Look at Ray Ray Run

This won't be the line. Pecota also has not been profitable vs the off-shore W/L totals the past 10 years, so they are not more predictive than the W/L totals. The futures market isn't predictive at all as it moves based on how leveraged the book is; the win/loss market doesn't move on air quite as often, and the closing numbers there are much more predicative of a teams W/L's than PECOTA. I would guess the Sox Win total will be 85.5-86.5, the Twins 88.5-89.5, the Indians 82.5-83.5. We'll see when they're posted and how they move.

The Angels are another high variance boom or bust team because their value is tied so heavily to a few players; similar to the White Sox of the past. They lack depth similarly to the White Sox. I think the Angels and White Sox are pretty similar; health to their pitching staff is essential for their success because they have no depth there. If one of their stars is bad or gets hurt they are in big trouble offensively too.

I hope Madrigal and Cease are amazing; Cease is an easy guy to root for and I like Madrigal but was absolutely disappointed in his mental mistakes last year. He really can't afford many of those. I don't think anyone needs to root for Eaton to fail to prove that was a crappy signing. The team shouldn't be signing "hopes" and "maybes" to fill giant lineup holes when they're trying to win a championship.

Based on what? What are you using to evaluate the teams and their standings? Besides the Indians, which team ahead of the Sox is clearly worse?

No, which is why I asked who said the team sucks?

Who has said the team sucks? I'm pretty sure people are merely disappointed that after a 4 year rebuild in which the Sox promised to get rid of all the maybe's and help the young stars grow as a winning roster, we're back to being the same team that needs a lot to go right - better than expected - to be a top tier team in the AL. The Sox can be fun to watch, and exciting, and fans can still be disappointed in how this is all shaking out. I'm, for one, excited for the season but I also don't think the Sox are a shoe in for the playoffs and they had a chance of being just that but decided to not invest in that opportunity.

The White Sox beat Pecota projections by the most in baseball between 2005-2012 I believe; it wasn't close. It had nothing to do with PECOTA hating the White Sox. They beat projections solely because their pitching stayed healthier than everyone else's in baseball (the Hermie effect). Here's an article that was written about it in 2013. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-white-sox-and-beating-projections/ We miss Hermie.

Why wouldn't I follow? Are you only allowed to watch a team if you pretend that they're some world beater when they're not? They could see a lot of progression from young players; maybe Moncada bounces back; maybe Robert takes a step forward; maybe Vaughn dominates; maybe Kopech and Cease shock the world. The point of the rebuild was to not have a ton of "maybe's." The point was to supplement the young talent with some guarantees. That's why they tanked for years. The White Sox failed to do that, and now they're in a position where they aren't jockeying for World Series placement; instead they're jockeying for just a spot in the post season.

The White Sox are likely better than an 83 win team, but depth matters. To say they're much better than an 85-86 win team is projecting a bunch of growth with very little regression. I think the Vaughn projection is low because of a lack of information, and Anderson will never be a guy who fits projection models due to his unorthodox way of succeeding so I like his over, but discrediting something merely because it doesn't buy your perceived narrative without substantiating the disproval statistically isn't all that compelling. The fact is, the White Sox back of the rotation is bad, Keuchel was solid last year but expecting major regression isn't absurd by any means; especially with him pitching against more viable offenses. The rotation is relying on two of the worst pitchers in baseball from the past two years and one guy who hasn't pitched in two years. Could Cease take a huge step forward; sure, of course, anything could happen. Is it more likely than not? Absolutely not. Could Kopech come back and shake off rust and dominate the league? Sure - I'm probably more confident in this than I am in Cease. Are Rodon and Lopez suddenly going to be good viable starting options? I would say absolutely not. The baseline here puts the Sox between 83-85 wins. Besides the Indians, which team ahead of them is clearly not better? I would say that all 6 have a very good case for being better than the White Sox.

But the White Sox are a big time world series contender and they have the best team in the AL and all the fans upset about not signing FA's are just negative. What a disappointing off season this was. Not even above Cleveland. Smh.

This is amazing. To keep this as simple as possible, the probability of both Cease and Kopech being good based on the percentages you provided is 7.5%. Based on the percentages you provided, the probability of ONE of those pitchers being good is 62.2%. The probability of two of those pitchers being good is 38.4%. I won't even get into how the Lopez and Rodon odds are way too high, or the fact that these aren't independent events and they are very much reliant on each other, but based on the numbers you provided the Sox have a 38.4% chance of succeeding with their currently constructed rotation in a vacuum where none of the one set of outcomes predicts the other.

Since 2006, the Yankees have made the playoffs 11 times. Since 2006, the Dodgers have made the playoffs 11 times. Since 1906 the Chicago White Sox have made the playoffs 11 times. Practically the same thing, no idea why Sox fans would be upset that when one of those 11 times, after years and years of tanking and failure, the Sox wouldn't actually support the rare opportunity they have had to make the playoffs twice in a row... for the first time in team history. Between you, Poppy and VA fan you guys could supply the entire town of Flint with the fresh water that you carry for this organization.

I ran businesses for ten years. When revenues went up, staff got raises to the tune of those revenue escalations. That's how good finance is supposed to work, but sadly it's not how it has worked for a while in this country leading to an immense inequality divide. I'm not sure what owning a business has to do with analyzing revenues vs salaries. NBA, NFL and NHL all tie salaries directly to revenue growth and share. So I guess those leagues/players/agents/GM's/Owners should come talk to you because they apparently don't know how to run a business either. Fact is, salaries should be compared to revenues. Given that revenues have gone way up, expecting salaries to follow suit is a reasonable expectation imo. Certainly not something to be "shocked by" or to ignore when discussing contract growth.

