michelangelosmonkey

I was super patient but at some point the rebuild goes to the second stage...where you trade future assets for present assets. You suggest we could still win WS in 2020 with a playoff rotation of...Gio, Dallas and...Cease? Dunning? Lopez? Rodon? Do you trust anyone but the top two against the Twins or Dodgers? Lynn has been one of the best pitchers in baseball the last season and a half. Going into the playoffs with three very good pitchers, a great offense and a very good defense makes you a legit contender. The idea that somehow you are "slamming the door shut" on the rebuild because you trade one of 8 young pitchers...and the oldest one coming off of major arm trouble...for a TOR pitcher seems a bit hyperbolic. Lynn buys you a year and a half for Cease, Kopech, Lopez and 6 other pitchers to gain consistence and confidence to be big league pitchers.

So if I give you this list of White Sox pitching prospects And I tell you...choose one...and over the rest of the 2020 season and the 2021 season they will come up and give you 3 WAR for 2020 and 6 WAR for 2021 but then blow out their arm and never pitch for us again. Would you take that? Giving you a real shot for post season glory in the early window period. That's basically trading for Lance Lynn. Or would you say "nope keep building up their arm until 2022 so we have a good shot at a five years window starting in 2022". I might agree with you that you take the longer period of potential greatness with Kopech and probably Crochet and Kelly (that is, not trading them for Lynn) but the rest? Why is Dunning untouchable? Isn't it possible that Stiever or Pilkington or Dahlquist are just as good? Isn't it better to have one Lance Lynn today for a year and a half than six really quality 4th starters in two years? Lynn really moves our legitimate contention window up at least a year. I'm ready.

Another soft hit. ugh. This is going to be a frustrating 3000 hit career.

I like Dunning but for the next 18 months Lynn is going to be consistantly better. After that we have 8 prospects as exciting as Dunning.

This is great work and how can you not be excited about pitching moving forward? If Dunning goes instead of Stiever...Stievers younger and many think could be as good. The Dunning-Mize pitch off seemed like a showcase. If you were Rangers and could show your fans the Dunning game plus Collins plus Lopez I think they would be happy. I do like throwing in Elijiah Tatis to make Soxtalk lose their minds.

Sorry I meant Lynn

I'm warming to the idea of making a trade for Lynn. The problem is young pitchers have a learning curve. It took Gio four years in the majors to really figure it out. Cease is still not a sure thing after a year and a half. If we are counting on Dunning based on four really good innings the other day and his pre-injury record...will he really be better than 2020 Cease next year? Won't we need a consistent top 4 to compete in playoffs and next year pennant race? Will Kopech come up and be ace ready right off? Even Chris Sale took a year and a half in the bullpen before he was great. So let's say Kopech=Sale he likely won't be major force until 2022. If you bring in Lynn you have a great top three and a very good top four for this year and next year. You use the 4 and 5 slot plus relief to audition for Lynn's replacement for 2022. The other thing to remember is we don't need 8 great starting pitchers. We need 5. In theory for 2022 you have Gio, Cease, Kopech and Kuechel. So you really only need one more and it seems like we have a lot to chose from. Here's the pool for a trade for Lynn and adding our 2022 fifth starter (or Kuechel replacement). I tend to be the most optimistic on the board so I'm not ready to give up on Reylo completely yet...but I'm getting pretty close. I had huge hope for Rodon but the injury thing just seems to make him unlikely to ever fulfill his promise. I think Cease has reached the point for me where he is going to be a very good major league pitcher. He's not there yet but I think 2021 he will make another leap forward. That leaves us with 8 pitchers in our top 25 prospects that all look exciting. I think you use one of them as the headline of a trade to Texas. I wouldn't trade Kopech for anything but DeGrom...his upside remains Nolan Ryan and while I like Fry the trade could end up looking real bad. Dunning is the oldest of the group and showed scintillating stuff the other night. He might be attractive enough to build a package around. I would NOT trade Madrigal or Vaughan as I see them as foundational pieces. I love Collins but it seems the White Sox don't. So we send Dunning, Reylo, Collins, Rutherford and maybe throw in Elijiah Tatis as a wild card. We have so many of the offensive/Defensive parts in place I think we shouldn't wait for ALL the flowers to grow. I mean really, don't you think that when Fry is done in two years that we will think of Kelly and Crochet about what we think of Cease and Kopech right now? Trade in some chips Rick Hahn and let's go for it this year.

OK that's probably fair...just looked at his average from college and minor league. Again...judging him based on half a dozen games in the pros and conclusively stating that he would be lucky to steal 15 seems overly pessimistic.

I can't imagine that back firing. Lottery tickets NEVER hit.

