WestEddy

If DeJong is going to have a dead cat bounce of a season, that could be a nice pick up.

Not feelin' Barlow?

Sounded like the MC at a strip club trying a little too hard to rustle up applause.

Why did he put Touki out for the next inning? Is he trying to get him on the 60-day IL so he doesn't have to cut him?

It's like a man and a high school kid. At the end, Konerko asks Vaughn what year he's in. Then Konerko tells him, yeah, this is your make or break year, basically.

Somebody posted a video of Konerko meeting Vaughn on Twitter in the cage for a talk. Looked like Konerko was asking him about different parts of his set-up and scolding him for them. I'll look for it.

SoxMachine had an article over the winter about how both Scholtens and Touki had an incredible amount of luck. Neither had swing and miss stuff. Maybe Touki caught lightning in a bottle. But then it got out.

Atlanta had him for less than 24 hours. Did they scout him taking his kid to the hospital? I'm guessing he's in great shape, and there were fist fights in the Braves front office once the trade was announced.

"Luck" is preparation meeting opportunity.

I would also consider an Oscar Colas that was eager to work on his fielding, strike-zone judgement and even take reps at 1B to be a victory for this team. Seems like he was not happy last year. I want happy players.

Okay, I guess I'm getting as negative towards the frustrated people. I would think that if Fletcher was an effective platoon piece still on the team, and Bailey Horn was one of the late inning options, those would be good developments.

Because teams can't compete without 26 perennial All-Stars and eventual HOFers on the roster. At this point, the negative people are interpreting anything and everything as failure. "Won the division?!? How pathetic!!!"

Hey, if this is Getz finding a market inefficiency for filling a bullpen, I'll take it. But yeah, I should just start talking about Sampson Quinones, our hotshot lefty starter, and see who calls BS.

Sox on 35th did a top 30 with "just missed". Do you guys give them much credibility? South Side Sox does that top 100 thing, but last year, they petered out in the high 30's, and I don't think they even posted the rest.

I think they'll get 8 adequate, healthy options by opening day. Then when Knebel, the guy from Boston, Brebbia, Barlow, and all that, when they get well, work them in. Bullpen is the one area I'm not worried about this spring.

Hahn's teams and bullpens were never well-constructed. And that list of guys I gave aren't complete f*ckups who are good for 8 runs every time they trot out of the bullpen. They're all competent major league arms or prospects.

The worst they'd do is, if Cease was still on the team, they'd hold onto him. I think Monty and Ramos would take over from DeJong and/or Lopez if they were choking. Different GM's (but everybody thinks all GMs are the same under JR), but the Sox have only ever made nominal deadline moves. Utility infielders and bullpen guys. Trading Cease next off-season wouldn't be disastrous if they got a playoff berth.

Bennie, Robert, Yoan and Eloy have all been good. Vaughn is a hitter. I don't really have a problem with a Fletcher / Pillar platoon in RF. That will be way better than anything we've run out there since maybe Dye. If DeJong and Lopez can just be their best 1-WAR selves until Ramos and Monty get there, I don't think that's an historically horrible 1-8. I believe Maldonado will be a black hole, but if he's a steadying influence on Soroka and Kopech, so be it. I'd rather Stassi get most of the starts. That may become the reality by the end of the season.

I didn't suggest that. I said their pitching wouldn't be "bad". All I did was add up possible win totals, and came up with 75 wins. Are you suggesting you know that a couple weeks of the season will get wiped out and they'll only play 150 games? If the White Sox were truly pushing .500 in mid July, and they were in first place, I think they'd have to make any effort to win the division. That really means punting the trade of Cease to the off-season, if he wasn't gone already.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. I think that Soroka and Kopech have a chance to become good, not great, versions of their former ceilings. Kopech and Soroka as reliable #3s, I don't think that's absurd wish-casting.

You know? I'm not really worried about their bullpen. Between Knebel, Shaw, Barlow, Jake Cousins, Justin Anderson, Tanner Banks, Deivi Garcia, Jordan Leasure, Dominic Leone, and Alex Speas, Jimmy Lambert, I think they'll be okay.

I certainly don't see these guys as a possible .500 team, but I don't totally agree with the pitching being bad. Soroka and Kopech have a chance to break out. Fedde will have to adjust, I think, to lefty lineups.

Being extremely pie-in-the-sky, I come up with: c - maldonado / stassi - 0 1b - vaughn - 2 2b - lopez / sosa - 1 3b - moncada - 4 ss - dejong / montgomery - 1 lf - benintendi - 2 cf - robert - 5 rf - fletcher / pillar - 1 dh - eloy - 2 bench - 0 s1 - soroka - 2 s2 - fedde - 1 s3 - kopech - 2 s4 - flexen - 1 s5 - crochet / kuhl / nastrini - 1 bp - 3 That's 28 WAR, total. That's about a mid-70's win team, right? Don't you roughly start with around 47, then add individual wins? That's if they don't run through all their dumpster dive pitchers by May 15, and the bullpen doesn't implode. I'm being especially positive on Vaughn, Moncada, Benny, maybe even Robert to maintain. Two of those rotational top four have to be league average, and the other two middling.