CaliSoxFanViaSWside

Ok a quick check of Google found this from a week ago. https://www.si.com/fannation/mlb/fastball/news/mlb-commissioners-office-declares-7-cuban-players-as-international-free-agents The MLB Commissioner's Office has declared seven Cuban players as international free agents, Francys Romero reported Tuesday. Right-handed pitcher Marlon Vega, right-handed pitcher Edelvis Pérez, outfielder Jordan Sánchez, right-handed pitcher Emmanuel Chapman, outfielder Roislandi Bell, outfielder Yoandri Guibert and right-handed pitcher Kevin Mejía are the players who will try to sign with MLB clubs this offseason.

Anyone following up on Marlon Vega ? Seems very talented, Cuban, same agent as Chapelli and he kind of looks like Tiger Woods in that picture.

Yea Istill dont understand why they took Thompson in the trade rather than some flyer on a guy in the DSL. I'm not sure they non tender him if they got him to be a viable 4th OF . But that was under the Hahn regime so perhaps he will be non tendered under Getz.

Still plenty of time for the Bears to blow it.

Some pretty poor tackling on Howell there but they stopped him short of the 1st.

We all remember the Colas and Romy Gonzalez sessions all summer with Mike Tosar. That did not turn out well. https://theathletic.com/4254269/2023/02/27/white-sox-oscar-colas-romy-gonzalez/ Colas was just downright terrible hitting and fielding. He was either incredibly over rated for his 1 year in the minors, which frankly was pretty impressive, but woefully under prepared to face MLB pitching.

I Buy out TA. If he can get $14M or a 3 year contract @$45M+ let him try. Forget about Merrifield and put in Lenyn Sosa either at SS or 2B that saves you a lot, as would trading away Eloy . If Soler doesn't resign with Marlins , sign him for some power at DH. Try your hand at some other LH hitters if anyone bites on Eloy. If you sign 1 big position player make it Bellinger. He should be an interesting follow this off season. Michael A .Taylor isn't a bad option although his OBP sucks. Nice speed and defense, decent pop. I'm not even going to try on SP and RP accept to say if you open up some payroll space and dependent on how much JR decides he's going to spend you could sign one of the better starting pitches in some fantasy scenario that involves signing with an organization like the White Sox. I still have to laugh looking at Andrew Benintendi. Hell Duvall although older would have given you more than Benintendi had you just offered him 2 years. He can't stay healthy but when he's on the field he produces. He's available again .

No need for me to defend myself because you are right. However I guess it's all how you interpret what I meant by signs of life. Sometimes they looked good , sometimes bad. I think a 5 ERA would indicate that. Giolito looked just as bad if not worse after he was traded. Basically after they traded all the pitching I didnt expect much but those guys still might be in consideration for next year be it MLB or minor league contracts since the starting pitching depth is abysmal and I can't imagine them signing an above average FA starting pitcher. I'm guessing Touki will be back since he's eligible for arbitration.

There were also signs of life from Toussaint and Urena. Urena got hosed by a stupid Grilfol decision in one game where he didnt give up a run for 6 innings then Grifol left him in to get beat up and the relief pitching completed the final line of 6 earned runs in 6.1 innings. However Urena is 32 and never was very good but maybe long or short relief next year . His control isn't that good either.

I think a poll is useless. In a specific case like Clevinger or Bauer even true baseball fans do not know the full stories and even accounts of the full story can be grossly inaccurate. Hell I'm reading this thread and have found myself thinking. Hmm I must be way behind on the Bauer stuff. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and making your female fans even more aware of Clevinger while you are still employing him isn't exactly great PR. Hey fans we are employing a guy who you might consider an asshole or worse and we were wondering if you are not attending any games because of this ? Feel free to read whatever you want to form your opinion or just take our word for it that we continue to employ him because MLB decided not to discipline him. Please also feel free to determine if you didnt attend any games due to Tim Anderson or Daryl Boston and any other person employed by the White Sox who may not live up to your standards of conduct .

I kind of like it. However if they are going to go with this kind of playoff format then shorten the season. There's no reason to be playing baseball in late Oct or Nov. These greedy SOB owners are killing the players and especially pitchers arms. I know players are very well compensated but figure that s%*# out . Of course the players union also has no desire to shorten the season either.

How bout that Evan Carter for the Rangers ! 2020 2nd round pick , #50 overall . Had a great 2 games against the Jays and played a very nice LF . Barely 21 years old he went 3 for 4 with two doubles, one homer, three walks, one strikeout, and one hit by pitch in the two-game Wild Card Series. Only two players have reached base more times than Carter through their first two postseason games: Hall of Famers Frank Thomas and Edgar Martinez. Josh Jung was no slouch either. 8th pick in the 2019 draft. He may have won ROY if not for missing 6 weeks with a fractured thumb. Jung 25 after going 0-4 in the 1st game , he went 3 for 4 with 2 doubles and a triple. The big game made Jung the fourth Ranger to register three extra-base hits in a playoff game, and only the sixth rookie in MLB history to do so. Jung bats 8th , Carter 9th.

It's in some people's nature to let their fandom make them think they know more than others and make absolute statements as a show of confidence that their opinions will prevail. The Sox will not loss 90 ! The Sox will not lose 100 ! I think I made 1 comment in this thread and avoiding talking about how many losses the Sox would have. I predicted the collapse of the rebuild a long time ago. I wish I could find the post. But it may have been 3 years or more ago. I knew the clowns in charge couldn't pull it off once Covid happened, then labor unrest , injuries and bad draft choices. Not a single draft choice taken during the rebuild years or international signee helped the Sox except Robert and this in the 100 loss season was his best year. The other years he was injured most of the time or struggling to find his way.

