caulfield12

Then we’re just differing on the quality/acquisition cost of that lefty, whether it’s Bumgarner, Ryu, Hamels, M.Gonzales, etc.

Levine claiming teams hot on the trail of Colome need to significantly increase their offers (Phillies and at least one other)...or the perspective will quickly change from one of subtraction to adding one more younger/controlled target (not sure Diaz makes sense with our minor league situation) for 2020.

True that, if McCann, Kahnle and Luis Robert/Abreu (via Paddy and KW) are all that I need to keep my job for at least another five years...sign me up.

Fine, name a playoff team other than the Mets with their future dynasty of young arms (2014-2016) that hasn't had veteran leadership in the top 2-3 spots in the rotation? (And I don't think anyone will confuse our staff with Harvey at his peak, deGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler, Matz, Niese, etc.)

Morton has been one of the Top 3 signings this offseason...that would be a miracle. A week or two ago, Odorizzi looked like that guy. Someone else will think they can fix Wacha or Porcello.

We need a #2 and #4 from outside the organization. It’s very obvious, just as it’s equally obvious we’re not going to pay $200+ million to Cole. The ace has to come from our own 40 man roster.

And so would every contending team in baseball. Think what the Brewers could do, instead of Gio in the twilight of his career? Angels...Twins...Red Sox...Yankees...Rangers...Phillies...Padres...the list goes on and on. Not to mention the Dodgers, of course. And as long as fans don’t expect 2012-2014 Bumgarner.

Well, here’s the thing. If Collins was a leading candidate for Rookie of the Year this season out of that draft slot...with that 1-1 quote and all the doubters among professional scouts and baseball publications quieted, Hostetler would be joining Paddy (Adolfo, Abreu, Tatis, Robert) at near genius status. He might even have been headed for Hahn’s job, had Burdi and Hansen lived up to their first-year billing. (Of course, we leave out the long list of failed Latin American prospects since 2012 along the way with Paddy and pretend it doesn’t exist due to those four names.)

I was talking about beyond the obvious core players...there are three in the majors, three in the minors. A month or two ago, you could squint and see James McCann added to that list, but it seems we’re back on the Grandal or bust bandwagon again.

Ryu’s great, when healthy. Not sure the White Sox can afford to overpay based on one season of full health and disregard the rest of his track record. For a team with the budget to house 7-8 starters, he’s almost perfect, as long as he’s rested and ready to go at playoff time. But that wouldn’t be his role in Chicago.

Don’t you think we’re all jumping on the Bummer bandwagon too quickly? Look at Fry last year...he looked almost as dominant in long stretches. Or the career of Nate Jones. When it comes down to it, we don’t really know how he will pitch in high leverage situations in the middle of a legitimate pennant race. Not saying he’s Daniel Palka and empty stats, but we’ve seen a lot of false positives, like Yolmer and Delmonico...a really decent stretch from a Covey here, Engel looking like the best CFer in baseball for a month or so. There’s always that fear that it will just fall apart. “Poof!” as Hawk would often say. I’m not sure the last three years have added one position player who wouldn’t be the last roster spot on the Dodgers or Astros.

I guess...but the White Sox are nothing, if not predictable. I watched Bumgarner for most of his start yesterday, and those wanting him or Hamels are going to end up disappointed. We invariably get those veterans 3-5 years too late, when they’re more of a big name than an All-Star. Realistically, the odds of him leaving the NL and choosing the White Sox are slim.

If it’s not Gonzales, who are the two pitchers we can realistically get...because we're going to need at least two?

Didn’t we already try this by making a poor trade for Samardzija and signing Robertson/Cabrera/LaRoche...as soon as we start to place our contention hopes on the backs of the Todd Frazier’s of the world, we’ll be stuck in baseball purgatory forever.

From looking at the same list of available free agents and rumored trade targets and discussing it over and over again. Unless we bring back Kenny Williams to find another Eaton or Quentin...for the life of me, I can’t even remember the last time we turned lead into gold with one of those patented page 18 in the sports section moves, probably Alejandro de Aza.

One of the best trades of all-time to get Yelich...two years ago, it was Thames, last year Shaw, Cain, Moustakas and Aguilar (Schoop was hurt). Huira coming up this year. The point is you make 2-3 moves every year that improve your team. Other than Braun, they’ve never locked into a bad contract...and signing 1-2 year deals with high quality veteran free agents has worked out well. In the end, you still need to have one proven TOR starter. Nevertheless, Chacin and the bullpen almost pulled off a miracle in 2018. Still, to be objective, there’s simply no way the Cubs should be on the ropes with a core of Bryant/Rizzo/Baez/Contreras and almost double the payroll as Milwaukee.

The point is that you can’t get too risk-averse when you really need to compete. All of the signings Hahn has made since 2016 were basically “throwaway” deals that wouldn’t effect the long-term future of the ball club. And there’s still talk of doing the same thing in RF and the starting rotation next year as well. We’ve gone from a mentality of get both Machado/Harper back to a “second tier” free agency outlook, and that’s crazy for a franchise with more financial flexibility than any team in MLB. At some point, they’re going to have to commit big time, like the Cubs did with Lester and the Royals with Shields. From that point onwards, it’s all about winning with no going back. No more excuses or half measures.

