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I don't have beef with him.. He just isn't a 138 million guy.. I'd be nervous giving him half of that.

I am extremely bullish on Kopech as a starter. Truthfully, I think he can be one of the best in the game. There will be some lumps in 2022, and you can't expect him to pitch more than 150 innings or so. But its time. He's going to be good. Its just a damn shame we're already down to 4 years of control due to complete mismanagement. I expect him to be one of our better SP next summer.

Spending 30m of your payroll on 2 relievers. Hahn is a genius.

Obviously, the White Sox can't get anything in return in a trade of Kimbrel. The question is, if the Sox pay his entire salary, will any team accept Kimbrel as a gift. That's doubtful.

Yes, deciding not to try for home field advantage was a bad decision by the White Sox’s coach. It was wrong and a better coach would have recognized that as a possible issue and not done it.

Wait, I thought the problem was lack of home field advantage.

What’s your answer for RF then? Because this team’s idea of shorter deals involve the Adam Eatons of the world and don’t tend to pan out. Conforto has a career wRC+ of 124. That’s a very good player, especially for a guy you’ll be asking to hit in the bottom third of the order. The comparisons to Melky are ridiculous. Melky had 2 good years of above average production using that metric. Cabrera barely finished above average for his career at 101. Conforto has been a much better player in those regards. Given the options out there, he fits with this team and makes a ton of sense.

It's also big time revisionist history to pretend that outside of Liam, the pen hadn't been a dumpster fire during the time leading up to the deadline, and also that Heuer really got better with the Cubs.

Giolito and Lynn are every bit as good as Fried and Anderson. And Kopech and Cease aren't far behind. On an fWAR basis, Cease was better than all of them.

I really have to stop myself to realize how freaking good DeRozan has been. If the bulls didn't sign him and stopped at Caruso, they would have been lauded for their offseason ... and would have been maybe .500 this year right now. He is so good right now, and him taking on that role of leading the bench is so clutch. Sometimes they got nothin for 5 minutes, then they go on a 20-2 run led by the rests ferocious defense. When Vuc gets going? Let's hope he gets going, but when he gets going this is gonna be sweet.

Fixed.

Everyone freak out I’m about to agree with CWS. I played the “oh payroll can’t possibly go up their revenues make no sense” game in 2015 and then they still signed Cabrera after that, so I’ve been burned on that thinking before. Some numbers - from 2008-2010 the White Sox averaged about a $110 million payroll, with a $125 million peak. League wide, from 2008 to 2019, revenues more than doubled, from under $5 billion to $10 billion. Inflation has been very low this decade so most of the other costs haven’t changed all that much, that’s real growth in money coming in. a lot of it is revenue shared, so it’s going to teams including the white Sox. With playoff ticket sales this year, those years shouldn’t be aggressive comps for next year. If salary stayed the same fraction of revenue, $220 million would be plausible, with a higher peak. No I don’t think this team will pay the luxury tax, but aside from that, I’m not going to guess payroll limits at least until I see a CBA. The players are not happy about that massive drop in their money share and they probably won’t sign anything that doesn’t partially correct it. If it was clear that teams had to spend more over the next few years - it makes sense for the white Sox to do that sooner rather than waiting because their team can win right now and that might not be the case in 2 or 3 years.

In like 6-7 years time

The problem is now we still don't know. It kept failing, and we kept doing the same thing over and over again.

Hahn is the best in the biz at begging the question. That "explanation" explains nothing.

It's not. It never is.

Kimbrel=Alex Rios in the all-time pantheon of interesting contract maneuvers...obviously, much less of a commitment financially but pretty much universally-disliked for their time with the Sox

Yeah, no.

Last time I try giving you a creative complement. ?

Where did Katz come from? Can’t remember…

The Sox are going to give this guy a shot at some point. He’s the latest fast track guy https://mobile.twitter.com/whitesox/status/1458163335749328909?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1458163335749328909|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-6272780611530284409.ampproject.net%2F2110212130002%2Fframe.html

Dec 1.

I'd rather roll with what we have 100x over as opposed to handing Gausman $28M AAV over 5 years. That deal would be atrociously bad for whoever hands it out.

No that's definitely not better

Better than the collection of dog pictures everyone was posting during the playoffs that was somehow going to bring us a victory.

