JUSTgottaBELIEVE

@Balta1701 strongly disagreed with me last week but this version of the White Sox is the 2013/2014 Cubs. Chance to be very competitive in 2020 with a strong offseason and contention window should open in 2021 regardless.The signs are there whether people want to open their eyes to them or not I don’t know.

Maybe not 150 but 133, like he posted two years ago, is certainly possible...

Yea, his career average is ~10% but his BABIP career average is also .296 so those two should offset to a large degree. I’d surely take a 2017 version of Alonso and “call” it a huge win. ?

16 RBI for Yoán Moncada is most by a White Sox player through the team's first 16 games of a season since Joe Crede (18) in 2008

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/yoan-moncada-is-different/

123 wRC+ on .222 BABIP

Remember when posters were crushing Alonso while he was a carrying a BABIP under 150 but a wRC+ still near 100? Those things even out.

So much more enjoyable when Herrera is pitching for your team rather than the opposition. He just pumps strike after strike with plus stuff and location. Refreshing to have a setup guy like that.

Agreed. I can’t think of any top notch closers that will for sure be available this deadline outside of Colome. Maybe the Pirates closer if they fall out of contention. Who else is there?

He’ll be gone in June well ahead of the July trade deadline (or at least I think)

Yes and what other proven closers will be available in July and how many contenders will be in need of late inning bullpen help? Colome could very well be one of the best options available, if not the very best.

Normally I would agree but he was so dominant last year and he’s already 23. Unless he starts getting knocked around, I think he’ll be up before the end of May. Santana should be due for a trip to the IL by then, if not sooner.

I didn’t reread the entire thread but @Balta1701 first post in this thread indicates he did not like this trade. “Generally not a fan of this at all. One question I haven't seen answered - aside from Grandal, if we wanted a backup catcher to play part time behindsteroid dude and thought that Zavala wasn't yet ready as heisn't, who is available that could be a cheap backup catcher?” (Page 4)

Yep. 1 earned run over his last 8 starts (40 innings) dating back to last year. If that’s not ready, I don’t know what is.

Let’s say the Sox are hanging around .500 in early May and just a couple games back in this terrible division, would the Sox consider a promotion for Dylan Cease? Looks like he’s ready and they’d have the extra year of control by then so that’d be a non-factor in the decision. Thus far it seems like they are keeping his pitch count and innings down in Charlotte for a reason.

Sure is nice having a reliable closer. Colome should fetch a nice return in July, certainly more than Narvaez would have.

Yep and the right move. I stand by my opinion that when this team is ready to compete (2021), we will be thankful we missed on Machado because we will have more pressing needs in other areas and Machado won’t be performing to the level of a $30M AAV player at that time.

Do either Gonzalez or Rutherford have the arm strength for RF? Honest question because I didn’t think they did.

Which position is easier to fill with a league average or better player at an affordable price, 2b or RF? And I think Sanchez is better than Palka now and Madrigal is more of a certainty than any of those OF prospects for RF in the future but let’s just take them out of the discussion for a moment.

I could easily see 1 or 2 guys internally passing them based on performance and then another 2 or 3 guys not currently in the system between the June draft and July trades.

Shouldn’t we be comparing Moncada to Machado? They play the same position now. And since I’ve been told it’s relatively easy to find an average MLB 2b, we shouldn’t worry about that position moving forward. And yes, I think just about everyone would agree that Madrigal’s floor is higher than any of the fringe OF prospects.

Every list I’ve seen either has them at the back end of the top 10 or just outside. Both are off to poor starts (one injury, one performance) that it wouldn’t shock me to see both slip outside the top 10 at the mid year ranking update. That’s what I mean by fringe top 10. I don’t think anyone feels comfortable penciling either one into RF for the Sox any time soon or for the long term. Could it happen? Absolutely. But they’re wild cards.

There’s a clear distinction between talking about someone and definitively stating you’d prefer a player over another player just because you thought the Sox had a better chance of signing him, which is what I was hearing in December/January. If Yolmer gets back to his 2 WAR self sometime soon and Madrigal is as good as advertised, the Sox don’t have a glaring hole at 2b, SS, or 3b. On the other hand, we all knew that outside of Eloy, the outfield was a black hole this year and probably half of next year at least. Even then, who knows what we get out of fringe top 10 org guys like Basabe and Adolfo. Complete wild cards.

So people changed their preference of who they wanted on the Sox based on the perceived odds of signing said player? That’s interesting but I guess not too surprising either.

Well, I guess I missed that thread then. I wasn’t active on here in November but when I started posting on the FA pursuit in late December, it sure seemed like consensus was that posters favored Machado over Harper based on the responses to my posts preferring Harper.