Aren't the Sox more likely to be ready in 2021 than 2020?

[ptatc]

53 minutes ago, centerfieldsixers said:

torborg was a manager but he wasnt proven.  he had a .439 win percentage.  hardly proven

Proven only equals winning? Not experience.

[VAfan]

Lots of good comments on the post. I agree with most of them. 

I'm all for the Sox being aggressive, to give us a chance, if everything clicked, of sniffing the postseason next year. But they need to be smartly aggressive by adding pieces that have a multi-year shelf life and leave some payroll flexibility. 

Then again, I'd be all for Gerrit Cole if he was willing, even if it took $5M more per year than the competition. Having that true ace can make all the difference.  

 

[caulfield12]

1 minute ago, VAfan said:

Lots of good comments on the post. I agree with most of them. 

I'm all for the Sox being aggressive, to give us a chance, if everything clicked, of sniffing the postseason next year. But they need to be smartly aggressive by adding pieces that have a multi-year shelf life and leave some payroll flexibility. 

Then again, I'd be all for Gerrit Cole if he was willing, even if it took $5M more per year than the competition. Having that true ace can make all the difference.  

 

Of the five starting pitchers averaging 97 mph plus, Wheeler/Severino/Thor have already had their share of injury problems already...Glasnow and Eeovaldi as well.  

(That’s not to mention Kopech...and Lopez isn’t that far below at around 96.)

There’s just too much risk involved the way the White Sox operate financially to give out $250-280 million to a starting pitcher who throw that hard.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Of the five starting pitchers averaging 97 mph plus, Wheeler/Severino/Thor have already had their share of injury problems already...Glasnow and Eeovaldi as well.  

(That’s not to mention Kopech...and Lopez isn’t that far below at around 96.)

There’s just too much risk involved the way the White Sox operate financially to give out $250-280 million to a starting pitcher who throw that hard.

And yet, somehow there are also guys like Verlander who stay almost completely healthy while throwing that hard. And there's guys like Scherzer who have 1 injury and then go right through it to become HOF pitchers. 

[caulfield12]

5 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

And yet, somehow there are also guys like Verlander who stay almost completely healthy while throwing that hard. And there's guys like Scherzer who have 1 injury and then go right through it to become HOF pitchers. 

Sure, other than Ryan, Drysdale, Gibson and your two HoFers... and, as far as that goes, there's still no logical reason why Verlander would have a dead arm for 2~3 years and then miraculously get his stuff (mostly) back again.  

[Balta1701]

5 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Sure, other than Ryan, Drysdale, Gibson and your two HoFers... and, as far as that goes, there's still no logical reason why Verlander would have a dead arm for 2~3 years and then miraculously get his stuff (mostly) back again.  

When a guy's on a trajectory that could be HOF quality, a former #1 pick who is living up to the expectations, it is not unfair to compare him to others on that list. 

Coles' current "Similarity score" leader on B-R is Corey Kluber. Cole will be 29 this year. From age 29-32, over 4 seasons, Kluber put up 24.2 rWAR. He struggled with injury this year but even some of the guys you mentioned went down with injuries. 

[kitekrazy]

I don't want to trust all of this talent to the current coaching staff.

I think the Sox will contend in 2020 but how one defines contend is a different story.

Edited December 7, 2019 by kitekrazy

[GradMc]

On 12/5/2019 at 5:30 PM, VAfan said:

I don't post much here anymore, so if I missed a thread on this, forgive me. But with the hand wringing over losing Wheeler to the Phillies, I thought I would toss this post out there.

Aren't we expecting a lot as fans to think the Sox will be contenders in 2020? 

On the hitting side, we are projecting Robert in CF and Madrigal at 2B. They might be great players, but they aren't any more likely to be stars out of the gate as rookies than Moncada was.  Moncada didn't turn into a stud until this last year, his 3rd year in the majors. Plus, if the Sox want extra control, they might hold both back at the start of the season. 

