CaliSoxFanViaSWside

No it's the majority of people disappointed with the process so far and expressing it. Nothing wrong with that. Just look at the poll if you don't believe me.

I don't think they are trying to shove Vaughn and Sheets into RF. Despite me voting no on both questions in the poll. Neither Vaughn nor Sheets in RF is any kind of solution. Tons of DH AB between them sure. I am hoping a couple of trades are coming and the 1st one needs to be Kimbrel. If that domino falls there's more hope for another one.

They couldn't make that strategy work even in the rebuild. All they did was sign a bunch of big HR potential slugs who couldn't field a lick . Follow the Dodgers lead on that . Find guys who can field with big enough bodies who can be tweaked to upgrade their hitting. Scouting and development failures all over the place in the organization and they didn't bother to try to fix them at the beginning of the rebuild because it was the same guys running the show that let them slip into that abyss in the 1st place.It probablt wasnt until the 2nd or 3rd year of the rebuild that we saw some improvements.

You expected it to kill tanking ? When you raise the CBT that just allows high spending teams to spend even more. The low budget teams feel even farther away from competing with them. If anything it encourages tanking without a cap floor.

Not really when you consider the lack of HR's due to injury. HR's usually are harder hit balls. If the Sox power hitters can remain relatively healthy the high OBP can translate into more runs if the BABIP goes down. Madrigal also probably didn't have a very good hard hit rate but a pretty good BABIP. Robert and Eloy at their best hit the ball pretty hard. Eloy still needs to elevate more though. Only 6 White Sox qualified to be listed in the Hard Hit Rate percentages., Grandal, Abreu, Vaughn, Anderson Moncada and Leury .League average is 39.3 . Among those 6 only Leury was below it at 32.6. When I unhide the non qualifiers the below league average guys are Engel, Eaton, Zavala, Williams, Goodwin , Mercedes, Mendick, Hernandez, Madrigal, Hamilton. Along with Leury all those guys had 2236 Plate appearances and most of them are gone. The guys above league average account for 3,824 Plate appearances from 13 position players and the only one gone from that list is Jake Lamb. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/2021-batting.shtml#all_players_advanced_batting See for yourself. Edit :I just looked it up. I was right about Madrigal a paltry 23.4 hard hit rate but a .324 BABIP

Kimbrel on his best days couldn't have made up for the fatigue in Rodon's arm and the Lynn, Gio, Cease implosions in the playoffs. Kopech, Bummer and Hendriks didn't exactly light the world on fire either in the playoffs

I saw that a minute after I posted it

Yeah I love Winker LH bat but only this yr and next before FA and a woeful fielder . Lets see what they gave up. Youth I would assume. Kelenic ? Edit: Obviously I was a tad behind in my reading before I posted this and have since caught up. A steal of a deal and I agree with how embarrassing the Reds are.

We can trade him if we trade Kimbrel 1st and sign Conforto but I would feel much better keeping Sheets just like I'd feel better keeping Vaughn . The other LH power bats are Grandal and Moncada . Grandal is getting up there and injured often and Moncada had a paltry .412 SLG. % after spending almost the whole year below .400. It would be great if he can find the balance between putting his good eye to use by picking out some pitches to hit HR's . Grandal does it and Sheets did it in a small sample.

Anderson, Robert Abreu and Sheets all did well but Sheet was the only one to have an extra base hit out of those 4 and he had a double and a HR . The only other HR 's were by Leury and Grandal. The only other doubles were by Leury and Vaughn. But we all know that the playoff pitching was the bigger culprit. I did not know Hahn said the Sox didn't need to spend in FA on a RF. Perhaps you can provide me with that info. I thought he said something like we are confident in the players we have.

White Sox hitting and Ranking in the AL OPS+ 4th OPS 4th SLG. 6th OBP 2nd. BABIP 1st Batting average 4th BB% 2nd SO% 10th which is a good thing the lower you're ranked the less you K. HR% 12th .....Bad. obviously hurt by the losses of Eloy , Robert and Grandal for extended periods and Moncada being under .400 slugging for much of the year and finishing at .412 HardH% Hard hit rate. Percentage of balls with exit velo. at 95 MPH + 7th Given all the injuries the Sox were a pretty good offensive team but the lack of HR's hurt us in some power categories but team batting average, BABIP, BB% and OPS were all really good which kept us well above league average in over all offense.

