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The White Sox will sign Oscar Colas and Erick Hernandez. There’s some info on Cesar Prieto in here too. I wrote about it today: http://www.futuresox.com/2021/12/13/2021-2022-chicago-white-sox-international-signing-preview/

If Cespedes is the Sox RF by May 2022, some things have gone horribly wrong.

/thread

We don’t know that they have a pool of money uncommitted. They very likely have multiple $400K and $500K signings that I just don’t know about. Guys similar to Quezada, Guariman and Borrero from last year.

With the recent very good James Fegan article looking back at the recent drafts, I thought this could be fun. The game: - Perform one year to re-do the MLB Draft for the White Sox. - You can only select players taken in the same round, after the white sox were selected OR ahead of a white sox selection if the sox bonus given that pick was for more than that player (helpful for 2nd round and later) - Total budget must equal that year's budget Sound Good? It's not over - You also have to grapple with what effect that would have on the sox. For example, 2012 draft was terrible. But if you swap out Courtney Hawkins for a Corey Seager - do the white sox still perform the rebuild? Do they trade Tim Anderson for a pitcher instead of Tatis Jr in 2016? See? Fun stuff! Not more fun than if we had actual baseball news, but more fun than still replying in the leury garcia contract thread. That said, you can assume the rest of our draft picks, etc, stay the same, let's not melt minds. And even though I'm saying 2010s, yeah, I would love to read someone take a stab at the timeline where the sox draft Mike Trout and its effect on 2012 and beyond. +++++++ My Pick: Redrafting 2016 (the lowest of the low hanging fruit) Actual Draft: Budget $9,416,400 1 (11) Zack Collins - $3.3M 1 (27) Zack Burdi - $2.1M 2 (49) Alec Hansen - $1.3M 3 (86) Alex Call - $700K 4 (116) Jameson Fisher - $485K 5 (146) Jimmy Lambert - 325K 6 (176) Luis Curbelo - $700K 7 (206) Bernardo Flores - $214K 8 (236) Nate Nolan - $170K 9 (266) Max Dutto - 10K 10 (296) Zach Remillard - 10k Redraft: 1 (11) Gavin Lux - $2.8M (Actual: $3.3M) 1 (27) Will Smith - $1.8M 2 (49) Bryan Reynolds - $1.4M 3 (86) Dustin May - $1M 4 (116) Shane Bieber - $485K 5 (146) Cavan Biggio - 325K 6 (176) Brandon Miller - $250K 7 (206) Bernardo Flores - $214K 8 (236) Kenny Rosenburg - $170K 9 (266) Tony Gonsolin - 10K 10 (296) Zach Remillard - 10k Repercussions: As we know, by this point Tatis had been traded. 2016 is a disaster, and in December 2017 the sox trade away their stars and kick off a rebuild. With the new prospects from trades, the sox are also thrilled by one of the most incredible draft classes in history. After a swing and a miss on top free agents in the 2018-19 offseason. The foundation of Moncada, Giolito, Anderson, and Abreu is joined by Will Smith, Eloy Jimenez, Bryan Reynolds, Cavan Biggio, Dustin May, Dylan Cease, and Shane Bieber lead to a surprisingly fun and competitive 2019. Add to that, the emergence of Luis Robert gave hope of another star joining soon. Despite swinging and missing on top free agents once again after being spurned by Zack Wheeler, sox added Dallas Keuchel and went big with DH Nelson Cruz In 2020 everything clicks, and the lineup of: SS Tim Anderson RF Bryan Reynolds 1B Jose Abreu 3B Yoan Moncada CF Luis Robert LF Eloy Jimenez C Will Smith 2B Cavan Biggio / Nick Madrigal DH Edwin Encarnacion / Adam Engel With a SP of: Shane Bieber Lucas Giolito Dallas Keuchel Dustin May Dylan Cease The sox take off and win hundreds of WS titles, with no end of talent in sight. ETC ETC Obviously, this team is stacked, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to do the 2016 redraft without noticing how much hostetler screwed the pooch. So many huge, huge difference makers up through round 5. There are so many I didn't get to. Corbin Burnes, Pete Alonso, Sean Murphy, Zac Gallen, Dylan Carlson, and on and on. In a year where Will Smith and Sean murphy get drafted we picked a guy 20 spots higher as a catcher who can't catch and has a worse bat. Not great. Anyhoo, 2016 is easy because the wheels are in motion, but would they have been good enough in 2019 to trade for some of the big pitchers that moved like Gallen?

