michelangelosmonkey

The Sox team of the 90's..Thomas, Durham, Robin, Ordonez, Ozzie all went through many years of 150 games played...most great players I've ever followed have 5 of 6 years with great health. To call Robert, TA, Grandall and Moncada weak is just ridiculous. Sometimes bad luck happens. Phillies spent a jillion $'s on free agents then for a three year period 19-20-21 they were sub .500 team and last year went to the World Series. This Soxtalk negativity is exhausting.

Your right...no player ever improves their strike out rates from their second season in the minors. I mean sure Robert had over 25% milb strike out rate that dropped to 19% last year in the majors. And every year there are dozens of players that dramatically improve their SO rate. https://www.rotoballer.com/top-strikeout-rate-improvements-for-hitters/987995. But yes...canon arm, super fast, good defender, plus plus raw power...strikes out a lot...put a fork in him. You seem to be on such a crusade for negativity that you lack objectivity. Good luck with that. So much fun to look into the future and predict doom.

OK that's fair about the Braves...like I said I didn't do an extensive study on playoff teams...just looked at at bats as sorted by OPS. But I've also followed baseball for a long time and losing five of your best hitters for half a season was unusual last year. Many teams don't lose any of their guys for half a season. The White Sox will have another terrible year if our core five have less than 2000 at bats. Is that framed properly for you?

Of course you are right...someone posted the FG article on top prospect bust rate and it was eye opening. So if you throw Outman, Cespedes and Colas in the outfield maybe one of them becomes really good...maybe none? The larger point is how important is your fifth outfielder. Look at 2005 WS team. Jermaine Dye was your second most games played in the outfield and he was Eloy level defense. Timo Perez was your primary 4th outfielder and 34 year old Carl Everett was 5th...and that team won the WS. As for your second base comments...Romy, Sosa and Popeye...you said take a chance on the young guys...Romy put up an .800 OPS across 1200 career minor league at bats and he is by far the worst of the three prospects. Yes it's a chance playing them but so is signing 30 year old Adam Frazier to $8 mill after .612 OPS season last year. For a long window and a budget limited to $190 Mill...we need to keep getting value from young guys..

Sorry...2500 at bats for Yankees. .. was looking at PA. But the POINT (not misleading) is that TA, Yoan, Robert, Eloy and Grandal were meant to be the core of a powerful offenses and they all had less than 400 at bats. I chose three teams that were big winners and they all had their key players have more than 500 at bats. The Braves in 21 had four of their top 5 OPS guys with an average of 600 at bats. Teams good players sometimes are healthy. Last year Leury had more at bats than Eloy, Pollock more than Moncada, Harrison more than TA. If we can replace bad hitters with good over 500-1000 at bats I think it moves the needle....but you are welcome to your negativity.

He has great baseball bloodlines. He was thought of as MLB.com's #1 International prospect when he signed 2 years ago right now. He was "considered a five-tool player with above-average tools across the board". He had been out baseball basically for two years . Came to US in 2021 and in his first taste in the US, after two years of sitting out he put up a combined .800 OPS across High A and Birmingham. Last year in the always tough park for hitters Birmingham in 500 at bats he put up a .770 OPS and stole 33 bases at 75% success rate. This year he's going to hitter friendly Charlotte. I think if he plays a full year in Charlotte he will be a 30/30 guy. Yes his strike out rate is concerning but Aaron Judge strikes out 30% of the time. A lot of guys do. I know it's an unpopular position to be positive on Soxtalk but...why wouldn't he take a big step forward? He's just turned 25. He's Cuban. Sox destiny is to have an outfield of Cespedes/Robert/Colas for five years.

A self loathing Sox fan...how rare and intriguing. Thanks for your incite

I think they will thrive. I think Robert is going to have a full year, 150 games, like he did in 2021. I think Colas will be great. Beni is very steady. Cespedes will take two steps forward in AAA this year. They've had very bad luck with injuries for two years in a row...they are due for better luck.

