caulfield12

See Ohtani, Shohei, one of the important players ever to come over from Japan. Similar situations in terms of hoping for the situstion to turn around on its own, along with the possibility of contending with him purely as a hitter. Mickey Adolfo would be another. Tanaka also comes to mind over an extended period...where they did platelet injections and all kinds of tricks to get him through it to the other side still intact.

Phillies’ fans’ phantasies now up in smoke about him coming back home. The Angels have Otani and Adell, let’t not forget. 1. Zack Cozart, 3B Mike Trout, CF Justin Upton, LF Justin Bour, 1B Albert Pujols, DH Andrelton Simmons, SS Kole Calhoun, RF David Fletcher, 2B Jonathan Lucroy, C

Objectively, forget about Machado...who would you rather see play from a fan standpoint? You can argue that Jay’s defense in RF or CF is more valuable than Carlos’ offense, but it’s not a slam dunk either way. It doesn’t matter at all at this point, anyway, but Gio, CarGo, Kimbrel and Machado would have gotten the fanbase absolutely pumped.

Which rating service do you care to go by? FG? BP? BA? MLB Pipeline? Logan Allen is at #74, all of those other pitchers in the first paragraph are almost universally listed ahead of Allen. Dunning was #80 before TJS, so that gives you seven ahead of Dane on Pipeline. I suppose I could have just just said there are 16 pitchers ahead of or comparable to a Dunning, but then you’d argue that there’s no evidence or support to back up an unsubstantiated claim. Tell us which of the other 9 you’d take Dunning over...I’ll possibly concede Erlin, Perdomo (2.5 fWAR early in his career) could be argued either way and Jacob Nix (#14 Padres’ system). Matt Strahm has accumulated 1.5 fWAR as a 27 year old lefty, mostly pitching out of the bullpen. Even conceding two or three names, that’s either 13 or 14 ahead of Dunning, who is still technically our #3. And Kopech won’t even be able to pitch this year, so it’s essentially Cease/Covey/Banuelos against their 16 youngsters. How can the White Sox not have at least 6-8 legitimate pitching prospects under age 27 going on the third year of the rebuild? It seems insane to base the entire future of the franchise on four pitchers with TJS and Carlos Rodon, who might not even make it to the 2021 season in a White Sox jersey.

Manny are you okay, are you okay Manny...you've been hit by a smooth Santana ball.

Here's a way to put this whole thing in perspective...and Padres currently have 16 (SIXTEEN) pitchers who could easily be ranked ahead of Dunning/Hansen/Lambert/Flores!!! No doubt: M.Gore, Chris Paddack (will make the starting rotation, he's their version of Kopech), Cal Quantrill, Morejon, Michael Baez and Anderson Espinoza (Red Sox trade) and Logan Allen. Joey Lucchesi and Lauer already in the rotation. Total=9 Better: Patino, Dilson Lamet (coming back from TJ this season), Matt Strahm (Royals trade, will make starting rotation after reconverting from relief) Total=3 Arguable/Debatable either way: R.Erlin, R.Weathers, Luis Perdomo, Jacob Nix Total=4

I'd still rather see him than Jay...baseball is first and foremost an entertainment business, after all.

Nolan Ryan did the cattle wrangling and calf roping on his ranch...and some type of exercise with his arms in kegs filled with something like rice or sand? Roberto Clemente strengthened his forearms by squeezing what amounts to a racquetball while growing up in Puerto Rico. Yeah, you just wonder how guys like Mantle and Ruth made it, with all the drinking. Mantle famously stepped on a sprinkler head and ruined one of his knees, or he might have been the greatest all-around player in history (had he taken care of himself better from a physical and psychological standpoint.)

CarGo's going to sell a lot more tickets than John Jay...unless there are a ton of closet Cardinals' fans in Chicagoland that have fond memories of his heyday.

For Brad Hand and Adam Cimber? Mejia was a fleecing. but someone will be desperate for best closer in baseball at the trade deadline, you can guarantee it.

What about 65-69 wins? 70-72? I guess it depends on how the core pieces look going forward, more so than the actual record.

Just set the budget at $125-150 million and draw random names from the free agency pool at MLB traderumors (you could use a random number generator to pair with each player) and you'd do better than Hahn 9 or 9.5 times out of 10. Or throwing darts while blindfolded at various free agents' baseball cards on a wall. It's ironic one of the reasons Hahn got the job was his son picking the right flip of the coin in 2008 for the Blackout Game...maybe if we get blown out in Minnesota, the rebuild begins much much earlier instead of playing it out through 2012 and then extending into 2014/15.

Haha...I suggested this a week or two ago and was laughed at...not so funny right now. Covey and/or Banuelos are going to have to fill in a lot of innings.

Could be bad mechanics as well...there's a reason that Rizzo made those three pitchers available (remember, Lopez was projected to a closer due to his frame and questions about secondary stuff.) Cease already had TJ coming out of high school. Burdi and Kopech try to throw the ball through a brick wall. Jace Fry has already gone through 2 major surgeries. Someone wrote Bummer, but I'm not sure if they were referring to Burger's injury or Aaron Bummer also had surgery? Still don't know about Ian Hamilton's shoulder and how serious that injury is, he was projected by many to win a bullpen role and eventually compete with Burdi for the closer's role. Erik Johnson, too. Hopefully Lambert and Flores aren't the next two guys to go down. I guess other than Sale (who everyone expected to break down eventually)/Quintana, we've had a terrible string of "bad luck" over the last decade, haven't we? In this particular situation, Dunning's more of a surprise because he was not a pitcher 100% reliant on high velocity. Then you have the Hansen nightmare, but there were already signs of that coming out of OU his junior season, when his stock fell off a cliff from 1-1 consideration.

Except that's not true either, just Rodon and this upcoming pick...we're usually somewhere between 8th and 12th, it seems.

They still had AFL, winter ball, Arizona...I guess in the overall scheme of things, with where the White Sox are in the current rebuild...it really doesn't matter all that much, but it would have given him a head start on 2020. Arizona Fall League probably would have been pushing him too hard, but there were other options for the offseason...then again, maybe he participated in one of those Driveline-like programs and we don't even know about it.

Even Kimbrel if it made sense...sign and flip, just spending money for half season which could be leveraged into at least one top 50~75 prospect if not Gleyber Torres or Francisco Mejia.

Unlikely Schwarber...

Burdi is the one who brought this longer timeline into perception, imo. Missing likely one full year and even early part of 2020, if there are any setbacks.

Coop can fix ‘em? And there’s always S. Korea.

There’s another issue, if he can handle CF, his stock dramatically differs from a corner spot. We’ll have to watch his K rates in marquee weekend matchups, where the SEC should have much better frontlinecstarting pitching than the PAC 10, for example.

We don’t need any college players with oodles of athleticism but extensive swing and miss profiles...

Lopez is the one who was most deserving, but whatever...if it somehow helps Rodon throw 95-98 mph instead of 88-93 in the early innings, more power to Renteria I guess.

Where is Riley Greene projected to go right now...?

Ummmm...no. The main argument is protecting Jimenez, fragile psyches of young pitching...and especially if Palka or Guyer are also in the outfield, too.