Look at Ray Ray Run

Yeah, he just needs to worry about hitting the ball in the air to maximize his profile. Launch angle is just a hot term for lifting the baseball/hitting it in the air. I don't think you can hope he's Frank Thomas - hitting a ton of line drives but his power is so massive they are homers. I think he needs to lift the ball, but his launch angle is irrelevant if he's lifting the ball in general.

I'm sure the team has a plan; regardless of how incompetent you feel they are, they aren't making these moves in a vacuum. Each move, in an off-season of this magnitude, should have another purpose tied to it. Given how supposedly involved they were in the Castellanos/Ozuna market, this pivot leads me to think they want to spend that money elsewhere. Or, they want to wait out the Castellano/Ozuna markets like I said I'd do, and maybe this doesn't deter them from signing one of those two if their prices plummet. I doubt that happens, and I think they believe both will get somewhere near their demands, but who knows?

Call me crazy, but I think we see another step forward for Tim Anderson this year. Tim was able to make a huge change last year to his profile, and it propelled him forward. The guy has improved so much, and I just don't think he's done growing. I wouldn't be shocked to see Tim with a WAR around 5 next year. I think his defense takes a huge step forward, and I wouldn't be shocked to see better at bats out of him in general knowing that his main focus this off-season is controlled aggression. He learned to find his pitch and attack it, now he needs to shrink that down and work counts a little more. I have at on of faith in Anderson; I know its superlative, but his bat speed and hands are just other wordly.

No one can possibly argue that Nick Castellanos is worth 8 times more than Nomar Mazara IMO.

I agree 100%; I don't want them spending just because they said they would even though they lost out on their prized guy (Wheeler). That said, Wheeler couldn't have been the only move they wanted to make, and they should be able to go above their valuation on their second favorite starter this off-season to acquire him. If they want to take on salary and move Madrigal and sign REndon, at least that's a plan too.

It seemed to make sense with the Mazara trade. It's the one thing that has made sense about that trade. If the White Sox thought the market for Castellanos and Ozuna was too much (80-100 million) and they figured they'd rather get a cheap RF and spend all their money on Rendon then whatever. I don't love moving Yoan back to second, but that frees up Madrigal (who I love) to be traded for a controllable arm. This plan makes a lot of sense, but the Sox have to execute it now.

The Sox could certainly do worse for the 6th/7th hitter in their lineup.

I'll be upset if they don't spend some more money. They don't need to spend it all if they love Springer or something for next year, but there's no point in acquiring a bunch of financial flexibility with years of failure only to not spend the money. This team was running 130 million dollar payrolls 14 years ago; it's embarrassing that they aren't near that number yet because in reality they should blow past that in the next few years.

Yeah, his numbers were likely driven down this year because he swung at more pitches out of the zone and also made more contact on those pitches - leading to a lesser quality of contact on those pitches. In general, and this is the weirdest part of his profile, his zone contact rate has gone down 4 years in a row while his out of zone contact rate has gone up 4 years in a row. That's a really weird profile.

Yeah, he hasn't seen that growth turn into results yet, but his FB% was up 6% last year - he really needs to get that number closer to 38% for his profile to maximize, his GB% was down 9% and his LD% was up 2%. There are underlying hopes within his profile, that was my sole point. I don't know if the growth will continue, and ISO's were up league wide last year, but if he can generate more loft with his elevated Hard Hit % and etc he could take off.

Fegan pretty much wrote my entire opinion of the deal in his column. Sharp guy. ?

Mazara used to walk sometimes though. That's what's weird. His walk rate around 9% was fine. Hes pressed a bit more it seems the last couple years.

Yes, this is how I read it. Seems like hes willing to put in the work.

I read this as he puts in all the work to prepare for each game, which would be practice and scouting reports. He just doesn't know how to prep his body or mind for a seasons workload.

You've continually insinuated that he's an awful defender and it's simply not true. He's a slightly below average defender in RF. He's not Nick Castellanos out there.

This is weird. So he puts in the work for the day to day stuff, but doesn't know how to put in the work to put himself in a great position for the season? Not sure I've ever heard that about a player before.

Yeah, but you know as well as I know that stubbornness can soften once the comfort zone you lived in gets turned upside down in the sports world.

Yelich -3 DRS Fowler -4 DRS Eaton -2 DRS Brandon Nimmo -5 DRS 2 years ago, Mazara -4 DRS.; Can we please stop pushing this narrative that he's some horrendous defensive player?

I certainly don't value hitting/pitching coaches quite to the level of some here, but Menechino may see something within Mazara that he thinks he can change as well. Menechino has had a positive effect on a few hitters in his career.

There are certainly valid reasons to be upset and concerned by this deal. Cons: The White Sox have not shown a very good ability of scouting big league players; identifying ones that would respond to their philosophies and teachings. In fact, I think MLB scouting is one of the teams weakest departments - MiLB scouting has actually been pretty good, based on their return of minor league players in trades. This would lead you to be concerned that they actually could identify something within Mazara that they could fix to get more out of his tools than he currently is getting out of them. I understand that concern, and I share that concern. I'm taking the believe it when I see it mentality when it comes to Mazara. Pros: Steele Walker is just a guy; his power didn't play up in A+ and it certainly won't play up at AA. There's a very real chance that by this time next year, Walker is a worthless asset. The Sox currently have, possibly, 3 guys ahead of him in their organization (Adolfo, Rutherford, Basebe). You could even make the argument that Luis Gonzalez is ahead of him. Everyone knew the White Sox had a plethora of OF assets - none of which took the necessary step forward last year, leaving us to trust the Sox evaluation on those players but as I said above, I trust their MiLB valuations more than their MLB ones. There's also no doubt that Mazara has big time tools; always has. Can he get more out of those tools is the question. It's a fair gamble for 5.7 million. He's going to be the teams 6-7 hitter. In general, this is a low risk move with a potential big reward. It really shouldn't take you out of anything else that would have been a home run move for the organization. Mazara has seen his hard hit % and .iso steadily climb over the past few years. He's going to be 25 years old; most guys are just arriving to the show, so to use his 4 years of MLB results against him has never made sense to me. He has been developing in the big leagues while guys like Walker were playing college baseball. Just because you are in the minors or in college does not mean that you are going to develop more than a player that is already in the big leagues. In fact, I'd argue the opposite.

Pretty sure they didnt trade for him with the expectation that he'll continue to be a 1 WAR player.

Fair enough. I know you and CWS were really high on Walker so I understand your frustrations.

His hard hit % has gone up significantly every year for the past 4 years. Results havent been there yet, but theres certainly been some underlying improvements.

Said yesterday the one thing this team has been missing in this rebuild is a diamond in the ruff. Theyve swung and missed so far, but if the white sox internal valuations on walker was that he was the 4th best RF prospect they had, and they see something they thing they can get out of mazara then you make this trade everytime. As long as they continue to acquire pieces and spend some more money, this is fine.

Oh my. Come on man. Castellanos is one of the worst defensive outfielders in recent history. Mazara is an average to slightly below average fielder. These two are nothing alike.