Balta1701

No, you are literally wrong, please apologize for accusing me of deceiving. Victor Martinez put up 1.6 bWAR - baseball reference WAR, in 2016. He put up 1.0 fangraphs WAR, the number you described as a "Scrub" for Palka and pretty good for Martinez, in 2016, and then you cited the Fangraphs definition back at me an called it deception. Go look again.

Within 2 pages of this thread, you have described a 1.0 fWAR player, Daniel Palka, as a "scrub", and a 1.0 fWAR season, Victor Martinez in 2016, as "pretty good".

None of those have anything to do with international signings by the Indians. Santana was traded from the Dodgers in exchange for Casey Blake. Lindor was the 8th pick in 2011. Yan Gomes went to the University of Tennessee and was drafted by the Blue Jays in 09. Brantley was drafted by the Brewers and was a throw-in in the Sabathia deal. Cleveland drafted Kipnis in the 2nd round in 09. You said they were good at international signings and then listed zero players that cleveland signed. People having hispanic sounding names being on Cleveland's roster does not mean that they must be good at international signings.

Out of Cleveland's 2016 world series roster, they had exactly 1 player on it who was an international signing. Granted that player is pretty good, Jose Ramirez, but he was literally the only one. We've got more. Hell they didn't even trade any international signings in their deals that year, the only international signee that they traded for anyone on their current roster was Choo.

Oh yeah and I also almost forgot, the Dodgers also seem to have broken several federal racketeering laws in the process, that's probably one we don't want to do either.

Like I said - now you're doing what you can't do. You're saying "In hindsight these deals worked out" so if we had signed these it would have been great. You can't do that, you can't just predict these guys would be the ones who will work. They could also have signed Rusney Castillo. They could have signed Yasmany Tomas. The Dodgers spent $25 million on someone named Erisbel Arruebarrena, $28 million on someone named Alex Guerrero, and $62.5 million on someone named Hector Olivera, and I can't remember any of them even existing.

I did not say that no one could have done better. I said it was impossible to put a winning team on the field in any of the years 2015-2018, starting with where we were after 2014. Had someone done better, we could be in better shape this year, we could have been closer to .500 those years, but none of that would have changed the end results of those seasons where we missed the wild card badly, and when Eaton and Quintana fell apart, that would still have demolished us in '17 and '18 unless we had traded them earlier to rebuild.

If you're coming from a background where your family doesn't have money, that $125k could make a big difference in your entire family's lives.

Like I said, the free agent market is garbage. That's the garbage you get on it. If you're not ready to spend $200 million and have $100 million be wasted, then your roster isn't ready for the free agent market. Technically, trading for minor leaguers and developing them, or trading minor leaguers for really strong and controlled players works too. For example - the Red Sox got one of the best pitchers in baseball by developing minor leaguers partially and then trading them to the White Sox. The Brewers traded a top 20 prospect (was he top 10?) for Yelich. The only guy we had that we could have done that with was Rodon...and we were so desperate for assets that we had to race Rodon to the big leagues and put him in the rotation.

Major league players who, like you said, "Didn't quite work out" as big time players. Because they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Because the White Sox had so little value to trade, they got guys who were overrated and very close to free agency.

And that Celtics team had as hard of a run as any team we have ever seen. They went 6 or 7 games in every series and won thanks to home court advantage, they beat the Lakers in the finals, then the Lakers came back next year and beat them (that was the year with the epic Bulls/Celtics 7 game tribute to overtime first round). It was at least entertaining, it was competitive, you didn't know at the start of the year which team would win. Assembling star laden teams is one thing, the Warriors and the Heat are another (Maybe the '95-96 Bulls count in this but I recall it being an open question whether Rodman had anything left and whether he could play with that team until they went out and destroyed everyone. Ditto whether Mike would be back to his pre-retirement self.).

