ChiSox59

Do we know how delayed Crochet is going to be? Is he expected to be a participant in ST, and the Sox just slow play him or is still a couple months from game action?

I....don't agree. Largely the same roster won 93 games 2 years ago with Tony punting the 2nd half of the season. Lots of things will need to go right for this team to win 90 games, but that certainly isn't the ceiling.

I don't see how Grifol couldn't be anything but a huge improvement. Just his excitement and energy alone will be such a breath of fresh air.

"We'll earn your trust"

I love how some posters want so bad to be mad about this. Lol. German was BoSox minor league pitcher of the year in 22.

Gary Sanchez sucks. I'd much rather roll with a Yaz/Seby timeshare.

Cueto was great for the Sox after they got him for basiscally nothing because no one wanted to sign him. SP wins don't matter that much. Its not a SP fault if he goes 7 strong and hte team doesn't score any runs for him or the pen blows it. But teams wins certainly matter. Sox went 11-14 in the games Cueto started. That is a fact. Yes he gave them a chance to win more often than not, but the reality is the team didn't win more often than not in the games he start. I do believe that Mike Clevinger (if he pitches for Sox) or Davis Martin or AJ Alexy or some combination thereof could probably rival a .440 winning percentage across 25 starts. No, its not mostly Cueto's fault the team didn't perform well in his starts, but replacing a pitcher who a .500 team won less than 50% of his starts should not be that hard. I wish Johnny Cueto well, but I look forward to him being terrible in 2023 like he was for the lionshare of the last half decade so he stops getting brought up here 25x a day.

Another very valid point I wish I had included on my list. All the air was out of the balloon after that crushing loss in the 1st game of the Cleveland series. The boys mailed the rest of that week in.

Elvis isn't very good at baseball any more and has never played 2B in his life. Pretty sure you and I discussed Elvis like yesterday. I said I'd take him for $2M at this point. But Elvis playing out of his ass for 4 weeks with the Sox last August doesn't just render the Sox "basically the same team as if they were the healthiest team in the league", which is what Balta said and is an insane take. Not to mention the stat that the Sox went 11-14 in Cueto's starts last season. How in the world will they ever survive not having him when the team put up a .444 record in his starts. Unfathomable, I know.

Perhaps. In the scenario where Colas breaks camp with the big club, I feel like the Sox would rather get Sheets at bats then let him rot on the bench. I mean - if everyone is healthy - which is always a giant if - where's he gonna play? Not 1B over AV. Not RF over Colas. Not LF over Beintenidi. Not DH over Eloy. Sheets is going to be very needed at some point in the season, and I feel they'd rather keep his bat ready for when that time arrives than giving him a handful of PA a week. But definitely see the concern about the Alberto's skill set not meshing with with either Romy or Sosa. But like....that's what we got. It would have made a ton of sense to bring in a left handed vet 2B, even one on an milb deal. Alas... I think you need to have another option on the MLB roster to play 2B besides Romy or Leury, or we're going to end up with a lot of Leury. And putting both Sosa and Romy on the roster doesn't make a ton of sense, IMO. I think the Sox still add another guy before OD that ends up filling that role.

I think that's how this team was intended to be built. You look up and down the lineup, pretty much all of the regulars except TA and Benintendi are capable of 25+ home runs. Even TA has hit 20, 18, 18, 17, so he's not too far off. The previous regime - Menechino specifically - had a lot to do with their profiles changing. Health too, of course.

Lol, what a take that is. Cueto and Elvis were great. No doubt about that. But I will take immensely talented players in their prime (like TA, Robert, Eloy, Moncada) being healthy and playing up to their potential than over the hill players doing well in SSS. I will gladly take health of the Sox core in 2023 over betting Cueto and Elvis could recreate their 2022 magic, or in the case of Elvis, like 1 month of magic. Without looking, I seem to recall him being pretty terrible last couple weeks of the season (i think he had like an 0-25 stretched)....it really was just a really hot couple weeks for him after coming over. In any event, I guess we'll see what happens.

Quick, someone tell Jerry to look as his brokerage account.

As of now, I will go with the Zavala, Leury, Marisnick and Alberto bench with the Romy getting the first crack at 2B, and Sosa starting in Charlotte. RF is either Sheets or Colas with the other in Charlotte. If its Sheets, he goes down when Colas arrives. I also wouldn't be totally shocked to see a better 2B still added before Opening Day, Romy going to bench and Alberto to AAA.

