Time for some changes, Rick

[Lip Man 1]

2 hours ago, mqr said:

This is complaining about Ricky just to complain

Not at all. My point is the Sox should try to be better than "average." One thing I always admired about Rocky Wirtz was when he took over he clearly and categorically stated the goal was to win Stanley Cup's. I respected that and I'm sure after the debacle that was Bill Wirtz Hawk fans were pleased to hear that.

When you say, "well with work (one of the top prospects in baseball) he can be an average fielder" that sends the wrong message, that's lowering the bar, that's settling. That "attitude" is part of the reason this franchise is where it is at, it starts with the owner and permeates right down the line. 

[Lip Man 1]

1 hour ago, mqr said:

I'd go as far as saying there is zero chance he's on the roster August the First

I'd be willing to take a wager on that statement. These are the White Sox remember. He may, MAY be traded but he won't be released with the Sox on the hook for nine million.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

39 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Seriously, what bullpen reinforcements do you have confidence in right now? I guess they'll have to give Burdi a shot given how highly they drafted him, but aside from him name one young reliever in our organization you think is a major contributor next year? Bummer looks improved to start this year, but he and Fry seem to have switched abilities from last year to this year. Juan Minaya has a decent ERA in the bigs this year, are we confident in him, his ERA at Charlotte was >5?

Almost a third of the WS top 30 prospect list consists of guys that will likely end up in a relief role. Plus, the big league bullpen already rates as only slightly below league average. The bullpen is already decent and wouldn’t take much contributions from current minor leaguers to push it to above average.

Edited May 22, 2019 by JUSTgottaBELIEVE

[mqr]

1 minute ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I'd be willing to take a wager on that statement. These are the White Sox remember. He may, MAY be traded but he won't be released with the Sox on the hook for nine million.

They aren't on the hook for that. It'd be more like 3 million. 

[Lip Man 1]

1 hour ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

If they brought back the same team next season (including Rodon and Abreu) but replaced Nova, Alonso, Castillo, and Sanchez with some combination of Cease, Palka, Collins, and Mendick (or other AA/AAA players on league min salary), their team payroll will be just a tick over $60M. So again, unless they are planning to run out the lowest payroll in baseball next year, they have ~$30M to play with just to hit their already sub $100M payroll, 25th ranked payroll of this season. If they want to get really crazy and spend in line with league median payroll ($127M), they have ~$65M to play with. You can buy a lot of talent for $65M a year...

I assume you mean a combined 65 million. The way you wrote it seems to indicate giving one player a 65 million dollar a year deal.

But over and above that, it takes two to tango. Said players have to want to take the Sox offer and unless they overpay or show significant progress this season that may be a hard sell.

[Bob Sacamano]

2 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I'd be willing to take a wager on that statement. These are the White Sox remember. He may, MAY be traded but he won't be released with the Sox on the hook for nine million.

You think there's a better chance of him getting traded than released? That's crazy. The Sox have cut guys in the past while owing them a good chunk of money for the season.

[Lip Man 1]

26 minutes ago, BackDoorBreach said:

Dunning, Covey, Hansen, Burdi should all be in the pen next year I'd think. I mean, we have Fulmer too...

 

......

Dunning is coming off TJ and is a starter as is Hansen. Covey is a four A player, nothing more nothing less. Burdi also coming off TJ surgery is a complete unknown at this point.

[Lip Man 1]

2 minutes ago, soxfan2014 said:

You think there's a better chance of him getting traded than released? That's crazy. The Sox have cut guys in the past while owing them a good chunk of money for the season.

I may have forgotten them but can you give me examples. Did they cut Dunn? LaRoche? Keppinger? et al. Not trying to be snarky just can't think of anybody off the top of my head save for Santana and they only owed him peanuts.

[OneDog847]

17 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Can I propose a rule that we stop mentioning Madrigal as a part of a championship team until his OPS at A-Ball is no longer bouncing around .700?

I agree. There is a very good chance that Madrigal never makes it past AA. 

[OneDog847]

Just now, Lip Man 1 said:

I may have forgotten them but can you give me examples. Did they cut Dunn? LaRoche? Keppinger? et al. Not trying to be snarky just can't think of anybody off the top of my head save for Santana and they only owed him peanuts.

