Balta1701

That, uh, had nothing to do with any commentary on Hoiberg, it was a response to people calling them a "sleeper team".

I don't know where you're getting the "many people speaking glowingly of Hoiberg", I think a lot of us are in the same boat as you - he seemed to be doing ok with that team last year, but no one really had a huge amount of confidence in him or thought he was anything special at best, and overall he was a poor hire, which reflects on the people above him. Furthermore, we heard people saying the Bulls were a sleeper team this season here at this website, and so far we're staring at 5-19. You're not wrong - there is a little smattering of talent now in Chicago, with a handful of starting caliber players, and there is a path back to winning with Paxson as GM - but it requires one thing in addition to what you've said - no busts. So far, they have done a decent job with these last 2 first round picks getting reasonably good players out of them, even if the guys never turn into stars. But before that - Valentine looks like a failed pick, Portis is a backup, etc. One reason the 76ers were down so long despite a huge number of high picks was that every other one busted - Turner, Okafor, Carter-Williams, and now Fultz. If Paxson can continue successfully finding a good player every single year out of his top 10 pick, then soon enough he will be outside of the top 10 again...but that's a big IF. One year where the top 10 pick busts or gets hurt, and suddenly now the previous years' picks are hitting extension time, and your free agency dollars have evaporated. So, the path to Paxson being a good GM is - continue hitting on all his draft picks. If one or two of those miss, then this is the Bulls position for a long time.

.637 OPS last year now that he's 2 years removed from the stuff, 0.6 rWAR last year, $28 million currently remaining on his contract over next 2 years. So the usual question then is - what else are the Mariners throwing in as a sweetener, because he'll pass through waivers unclaimed each of the next 2 years with performances anything like that.

We're now at $60 million after adding a $7 million reliever to a $52 million-ish team. Add in Machado at $35 million and McCutchen at $15 million and we're at $110 million, so you've got about $35-ish in room to stay below $150. Start at 17 fWAR last year, be generous and subtract 5 for the guys we've lost so far or for guys like Sanchez who are moved to the bench (they produced more than that), add in 5 for Jiminez, Add in 9 for Machado + McCutchen if no falloff from either of them, then add the assumption that Anderson, Rodon, Giolito, Lopez, and Moncada each improve by 3 fWAR, taking huge jumps next year, and now we're at 41. You might be able to pick up 1-2 by not having as bad of guys in the bullpen as Fulmer and Danish, but that assumes all the rookies who get called up are still average, when I'd guess you'll see 1 or 2 relievers or backups implode at some point. So, with the assumption that this is the best coached team in history and develops perfectly, I get to the low 40s if all 5 guys take 3 fWAR jumps next year, no one gets hurt, and that's 10 behind where Cleveland was last year in a year where their bullpen fell apart. If you added in Corbin, Pomeranz, and Allen - that almost works on payroll, but it leaves you still 4 fWAR to make up, again assuming they repeated last year, and again, the gigantic assumption of "here's 6 guys that all become 5 win players next year".

So what pitchers are you going to find to make up 10 fWAR, and you're not allowed to spend more than $35 million because that hits $150.

No I did not make that assumption, I got us into the low 40s with literally EVERYONE taking a huge leap and no one getting hurt, automatically assuming Cleveland did what they did last year would still leave us 10 games behind if all we did was count fWAR. But if you really want to get down to it - Cleveland underperformed last year dramatically. By pythagorean wins they should have been at 98. They wound up at 91 - in no small part because of the implosion of their bullpen. They were one of the "unluckiest" teams in the league based on statistics. So, you're assuming Cleveland will get worse because they lost Brantley and Gomes, but having their bullpen average out or even just having "Luck" average out would push them the other way.

Just for comparison, the worst OPS put up the year they were drafted by anyone you listed was Bregman at .781, and he got off to a bad start and put up a .839 OPS once they pushed him to high-A ball that year.

If you want to talk about fWAR, the White Sox put up 17.2 fWAR last year. Cleveland put up 50.3. The White Sox are down a couple by letting go of Davidson, Shields, Narvaez, and Soria, and up a little bit with the latest reliever. With McCutchen and Machado you have added 9. I'll even be generous and give you 5 for Eloy as a rookie, which hell he might do I don't think pitchers will like him. Now you have to come up with >20 more fWAR to even get in the neighborhood of the Tribe, and the 2 you wanted to sign there have pushed the payroll to $110 million. So, if Moncada, Anderson, Giolito, Rodon, and Lopez all increase by 3 fWAR - making several of them all stars, we're still only in the low 40s, and need to rely on a miracle from whatever other pitchers we brought in. fWAR illustrates the gap even more. This gap is enormous, it's a >$300 million a year gap. Progress doesn't even get you close - you need enormous jumps and great years from everyone.

It's ridiculous and 100% true. In 2017, out of the top 11 teams in ERA, 8 made the playoffs, the only ones outside the top 11 - the Rockies again (ERA might not work the best there) and the Twins.

Ironically, we had an actual closer for about 2/3 of last season. But, even without counting the bullpen - you just mentioned 3b, CF, 2 starting pitcher spots, and one extra corner OF spot. Not only can you not fill all those on the FA market with any quality better than Mat Latos, but we ought to have learned many times over how likely the FA market is likely to betray you if you try to go after mid-level guys.