The biggest problem of all is that we’re so thin...a major injury to any of the Core 6 position players (three in the majors already) and it feels like rebuild could be set back yet another year, like it seemingly was when Kopech went down. For all the plaudits and praise received in 2016-18, we haven’t been able to produce enough 1.5-2.5 fWAR players to surround the core. It’s a combination of the sloppy play, dumb managing (bunting against MN in the first when they’re setting daily power-hitting records?) and McCann/Giolito/Abreu slumping. Then Cease struggling, and Jimenez scuffling too...it’s almost putting too much pressure on Luis and Nick to be the saviors as rookies. Madrigal can definitely handle it, just not sure how Robert will react.

Imagine the GM being the fall guy when he was basically forced by ownership to dump Cole, McCutcheon and Harrison...

Right, it was good enough to finish tied for the best record in the National League. The difference this year is that Cain, Aguilar and Shaw aren’t producing...so the weight of the offense has shifted even more to Yelich, Grandal, Moustakas and Huira (last two months). It also is an interesting lesson about going year to year on second tier free agents like Moustakas and Grandal that aren’t quite at the star level. Cain was a great contract last year...but you can definitely see him on a downward arc this year. And losing Knebel pushed everyone one step back in the bullpen...which will eventually lead to Hader getting worn down or injured like Sale at the end of every recent season.

Umm...Quintana’s 2017 and 2018=5.7 Gonzales has been worth 6.2 the last 1 1/2 seasons. And counting. It was pretty clear for most of 2017 he wasn’t the same pitcher before the trade. He was actually sporting an fWAR pretty similar to exactly where Gonzales is right now. For those months, we were monitoring his every start and fretting his value had been significantly decreased, his stuff wasn’t quite as crisp...maybe the trade rumors were bothering him, etc. Epstein didn’t properly evaluate him and went mostly by his 2012-2016 record...it’s the opposite of Nationals trading for Eaton and basing it on his one season where he was over a 5. How did that work out for them? Just like nobody will trade for Jose Abreu today and go off what he did in 2014-16. Realistically, Quintana was closer to a 2/3 at that moment than a 1/2...and now he’s a 3/4. And career-wise, he’s at least trending upwards or in a positive direction rather than the opposite. Everyone can probably agree that would be a very useful piece for the White Sox to stabilize the back of the rotation, and he won’t be nearly as expensive in arbitration as what they’re going to overpay in free agency with every team chasing the same 15 pitchers. With the Sox seemingly more interested in saving than spending money, a $1 million 2020 salary and three arbitration seasons is quite attractive. That allows them to easily spend the big money on Cole, Wheeler, Strasburg, Bumgarner, etc. It also guarantees they won’t end up with table scraps in February and March.

How did Q (billed at least as a #2 when with us) become someone who wouldn’t even slot in a big league rotation in the form of Gonzales when their stats and fWAR are quite comparable...Marco was something like 29th? From pitching at Safeco in obscurity? Let’s not forget that the competition in the AL West (Astros, A’s, Rangers and Angels) is a heckuva lot better than our own top-heavy division which includes 3 of the worst 8 teams in baseball. In my book, that would make him the #2 for the White Sox heading into 2020...and we still haven’t seen how Giolito going to finish out these last two months. And sure, theoretically Kopech should be higher in the end, but he has to prove it first.

If that’s the case, who would the Mets take for 2 1/2 years of Thor without touching one of the core rebuild pieces in Robert, Madrigal, Vaughn and Dunning (whose value is off 25-50% until he can prove he’s healthy and stuff is back)?

When the Sox trailed the Twins 9-0 on Sunday a pair of voices from young fans stood out in the crowd. They were cheering their hearts out with “Let’s go White Sox” chants. Renteria had NBC Sports Chicago’s Chuck Garfien find one in the crowd and gave him a signed ball. “We were 9-0 and that little kid was out there yelling,” Renteria said. “I can hear it. I thought he was way up in the stands or something. I told Chuck, ‘find that voice.’ “When you have kids who are looking upon Major League Baseball players with so much joy and enthusiasm. For me as an adult, we can become very cynical, sarcastic and very negative in any sport professionally because it’s all about performance and coming out on top and blah, blah, blah. Just hearing the voice of this kid just cheering you on, cheering you on and cheering on the team and talking about ‘Let’s go White Sox.’ For me, that lifted me up. And I wanted to find out who it was because, believe it or not, even us old guys and players in the field, need to hear that support sometimes. When it comes from the smallest little guy that you can see out there at that particular point for me. For me, it was a blessing. I’m glad I heard him. We gave him a little baseball. That’s what it’s all about and at the end of the day I think if we have child-like joy and desire and excitement and willingness to go out and just leave it out there, we’ll be OK.” Renteria signed the ball, gave it to the kid and it said “Thank you. Keep it going and keep believing.” https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/white-sox/young-fans-child-joy-put-things-perspective-white-sox-despite-big-deficit Scott Merkin has a similar story up at the team website

He’s a tub of goo, like Terry Forster, so why not...? Although he’s not reputed to have a great arm.