Chicago White Sox

Baseball has to be the cheapest sport to attend out of the big four. Young fans are losing interest because they have limited attention spans and the game admittedly is slow as fuck.

I don’t think Moncada fits this narrative whatsoever. He was available because they got arguably the best pitcher in baseball to a ridiculously cheap contract and either him or Benintendi had to be the centerpiece for it to happen.

Yes, odds are money will be the biggest driver for both of them. While I do think Philly is the biggest threat to sign one of these guys, there have been rumors that their front office is a bit uncomfortable spending what it would take to land a whale. Obviously the owner supersedes all and we know he’s prepared to spend stupidly, but maybe we get lucky and the front office holds their ground at a certain point. I do truly believe Jerry & Hahn are prepared to offer record breaking contracts for both of these guys, just not sure how far above that they’re prepared to go if a bidding war happens.

The Rockies need offensive help, don’t have a ton of money, and could use a right-handed hitting OF. This is probably a huge long-shot, but I’d float Avi Garcia for Jeff Hoffman and offer to take on one of their bad relief pitcher contracts. For example, Bryan Shaw is going to make nearly $9M per over the next two seasons, posted a -0.3 WAR last year, & saw his velocity decline in the second half of the season. Again, probably a long-shot, but I’d be willing to throw in a small sweetener to make the deal more attractive to the Rockies.

If we non-tender Avi, I’m hoping we add a more established OF than this guy so I kind of jump lumped him into the Palka role. It does sound like this guy can actually play a solid RF, so maybe his skill-set is a little different than Palka’s in that sense. I’d definitely take him on the 40 man roster over Tilson though.

How is he different than Palka? I’d rather just keep developing him than start from scratch with a similar player.

I don’t agree with that at all, but then again these guys are super high on Madrigal so it makes sense from their perspective. I also thought it was interesting how low they seem to be on Collins. We keep hearing about no one believing in his defense (and they cited his framing to be the worst in the Southern League), but they seemed far less optimistic about the bat than Fangraphs. I tend to believe his batters eye and raw power will translate well enough with the juiced ball to make as a 1B in the majors. Will be interesting to see if/when the Sox pull the plug on him catching, because I do think that’s slowing down the development of his offensive game.

Very interesting read with more insights than what BA provides in their lists IMO: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/article/43950/2019-prospects-chicago-white-sox-top-10-prospects/ Also, this is a great article if you want to get hyped for Nick Madrigal.

I don’t think anyone on this board actually thinks this.

No doubt Joss has no one but himself to blame, but Paulie didn’t even win the money as a result of his betrayal. He simply cost Joss half a million dollars. In some fucked up way I think that’s even worse.

No, I’m trying to point out that your theories about Jose Abreu were wrong and it appears you’re using similar logic with Nelson Cruz now.

Are you actually trying to get credit for realizing Jose Abreu didn’t suddenly become Adam Engel with the bat?

He did say this (over & over again) and based it entirely on Fangraphs pitch value, but ignored all the Statcast data I provided that showed no decline against high velocity fastballs. It was slower fastballs that were the problem during Abreu’s slump. But hey, once Balta has an idea in his head, it’s literally impossible to convince him otherwise.

Jimenez- Charlotte Cease- Charlotte Robert- Winston-Salem Madrigal- Birmingham Dunning- Birmingham Rutherford- Birmingham Collins- Charlotte Basabe- Birmingham Hansen- Birmingham Adolfo- DL (Birmingham) Walker- Winston-Salem Burger- DL (Winston-Salem) Gonzalez- Birmingham Sheets- Birmingham

Cruz had a wRC+ of 134 last year, good for 19th amongst qualified hitters. You are ignoring park factors and the fact that his peripherals suggest he didn’t really fall off that much last year. But I know Balta, everything with you is linear and whatever happened the year before is predictive of the next. Let’s just ignore his massive BABIP drop and assume he’ll continue to decline so much that he’ll somehow be worse than Palka next year. While anything is possible, the odds are high that Cruz is a significantly better hitter than Palka next year. Steamer has his wRC+ projected to be 34 points higher. I can totally understand the argument against adding Cruz, but trying to rationalize it based on production is bat shit crazy. And for the millionth god damn time, $10M to any free agent will have zero impact on our ability to land Machado.

Great job Clint! And I appreciate you asking Gavin about the lack of power despite it probably being a bit of an uncomfortable ask.

What if it improves our chances of landing one of those guys?

His defense was horrible last year by advanced metrics, but prior to that he’s been fine for the most part. So the question is that a sign of things to come or just a blip on the radar. Personally, I lean toward the latter and believe he would be fine in a corner spot playing half his games at the Rate. 1B would be more of a fallback option years down the road IMO.

I don’t follow. Are you suggesting we should not have acquired Frare from the Yankees for international bonus pool we couldn’t use because they had 40 man problems? If so, how does that make any sense? Regarding the so called “riff-raff”, those guys will be discarded as we make external additions. For now, they can stay on the 40 man roster and provide organizational depth. As for fringe guys like Thompson & Mendick, the odds suggest you’re way better off not protecting these guys too early. Look at Clarkin for example. We put him on the 40 man a year too early and to create roster space had to try to sneak him through waivers. Instead of a team being forced to use a 25 man roster spot on him for a full year, now a team only had to take a temporarily flier on him with a 40 man spot. With fringe guys, I’d much rather keep them off the 40 man as long as possible and make a team select them in the Rule 5 draft.

I know people will disagree, but I’m all for Cruz at the right price. Given his market size should be tiny, I’m glad to hear we’re actively engaged and staying in the mix.

Holy fuck, what an insane finale. I hope Paulie rots in hell for all eternity for the shit that he pulled.

I think you’re right but I can’t recall who that was.

Lol...I was 100% kidding. I think they simply thought now was the best time to sneak Clarkin down.

The Sox did hype up Clarkin a bit and ultimately put him on the 40 man roster last year when it was very unlikely IMO someone would take him in the Rule 5. That being said, hard to be too upset with losing him after his horrific 2018 season. I don’t anticipate him being on the Cubs for very long.

This may be a reach, but it seems like keeping two roster spots open means we’re probably signing one of Harper or Machado in the coming weeks.