Balta1701

There are still different degrees of gambles. I don’t know what will happen if I try to play Colas in RF for 130 games. I know what will happen if I try to play Eloy in LF for 50 games.

If Eloy and Sheets at the corners is like the 4th emergency backup plan that gets deployed once this year, that’s fine. But if Eloys days in the OF as anything more than a fill in who plays there a few games during the year aren’t over, then this hasn’t been a serious attempt at fixing this team.

My worry with Profar is CF. He’s played there 21 games in his career and not last year. I’m imagining Robert spraining a wrist and the White Sox trying to avoid putting him on the IL because they don’t think either Colas or Profar could handle the position for two weeks, which seems like a relevant concern. Concept works other than that big issue?

Benintendi would be starting on the other side. Again; they have 1 OF. They need a starter in LF and a backup who can play some CF and that’s if Colas is the starter for a substantial fraction of the season. If you couldn’t count on Colas, doing Bellinger, Gallo, and Kiermaier is probably $25 million and that alone takes the payroll to nearly $195 million.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/looking-back-at-the-2022-zips-projections/ Overview of how big the misses/hits were last year.

Like it or not, I don't see any way that the White Sox can come up with a "substantial hedge" for this guy, or for 2b for that matter. Right now, they have 1 outfielder on their roster. Any other version of this - Sheets or Eloy in the OF - is worse than counting on Colas as it's almost certain to fail and puts both the pitching and guys playing around them in jeopardy. The only other options are either not big league quality (Payton), utility guys (Leury, Romy), or would only be in the big leagues if we were insistent on playing service time games with Colas and have even bigger issues (Cespedes, Rutherford, Adolfo, not even sure if any of them were released). They clearly have some money left to spend, but they're already at nearly $170 million, more if you count the buyout for Pollock as part of 2023. Just bringing in 1 outfielder is probably going to cost $10 million - Kepler would have cost nearly that, Benintendi would certainly cost more than that on a multi year deal. In reality, just to cover LF and a backup CF you'd probably want to spend nearly $20 million if you did that through free agency, and that's probably more than the White Sox have in their budget. There's just no resources for a substantial hedge here or at 2b. If they try to come up with one, then that leaves their other holes even worse - they'd have to come up with resources by dumping a Hendriks to do so. They might have something creative they can pull off in a trade, but they have so little to trade it's hard to see that being smart either. Are they going to trade for 3 outfielders? The only real way to make this work is to plug one corner OF hole as well as they can, whether through trades or free agency with what they have left, figure out who can be a backup OF that could legitimately play 80 games (no this shouldn't be Leury), and hope for the best in the other OF spot with Colas. If this is an untenable situation, then the White Sox are in an untenable spot. The only other real solution would be to start selling off significant numbers of players and waiving the white flag. Unless they're going to substantially expand payroll next year beyond the $190 million spent in 2022, Colas is basically one of the main OFs for the full season and more than likely Sosa and Romy are going to be major contributors at 2b.

Here's last year's ZiPS projections page. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-zips-projections-chicago-white-sox/ Guys that ZiPS Overshot based on fWAR: Robert, Moncada, Giolito, Grandal, Anderson, the RF mix (Sheets/Vaughn/Engel), the 2b mix (Garcia, Gonzalez, Mendick), Keuchel, Lynn, Kopech (narrowly) Guys that ZiPS Undershot: Cease, Abreu. Guys that ZiPS had disturbing accuracy about: the bullpen, Eloy. I think ZiPS typically undershoots young guys (see its projections on Cleveland), misses guys who have true breakouts like Cease, and has a high variance on guys late in their careers (note the big misses on Grandal and Abreu but in opposite directions, one guy didn't fall off at all, one guy collapsed, ZiPS was sort of inbetween on both). However, it definitely did not undershoot actual WAR for the White Sox, rather it almost entirely did the opposite.

The bullpen last year was above average but not great. This projection actually has it as better than last year. While that is possible, a belief that it is already better than last year has led many people including the one replying to me, to suggest that Hendriks could be tradeable for salary savings. I think that basically removes one of the only 2 arms there I actually believe in. That would take a 6 WAR bullpen down to a 4 WAR bullpen unless someone stepped up - and we get suggestions about how Crochet is going to be back and 100% after only 14 months post TJS or other nearly impossible things like that to explain how the hole will be filled.

