Your 2023 Off-Season Plan

[Balta1701]

3 minutes ago, Joshua Strong said:

It would be a huge boom to the outfield defense. Maybe you can play Robert in RF occasionally to limit the wear and tear on him.

If the Sox had an average defense and we’re average at base running, how many more games do they win?

Does it involve removing Abreu and his 4 WAR in order to do it is the hard part? 

[Bob Sacamano]

11 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Does it involve removing Abreu and his 4 WAR in order to do it is the hard part? 

What is Vaughn’s WAR if he is only playing 1B? Add Nimmo’s 5 WAR and then whatever Colas brings in the OF over Vaughn/Sheets/Eloy playing out there.

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, Bob Sacamano said:

What is Vaughn’s WAR if he is only playing 1B? Add Nimmo’s 5 WAR and then whatever Colas brings in the OF over Vaughn/Sheets/Eloy playing out there.

Depending on how he is defensively, a 113 wRC+ for Vaughn at 1b might be worth about 1 WAR there. So it's a downgrade of 3 WAR or so at 1b unless Vaughn is much better on defense than expected. So removing Sheets from the OF and adding in one of the best OFs in baseball in his place might be worth 3 or 4 wins. 

[maxjusttyped]

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

Depending on how he is defensively, a 113 wRC+ for Vaughn at 1b might be worth about 1 WAR there. So it's a downgrade of 3 WAR or so at 1b unless Vaughn is much better on defense than expected. So removing Sheets from the OF and adding in one of the best OFs in baseball in his place might be worth 3 or 4 wins. 

Vaughn was running a ~130 wRC+ for much of the season. It was 133 in the first half & then 131 in August. He obviously fell completely off a cliff, again, in September. My guess is that's not something that'll happen if he doesn't play ~90 games in the outfield again next year.

[ChiSox59]

2 hours ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

Toronto probably doesn’t have a ton of interest in trading him, but I would love to try to and get Raimel Tapia from them. He seemingly still won’t have an open path to everyday AB’s next season and fits our needs perfectly. But again…not sure what a realistic trade would look like 

I believe Tapia is an awful defender.  

[ChiSox59]

31 minutes ago, Joshua Strong said:

It would be a huge boom to the outfield defense. Maybe you can play Robert in RF occasionally to limit the wear and tear on him.

If the Sox had an average defense and we’re average at base running, how many more games do they win?

15.

[tray]

Abreu's demeanor during TLR's last press conference can be interpreted any way you wish, but from my perspective, he looked sad for Tony and disappointed at the grueling criticism Tony faced down to his last day as Manager. It is possible that  Jose may have spoken to Albert Pujols about Tony and about becoming a FA late in his career.

I get the sense that for any number of reasons, the least of which is the possibility of a lucrative final contract, Abreu welcomes FA and probably wants to move on from the WSox.

[TheFutureIsNear]

3 hours ago, ChiSox59 said:

I believe Tapia is an awful defender.  

Looks like he was ok when playing mostly LF in Colorado. 8 DRS and 4.5 UZR in 984 innings isn’t awful is it? Not a + defender, but doesn’t seem like he’d hurt by any means. Bad in RF for some reason tho and shouldn’t be anything but an emergency CF

[Highland]

I am like the White Sox. I have no 2023 plan.

[Boopa1219]

4 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Does it involve removing Abreu and his 4 WAR in order to do it is the hard part? 

Yes, I’m of the opinion that he should be off the team 

[Balta1701]

4 hours ago, Joshua Strong said:

Yes, I’m of the opinion that he should be off the team 

I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.

Abreu and Cueto were the white Sox’s second and third best players this year by Fangraphs, and Harrison was also a positive player. All 3 of those are FAs they have to replace, and replacing your second and third best players is an obvious issue. They might have $40 million to spend in a very optimistic scenario and they have to cover 8 fWAR just to replace those guys, and what, 15 to clearly catch up with Cleveland, and they might well get better with all that youth? 

