caulfield12

White Sox fans are quite familiar with what happened second half of 2006... Basically, the entire staff started to break down...but especially guys like Garcia, Contreras and pretty sure Buehrle as well. Quite memorably Jenks out of the pen started to have his struggles as well. Of course, that was "just" 2-3 additional starts during that playoff run, because they also had McCarthy helping out, too. El Duque out of the pen, etc.

The Padres' top two are the youngest catching prospect in the game in Salas and Merrill/SS. Anyone else but those two would probably be up for discussion. Cease is exactly what they need...cost certainty for two years/won't blow up the budget and will provide a great amount of stability to the 2-3 spot in the rotation, perhaps as high a #1 depending on Darvish and Musgrove in terms of their health.

And Flaherty, not that he pitched all that well...three question marks in the back end of the rotation until proven otherwise, and lots of variance possible with their 1/2 TOR guys as well.

Milroe is a Fields clone. Sh.Sanders got destroyed by his Oline but hard to get a real read and then you have his dad involved in both good and bad ways. Allar from PSU isn't or hasn't been impressive compared to the physical tools. Ewers? Mixed bag. Will probably transfer but could go pro. McCarthy would be tops but he could stay if Michigan loses...maybe. Feels like 50/50 and depends on Harbaugh as well, likely Sherrone would take over and he's quite popular with team. Dillon Gabriel is a great college guy but limited for pros.

Haber makes even Rick Hahn himself look like he pulled himself up by the bootstraps un a Horatio Alger-esque tale.

Manaea was pretty terrible the last two seasons in notorious pitchers' parks...his stuff has deteriorated considerably.

Thanks heavens we have yet another external advisor. Right up there with TLR and Buddy Bell in modern Sox history...as well as Dayton Moore, peripherally.

Definitely not Stanford University...

Rick Hahn administrative tree still with jobs in baseball not exactly looking like the baseball version of the Shanahans… Hostetler the last one standing? Nick seemingly has the Dayton Moore seal of approval going for him due to their original Braves’ connections…and cross connections with Getz as well. At any rate, Josh Barfield will be the new GM in 2-3 years anyway. Then, all the ex Royals can be purged.

That's a pretty lousy group right now. McCarthy if he returns and Milroe in theory at the top...

PLAYER POS TEAM RATING 1 Shedeur Sanders QB 91.0 MORE>> 2 Drew Allar QB 87.0 MORE>> 3 Conner Weigman QB 86.8 MORE>> 4 Carson Beck QB 86.6 MORE>> 5 Jalen Milroe QB 85.0 MORE>> 6 Tyler Van Dyke QB 83.6 MORE>> 7 Dillon Gabriel QB 83.0 MORE>> 8 Preston Stone QB 82.4 MORE>> 9 Riley Leonard QB 82.0 MORE>> 10 KJ Jefferson QB 81.3 MORE>

Tyler Goodson over anyone else on the team who has touched the ball more than ten times out of the backfield all season long? Just wow.

Fair enough. Everyone is simply getting frustrated. Guaranteed that definite movement with Imanaga in the next week will lead eventually to Snell and Montgomery, but Boras FA's typically go down to the last minute. Meaning this could drag on for weeks unless two teams are willing to meet Boras hyper aggressive price points.

One thing is certain. Between Basallo Kjerstad and Mayo there's going to be an eventual logjam at 1B/DH. And they already have Mountcastle and O'Hearn. Those two are disposable...but odds are usually out of three guys like that...only one is going to actually make it. Two are going to disappointments, especially because they are "hit first" players. Basallo in RF turns into Melendez of the Royals.

Basallo still has too high of a risk factor he doesn't stick at catcher...and the White Sox simply don't develop catchers well from a defensive standpoint. Plus they just went out and added Quero. Maybe with Basallo you could argue that Maldonado would be around to tutor him (and Quero...and that would be part of the deal), but Basallo has a lot more value to other teams just like Ortiz because they're blocked behind stud players. "His arm is also well above average, looks elite at times. He is still working on his blocking and overall concentration, but he should catch a whole lot this year and continue to grow at the position.” At 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, there is a chance Basallo (pronounced Ba-sigh-O) could outgrow the catching position, although the Orioles have a big guy now back there doing pretty well. One scout put it as 60-40 or 65-35 he stays as a catcher. If he has to abandon a catcher’s mitt at some point down the road he could end up at first base or in a corner outfield spot. But even at his size, he is considered quite athletic and flexible. His fielding got a 50 scouting grade from Baseball America, and his arm a 60 grade. MLBPipeline.com put it at 45 fielding and 60 arm. So yeah, his arm is well above average, and he touched 86 mph on some of his best throws to second base last year. Adley Rutschman averaged 86.3 mph on his arm strength, via Statcast data in the big leagues in 2022. And that velocity tied Rutschman for seventh-best arm strength among all big league catchers." https://www.masnsports.com/blog/he-s-no-1-catcher-samuel-basallo-heads-up-o-s-international-rankings

Plenty of distance indoors...just faded. Great play by Stroud on that drive.

Except that was FL. No ballots in Iowa.

Or KW Hahn...with the initial ask.

Haven't they already noticed we have Nicky Lopez who will accomplish exactly the same thing as Lopez at 2B? Or DeJong at SS?

Are the O's true believers doing the same exact thing on Miami Cleveland and Milwaukee boards? Trying to convince Milwaukee they desperately need Ortiz?

Sure Holliday plus lol. No reasonable person would conceivably believe that.

Diminishing supply and increasing demand. Diminishing supply and increasing demand. Diminishing supply and increasing demand.

Insane TD/INT ratio for a rookie. Not to mention there were times he played without Collins this year...talk about a true no-name offense.

CJ Stroud. Pretty pretty good.

So why not simply resign him if he was so incredibly valuable? Why didn't he get a playoff start? A 7.8 fWAR the last four seasons prior to 2023 means he should have been worth approximately 2 fWAR and $14-18 million...and he outperformed that by 0.6. Seems obvious they simply can't compete with even the mid market Cardinals?