caulfield12

It counts in the same way every divisional winner or WC has counted from the AL Central since 2017. Wiped out in the first round of the playoffs. We were promised a lot more than early playoff exits when they started this whole rebuild. Were we not? Most fans are not so easily satisfied after a decade of terrible baseball and the third longest playoff drought in the game. Then to have LaRussa foisted on us, it makes it that much worse. We are a weekly laughingstock.

Clevinger, Manaea, Myers, Rogers are all free agents at the end of this year. Myers has a $1 million buyout. Hosmer will have his salary cut from $21 million to $13 million per year the next three seasons and there’s at least a 50/50 likelihood he takes the option to opt out. That could go either way. So $39 million/3 years, possibly. The way he started the furst six weeks, leaving seemed obvious. They have two more arbitration years on Voit as insurance one way or the other, as well as Profar.

I can do the exact same exercise for the Twins and Guardians if you prefer, since I have watched both those teams this year more than the Padres without Tatis. The Padres are simply the White Sox in an alternative reality with KW replacing Preller with his riverboat gambling GM style. Whether it’s Machado, Tatis, Manaea, Mazara…the irony is that the White Sox would be well ahead of the Guardians if you simply reversed the Clevinger trade. Just one trade. I have been right about the Twins all year long, and right about the Guardians rising to challenge them in June with an easy schedule. What I completely misjudged was the Guardians winning five games in their final at-bat in the span of two weeks worth of head to head. Cleveland just has this incredible knack of fighting back, and it’s something you either have or you don’t in your team DNA. So I honestly would still favor the Twins based on talent, with the caveat that Minny’s pen and psyche are shook. Urshela >> Burger and Moncada Correa =< Anderson (TA7 better so far this season, but not necessarily the better player in the clutch or on defense) Polanco >> Harrison/Mendick/Leury Arraez >> Abreu Buxton >> Robert Kepler >> Pollock Other OF’s << Vaughn (obviously Vaughn shouldn’t be in the OF) Jeffers >> Sox catchers Sanchez (DH) >> Sox DH’s I would call that 7-2 Twins, depending on the Correa/Anderson argument. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2022.shtml Cease=Gray Ryan << Kopech Smeltzer = Cueto Archer >> Giolito Ober/Bundy/Winder/Paddack >> Lynn, Keuchel, VV, Martin, Lambert

That 2000 playoff appearance was built on the backs of beating the heck out of the Tigers and Royals with the unbalanced schedule. Even then, they collapsed under pressure over the last couple of weeks and might have faded completely with another 10-15 games on the schedule against better competition from the AL East and West or simply more games against the Twins and Indians.

6. Completely botched his evaluation of Rodon…who has risen from a $3 million make good deal to the front tier of the 2022-23 FA class along with Musgrove and deGrom. Worst-case scenario, we have the comp pick and more draft money to spend. Best case, one of the best, deepest, most balanced starting rotations in baseball.

Semien is quietly recovering from his terrible start. Nobody thought Pollock had the arm for RF. That’s where Hahn planned to play him before the Jimenez injury. No bad contracts…well, Keuchel, Grandal right now, Leury, Harrison, nobody knows about Jimenez and Moncada, Kelly is a bad contract, Hendriks if he has to get TJ is one of the worst contracts in baseball, Bummer depending on his return to form, Lynn the jury is still out on whether he can ever get back to 2021 first half, Giolito doesn’t have a ton of value right now. Then there are 6-8 negligible value guys. Anderson/Robert/Cueto/Cease/Vaughn/Graveman/Kopech are your only good contracts. You can be optimistic and add Burger.

Abrams and Kim wouldn’t be playing if not for the Tatis injury. Azocar is Engel or Leury. Last man on the roster. Grisham has always been a complementary player, not expected to be a superstar like Moncada. Compare Jimenez and Tatis for total fWAR in their careers and they’re not even in the same vicinity. You’re certainly going out of your way to ignore Alfaro, Machado, Cronenworth, Voit, Profar, etc. The Padres have older position players compared to 2-3 years ago (see White Sox) but they also have Machado and Tatis. And Hosmer and Myers will be out the door soon. Abrams has had less minor league at bats than Vaughn and he came from a high school, not a top Division 1 college program. So you want the third place roster in the worst division in baseball over the second best in the second best division? 9 games separating them in the standings? The Padres have four starting pitchers over 114 ERA+, with Musgrove at 172. Manaea is #5 at 99 and Blake Snell is their #6. That doesn’t even take into account Lamet, Weathers, Morejon and Baez vs. Martin/Lambert/VV. Counter that with Cease at 152,Kopech 140, Cueto 117 with a 4.17 FIP. Giolito 75 and Lynn 64 are split exactly evenly by Blake Snell at 69. Final Summary: The only way you have any argument is that Moncada is a 4-5 fWAR guy again, Jimenez healthy/productive, Grandal not broken and one of Lynn/Giolito pitching like an All-Star, no regression from Cueto and Hendriks back at 100%. The Padres merely need Tatis to be a 775-825 ops guy against the White Sox needing all seven things to go right from here on out. And then the White Sox simply can’t afford a major pitching injury or they're done.

