caulfield12

Of course, there’s always a chance he’s a late bloomer like Carlos Martinez w/ the Cards.

Yes, and that’s my salient observation. If he’s not playing 75-80% of the time, he’s going to go into a terrible funk that will be difficult to extricate himself from at the big league level...his swing is just way too long and has too many moving parts.

Between John Wick...that recent Asian-themed indie movie where he plays a caricature of himself...Duke KaBoom in Toy Story 4 and rumors DC and Marvel have courted him he's basically back on top of the world for now.

Unfortunately, with that swing, the only way he will ever get going is with consistent playing time...

LoL...still exist, actually coming back to the US from China for summer vacation and will experience AT&T Park in SF for the first time Sunday. At any rate, that’s nice of you to say, but message boards are increasingly the territory the territory of millennials and “Sabes-driven” conversations...I kind of miss the day when people just had their opinions and it wasn’t about just proving everyone to be wrong with analytics. Back then, you could have asked 100 different fans who they preferred between Mantle, Mays, Aaron and Clemente and gotten a ton of fascinating yet completely subjective answers.

This is exactly the type of trade we’ve been unable to pull off under Hahn...and it’s pretty clear we no longer have the expendable horses in the minors to bring in the next Christian Yelich, so we absolutely have to find 2-3 fWAR players in more creative ways. The best Hahn has come up with is Palka, Tilson and Cordell. Not good enough. 7. Oscar Mercado, OF, Cleveland Indians Mercado was picked up by the Indians in an under-the-radar trade at the deadline last year, and it now looks like a real steal for the Tribe. He was acquired in exchange for outfielders Conner Capel and Jhon Torres. Mercado has been impressive, slashing .307/.358/.465 with eight doubles, four homers and six stolen bases in 34 games since being called up. In the minors, he was slashing .294/.396/.496 with 10 doubles, four homers and 14 stolen bases in 17 attempts. He’s an exciting player with a good combination of power and speed and above-average bat speed. He looks to be a below-average defender in the outfield, but he’s a high-energy, athletic player who might end up playing a key role for the Indians in the wild-card race.

Yes, because instead signing bottom tier FA’s worked even better? Unless we sign Cole, Rendon, Ozuna or Grandal...we will be signing mid-tier FA’s again this offseason.

Don’t just assume they won’t play him in RF.

With the current Sox injuries jinx, this means a torn labrum on the first pitch and a Markell Fultz-like shooting hitch.

Might as well add Freeland or J. Gray to the list. Stroman...just to make our clubhouse even more entertaining. Reyes or Renfroe is too obvious.

We spent money this offseason and ended up with a 0 fWAR net return with all the new players that came onboard. That list, not including Giolito...is now six starting pitchers deep with TJS in their histories. Last year, the rebuild was derailed by an injury to just one of them, which shouldn’t happen with all the talent we’ve had to trade and a series of higher first round draft picks. Eaton is not a clear fleecing until Giolito or Lopez go on to sustained run of success for two seasons or sign an extension. Because at this point, with the uncertainty moving forward with Lopez, you simply filled one hole in the starting rotation but created an equally big one in RF. You need to get at least 2/3 of those pitchers as dependable rotation members first. Money/flexibility only matters if it’s spent wisely, and Abreu/Tatis/Robert all were largely scouting coups for Paddy/KW. Fwiw, Tatis, Sr., was practically begging the White Sox not to trade his son and already predicting how much more he would fill out. So even if Robert becomes a five tool superstar and stays healthy, we’ve missed out on or or traded two back to the NL. We also failed to exploit the Robert class with our unprecedented financial flexibility (to bring in a plethora of fellow international signees simultaneously) in order to cushion the pressure on the rotation with future depth and we still have YET to sign a legit impact FA for more than $75 million... And then a dismal track record with FA signings, regardless of the opportunity cost/money allocated. The only thing that continues to protect him is JR and the penurious ways of our fellow AL Central competitors...in almost any other division, anything but a Wild Card would be next to impossible with our ongoing pitching woes.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=ss&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2018&team=0 Interestingly enough, we already developed or at least identified 2 of the Top Ten Fielding SS’s. Semien at #3 and Anderson at #10. 3 of the Top Ten If you count Tatis, Jr. Iglesias was 4th. The craziest stat was in RF though... https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=rf&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2018-01-01&enddate=2018-12-31

And force all left-handed pull hitters to practice push bunts down the 3B line at least twenty minutes per day. Make parking free and all souvenirs and concessions sold at only 25% markup. Matt Davidson three homer game against KC on Opening Day Bobblehead Giveaway.

Fegan was predicting they would be quite fortunate if it was just one month...

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/white-sox-sign-jake-peavy-to-two-year-extension/ The White Sox were 40-64 on the day of that trade at the deadline. Going nowhere fast, and owing another roughly $20 million on his contract. At that point, with his diminished stuff and injury history...he was more or less a ticking time bomb. The surprising success of 2012 had quickly evaporated. With Colome, there are a ton of teams now out there like the Cardinals and Red Sox who are desperate for bullpen help and also for a pitcher under control for the following season. There’s also a death of quality closer candidates on this upcoming free agent market. You’re underestimating how easy it is to find a guy in their mid to late 30’s...look at the career trajectory of Allen going downhill with the Indians and then to the Angels. Looking through the FA list, Hector Rondon might actually be one of the top three options. As the mileage on arms builds up, the potential for disaster awaiting between ages 32-36 only increases.