$35 million for Max Scherzer, LMAO. Every offseason, the same craziness by some of our fans here. It's as if we just started following the team this season. JERRY REINSDORF STILL OWNS THE WHITE SOX!

Is this what the kids refer to as straw man? Holy exaggeration.

I am a fan of the aging vet SP signing. Scherzer, Kershaw or Verlander all make a lot of sense to me.

The Sox starters pitched a total of 12.1 innings against Houston and had a 10.21 ERA. They can't just run them out there again next year and hope they're better.

Prove to me you need an ACE to win the World Series?

Thanks, completely forgot about that. Appreciate reminder.

OMFG, this. Exactly this. They had the cover needed to send Kopech down to start 2021, to wit, his injury recovery. All it would have cost was for them to sign an additional RP as a token to take Kopech's spot in the pen to start 2021. But instead, those morons couldn't do what was necessary to protect the club's interests, while helping Kopech to transition to starting. Now, we're back into "wish-and-hope" mode, hoping that he can get stretched out during ST. Now, I hope they've learned something, but I doubt it. I hope that they can find the what, ~$2-3MM to sign an additional RP, to let Crochet get stretched out in MiLB? If signing another RP for a paltry amount can help Crochet get stretched out to a cromulent starter, Crochet could easily recoup the value/dollars spent to let him go down to MiLB.

Obviously not as cut and dried as you say or we would have been able to add Kris Bryant over Kimbrel. How/why in God’s name would we need a set-up guy over a RFer? And was the Cubs’ return for Bryant stronger than Madrigal/Heuer? I think not…Heuer alone could put up better numbers than Kimbrel alone did in Chicago, for 1/15th the price.

1. Kopech should be starting this year. He has a decent chance of being a better starter than reliever, he has the arm, the secondary stuff to succeed as a starter. 2. No, technically they could always wait another year and turn him into a starter, but whenever it is done they would have the same problem - the innings jump. 3. Whenever Kopech is turned into a starter he will have an innings limit because it will be a big jump from his previous year. That means something like 130 - 150 innings, if reached, will see his arm hitting a wall and you don’t want to just push him through it without rest. So, if you do turn him into a starter, you will probably need someone to take 10 or more starts. 4. He does have an injury history, so there is need for caution. However, if he gets a minor injury you still have to try to work him back into the rotation afterwards, otherwise you really are giving up on him as a starter. 5. He could very well be a top of the rotation starter, but he should not be off limits in trade discussions. If you got a front line starter for him who was already stretched out, or an all star at a position of need with several years of control, there could be some benefit to moving him overall. It is unlikely there is a match out there for that, but worth checking on.

Blown away by soxtalk comps every offseason. They always find the perfect sets of players...from the last 6 years of white sox baseball. He's Todd Frazier! No, no he's Melky Cabrera! He's Adam Dunn?

Yes. He’ll be more valuable to us starting. No. No. No. No. No. No further questions, Ton of Chimp poster guy.

Why do I get left handed Todd Fraizer vibes from Conforto coming to the AL with us? No idea why just a feeling.

I’m including minor league starts as well for all three guys. Rodriguez has consistently been healthy and trying to use a COVID related illness to say otherwise is absurd. As for Thor, he missed the 2017 season with a torn lat. The only other major period of missed time was due to TJS. His health issues are not nearly as concerning as Rodon’s long-term and he’s been the far more effective pitcher over the course of his career. If you suddenly want to base all your go-forward projections for Carlos based on his 2021 season, but I’m going to look at the guy with historical command issues and wonder if he can maintain a 2.44 BB/9 and 0.88 HR/9. If he his shoulder issues persist and his command slips a little, he will quickly become a much different pitcher. I just think it’s a little naive to assume he will automatically come close to replicating his 2021 numbers next year.