Hopefully we have one of those in Palka now also. Yes, it was possible to get those kind of guys - that was what I thought the White Sox should have been doing in 2015 and 2016, looking for guys who could contribute who other teams let go, and who we could develop by giving them playing time. That was a key part of the Dodgers getting Justin Turner - they gave him a platoon role for a couple years and worked with him to develop before he became an all star. If Justin Turner wasn't a useful signing, the Dodgers were going to win that division anyway, they had Greinke and Kershaw leading them. The Dodgers had a strong enough roster that they can drop those guys into platoon roles and let them grow into it. Same thing with Rich Hill and the A's - the A's were just giving a spot to a guy, they weren't expecting Rich Hill to carry them to the playoffs. With a weak roster, signing bargain basement guys and hoping some stick is a poor strategy for building a competitive team "This year", but it might have worked over a couple years. The White Sox couldn't do that, because they needed guys to help out "RIGHT NOW!" Had they done that, then maybe by 2017 on paper they start looking better...but that's when Eaton and Quintana collapsed. Even if they'd done some of those moves and had success, when those 2 fell apart, that would have undercut any positive moves they had made.

Yes it was absolutely impossible. You've made an argument that is refuted entirely by how the free agent market went - go take a look at the free agents those seasons. They had jack squat available on the trade market because they had no resources. If that team boosted its payroll to $200 million, who are they going to sign? They needed a 3b, so do you want Sandoval or Headley? No, death isn't an option. They needed an OF, so which do you want, Heyward or Gordon or Cespedes? No, death isn't an option. They needed pitching, so James Shields ok with you or do you prefer David Price for more money and years? They could have used 1b/Dh help, so yeah take your pick, Victor Martinez or Chris Davis? No, death isn't an option. I can keep going through positions, and every single one seems to include the phrase "no death isn't an option". If they boosted their payroll to $200 million, yes they probably would have had a hit somewhere. They might have signed Upton or Scherzer, but at the same time they would have signed 1 or 2 of these other huge busts and that would have chewed up $25 million each. There's no possible way that you can only sign guys who do well. Even the teams that are in the playoffs right now signed guys those years that completely flopped. Boston is still paying the luxury tax on those guys this year. Unless you can look through time to see which players are going to bust, even a $200 million payroll on that White Sox team was going to barely finish .500 and probably finish under it. The teams that "Won" free agency those years...wound up with players who stink. Go look at the free agent signings those years. They are TERRIBLE.

I would find the NBA far more fun if I could legitimately convince myself there were 4 teams that had a chance at a title. Then you have the next 4 teams maybe having a chance to knock them out in a playoff series, and teams legitimately fighting for the 7-8 seeds, and so on, and those at least change up every year. When GSW developed their team, and you could say that they were a strong team but other teams had a chance to knock them off (one did), that was entertaining up through the end. Then they added the 2nd best player in the NBA to a team with the 3rd best player. Now I cannot convince myself that more than 1 team has a chance at a title barring injury, and I hate rooting for injuries. But in order to have a competitive league, I have to root for either the 2nd or 3rd best player in the league, or better yet both of them, to get hurt for long stretches of the season and playoffs. That angers me.

What is your point then if it is not that they made poor decisions with the money that they spent and the trades they made? My point has been that their decisions did not matter, the decision that they were a competitive roster was fundamentally flawed, it was impossible for them to compete. You keep giving examples of moves they made that were limited by the lack of resources available, and then seemingly suggesting that they should have made smarter moves. $7 million is the budget for a starting SS and pitcher when you are trying to win with a pathetically weak core. It's the budget for a starting pitcher and starting SS when you have totally failed to understand your roster. How good or bad the moves they made were...that didn't matter. They did not have enough to compete those seasons and every example you keep giving is an example of exactly that. Competing in 2015 and 2016 was impossible. The failure was not selecting bad players, it was declaring that the task was possible when it wasn't.

Find me a better shortstop and starting pitcher signed in 2016 as free agents for less than $7 million. You keep making my point for me - it was an impossible task.

San Diego was a fine market, they just demanded that the city pony up the cost for a fancy new billion dollar stadium with all the trimmings and the city just wasn't going to pay that. Nor should they.

