Grade Offseason Acquisitions at ASB

[MackowiakYakYak]

What is everyone grading these acquisitions based on? What you would've wanted an acquisition to be for that position? The value (trade pieces or $ amount) given up for the player? The expectations of how that player should be performing?

If we are grading the front office then we should look at the positions as a whole. So we should consider the cost to acquire and alternatives. Reese McGuire, although he hasn't been great, has been a solid defensive back-up catcher that only cost us a player with less value for our team. Reese McGuire shouldn't be anywhere below a C because there isn't a reasonable expectation for a cheap back-up catcher to put up 2 WAR. I'd say he's a B because he was solid as a backup and has done well when injuries require him to play most days.

The other way of looking at it is how we would expect a player to perform based on their own track record. I think this is a bad approach to grading acquisitions because its really just grading performance and can be done for every player on the Sox. Harrison has averaged out to be what we expected him to be at this point. I think he should be graded slightly below his current stat line because of how terrible he was to start the year, but he's roughly been what we would expect out of age 34 Josh Harrison. I'd give him a C- if we are only looking at how we were expecting him to play.

Still I don't think we should grade based on that second method so we should analyze JH based on who could've filled the 2B role and what that would've cost. Madrigal has been terrible this year so we don't have to relitigate that right now. Eduardo Escobar has produced similar value to JH. Trevor Story has been much better than JH but I don't know that I would want to be on the hook for that contract. It really seems like a cop out because JH hasn't been good, but I don't honestly believe there was a substantially better option to fill 2B this off-season. I might give him a C grade because he gives the team flexibility to get the right guy to play 2B for next season (which I'm sure they will manage to screw up).

[TheFutureIsNear]

Just now, fathom said:

Schwarber 

To play where? Don’t see how Abreu, Schwarber and Vaughn play together. So take up a huge chunk of salary to block Vaughn?

[caulfield12]

Wacha, Martin Perez, Tyler Anderson…one could assume they were never going to spend on Gausman.

Andrew Heaney has been really good but hurt too much.

Edited July 16, 2022 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

3 minutes ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

To play where? Don’t see how Abreu, Schwarber and Vaughn play together. So take up a huge chunk of salary to block Vaughn?

LF/RF/DH…well, at least we didn’t end up with a disappointing Castellanos season.  There’s that.

Basically in the Sheets role, but playing almost every day.  
Of course, they already were locked in with Jimenez and Pollock.

[caulfield12]

10 minutes ago, MackowiakYakYak said:

What is everyone grading these acquisitions based on? What you would've wanted an acquisition to be for that position? The value (trade pieces or $ amount) given up for the player? The expectations of how that player should be performing?

If we are grading the front office then we should look at the positions as a whole. So we should consider the cost to acquire and alternatives. Reese McGuire, although he hasn't been great, has been a solid defensive back-up catcher that only cost us a player with less value for our team. Reese McGuire shouldn't be anywhere below a C because there isn't a reasonable expectation for a cheap back-up catcher to put up 2 WAR. I'd say he's a B because he was solid as a backup and has done well when injuries require him to play most days.

The other way of looking at it is how we would expect a player to perform based on their own track record. I think this is a bad approach to grading acquisitions because its really just grading performance and can be done for every player on the Sox. Harrison has averaged out to be what we expected him to be at this point. I think he should be graded slightly below his current stat line because of how terrible he was to start the year, but he's roughly been what we would expect out of age 34 Josh Harrison. I'd give him a C- if we are only looking at how we were expecting him to play.

Still I don't think we should grade based on that second method so we should analyze JH based on who could've filled the 2B role and what that would've cost. Madrigal has been terrible this year so we don't have to relitigate that right now. Eduardo Escobar has produced similar value to JH. Trevor Story has been much better than JH but I don't know that I would want to be on the hook for that contract. It really seems like a cop out because JH hasn't been good, but I don't honestly believe there was a substantially better option to fill 2B this off-season. I might give him a C grade because he gives the team flexibility to get the right guy to play 2B for next season (which I'm sure they will manage to screw up).

Burger/Sosa, lol.

[Tnetennba]

1 hour ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

They improved 2b and RF. Filled Rodon’s departure with Cueto. What other glaring needs were there? This season has been far more about the failure of the veterans that were already on the roster than the failure of the offseason. If Moncada, Grandal, Lynn, and Giolito were anywhere close to last season’s performances, this would be a 50-55 win team today.

