VAfan

Give the guy a break. I'm sure everyone making a snarky comment here has done it many times, though probably not in a parking lot. The Sox got better with this trade.

My only regret among the Sox' moves this offseason was not tendering and then resigning Rodon. He was our best starter for most of the year, and seemed to wear out from fatigue rather than injury. With Rodon, there wouldn't have been a need for Velasquez. They could have rolled with 6 starters with Lopez in reserve, and when anyone went down, gone with 5. Of course that's $19M more than the Sox have spent, putting them up against the tax. But the team would be much stronger with Rodon at the top of the rotation and everyone else sliding back a notch. As it is now, the Sox are also a bit thin in the bullpen without Crochet and Kelly still not ready. The young guys have to do well this year. Last year, guys like Marshall, Heuer and Foster got shelled. But we are where we are. The offense should be vastly improved. It needs to be.

Ciuffo has a grand total of 56 major league PAs. McGuire has 400. So you can't even get a handle on Ciuffo. Plus, I assume Ciuffo still has options.

I didn't run the numbers, but I was thinking the same thing about Adolfo. Now that he's finally healthy, he might have just as much upside as Cespedes or Colas. The challenge is that without having proven anything in the majors, he's not going to move ahead of any of the many Sox outfielders. It we hadn't added Pollock, they might have kept him as the 26th guy. But even then, it doesn't help his development to sit unused on a major league bench. They could keep him temporarily with expanded rosters, but would that improve his trade value? For the Sox, I'm sure they'd love to give him another year in AAA and see how it turns out. Next year, will Pollock walk? Engel has 1 more ARB year, then he's a FA. Adolfo might be a very good prospect in a year. And he'd only be 26.

Seby doesn't add anything. He's a negative both offensively and defensively. His one main highlight last year was working the walk in the Field of Dreams game so Tim could hit a walk-off HR. And it's not like he would necessarily get snapped up by someone else. My guess is he could clear waivers and get re-signed for AAA depth.

I knew nothing about him 30 minutes ago, but a quick look on baseball reference shows he's defensively a vast improvement over Collins. For example, McGuire 20 steals, 11 caught stealing last year. Also 4 Passed balls and 17 wild pitches. Collins 45 steals, 9 caught stealing. 3 PB, 37 WP. Very similar number of innings. (Seby Zavala? In about 60% of number of games as the other 2, he was a negative defensively, with 8 PBs, 15 WP, and only 3 CS on 24 SBs.) Also, McGuire has very pronounced splits. He hit pretty well his first two seasons, on very limited ABs. Last year, not so good. But against righties, he was less horrible -- 91 wRC+. His career split against righties is 102 wRC+. (Versus lefties it is 17.) So, he's nothing to get too excited about, but he's definitely a defensive upgrade.

