Jose Abreu

To improve the 4th outfielder role

I'd love JBJ to take Engel's current role. We wouldn't have to give up much for JBJ + Workman either if we take on all the money

I'm surprised (but not really) at this "the sky is falling" mentality whenever a reliever signs elsewhere. Did we not see these same exact complaints during/shortly after the winter meetings with regards to starting pitchers?

Eloy Jimenez? 116 wRC+ and an .828 OPS may not be "lighting the world on fire", but it's quite good for a rookie

Just this one or all of them? How else will we be able to distinguish between the daily updates?

I hope you're right, but RR also took about 100 PAs (combined) away from Anderson and Eloy by burying them down in the lineup during a non-competitive year so that Ryan Goins, AJ Reed, etc. could get more opportunities. One could argue that those ~100 PAs don't matter, but I think it's a no-brainer that our young core should get as many reps as possible in a rebuilding year. I'm not saying that such a decision means he will continue to make illogical moves, but if he made anti-developmental moves during a non-contending year, I don't necessarily feel good about him making winning moves during contending years.

I still think he’s gonna be a productive MLBer in the right situation. He’s basically Engel, but with much more potential as a hitter and less speed (though not by much)

The key there is 122 ABs. A lot of Sox fans this offseason seem to be projecting players based on one season LHP platoon splits (with another common example being Adam Engel's 89 ABs). I just am not convinced that we should put that much stock into such a small sample. I like McCann but not enough to take playing time away from Grandal and EE

Would love this for a couple reasons- first, it would make it easier (on paper) for Grandal to DH on off days. I know we have EE, but I still expect Ricky to work McCann in as DH every now and then which I personally think is not a good idea. Additionally, I don't think Collins' defense is nearly as bad as many seem to think and I believe he'd be more than fine as a backup to Grandal.

I'm not sure I trust Mendick to be productive over large stretches. But I think we can sign both Holt (or someone similar) and a RH RF. I'm also assuming Collins gets traded

I'm all in on Brock Holt, not only for the versatility and OBP, but because he's someone who's good enough to fill in as a regular in case of an injury to someone like Eloy, Mazara, or Madrigal.

And their defense of saying he's just another Lewis Brinson is incredibly lazy. Moreover, saying "there are concerns about him in CF" contradicts basically every report about his defense

I still find it interesting that movement happens with these players right after he tweets about them, dating back to Mazara

On that subject...

It is pretty weird that he got the Robert signing yesterday and tweeted both of those relievers a few days ago

Never doubt a fake Steve Cishek account

I know this sort of stuff usually doesn’t matter, but I do think it’s important to note that McHugh publicly criticized the White Sox FO a mere 10 months ago:

Call me crazy but I think a large part of the reason they went with a stopgap in RF is because they plan on being aggressive with next year’s class. Maybe it’s just Joc, but Betts checks all the boxes of someone the Sox could actually sign. He only cares about money (won’t be pulling a Wheeler), is not a Boras guy, would align well with Sox charities, marketable, etc. If they approach it the way they attacked Grandal and Wheeler, they may have a shot.

Thanks for reading. I think the only current Sox with that kind of defensive potential are Moncada, Madrigal, and Robert. If Anderson really steps it up defensively, he has the ability to be that good, but I think it's more likely that he improves to a slightly above-average defensive SS, which would be more than acceptable

And while it's obvious that the guy doesn't know who Robert and Madrigal are, I still think there's a good chance that our 2020 team is actually good defensively. I wrote about this yesterday but in a nutshell, we have terrific defenders at the most important positions (with Anderson being the lone exception) and that should outweigh the bad defense at 1B and LF, even if Anderson doesn't improve at SS.

Funny, I was reading another Twins board yesterday where this was said about us: Seems like half of them are genuinely scared of us and the other half thinks we're gonna suck

Do you think Minnesota still trades for Price/Boyd/Ray? I can't imagine them wanting their end of year rotation to be Berrios/Odorizzi/Hill/Bailey/? (Graterol?), especially with Hill's durability issues and their lack of SP depth Edit- forgot Pineda but point remains

That’s fair, and maybe Judge is a better example than Moncada. Because if he outperforms his projected BABIP every single year, that says more to me about those who made the algorithm and their ability to adjust than Judge himself. At some point, Judge’s performance is no longer an anomaly and should be relatively expected, and I’m hoping Moncada also reaches that level in the next couple of years

And I know that link says it’s just expected batting average, but it has been tweaked to only use outcomes of balls in play, so it represents xBABIP for our purposes. The numbers there are not equal to the players’ xBAs.

By high BABIP, I just meant above the league average of ~.300. 2019 was certainly an extreme for Moncada and I don’t meant to suggest that he’ll routinely turn in .400 BABIPs. I just think it’s meaningful that his xBABIP was .383. It was truly a Judge-like season (as you can see Judge was #1) in that regard so it wouldn’t shock me if he replicates it.