Chicago White Sox

Thanks for setting expectations Jack. I definitely wouldn’t want any joy or optimism in my life and I know I can always count on you to enforce that.

Yeah, my view with starting pitching is you got to plan for a major injury to ensure you’re setup for success come October. Cease is the perfect #4 starter heading into the 2022 season because he’s already damn good, could get even better, and provides insurance if one of your top three guys go down. I don’t want to take any chances on Keuchel or a wore down Kopech making important playoffs, which means adding another TOR starter to pair with Giolito & Lynn.

@ChiliIrishHammock24 - Love the overall plan, but Quintana undermines it for me. For this framework to work, you need to bump up the budget to $185M and get a better starter.

To me, left-handed power bat and TOR starter are my 1A & 1B. The reality is we’re one injury away from having 3/5 of our rotation composed of two guys on innings limits in Dallas & Michael (one of whom was horrible) and a guy who probably came close to getting DFAed last year in Lopez. Even with a great offense and in a week division, I’m not sure that rotation gets you to the postseason.

I’ve always believed that NSC and Portillo’s occasionally get some second hand info, but greatly exaggerate what they actually know (which is very little). I don’t recall having a lot of faith in Al’s and it’s pretty clear he stole most of his shit from Soxtalk or other people on Twitter. Regardless, anyone making a dumb pun-based Twitter account is almost certainly a fraud at this point and can be ignored IMO. Honestly, I put more stock to a wild rumor if someone is willing to put their name to it then hide behind a stupid food based handle.

Ok, after reading that article I see why James will say he might already be the #1 prospect in the system. Honestly, the dude sounds like the real deal and I haven’t been this excited for a prospect since Robert.

None of these new accounts think they have sources, they are doing this for attention and you are giving it to them. Orlando literally parlayed all the Soxtalk attention given to the Al’s Cheesy Beef account into a legit Twitter following. At least with NSC & Portillo’s, they at least got something right at one point in time (still mostly frauds IMO). I’d advise against enabling more of these copycat accounts that clearly are fake.

Oh shit yes.

What would your plan be? Throw out some ideas. You seem to be against veterans, so it doesn’t seem like you have much interest in maximizing the 2022 to 2024 window. And Marte is a pretty damn good player. He had a 7 win season in 2019 and put up 2.9 fWAR in 90 games last year. He seems like a good bet to be a 4.0 to 4.5 win player over the next three years and provides better balance to the lineup being a switch hitter with good contact rates and who can actually hits sliders pretty well

I think he’ll want the highest AAV of all-time and arguably that’s ~$40M.

Look I used BaseballTradeValues to validate the trade and that tool is obviously flawless. But yes, it feels light unless the Dbacks really like Crochet, who is very hard for me to value. I could see rebuilding teams being incredibly high on him as they could send him down to AA and let him spend a year or two building up innings in the minors. If they are, then it’s three former 1st round picks plus a kid with some helium. Maybe just maybe it works.

All good brother. Trust me, I don’t think that plan is in the realm of realism, but it’s fun to dream big. I still think one relatively major free agent signing will happen.

Alright, if the Sox want to get aggressive per Nightengale’s tweet, they need to make major splashes in RF, 2B, & SP: IMO, the dream scenario would be the following: RF: Michael Conforto = 4/$76M SP: Max Scherzer = 3/$120M 2B: Ketel Marte for Garrett Crochet, Colson Montgomery, Jose Rodriguez, & Jared Kelley (works per MLBTradeValues ?) You’d be clearing $200M in payroll, but damn would that team be insane. What do you guys think? What RF, 2B, & SP combo would you go for?

Frazier wasn’t as good as advertised (too many IFBs), but I’m not losing sleep over that trade. It made sense at the time and he still gave us ~3 wins a season.

Montas was in the Todd Frazier trade and not the Shark deal.

Hahn is not going to come out and say “his arm is shot and we’re moving in a different direction.” The reality is the didn’t like what they expected to get out of him in 2022 for $18.4M.

What in the world are you ranting about? The Sox traded Dane fucking Dunning for an AL Cy Young finalist. They offered an NL Cy Young finalist the largest contract in free agency. They aggressively pursued and were supposedly close to acquiring the NL Cy Young winner for Nick Madrigal, Codi Heuer, and a couple minor leaguers. I get some of those moves were theoretical, but they’re proof they’re targeting the right players. And what are all these veteran contracts you are so worried about? Kimbrel will be moved this offseason. Abreu & Keuchel are free agents after the year. Grandal only has two years left. Lynn just came in 3rd place in the AL Cy Young race and only has two guaranteed years left. I guess Hendriks still has three years left, but not really worried about this at the moment. You’re literally creating an issue that doesn’t actually exist. And no idea what the A Ball pitchers have to do with anything? If they all fail, it may limit our window, but right now no one should care about anything behind 2024. Let’s focus on winning a god damn World Series over the next three years and worry about extending the window later.

I’ve never said that he’s damaged, just saying the Sox are the closest to his medicals and passed on extending a QO. They didn’t do this because they are cheap…clearly they were worried about something. Doesn’t mean they weren’t wrong, but it’s too early to say that.

Gray seems like a guy who could pop by leaving Coors / joining a new organization, but I agree his stuff has been erratic and I admittedly don’t have a great grasp on his past injuries and how much those have played a role. But he’s definitely the value guy I think has the best chance to provide a Lynn/Rangers type impact in this class.

He is and usually pops in now or then with a rumor that doesn’t pan out.

One other interesting take, but the Sox have acquired or tried to acquire three of the six Cy Young finalists this year. Max Scherzer would theoretically make a fourth. At a bare minimum, I think that pursuing Wheeler & Burnes before their full fledged breakouts proves our pro scouting department is vastly improved from the dark days.

Just dreaming about my top trade deadline target that never came to fruition

Again, this all assumes he passes a physical. Thor was nervous enough that he shortened his negotiating window to just a handful of weeks to ensure he had the QO as a fall-back.

So here’s the remaining starting pitchers on MLBTR’s top 50 free agents list: 05) Kevin Gausman: 6/$138M | $23M AAV 07) Robbie Ray: 5/$130M | $26M AAV 09) Max Scherzer: 3/$120M | $40M AAV 11) Marcus Stroman: 5/$110M | $22M AAV 14) Eduardo Rodriguez: 5/$77M | $15.4M AAV 18) Carlos Rodon: 1/$25M 19) Jon Gray: 4/$56M | $14M AAV 22) Anthony DeSclafani: 3/$42M | $14M AAV 23) Justin Verlander: 2/$50M | $25M AAV 26) Alex Wood: 3/$30M | $30M AAV 27) Steven Matz: 3/$27M | $9M AAV 33) Clayton Kershaw: 1/$20M 34) Yusei Kikuchi: 2/$20M 37) Noah Syndergaard: 1/$21M 39) Alex Cobb: 2/$16M | $8M AAV 40) Zack Greinke: 1/$15M 46) Corey Kluber: 1/$12M 48) Danny Duffy: 1/$10M 50) Andrew Heaney: 1/$8.5M Lots of mid / back of the rotation guys still left, but after Scherzer you pretty much have to go the trade route if you want a TOR starter. At least the SP market is moving quickly.

I’m not sure what you‘re even arguing at this point. That pitchers can get hurt?