While Cueto has been a revelation, letting Rodon walk w/o the QO or even a decent offer remains shortsighted and IMO stupid still.  2B has not improved - Harrison while better than Leury recently has been bad half the year, is completely redundant, and only plays part time.  He neither supplanted TLR's over use of Leury nor does he bring anything unique to the lineup.  RF is still a catastrophe.  Sheets remains awful in the field, Pollock who was acquired to start there rarely does, and as much as I love AV, he is no better in RF than Sheets.

This team still has no starting quality RF, still needs consistent LF power, they are still awful vs RHP, the depth remains paper thin, injury still plagues, and TLR is still fucking awful.  How exactly was any of this improved by the laughably bad offseason?

[Chicago White Sox]

24 minutes ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

While I don’t want to make excuses for Hahn as I do think he has done a poor job post rebuild…but can someone point to the available free agents they would have signed that are looking good right now? You can point to a maybe 2/3 I think, but there are also more than a few guys this board (myself included) were clamoring for that would look like awful signings we’d be killing Hahn for. 
 

 

I was pressing for Kevin Gausman as a Rodon replacement and that contract looks like a total steal right now.  Offensively, Schwarber was the other left-handed bat many discussed here and he’d be a game changer vs. Pollock.  Admittedly Eduardo Escobar hasn’t been much better than Harrison, but I’d still rather have him than Big Energy.

[Chicago White Sox]

25 minutes ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

To play where? Don’t see how Abreu, Schwarber and Vaughn play together. So take up a huge chunk of salary to block Vaughn?

The same place Pollock plays.

[MackowiakYakYak]

3 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Wacha, Martin Perez, Tyler Anderson…one could assume they were never going to spend on Gausman.

Only Anderson could've been reasonably predicted to be good this season. Wacha and Perez were signed as lottery ticket 5th starters and we got our version of that by signing VV and Cueto. Cueto worked out of those two lottery tickets and that is great. If you sign Anderson then do you end up getting Cueto to sign with the team for a minor league tryout? The depth SP issue is complicated because who knows where underperforming guys want to sign to revive their careers. More Quad-A SPs should've been acquired, but getting a single gem out of your SP depth is better than expected most years.

[wegner]

I was shocked to see the home and away splits for Kelly someone posted on the GT last night.

At home he is absolutely an F--

Take into account his road numbers and he could be a C-

He looked very good last night.

[TheFutureIsNear]

13 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

The same place Pollock plays.

I wouldn’t have argued against the signing, obviously Schwarber would help a ton. Although, Eloy and Schwarber as the corner Of’ers would definitely cost us some games too…

 

I also think it’s fair to question whether Hahn had the capability to hand out a $79M contract this off season. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by TheFutureIsNear

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

Did they improve RF? Did they improve 2B? What was Goodwin/Hamilton producing at this point last year? What was Leury/Madrigal?

They also didn’t use those positions to balance the big weaknesses of RHP and too groundball heavy.

Yes, I’ll take Pollock over Goodwin and Harrison over Madrigal this season.

[wegner]

11 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I was pressing for Kevin Gausman as a Rodon replacement and that contract looks like a total steal right now.  Offensively, Schwarber was the other left-handed bat many discussed here and he’d be a game changer vs. Pollock.  Admittedly Eduardo Escobar hasn’t been much better than Harrison, but I’d still rather have him than Big Energy.

Wanted Gausman as well...doubt they even considered making an offer.

[TheFutureIsNear]

7 minutes ago, MackowiakYakYak said:

Only Anderson could've been reasonably predicted to be good this season. Wacha and Perez were signed as lottery ticket 5th starters and we got our version of that by signing VV and Cueto. Cueto worked out of those two lottery tickets and that is great. If you sign Anderson then do you end up getting Cueto to sign with the team for a minor league tryout? The depth SP issue is complicated because who knows where underperforming guys want to sign to revive their careers. More Quad-A SPs should've been acquired, but getting a single gem out of your SP depth is better than expected most years.

Not to mention the fact that those guys just may not have been interested in signing for the long man/spot starter position we had to offer in the off-season. Opportunity is the most important thing for guys like that looking to salvage their careers. 