This ain’t gonna be easy. Fixing the defense alone up to average gets them 3 fWAR or so. That don’t fix this. This is really tough.

[ChiSox59]

7 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.

Abreu and Cueto were the white Sox’s second and third best players this year by Fangraphs, and Harrison was also a positive player. All 3 of those are FAs they have to replace, and replacing your second and third best players is an obvious issue. They might have $40 million to spend in a very optimistic scenario and they have to cover 8 fWAR just to replace those guys, and what, 15 to clearly catch up with Cleveland, and they might well get better with all that youth? 

This ain’t gonna be easy. Fixing the defense alone up to average gets them 3 fWAR or so. That don’t fix this. This is really tough.

You’re also assuming that no one improves on this scenario. The Sox are fucked if TA, Yoan, Robert and Eloy don’t play more games and are better than they were in 22. I think we all can agree on that. 

[Balta1701]

31 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

You’re also assuming that no one improves on this scenario. The Sox are fucked if TA, Yoan, Robert and Eloy don’t play more games and are better than they were in 22. I think we all can agree on that. 

I did not make that assumption, I said this was really tough. It is tough if they keep Abreu, it is tough if they let him go. Letting him go helps the defense, but it takes away a guy who put up 4 fWAR for $20 million - that is a cost effective guy we are getting rid of. It takes one of those “a whole lot of things go right” setups to make it happen, and it’s even possible that a ton of stuff could go right and they’re still fighting for the last couple wild card spots.

[Chicago White Sox]

8 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.

Abreu and Cueto were the white Sox’s second and third best players this year by Fangraphs, and Harrison was also a positive player. All 3 of those are FAs they have to replace, and replacing your second and third best players is an obvious issue. They might have $40 million to spend in a very optimistic scenario and they have to cover 8 fWAR just to replace those guys, and what, 15 to clearly catch up with Cleveland, and they might well get better with all that youth? 

This ain’t gonna be easy. Fixing the defense alone up to average gets them 3 fWAR or so. That don’t fix this. This is really tough.

The Sox have two or three legit needs: SP3, OF, and possibly 2B.  Yes, SP depth is a concern, but I can live with Davis Martin as our #6 guy and some minor league free agent types at AAA.  For better or worse, the bulk of the roster is in place.  We will need multiple bounce-back seasons from our core guys to have any chance next year and therefore we got to hope a new coaching staff and hopefully a few training staff adjustments can help there.

When it comes to the OF, the focus needs to be adding much-needed balance and enhancing the defense.  If we’re being honest, Nimmo is probably the guy we should be targeting.  Financially that may be tough though, which could mean gambling on a Conforto return to form season.  Either way, you’ve removed the 1B/DH types out of the OF and that will help significantly.  And with a more modern manager, we should be able to get quality offense out a group that includes Robert, Colas, Pollock (161 wRC+ vs RHP), & Conforto or Nimmo.

From a SP perspective, we need to add someone who has the potential to be a SP3 or better.  And we should consider signing someone to a longer-term deal if the right guy is there.  Right now we have control of our core four starters for three years (Cease & Kopech), two years (Lynn), & one year (Giolito).  I really wanted Gausman last year and truly believed that’s why we didn’t QO Rodon (shame on me), but at some point we need some stability.  This may not be that class unfortunately.  Outside of possibly Kodai Senga (who may not even declare), I think we’re far more likely to pursue one of the many older arms or pitchers with question marks who will take a one or two year deal.  There will be quality production to be found in this pool, but admittedly I’m not confident Hahn will be the GM to find it.

