Chicago White Sox

The Sox have some pretty high profile relief prospects in Burdi, Hamilton, & potentially Vieira & Tyler Johnson. Plus some of our starting pitching prospects are going to fail and potentially fill roles like Fulmer, Covey, & maybe Stephens. They will no doubt need to add a couple of relievers to anchor the pen, but I’m far less concerned about that area than any other part of the roster. Having two young promising young lefties in Fry & Bummer also helps matters.

From I’ve seen, teams are simply sitting on the fastball the second time around. It’s still a quality pitch, but he’s got to mix it up more with his secondary stuff.

If the All-Star break wasn’t coming up I could see it, but I think they’d rather just give him a couple starts in AAA and call him up once Shields is dealt.

It’s got to be him or Gomez IMO. I think they’ll give Hamilton a bit more time in AAA before they call him up.

He did seem kind of nervous.

Is Tilson’s arm that weak that you can take second on that fly ball?

I’m not sure how Anderson doesn’t count as a success story but whatever.

Covey really needs to bring it tonight.

IMO, Moncada is close to untouchable. Too much potential and too many question marks (cause of his recent struggles) for a team to give you fair value for him anyways. The other factor here is I’m not sure giving up assets for Arenado makes sense at this point. I think we’re better off taking a swing at Machado this offseason and assuming we miss, hope we can lure Arenado the following. If not, Rendon is also available after the 2019 season. Point is if we can use our excess cash to fill a need, that should be explored first & foremost.

Oh I agree, I wouldn’t want to execute this plan just yet. I think we’ll be a much better place to make some major moves after the 2019 season. I would still go after Harper & Machado now because guys like aren’t always available.

Robert’s injuries this year probably delay his timeline a bit. I see him as more of a mid 2020 guy than an early 2020 guy. Also, the way I viewed this hypothetical team is several veterans would leave or be traded after the 2019 season to make room for escalating salaries. Avi would probably go with Basabe being his immediate replacement. Castillo’s option would not be picked up and Collins would take his place. Someone like Rodon could be moved to open up a spot for Dunning. Obviously I didn’t think through all of it but that was the underlying logic. Adding Marte would allow us to theoretically not rush Robert to the big league.

Good point & very true.

I think people clamoring for Machado want him at 3B.

If he keeps this up in AA, he’s going to shoot up the org’s rankings. Kid has had a hell of a year and the scouting reports back up the improvement.

That’s not exactly a huge bonus. He wasn’t even our largest signing that period.

Is Adolfo injured? He hasn’t played in a few days it seems.

What is your point here? Are you suggesting Gray is not a major league quality pitcher?

Lol...I knew that would come up and probably warranted an explanation. I’m assuming he’s traded for prospects that have no impact on the rest of the 2019 roster. In this highly unrealistic scenario, we can’t afford to pay Yolmer $5M or so to backup three guys who should start 150 games each.

It’s a steep price to pay, but I think it’s realistically what it would take. And I’m not suggesting I would execute this plan if I could. I strongly believe we should remain patient and not trade from our cupboard until the offseason before the 2020 season when we should have a better idea of our needs. Also. I think one of the more interesting aspects of this exercise was realizing just how few cost-controlled talents are going to be available in the coming years. So many of these impact types are already on contenders. I’m not even sure if Gray would be available, but the Rockies seem like a team that might change directions in the not too distant future.

Gray has a 3.10 FIP and has put up 2.5 fWAR in half a season. That fWAR total would rank 13th best starter in baseball this year. But hey, if you want to suddenly use ERA to evaluate pitchers and completely ignore peripherals, then more power to you.

Alright, with so many posters here upset with how the team is currently performing, I thought it would be a fun exercise to theoretically construct a roster for the 2019 season that could potentially win it all. There are only two rules. You can NOT trade the entire farm system to improve the major league squad. We should remain a middle of the pack system after all moves are made. Second, the projected 2019 payroll has to be $150M or below. Go ahead and sign as many free agents as your little heart desires. Below is my theoretical plan. And for the record, I am not suggesting we should execute the plan below, I'm saying I believe this team could be a serious World Series contender in 2019. .

Bringing in a different front office is an entirely different debate. We are losing lots of games right now which is part of the plan. That has been communicated to our fan base by our front office. It will take a couple years, which has also been communicated. This is no different than what the Cubs said & did and I don’t recall anyone calling their rough years as embarrassing. Sure, a lot of fans temporarily lost interest in the team, but that’s only natural. But for some reason, a relatively large group of fans here despise the rebuild but can’t help watching it anyways. Our 2018 season is exactly what a 1st/2nd year rebuilding year looks like. If you guys can’t handle it, please take some time off. Developing multiple young players at once is not always going to be fun and right now we’re still trying out a bunch of fringe major-leaguers. Take a few weeks or even months off and come back when some of the ugliness has passed. It won’t make you any lesser of a fan. I can fully appreciate how enduring it is to watch this team on a daily basis.

God help us all...

In Greg’s alternative reality, it really comes down to celebrities to hold our sports teams accountable for strategies he doesn’t like!