How to spend $250 million and (eventually) win the Central

[caulfield12]

FIrst of all, I would corner the market on Japanese and Korean players...and make the White Sox the "home team" of many fans in Japan who are currently bored with the Seattle Mariners.  Would lure at least 2-3 prominent Japanese businessmen onto the Board of Directors (perhaps Rakuten CEO/Founder, they have a huge sponsorship with Golden State Warriors).  Could also start marketing Japanese/Korean brands and pulling sponsors for satellite t.v. viewers.   This way, the White Sox would have three countries (Cuba, Japan, Korea) that are huge followers and would boost all the broadcast ratings, souvenir sales and attention/marketing possibilies across the board.  Essentially, the foreign audience would be just as important as the local audience until the team started winning.   Would target Korea in the same way, but the military service issue is more of a hindrance than Japan.

Would sign something like 8-10 players out of those two markets.  Two starters (Sugano, Norimoto, Senga, Fujinami and at least 4 more possibilities), 2-3 relievers (nine names under consideration), possibly one catcher (Umeno, Ono, Shima), two of the following (SS Sakamoto, who homered off Mike Leake FRI, OF Suzuki and LH CF Yuki Yanagita), one defensive specialist (Matsuda/3B, Kikuchi 2B) and Yoshio Itoi, who's one of the most exciting players in Japan (outfielder).  Someone call fill me in on any Korean players well-suited for MLB, I'm hardly an expert on either market, just started to research this idea about an hour or so ago on the way home from work.

I have no idea what all this would cost (you could certainly get a "group discount" if they all came over together as a group due to comfort level), and I'd definitely be much more excited about trying to find a niche than following the "stopgap/retread" veteran approach.

The core position players absolutely have to be Moncada, Anderson, Madrigal, Jimenez and Robert.

Basically, it's trying for a hybrid style like the 2013-2016 KC Royals had....focusing on contact, advancing runners (bunting/sacrificing with the fundamentally sound players who always execute), keeping the line moving and doing all the things on the field fundamentally well, especially defense and baserunning.  Renteria already wants to play this NL influenced style, and so do Vizquel and Justin Jirschele, with one of them quite likely to be the next Sox playoff-contending manager.

The other reason this approach will work is that we need to focus on contact with so many pitchers now throwing 95+, and the prevalance of bullpen "openers" and not getting any easy at-bats in any game unless you get into the very back end of a bullpen due to a blowout game either way.  It's my firm belief that contact is going to be more and more of an asset than ever before, as the game continues to evolve in new directions with all the specialists.  I'd also try to find our own version of Dyson/Gore who could simply steal 2nd/3rd base as soon as someone reached in the late innings after being inserted as a PR (this strategy makes even more sense with an additional roster spot being bestowed.)

The idea here is that if the White Sox aren't going to be capable of learning the fundamentals in the minors...they're simply going to be forced to learn by osmosis from exposure to the Japanese/Korean players and Madrigal.   If all the players start buying into a "team approach" and become more unselfish (not just 3 outcome players), it will pay off huge dividends over time.

You still have Moncada, Jimenez, Robert, Anderson and 1B/DH for power, but it's more of a 2005 White Sox style of attack, where they can beat you in multiple ways.

We can definitely use all the pitching depth we can get our hands on.  It has been ages since Takatsu and Iguchi, and they both acquitted themselves admirably.

I'd also move the RF fence back due to our dearth of LH power hitters....not sure MLB would allow a wall like Houston's, but definitely make LF as inviting as possible for our core RH power guys....whereas the rest of the field would play more like SF, from RCF over to the RF/1B foul line.

Finally, I'd invest millions into scouring India and China....2.5 billion people (yes, this was already a movie with Jon Hamm about two young Pirates who signed through speed gun competitions for a grand prize held across the country), there's got to be at least 15-25 who can throw 90-95+.

Getting our own version of Yao Ming to succeed in MLB baseball would be huge for drawing at least 3-5% viewership from those countries (Taiwan/Taipei is already huge into baseball, and perhaps we can find a player or two there as well), simply from curiosity if nothing else....cricket and baseball are similar enough the Indian population might even get hooked if there was a breakthrough with a successful big league pitcher (it will take a generation or more to produce a position player.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[soxfan18]

There's really not much value in going after a foreign market, because everything in the league is centralized.

