caulfield12

If this is the case, why so many pitching injuries at the major/minor levels...the failures of most of the projected collegiate relievers along with top line disappointments like Fulmer/Hansen/Burdi /Adams, etc.? Imagine you stripped away Gio, Lopez, Dunning, Kopech and Cease...going all the way back to the time of the Rodon selection. Who have we successfully developed on our own since Sale/Q? Bummer and Fry? Lambert?

Shouldn’t be AS big a concern with the smaller RF...that said, I don’t think anyone particularly enamored with Avi or Puig. Ozuna definitely is out for RF, Castellanos has plenty of concerns (contract size, value at DH, defense), Gardner’s just a short term option...Mazara can barely get his fWAR over 1, no easy answers. Reddick? He really struggled last year, wonder what his splits are with the sign stealing fiasco...? Back to trading for Polanco or Marte? Nimmo, etc. Seems this whole RF issue just goes around and around in circles with no easy answers considering it’s a corner spot.

The Pirates outfielder spent two seasons playing JUCO ball before being drafted by the Rockies in the 8th round of the 2010 draft. At the time, he was thought of as a fringe-average defender at best, and one evaluator told Baseball America Dickerson's arm graded out well below-average after undergoing labrum surgery as a high schooler in 2007. Just over a decade later, Dickerson is now an all-star (2017) and a Gold Glove winner (2018). He joins Kyle Glaser to discuss his development path. Dickerson also sheds light into his uncharacteristically poor 2016, saying he was more injured than people were led to believe. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/corey-dickerson-joins-the-baseball-america-podcast/

Rays' execs usually make unwise decisions from a financial standpoint...

Dunning's stuff would probably play up more as a reliever...we'll see what type of stuff he comes back with in April. A breakthrough there would save another $5-10 million on someone to relieve the pressure on Colome/Bummer/Fry...because we definitely can't count on Herrera bouncing back.

We keep saying that...but 50% of the available projected options from a year ago signing extensions, staying with their teams through QO (Odorizzi), etc., it takes YET ONE more option off the table. If the same number of contending teams and quasi-contending teams are NOW chasing five pitchers instead of six (with Wheeler as the obviously headliner of the second tier)...why wouldn't their agents be in a better position in terms of leverage? Are half of the teams automatically now magically going to skip over those five pitchers to the third tier if the asks rise by 10-25%? Pretty unlikely...unless you're a mid-market/limited payroll team like the Rays or A's.

There's certainly an argument to made that the pitching options right now COULD be better than 2020-21...especially with the unknown factor of extensions being signed to take players off the market, along with the QO issue. The problem is Bumgarner/Ryu/Keuchel/Hamels are going to be expecting between $14-18 million, and you better be absolutely sure (and this is ASSUMING you lock in Wheeler at the front of the rotation, which is FAR from a sure thing)...because the White Sox have historically been crippled by singular contracts like Dunn and Danks going bad. I have a feeling the front office is placing their bets on those three youngsters, Rodon and possibly Dunning. The preference is likely for one of those wild cards like Pineda or Miley or Gio G. or someone in the $7-11 million range to be that back-end filler on a shorter-term deal, not knowing how those five (or even Giolito, for that matter) are going to perform in 2020. Whether we agree with it or not...that's another story.

There's just no possible way the White Sox spend the type of money that it would require to get 2 of the top 4-5 starters on the market. At this point, just hoping for Wheeler is enough...because MOST aren't going to be satisfied with Bumgarner/Ryu/Keuchel/Hamels as the "BIG MOVE" out of Hahn.

Odorizzi off the market really is going to help Wheeler, Bumgarner, Ryu and Keuchel...even Hamels, as he's now the 5th best available option after Cole with almost everyone needing pitching to one degree or another.

Speculation or announced?

Where do the Indians in 2016 fall in terms of bullpen vs. starting pitching?

Not for catchers. Realmuto is the main one. I guess we can wait and see if Sal Perez still can physically handle the demands of catching 130+ games coming off major surgery.

Wade Miley it is...

Hopefully nobody connected with the Sox is dumb enough (Stone came close) to call them "fair weather" fans next season if they do disappoint in 2020...like Baker Mayfield's wife just did in CLE. Because we haven't had any fair weather to speak of for at least a decade. Imagine being called out like that when your last really good team was in the mid to late 80's?

If your job was to leverage the most money out of roughly 18-20 teams (collectively, that would be willing to bid on at least one frontline Boras talent) for each one of your clients...what would you do differently?

Sizzler, Golden Sirloin or Sirloin Stockade? Don't we deserve Ruth’s Chris or Morton’s once a decade?

Not acquiring young talent isn’t “genius” unless you can allocate resources to develop a comparative advantage in another niche area of baseball operations. What do we exceedingly well, or even above-average...as an organization?

Astros’ GM Jeff Luhnow: ‘We try and follow the rules’ SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — General manager Jeff Luhnow, his team facing a second MLB inquiry focused on sign stealing, said the Astros “try be good citizens.” https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/astros/article/Astros-GM-Jeff-Luhnow-We-try-and-follow-14830234.php Solomon: Astros guilty as charged but 2017 title not tainted https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/columnists/solomon/article/Solomon-Astros-guilty-as-charged-but-2017-title-14830283.php

And Rodon for 2021?

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/eloy-jimenez-hammers-home-white-142613364.html Yahoo News picking up NBC Sports local article...before someone cites Vinnie Duber and Morosi as illegitimate SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Eloy Jimenez has said it before, but in case you needed a reminder, he's got one for you. "I don't feel comfortable playing DH," he said in an interview with MLB.com's Jon Morosi on Monday. "I like playing the outfield. I don't care if it's right field or left field, but I feel comfortable in the outfield. I don't like being the DH. For me, it's boring. "Maybe one time in my career - when I'm 35 or 37 - I can DH. But not now." So that suggestion that the White Sox can plug their hole at designated hitter with Jimenez? Forget about it.

Hamels and Calhoun should be the fourth and fifth players...not the feature pairing. But yeah, there goes around more than half of the budget increase right there. We collect the other teams’ rejects, in two guys that weren’t extended qualifying offers. Neato. Hamels is a pretty decent candidate to go all Derek Holland in the AL Live Ball Era.

The original prediction was 4/$80, but now we’re all the way up to 5/$90-115 as guesses....simply because of the mad rush from every team out on Cole and Strasburg for the third most coveted pitcher on the market.

When would any sports media source have something to say that EVERYONE at SoxTalk would put equal faith in? There might be 3-5 trustworthy sources, at best. And Jeff Passan, Tim Brown and Oz are undoubtedly more well connected than all the local Chicago baseball media.

That last part, obviously, is the whole ballgame, and Hahn was the first to say, when Manny Machado opted to spend the next decade in San Diego rather than on the South Side, that it doesn't matter how close the White Sox got. They didn't get the player, and that counted as a loss. Hahn also said, though, that all this would happen again, that the White Sox would remain aggressive in their pursuit of top talent. "(Losing out on Machado) does not change the fact that we are going to once again be in this market when the time is right and hopefully, at that time, convert," Hahn said the day Machado picked the Padres over the White Sox. "The money will be spent. It might not be spent this offseason, but it will be spent at some point. This isn't money sitting around waiting to just accumulate interest. It's money trying to be deployed to put us in best position to win some championships." https://www.yahoo.com/sports/where-theres-smoke-theres-fire-005040933.html

Give him a lifetime contract just to make Eloy/Robert/Moncada happy and piss off Ron simultaneously...if nothing else, it will give Greg775 a consistent theme to harp about for the next 2-3 years until he's traded away or falls off a cliff offensively.