I know Manaea is the pitcher everyone covets. Here are a few reasons why I don't think a trade for him is a good idea. 1. Oakland tends to fleece the Sox on this type of deal. Anyone remember the Jeff Samardzija trade? One year of Samardzija (and Michael Ynoa) for Marcus Semien, Chris Bassitt, Josh Phegley, and Rangel Ravelo. Samardzija went 11-13 for the Sox in his one season, and gave up more hits than any pitcher that year. Lots of names have been bandied about for Manaea. Maybe the Sox don't have another Marcus Semien or Chris Bassitt, but you can bet Oakland will do a good job picking out the best guy(s) the Sox would be open to trading, who will make one year of Manaea seem like it never happened. 2. Some of the trade ideas would rob the Sox of guys who could be very productive in 2022. For example, Gavin Sheets' name gets offered a lot in this type of deal. Well the Sox have no one who can come close to replacing Sheets' production against right handed pitching. So trading him would weaken the team considerably this season (and beyond). Other names include Jake Burger, who doesn't have a role unless Yoan Moncada gets hurt, and then would likely be the replacement. The Sox used several of these kinds of guys in 2021 to keep it together when we lost players to injury. If we weaken our AAA ready depth in a trade, it could have consequences. 3. Manaea is on a one-year $9.75 million deal. He's not cheap. Are the Sox ready to add another $10M to this year's payroll? Because Oakland isn't going to want anyone in return who would save the Sox money. 4. Manaea is a free agent next year, with Scott Boras as his agent. What are the odds the Sox would extend Manaea after this year? They seem very slim to me. Boras will want to make Manaea the highest paid Sox pitcher, when he's no better than their 4th best. The Sox need to be spending that money extending or trying to extend Lucas Giolito, not Sean Manaea. 5. Manaea isn't that great of a pitcher. He did give the A's 32 starts and 179 innings. But is ERA was 3.91. That's Dylan Cease, who has much more upside. On the Sox, Manaea would be their 5th best starter, behind Lynn, Giolito, Cease, and Kopech. He'd provide a lot more innings than Kopech, but no one thinks he's a better pitcher. He'd be a positive for sure, especially compared to Keuchel. But let's not pretend we're adding a TOR guy here. 6. As the Sox 5th best starter, he'd help during the regular season, but not so much in the playoffs. Do the Sox really need a lot more pitching to reach the playoffs? Manaea would be a positive, and better than Dallas Keuchel, but it's not clear that he's essential or that much of a difference maker. The Sox should be able to win their division given their lineup and top pitchers. 7. What do you do with Dallas Keuchel? Keuchel probably has next to no trade value at this point, and it's unlikely any team would even take him on without the Sox covering most of his contract. But if you added Manaea, someone would have to go, and Keuchel is the most logical choice. Do the Sox just cut him? If you don't get some salary relief, then adding Manaea's contract pushes the Sox every closer to the luxury tax. Keuchel was a quality pitcher as recently as 2020, getting Cy Young votes that year. He may get shelled, as he was in Oakland yesterday. But he also got hit but not hurt by the Dodgers in his previous outing. Can he pitch to a .500 record? If so, then the difference between him and Manaea is not enough to surrender much in trade. Conclusion I'd support the trade, but only if the return to Oakland is for a deep prospect or two in the Sox system who isn't likely to be ready during the Sox 2022-23 "window." I expect Oakland will want more than that.

The Sox are not trading Gavin Sheets. They have no one who can come close to replacing his production against right handed pitchers. To trade him would create a hole in the lineup. Plus, he's cheap and under control. Vaughn? Second worst hitter on the team against righties last year. I'm sure he will improve, but so will Sheets. Sox need more power hitting lefties, not fewer ones.

Updating this given the addition of AJ Pollock today. Against lefties. Plate appearances in parentheses. Robert (68) 231 Grandal (96) 184 Abreu (153) 161 Vaughn (141) 156 AJ Pollock (139) 132 Anderson (143) 125 Harrison (141) 114 Moncada (135) 99 Garcia (139) 91 Engel (49) 76 Zavala (30) 74 Eloy (59) 60 Collins (57) 57 -- sent to AAA Sheets (19) - 26 Against righties. Engel (91) 154 Grandal (279) 150 Sheets (160) 143 AJ Pollock (283) 140 Robert (228) 135 Moncada (462) 129 Anderson (408) 118 Abreu (506) 116 Eloy (172) 116 Garcia (335) 101 Collins (172) 101 - sent to AAA Harrison (359) 99 Vaughn (328) 68 Zavala (74) 63 Based on this, I would expect the lineup to be something like: 1. Anderson 125/118 - SS (with Garcia backing up) 2. Robert 231/135 - CF (with Engel and Pollock backing up) 3. Abreu 161/116 - 1B (with Grandal, Sheets and Vaughn backing up) 4. Grandal 184/150 - C (with Zavala backing up) 5. Jimenez 60/116 (skewed numbers) - LF (with Pollock, Vaughn, Sheets, and Engel backing up) 6. Moncada 99/129 - 3B (with Garcia and Harrison backing up) 7. Pollock 132/140 - RF (with Engel, Vaaughn and Sheets backing up) 8. Sheets/Vaughn 143/156 - DH (with Grandal, Abreu, and Jimenez also getting time here) 9. Harrison/Garcia 114/101 - 2B (with Vaughn the emergency backup) I expect Moncada to hit better this year, and Eloy to excel again. If they do, the Sox could have an above league average bat at every position, with quite a few players well above league average.