Starting pitching always. If you find gems there they can outperform their contracts by a wider margin the way Rodon did when the Sox signed him for $3M. You scoop up guys like Toussaint and Urena both of whom haven't look terrible and build depth and if they continue to be inconsistent well maybe now you have a BP arm.

Like I said the BUMpen

Bummer try getting ahead in the count

Great Yoan HR gives Urena the chance at a win . Don't let him start the 7th and let the BUMpen get the loss

Grifol better not leave Urena in too long like he did last time. It wouldd've been 2 good outings in a row if he hadnt hung him out to dry his last start

No. Trouble With the Curve. Eastwood, Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake. I meant under rated not unrated movie. From a baseball fan and movie lover I liked it.

At least from my perspective it's that they don't have enough people doing more with their computers. Not enough people, not enough data or sports science info to rely on data to analyze things like bat speed and bath path to make mechanical changes that may help or however teams like the Dodgers did it to change Outman's swing. It would be nice to know if at some point every minor league player went through a process like they do in movies to attach data points on a persons body to get a comprehensive computer image of how their body parts move during hitting , fielding and pitching motions. Motion capture is what I think they call it in the movies when creating digital characters. Then there should be some knowledge that many teams use in order to deal with issues they find using that science. It's more of a development tool. I know some of the advanced baseball teaching academies use those types of motion capture devices to break down, analyze and teach better or more effective ways to swing a bat or deliver a pitch.

Sounds like the movie Trouble With the Curve. Unrated Clint Eastwood movie.

Hmm hard choice watch Bears or Sox on computer . Guess I can have both on and see them both lose.

A good BP for a contender is vitally important and those kind of signings were right up JR's alley. Spend on veteran relief pitching that is normally cheaper than paying for Free Agent starting pitching and position players. Less money per year and less years, But as we all know Relief pitchers can be wildly inconsistent from year to year. The whole time they were just hoping guys like Giolito, Cease and Kopech would become stars. Gio was good for a few years then fell off right as Cease started getting good. Cease couldnt put 2 good years together. Keuchel fell off the table. Lynn got old and bad then suddenly found it again after being traded. Bunches of position players got injured year after year . Grandal got old and injured. Vaughn wasn't an OFer much to the surprise of the fans who all thought he played a decent LF his 1st year but thought Burger playing a much harder position at 3rd couldn't field. Those 1st defensive impressions stick in peoples heads. I got into many arguments with the Vaughn lovers over his defense in the OF. I'd keep telling them he's way too slow and going to get slower. He was just lucky that 1st year that not a lot of balls exposed him but a larger defensive sample size would expose him. Just like I got in many arguments about Burger after he was traded. They neglected any kind of decent LH hitting, holes in the OF and 2nd base while plenty of decent LH OF's got traded to other teams. The farm got weak fast especially in Starting pitching. They had 1st round draft picks that busted during the rebuild Fulmer, Collins, Madrigal traded for Kimbrel. Vaughn not becoming what everyone thought he could be as a hitter. They traded for Nomar Mazara which everyone hated because more people liked Steele Walker than Mazara who I actually thought was a decent change in Sox philosophy in that he was still young enough to get better. But, alas, he didn't and for once continued to stay bad after leaving the Sox. SO every off season since then I look for other young OFers I like. I liked plenty of guys this off season and seasons before that. I wanted Santander from Baltimore. I wanted Varsho before he was traded. This past off season I mention tons of guys the Sox should look into, Nootbar with the Cards, Outman with the Dodgers, Kelenic, Jesus Sanchez with the Marlins some of the Az. OFers since I knew Corbin Carrol would make some of them available. I was the nutjob around Soxtalk who thought unranked Outman was better than the Dodgers prospects in the top 100. I wasn't shy about saying so and took a lot of heat. Now I'm the nutjob who brags too much because he's been right too often which reminds a lot of people how wrong they were. I'm wrong plenty too. I thought Colas could have a decent year this year. As I said I liked the Mazara trade but neither team came out on top in that trade.

There's nothing to look forward to in the immediately future. Jerry still owns the team and Getz is a baby GM with Royals fever. Jerry isn't all of a sudden going to change his ways and give Getz all kinds of money to sign the best scouts and development people and add a bunch of sports science experts and double the amount of people working on the improvement of the kids on the farm. The guys are on their own. Too much complacency among people who work for the Sox in important positions and not enough people in other important positions. Funny how fast the Sox wanted to hire Getz and then the Red Sox let go of Chaim Bloom who would've been perfect for the Sox but Jerry would have never hired him because he'd want a couple million a year.

Whats amazing to me is when I reread the tradewinds thread is that so many people considered Burger a DH or 1st baseman. It just goes to show you how damaging early negative results are. It didn't even matter to people that he had played a decent if not good 3rd base with the Sox. Every little dribbler he couldnt make a play on or every hard hit ball that got by him just reinforced those thoughts . It's why we always have to remember that development isn't linear. There are so many examples of poor hitters and poor fielders getting better that we as fans fall into a trap of thinking players are worthless and overvaluing guys like Eder without checking their full body of work going back as far as you can. Sure Burger has a bad injury history but Ng needed a guy who could hit HR's and probably saw enough and heard enough from her talent evaluators that he could play a serviceable 3rd base and hit the ball really hard when he did hit it. So far with the Marlins that has paid dividends and he's making more contact. How well he holds up and manages to reproduce the results with the Marlins is anyone's guess but so far so good and people keep waiting for the other shoe to drop like with Rodon. The Sox didn't even think Rodon was worth a draft pick and he ended up with a great year with the Giants. Not so much after that . Giants must have sent a thank you gift to Hahn for that. Thanks for helping us out there Rick and Jerry for not costing us a draft pick I'm sure your farm system is overloaded with studs !