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Assistant to the General Manager

For everyone that says every outing was an adventure - I'm going to plainly state he was an excellent closer for the White Sox. Flat out he converted saves at a high level. Whether I bet on him being able to maintain that balancing act, maybe not - but at $5M this was a great use of resources for the Twins.

I'm not sure is so controversial about Crochet in bullpen? You have to stretch him out and you have to stretch Kopech out. Both should be either in multi inning roles or working as openers pitching 2-3 innings at a time. Over 162 games they'll get their work. Look at Ryan Yarbrough for the Rays as your example. In 2019 he pitched 140 innings. Started 14 games (mostly as opener) and pitched in relief in multi-inning roles. These guys are going to be able to get 100-120 innings no problem. 100-120 IP in the regular season + sprinkling in a few more in the postseason? I don't want anymore than that out of them and I'd rather them take all those innings at the major league level. After you have one more year under your belt of Kopech, Cease, Rodon and Crochet you can better make your decision on what to do with Lynn next offseason.

we cant be too good, thats bad for business.

The infusion of not one, not two, but three elite, blue chip talents into the team this year with Vaughn, Kopech, and Crochet set to join the team is nothing short of truly exciting. The Sox really do have an extraordinary amount of terrific, young talent. The next several years is going to be some kind of ride!

I disagree. Joc's market collapsed as a result of all his suitors balking at his asking price and moving on from him. Does that mean everyone else that kicked the tires on him misread the market? I don't think so. They moved on from a mediocre player asking for too much because that level of production was littering the FA pool. It's pretty clear to me the Sox had an agenda to fill certain position and had to do so under JR's budget. I'm not crazy about the Eaton signing, but he did have a market at the time. People act like the Sox targeted players no one wanted because they don't like the player.

Man, reading those tweets makes me sad. Fucking ridiculous.

But stats?

Wow, interesting Sheets write-up SCOUTING REPORT: Sheets used the coronavirus shutdown to get in better shape, and the White Sox saw enough athleticism to try him in left field at instructional league. Outside scouts who saw him at the position believe it is a legitimate option. In the box, Sheets continued working to utilize his lower half more in his swing, and the results are some of the best exit velocities in the organization and a newfound ability to pull offspeed pitches with authority. He does better on pitches in the upper half of the zone, and working to do damage on pitches in all parts of the zone will be his next step.

Good luck Nick. One of the nicest guys on the baseball field. Easy to root for this guy!

Let's do a quick comparison though, while I think Minnesota is the team to beat since they have won the division the last few years, I think the Sox still stack up better: C - Grandal > Jeffers 1B - Abreu > Sano 2B - Madrigal = Polanco/Arreaz SS - Anderson > Simmons 3B - Moncada > Donaldson (not 28 yr old Donaldson, but this year Donaldson, YES) LF - Eloy > Kepler CF - Buxton > Robert (maybe Robert here) RF - Kiriloff > Eaton DH - Cruz > anyone we put in there SP1 - Giolito > Maeda SP2 - Berrios > Keuchel SP3 - Lynn > Pineda SP4 - Cease > Happ SP5 - Rodon/Lopez/Kopech = Dobnak/etc Cl - Hendricks > Rogers MR - Sox > Twins The Sox still have the better team, but they have to knock them off to be considered the best, IMO.

I agree. They're still better than us right now. The division is gonna be a fight.

*White Sox multiple championships window opens* 2020: Global pandemic, weird shortened season and bounced out in the first round of the playoffs 2021: Front office builds 80% of a roster, miss playoffs 2022: Strike 2023: ??? 2024: Profit. AMC and Game Stop finally hit $1000 a share and I buy a 51% ownership stake in the White Sox. 30 consecutive World Series championships.

Dunning was not better than Cease and his stuff is nowhere near the quality of Cease.

Which one of them is closing for the Twins?

