michelangelosmonkey

Madrigal and Vaughan are the two post tank picks...I'm excited about both.

Though his go for it at all costs did lead to the 2005 WS...which is a moment I'll never forget.

Cole Hamels was 34, 1-3 with a 10.23 ERA in the five starts before the trade. But I do agree with you...I think Kenny still was running the show...and I think Kenny is largely to blame for the Sox dearth of talent by 2016. He took over a young 95 win team with the #1 rated farm system in 2000 and by the time he turned it over in 2012 they had the 30th ranked farm system and a broken down old team that was about to win 67 games in 2013. Jerry gets a lot of hate on Soxtalk. RH gets a lot of hate but it seems to me the real villain is KW.

I think all reasonable people can agree with this. We would never again hear Shields name if we hadn't included that lottery ticket in the birthday card...and now we will never be able to forget. The tragedy is our incredible bad luck.

I think the rebuild is exactly him learning from it. They were chasing a ring with a few superstars and garbage around them and hoping to catch lightening in a bottle with fading stars. The rebuild has been amazingly ruthless and methodical...and the results seem very exciting.

Maybe he said it...I couldn't find a contemporary statement. I did find a BA comment on the day of the trade that said Tatis was not in the top 30 of international prospects from 2015 nor was he a top 30 White Sox prospect. Shields is exactly as broken down a former ace as Cole Hamels was last year for the Cubs...and he has since put up a 6 WAR in his next 30 starts. Sometimes you get lucky...and some times you don't...but it is ridiculous after the fact to suggest we were giving up a future hall of famer for nothing.

Honestly Sox talk has lost their collective minds on this Tatis, Jr issue. If you give a friend, as kind of a joke, a lottery ticket in his birthday card...and he wins $100,000,000 it is A) the dumbest thing you ever did. B) the unlikeliest of outcomes. Here is the quote on the day of the trade: "BA did not rank him as one of the top 30 international prospects in 2015 or one of the White Sox top 30 prospects before this season."

I did find an article and a Klaw chat where the rumor was that the Sox were going to trade Tim Anderson for Shields and in both cases Klaw said that would be a big mistake....but I didn't see anything where anyone said "well trade Tim Anderson if you must but don't touch Fernando Tatis, Jr". Honestly there is no point in arguing as it DID turn out to be a disastrous trade...as the Nationals are saying now in the Eaton trade, and the Cubs in the Quintana trade. But come on...if I told you the White Sox traded Luis Mieses (sox current 18 year old prospect with Fangraph FV of 40 like Tatis back in 2016) for 34 year old Jeff Samardzija there are a LOT of negative takes you could have...but...oh no...not Mieses would be the least likely in present time.

Note I do not know you and cannot rule out the possibility that your family are time travelers. As for hating the trade at the time...of course...many people had that opinion. Expensive, old and in decline. Like Cole Hamels. I'm sure it is not hard to find Cubs fans that last year hated that trade as well...until they loved it. i cannot find any Keith Law rankings of Tatis BEFORE the trade....in 2017 of the six leading minor league rankers...BA, BP, Call, Sickles, MLB and Klaw only Klaw ranked Fernando at all...at 47 after Tatis had a very good showing in A ball at 17 post trade. Even after a great first year virtually all minor league experts had no opinion on Tatis and I suspect Klaw's was a combination of respect for the blood lines and punking the White Sox as he always does.

It DOESN'T speak for itself. It seems like Hahn has drafted and made a bunch of trades and we are set for potentially the greatest White Sox team any of us has ever seen. Madrigal, Moncado, Robert, Jimenez, Vaughan and Anderson all look like budding stars. McCann is an all star catcher. And Giolito, Cease, Kopech and Rodon all have ace stuff. Add in Bummer, Colome, ABreau, Dunning, Lopez, Collins, burger, Adolfo, Rutherford, Hansen, Basabe...and nearly the lowest payroll in baseball with a promise to spend? Hate on Hahn after the rebuild fails. It just seems like now is not the right time.

This is 100% hindsight. Cubs traded for Cole Hamels who was 34, 1-3 with a 10.23 ERA in the five starts before the trade and overall with a 5.2 FIP for the Rangers...which is a near exact comparison to Shields....and he was owed about the same amount of money and the Cubs traded three prospects for him. He has put up a 6 WAR in the 30 starts after the trade. You can say the Cubs are geniuses and the Sox are idiots but I think it is luck...it happens frequently a fading star pitcher comes back to life when traded to a contender...and it happens frequently that they just continue to be bad. But AT THE TIME...it was worth the gamble...if instead of putting up a -1.8 WAR the rest of the way Shields puts up a 3...then suddenly the Sox are in the Wild card chase...Sale and Quintana were both 5+ WAR pitchers that year, Rodon went 7-3 in the second half and that year you had a bullpen of David Robertson, Nate Jones and Dan Jennings who combined also had a 5 WAR. All you needed to do was make the wild card and you could have had a pitching WS run like 2005. It DIDN'T WORK. I am sad too...but it wasn't a systemic failure. As for the Tatis legend...Fangraphs was as high as anyone on him. Here are there post trade grades they had on him: Hit: 20/50, Raw Power: 40/50, Game Power: 20/50, Run: 50/45, Field: 40/45, Throw: 60/60, FV: 40 So his future value was a bench player who derives most of his value from speed and a big arm. Yawn.