All right, so if its the 8th inning, do you have confidence in Joe Kelly? Do you love Joe Kelly, as was promised last year? And Graveman - yeah bullpens are volatile, but for him, in the 2nd half last year he had an ERA over 5 and we still haven't figured out why he was seemingly never available and definitely could not pitch in back to back games. So at the very least, Graveman's kind of half a reliever I believe in for now.

I fully disagree, but I highlighted it for exactly that reason. Do you have confidence in Aaron Bummer and Jimmy Lambert in the 8th inning of a game with the season on the line?

If we're using B-R's version, James McCann who you suggested in an earlier post was a -0.1 rWAR player last year in 174 plate appearances. Even if all that takes is a couple million dollars extra, if you're concerned that Grandal won't be a useful piece, are we so confident in McCann being better that he's worth anything at all to bring in? A guy like McCann could readily be available in May if we wanted, so if we are ok with having a catcher who contributed nothing last year, why not give Grandal a shot first?

Under which counting system did the White Sox have a negative WAR from their catchers' spot last year? According to Fangraphs they were actually slightly above average overall.

Because obviously if Rick Hahn were to quit once, he would quit every job he got every single year.

Plus, there's no other thread where you've said this, so it clearly makes sense to suggest that this is the only time that Reinsdorf has told him to do something he doesn't agree with. Because if you'd been saying this excuse for years about multiple issues, then it would be clear why the GM should have resigned rather than being stuck in a situation where he clearly can't do his job and decisions were made that ruined his reputation.

This deserves a thread. ZiPS projections first round are here. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-zips-projections-chicago-white-sox/ Some fun quotes:

Summarizing a few things from a few separate threads. The median team put up 1.4 fWAR from their catcher's spot last year. Cleveland put up -0.2, Houston put up -0.6. This is not a position where dominance is required to put yourself in playoff contention. Despite Yaz being one of the worst players in baseball, the White Sox put up 1.7 fWAR from that position. This was largely based on a 2 WAR season from Zavala, with an assist from a 1 WAR season by McGuire. The White Sox currently have 3 catchers: Yaz, Zavala, and Perez. That is a guy on his literal last legs, a guy who was slightly above league average last year, and a young guy who still probably needs work. This is at least, on paper, a league average catcher situation. We probably can't count on either Zavala or Grandal to be a 2+ WAR catcher next year, but if either is, then this is easy. Zavala being a league average catcher would mean he could go for 80-100 games and whoever is ready and healthy could take up the rest. He was really quite good with the bat last year, and the problem he had in 2021 where he couldn't block anything behind the plate was much improved. If Grandal is decent next year after an offseason training routine and new coaches, then again this isn't a problem. If Zavala isn't as good next year, then any improvement from Grandal above "being terrible" still balances that out. If Grandal is terrible for the first month+, then he can be an IL or DFA candidate depending on what Perez is doing. He should not be playing heavily if he is that terrible again. Perez is inexperienced but offensively promising. If he can "not be terrible behind the plate", then it is a good thing long term if he can get some plate appearances if and when one of their other catchers gets hurt. You would really like him to catch some big league games this year, even if he struggles. It is not at all difficult to find a 1 WAR catcher. We know this because the White Sox acquired one last year for Collins, then traded that same catcher away for Diekmann (yuck). If all of these plans implode, it should not be a challenge to acquire another catching option in May or June. It wouldn't be a terrible idea to have a 4th catcher stashed at Charlotte, but isn't worth a lot of money.

If they weren't going to play some sort of service time game with him, there was zero reason to leave him in the minor leagues in September of last year.

............ ..... pauses .... And wound up with Keuchel. ....

His exit velocity the last 4 years: 92.0 92.9 (MVP) 92.0 92.2 His launch angle those years: 10.9 10.9 10.4 8.0 Gosh I can’t figure out what he might need to fix to increase his home run rate or why it went down last year.

Roughly the Yankees ninth and twelfth ranked prospects. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/cubs/mlb-trade-deadline-cubs-trade-anthony-rizzo-yankees?amp

You’re gonna love Joe Kelly.

Wong is on a 1 year $10 million deal after the Brewers picked up a contract option. https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/report-brewers-kolten-wong-agree-two-year-18m-contract/sn-amp/

Although his power numbers were down, he was extremely effective at the plate last year since he was more patient. He was a different style of hitter, and that made him not look like the same type of person, but this style might even be more sustainable over the next few years.