almagest

No way. I don't buy it. That would be incredibly stupid. Vaughn + Madrigal would be the starting point for a true ace, not a 34 year old former ace with injury concerns.

His career OPS+ is 112 largely due to an outlier year in 2017, so no, I'm not.

He was 10 points better in OPS+ and his defense was bad in LF. In RF it would be even worse. I don't buy it.

I think people should look at this move separate from spending more money. There was no real right fielder available besides Calhoun. Castellanos and Ozuna would likely be worse than Mazara out there, and Calhoun's career offensive numbers are close to Mazara's. This move says "we don't like what's available in free agency" and I can't fault them for that. If Mazara sucks they likely let him go and see if Basabe/Adolfo/Gonzalez are ready, or look at free agent/trade options next year. If he's good then they can try to extend him, trade him for pitching or keep him around for one more year as they continue to look for a long-term option in RF. Also, people assuming 2020 would be a competitive year are fooling themselves. They'll probably be around .500. Kopech, Cease, Robert and Madrigal all need time to develop at the MLB level and will likely struggle for a good part of the season. Lopez and Rodon are unknowns. We may see some regression from Anderson, Moncada and Giolito. Unless the Sox signed Cole, Strasburg and Rendon this wouldn't have been a competitive team. That said, if they don't spend money wisely on good free agents this and next year then I'll join in on the hate for that like I did last year with Machado and Harper.

They need offense but not like this.

1. That'd be $200 million in salary added during one offseason. That seems pretty high for a team with a previous high contract in the $60 million range. 2. Obviously this one's hard to say since we won't ever hear anything about it, but what about past White Sox behavior indicates they have a plan now, especially if it's adding a player at the level of Wheeler (but not adding Cole or Rendon)? I'm not trying to be negative, it just doesn't happen with them. I'd hope they learned their lesson from Machado last year but who knows? 3. They might be and I sure hope they are. We haven't heard them connected with either Cole or Rendon this year, though, and in fact we've heard they're NOT in on Cole.

It could be, but Castellanos is a Boras client. I assume his timeline will drag out a bit since he's not Cole or Strasburg.

About what? We haven't heard anything else credible besides random Twitter morons and Marcell Ozuna.

Then they'd better sign Cole or Rendon, or both.

That's been my impression as well. I think they went all-in on Grandal and Wheeler with the intention to make some minor deals or signings to fill out the backend of the rotation plus RF. Unfortunately, Wheeler went to the Phillies and they don't know how to proceed now. Honestly, if they're not going to try for Rendon and Cole they might as well sign a cheaper backend starter (Keuchel I guess at this point since Bumgarner wants $100 mil and the Sox aren't linked to Ryu) and maybe Calhoun or something and see what happens in the rest of the year with Kopech, Cease, Rodon and any minor league starters of interest. 2020 won't be a competitive year without Cole/Rendon. I think trading any of their top prospects at this point of the rebuild would be a HUGE mistake.

I'd have no problem with something like this. I'm really nervous trading for a starter because the Sox have three top-tier prospects right now (Vaughn Madrigal and Robert) in the minors and not a whole lot after that. Trading away any of those three would be a terrible idea for staying competitive for more than a couple years.

I'd be more ok with that than seeing the Sox trade Madrigal and/or Vaughan.

Smith just signed for 3/39 with a 4th year option at $13 mil with a contender. I don't think you were getting him for 3/40 without that option year or making that year guaranteed, and then you're looking at 50+ million. Yeah he's really good but I don't think Colome kept the White Sox from signing him, plus $31 million isn't going to be a third of their budget longer-term.

Colome was pretty good last year. Who are you getting for 8.5 mil/yr that's going to be as good or better in the same time period?

Once all the other team information came out I figured Wheeler would go elsewhere. Any time we hear any deal info leak the player is as good as gone.

Thank god we're hearing from lemonade again.

After getting burned by the Machado/Harper fiascoes I'm not letting some random Twitter guy break my heart again. We'll see what happens the rest of the week but I'm assuming this continues for another couple weeks.

If a lemon-based twitter account breaks the Wheeler signing it will be perfect.

Cole slight preference. Happy with either. More concerned that Cole wouldn't do well here because of our difference in pitching (and everything really) philosophy from the Astros, though Giolito's improvement makes me feel better about that.

It looks like the Nationals hot streak ran out. I think this series is over in Game 6 unless Strasburg pitches a shutout.

Some of Ozuna's advanced stats are encouraging but I'm still nervous to sign a player who on the surface didn't have a great year in a system known for getting a lot out of players. I have no confidence that our player development and advanced scouting will do anything better than provide no benefit to his performance and honestly will probably end up hurting him overall. I'd be more in favor of signing JD Martinez to stick him in right field to be terrible on defense because even with that giant handicap I think he'd still out-perform Ozuna because there's no way we could screw up his bat. He could also provide a big benefit as an example of how to approach hitting.

There were bad passes and one pass too many a couple of times but overall I agree. They looked great in the first three quarters.

Some notes from the game: White looked pretty good moving the ball but his shot is not great Felicio is even worse live than he is on TV Gafford is solid but got into foul trouble quickly I liked the three-point focus The back of the bench is atrocious Zion is like a faster Barkley

I'll be at the game tonight. Really interested to see Lonzo & Zion on the Pels side and Coby White for the Bulls.

I wouldn't think about that until he's closer to free agency and you don't think you can resign him. No guarantee you're going to get what you want for trading him. Honestly, you'll probably get a similar package to what we got for him in the first place - one higher minors top 20 prospect and a couple of lower-level solid options. I don't think teams can afford much more than that and trading him now with so many years left on his deal after a 5+ WAR season would mean we'd need to get more back to make it worth it.