One year ago that is what we all thought was our future. That's pretty much what 2021 Astros did (145 games and 3000 at bats from their top 5 OPS guys, 2022 also 3000 at bats. Yankees and Dodgers also over 3000 at bats from their top 5). White Sox got under 2000 at bats from their core five. Replacing .650 OPS with .850 OPS over extra 1000 at bats fixes our offense no matter what the rookies at 2b and RF do.

Yes the problems are clear. We need health luck. I'm not ready to call a 24 year old broken at this point. They need their core five (Vaughn, TA, Moncada, Robert and Eloy) to each play 150 games and play as they did when they were at their best. If those 5 can be .850 OPS combined over 2500 at bats the offense will be fine.

The problem is that you have to trade pieces to get someone like Outman. And while Jimenez was not a good defensive outfielder...if he had to play 15 or 20 games out there we would survive. Same with Sheets. Victor Reyes has 1000 MLB at bats of at least Luery quality. Billy Hamilton in the minors. Mieses is young but had a pretty good year in Birmingham last year. I'm not sure other teams have some great fourth and fifth outfielder...it is unlikely to be the thing that sinks the White Sox in 2023

I agree that Cespedes isn't ready yet...but I also think closer than people give him credit for. He's got a canon of an arm, is fast and has raw power...after signing Benintendi, having an outfield of Colas, Beni and Robert is exciting. Outman right now is way ahead of Cespedes...but will he be in July? And what would you have to give up to get him? If you brought up Cespedes he would immediately give you a plus defender, ++ arm, ++ speed and power. Maybe Adam Engel with upside? It's a crucial year for Cespedes so losing a key asset to get Outman feels like you are giving up on Cespedes and not any more likely to succeed.

Two guys: Fan Graph rating Born Power speed Field Player 1 5/14/97 55 60 50 Player 2 9/24/97 60 60 45 And we want to trade assets for the slightly older player 1 and we think player 2 is garbage and we never talk about him ? Cespedes had .770 OPS at the very difficult Birmingham park, stole 33 bases and might have the best arm in the organization....it was his first full minor league season and he had to sit out his 21 and 22 years because of Visa and Covid reasons. We have "no one" as a potential outfield call up if one of the starters gets hurt. I agree with your premise that we need to take chances on young players...but weirdly Sox minor leaguers are irrelevant. We have "no one" for the outfield...except Cespedes and Colas...and we need to sign broken down 30 year old journeymen 2b even though two of our top 7 prospects are 2b. If we are going to have to find a path forward without signing superstars we have to begin trusting our young players.

But I would argue with "typical"...they spent a lot of money last year to try to assemble the best relief core in baseball. I think it's fair to argue the plan was stupid (relievers are notoriously up and down) or that in retrospect it didn't work but you can't say they didn't spend hard and try. They also gave big contracts to Keuchel who was top 5 CY Young his first year with us and Grandal who was amazing in 2021 and amazingly bad last year. We need to get past the PTSD of Tony Larussa and the 2022 season. Lot to be excited about here.

Yes but the point, it seems to me, of being part of a fan chat site is to have fun with it. If Hi8is starts a topic "Aaron Judge speculation" I thought...oh that's a fun concept to chew over...and then the first 20 post are SOX SUCK... SOX DON'T SPEND MONEY...this will never happen. What an idiot for even suggesting it. There was zero fun out of the first 20 posts. I'm fully on board with you that It is much riskier to sign Judge today than Harper four years ago because of the ages. But I think this team is in a perfect position now to hit it hard and 2019 they were half a dozen parts away. And again...2022 Abreu+Keuchel = 2023 Judge.

I mean yes...I appreciate not being part of the chorus of dunces. If you don't think the White Sox made really, really, really serious attempts at signing Machado and Wheeler I just can't help you. If you really think the White Sox signed Machado's brother in law and his best friend while Machado was contemplating which team to sign with only as a ploy to fool White Sox fans into false hope?? By all reports they offered Wheeler more money than anyone. In 2019 they tried finesse and money, in 2020 they tried brute force. Neither worked...players chose places they considered more glamorous. Congratulations on being part of the majority that hates their favorite team.

