Balta1701

I'm not able to judge his pluses or minuses based on his performance in the Yankees A-ball team, that's just too much of a stretch either way. What we have now is solid stats and peripherals, but clearly with a questionable fastball. How that translates is a big question, you could have a #2 guy or you could have a #6 guy. Garland could ramp his 4 seamer up to the mid 90s. He just didn't pitch that way, he threw a low 90s sinker as his main pitch, aside from one fairly important game.

It SURE feels like this was a deal you only make if the #1 thing you care about is ensuring pitching comes back.

There are currently 0 A voters to hear from. For reference I was in with C. Better than I thought it would be at this time but unimpressive compared to holding him.

I have no choice but to give him a chance because there's nothing I can do to change things, but the way things went down justifies skepticism until there is a substantial amount of evidence that I shouldn't be.

I fully agree. I wanted him fired after 2013. That doesn't mean I automatically give credit to and express confidence in his replacement.

It will take a lot of successful development for this to actually make the White Sox improve. Hard to insist that they just got better today. They did get deeper.

At least now we can say that Law hates the White Sox again.

"I've got no problem with our development" is a statement about the White Sox that is going to make me go grab the next whiskey. Mostly, you're talking about Hahn's work there, and that is some of the worst development possible. They took a clear loaded #1 system and turned it into a playoff appearance. The system produced 1 playoff appearance, broke down, then 2 years later produced a 61 win roster. It is hard to imagine worse development. The hope is that the guys who were just hired will be a significant improvement, particularly on the pitching front. But so far, this is totally hope. They could be the best ever, but skepticism is warranted.

I don't have access to the pay stuff but found this from a year ago.

There's my problem. They are absolutely going all in on "we can develop all these guys into way more than they're worth right now". If 2 years from now they were wrong, this team looks like the 2020 Royals, 4th place, not all that good, and future 5th place finished coming, but likely with the same guys leading the way.

If they're wrong do they get fired?

This is more an expression of their inability to find the kind of elite guys they gathered up during the last rebuild than it is a strong supporting statement for these guys. Perhaps this works better, but this statement illustrates how they are trying to rebuild based on depth alone. It's at least different from Hahn, but not obviously better? And elite numbers without elite velocity is a harder thing to say will translate. Sometimes it's Buehrle, often it isn't.

My guess based on last year was that teams would be more willing to give up those prospects if they were sitting in a playoff spot in July and Cease was sitting there with a 2.85 ERA.

Hell, from that point they added 2 more top 5 picks and a top 15 pick before their first playoff appearance.

I would buy this also, which would tell you a lot about who the actual GM is right?

If he's not a CF defensively then this is a much weaker deal because a dozen minor league HR but a decent A-ball OBP is a Benintendi-type corner outfielder, unless he grows into more power with age?

All right, harder one for I think everyone - When the Baltimore deal went down, I said that the return wasn't so big that you'd say "This destroys the White Sox if they turned it down and then Cease got hurt." I would stand by that, no reason to rush to that deal. If the White Sox turned this down and Cease got hurt, it feels like this is a minor bit of damage but not a lot. It feels to me like this isn't such a heavy return that you'd think it would dramatically change the White Sox's rebuild schedule if they held onto Cease and he got hurt. Some additional depth, but question marks on everyone. That, to me, seems like a reasonable standard for doing a deal now - it would have to return so much that it's not worth waiting to the deadline. Anyone disagree? Was this a deal we couldn't afford to turn down? If so, care to explain? Happy to listen.

I find it interesting that they brought back a young CF in this deal.

It looks like he was already pitching out of the bullpen in the minors last year, so I think it's safe calling him a reliever for now. There's promise here, if any of these guys break out then this looks like a great deal, but this is definitely not what people were demanding a month or two ago.

Looks like he has a total of 30 AA innings? Let him throw at least a half season against AA level competition first.

So I guess congrats that he moved at all? One solid prospect, one guy outside the top 100 with promise, and a likely reliever is probably 1 more player than I thought he was worth, so I guess y’all can brag on that, but this is a far cry from what he was supposed to be worth. Is Zavala Robert’s replacement?

The obvious problem with wanting to bring in Maldonado to be around the young catching prospects is...Lee, the young catching prospect still in the big league camp, was with the Astros last year, as was Maldonado.

I'm live-tweeting a conference right now and "Holy Overpay" just showed up trending.

Ridley to the Titans.