caulfield12

At this point, bringing in Bumgarner or assuming Greinke’s salary would be similar moves, too. Or believing Cooper can fix Wheeler because the Mets are so messed up, etc. Assuming the White Sox are going to sign Cole, Ozuna and Grandal, on the other hand...well, we went through that this past offseason. Rick Hahn had the absolute worst timing with this because it feels like 75% of the true impact players in these next two classes are already off the board after signing extensions, unfortunately. There’s also probably 5-7 high impact pitchers with 2-3 years remaining on their current deals...but we just don’t have attractive enough horses to deal beyond our our four current Top 100 milb players. Finally, the international market has been pretty much a dead end since Robert.

We’ve made a number of trades with those terms attached since Zach Duke...with very little return in terms of impact talent coming back. In fact, Leury Garcia from the Rios trade to Texas ages ago might be the best example. As far as exchanging Colome for Narvaez...it still remains to be seen on that front whether we eventually come out ahead. I suppose Hahn would make the argument that signing LUIS Robert made it all worth it, but we didn’t plow another $20-30 million into multiple impact players that international class after we already had entered the penalty phase...so some of the potential advantage was negated. Or we created “financial flexibility” with the Indians in the case of Alonso...and completely blocked Palka in the process.

Except for the fact that Hahn’s biggest boosters pushed Robertson like it was a very good signing all along, or that he wasn’t actually overpaid (“fair market value” must have been thrown out hundreds of times)...largely because it was even harder to argue for LaRoche or Melky in that trio of signings.

Let’s just say there has never been a GM better positioned with the mid market payrolls of the AL central and the ability to jump start the rebuild with Sale, Eaton, Q...not to mention Frazier/Kahnle/Robertson. Even if we have the best group of young position players in baseball...we have five young starting pitchers with TJS already in their histories and the Lopez. We’ve spent multiple years bringing in college relievers yet don’t have anything resembling a lockdown pen. We largely don’t play smart baseball and have outdated coaches at the major league level. We’ve probably already wasted picks on Fulmer, Burdi, Hansen (at least the upside was there), Burger, Sheets...and have hit a complete brick wall in terms of any of the four remaining minor league OF prospects after Robert even being close to ready for 2020...meaning we need to at the very least rent a RFer for 2-3 years. Collins is just as much suspect as prospect. All of the lesser trades since 2016 have brought in...well, maybe nobody who will contribute to our next playoff team. Palka and Fry last year are worth very little this year. We have lots of utility players and 4th/5th infielders...but the only real breakthrough has been the play of McCann. Other than that move, we might have had the worst offseason in recent memory, as Colome might be dealt and our catching situation still is unresolved long-term.

Well, there’s that, too. Actually he was at one point going to be the only legit impact SS on the market. They could still end up trading him if they decide to pay Betts what he’s worth for an extension, but they also need to come up with a replacement for JD Martinez and someone to play CF. Devers and Benintendi are extension candidates as well. At any rate, Luis Robert is the only one who could get that deal done, and he’s not going anywhere. Neither is Tim Anderson.

Frazier, Robertson and Kahnle were pretty good at that time...especially the latter two.

The odds of the White Sox not promoting a coach from their own “network” of coaches and alumni would seem to be somewhere between slim and none.

There is no plan. Just like there’s no plan to sign Marcell Ozuna, either. Hence, Anderson stays put. Heck, we can’t even get Renteria to stop using Alonso or Herrera...meanwhile, Anderson’s play at SS is not even in the Top 20 Sox problems at the moment.

Anderson has been 98, 78 and 85 in wRC+ before this season. Is he going to stay at 120 for the rest of this season? Probably not. Is he one of the best ten or twelve SS’s in baseball? Undoubtedly, despite the brain cramps, routine play blunders and occasional overaggressiveness when caution is called for on the basepaths. Like Jose Valentin, he makes up for those blunders with his range and arm. In the end, it’s a huge win to get 3-4 fWAR out of him on a consistent basis. He’s one of our five young core position players moving forward. He’s also probably not the superstar he looked like the first six weeks, and walk rates will always suppress his full offensive value. Finally, replacing your SS is probably the hardest move you can make as an organization...along with developing a young catcher who can both hit and field. Being objective about a player on your team is far from being a hater. My point was that moving him to the outfield creates an even bigger hole to fill at SS.