Oh lord it took us two weeks to go into full counterfactual mode?

All right I'm changing the rules a little because this is kinda fun. I'm changing 1 draft pick. Only 1. With the 23rd pick in the 2009 MLB Draft, the Chicago White Sox select...Mike Trout, Millville Senior High School, New Jersey. Assume he follows the same path and the White Sox don't accidentally trade him in 2010 for an overpaid pitcher. 2011...Alex Rios, Alejandra De Aza play a fair amount of CF. Rios has an utterly awful season, so there's plenty of room for experience for Trout. The team still finishes a few games below .500 because Trout isn't a difference maker. Ozzie Guillen still quits on the team, Robin Ventura is hired. 2012. White Sox finished 3 games behind 88 win Detroit Tigers for AL Central, most common CF is Alejandro De Aza who puts up 2.3 rWAR. White Sox are a 90+ win team and a legitimate one, also beating Detroit on WAR. They struggle down the stretch again as their pitchers tire, but their lead was substantial by midseason and the White Sox win the AL Central by several games. Robin Ventura gets his contract extended here. 2013: Disaster. Pitchers get hurt, offense falls apart. Team originally won 63 games - now they're a 71 win team. Jake Peavy is still traded midseason to Detroit for Avisail Garcia. 2014: Now here's where it gets really interesting. They draft 6th, just before the Philadelphia Phillies. Carlos Rodon is off the board, let's assume he went to the Cubs. The White Sox have a choice between Aaron Nola and Jeff Hoffmann, who fell due to TJS. The White Sox go ahead and draft Nola (you want to run this the other way, you go ahead). The White Sox still need a 1b and the Yankees and Red Sox are still out, so they still sign Jose Abreu. Unwilling to sign a $100 million deal, they choose not to sign Trout to the same extension that the Angels gave him. The trade for Adam Eaton, involving Hector Santiago, still makes sense for the White Sox, so they acquire him as a corner OF, effectively moving De Aza and Viciedo out of the lineup. Garcia still gets hurt as Ventura is still the coach. The White Sox finish as a .500 team. 2015: Trout's first arbitration year. The White Sox are convinced they have a shot in the AL Central. Rick Hahn is still alive and Robin Ventura is still the manager. Therefore, in the offseason they trade Bassitt and Semien to the A's for Jeff Samardzija. They sign Adam LaRoche to DH, but they do not sign Melky Cabrera as they don't need an extra OF. Aaron Nola is rushed to the big leagues as soon as the extra year of FA is available in April, he's a little more effective than Rodon but not much. They no longer have the least effective position players in baseball, but they total about 35 fWAR. They finish a couple games above .500. In an alternative universe - Rick Hahn retires and Jerry Reinsdorf passes ownership to his family, ,the White Sox realize they need to be aggressive with only 3 years of control left on Trout, and rather than trading for Samardzija, they take the money they would have spent on Samardzija + Cabrera and go for a big pitching splash. Both Lester and Scherzer were available. In the process, the White Sox hold onto Semien and Bassitt. The draft really doesn't help unless the White Sox strike gold and select walker Buehler, who was the only good pick in the 2nd half of the first round. 2016: Trout's second arbitration year. They have 2 years left before he signs the biggest contract in MLB History. In the real world, Cleveland won 94 games with a huge winning streak midseason, they put up 42 fWAR. The White Sox put up 32. But, Eaton moves to RF, Trout moves to CF, Nola struggles a fair amount in the rotation. The Wild Card winners that year only won 89 games. With Trout in the lineup, the White Sox make it a 3-way tie for the Wild Card, with the team still underperforming some. The White Sox still make a midseason deal for James Shields, correctly thinking they need pitching help. Shields continues to be awful and it's the worst deal any of us have ever seen. In the second alternate universe with a new owner, the White Sox signed either Lester or Scherzer in 2015. They hold onto Semien, Bassitt still gets hurt, but they know they need additional offense on the IF and they know they need a LH bat somewhere in their lineup. Rather than Frazier, they acquire Chase Headley, who was dealt to the Yankees the year before (and the Yankees still wind up rebuilding for a year in 2016, they got themselves out of the multi-year penalties around then). Semien takes over an IF slot and while he struggles on defense it isn't a killer. In this universe, the White Sox take the AL Central. Cubs White Sox world series is possible if both teams advance. Oh, and a kid SS who no one has seen play has a breakout campaign in their minor leagues. 2017: Trout's last year with the White Sox. Avisail Garcia has a breakout season, 5 WAR. Chris Sale has a 7 win season. Aaron Nola has a breakout season. Jose Quintana is still ok. Jose Abreu has his best season. Tim Anderson is working into the IF. Adam Eaton gets hurt in the OF, I don't have a good candidate to replace him. This team is strong even if they still made the Rick Hahn moves. If they made the "not Rick Hahn" moves and signed a Scherzer, held onto a Semien, and therefore never traded for a Shields...Cleveland and Chicago both win in the high 90s in games, and who knows if a trashcan is enough for the Astros to win that title? And oh, the next year the White Sox have the #1 prospect in baseball. 2018: Garcia and Abreu struggle. Trout has departed for the Yankees. Nola puts up his best season, Sale starts showing some injury issues at the end of the year. Anderson is up and has taken over SS, while Semien has moved to a different IF spot. Quintana falls apart. This team misses the playoffs. 2019: Chris Sale goes down for TJS and then re-signs with the team for a short term deal. Aaron Nola isn't as good as the previous year. But the White Sox's infield is now Semien, Anderson, Tatis, Abreu from 3b to 1b. Robin Ventura is still managing this team.