Sorry I didn't understand your definition of "run producer" as a slugger. Of course that's true...but when Vaughan comes up we have about six guys that can hit 30 homers. Madrigal as a guy that gets on base at a .370 clip, steals 40 bases and plays gold glove second base...every day...seems more valuable than a short term shot at WS that is a bit of a gamble anyway.

HAHA....in your own argument you admit that players can go from worst to first. I did not say Lopez is a phenom. I'm just reacting to the suggesting that he's worthless. Somehow he's Dylan Covey. He's given a number of data points that he might be good. I wrote someplace earlier how very good he's been in about 80% of his starts...it's just when he was bad he was horrible.

I think that is ridiculous to question his manhood. Seems like it was less than a year ago that he went into Cleveland when they were fighting for a playoff spot and he threw a 1 hitter with 11 strikeouts and a few starts later held the Tigers to one run and struck out 9 in 8 innings?? When he is good he is very good (OK and when he's bad hes awful) still he's only 26...and he can throw it 98. Why must we give up on every young player after a couple of bad performances?

Metrics? He won the gold glove for all minor league second basemen. I mean...someone likes his defense.

And by the way...shouldn't dynastic greatness be in play? The pieces are falling in place. I know it's still a long shot but if Vaughan is Frank Thomas and Madrigal is Rod Carew?? Trading a shining potential for 36 starts of admittedly a very good pitcher seems to aggressive of a move...we are the 1969 Reds.

OH come one...you have defined 23 year old Madrigal after 17 major league at bats? Wasn't he named the best fielding second baseman in all the minors last year? You know who else was a single hitting, great bat control, little power, rare walking (until later in his career) second baseman. Rod Carew...and he had nearly 50 WAR in a 7 year stretch. I like Mendick but he's almost 27 and has never done anything in his career that suggests greatness.

It seems like they have a plan with Collins...though it's hard to see what it is. For all the talk of him being a terrible catcher...I've seen both of his games this year and he looked good. In fact outside of the one Drew Anderson meltdown, all of the pitchers seemed to pitch well with him catching. As you say, lefty with a great eye and plus power that could catch 50 games a year and costs nothing seems like a valuable asset.

Saying I'm not dealing with reality? That I have nothing to learn? I SAID you were right. Shields WAS a disaster. The trade WAS terrible. But just because you "thought" he was terrible at the time, and many posters thought he was terrible, didn't make you right and the trade unsupportable. Please show me the reality that Shields was guaranteed to be a disaster...you can't because it's not there. You make it sound like I'm making up my own reality...that before his single terrible outing Shields in 2016 didn't have a 3.06 ERA and 1 WAR in the first 1/3 of the season after having years of success including some years of dominance. Why is his run up to the trade different that Randy Johnson evidence I provided? I think if you looked at RJ and Shields at the same age and after the 1/3 of the season RJ seemed way more likely to be done...and Seattle was spectacularly wrong about that. And Tatis? The VAST majority of young prospects end up being nothing. Tatis was an international free agent and any team, including the San Diego could have had him for baseball chump change....now three years later he's the best player in baseball? That's not luck? As for denigrating my Soxtalk Brethren...they are all filled with strong opinions....Giolito is a disaster, Moncado is a disaster, Collins is a disaster, Madrigal is a disaster, Lopez is a disaster, Abreau is a disaster, Anderson is a disaster...this week Grandal is a disaster, EE is done, Cease is worthless. There is a TON of negativity...And you Cali...one of my favorite posters and more reasoned people here are wrong about this issue...wrong to be angry about trading for a chance to win and giving up a AAAA pitcher and a lottery ticket. The trade at the time was a bold move to try to get the playoffs with a team that had major pieces. It didn't work and ended up changing the organization approach. But if it had worked...it would have been a fun play off ride with Sale unstoppable that year. It would never be remembered except for our including that lottery ticket.

Why? Because people said, based on his most recent outing and his age, that Shields was done? You are not trying to tell me that people on Soxtalk jumped to wild conclusions based on a single data point??? There are lots of examples of 34 year old pitchers that resurrect their career...at 34 Rich Hill had averaged a negative WAR his previous 7 years and then had 10 WAR the next 5 years. Also lots of pitchers at 34 that fall off the cliff. Randomness happens. You were right...but it didn't really matter because it only cost us money, a AAAA pitcher and Ryan Goins so it was worth the gamble...I mean, unless Ryan Goins becomes the best player in baseball...hahahahahaha...oh shit.

