Chick Mercedes

He's beginning to sound like the pitcher's Walt Hriniak.

Go’ be like Hoyt Dotson Bannister and Burns up in here!

Pretty much. Money finds it’s way onto the field

If he has lost a step, relegated to corner with all the muscle added, and now he is incapable of CF, that could be one added reason to get gigged.

This is unrelated as a comparison, but similar in a way. Way back in the last century, Bally’s had a ridiculous gym membership offer for $7 a month which I gladly signed up for but never used. A great deal, for Bally’s. Which is the thinking. Few people really use their gym membership lol. May as well offer it for $3 a month. Free money. Which is also similar to life insurance. People buy it, but most eventually stop paying for it somewhere along the line. So the insurance company doesn’t have a bunch of people that actually cash in. Free money. But anyway TA will be best served if they don’t drive a hard bargain on price to drive buyers out of the market. Even if they offer it for a dollar a month to as many people as possible. Its not like it increases their overhead to give out more subscriptions. A very lucrative move. A dollar a month.

Before you start with general “concern”, it would be best to point out specific core players to be worried about that have been noticed in order to have productive discussion around this. Otherwise, general concern is not very convincing. Which core players are you projecting to have issues? I have seen more reasons for optimism around core players personally than concerns. If batting averages for this guy or that guy have shook anyone, rest assured batting average in Cactus League are completely worthless for more or less proven players. And the core pitching looks amazing. I can’t believe Lance Lynn is something to worry about if he walked a few guys in Arizona. The Sox are probably vulnerable to good right handers. But other than that.....don’t have an average day against these guys. They will hit right handed pitching.

I'm on a Bears and Bulls mesage board for I'm sure about 15 years. And for those 15 years they have made a big deal about preseason on both boards 15 times. And if the preseason ever has matched the reg season, it hasn't happened much. But they return year after year with the same correlation talk.

If he can play 3rd, it would be a tough call to choose.

they’ll heat up no worries.

https://mobile.twitter.com/CST_soxvan/status/1368619690663178240

https://mobile.twitter.com/BuzzOnTap/status/1368198388181835778

Look here, TA can barely hold in the resentment

He may have got the narrative from Getz who said the goal is to get him in the pros and see where he ends up in 2021. So that’s completely in line with expectations if all goes well at his age.

I miss the days where nobody would have been surprised at this . I remember going to games where if there weren’t fights by groups of drunk adults, that might have been odd . Good times. But I was a kid then enjoying the chaos. Disco demolition era, even prior. Hating on the Cubs with their school kid crowds chanting “We want a hit!”

The Sox are a collection of supremely confident people up and down the lineup. Nick would fit right in with Eloy saying he’ll be the MVP and calling Robert Mike Trout. Moncada making music videos. TA declaring himself the best SS in the league. I’m guessing they aren’t near this petty to have any issues. Moreover they like to have fun. The comment was crazy, reacting to it like this was very natural from a tight group.

Yoelqui looks good in camp according to Getz. But this was an interesting quote fwiw: So what lies ahead for Cespedes in the immediate future? It will be proving himself at a yet-to-be-determined minor league level to open the season. “The hope is to get him to a full-season club, hopefully get him off to a nice start and see where it ends up in 2021,” Getz said. https://www.radio.com/670thescore/sports/chicago-white-sox/yoelqui-cespedes-on-a-mission-in-white-sox-camp

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/coronavirus/white-sox-fans-drink-the-most-of-any-mlb-fan-base-study-shows/2453770/

^^^^ Well I had no problem with people looking at him as a possible Paul Goldschmidt type of potential (if you wanted to look at other right handed first basemen), but again, we're talking about a much smaller player than Paul Goldschmidt. Vaighn has some proving to do at his size. Definately optimistic, but again, I wouldn't want to be too ready to hand out big rookie deals to players that don't fit classic physical profiles. That's where the line should be drawn, and more of a wait/see approach is used. I get the year of service issues. But there is less given upside than with some other players the Sox have done like this.

Agree, and the Sox haven't had the best of records on second basemen recent decades. I'm pretty confident about Madrigal being a team glue guy that may captain the team some day, and play D. But he doesn't seem like a can't miss in terms of being worth a big up front deal in an era that doesn't emphasise batting average. Like, I'm not sure he becomes a mega contract guy on his next deal if the team just let it play out.

The biggest concerns I could come up with were his size and right handed status affecting his range at first, and also why didn’t he rake in the minors. Otherwise his floor seems to be an above average first baseman/DH, upside indeterminate. Anywhere from Greg Walker to Encarnacion?

Just realizing how vulnerable the catching is this year. Love to get a look at that Cuban SS this spring. But I guess that is premature.

Delicious

Fair enough

Hmm. IIRC, I think most AL playoffs teams had 2 or more main starters with ERAs 4 or above. I'll have to go dig for stats. But with the Sox bullpen, I'm pretty optimistic about them shutting teams down after 5, pitching with leads due to the lineup, and more likely than not of not being being overused. There are a lot of arms.

if all Cease did was to maintain what he did last season, then that alone would be amazing for a 4th starter which might be enough for a WS run if the big 3 do their jobs. Hell, Cease could regress slightly and they'd still be ok. Team goes WAAY over the top if Rodon or somebody else is just league wide average as a 5th starter.