We also seem to be expecting Zack Collins to step in as the left handed DH and do something. His 76 OPS+ in 27 games last year suggests this may be a tad optimistic. 

That's 3 slots out of 9 on offense. And that assumes we sign a right fielder who is ready to do some damage in 2020. 

The pitching staff situation is probably worse. We have Lucas Giolito as the only returning pitcher with an ERA under 4.0 last year. That requires us to project in Michael Kopech, Dylan Cease, Reynaldo Lopez, some unnamed starting pitcher or pitchers we're going to sign. Even if Kopech and Cease are great, how many innings will they be good for? Carlos Rodon is shelved till mid-season and can't seem to stay healthy. Giolito only got to 176 innings. Where are the 200+ innings pitchers? (Granted, there aren't that many in the majors any longer.)

Let's say we even added Wheeler, which we haven't. That still leaves us projecting a lot on the other starters, all of whom are unproven. 

The bullpen is also missing some pieces. This could be patched in one offseason, but will it be? 

It seems to me the Sox are still a year away from making any kind of serious run. They should be building the team accordingly, and we shouldn't expect more.

This is an excellent post.

 

 

[NWINFan]

4 hours ago, GradMc said:

This is an excellent post.

 

 

Yes, it was an excellent post. However, even if we temper out expectations some, there is no reason this team can't take steps to get over the .500 mark. The rebuild has made some progress. No more excuses for losing.  This string of losing seasons needs to come to an end even without a trip to the post-season.

[bmags]

53 minutes ago, NWINFan said:

Yes, it was an excellent post. However, even if we temper out expectations some, there is no reason this team can't take steps to get over the .500 mark. The rebuild has made some progress. No more excuses for losing.  This string of losing seasons needs to come to an end even without a trip to the post-season.

Also ... people liked wheeler as a long term piece.

[Dominikk85]

Rookies are hard to predict. Some hit right away like acuna or soto and others take 2-3 years or never make it.

There is a realistic path to 90 wins: let eloy hit 40 bombs, madrigal is a 2.5 win guy, robert a ROY contender, moncada has another 5 win season, abreu keeps it up and on the pitching side giolito keeps it up, rondon comes back, reylo takes a step forward.

 

But it could also go the other way: moncada and giolito regress, madrigal and robert struggle, eloy gets hurt again and they are a low 70s team again.

Most likely they are somewhere in between, young teams are tough to predict.

[he gone.]

On 12/6/2019 at 2:25 PM, Balta1701 said:

Remember that the Cubs did not start spending money in 2016, they jumped on Lester in 2015, made a huge jump that was earlier than most people thought, won 96 games, knocked out Pittsburgh in the Wild Card with a surprise Cy Young winner on the mound, and were perhaps an insane stretch by Daniel Murphy away from a World Series appearance.

imagine if the rest of that stuff had happened but they hadn’t signed Lester. They miss the playoffs. They had a legit shot at winning a title and won the next one.

you only get a couple chances before guys get hurt or hit free agency and that’s where the Cubs are now, so when your chances come you can’t squander them.

Have a plan for 2021, leave yourself money to spend, but have a roster that can make a run if things go right. Maybe you get a short playoff run, that translates into a season ticket and ad sale boom, and now you have an extra $15 million to spend on payroll next year to get that final reliever.

Agreed - it's all a balancing act. At some point you have to get the thing kick started. I just look at the Cubs last offseason and this offseason where they are crying poor - and we all know JR loves to cry poor. So i just think the room for error is very tiny. Does a Kopech and Cease truly have enough in the tank to get us through a playoff grind? How about a young Robert and Madrigal? 

I think this year is obviously key - you want to make smart, balanced decision which i think both Grandal and Wheeler were. I'm not so sure Ozuna fits that mold. Or really even MadBum. Castanellos has his question marks obviously. Actually the Abreu signing was a head scratcher. We have very little room for error and i think we've seen enough out of Hahn in FA that we're going to have to get extremely lucky for it to work out well.