CaliSoxFanViaSWside

We'll have to see about 25% capacity. Covid is just getting worse and worse. People routinely ignore precautions . I don't usually watch TMZ but I left the TV on after a football game and watch reports and film footage of people partying in a strip club with a rapper throwing around his money with people jam packed together and one person with a mask on. I know this isn't typical behavior but it is illuminating that people can be so stupid. Party and looking pretty vs your health and the health of others ? Let's party !

For sure. I keep pointing out Covid is as big an obstacle as Sox management to screw up a good thing. Throw in the possibility of a prolonged player strike while hopefully coming out of Covid and that gets you another screwed up season.

But he is also not the guy I want to be giving $20M per year . I have said it before but the Sox don't usually operate in that arena so I don't see them doing it in the current financial atmosphere especially not to a 35yr old to play a competent RF. Please please stay away from mid 30's players.

That has been my criticisms I mentioned in past posts about not doing everything they should have been doing during a rebuild.

This is where I agree and want to prioritize Bauer and fill in around him. 1 max contract hold onto as many prospects as you can.

They do lie if that is the only stat you use. As Harold said players are usually better at home. LeMaheiu is much better in Yankees stadium than away from it. Any stat used in a vacuum can be misleading. If we want to embrace sabermetric stats, then to evaluate hitters you have to look much deeper. Having an accurate opinion should always be based on how much effort you put in your use of the resources available to you.

Thank you. I have given a lot of thought to the questions I asked you and have even tried to do my own research on it but it a difficult thing to research. I have never seen a comprehensive report on the best current MLB players who were signed internationally and for how much they were signed .And I have often thought about the best way for the Sox to approach that market while being somewhat ignorant in my criticisms of that approach. I appreciate your efforts to enlighten us all.

Thank you so much Jimmy ! I think your assessment that the Sox do well seizing opportunities like Abreu and Robert but don't do enough to use their full resources is spot on. The one question I have is in regard to you mentioning that 20% of the top 100 prospects are international signings. What I would like to know is,of that 20% how many were given the top dollar values that the Sox do not do ? How many were signed in the range the Sox tend to spend ? What is your opinion on signing top dollar guys as opposed to accumulating lesser known talent and accumulation of them and trusting that Paddy can identify sleepers ? Is it possible to have a better balance of both types or are the Sox just too opposed philosophically as well as financially to achieving that balance ?

I think we have enough DH candidates and he's RHanded.

I rather the Sox throw everything they can at Bauer and sign no one else and make no trades until after Bauer signs. I don't care about the board freaking out if there is no activity . That should be priority one and make it clear to him how much we want him and plan on winning some World Series with him and would like to sign him asap so we can get on with filling in the rest of the roster. Throwing a shit load of money at Springer is not addressing our priorities.

His splits away from Coors are bad. Throw in that he will be 35 in July and makes close to $20M in 2021 and the years after that are player option years. I rather just pay Bauer $30M /year for 5 years as our 1 big off season acquisition and fill in around him and not dick around giving out 3 or 4 $10M contracts or taking on an aging RF for multiple years.

I feel the same and also throw in Gallo and Pederson

I think trading and taking on salary for a 2nd piece is the least likely scenario of what the Sox will do this off season unless it is a pure salary dump where the other team pays a good portion of whats owed and we give up a minimal amount of players/prospects. The pieces are just too old for the most part. The Sox rarely do that in other seasons. If someone can remember any trade like that please enlighten me. It's even less likely in a year where teams are claiming huge losses.

Please remember there are many that just read posts without commenting to just get viewpoints like yours. I am always interested in learning about how a GM may look at value. There would be a lot more trades if there wasn't disagreement over value so don't get discouraged that people argue with you using their own value. I suppose that 's how 2 GM's go at it when discussing a trade.

Maybe it's 70/30 he gets non tendered since he did finish the season healthy. The problem is he never stays healthy for long and dumping his salary seems pretty important . At this point in time he's not worth what he would get. That's a pretty good sign someone will get non-tendered especially with teams claiming heavy financial losses due to Covid. Rodon is due to make around $4.5M and Mazara about $1M more than that so between the 2 that's $10M .

You are a very forgiving person lol. I actually can condemn them for trying even if it actually worked out in our favor not signing Machado. When you never sign free agents to lucrative, long term contracts you most likely aren't going to be very good at it . Remember the biggest contract in Sox history was Abreu's $68M contract at that time. The Sox thought they were smarter than all the other teams that had been signing players to long term deals over the years that the Sox never did. I already gave my reasons for them sucking at sucking and only time will tell if any of the draft picks picked during the rebuild will be as good as many think they will be. It's not a given Madrigal, Vaughn and Crochet are elite just as it's not a given the Sox will make the playoffs every year. I take nothing for granted. The teams that make playoffs year after year take advantage of every opportunity to acquire youth and already we have no idea how much actual talent is left on the farm or when it will get a chance to play. Not confident that Kelley will be as good as Cease in 2 years . He will only be 21 so that's a pretty big jump from HS to a rookie in MLB especially if Covid persists in robbing prospects of games. It's odd I keep bringing Covid up and you keep acting like it doesn't exist. There's also that whole CBA thing to tackle which will be a dogfight between owners and players.

