Chicago White Sox

The only difference is the size of the bet we are making. Even if Dominguez has a down season, he can probably be moved without eating material money. For him to command value, it’s all about performing in the closer role. If he does, his value will increase and he’ll have a chance to return a nice piece or two.

I’ll be honest Ray Ray, when you first joined the board you were a detail-oriented, highly analytical poster whose constant use of the word “pal” brought a breath of fresh air. Now you are so disgruntled about the team that you barely watch the games anymore and now just do lazy “full season” drive-by analysis at every turn. Brooks was fucking incredible in AAA last year (SSS) with a 89th percentile xwOBA, strong contact & barrel rates, above average power, league average chase, and high end speed. When he returned to the Sox after his demotion, he proceeded to put up a 116 wRC+ in nearly 200 plate appearances and nothing about it appears to be flukish. Yes, he sucked in defensively in the OF corners, but was neutral in CF overall (SSS again). Both the eye test and advanced metrics show a kid that struggled with reads and route optimization, which shouldn’t be surprising given he was learning on the fly. However, with his speed and baseball intelligence, there is reason to believe he can improve with time. Ultimately, not giving a kid who just put up a 116 wRC+ over his 200 PA’s in his rookie season is the definition of insanity and/or poor analysis. The old Ray Ray would agree with that point too.

That might be true. However, at a conceptual level, relievers are typically paid on past experience and ones who have consistently performed in high leverage and or have rocked up a lot of saves are compensated far more than their peers. We are buying a reliever with great but limited high leverage experience and handing him that opportunity. If I look at someone like Tanner Scott, the Marlins went out and acquired and gave him his first real opportunity at consistent high leverage in year 2. He responded incredibly well and it increased his value exponentially. The following year when the team was out of contention, they were able to spin him off for what was considered a haul at the time despite being a rental. That is the conceptual playbook here. Get an arm you like and put them in the closer role and hope they perform. If they do, their value will only go up because a successful inning of high leverage is far more valuable than a medium & low one and valuation models like fWAR reflect this. How you acquire said player is mostly irrelevant if the price isn’t insane and you truly believe in the arm.

That’s why I’d tell him he’s 90% an outfielder next year and will only rotate through the infield in select situations or in the event of key injuries. Physically he has the talent to be a good defensive outfielder, but he needs to consistent reps to learn how to read the ball off the bat, optimize routes, and make against or off the wall.

I don’t disagree and will never defend the process behind his hiring, but Getz at least appears to be building an org & strategy around an owner who isn’t going to spend with the big boys or take on the risk of a massive individual contract. It’s a shame Kenny & Rick never got the memo and instead built their strategy around poor infrastructure and signing B & C tier free agents at less valuable spots like the bullpen, 1B/DH, etc.

Yeah, all jerseys & memorabilia from the past rebuild have take a serious hit. I had a wall of these cool hand drawn prints of Abreu, Moncada, Anderson, & Eloy and outside of Jose I’m embarrassed to rock them at this point.

I think they would have been able to trade him though.

This is absurd semantics. Rebuilding is a life cycle term while “good” or “bad” is a performance outcome description. Most (but not all) rebuilding teams are “bad”, whereas teams in their competitive window can also be “bad” due to injury, luck, or talent regression. Making this an either or thing is just silly.

How did we perform against our Expected W-L last year and how much of that variance was driven by a poor bullpen? You claim you want to win games, but the fastest way to radically improve our record with limited investment is probably improving the bullpen. And don’t get me wrong, I’m generally aligned with your views on bullpen investment, but we’re talking about one or two dudes who make a combined $15M or so. And one of those guys is intended to be the closer and can be flipped in the likely event we aren’t in the playoff mix come July.

Do they? I fucking love Baldwin. The big question with him is defense and long term positional home. If he can get better in the OF corners (or ideally CF), he can be an important of the puzzle. As for Acuna, I’m optimistic he can be good defensively in CF, but either he needs to be elite out there or the bat needs to get significantly better (which is a huge if). I’m personally much more higher on Brooks but think we need to give both an extended run in the OF this year.

Fully agree on Kelenic. He’s getting way too much attention because he was a big name prospect at one point. At least Acuna & Pereira haven’t had multiple years of failure at the major league level like Kelenic. He’s a fantastic minor league deal guy, but he should have to prove himself at Charlotte before he enters the major league calculus.

