Chicago White Sox

And that’s not the entire haul. Leasure looks like he could be a legit setup man. Bush may not have a ton of ceiling, but could be a very solid BOR starter. Lee is at least a decent 3rd string catcher with the upside for more (which is fine for Graveman). Even Carela is a semi interesting arm. It’s almost like someone else was GM at the time, because Hahn never sold mediocre to good (not great) players and got these type of returns.

I don’t think Speas is going anywhere. Super interesting arm with considerable upside that kind of snuck his way on the 40 man roster. Check out Fangraphs’ updated top prospect list for us as they go into more detail on him.

Amazing news!!

So what do people think the Opening Day bullpen looks like now? With Santos gone and Crochet theoretically in Charlotte, it’s going to be hard to keep guys like Berroa, Leasure, & Speas off the roster. I know there have been several NRI guys added, but curious how people see things shaking out assuming we don’t anytime important to the mix.

Statcast has a stat that shows he had one of the worst OAA beyond him last year, so what you are saying is factually true. Beyond a better defense, fixing the shape of his slider is most paramount to getting closer to 2022 form. I’m very hopeful that Bannister & Katz with an off-season of work can get Cease to right any mechanical flaws that resulted in its regression. Dylan has proven he will put the effort in to be the best he can be. Just got to pray the baseball gods don’t punish us with some random injury luck.

If I’m reading Fangraphs right, we were tied for dead last with a 59 wRC+ out of the 7 to 9 spots last year (that is so hilariously bad…lol). Honestly, it’s hard to imagine a combo of DeJong, Lopez, & Maldonado could do worse. My guess is we get around a 70 wRC+ or a little higher out of those spots this year, which is still terrible (still bottom four overall) but a slight improvement with hopefully much better defense.

Obviously not a good thing for the White Sox, but glad the Royals were able to do this. I’m all for starts sticking with their original clubs long-term and not just immediately signing with the Yankees, Dodgers, etc. upon hitting free agency.

Oh I’m 100% supportive of that. Getting that year back would be huge and would allow us to manage his innings very conservatively without concern how it would impact an actual major league game.

Rosenthal reported it’s likely that Crochet is the closer?

Is there something new out there on this? Otherwise, I feel like they are going to stick with trying to develop Crochet as a starter. But no idea who ends up with first crack at the closer role.

Also, will share the Ramos write-up because I absolutely love the kid and Law has gotten me even more hyped:

Yeah, the even money he sticks at SS comment was nice to see. I know Ramos can theoretically play 2B, but it seems like his natural home is far & away 3B and him and Montgomery could be a fantastic left side of the infield if Colson can stick at SS. And while this will be unpopular, I still think Gonzalez has a shot at being a really solid 2B if he can fix his swing. His defensive skills should play well at 2B and his advanced plate discipline gives him some floor offensively even if the hit & power tools don’t live up to pre-draft expectations. But if he doesn’t pan out, 2B is just a much easier spot to fill than SS & 3B IMO.

If you want to feel any worse about the Jacob Gonzalez pick, don’t look at Law’s rankings: 14: Teel - 54th overall 15: Gonzalez - Unranked 16: Eldridge - 85th overall 17: Bradfield - 64th overall 18: Wilken - 71st overall 19: Taylor - 56th overall 20: Nimmala - 59th overall 24: Waldrep - 80th overall 27: Miller - 89th overall

He’s definitely the lowest on Montgomery out of all the major outlets, but good to see Quero, Ramos, & Nastrini where they are.

I hope he does!

Baseball Prospectus write-up on Fletcher. They have him as the 9th ranked prospect in the Diamondbacks system.

We have multiple 45 FV pitching prospects…I’d say four of them. However, if you look at the bust rate on prospects like these, that’s really not all that much. It’s a numbers game and IMO we don’t have enough of them. And to be fully transparent, I wouldn’t disagree that our farm is even weaker in terms of OF talent. I just wouldn’t rob from our minor league pitching supply to get it. And if we felt it was key to trade Mena, I’d prefer moving him for a younger, higher ceiling OF prospect. Obviously not a popular take here, but it’s how I feel given where we are at in our rebuild.