Hard to justify a corner outfielder who will struggle to be an 800+ ops guy consistently. He has the arm strength for the position, but it’s probably better to play him in CF...and keep Robert healthier on a corner. But that opens up an even bigger hole at SS...unless we are planning to sign Bogaerts. The last three shortstops (Tatis, Machado and Abrams) we had or had shots at are all in the Padres’ organization.

Flaherty did it twice, actually...in the span of less than two weeks. That time, on June 15th as a PR at second, he stumbled and almost fell rounding third against the Mets after a single had dropped into RF between fielders and therefore also made the final out of the game.

Please check White Sox website for the most recent article detailing players that are rumored to be drawing trade interest from other organizations...unless you have more specific insight on which minor league prospects that Hahn deems expendable would constitute a feasible trade (and would be matches for a team on the periphery of the playoff hunt...remembering that fanbase has higher expectations.)

They’re the four exact players most commonly mentioned in terms of trade interest from other teams. Eloy Jimenez is heading for a 1 fWAR season and we just gave him the biggest contract in team history. Mazara actually fit the timeline of competing in 2020 and 2021 without being a long-term financial commitment. We can pick apart Ozuna (inconsistent/pricey), Castellanos and Puig just as easily. So who is YOUR answer??? Easy to criticize others, but let’s hear your plans for RF, the starting rotation (name 2-3 starters and how much you’d be willing to pay them) and bullpen in 2020. Mazara is worth 2.3 fWAR over four seasons. That said, he projects at least in the 1.5-2.0 range this year since it’s a counting stat. (Or did we make a mistake letting Avi Garcia go, as he’s headed for another positive 3-4 fWAR season in Tampa?) Are any of our remaining four minor league outfielders a better bet to be a 1.5-2 fWAR player by age 24/25?

GoFundMe? Cooper would probably love that...

Or that Abreu is hardly Keith Hernandez or even Konerko over there with scooping up a low throw...

Who do we actually that that would interest the sort of contending sort of rebuilding Rangers? He’s clearly better than internal options or an Avi Garcia return, for example, but only under control for two more years. If we’re going to do it, might as well bring in Odor as well as a change of scenery type as well. We just don’t have the minor league pieces that we would be willing to part with to pull it off. Trading for Abreu, Leury, Colome or McCann makes little sense, either. Or let’s just say they would laugh if we asked for Mazara that Jon Daniels would quickly hang up the phone.

He used to have an up in the zone “rising” fastball nobody could do anything with but foul it off...obviously, it has disappeared. Tonight, he’s throwing mostly two seamers. It is pretty clear he has lost his confidence in using it...but we saw the downside of the two seamer when you have fast infields, bad positioning or balls hit with lots of spin.

40% of our roster could be released tmrw and we’d probably still end up 8-10 games under the .500 mark. Herrera was overused by Yost and will never be the same...can’t believe the scouts didn’t pick up on that. He was always 97-99 and touching 100. Now he’s lucky to get it up to 96, which is average for the bullpen now compared to five years ago. He has lost confidence in both his four seamer and offspeed stuff. You can’t survive like that...entering Trevor Rosenthal territory.

Herrera can’t get his breaking stuff over and has almost completely gone away from four seamers for sinking fastballs. Cooper?

Perfect pitch, everyone looking fastball but Taylor and Vasquez.

One of the more interesting pitching changes of the season...sure he also wants the lefty for Moncada and Alonso despite his lighting up another lhp earlier in the game.

No way you think about doing it until the offseason unless than have no plan whatsoever to go after Grandal and/or are locked into forcing Collins or Zavala into the equation.

This is where Hamilton, Nate Jones and theoretically Herrera were supposed to lock down games. Eventually, Burdi. Well, at least we have Heuer.

That’s STILL not the Yankees of 2018 with Judge/Stanton, and the Astros have been missing key elements of their roster as well. And an inning ago, you were criticizing Giolito for giving up the 3-2 lead, lol.

Who is willing to pay Betts $325 million? Red Sox announcers say Bummer reminds them a lot of Sale...