Yes that's pedantic...no one thought that 2005 team would win anything. It seemed like a rebuild year so no reason to spend big on payroll...and then they won and they paid big money for 7 years to try to regain that magic. So my point remains...when they think they are in a window they spend big. As for wasting money...at least in that 2006-2015 period yes. I think they were misled by that lightning in a bottle team and wasted resources on old bad players to regain it. This team is SO much better than any of those teams.

When did I say any of those things??? They were contenders and they spent big...80's 90's, 00's and tens. You can argue that we were poor at talent evaluation. I think with all the Hahn hate we ignore the fact that KW took over that 2000 team that was a young 95 win team and #1 farm system and left in 2013 a barren wasteland. As for the "big city" White Sox with an exciting young team (that played poorly) were 19th in attendance and 7th in payroll last year...and we slam the owner. Their TV and radio packages have been second rate as well. Honestly I think the Sox are idiots if they don't sign Judge. Chicago fans are front runners and will flood to GRF if the Sox are a hot topic. Adding Judge makes this lineup scary.

Yes that's the fair complaint. But we did win a WS in that time...and spending big to try to repeat in a time when the team must have been banking money made sense. Swinging and missing in the Sale/Shields/Quintana/Abreu period was a muddled shot...Hahn took over in 2013 the last of the bigger payrolls...and honestly a team with four stars and a bunch of garbage (see Angels of the last few years) doesn't work. Hahn fairly quickly saw that and started the rebuild...I get the anger over the five year rebuild...and last year royally sucked...but most teams climbing the mountain have a year like that.

Seriously...are you twelve years old? I lost the debate because all the evidence was on my side? 2019 was the year to spend big? That 2018 with the stocked rotation of Shields, injured Dylan Cease, Gio with the worst ERA in baseball, Dylan Covey and Reylo? The year after our outfield was Delmonico, Engel and Avisail? Matt Davidson our DH? Yoan was our 2b coming off a .700 OPS year with bad defense? Yolmer was our 3b? That team was no where near ready to cook and that's when you want to push all the chips in...not now when we one of the top bullpens in baseball, one of the top rotations in baseball and a potential all star at 7 positions. Signing Judge makes us a top three WS favorite. Signing Harper in 2019 would have made us a serious wild card contender.

That's NOT what I'm saying...over and over again I have said that when they have a contention window for a number of years they have a top ten payroll. For forty years we have seen this pattern. You want to b**** about poor evaluation of major league talent or poor drafting...fine. But to whimper about the Sox not spending money is demonstrably wrong. Top ten payrolls in half of the last 16 years...2022, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2008, 2007, 2006 and by the way I suspect never in the top ten of attendance or tv revenues.

Yes everyone agrees our contention winner is nearly over. Good grief...this board. 27 is when players hit their peak...there's zero chance that Vaughn, Robert, Sosa, Jiminez, Cease, Kopech, Yoan, Crochett will get better than they were in 2022. No reason to believe we will have a payroll above the 13th best. No reason to think Colas, Montgomery, Vera, Popeye, Schultz, Ramos will be any good.

2011 White Sox had top 5 payroll, 2010 it was 7. In every decade in JR's ownership we've had a top 5 payroll. Sorry if I get exasperated by the non-stop, every thread, people bitching about ownerships cheapness. I only do it because it's not true...but don't let me interfere with the b**** fest. I will stop trolling.

That is a silly arbitrary number. Comparing 2020 contracts to 1980, 1990, 2000 contracts is meaningless. The question is will JR pay for a big contract and he has often...Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Albert Bell, Carlton Fisk, Julio Cruz. Top five payrolls in all of those eras...and we just freed up $35 million with Abreu and Keuchel. I'm not predicting it but to say speculation is impossible is just meatballery.

Well self loathing is not the only option to a down year. Last year you had the following players miss 58 or more games Grandal, Tim Anderson, Robert, Jiminez and Moncado. AJ Pollock was second on the team in games played. Sheets, Harrison and Engel were 4, 5 and 6. Lynn, Bummer, Crochet, Kopech lost significant time. Grandal, Moncado and Keuchel had horrific years. TLR was the manager...and they still managed to finish at .500. This remains a team that has all the parts to win the WS...now go sign Judge...or at least dream about it until he signs with the Dodgers (who have won nearly 2/3 of their games for 6 years and have one championship to show for it).