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That's Jake Peters. That might be DJ Peters.

Subscribe to mlb.tv for the White Sox only . It's around $94 for the whole season and includes spring training games and hope the Dodgers won't black it out in spring training which they probably do since we are both in LA area. Which is what I just did . If blacked out you can also pay for a good VPN to block the black out or try your luck on a free one. Maybe someone here can recommend a good free one with a shitload of ads or third party involvement. Or if you have a MLB.TV subscription and it is blacked out you can watch it as an archived game 90 minutes after it's conclusion.

Yea the 1919 White Sox has always been a thorn but anyone who usually brings it up probably knows very little about it and that's no knock on them. It was 100 years ago and the courts and police work and baseball has changed so much as has reporting . It's probably impossible to know what was in the players heads or how threatened or underpaid they felt. Jackson was illiterate and perhaps got taken advantage into signing a confession he did not understand. Of course the court acquitted them all but new Commish Landis laid down the law since the Sox were the only team punished for what could 've been widespread game fixing. Too much remains a mystery and it's always been a matter of who you believe at least in Jackson's case. There are some people still out there fighting for him but as time marches on it probably won't matter. He will probably remain banned. Jackson's stats in the 1919 World Series are actually better than his stats from the 1917 World Series that the White Sox won. His last season played was actually 1920, his age 32 season, so he played a full season after the infamous World Series . He batted .386 in 649 PA, .444 OBP 1.033 OPS 172 OPS+. He also set career highs in HR and Total Bases that year. He struck out 14 times and never struck out more than 42 times in a season which he did in the year he hit. 408. https://sabr.org/research/black-sox-scandal-bill-lamb

If you look in the spring training thread Not Steve Cishek is saying a Moncada extension is coming soon.

Since you read the article you can see at one point he was #66 in MLB pipeline rankings. Probably have to assume around 10 pitchers ahead of him so yea at one point he was probably like the 10th best pitching prospect in all of baseball. Edit :Ok just to be more accurate I looked at MLB pipeline rankings for 2018 and saw Dunning at #59 and counted 22 pitchers ahead of him including Kopech and Cease and some other familiar high ranking MiLB and now MLB pitchers. You're welcome whoever emojied me thanks.

That interview is on whitesox.com if you look up the game and click on video. Said it was a mechanical change he made the last month of the season. Didn't hear the quote about top velocity.

if that's from Gameday it's always like that in spring training.

Yea me too I laugh that you can describe a whole nation like one entity. The Bummer move is good and so would be signing another 3WAR worth of players for less than $5M . Both are good value plays.

Pretty soon the best relievers will get $15M a yr. if one hasn't already. Maybe so but every time they lock someone up and they remain good it makes them so much more valuable than just the contract value. They've also had very good luck with the players they have locked up so far so they're working from a surplus. Sooner or later one will go bad but thats not nearly as crippling as a $300M contract going bad. $29M is less than 1 yr of Mookie Betts next contract.

Not true we signed another Tatis later didn't we ? And Andrew Romine.

Well crap . I really wanted Puig.

Actually they kinda both flew through AA together also. Tough hitters park and also no AAA juicy ball either. Mercedes 147 AB .327 BA .389 OBP .487 Slg. .886 OPS Robert 226 AB .314 BA ,362 OBP .518 Slg. .880 OPS

SInce someone got a kick out of my hot take and the article about Yermin came out a few days later , I now have support of my hot take in writing from that article. Of course I knew their number were pretty similar in AAA before I said that . Let’s start with what Mercedes did last season when he was promoted to Triple-A Charlotte and compare him with one of his Knights teammates, the guy who will likely be the big league team's Opening Day center fielder: — Mercedes: .310/.386/.647 in 53 games — Luis Robert: .297/.341/.634 in 47 games

They went for so little it's hard to imagine they weren't easily available. Of course I can't say who wanted them or if the Sox wanted them . No one can do that. They surely weren't overpaid. If there was a 2.8 WAR player in minimal playing time out there who could play every IF and every OF position you could sign for $3.5-$4M plus incentives wouldn't that be great ? Combined that's what they amounted to except they are 2 players instead of 1.

Let's hope so. In my opening post I said it was just a feeling that had been festering and I listed arguments against my own post in fairness to seeing both sides which you quoted . I really wasn't going to make a thread about it because I know it sounds trivial to be wondering about a couple minor upgrades . But when conversation in the Puig thread veered into the same direction I saw I wasn't the only one thinking that way and quotes about Jerry not wanting to spend more money popped up with one of our best insiders here, James Fox , saying he heard the same thing .

Cameron Maybin accumulated 1.6 fWAR in only 82 games and he rebuilt his swing .285BA .364 OBP 127 wRC+ signed with Tigers for $1.5M plus incentives and played all 3 OF positions with the Yankees. Brad Miller had 1.2 fWAR in only 170 PA with a .565 Slg. and 126wRC+. He signed for $2M plus incentives, Both vets with good stats signed for very little . Less combined in base salary than the Sox paid John Jay to do basically nothing all year . They realized time was getting short and took what they could get. This narrative about looking for starting jobs and not wanting to come here because of Madrigal is pretty unlikely . It's too late for these guys to be picky about where they end up and were in no position to expect starting jobs or try to wind up with a contender. Last year combined they had 2.8 fWAR hardly playing at all . Engel's had more chances than he deserved. I like Mendick. He might be a Brad Miller type but that is as uncertain as how Kopech, Cease, Lopez and all the other unproven young players do on the Sox, maybe even more so since his SSS performance surpised a few people. Any time you can add close to 3 fWAR for $3.5M plus incentives you take it when it fills areas of need. It's penny jar money .

