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Sox trade Matthew Thompson to Cubs for old friend Bailey Horn


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6 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Are there no other potential relievers on the current White Sox 40 man roster? I see quite a few, and there's numerous other minor leaguers in camp who could be brought up with a roster spot if one was available. 

Before the trade, the left-handed pitchers slated for bullpen duty seem to be:

Tim Hill (ml)

Tanner Banks (ml/AAA)

Sammy Peralta (AAA)

Andrew Perez (AAA)

You're right! 4 left handers is the exactly perfect amount of left-handed bullpen guys in the bigs and AAA to go into the season with. 5 Is just one too many. 

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2 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

Before the trade, the left-handed pitchers slated for bullpen duty seem to be:

Tim Hill (ml)

Tanner Banks (ml/AAA)

Sammy Peralta (AAA)

Andrew Perez (AAA)

You're right! 4 left handers is the exactly perfect amount of left-handed bullpen guys in the bigs and AAA to go into the season with. 5 Is just one too many. 

Rule 5 draft pick Shane Drohan. If they want to keep him, he has to be on the MLB roster (assuming healthy).

Edited by Bob Sacamano
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2 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Rule 5 draft pick Shane Drohan. If they want to keep him, he has to be on the MLB roster (assuming healthy).

He is out longer term with a shoulder injury.  IIRC he might start throwing again by the end of spring training.

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3 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

Before the trade, the left-handed pitchers slated for bullpen duty seem to be:

Tim Hill (ml)

Tanner Banks (ml/AAA)

Sammy Peralta (AAA)

Andrew Perez (AAA)

You're right! 4 left handers is the exactly perfect amount of left-handed bullpen guys in the bigs and AAA to go into the season with. 5 Is just one too many. 

I would agree, that is an awful lot of LH bullpen-only arms. Not counting Drohan, that's 10% of a 40 man roster, whereas normally 1 or 2 LH relievers is normal, which is 7.7% of a 26-man roster (or 3.8% if you had only 1). That's just collecting LH relievers. 

They also have LH relief pitcher Fraser Ellard in camp. Ky Bush is there too and is also LH, although for now he's a starter. 

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1 minute ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Rule 5 draft pick Shane Drohan. If they want to keep him, he has to be on the MLB roster (assuming healthy).

They were going to get him on a throwing program by the end of ST, right? So maybe he's up May 1. 

I just think they figured to get any value for Matt Thompson before he tops out in AAA. 

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2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I would agree, that is an awful lot of LH bullpen-only arms. Not counting Drohan, that's 10% of a 40 man roster, whereas normally 1 or 2 LH relievers is normal, which is 7.7% of a 26-man roster (or 3.8% if you had only 1). That's just collecting LH relievers. 

They also have LH relief pitcher Fraser Ellard in camp. Ky Bush is there too and is also LH, although for now he's a starter. 

I was going to say, on a 40-man roster, 5 left handed relievers actually seems kind of deep. And that doesn’t count just lefties in general.

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7 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

I was going to say, on a 40-man roster, 5 left handed relievers actually seems kind of deep. And that doesn’t count just lefties in general.

That also doesn't count Crochet, but who knows exactly how they will be using him.

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4 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I would agree, that is an awful lot of LH bullpen-only arms. Not counting Drohan, that's 10% of a 40 man roster, whereas normally 1 or 2 LH relievers is normal, which is 7.7% of a 26-man roster (or 3.8% if you had only 1). That's just collecting LH relievers. 

They also have LH relief pitcher Fraser Ellard in camp. Ky Bush is there too and is also LH, although for now he's a starter. 

Perez is not on the 40-man, and Drohan will start the season on the IL. Many people here throw out Banks and Peralta as detritus that could be cut whenever some AAAA name passes through waivers. Tim Hill, because he once wore a Royals' uniform, will never be able to record an out while pitching for the White Sox. They're focusing on developing Ky Bush as a starter until they aren't, and Ellard probably needs a couple months in AA before they make any decisions on him. 

Maybe Getz was working up to teaching Horn how to be a great pitcher, just like he did with Christian Mena, when Hahn traded him in 2021. 

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1 hour ago, SoxAce said:

Not that I think Thompson will amount to much (I am much higher on Mena) Getz trading younger prospects for 26 year old AAAA players is getting annoying. 

If the Sox are very confident that Thompson will never amount to anything, the time to trade him is right now. However, you aren’t going to get a young prospect for him straight up. So you make this trade, hope Horn pitches well enough, and then you flip him for a young prospect. It would basically be flipping Thompson for said prospect, but the only way to get there is this indirect route. 

I have no idea if that’s the actual plan here, but that’s what I’m going to tell myself to feel better about the trade. 

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9 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

Perez is not on the 40-man, and Drohan will start the season on the IL. Many people here throw out Banks and Peralta as detritus that could be cut whenever some AAAA name passes through waivers. Tim Hill, because he once wore a Royals' uniform, will never be able to record an out while pitching for the White Sox. They're focusing on developing Ky Bush as a starter until they aren't, and Ellard probably needs a couple months in AA before they make any decisions on him. 

Maybe Getz was working up to teaching Horn how to be a great pitcher, just like he did with Christian Mena, when Hahn traded him in 2021. 

You're right, most people would throw out Tanner Banks and Peralta as detritus that could be cut when some AAA name passes through waivers. 

Banks also has significantly better minor league numbers than Bailey Horn. He's 26 already, has a similar AAA K-rate to Banks, but a walk rate nearly twice as high.

