Eminor3rd

At this point, this would be full Kenny Williams panic mode.

That’s a huge mischaracterization. Ryu is coming off is first healthy season since like 2013, and arguably only the second in his MLb career. His injuries are myriad and include shoulder problems and leg problems and maybe even back problems (could be wrong there). Wheeler is coming off of two consecutive full healthy seasons, is younger, is in better shape, has way better stuff, and has the same standard elbow litany that half of all pitchers have. The most fixable and predictable (in a relative sense, of course) set of major injuries.

That post was made a month ago lol

And the rumored one year deal to EE that we are talking about, and setting for Dallas Keuchel because they wanted a pitcher now really badly.

I absolutely think that. It doesn’t matter how many years past his effectiveness you have the guy. You can release him whenever you want. At the end of the day, you committed x dollars to the guy, regardless of how long it goes. We don’t think of it that way as fans, but the accounting department does because it makes sense. When ownership is involved, it’s an investment just like a capital improvement project. Once the money is committed, it’s gone. We’ve heard multiple GMs characterize big signings that way, like Dombrowski/Prince Fielder where he Essentially said “This wasn’t part of my plan, this was Illitch deciding he wanted to buy another player,” or when Cashman was “forced” to sign Rafael Soriano by the Steinbrenners and said as much. It’s why the Lerners are paying Scherzer over 14 years instead of the seven he’s playing — it’s just a payment structure they like better. Fans will be cutting “OMG we could go get player x if the Lerners weren’t still paying Scherzer to NOT play!” But that won’t be true at all. The money tonScherzer was gone the moment the ink dried on the contract. The rest is just financing.

It's great in a vacuum, but the Sox now seem to be making a rash of one-year, all-in type moves. Which is exactly what got them in the mess that required a rebuild in the first place. The cost of EE that matters isn't the money, it's the development time taken away from Zack Collins. If they get EE one a one-year deal and fall short, where will they be next offseason? Still wondering if Zack Collins can hit and still needing another bat. The rotation is so thin, it made sense to get Gio, which is a similar signing, because he isn't taking time from anyone. But after Grandal, EE is short-sighted, IMO.

Ok, I'm sorry, I'm done. I hope this all works out. I'm just pointing out that, when this team committed to a rebuild, they had a chance to modernize and catch up with the top franchises in MLB. And the result is turning out to be much closer to business as usual. And that's frustrating.

You can argue the between Kopech/Cease/Lopez you COULD have two in-house TOR starters, but not that you "already had" two in-house TOR starters. Just like you can argue that if Tim Anderson repeats his super high BABIP, Moncada doesn't regress at all, Eloy takes a massive step forward, the coaches buck their track record and figure out how to teach Mazara to reach his potential, ROdon comes back perfectly effective from TJ midseason, Robert and Madrigal come up and instantly rake in May, and the entire bullpen stays totally healthy, then the team really has no issues at all. But that's the problem -- the strategy requires everything (or nearly everything) to go right at once, and when they're going to sign stop-gaps at free agent prices, it doesn;t allow them even to take many shots at everything going right before they have to bail.

Yeah, for sure, that may be exactly the case. I'm not sure what/who is ACTUALLY the problem, but the net is all the same. I'm not pointing the fingers at anyone specifically, I'm blaming the org as a whole.

It's a necessary step if in fact there IS another step possible. My worry with these incremental improvements is that they're inefficient; money adds up quickly, and they are now much closer to their eventual spending ceiling than we'd like to admit, and so it better work out really well or it's gonna be another sell off in a couple years.

That goes strictly against everything the FO has said the past several years. But, even if they DID know that and were just lying to the public, then the only way to do their jobs would be to invest heavily in cutting edge player development like the Rays have done. And they failed at that, too.

Then you don't get top talent. Be the Reds. Make the playoffs every 15 years when all the stars align. As an aside, I actually don't think the years have anything to do with it -- and I don't have proof of this, just my read on it -- I think the problem is actually the total dollars. If you're a billionaire (or billion-dollar enterprise), you aren't thinking about your asset 12 months at a time. You're looking long-term. It's how it works with sponsorship contracts, TV deals, etc. The accounting behind it is considering NPV, and is considering all the money spent the moment the deal is signed. I don't think 9 years scared Jerry off at all, I think $324M or whatever is what scared him off. It could be over 20 years and would be even better.

The fact that they were "never going to" sign those guys doesn't give them a pass for not signing those guys.

Correct, and occasionally guys come along who outperform their FIP every year, enough to make a statistically significant argument that it's sustainable Keuchel is not one of those guys. His career ERA and FIP are right in line.