People like to pretend that Colome wasn’t very good here because he doesn’t fit the advanced stats narrative, but but bottom line is that he was nothing but a top notch closer for the Sox. This is a great deal for any team and given the Jerry handicap on the team’s budget I thinks it’s fair to question the Hendricks contract Vs what Colome got paid...even tho there’s no denying Hendricks is better. Colome, Brantley, and Wacha or Hendricks and Eaton?

Sure seems Sox paid full price for everything while other teams got a big discount

I mean, I’d take our bullpen too. I’m not sure that I’d take our bullpen and Rodon as the rotation depth over Colome coming back and having $10 million to spend on a real starting pitcher.

I stopped reading at Yerm could catch or play OF for them

I don't disagree. He did a solid job. But it was rarely pretty or uneventful. I do agree that $6.25M, its a solid move.

This defense doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Part of negotiating is understanding how the market is going to move and evolve. Joc may have asked for 10 million then, but all that matters is what he signed for. There's no reason the Sox had to rush to sign Adam Eaton; as if someone else was going to swoop in and steal such a stellar player from out underneath them. Waiting for low-to-mid-level free agents has been the MO the past 5 off-seasons but the Sox apparently haven't learned that yet.

I’m happy to have our lineup face Colome this year

Honestly, these moves by the Twins in the last few weeks have been strong. They are definitely the top dogs in the AL Central until proven otherwise. Just an absolute shame our front office with so much room under the lux tax can't get a star like Bauer or Ozuna to the team.

Wonder if we see a Vaughn extension before Opening Day

This is flat-out wrong. You definitely can get to 80-100 innings while pitching out of the bullpen for a full year. You can't look at history and see how many guys around baseball hit that mark from the bullpen because those other guys aren't in the same boat. If a plan is put in place for Crochet, they will get him to that innings number.

Chris Sale also went down with elbow soreness early in 2012 and had to turn over a table screaming at KW in order to be allowed back into the rotation after they publicly declared he would permanently be a reliever.

Chris Sale started in the pen...this move is fine, and Whitesox-esque.

The Athletic had a 2 part piece where they were asking agents all kinds of questions about front offices, like who is the toughest to negotiate with, who is the nicest, Hahn didn't rank in anything, but Getz got a couple of votes as a future GM. They did ask the Tony LaRussa hire question, and it was split down the middle with about half thinking it was good and half not so good, and it ranged from genius hire to total disaster.

Simmons is a pretty major improvement. They just went from one of the worst MI defense in the league - if not THE worst - to above average with Simmons. Its not flashy or exciting, but it was a very good move for the Twins. Cruz was obviously important for them to bring back. Still think the Twins need another good SP that they're not going to get, and their pen needs work. I agree the Sox look comfortably ahead of the Twins atm.

Twins very quietly get better defensively, keep Cruz and solidify the bullpen. I think they are outspending the whitesox right now and will be the team to beat in the division.

His steroids are pretty good

I think the alternate site thing is the better the more raw a prospect is. A more raw player with mechanical and approach issues can benefit more from that kind of guided instruction where you can kinda mix up classic work on mechanics and stuff like that with live ABs. A more polished player like vaughn will benefit less from that but still it obviously is better to have that than just hitting in the cage and lifting weights.

Yeah I agree. More people are reporting it and teams nowadays fire guys pretty quickly. Still probably many women won't come out because they fear a "double punishment" where their story is believed and action is taken (which is better than previously where nothing was done) but still their job is made harder because teams are reluctant to let them work with them for the fear of similar stories getting out. That is kinda like canseco after he made those steroid accusations. That stuff proved to be true but he still was tremendously hated for "snitching", especially because he did it himself (which he admitted of course but "dragged" other colleagues into it. This kind of unofficial punishment is a big problem that gets ignored too. Even if a female journalist keeps her job and they do believe her story and fire the predator that is a good thing but it doesn't mean her job won't be harder after that. They might still allow her into the clubhouse but be a bit more tight lipped (because she is viewed as a risk and "trouble maker") when providing information which affects her ability to write good articles. This stuff will take much longer to be resolved. People now say "what do you want? since me too companies are actually firing predators" but while that is good and true there are still unofficial repercussions that will make your job harder even if you "won", like for example your boss who was friends with the fired guy now being tougher or colleagues shunning you. This stuff needs to change too and it is much harder to do because that stuff happens so subtly that it is hard to enforce legally. Good companies now have anti retaliation policies but in many cases it is hard to prove.

