thxfrthmmrs

If he opts out, he's most likely looking for a 4/5 year deal with close to $30M AAV. Even though it's a shorter deal, would you take him over Cole with all his injury history? That would be a big NO for me.

I don't see Sox parting with Leury, and Osich has a future as a LOOGY. We'd be spending a lot more in the open market.

Yep, misread on bbref. Point still stands though.

We paid Nova $9M to pitch 200 innings last season. If Rodon could pitch even 80 innings next season he needs to be back, especially with 2 more years of cost control left after 2020.

Assuming Yolmer and Goins are only nontender candidates, we’re at $54M after all the pre-arb and arb costs. With Abreu deal we’re closing in at the $70M mark. We do not have as much payroll flexibility as some may have been hoping for.

That number is fair for a decent closer. We don’t have in house replacement to trade or non tender Colome.

You and I see eye to eye on this one. Cole and Gardner are my preferred stop gaps.

More than what he has learned at Astros it’s about how he needs to pitch going forward and how he game plans for an opponent. For Christ’s sake Sox are just experimenting with using TrackMan data in Kanny middle of this year, something that was available to SEC schools since 2015 and used by Astros to game plan for their opponents. http://sportsmockery.com/2019/08/white-sox-scouting-department-finally-catching-up-to-sec-baseball/

Those are the changes in a nutshell but there are more that goes behind it and game plan and development plan changes from game to game and opponent to opponent, those are driven by analytics with the Astros. And it would be crazy to think switching pitching staff and the aforementioned resources has no impact to his success. Anyways, we're debating a moot point, I don't see JR opening the checkbook for that kind of money for a pitcher.

Sox and Padres got to where they are right not very differently, the prediction in itself doesn't look into the underlying issues or factors for success. While Sox is positioned for success for the next few years because of the high end prospects they have received back from trades and Robert signing, in order to have sustained success, there are a host of issues they need to address, I don't need to rehash those right here.

See the sources in my edit. I don't agree that you learn to make one change and that sets you for success the rest of your career, not in today's MLB. Case in point, Cole has always had dominant stuff and was one of the best young pitchers in 2015. But the Pirates' lack of guidance and development plan basically slowed his growth over the next two years until Astros started working with him. Pitching and hitting is always a cat and mouse game, especially with accessibility to depth of resources and information available today. 2019 was a year for hitters (juiced balls aside), you could safely assume a lot of team are working with their pitchers to re-adjust come up with a different game plan for 2020. That's only the technology and the data analytics side, and on the human side, Sox pitching staff are quickly falling behind on modern day pitching philosophies.

You mean the organization that turned Avi into a useful player? https://www.google.com/amp/s/fansided.com/2019/06/06/mlb-charlie-morton-rays-cy-young/amp/ This doesn’t go into the specifics of what their development plan is, but you get the idea.

I don't have the specific details but I remember a Ringer article mentioning the specifics of how Astros individualizes pitching development to many of their pitchers, providing videos, heat map, recommendations, etc. and a lot of the content is made available to pitchers after their start. Obviously he will go where the most money is, but if money is similar then it's a different story. Edit: this is what I was referring to. This may not suggest pitchers use the resources after each outing to make adjustments, but it's certainly helpful when they're struggling and he could pinpoint exactly what the issues are. https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/6/3/18644512/mvp-machine-how-houston-astros-became-great-scouting The Astros’ new toys gave them PD powers they previously hadn’t possessed. By 2017, the Astros were establishing clear, individually tailored goals for their pitchers in spring training and giving them feedback based on TrackMan data after every outing, with portable and mounted Edgertronics—seven of which the Astros have installed at Minute Maid Park, with seven more at each minor-league park in their system—available for more detailed looks.

If I am Cole I wouldn't want to come here TBH. He has had so much success from Astro's continuous feedback through data analytics, coming here would be 2 steps backward for him. If Astros can't afford him, he'd likely go elsewhere where they have similar technology and emphasis in place.

