Balta1701

But then he changed the rules. Teams use that second year to spread out the impact and increase the chances of them getting something of value out of the guy. You know that. He will get more than $25 million total rather than a single season amount.

They shouldn't be rewarded with extra draft picks for choosing the latter.

Dude, Clevinger's fastball in 2019-2020 was 95.4 and 95.1. Last year it was 93.6, and some got classified as a sinker coming in at 93.2 (maybe a different pitch, maybe the slower of his fastballs confused the computer). Now it might recover being a full 2 years post TJS, but a 1.5 mph fastball dropoff is pretty clearly a down peripheral. Also worth noting that he had the best BABIP of his career, despite the highest FB rate and highest exit velocity given up of his career. Also notable - that high FB rate and high Exit Velocity did translate to more HR, but he still probably got an assist from Petco as well. Again, I won't suggest that "oh he is doomed", because a full extra offseason post TJS can certainly be huge for a guy and all of these things may well improve next year, but these are pretty clear.

I could actually believe this. Kepler + Wong + 1 more backup outfielder brings them to about the payroll they had last year, give or take how you count Pollock's buyout.

I would definitely bet that Quintana gets a contract with a total worth more than $25 million.

And if White Sox fans don't believe the same thing, they don't belong as fans of that team.

Because after all, Rick Hahn has done such an excellent job that there would be an angry crowd of reporters and fans demanding answers if he was fired. Clearly they need more reasons to do this.

Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, Giants, Cubs, Phillies. Maybe Angels. Not sure about what Boston is even doing. Rangers would have but they already signed 2 IF. Probably a surprise team or two. Doubt there would be a big return, but that’s a gamble worth taking if you can afford a competitive payroll. The upside is still an MVP caliber player.

Go for the gusto. A trade that 90% of people here are enthused about that somehow turns into an absolute disaster once hindsight is available.

Having to listen to all the Jesus ads on the radio last year was the one advertising related thing that genuinely got on my nerves and was unpleasant. I generally have less of a problem with most of the other ads you mention, but I do feel like highlighting this one for reasons:

You've got Boyd having made 27 starts since 2019, Clevinger has 30. You've got Boyd's 4.66 career FIP noted on there but you didn't note that Clevinger's was 4.98 last year and he's projected for 4.57 next year compared to a 4.20 FIP projected for Boyd. They probably also are looking at Boyd's solid bullpen performance last year while they're at it and thinking that could be an option for them as well. This is way closer than "Nuts", the projection setups literally say "Clevinger will pitch 25 more innings next year but Boyd will be more effective per inning so they're both 1.2-1.3 WAR pitchers". Which of those projections is nuts?

Felt like digging into this a bit more today. Robert gets 445 PAs and a .793 OPS. That's about exactly where his offense was before playing through the wrist injury dragged him down. So, this is projecting that he is healthy for a much larger portion of the season, although not the full year. Also, about 1/3 of his value comes from his defense, but his defense last year was a negative for him due to a big dropoff in his range after the hip injury, so this is projecting a return to positive defense from him. If that's not the case, then that puts a ceiling on his ability to perform of something like 3-4 WAR if fully healthy. He's got to get defensive value back if he is going to be a 5 WAR/All Star level player, or he's got to hit better than he did pre-injury last year. Grandal is projected for a .750 OPS and 435 PAs. That's really optimistic based on his .570 OPS and 376 PAs last year, he hasn't had 400+ PAs in a year since Milwaukee. Zavala gets a .630 OPS projection. So maybe the real catcher's spot is Grandal gets fewer PAs than that, but Zavala has a little bit better performance with the bat. Moncada .742 OPS, 540 plate appearances. Compared to the .626 OPS last year that's a big improvement, but only gets him up to 2 WAR. Eloy, 445 PAs with a .808 OPS. That's kinda splitting 2021 and 2022 on offense, but you definitely hope he can outhit that if he stays healthy. He only had 327 PAs last year, so they have projected better health but not a big boost on offense. Vaughn is projected as an average defender, Eloy shows up as far more negative on defense so presumably they have him spending time in LF. Vaughn comes in at a .818 OPS with the team leading 593 PAs. Average defense, a solid OPS, and plays the whole year only gets you 2 WAR out of 1b though. Sosa is a 1 WAR player with a .662 OPS. Slightly positive defense. Anderson 476 PAs, .756 OPS. 351 and .734 for him last year, so projecting better health and better offense. Colas with a .685 OPS. On the pitching side, Cease is a 3.6 WAR pitcher, he definitely can outdo that but the projection systems are always going to be conservative after breakout years. Lynn is throwing 131 innings with an ERA of 3.9. Both slightly better than last year. Joe Kelly has a 3.72 ERA. Crochet is listed with 48 innings. Lopez with a 4.16 ERA. So ZiPS likes Kelly better than Lopez, lol. Giolito throws 160 innings with a 3.9 ERA. Kopech throws 110 innings with a 4.24 ERA. Clevinger, 114 innings with a 4.58 ERA. Overall, this is a projection that says "In general the White Sox who are here will be mostly healthier than last year and will perform better overall, and that takes them to bein a .500 team again." You can see a path to them being better than this. Robert's defense is better, Moncada's offense is a little better, Colas hits better than that. Kopech, Clevinger, Cease, Lynn all have upside in the rotation if they stay healthy. Add in an extra 2-WAR outfielder for help somewhere. There's a path here to 90 wins, but it's very much an "Everything goes right" path. They've generally projected better health and better performance from almost the entire lineup already, so there's not a ton of room for guys to dramatically outperform that. There is room for the rotation to dramatically outperform that, but it requires exceptional health from the starters, you can't have Cease get hurt. Everyone stays healthier in the lineup, the rotation performs better than these projections - that's a path to nearly 40 WAR and about 90 wins, which should put them competitive for the playoffs. A path to below 80 wins? Almost everyone in the lineup is already projected to be healthier and better than last year. They just have to do what they did last year and they're well below .500. Looking at this, I'm not sure this team has a path to 100 wins. You need a ROY type season from Colas, an MVP type season from Vaughn, huge seasons from guys in the rotation, Moncada to find his 2019 form or something like that.

