Leaderboard

Gotta pick up the option before you can trade him.

That website is drunk

I did a few trades on the Baseball Trade Value Simulator. Each of these got a "Yes" from the simulator. Lux for: Hendriks + Kopech Hendriks + Colas Hendriks + Crochet Hendriks + Giolito Colson Montgomery (Straight up) https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/

Can’t imagine who this might be

To summarize, a QB that "sucks" in Fields put up 32 points against a defense that just added Bradley Chubb and is supposed to be a playoff contender, and needed an incredibly generous non-PI call in the final stretch to at the very least not send the game to OT. But this Dolphins fan watched a GREAT game! Checks out. 🤡

Diaz getting 20M AAV should put any talk of Liam being a bad contract to bed.

And he skipped AA and AAA.

What? Reached?! He hasn't played a full major league season in his natural position. We've asked him to learn on the job while playing him out of position on a team expected to compete for a WS. AV will be much better in 2023 if we position him at 1B for the majority of the season.

This is why I said last week that this window is closed. There is no avenue for this team to become a champion unless half the team significantly improves. We will enter the season as the 15th best team and finish the season that way. Welcome back to mediocrity, Sox fans.

Gallo sucks

See I think Vaughn has the potential to be really good, which by mid season could be an upgrade. He's been playing out of position for too long.

From the same article...

Jim Bowden, who we all know is 100% nails when it comes to forecasting things: Top Free Agents 1. Aaron Judge Best fits: Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, Mets, White Sox Contract prediction: 8 years, $330 million 7. Carlos Rodon Best fits: Giants, Cardinals, Braves, Mets, Orioles, Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Blue Jays Contract prediction: 5 years, $144 million 16. Brandon Nimmo Best fits: Mets, Blue Jays, Yankees, Padres, Rangers, Royals, Tigers Contract prediction: 5 years, $100 million 18. Jose Abreu Best fits: Padres, Cubs, Rays, Rangers, White Sox Contract prediction: 2 years, $34 million 21. Michael Conforto Best fits: Mets, Marlins, White Sox, Rays, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Padres, Braves Contract prediction: 2 years, $34 million with an opt out after Year 1

I’m a Masataka Yoshida fanboi. I think he’s been THE most complete hitter in that league for the past five years (rivaled for a couple years by Tomoya Mori and the enigmatic Yuki Yanagita, and now overtaken this year with Murakami’s breakout, though I think Yoshida is still a better contact hitter). He’s one of the handful of guys I’ve seen where I feel like I can tell just from watching that the bat speed is better than those around him. He blends an extremely polished approach with a noticeably athletic swing — he finds a way to get the barrel on a lot of different types of pitches in the zone, even when he’s fooled on velo. He’s very strong, and is known for staying in excellent physical condition. The Buffaloes sell inflatable Masataka Yoshida-branded dumbbells at the ballpark. He never seems to break 30 homers, but it’s more because he’s lasering doubles off the wall all the time; the raw power is there (he won the home run derby a couple years ago), his approach/bat path is just more mature versatile than a typical slugger. BUT Despite the strength and athleticism of his hands, he’s relatively slow and is not a good outfielder. He’s undersized, and started to become somewhat injury prone as of late. And, he’s 30 now, and it’s just proven to be really difficult for hitters past their mid-20s to make the transition to the States. I think he definitely has better bat-to-ball skills (hands/bat speed) than Seiya, but Seiya is better in every other way (speed, defense, overall athleticism). The Sox could use the left-handed bat in the OF, but this is yet another 40 defender who you can’t find DH at bats for because of Grandal/Eloy/etc. I think he’s gonna hit, but it’s hard to imagine it’ll be enough to be a star, especially given the moderate defensive liability. Believe me, there’s almost nothing I want more than to be able to buy a Yoshida Sox jersey, but I think the Sox would be better off with a true RF this year.

The funny thing is you know someone out there is upset about this.

Thing that make ya go, “duh”…

You’ve done this “the Sox are old” thing before and it’s misleading. The Sox core is not old, and most of it pretty young. Grandal is showing his age, sure, but dragging up the “average age” with a bunch of peripheral players doesn’t really tell a meaningful story. There’s no requirement that we ding the Sox on *every* possible metric.

The coaching staff, and the fact that pretty much all their best players were either hurt, bad or both. That might matter too, idk.

Yeah, he's the man right now. He basically just had the NPB equivalent of Aaron Judge's season, but he's 22. He won the triple crown while breaking Sadaharu Oh's single season HR record for a Japanese player (actual NPB record is 60 by Wladimir Balantien). He just set an entirely new bar for NPB hitters. He won't be available for a few years at least, we'll see if he somehow still has room to grow.

More hustle than the next three guys and a great attitude. Whole lotta other guys I'd rather wave goodbye to. But, it's true the production could have been better.

His legs are impressive. I can't wait until he has a better line, and another weapon or two. 3rd and 12, he doesn't have to complete a pass to move the chains. If he can be a somewhat consistent passer, it's hard to see how he won't be the best Bears QB ever.

