Leaderboard

This is just hilarious.

loll.. so who DHs the 100 games when he is catching? McCann? Collins? The whole, "lets carry 3 catchers so they can alternate at DH" is a complete and utter joke when 2 of those can't hit..

The anti-McCann nonsense is brutal on this board. He's not a star but he's an average MLB catcher - that's fine. His defense is + and his bat was fine. If you removed the 3 best months of any players year and focused solely on his 2 worst months, almost every player will look worse. That's the nature of baseball. He had a 700 OPS in the 2nd half while hitting 226. Catchers in general are going to regress more than other players as the season goes on due to the immense amount of wear and tear. I dont think people understand how valuable a catcher can be to a pitcher - McCann seems to have that impact. Theres a reason career 200 hitters remain in the league for a decade as "personal catchers." Worry about the actual holes on the team - not a guy who is average at his position who has an obviously positive impact on the arms he catches. Quantifying a catchers value is really difficult.

That game was a complete anomaly. PJ Washington, who hit 38 3s on 38% in two years of college went 7/11. Graham, who shot 28% last year and made 0.7 per game went 6/7. There were definitely contested shots. Lauri was encouraging besides the two missed FTs in crunch time that ultimately probably cost them the game.

I miss the Warthogs name more than I'll miss the Intimidators. Dash

It was oddly like a complete bizzaro world from preseason. White with 7 assists, Lauri super assertive.

Hey ... uh ... do you realize that your points 1 & 2 completely conflict with each other? And I'm not sure where I said "they cant". Sure they can. I won't even pick at the rest of the argument since it's not an argument I even made. These two scenarios can exist: McCann is a fine/average player. He is not the problem. Sox trade/sign/replace McCann with Mercedes and nobody bats an eye.

I’m still trying to figure out how/why McCann gets credit for how he handled the pitching staff so well...is it all because Giolito took a couple steps forward (to where he was always supposed to be)? Because I don’t see a single other player on the staff that made any kind of improvements or developments to give the catcher credit either way, good or bad

That's a White Sox ass move if I've ever seen one. Imagine hiring a guy who is like close personal friends with like 30% of your team to be their boss.

I’ll live. Hornets shot unconscious from three. Nine out of ten times that is a road win.

I like seeing sad Nolan Ryan. Go Nats.

The beginning of the end for the Astros started last weekend with the Taubman incident. Karma is a b****. Houston has $150M committed to payroll next season and that doesn’t even include arb eligible players like Correa or resigning Cole. They have big money tied up in Grienke and Verlander for several years, both of whom could hit a Lester wall at any moment.

The only other "top" option in the next cycle or two is likely to be Realmuto, unless you're willing to take a chance on Sal Perez at this stage in his career. There just aren't that many true two-way threats anymore.

Since when did Gordon Beckham play in the NBA? /rimshot

Nice to see the Astros getting humbled.

100%, the Warthogs name was infinitely better than the Dash.

Should have stuck with Intimidators, honestly. I do like the Earnhardt reference in the logo, but I mean...

I just don’t understand. It’s a match made in heaven with their roster situation, especially if married to Abreu. Thankfully I think the Sox are very interested in Grandal, but it takes two to tango. Have to imagine 4/$75M at the most gets it done. Better offer than he turned down from the Mets last season before taking the 1 year deal. There should be a good deal of interest across the league.

Stone was on 670 today. He still hasn't signed a contract with the team. It sounds like something will get done at some point. Reiterated that his contract with the Sox is very low on the totem pole in terms of upcoming signings.

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=12859&position=C McCann's career stats https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=11368&position=C Grandal career stats It is not even a comparison how much better Grandal has been. McCann has not proven enough to be a long term option as more than a backup. Detroit non-tendered him for a reason.

Getting Grandal kind of neutralizes JDM and I'd rather have him for 3 or 4 years. You really can't get both because of Abreu.