New article on Yermin . https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/white-sox/bowling-ball-minor-leaguer-nobodys-talking-about-could-be-white-sox-26th-man

Exactly . Does JR want to win again so he can sell high and present this wonderful accounting picture to a new buyer ? Is he catching up to the rest of baseball in other areas to also give a potential buyer the impression the Sox are also in line with the rest of baseball on the field and in all areas of player development also ?

You misunderstand the point . If you are happy, as we all are, that we came out of the rebuild by spending money, that had to happen eventually. The point is why not make a bigger effort to win ? Why is the payroll stuck at $110M or where ever its at now ? We get fed crumbs . Every year seems like let's see what we have. Lets wait till we see how we do. Let's wait to see what attendance is this year or what the TV ratings are. Oh we should be happy we finally entered the world of biomechanics and finally making an effort in IFA . Hooray White Sox, Feed us just enough to be grateful we aren't starving. Usually in the past when the Sox have made a decent splash in the FA market we get fed stories about increases in season tickets. I haven't seen anything this year about that . Will we get your hopes too high for more payroll if we see better season ticket sales ? Yes things are going well .Maybe we can all be appeased again when the Sox finally spend over $100M on a player. Why does it take the Sox so long to do what other teams have already done? I am excited for the season as I am always. That doesn't mean I should be happy the team is finally coming out of the dark ages. I expect better . When we talk about Mookie Betts why is it always everyone telling us no way ? Your reaction is the kind the Sox like, Yay we still have a payroll below average but we're so happy the rebuild is over that the fleeting thoughts about will they , can they ,finish it off gets vanquished .

And trust me the thought of the 2nd place carrot dangling stuff you wrote about entered my mind. Just didn't mention it since my posts tend to be long I have to edit something. I know that stuff is hearsay so I don't think I ever commented on it before.

Made a new thread for this discussion.

A few days ago I made this Post in the Gorkys Hernandez thread: "If we revisited the thread about payroll expectations this year,aren't we still under the $120M which was the Athletic number ? I'm going to guess more than half the people who posted thought it would be higher. I know it's nitpicking to say I'm unhappy about the lack of late signings but I am. Sure I can understand relying on Mendick and Leury and not trading more prospects but I really think the bullpen could use more help especially a long reliever. Heck you can see what the Red Sox want for Brandon Workman but that seems like a move for a team who is sure they are going to contend or more likely to happen at the deadline if the Red Sox still feel they can contend and it doesn't happen. I can't help but feel they skimped a little on payroll this year not only in order to see how everything looks at the trade deadline but also to prepare for next year, But it just feels like they are in wait and see mode rather than trying to make the playoffs this year. Perhaps too many young pitchers and pitchers in general coming off injuries to push more chips in. Just seems odd that Hahn has talked about how JR reminds him that he isn't getting any younger but we still didn't make a much larger effort to win this year. In my mind I am also drawing a correlation between the current payroll and increased spending in IFA and more developmental aspects of the game such as biomechanics or more high speed cameras. I have no knowledge that we have more high speed cameras now then before but I am seeing cameras in some of the spring training photos behind the pitchers. Maybe this feeling needs its own thread but that's how I feel." Now conversation has cropped up in the Puig thread regarding the lack of late signings though some very helpful pieces have signed elsewhere for relativity cheap. I 've had this feeling for at least a week before I made the post above that no one else was getting a major league contract. Thought the topic deserved it's own thread. So how do we feel about this ?

Looks like a defensive lineman here and there could be something under his shirt because that looks too high up to be a belly.

I don't think anyone is hitting the gas pedal on him. He's just an intriguing guy who just pounded AA and AAA pitching last year . There's really no doubt he is just a DH moving forward and the most likely scenario is he never gets a chance with the Sox .

The Twins didn't value David Ortiz very highly and he became a legend in Boston . That was after 6 seasons and around 1600 AB's in Minnesota, He wasn't a high contact good defense guy like Manager Tom Kelly preferred and some injuries always seemed to come right as he was looking ready to break out and the Twins ended up releasing him after his best season with them because they tried to trade him and found no takers and didn't try to negotiate a contract with him and didn't want to pay him $2M dollars for a DH who couldn't hit lefties. He started his Big Papi glory years with the Red Sox at the age of 27. The next 5 years in a row starting in 2003 he never finished less than 5th in MVP voting. Fellow Dominican Pedro Martinez was always in Ortiz corner.He requested the Red Sox sign him. After Ortiz was frustrated early in his 1st year with the Red Sox and was beefing to the media Pedro got him to keep quiet and asked that he always be in the lineup when he pitched. The rest is history. Just imagine if he was the DH for the White Sox all those years he played for the Red Sox.