They're really going to dodge SoxFest if the second half and Fire Tony! chants get even uglier than in recent games...where they're quite audible during broadcasts. It will be more moderated and tightly -controlled than "friendly network" Trump or Biden interviews even...

https://nypost.com/2022/07/01/hornets-miles-bridges-wife-mychelle-johnson-shares-photos-of-alleged-domestic-violence-attack/

After this series, everyone will be wondering how the Giants almost won 110 games last year and are still hanging in the middle of the WC race with that lineup 1-9.

In this day and age, I think it’s pretty much generally-established for baseball that the age range of 27-29 is peak and, in the post steroid years, 31-32 is when you start to see appreciable declines, especially at the catcher’s spot.

Beat out a late charge from Xander Bogaerts...lots of Blue Jays and Braves https://www.mlb.com/giants/news/2022-mlb-all-star-ballot-finalists

Lopez isn’t going to fetch much on the trade market, but provides significant value as a future closer if they move on from Graveman and/or Kelly. They especially need insurance due to Hendriks’ lingering health concerns. Moving Graveman makes the most sense, as nobody would take Kelly without money or prospects coming along with him. You do have to have a heart to heart with Abreu about this year, a possible trade to a contender, and a conversation about the future as well…retirement is probably not in his plans with how he’s performing recently. But you never know. Dump Pollock for salary relief…unless you’re spending so much or trading so much it’s counterproductive. Lynn had something like the highest amount of fWAR of any AL pitcher going back to 2019 entering this year. He’s back to the 93-95 mph range now and his stats are deceptive because of the way his last start ended. You’re going to have to choose between the returns on him and Giolito. There’s no point in attempting to contend next year if you trade both those guys and Cueto. Maybe you even offer Cueto an extension for 2023 if you’re not getting what you want on the trade market. Going into 2023 relying too much on Martin or Lambert is a recipe for disaster. If that’s the plan, it’s a foolhardy one. Finally hire someone to work specifically with Burger at agility, defense and getting him into the best shape of his life for 2023. You can’t move on from Moncada, Jimenez or Grandal, so there should be a legit back up plan at one of those spots. You also need to see what you have in Carlos Perez, Haseley, Yolbert Sanchez, Sosa so you can make some determinations for next year on guys like Engel and Zavala as well. You need to see if either Zavala or Perez could handle 60-65% of the workload, with McGuire as backup for 2023.

Drake LaRoche got married?

Yeah, he was reliable until he suddenly wasn't. That foreshadowed his 2021-22 seasons. We did lack a reliable third. Cease wasn't there yet.

He couldn't be worse than Banks or Sousa as a LHR.

Neither was Alexei Ramirez considered a Top 100 prospect when he came over. Nobody knows because he basically sat for three years. That's a ton of rust. The one certainty at this point is that Cespedes shouldn't be blocking his path. Robert is...they will keep him in CF as long as possible for projecting trade value but he's far more valuable to the Sox as a viable LH option. And because they're not going to pay up for Conforto or Nimmo.

But the difference comes down to huge starting pitching depth, and having enough of a roster to cover for the loss of two stars (Machado back again from ankle injury) for 3-4 months. Arguably they have come together and played better without Tatis as every player has had to contribute. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/pivot-point-now-contending-the-padres-have-traded-the-equivalent-of-a-40-man-roster/ The Padres arguably made bad to terrible trades for Snell, Clevinger (5 current starters on the Guardians plus Quantrill) and even Urias/Lauer for Grisham now looks pretty bad as well that would have gotten Hahn fired multiple times at SoxTalk. The farm system allowed them to absorb all those trade losses and still keep CJ Abrams, Hassell, Campusano, Weathers, Morejon, Lamet and Baez for depth/trades. They had enough talent on the 40 man they gave away the Orioles' SS Mateo for nothing. And that list doesn't include this year's Paddack/Pagan for Rogers, who will be a LHR reliever nearly everyone pursues in FA...as well as the trades for Sean Manaea and Adam Frazier last TDL.

Giolito

Or they’re implicitly arguing he wasn’t actually ready but they were “forced” to bring him up early due to organizational depth issues. So they can block him again with another from outside? Idiots.

None of the other four outfielders at Birmingham should be blocking Colas. Cespedes is barely hanging in there at the periphery of the Top 30. Only his name recognition has any impact, but that and the money they likely wasted on/invested in him has nothing to do with Colas, either. Sunk cost. The White Sox will eventually promote him simply so they can argue in the media he’s close enough to the big leagues so they don’t need to tie up long term money with a LH corner outfielder in FA.

It’s not like Hinch has done all that much, but there’s no way he could have been THIS bad. If only they gave Terry Francona a shot, and it has been multiple times they could have given him the job. Same with Leyland. We can’t even identify the talent within the organization, let alone externally.

Still sticking with 109 wins?

It would be more interesting to interview KW to see if he’s aligning with Hahn, TLR or now trying to separate from both. It’s quite obvious Hahn and LaRussa are going after each other in ways both subtle and not so subtle. Would frankly love to see Hahn asked how he would manage a pen and lineup as decimated by injuries and non performance as the Sox active roster the last 4-6 weeks. Other than less Leury and sticking with more of a set lineup, no obvious answers stand out. Two or three weeks ago, Burger and Pollock seemed critical and Harrison was on his way to a DFA. Now he and Sheets have taken on added importance, but the team overall is just kind of floundering along without completely sinking into the depths.

There is one legit superstar in Ramirez, a constantly injured star in Correa who might only be around for one season, three could-be stars in Buxton, Robert and Witt, Jr. and then tons of question marks surrounding the Tigers.