If Grandal is getting majority of his at bats between 1B/DH. then I would rather sign someone better for DH like JDM if he is available.

I still can't figure out how a guy who led the league in passed balls three times and was benched in the playoffs twice for his horrific catching is (analytically) considered a great catcher.

So we can all admit the following: 1: Catching measurements are iffy at best 2: We don't know much on how to judge them confidently 3: The majority of us did not like the McCann signing at all in the offseason 4: McCann is neither the problem or the solution 5: Catcher is not the biggest issue at hand, but is up-gradable via FA 6: JR is cheap and no matter who the Sox sign it will be a half measure

It is worth noting that last year, people swore up and down that the only rating for catchers you should take into account was WARP - the Baseball Prospectus version - because it weights framing in a much stronger and more appropriate way than either fangraphs or B-R. WARP hated McCann's defense and framing, basically putting him down at the bottom of the league in fielding and a slight step upwards from Castillo and Narvaez. Because his fielding came out so bad, they had him being a 1 - WARP catcher, with at least a dozen guys better than him (I start getting to guys that I don't know whether they're a catcher or not). B-P adores Grandal and thinks his catching makes him one of the best players in baseball.

It's not the 3 best month of any given year... its the 3 best months of his whole CAREER. He's never come close to putting up that production before. As quickly as it emerged it went away. McCann is not a part of this teams WS future. if the sox keep him, so be it. He'll bat .230, catch for giolito in 2020 and be gone next year or released mid-year. To me that's a waste of a spot. The only reason to keep him is for Giolito, but if Giolito is ever truly going to be an ace or #2 for the long term he's going to have to find another catcher. You cant roster McCann solely for Giolito.

He is not a viable everyday catcher, and the Sox aren't going to use him as a backup either. Hence, we need three catchers.

McCann probably should be replaced, but Catcher is well down my list of needs.

Grandal is not a better defensive catcher than McCann. I've said this before but there are some verly unflattering non-public numbers on Grandals defense. The dodgers wanted nothing to do with him in the playoffs when he was there and then they let him walk because of the defensive woes and liability on pitchers. Evaluating catchers defense is very difficult. Pitchers love throwing to McCann - all arms in detroit said that (Price and Verlander loved him) - and they seem to dislike throwing to grandal. That means a lot and is probably significantly more valuable than how many guys you catch stealing and etc.

Imo, Machado was the most overrated free agent player on this site last winter. This winter it is Grandal. Buyer beware.

Outside of a horrific July, his second half numbers weren’t that different than his first numbers with the exception of some much expected BABIP regression. Yes, he had a career year and overall he probably overperformwd, but Statcast still believes he should have been a league average hitter and he actually made adjustments to that support his improvement. While there is probably no rush to extend him, cutting bait right now is quite frankly insane at $5M.

I do not hate McCann, let me start right off with that. Outside of the first half of 2019, at no point in his career has he even been an average player. We have every reason to question whether he can be anything more than a backup for us moving forward. His first half was propped up by a crazy .408 BABIP, something that he is unlikely to ever repeat. I get catcher wear and tear, but I believe there is far greater chance he reverts to being a .5 - 1 WAR at best player in 2020 than comes anywhere near repeating 2019. I like him as a backup, but am pounding the table for Grandal in free agency. I am sick of the club settling for mediocrity. Look at the rosters of the Nationals and Astros and tell me we are anywhere close to competing with teams like that in a series?

Whoosh. That totally went over my head. My bad Q.

he's joking about lebron's response about Morey.

You're joking right? Has nothing to do with what he's done in the past.

McCann's second half splits were pretty brutal. It would be foolish to think he's anything more than a backup for a competitive team moving forward. If I could only make two free agent signing this offseason they would be a SP and Grandal all day

I'm not sure I even remembered them signing players like Reddick and favors. Lonzo looked good but does some real dumb shots still, and I love the walker-alexander player. Raptors still looked good too. One team Im surprised how high everyone is on is the Heat. They've overperformed a lot and now have Jimmy, but I've seen that before.