I believe Mookie made that comment in regards to them signing Judge to play RF.

I don’t look at it as a Jose/Vaughn swap. I think of it as replacing Jose and Sheets with Vaughn and whichever outfielder we sign. When you take defense into account, I think it’s a nice swap. And if you think Vaughn will continue to improve at the plate like I do, that makes it even better.

Good thing Harrison isn't back. That guy would be a nice utility player, but he is not a full-time 2nd baseman.

A person can dream, right?

Hoping that we read “Pollock declines player option” no matter how unlikely it is, ha.

I like Gallo as a pretty serious bounceback candidate. The NYY effect is real. Not everyone can play under those lights.

Its really not that difficult of a situation to figure out. It is actually quite simple, really.

How in Benintendi in the OF? He doesn't play any RF. While not ideal, probably not a deal breaker as Colas can cover RF. But we'd be back to the Pollock in RF games to start 2023. Gallo's being a pretty good OF helps a lot. I think there is a decent chance he'd a solid player. But he'd be third on my list after Nimmo and Conforto.

@Bob Sacamano, I see your laugh react, but it's clear that Jim Bowden read my Cocaine Elmo post. It's happening.

I think his overthrows are more a pattern of his timing - and if he isn't in synch he can get mechanically out of whack with his footwork, etc. Otherwise - he is a pretty darn good downfield passer. I've noticed more of his issues on the shorter to intermediate stuff but even as of late that seems to have been trending upwards - again - going back to he just seems to be playing with a lot more confidence and letting things rip (or taking off) in a more instinctual way (vs. where you could see he was overthinking / playing slow). And I do agree with Tru on one thing - Fields has to show he can throw the ball more consistently and have those games too. Cause we will see teams really scheme to stop his run and that is going to create more stuff open, especially in the middle of the field - which is the area I think Fields has been weakest (he tends to throw to the sidelines and downfield but rarely in the middle of the field. We need to see that part of his game elevate - if he does that and continues to grow (and stay healthy) - he has the chance to be a pretty special player.

Thanks for the write-up. I didn't know anything about him but figured it was worth sharing.

I didn’t hear it, but someone tweeted that Heyman said he thought Jose would return on the Score a few days ago. I don’t believe the Sox have commented on Jose’s situation as of yet.

There's nowhere for Jose to play. Vaughn needs to play 1B. And Eloy should be the fulltime DH. See the following quote from Rick Hahn, which is from an article on whitesox.com. That to me indicates things like Sheets or Vaughn in the outfield will no longer happen. And with Vaughn's value probably at a point of being pennies on the dollar compared to previously, he's not really tradable. There isn't much choice here for making the best possible roster in 2023 and beyond. “We had a few guys playing out of position last year just out of the way the roster fit together and then driven more significantly due to the injuries. “We want to avoid that going forward. We want to get to the point where we have guys playing in a role they’re more suited for. If that means we have to make some alterations from the roster from the outside, then that’s the route we’ll have to go.”

We wasted a year of potential service time with Vaughn for like 12 total plate appearances. I get a new manager will play the young guys more right out of the gate, but I’m not losing a year of control of Colas for what will be less than 15 games with days off. How many more games do the Sox win with Oscar starting over Pollock during this stretch?

I thought they were gonna decline and go with Elvis...😂

Just get most of these guys back to where they were pre-Tony, and it will be fun again.

This. Grifol was the guy the Royals analytics people went to and said "please convince Ned (Yost) to look at this stuff, it's critical". Grifol poured over the data, added a lot to it, and then convinced Yost to look it over. Grifol IS an an analytics guy that was stuck in a backwards organization. He sees the value of analytics and blends it with all the other tools. To poo poo him because he came from the Royals is shortsighted, imho.

No-brainer. Gotta get him back into form and he’ll be worth $12.5 and then some.

Obviously a change was necessary, and the team definitely needs to hit more home runs. But I also remember when one of the main complaints on this board was the lift and pull approach that so many batters had.

…or, to look at it another way, the analytical guys who showed some success in a nonanalytical organization have fled to a team that is hopefully looking for a growth in its analytical approach.

Except for the “put Engle in” guy. 😆

Same dude who is accredited with getting more power out of Solar and Salvy, right?

Unless his approach is straight bunting he’s already a better hire than what we’ve had here in the past

Although he wasn’t the full hitting coach, the overall Royals launch angle the last 2 years has been 12.8 degrees; very consistent year to year and in the middle of the pack. The White Sox have had one of the lowest launch angles in baseball consistently over the entire statcast era and across two hitting coaches, so this is a statistic I hope to see change.

Seems a very power heavy approach. Also of note seems he worked as an offseason hitting coach while he was a scout with the Dodgers.

Gotta make room for Aaron Judge

I vote we talk about Charlotte's new jerseys instead:

This is the minor league forum. There is a 27 page thread discussing the hire in Pale Hose Talk.

2022 White Sox playoff hopes.