Alright, I will go first here. My plan is pretty straight-forward with three primary objectives: Replace Carlos Rodon with the best long-term starting pitching free agent we can afford Add much needed balance to the lineup while enhancing the defense where possible Improve the right side of our bullpen while also ensuring we have some starting depth As you'll see below, free agency would center around two free agents. First, I'd sign Kevin Gausman to replace Rodon. Total contract here is 5/$138M, which feels low to me but is the figure MLBTradeRumors is predicting. Second, I'd sign Michael Conforto to a 4/$64M deal to solve RF and add much needed left-handed power to the middle of our lineup. Almost all of our funds would go to these two moves, but I feel like they address our two biggest needs right off the bat. After that, we need to address 2B. This may not be popular, but we have too much redundancy at 1B/DH/LF and I'm going to trade Andrew Vaughn to the Dodgers for Gavin Lux. I know he's been a disappointment so far, but he's a former 70 grade prospect with excellent tools and grades very well at 2B. This gives us another left-handed bat, improves our athleticism, and enhances the defense. Finally on the positional side, I'm going to trade Micker Adolfo and a PTBNL to the Rockies for Elias Diaz to add a defensive minded backup catcher. This allows us to DH Grandal a bit more, hopefully keeping him healthier and letting Sheets sit against LHP. Last on the agenda is the bullpen and pitching depth. The first order of business is freeing up some funds by dumping Dallas Keuchel on the Giants. To be conservative, I'm assuming we'd have to eat $8M of the $18M he's owed and basically get a C prospect back. I would then take those savings and sign Collin McHugh to a 2/$11M deal to serve as our second swingman alongside Lopez. Next on the list is trading Craig Kimbrel to the Phillies for Seranthony Dominguez, who has the chance to be a highly valuable setup and comes with three years of control. To cap off the major league bullpen, I'm trading Jake Burger for Cole Susler. While I'd love to keep Jake, I just feel like we need a legit setup man who is cheap and controllable and Susler fits the bill with four years of control left and a 2022 salary around $600k. I'd also look to sign someone Julio Teheran to a minor league deal to ensure we have plenty of options to eat innings as injuries occur. Total payroll comes in just shy of $180M and that includes $8M of dead money. To me, none of these moves feel unrealistic and I think we've improved all our areas of weakness. Honestly, I think you could argue this roster would immediately be the best in the AL and every major move would hopefully provide value well beyond the 2022 season.

I’d take Schwarber in a heartbeat.

Fair enough. I disagree but I get it where you’re coming from. Just don’t like the fit. Think we’d be very disappointed with the fit, and that could turn into a bad contract quick if it doesn’t work out.

Definitely not worth the squeeze. Assuming the Sox are spending that kind of money on a single player, I’d prefer a top pitcher or Semien. They can at least cover RF with upside from Sheets, Vaughn and Engel if he can ever stay healthy (goes for Eloy as well). They can’t cover 2B or SP depth internally (Lambert?), and also could use one or two solid RPs if they want to be legitimate contenders with legitimate depth assuming they also return Leury and a solid catcher.

Is this words in the English or if some other lungage of higher set of minds? No understanding for me… so me not likes.

How much is Conforto going to help that defense? Is Conforto worth 18+ million more than Vaughn/Sheets?

I don't like the Conforto fit. He turned down the QO. Yes, he could have misread the market, but right now Boras is working with much more information than I am and think he can get a long-term deal. The Sox seem like they will spend but we all agree it probably won't reach the levels we'd all like them to reach. So with that in mind, what are they getting with Conforto? - Mediocre to average defense in RF - Coming off a very disappointing 2021, which was his contract year - Will be 29 when the season starts - How many offensive free agents have come to the Sox and gotten significantly better upon arrival? With Rodon seemingly out of the picture.....spend the money on another starter. Make this rotation scary with something like Scherzer-Gio-Lynn-Kopech-Cease. Go out and trade some assets for a 2B, and run with Vaugh/Sheets in RF.

Generally bad. UZR has him as just a tiny step better than Jorge Soler out there last year, overall one of the worst regular RF defensively in baseball. DRS has him being negative out there pretty consistently, bad enough last year to be the equivalent of ~1 lost rWAR. In his time in LF, DRS has him decent.

Kimbrel just might have more value than some here think.

Kap is a blue hat klown.

Well yeah of course, but they'll also need to add some guys to the 40 man to protect them from the Rule 5, so they aren't going to be operating with seven open spots for the majority of the offseason.

Sorry I came back. Tell me how you really feel. This makes me sad. idk why I even posted here anyway since the ban got lifted, might as well have continued staying away.