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He should be on this team instead of Leury Garcia.

It is depressing that we all know Nimmo would solve so many issues for this team, he's going to sign a contract all 30 teams could afford without issue, and yet... there's no chance Jerry would sign off on it.

Pretty depressing when we’re in our championship window salivating over a couple of guys who haven’t been productive in two years and can’t even afford them on a 1/$15M type deal because our owner is a cheap fucking asshole.

I am with you. #TeamVaughn He is going to be a great hitter.

Andrew Vaughn had a 125 wRC+ through August of last year. That’s with Frank “f*** the HR” Menechino as hitting coach who no doubt was going to prioritize Vaughn’s worst tendencies. Stop playing him in the OF and let a hitting coach who preaches power work with him so this kid can finally reach his offensive potential. I think a 140 wRC+ is very much possible and that will blow whatever a Sheets/Burger platoon would give us.

The Sox haven't had a 2nd basemen surpass 2 fWAR in a season since Tadahito in '05. I'm sure this will be the off-season Hahn & KW finally it right!

I could see Mendick being brought back on a minor league deal. How many orgs would give him a clearer path to big league playing time than the Sox? I doubt it's too many.

Let's be equally real. They spent a lot of money this year. They spent more than the Astros did this year. They spent more than the Astros did in 2017. They spent more than the Nationals did in 2019. They spent more than the Braves did in 2021. They spent more than the Cubs did in 2016. They spent more than the Royals did, ever. They actually did spend money. They did what we wanted them to do on the total budget line. They finished 6th in payroll - the only one of those teams who was 6th in payroll was the Cubs, all of the recent "complete a rebuild then win a title" teams spent less. They actually spent money. They did so in an unfathomably stupid way.

Let’s be real, the cheap bastards somehow convinced us that they had a viable window when they were never gonna pony up for a legit contender to begin with. If they can’t or won’t spend over some bad money they never wanted to compete in the first place.

It's easy to eliminate teams based on this map.

Can't wait for both to get hurt playing in meaningless games.

I'd say they're serious by White Sox standards, but not relative to actual contenders in the league. And yes, they are not good at their version of serious.

The White Sox had a top 10 payroll last year and will again this year, they are serious about contending but that doesn't mean they are good at it.

The Vuc deal was awful. Williams was a s%*# #4 pick so far. Derozan was good. The construction not good. But man blowing your load on Vuc is just not smart. Give up talent for a different maker not a volume aging guy on a s%*# team.

This is a great sentence.

That's quite an accusation there.....or did autocorrect strike again 🤔

Expecting it doesn’t make it less ridiculous for a team supposedly competing.

Eh, it’s kind of fun to see what the 26 man roster might look like if the season started today and then how that evolves as the offseason progresses. I like the thread.

Ruiz at that salary and as the ~7th or 8th best reliever in the pen is fine, but I think you'd get more use from that spot going with a slightly worse pitcher who has options remaining to maintain roster flexibility. Tendering Ruiz puts the Sox in a position where almost no one in the pen can be optioned during the season.

Danny Mendick isn’t good, who cares

Hahn proving Sox have no money

The extent to which the Sox are relying on someone who might not even be a consensus top 100 prospect to step in and immediately be a productive player is insane.

Better to let Leury tank the team again next year with sub replacement level play than admit the contract is a sunk cost and move on 🙂

You've actually done it, you've found a corner OF who is bad enough that there's no reason to replace Vaughn with him. Seriously, he was -0.2 fWAR in 275 plate appearances, Vaughn was -0.4 in 555. He was -10.9 on defense, Vaughn was -26.7 - so Vaughn was 4.9 runs worse than he was on pace to be. On the other hand, Vaughn put up a 4.9 offense, while he put up a 0.2, so Vaugh was on pace to be 4.5 runs better than him offensively. This is actually sorta eerie how close Vaughn is to "exactly 2 Franchy Cordero's" last year. Apparently Cordero is a better baserunner?

The M is all wrong. Feels like they stole it from Miami.

The current home jerseys are a classic that I hope never goes away, same with the road greys. But bring back the diamond sock damnit! I do love the black tops but they are used a bit too often. The 1959 hat logo is my absolute favourite followed by the 1917. I’d love if they went with the Field of Dreams unis as the Sunday alts. Just retire the 83s already.