John Danks comes to mind. 

[Lip Man 1]

1 minute ago, OneDog847 said:

John Danks comes to mind. 

True although they ran him out there constantly trying to salvage what they could and it costs them games. I guess my point is they don't do it regularly and it takes an extreme situation for them to go that route. Maybe it will happen with Alonso but at this point I have my doubts...Ricky remember continues to bat him fourth even though he's hurting the team. They keep trying to salvage some face with his trade / salary. 

[Balta1701]

7 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Almost a third of the WS top 30 prospect list consists of guys that will likely end up in a relief role. Plus, the big league bullpen already rates as only slightly below league average. The bullpen is already decent and wouldn’t take much contributions from current minor leaguers to push it to above average.

Their ERA is good but their peripherals are in the bottom 5 of baseball right now. They're helped by a low BABIP and a low HR/FB number, both of which are likely to go up as the season goes along. And then, if they trade Colome, well I'm not sure there's a big leaguer out there. 

Can you be more specific about which guys in your top 30 you think will be in next year's bullpen? I'll grant Burdi even if he seems to be having the slowest TJS recovery in the history of TJS. But look at the other guys in the prospect list, which one are you referring to? Hamilton with the ERA of 9 in Charlotte? Jordan Stephens? Kodi Medeiros with the ERA near 7 in Birmingham (I'm amazed that's even possible). Ruiz? Burr? Guys down at A ball who we will race up?

The White Sox don't have much in their system right now. Saying that guys are top 30 prospects down there doesn't mean much right now. 

[Balta1701]

8 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I may have forgotten them but can you give me examples. Did they cut Dunn? LaRoche? Keppinger? et al. Not trying to be snarky just can't think of anybody off the top of my head save for Santana and they only owed him peanuts.

Keppinger was DFA'd after 1 season with substantial money still remaining. 

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

14 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I assume you mean a combined 65 million. The way you wrote it seems to indicate giving one player a 65 million dollar a year deal.

But over and above that, it takes two to tango. Said players have to want to take the Sox offer and unless they overpay or show significant progress this season that may be a hard sell.

Yes, of course. $65M a year gets you Rendon, Cole, and a late inning reliever. That’s a solid combined 10+ WAR for next season.

[poppysox]

8 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I may have forgotten them but can you give me examples. Did they cut Dunn? LaRoche? Keppinger? et al. Not trying to be snarky just can't think of anybody off the top of my head save for Santana and they only owed him peanuts.

Poster was trying to say only 30 or 40% of the nine million is what will be cut.  The first 5 or 6 million is already shot at time of release.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Their ERA is good but their peripherals are in the bottom 5 of baseball right now. They're helped by a low BABIP and a low HR/FB number, both of which are likely to go up as the season goes along. And then, if they trade Colome, well I'm not sure there's a big leaguer out there. 

Can you be more specific about which guys in your top 30 you think will be in next year's bullpen? I'll grant Burdi even if he seems to be having the slowest TJS recovery in the history of TJS. But look at the other guys in the prospect list, which one are you referring to? Hamilton with the ERA of 9 in Charlotte? Jordan Stephens? Kodi Medeiros with the ERA near 7 in Birmingham (I'm amazed that's even possible). Ruiz? Burr? Guys down at A ball who we will race up?

The White Sox don't have much in their system right now. Saying that guys are top 30 prospects down there doesn't mean much right now. 

Their bullpen ranks #20 in MLB per fangraphs (aka peripherals).

[Balta1701]

3 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Their bullpen ranks #20 in MLB per fangraphs (aka peripherals).

Click the xFIP, FIP, BB/9, and K/9 tabs for me.

[poppysox]

Jerry is 83 year old and not a passive owner.  I think Jerry will let it all hang out very soon.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Click the xFIP, FIP, BB/9, and K/9 tabs for me.

I’m going by fWAR which considers all of those 

[Balta1701]

 

Just now, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

I’m going by fWAR which considers all of those 

Ha, I just discovered that Fangraphs under advanced stats allows you to sort by the difference between ERA and FIP.

