ChiSox59

HATE IT. Absolutely hate that baseball continues to cater to people that don't like baseball.

I don't even think he really needs to rebound. Every team in baseball could use a rock solid #4 type that eats innings and gives your team a chance to win most nights for his 2023 AAV. With the expanded playoffs, more teams involved in races means more teams will be interested, means more teams bidding, increasing the price. If he rebounds, he becomes a very valuable short term asset if the Sox are sellers (I truly hope they are not). That said, I think Lucas is a safe bet to be really good in 2023. Dude is a student of the game, and very determined player that has shown time and time again that he cares deeply about his performance and his next contract. I think we see that squint in his eye again this season.

The line of suitors for Giolito come July if Sox are sellers will be long. Even if he doesn't really improve on his 2022.

Let’s see where we stand in mid June and go from there. Impossible to answer right now. If Sox are in contention, they aren’t trading TA. If I had to guess, TA plays out his current contract as a Sox, and he signs elsewhere for 2025 season. And that is just fine with me assuming Sox are playing good ball next two seasons.

I think they were pretty confident he'd clear. But yah, Sox definitely need to bring in a couple more milb deal SPs for Charlotte. Current rotation is likely Davis Martin, Jonathon Stiever, AJ Alexy, Sean Burke and.....? Likely was Bilous. If Clevinger gets suspended/released/put on leave, Davis Martin is in Chicago making that depth even more thin.

Also….this dude has to be Connor Gillaspies long lost non tobacco chewing brother.

Oh yay, now we get to hear this board complain about the Guardians turning Bilous into something like we did with Pilkington all season.

And Luis Robert played 68 games. And Eloy played 55. And TA missed 40 games. And AV wasn't good. Colas > then old Adam Eaton. OF defense still sucked. It goes both ways, but yah, if you only want to focus on the negatives, things are awful! I have said it before and I will say it again. The Sox need Robert, Eloy, and TA on the field. If you want to assume those players will miss 250 games, then yes, the Sox aren't winning 90 games. If those players play 130+ games, I really like the Sox chances of being a pretty good team in 2023.

Plus a Cy Young level Dylan Cease (Cease had a 6.36 FIP in 2020, he wasn't good), two solid left handed bats that have been sorely needed for yearss, and most likely a much much much improved Andrew Vaughn from the 2020 version. I also wouldn't quite write off Hendriks for the season just yet. edit: brain fart. Obviously two years ago was 2021, not 2020. So disregard the cease comment. But yeah...I hear ya. I probably won't convince you to be more optimistic on the season, so lets just sit back and strap it down and see how she shakes out. I do hope you get to enjoy the season, tho!

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.