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I've been a Sox fan since 1970 (permanently left the Cubs after the 1969 collapse). I grew up in the Chicago area (Evanston), but I haven't lived in the Chicago area since I left to go to college. Lived 10 years out in Washington State, and since the mid-1980s in Northern Virginia. Thus my blog name VAfan. I was all-in on the Sox for many years, hanging on their every move year after year. That was true up through the glorious World Series year, which came almost out of nowhere. What a magical run 2005 was. (I wrote a 17-page recap of that season so I'd always remember it.) We still have the best post-season run of any team in the current format, with only 1 setback, a 3-2 loss to the Angels we might have won had Contreras thrown home to get the lead runner instead of trying for an unsuccessful DP. That run was the difference. I stayed with the Sox as they tried to get back to the World Series, but kept falling short. Once the World Series players left, the Sox still had interesting guys like Chris Sale, Adam Eaton, and Jose Quintana. But it wasn't enough, and the disastrous attempt to be relevant with Jeff Samardzija (who cost us Marcus Semien), Todd Frazier, Melky Cabrera, and David Robertson led the team to blow it up and start over (but not before trading Fernando Tatis, Jr. for James Shields!!). It was around that point that I stopped paying much attention. Oh, I knew the roster for the most part, and noticed who they traded for and who they drafted high. And my son and I would usually go see the Sox for a game when they came to Baltimore or DC, but otherwise I didn't watch the futile last several years. This year is going to be different. I'm back to being interested in the team again. All the moves may turn out for naught, just like they did in 2015. I don't think we're World Series contenders by any means. And even making the playoffs is going to require a lot of things to go right. But the team should be interesting again. They aren't stocking their lineup with 4-5 below-replacement players any more, waiting on their young guys to be ready. The young guys are ready, or at least ready to debut on the major league stage. I'm excited to see Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal. I'm eager for Yoan Moncada to take another step forward. I wanted to see Zach Collins, but I'm fine waiting for him while Edwin Encarnacion hits bombs. It was great to see Lucas Giolito make such strides last year. Can Reynaldo Lopez and Dylan Cease make their own leaps forward? What do Michael Kopech and Carlos Rodon have to offer? Is there anyone else on the farm who is going to emerge this year or next and make an impact? I think it was smart for the front office to add guys to the young core to try to be relevant in 2020, even if there is a need for a bigger push in 2021.The key was that the team didn't surrender anything but short-term money to do so. No prospects, and no long-term contracts they will be sorry for. (Abreu's renewal might be a year too long and too expensive, but he's a clubhouse leader who might help keep the other guys around.) Dallas Keuchel is a fighter who can win on a Sox team with the new lineup we're likely to see. Gio Gonzalez will walk way too many guys, but he's a great back-of-the-rotation addition to hold the fort while Kopech and Rodon come back from injuries. Nomar Mazara is still super young, but has 4 years of experience and some upside. We needed lefty bats and he added one. We can add a platoon partner, or just use Leury Garcia and Adam Engel. The biggest addition was Yasmani Grandal, who turns catching into a strong point. His pitch framing should help corner nibblers Keuchel and Gonzalez, but also the young guys. His switch hitting adds another lefty bat. The last addition, so far, was Encarnacion, who struck me as superfluous at first blush, but now seems like a no-brainer. This is a HR hitting league, and Encarnacion has the potential, with all the other additions, to move the Sox from 6th worst (182 HRs) in baseball to top 6 (254 HRs - Steamer estimate). All these guys are role players, but they can all play above-average roles. In baseball, it's important to not have weak links, in the lineup, the rotation, and the bullpen. The new lineup may not have ANY weak links once Robert and Madrigal are up to speed. That doesn't mean they'll have superstars throughout, but they also won't have any negative WAR players like they used to have in multiples. The rotation still has Lopez and Cease as big question marks, but they are young players with upside. And there are reinforcements behind them who are working back from injury. The bullpen has some weak links, but everyone expects the Sox to add here before the season starts. And we may have arms in the minors who could eventually help. If they can find a synergy and get on a roll, who knows where the team might go. In baseball, it is sometimes the oddest things that can make a difference. Who'd have thought Gerardo Parra, the "baby shark", could have helped catapult the Nationals to a World Series title? He arrived last year at their 19-31 lowest moment, and completely changed the energy for the team. Sure, the Nats had a bunch of great players, but they weren't going anywhere until Parra loosened them up and got them playing up to their potential. Who knows how the 2020 White Sox will play together? I don't. But I do know that these moves have gotten a 50-year fan like me to get interested in White Sox baseball again. And my son along with me. Go SOX!!

