caulfield12

Kind of like how we ALMOST had Soto, Robert, Tatis and Vladdy Jr. on the Sox simultaneously…or was it Acuna, Jr.?

https://www.coveringthecorner.com/2022/3/14/22976853/hey-guardians-its-not-too-late-to-sign-joc-pederson “I have been personally trying to will Joc Pederson to Cleveland for the better part of two years now, and the first time there appears to be real smoke to my imaginary fire. According to Jon Morosi, the outfielder is “drawing interest” from the Guardians, which, on the hierarchy of vague free agent terminology, means they might have at least called Pederson’s agent to see how much it would take to get him to Cleveland for a season or two. That’s enough to get a little bit excited. Pederson, 29, split time last season between the Chicago Cubs and eventual World Series Champion Atlanta Braves. It was his first year out of Los Angeles after making a name for himself as a solid bat over seven years with the Dodgers (including a championship there in 2020). He slashed .238/.310/.422 with 18 home runs over 137 games for a wRC+ of 94. Probably not the kind of line you want heading into an opportunity at a big payday, but he believed in himself enough to decline a mutual $10 million option with the Braves and enter the free-agent market. That leads us to today, where he has apparently caught the interest of the desperate-for-an-outfielder Cleveland Guardians Baseball Team of Ohio. Some of the sheen may have fallen off Pederson since he was rumored to be on the way out of LA ahead of the 2020 season, but that doesn’t mean he can’t help Cleveland in 2022. There is one major caveat with him, though: he needs to be platooned. A left-handed batter himself, Pederson has a career wRC+ of 68 against fellow southpaws, but is well above average at 123 against righties.” $12 million for a platoon bat when we already have 5-6 DH’s on the roster sounds about right at this point. At least Lilian will be pacified, somewhat.

I think Hahn already got “disappeared” by Thanos and is completely out of the game at this point. Unless we are bringing Dayan Viciedo back from Japan…

Hell, we might as well go full Rays at this point. Convert Joe Kelly back to a starter. Let Crochet start in AAA for 2-3 months to see how he fares with his stamina and secondary offerings. Convert Hendriks back to starter. Make Kimbrel the closer until he restores most of his trade value.

No way in hell based on these going OF prices that we are even in the conversation for Conforto at this point… Joc Pederson or bust.

The fact that we’re still having to live with it into 2022 is the unacceptable part. Move on, part ways like they did with Hernandez. This degree of stubbornness is just asinine. Usually the best gamblers know when to cut their losses to avoid making things even worse. Now we’re compounding that mistake with multiple bad moves all set in motion by the fact he was never going to be a great fit as a set up guy converting on the fly.

Wow…if you’re the Rays and have Glasnow out the whole season, do you finally burn it down? The Orioles basically amount to Means, Mullins and Rutschmann. God, it must suck to be an Indians’ fan. Bieber has to be next, keeping him now makes almost no sense. Karinchak and Clase are going to attract interest as well. The White Sox might as well go after Plesac or Cy Civale.

If you did buy him out, why would Kimbrel take a pay cut to be a set up man for merely $10-12 million when many were suggesting he was fairly priced at $15-16 million as an “elite” closer? Wouldn’t doing that make him even LESS likely to be happy with the Sox than he already is stuck in limbo due to this situation?

Ray Ray is right. We are a lot closer to 8-9 than #2 in the majors. Especially with how thin that starting rotation actually is…even one season ending injury there to Gio/Lynn/Cease and they’re quickly behind the 8 ball in May/June desperation mode and sporting the worst farm system in baseball to trade from.

He just symbolizes the frustration of how difficult finding a solid all-around LH-hitting RFer and legit replacement for Madrigal has become. I’ve watched enough Twins/Yankees and Twins against anyone but the A’s over the last two decades to know how this ends. Right now, most Sox fans would be pretty darned surprised if this team made it to the World Series in one of the next three seasons. Anything’s possible, but that doesn’t mean it approximates likely.

But we still manage to keep Kath, Colas, Popeye Rodriguez and those three young pitchers!!

VaFan? Eminor? Even the mods are getting tired of defending the front office…you can tell their hearts are not really in it 100%

This again? Abreu hasn’t done anything in camp to piss you off yet?

We’ve come to this. Who could imagine in 2016-17 we’d be imagining that Tyler Naquin could be the solution to a White Sox WS contending line-up. Seems a lot more implausible than Rodon’s 2021 by a factor of about 10x.

Maybe, call me crazy, having an example of a player who just doesn’t make fundamental mistakes (especially in the outfield) would have been a positive influence on his teammates. Madrigal was supposed to provide this, but it never materialized, as he probably turned off more of his teammates.

Yes, because we had Narvaez and then McCann. See 500+ Balta comments on this. And paying elite closers has never been the White Sox way…and it still hasn’t really paid off. And now we have two. I would guess the excitement with Grandal was maybe 60/40 in for, with Fathom being especially concerned about his defense and the fact he was essentially benched by the Dodgers in the post-season due to numerous lapses that haven’t ever shown up in his brief Sox career. But yeah, it figures somewhat flawed guys like Grandal or Conforto would be the biggest contracts in franchise history, rather than an elite superstar.

Cue Balta with how much bad money has gone to White Sox DH’s since 2011…and the underwhelming offensive performance attached to those players.

How about at least one offseason signing the majority of fans are at least optimistic if not happy about? Baseball is an entertainment business, after all. What’s the answer from Sox fans to Russell Crowe’s question in Gladiator. ”Are you not entertained?” Well, perhaps not in the way Hahn originally intended.

His first three years with the Cubs, 5 fWAR over around 430ish games, roughly 1.9 per season…essentially 2. His original contract was 4/$48, so if you value FA fWAR at 1 unit being worth roughly $7.5-8.0 million, it was at least a fair deal for the Cubs until his final season there when age started to catch up with him. Melky Cabrera had a similar contract in terms of overall value and only ended up contributing around 2.3 fWAR total to the Sox after a 3.9, 4.5 and 3.1 along with one slightly negative year in the four preceding his Sox deal.

Or Sheets. Or Vaughn. Paired with minor league pitching (or lack thereof), which we all witnessed is what ultimately spelled the downfall of the purported Cubs' dynasty.

The record of the AL Central in the playoffs since the Cubs/Indians World Series in 2016 is hideously ugly.

Good idea. Let's just close down the board until the morning of Opening Day. Or maybe we should just follow the Blue Jays just to experience things vicariously. The White Sox went through their kumbaya period in 2017-18 when all the big rebuild trades went down and there was almost universal praise, excitement and acceptance. It is pretty disingenuous to expect everyone be overly excited about two postseason wins over the course of two seasons...when couple with the postseason so far. And I don't remember when we added Robertson, LaRoche, Cabrera and Samardzija that fans were immediately told to temper expectations and not get ahead of themselves after winning yet another offseason where results on the field failed to match the "feel good" press conferences.

Madrigal, Stroman, Simmons (vs. Harrison) and Suzuki four players that will be closely followed and compared by Sox fans. The Cubs still feel like a 75 win team at best, but they're at least getting to the point of being more interesting. Clearly another full rebuild not in the cards, with Cubs' fans increasingly impatient.

They're the equivalent of SD on the AL side...Mariners and Rangers have all been super-aggressive. https://sports.yahoo.com/theres-no-loyalty-in-baseball-explaining-the-braves-shocking-freddie-freeman-move-232631704.html Really good article on the opportunity cost of the last 2-3 years of a Freeman deal vs. expectations for Olson being four years younger.

What indication do we have they're changing their trade evaluation processes in any way to lead to better results overall?