It was not unreasonable for the Sox in the 2013-2016 period (Hahn's first years as GM) to try to patch together a champion. They got lucky when the generational talent of Sale suddenly appeared. They got equally lucky when Quintana fell off the trash pile into their laps. They should have been rebuilding in that period but instead they tried to catch lightening in a bottle (like 2005). If you could just reach the playoffs with Sale/Quintana they could have had a Johnson/Schilling Diamondbacks run. They threw a lot of money at aging stars like Dunn and Todd Frazier and Melky but the organization was too weak to get over the hump. After the hot start in 2016 trying to get a veteran former ace pitcher at mid season for a failed prospect and a lottery ticket was not stupid. Sometimes the 34 year old seemingly washed up ex-ace pitcher goes 9-1 the rest of the way like Verlander did last year and sometimes they go 4-12 like Shields did. And most of the time the lottery ticket is single A roster filler...but sometimes it becomes Tatis. Hahn had bad luck trying to build from a weak foundation but was smart enough at the end of 16 to realize it and blow it all up. Hahn needs to, and will be, judged by this rebuild. His off season acquisition this year have been really good considering it wasn't really the time to hit the accelerator. His big test is this coming off season...where he should have a pile of money and a budding roster of stars. We'll see but I haven't been this excited about a core Sox team since the Thomas/Venture/McDowell days.

The argument was that Hahn is terrible in evaluating major league talent. If you are being fair you exclude Alonso and Jay because they were CLEARLY signed to try to get Machado...and while it didn't work it was a creative way of trying to win the auction. Santana was a broken piece they found in the dump and got rid of after a few starts. I will give you that Nova and Herrera have been bad but you have to concede that McCann and Colome have been great. It just seems to me the wrong year to be angry at Hahn for inability to find major league players. There is a legitimate concern pre-rebuild about him trying to surround Eaton/Sale/Quintana with talent to win and failing. But it's hard not to like what he's done since the rebuild started.

Did I miss something? Isn't McCann the MVP of this years team? Doesn't Colome have 17 saves and a 0.69 WHIP? Are they both not going to be on the All Star team this year? If in next years off season we add two more All Stars and a couple of duds I'd be ok with that.

I'm not sure what the guy has to do to "earn" another chance in your eyes. The White Sox release their old left handed hitting DH and call up a left handed hitting DH that has a .922 OPS in AAA this year and finished 5th in rookie of the year balloting last year and you are mad about that?? To even suggest the older Skole, with the 3500 career at bats with an OPS barely over .800 is more deserving is unhinged. I will agree Palka had a horrific week and a half in April...but to completely write off his career because of that????

This year in 300 at bats he has 44 walks. Through nearly 2500 minor league at bats he walked about 12% of the time. Maybe last year...as a rookie figuring out the majors the first time...was the outlier. He hit with near elite power. Yes he's not a good outfielder but if he shows something again...and he's lefty...he could become a useful DH asset. Sure way better than Alonso.

I'm not sure I understand all the hatred for Palka. At 26 he had a .780 OPS in his first shot in the majors, hit 27 home runs in 3/4 of a season (120 games) and finished fifth in rookie of the year balloting. He's a left handed hitter. He dramatically improved his walk rate this year (n AAA and majors). Yes he was terrible in 35 At bats this year in April in terrible weather...but then put up a .920 OPS in AAA. I don't think he's a star but he sure seems worth another look.

I just think that is not true. Rod Carew, in 1971-72 had 1200 at bats and TWO home runs. Ichiro in 2010-2011 played 323 games had 1350 at bats and 11 home runs. Surely you aren't suggesting that Carew and Ichiro in those 2500+ at bats didn't have hundreds of times where a home run would have helped win a game but they chose not to because they didn't want to unleash their hidden power. The two players had a combined 38 years in the majors and five seasons of hitting 10 or more home run and neither player in 38 seasons hit more than 15 in a year. They were great great players but they weren't power hitters. That is Madrigal's path.

Of course he is unlikely to be Rod Carew...but you asked what his upside was. I think Ichiro was the modern Rod Carew...great defense, great speed, great bat control, never hit for power. Or Tony Gwynn....or Robbie Alomar. All those guys had long stretches of 6+ WAR seasons. I think that was the dream with Madrigal....there is a narrative on this board that if you hit for no power there is no room for you in the modern world of baseball. And yet all of us would take a 22 year old Ichiro.

Madrigal's upside is Rod Carew. Singles hitting, good defense, fast second baseman that averaged about an 8 WAR per year over a seven year stretch. Don't give up on him yet.

i get that this is the narrative. Collins is a bad defensive catcher. Future Sox said "Collins has a strong arm, grading out to be average or a tick above. He lacks mobility and is occasionally out of position on balls in the dirt, and his receiving skills are a key focus for him right now." And clearly the White Sox are working on teaching him framing and calling a game. So let's say he gives up a lot of passed balls, and makes some errors catching pop ups. Ted Simmons in 1975 led the majors in errors and passed balls by a catcher and ended up with nearly a 5 WAR...and sixth in MVP voting. Isn't a very good hitting catcher with ok fielding way more valuable than a very good hitting DH?? And while its nice to have great defense...last year Martin Maldonado was Fan Graphs second best defensive catcher and Zunio was third and both had Engel-esque batting stats. I like the idea of our Ted Simmons.

Rod Carew never hit 15 home runs (averaged 6 per year over 162 in a 19 year career) but in a 7 year period put up a 49 WAR. Great fielding second baseman, great speed, good eye, great bat control...that's your ceiling.

Maybe they saw Rod Carew who never hit 15 home runs but had a seven year stretch where he averaged a 7 WAR.

And the 37 years before JR...one post season appearance....so a 500% improvement under Jerry.😃 This is not the Yankees we have chosen to follow. Still the rebuild was the right path...it's going to take patience. This team was never going to be good in 2019. Kopech/Burdi/Basabe/Dunning/Burger/Robert injuries have hurt...but are not catastrophic for the long run. It still feels like we have a ton of talent that will all come together about 2021. I think we could have a very nice run from 2021-2025.

Come on guys...he was hitting .500 with a 1.400 OPS on April 5th. He's had a few bad games.