caulfield12

We would be on a ten year rebuild without Sale, Eaton and Q. That much is obvious. As it stands now, after we graduate those 3 players in the next calendar year, we might be all the way down in the mid 20's in terms of farm system rankings heading into the 2020-21 offseason. If we keep Vaughn in the minors and make an amazing pick at #11, we're around 18-22nd. I guess Stiever or one of the low minor league hurlers could put together a Daniel Hudson/Brandon McCarthy ascent, but that hasn't happened for ages. Hansen was the closest, and he just basically imploded after early success.

As soon as Hahn shows he's capable of hitting on 75-85% of his FA signings, sure. He hasn't even come close to that. This type of logic goes back to 2004-05 and the "riverboat gambler" mentality of KW going for it each and every year at the rade deadline. SURE, IT'S ALWAYS POSSIBLE. But there are pretty much zero indicators this ownership/front office staff is capable of being the ones to pull it off, except for the once every 88 years hitting of the Power Ball by blind luck.

Hear, hear...amen to that. But preaching to the choir or already-converted, unfortunately, the White Sox are likely to either do nothing or the opposite to prove how smart they are.

It's not ONE team, it's still two. The Indians won 93, we won twenty less than that. Unless the Twins for some strange reason (with a youngish core) decided to blow everything up completely...and alienate all the season ticket holders in a relatively new stadium, they're going to be there again. God knows what the Indians will do, but they're more likely to go for it again than tear things down. I think you're putting WAY too much stock into Kopech making a big contribution next season. He would have to be nearly an All-Star level performer, either him or Cease, for any of this to make sense.

The funny thing his OPS is still "only" .770 after a 4/5. On a yearly basis, that wouldn't be enough to warrant full-time play with his defense. Of course, in the playoffs, you're facing some of the best pitching in baseball, so it's quite acceptable. It does make you THINK if Avi can be a clean-up hitter for a team on the verge of knocking out the best team in baseball...why not invest another one-year deal into him instead of the dregs we signed and brought in this past offseason? If ANYONE was likely to be open to staying for the long/er term with the White Sox, it was DEFINITELY going to be this dude.

Surprised nobody has been bold enough (yet) to create a Gerrit Cole thread....

Breaking news: Steve Stone just joined the White Sox PR team as a lifetime "ambassador"

The biggest problem with this whole thing is that the odds of getting past the Twins and Indians NEXT YEAR even with Betts are maybe 10%, and you can increase that to 25-50% if you add another $150-200 million in spending, mostly on the pitching side. But if it doesn't work, you're suddenly and blows up in your face (just a couple of major pitching injuries), then you're COMPLETELY SCREWED for another half-decade. We didn't wait patiently through these last 3+ years only to make a desperation Hail Mary play for relevance. If you traded 2 of Madrigal/Vaughn/Cease, it would take FOREVER to recover. We're talking about KC Royals 30 years...and the loss of the franchise extinction-level event. Only an Ilitch-esque or Cuban "free spending" owner in Chicago would be able to save the franchise, and they would actually need to hire THE BEST front office/scouting/development people to pull it all off. We're in the same division with a bunch of small and mid-market teams. It's absolutely insane that we have to be considering something like this....even SOMEWHAT seriously.

What is your realistic trade package that beats at least 8-10 other organizations that can also afford to shell out $28 million for a one season rental, and are arguably closer to the World Series as our roster currently sits today?

Our one niche today seems to be Cuban/Latin American talent, along with having Renteria as a manager that players are (too) comfortable with...Quintana was always a very appreciative/"grateful for the opportunity and being rescued from minor league abyss" and respectful member of the White Sox in his comments, so you'd have to think he would be one of the first ones who have left the organization to be welcomed back with open arms. Not so sure about Avisail. Too many frustrations/injuries there.

Amen.

Beating out the Cardinals for Robert seemed pretty significant at the time, fwiw. Almost nobody expected that, and there were rumors their losing proposal was actually worth a bit more, but who knows in the end.

$14.5 million wasn’t really a below market rate at that point...

Five Top Ten picks from 2008-2018. How did they sign Jose Abreu and Luis Robert if they were an unattractive team for free agents? They’re not an unattractive destination, it’s just that they don’t usually make the highest bid on anyone, certainly not in the top tier.

