Chicago White Sox

2B is such an easy position to fill that’s usually not worth investing heavily into. Regardless, what quality free agents even are left?

Rub.One.Out…all will be better

Isn’t that why we have Engel?

For the love of god, please stop only looking at the prior year when evaluating players. None of the guys you mentioned have the track record that Conforto does. Additionally, you completely ignore the negative defensive value that Sheets & Vaughn will provide. You also act like we can somehow merge Sheets, Vaughn, & Engel into one super player, but that’s not how it works. And then to top it all off you go with let’s not block two prospects who have done jack shit and use the money instead on a player that is already gone.

Greatest manager ever as long as he gets Jerry to open that wallet!

Lol…what does that even mean?

Yup, two straight years of horrific RF production as a result of going cheap. If Hahn doesn’t address the problem this year then he need to be held accountable for any shortcomings.

Yeah I saw this…what a stupid fucking take.

One name that hasn’t been discussed for 2B is Gleyber Torres. He’s coming off a couple rough years and the Yankees have a bit of a 2B squeeze at the moment. No idea if they’d move him or what they’d be looking for, but he’d a great buy low guy for us.

So would I but don’t see a good match between us.

Starting pitching market is going to move fast.

Alright, here are the stats for three relievers from last year. If they were all free agents, what would their market value be? Player A: 2.54 ERA | 2.34 FIP | 14.3 K/9 | 1.4 HR/9 | 99th percentile xwOBA Player B: 2.26 ERA | 2.43 FIP | 15.1 K/9 | 0.9 HR/9 | 98th percentile xwOBA Player C: 2.57 ERA | 2.83 FIP | 13.2 K/9 | 1.4 HR/9 | 97th percentile xwOBA

Yes, he was trash over 20 innings in 2019 when he joined the Cubs halfway through the season without the benefit of a spring training. After that he was mostly dominant for the Cubs. I don’t think any of that had to with the pressures of “being in the hunt” if that’s what you’re suggesting. He was simply all-around bad in 2019. So to be clear, your theory for why he fell off a cliff with the Sox is because he went from closing for a loser Cubs team to being a setup man for a team with a nine game divisional lead? And instead of looking at his performance in various leverage scenarios (which are nearly identical over the course of his career and best in high situations in 2020 & 2021 with the Cubs), you’d rather focus on a dozen of playoff innings that aren’t even remotely statistically significant? At the end of the day, Craig Kimbrel still has elite stuff and when his command is on he is one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball. Unfortunately when he joined the Sox his velocity dropped down a tick and he also saw his command diminish. I don’t know if the root of his issues were mental, physical, or mechanical, but regardless, guys have two bad months all the time, especially pitchers and even more so relievers. And just because he sucked with the Sox does not mean he’s going to suck with his next team. Again, the Rays & Dodgers didn’t believe he was fraud when they aggressively pursued him last year. I really don’t think Sox fans can be objective with Kimbrel given the steep price we paid to acquire him and the shit performance he gave us over the final two months of the season.

Someone will take him because they won’t be as emotional as Sox fans and overreact to his two month stint with us. On a full season basis, he was 6th in fWAR at 2.2, 7th in FIP at 2.43 (w/ at least 30 IP), 3rd in K/9 at 15.08, and had a 98th percentile xwOBA. This was over 59.2 innings, which is roughly a full season for him. Meanwhile the other “year and a half” everyone loves to cite as being horrible was a total of 36 innings (~60% of one normal length season for him). And the best part is Kimbrel wasn’t even bad in 2020. Coming off a COVID impacted spring training, he had two bad appearances to start the season (33.94 FIP in 1.3 innings). Over the rest of the season, which was a total of 14 innings, he posted a 1.12 FIP with a 18.0 K/9. He literally was just as dominant over the final 91% of the 2020 season as he was with the Cubs to start 2021. I know, I know, Two Gun Pete will call me a “slicer & dicer” for daring to use any sort of critical thinking when assessing Kimbrel’s stats over the past two years. And he definitely won’t like me using context and pointing out that changing roles, experiencing a 44 inning YoY inning increase, and/or dealing with a sick daughter may have had something to do with his sudden falloff after joining the Sox. Regardless, some of the brightest minds in baseball were highly interested in him at the trade deadline and I have zero doubt a few of those same minds see a potential buy low opportunity here. I doubt we get much in return, but major league front offices almost certainly value Craig Kimbrel much higher than the majority of posters on Soxtalk do and we will be able to move him.

Exactly.

Mahle is going to cost more than Gray.

No offense, but almost all your arguments are based on hindsight and ignore all context. Every OF Atlanta acquired at the deadline sucked major dick prior to the deadline. They got super lucky that those guys all got hot at exactly the right time and carried them in the playoffs. You would have ripped Hahn to shreds if he acquired one of those guys to be our RF answer at the deadline. I’m not going to keep arguing our need for bullpen help at the deadline because it’s beyond tiring. I don’t give a fuck what our team fWAR was at that point in time. I only care about the go-forward projections of the guys we had available at the time. Anyone who actually watched the games in July knew we needed serious bullpen help. You citing a backwards looking stat as it’s somehow proof that the bullpen was in great shape is hilarious. And in regard to your last paragraph, we literally made the postseason two straight years and will likely make it three in a row. We have one of the best teams on baseball because of the moves the front office has made kicking off the rebuild. The way you whine is like we’re the god damn Rockies. Funny all is took was Jerry finally agreeing to rebuild the org from the ground-up for us to quickly change our trajectory. So you can literally post 1,000 times a day just how “stoopid” Hahn is, but I’m going to sit back and enjoy watching one of the best young teams in baseball compete for a championship.

Let’s say the Sox sign Joe Kelly and deal Kimbrel. Here’s how the bullpen would shake out (Steamer’s projected 2022 FIP in parentheses): CL: Liam Hendriks (2.69) SU: Aaron Bummer* (3.28) SU: Kendall Graveman (3.98) MR: Garrett Crochet* (3.85) MR: Joe Kelly (3.88) MR: Ryan Burr (4.64) MR: Jose Ruiz (4.51) LR: Reynaldo Lopez (4.36) The top five would look good, but I’d want another arm that at a minimum can compete with Burr & Ruiz.

You think Kimbrel has to go first? I kind of feel like they sign his replacement and then deal him?

It’s not just resources, but having an owner that dictated we continually go for it without providing the necessary resources. How many times did we try to win but never put the finishing touches on things? Doesn’t mean Hahn is free from criticism, but those failures are more on Jerry than anyone else IMO.

We are trading for a starter pitcher. I know that will trigger some here since it will likely be a rental or guy with limited control, but it’s going to happen. Hell, Hahn even mentioned in his press conference today that they have discussed non traditional rotation structures to get through the season, including a theoretical six man rotation.

Show me these posts from today?

Jack - We have a $190M luxury tax payroll right now. We’re already in unprecedented territory. What in the world do you gain being angry about stuff that hasn’t actually happened yet?

It’s been like 36 hours since the offseason reopened and no one relevant to us has been acquired by other teams. Some of you guys are acting like little babies right now. Trust me, I’ll be the angriest person on this board if they do nothing of importance, but I’ll actually wait a week before declaring Hahn has failed us.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve ripped the front office plenty because they’ve made plenty of bad moves. But unlike you, I also give them credit for building one of the best teams in baseball. And I don’t live in fear of the past and assume because Hahn has made a couple terrible trades that all future trade will be terrible. You seem to want to be miserable right now and that’s your prerogative, but do us all a favor and stop the non-stop shit-posting. You’re better than this.