caulfield12

Obviously the Braves needed to replace an entire outfield. The White Sox only needed two of those guys…and should have sent Vaughn to the minors to get regular playing time in an effort to get him back into any type of offensive rhythm again. Yes, he was also injured, but he’s a pretty significant question mark at this point in his Sox career.

He's also had three big league seasons with a 2.4 or higher fWAR, including 3.4 as recently as 2018. Now to pick one guy specifically out of Soler, Duvall, Pederson and Rosario...that would be almost impossible to predict. But you are able to secure FOUR of those guys when the White Sox had a difficult time coming up with just ONE during the season is pretty remarkable, and also sound scouting. They acknowledge their clear weaknesses after the early-season injuries and went out and addressed them.

Kinda a sad state of affairs when we simply assume a player of that caliber would simply be gone in FA instead of being retained by the White Sox. We've become conditioned like Pavlov's dogs...guess we will see what they decide to do with Giolito and TA.

https://www.mlb.com/news/white-sox-offseason-questions God help the White Sox if they plan to put Burger or Vaughn at second base OR cry poor during FA when they have the Kimbrel and/or Rodon contracts added onto the books….removing (at least temporarily) any and all “unprecedented financial flexibility,” as the Astros can simply bring back Correa OR sign a replacement like Semien AND give Verlander an incentives-based deal for a year at a time and still have another $20-30 million to play around with.

In the world where they never traded for Colome and developed Narvaez as the Mariners and Brewers did. Two were trades, Avi was “let go” meaning not offered a contract. Semien was shuffled back and forth between three different positions and never allowed to get comfortable…and not given enough playing time before they pulled the plug on him since he wasn’t considered a top prospect coming up since he wasn’t a first or second round draft pick. This is a bit of the chicken and egg thing…defensive problems caused by moving him around and classifying him as utility guy before his career got started, or his offense disappointed because he let some of his defensive issues and not feeling confident about the organization’s belief in him as an everyday starter? Garcia couldn’t stay healthy, couldn’t repeat his best season…and wasn’t adept at anything but collecting assists his best year, like Eaton, but he at least profiled like a 1.5-2.5 fWAR player with occasional higher peaks, which was a heckuva lot better than anything Mazara ever put together.

A healthy Ketel Marte is criminally-underrated around here…

Then how did Ventura, widely-perceived as the second worst Sox manager in the entire JR Era, manage it so well in 2012?

I think everyone was pretty realistic they weren’t getting Springer but wanted to take a shot at that tier right above in the $9-12 million range…and yes, Rosario was coming off an inconsistent 2020, which knocked down his price tag. Plus he was already more familiar with the Central than anyone. One of the knocks, though…was his defense, and hoping to strengthen the corners rather than weaken them around Robert. Jimenez was already in LF, which is Rosario’s natural spot compared to RF. In retrospect, we didn’t really get stellar offense OR defense, ultimately. It’s the same thing with Conforto this time around, although he’s closer to the $14-16 million per year range. A lot of posters mentioned Starling Marte and Pederson for the last couple of years, too.

Which is further irony because all three of those guys were dealt due to defensive shortcomings the White Sox were either unable to identify and/or fix…

Yeah, it’s almost like we’re betting everything on rolling the 2005 “everything must go perfectly/stars must align” dice at this point…because the White Sox were never going to have a 6 year window like the Cubs, 7 years like the Astros and 9 like the Dodgers. We get 4 years, and perhaps 5. Two are gone already. And the Cubs, Royals and Astros each experienced a lot more success than two total playoff victories in the beginning years of their respective windows.

Yet they still advanced in the postseason despite a quite pedestrian 60 game stretch of play.

Obviously the Braves are the best example of making the playoffs so many times with only one title over three decades to show for it. That said, the Dodgers were just not hitting well late, were missing too many key parts of their team and starting Buehler twice on three day's rest caught up to them. That and Matzek. Roberts also made some terrible managerial decisions in this series...especially his usage of Urias. In the end, the Braves did a great job shoring up their offense at the trade deadline and having a deep enough farm system that they could still overcome the losses of Soroka and Ynoa. They've also been able to develop MVP caliber talents like Riley, Freeman, Acuna and Albies internally.

The Brewers didn’t even have a $100 million payroll at the beginning of the season…give that front office even another $50 million to get to MLB average and they will be right there. Even the Braves were #12 on Opening Day, $47 million higher…and made a ton of acquisitions at the ASB so they finished in the Top 10.

Might as well turn it into an SPAC and the value will shoot into the billions, especially if they can branch out into football helmets... Buehler's luck just ran out. Former Sox killer Eddie Rosario. Still would probably take him over Carson Fulmer, lol.

Who were you formerly named? Before I was the biggest Puig fan, then the Royals, then Tatis, Jr., can I be all those things simultaneously and still follow every White Sox game? That would require lots of multitasking and the ability to write thousands of posts about a team that is supposedly not my favorite. Maybe I'm also a fan of Covid-19 and politics, lol. And I guess it's a pretty bad thing to be knowledgeable about teams playing in the Senior Circuit, especially since it might benefit my fantasy league team.

Man, PSU and Indiana were really overrated, and probably Iowa State/Okla.State too. PSU is going to lose by 30+ next week if they don’t get it together somehow. And Iowa will undoubtedly lose again in Madison. Only question is if NW can take them down in Evanston. Not even confident about Illinois or Nebraska at this point. And the West team will get absolutely smacked around in the championship game.

You don’t want to see the lowest TV ratings in WS history?

Braves out to the early lead…Dodgers just want to keep it as close as possible through 5 or 6 with Buehler on fumes.

And you’ve looked at his numbers after the trade how closely? They will prioritize moving a bigger salary, someone would have to overpay. Kim is the guy you could basically assume his contract and they would be happy with a B/C prospect. But then you’re committed to two years at even more money than Hernandez for a huge question mark offensively, especially changing leagues.

Nobody wants hard-ass authoritarian guys like Showalter, Scioscia or even Bochy around their teams anymore…it’s not laid back enough for the modern player. Girardi is one of the last, although he's had to become more relaxed over the years. Gabe Kapler is pretty much the ideal…someone really into psychology, fitness, advanced metrics. Maddon kind of started that trend.

Fine, you got me, he has signed one position player who worked out “okay/decently,” especially considering his price tag, in a decade. Pretty remarkable stuff. Somehow I image Jason McLeod will get more offers now that he’s leaving the Cubs.

Yes, because the Brewers have obviously not advanced out of the first round of the playoffs…in like forever.

This is one way to beat OU….keep their offense off the field or intercept Williams/Rattler. There’s just no way they are the #3 team in the country, the defense can’t even stop lowly Kansas.

So if you have ten years of position player moves in FA and Yasmani Grandal sticks out as the best, that’s not exactly saying much. Any GM in baseball could have had him for those same terms…but weren’t to do so. The Brewers, for example. got a lot more out of Grandal for just a one year commitment, then Narvaez, Pina, etc., for a fraction of the price. Wouldn’t it be better if we could have developed the full potential of our own players like Semien or Narvaez (or even Collins), rather than trading them off early when they struggle in one area or another? Then we have no option but to try to fix that hole through FA. Even Avi Garcia, we arguably would have been better off retaining him than misallocating for that position since he left the Sox and moved on.

Buehler going for the second time this postseason (and first times ever) because Price could never go more than two and they just had a full bullpen game. Leaving Urias or a miracle with Scherzer’s dead arm for G7, if they can somehow beat Ian Anderson.