Balta1701

We should be very much evaluating RH and RR and others based on whether or not those things happen. If this team is not substantially improved next year, if this team is not in the playoffs in 2020, then that means some of these acquisitions seriously flopped and that would be enough to call for some people's jobs again.

So....if we get 3 WAR seasons out of Anderson and Sanchez on that side of the infield, and Machado insists he's going to be a SS, is that enough contributions from a current MLB player that you would look away from that position? Alternatively, if Garcia comes back and plays corner OF like he did last season, and is a 4 WAR player, and Jiminez comes up and murders 3 pitchers in his first week, leaving bloody corpses with their heads bitten off scattered around the infield, is that enough that you would look away from that position? Cause I'm a little unsure on some of these myself. I'm not blocking Jiminez at all, so if I was intending to keep Garcia, then I'd look away from Harper, but the current Garcia is not nearly playing up to the level where I'd care. I'm not sure what I'd do if both Sanchez and Anderson wind up with decent seasons; clearly Machado is substantially better, but if you have 2 guys who are both good and cheap, maybe you default to good and cheap.

Gregorius is a FA after the 2019 season, not before.

Giancarlo and Judge might have something to say about those spots too. With where the Yankees are right now, their best FA bet might look like Kershaw if they could somehow pull that off.

I'm in on this Saturday. Bought the tickets like a month and a half ago on the day that they became available. Pretty sure the whole day is sold out.

What everyone has been pointing out with Moncada is that in 2016 and 2017 his splits strongly favored him from the left side, but in 2015 his (100 PA) splits strongly favored him from the right side and that was where most of his power came from. So, he looks much better from the left side right now, but that doesn't express his entire career, and figuring out what the difference is might be an important step here.

I'm sorry but that still looks ugh.

Oh S*** now he can copy and paste the photos from articles by accident?

I think the Bills will want to move up, the only question I have is whether a QB lasts long enough for them to be able to do it. If the top 4 QBs go to Cleveland, the Giants, the Jets, and the Broncos, the Bills won't have anyone to move up to get.

If you want to make the case that all of upper management should have been fired after 2013, 2015, 2016, and then again after the Shields trade for good measure, I have no issue with that. None of that makes what we're doing right now the wrong move. Rather, the 2015 and 2016 seasons were basically "all in" style bets and now is the payoff for them.

At the top of this forum it is shown as 1400 draft points. On that chart, that's the 12th pick + Buffalo's 3rd rounder, for example. Or just more than NE's two first round picks (total 1360 together).

Ha, this is what I can do with a working search function! This was me talking about Anderson in June of 2015, when people were wanting him called up to save that roster.

More important than the draft slot is that these guys need playing time to get through their struggles, and for 1-2 of the non-big-name guys to turn into solid big leaguers. Playing time on an noncompetitive team, turning that into experience without having a high cost when they make mistakes, is the other asset the white sox are currently using.

Adding some random useful pieces on a roster no where near ready to compete is exactly how we wound up with your friend LaRoche.

If this team isn't seriously better in 2019 then we'll be right on the edge of calling for heads to roll. Me included. They have a huge amount of money available. Depending on Jones and Garcia, they have something like $40-$45 million on the books for their entire team. This team should turn easy profits at $100 million total payroll and that would still leave some space to spend pre-2020 if they wanted. It's hard to spend $50 million without doing something to substantially improve the roster. On top of that, these guys should be getting better. Maybe not all of them, but there are 5-6 legit prospects up right now: Anderson, Moncada, Giolito, Fulmer, Lopez. later this year, the 2 monsters arrive. Even with some growing pains allowed...that immediately makes the roster better. Finally, some things shouldn't stay this bad forever - if Avi Garcia is this bad for this year he won't be back next year, for example. If they aren't better next year, then that means there was little to no development of the guys currently on our roster and we signed FAs who busted. That would be a very bad position to be in and that would be a good reason to wonder WTF they were doing.

Fired out of what? Cannon or something simpler like a catapult?

The other part of the story with Anderson is that he was not ready to be called up when he was called up. He was thought to be a raw player when he was drafted, with only 1 year of college ball behind him. He was raw at every level the White Sox put him at. At each level, he took about 3 months of struggling before he put together a good month. He only spent part of a year at AAA because the White Sox had to do their panic "Save our season" callups of Fulmer and Anderson in June, 2016, right after they traded for Shields for the same reason. He wasn't called up because he was ready, he was called up because Rick Hahn convinced himself that team was competitive and then somehow Jimmy Rollins turned out to actually be as old as we thought he was. If your goal was to develop Anderson he wouldn't have made his first appearance in the big leagues until September of 2016 and then he'd have been a rookie in 2017, struggling like many rookies do.

Saladino and Sanchez were pretty fundamentally decent when they were called up. The team practically revolted in 2015 to get Sanchez at 2b because Micah Johnson was a defensive and fundamental mess, and Saladino taking over 3b happened right when that team had its only winning streak.

That spellunk is unacceptable. Anywho, the White Sox have a poor walk rate from their starting pitchers because 3 of them are extremely young. Saturday's opponent, Dallas Keuchel, remains a good example. When he came up at age 24, he averaged 4 BB/9. 3 years later when he won the Cy Young, his walk rate was 2BB/9. People learn stuff sometimes.

If you don't call him up until September 10, then fine put him in the bullpen. Everyone here is then ok with the current starting rotation all year right?

Jesus Christ do not put these guys in the bullpen for God's sake. By far, by a long shot, the #1 thing I want from Michael Kopech this year is 150+ innings. Are you happy with where Fulmer is now? That's what you risk if you throw Kopech into the bullpen.

You're damn right and that's why I'm 100% planning to evaluate Rick Hahn based on whether or not I get to gawk at our 2020 trophy, and why I'm shouting down anyone until I get to see that.

In his first 16 career starts, Dallas Keuchel, tonight's opponent and Cy Young Winner: 3-8, 5.27 ERA, and in his 16th start he lasted 2.1 innings and gave up 7 runs. Tonight was Giolito's 15th career start.

Actually it is your fault that the Free Agency moves were not good, because it's the fault of free agency and you think that's a good idea. You think that it's possible to just "make good decisions in free agency and not bad ones". That's your major malfunction. It's not even about scouting, or coaching, it's 100% the luck of the draw. If you need to buy 3 or 4 positions in free agency, 2 or 3 of them are going to dramatically disappoint you. The only way to win in free agency is to have a good enough team that the free agent doesn't really matter if they bust, because some of them will. So, it's the fault of everyone who doesn't understand that about free agency, and anyone who thinks "we should have spent better in free agency" is a simple statement. So, until you stop saying "We should have just made better FA decisions", I'm going to blame you for them because the org believed that they could, and that was wrong. They listened to that statement and that statement set them back by 4 years.