White Sox Futility Under Williams/Hahn/Ventura

[Chicago White Sox]

Yes, we improved marginally on our record this year. It took spending >$50 million/season in new money and trading for a pitcher 1 year away from free agency and having a team that is unbelievably, remarkably healthy to upgrade by ~4 games. There's a good chance that'll be just enough to land us a first round pick in 2016 that isn't protected.

 

This isn't complimentary.

 

I didn't wade into this thread last night, y'all know how I feel about these guys, but man this attitude of "we're going the right direction look at our record!" really frustrates me. Just to tread water from this season we'll have to spend like $25 million in new money and attendance is going to go the opposite direction next year again.

The guys we acquired this offseason have combined 1.8 total WAR. We probably would have treaded water without their additions, the problem is we should have taken a big leap forward and we didn't because the majority of them have under-performed.

 

LaRoche: -0.9

Bonifacio: -0.6

Duke: -0.4

Beckham: -0.3

Cabrera: -0.1

Robertson: 1.8

Shark: 2.3

 

So to accumulate this 1.8 WAR, we spent nearly $55M, traded decent four prospects, & gave up two draft picks. There's no doubt in my mind if these guys lived up to expectations or those resources were better allocated (and obviously I have the benefit of hindsight right now), we could actually be a wild card team right now. Ultimately, I don't think the strategy of going for it was the problem (the AL is wide open), it was the execution of the plan that has us where we currently are.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Chicago White Sox

[Balta1701]

Ultimately, I don't think the strategy of going for it was the problem (the AL is wide open), it was the execution of the plan that has us where we currently are.

To my eyes, the reason why the strategy was flawed was that it relied on doing things that don't work. Paying full price for mid-level free agents is not working for almost anyone right now. Teams don't let guys who are actually contributing reach free agency until they're old enough that decline looks likely or unless they have other issues. Once they get to free agency, then there are so many teams going after so few guys in order to "Win right now" that you have to massively overpay.

 

You brought up the fWAR numbers - it was going to be almost impossible for Robertson and LaRoche to be worth their contracts this year in fWAR terms, we paid a "win now premium price" on those guys. Fangraphs even wrote an article last December about how the White Sox massively overpaid for LaRoche because even with a small decline the fact that he'd be playing DH most of the time meant he'd struggle to put up 1.5 fWAR in a good year. They then threw in the "but maybe if the White Sox are ready to compete that's ok" - but you can't say that about half your roster.

 

If your plan is to remake your roster with expensive, FA additions, where you're paying full price and not getting a discount for any reason, the 2015 Chicago White Sox (or the 2015 Red Sox, for that matter) is probably going to be the end result.

 

If you're trying to take a team that is close and fill 1 hole...that can potentially be done. Teams can find guys to supplement their roster, but when 15 teams are looking to pay a premium price to fill 1-2 roster holes and your team is looking to fill 7-8, your strategy cannot work.

[GreenSox]

The rebuild was going fine until they decided to take a U-turn last winter and sign a bunch of veteran stiffs. You can look at the rebuild of the Astros and Cubs ans most of their talent was not acquired from trades. It was acquired from signings of international players and through the astute drafting. Yes the Cubs got their ace from a trade but that was from a trade anything should do – Dumping a mediocre veteran in July for a young player. Again that's another thing Sox simply did not do over the last year.

[Chicago White Sox]

To my eyes, the reason why the strategy was flawed was that it relied on doing things that don't work. Paying full price for mid-level free agents is not working for almost anyone right now. Teams don't let guys who are actually contributing reach free agency until they're old enough that decline looks likely or unless they have other issues. Once they get to free agency, then there are so many teams going after so few guys in order to "Win right now" that you have to massively overpay.

 

You brought up the fWAR numbers - it was going to be almost impossible for Robertson and LaRoche to be worth their contracts this year in fWAR terms, we paid a "win now premium price" on those guys. Fangraphs even wrote an article last December about how the White Sox massively overpaid for LaRoche because even with a small decline the fact that he'd be playing DH most of the time meant he'd struggle to put up 1.5 fWAR in a good year. They then threw in the "but maybe if the White Sox are ready to compete that's ok" - but you can't say that about half your roster.

 

If your plan is to remake your roster with expensive, FA additions, where you're paying full price and not getting a discount for any reason, the 2015 Chicago White Sox (or the 2015 Red Sox, for that matter) is probably going to be the end result.

