Greg Hibbard

He wasn't in his last season...

I do think there's some hidden value in his ability to be consistent (albeit slightly below average) and remain healthy.

From 2018-2020 Aaron Judge played 65% of his team’s games. For many, he had a reputation of never being able to stay healthy. From 2021-2024 he’s played 88% of the team’s games. I’m not comparing their talent, but there’s no way you can tell me that either was particularly predictable. Injuries can go a lot of different ways, even when a player gets hurt a lot in multiple years.

His minors injury record is a fair point. Maybe I’m too optimistic but I’m so sick of injuries.

Nice work moving the goalposts! I almost didn’t see it.

He played 56 out of 60 games in 2020. Or does 2020 not count as “every single year”?

It's not any great heights by most standards, but Jake Burger's 38 HR and 36 2B in his 190 games since leaving the Sox is something I would certainly like to have had.

I don't think this is even a choice anymore. Vaughn has proven he's better than Sheets at basically everything except the quality of being Left Handed.

No idea how to evaluate this guy as a good or bad asset for the team. The pros: Healthiest player on the roster, remarkably consistent, seems like a good clubhouse guy. The cons: His ceiling apparently equals his floor, not enough power, no speed, 4 years in the majors now - he is what he is. I think he's fine to move forward with because of how bad we are, but he seems like every other White Sox asset - never quite good enough to be elite or even above average, never quite bad enough to be cut or traded. A middling talent. Also, his WAR was 0.2 this season mostly playing 1b/DH. Wins Over Replacement typically means replacing him with whoever comes up from the minors, right? I have hard time believing any player coming up would automatically hit 30 doubles and 19 home runs.

I get that the stats look bad for 2024, but I hesitate to apply the word "trend" to this given the 100 game sample size, his 2023 year and career numbers, his injuries this season, and how historically awful this organization was this year. I personally think Luis will be ok. Maybe not the nintendo player everyone projected, but an .800+ OPS 4 WAR player.

I kind of think Benintendi still has some upside, looking at his advanced stats. BABIP seems low and hard hit seems about 90% of what it was. I don't think he'll be a .270 hitter, but a .250 hitter with 20 homers/20 doubles a year would be fine.

The Cuervo Gold The Fine Colombian Makes tonight a wonderful thing

I really, really don't understand why Sheets is still on this roster. Literally no upside left.

Will our best qualified hitter (Vaughn) be the worst best qualified hitter in terms of BA ever ?

Is a Sheets DFA impending? He hasn’t played either game since the break and they were both right handed starters…

This is a ludicrous statement. His entire 2019 season is all star caliber.

You're right. That would be a steep price to pay on a flyer.

Sox fan frustrations aside, Moncada still has trade value. It's not cut and dried. I would think there would be some team that may take an $8 million 2 month flyer on an elite defensive 3B that has the capability of being a .900 OPS player in a contract year. Yoan came out swinging this year and was playing fairly well before he got hurt.

He played 152 of 162 games last year, and on 162 he currently averages 31 and 21. I’m happy to adjust his production to 93.8% of the 162 numbers, so 29 doubles and 20 homers. Is that better? He has played 67 of the Sox’ 73 games (91%) so if he plays 147 of the 162 games his current pace is…. 28.5 doubles and 20 home runs.

I half disagree. I think his floor is what he’s already done in the majors. He averages 31 doubles and 21 homers per 162, and he’s played every game but 15 since the beginning of 2023. He’s healthy, which is more than we can say for almost every other person on this team. I suppose 20 points higher on the OPS ticker was exaggerating his current resume a bit, but isn’t too off of what I think his ceiling is. I think he could be a .780-.800 OPS player but not better than that. He doesn’t walk enough and he doesn’t hit for average enough.

Yes, but we should also acknowledge that he’s barely 26 and played 0 games in the minor leagues, and i think that should have some bearing on how we evaluate him.

Eye test recently says he’s 1.000+ OPS player ?

Regarding .850 OPS is the benchmark for being solid, there seem to be only a handful of 1b who have averaged that over the last 10 years. Seems more like an elite OPS for that position these days, whereas .830-.840 would comfortably put you in the top half or top ten.

Is career fWAR really the best metric to evaluate a 1b who has played a ton of RF and DH?

AV and Gavin have more value to us than what we could get back in trade right now. AV seems like he’s going to be a fairly solid high floor/low ceiling 20 homer, 30 double, .750 OPSish player. We have seen enough to know what he probably is over four years, and it’s ok, not great. He doesn’t seem to make adjustments, especially to offspeed pitches, Gavin is more of a wildcard, I feel like he could have better OPS and SLG potential if he is more aggressive early in the count. He takes way too many strikes early in the count. He could be better than AV, but he also could be far worse. His walk rate this year is very encouraging. I don’t want either to lose time to a Jose Abreu curtain call. We need them each to have as many ABs as possible so we can get a sense of which is the better starting player.