Balta1701

The White Sox's pythagorean record last year based on runs scored/allowed was 48-114. They were 7 games worse than that and underplayed their projected record by the biggest amount in baseball.

Removing Luis Robert doesn't remove too many wins.

Not even close. I said they wouldn't get good value for him in the market in 2023 because he had a down year and pitching wasn't returning a good value due to a saturated market, the right move was to hold him to the trade deadline and let him have a better first half. And yeah, I am pretty down on the return. They should have held him to the trade deadline. He was healthy, the market was bad last offseason, they spent the entire offseason leaking that they'd get a great offer and took a meh deal that hopefully gets them a couple relievers.

Nicky Lopez was being paid $5 million and was clearly there for leadership. That is clearly not the case with someone like Acuna. That comparison is bizarre. You could say you don't need another Eloy and then tell me why you think that's Acuna's future. Or Colas, whatever. At least make the comparison fundamentally similar.

You're right, but losing Robert for nothing also does nothing.

The counter here is health. Dylan Cease made more starts than any other pitcher in baseball from 2021-2023. Luis Robert has had a moderate to major injury of some sort each of the last 4 years.

True but "Worth his contract" is a guy who doesn't return you much in a trade. "Worth a lot more than you contract" is worth a lot in a trade.

But at the same time, the guy with that longer track record of success has: 1. An extremely long injury history. 2. A salary 20x higher. 3. A maximum of 3 years of control.. I agree with you I don't care about 40 PAs of big league time. If you could get a couple of guys who added up to 10 years of control, one of whom is like Colson Montgomery in that they were extremely well regarded a year ago but who had rough 2024s, that's a pretty good starting point for me on paper. Having those two guys would be a lot better than Robert having his option turned down after paying him $15 million this year and having him get hurt.

Aren't you looking at Acuna and saying he's a worthless asset based on his 2024 but not doing the same thing for Robert?

So he’s post hype in the same sense as Colson Montgomery?

He would technically be arbitration eligible but he's fringy enough that it won't matter. He's already been bought for cash considerations once, if he stays with the team the whole year he's probably a non-tender guy.

Neither funny nor appropriate.

https://www.mlb.com/news/nolan-arenado-blocks-trade-cardinals-astros Nolan Arenado apparently blocked a trade proposal to the Astros with an NTC.

The problem remains - if max effort for as long as your body can take it gives you an ERA of 3, and going slightly longer but at lower effort leaves you with an ERA of 4.5, one of these is a guy who will make 10s of millions of dollars and one of these guys will barely stay in the big leagues. As much as we want to complain about pitchers doing this...the hitters have gotten smarter and better on most teams in the league too. The pitchers have been ahead of them a little bit by pushing their bodies to the breaking point, but if they let up, the hitters make them pay. The league naturally selects for guys who are willing to throw everything they have into being effective on the mound.

Is it just me or is "Rate" a stupid name for a mortgage company?

If you're going to give that much money to a Qb, you have to use that draft spot to get a playmaker somewhere on the field.

Baseball Prospectus rated him as the 89th catcher last year in runs saved out of 100. Number 93 was Martin Maldonado. So, upgrade? He looks about average on the throwing categories and blocking but was one of the worst framers in the game.

Who do we think paid more the Angels or the White Sox?

Ok this is true for 2024, but the idea that the rotation was lacking talent in 2022-2023 is hindsight. They thought they had a solid staff both years and never did. The rotation massively underperformed both years, the bullpen struggled way more than people expected, but Ethan Katz was great in 2020 and the first half of 2021 so we know he can’t have done a bad job. Take a look at the comment I replied to at the start. “How dare you not give Katz and Bannister credit for Crochet and say it was his talent” - It’s literally the mirror of “Sure we thought the team was competitive and they won 61 games with a bottom 6 rotation but that’s just a lack of talent.” If a talented pitcher performs well it’s Katz’s great work, if a decent rotation performs poorly then they actually had less talent than we thought. Katz did great work if they’re a success but is blameless when they underperform.

Isn’t Robert’s track record also “major injury every year”?

Normal “really bad or young rosters” tend to come in high 40s or 50 wins. Thats what the As, Orioles wound up at. It took the truly epic dysfunction and poor strategy for the White Sox to be dramatically worse than that. If they behave as a normal bad team, 50 wins is normal. You might hope that adding in some youth might help, but losing Crochet and Fedde has to matter as well.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wilsobr02.shtml swingman, decently effective out of the bullpen in 2023.

This seems about where I’d guess they wind up.

Post ban Giolito’s FIP is 4.42 and his ERA is 4.53.

That’s the game with these guys, it’s the same routine Hahn got - it can never be their fault. 2022 “I think the pitching will be pretty strong, Kopech just substitutes for Rodon and they added a ton to the bullpen.” The pitching was a Cueto away from bottom 10 in baseball, but that’s LaRussa only. 2023: “The pitching should be ok, Cease should still be great and the bullpen is bound to be better.” 101 losses. Bottom 6 pitching staff. Cease sabotages his own trade value. Pre 2024 here at Soxtalk “I think the bullpen will be ok with the arms they added”. The bullpen is awful. “How could you expect them to have a decent bullpen with these arms”. I can already write the 2025 story. “We don’t really need a starter, look how many promising young arms we have.” Will turn into “No one ever said that arms like Burke were promising, there’s not even a first round pick among them, of course the starting rotation was bad, the important thing is that Martin had a good year and Schulz looks good and wasn’t hurt.”