 

If you're trying to take a team that is close and fill 1 hole...that can potentially be done. Teams can find guys to supplement their roster, but when 15 teams are looking to pay a premium price to fill 1-2 roster holes and your team is looking to fill 7-8, your strategy cannot work.

It's not really about the money though. Overpaying for LaRoche & Melky would be fine if they were productive. The problem is they're pretty much under-performing by a good 4 to 5 wins. There are plenty of free agents that are performing at or even exceeding expectations (whether they're overpaid or not). The same strategy of "going for it" could have resulted in a much more favorable outcome if the execution consisted of a different set of players.

[OmarComing25]

The rebuild was going fine until they decided to take a U-turn last winter and sign a bunch of veteran stiffs. You can look at the rebuild of the Astros and Cubs ans most of their talent was not acquired from trades. It was acquired from signings of international players and through the astute drafting. Yes the Cubs got their ace from a trade but that was from a trade anything should do – Dumping a mediocre veteran in July for a young player. Again that's another thing Sox simply did not do over the last year.

The Cubs only got two of their pieces on the current team through the draft, every other major piece came through free agency or a trade (Rizzo, Arrieta, Russell, Montero, Fowler, Lester, Hammel, every good pitcher in their bullpen). Soler was an international signing but he has a negative WAR this year and is not one of the reasons for their success.

Edited August 29, 2015 by OmarComing25

[GreenSox]

The problem is Laroche and Melky were very likely to Decline. Melky was the worse signing. More money more years, gave up a pick, bad on defense.

 

Great post up there Balta Explains everything vividly and accurately..

Edited August 29, 2015 by GreenSox

[LDF]

It's not really about the money though. Overpaying for LaRoche & Melky would be fine if they were productive. The problem is they're pretty much under-performing by a good 4 to 5 wins. There are plenty of free agents that are performing at or even exceeding expectations (whether they're overpaid or not). The same strategy of "going for it" could have resulted in a much more favorable outcome if the execution consisted of a different set of players.

 

i believe that it is all about the money and in essence an owner who believe that this team in any multi yrs of ownership, believe that a baseball team can compete with a limit payroll expense.

 

furthermore, these owners will not pony up the necessary money to build a core that is on the verge of doing something. however, these owners will take short cuts but wasting money and time full of promises.

[Balta1701]

It's not really about the money though. Overpaying for LaRoche & Melky would be fine if they were productive. The problem is they're pretty much under-performing by a good 4 to 5 wins. There are plenty of free agents that are performing at or even exceeding expectations (whether they're overpaid or not). The same strategy of "going for it" could have resulted in a much more favorable outcome if the execution consisted of a different set of players.

The point is...that's by far the likelist scenario when you try to remake your roster on the FA market. With the guys you're paying full price for, there's a very high chance that they will under-perform substantially. That's why they're on the FA market and available in the first place.

 

When you sign 1, you've got a fair chance that guy will perform and a fair chance he'll underperform. There's virtually no chance he'll overperform if you're paying full price for him because the demand on the FA market is that great. If you're trying to find 4-5 different pieces, and 2 or 3 of them significantly underperform while 2-3 are about where they should be, your roster is going to be missing 4 to 5 wins compared to what you budgeted for.

 

When you're buying full priced guys, there's virtually no upside risk and there's a lot of downside risk. There's so much demand on the market by teams that actually are competitive that you are extremely likely to find several duds if you try to find several guys.

 

Oh, and I should also note the risk of guys underperforming is probably even higher if some of the pieces you're trying to find are guys for your bullpen.

[LDF]

The point is...that's by far the likelist scenario when you try to remake your roster on the FA market. With the guys you're paying full price for, there's a very high chance that they will under-perform substantially. That's why they're on the FA market and available in the first place.

 

When you sign 1, you've got a fair chance that guy will perform and a fair chance he'll underperform. There's virtually no chance he'll overperform if you're paying full price for him because the demand on the FA market is that great. If you're trying to find 4-5 different pieces, and 2 or 3 of them significantly underperform while 2-3 are about where they should be, your roster is going to be missing 4 to 5 wins compared to what you budgeted for.

 

When you're buying full priced guys, there's virtually no upside risk and there's a lot of downside risk. There's so much demand on the market by teams that actually are competitive that you are extremely likely to find several duds if you try to find several guys.

 

Oh, and I should also note the risk of guys underperforming is probably even higher if some of the pieces you're trying to find are guys for your bullpen.

underperforming is a risk in fa, traded players and regular players. there is no way possible to prevent this.