You don’t think Baldwin should be given a shot?

They actually got me one for Christmas! I’ll proudly be rocking it for the next two years now that my Robert jersey has joined the likes of Abreu, Ramirez, Viciedo, Peavey, Loaiza, & Jenks on the retirement shelf.

I think you need to separate out the payroll issue. That’s a decision made by Jerry and caps what Getz can accomplish. Under those constraints and understanding the context of where we are at in our rebuild, I’d call the offseason solid. I agree that our level of payroll is an embarrassment and Jerry should be lambasted.

No options and < 1% chance he makes the Opening Day roster. Until you add another OF, you should probably keep Hill.

This is way too simplistic of an analysis. There are other operating costs other than payroll and to some degree those are more fixed in nature. As such, those fixed will reflect a greater portion of total revenue for small market clubs than large market clubs.

Steamer projections for three possible CF options: Acuna: 385 PA | 88 wRC+ | 1.1 fWAR | $0.9M Bader: 436 PA | 96 wRC+ | 1.3 fWAR | $10M Robert: 477 PA | 95 wRC+ | 1.6 fWAR | $20M Offensive projections aren’t too different and fWAR figures above assume Acuna is playing 2B. That being said, if Acuna can provide plus defense in CF, he’s probably around the same fWAR as the other two guys and at a fraction of the cost. I still think Robert will be over 100 wRC+ next year (and possibly by quite a bit), but there is no denying the health concerns.

He graded average or better in all major advanced metrics. Obviously his speed is completely compromised at this point, but he gets good jumps and makes all the plays he can get to. Now, if his health is currently worse than was it was for most of last year, I’d certainly pass. But for $2M or about $1M over league minimum, I will happily see what I can get out of him next year.

I think Braden comes much sooner than that if all goes well (big caveat). That being said, it’s part of the reason you add a cheap vet to hedge against any delay in his readiness. And I fully agree those are the three guys who should get the focus heading into camp. And given two of them are RH hitters, I think that vet we bring in being LH makes the most sense. Tauchman just checks a lot of boxes. As for Kelenic, I view him as a lottery ticket who needs to go absolute HAM in camp to make the OD roster. However, in the unlikely event he figures things out, he should still have two more seasons of club control and I doubt he gets traded.

Tauchman is who I’d grab. He’s going to be dirt cheap because of the injury risk, which is totally fine because as some point you hope Braden forces his way onto to the roster.

Depends on how good Acuna’s defense is. From what I have read, it seems like he could be pretty damn good out there. Look at Bader, he really isn’t all that great of a hitter (last year looks like an aberration), but is a solid player due to plus defense. Acuna certainly wasn’t good in the majors last year, but I think his tools are being slept on a bit. He actually had really good contact rates in AAA last year and was league average in terms of chase rate. His bat speed has been above average up until last year when he made purposeful decisions to slow down his swing to help make better contact. By no means do I have a ton of confidence that he’ll take a massive leap, but I certainly view him getting up to say an 85 wRC+ being within reason.

IMO, we need to understand what Acuna & Baldwin are capable of defensively in the outfield. If Acuna can be a plus (or better) defensive CF, there is some actual path for him to be an everyday guy out there without crazy improvement with the bat. As for Baldwin, he was objectively bad in the OF defensively last year, but the reasons for that seem addressable for him with more reps. Given the infield is already pretty full and will likely be stacked in the near future, I think the best play for both Acuna & Baldwin is to be used primarily in the outfield this year. They may (or even likely) end up UT guys but now is the time to see what we have. If these guys can’t be OF fixtures, then we’ll need to find one or two long-term solutions. Bader isn’t a bad player, but he’s not a long term solution and is an expensive band-aid that I don’t think we need given current roster construction.

Price is probably fine if you are trying to compete and need a CF, but the fit makes no sense for us. I could honestly see Acuna providing as much fWAR as Bader next year if Luisangel can tap into his power some. Bader’s bat is going to regress a lot next year and there is no simply no reason to block Acuna in 2026.

This is why I don’t get the complaints about the Carlson pick before he’s even entered full season ball. The defense has a chance to be truly elite and there is plenty of offensive upside including some legit power potential. At the 1.10, I’m not sure what else you could ask for us.

Good sign here. Law is better with positional prospects than pitching prospects IMO and he appears to be on the high end for Braden and Carlson.