michelangelosmonkey

Who here doesn't think this could be our year? You aren't suggesting we aren't trying to win this year are you? In the playoffs you need three great starters, a dynamic bullpen, a strong defense and a strong offense. Our weakness seems to be fourth and fifth starter...which is more likely to make getting to the playoffs harder...but honestly...slug one and slug two giving up 5 runs a game are going to win a lot of games with this offense. I'm not sure I like anyone better than White Sox if the playoffs started tomorrow.

I lived through that ERA but no where near this level of power arms...I dont think we knew who Buehrle was until he came up and was great...in 2000 he was just a lefty control pitcher. Jon Rauch in 2000 was Kopech exciting...but only that one year. Kip Wells but maybe Stiever exciting? Great A pitcher...but age and stats all favor Stiever. You didnt mention Garland who was 20 in 2000 and seemed exciting. The other guys you mention I recall but not to the same level. I think if you were drafting 2000 Sox pitchers and 2021 Rauch top five...maybe third. Wells maybe 7th? Could be recency bias...and obviously in retrospect you have Buehrle and Garland in top five. But I have to say from a potential point 2021 by a mile. A better comparison is 1995....Alex Fernandez, Wilson Alvarez , Jason Bere, Mike Sirotka, Scott Ruffcorn, James Baldwin...I remember being really excited about Baldwin and Ruffcorn. But not much after them.

Hate to speak for others but...the core of the dozen best players are 25 or younger. Peaks years would be when they are 26-27-28. So we will see exciting up and comers this year and in a year or two we will see them at their full power.

I don't CARE about Teheran...I am SO excited about this team. In all my following of the White Sox I can't remember so many exciting pitchers under 26...Gio, Cease, Kopech, Crochet, Kelly, Stiever, Thompson, Dahlquist...all on the roster or in our top ten prospect list. I just don't want the White Sox even considering some 30 year old cast off...irrespective of his league average skills...even if he's free....I don't want them to look at Leake or Hamels. This is not the time...this is not the team...back when the Sox were trying to squeeze a contender out of the Sale/Quintana/Eaton/Abreu group and they had all sorts of garbage on their staff, bullpen and lineup...sure...bring in Teheran and dream. But this team has way to much talent to be grasping at straws...and if the wheels do fall of the cart with the rotation...I'm pretty sure you can find a Teheran equivalent by trading a fringe prospect to a non-contender.

That's fair...would you have been ok with "We got a top ten starting pitcher in baseball and the best relief pitcher in baseball"? I can't understand why people aren't more excited about this. Teheran gets more love on here than Lance Lynn.

Don't be afraid...it's spring...its the time to be optimistic. You say our depth is bad and I look at the best 26 man roster I've ever seen with the White Sox. Leury Garcia and Adam Engel seem like professional back ups, Collins and Mendick both offer interesting skill sets as back ups. As for the spending of money...OK, it's frustrating that we can't sign a $300 million contract...but I remember when Bill Veeck couldn't meet the payroll. We've had top five payrolls under JR so it's just pessimism to say it won't happen again. As for Vaughn...just wait!!!

No I said Lynn and Hendricks were both Cy Young candidates from last season.

Wow so you want to die on the Teheran hill? Yes 30 is on the downside of a pitchers career...and especially looks bad on a guy who hasn't been "good" since 2016. While he is "free" the point is you have a limited number of pitchers you can have on your roster. It's so ridiculous that Stiever was "pounded" last year (one bad inning actually), Lopez is garbage with his 6 ERA but Teheran who had a 10 ERA is fine to bring in. More Teheran is not better...it is a sign of desperation for a bad team...honest.

Why do you want to be a White Sox fan if you hate everything about the organization? i get how frustrating it must have been this off season for you with getting only two Cy Young candidates, a Hall of Fame manager, four top fifty prospects joining the team, some of the top young coaching minds and adding a solid right fielder to the playoff team. Stupid, horrid White Sox.