 

i still say, adam laroche was a bad calculated risk that failed, i still like melky. but that aside, the team needs another 1 or 2 more players via fa's... the team also needs to make some desperate trades for more prospects.

[Balta1701]

underperforming is a risk in fa, traded players and regular players. there is no way possible to prevent this.

So if you're going to max out your salary spending you darn well better have a team that has some room to survive a couple players underperforming or getting hurt! And we've even been unbelievably lucky this year on health too!

[Jose Abreu]

The problem is Laroche and Melky were very likely to Decline. Melky was the worse signing. More money more years, gave up a pick, bad on defense.

Melky was a worse signing than LaRoche? Lmao ok.

[LDF]

So if you're going to max out your salary spending you darn well better have a team that has some room to survive a couple players underperforming or getting hurt! And we've even been unbelievably lucky this year on health too!

 

you are correct. but i am not talking about max out the salary allotted by the owners, i am talking about players not performing as expected .... all types of players.

[OmarComing25]

So if you're going to max out your salary spending you darn well better have a team that has some room to survive a couple players underperforming or getting hurt! And we've even been unbelievably lucky this year on health too!

We've been lucky on injuries, yeah, but we also consistently have one of the healthiest teams every year, that's not an accident.

[Lip Man 1]

We've been lucky on injuries, yeah, but we also consistently have one of the healthiest teams every year, that's not an accident.

 

Except in 2001, 2004, 2007 and the bullpen down the stretch in 2010. And the times the Sox suffer injuries they are screwed unlike say the Cardinals or Yankees because the minor league system has offered very little help.

 

Mark

 

[Chicago White Sox]

The point is...that's by far the likelist scenario when you try to remake your roster on the FA market. With the guys you're paying full price for, there's a very high chance that they will under-perform substantially. That's why they're on the FA market and available in the first place.

 

When you sign 1, you've got a fair chance that guy will perform and a fair chance he'll underperform. There's virtually no chance he'll overperform if you're paying full price for him because the demand on the FA market is that great. If you're trying to find 4-5 different pieces, and 2 or 3 of them significantly underperform while 2-3 are about where they should be, your roster is going to be missing 4 to 5 wins compared to what you budgeted for.

 

When you're buying full priced guys, there's virtually no upside risk and there's a lot of downside risk. There's so much demand on the market by teams that actually are competitive that you are extremely likely to find several duds if you try to find several guys.

 

Oh, and I should also note the risk of guys underperforming is probably even higher if some of the pieces you're trying to find are guys for your bullpen.

I'm going to disagree with most of what you say here. There are plenty of reasons guys reach free agency and most don't have to do with an expected immediete & complete decline in production. Pretty sure the Nationals didn't bring back Adam because they wanted to shift Zimmerman to 1B. Not sure about Cabrera, but it's possible that wanted him at less years and/or money or simply preferred the comp pick and filling the whole in a less expensive way. Let's not pretend that players have no say in reaching free agency.

 

And the problem with free agency is the premium you pay for production and the risk at the end of contracts (typically the long-term ones). For short-term deals, it's usually more of resource efficiency issue. The most likely expectation should never be they'll under-perform their recent production substantially in year one Their production should be expected to decrease some due to age, and as a ratio to their pay perhaps quite a bit due to the premium paid, but you can't tell me with a straight you should expect these guys to fall off the earth simply because they reached free agency. And quite frankly, that's exactly what happened with LaRoche & Melky. No doubt it was possible with Adam, but still a low probability outcome. Melky even less so, unless you believe PED usage is the reason for the sudden drop-off (I don't). Again, sign two different free agents and perhaps this season has a better outcome.

[GreenSox]

Melky was a worse signing than LaRoche? Lmao ok.

Sure it was. More money more years, gave up a draft pick. People act like he's producing offensively. He's not. He is also a lousy defender. Laroche is a good defender but the Sox aren't using what little value he has.

We're done with Laroche after one more year. They could cut him in the spring.

[elrockinMT]

Frustration rules here. Understandable but you can't go with a one year plan. The players we signed were proven contributors. We never seem to have that same level of play after we sign them. Look at Robertson with six blown saves and tied for hat dubious mark as the most in the league. Save those six games and we are tied for the wild card. Laroche can't hit now, which also seemed to haunt Dunn. Bonafacio tanked bad and was released. But, we are developing our own and the plan can't be abandoned because we aren't in the World Series. 28 other teams are in the same boat

[Chicago White Sox]

Melky was a worse signing than LaRoche? Lmao ok.

