Chicago White Sox

Because Joc can actually be a high-end hitter against RHP (wRC+ of like 135 from 2018 to 2019), which is a major need for us. He’s also substantially younger and less injury prone than Adam, which makes it far more likely he’s useful in 2021. I can’t wait until next year when Eloy & Eaton miss a stretch of time and we’re starting Leury & Engel in the corners. Maybe we get lucky and Eaton doesn’t get hurt or regress any further, but even in that case we’re likely looking at a 2 win OF given how much his defense has eroded in recent years. There is just no upside in Eaton and too much shit can go wrong with the core pieces of our lineup to bring in a floor type guy in our last major hole.

Surely you can’t be serious. Yes he sets the budget but he does way more than just that. He has to approve all major transactions and by default decides how much long-term risk we’re willing to take on in a deal. He is the reason Machado plays for the Padres and not our White Sox. He is the reason we will never sign a free agent pitcher beyond a five year contract. Jerry doesn’t want to risk any long-term dead money and therefore doesn’t allow us to realistically operate at the top levels of free agency. He also decides how resources will get allocated. Jerry doesn’t like investing huge dollars into high school kids at the top of the draft, so Shirley and staff must adjust accordingly (example: Madrigal over Kelenic). He also doesn’t like the dirtiness of recruiting 14 year old LatAm prospects, so instead of potentially landing a future star we spend $2.5M on a future backup infielder in Yogurt Sanchez. And for years, Jerry refused to go over-slot in the draft because of “morals”, while guys like Theo Epstein look advantage of a major market inefficiency to load up on talent. Beyond that, he is both old school in his ways and loyal to a fault to his “people” creating a culture with a clear lack of accountability and a decreased focus on innovation. That has slowed down our ability to modernize our scouting & player development functions and get on equal footing in terms of analytics. And to add further insult to injury, he just undermined his front office by forcing a manager on them they didn’t want all so he could make up for what he deems his biggest mistake as baseball owner. Jerry is a bad owner plain & simple and is no doubt an impediment to sustainable success.

We don’t know what they’d be giving up for Darvish yet do we?

I said it before, but if the Sox are trying to save in certain areas (like RF) so they can extent Giolito & Lynn then I’m ok with that. I’m not sure that excuses Eaton over Joc, but with the core quickly getting more & more expensive I can see the argument for not committing big, long-term dollars to RF and instead allocating elsewhere.

Imagine how much value Jerry could create for his ownership group by building a truly dominant team and taking over a weak Chicago sports scene? If there was ever a time to take-short losses for a long-term gains, now would be it, because this team is so god damn likable & exciting. With the Cubs’ curse being over and a retooling appearing to be in front of them, the causal fan could be won over in big numbers and the Sox could quickly become the city’s baseball team. But instead of investing in his product and building something special (and valuable), Jerry is going to operate as the conservative, risk adverse cheap fuck he’s always been. And unfortunately for us, that likely won’t change until the day he finally leaves this world. Sucks to be that grim, but it’s the reality of being a White Sox fan.

To be fair, Lynn has been a better pitcher than Snell the last two years. I think it should be as clear as day now that if Jerry was unwilling to sign Bauer, that Lynn was probably our best play at a TOR starter given the insane prices for younger guys with more control. Just sucks that we seem to have a very tight budget for 2021 and went with another reclamation project in RF as a result (this time with a minimal ceiling).

The fact that Adam Eaton is our RF truly sucks. I get maybe it would have been tough to convince Springer to play RF in Chicago vs. CF for the Mets near his hometown, but Joc Pederson provides a much higher ceiling than Adam and should have been very gettable at a reasonable price. But we got to pinch pennies to ensure Uncle Jerry takes on no financial risk whatsoever. He’s obviously not Jeffrey Loria bad, but he’s easily amongst the worst owners in baseball.

This post seems like it will age poorly

I call BS on this Crochet = Wilcox. No prospect improved his value more than Garrett last year with his major league showing. I think Kelley would be a more appropriate comp there. And teams may be intrigued by Bailey, but I don’t see how he’s anywhere close to Hunt’s level. I think Stiever is the closest thing we have to a guy that could be considered a borderline top 100 type and that’s if you buy into the 2019 version who had a ton of helium.

Thanks. No one was hurt with the Christmas bombing, so plenty to be thankful for there.

Two guys that are expected to play an important role on the major league team next year and who will make a combined $1.2M.

If they can extend Lynn for two years at a semi-reasonable rate I think we’ll like that price a lot more than what it would have cost us to add a Snell or Castillo.

Yup, which means we’d have to do something like Kopech, Kelley, & Stiever (ignoring positional mix altogether).

Are you saying Collins = Meija? IMO, Francisco has got to be significantly more valuable and that’s the problem. I think you’re Sox package is probably too light.

Sad but true unfortunately

Yeah, I hate the Padres but they have the depth to make these moves. And that’s another reason why us not spending our full international bonus pool is so stupid as it’s potential prospect currency going to waste.

Rays do pretty good with these change of scenery guys.

Why? It will have cost us talent no matter what and was stupid as fuck to do. And why are you demanding these fans apologize and then say they shouldn’t take shit personally. Talk about a walking contradiction.

If we’re serious about competing this year, then we need to sign a legit #4 type starter, have Kopech start the year in AAA and serve as the #6 starter, and use Lopez as a reliever and potential #7 starter in the event of multiple injuries. We should NOT consider Reynaldo as a place-holder until Kopech is ready / service time manipulated and hand him a major league starter role. Now is the time to see him what he can do coming out of the pen in shorter stints and based on Katz’s comments that sounds like the likely plan for him next year.

Why not trade one of our most important pitchers plus a top 20 prospect who will likely be major league ready next year for a high school prospect who is years away from helping when we’re entering our competing window? It makes perfect sense to me!

Holy fuck you are insane.

100% agree. It’s amazing how he puts mitigating financial risk over building up his product. It’s going to be so weird when we finally have a new owner whose primary goal is winning and who is willing to take some short-term losses while the window is open.

You’re not getting this, no one has $2M to give Colas in this period and it sounds like even $1M from a team would be a stretch. He will likely wait a year to get $2M to $3M rather than take a few hundred thousand now. And the White Sox have probably the best chance of landing him as we seem to not blow our entire load on 16 year olds and like have some uncommitted dollars of materiality unlike most other clubs. Odds are pretty decent we get both Colas & Cespedes.

I’m not suggesting they will go sign Bauer or anything like that, but perhaps they have the budget to sign Hendriks, a halfway decent starter for the #4 spot, and some sort of left-handed bat. Where I get nervous is adding Hendriks potentially tapping us financially and then being forced to go real cheap with a back-end starter and not adding another bat. If they were prepared to spend $25M/per on Springer, I’m hopeful there is more budget than they’re letting on.

Interesting if true...seems to suggest we should have more money to work with than what the current rumors are hinting at.