I'm not sure why the 6 pitchers in the rotation would be a bad thing. I think the bullpen is SO good you don't need Crochett/Kopech in it...or rather you treat them like the 5th starter and the long reliever...except they ONLY pitch on that fifth day. It's a bit unusual but you get to stretch each of them out...aim for each of them to become a regular starter in 2022...they learn the habits of being a starter without the arm strain of a heavy load. I think they may delay this until May to get the additional year from Kopech and it's that window where Rodon and Reylo try to prove they are worth something.

Frustration is premature. I think it is clear that the White Sox have a plan and its execution has not been flawless...but nearly. Last year they signed Keuchel and Grandal...and brought up Robert, Madrigal, Foster, Heuer and Crochett...and they went to the playoffs. This year they got Lynn, Hendricks and Eaton and will bring up Kopech and Vaughn. And what you and others are angry about...not pushing all the chips in now...I think is an asset...they have kept their power dry. We have only traded one of our top 30 prospects and really haven't spent much money. JR, in spite the propaganda, had top five payrolls in the 2000's, 1990's and 1980's WHEN the teams were good. Why would we believe he won't do it again? Our tradeable assets aren't worth what they should have been because of COVID...a year ago we thought of the Rutherford, Adolfo and Lugo at least one was going to have a leap forward year...and then there was no season. Same can be said for all of the top 30...there will be at least ten of them that will be worth much more at the trade deadline than they are right now. As for the missed opportunities...What happens if Cease is great...and Kopech is great...and we just spent all of our Gio extension money on Bauer...who in my mind has some real questions. Why sign Springer who you would have to pay the centerfielder premium for...when you want to play him in RF? Why pay for Brantley or Cruz when Vaughn could be better than either. Let's watch how the things evolve and then at the trade deadline you can push in the chips when you have a better idea the REAL weaknesses...and if you see none...you extend guys.

There's a time to be negative. The organization has put together a really solid rebuild plan that produced a playoff team last year and then in the off season traded for a CY Young candidate, signed a Cy Young candidate and a solid RF, hired a hall of fame manager, put together a staff of some really bright young baseball minds, are bringing up 3 of the top 50 minor league prospects...and by the looks of twitter or Soxtalk this is the dark ages. At some point you stop bitching about what was and start getting excited about what is coming (though in fairness Stone's tweet was a bit nasty).

He's averaged a 5 FIP, mostly while pitching in the National League, the last four seasons. If the argument is to get the 2016 version of Teheran...OK. But I don't think it's really hard to find a guy with a 5 FIP if all of our other options fail. In fact I'm pretty sure that if the options fail they will trade for a serious pitcher at the trade deadline. And obviously Rodon is a very high risk...they signed him for nothing after no one wanted him...but I gave you a pitcher with a very similar history and profile to Rodon that went on after losing two full seasons to injury to become a very good pitcher. I'd challenge you to find someone that fits the 30+ year old righty with 4 years of 5 FIP that goes on to be very good pitcher.

Stupid like Tampa Bay does it? Seems like a fifth starter being a reliever game is an intriguing concept...how does Kopech and Crochett get stretched out like a starter? 3 innings by each over 30 starts would likely be about 80 innings (some missed starts or short outings). And who wouldn't want tickets to those games? 100 mph from the left for three and 100 from the right for three? That would be so much fun.

I'd question "fantastic" 2016 and before yes but since then at best he's been an OK innings eating right handed pitcher. The problem is...we only have so many starting pitcher slots. We have the three fixtures. We have Cease at four. We have the Kopeck/Crochet 5th starter combo by mid-May...and we have Rodon and Reylo to fill in until then or to work as spot starters...and young guys like Stiever for later in the season. I think its fine to say Teheran is the same level of risk as Rodon...but I stated my arguments for Rodon...two years younger, lefty, higher upside. This is no longer the team where we bring in every one else's garbage to fill up the place.

