Balta1701

His fastball dropped by 1.5 mph last year, going down to where it was in 2018, while his spin rates were also down. Fixing the spin rates without cheating may be doable, we're seeing spin rates go back up around the league now - whether that's cheating or not we don't know but it is happening. Getting that velocity back might be tough.

Jaguars are trading for Calvin Ridley

I know the Bears have traded away guys so they may lose more and they have a number of challenging opponents left, but it's worth noting right now that the Bears would be drafting 12th if the season ended today. There's some actual distance between the Bears and a top 5 pick in that round.

Regardless of who they hired, outside of a couple guys who were obvious mistakes (Ozzie, TLR), they were going to have a challenge in front of themselves. They have a team that dramatically underperformed expectations last year, weren't as good as the best teams in the league on paper coming into the year, have very little available funds to improve via free agency, are already losing key contributors to free agency, have an improving division around them and a team in Cleveland that stomped them ruthlessly this year, and yet they are expected to make the playoffs and advance in that tournament. That would be the case with Espada, that would be the case with Bochy, that would have been the case with whoever. They're always going to be judged by the results on the field, with very little leeway even at the beginning, and they have to understand they have a major challenge here. Any coach they bring in is probably here with the understanding that their quality is going to be judged by what happens in 2023, and if they can't fix things it will not be long before the last 13 fans in the ballpark are chanting for their heads.

Nash out

Yes, his name has been mentioned for a couple weeks as a known candidate.

I would have thought it safe to say that Rick Hahn would no longer be with the organization if they spent $195 million this year and wound up at .500, but take a look. I don't think I can confidently say that Rick Hahn's job would be in jeopardy if he executed a box of puppies with a flame thrower in the middle of Michigan Avenue.

By baseball-reference they were actually -0.5 WAR together. However, it's not all that surprising for a catcher at age 33 to drop off fairly substantially though - there's a reason why Grandal didn't immediately get a long term contract when he left the Dodgers. There is a solid chance that he is just physically done, that his legs can't drive the power he once had after years of catching. Who knows what happened to Moncada though. Attitude, injury, long COVID, frankly I don't know.

I'm on the record early in this thread saying I had no problem whatsoever with a candidate I didn't expect and haven't heard of. Assuming he doesn't make a fool of himself any time in the near future, he gets evaluated by what we see on the field next April.

I think it is absolutely true that he is stepping into this role with a huge amount of pressure to win the AL Central this year. Unless the GM moves to sell off 3 or 4 major pieces, that is going to be the expectation, he's going to be evaluated in that context, and frankly it's a fair standard with where this organization sits. If the White Sox miss the playoffs the next 2 years, and their cheaper guys are walking without replacements, he will not be around for the next rebuild.

At the very least, I don't want him fired yet. This represents a substantial upgrade over the last one of these.

We have heard no reasons why, only a general agreement that he will not be the next White Sox manager. It could be he eliminated the White Sox, it could be the White Sox eliminated him, we have no way of knowing.

That wouldn't affect his sprint speed or ability to run to first without getting hurt though. And "oh his lat is sore the whole year and his hamstring is constantly injured the whole year and neither of these will be solved by spending a month on the IL" is a pretty worrisome place to be. Probably shouldn't be able to get to that by training too hard.

There's a whole bunch of details out about Espada if you're interested. He's been a successful coach in a successful organization, worked under both Baker and Hinch. Here's an article from a couple weeks ago on his managerial future, if it's paywalled for you and you want to read it let me know via pm as I have access to that one. Jeremy Pena is a guy who has gotten a lot of work from him. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/astros/article/Houston-Astros-Joe-Espada-manager-future-17492900.php Remember how last year in the playoffs the Astros seemed to have a guy right where every ground ball went off a White Sox bat, and every ball the Astros hit found a hole? That was Espada.

LOL the Chicago White Sox did exactly that with Willie Harris in 2020. To the letter. To the point where Willie probably could have filed the same lawsuit that Flores did, if he was willing to burn bridges because of it.

No, they give the impression that they're not afraid to kick ass by talking a big game when it doesn't affect them.

No I generally don't, I peek in there but never got into it, and definitely don't want to be on there now. Beyond that, it's the offseason, there's zero player movement, the game on Saturday wasn't close and Sunday was an offday in the world series, what more is there to discuss than the only scenario we got on Friday of last week?

A handful of posts over the weekend on a website = daily freakouts?

Honestly, if I was a GM having to deal with LaRussa and I had Ozzie on TV publicly campaigning for his job while the fans were chanting to fire Tony, almost certainly making my job of fixing the team last year harder, I wouldn't have let Ozzie even on the phone with me. He not only burned a bridge in 2011, he tried to throw more burning napalm on the wreckage of that bridge last year. There was zero reason for courtesy when a guy was uncourteous with them last year.

Really simply - it was stated bluntly he wouldn't come back, and yet he was allowed to interview for the position? How does the second part make sense with the first, unless the first is no longer true? It doesn't. After the last manager, you'll forgive us for watching for those sorts of signs that something really troublesome is brewing...again.

While I have no problem casting a wide net, I do find it genuinely surprising that this isn't done yet. The White Sox have now been at this for a full month+, should well have had a few extra weeks to get started before that because they had to know LaRussa not being able to return was a possibility the last few weeks of the season, and the other 3 teams that had known managerial openings have their selections done. Casting a wide net is healthy, but it is also reasonable to expect that this should be done soon (unless they are actively waiting on someone from the Astros/Phillies, which would mean this should be announced next Monday).

How is this even something anyone can type? Honestly? The White Sox clearly paid way more in 2019 for Abreu than any other team would have, with a 3 year deal. He was worth it, but they paid a ton for him. This last offseason, they clearly asked him if he was interested in an extension, and he said he wasn't at the time. People are on the record about this including one relevant person named Jose Abreu. https://www.mlb.com/news/jose-abreu-focused-on-2022-entering-last-year-of-contract What should they have done, kidnap his family and threaten to harm them if he didn't sign on for another year?