the only defensive upgrade there is Colas compared to Sheets. Eloy was awful out in LF last year and is likely to miss substantial time with injury if he's out there again, if that's an upgrade over Vaughn it's a laughable one. Grossman was actually worse in the OF last year than Pollock and hasn't played CF in years. That's a pretty terrible OF on paper.

I'll bet the White Sox fully stand pat. Maybe a minor league signing, that wouldn't count.

"Very questionable" is too harsh here. If the White Sox were actually serious about contending and were in a big city like Philadelphia, the right answer would be to be in play for Rodon or Verlander as they actually are guys who could put the White Sox over the top with a strong rotation. But when it comes down to Cueto vs. Clevinger, it's really close. Both have had a series of injury issues, Cueto's 2022 was his first 150 inning outing since 2016. Clevinger, as you note, has had 2 TJS. However, Clevinger's surgery was now 24 months ago, and guys do tend to recover from that surgery more when they get a full offseason workout. Whatever full strength is for him, he's probably at it next year. Cueto, having thrown 158 innings last year and clearly tired out at the end of the year, has a decent chance of coming back stronger next year, and his current pitching approach might be one that is sustainable for several more years since he's not trying to blow anyone away any more. If you were putting odds on which might have a better season, it might be 50-50, it might be 60/40, but this isn't an open and shut case either way. If they were the same age you'd say Cueto since he had a better year and threw more innings last year, but Cueto will also be 37 next year.

When is the last time the White Sox claimed and kept a player in the big league portion of the rule 5 draft?

damn that would be a perfect move for them.

Clearly that's not what people said. A person literally said that the only way Abreu performs better than Vaughn next year is is if Abreu takes steroids. While I'm not going to rule anything out as impossible, Vaughn has a helluva long way to go to even get close to Abreu's performance last year.

If he could keep the same extra patient approach at the plate while also getting away from the "hit the ball on the ground at all costs" philosophy of Chicago so that a few of his home runs came back, he's basically a 5 win 1b. If he avoids injury, he's at a place with coaches who have a history of pushing players in that direction.

While "Mental stuff" doesn't factor into this, for left handed hitters over several years, the Rate is basically comparable to Yankee Stadium in terms of how easy it is to hit home runs.

As the person who got told how awesome Kimbrel's option was all of last season and outraged people when I called him an average at best reliever, I promise you that plenty of people thought that was a spectacular idea.

In terms of WAR, a league average starter will produce about 2 WAR (https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/). If you had 9 average starters (18 WAR), 5 average pitchers (10 WAR), an average bullpen (4 WAR), and a little on your bench, you wind up with low 30s in terms of WAR for the team that that sets you up to be about a .500 ballclub. Last year Benintendi produced 2.8, slightly above average. The year before that 1.7, slightly below average for a starter. His projected number for next year is in-between those at 2.3, essentially an average starter.

I mean, the analytics coordinator was Shelly Duncan, who got the job because he was the son of LaRussa's longtime pitching coach. So yes, if they want anything valuable out of that department, yes they do have to clean some people out.

No, I think they trade for an OF with a slightly lower salary than Conforto or Benintendi will command. Gallo doesn't hit enough singles for our Gm.