The longer it takes the higher it goes even with a bunch of guys unsigned. Most of them are RH and no strong connection to the Sox reported yet.

Monday Monday. Can't trust that day.

If you assume the veteran relievers are more likely to be better than the group of young arms from last year. There's improvement in the pen. The starting pitching takes a big hit with Rodon gone and instead of Keuchel coming off a very good year he's coming off a crap year. The Cease improvement last year is a plus. Lynn is older and how well Kopech does in a limited starting role is anybody's guess. Giolito seems to be worthy of being a solid high end constant. Starting pitching worse. Since Eloy was hurt in ST and spring training has yet to start so a healthy Eloy finally getting in a full season could be a massive upgrade. Let's say Moncada is the equivalent of Giolito in his role so status quo there. Abreu is older. Harrison providing as much as Madrigal did in his short stint before injury seems unlikely but call it a wash or a negative. Robert could potentially reach superstar status if he can avoid injury . Looking forward to Vaughns 2nd year and also Sheets but no idea how they use them both but the chance of a very nice upgrade there. Grandal older . Uncertainty in RF and lack of so far addressing the need for LH power is a major drawback I'd give the offense a slight upgrade with the chance of it getting much better. Defense looking the same . Overall payroll higher but I'd say we have the potential to be much better but as it stands right now maybe even a slight downgrade from last year because it's really hard to replace Rodon's production ,Keuchel coming off a bad year and Lynn aging and the uncertainty of an improvement in LH power.

It's necessary to get around. A team bus crash can do the same thing to a lot of players at once. But driving a car is not considered a hobby or dangerous extracurricular activity.

If that's a serious question then yes especially one with his tools that @hi8is was so gracious to supply. He'll get all the time he needs to put those tools to good use and make adjustments accordingly. Plus he will continue to play baseball on a regular basis and adjust to the states at a young age unlike guys like Cespedes , Yolbert Sanchez and Colas.

LOI thought it was Ichiro, ok I stand corrected.

I think a lot of FA signing correlate with others. One less LH OF on the market. He got $70M and 5 years without any MLB experience. Boras knows all these things and that's why he waits on his high priced clients. He let's the market dry up for the skillset he is selling and adjusts accordingly.

Conforto's price just got higher if true. LOl damn it why do I keep clicking on the Suzuki signing tweet and then I get the Passan tweet when I post it ?

crap quoted the wrong tweet.

For a team lacking in LH power and doing nothing to address that situation so far Gavin becomes more and more important every day and unfortunate as it may be it's going to come at Vaughns expense. No one is saying he is the second coming but for the White Sox playoff games Gavin had the most total bases with the 8th amount of plate appearances. It wasn't Eloy , Vaughn, Moncada, Grandal or Robert. He did well in a pressure situation that is something that Palka never did . Large amounts of Total bases coming from doubles and HR's in a high pressure situation is what drives winners through the playoffs. You can continue to minimalize the importance of LH power and Gavin Sheets or you can hope he gets enough AB's at DH to prove he is as capable as he showed last year. I choose the latter without thinking he is the 2nd coming but through careful analysis that the article I linked showed.

Maybe $3M is their lucky number. Isn't that what Rodon signed for ?

https://art19.com/shows/white-sox-podcast Liam on why the Sox will be one the most hated team in baseball

9 minutes on Liam last night on the MLB Network https://www.mlb.com/video/liam-hendriks-on-ramping-up-2022

Despite the results so far on the RF situation and me being one of the biggest skeptics I'd like to re-emphasize the importance of more LHP power added to the lineup. Guess who led the Sox in total bases in the playoffs despite being 8th in plate appearances ? None other than Gavin Sheets. This a dude who had none of the hype of Moncada, Robert, Jimenez, Abreu ,Vaughn and really wasn't counted on to provide much of anything during a competitive window since his path to the lineup and remaining in the lineup or even on the team is questionable. This is exactly why the Sox need to get more LH, in all aspects of the lineup and power.