In his first 30 major league at bats he had a .400 OPS. In his next 30 he had an ops of .600 and in the final 30 he had an ops of .930. To say that he was learning and by the end was great is as absurd as saying he wasn't impressive. He was great in college, he was great in AAA last year and he has the sort of hitting skills that should translate. As for EE only being a one year deal...that was the point. Why put this potentially dynamic hitter on ice for a year so you can try to eke out another 2 WAR from a 37 year old DH? The catcher training thing makes sense...the trade makes sense...nothing else does.

I dont understand coming to a thread titled "so what happens to Zack Collins" and then wondering why people are commenting on Zack Collins.

But McCann caught Keuchel in college which cancels that out.

Remove his first two years in the Bigs where he looked like an Allstar phenom and he looks pretty average. Now divorce yourself from his name, and Cuban, and HYPE, and you have a pretty average to mediocre baseball player for the last 5 years. Now add back in all of the stories about clubhouse issues, etc, and you have a Name greater than the player, who no one is really knocking down his door to sign. That also is a poor platoon split in RF with what is already on the roster. PASS.

He's just very average. And very average isn't worth that headache.

Damn, I was really hoping they wouldn't be committed to Mazara, that hurts

Mazara hit into 5 DP last year. Timmy hit into 12, so probably need to PH for him.

It is difficult to address the weakness of having a guy like Mazara with bad splits in the line-up. You want him to be up in the lineup 7th, 8th and 9th innings to get the big hit when you need it. However, let's say the Sox are in a close game is the the 4th inning with men on 1st and 3rd and one out. Mazara comes up. You are the opposing Manager and know Mazara's splits so you signal for your big Lefty out of the pen.Mazara obliges your strategy by grounding into an inning ending, rally killing, game changing, ball-busting double play. Or you are Renteria and you anticipate a signature Mazara gidp so you pinch hit Engel for Mazara. Engel who is forced to come in cold (w/o warming up) , probably whiffs anyway but whatever happens, you now have Engel or another weaker bat in the line-up for the last 4-5 innings of a game you need some runs to win. My point (which I probably should have condensed) is that bad splits are not that easily addressed with a platoon regime. And, IMHO, a Mazara and Puig platoon is just a head shaker. Even if the Mazara platoon mate is not as goofy as Puig, I still think it isn't an ideal situation. Platooning might only compound problems by having two incomplete players that never gain consistency because they are always being substituted for, passed over, and not given the confidence that they need to possibly become legit full time starting players.

The Rangers became frustrated with Mazara's inconsistency and lack or progress after 4 years and relegated him as a platoon player. "If Mazara maintains his current .771 OPS, it would be the highest of his young career. That is the surface. Dig a little deeper and a more nuanced picture emerges. He is striking out more frequently (22.6 percent of the time) than ever and has the lowest on-base percentage of his career (.317) for this date in the season. Mazara has not started six of the Rangers' last 18 games, most of them against left-handers. And there is good reason for that: No everyday left-handed hitter in baseball has been less effective against left-handed pitching. Of the 50 qualifiers, Mazara's .230 OBP is last. His batting average (.200) and OPS (.595) are fourth from last. Those are the stats of a platoon player" link Given that assessment of Mazara from his prior team, perhaps it would be a good idea for the Sox to look for another outfielder to compliment Mazara or even to replace him as the starting RFer. I do not think RF has been solved by tradingffor Mazara, a player who struggled last season and has been very inconsistent.

1. Watches James McCann make adjustments after being DFA'd, decides it's not a fluke despite a less than stellar second half. 2. Zack Collins makes adjustments after being demoted, decides it's a fluke despite him tearing the cover off the ball and having a track record of power and an elite batters eye. You're a bigger piece of work than you think Zack Collins is.

Just so I'm clear...you are giving up on a 24 year old left handed hitting catcher, who hit .282/.403/.538 last year in AAA who Led all of the minor leagues in walks the year before...hit .320 with over 1.000 OPS in 3 years in college and led all college players in walks who has an elite batting eye and plus power...because of 30 bad at bats in June/July? Because that seems like a stupid opinion. You also seem to hold it against him that he has a catchers body type? And think that he's....clueless? Interesting.

