YouGottaBeBleepingMe

You will "trust the scout on Madrigal"? WTF? The kid is a baseball player. The kid is a winner. Maybe the kid is a hair slower than say Anderson or Moncada. Who gives a s***? He will make every routine play that guys like Anderson and Moncada struggle with half of the time. He will make the tougher play most of the time too. He makes contact. He gets on base. Every championship team has guys like him on it roster. Excluding Jimenez who has just mashed at every stop in the minors, Madrigal is the one prospect of ours that I have zero concern about. Madrigal is so good with the glove that I would move Anderson to second base for him.

So far, the early returns are not good. Anderson: showed a little early, but nothing that made me expect an All-Star at SS. Too many errors, not enough OBP, not enough overall run production. Yet, they gave him a decent contract and traded away Tatis Jr. because they believed in him that much. Hopefully, that belief does not haunt the franchise. Personally, I see nothing that mandates that Anderson is our SS for the next 15 years, but hopefully the kid proves me wrong and turns things around in the field and at the plate. Just being "athletic" does not work for me when you have fundamentally sound players who can play the position much better. Moncada: I see it with the naked eye. I see the same stuff that talent scouts saw in guys like Alex Rios and Jurickson Profar. At the end of the day, you have to be able to play the game. It is not about being "athletic" or being able to pound a belt high fast ball. It is not about having good exit velocity on balls you actually hit. You need to make plays. With the glove. At the plate. On the basepath. It comes down to "production". It is not about "upside". Giolito: You see it in spurts. Yet, consistency is what makes a major leaguer. Guy needs to start doing it consistently. Lopez: Clearly ahead of Giolito. Looks like he could be a back of the rotation guy. Way too many injuries in our better prospects. Way too much inconsistency in other highly thought of players. Then, we have a guy like Luis Gonzalez. Kid is outproducing every OF prospect not named Jimenez by a wide margin. Yet, these talent "evaluators" grade him lower than guys like Basabe or Adolfo for some odd reason. Since the tea leaves seem to imply that the White Sox value guys like Basabe and Adolfo over Gonzalez (not even mentioning Robert who also is not producing in the field or with the bat like Gonzalez; not even mentioning Rutherford who also out produced Basabe and Adolfo by a noticeable margin), the White Sox will probably (stupidly) trade away Gonzalez and watch him become a star somewhere else (see Tatis Jr) because they valued the "upside" of Basabe and Adolfo over the "production" of Gonzalez.

I think that it is a pipe dream to expect the White Sox to rise from the ashes with only prospects developing. Looking at the Cubs and Astros alone, neither of them win with singing the right veterans to supplement their young players. Injuries happen. Expectations are not met. Guys flame out after early sparks. Too many names to count in the annals of the game to even try listing them. Players like Machado and Harper rarely make it to the market. Guys with proven track records of elite production who are are so young that lengthy, expensive contracts are justifiable. Guys who make it to that market when all of the large market teams are virtually capped out and cannot offer a contract that smaller market teams can outbid them for. The White Sox make shrewd signings of Abreu and Robert in similar circumstances. It was gravely disappointing to most of our passionate fanbase that we did not make the commitment to one of them. It is quite frankly inexcusable that a deal was not closed with one of them. There is no way to sugar coat that or explain it away.

Dude, seriously? Is this all that you have? WTF planet are you living on? I get it. A bunch of people who use criteria that none of us casual fans will ever understand arbitrarily "rank" players and give them "grades". Why do people like you take these things as the word of God? I have seen Moncada for a full season and part of another. I have seen nothing that makes me believe that this guy is an "elite" talent. Why are you still keeping the party line that this kid is a future HOF player just because a bunch of stat geeks looked at a spreadsheet, saw his "grades", and ranked him an "elite prospect"? When the Red Sox offered him instead of Benitiendi, that should have told you how they felt about those two guys. One was expendable. One was a guy they wanted to keep for the future.

Hey, Rick. My initial post applies to Harper too. Just show him the money already. The fanbase will reward you and Jerry handsomely if you do.

