caulfield12

Not really. The two most expensive arbitration years of Schwarber, then he’s a free agent in 2022 right in the heart of their competitive window. Generally, that’s the opposite of what teams like the Astros do, which is keep adding quality pre-arbitration players to their young core that is extended into free agency at going rates.

In the minds of the marketing department, maybe. I guess they also believed the perception of “being in on” Harper and Machado was beneficial, too, right? Having been a Sox fan since 1979, I can think of literally 50 former All-Stars we brought into the fold 3-7 years too late in their careers. There’s such a track record of doing exactly this that Cole, Rendon, Springer (next year) seem far-fetched to all but the most optimistic Sox fans.

The Cubs can’t do a complete teardown with a new broadcast network starting. Worst case scenario is Heyward is a 725ish OPS RFer in the NL who wipes out a lot of financial flexibility. You could imagine Schwarber at DH, but why would the Cubs just give him away, knowing they have to replace Zobrist and not 100% confident in Happ or Almora, either...

Corey Dickerson put up 2.6 and 2.7 when he was healthy, and feels like a White Sox special coming off an injury-plagued year. It will be interesting to see where Gardner ends up for 1-2 years. If I were him, I would wait to see what other moves (see pitching) a team like the White Sox makes. The guys wired a bit like Paul O’Neill, super-competitive. Minnesota and the Indians would be just as likely options within our own division. You know JR isn’t going to get into a bidding war for an older player like that...but who knows, maybe he thinks the name and Yankees’ ties would be enough to increase attendance in a stop gap year that could be competitive if they allocated the money wisely enough.

Or just watch “Ballplayer: Pelotero,” great documentary about the Dominican market for 14-16 year olds, changing ages, corruption, stars Sano and the former White Sox pitcher Ynoa.

Yet Wacha and Wood seems more likely, going by our track record on pitcher spending. Wish they would go after one war horse like Odorizzi or even Gibson (back end innings filler like Nova) who’s at least familiar with the division and has a more proven track record.

Except he’s going to expect #2 starter money.

There’s your game unless Verlander gets homer happy again. Terrible defensive breakdown, Meadows should have called everyone off, even if he was playing a relatively deep RF, it hung up there forever.

And yet I was right about Tatis, Robert and Madrigal from the very beginning. Puig, not so much.

Okay, ban bet. You predict $8 million, I’ll predict $40 million and whoever’s closer wins. $24 million is a tie.

Can you even read? Divide that by two? That’s 50%. Then the Myers contract for a historical 2 fWAR player at age 28 at least becomes something to talk about. Nowhere in this thread have I mentioned dealing any prospects to the Padres. I quite explicitly said buy him for 50 cents on the dollar. That’s not any riskier than trading half our remaining minor league capital for Nimmo. In fact, it’s less risky...considerably. Or we can just wait for another two seasons for one of our remaining minor league outfield prospects/suspects to figure things out. Or you just want to throw huge money at Ozuna to play a position he’s not even suited for because Jimenez is already ensconced in LF?

And Avi will get only $3 million from the White Sox to play RF next year, problem solved. Great analysis!

I would trade him straight up for Dave Wills.

And Capra was an outfielder during his big league career. Kind of figures. It’s not like Vizquel isn’t sitting there in our minor league system. Heck, after Robert and Madrigal moved up, Vizquel should have been visiting Chicago regularly in the second half to work with JUST Moncada and Anderson.

Just wait when Herrera and Colome come back with projected roles as 7th/8th inning high leverage guy and as closer respectively in 2020...when we’re supposed to actually be a competitive team. They’ll give Lisle a statue before they eat $9.5 million in the first half of the season...you can double that with Colome, who was incredibly shaky down the stretch.

Wil Myers has 5 seasons worth of at-bats and 9.5 career fWAR. An average of 1.9, and obviously teams (were he a free agent today), he would get about the same as Avi Garcia...maybe a tad less, although he at least can man CF. Right now he’s getting paid like that 3.5 fWAR hitter (see Avi’s one breakout season), so if you had to choose Avi, Myers and Puig at roughly the same salary (the Padres would have to kick 50% back), or Castellanos and Ozuna at significantly more in years and dollars, it’s not such an open and shut case. Ozuna has had the best peak years, but can’t play anything more than below average LF and has also been inconsistent throughout his career. Ozuna could easily get $70-80 million for four years (due to his age) and Castellanos $50-65 million. For Myers’ bWAR, four of his first six years in the big leagues were 2.0, 3.2, 2.1 and 2.4. And, in the end, none of those five are sure things to be 2+ hitters for the White Sox.

And all those raw tools do what for Anderson? Even Tatis, for having the tools to be the best SS in baseball, ended up slightly negative in some metrics because of all the ill-advised throw to first and trying to force DP’s at second instead of taking easy outs. Granted, he was a 20 year old jumping from AA to the bigs, but Semien’s numbers in that pitcher’s park are no joke on either side of the ball.

You could even say that we did the same with Eduardo Escobar...decided he couldn’t hit enough for an everyday position before he had a real opportunity to establish himself.

Who besides Hahn thought trading for Machado is his walk year was an outstanding idea?

Just like Rowand, his style of play isn’t conducive to a long and productive career. We sold as high as possible on him, one of the things Hahn did correctly.

We still don’t have a legit superstar in our lineup under team control past 2022/23. Jimenez doesn’t have the all around tools to make that kind of an impact on the field, his upside is JDM minus the OBP points...Anderson is limited (for now) by defensive lapses, so Robert is the best hope, simply because the odds of keeping Moncada in the fold long-term don’t look that great. Baseball is, after all, a game of both entertainment and superstars...and we could still use that stabilizing veteran presence in the lineup.

Balta, myself...many others argued endlessly that he wasn’t simply “doomed” to be a 30-40 error infielder for the rest of his career and that moving him all over the infield wasn’t doing him any favors. It’s ironic that the one position they played him at the least (SS, compared to 3B and 2B) turned out to be his best. Now some will argue Alexei Ramirez, but you owe it to your infield prospects to force themselves off SS first before accepting them as utility guys, ala Yolmer, Saladino and Leury.

Engel I’m assuming you are joking about, Rowland and Crede (you can add Jenks to the injuries list) were dogged by their physical limitations crashing into reality, but it’s still pretty rare for position players. Dunn was already 30 or 31 when he crashed. Myers is 28.

The same way any team does, discount him 50-75 cents on the dollar...but probably play him everyday the first half of 2020, and look at the back of his baseball card. They forced him into CF where he wasn’t comfortable defensively (Myers and Renfroe on both sides increased the pressure), gave him erratic playing time because Green was expected to get the team to play around .500, batted him all over the lineup. Usually players just don’t fall apart in the middle of their prime.

Avi leading the Rays to a playoff win...