A Realistic Offseason

[Chicago White Sox]

1 hour ago, Dick Allen said:

I can't see them spending that much in one offseason. I think we will be lucky if it's $110 million. 

They can easily spend that much in an offseason.  I would be disappointed and quite honestly feel cheated by management if we aren’t at least at $125M next year.

[thxfrthmmrs]

46 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Yes, they do individualize their pitching reports but Cole has learned what he needs to learn.

Similarly to how a company may pay to teach you a new code language, and that's very valuable to your career but you dont need to stay with that company to retain the information.

Cole has attacked hitters the same way since he got to Houston. 

Sometimes I think we give too much credit to analytics and not enough credit to the players skill set. Houston taught gerrit Cole how to maximize his skill set - that should be something he can take with him everywhere. Just my opinion.

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.

[bmags]

15 minutes ago, BackDoorBreach said:

I think there's a lot of people here stuck in a Sox echo chamber of despair.  If you go on other baseball websites/message boards the Sox are almost a consensus pick along with SD to be one of the next great teams.  If rival fans are seeing it so are the players.  All Jerry has to do is open the pocket book, this isn't the Cleveland Browns.

We are the only smart baseball fans, thou

[thxfrthmmrs]

15 minutes ago, BackDoorBreach said:

I think there's a lot of people here stuck in a Sox echo chamber of despair.  If you go on other baseball websites/message boards the Sox are almost a consensus pick along with SD to be one of the next great teams.  If rival fans are seeing it so are the players.  All Jerry has to do is open the pocket book, this isn't the Cleveland Browns.

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.

[Chicago White Sox]

17 minutes ago, BackDoorBreach said:

I think there's a lot of people here stuck in a Sox echo chamber of despair.  If you go on other baseball websites/message boards the Sox are almost a consensus pick along with SD to be one of the next great teams.  If rival fans are seeing it so are the players.  All Jerry has to do is open the pocket book, this isn't the Cleveland Browns.

100% this.  We are a good offseason away from potentially being a 90+ win team next year and that doesn’t require Cole or Rendon.  Until the front office fails in its execution, I don’t get why people automatically assume the worst. The Sox are going to spend a fuckton of money this offseason, just got to hope they pick the right guys this time.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

3 minutes ago, thxfrthmmrs said:

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.

The Astros didn't reinvent the wheel with Cole. They eliminated his sinker and told him to elevate his fastball in the zone. They increased his spin rate on the slider too but that's not going to stop when he leaves. 

[Dick Allen]

1 hour ago, fathom said:

What’s going to be the SoxFest surprise this year!!!!!!!

Trevor Rosenthal.

[thxfrthmmrs]

12 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

The Astros didn't reinvent the wheel with Cole. They eliminated his sinker and told him to elevate his fastball in the zone. They increased his spin rate on the slider too but that's not going to stop when he leaves. 

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.

[Dick Allen]

The thought is the Angel's will sign Cole. He supposedly lives 7 miles from their park  and Moreno isn't afraid to spend money.  Although it is hard to see them spending what is going to take considering what the owe Pujols and Trout. You are really playing with payroll fire being that top heavy.

[Dick Allen]

5 minutes ago, thxfrthmmrs said:

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.

I would think he would take any lessons learned with him. But I do agree his coming to Chicago seems silly to even consider.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Dick Allen

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

The thought is the Angel's will sign Cole. He supposedly lives 7 miles from their park  and Moreno isn't afraid to spend money.  Although it is hard to see them spending what is going to take considering what the owe Pujols and Trout. You are really playing with payroll fire being that top heavy.

I don't think there's anything resembling a favorite for Cole. I think there will be 4-5 teams legitmately in it, I think what happens to the  Yankees and Dodgers this postseason affects whether they're in it (both have the money), teams like the Cubs may try to move payroll to get into that discussion, and I think the White Sox have the money available to be a player if they want to be.

I also don't think this drags out to February because the demand for him should be strong.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I don't think there's anything resembling a favorite for Cole. I think there will be 4-5 teams legitmately in it, I think what happens to the  Yankees and Dodgers this postseason affects whether they're in it (both have the money), teams like the Cubs may try to move payroll to get into that discussion, and I think the White Sox have the money available to be a player if they want to be.

I also don't think this drags out to February because the demand for him should be strong.

I think the Angels end up signing Cole, as well.

[thxfrthmmrs]

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/

[fathom]

4 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I think the Angels end up signing Cole, as well.

And Stras to the Padres

[Balta1701]

11 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I think the Angels end up signing Cole, as well.

Unless they do something like move Calhoun or non-tender multiple arbitration guys, that pushes them into Tax territory, FWIW. 

[Chicago White Sox]

6 minutes ago, fathom said:

And Stras to the Padres

How in the world can the Padres afford Strasburg?  They have like $75M tied up to Machado, Myers, & Hosmer.