I don't give a f*** where he hits and/or plays in the lineup. Get a guy who can mash like him and roll him out every day he can play, and then let the cards fall where they may. I would rather give him 10-$330 mm than pay 3-5 marginal players that same money.

I know, right? Seriously, if Bryce Harper is signed, there are zero outfield prospects of ours that will block him. If you think otherwise, I have no words for you. The guy along with Trout are in ATG territory. First ballot HOF, statue in the park, among the best producers in history types. Why don't they just offer him 10-$330 mm and be done with it?

Great post.

I disagree. The Yankees have $197 million in payroll and had the chance to bid on Harper and Machado. Given their financial commitments with Stanton, Tanaka, etc., they were a non-factor and likely will be so for the foreseeable future. Unless they let Judge or their other young talent walk when his time comes. The Cubs have $209 million in payroll are going to have to start paying the Bryants, Baezs, etc. in a year or two. That was why they took a pass on Harper and Machado. Add in the bad contracts of Hayward and Darvish and the large commitment to Lester and Rizzo, the Cubs will be out of premium free agents for the foreseeable future. The Dodgers have $209 million in payroll and already have the highest payroll in baseball. Who exactly are they going to be bidding on? The Angels have $167 million in payroll and are heavily invested in Trout for 2 more years and Pujols for 3 more years. These teams will not just be able to throw $300 million around to whoever they want to whenever they want to. My only concern is that the White Sox picked their moment to lay in the weed and get Abreu and Robert when they could outbid the teams you noted when they already had made their moves for other international players. This was a perfect opportunity to do the same, and they missed it.

Agree.

I would be happy with this. All the White Sox need is an owner who is willing to invest. Someone who sees that having Machado or Harper wearing our colors puts butts in the seats, increases TV contract revenue, sells merchandise, increases playoff revenue, and grows the fanbase. Hopefully, whoever JR sells the team to understands this and empowers his GM to make the necessary moves.

You are scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Why on Earth would MLB want a team moving out of a metropolitan area with 9.5 million people? If anything, I could see MLB approving a move to the suburbs. Naperville would make sense. Put a state of the art stadium close to the interstates out in the western suburbs. Plenty of professional sports teams play / have played in the suburbs of major cities.

If Cuban writes a big enough check, he will get a team. MLB only cares about 1 thing: CA$H. After the NHL and NFL moved to Las Vegas after years of holier than thou posturing about gambling, comments like "Cuban will never get MLB ownership approval" went out the window.

C'mon, man. He did great work rebuilding the farm system. He did great work getting Abreu and Robert. The drafts for the last 3 years have all been solid. The signings before 2015 looked good on paper even though they did not pan out as hoped. I agree that yesterday was a big black eye for him, but he should not be graded out overall as a D or an F. He clearly does not deserve an A either. Depending on your viewpoint, B or C is about right.

Very sad day, Rick. Looks like the organization was not ready to get things going here. You guys were never serious. If you want to go "almost" all the way, you should have just stayed on the sidelines. You look worse for getting where you did and coming up short. I hope you all realize that. The reported offer was nice and fair, but, in order to close the deal, you have to be willing to go all the way. If that means an "opt-out clause", you do it even if the organization does not believe in it. So much for all of that "talk" about "finishing pieces" or "breaking barriers". The fanbase needed this. The fanbase deserved this. You guys did not deliver. Putting all of your hope on a bunch of prospects who can break a hand, throw out an elbow, strain an oblique, tear an achilies (or two), or pull a hamstring at any time is not wise. That operates under the assumption that they will even develop to their hype. See Moncada, Anderson, Giolitto, Fulmer, or Rodon. I would be hopeful for the next round, but I just do not see an opportunity like this in the next 3 years. Maybe, you guys can try and trade a boatload of these prospects to the Angels for Mike Trout? Oh, wait. You would then have to pay him more than Machado or Harper. Since we all know that will not happen, let's not even waste time dreaming about it as Charlie Brown will kick the football the Lucy's holds more often.

LOL. The HOF is about your performance on the field. It has nothing to do with who you were as a person.

