caulfield12

Esteban Loiaza (minus the cross-border trafficking operation)

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/white-sox/white-sox-havent-had-two-promising-catching-prospects-50s-so-whats-next

Oklahoma must be the quietest team in NCAA history to knock off three Top Ten teams in the span of about ten days. Most would be hard-pressed to name a single player on their roster. Lon Kruger is definitely a HoFer when all is said and done. Just wish Iowa had a coach who could get the team through the final six weeks, B10 tourney and into the NCAA’s on a hot streak for once.

Does he have a single save his entire professional career?

Next, we will bring Ian Hamilton back. And glad it’s Emilio and not Jason Vargas, had to double-check. Marshall, Foster and Cordero are pretty interchangeable...tough to expect Evan to be quite so effective again, but we shall see. At least there are plenty of options, at least for the moment.

Right. If nothing else, he can cover innings. He still brings X amount of value, to where the risk/reward ratio makes him a fit for the time being. But like Rodon, don’t necessarily see him making it as a high leverage reliever. We’ll see.

Don’t we get some credit here for TA? How many really good all-around catchers are there, in general? Maybe five, seven tops. It’s the most demanding physical position, and really good hitters at that spot like a Mauer, Posey or even Salvador Perez find themselves eventually at 1B/DH. That said, the White Sox have had some high profile misses, like Kurt Brown and now Collins. Before AJ, it seemed we went 10-15 years with a different FA catcher ever year or two. Guess you can also add discovering Omar Narvaez to your list, as well.

A little bit of the Brian Anderson thing, where he was the best NCAA pitcher with just two pitches and didn’t have to work hard on his craft, relying on natural ability to get him through. Anderson at Univ of Arizona was always about potential...he could be the next Torii Hunter if he could actually hit the ball. Rodon definitely has the attitude and sense of privilege from always being a top prospect and perhaps was coddled too much...and nobody was willing to confront him about changing his approach because it got him so far, so fast. Maybe the failures of the last 2-3 seasons and being quite fortunate to get a guaranteed contract have made him more open to coaching, hopefully.

The White Sox are too stubborn to cut Lopez...unless he simply can’t get back his mid to high 90s fastball. If the stuff is still there, they’re going to extend some more rope. Hamels seems like a much better fit in the NL.

That has definitely been the case with Garrett Richards. I just hope they give up on the idea Rodon will ever be another Andrew Miller out of the pen. He’s just too wild/inconsistent for that. Of course, we’ve seen him get burned over and over again with low 90’s fastballs, especially behind in counts. Chris Sale usually could get away with that, Rodon cannot.

Foltynewicz threw for MLB teams on Friday and was reportedly hitting 90-92 on the radar gun. Not bad for the middle of winter. If Foltynewicz can get that fastball up just a bit more and learn how to use his sinker and change-up as more effective weapons, he certainly has a chance to get his career back on track. https://dawindycity.com/2021/01/30/chicago-cubs-mike-foltynewicz-stands-ideal-free-agent-target/ Would be pretty ironic if Archer ended up back with the Cubs, with Rodon returning to the Sox. Folty is blah to me unless he’s at least in the mid 90s range but still not quite 100% effort.

Except the order of events this offseason make this feel like you’re in on GME @ $300-350 instead of $10-15. Feels like another of those “we need to prove we were right on Rodon” moves, so the expectations are almost zero so there’s at least the possibility of some relatively pleasant upside. Maybe there’s something to said for starting over with a new manager and pitching coach, but that takes a lot of the blame off players and puts it all on Cooper’s supposed malaise.

This must be an Indians’ fan on the wrong message board...

One good start against the Indians on national t.v.?

Yeah, could be Samardzija as well...Tigers in fine White Sox 2016-19 form. Guess bringing back Rodon is death knell for Hamels rumors.

Derek Holland Watch Two?

But something else was going on too. These newly-empowered investors insisted they were sending short sellers, hedge funds and Wall Street writ large, a message. They were tired of being on the wrong end of the proverbial investment stick. In other words this wasn’t just investing, it was about torches and pitchforks. “It makes me think of Occupy Wall Street, in this case instead of protesting corporate greed, they were given the tools to participate in it,” says Doug Boneparth, president of wealth management firm, Bone Fide Wealth. These investors had figured out a Wall Street pain point: Ganging up on short sellers. ... What [WSB investors are] doing is not investing,” Jaime Rogozinski, Wall Street Bets founder, told Yahoo Finance. “They're using the stock market like a casino in a very unapologetic way. They're not posting information about the fundamentals. They're posting funny videos on people to go ahead and risk the same. They're not investors.” ... It's just another chapter in this ongoing book of excessive speculation,” says economist David Rosenberg. “And it’s not really a different crowd than who was buying Hertz’s stock when it declared bankruptcy last spring. One can argue that we have a grand new neophyte type of investor in the market. But I think a lot of the ‘rich man-poor man,’ investors, might be overplayed.” “All manias die out,” Jeremy Siegel, professor of finance at Wharton School, told Yahoo Finance. “It will go back to fundamental value. It's the greater fool's theory. ‘I know it's not worth this, but I know someone else who is more foolish who will buy it from me at a higher price. I'm smart enough to get out in time.’ Obviously there will be a lot of people holding the bag at the end. They're going to be the losers.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-reddit-gamestop-robinhood-story-is-part-of-5-bigger-trends-130701087.html

As much as we pooh-pooh the Cardinals spending, they’ve added Goldschmidt and now Arenado...whereas our biggest remains Grandal, a very nice player to have but not an A list superstar.

Clearly it was mentioned around here more than once in the last 2-3 days. But sure, I just made up an arbitrary number. I guess a few have spent too much time obsessing over “foodies” tweets to the point where idle speculation often becomes gossip becomes reality/perception. Yahoo Sports hardly ever creates their own Sox-related content, all they do is repost articles 85% of the time from other sources...but if you are a fan of a specific team, you might notice that local articles from sites like NBCSportsChicago come up more frequently on the news scroll.

They supposedly only have $3 million left. Ozuna and Marquez will cost around $22-23 million in additional salary for 2021 alone.

You’re saying JR will one day be elected to HoF?

$3 million —$22 million= - $19 million

If that was the return for Giolito with three years left on his deal, how would you feel about your GM?

Marquez price point is going to be similar to Luis Castillo, but Gray is worth kicking the tires on just because we obviously need some more legit options other than relying on Lopez.

Of course, if they trusted McCann enough in the first place...