The Sox won 81 games last year despite the following: They were managed by a corpse who's decisions more often than not seemed like he was actually trying to put the team in a position to lose. He also set a precedent that hustling was not important. Luis Robert recorded 2 RBI and 0 HR after July 14th - yes 2 friggin RBI - despite appearing in 25 games. Missed 64 total games, but played 25 with 1 hand. Robert basically missed the entire 2nd half of the season. Tim Anderson missed 83 games, although wasn't himself even after returning from the May groin injury. Yoan Moncada missed 58 games, and when he played, he posted a wRC+ of 76, a significant drop from 120 in 2021, and WELL below his career average of 108, which includes the awful 2022. Eloy Jimenez missed 78 games. While he did post a strong wRC+ when he played, he still missed half the season, although expecting Eloy to play more than 120 games is fools good. Yasmani Grandal was -0.4 fWAR and 68 wRC+ player after posting 3.6 fWAR and 158 wRC+ in 2021. Chances are Grandal didn't completely forget how to hit a baseball at 33 years old. We now know he was dealing with significant injuries all season. I don't have high hopes for Grandal finding the fountain of youth in 2023, but I think it'd be very difficult for him not to improve on his 2022 in a time share. The Sox spent the vast majority of the season playing two first basemen in the OF leaving them with easily the worst OF defense in the game. This turned a 113 wRC+ effort from Andrew Vaughn into a negative fWAR player. The days of Vaughn being anything more than an emergency OF are over. Lynn, Kopech and Giolito all missed starts, with Lynn and Kopech missing significant time. Bummer missed significant time. Basically, nearly everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong in 2022. Despite all of that going wrong, the Sox still were as close as 3 games back in mid September. I can understanding looking at this group and being discouraged. We lost a franchise pillar in Jose Abreu, which sucks. But in doing so improved the OF defense immensely which was, in my opinion, the biggest team need along with getting more left handed. While we didn't get as left handed as I would have liked, adding Benintendi and Colas will balance the lineup a great deal, especially if Moncada and Yaz bounce back, even modestly. This offseason sucked. Jerry is the worst. Hahn appears to be puzzled, and handcuffed. The Clevinger thing is terrible. Lots of bad. But this this squad still has a boatload of talent, and the division still isn't good. The Twins have hardly improved on a team that finished 3 games behind the Sox. The Guardians are the Guardians, and frankly were bad for most of the season before getting hot at the right time. I think all three of those clubs will finish above .500 and we'll have an entertaining 3 team race all season. I would be really shocked to see things go as poorly for The Sox in 23 and they did in 22. I have this team winning 88 games, and I think 90+ is in the cards if their best players can stay healthy enough play 130+ games. I, for one, cannot wait for April for some White Sox baseball. I think this club will surprise, and I think Grifol will be the freshest of fresh air for the boys.

Hitting well in ST and a few weeks in AAA. If he is awesome in ST, give him the job. I personally would trade 162 games for 15 games every single time, but I’d be fine with him breaking camp with the team if he earns it. But if that’s the plan, he should have been in Chicago the last 40 or so games of 22, tho.

There is a pretty big difference between trading Giolito and "blowing the whole thing up". Giolito, and any other expiring asset should be traded if the Sox aren't winning the division or within a couple games as the TDL approaches.

I have an extremely hard time believing this.

Betting on aging players that had their best seasons in half a decade+ generally is a terrible way to do business. That said, I'd definitely take Elvis for like $2M at this point.

Tony also punted at least 10 games. Even if you want to only give them credit for half that, that's significant if you get any improvement on health and/or performance from Robert, TA, Yoan, Grandal, Eloy etc.

No interest, tbh.

Seems about right but I’d lean towards the over myself.

Yeah, he'll hit at least 2 bombs in that series.

While I am not overly concerned about Colas, I do think he's going to K a whole bunch. 23% K rate in the minors, that spiked to nearly 40% in extremely SSS in the AAA would indicate as such. I personally would make Colas earn his way on the roster and not just hand him the spot. Super exciting stuff on Montgomery and Ramos, though.

Lip complains about everything. Been that way since the old WSI days. Just look at his Twitter!