WestEddy

The team had negative WAR at 4 positions, and got less than a full win from 3 others. If they at least have a quicker hook for the horrible pitchers they throw out there, that could mitigate some damage (that is, if they're trying to put "W"s up on the board). Lynn and Kopech pretty much sucked all year. Maybe they stayed in the rotation, and Anderson stayed in the leadoff spot due to infighting in the front office. Who knows? If Chris Flexen or Soroka doesn't have it, I don't think it will take 20 starts to realize that, and somebody else will take their spots.

If they keep Cease and solve RF, I think this team could easily be better than last year's. You had negative WAR at 4 positions last year. Just putting replacement level players in RF, 2B, SS and C probably adds 5 wins. And just having options vs. Lynn/Kopech/Toussant/Scholtens adds a few more.

Thanks for this.

Reynaldo Lopez was getting all the closing opportunities in April.

And after strong 2021 and 2022 seasons, they decided to make Lopez their closer in April. With Graveman still on the staff. Aroldis Chapman was coming off of two incredibly sub-meh seasons with the Yankees. It certainly seems reasonable for the sox to think they had the position of "closer" covered in house.

There are so many other more convincing arguments to support this statement than the one you're making. The Sox had 4 proven, veteran relievers on staff, one of whom has closing experience. They also has a small bunch of arms with MLB experience on the 40 man, and freshly signed to minor league contracts where it wasn't crazy for them to look at the market, and decide they were good. The problem wasn't that they weren't prepared to throw money at a violent abuser to prove they "wanted to win", the problem was that Kelly and Bummer sucked @ss, and Graveman didn't pitch to his ceiling. I remember Lopez being a pleasant surprise, mostly when it didn't matter. The fact that they went into the season with Andrus at 2B and Colas/Sheets in RF is the argument that JR will pound away at a square peg before buying one of the cheap round ones laying at his feet.

Apparently, Scott Boras is a follower of Sports Guy.

Cubs helping out the Dodgers by sending them young prospects to send on to the White Sox for Cease.

But teach him to develop fish ...

Thanks. Had Boise on the mind, and wasn't thinking. Had you ever come across this in your writings? One of those weird things where I'm amazed I never heard of it.

When researching the MLB amateur draft on Baseball-Reference, I'd always run into Bend, Boise and Miami on the franchise list. I never really gave it a thought, figuring it was some leftover place-holder when the site was being created, or something. Turns out, independent minor league teams used to be able to participate in the Rule 4 draft. Only 4 teams ever took advantage of this. I ran into Bend's draft picks while looking at the White Sox 1971 draft, where they took Bill Sharp in the 2nd round, instead of George Brett or Mike Schmidt. (Some things never change.) Turns out, Hawaii was trying to become an expansion franchise, and started building a team ahead of the next round of expansion. Hawaii contracted an independent team in Bend, Oregon to be their minor league franchise. The following is a SABR article some here might find interesting. https://sabr.org/research/article/the-next-pick-goes-to-the-miami-miracle-independent-minor-league-teams-in-the-amateur-baseball-draft/ Sorry is this seems way off what the focus of the board is. Please feel free to delete. It is baseball related, and I'm being driven nuts by refreshing MLB Trade Rumors.com, SoxTalk and Twitter. I figured somebody else might want a break.

I hope he makes his "come to the White Sox, Cuban prospect" video before he leaves.

Wouldn't open for me unless I truncated:

They had Kendall Graveman on the roster, who was a closer with Seattle. At some point, the players have to produce. I wouldn't have wanted Chapman on this team.

There weren't strong rumors of Cubs interest. More local reporters surmising that the Cubs were a good fit for Cease. The Yankees missing out on Imanaga ups the stakes for the Yanks if they miss out on Monty, Snell and Cease.

There's a couple of qualifiers in there. At least you were nice about it.

Yeah, 10-15 starts, then move to the bullpen. Or pair with another arm to go through he batting order once.

Bannister's found the cheat code for Flexen.

Weren't they also talking about pairing him up with Kopech? Each guy can pitch 3-4 innings of a game.

So he doesn't have a lot of mileage on that arm. I choose to see that as a positive.

He put up 0.7 bWAR when he was settled in for the long haul in St. Louis. Have you ever picked up and moved to Toronto, and then tried to put up positive WAR? They were probably mean to him, too. Made him self-conscious. And San Francisco's so expensive, DeJong probably had to live on the street, too. Putting on a White Sox uniform adds half a win, anyway.

Getz is approaching the season accepting that Crochet is getting stretched out to start. I would take 10-15 starts from Crochet as a huge positive. Davis Martin, Mena, Nastrini - somebody will be ready to step in when Crochet's innings are limited.

As I said in the Cease rumor thread, I like a rotation of Cease, Fedde, Kopech, Crochet and Soroka. If Cease leaves, there's 5-6 guys to shuffle through for a 5th man. I actually haven't felt this settled about an off-season in a while. At least now, the dumpster dives make sense. They're happening in context. We'll have positive WAR SS and 2B. If they pick up a RF, a few guys regress to the mean, I can actually see them challenging for a .500 record.

So, as it stands right now, your rotation is Cease, Fedde, Kopech, Crochet and Soroka. Toussant probably makes the bullpen, you have Shuster, Scholtens, Flexen and Kuhl behind them, and Mena, Nastrini, Sean Burke and Jonathan Stiever in AA or AAA. Davis Martin probably comes back 2nd half. That isn't horrible rotational depth, if there's a plan to nurture soroka, flexen and kuhl. Martin replaces Cease if he's traded at the deadline, and they have enough guys for a revolving door in the 4 and 5 spots. Get a RF, and I can see a .500 team if I squint.