Dick Allen

Remember when some "insiders" thought the Sox would sign Machado and Harper? That was after they already traded for Alonso and signed Jay and Herrera. That was awesome.

I think he requested no Tony LaRussa questions. So they gave him a Tony Larussa question and he's the jerk.

If he played a full season he was on a 3.2 WAR pace in 2018 and put up a 2.3 WAR in 2019 and was good enough to be a regular on a WS winner. The decline isn't so massive. A couple of the players they were looking at were not as good as Mazara in 2020.

Unfortunately, the White Sox budget doesn't allow them to shop for players without warts.

I figured Springer was the elite. Then you had a tier of Joc, Eaton, Rosario, and Schwarber. Joc is probably the best one if everything goes right. He is also the most expensive, and even as Eaton's defense has declined, its still better than Rosario or Schwarber playing RF.

He's not coming off a bad year, but he's old and he's a friend, Soria.

He was a 2.3 wAR in 2019, and a 1.9 WAR in 95 games in 2018. That's not bad.

I get Joc might hit 40 homers, but he is the type of guy who seems to really struggle when he gets to the Sox. Switching leagues swing and miss guy. Plus, this way, JR has a couple more million to take with him to the grave.

So was Joc. At least he has a track record of hitting, and he hit pretty well in 2019 and in 2018 although he got hurt in 2018. But he is 9 months older than Springer.

Adam Eaton and Lance Lynn cost only $2 million more in total for a year than Alonso and Jay.

I'd put Eaton 2nd and Moncada 5th. Robert 6, Grandal 7 , Vaughn 8.

So they basically got Adam Eaton for stlightly more than Mazara's arb number.

Like Joc?

It was a little obnoxious, but I really think the guy was just sticking up for the kid who was stuck in the middle of the mess. The kid did nothing wrong.

I think what it means is as much as Frazier blasted Eaton, at least some who haven't been heard don't pin the entire problem on Eaton. If he was that much trouble, they wouldn't have bothered bringing him back.

I like him better than Joc to tell you the truth. If you read our Chuck's article on him, Howie Kendrick paints a different picture of Adam Eaton the teammate than is usually posted here. But until 2020 he was at least a .360 OBP guy who can give you a little pop, and can hold his own in RF, although not elite like he was. If you aren't willing to shop at Nieman Marcus, this is a good TJ Maxx deal. But unless there is some elite bullpen arm or something else I am missing coming, not netting one of Springer or Bauer, is a failure IMO.

Verlander being out, Greinke a year older, it looks like they will need more than garbage cans to be elite in 2021.

The Twins were better. Maybe they aren't now maybe they still are. Lynn is a good pitcher. Hopefully he doesn't regress or get hurt. The Sox are still one Giolito injury from being in a tough spot. Playing a regular length season is going to make starting pitching way more important.

Until Cease, Kopech, Lopez, at least one can show they can get hitters out on a regular basis and answer the bell 30 times, there is no way they are top 2 in the AL with 3 reliable starters. If one or two of them do, you may be correct.

Yeah, that's some messed up shit. As for O'Nora, unless they were advertising 13 year olds, this is just going to a hooker. Not my cup of tea, and I get the human trafficking aspect, but really not as serious as say a DUI, IMO.

It's pretty much the same decision makers.

Then the White Sox are never going to have this sustained success everyone dreams about.

They signed him right away. That worked out well. He didn't even have a year left. So they are hitting .250.

How has trading for big inning guys with one year on their contract worked out for the Sox? Wells? Not so go, but they gave up basically nothing, Colon? Not so good, but they gave up basically nothing? Jeff S? Pretty bad. Lynn? TBD.

SSk25 said it's about $30 million, but certainly that should be built in as part of the rebuild, correct? If you are going for it, you don't have the same or arb increased salary as you did when you first began. If the White Sox 2020 payroll is their ceiling, the sustained winning everyone wants isn't happening. These one year shots are probably the way to go. We were told otherwise.