I am slightly psychotic when it comes to the Sox. I will almost always stick up for the young players when others bad mouth them. I always think they can be fixed when things go sour. I am very empathetic to a young person's struggles trying to adjust to being among the best of the best . It's so easy to claim someone sucks and to even find valid reasons to think so. But I have to throw that old tired cliche out there about development not being linear. However, there does come a time while waiting for the popcorn to pop that the fly's are all over your pie. Since development isn't linear there is no telling how long some of the pitchers you mentioned will take to contribute great years during the window of opportunity . Most of them can't even get the opportunity to pitch meaningful innings yet because of the pandemic. When it comes down to it ,the Pandemic could affect the Sox chances more then anything else because it's screwing with key developmental time not to mention how it affects Moncada and anyone else who catches it. I also do not possess the same empathy for the owner or front office that I do for the youngsters.

And that's my philosophy upgrade but always keep the future in mind. But what did the Sox do in their pursuit of Machado while, mind you, rebuilding ? They signed, Alonso, Jay and Kelvin Herrera, wasted a bunch of money on stiffs with no future instead of what should have been a continuous search for guys with some upside. Yea we had our share of Palka's, Cordell, Tilson, Rondon but you would think every possible resource during a rebuild should be spent combing other teams minor league systems and spending your money in the international draft instead of trading it away . Either they didn't know how to run a rebuild or they had temporary insanity thinking Reinsdorf would pay top dollar for Machado or even worse that some half baked scheme to get him to play with friends and family was more important than Machado's bankbook. And remember it wasn't just Alonso and Jay . How do know they didn't sign his other team mates from the WBC team in order to lure him ? Welington Castillo, Alex Colome and Ivan Nova were all his team mates on the DR 2017 WBC team. This is what I mean by this franchises' penchant for screwing up a good thing . Signing retreads made us just good enough during a rebuild to get a 3 ,4 and 2 11's in the 1st round. The Astro's from 2012-2015 had 3 No. 1's a 2 and a 5 because Brady Aiken who was a 1-1 didn't sign because the Astro's tried to get cute with saving enough money on him to go over slot on some other rounds ,got them Alex Bregman with the 2nd pick and Kyle Tucker with the 5th pick. The Astro's were good at sucking. The White Sox sucked at sucking. If Renteria was so bad why the hell was our highest draft pick during a rebuild a No. 3 ? But anyway I'm glad you think at least some prospects can be traded.

Sometimes you can find valuable things that get thrown away. James McCann , Max Muncy ,plenty of guys, and there will be a lot more on Dec 2nd.

The last fastball Kopech threw for the Sox in spring training was 101 and 6 of 11 pitches were 100+

The Big Red Machine , those Oakland teams, it was a different era . Even cheap owners like Charlie Finley could put a good team together. The only thing I have to go on is the 125 year history of this franchise and when you go that long without making the playoffs in 2 consecutive years and only have 2 championships in over 100 years well I will take another championship any year. Keep dreaming big. I always remain hopeful better days are to come but it is tempered by realistic optimism . It's just too hard too win championship. The Dodgers as much money as they have ,hadn't won one since 1988.

Have you done the math on your expectations ? How long does Keuchel last, or Giolito ? How many years are our core hitters signed for? What if we have already seen Moncada's best year and due to Covid he is never the same player ? What if none of the pitchers you listed becomes a TOR starter ? How does COVID play out in developing pitchers to pitch full seasons? Will the CBA be a major disruption ? If you want to talk upper limits, fine. I want to win the World Series every year in our competitive years starting last year. Reality tells me for a franchise that has never gone to the playoffs in back to back years that having a Cubs type run will be the actual upper limit. You need a lot of luck and a pretty big payroll to keep a core together for your dynasty . Every year you make the playoffs winning the World Series should be the goal. Patience only gets you unfortunate decision making and purposeful lack of a killer instinct with this franchise that constantly puts the team behind the 8 ball. Put your dream behind you and hope we can win 1 World Series in the next 3 years. If you want to talk about a floor I can think of a lot worse.

What a total waste of a rebuilding year that was signing Alonso ($9M ) and Jay ($4M) to lure Machado and signing Kelvin Herrera for 2 years $18M. They could have got some real talent for all that money and that's while I'm not trying to figure out who else they spent money on that off season. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019-mlb-free-agent-tracker/

Last Portillos Tweet he says "reunion" which I take to mean the Sox have had him before which I am pretty sure they haven't. May be mixing Garret Richards up with Clayton Richard. And what happened to ACB as a signature to Al's tweets ? Has he made any tweets with the signature since he said he was going to use the signature ?

Weimaraner