mac9001

Just bad luck, solid pitches that statically have very high probabilities of being outs/whiffs. Yet both of them had solid contact with low launch angles which means when they left the bat they were likely to be hits even tough the exit velocity were weak. That slider was literarily the last pitch you want to swing at as a hitter. If if had to guess the hit outcome on a pitch like that has to be less than 5%.

The Bummer hate is totally unfounded. The pitch he made to Baez was pretty solid. Painted the shadow of the zone low and away. Baez made relatively weak contact. You throw those same 5 pitches every time and 99% of his ABs will be just fine. Grossman AB was a slider low, out of the zone. It had 50in of vertical break which is about as much as you can get on a slider and 18 of horizontal break. That was a really solid slider that again resulted in weak contact. Throw that pitch 100 times and you'll only have a handful on successful contact events. He made two solid pitches and the hitters just managed to get enough bat to find a hole. It happens, keep making those pitches and he'll be fine.

I will say anyone that worried about the Sox pitching depth should take a look around the division. The Guardiana staff is loaded with finesse unproven arms that are highly susceptible to regression. There's a general lack of pitching depth in the whole division. The Sox are still a major injury or two away from not being front runners, but most of the other teams are one injury away from aspiring to be competitive to competing for last place.

Who's to say you can't use him a middle relief depth? In the event Lopez or VV are holding thing's down he's a veteran option over the weak back end of the bullpen. He wouldn't even need to be fully stretched out.

If/when Vaughn gets traded I think we'll all be equally disappointed in his trade value.

If Cueto costs like $5M I'd totally take him just for the depth.

Honestly if Engel is healthy give me Pollock in left, Engel in right and Eloy DHing.

Ironically the Sox spend a small fortune on the bullpen and somehow dropped from #1 to #2 in the MLB annual bullpen rankings. I will say it's very difficult to rank the Sox with confidence as the range of possibilities for some of the the higher end talents is insanely wide. If you get some elite production from our elite talent the Sox can really pile on the wins. Would they be willing to let Kopech throw 180+ innings if he's just mowing through hitters? Can you get 6+ WAR seasons out of Robert and Moncada? How productive will Abreu be? 2-3 WAR? If you get 12 WAR out of Moncada/Robert the Sox floor likely becomes a top 3 lineup. With a productive Kopech it puts the Sox at potentially 4 pitchers with 4~ WAR aspirations. That's near the top if not the top rotation in baseball. Are we likely to actually have 4 WAR pitchers, probably not. But the fact we have 4 guys with legitimate all star level potential I feel pretty good about the Sox filling out rotation innings.

The Cubs own most of the market value in Chicago. The Sox market value is average at best for a MLB franchise while their stadium and brand value is below average (and probably near the bottom) of MLB franchises. I don't think you can make an argument where the Sox from an overall value perspective would be better off on the south side than Las Vegas.

It means of all the franchises most likely to move the Sox would be relatively high on the list.

Easy to take that perspective after a dude goes under the knife. I would image timing the relative peak value of a prospect is more difficult than timing a peak exit in the stock market. The volatility on prospect value is likely so high I imagine it only takes a few months to gain or lose a significant share of their potential return.

For the record I don't personally support the MLB being granted an antitrust exemption. But you can look no further than what recently when down with the Rams and Chargers and how the NFL was essentially a spectator with no leverage to enforce their desire for both franchises to stay in their respective cities. The MLB has to literally approve a franchise relocation, the other sports league don't face the same level of legally binding restrictions.

Key phrase there is threatened. Without MLB approval his threats were empty. Remove the antitrust exemption and you don't need to negotiate with the MLB. You just pick a city and move.

If a dude comes out at 93-94 on his first ST outing he's doing just fine. If he's still throwing 93 come Apr 10th, then you can be concerned.

There's some very valid reasons you can argue against MLB having an antitrust exemption given their treatment (or financial abuse) of minor leaguers. But in an environment where the MLB would need to collectively bargain with MiLB players it would undoubtedly end with significant contraction of current MiLB teams. It would also likely lead to a significant probability of existing franchises moving cities. Take the White Sox and what has now become one of the oldest, most dated stadiums in baseball. They're a perfect candidate to jump ship for a city like Las Vegas if they're offering a substantial stadium subsidy. In the end as a White Sox fan I would be very concerned about the teams future in an environment with no antitrust exemption. The Sox would instantly become a flight risk and they likely wouldn't be willing to commit the additional financial resources to keep their farm system competitive in the absence of the current highly financial favorable situation MLB enjoys with the current system of minor leagues.

I would have been fine with Rodon at the QO, but we correctly assumed he would likely find enough of a market to surpass the QO. At roughly 44M the risk is almost absurdly high given his health history. I'll take a league avg 2B and RP over Rodon any day.

The overallocation of available capital to the bullpen does look like a poor value strategy. But the risk with paying a premium for a TOR is likely to yield an equally poor value outcome. They can still find decent value for OF ABs, but they needed to fill bodies at 2B and a bullpen role and they did. The White Sox never have a strategy based on aggressively presuming a legitimate title contender. It's always a half assed approach that mainly yields lower risk investments. Since they're not willing to commit the resources to build a legitimate contender these half ass moves will suffice for now.

On Kimbrel, that's probably a fair assessment. His value might be higher once a team is in desperate need of a proven closer and the Sox can wait for the right offer.

While the Sox may be deserving of a last place ranking I love that the system is stacked with a lot of guys that can hit 96, 97, 98 on a gun. There's a lot of young guys with some big arms and if we hit on a few we won't care it was a last place ranked system. The beauty of baseball is a last ranked system with a middle ranked dude like Lambert still somehow finds a way to have a solid 10 year MLB career. We might be last, but for a last place system I feel surprisingly optimistic.

There's one team over $180m and 14 teams under $100m. The players probably say no on principle, but they probably come out on top with a floor that high.

I like the move, but a league average bat is not my definition of an impact bat.

My issue with Hahn and the Sox in general is they always take a half assed approach to going all in. I think the Lynn trade was the type of move you make after you've already added a quality arm. Kimbrel would have been the perfect move (given the cost) once you've added an impact bat. If you're going to give away two quality mlb ready assets like the Sox did then leverage the farm and upgrade everything you can and we absolutely could have found a way to expand the deal to include Bryant. I would prefer when you make moves like this it was part of a larger more aggressive strategy.

Lopez didn't look too bad, somewhat perplexing how he's been so awful in Charlotte.

After thinking this over I think what displeases me the most is giving a take sign on 3-0. I don't give a fuck about unwritten rules, I want my guys trying to win every game by 20 runs. No mercy, no letting up, swing at 3-0 every time.

His primary problem at the plate is making weak contact on bad pitches. He's small and he expands his zone way more than he should. Hopefully his approach matures, he starts looking middle in and actually puts some muscle into the swing. He should take one solid wack each AB before going into slap mode.