With Timmy at catcher, Mazara in center, Collins in right, and McGrandal at short, who's gonna stop us?!

I did read. The problem is with projections. What were the combined WAR projections for Giolito and Moncada last year (pretty sure it wasn't +10)? What was Yonder's projected WAR last year at this time(pretty sure it wasn't -1)? Sometimes old gets old real fast and some times young and super talented breaks out and pushes you to a new level. If you told me that in 2020 one of Collins/EE had a 4 WAR...I would bet a million dollars it wasn't EE. I like the lane the White Sox chose of gambling on young talent...raising the floor by signing 37 year olds and sitting young potential stars because of projections seems like the old bad plan.

Because the front office is ready to raise their floor. 2020 is a go year.

I agree. People are pissed off at Hector for the Machado garbage. Not his fault the Padres went all in on the final minutes to steal him. I trust Hector more than any of our local Sox Twitter Trolls, including White Sox Dave.

Nacho Libre, "A Song for Encarnacion"

Lol...if the opposing team wants to play for the win in the 4th inning by pulling their starter to get Mazara out I’ll happily take my chances against their bullpen for five innings with a lineup that will still have Moncada, Eloy, Grandal, Abreu, Encarnación, Anderson, Robert, & Madrigal in it.

LETS GO

Why not encourage super utility, switch hitting, recently single, Ben Zobrist to get back up off the mat and power with the Sox for two more years? Can play 2B, CF, RF, bats lefty (well), fills the gap all over the place. Cheap....

Let’s win the fucking World Series!!

Says the guy who just brought him up completely off topic and had nothing to do with the current conversation.

A good veteran player too...would be nice to have around younger players (he's been a part of some very good teams).

I was just going to say he'd be a worse fit in NPB than Tom Selleck in Mr. Baseball.

JDM makes no sense and neither does anybody else on the Sawx right now that wouldn't cost Vaughn++. I really, really, really, want Castellanos as the dude has been 3rd in the majors in XBHs over the last 3 years and would be a serious offensive upgrade in RF. I don't think they are going to be making any big splash in RF at this point now though for whatever reason. It bothers me to get all these pieces and spend all this money and still have a replacement level platoon player as our RF. Mazara is an "upgrade" over negative WAR players we had last year only. The Sox aren't competing against themselves, they are in fact, competing against the rest of the league. I like Mazara as depth, not as a starter when clear upgrades are still out there. I would bet they go for some unsexy RH platoon partner at this point as many of the mouthpieces have basically said that. You can't be taken serious if Adam Engle is that guy. He is a terrible hitter.

And you just don't get it You keep it copacetic

And the fact that they’re just adding and subtracting wins based on WAR added and lost. So Keuchel with 2 or so WAR pushes us up to 74 wins but losing Yolmer and his 2 WAR pushes us right back to the start. It. Does. Not. Work. Like. That. Yolmer was an offensive black hole with great D. His loss does not offset the addition of Keuchel, who will replace a catastrophe like Dylan Covey and go out every fifth day and give us a solid chance to win (with a QS about 70% of the time). WAR is a fair way of comparing the overall production of individual players in all aspects of the game. But if you think you just add and subtract it to what you already have and that accurately predicts a team record, you need to step back and go watch a baseball game. Last year, we gave 513 starts and 2,181 PAs to 11 players who had an average OPS+ of 57. Next year, the vast majority of those PAs will be consumed by three MLBers who put up an average OPS+ of 113, a highly touted prospect who went 30-30 with a 1.000 OPS, and a first round draft pick with a .782 OPS who struck out 3% of the time. Fuck your WAR calculations. Unless one of our acquisitions falls off a cliff or the prospects disappoint, we are a MUCH better team and can absolutely knock off a team that got 30+ roid bombs from Mitch fucking Garver and has Devin Smeltzer, Randy Dobnak, and Lewis Thorpe slotted for the back end of the rotation.

89 plate appearances against lefties last season have people convinced Engel is a legit platoon option since he did this: .313 .360 .482 .841 Meanwhile, here are Engel’s career splits against lefties in 307 plate appearances: .252 .298 .381 .679

He’s an improvement over Engel.

Not really. We just know that Engel is bad and would like an upgrade.