You're 100% right the Sox should be better this season, if they're not then that means even more people got hurt and that is moving into disaster territory. Some of the guys they brought up should be better, and yes they should absolutely try to land an "Elite talent free agent". No one saying "They won't be competitive next year" is also saying "We should avoid Harper and Machado" as far as I can tell, we're saying that we should try our best to land one of them, at almost any cost, but even when we do that this roster is still too weak until our pitching and outfield reinforcements arrive. But treating "We won't be competitive next year" as us not wanting Harper or Machado, that is on the verge of a smear it's so wrong. What we don't want to do is: 1. Waste resources that we want available in 2020 by signing weak pitchers or outfielders to multi year deals 2. Give up the kind of talent in trades it would take to build a legit roster if it would remove guys we could use in 2021 or guys that we could trade that offseason to fill our final holes. 3. Hear the team say they're going to be competitive right now again with a roster primed to win 75 games because of the lack of depth. So yes, we still need to pick up a Sonny Gray or a Drew Pomeranz, but the idea that those will be the guys who put us over the top compared to even Cleveland's rotation bugs me, the idea that these rotations are going to be competitive is laughable, and the idea that we're going to give up something useful for a player like Sonny Gray when there seems to be actual demand for him - ugh.

Atlanta was #5 in the NL in ERA and Oakland was #6 in the AL in ERA. Literally out of the top 11 teams in ERA last year out of their full pitching staffs, you had 9 playoff teams. The only team to make the playoffs without an ERA under 3.81 was the Rockies, and the only 2 teams with top 11 pitching staffs to miss the playoffs were Arizona and Tampa Bay. So, if you want to talk about a playoff team, you better talk to me about a pitching staff in the top 1/3 of the league.

Sonny Gray is not the kind of move you make if you believe this team is competitive next year, it's the kind of move you make if you are bypassing the year. Greinke, he's a legit pitcher, but the D-Backs aren't giving him up for nothing even if you take on his contract, we've seen that for a number of guys, they want something back of at least some value before they move them.

Honestly at least you were more reasonable than normal - you gave up and admitted that we have to trade some prospects to make this have any reasonable shot. If we were aggressive enough on the trade market, we might be able to actually pull it off, but to my eyes we're going to have to talk about dealing Madrigal and Collins as headliners, along with lower level guys like Rutherford and Dunning and so on, to really be able to pull in enough talent. We could probably declare Cease and Robert off limits and still make a legit run at it, but to put together a roster that has a pitching staff you can count on, we're going to have to fill those couple holes that weren't filled in that list. If someone's really serious about this, then let's put Madrigal and Collins and Rutherford on the table and go get Kluber or Syndergaard.

Huh? I don't see you having referenced anyone else in this discussion today. Where did you mention the other better comparables? Because the only guys I see you mentioning on this page are Rodon, Burdi, and Fulmer. The only other line I see is "Polished college bats" with no names attached.

Take a look at what you had to do - you had to go up to $150 million, you had to pay Bumgarner's price, your rotation still has a hole in it, your bulpen still has a hole in it, you probably haven't traded Madrigal but you probably had to move Rutherford and Dunning to get Bumgarner out of SF, you probably had to trade someone else like Collins to get Greinke, and now you still have a couple holes to fill with a whole lot of question marks. I think there's as good of a chance that you set us back and leave us depleted from the guys you've traded, with no money to spend long-term, as there is that you actually make a run at the Central (and let's face it, the Wild Card would probably be out of reach because Boston/NYY is getting one of those and the field is competing for the other). If Rick Hahn did that and wound up at 75 wins again...well it'd be another classic Rick Hahn special.

And all 3 of those happened because the White Sox needed guys up to compete "Right now!!!!!!", specfically to help save a Rick Hahn disaster. Furthermore, "Let's follow the same path we did with Fulmer that worked great!" has a couple issues.

Well, for Colome - they could also think that they needed some veteran presence in their bullpen even if they were going to just bring through a whole bunch of rookies, and that's entirely true. You don't want to bring up rookies and throw them immediately into the 9th inning and have no one in the pen who knows how to handle an average day as a big leaguer. On top of that, they could readily look at him as tradeable midseason.

Well that payroll is pretty low and they're still filling out the arena.

The missing piece is...I also don't know everything the White Sox know about these guys on defense and in the clubhouse and working with pitching staffs. We've heard poor reports outside the org about his defense but lots of reports say that his bat has a good chance of playing. If the White Sox had similar internal reports....Grandal's available right now and he's better than any catcher who would be a free agent next year. If the Sox are thinking they can't develop Collins on defense, Grandal could be one of the "we can't decide when a player is available" moves. And if Collins got the chance to focus on his hitting this year, that could push Collins's development as a hitter forward.

Frankly, if the White Sox signed Grandal, I'd move Collins over to 1b immediately as the White Sox could potentially have a 1b need as soon as 2020 and if Collins could focus mainly on offense this year, there's a chance he could be ready to fill that need.

Grandal is a strong statement that this team does not believe in Collins and that Collins has no role behind the plate for this org. If they signed Grandal, they should move Collins to 1b immediately. If they don't believe in Collins behind the plate, then perhaps that's the right call as I think Grandal is at a good age to get production from the catcher's spot for the next several years from him.

Do tell

At least for me, I figured that clip was him being the "average NBA player's voice" and when he says the average NBA player doesn't respect Hoiberg, I believe them, because he talks to enough average NBA players to be able to say that confidently.

Couldn't get the Embed code to actually work for ESPN video. Anyway, it's basically Stephen A saying that around the league Hoiberg was viewed as a nice guy but still unprepared for coaching at this level and that he never really had the respect of players around the league.