caulfield12

But he’s also had TJ, was the worst pitcher in baseball in 2018 and will get more and more expensive from 2021-23. It’s obviously a bold and unusual move, but if you got back Alvarez/Tucker AND a pitcher (Whitley had a really rough year, and Houston normally doesn’t part with their best prospects), and the staff was 100% confident on Whitley’s prognosis, they’d be foolish to at least not consider it. For all we know, Lopez could be the ace of the rotation or relegated to the pen/traded by the end of the year, young pitching is so volatile these days. It’s also impossible to make this move unless you start convincing a Moncada or Robert to sign an extension, knowing that after 2023, nothing is certain with this roster. We push hard now...keep pushing the rebuild back indefinitely.

I have posted his name approximately 3-4 times this entire offseason. Obviously, I’d rather have Tucker...but Astros probably wouldn’t deal him straight up for Giolito. Or maybe they’re acknowledging Cole is gone, Verlander/Greinke will be declining and Wheeler might leave their price range.

It’s like USC football...when they vacated titles, it’s not like Oklahoma got an extra for getting to the NC game. That said, the Dodgers’ fans and anyone the Astros beat the in the postseason must be up in arms. The Royals were especially lucky to escape the Luhnow Curse, they were dead to rights against Houston in 2015 and somehow escaped.

Between Ozuna, Brady Aiken (low balling after MRI), trying to force their young players into disadvantageous extension terms, sign stealing...they’ve gone from the Patriots to something even more insidious, crossing the line one too many times. Maybe it’s actually a good thing for baseball...to have another team join the Yankees and Red Sox as a team we can all unite behind cheering against.

That’s true, but it isn’t like elite hitters like JD Martinez or EE five years ago haven’t gotten paid extremely well. We’re willing to give Abreu $18 million. And it’s difficult to imagine in this analytics-driven environment even an average fielding LF getting the Harper, Betts, Springer or Kris Bryant type of money.

Sure, for Alvarez and Tucker...if we didn’t have so much uncertainty in the pitching staff, it would be something to consider. Obviously, they wouldn’t be getting both those guys. Reddick and Alvarez for Giolito would be at least interesting to consider...if the White Sox were determined to sign Wheeler and one other legit FA starting pitcher.

Sure, Sox fans have become conditioned to expect the worst, I guess. Stockholm Syndrome, or something. When I created this thread, the odds on Wheeler from an acquisition standpoint felt at least 50/50. They could still shock the world and sign him for $100+ million and at least five years, but I’m certainly not counting on it at this point.

You act like one Fegan article mitigates every long-standing concern with Cooper. It doesn’t work that way. If Lopez, Cease, Kopech and Giolito...if two of those guys consistently pitch like Cy Young candidates throughout the next three seasons, I’ll more than happily say I was wrong about Don Cooper. You can go back to this thread and keep reposting it at the top of the site as we make the playoffs for at least three consecutive years. Time will tell. About Cooper’s health, and that of the pitching staff.

Therein lies the point. Wheeler bumps from expected 4/$80 to 5 and even 6 year deals. Hahn then turns around and argues that money in Year 5/6 needs to go to extensions of players already under control...the window has to be extended and not limited to 2021-23. Meanwhile, we still aren’t getting the quality of pitching to make us sure fire contenders for those three years, let alone 2024-26.

If you can guarantee JR will be comfortable spending that much, there’s absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Of course, payroll range still wouldn’t put us in below the bottom fringe of last year’s playoff field. Good enough to make it, but not realistically constructed to compete with the big boys.

Every year under KW/Hahn, we always had this mentality of fixing things at the ASB and only adding at that time if attendance was on the upswing and the team was in a “realistically competitive” position. The last times we set out to compete from Opening Day were April, 2006 and 2011 with Dunn and you can argue rest of the decade if you are so inclined.

The rebuild was pretty poorly structured for Balta to have gone from proclaiming it a dynamic dynasty in the making...to however you would describe his current take. Losing Kopech to injury removed 2019 from being the .500ish year and pushed contending all the way back to possibly the second half of 2020 or first half of 2021. Imagine we lose one of Giolito, Cease, Kopech to injury again after having only added Wheeler...or the very real possibility the gamble on Wheeler doesn’t go as expected. What do we have to trade with, then? We are heading right back to a mid 20’s ranked farm system after graduating Robert, Madrigal and Vaughn. Then the payroll would be forced into the $150-165 million range out of necessity (dipping back into FA like the Cubs have been forced into)...because rebuilding again obviously wouldn’t seem to be a realistic option.

Should all those injuries be happening to relievers as well as starters? Our entire foundation...other than Lopez, is based upon a set of pitchers with at least one TJ surgery in their history. High potential, sure, but also high volatility. Which is the biggest reason they need to add the pitchers now in FA. Somehow teams like the Rays, A’s, Twins, Indians, Brewers and Braves can figure this stuff out while investing a lot less money than we have historically into our starting rotations. Even with the Rays getting hit by a series of setbacks to Snell, Glasnow and one of their top prospects, they still manage to roll right along. We lose Kopech, and it seemingly set the rebuild back 1 1/2 years.

They said we shouldn’t select Nick Madrigal so high...or Vaughn. They said we could never have the #1 ranked farm system again, etc. Does it really matter when he’s part of the same braintrust trading away Top 3 MVP candidates in Semien and Tatis to other teams, blowing up the payroll simultaneously to the point there was no other realistic choice but to rebuild?

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?