Give me Castellanos over Mazara all day. I’m not sure how this is a controversial thought.

IIRC, Ozzie wanted out. He and Kenny weren't getting along very well at the end.

If I've got this right from his stats over at Fangraphs, his Pitches/Plate Apperance last year was 3.35, which is lower than Tim Anderson's was. In other words, he's very much aggressive at the plate and often sees very few pitches - if you give him a pitch in the strike zone on the first pitch he will put it in play, but he also took 3x as many walks as Anderson did, so if you don't pitch to him he won't swing. If this keeps up remotely at all we are going to be talking about this guy's bat command and strike zone command forever. As soon as you throw him a hittable pitch he puts it in play.

Yes, I also think the Sox have done enough and the Twins and Indians aren’t as good too. We have a major league roster now, so 90 wins isn’t out of the question if health isn’t a major problem. The winning window may still start in 2021, but after the last decade, I’ll take a fun, winning season that may end in the division series.

A few more tweaks and this WS team will go through this weak division like a hot knife through butter. I would be extremely disappointed with 85 wins.

Madrigal finishes in the top 3 OBP on Sox next season, that's my prediction. I hope our players learn how to walk, we were last in the entire MLB in walks at 378.

I wouldn't trade Collins, but I would trade someone who would be overpaid for the role he is playing and only around for one season anyway.

There is nothing wrong with depth, but it's a back up catcher. Would you rather have what is perceived to be the stronger of the back up catchers, although steamer has projected them virtually even, or the less of the back up catchers, but a stronger bullpen? Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, money does play a role, and McCann's salary hit can and should be used elsewhere.

Defensive first, no bat catchers are everywhere. You can find one for about 50 cents. Worrying about Grandal getting hurt is not worth worrying about.

It’s more common because there are more good defensive but poor hitting catchers in baseball and teams don’t typically want to spend a lot of money on their backup catcher spot. And why are we making plans now to address a scenario that’s unlikely to exist? 2020 is going to be a high variance season to begin with and we will need a lot to go right to be legit playoff contented. And under that assumption, I want the extra left-handed bat in the lineup as much as possible and not bank on a 5% outcome coming to fruition. Plus, to my original point, getting Collins some time behind the plate this year let’s us better grasp if he can handle the role in a very critical 2021 season. I can’t believe you’d be ok with going with an untested Collins as our backup backstop in 2021 but are totally against it in 2020.

Zavala, Mercedes, free agent veteran, etc. Like @Dick Allen said, if Grandal goes down we’re in trouble anyways. Assuming Yasmani’s health (which should be the assumption given his track record), getting Collins 40 starts at catcher next year is the right way to balance risk & reward. And let me be clear, I’m not suggesting we just give McCann away. I’m saying I’d rather extract value from him if possible and give Collins a limited opportunity next year. Also, McCann getting 40 or 50 starts next year means he’s facing quite a bit of RHP or one of EE, Grandal, or Abreu is on the bench against LHP. Either one of those options aren’t very good. All else being equal, I’d rather get Collins’ bat in the lineup against RHP ~80 times as the backup catcher and part-time 1B / DH than have a stronger instance policy in the small chance Grandal goes down for an extended period of time.

They aren’t going to carry McCann on the 25 man roster and not play him. Either he’s here and the primary backup or he’s getting moved. Also, if McCann is so critical to our 2020 success, how will we survive without him in 2021?

It's really not a choice of McCann or Collins. Its McCann or Collins plus another pitcher.

Again, if Grandal is hurt, the Sox are screwed anyways. The best back up catcher in the league with one of the top catchers in the league as the regular, is a lot like owning the largest and best house you could get in the worst neighborhood. For a team with limited resources, you re-allocate those funds so they can be better used. What if Eloy gets hurt again? Do the Sox need to sign Puig? What if Anderson gets hurt? Do they need to find a top of the line SS to sit on the bench until it happens? Worrying about Grandal being hurt is shortsided. McCann is a short term employee not matter what. He probably would appreciate RH finding him a place where he will play a bit more.

Charlotte.

Trading Vaughn would be dumb. Trading Vaughn to the Indians would be dumber.

I think extension offers will be made to both Madrigal & Robert. RH wants to hit the ground running in 2020.

Fabulous. Dude is going to be a monster for us!!

Merry Christmas everyone!