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If I'm honest I'd rather Los and Folty at 6m combined than Wainwright at 8.

We’re all putting way too much faith into Katz guys

When the season starts, I will get mad about the roster. It's not even February, a large amount of free agents are sitting out there jobless, and we gotta go through the daily rollercoaster of OMG THE CUBS SIGNED JOC WHY DIDNT THE SOX OFFER MORE MONEY oh wait they did OH MY GOD THEY OFFERED MORE MONEY BUT WHY NOT MORE THAN EVEN THAT I CANT STAND THEM THEY ARE SO CHEAP JERRY KILLED MY PET CAT TOO

How is anyone not excited? We’re coming off a playoff appearance and are loaded with young locked up talent. The doom and gloom around here is baffling.

Also congrats to Ash and Carlos on the birth of their second child Bo who was born today! Quite a day for the Rodon household, glad he’s not spending it looking at the hate on here.

Obviously a small 10 inning sample size, but I thought Collins looked perfectly fine last year. I’m not ruling him out as the backup at all.

If i had more confidence in Cease I would love this move. But personally I don't think anyone should view Cease with any more then the slightest of margins ahead of Lopez. I felt we're one solid rotation arm from solidifying the rotation and this move didn't fill that hole.

Al's cheesy beef will be sure to tweet about this if he sees another inside mention it.

No need to DFA a guy when he's on the 60 day IL. Doesn't even take up a 40 man roster spot in that case.

Responses to Rosenthal are lol

And it's come to this, the inevitable final stage.

Well at least they don’t consider Katz a god and admit he has his limits ???

Too many people who believe past performance will equal the future (on high and low salary players). You need a roster that includes some “buy low” candidates. Every year there’s guys like Rodon who turn it around. He was put into a ridiculous position late in the season, I think this is a good risk/reward signing.

Sign Tyler Flowers, trade Zach Collins.

Phew, better than trading top prospects for wild cards like Marquez or burnes

In my first post on the forum I mentioned that the Cardinals are my primary team, but always root for the Sox in the AL. I also stated that I was frustrated with the Cards for their lack of will to win by adding talent this offseason and was more excited to watch the Sox than the Cards for the first time. While I’m still excited to watch what I think will be a great Sox team, I’m extremely happy to have been wrong about the Cardinals and see them make moves to win the division and not tread water hoping for the best.

I love it. He’s going to be motivated to get a multi-year deal. His stuff was good when he returned, which is better than we can say for some of these options.

I don't think there is or was anything wrong with Rodons attitude. He was just always hurt.

I just hope sitting on the market with no offers is a sobering wake up call for Carlos (if the rest of his career hasnt already been). Just put your head down, work hard, and be happy with any role you’re able to get. Whatever pick he once was is irrelevant, just another guy at this point....if not he’s going to find himself out of baseball sooner rather than later.

If someone is only using batting average for player comps in 2021, I definitely know who the fool is.

The two biggest miscalculations in terms of allocating resources are Grandal (not keeping McCann at half the price, plus his chemistry with Lucas) and Hendriks, because we already had a full stable of bullpen talent with Bummer, Crochet and a few others capable of closing out games. By leaving two huge holes at the back end, not allowing for any falloff from Keuchel and Lynn, we’re going to destroy the bullpen by the last two months of the season.

Going into the season with Lopez as the fifth starter instead of signing ANY one of the LITANY of mid-to-back end veterans flying off the board for $8-10mm right now is just motherfucking batshit insane. For this front office not to have budgeted to manage even THAT is absolutely inexcusable. You can't even cry poor JR on this one -- they spent more money on stuff they didn't even need. The team has so much young talent and upside, it certainly could go far. But it will be DESPITE what this front office has done, not because of it. This front office is actively handicapping itself at this point. I used to be a full-on Rick Hahn apologist, and he has driven me completely to the opposite side over the past few years. They just CONTINUOUSLY mis-prioritize their resources and additions every single offseason, insisting on taking two steps forward and one step back for no discernable reason. I'm sorry, I know I'm being dramatic, but it's bonkers. There's just no explanation.

This team has almost no depth and Cease and ReyLo appear to be our 4th and 5th opening day starters. Literally any injury to any major position will be a huge problem and several guys we may be counting on have to prove they will even be good this coming year. Being positive and being disillusioned are two different things. Easily conceivable we don't even win the division. Almost everything will have to go right and that is never a rational assumption. Positivity shouldn't be based on a bunch of "ifs." A lot of people seem to be counting on basically nothing to go wrong when there are so many volatile elements to this team right now. It's as if some people have never watched a full season of baseball before. Seems like people are holding out hope we get lucky like we did to win our last title because our owner won't greenlight optimization for our window.

No you arent one of the negative douches and I largely agree with you...Im just saying we can't completely ignore the old stats. TA was REALLY lucky in 2019 and better in 2020. Maybe part of Ceases ERA success was he has a skill of escaping jams. Lopez it seems was the opposite...he breezed along and then had adversity and fell apart. I really think Cease and Kopech at 4 and 5 for this team is OK.

Does this include a bonus if he retires any batters in the post season?

Carlos + Folty + Flowers + Cruz... please.

I think Nightengale got his scoop from Tony during Happy Hour.

Don’t we get some credit here for TA? How many really good all-around catchers are there, in general? Maybe five, seven tops. It’s the most demanding physical position, and really good hitters at that spot like a Mauer, Posey or even Salvador Perez find themselves eventually at 1B/DH. That said, the White Sox have had some high profile misses, like Kurt Brown and now Collins. Before AJ, it seemed we went 10-15 years with a different FA catcher ever year or two. Guess you can also add discovering Omar Narvaez to your list, as well.

