TheCommish

If we had the guts, everything would line up for the Sox in the pursuit of Bauer. We are team competing for a Championship for the next 4-5 years for sure. Our new pitching coach is very heavy into analytics. Generally speaking our team does a good job of allowing our players to market themselves and we promote that behavior. Tony LaRussa seems like the type of manager, of any manager in baseball, that would be willing to experiment with allowing a pitcher to pitch every 4th day, at least at some point throughout the season. The problem is we have a fairly cheap owner when it comes to pitching, rightfully so, because not many long term pitching, or hitting for that matter, have worked out for the teams. But this is the perfect place for Bauer based on what he has said he is looking for in a team.

I actually liked the 7 inning double headers, that is a double header that most baseball fans would attend and actually stay for both games. Even if it's a split double header with separate gates, one game is usually so under attended, it doesn't make sense to do it. The same can be said for true double headers. 7 inning double headers, why not stay for both games! I'm not a huge fan of the runner on 2nd, I'd prefer that maybe they do that in the 11th inning. Give each team 2 innings to win, and then go to the quicker ending. If they did that, it probably wouldn't affect more than 10 games a year. DH seems like a foregone conclusion eventually, just make it happen. I liked the expanded playoffs, more teams, means more fun for the fans. This is entertainment, right?

Seager doesn't really fit, though I would take him with Marco... but I'd rather take back Haniger, if he's fully healthy he is an upgrade in RF and Eaton can be our 4th OFer.

Yeah I wouldn't be trading Madrigal for Plesac when we have some very good young pitching prospects already. Also, Heuer is a key in our current bullpen, doesn't make sense to make your bullpen weaker when trying to win. I would be okay sending any combination of Adolfo, Rutherford, Dalquist, Thompson.. pick a hitter and pitcher and I'd do that, but not sacraficing our starting 2B and Major league reliever.

You all remember the catch that Robert missed in CF in the playoffs, right? If he'd had caught that ball we may have won that series. Yes, Madrigal made an error in the first inning that would have prevented 2 runs, and he didn't score when he should have, but he wasn't the only Rookie that affected the outcome of the playoff games. He is a great hitter, how many players hit over .300 in MLB? In the last 3 years there were 8, 10, 9 players in the AL that hit over .300. I feel like Madrigal is almost guaranteed to do that, why is that as valuable as 30 HR? Don't more base hits also create runs?

With Patino out of the mix and potentially Campusano... the depth of the Sox top 10 is better. And we have just as many high ranking guys in Vaughn, Kopech, Madrigal. It's not that far off.

They also played in a division that had 3 teams under .500 and against the AL West that had 4 teams under .500. The Sox played against the Central that sent 7 teams to the playoffs. Come at me with more than that!

Wrong, they do NOT! Gore - legitimate superstar potential - You could argue Kopech has the potential to be a true ACE too, AND Crochet Abrams - looks to be a legitimate prospect. Low power, high average (sounds like Madrigal?) Campusano - again looks to be good, Sox don't really have a match here Hassell, Weathers, Marcano, Lawson compared to Vaughn, Thompson, Kelley, Dalquist, Cespedes No way that the Padres have more talent on the way than the Sox do.

What about the time the Padres traded all of their players for Kimbrel, Upton, etc... within' a year they were rebuilding and lost Trea Turner in the process. They aren't without fail. Yes, these moves look great. But so did Melky Cabrera, David Robertson, etc.... how did that turn out? The Sox have won the offseason before and it didn't amount to much. Snell has issues, he's not a perennial cy young guy. He's absolutely better than they had, or we have, but he's not a guarantee. He hasn't exactly lit up the numbers his entire career. Let's dial back the hostility towards the Sox because other franchises are willing to make moves that maybe we don't have the right capital to make. Maybe Tampa doesn't like Kopech and they wanted Patino instead. It doesn't mean the Sox didn't try or aren't trying. Damn!