Seriously. I'm not too worried about Melky going forward. Think his 1st half was just one of those bizarre stretches that can never be explained but ultimately mean nothing in terms of future performance.

[Balta1701]

I'm going to disagree with most of what you say here. There are plenty of reasons guys reach free agency and most don't have to do with an expected immediete & complete decline in production. Pretty sure the Nationals didn't bring back Adam because they wanted to shift Zimmerman to 1B. Not sure about Cabrera, but it's possible that wanted him at less years and/or money or simply preferred the comp pick and filling the whole in a less expensive way. Let's not pretend that players have no say in reaching free agency.

 

And the problem with free agency is the premium you pay for production and the risk at the end of contracts (typically the long-term ones). For short-term deals, it's usually more of resource efficiency issue. The most likely expectation should never be they'll under-perform their recent production substantially in year one Their production should be expected to decrease some due to age, and as a ratio to their pay perhaps quite a bit due to the premium paid, but you can't tell me with a straight you should expect these guys to fall off the earth simply because they reached free agency. And quite frankly, that's exactly what happened with LaRoche & Melky. No doubt it was possible with Adam, but still a low probability outcome. Melky even less so, unless you believe PED usage is the reason for the sudden drop-off (I don't). Again, sign two different free agents and perhaps this season has a better outcome.

The bolded - that's the case when you're signing the top-level guys and that's been the case for a long time. But I think we've entered a different era now- an era where there is now so much extra money that teams who aren't willing to compete for the 8 year contract guys are now bidding up the moderate-level FAs to the point that there is now a very large, substantial, downside risk for all of them.

 

The teams that used to be unable to bid for the big time FAs now have plenty of money to hold onto their own guys if they want and they have plenty of money to play for moderate level free agents. The Blue Jays were also willing to let Melky go because they put Russell Martin as a higher priority. They knew him and they were willing to let him walk even though they had the money to sign him.

 

In the big deals, now you're both paying the long-term deals to offset hopefully performance from year 1-2 and you're also overpaying given the risk that they'll underperform (see Boston this year). In the middle guys, you're overpaying for them in the first place because there's so many teams competing for so few guys and then you have to ignore the risk of guys underperforming as well. We brought in 3 big-money free agents and per the fWAR numbers 1 of the 3 has performed where he should. That's not an unreasonable ratio when there is this much money chasing so few players.

[Balta1701]

Seriously. I'm not too worried about Melky going forward. Think his 1st half was just one of those bizarre stretches that can never be explained but ultimately mean nothing in terms of future performance.

Hitting .242 with a .646 OPS in August. He had a ridiculous July, but as soon as he no longer had the Red Sox pitching staff to hit he swung back the other way. His July seems accurately described as "one of those bizarre stretches that can never be explained but ultimately mean nothing in terms of future performance" just as fairly. Overall, his full season numbers with a .704 OPS seem like they do a good job of reflecting what he did this year.

[Jose Abreu]

Sure it was. More money more years, gave up a draft pick. People act like he's producing offensively. He's not. He is also a lousy defender. Laroche is a good defender but the Sox aren't using what little value he has.

We're done with Laroche after one more year. They could cut him in the spring.

More years and more money because he's a better player. He is a lousy defender, but we knew that when we signed him. Melky had a terrible first couple months, but that was an anomaly. He had a rough start to August, too, but he has bounced back. He has produced offensively, LaRoche has not. We signed them both solely for offense, and Cabrera has provided more of it. Thus, Cabrera signing > LaRoche signing.

 

[Jose Abreu]

Seriously. I'm not too worried about Melky going forward. Think his 1st half was just one of those bizarre stretches that can never be explained but ultimately mean nothing in terms of future performance.

Agreed.

[Bigsoxhurt35]

Melky isn't producing? He's got 61 RBIs on a s*** bad offense. His HR total should be a little higher but whatever. He's not a problem.

[fathom]

Melky isn't producing? He's got 61 RBIs on a s*** bad offense. His HR total should be a little higher but whatever. He's not a problem.

 

141st out of 155 qualified hitters in terms of fWAR. He's sucked this year.

[Jose Abreu]

141st out of 155 qualified hitters in terms of fWAR. He's sucked this year.

That's because of his s***ty first two months. He's had a fine year.