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

Some people complaining about the lack of big name upgrades last offseason fail to acknowledge the available options weren’t very good. Signing Story/Baez for $140M or Semien for $175M? No thanks!

[MackowiakYakYak]

9 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I was pressing for Kevin Gausman as a Rodon replacement and that contract looks like a total steal right now.  Offensively, Schwarber was the other left-handed bat many discussed here and he’d be a game changer vs. Pollock.  Admittedly Eduardo Escobar hasn’t been much better than Harrison, but I’d still rather have him than Big Energy.

I don't know the Sox were ever considering another high-end SP. Not even offering Rodon a QO shows they didn't even want him for a single year at ~$19m. As far as I could tell the Sox showed no intention of getting a SP they would have to pay more than a few million. Ultimately they were wrong to not consider the value of adding another high-end SP or at least qualifying Rodon to see what might happen there.

Schwarber would've been awful as a RF signing. He is terrible defensively in LF and that's the spot he's played his whole career. The Sox weren't looking for another bat-only LF and they definitely didn't want one on a long-term deal. He looks like the obviously better option now because Pollock has had to play so much LF and has absolutely fallen off a cliff, but spending money on Schwarber still wouldn't have been the long-term answer. This team has excess value in 1B/LF/DH players and even though Schwarber would be more valuable than the other options he would not add enough value to the team to make him worth his contract. I don't want to be paying both Eloy and Schwarber to play terrible LF when we can put a cheaper terrible defender like Sheets or Vaughn.

[CentralChamps21]

Cueto A+

Graveman B+

Collins/McGuire trade B

Harrison B-

Kimbrel/Pollock trade C

Velasquez C

Kelly D+

Leury F

no QO to Rodon F- - -

 

[MackowiakYakYak]

Hearing the arguments and throwing out my own, I think that this off-season was fine. Not even offering Rodon a QO is inexcusable, but most other decisions that were made were fairly reasonable. The only value the organization lost was a possible draft pick and Zack Collins. The Leury contract is most likely lost money, but Graveman and Kelly are the only other future monetary obligations the Sox brought on. So the Sox made one incredibly dumb decision, one dumb decision, and paid for multiple years of two late-inning relievers. They lost very little player capital and will be on the hook for relatively minimal future dumb contract money. I don't think there were many perfect players to chase after so that's fine for an off-season.

The Sox problems come from previous failed off-seasons and we've talked through all those previous problems already. The organization doesn't have valuable prospects and we didn't land any of the previous FA whales that would've truly been game changers. This off-season became an L when we didn't sign Bryce Harper not because of anything that did or didn't happen this actual off-season.

[Jack Parkman]

4 minutes ago, MackowiakYakYak said:

Hearing the arguments and throwing out my own, I think that this off-season was fine. Not even offering Rodon a QO is inexcusable, but most other decisions that were made were fairly reasonable. The only value the organization lost was a possible draft pick and Zack Collins. The Leury contract is most likely lost money, but Graveman and Kelly are the only other future monetary obligations the Sox brought on. So the Sox made one incredibly dumb decision, one dumb decision, and paid for multiple years of two late-inning relievers. They lost very little player capital and will be on the hook for relatively minimal future dumb contract money. I don't think there were many perfect players to chase after so that's fine for an off-season.

The Sox problems come from previous failed off-seasons and we've talked through all those previous problems already. The organization doesn't have valuable prospects and we didn't land any of the previous FA whales that would've truly been game changers. This off-season became an L when we didn't sign Bryce Harper not because of anything that did or didn't happen this actual off-season.

Pollock has a $12M player option that will almost certainly be exercised. 

Picking up Kimbrel's option remains the worst move of the offseason.

I understand why they let Rodon go. He had injury problems last year, and his whole Sox career. 

[Chicago White Sox]

45 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Yes, I’ll take Pollock over Goodwin and Harrison over Madrigal this season.

And yet neither are improvements vs what we got last year.

[Chicago White Sox]

59 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Some people complaining about the lack of big name upgrades last offseason fail to acknowledge the available options weren’t very good. Signing Story/Baez for $140M or Semien for $175M? No thanks!

Gausmsn and Schwarber look like absolute steals right now.  Had I known that Conforto was injured, I would have pushed harder for signing Kyle despite the imperfect. Power and better lineup balance were both critical needs and ones that Hahn failed to address.  Didn’t have to play at the very top of the market to find ways to improve this roster.