Or the White Sox really believe in their young group of pitchers in Kopech, Thompson, Dalquist, Kelley, Crochet... and they believe they know what they have and want 7 years of control with those pitchers, rather than moving those pitchers for 3 years of control. In that sense, maybe the White Sox are the ones looking for 7-8 years of success instead of the Padres that are trading a ton of young talent for 2-3 years of Clevinger and Snell. Padres don't have nearly the offensive talent that the Sox do with Eloy, Robert, Moncada, Vaughn, Madrigal, TA and now that the Padres are moving their young pitching talent, their window is right now, and doesn't look like it can sustain for more than 3 years. Machado is getting older, Hosmer/Myers are already past their prime, so their only offensive talent that is young is Tatis. I'd take the White Sox team as constructed right now over the Padres. 100%. Giolito, Lynn, Keuchel, Kopech, Cease, Crochet WITH OUR OFFENSE over Snell, Darvish, Lamet, Paddack, Gore and their Offense (Machado/Tatis)

Yeah but now that owner, after saying they had crazy money is looking to go on the cheap now. If he had crazy money we wouldn't be talking about Realmuto not signing immediately, the rumor of Wheeler being on the trading block wouldn't have happened. He's not the same owner as a Dodger or Yankees, so it's probably the same type of situation the Sox play with, as do 27 other teams!

I think it's Roadkill

Considering we drafted him as high as we did and players drafted after him were included in the top 100 prospects lists and Crochet wasn't even a mention. Yeah, I'd say he wasn't as highly thought of as he is now that people have seen what he can do. That's what I was saying. If people would have seen what he did, injury free, 102 MPH... he would have been a top 3 pick. We got lucky there wasn't a college season and he didn't get a chance to showcase what he did in the majors.

I'm in total agreement. At what point did we start thinking 3 year contracts for 35 yr old pitchers was good? I would be okay giving him a 1 year extension, but going beyond that is just ridiculous. Giolito is the obvious answer and I have to assume they have approached him already. I think bringing in Katz as the pitching coach should be a plus in Gio's camp. I would think something along the lines of 4/57 with a club option of 25M for 2026. That would be 8/13/16/20... then the team option at 25. That would put him as a FA at 31. The next person I would look at an extension for is Crochet. To be honest he wasn't as highly thought of out of college as he looked at MLB. With his arm injuries, he may be most willing to take a generous offer from the Sox with guaranteed money. Then we wouldn't have to worry about service time. Maybe 7/35, with 2 team option years at 10M, like Albies. Even if Crochet turns out to be a closer, we are looking at paying a closer 3/40 right now, so the 7/35 is well worth it even in that instance.

