caulfield12

The Bears stink!!! Can I now work for NFL Network?

Would just get released or dumped on another team like Thome at the end of his Sox run in 2009.

Sure, but skinny as a rail, no defined position and projected only as a utility player.

Wheeler is obviously younger than Keuchel , but there’s no guarantee on the health of Cole or Strasburg, either. The more you study the career arcs of guys with 97+ average fastballs, especially after it took Zack 2 1/2 years for him to make a full comeback last time...there’s just a lot of ways for that deal to go wrong. Other than signing Rendon for the rest of his career at age 31 or Machado/Harper/Betts, not sure who you’re pining for here. It wouldn’t be shocking for the Phillies to still miss out on the playoffs in that division, fwiw.

That came directly from the mlb.com article.

Feel like everyone said the exact same things about Alexei Ramirez. Some kids are just born to play baseball, no matter how they look, like Gwynn or Kruk or Altuve/Biggio.

There are still a few options remaining. Bailey, Wood, Walker, R.Hill for second half, Felix, McHugh, Cahill, Harvey. None are that appealing, though.

Sure, but to not discuss those names is like leaving Kopech out of the White Sox discussion. We don’t know how Pineda will do starting the season later, but he’s still important depth. Probably it means both teams will be slower out of the gate not having their June/July rotations in place.

You do realize the minor league season is 20+ games shorter?

Pineda and Graterol...

Rangers already have Gallo and Choo who need to spend time at DH....

The argument is it’s more worthwhile to play Collins and you have a replacement who can be mentored by Grandal the next 3-4 seasons (it took Flowers even longer to establish himself in ATL) or you trade him at fifty cents on the dollar. All things considered, there should be a plethora of Abreu/Dickerson/Puig/EE/Gardner types available at the trade deadline for little more than salary relief. By that time, they’ll know more about Vaughn’s potential timeframe as well. Of course, there’s always that risk starting out with Leury, Mendick and Collins the first weeks of the season and getting buried under .500. But nobody should run away with this division that early.

Not happening. It’s EE, Castellanos or letting Collins hit for at least half a season against mostly RHP.

Keuchel is not exactly a pure “stuff” guy but knows how to pitch and his sinker will play well in hitter-friendly Guaranteed Rate Field. His 60.1% ground-ball rate last season with the Braves was the highest of 152 pitchers with at least 250 batted balls induced. • Keuchel, Grandal an ideal match of skills His 2.3 degree average launch angle allowed was the lowest of that same 152-pitcher group. Think Mark Buehrle, the former White Sox All-Star hurler, as a comparison. Keuchel was one of the top starting pitchers remaining on the market, along with Hyun-Jin Ryu. The 31-year-old, who turns 32 on New Year’s Day, had a 3.75 ERA in 19 starts for the Braves last season, with 91 strikeouts in 112 2/3 innings, after signing with Atlanta in June. An eight-year veteran, Keuchel won the 2015 American League Cy Young Award and the '17 World Series with the Astros. He has a 3.47 ERA in 12 career postseason games. Scott Merkin/Mlb.com https://www.mlb.com/news/dallas-keuchel-yasmani-grandal-join-forces Great article on why Grandal and Keuchel should be so effective together Only two regular starting pitchers stayed out of the heart of the zone more often than Keuchel in 2019: Gio Gonzalez -- now Keuchel's teammate in Chicago -- and Zach Davies. Both Gonzalez and Davies were Brewers last season. Guess who was their catcher in Milwaukee? When you throw to the margins to the degree Keuchel does, you want a catcher who can turn those pitches into strikes even if the hitter lays off. That's where Grandal comes in. Grandal's pitch framing saved the Brewers 13 runs last season, according to Statcast's framing metric, which is based on how often a catcher gets called strikes on those same borderline pitches Keuchel loves to throw. Grandal's plus-13 framing runs was second-best of any catcher. Most framing runs saved by catchers in 2019 1. Austin Hedges: +20 2. Yasmani Grandal: +13 2. Tyler Flowers: +13 4. Roberto Pérez: +12 5. Christian Vázquez: +11 In 2019, Grandal got called strikes on 51.1 percent of the borderline pitches he received (as in, ones that the hitter took, where the catcher's framing actually matters). The average for Major League catchers was 48.4 percent.