If Rick Hahn could actually hit .500 on his talent assessments, the White Sox would be sitting pretty about right now.

Sure... everyone knew he would go from two years of being a 6 fwar to a 2. Who was predicting that in 2013/14?

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/white-sox-sign-preliminary-ranking-213656391.html A lot are going to argue Wheeler’s too low or that Wacha, Wood, Miley or possibly Chris Archer should be higher... I guess Rich Hill or Ryu make sense in the imaginary universe where we’re also acquiring Mookie Betts for 2020.

If I was wrong about him the last 24 months, you would have been bringing that up endlessly as well. Nobody knew anything about Tatis the day he was traded because he’d never even put on a White Sox uniform in MILB ball. The only way would be if they were bird dogging him with all the Padres’ scouts out in Arizona that spring. So I don’t see what the evidence would be, other than BP videos and sprints to 1B. The problem is that he has grown 2 1/2 inches since then and added even more speed than back then. At the time, it was a matter of projecting his frame based on his parents/family, his raw arm strength, etc. His first two seasons, Puig was one of the ten or fifteen best (certainly most exciting/entertaining) players in baseball, but still not close to Trout, who has been comped by nearly everyone to Mantle.

We still have Vaughn and our 2020 picks... likely another fast mover. Without major additions, you're also placing a ton of faith in Kopech, Cease, Lopez, Rodon, Dunning, etc.

Surely someone has at least tracked the Top 30 intl. players over the last decade plus, their signing bonuses and total return on investment. Even hitting on just one (Tatis) for under $1 million in terms of the future fWAR created on a 6-7 year contract, it really doesn’t take more than a couple successes to easily pay for itself. It’s just infuriating when you look back on how much money has been spent unsuccessfully on Tier B/C/D Free Agent talent since 2002-2003, compared to pretty much every other organization in baseball. (2004-2005 being the lone exception, obviously.) I don’t even know the cause...maybe the Borchard and Viciedo contracts, but it’s not like they invested $100’s of millions like the long-term Cabrera or Pujols deals.

We’re basically a much less successful version of the Twins, minus the Mauer contract weighing down the franchise for a half-decade. And that deal likely would have been avoided were he not a “hometown hero.” But even the Twins aren’t afraid to change managers or GM’s.

They also changed managers late in 2018 and went from worst to first in defense. Goldschmidt didn’t even have that strong a season by his usual standards.

I just don't think Kopech can be protected from his own worst impulses and not end up getting hurt again trying to fire baseballs through the wall...right now, so much is hinging on him, until FA spending on pitching proves otherwise.

Not without two the addition of 3-4 fWAR veteran starters and some certainty at the back of that bullpen. Betts has a lot more tools than Harper, who also put up a 10 season, but there’s a huge problem. Let’s put down Betts for 30.6/4 seasons, you get 7.65 fWAR as a reasonable projection. The Red Sox will have at least 8-10 teams who desperately need a player like that to put them over the top for a single season run at it but can’t dream of signing him to a $400+ million extension. Yet those teams have a lot more prospect capital to work with. Think of all those teams like the Rays, Twins, A’s, Indians, Padres...the list goes on and on. The White Sox aren’t going to build their future around Madrigal, for example, then turn around and burn it all down. Even if Betts gets you to .500, on top of his 2020 salary, you’re still having to spend at least $125-175 million on pitching. You don’t have a 2B (trading Madrigal+), so now you need to identify a Gennett/Schoop type correctly, you can’t rely on Collins to succeed and you’re also spending more to get a veteran DH in the Smoak/Adams mold and you’re still relying on McCann’s season not being a historical anomaly. As much as we believe in the potential of the young starters, we’re a second TJ from Giolito, Cease or Kopech from pushing back the rebuild yet another year...even with two veteran starters, because one of those guys will fall back from historical performance and god only knows what we’ll get from Lopez. We can’t begin to count on Rodon or Dunning, either.

Trading significant future assets for a one year shot at the playoffs (without an extension) is how you lose a fanbase and end up in a perpetual rebuild. And Hahn is not going to stick his neck out on the chopping block, anyway. He's all about risk mitigation.