That’s less than expected. Good thing Sox were so adamant they were out, wouldn’t have wanted the Twins to have to pay more.

Really feels like Cooper was just stealing money the last couple of years

Better that than a Capitol-invading member of the Gravy Seals.

I think this is true if all pitching coaches, I doubt he feels any of that pressure

Giolito should stick to pitching and leave the evaluation stuff to SoxTalk.

So to be clear, Bauer being 30 is a concern for you, but you’re also concerned that if the Sox signed Bauer, they would be unable to re-sign a then 35 year old Lance Lynn?

This older fan's response: to look up what wRC+ means.

So we knew the top 10, 11-30 came out. https://www.baseballamerica.com/teams/1026/chicago-white-sox/organizational/?year=2021&type=P#9766 Interesting names: Bailey horn at 24, Zack Collins at 27 And my favorite is just this scouting report dunking on Yolbert Sanchez, then realizing he's ranked higher than Collins lol: SCOUTING REPORT: Sanchez reported to instructional league in Arizona and looked particularly rusty. Internal and external evaluators saw a player who'd gotten thicker during the shutdown, lacked an approach at the plate and showed a willingness to chase. Scouts also saw a player who will not be able to stick at shortstop because of below-average speed and fringy arm strength. The White Sox are optimistic he'll be able to regain some of what they saw when they signed him once he gets more consistent reps.

You just never know. Let’s face it...the Twins and Sox are probably both low to mid-90s win teams. Is it possible one or two games in early April could be the difference? You’ll never be able to definitively prove it, but the answer is yes.

Meh. Helps solidify their pen I guess, but every outing is an adventure for Colome. Twins doing some dumpster diving this offseason right along with the Sox the offseason.

Sox also signed pitchers Marcus Evey and Sal Biasi. Who da fu...?

Not a fan of this either. Multi inning relief is better than just set up guy but still that is not a good environment to develope his third pitch. If you work on a third pitch in milb you just throw it a lot in all counts until it works in games even if that means you give up a couple bombs. But in MLB you are probably not throwing that with runners on when you are not 100% confident as you don't want to give up a granny and then tell your teammates "sorry I was working on something". Obviously you can still work on stuff on your side sessions but it is not the same as in games. Also relieving doesn't provide a regular schedule. If they really want to do something like this I would prefer them using him as an extended opener for the 5th starter. Let crochet go about 3 innings and then bring in the 5th starter as a follower for another 4 or so. That is not ideal either but better than a totally irregular schedule. But best would be developing in the minors so he can work on everything instead of worrying about results.

1) Ditch your breaking ball 2) Stay tall 3) Seriously, no breaking ball 4) I don't care if it has worked for your entire career so far, no more 5) Throw cutters 6) More cutters

The best of the best get to a certain point, get a little older, get a little more tired, and get formulaic about everything. Thus, the handing out a card with some sayings on it comment has merit. He wasn't overhyped for a long time, but time took its toll on him. Thanks for a job well done, but now it's Katz time. I'm as positive about the change as an old pessimist Sox Fan can be right now.

What about the insiders on the board that said the Sox had been interested? 🤔 maybe there was interest but not as much as Hector led on? Or everyone was wrong, also an option.

"Hey Ethan, can I throw my curve again?" "Yeah man" How Dylan Cease Became An Ace I'm kidding about it being that simple, but man, give Cease his groove back