And just to lay it all out, Hahn spent ~$40M this off-season on new additions and so far has only gotten 0.6 fWAR to show for it.  Adding Cueto makes it look a little bit better, but he wasn’t part of the original off-season plan.  I don’t know how anyone can say with a straight face that Hahn did not completely fail to improve this team.

[caulfield12]

8 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Gausmsn and Schwarber look like absolute steals right now.  Had I known that Conforto was injured, I would have pushed harder for signing Kyle despite the imperfect. Power and better lineup balance were both critical needs and ones that Hahn failed to address.  Didn’t have to play at the very top of the market to find ways to improve this roster.

And just to lay it all out, Hahn spent ~$40M this off-season on new additions and so far has only gotten 0.6 fWAR to show for it.  Adding Cueto makes it look a little bit better, but he wasn’t part of the original off-season plan.  I don’t know how anyone can say with a straight face that Hahn did not completely fail to improve this team.

All they had to do was dump Kimbrel and QO Rodon.  Then no Pollock blocking Schwarber.

That said, if you signed Schwarber in the offseason, it would have looked like you weren’t willing to trust in either Sheets or Jimenez.

In the end, it would have been the best call, but it also would have forced Vaughn into a RF role, where he was even more ill-suited.

Edited July 16, 2022 by caulfield12

[poppysox]

1 hour ago, wegner said:

I was shocked to see the home and away splits for Kelly someone posted on the GT last night.

At home he is absolutely an F--

Take into account his road numbers and he could be a C-

He looked very good last night.

I predict that we will be glad to have Kelly by the end of the season.  

[Chicago White Sox]

1 hour ago, MackowiakYakYak said:

I don't know the Sox were ever considering another high-end SP. Not even offering Rodon a QO shows they didn't even want him for a single year at ~$19m. As far as I could tell the Sox showed no intention of getting a SP they would have to pay more than a few million. Ultimately they were wrong to not consider the value of adding another high-end SP or at least qualifying Rodon to see what might happen there.

Schwarber would've been awful as a RF signing. He is terrible defensively in LF and that's the spot he's played his whole career. The Sox weren't looking for another bat-only LF and they definitely didn't want one on a long-term deal. He looks like the obviously better option now because Pollock has had to play so much LF and has absolutely fallen off a cliff, but spending money on Schwarber still wouldn't have been the long-term answer. This team has excess value in 1B/LF/DH players and even though Schwarber would be more valuable than the other options he would not add enough value to the team to make him worth his contract. I don't want to be paying both Eloy and Schwarber to play terrible LF when we can put a cheaper terrible defender like Sheets or Vaughn.

On the pitching side of things, my point is the Sox should have pursued a high-end SP and one that would be under control for multiple years given the lack of pitching in the minors.  I assumed when they passed on QOing Rodon, they had another free agent SP in mind for his spot.  Instead, they decided to roll the dice on a broken down Keuchel and a lottery ticket in Velesquez.  Guasman around 5/$110M just made so much sense for us all things considered.

As for Schwarber, he was far from a perfect fit, but given the lack of power, OBP, and LH bats in the lineup he would’ve addressed multiple needs offensively.  I get we have other 1B/LF/DH types, but that’s on Hahn to find a way to solve if he’s unable to add a LH bat elsewhere.  Going into a championship caliber season and not adding some sort of LH power bat was a significant failure.  We could all see this lineup’s struggles against RHP coming, even if not to this extent.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Gausmsn and Schwarber look like absolute steals right now.  Had I known that Conforto was injured, I would have pushed harder for signing Kyle despite the imperfect. Power and better lineup balance were both critical needs and ones that Hahn failed to address.  Didn’t have to play at the very top of the market to find ways to improve this roster.

And just to lay it all out, Hahn spent ~$40M this off-season on new additions and so far has only gotten 0.6 fWAR to show for it.  Adding Cueto makes it look a little bit better, but he wasn’t part of the original off-season plan.  I don’t know how anyone can say with a straight face that Hahn did not completely fail to improve this team.

It doesn’t matter if Cueto was part of the original plan or not. Bottom line is he was signed in the offseason and he’s been just as good as Gausman for far less money. I didn’t see people salivating for Schwarber last offseason. That’s simply Monday morning quarterbacking.