In European soccer, teams control their own apparel contracts, so you see teams playing preseason games overseas to boost the team's profile and increase shirt sales, leading to a bigger deal from nike/adidas/etc. In North American sports, the league controls those deals, and the teams are all paid 1/30th of all these contracts with Majestic, New Era, etc. They really only make money off of sales when you buy directly from the team (why the Sports Depot is so valuable).

TV is the same, they won't make anything off increasing ratings overseas, they'll just make the league as a whole more money on the next TV deal. 

Sponsorship is really the only area you can get something out of foreign interest. 

[caulfield12]

2 hours ago, soxfan18 said:

There's really not much value in going after a foreign market, because everything in the league is centralized.

In European soccer, teams control their own apparel contracts, so you see teams playing preseason games overseas to boost the team's profile and increase shirt sales, leading to a bigger deal from nike/adidas/etc. In North American sports, the league controls those deals, and the teams are all paid 1/30th of all these contracts with Majestic, New Era, etc. They really only make money off of sales when you buy directly from the team (why the Sports Depot is so valuable).

TV is the same, they won't make anything off increasing ratings overseas, they'll just make the league as a whole more money on the next TV deal. 

Sponsorship is really the only area you can get something out of foreign interest. 

Well, there has to be a reason the Mariners keep signing Japanese players, besides ownership and proximity to Japan.

The White Sox definitely need to do a better job selling tickets to Hispanic and Asian fans in the Chicagoland region, IMO.

As far as the Japanese players, It’s going to be the quickest and perhaps optimal way to quickly inject a team-first based approach, spreading out the money across a number of complementary pieces and hitting on at least 50-60% because they’re already well-established in Japan.

Ultimately, they’re going to need to import at least one 4+ fWAR position player from the draft, international market, free agency, Lat Am under 23, etc.

[Eminor3rd]

Sugano and Senga will never be available until they achieve international free agency in their early 30s. The Giants and Hawks literally never post players, and have publicly denied requests from both of those players to be posted, despite both players publicly expressing their desire.

Furthermore, the MLB, in its indomitable quest to restrict the earning potential of every non-unionized player on earth, has bullied the npb into progressively worse posting systems, and the recent one is so bad that we are likely to see far fewer players posted than in the past couple decades simply because the amount of money that teams stand to gain in selling their most promising stars is now laughably small. The owners, apparently, would rather simply not have access to elite talent than be required to pay anything remotely close to market value.

Norimoto may be available but he has publicly stated that he wants to pitch for Japan in the olympics first, so it’ll be a couple years down the road, and he is notoriously overworked by Rakuten who just flat out abuses its pitchers, and he is starting to have injury issues pop up. He’s out the first half of this season because of a procedure to “clean up” his elbow.

Shintaro fujinami is a fantastic, all-time level bust. He isn’t even on the Tigers top team right now. 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Eminor3rd

[caulfield12]

2 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

Sugano and Senga will never be available until they achieve international free agency in their early 30s. The Giants and Hawks literally never post players, and have publicly denied requests from both of those players to be posted, despite both players publicly expressing their desire.

Furthermore, the MLB, in its indomitable quest to restrict the earning potential of every non-unionized player on earth, has bullied the npb into progressively worse posting systems, and the recent one is so bad that we are likely to see far fewer players posted than in the past couple decades simply because the amount of money that teams stand to gain in seeking their most promising stars is now laughably small. 

Norimoto may be available but he has publicly stated that he wants to pitch for Japan in the olympics first, so it’ll be a couple years down the road, and he is notoriously overworked by Rakuten who just flat out abuses its pitchers, and he is starting to have injury issues drop up. 

Shintaro fujinami is a fantastic, all-time level bust. He isn’t even on the Tigers top team right now. 

Coop can fix ‘em?  

And there’s always S. Korea.

[ChiSoxJon]

White Sox cornering market? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Eminor3rd]

24 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Coop can fix ‘em?  

And there’s always S. Korea.

Which is in the process of hammering out a posting deal similar to the npb one. 

It’s just unfortunately a tough time to do stuff like this. The league has put a stranglehold on teams abilities to spend their way to being competitive in any way other than free agency. Smart teams were taking advantage of it when they had the opportunity. But, unfortunately, our team is not smart. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

2 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

Which is in the process of hammering out a posting deal similar to the npb one. 

It’s just unfortunately a tough time to do stuff like this. The league has put a stranglehold on teams abilities to spend their way to being competitive in any way other than free agency. Smart teams were taking advantage of it when they had the opportunity. But, unfortunately, our team is not smart. 

Smart also involved spending money and when the bottom line is all important we know why the Sox did not venture into those waters when the opportumity was there.