I am not a big champion of Gardner, but he's one of the better stop gap options. How can you say Gardner makes no sense, and then in the next sentence suggest a trade for Reddick who by all measures is an inferior player to Gardner. Only positive to Reddick is he is a couple years younger, but for 1 season that doesn't matter much. I don't think anyone here is interested in giving Gardner a 3 year $30M deal, but if you can get him for 1 year $8-10M and all trade options in RF are too expensive or don't work out for whatever reason, there are definitely worse options in RF for a year. Reddick 2019 stats: .275/.319/.409; OPS .728; 89 OPS+ Gardner: .251/.325/.503; OPS .829; 117 OPS+

I'd put Grandal pretty far below RF/DH/SP tbh.

I don't understand the fascination with Brett Gardner here. He looks like he's 40 and seems like he'll fall apart the minute he leaves the Yankees.

If you want to play that game - you don't get to just look at the 5th starter and the RF and say that those guys upgrade those positions. You're not replacing the RF with Robert, you're replacing Adam Engel, who was a .8 fWAR player. You're not replacing your DH with Madrigal, you're replacing your 1.0 fWAR Yolmer Sanchez. You're not replacing your 5th starter with Kopech - right now you're replacing Ivan Nova and his 2.0 fWAR with him. So, from your 70 win team, with the numbers you just quoted, you have added 2.4 fWAR. That does not make you a .500 team. If you throw in improvement at several more positions - Eloy 2 extra fWAR Cease 2 extra fWAR, Lopez 2 extra fWAR - now you're approaching a possible .500 team, but that's also assuming no one (McCann, Abreu, Anderson) regresses from their 2019 seasons, which is also possible. That still leaves you a long way to go in free agency. To look at the math another way, we are at 23.3 fWAR in 2019. Minnesota was at 54.9. With some margin for error, you need to find 30 fWAR. You've added 2.4 from the list you just said. I will give you another 10 fWAR from guys on this roster - extremely optimistic but not impossible. You upgrade the DH spot, 5th starter, and RF to 2 win players - from the numbers above that's 11 additional fWAR counting the -5 fWAR noted above and 6 added by those players directly. That brings the White Sox to a healthy 46.7 fWAR. That is a solid, strong team, but if fWAR translated directly to records (which admittedly it doesn't) - you are 8 games behind the 2019 Twins. Furthermore, the AL Central has, for 50+ fWAR teams going back to the World series winning Royals, so you do need to load up. Cleveland will be back next year, and could be even stronger - they were demolished by injuries this year and their pitching staff has already found new blood. There is more that can be found elsewhere. Moncada and Giolito could turn into Bregman and Cole. Cease could come out and do a Giolito. You can improve the bullpen. There are ways to get this team to 50 fWAR based on internal development. But this act that this team is somehow a guaranteed world series contender and the setup you just did to find 10 wins - doesn't work the way you want it to.

You do realize Hamilton had a car accident in spring training and then was hit in the face with a line drive to end his season. Didnt get much time to play plus he was still probably dealing with problems from the car accident

I wonder if LeBron is gonna cry about needing more help.

Worth adding - Josh Reddick will probably be moved for minimal return.

Yes...Robert, Madrigal and Kopech alone will improve the team by ten games. Dunning, Hamilton, Burr and Rodon may or may not help a little. Just out of curiosity... do you ever post an original thought instead of taking potshots at what others post?

I think there will be some money spent. I don’t think it will be as much as many think. But I think we will be at the point next year where if everything goes right, the team should be better. Whether that happens, probably unlikely. I read an article where the Sox had the 3rd worst local TV ratings in 2019 in baseball. Only Miami and some other godawful team were worse. They better start winning soon.

You're literally stating it as fact though.

Jack, stop telling us you are conditioned for the worst. We all know. For the love of fucking god, stop