Balta1701

The early estimates that Heyman published last week have: Benintendi at 4/$56, so $14 million is accurate there. Rodon at 5/$150, so that is a substantial underestimate.

Well no it really isn't water under the bridge when we have a very weak system and a roster that desperately needs youth and still are holding onto the GM that drafted a middle reliever in the first round and then didn't trade him for a starting piece when he could have. Either way, I still would rather try to make him a starter in the minors than have a 3rd lefty in the bullpen, but yeah I don't expect the White Sox to try that. I do expect to keep hearing how they just don't have that much to spend right now and no one has any idea how that happened.

I do think he was likely to have TJS anyway. I do think it would have been better for the White Sox and for his career if he had started 2021 as a starter in the minor leagues, particularly when his velocity was down from day 1. I also think that if they were certainly going to shoehorn him into a middle relief role from day 1 and never even try him as a starter, they either should have drafted someone else or they should have traded him before 2021 for someone who could give them more value. With the likelihood that he would get hurt factored in, using him as a second lefty out of the bullpen was an extremely high risk, low reward move, as was drafting him and locking him into a middle relief role.

Mendick and Ruiz could both potentially be guys who get arbitration offers. Arb-1 for back end relievers and backup guys is something like $1 million, while a minimum salary guy from the minors makes $720k. It will be somewhat up in the air what happens to those guys until the arbitration offers are out. Personally, I've complained about depth and preparing for injuries enough that I'd probably keep both of them, if Mendick was expected to be recovered this year.

https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/

At the very least, he's under contract with the White Sox on a big league deal. So, until they trade him or Designate him for Assignment, he's on the 26 man roster.

The more likely scenario would be Reinsdorf being willing to put out extra money on the payroll for Abreu to be kept, and that motivates them to move Vaughn.

This is also incorrect. Luis Severino 2015 innings: Yankees: 11 starts, 62 innings Minor leagues: 19 starts, 99.1 innings Total innings: 161. 2016 innings: Yankees: 71 innings, 11 starts, 11 relief appearances Minor Leagues: 13 starts, 80.1 innings Total innings: 151.1

This is actually false. You have to know where to go for Cape Cod League records, but Sale pitched in the Cape Cod League after his 2009 college season was over. He threw 89 innings in college and then in July threw an extra 55 innings in the Cape Cod league, so his total in his 2nd to last college season was 144 innings. The then threw 103 innings in his final college season in 2010, was drafted, threw 10 minor league innings and 23 big league innings for 136.2 innings in 2010. https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/player/146981/ Then, the White Sox put him in the bullpen in 2011, which I might add I opposed at the time, where he only threw 71 innings. Then, in 2012, he was put into the rotation and was dominant. He threw 192 innings but not without issue - he had an arm problem in May where he was put on the IL with elbow soreness and he had to loudly argue against KW after they announced he was being moved to the closer's role full time. Then, despite them giving him extra rest down the stretch (I believe they canceled his offday throwing for the 2nd half of the season), he definitely wore out in the middle of a playoff race (2nd half ERA over 4, WHIP of 1.35), in no small part because they didn't stretch him out in 2011.

Since when does this franchise care?

If you wanted to push this, starting him in May or so in Charlotte and working him for 100-ish innings gives him a shot at being a 130-140 inning pitcher in 2024 in the big leagues. While that doesn't completely fill a rotation spot so you'd need to manage his innings and have appropriate depth, if he was successful in that role those could be some extremely valuable innings and it could set him up to be a full time starter in 2024. However he will not get there if he pitches 50 innings for a big league team with 3 lefties next year, which remains the likeliest scenario.

They came out of that deal saving like $8 million.

Um…good? That’s exactly what they should do at that position? Maybe tell the coaches to go work with them and help them improve?

The White Sox should take this opportunity to reset things with him. Coming back from TJS he isn’t likely to be fully effective or at full strength right away. Burn a minor league option on him and try him as a starter when he is back and able to go, it probably won’t be a full season either way. Try to see if, starting in May or June, he can get 100+ minor league innings on his arm. Giolito and Lynn are both likely free agents (expensive option on Lynn) after 2023 so having Crochet as a possible option to step into the 2024 rotation would be a godsend. I don’t believe they will actually do this, of course.

Also a potentially really important hole to make. The White Sox record in 1 run games this year was really, really good. 27-16. Houston, Seattle, San Diego were a tiny bit better, Cleveland was 28-17, so effectively tied for 4th best record in 1 run games. This was the big factor that allowed them to be .500 despite having a negative run differential. At least in part, this is because the White Sox's back of the bullpen was quite reliable for much of the year. Their bullpen had crappy depth, so if a team got into the White Sox's middle relievers, they gave up a 5 spot or something like that and it didn't end as a close game. But, if they got to the 7th or 8th inning in a tight game and handed it to their top 2 or 3 relievers, they didn't give the game up very often. Take that away, have to rely on the nonexistant bullpen depth even more, could have an outsized impact on the results.