I guess we know where that 3 million difference between Eaton and Joc offer went.

Maybe you should change your name to Holes in my Birds then

If we add Hamels I'll be okay with Rodon. Let three guys fight for 5th at this point. Q was the answer, but oh well.

I’ve been very angry the past week ever since Bob said we were “tapped out”, but if we’re going to dumpster dive to fIll out our rotation I do like this move over possible others. I agree, it would be good to add one more arm to the mix if this is the caliber we’re going with.

This is just depressing.

Reddit is saying to short Carlos Rodon

Bring Folty in too.

I REALLY wish there was Soxfest this year. I feel like a few of us non spoon fed fans would actually hit Hahn with real questions about the the organization.

I’m more hopeful for Rodon than Lopez, to be honest

Sox had to outbid the Cub who may have seen a workout per Bruce.

I'm not sure I understand....what are the "actual facts" about Cease...Cease is 25 (now) with really good stuff...in the actual games last year he gave up 4 runs a game (ERA) which will win him a lot of games with this team.

As much as we pooh-pooh the Cardinals spending, they’ve added Goldschmidt and now Arenado...whereas our biggest remains Grandal, a very nice player to have but not an A list superstar.

Sensible post. No teams have starting pitching depth beyond their top five. It is just the chorus of negative voices that permeate every thread on Sox Talk. Gio, Lynn and Dallas were all in the CY Young voting last year and Cease and Kopech have TOR stuff. Which of those five are we sitting to bring in some old gas can? And the idea that "well what happens if someone gets hurt then we have to start Stiever"...brought to you by the same people that are putting Dunning our 5th best prospect in the Hall of Fame while Stiever our 6th best is garbage? To start the season there are six off days in the first six weeks...and likely several rain outs or snow outs. If we have to give Lopez two or three starts...or try a couple of bullpen days (I suspect Katz/TLR are more open to this concept than Renteria/Cooper) that is hardly a disaster. You know who else relied on a couple of 23 year old starting pitchers...the Dodgers last year. The reality is we are not "all in". Last years excitement and positive developments with the young guys has moved us from playoff consideration into championship consideration. But we are still reliant on LOTS of very young guys...I don't think any one of us think 2021 is going to be the teams peak. The Padres sort of had to push all their chips in because they are spending $75 million each year for Machado, Myers and Hosmer and Machado is turning 29 this year while the other two are in their 30's. We right now have one of the most exciting lineups, defenses, starting pitching and bullpens around...it looks like most of the players should be getter better (approaching their prime as opposed to leaving it) and we have kept our budget sound...I don't think we have a single bad contract. Why do we need to trade assets now? Why do we need to pick things off the heap now. I am FINE with letting Robert, Jiminez, Madrigal, Vaughn, Moncada, TA and Collins grow together. I'm fine with letting all our exciting minor league pitchers get some non-COVID pitching time. I am fine with waiting until the all star break to see what weaknesses we have, what strengths we have in the minors and then trade or buy some other teams burdensome contract (Yelich in RF?) or extend Lynn and Gio. We have added four really good parts to a team that was very good last year. This is spring and we should be rejoicing not complaining about not getting some Pittsburgh pitcher that was never any good, or giving a bunch of starts to someone like Quintana, or spending money on some 30+ year old back up catcher. Pitchers and catchers can't get here soon enough.

I'd say they need 2 guys regardless outside of geting Bauer. Pitching depth will be more important this year than ever. I predict a lot of injuries going from 60 games to 162

Hi back to them they were all good picks because we sucked every year, literally sucked and they were all top picks. Easy to get the best players when your picking in the top 5. Not fighting with you or anyone but we are a very top heavy org then then we have nothing. We should have had more while we rebuilt, way more . Anyway we don’t have enough pieces.

This is pretty much where I am at. Offseason isn't over. Also, a lot of teams make moves in the middle of the season to upgrade their roster too. The additions don't stop once the season starts. Obviously, depth is an issue. Also obviously, the front office realizes this. I am confident they will address it. Not to the demand of fans on message boards that it happens immediately, but it will happen. I for one am excited about our coaching. I think TLR is going to push these guys to unleash their potential, and I think he's going to force them to play SMART baseball, and when they don't, he'll know how to handle it. I think we are going to see some amazing things from our pitchers this year with Katz, who from listening to and reading about, has lots of tricks up his sleeves. I am very excited about that. Can you imagine if Lopez and Cease were fixed, and Kopech comes out pitching like a stud? Like if all 3 were fantastic...and we have real evidence of that with Katz and Giolito... that's something to be excited about.

It’s 4 years. 2024 is a club option year, unless he has two top-3 Cy Young finishes, which would cause it to flip to a mutual option.

I love the Chicago White Sox passionately. I loath their current occupant in the owner"s suite. The latter doesn't affect the former.

No offense, but this post made me feel worse about things. Just seeing names like Lambert, Stiever and Mercedes as possibly being needed in significant roles is scary. The Padres and Dodgers are acting like teams trying to win a World Series. The Sox seem like they’re trying to win the division.

Hard to see it your way about the catchers. 1st the Sox desperately needed a good LH bat and OBP and they got both in Grandal. There was no guarantee McCann wouldn't test Free Agency especially if he put up back to back good years like he did. Saying just extend Mccann like its a given doesn't mean it would happen. If you're McCann and u sucked enough to get non tendered then this is your one big chance to shop your services to the highest bidder.

You're not being dramatic; you're 100% on point.