obvious end result of this season - unless there's a playoff run. We can absolutely be looking ahead to that possibility and wondering what on Earth they would do.

The numbers you just wrote wind up with a $20 million-ish payroll boost for 2024 unless things go terribly for the arb-eligible guys or they cut someone. Cut the salary for each of your pitchers in half. A $7-10 million starter, a stopgap for $5, and a $2.5 million reliever.

This same poster put together about a dozen threads last year that were equally optimistic. People talked in those too, and some of us felt they were cloyingly positive, there wasn’t anything new in them either, but we kept talking in them. It is particularly interesting how this same poster has been completely broken by the 2022 White Sox.

If it was officially chosen by then that works for me, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t someone using their name without permission.

Problem with that strategy is that clearing the decks and trying to reload is an absolute mess next year. Worse than this year. Next year they have several guys with still increasing contracts (Moncada, Anderson, Eloy, Robert), they cost more for the same amount. Vaughn is arb-1, Kopech and Cease are Arb-2, so just holding those guys and treading water costs what, $20 million, $30 million more? On top of that, they offloaded money from Clevinger and Benintendi into next year and the following years. They do get out of some deals that have stank this year...Kelly, Grandal are done. But...they basically lose the majority of a pitching staff! Giolito, Clevinger, Lynn are all free agents - Lynn does have an option, but it's an expensive one ($18 million). If they pick up the option on Lynn, they are probably looking at a payroll going into free agency of $160+ million - exactly where they were this year! Except now they've lost Lopez from the bullpen, Clevinger and Giolito at minimum from the rotation. This year they went into free agency with 4 starters plus Martin, next year they're looking at 3 starters plus Martin, maybe even 2 starters plus Martin if Lynn isn't worth picking up. Imagine having $35 million to spend and needing 3 starters and a key setup man, when setup men like Lopez are getting $10 million a year and good starters are getting $25 million a year? Imagine having $15 million to spend again and having to find 2 starters and having lost your best setup man, plus a bench on top of that? It becomes difficult to get around having to "Trade Anderson for savings and play the rookie" in almost any version of this I see, especially now that it will be harder to justify moving Hendriks for savings.

Is this licensed by him or by the team? I don't want us to leave an ad up that goes to an unlicensed dealer particularly in this case, even if there is a charitable component.

Not only has he trended the wrong way and is coming off a particularly bad season...he also has a domestic violence incident in his background and I wonder if there are teams remembering that given how the response to that behavior has evolved since 2016.

I could very much imagine that guys like Kuhl will hold out into spring training and even into the season rather than signing minor league deals - he could wait for the first team with a major pitching injury and sign a big league deal there just based on his ability to throw 100 innings if needed. Hell, there's a decent chance that the White Sox could be in the market for such a guy, they wound up signing one last year.

That's fine. Do they really have enough relievers there either?

They have so little depth at Charlotte that they genuinely need arms to fill role there.