Chicago White Sox

Great assessment by Biggs https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bears/ct-chicago-bears-ryan-pace-carson-wentz-20210214-trl3prx4pventltuwjkh4elx2i-story.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

I think Madrigal bats 9th no matter what, but I do think Eaton is the wild card. I could see La Russa batting him 2nd, but ultimately I’m expecting him to do the right thing to start the season and keep him towards the bottom of the order.

I don’t like the idea of guys pitching on six days rest that frequently on top of giving 30% of our first 40 starts to Rodon & Lopez. With only five playoff teams there needs to be a greater sense of urgency than that IMO.

Here’s what I think Tony will go with: Anderson, SS Moncada, 3B# Abreu, 1B Jimenez, LF Grandal, C# Robert, CF Vaughn, DH Eaton, RF* Madrigal, 2B

Alright guys, assuming everyone is healthy and Vaughn is somehow on the OD roster, predict what you think the lineup will be. Feel free to share what you’d if you feel it will be different, but ultimately this is about what La Russa will put in the scorecard.

You want to go with a six man rotation when we have six off-days in our first 40 games and the likelihood of a few rainouts? Finding reasons to give both Rodon & Lopez starts at the same time seems like a good way to dig ourselves a hole to start the season. I’d much rather skip the fifth starter spot altogether on off-days and just limit our top four starters to shorter starts over the first six weeks. That seems like the better plan of attack if you believe our bullpen is the real deal.

These are different issues though. The NBA will continue to have super-teams as long as they keep max contracts in place that vastly underpay the top stars in the league. They could fix that in a second, but that would hurt their TV ratings and ultimately the bottom line, so they‘ll continue to let half the league rot in NBA hell. The only challenge with the NFL is the QB position and the limit of premium players there. That issue affects all clubs equally though, which puts a greater focus on talent evaluation to be successful. Honestly, the NFL is pretty close to perfect from a parity standpoint. Just got to make sure when you have the chance to land a franchise QB you take Deshaun Watson over Mitch Trubisky

lol...there’s the correction coming from the front office and I’m personally glad to hear it! Buy the extra year of team control and save as many innings possible for the second half of the season.

Very different from what Merkin has been hinting at for some time. And doesn’t really make sense when they just brought back Rodon and claimed he was fighting for the 5th rotation spot.

Do you know how much more in revenue the Dodgers & Yankees make than the Pirates and Rays? It has little to do with these small market pocketing money and everything to do with the massive TV deals from being in large markets. I do agree that revenue sharing is broken to some extent since the small market teams can pocket that money theoretically, but that can be fixed by a salary floor. The only way to prevent the Dodgers from spending significantly more than their competition is to put a hard salary cap in place and not the ruse that is the luxury tax.

I’m not faulting the Dodgers for spending $250M in payroll, I’m faulting the league for not putting rules in place that force better parity. In other sports large market teams aren’t gifted a massive advantage over their small market peers, which is evident by teams such as the Jets & Knicks being absolute garbage for extended stretches of time as they can’t simply spend their way out of the cellar. There is no doubt in my mind that baseball is broken when the the Dodgers’ payroll can be 8x of that of the Pirates. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will ever change since MLB cares more about generating big playoff TV ratings (and the financial benefit that comes from that) than giving every team an equal shot each year.

No, there should be broader revenue sharing with the money going to small market clubs being forced to be actually spent on players via a salary floor. It’s bizarre so many fans here are cool with a team getting to spend $100M than 75% of the league simply because the market they’re in. I guess some people must hate the parity of the NFL without the NY teams being gifted a massive advantage.

It really needs both. This idea that teams should be allowed to spend tenfold more than their competition because of the market they are in is ridiculous while at the same time the Pirates trotting out like a $30M payroll is simply unacceptable. It probably won’t happen because MLB likes having its big market teams in the playoffs as much as possible, but floors & caps are exactly what’s needed.

Why do you expect Lynn to regress?

Look, I’m all for giving Cease a shot next year, but let’s not use his flukey ERA to suggest he pitched like a 4.00 ERA pitcher last year. He’s a complete wild card at the moment, but one with tantalizing upside if he can put it all together. He’s got to learn to command his stuff and figure out a way to reduce the cut on his fastball. If he can make strides in those areas, he should be more than fine as our #4 starter.

I only mention it given the possibility of an extension.

Does that mean no Vaughn opening day or that Collins won’t be getting a job out of the gate?

Grandal will for sure make the list.

Keuchel has averaged about 6.0 innings per start as of late, which means he’d only have to make 27 starts for that 4th year to vest. We’ll have to hope that Cease & Kopech pass him by come 2022 and (along with a Lynn extension) can push him down to the #5 spot in the rotation. That way we can skip him a handful of times and then hope he misses a start or two due to injury. He’s an important piece of the rotation this year, but I do worry about 2022 and especially 2023 with him. It would definitely be nice to have that $20M freed up for other things.

Jose will certainly regress but he’ll be better than what projection models are expecting out of him IMO. He legit was in much better shape last year and put up a xwOBA in the 93rd percentile.

Pretty sure Adolfo was awarded an extra one for missing so much time due to injury.

The reason depth matters so much now though is there will be five playoff teams instead of eight. The margin of error is simply much narrower now.

I think we have many players who are ascending and it appears Pecota is weighted too heavily on career vs. recent performance. For example, Tim Anderson is much better than a 2 win player and basic scouting over the past two years would support that notion. Unless you think he’ll forever be hampered by COVID, then Yoan’s projection should be more heavily weighted on his 2019 production than anything else. And how in the world could any model predict 5 wins total as the median outcome for Giolito & Lynn? Hopefully I’m reading something wrong here, because if true that’s just plain embarrassing.

Why is Robert an extreme risk? Even as a league average hitter last year he was on pace to be a 4 win player do to his elite defense. IMO, he has too much natural ability to be much worse than that in his sophomore year.

Some of these projections are simply way too conservative. Without question Robert, Moncada, Eloy, Anderson, Giolito, Lynn, & Keuchel will blow their numbers out of the water assuming they are relatively healthy. No reason to lose sleep over another insanely conservative projection model.