As for 2B, if a cheap LH bat can be found who provides solid defense then I’d be open to it, but at some point you got to open a spot up for the young 2B we have in the org.  And with Leury clogging up a roster spot, I’m not sure we have room for another platoon spot.  To me, Sosa deserves a legit opportunity to take the job and run with it.  After getting sent down in mid August, he put up a 135 wRC+ with a 8.7% BB rate, 15.4% K rate, .200 ISO, & .333 BABIP in AAA.  It’s a risk no doubt, but with Romy (who flashed at times) & Popeye (who put up a 148 wRC+ with a 9.4% BB rate, 11.4% K rate, .211 ISO, .349 BABIP, & 29 steals over his last 250 PAs in AA) as contingency plans I think it’s spot you go cheap at.

Again, the key to success in 2023 is rebound seasons from the half dozen guys who underperformed at unexpected levels and better health from the young positional guys who have struggled to stay on the field.  But fully agree we can’t lose the production Abreu & Cueto provided and expect a better result without a couple quality additions elsewhere.  The million dollar question is whether Hahn will have the budget to solve these two holes with potential high impact talent or if he’ll have to dumpster dive or deteriorate an already weak farm to address these needs.  Anything less than $30M to play with and I don’t see how Hahn can get the job done and that’s assuming he can actually identify the right talent to pursue in the first place.  But theoretically, there is a path to a much improved product in 2023 without significant changes across the roster.

[Balta1701]

47 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

The Sox have two or three legit needs: SP3, OF, and possibly 2B.  Yes, SP depth is a concern, but I can live with Davis Martin as our #6 guy and some minor league free agent types at AAA.

Did we get an update on the arm injury Martin suffered in game 162? Do we know it isn’t severe?

[Chicago White Sox]

For some context on our underperformance, the Sox went from 9th overall in positional fWAR at 23.1 in 2021 to 21st overall at 15.3 this year.  That’s a 7.8 win decrease YoY or a 33% decrease.  Who were the primary drivers of that?

• Grandal: -0.4 (-4.0)
• Moncada: 0.9 (-3.1)
• Garcia: -1.1 (-2.9)
• Anderson: 2.0 (-2.7)
• Engel: -0.1 (-1.6)
• Robert: 2.1 (-1.2)

These guys were six of our top seven guys in terms of fWAR in 2021 with Abreu being the other.  They provided 3.4 wins across 2,136 PAs (1 fWAR/628 PA) this year vs. 15.5 wins across 2,452 PAs (1 fWAR/158 PA) last year.  Outside of Yaz, none of this should have been expected, at least not to these levels.  And even with Yaz, no one could have expected his power to completely disappear after the 2nd half he had in 2021.

As we look towards 2023, I can’t see Yoan, Tim, & Luis not being better.  I mean, Robert could barely swing a bat near the end of the year and Moncada put up a 76 wRC+ despite averaging a 124 the previous seasons.  As for Tim, he started hot, but imploded once the calendar hit June.  Was there something going on behind the scenes (Jackie stuff, cheating scandals, etc.) or did he develop some bad habits?  Regardless, he wasn’t the Tim we’ve come to know & love.  With Sleepy Tony La Russa finally gone and hopefully a younger, higher energy manager in place we see all three improve next year.  I could easily see an extra 8 wins out of this group next year, although that would be partially offset by the production we got out of guys like Andrus, etc.

Then you got Leury & Engel, two role players who were surprisingly productive in 2021.  The latter never seemed healthy this year and was just plain bad.  The reality is he will be non-tendered and his playing time will likely go to Pollock, who if used appropriately should be an upgrade despite being overpaid.  With Leury, the simple answer is he’s not as bad as he was this year and not as good as he was in 2021.  IMO, he’s an ok 26th guy who is highly overrated by a front office who doesn’t understand how to value positional flexibility correctly.  The good news here is he can’t be as bad as he was this year and even if he is our new manager won’t keep running him out there day after day like Tony did.  We saw proof of this when Cairo took the reigns and basically stopped playing him.