You’re taking a big gamble then having to go back out and sign Ray, Stroman or Bauer from next year’s class. Paxton and Tanaka, at least one of them will remain in NY, probably Tanaka on a lesser 2-3 year deal to finish his career there.

Betts, Springer, Pederson and Brantley (more a LFer) are it. Springer will be in his 30’s, there’s a lot of risk there to giving him a $125-150 million contract. Pederson is going to mighty expensive for a strictly platoon player. We could spend that $60-75 million in much more effective ways. Ideally, Mazara improves and we can find a platoon partner or part-time DH out of Adolfo/Rutherford. Eventually, Abreu moves there and Vaughn takes over 1st. Collins’ future remains as cloudy as ever. Trade bait or a replacement for McCann and part-time DH? And we still need to reallocate Colome and Herrera’s money back into rebuilding the pen before next year. Lots of moving parts.

Hamels for $18 million on a one year deal would have been better? Price? Happ? Well, we would have had to head back into the market a year from now with 1/2 the pitching inventory on the FA shelf. And it didn’t seem like Ryu was ever that interested. Bumgarner at $85 million was never a great idea, especially since he has never even pitched successfully in the AL and always was a West Coaster at heart. Finally, starting to dialogue more frequently with Boras might even lead to a favorable conclusion with Rodon, who knows?

Stroman would be the obvious choice to add either at mid-season or going into FA a year from now. The need for a Robbie Ray overpay has been lessened considerably.

In the end, do you really want the player that only hesitatingly joins your organization...when his heart is somewhere else? You can’t force things. Odds are that giving Wheeler $130+ million would have come back to bite them at some point...and probably when we most needed him. It’s still probably a more cost-efficient general policy to develop your own pitching and only spend $100+ million on position players. The Sox recent struggles with Rodon, Fulmer, Hansen and Burdi show just how hard that is to do. But we’re finally due for some better days.

Defense, the bullpen, Mazara, DH...those are the four obvious weak points. Five, if you lump all the young/unproven starting pitchers, especially the ones coming off injury like Kopech and Dunning. Cease and Lopez are complete wild cards at the moment.

Agreed. Conserve resources for mid season or next year at this time. Wait on the prospects to show what they can do in AA/AAA...especially Dunning, Stiever, Thompson, Dahlquist and the four remaining outfielders.

Four or five legit relievers are still out there. Utility guy to replace Yolmer who can play RF would be great...but they might stand pat with Leury. You’ve got Holt, Gennett and Dietrich. Could go with a C.Hernandez type over Mendick. EE or Castellanos if the money’s right...and/or they decide not to risk entering the season with Collins at DH taking 70% of the at-bats. This feels like more of a mid season move at the moment, although Stone keeps teasing another move. McHugh, although he was critical of Sox over Jimenez (before extension signed.)

We can bemoan the fact that our biggest contract now is potentially two $74 million deals...but that’s probably the most optimal approach for an organization that has never believed in investing a huge percentage of payroll in just 2-3 players. Grandal and a Keuchel run the risk of being on the downside in our most competitive years, but they’re two highly respected veteran leaders with playoff and World Series experience. In that sense, they will complement Abreu, Anderson and Madrigal quite well in terms of the leadership mix. We absolutely had to create more predictability for the rotation moving forward...there was no way around it. Whether these are incremental changes...improvements around the edges...or the kind of moves that bump us up to 85-87 wins, we’ll know soon enough. We finally have a season to really look forward to in anticipation for the first time in ages. The 2013 Royals finished 86-76 and third place in the Central...this team looks to be trending in that same exact direction. And we have the payroll space to add at mid season, but do so in a way not to avoid negatively impacting the team of 2024-26 and beyond. The big question is whether it’s a 3-4 year window or can it be extended to 5-6? Even the Cubs reached their limit at four, but they really peaked early and then faded. (They also have a more competitive division to deal with, other than the Pirates, who actually give them fits recently.)

New ESPN article had the payroll projected at $130 million. The last couple of days, have seen numbers at this site around low $90s....putting us closer to $110ish with Keuchel? Where’s that payroll tool we used to have pinned? https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/chicago-white-sox/payroll/# This has us closer to $82.5 million...

Nationals and Twins each offering Josh Donaldson four year contract, fwiw