All of this. I don't think AV has really even scratched the surface playing under TLR/Frank. He has never really gotten a chance to play at his natural position yet. If Sheets and or Burger out perform even after a year of AV at 1B, then we can start entertaining a silly platoon idea of subpar players.

If Burger and Sheets end up at 1B then this team isn’t serious about contending. Burger also has never played 1B. Not saying he wouldn’t be able to figure it out, but it’s not a sure thing to just move a guy there and expect them to be good.

32 strike out rate with 0 walk potential? s%*# im sure Hahn is on the phone with him right now, hed fit right in

Donovan has to be on a short leash here. They play such incoherent non-cohesive lackadaisical basketball that something has to give. I don’t think they pull the plug on the roster yet but a new voice is needed.

Blow it up. Bunch of ducking bums. Donovan sucks. Pathetic. And Lavine had a bad night but really - you are going to bench him and promote more Derozan iso. Don’t get me wrong Derozan had a great game and Lavine sucked but Derozan iso was the death of this squad a year ago. Blow this s%*# up.

All types of bad. All. Types. Of. Bad.

I think is what we’re all expecting now. A payroll in the $180M to $185M range, which probably means $15M to $20M to work with.

His name is probably Leury Garcia.

Have to justify Garcia's contract regardless of how much it hurts the team.

Not one with this FO in charge.

Yes, there are valid critiques for how and where they have spent. Hahn is really bad at it. Yet legit championship contenders find ways to fill holes despite bad money. The Sox have already signalled that they’ve thrown up their hands and aren’t serious about improving, be it in dollars or in those making decisions. My point remains in that they aren’t serious about putting themselves on the same level.

I'm going Belly. He's a better defender, younger, and at least is coming off a season he played. Plus the shift moving and some extra hunger - who knows. The other thing I'd point out - he can play multiple outfield positions well (i.e., CF), so if you pivvot Robert or need to reset, it increaess flexibility. So yeah - I like Belly a lot. He could flame out - but I still see his value as a base runner and defender as creating a good floor.

This thread was posted on October first and they provided an update yesterday.

He was still a 1.7 fWAR player last year. If he wanted a 1 year deal I have to imagine he can get nearly $10 million based on that, or I could see him having a shot at a couple years with a slightly lower yearly amount if he wanted a guarantee.

I do think the injury worry is real. You have guys who are trying to jump into game level intensity early, without a full spring training, they are interrupting their physical training routine in the process which can matter for getting prepped for the season, and finally game effort is always more likely to cause an injury. For a contrast to what you just said, a big reason people were frustrated with Eloy was that he didn’t need to try to go over the wall during a spring training game, but people would understand Robert trying to do that during a WBC game.

You just keep on reinforcing what an Ass you are.

I am not sure what exactly you expect here. The guy is literally amongst the worst defensive 3B in baseball right now. Out of all of the players who played as many inning as he did at 3rd last year, his defensive zone rating was 4th worst. His outs above average was 4th worst. Slots 1-3 were held by people with 3 or 4 times as many innings in the field to make that many mistakes. His range was 5th worst in baseball. Like we aren't talking about a below average 3b here. We are talking about literally one of the worst defenders in baseball. Even if he "gets better" he is still going to be awful over there. It's not like he is bad and has the tools that could make him better. With his tools, the gap between his ability and his ceiling isn't big enough to overcome his horribleness at 3rd. Even with his bat, because of his defense, he was barely a positive fWAR player. That's pretty impressive with a .760 OPS.

Yup. They really gotta balance out the home and alternates a bit more.

A team can live with poor production from the catcher’s spot, they can’t at 1B or DH. Grandal might be a sunk cost, but there’s no reason to create a black hole at a premium offensive position.

The 87-90s are my favorite. That cursive C man

I like anything that puts Colas, Outman and Robert in the same OF. Pick up Stone Garrett to back them all up and woo that's a nice infusion of talented guys in their 20's all with power and all can play defense and 2 LHH.

Maybe him hating the Cubs instead of the rest of the division has contributed to his teams making the playoffs 7 times in 40 years of ownership

Not all teams improve when they spend money. Sox are poor sisters of the Angels.