Once that stadium gets open it'll work well for the Rams. The city might not be an NFL city but there's enough money there and people there to support one. No one wanted the Chargers there, they belong south in SD.

EXACTLY! Because if you are trading away weak sauce, and your organization doesn't bother coaching your minor leaguers because that requires working rather than sitting on the couch (Semien), then all you get back is guys who are 1-2 years away from free agency, who are already expensive, and who their orgs are happy to part with. Exactly what we got. You don't get prime time players for trading that! That's why the White Sox couldn't make those teams better through the trade market, because it brought back players whose names were big but who their own teams were ready to move on from. Their system was so weak that the trade market could not possibly fill in the gaps around their weak core.

Yup, and then this season happened. As body after body went down, and player after player hit the big leagues and struggled or clearly showed that they were rushed, that became impossible. And then Kopech's arm knocked us out of even talking about the wild card that year. Take from that what you will - I was wrong, these guys needed more work than I thought...and now I'm considering the possibility that maybe they just dramatically mis-scouted or mis-coached them all.

$18 million for 1.6 bWAR/1.0 fWAR. You're right, that's pretty good...for the free agent market. That's a perfect example of why the Free Agent market cannot fill in for a pathetic, weak system with only a handful of quality players. That's the stuff you get!

Prior to Kopech's injury, if we had him as an ace putting up 5+ WAR at the top of the rotation, I could have seen us being able to make a wild card run in 2020. Some breakouts from Moncada or Gio or Lopez, the catchers being up, some development from the bullpen, Rodon no longer has to be looked at like the ace he isn't, maybe enough people stay healthy for them to make a legit run. With Kopech in rehab mode that season, and I expect him to take some time for him to find the feel of his pitches again (see: the first half of this season), then I have to think a healthy version of that team is around .500 but it would take huge jumps forwards by Moncada and Lopez/Gio for them to have a shot at the wild card, huge jumps that I don't expect. In 2021, the rest of that outfield from Winston-Salem last year arrives, Kopech is back to full health, the catchers are no longer rookies, and maybe we have someone else like Madrigal or Burger who can fill a role. Even if those OFs aren't all able to find spots, some of them could be traded to fill in a hole elsewhere. After Kopech's arm went down, it's 2021 or bust.

Great. Go look at his first 3 years of that contract. I'll wait. We were better off with LaRoche. Learn the lesson from that! Even the best teams cannot go to the free agent market and expect to avoid busts. Over half of the top 20 free agents in that 2014-2015 were disappointments or outright debacles.

Fine if you're going to ask about it...because you're the unnamed person who spent all of the 2nd half of 2014 saying that Victor Martinez should be our top target because he was an excellent hitter and that skill was going to age well. I was trying to be gentle rather than making this about you, but since you insist that there was some magical move that this team should have done that would have put them over the top, signing Victor Martinez was your #1 strategy going into 2015 and you and I argued about this for months. I said he's 36 and guys his age don't last well, and I was right. His contract has been as bad as any in baseball. Learn the lesson from this! 10 or 15 years ago, it was probably possible to find bargains on the free agent market for good money. Today, that simply doesn't exist. There is too much money and too many guys who are darn near finished just as they hit FA. You can find the occasional Justin Smoak or JD Martinez by playing a bottom feeder, if you have playing time to give to people, but that doesn't build you a winner, it fills 1 or 2 holes. You have to have a strong organization to compete with these teams that are putting out strong organizations. The White Sox had a weak organization from 2013-2016, and there was literally no move or set of moves that could have been done that was going to put them over the top unless you could use time travel to see which players were going to be successes.

And having playing time and slots available to sign Carlos Guillen made no difference, Bonderman made no difference, having cheap pitchers like Bonderman and Verlander wasn't important, no one uses fireballers in the bullpen like Zumaya these days, Brandon Inge was arb-1 that year, and that's where they got the money to sign guys like IRoid and Ordonez - having those players cheap that they developed or acquired during the rebuild. They completed a successful rebuild with a talent-laden organization, and jumped from 70 wins to 96. Signing Victor Martinez would not have pushed the White Sox up from 76 wins to 90.