Balta1701

But Soxfest! It was so important last weekend!

Well, I was under the impression that high school guys drafted in the 20s and 30s rarely signed even if you offered them top 10 round money, that these type of signings were a black swan event, but I'll admit I haven't watched other franchises that closely, just the White Sox. So if this is something other franchises have been doing regularly - identifying guys who will sign with those picks - and we haven't been, then I'll concede the point and agree, this is another thing White Sox management should have been doing and it's another failure by them that they haven't been able to do that more regularly. My apologies, I guess even I don't know all of our management failures.

Bryce Bush? The 33rd rounder who had a college commitment who we literally asked him how it went down that he actually signed when we interviewed him because it was so surprising that he signed?

So you'd prefer that the White Sox spend their top 10 draft picks on 10 guys who are unlikely to sign and that they might sign once a decade? I guess that's a strategy, but I'm skeptical that your notion of only signing 1 draft pick a decade will work to improve this team.

Someone please introduce this guy to the concept of a "Refrigerator".

Manny Machado Will you sign with the White Sox Maybe tomorrow

Take a look at that velocity chart in September. It dropped off again, that's why I showed both. Maybe his mechanics got lost again, maybe he was hitting a dead arm wall after having to put in extra work to find his arm slot all year?

In case people haven't seen this article from August - here's Fangraphs "Lucas Giolito is saving his season" I've thought his pitch velocity chart is also useful to look at.

One of the concepts behind doing a rebuild like this one is that if you can get enough players to fill most of your positions, you can stop wasting your money on the terrible adam laroches, melky cabreras, and stop trading talent for Todd Fraziers and Jeff Samardzijas - guys who are good to replacement level players but with high overall price tags. If you can fill 4 of your 5 starting pitching slots with young guys and 7 or 8 of your position spots with young guys, then you can take your financial assets and go after the big guys, the guys who are less likely to be Melky Cabrera or Adam Laroche disappointing. In other words, if we are adding #3 and #4 starters, then we did this wrong. We should be able to get 4-ish good enough starters out of the guys in our system that if we want to add a starting pitcher, it's a Sale or a Cole or a Verlander. We should have Anderson and Moncada and Jiminez and Robert and Collins and Palka covering position spots and lineup spots so that we can go after a Machado for 3b rather than having to sign a Moustakas and trade for a Pederson and so on to cover 4 or 5 lineup slots. Or, we have the assets in the minors (Madrigal, a couple of the OFs) to make a trade for a huge difference maker like Blake Snell or Jacob DeGrom.

The 2015 and 2016 white sox to the letter. Won the offseason by a big enough margin to get into 4th place.

Then they're not ready to sign, and you continue negotiating and giving them whatever time they want. You don't put your best offer on the table until they're ready to sign.

The thing that the White Sox are going to do with that sort of maneuver is likely to try to lock the guy in on signing. If Machado's agent comes to the White Sox and says he has an offer $3 million per year higher than the White Sox, the White Sox's solution is not to just say they'll match it, it's instead to say "are you prepared to sign with the Chicago White Sox today if we have the best offer on the table, and what restrictions (swelloptwhatever) do you need on the contract to make an agreement happen". If Lozano's side is putting offers on the table that are close to what the White Sox have offered and they say they're willing to sign, then you go ahead and accept it. You don't just keep upping your offer until they reach a point where they will sign if you do up your offer.

Don't forget that the Nats put Harper in CF for 1/3 of their games last year.

The NBA still has that rule where you can't trade away your first round pick 2 years in a row don't they?

Personally I hope the White Sox give these guys a shot to see if they can take a step forward, and if not then we've kept a slot open for Cease or any of the other pitchers in Charlotte if they get off to a good start.

The only deadline that is believable is one associated with the start of ST. If the White Sox set a 48 hour deadline and then Lozano came back 7 days later to accept their earlier offer, everyone knows the White Sox would take it.

You said Gb/Fb, his Gb/Fb rate was 0.95 in 2016 and that was the lowest of his career yet it was his lowest HR year at the same time.

I wonder if anyone has taken these lists and compared who did the best/worst 5 years later.

You can say the same thing about Harper's 2016 season. He had the lowest ground ball rate of his career but also the lowest HR rate of his career.

Why? Because the White Sox have several other options for 26 year olds who fill a position of need for them and could make a run at a HOF career?

Here's an older Grantland article on the Zito one to tide you over in case there's no other responses.

Ehh...Manny provides 2 way value but we've also seen guys fall off defensively more rapidly also. If you got Bryce into a hitting groove again even resembling what he did in 2017 (without even mentioning his ridiculous pre-shift MVP season) he could certainly be more valuable over his contract since his bat has been better. Take a look at Manny's 2017 if you want to scare yourself. I'd wager you're right, but it's not open and shut. Manny is definitely more valuable specifically to the Chicago White Sox due to our abundance of OFs thought.

Soria last year, Swarzak and Kahnle the year before. What we would really like to see of course is improvement from Rodon, Giolito, and Lopez.

yes

Why on Earth was that in reply to Me? Are you telling me that from now on you'll add in the caveat that your previous post was wrong?