The Sir

I’d ask for Keuchel and Ryu, but I think that’s pushing my luck. Keuchel and Brett Anderson, maybe.

Don’t agree at all. He’s a proven innings eater, a veteran, he doesn’t rely on overpowering stuff so he’ll age better, he’s had success in the AL, etc. I don’t get why people wanted the unproven, unreliable Wheeler but not Keuchel.

Gimme Keuchel and an RP.

The lineup of the Chicago White Sox is now tougher for opposing pitchers to get through. That’s what I care about. That’s what the White Sox care about. I don’t care that some mysterious number that doesn’t like Mazara’s defense is low. We have a better lineup now. The people who are joking about Mazara’s inability to hit while eagerly anticipating the golden days of Micker Adolfo are nuts.

Baseball is a team game. Who cares about WAR? Look at what this does for the team. Castillo-Engel-Yolmer-Cordell is gone and replaced with Grandal-Robert-Madrigal-Mazara. There’s no spot in this lineup now where pitchers can relax. We haven’t had that in years. Enjoy it.

Thank you. I’d like to add the irony that people here see ABSURD potential in the likes of Basabe and Adolfo, who are barely younger than Mazara but with far worse results at far lower levels. If either of those guys puts up a .786 OPS in MLB ever, I’ll donate one of my testicles to science. Hell, I joked about it last night before the trade was done, but this board’s weird hatred of Mazara was actually making people defend the reputation of Blake Rutherford. I’ve wondered for years why people were so down on Blake and what it would take to get people to treat him as a legit prospect, and apparently the answer was an Avi-esque 24 y/o OF from Texas.

You’re missing the point. You wanted to know why these guys have limited ceilings. If there’s a guy with unlimited upside, like if Robert had been in the draft, he’s gone in the first few picks. A guy who’s still there at 45 or whatever, well there’s a reason for that.

Walker was a second round pick. Since 2000, the highest bWAR from a second round pick for this franchise was Ryan Sweeney. If they were the perfect prospect, they wouldn’t be going in the second round.

No offense to you, but this is a bad argument. The 2005 Astros had Oswalt, Pettitte, and Clemens. We swept them. The Yankees that year had an INSANE lineup that was stacked with studs from top to bottom and we didn’t even play them in the playoffs. Baseball is a team game. Gerrit Cole doesn’t suddenly turned the Yankees into some unbeatable behemoth. If we make a few final moves to get an SP and an RP, and Robert, Madrigal, Kopech, and Cease meet even a portion of their potential, then we can contend to win the ALC every year for the first part of the new decade. And if we do that, anything can happen in the playoffs. After all, no other fans are out there saying, “Man, I hope Luis Robert doesn’t go on to hit 40 homeruns perennially while Michael Kopech becomes a true #1, we’ll never get past them in the playoffs!”

Baseball is a team game. Stop freaking out about WAR. Last year, we routinely had a section of the lineup that went something like Castillo, Sanchez, Engel, Cordell. Good for nothing, unless I had some sort of chore to do, mid-game. Now, that section can be dispersed through the rest of the lineup in the form of Robert, Madrigal, Grandal, Mazara. Leury can be the platoon player he ought to be and hide Mazara from lefties. If McCann holds up at all and doesn’t totally regress, we really don’t have any easy outs anymore, whereas last year we had four. And Mazara is only a year older than the A baller we gave up for him.

Nomar Mazara is what it takes to make people on this board defend Blake Rutherford? Good to know. That’s nuts, by the way. I’d do Rutherford for Mazara straight up. I’d do the same with Basabe, Adolfo, or Gonzalez. The only one I’d hesitate on is Walker.

Standing in line at Chipotle, but I would fucking love this. I want this shit complete mid-burrito. Gives you about thirty mikes, Rick.

I don’t get this logic, honestly. #2 vs a 3-4 vs a true #1, so what? If you’re a serious landing spot for a true #1 AND a 3-4, but signing the latter will eliminate the potential for signing the former, then sure, sign the ace. But like you said, we’re not getting Cole. So we need to do our best towards having five guys who can start 32 games and give us a decent shot to win in each of them. Keuchel isn’t what he was a few years ago, but he can absolutely be one of those guys.

I was in the Keuchel boat even when Wheeler was available.

I see what you're saying, but it depends. Are we waiting to sign someone better as an SP next year? Looking at this list, I'd rather have both Keuchel or Ryu than pretty much any of next year's SPs (if we sign Keuchel this year and go for Paxton next year, I'd be OK with that). So in that aspect, go for it this year. But sure, don't sell the house for Mookie Betts. Maybe we could get him by putting Vaughn and Dunning in a package, and have a totally amazing offense in 2020 and destroy the "Bomba Squad" but we'd lose him to FA and plummet right back down in 2021. So avoid that sort of aggression. I might even be cool with skipping Castellanos/Ozuna now, marching Leury out to RF for a year, and then going after Springer or some other shiny thing next offseason. Long story short, the right sort of aggression, absolutely.

If we go to the playoffs and win only a game, that'll be one more playoff game than the Twins have won since I was in high school. In fact, in the time since the Twins last won a postseason game, we've won 12. I love to laugh at that franchise's utter futility, but if we go in our return-to-prominence season and promptly get booted out of the playoffs because we aren't quite strong enough yet, then I'll accept that as a solid first step.

I'm curious what you mean by margin of error, and which peripherals hint that he's lucky. Sure, he doesn't strike out many guys, but he never really has depended on that. I think MadBum gets destroyed at the Rate, I think Wheeler and Ryu both have significant injury histories, and while people fawn about how that means there's "less miles on his arm" (at least for Wheeler- Ryu doesn't get that generosity), it means they've never pitched 200 IP. We have several pitchers next year who will probably put up solid numbers but not pitch 200, I'm not really interested in either of them coming here and having an injury plagued campaign with 140 IP. We need a horse, and that horse is Keuchel.

I don't get why people think Keuchel's in a decline. In a year where he didn't even pitch until late June, he averaged just under six innings a start and his BB/K/HR9 rates only went up slightly. His K-rate also went up. ERA+ went up. He's also thrown workhorse level innings before and would have done so last year had he not signed so late. He's also dominated in the AL before. I don't think he's gonna win anymore CYs, but I also don't think Wheeler will. Maybe someone hates the idea of a longterm contract to any SP, but I don't understand why someone would be cool with $25 million for Zack Wheeler and not cool with even more for Dallas Keuchel.

To be fair, not going too much into peripherals and just glancing at ERA, he was solid away from SF before 2018.

2018:

2019:

It's his home-away splits. At least the last two years, he's great in SF and sucks everywhere else.

Sign one of Bumgarner, Ryu, and Keuchel, and trade prospects not named Robert/Vaughn/Madrigal for Joc and I'll be happy. Sign two of that first group and I'll be ecstatic.

I don't mind missing out on Wheeler. Everyone talks about how his arm has less innings, but his arm has less innings because he's hurt all the time. Why would anyone expect him to put up 200 IP when he's never done it before? He's also never been spectacular, which Bumgarner, Ryu, and Keuchel all have. His entire signing was predicated on potential, not past history. MadBum is the same age as Wheeler and was arguably a better pitcher last year. Only thing that scares me with him is pulling him out of that pitcher's park in SF- each of the last two years he's been far worse when pitching away from that place.

If Jose’s head photoshopped on a BBW model’s body and erectile dysfunction jokes don’t solidify one’s credibility as an insider, I don’t know what does.