Balta1701

I don't want him out of the bullpen! Putting him in the bullpen was Hahns thing, it was as intelligent as every other move Hahn made. Send him to Charlotte, use him as an opener, build him up with 3 innings an outing against minor league competition for April, 4 innings per outing in May, give him a break there, move to 5 innings or so in June, then evaluate what his arm is doing, how his body is feeling, how his off speed pitches look, how his velocity has gone. If everything has gone to plan, call him back up mid-year and let him inch his way into the rotation with pretty clear innings limits in the second half. If there are any setbacks, be patient, and try to make sure you don't do anything that shreds his elbow or shoulder again. Figure out when you want to shut him down from there - I am not as into the 80 innings limit as some people are, if he works his way up to the big leagues and throws more innings than that, at least I kept the intensity low on some of the early ones rather than having him go against big leaguers, but still be super cautious in the 2nd half about making sure he gets extra rest.

I'll take the over.

I'd say right around July 1 if he stays healthy and has no set backs. Take it easy, ramp him up slowly, a couple innings per start at first, maybe even use an IL stint around mid-May to give his arm a break, and evaluate as you go. See how his arm holds up at first, build him up so maybe he can give you 5 innings, then let him face big leaguers. Frankly, it probably wouldn't hurt him to have some days where he focuses on throwing his offspeed stuff as much as he can at AAA either. Go a whole inning or two without any fastballs, get the feel for both the changeup and slider as a starter would.

Exactly. Thorpe has barely made it to AA, he has 1 full season at high-A ball. He should be at AA at least until he's so dominant there that he earns a callup to AA, or otherwise for nearly the full season. If you want to talk to me next offseason about jumping him from AA to the big leagues, I probably still wont' like it and would argue for time at AAA, but that's at least feasible. I wouldn't care one bit about him having a bad start today, he's on a new team and mid-March is normal "Dead arm period" for pitchers as they ramp up. But we heard way too many versions of "calling Thorpe up based on his spring training" here and elsewhere online over the past few days, and shutting that down is fine by me.

And when he gets hurt again, you won't blame the people who made the decisions. We've seen that before, with this pitcher.

Even Pedro can't tell us that a guy with a 7.45 ERA had a great spring, right?

At the very least we don't have to hear about how his great spring training justifies him skipping AA and AAA.

Yeah I don't care one iota about Reinsdorf's pocket book or the extra year of control here. This is a risky strategy because it's risky to take a guy with arm problems and no history of building up innings and put him into max-stress innings against big leaguers when you should be trying to build his arm up. If he gets hurt, people will just say "Oh he would have never made it as a starter", when the org just can't help themselves but find the high risk things to do on the way. Send the guy walking into a minefield and if he doesn't make it across its his fault.

This one is.

Yes. So a guy throws a baseball and therefore he is now stretched out to be a big league starter. No multi-year conditioning effort required! He stretched out in the offseason. Frankly, ludicrous. I'm as into turning him into a starter as anyone, and this is a super high risk way to do it. We know his arm isn't well conditioned as he has never thrown innings and you cannot do that magically, guys get hurt when they try that. We know that in the modern big leagues it is a max effort league, guys throw way harder than they did even 10 years ago. Taking no time to even build up his arm because he threw a baseball in the offseason...blah. Standard White Sox fare, pretend guys don't get hurt and act stunned when things go wrong with the plan, it's how Crochet was treated all along.

"Stretched out all winter"? That...makes no sense! Stretching out a starter typically takes years, to condition their arm to be ready for the workload. Did he throw 160 innings over the winter? If so, he probably should be shut down already.

Or if the 4th QB hasn't gone off the board, the Bears are in a good spot to trade down with one of the teams 11-13.

You're asking me to gamble on whether Grifol will be responsible or irresponsible.

And I like it when my trains are engineered properly and stay on the tracks.

The good news is that no one is ever amped up on opening day, so we don't have to worry about him overthrowing things or over stressing that arm. We also can count on the manager to be responsible about his pitch count and innings count.

If I'm being harsh, he hasn't fully earned the big league call-up by putting together a strong minor league stretch, his ERA at AA last year was in the 4s, he's only had 19.2 innings at Charlotte, but also weren't great. If you're starting him with the big league squad, the only reason you're doing it is the spring training innings. But, at the very least, he has had a season in AA and made a AAA debut, so it's not the same sort of jump you'd make with Thorpe who has barely reached AA. It does look like you'll have to be cautious about his innings as he's topped out around 115 each of the last 2 years.

There is usually a weather cancelation in that first 10 days, so it's possible that won't matter in the short term, but yes they should pick out a 5th starter whether it's signing someone or Kuhl or a plan involving Crochet or whatever.

I think the fact that Williams has been the likely #1 pick for more than 2 years and has been known to be such also put some extra scrutiny on every decision he made in college that isn't the case for other QBs. "Williams is crying after a game? That's a horrible thing for a future #1 pick."

Are the Padres at home? We were told their gun is slow by 4 mph so that would mean Cease is throwing 101.

Caleb Williams will be starting for the Bears in the fall unless either the Bears draft a different QB or something tragic happens.

The story last year in Houston was that Maldonado being great at calling a game was assumed: so much so that the manager got outraged if there were any questions about that. Some guys did use him as their personal catcher, Framber Valdez included. With Valdez they were happy to credit him when he had a good first half, but had no comments when he had a bad 2nd half. Their young starter Hunter Brown clearly worked better with Diaz who he had thrown to in the minors, but Brown was forced to work with Maldonado in the 2nd half to get ready for the playoffs when Maldonado was guaranteed to start (despite Diaz being better offensively and defensively by a lot). Brown struggled with this and eventually did not make their playoff rotation. None of that could ever be Maldonado’s fault though because everyone knows he calls a good game and that can’t be questioned. There are hints that this led to organizational friction last year. Dusty had barely retired before new GM Dana Brown took the unusual step of declaring Diaz his 2024 starting catcher over 5 months from opening day. So you will hear that Maldonado calls a great game. Whether that’s true or not, it will never be questioned, and the only thing that will give Lee an opportunity is injury, if last year is any indication.

Fwiw, this is exactly how Maldonado was treated last year. Way better catcher offensively and defensively in Yainer Diaz constantly on the bench because Dusty has to have his veteran catcher.

Regardless of exactly why, the league has been super clear on this. Clevinger was actually a pretty good pitcher last year when healthy. Despite teams being desperate for pitching last year, he wasn’t moved at the deadline when the white Sox could have paid part of his contract, he wasn’t picked up on waivers when a team would have owed him about $6 million for September and the playoffs, and he’s unsigned now. The Dodgers gave up two actual pitching prospects to take on nearly $10 million for Lynn and Kelly and despite their rotation being a bunch of corpses by September they wanted no part of him. Someone may still sign him, but from the perspective of the White Sox, if they sign him and he’s quite good, he’s still likely untradeable. You spend money on him, get 150 really good innings, and zero guys who could contribute to your next winning team. The White Sox are better off using those innings on waiver claims and churning that 40 man roster Spot for the year. While not guaranteed, at least that gives some chance of finding a piece that improves Them long term.

Missed this one last night. Clevinger most certainly does not take the ball every 5th day, he missed nearly all of July last year and has had TJS twice.

Back of the rotation sinkerballer, started in Pittsburgh, I believe Colorado last year.