Very simple...we started out trying to acquire major league ready talent (Top 75-100 milb) a half decade ago for Peavy. We incubated that talent but for a number of reasons no longer have a long term asset in the prime of his career under team control. Here we are...yet again. Now we need to turn around and sacrifice an important piece (Colome) in his own right for 2020 in order to compete in RF...meanwhile, we have five minor leaguers who are potentially capable of playing RF but none less than a year (and arguably even longer away.) We are always stuck in between. We won’t give Ozuna 4-5 years because of the argument that one of the minor leaguers could develop. Meanwhile, we risk wasting yet another season out of Moncada, Anderson, Giolito, Jimenez, McCann, etc. Still feels like another version of mired in mediocrity...albeit with a vastly more talented and young offensive core. The thread in general is about whether we should trade Colome. Colome today is pretty much the equivalent value of Jake Peavy (especially considering Jake’s contract and injury issues) back then.

Renteria admitted to James Fegan that Leury Garcia had “barking legs” and yet he still sent him on that attempted hit and run in the 9th...

Dr. Brian Schulz said the latest research shows that after a first-time UCL reconstruction, about 80 percent of professional baseball players return to their previous level or progress beyond it. The success rate after a revision surgery represents a dip, though not a massive one. A study published last year in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery reviewed 93 “revision” surgeries and found that roughly 63 percent of those players returned to their prior rung of competition. ... According to Jon Roegele’s database of reported operations, the former top prospect became the 101st professional or high-level amateur player known to require multiple Tommy John surgeries since 1991. The list of one-time patients such as Kirby is roughly 15 times longer. https://theathletic.com/958536/2019/05/02/the-outlook-for-repeat-tommy-john-patients-has-improved-but-will-that-hold-true-for-anderson-espinoza/

Another example to support the idea of trading Colome is the Hand for Mejia deal. At the time of that deal, Mejia was #26/32/59 on all the Top 100 lists. While they discovered one of the better closers in the league in Yates (26/27 saves), moving him to the back end put a ton of pressure and increased workload on their 7th/8th inning guys and, as a consequence, that bullpen has really fallen apart the last 4-6 weeks. It’s inarguably that there’s considerable doubt on whether the White Sox already possess a reliever in-house who could put up those same numbers (to Colome/Yates.) I guess we’re back in the position of needing the equivalent of 2012 Avi Garcia If we’re not signing Marcell Ozuna.

But Madrigal played all the way through the College World Series...Vaughn's last game was June 1st, so that would be four weeks without seeing legit pitching. "Ever since the Draft, I tried to stay focused with our college season and let that play out first," Madrigal told reporters during a conference call. "I was excited just to put the White Sox logo on, get in uniform. "I really don't need a whole lot of break. I've been playing all season long. I told them I only needed a couple of days to swing a wood bat, get used to it. I'm ready to go and just excited to move forward." Madrigal, 21, batted .367/.428/.511 with eight doubles, six triples, three home runs, 34 RBIs, 41 runs scored and 15 stolen bases in 42 games as a junior in 2018 for the Beavers. The 5-foot-7, 165-pound second baseman, who bats right-handed, will play a couple of games at shortstop in Arizona before moving to Class A Kannapolis. Arizona should be his first destination since it’s closest to California and then they’ll decide after a week about short season ball or Kanny based on how rusty he looks.

His lay-off has now been long enough they should probably follow a similar path. In introducing Adley Rutschman today, the top pick in the 2019 First-Year Player Draft, Oriolesexecutive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said Rutschman would begin his pro career in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League and then move on to short season Single-A Aberdeen. “He’s won a lot of awards this summer for his accomplishments in college and he’s got a few more,” Elias said at today’s press conference at Camden Yards. “Then we’ll send him to our spring training facility in Sarasota, Fla. Join the Gulf Coast League roster for a slow on-boarding process after the layoff he’s had. And then shortly thereafter join the Aberdeen IronBirds of the New York-Penn League and start his climb up the minor leaguer ladder.” Which probably in White Sox interpretation means Kannapolis and then Winston-Salem at the end of the year...or a minor league playoff roster, then possibly AFL if he just completely tears it up. That latter possibility of pushing him that hard over two months when he has missed all of June doesn’t really make much sense.

Time for Omar Vizquel to come back and play third instead of Rondon...

Red Sox announcers crushed to finish 3-3 against Toronto and the White Sox. For Boston, fourth lead blown after 8, plus another 7 more when leading after the seventh (Liptak stat of the day when Sox blow one...so his quote today about coming back from blown saves to still win should be interesting.)

They’ll undoubtedly figure out some way to get Alonso 550 plate appearances still, lol...

Can just imagine old Hawkeroo sighing at home after the leadoff walk from Colome....assuming he hasn’t already thrown the remote control through the wall because we have all seen this way too many times before.