Anderson and Robert certainly are awesome. Watched part 2 of the Tim Anderson story today. Well worth watching. Sox have a very deep offense now.

NO. Sheets put up a 143 wRC+ as a rookie against right handers last year. He's cheap and controlled, and one of the few lefty power guys the Sox have. Maybe pitchers figure him out, but it seems more likely he's going to continue to improve.

Boras is his agent. Sox don't have a good track record there.

One year of Manaea? No thanks. I saw three trade ideas for him, and none were worth it. We've tended to get fleeced by Oakland on one-year pitcher deals.

Okay Ray Ray. I just complimented you and now you write "trade Sheets." What???? That would be a HORRIBLE move. Sheets crushes right handers better than most of our STARs. And he's only going to get better.

AMEN!!

Vaughn was the second worst hitter on the team against righties last year, ahead of only Seby Zavala. I'm sure LaRussa will give him a chance to improve on that, but you don't want to be forced into a situation with him getting a lot of ABs there. He's a perfect platoon partner with Gavin Sheets, who mashes righties almost as well as Vaughn crushes lefties. And now they can do that mostly playing DH/1B, where they are more suited. I'm sure they'll still get some OF time, but it won't be a lot.

I haven't liked a lot of your posts on here, Ray Ray, but this shows that you are willing to give credit when it's due.

Even though I've been one of the few poster defending what we had for the OF and thought we might not trade Kimbrel, I wholly support this move. Certainly, this vindicates the Sox for exercising their option on Kimbrel. Below is what I posted on the Athletic. ***************** Excellent move for the White Sox, who get an experienced outfielder who once had CF range, and who has no platoon splits, to be their regular right fielder. Pollack's wRC+ last year of 137 would make him the 3rd best hitter on the Sox, behind only Luis Robert and Yasmani Grandal. But he's likely to slide into the 6 or 7 hole for Chicago, which is also where he hit most often last year for the Dodgers. Now the Sox don't have to stretch out Adam Engel to see how well his good hitting the last 2 years would work with a lot more ABs, but still have him as an excellent 4th outfielder and defensive replacement. And they don't need to use the awesome platoon of Gavin Sheets/Andrew Vaughn in the outfield much. No one knew if Kimbrel could bounce back in a non-closer role, and we still won't know. So, even if he returns to form as a closer for the Dodgers, Sox fans won't know if he would have done as well in a setup role. The Sox pen is still at least 5 deep (assuming Crochet wasn't hurt badly yesterday) with quality pitchers -- Hendrix, Graveman, Kelly, Bummer, and Crochet -- and have several other arms who can fill in (and also be stashed in AAA for fill-in duties). With 2 long men in Lopez and Velasquez to go with 5 starters, they only have room for 6 short guys when the rosters return to 26. If they still had Kimbrell, they might have had to cut a reliever without options. So, for Madrigal, the Sox at least get an offensive upgrade for this season, and a player they might be able to keep for an extra year at a reasonable cost to straddle the time until Colas or Cespedes are ready.