[WBWSF]

1 hour ago, fathom said:

What’s going to be the SoxFest surprise this year!!!!!!!

JR is going to come to his senses and fire Hahn and make me the White Sox GM.

[bmags]

22 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

How in the world can the Padres afford Strasburg?  They have like $75M tied up to Machado, Myers, & Hosmer.

Sweet this convo again

[Chicago White Sox]

21 minutes ago, bmags said:

Sweet this convo again

I mean, at some point it has to be right.  Only two teams in baseball had four guys making over $20M/per last year and those were the Cubs & Red Sox.  I don’t see the Padres joining that elite company of spenders, but to each their own.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

On 10/8/2019 at 11:43 AM, bmags said:

Thanks this is very interesting.

I guess for me I would bank on bumgarner as the surest thing for getting a productive pitcher for the next 4 years, whereas wheeler has the greatest upside of being an ace that grows in the second half of his career.

Would you agree?

 

Outstanding discussion between you two so I'll just throw my 2 cents in here as a Bumgarner supporter from posts I made about him earlier in other threads.

I saw Lester on Ray Rays list which is why I am posting.

Now I can't remember nor did I look it up but in my earlier posts he seems to be the guy most like Bumgarner. I believe age and postseason IP were extremely similar. I thought all the post season IP were part of the reason why Bum's velocity went down and once he put some distance between those innings his velo would recover which it has, It further encouraged me that Lester was a year older when he signed with the Cubs than Bum would be if he were to sign with the Sox.

Now I just hope I am not mis- remembering what my other posts comparing Bum to Lester said or other key points in that comparison.

If you could pick a pitcher from Ray's list who do you see as the closest comparison to Bum ? I chose Lester because he was a recent example  but I didn't have the benefit of this list  mainly because of age, innings pitched ,and post season innings pitched which I'm not sure you guys are using or just adding it to the total innings pitched .

In my mind using the Lester comparison was why I originally settled on Bum as the guy I'd want most,

[SonofaRoache]

The Twins fans and beat writers seem to think the Twins will go all in for the same pitchers we are looking at, as they only have 62 million on the books. They seem to want two of Stras, Bum, and Wheeler. Does anyone think the Twins will make a big push for these guys? 

[SonofaRoache]

We need to sign two good starting pitchers. We can debate about who those two should be, but doing so gives the team a ton of flexibility, will strengthen their bullpen by default, and will provide insurance against busting or injuries. 

I still prefer Cole and Hammels though. Cole gives you a star rotation anchor and a hell of a 2 and 3 with Gio and Kopech. Hammels makes sense because he can be had for relatively cheap and can go months being lights out at a time. He'd make a great number 5 and has valuable experience. If Rodon or Lopez pitch well and Hammels struggles, he can simply go to the bullpen. Since he'd likely get a two year deal, he won't hurt us financially and if he busts, we can replace him quickly. 

Cole

Gio

Kopech

Cease

Hammels

Is a pretty good rotation. If Kopech is on an innings restriction, then move everyone up one spot and let Lopez take 5th. When everyone is healthy, Rodon and Lopez can anchor the bullpen. 

[bmags]

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Outstanding discussion between you two so I'll just throw my 2 cents in here as a Bumgarner supporter from posts I made about him earlier in other threads.

I saw Lester on Ray Rays list which is why I am posting.

Now I can't remember nor did I look it up but in my earlier posts he seems to be the guy most like Bumgarner. I believe age and postseason IP were extremely similar. I thought all the post season IP were part of the reason why Bum's velocity went down and once he put some distance between those innings his velo would recover which it has, It further encouraged me that Lester was a year older when he signed with the Cubs than Bum would be if he were to sign with the Sox.

Now I just hope I am not mis- remembering what my other posts comparing Bum to Lester said or other key points in that comparison.

If you could pick a pitcher from Ray's list who do you see as the closest comparison to Bum ? I chose Lester because he was a recent example  but I didn't have the benefit of this list  mainly because of age, innings pitched ,and post season innings pitched which I'm not sure you guys are using or just adding it to the total innings pitched .

In my mind using the Lester comparison was why I originally settled on Bum as the guy I'd want most,

I think both LARRR and I had chosen CC Sabathia from different data points. 

[Chicago White Sox]

I think it’s pretty clear at this point Cole is not happening as much as we’d all love to see it.

[daggins]

16 minutes ago, SonofaRoache said:

The Twins fans and beat writers seem to think the Twins will go all in for the same pitchers we are looking at, as they only have 62 million on the books. They seem to want two of Stras, Bum, and Wheeler. Does anyone think the Twins will make a big push for these guys? 

They just won 101 games, so yes. I think they're a sure bet to sign at least one of the top FA pitchers.