Nope. Here is the reason: you are trying to say they were great using their numbers, but their numbers are inflated by PED's. If you wanna say "they were HOF'ers before they took the PED's", nope. Plenty of guys like Mattingly, Murphy, Clark, and Hersheiser put up HOF caliber numbers for an extended period. The guys you mentioned were not that much different without their PED extension. Take Clemons. His first 2 years in Boston were meh. His next 7 were clearly otherwordly. His next 4 were not good by any definition, and Boston let him walking feeling he was washed up. Heck, when the White Sox signed Jaime Navarro over Roger Clemons, it was a consensus opinion that it was a better signing than giving that money to a washed up Clemons. Clemons started taking PED's, and the next 9 years were otherworldly. After his body had the usual steroid breakdown (see Bonds and McGuire and their late career injuries) which I am using as proof of his use of PED's, his last 2 years were meh just like his first 2. So, what is your argument? Clemons belongs because his 9 year steroid run makes him an ATG after 7 great years and 6 meh to bad years? That's BS. Without that 9 year PED enhanced period, how was he really much better than Hersheiser?

Good evening, Rick. While I assume that you will never actually read this, just wanted to say a few things in the event that you or someone who you work with actually reads White Sox MB's. I am a long time White Sox fan. When I saw my first game at Comiskey Park, Bill Veeck owned the team, Harry Carey was the play by play man, and the White Sox had not yet played a game on Sports Vision. I have seen at least one home game every year since then and even a World Series game. I have been with this team through thick and thin. I remember the thin years when Ivan Calderon was our best player. I recall the Frank Thomas era with so may great teams from 1990-2005. I recall the frustrations or the Kenny Williams post-World Series after-glow with all of those band aid fixes to try and keep the team competitive while trading away solid prospects for past their prime veterans or giving away deals that bloated the payroll. You have done an admirable job of cutting the waste and rebuilding the farm system. All of the bad contracts are gone, and their is hope again on the South Side for a bright future. It is an exciting time to be a White Sox fan even if some of these prospects go the way of Scott Ruffcorn or Gordon Beckham which some of them most assuredly will. With how White Sox fans are viewed nationally by ESPN and others, we need something tangible to take away that stench. There is no payroll to speak of for the foreseeable future. Giving out a massive contract is not only not going to break the budget, but it would be criminal if it did not come to pass. You and this organization are not going to have to start handing out massive contracts like the ones the Cubs players are starting to hand out for another 6-7 years if these hyped prospects even pan out, and there are no assurances that they will. Kopech may never get back to his hard throwing self. Moncada may never live up to his hype much like Jurickson Profar never will. You never know how things may play out with prospects. When you have a player that has a track record of elite level production, that player commands a large salary. That is a cost of doing business in MLB. What I know for certain is that the next television contracts will be much larger if there is a marquee product to sell. When you have all-stars and elite players, you have more leverage to ask for more money from television networks. In business, you have to spend money to make money. That is where a large contract for Machado or Harper makes sense. Plus, it helps give credibility to the organization. Think of the extra media revenue. Think of more people in the stands. Think of more jerseys and merchandise being sold. Think of the extra playoff game revenue. Think of excitement from casual fans if they could see a Machado or Harper playing for the White Sox. That casual fan then buys a White Sox hat instead of a Cubs hat and takes his kids to White Sox games instead of Cubs games. That is how you rebuild the fanbase!! Even if you ignore all of this extra revenue coming in that the organization currently does not have, doesn't what I say make sense? If you truly want to get things going here, now is the time to act. The financial flexibility for this move is here. All of the large market teams other than the White Sox or the playoff teams do not have the finances for this move. Jerry is not getting younger. If he wants one last shot at the championship, the time to act is right now. Not in 4-5 years. Is putting all of your eggs in the prospects basket and praying for development and good health really the prudent move? If the price is 8-10 years at over $250 million, that is an investment you have to make. Trust me here. If you build it, we will come. Stop beating around the bush. Make the right offer and get us back! Don't make this move for yourself. Don't make this move for Jerry. Don't make this move for the organization. Make this move for the fans! We want it. We need it. We deserve it.