So I was curious to see what JR would be willing to spend for Championship teams. Let's say we go again to the playoffs this year and go deeper, it looks like we will be competing now for the not to short future for world series titles. He's shown in the past to be top 5 payroll in that instance. 2021 - Currently 118.88 (w/ Eaton/Lynn, buyouts for Herrera,Cishek,Gonzalez) 2022 - Projected 132.05 (picking up Eaton 8.5 - arb - Giolito proj 7.5, Lopez 3.6, Marshall 4.2, Fry/Engle 2.5 - Madrigal, Vaughn, Mendick, Collins, Cease, Kopech, Steiver, Crochet, Kelley, Cordero, Heuer, Foster on rookie salary - Losing Lynn, Leury 2023 - Projected 131.83 (picking up TA 12.5, Keuchel 20 - arb - Giolito proj 12, Cease/Kopech 2.4, Lopez 6.1, Fry 4.2, Cordero/Heuer/Mendick 1.4 - Madrigal, Vaughn, Collins, Steiver, Crochet, Kelley, Foster on rookie salary) - Losing Abreu, Marshall 2024 - Projected 99.13 (picking up TA 14 - arb - Cease/Kopech - 3.6, Mendick/Cordero/Heuer - 2.5, Madrigal/Vaughn/Crochet/Kelley - 2.4, Collins/Steiver/Foster - 1.4 - Kelley on rookie Salary) - Losing Grandal, Giolito, Keuchel, Lopez, Fry 2025 - Projected 109.25 (picking up Moncada 25, Jimenez 16.5, Bummer 7.25 - arb - Cease/Kopech - 6.1, Mendick/Cordero/Heuer - 4.2, Madrigal/Vaughn/Crochet - 3.6, Collins/Steiver/Foster - 2.5, Kelley - 2.4) - Losing TA 2026 - Projected 80.5 (picking up Jimenez 18.5, Robert 20, Bummer 7.5 - arb - Madrigal/Vaughn/Crochet - 6.1, Collins/Steiver/Foster - 4.2, Kelley - 3.6) - Losing Cease, Kopech, Mendick Projected payroll w/ signings: 141.8 2021 - Closer 13M, SP 10M 160.05 2022 - SP 15M (replacing Lynn) - closer from 2021 at 13M - keep Eaton or replace his 8.5 with RF FA 174.83 2023 - Abreu extension - 2 yrs 30M (15M/Yr) - pick up Keuchel 20M or sign new SP 18M - 3 years 176.58 2024 - Giolito Extension 4/76M (15/18/20/23, extension happens this year - C at 18.25 (replace Grandal) - Closer 13M (3/39) 194.5 2025 - Anderson Extension 3/60 (18/20/22) - C at 18.25 176.75 2026 - Moncada Extension 2/53 (25/28) - C at 18.25 142.35 2027 - Jimenez Extension 1/25 (only going through '27) - C at 18.25 (with TA, Moncada, Giolito extensions) Those are cap numbers that should work for the White Sox. I'm not advocating for signing the players I listed above, but at least the Salary comparisons should be met. Abreu comes off the books in 2024 to be replaced by Vaughn. I still project to sign 2 SP to go along with Giolito and our young core of Crochet/Cease/Kopech/Kelley. Kept the closer on the books for 3 years. 2025 would be the year where the salary starts to get to a point where it's out of the White Sox range. It's because i project 18.25 for C, 20 TA, 25 Moncada, 20 Giolito... and picking up Eloy 18.5 and Robert 20. That's a lot of high priced salaries. I've also got a projected 18M for a SP FA signing projected in that number. Remove only that number with the hopes that Kopech/Crochet are filling out the top of the rotation and it's down to a reasonable 176.5. I honestly see no reason that we couldn't honestly afford to grab Bauer at 30M/year - 171 in 2021, 190 in 2022, 204 in 2023, 206 in 2024... it makes sense, because adding a Bauer to this team makes us World Series favorites through 2027!!!! And if we could draft a C or trade for one in the next year or so, we could save 18.25M from 2024 on... bringing that salary with Bauer even closer to where JR would want it! Also remember inflation and that 175M in 2024 is going to look like a small team salary, the norm should be around 200M at that point. So with Bauer, my projections still are within that range! Okay, that's enough looking at numbers!

How about grabbing Hendricks AND Colome? Add Crochet, Bummer and the young guys, that's a solid, world series type of bullpen. That way if you need Hendricks for a big out in the 7th or 8th inning, you've got Bummer/Colome that are experienced to close out the game if needed. That's how playoff baseball works now, we have to build the team for that, not the regular season.

I'm happy for James too, he's earned a payday for sure! He's the kind of team mates that everyone likes to have. But, if I have the opportunity to set my family up for generations with this next contract, I'm not giving a discount because "I like it here". I do hope we sign a legitimate back up C though. I'm okay keeping Collins as the 3rd catcher and actually using him more as the primary back up early, but we need that legitimate major league option in case Collins still can't hit the ball or field it.

The point of this trade is to win now. If we continually look at winning for the long term, then we will continue to push off winning just 1 more year. That's not what championship teams do. They try to win right now, build a culture of winning. That's what this move does. It gives us a decidedly better team in 2021. If we shipped off Kopech that actually has TOR ceiling, then I might not be as happy with the move. Sending a #3 pitcher that you can easily acquire each and every year is a no brainer. I do wish that they could have made this deal last year, and I honestly think we would have been in the ALCS, because I think we would have beat Houston in the ALDS.

Remember 2019 when James McCann was an All-Star... look at his 2nd half numbers. James is a great person, excellent defensive C, works great with Giolito. However, he is not a long term solution as a starting C. If the Mets sign him for 4 years, they will regret it. He's the perfect compliment. He does best when he's playing sparingly, he proved that in 2019. 1st half 2019: .316/.371/.502 2nd half 2019: .226/.281/.413 Having him at C and Calhoun in RF, we would all be saying we need to improve in both of those areas right now. I don't like Grandal's defense behind the plate, which is why I would like to sign Tyler Flowers as a back up, but his bat is good and hopefully with Tony, he won't be smelling the 2,3,4, or 5 spots in the batting order!

