Balta1701

I would say the White Sox do have the pieces to get this guy, but with how barren their organization is it makes little sense to give up that many pieces.

If they were actually moving him they should be able to do better than that elsewhere. Cleveland has 6 top 100 prospects and could use the offense, two of those guys and a decent third piece is well better than that offer. The Dodgers have 7 top 100 prospects and could use a big league outfielder to replace Bellinger, same setup. The Cardinals have 6. The Orioles have 6.

A promising young 4th piece like that helps. Crochet is a worry there though for the Pirates because the White Sox have already burned through two years of service time for him. The Pirates might be more inclined to accept a comparable offer from another team if they’re getting back a second piece with a full 6 years of control. Montgomery, Colas, Crochet, and one of those two guys you note or Vera in their place would seem like a very competitive offer to me.

This is like Montgomery, Colas, Perez, and maybe a 4th piece to be in play for it for the White Sox.

Meaning that’s the goal for him this year?

Even if they’re still thinking of Eloy and Sheets in LF and DH, they still need someone to replace Engel.

If Clevinger were super good, he’d have a 2nd year option at like $19.5 million that he’d potentially take. It would make sense for both sides to use that as a way to get a slightly higher guarantee this year and a slightly lower second year number.

Cleveland’s shortstop was supposed to be available in trades this offseason IIRC, he’s a little close to free agency and they might have had a prospect coming up.

I would say that “they were 3rd in starting pitching WAR in 2021 but don’t look at the 15th place finish in 2022 you can’t see that look together they’re sixth this is working great!” Is the definition of blind adoration. I would say that quoting a tweet to me about how they were projected for the best WAR next year, casually not saying that it was best in the division and should put them 13th or 14th in baseball is pretty blind as some really important context was missing and invisible. I would say that praising their projections on their pitching being in the top half in baseball without noting that the same projection puts them below .500 and in third place in the division is really, really blind adoration.

Highest in the AL Central, for now - not if Gio is moved though. Not highest in baseball. Wonder how it looks in that context? I did. They were second highest in the AL Central last year and 15th in MLB.(Cleveland was 14th). Top half! What an accomplishment, totally worth bragging about as a major success. That’s what we went through the rebuild for, so that at their peak they can find a 36 year old pitcher on the scrap heap and have that be enough to keep them 15th best in baseball. These guys don’t deserve this kind of blind adoration. Especially with where it wound up last year.

That’s great. Where are the replacements for Lynn and Giolito going to come from? Why are they dumpster diving for their 5th starters in 2 supposedly competitive years? If this is the only way to get pitchers, then we need to trade some away for prospects now and rebuild.

They have so many pitchers on the roster that they just had to go dumpster diving for Clevinger. And last year Cueto. So quite clearly they don’t have nearly enough. And again, unless you are ready for a whole dumpster diving rotation, you just unwittingly said they need to trade Cease and made a mistake not trading Giolito. Because when those guys get held, they don’t generate any return, and that’s the only way we are allowed to generate starters since we draft relievers and don’t sign guys internationally. The end result of this next year is obvious. They will have Cease and Kopech in their rotation and will not be willing to spend $80 million a year to fill it out.

I know it’s hard to say anything other than they did great, but Michael Kopech has burned through all of his pre arbitration years and produced 2.7 career fWAR. He was a 1 win pitcher last year by Fangraphs and a 2 win pitcher by B-R. This is a below average starter. If “developing guys acquired through trades is the only way they will acquire pitching, this is simply unacceptable. If they can’t pay for pitching and give up draft picks on relievers then they need to maximize these guys as starters. If a guy isn’t ready to be a starter after the 2020 craziness and injuries, then you burn a minor league option to get the guys body built back up in 2021 so that he is in a much stronger place for 2022. You can’t waste years of control in the bullpen.

I know you won’t answer this like you ignored the point about the draft. If it’s ok that the White Sox have drafted and developed no pitchers, and they have no international signed pitchers, and they aren’t trading away the guys they have for pitchers, and they won’t spend full free agent prices on pitchers, where are they going to get pitchers?

I have good evidence that he cannot stay healthy in the bullpen. But boy, “I won’t spend the kind of money these FA pitchers are getting” and “Yes I drafted a reliever I’m the top 15 picks why do you ask” is one helluva plan. And I guess you forgot Kopech spending 2021 in the bullpen and having to start from scratch in 2022 on stretching his arm out again.

The Sox deserve zero credit for Kopech. He’s not a good starting pitcher right now. They can have credit for developing him when they develop him. If. And here’s the other problem. All of those guys were acquired by trading away guys from the big league squad with 3+ years of control. To be able to keep that as a workable strategy, they now need to trade Cease. If they hold guys longer, that pipeline closes. See Giolito, they needed to trade him after 2020 to make this a workable strategy.

They did that same thing with Lopez this year, both of them are close to the extra year of control but would have to spend some time in the minors to get it. Somehow it’s assuming those guys get sent down for the extra year if it’s close.

Mid July yes, but I believe he had a leg injury and tired out down the stretch. That insane changeup he was sporting to Start the year though, he lost that with the ban.

Don’t forget wasting years of control by sticking guys into the bullpen.

Sounds like a great concept. Tell me again how many guys in the White Sox rotation they either drafted or signed internationally? Cause it better be a lot. Houston has like 6 of those guys.

Click the link. Get the chart to the right setting and move your mouse cursor over the start or month in question and it will report the value for that point.

Grumbles something about this being easy to look up. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/lucas-giolito-608337?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb If you average by month, his fastball velocity was at its highest in July 2021. It was down a little in August-September just as his K rate dropped.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=giolilu01&t=p&year=2022 Baseball Reference Game Logs. click on a game and then click on another game to get it to select all the time in-between.

Pre-all-star, 2022 Giolito: 102 strikeouts in 87 innings. Post all-star 2022 Giolito: 75 strikeouts in 73 innings. 2 straight years his K-rate has dropped in the 2nd half.

He pulled an oblique muscle in the game on opening day and missed most of April. There was discussion in the offseason about him adding a bunch of muscle, so there's been some reasonable speculation that this was a part of his 2022 as well. One of those "too strong, screwed with your flexibility" kinda setups.