The real area of concern is Grandal.  If his lower body doesn’t get healthier, then he’s basically cooked.  And he’s at an age where you can’t bank on that happening.  Given his salary, we have no choice but to run him out there for a month or two, but need to be prepared to quickly pivot.  Whole Seby had a real nice offensive season and Perez hit well in AAA, the reality is we aren’t getting 2021 production back unless Grandal finds the fountain of youth.  I think we need to accept defeat here for 2023 and hope that improvements elsewhere (as indicated above) can offset our losses at the catcher spot.

[Chicago White Sox]

4 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Did we get an update on the arm injury Martin suffered in game 162? Do we know it isn’t severe?

I haven’t seen anything, but will acknowledge that would putting the pitching depth is a highly problematic spot.

[Balta1701]

9 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I haven’t seen anything, but will acknowledge that would putting the pitching depth is a highly problematic spot.

The word at the end of the game was that he was pulled with bicep tightness. To me that could be anything from 10 days of rest to out the entire ‘23 season. They don’t have to give us an update now since there’s no next scheduled game for him:

[ChiSox59]

22 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

For some context on our underperformance, the Sox went from 9th overall in positional fWAR at 23.1 in 2021 to 21st overall at 15.3 this year.  That’s a 7.8 win decrease YoY or a 33% decrease.  Who were the primary drivers of that?

• Grandal: -0.4 (-4.0)
• Moncada: 0.9 (-3.1)
• Garcia: -1.1 (-2.9)
• Anderson: 2.0 (-2.7)
• Engel: -0.1 (-1.6)
• Robert: 2.1 (-1.2)

These guys were six of our top seven guys in terms of fWAR in 2021 with Abreu being the other.  They provided 3.4 wins across 2,136 PAs (1 fWAR/628 PA) this year vs. 15.5 wins across 2,452 PAs (1 fWAR/158 PA) last year.  Outside of Yaz, none of this should have been expected, at least not to these levels.  And even with Yaz, no one could have expected his power to completely disappear after the 2nd half he had in 2021.

As we look towards 2023, I can’t see Yoan, Tim, & Luis not being better.  I mean, Robert could barely swing a bat near the end of the year and Moncada put up a 76 wRC+ despite averaging a 124 the previous seasons.  As for Tim, he started hot, but imploded once the calendar hit June.  Was there something going on behind the scenes (Jackie stuff, cheating scandals, etc.) or did he develop some bad habits?  Regardless, he wasn’t the Tim we’ve come to know & love.  With Sleepy Tony La Russa finally gone and hopefully a younger, higher energy manager in place we see all three improve next year.  I could easily see an extra 8 wins out of this group next year, although that would be partially offset by the production we got out of guys like Andrus, etc.

Then you got Leury & Engel, two role players who were surprisingly productive in 2021.  The latter never seemed healthy this year and was just plain bad.  The reality is he will be non-tendered and his playing time will likely go to Pollock, who if used appropriately should be an upgrade despite being overpaid.  With Leury, the simple answer is he’s not as bad as he was this year and not as good as he was in 2021.  IMO, he’s an ok 26th guy who is highly overrated by a front office who doesn’t understand how to value positional flexibility correctly.  The good news here is he can’t be as bad as he was this year and even if he is our new manager won’t keep running him out there day after day like Tony did.  We saw proof of this when Cairo took the reigns and basically stopped playing him.

The real area of concern is Grandal.  If his lower body doesn’t get healthier, then he’s basically cooked.  And he’s at an age where you can’t bank on that happening.  Given his salary, we have no choice but to run him out there for a month or two, but need to be prepared to quickly pivot.  Whole Seby had a real nice offensive season and Perez hit well in AAA, the reality is we aren’t getting 2021 production back unless Grandal finds the fountain of youth.  I think we need to accept defeat here for 2023 and hope that improvements elsewhere (as indicated above) can offset our losses at the catcher spot.