I don't know who Mike North is, so, if that's an insult, I'm sorry but I'm not feeling it. A large contingent of the industry, both in and outside the MLB, does not believe that pitch framing is valued correctly in the numbers that we are seeing. The fact that Grandal continues to sign deal way below what pitch-framing-infused WAR would suggest is strong evidence of that claim. Maybe the White Sox are on the right side of this, but it would be the first time. Their track record for developing and valuing catchers is hilariously bad. All that said, he's still better than a mid-tier player, I'll grant that. But it's very likely he isn't actually a 6-win superstar. I'm glad they have him, but the money would have been better spent on elite pitching.

But between him and the fact that one of your org's better prospects is also a C/DH and really needs ABs -- it's way further down the list of priorities is my point. I know it's not as simple as this because there was WAY more than just money that went into these signings, but purely as a mathematical example: Would you rather have: 1. Grandal/McCann (~$24M) 2. Keuchel (~$18M) or 1. McCann/Collins (~$6m) 2. Cole (~$36M) Because it's the same amount of money. Again, I don't think the White Sox could have signed Cole for $36m/yr, but it's just that this is the way this ends up with the White Sox every time. I just want them to do better then "well, at this point this move was the one left that made the most sense."

Not the real deal, just not among the holes the team actually needed to fill.

If defense had absolutely nothing to do with how many runs a pitcher gives up, you'd be right. But it does, so...

I know I'm going to get shit on for being negative, because everyone is excited that they don't have to watch Dylan Covey pitch all year, and I get that, but looking at this in full context, I hate all of it. Classic White Sox. Get the 6th best guy on the market for roughly $50M, call it a marquee signing because the guy used to be good. The guy had a 4.72 FIP last year. Wasn't even worth 1 WAR in 112 innings. He's a fourth starter with the upside to be a 3. THIS is what I was afraid of. "The money will be spent" means spending $15-20M on a handful of okay players. It's Melky Cabreras all over again. All the teams that actually get to the playoffs are developing their averageish players and buying the elite talent to truly supplement their core. Altogether now, the White have committed a bit over $60m next year to: 1. A good catcher to upgrade a spot where they already had a solid player, who may be overvalued because we aren't actually sure how to quantify pitch framing 2. A slightly above average 1B/DH 3. a SP with a near 5 FIP last year, worth just under 1.5 fWAR if you extrapolated to a full season. Steamer project 2.6 next year, mostly on past track record. 4. 34-year old Gio Gonzalez 5. a reclamation project RF who has failed for four seasons now. Meanwhile, the Yankees have committed $36M to Gerrit Cole, the best pitcher in baseball, who Steamer projects at 6 and half wins. The White Sox spent nearly TWICE as much on a bunch of useful spare parts. Having missed on the actual difference makers, the White Sox would have been better off just punting until next year, and letting their players continue to develop, to have another shot at a true difference maker in Betts or whatever. Except of course that they would never actually have a chance at Betts, because the ownership/front office is too afraid of long-term contracts to actually have a chance to win. Every successful team is investing heavily in player development and then being opportunistic with elite, big-time players. The White Sox won't play that game. Yeah, I know, if literally everything goes as good as it could go next year, the Sox could win 85-90 games. Everyone is healthy, everyone takes a step forward, no one regresses, etc. But, I'll put it this way: there are only two teams insisting on this strategy of spending inefficient FA money on 5 middle-of-the-road players instead of 2 elite ones -- and it's the White Sox and the Reds. That's your model. Basically the Pirates the last five years.

Dump the farm to get a player that plays the same position as our current best player AND eats up some or all of the free agent money we would theoretically use to get pitching, which we DESPERATELY NEED. Why?

This is the correct answer, I believe

We should hope Lindor is NOT traded. The White Sox have failed to get the pitching they need to push in for next year (and they seem to know it; Mazara is a rebuilding move, not a win-now move), meaning the true competitive window begins 2021 at the earliest. We would be better off if CLE continues to push in now versus getting future value for Lindor, thus making them stronger when it’s more important to the White Sox.

I disagree with that strongly. The Q trade made sense for both teams. The Cubs were smack in the middle of a contention window, badly needed pitching, and preferably pitching that was controllable through the rest of the window -- and the trade partner is only a problem in the heads of a select group of local meatball fans, none of which would change any of their consuming habits based on the trade at all. The rebuilding White Sox couldn't have been farther away from affecting the Cubs future at all. A Lindor trade makes sense for neither. Cleveland would be trading its best player in the division, essentially defeating the purpose of trying to slightly weaken itself but still be able to compete because the division sucks. The White Sox would be trading high end, close to the majors prospects that it needs to pencil in its roster over the next couple seasons just to get a two year player in a position it already has filled, to take a two year shot with a highly flawed team with many others holes, specifically INSTEAD of using those chips to fill the actual holes they have. They would shorten their window while also hurting their ability to fill out the roster for the shortened window. Anything close to a fair, market-value trade would literally be the dumbest move the regime has made in the past two decades, at least.

I cannot imagine a less likely scenario than the White Sox trading for Lindor.

I would love to hear that “argument”