No one is expecting Rodon to be great...hoping, sure. Rodon was the #3 pick in the draft, he's a lefty and there is organizational familiarity with him. The organization got him on a one year "prove it" deal for almost nothing and he's going to have the spring and a few starts in April to show his recovered arm and new competitive fire. The upside on Teheran is an aging, declining right handed innings eater...the upside on Rodon is Mike Minor...even sort of similar story...lefty, 1st round draft picks...3rd and 7th overall pick, both debuted at 22 with some intriguing success...at 26 both lost, basically, two full seasons to injury....when Minor came back at 29 he put up 15 WAR over the next three years. That's the upside. It's not ridiculous...lefty starters with Rodon's stuff are worth a gamble. If your argument is we should pick up every aging innings eater that has had some success...there is a limitation on roster spots. If the argument is pick one...Rodon or Teheran...I'm quite satisfied with that pick. Yes Teheran could be better than Rodon in 2021...buy he was worse than Reylo last year...why not give that shot to Reylo.

Why would we be afraid? You dont get bonus points for being pessimistic.

Because Rodon was our opening day starter a couple of years ago, is lefty and has TOR stuff if he can stay healthy?

I think the first guy to dislike Robert too.

That's not even an argument. Seems like he was pretty wrong on Beckham...who was the first guy I looked at as a rookie after Sale. Did he foresee Quintana's near greatness? I found (its hard to search outside KL outside the ESPN paywall) where six years ago he didn't have Tim Anderson in his top 50 list but had Rodon at 12. Still a few individual data points don't even matter...the question is given his 15 years of rating 100 guys...last five year probably too soon to tell...so 10 years, 1000 players (and thousands unrated) was he good at it? Better than others? Just loudly saying he's the best at something isn't that convincing.

So he "evaluates" the unknowable future and the others guess about the unknowable future. My question was...are his evaluations more likely to be correct than the guessers? Seems like this would be something that is trackable. Measurement of career fWar by his ranking? Keith Law has been doing this for 15 years. Do we KNOW he is better than the guessers? Do we KNOW he's not predisposed to favor or dislike an organization? I suspect someone has done this...and if Keith Law is great at this it would be worth considering. I remember loving Mel Kiper and then someone tracked it and his hit rate was terrible.

There must be hit/miss stats on these predictors. You sound so confident on Keith Law...I really think he's a smart guy and I like to read his write ups but the others are interesting too. Philosophically I get that you prefer one fortune teller over another but really...we are talking about guessing the future so without some sort of comparative batting average why would we care?

As a guarantee??? 41 year old DH??? Our mistake was not in failing to sign Cruz...it was signing EE last year where Soxtalk was making the same guarantees about him and his greatness. This is such nonsense about "eliminating the maybe's". There are a grand total of zero times that don't have questions marks. And signing Tyler Flowers and Nelson Cruz and Q and the other suggestions is holding back young super talent guys for the sake of a bunch of old formerly talented guys...possibly because that will allow us to continue talking about our curse of signing old players who suddenly become bad. I think going all in should mean going all in with the young guys...Dynasty or bust.

Grandal is turning 34 next year...he's a catcher...it's a hard position to play everyday as you get old. He remains a very good hitter and I suspect they will transition him to more DH then catcher as he ages. IF Collins has learned to be a better catcher we will know pretty quickly this year and if he is pretty good...yes they will give him more and more of the burden going forward. Maybe I'm wrong. Not sure the point of being an a-hole about a different opinion.

You mean .950 at Charlotte for Collins? One of the big dangers for hitters coming to the majors is their lack of knowledge of the strike zone. Both Vaughn and Collins are supposed to be ++ at that. Yes Frank Thomas was drafted...played half a season at A, then half a season at AA and then was brought up. Vaughn didn't have that chance because of COVID...but again the guys watching him everyday think he's special. And yes things don't go as planned...but sometimes...it's just our turn to get lucky. Sometimes #3 pick in the draft turns into Michael Jordan. It's not crazy to think Vaughn could be special.