Guess which bullpen has the biggest difference between their ERA and Fielding Independent Pitching in the bigs right now (which suggests an ERA that might go the other way)?

[BackDoorBreach]

24 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Dunning is coming off TJ and is a starter as is Hansen. Covey is a four A player, nothing more nothing less. Burdi also coming off TJ surgery is a complete unknown at this point.

Hansen will not be a starter next year, he will get time in the pen I guarentee that.  Dunning will be available around ST next year, which means he'll throw in the minors for a few months and could be a pen arm mid summer.  Burdi should be on the roster after ST next year.  

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

21 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

 

Ha, I just discovered that Fangraphs under advanced stats allows you to sort by the difference between ERA and FIP.

Guess which bullpen has the biggest difference between their ERA and Fielding Independent Pitching in the bigs right now (which suggests an ERA that might go the other way)?

Again, they are slightly below league average by fWAR (#20) so what’s your point? They have a decent bullpen already with a reasonable path for improvement to average or above average next year via AA/AAA reinforcements in the near future.

[Balta1701]

10 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Again, they are slightly below league average by fWAR (#20) so what’s your point? They have a decent bullpen already with a reasonable path for improvement to average or above average next year via AA/AAA reinforcements in the near future.

I'd be interested to see which stat going into fWAR is allowing that one number to be substantially better than all of their peripherals...but here's replies in no particular order.

1. "Slightly below league average" is 20th out of baseball. That is not "Decent". Teams that are 20th in baseball are already looking at that as a major need if they want to compete. For example, the Cubs are right there with us and they are looking at aggressively moving to upgrade their bullpen because that's bad.
2. Many of their other stats are notably worse than 20th. Their bullpen performance appears likely to look worse soon.
3. About the only difference between them and a bullpen that is far worse than 20th is Alex Colome, who remains a potential trade candidate. 
4. The bullpen reinforcements aside from Burdi are either >1 year away or would have to be rushed substantially
5. The bullpen reinforcements overall look questionable at best.

This is not a path to improvement. This is a path to having to buy 3 or 4 guys on the FA and Trade market in the offseason to get up to average. 

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

7 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I'd be interested to see which stat going into fWAR is allowing that one number to be substantially better than all of their peripherals...but here's replies in no particular order.

1. "Slightly below league average" is 20th out of baseball. That is not "Decent". Teams that are 20th in baseball are already looking at that as a major need if they want to compete. For example, the Cubs are right there with us and they are looking at aggressively moving to upgrade their bullpen because that's bad.
2. Many of their other stats are notably worse than 20th. Their bullpen performance appears likely to look worse soon.
3. About the only difference between them and a bullpen that is far worse than 20th is Alex Colome, who remains a potential trade candidate. 
4. The bullpen reinforcements aside from Burdi are either >1 year away or would have to be rushed substantially
5. The bullpen reinforcements overall look questionable at best.

This is not a path to improvement. This is a path to having to buy 3 or 4 guys on the FA and Trade market in the offseason to get up to average. 

You just love to argue for no apparent reason don’t you? I said the bullpen is in pretty good shape as is with a good chance to be average or slightly above average next year with reinforcements such as Burdi, Thompson, Ruiz, Hansen, etc close to contributing at the big league level later this year or early next year. Plus, I anticipate further development from the young guys already on the 25 man - Bummer, Fry, Burr, Viera, etc. I guess simply leaving it at that wasn’t good enough for you. Whatever dude.

[Lip Man 1]

30 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

You just love to argue for no apparent reason don’t you? I said the bullpen is in pretty good shape as is with a good chance to be average or slightly above average next year with reinforcements such as Burdi, Thompson, Ruiz, Hansen, etc close to contributing at the big league level later this year or early next year. Plus, I anticipate further development from the young guys already on the 25 man - Bummer, Fry, Burr, Viera, etc. I guess simply leaving it at that wasn’t good enough for you. Whatever dude.

I have to agree with Balta myself. I see very little in the system that inspires confidence. Or as I have put in in the past, a bunch of "retreads, no-name's, has-been's, cast-off's..." Basically four A stuff. Burdi is about the only one who I think can make an impact. The rest are all flotsam and jetsam.