Every MLB team has the finances to operate this way. Revenues have doubled since 2008 (to be exact, they're up 78%). payrolls have not. I have no idea why people choose to ignore this fact, but MLB revenues have soared, you guys are literally just stanning for ownership to pocket more and more money. This contract isn't crazy by any means.

MLB revenues have gone up 42% in the last 7 years; Alex Rodriguez signed for 27.5 million in 2008. Since 2008, MLB revenues have gone up 78%. There's nothing crazy about this contract. If anything, given the length, it's probably the safest allocation of funds you'll find among big contracts.

Two take aways; 1: Some White Sox fans were worried about signing a starter and blocking Dylan Cease or Michael Kopech while the Dodger just signed a starter to potentially block Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin - because they understand how important depth it, this year more than any other possibly as well. That's how big boy teams operate, and people calling this a bad deal are insane. Very very little risk for the Dodgers given the length of the deal. 2: The White Sox should check in on Tony Gonsolin because he would be an amazing add to this roster and he's undoubtedly the odd man out for the Dodgers and he's cost affordable which we know is imperative for the how this cheap ass organization operates.

The 1994 White Sox staff was on-pace to have 18.62 bWAR among their top 4 starters (McDowell, Alvarez, Bere, Alex Fernandez), all of whom were immensely "talented." 2005 White Sox had 16.7 fWAR/16.6 bWAR among their top 4 starters. One arm who was a borderline HOF'er, another arm who is one of the best international pitchers of all-time who came stateside a bit late, another who had 6 seasons with an ERA+ over 115 and was a 3 time all-star two time Cy-Young candidate, and their 4th starter who finished 6th in the Cy Young voting that year. This roster has 3 starters and two complete question marks. I'll take the under both those WAR totals for this staff in 2021. I guess though, based on your posts, you might be 16.

Let them sleep Ron, let them sleep.

This defense doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Part of negotiating is understanding how the market is going to move and evolve. Joc may have asked for 10 million then, but all that matters is what he signed for. There's no reason the Sox had to rush to sign Adam Eaton; as if someone else was going to swoop in and steal such a stellar player from out underneath them. Waiting for low-to-mid-level free agents has been the MO the past 5 off-seasons but the Sox apparently haven't learned that yet.

Yes, last off-season we saw videos of Cease working in the pitch lab and getting on top of the ball and eliminating Cut. It was all the fad. The camera's were going to save Cease. The problem with all of this is that when you've done something one way for a long period of time, your body tends to want to do that thing again. Cease has never, in his professional life, had avg/+avg command. Even when he had "rise" instead of cut on his fastball he still wasn't throwing strikes. The glaring difference between Giolito and Cease is that Gilito had something to go back to; he had been incredibly successful and dominant in his professional life prior and then an adjustment by the Nats destroyed that. Giolito wasn't changing the way he pitched as much as he was simply going back to something he once felt comfortable with and refinding himself with a guy who knew him really well; another thing I think fans overlook with Katz and their assumption he's going to save everyone. He doesn't know any pitchers like he knows Giolito. Cease has nothing to go back to regarding command because he's never had it as a prospect. If you can't command your fastball in the big leagues it doesn't really matter how hard you throw or the rise on your stuff. His curveball didn't work because he never got ahead in the count. I have a hard time believing a pitching coach is going to change that issue in one off-season. I'm hopeful but incredibly skeptical. Giolito is doing what he should do; giving his teammate confidence. One other major difference between the two is that Giolito is 6'6 and Cease is 6'2.

I like to keep track of these things in the off-season. So far we have: 1 - Best SHAPE of his life and finally taking fitness serious report!! - Carlos Rodon 1 - He reworked the complete way he pitches and will suddenly be elite because he cares (as if other players don't) - Dylan Cease 5 - The new coach is going to change the success of all these players tenfold even though the game only values coaches at about 1 million per year!!! - Every White Sox Pitcher who wasn't already good It does not mean those things aren't true, but history does not support these claims on a grand predictive scale but that doesn't mean it's not possible progression and improvement ensues. Most guys are what they are after a certain period of time and the Giolito's are the exception to the rule, not the expected outcome. A lifetime of baseball habits are tough to break in one off-season of training.

I'd call a 5% decline in revenue share towards labor to be a massive spending cut in any industry, especially a 10+ billion dollar industry, Just my opinion. That's between a $500,000-$720,000 pay cut per player vs expected income since 2014 which is down between 12 and 16.5%. I'll let you two carry this on though.

If this is your goal then you need to add a salary cap and a salary floor, not more teams to the playoffs. Players need to get over the salary cap nonsense and add a revenue share % for salaries like all other sports. Owners are just fucking them now and it's not going to get better.

MLB revenue is up from 7.86 billion im 2014 to 10.37 billion 2019. This means that player salaries are down from 43.8% of the pie to 38.5% of the pie based on the numbers you're providing so @Jack Parkman is 100% correct. MLB players are likely getting the smallest share of revenue of the three major sports despite not having a salary cap and it's 100% due to owner collusion.

Lol wut? I made some posts about how the Sox had no shot in signing Bauer because they refuse to spend at that level and you called me a negative dickhead and said I couldn't proclaim something until it didn't happen. Bauer sign somewhere and I missed it? or you're just being a negative poster before something has happened like you called me an "asshole" for. I guess only you can be negative before shit happens.