Hahn didn't have the power in 2016. This was still Kenny's team and he was still the big gambler hoping to hit it big like in 2005. I didn't support this...I was part of the rebuild believers...but it was not unreasonable. Sale/Quintana/Rodon put up a +12 WAR that year. Nate Jones/David Robertson/Dan Jennings/Zach Duke had a +6 WAR as the core of potentially a very good relief staff. Adam Eaton was elite that year, Tim Anderson had a very promising rookie year and you had Abreau and a bunch of old vets that compromised a reasonable offense. The idea wasn't bad the results were. People here pretend that they KNEW Shields was toast at the point of the trade...but that's fiction. Shields had averaged 3.9 WAR the previous five years, and in 2016 he had a 3.06 ERA...2.5 to 1 K/BB rate and a +1 WAR until his last start in San Diego where he gave up 10 runs in 2 innings. If you want to say you were ready to throw out the previous 5 years and 10 very good starts because he had a bad two innings I'm skeptical. You would have been RIGHT but you had basically no evidence to support it. Shields was 34 at the time of the trade. Randy Johnson was 34 in 1998 and after his first ten starts had a 7 ERA...about the point in the season where Sox got Shields. Seattle traded Johnson who then put up a 44 WAR in the next 4.5 years. Sometimes you get lucky. As for San Diego targeting Tatis...I mean ok...after the White Sox said...you can't touch these 40 prospects. You know how unlikely it is for a non-top 30 prospect to even sniff the major leagues? San Diego likely said "well he's very young, plays short stop and his father was a major leaguer. Of all the garbage he's the most likely to maybe become a reasonable back up major league shortstop. The odds of Tatis then becoming the best player in baseball is so remote its not worth talking about. We wouldn't have these endless arguments if Tatis becomes Ryan Goins. This was not a master stroke of talent genius by the Padres this was damn luck. Damnable luck.

Everything is obvious in retrospect. Cole Hamels was a washed out veteran pitcher who was TERRIBLE for the Rangers in 2018 and then went to the Cubs and put up a 2.4 WAR in the second half of 2018 for the Cubs. If Shields does that instead of the -2.1. They may have had a chance. Having the White Sox role the dice on the Sale/Quintana/Rodon/Shields/ David Robertson/Nate Jones pitching staff to lead them to the playoffs where anything can happen was not the dumbest move ever made. Throwing in some nobody was meaningless. It didn't work out but the failure led to the rebuild. You take chances in life and shaking your fist at the clouds after the fact really doesn't help.

We paid overslot for Curbelo...he was a top 10 prospect for us in 2016 at 18 and played short stop. ALL 18 year old are random outcomes. If we had traded Curbelo instead no one ever talks about this trade. We only talk about it because it blew up in our faces. As I said early, it is a legitimate argument to make that we should NEVER throw in a lottery ticket in any trade. In this trade it seems San Diego should have thrown in the lottery ticket. But the odds that Tatis, Jr became Tatis, Jr had to be tens of thousands to one. It sucks but we did NOT trade a future super star for Shields as the board seems to think. We traded a raw kid that any reasonable baseball scout would have said is not nearly as likely to succeed as Curbelo.

Everyone sees something in their lottery tickets. If you are going to take a wild swing...go with a 17 year old shortstop with major league roots. If you are going to buy a lottery tickets don't play popular numbers (because you will then split with someone else). The Padres were't going to get Curbelo because he wasn't a lottery ticket. So they looked way down at the bottom of the Sox barrel and said...well throw in this guy. And yes...if there is a criticism...don't ever put a lottery ticket in a birthday card because its almost always worthless but when it's not its a disaster.

At some point we need to get over this. We included a powerball ticket in a birthday card and it turned out to be the $100 million ticket. Does that make us the biggest idiots ever or really really really unlucky? In retrospect it was a horrible decision but at the time Tatis wasn't in the top 150 players in the Sox organization and if we had thrown in Luis Curbelo instead (18 year old SS, #7 in our top prospects list in mid year 2016) we would have been OUTRAGED at the huge overpay for Shields and today we would say we got nothing for nothing. Instead...we put a $1 piece of paper that was almost certainly going to be worthless into the birthday card and now we continually lose our minds at the weird randomness of the world.

Babe Ruth's first few games in the majors have shown exactly what we should have expected from him: An interesting pitching prospect that really can't hit. As I write this Ruth has been involved in 17 chances and yielded only 3 safeties. His thunderous swing has created 7 dust storms and but a single free pass. He'll always have trouble with the old uncle charlie. Mr Ruth has shown proclivity to tossing the old horse hide and he needs to set aside the lumber to concentrate on throwing a hammer because he will never be able to hit it. Ridick Ulace Conclusion theoldtimeidiot.com (note...baseball reference is amazing...game logs from 1914??? It is the greatest sport).

Fernando Tatis, JR first few games in the majors have shown exactly what we should have expected from him: A young, over matched hitter who's minor league swing and miss issues will get worse in the majors. As I write this Tatis Jr has a .200 batting average, .360 slugging percent, 9 strikeouts in 25 at bats and a single home run off of a AAAA Arizona pitcher. This is pretty much what he is. He'll hit for some power off of bad pitchers, play a decent shortstop but his low contract rate will doom him to being a mediocre player. Charley Rushtojudgment theidiot.com