WestEddy

Sorry. I actually think he will rake and become our 20 HR 1st baseman for a couple of seasons.

Me. I'm constantly too sunny side up, so I say Luis Robert will put up around 3.5 fWAR for all of 2025.

Vargas for sure. I also think this is the year Sosa clicks.

That's the one I heard. That might have been here.

The Padres have never won a World Series, so I'll say the Padres.

old friend alert

Because the player from 6 years ago isn't showing up to spring training. I do believe it's helpful to look back a few years to establish "he's hit in the bigs, before. I do think Robert played injured last year, and is probably closer to the 5 bWAR player than Bellinger is to the 8.9 bWAR player from 2019. I kind of see both sides. I wouldn't be pissed if they traded Robert before spring training, but I really think they should try to hold out for a star. The Cubs dumped Bellinger, and the Yankees were there to take advantage. It's a crazy market.

It's funny watching somebody like you get angry over what is clearly a joke. You must ruin entire evenings over a children's knock knock joke.

Prominently displays his name...... Without a pronunciation guide.

Plus the vig if they did their job setting the line right.

I'm Polish, and my name is mispronounced pretty much every single time I'm out in public. I'm all for easy names being mispronounced at every opportunity. Why is this even a story?

I've only really paid attention to the actual win total for this convo. Twitter "influencers" are talking about "free money" and all. To me, free money would be betting $10 for a chance to win $1k. This is stupid. Why would anybody on Earth take the chance of losing $1k just to prove they're right about a win total? And the fact that they slap caps on anybody who is actually good at this makes it practically criminal. Sports betting is a tax on the stupid.

I don't think Robert will ever "get close" to Belliinger's 2019 8.6 bWAR. I don't think Robert's currently in the same wilderness Bellinger was during 21-22. (I hope.)

Meidroth is an IF (2B, mostly) who walks, has great contact rates, but not a lot of power. Wikelman Gonzalez can't seem to consistently throw strikes over long periods. Only Gonzalez is on the 40-man, so he could be looking at a bullpen spot. Fangraphs breakdown of the trade: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/kyle-teel-headlines-solid-return-package-for-white-sox-in-garrett-crochet-trade/

Yes. Unlucky.

Mad? 2-3 teams are tanking and try to be bad every season. Yet, it's been 20 years since the last time somebody even approached this record. It is rare.

Ridiculous. Again, a random, replacement level team should win about 48 games. I can't stop you from believing that the 2025 team will win even less than 41 games, but that team was so incredibly unlucky. Do you think the 2024 White Sox were the worst, by far, assembly of players in the modern history of the game? Yet they set the record for losses. It's not a stretch to say that even with some regression, this is a 48 win team.

If you're talking about 2 wins at this point, yes he is. I would call the starting rotation "improved" from last opening day. Offense and regression from the catching position and IF will probably add a few wins. And there's people here saying they'll lose 121 again, or worse.

It's like a three legged horse won a horse race. So then we start looking for 3 legged horses to bet on, because now, 3 legged horses will always win horse races. The White Sox underperformed their Pythagorean by 7 wins. They have made improvements to the offense, and where they haven't, I'd expect some regression. They were historically bad. It would be hard to be worse.

Crochet, Fedde and Flexen produced about 11 bWAR over 83 starts (427 IP). Cannon, Martin, Burke, Thorpe and Bryce Wilson were good for about 5 bWAR in 52 starts (341 IP). It doesn't really work to triple the latter numbers and say we're good for 15 bWAR in 156 starts. I think the new 5 can put up at least as much production as last year's starting rotation, even throwing in Clevenger, Soroka and Nastrini's travails. The top starters aren't as good as Crochet and Fedde, and the back end won't be as bad as Soroka, Clevenger and Nastrini. I would also expect Baldwin, Ramos, Vargas, Sosa, and Meidroth to put up a little more offense than the trio of Nicky, DeJong and the clown car of AAA utility infielders. Why? Growth. Higher ceilings. Regression to the mean. That alone, like the "Chicago White Sox" guy pointed out a short while ago, a team of replacement level players (AAAA) would be expected to win about 48 games. I think the top 4 of our rotation are somewhere between replacement and average ML player (0-2 WAR). Last year's team was uniquely bad. That's why they set the record for losses.

And if people would just live healthy lives, insurance companies wouldn't have to deny them life saving coverage. JR has run a s%*# organization for a long time. This deflection is just weird.

The Brewers used Wilson differently for a while. In alternate starts, Jerod Koenig would pitch the first inning, then Wilson would come in and pitch 5. He seemed to be a bit more effective pitching the 2nd through the 6th innings than being the true starter. game logs: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=wilsobr02&t=p&year=2024

Yes. 2 years.

Nice article on the future of White Sox international scouting https://soxmachine.com/2024/12/david-keller-talks-about-the-future-of-white-sox-international-amateur-scouting/