Chicago White Sox

Sounds exactly like something a Food imposter would say!!

Which is why trading Vaughn++ for Burnes and signing Cruz (or Ozuna) needs to happen. The only way to convince Reinsdorf to spend like he should is if there is guaranteed revenue coming in and that means a deep postseason run.

I think it’s the principe of the thing...adding a universal DH should be something both sides want but the owners are acting as if it’s a concession on their end.

This should help our chances right?

If you really want a Jerry Reinsdorf special, you trade Vaughn++ for Burnes and then sign Ozuna to a 4/$72M contract. And honestly, I wouldn’t be against that the more I think about it. You’d be buying Marcell’s age 30 to 33 seasons so there’s reason to think he can remain effective over the life of the contract and he’s actually hit RHP well over the course of his career. He’s not a perfect fit, but damn does Statcast love him and if he showed what he’s capable of in 2021. And now all of sudden you have a deep & talented pitching staff that stacks up with anyone. Unfortunately, this requires going a bit above last year’s payroll and Uncle Jerry can’t risk it in this environment.

No doubt we have less of these players than other organizations and maybe we shouldn’t be moving them at this time, I just disagree that we could not have made a comparable offer.

You’d basically have a complete roster if you did that and one that I’d argue is the best in the AL, but I’d be very hesitant to move Vaughn.

Benjamin Bailey isn’t comparable?

At this point, I think the best we could expect is Cruz, Wainright, and a catcher signed to a minor league deal to compete against Collins. I think that actually gives us the better group of position players and improves our SP depth, but we’d still be well behind the Yankees in that regard. All that being said, Cruz seems like wishful thinking with Jerry crying poor amidst the pandemic.

Yup, and it’s scary to think how good we’d be looking had we just hit on some of those picks.

It’s amazing how good the rebuild has worked out at the moment given how bad our drafting was at the beginning of this thing.

100% agree with that logic, although I will say a guy like Adolfo could be really interesting for a club that has no ambitions to compete in 2022 and should have plenty of playing time available. When we did our rebuild one area we failed on was giving high ceiling, low floor guys like Micker a chance. Pirates would be smart to find some potential diamonds in the rough and make good use of that playing time.

We’re right around 40, but I think there is a lot of upside to our projection given the amount of youth we have and some over-regression they have for guys like Timmy & Jose. https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Team

Zips has Giolito as the better pitcher next year and he was better than Cole in 2020. I’m very high on Lucas heading into 2021 with Katz now in the fold who I think will push Lucas to maximize his arsenal. I don’t expect many will agree with me putting him even with Cole and I can totally respect that viewpoint. As for Lynn vs. Severino, one is healthy and the other is not. I absolutely love Lynn and think his true talent level is in the 4.5 to 5 win range. That might represent a lower ceiling than Severino’s, but Luis will be coming back from TJS and may not be 100% next year. There is an argument to give Lynn the edge for that very reason, but figured I’d just call it a toss-up.

We’re taken quite a few of HS kids the last few drafts, it’s the LatAm kids that’s the problem.

Yeah, that’s going to be a problem for us.

Nothing special in that package from what I can tell, would have seen if they would taken some pieces like Adolfo and Sheets instead.

Their SP depth is way better than ours at the moment, no idea what Hahn is waiting for. If they’re banking on Katz performing miracles we’re in big trouble.

It all depends on which players you get. Torres just turned 24 years old and already has a 38 HR season under his belt. I expect him to be better and improve on his 2019 season. With Anderson is just comes down to defense and him being consistent over a full season. If he can do that, then I could that ++ edge you’re referring to.

That’s what I’m worried about. Typically minor league seasons start a little bit after the majors (Charlotte started a week after the Sox in 2019), so that helps to some extent, although probably more on the service side of things if Kopech ends up being the Knights’ #1 starter. Let’s assume we keep him down until June 1st to regain that extra year of service time, that means he’d likely make ~10 starts for Charlotte and then ~20 starts for the Sox. His career high in innings is 140 in 2018, but that seems aggressive for a guy who hasn’t pitched in two years. Can he potentially do 120 next year? If so, you’re looking at roughly 4 IP per start across both the minors & majors. To me, you have to find a way to start him off real slow at Charlotte so that when he comes up he can go 5 IP per start with the Sox. That’s going to be a challenge, but the more time he spends down in the Charlotte the easier it will be to pull off.

How many innings do you think we can expect out of him next year?

I’m one of Lynn’s biggest fans on this board, but Severino was a 5+ win starter in 2018 & 2019. I expect Lynn to end up in the 4.5 to 5 win range next year, which puts him close to Severino in terms of potential impact.

It shows the need to add another arm and some sort of bat, whether that be Cruz or a guy with some versatility like La Stella. While I’d love to see another impactful starting pitching, it’s adding depth that’s most critical at the moment. Our season could derial pretty quickly with the wrong set of injuries and/or under-performance.

Funny you point out LF. I originally had Eloy as being ++ better, but ultimately dropped it down to just +. I think Eloy is going to have a massive 2021 season with the bat, but Frazier had a really nice 2020 season and if his defense is for real it cuts into the gap. I’m hoping his 2020 season is a bit of a mirage but given his prospect pedigree, I erred on the side of conservatism here.

Abreu & Anderson were both better last year no doubt about it, but I’m expecting some negative regression from both and I do expect Torres to be much better in 2021. Right now I have both spots as being pretty close and didn’t want to call it either way.