Most people would add Bailey Horn pretty quickly to the list of "Detritus that could be cut when some AAA name passes through waivers". Which is, frankly, what he's likely to be pretty quick.

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23 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

That also doesn't count Crochet, but who knows exactly how they will be using him.

I don't really count a guy who might throw 1-3 innings at the beginning of a game a SP. Especially when they can be flexible with that and pick their spots (either be an opener, have the innings come in the later middle innings or end of game).

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2 hours ago, WestEddy said:

Rick Hahn made a lot of bad trades, and some good trades. I don't think that Fletcher/Mena was a great trade, I think it was an even trade. Not like what we did to the Mariners. I would have rather not given up on Mena, but oh well. We now have an average production RF for the next 4-6 seasons. Where we had no OF prospect depth, we now do.

The only free agent signing I did not like was Maldonado. I think Stassi/ Lee, Perez or Hack would have been fine. Moustakas is a bit of a head-scratcher, but he might push Sheets off the team, which is a net good. Getz has put together good, veteran bullpen depth without the dumb 4-year contracts. We also have a good 6-7 reasonable rotation options at AAA, where in years past, we really had, like, a half of one. Grabbing guys off the waiver wire and starting them the next day. 

I'm on board for most of this.

2 hours ago, WestEddy said:

Oh, Lord. Now Matt Thompson will become the greatest prospect evah!

No, Thompson is far beneath Mena in terms of pedigree and performance through last season.

2 hours ago, WestEddy said:

Maybe Chris Getz should trade Fletcher this week. He'd immediately turn into a perennial All-Star, here. 

Fletcher has hit at every level, including a 100 PA cup of coffee. I'm not sure how hitting in a short stint means he will never hit at the major league level. It's like you want a 3 year track record of production in the bigs, with 6 years of control, still. 

I just don't see .377 BABIP as being anything close to being sustainable at the MLB level, same with the near .400 BABIP posted in lower levels. Hopefully he develop to be what Adam Engel was when he was healthy, not as good a fielder but hopefully a better hitter.

I'm not asking for much this year. Just let the borderline players like Sosa, Colas, Fletcher and Lee if any of them are brought up this year, vs. have them ride the bench as all rookie position players beyond Vaughn have done. Need to be able to flush any of these offseason veterans for either a trade or once a younger player makes them expendable. 

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4 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

No, Thompson is far beneath Mena in terms of pedigree and performance through last season.

Okay, I was being a dick. 

Fletcher has hit, tho, and has carried higher BABIPs through the minors. He sure looks like he could slot in and if he hits what B-R projects (.271/.337/.427), there's your  > league average RF. 

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3 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

Okay, I was being a dick. 

Fletcher has hit, tho, and has carried higher BABIPs through the minors. He sure looks like he could slot in and if he hits what B-R projects (.271/.337/.427), there's your  > league average RF. 

Yeah that's the one thing about him...he has had very high BABIPs every single year. 

Theoretically, if it was only luck, then it wouldn't have happened like 4 years in a row, so maybe he knows how to find holes.

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For what it’s worth the Cubs were in a 40 man jam and didn’t really want to trade Horn. Hes been electric in spring training this year but would be a bit of a risk to keep over someone like Cuas or Riley Thompson. There was talk of a Keegan Thompson trade but that didn’t materialize. I was looking forward to seeing horn pitch this year. 
 

edit: he also added a sweeper like every other pitcher in the cubs org.  He’s probably going to be a 7th inning guy for the Sox this year but was sometimes used as a multi-inning guy in AAA last year. Lots of upside in return for a guy that was lost in the Sox org in Thompson 

Edited by FriendlyNorthsider
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46 minutes ago, FriendlyNorthsider said:

For what it’s worth the Cubs were in a 40 man jam and didn’t really want to trade Horn. Hes been electric in spring training this year but would be a bit of a risk to keep over someone like Cuas or Riley Thompson. There was talk of a Keegan Thompson trade but that didn’t materialize. I was looking forward to seeing horn pitch this year. 
 

edit: he also added a sweeper like every other pitcher in the cubs org.  He’s probably going to be a 7th inning guy for the Sox this year but was sometimes used as a multi-inning guy in AAA last year. Lots of upside in return for a guy that was lost in the Sox org in Thompson 

This trade would’ve made more sense if it was the Cubs receiving Horn and the Sox receiving Thompson.  A situational lefty isn’t a very dire need for a team competing for last place.  The Sox should be the team acquiring young starters, not trading them away.

Edited by WhiteSox2023
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16 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

They just keep doing this. Helping other teams with their 40 man crunch. 

I don't really see what the problem is here.  Trading for a major league ready lefty reliever with 6 years of control for a guy that walks the world and is very unlikely to ever make it seems like a perfectly reasonable non-descript baseball trade. 

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2 hours ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I see this all the time here, people citing age. The ONLY reason Matt Thompson isn't worth a bag of baseball's is because of his age. If you think he never figures it out, this is when you move him. Bailey Horn at least is closer to the big leagues and a lefty reliever so more likely to get some actual MLB years out of him.

No issues with the logic behind this trade. Are the White Sox right about their internal evaluations? Well, that's the scary part for everyone but the only people who value Thompson are uber-Sox fans.

Gonna have to agree here. Chances are Thompson is a nothing . If you wait much longer he's an older nothing.

Maybe Horn is a nothing too, but right now he's a better nothing.

Just a nothing for nothing trade that means pretty much nothing except giving the Cubs something for Horn who needed a roster spot for Bellinger.

It's good we have such dedicated minor league fans who were hoping the Thompson /Dahlquist duo would eventually yield a major leaguer.

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