This is really what it comes down to. We need improvement from TA, Robert and Moncada. And big improvement. I mean, we got 2 RBI from Robert in the second half. He was essentially worthless and he’s got 6-8 WAR upside. Those guys bouncing back, coupled with getting AV out of the OF and signing someone like Nimmo or even Conforto, and contributions from Colas….this team can eat up that 13 games win difference from 21 to 22 in a hurry. 

[SoxFanForever]

 

 

[Middle Buffalo]

This made me laugh today. Remember, as disappointing as this season was, it used to be way worse to be a Sox fan.

[A-Train to 35th]

BREAKING NEWS.....Sox Talk,  it really doesn't matter what our plan, Hahn's plan, KW's plan, or JR's plan is.  The Guardian's are for real with 14 players that they developed currently in the playoffs.

Cleveland has youth, speed, defense, and pitching and our current line-up with 5-6 DH's (depending on if they sign Jose) is not gonna cut it.  Even if we make some earth shattering trades in the offseason, we are not overcoming Cleveland's superior player development.  You can add the hated Astro's into that as well as they also have 14 players that they developed in the playoffs.

We're doomed to finishing second, third, or worse in our division for the foreseeable future with little chance of reaching the playoffs even as a wild card.

[Balta1701]

I am gonna say this. On this page of this thread we've gotten "I could easily see an 8 win improvement out of this group" and "We could make up that 15 wins in a hurry", and that has been paired with "We're doomed and have little chance of making the wild card."

I think both of those are too extreme. There is absolutely enough talent here to compete, especially with the expanded wild card. It is definitely true that Tony LaRussa sabotaged this team in obnoxious ways this year, we could see that on the field on a regular basis. With an average coach, at the very least they are several games better just from getting rid of the stupidest stuff.

But with that said, using the terms "Easy" or "In a Hurry" to describe overcoming Cleveland is failing to capture how far they have to go. For this team to lose its 2nd and 3rd best performers to free agency, spend less money than they did last offseason, get a year older, play a tougher schedule, and have the team suddenly be one of the healthiest teams in the league and have no one struggle such that they can make up that much ground, in a division that is loaded with talented youth? This is climbing a gigantic mountain. This is the kind of recovery that a guy will win coach of the year for if they pull it off. You aren't supposed to get everything going right to that degree. There is a very high chance that they could do literally everything people imagine they want them to do this offseason and wind up missing the division by 10 games again. 

One of those is too pessimistic, the other side is just as unlikely on the optimistic side. 

[ChiSox59]

14 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I am gonna say this. On this page of this thread we've gotten "I could easily see an 8 win improvement out of this group" and "We could make up that 15 wins in a hurry", and that has been paired with "We're doomed and have little chance of making the wild card."

I think both of those are too extreme. There is absolutely enough talent here to compete, especially with the expanded wild card. It is definitely true that Tony LaRussa sabotaged this team in obnoxious ways this year, we could see that on the field on a regular basis. With an average coach, at the very least they are several games better just from getting rid of the stupidest stuff.

But with that said, using the terms "Easy" or "In a Hurry" to describe overcoming Cleveland is failing to capture how far they have to go. For this team to lose its 2nd and 3rd best performers to free agency, spend less money than they did last offseason, get a year older, play a tougher schedule, and have the team suddenly be one of the healthiest teams in the league and have no one struggle such that they can make up that much ground, in a division that is loaded with talented youth? This is climbing a gigantic mountain. This is the kind of recovery that a guy will win coach of the year for if they pull it off. You aren't supposed to get everything going right to that degree. There is a very high chance that they could do literally everything people imagine they want them to do this offseason and wind up missing the division by 10 games again. 

One of those is too pessimistic, the other side is just as unlikely on the optimistic side. 

The org should probably just fold, tbh. Take their ball and go home. The mighty Guardians are far too much to handle. 

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, ChiSox59 said:

The org should probably just fold, tbh. Take their ball and go home. The mighty Guardians are far too much to handle. 

The Guardians should just fold, tbh. Take their ball and go home. The mighty White Sox can eat up that 10 game loss in a hurry.