Has anyone done a breakdown of the 2021 Seattle Mariners? They went 90-72, but their run differential of -51 runs should have left them at 76-86! So they were 14 games better than where they should have been. The Sox? 93-69, with an expected 97-65 record. I was looking at Stathead baseball, part of Baseball Reference, on the White Sox scoring and leads summary. I was thinking about whether a better bullpen might improve the Sox' record. In Stathead, there's a chart for Inning-by-inning W-L record. You can see the team record when ahead, tied, or behind by inning. The Sox record didn't look very good, so I started searching for a comparison. I first looked at the Tampa Bay Rays. But then I found the Seattle Mariners!! Look at this chart. Tied Sox Mariners Rays 6th 11.-15 15-9 18-15 7th 5.-14 16-6 13-10 8th 5.-13 18-5 13-12 9th 5.-8 14-4 8.-17 10th 5.-6 13-7 7.-12 11th 1.-0 4.-2 2.-6 12th XX 0-1 1.-1 The White Sox had a losing record when tied in the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th, then went 1-0 when tied entering the 11th. The Rays had a winning record when tied beginning the 6th, 7th, and 8th, but losing records for the 9th, 10th, and 11th, with a 1-1 record to start the 12th. But the Mariners? Winning records when tied from the 6th-11th, with a 0-1 record to start the 12th. And these weren't just slightly over .500 records like the Rays. The Mariners won a very hefty percentage of their games when tied in the 6th inning or later. Now one note should be added here. You can't total the columns. If a team is tied after the 6th but wins the game, that goes down in the ledger. But if no one scores in the 6th, that same game will be tied in the 7th. And so forth. So there is some carryover going on here. Still, combined with the skewed expected W-L numbers, it seems curious to me. Is there any kind of lesson here? Is there any chance that an improved bullpen could improve the Sox' record when tied late in games? Interestingly, the Sox had a better record than the Mariners when ahead from the 6th inning on. But they also won a lot fewer games than Seattle when behind from the 6th inning on. This is shown in the 42 comeback wins for Seattle v. 32 for the Sox. (The Rays had 46). So, if the Sox and their bullpen did well with leads, why did they do so poorly with late ties? The Sox did much better percentage-wise in 2020. I don't have the answers, but I'm putting this here to see if anyone does.

Just stashing this here. If you took a straight Sheets/Vaughn platoon, here were their combined numbers against opposite handed pitchers. 301 PA, 265 ABs, 70 hits, 33 1Bs, 18 2Bs, 0 3Bs, 19 HRs, .265 BA, .354 OBP, 552 SLG, 906 OPS Projected to 500 PAs, assuming they balanced out with the pitching matchups. (They are close enough in their numbers that it's a reasonable extrapolation.) 500 PAs, 440, ABs, 117 hits, 55 1Bs, 30 2Bs, 0 3Bs, 32 HRs, .265 BA, .354 OBP, .552 SLG, 906 OPS. Where would that rank on the team? OPS - 3rd. Behind Robert and Grandal SLG - 2nd - Behind Robert OBP - 4th - Behind Grandal, Robert, Moncada. Just ahead of Abreu. HR - 1st - ahead of Abreu Granted, Vaughn/Sheets are better at DH or 1B, but given this production, if Grandal is DHing or playing first when he can't catch, then either Sheets or Vaughn also need to be in the lineup, and they aren't putting Abreu or Jimenez on the bench. RF is where they need to play.

Everyone calling for an outfielder is supporting benching Vaughn against all but lefties. Just make sure you add that point to your comments.

Nothing should change off this. Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal got hurt running to first base. Engel got hurt trying to run to catch a ball. This has nothing to do with the makeup of the team. If you bring in an outfielder, you are just benching Sheets or Vaughn when Grandal DHs. Yet that outfielder probably wont hit as well as a platoon of that combo. Plus, at what price?

This piece actually spells out what the Sox have done in RF and DH -- plan to use Vaughn/Sheets/Engel -- in a rotation. Obviously a lot of people didn't like this choice, but it's pretty plain this was the plan all along.

My take on Bummer is he needs regular use. Because his slider moves SO much, he needs to pitch a lot to keep his feel for it. His problem last year was wildness. He couldn't get enough pitches over for strikes or looking like strikes that guy were able to sit on his fastball.

This is simply wrong. I've been on this site longer than most. But I largely tuned out the Sox during the rebuild, as I've shared before. I don't live in the Chicago area, so I didn't have the chance to go to many games. I would see them once a year when they came to the DC/Baltimore area, and watch if they were on TV, which was very rare. So, I don't want to see a rebuild. I want the Sox to contend and win it all again. And you can't have read my post if you think I agree with everything the Sox have done. I'm just able to convey that without going over the top.