Buddy, I don’t think I “baseball” better than anyone. I just disagree with your claim that we have a surplus of pitching. You seem to be taking this back & forth way too personal when it’s just standard message board debate. I have zero problem with you or anyone for that matter attacking my opinions…god knows I’ve had plenty of dumb ones in the past. I don’t like it when people try to misconstrue what others are saying though and you keep doing just that. As for Mena, sure I’ll call him a good prospect. I think me not liking the trade would already imply that, but if it needs to be written so be it (hopefully no one makes fun of me too much!). As for the “second tier” comment you seem to be anchored on, I would place him in a tier with guys like Eder, Pallette, & Cannon. That doesn’t make him a bad prospect, but simply puts him behind Schultz & Nastrini in terms of status. Also, Mena having flaws like a mediocre fastball doesn’t make him a bad prospect either….it just puts him in that second tier.

What in the f*** are you talking about? What assertion have I backed off of? I just don’t think that this group of pitching prospects represents some sort of surplus when our major league rotation has zero guys controllable beyond the 2025 season. Never once referred to them as “laughable”, but misconstruing statements appears to be par for the course with you. But for perspective, we kicked off our previous rebuild with basically eight 50 FV and above pitching prospects. Several of these kids peaked out at 60 FV type prospects. The talent gap between that group and this one is tremendous and that previous group didn’t exactly provide us with a surplus of pitching. That all may change after potential Cease & Robert trades, but the current group is not nearly deep enough IMO to be trading from and feeling good about it. Again, this is just my opinion. It’s weird that my opinion is so triggering for you, but I can assure you I don’t complain about trades for “engagement”…lol.

Let’s agree to disagree here. If you feel we have a surplus of starting pitching, then I don’t think fundamentally we see eye to eye on where things currently stand.

You keep saying he isn’t “slappy” but he’s probably a 10 to 15 HR guy max and that’s below average for a corner OF. I’m not worried he’s Nick Madrigal, I’m worried he’s another Benintendi type who provides sub-optimal power in one of our few corner spots. Is that really not a fair take?

That’s a fair call-out and if he’s above average in CF then I can dig the move a lot more. I guess I’m skeptical his CF defense would be that good given the lack of speed, but would love to be wrong on that because the bat would profile much better in CF.

No doubt the OF is a problem, but we also need a ton of pitching for the next six years is my point. And if I were trading a prospect like Mena, I’d prefer a younger, higher variance OF prospect who offers more ceiling and better fits the timeline. But your point on “just how little talent” Getz has to work is the key thing here. We have limited prospect currency and just traded one of our better ones to improve our major league OF depth when we’re still a few years out from winning. This is simply not how I would have utilized my resources and it’s the not player I personally would have targeted. But the good news is I’m not a major league GM or scout and don’t have the knowledge of the player that Barfield does, so hopefully my read here is wrong and this works out well.

Lol…we have a surplus of SP? I’m going to need you to walk me through that because by my count we don’t have a single SP who is controllable beyond the 2025 season and we have two pitching prospects who are generally considered to be 50 FV or above. I think there are quite a few 40 to 45 FV arms who could ascend upwards in the coming years, but I wouldn’t use the word “surplus” to describe of collection of pitching prospects. And Mena is a part of that second tier and certainly has question marks…I have never once said otherwise. I just think we need a mass of prospects with MOR ceilings or above to eventually fill out a rotation and he was part of that numbers game. And feeling like a 100 plate appearance sample size has any real predictive value is humorous to me, especially when the batted ball data suggests he got super lucky. Regardless, that’s besides the point. I don’t like the move because I think the upside of Fletcher is limited and I don’t see how it moves the needle enough to actually accelerate things. Never once did I say Fletcher was a bad player or should come free, so no idea why you’re making that jab. Ultimately, I want to win a championship and not just win a crappy AL Central and trading a 21 year arm with some upside for a lower ceiling, 26 year old, platoon RF when the rest of puzzle won’t be ready for a few years screams the latter.

But to be clear here, I’m not viewing this through a 2024 lens. I’m questioning the long-term logic of it. I’d be perfectly fine giving Piller & Phillips the role for a couple of months until Colas warrants a shot because next year doesn’t really matter. Yes, Fletcher is a lot more fun and exciting than those guys, but is that near-term upgrade worth giving up a top five pitching prospect and one who is already in AAA, who is young & athletic, and has already put up 135 innings in a season? We have zero long-term starters in the rotation at the moment. We will have to fill an entire rotation from scratch and with an owner who is completely against making big commitments to pitchers in free agency. I’m sure the front office is skeptical of Mena’s ceiling and feels it is selling high on him with this trade, but I think I’d rather take the gamble on him finding another tick with the fastball and give myself another potential rotation option in the near-term than solve RF with what I deem to be a low impact solution. In other words, if this was “selling high”, I don’t like it and struggle to see how it fits into the long term puzzle.