But...first of all, I can check these numbers weighted by playing time. Weighted by playing time, the White Sox in 2022 had the 8th oldest pitching staff and the 7th oldest lineup. They were the 5th oldest team in baseball in 2022 weighted by playing time. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2022-misc.shtml And second, suggesting that the White Sox in 2022 weren't going to overperform and weren't going to be among the healthiest teams in baseball based on their ages...was correct.

Because of this, the best answer is to play out this season and do the best you can, as some of the problem contracts go away at the end of next offseason. Maybe better coaching fixes a lot and you compete, maybe it fixes enough that a few unmovable guys become movable and that creates a path forward by July. But if things working out is a low probability scenario, you should be cautious about making moves with long term effects.

Certainly possible. But y’all better get used to power rankings and such giving this team no respect this offseason. It’s going to happen the whole time. They might well be ranked behind Cleveland in power rankings next May even if they’re in first place. Heck, the team better figure out how to use that as motivation too.

And to an objective outside observer, what guys get healthier as they get older? Your soon to be 34 year old closer had elbow issues this year. Your highest paid player turns 36 this year and had knee problems, not to mention his physical shape. Your second highest paid player is a catcher in his 30s with leg problems and maybe more. 2 of the guys you are hoping will be healthy this year have missed half the season each of the last two years. You can believe what you want, but the idea that this is a great team waiting to be unleashed is going to be a hometown only perspective the entire offseason until they come out and prove it next April.

This is not hard to figure out. The White Sox had a negative run differential this year. Typically wins do follow that, over a long enough time. So they are already starting in a hole. Then, Abreu, Cueto, Andrus, and Harrison are all free agents. They produced about 10 WAR this season, 30% of the teams total. They have a bottom 5 system with little to trade. They have brought up 0 top 100 prospects since Vaughn in April 2021 so very few possible breakout all star candidates. They had one of the 4 or 5 oldest rosters in baseball this year. Even if they are clearing some guys out, everyone else is a year older. They already have a high payroll and won’t be adding multiple big name free agents. They will face a tougher schedule next year. Only 13 games against Detroit. On paper, this team is going to be worse next year than the one that finished .500 this year. The coaching staff is literally the only thing someone could hang a hat on to believe the other way. Why would any objective observer think this team is a likely contender?

It's not a bad deal for him, but it doesn't get you a a pre-arb 25 year old 3 fWAR player. Under their contracts, if there's no horrible injuries, you're probably talking about: $20 million over 4 years for 12 fWAR for Lux ($4 million, $7 million, $10 million? Maybe $24 million? instead of $20) $28 million over 2 years for 4 fWAR for Hendriks. Hendriks may be fairly paid or underpaid for his performance, and yes there is a modest premium to being a 9th inning reliever, but even assuming the 25 year old gets no better and the 34 year old gets no worse, Lux is clearly more valuable. The Dodgers would just go sign Eflin and or Jansen if that was the trade price here. You might be able to get that kind of premium price if you dealt him at the trade deadline and the reliever market was tight.

I did a few trades on the Baseball Trade Value Simulator. Each of these got a "Yes" from the simulator. Lux for: Hendriks + Kopech Hendriks + Colas Hendriks + Crochet Hendriks + Giolito Colson Montgomery (Straight up) https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/

While you definitely could, I also believe that even if this worked it would leave the White Sox in quite a bit of need for competent middle relief. I don't know that it helps the White Sox to sell off Hendriks and then have to go sign Montero or Eflin to fill the gap, and even if they did their bullpen still doesn't look likely to be the class of the division.

Well first of all, the Dodgers are actually in somewhat better shape than we'd think. I will admit this is a little complicated as I don't know how $35 million to Bauer gets counted by their luxury tax since he's suspended. If I avoid counting Bauer and assume they drop Bellinger, they have something like $170 million on the books for the rest of their arbitration guys and filling out a roster. That's comparable to where the White Sox are. Bauer, of course, takes that to $205 million if he's counted? I don't know how to handle that. Obviously beyond that, another $20 million will go to keeping Kershaw, and Mookie Betts has a $5 million signing bonus to book somewhere, but that's still what, $230 million including Bauer? Spotrac has their "Bauer included" money in 2022 to be $301 million. They are clearing out good contracts (Turner), but also terrible contracts (Kimbrel), so they absolutely have some serious money to spend, $70 million give or take to get back to this year's payroll, with no reason to think they won't spend beyond that. Secondly, they absolutely are going to be sitting there wanting bullpen help. So if we want to sell off that player, yes they could take him on. Third, you can also come up with other teams. The Braves got good performance out of Jansen this year on a 1 year deal, but he's now a free agent. The Yankees could absolutely be in the market for a closer as well, and yes the Phillies could as well. Finally, I still see no point in trading away Hendriks without trading away other guys. If the White Sox are trading away their closer and going with Graveman, who had an ERA over 5 in the second half, as a closer next year, the White Sox aren't making moves to get better next year.

It seems unlikely that he’s going to get more healthy as he gets older and catches more games.