I started a separate Spoiler thread cuz I care! enter at your own risk!

When Hemond was GM the off-seasons were fun. Trades happened like the ones you mention.

i once did a similar thing with perfect hindsight starting with the first draft. IIRC that got us Tom Seaver, Johnny Bench, Bobby Grich and others. We quickly had a dynasty.

As I recall, Hawk did have a plan, and it impressed JR. I just think that if the team was going to replace Hemond, the owners should have at least interviewed a few candidates and go from there. Harrelson had no FO experience and was a bull in a China shop. Hiring Harrelson reminds me of them hiring Ventura.

He was a miracle worker after the 1970 season. May he rest in peace.

This is my favorite story and one of the few I can share. As you know teams have complexes down there so the area scout will set up showcases where the buscones can bring their best players to be seen and if it's a really good showcase teams will fly down some higher ups (cross checkers, special assistants , directors). So there was a good showcase happening and this team sent down a bunch of guys to watch. After the showcase was over one of the more respected buscones came up to them and said he has more players that he couldn't bring to this event (no one was going to ask why) and if they wanted to see them he was having a showcase for them the next day. He said it would be worth their time but the facitity was a little hard to get to so he would provide transportation and protection. They agreed so the next day they met him at the complex and he was a man of his word. He provided transportation and protection. He brought horses and dudes with machine guns. Could you imagine. You think you're flying down there to watch some baseball at the teams complex and the next thing you know you're riding a god damn horse in one of the most dangerous places on the planet with a bunch of dudes carrying machine guns. No thank you.

I have nothing but great memories about his years.

I've always wondered what made JR replace Hemond with Ken Harrelson as the White Sox GM.

That’s absolutely brutal if Colas doesn’t play in the states this year.

Bing Crosby - White Christmas Nat King Cole - The Christmas Song Elmo & Patsy - Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer Nothing better.

A really all around good dude - RIP.

This all just sucks. I had got some great tickets for tomorrow night for my son to celebrate his getting his second shot and he been watching so much bulls. He was literally counting down the days. That said, I obviously didn't want to watch a g-league team play, and my son handled it great, but still a bit shocking to me how out of control this got and so, so annoying.

I don't think so, I think Mack and Foles are dead cap space in that scenario and they still would have to make that move cutting fuller

Yeah - that was horrendous. I expect at least one crazy bad call against the Packers each week. It was also cowardly to punt in that situation. Nagy is a loser and has a loser mentality. He has so many spots he doesn’t go for it on 4th that are cowardly. Team was dying - only chance was to convert and hope to get some momentum.

I'd probably go: 1. Norge Vera 2. Colson Montgomery 3. Oscar Colas 4. Wes Kath 5. Yoelqui Cespedes 6. Jake Burger 7. Jose Rodriguez 8. Jared Kelley 9.Matthew Thompson 10.Andrew Dalquist

Maybe this all took place at the first game of 2019 right after he hit the first home run of the first game. Man’s tallied 6 total home runs in his Sox minor league career but before he hit two more home runs in that first game But also do nerds really rely on a counting stat like home runs for power potential? Seems like a baseball nerd would focus on like hip rotation moves per 1000 frames (of which I’m sure Robert is elite anyway ????)

People would have overlooked the ego if he had kept hitting, but he didn't do that either.