I had been Hill train for a while. If we could get him on an incentive heavy deal I’d be all over it. We don’t need someone to pitch 200 innings as the 2nd FA SP, just need someone to start for a few months until the like of Kopech, Dunning and Rodon are ready. Also with the 26th guy added next year, who most likely would be an RP, they could tandem with Hill on days he only go for 4 or 5 innings. While some may disagree, the point of the exercise is to find bargain where available so we could allocate the spending elsewhere.

Thanks for the writeup. Sounds like he's Palka with plate discipline. What worries me is how the power would translate and how he'd adjust MLB pitching that's evolved quite a bit just the past few years. On top of that, he's contact rate seemed like red flag in 2019. That said, I agree Akiyama should be a better fit here, I hope the Sox make a serious run at him.

Good catch. I knew he was the IFA too, forgot to exclude the posting fee.

https://jaysjournal.com/2019/09/16/blue-jays-and-the-other-free-agent-market/ There’s a few more names here that could be posted, and one IFA. Shogo Akiyama is who I’d be interested in as a 4th OF option with an outside chance of starting at RF. He’s been compared to as a better version of Nori Aoki, and I don’t think he’d cost more than 3/$10M including posting fee.

This part was in the original post.

In the proposed scenario, the goal is to maximize our competitive window as much as possible, and in a vacuum, it doesn't matter how the rebuild started. While realistically we may be able to compete for the division in 2020, I don't think we're a true contender until Robert, Madrigal, Kopech and Cease are more seasoned, and Lux, Verdugo and May aligns well with their timeline. If I had the time to put together a chart of projected WAR by year for before and after the trades and including the very hypothetical signings of Rendon and Betts, the Moncada and Anderson trade sets up the team well for the 2021 - 2026 window. I do acknowledge the risk there, but it's relatively moderate risk I'm willing to consider. Even in 2020, I think we'd end up with similar record compared to with Moncada plus $50 mil in free agent spending.

I don't winning baseball is predicated building around a particular superstar, see Trout, Harper, Machado examples. If at any point you get a deal for a superstar that's going to give you incredible surplus value in return, you have to at least explore it. Unfortunately Moncada took a good 3+ seasons to figure it out and has "only" 4 years of team control left. If your point is Lux, Verdugo, and May are risky assets due to their age (though I'd argue Verdugo is as safe, if not more, as Moncada at this point), then I won't debate, but my personal opinion is, and I have been following these 3 guys close enough, is they're fairly low risk as far as prospects go.

That wasn’t the full context. By moving Moncada for 3 cost controlled players with high floor and ceiling and address your needs, you free up money to go after a Rendon type. There is a good chance Rendon, Turner, plus those 3 would outWAR Moncada, Lopez plus Wheeler, Grandal, and Gardner in 2020.

I think all prospects present some level of risk but given these 3 has graduated or about to graduate from prospect status, they are about as safe as assets could be, IF, Sox were to entertain the idea of moving Moncada. It also helps these three guys have a fairly high floor, Lux has shown strong of power/speed/plate discipline as a prospect, Verdugo just put up a 4-6 WAR/162 game season at age 23, depending on which WAR you go with, and May has always profiled as a low risk #2/3 starter, his 32/5 K/BB ratio as a rookie helps illustrate that point. It’s not hard to project all 3 as having floor of 2 WAR players, and conservative ceiling of 4-6 WAR individually. With modern baseball operations being focused on maximizing surplus value, this will be an idea I’m willing to at least explore.

It's a theoretical post, if that didn't register on you then you have missed the point of the post. And theoretically in 2021, would you rather have Rendon, Betts, Lux, Verdugo, May, Gallen or Moncada, Anderson, Gardner, Grandal, Wheeler and Lopez? With the money we're spending to address holes in RF, DH and 2 SP spots in free agency, we could have been able to afford two Rendon and Betts type of players for the next 4 years, give them an opt out, and keep core of Eloy, Robert, Madrigal, Cease, Vaughn, plus Lux, Verdugo, May and Gallen till at least 2026.

Apparently you didn’t read the first sentence. Do you read posts that lead with spoilers alert if you don’t want spoilers?