Yep.. cause Ozzie Guillen was quite the role model for our youth when he was here. What kid actually remembers the managers of the team. When I was a kid going to games, I watched the players and made them my "idols". Yes, it's not good he has 2 DUI's. It's ridiculous and he shouldn't have been offered the job knowing that he had 2, but to act like he should be fired now because of being a role model for kids... come on!

I'm really not a fan of dealing for Snell. TB is going to require a Chris Archer like deal where they want 2-3 top prospects that are major league ready. I don't think Snell is worth Vaughn and Kopech, which is what they would require. If it was someone along the lines of Chris Sale... established as a dominant pitcher and eating up innings (when we traded him), then I'd be willing. I'd much rather go into the season with an upgrade in RF (Springer, Pederson, Bradley JR), and signing 2 above average pitchers that we can easily throw in the bullpen when our young guys are ready. Quintana, Odorizzi.

Being a reliever is worse for his arm. Unless they have a schedule for him to pitch like he's a starter, I believe it would detrimental to him to have him as a RP in the majors all year. I like the idea of making him a starter in the minors, even if they only let him pitch in 3 games a month or 1 time a week just to ease his innings. Then have him ready for a call up in September or even earlier depending on what the division race looks like. But when we call him up, we need to have a plan. We can't rush him into games... IMO. At least for 2021. Once he has a successful year without major injuries, the gloves come off quite a bit in 2022.

As we transition to Fantrax a couple of things that I see as being potential stumbling blocks with how we ran the league because of using Yahoo, plus there are a quite a few options that are available to the league that make it much more flexible. The waivers, big deal for Racehorse, 102605, and myself to not have to maintain 200 guys on waivers weekly. Pretty much the entire minor leagues were in the database and we can control our own roster. With that being said, there are settings in Fantrax that would allow for their site to monitor our minor league rosters. It would keep anyone from "demoting" a major league player to their minor roster because it would only allow a player to be on your minor roster under 2 circumstances. If they are currently in the Minors (doesn't matter how many major league games they've played, if they are in the minors, they can be on your roster) or they are in the majors but have not reached 130 ab or 50 ip. By letting Fantrax monitor that, none of us have to do weekly audits on rosters to make sure everyone is following the rules. The second concern is the draft. We always said anyone available in Yahoo is eligible to be drafted. Well, the Fantrax database has the next years draft players in the pool, which I think would go against what we want for the 3 round major league expansion draft. But, I also don't want all minor leaguers excluded from this draft because it gives that last place team a chance to grab the best minor leaguer in the database, and then in the minor draft grab the best player that hasn't been drafted. The solution is that Fantrax has a setting that I can set the player pool to only show players that have an MLB affiliation. That would mean any player that has signed with an MLB team, no matter the level would be available in the the draft for us. Then, once the major league draft is over, I can turn that setting off, so that we can draft any player in the database, or frankly still draft whoever you want even if they aren't in the database. We would just put a player on your roster or request fantrax add that player to our database. If you see any other concern or problem that you foresee with the switch to Fantrax, let me know. The awesome thing is Fantrax treats players like Ohtani as 1 player. You can move them from Util to SP without having to add or drop a player. This is a HUGE deal!

24 kept on major roster and you can keep up to your 15 on minors

I listened to Garfiens Soxtalk podcast with their 3 FA Signings they want, they discussed potentially signing Jackie Bradley Jr for RF. I kind of like this idea. He would for sure take a 1 year deal. He would provide GREAT defense in RF and let's be honest we don't NEED huge production out of RF because they will be batting 8th! I'd rather trade defense since we have Eloy in LF. Robert and Bradley patrolling 4/5ths of our OF would be great. I think it takes more than 23M to get Bauer, but I think we should pay WHATEVER it takes, and even over pay if he would be willing to sign a 1 year deal. That way we have no long high contract on a pitcher and if he fails, it's not hurting our salary for 2022 and beyond. I would even go as far as 35M for 2021 and even put a team option of 35M for 2022. That way if he's great, we keep him and pay him a crazy salary and we have a chance to win the WS. No doubt in my mind if we just added Bauer, we would be favorites in the AL Central and potentially WS with our offense.