Chicago White Sox

The only challenge there is we already a bounce-back guy we need to give a look in Vargas and another near major league prospect in Ramos. I’d rather target a post hype RF type or someone that can slot in at DH.

A curse?

This is old news and no longer relevant. The Sox have taken high schoolers with five of their last seven 2nd round picks. The other two picks were two higher ceiling SPs coming off TJS (one of which is Taylor). There is plenty to rip the White Sox for, an outdated draft strategy isn’t one of them.

Well yeah, I’d look to extend him if I were the acquiring team’s GM, but Getz doesn’t need to make a trade that’s conditional on an extension. There’s a ton of unnecessary risk in doing that. The reality is Crochet is a premium asset and he should be marketed like one. If I were Getz, I go into the Winter Meetings and tell everyone he will be dealt for the best package by the end of the event. I wouldn’t give the opposing GMs time to f*** around and play the slow game. Tell them they can either have a truly elite SP on the cheap for the next two years who is open to an extension or they can overpay for mid tier SP in free agency. The former will come at a high cost, but is far more likely to make a difference in October than other any pitcher available. You want the unicorn, you got to pay unicorn prices. It’s really that simple and Getz doesn’t need to over complicate things. This trade should be done on our timeline & terms. The only exception is maybe waiting for Burnes to sign, but honestly, I would take advantage of the Winter Meetings setting regardless. Having every GM in one spot and being able to commit 24 hours a day to negotiation is a huge plus as a seller and increases the chances of one GM doing something stupid as result of FOMO.

So was thinking about this further. The lack of bats in the system is highly problematic. Obviously BA hasn’t posted their full top 30 list yet, but if I had to guess there will be somewhere between 13 to 15 guys in there. The problem is isn’t necessarily the sheer number, but rather the limited upside they provide. I’m not sure that we end up with one single positional star out of the entire farm system as it stands. If Colson doesn’t return to form to some extent, then the odds are truly stacked against us. Our best hopes are Wolkow & Bonemer and both guys have a long road ahead before I’d give it even a 10% chance. It’s why Getz can’t afford to f*** up this Crochet trade and must target quality over quantity.

They also need a LatAm program that contributes anything. I asked the BA writer if there were any recent signings in the top 30 and he said no. It’s very possible the only one is Wilfred Veras who we signed in 2019. Thank god Paddy is finally gone because an org can’t survive long-term with one of its two key pipelines being completely devoid of talent.

I doubt Getz would do this as it underscores the crazy value Crochet provides these next two years alone plus the draft pick a team would get if he were to exit via free agency.

@Y2Jimmy0 - Are you hearing something else?

If you think he’s going to rebound, you keep him and trade at the deadline. If you think this is what he is, then you take the best offer now. Well find out how the Sox feel about him based on what they do between now and March.

I get your being sarcastic, but clearly we’d be trading him or any starter that we deem expendable for positional prospects.

Why?

Fully agree. Sox can’t afford to pass on the best offer they receive just because it’s the Cubs. We are well past that point unfortunately.

Thanks god! What did he say? Unfortunately he blocked me on Twitter for questioning his credibility.

The first step coming off a historically bad season is not to rush things. We are starting from a massive disadvantage vs. every other team in baseball outside of maybe the A’s & Rockies. This is going to take a ton of time to fix and we need to acknowledge that in our near-term strategy. As such, the best thing we can do right now is slow things down, avoid calling up our key prospects before we know they are ready, and give playing time to all the fringe talent we already have on the roster. If we can turn any of these fringe types into assets, we can accelerate the timing of the rebuild. Additionally, there is little value is burning control of high end prospect on 100 loss clubs. Obviously it’s uncontrollable to some extent, but we should do our best to minimize those impacts. And we should certainly avoid trading our best assets to acquire a bunch of 2 win players that won’t materially change our competitiveness before they hit free agency. I think starting in Y26 we can start making some moves that are focused on near-term winning, preferably using financial resources, but without question we are least a year away from being in that position.

That’s Campbell’s projection for Y25 as a rookie. Guys who perform that good as rookies typically build upon their success as they physically mature and gain experience.

Yes, unfortunate typo there. Was surprised when Fathom called it a “hell no” because it seemed like a no brainer for me.

It also means that turning Davis Martin into a cheap, controllable SP could pay dividends at the deadline or next offseason.

Which guys don’t you think will be ready? Fry, Adams, & Nastrini? The other four guys I mentioned were in the rotation already and performing well outside of Thorpe due to injury.

I guess I disagree on the lack of talent. Thorpe was a top 100 prospect heading into last season and peaked around 60th overall. Burke is a former 3rd round pick who just popped up as a top 25 pitching prospect in a Fangraphs based projection model. Cannon is a former 3rd pick who lacks ceiling, but offers a very high floor and has already performed well in the majors as a BOR innings eater. Martin was a guy with some helium before getting injured and looked pretty good last year and flashed two plus secondaries. These guys don’t have TOR potential but they could potentially solve the #3 to #5 of a decent rotation to varying degrees. And coming off a 120 loss season and needing to buy some time before the high ceiling guys hit (Schultz, Smith, & Taylor), these are exactly the type of pitchers you give starts to. Also, not sure what your comment about “built in excuses is referring to”. Steamer thinks we should get 6.5 fWAR out of them next year if they each pitch 1,000 innings total. That many innings won’t happen obviously, but I’d 100% be willing to hold Katz accountable for achieving that level of production on a per rate basis.

Getting 2.4 fWAR out of Robert over the course of a full healthy season would be horrible, so not sure how you jumped to that conclusion. Also, while I’m not going to defend the accuracy of projection systems like Steamer, they also assume that young players get better over time and aren’t forever their rookie seasons or even their first cups of coffee. Unfortunately, many fans lack any sort of patience and immediately write off young players who struggle early on unless they are of the top 100 type variety.

These aren’t my projections and I agree they seem optimistic, which is actually quite fascinating since projection systems like Steamer are almost always bias to the conservative side of things. That being said, some of these guys hit very well in the minors last year and that’s being reflected in the projections for Vargas, Sosa, Baldwin, & Quero. Vaughn surprises me the most, because that’s a huge step up for him fWAR wise, but even then it’s assuming his wOBA next year simply matches his xwOBA this past year which isn’t all that crazy.

If you sign a Fedde type signing, you are taking 21 starts away from the other nine options I listed short of that specific player getting injured. And if that’s the case, I’d rather just give those starts to some combo of Nastrini, Bush, or Adams. They are all 25 years old and need to get shots before the higher ceiling guys like Schultz, Smith, Taylor, & possibly Iriarte begin to arrive. And if one of them hits, it’s a much better asset than what we’d likely be able to flip the Fedde type signing for at the deadline. A Flexen type signing? Sure, which is why I said I’d be willing to sign a cheap swingman to place in the pen. And don’t get me wrong, I’d also do a bunch of minor league deals so we have some depth in Charlotte in the event of multiple injuries. But I don’t want Venable forced into using a rotation spot on a veteran because he’s being paid $7.5M/year and we’re hoping to flip him.

Alright, switching over to the rotation, I think the Sox should hold off making any major additions here. And by major, I obviously don’t mean good, just ones that will require a commitment of say $5M or more that will force them into a spot regardless of other options. I’d be good with signing some sort of veteran swingman on the cheap that can slot into the rotation in a pinch, but I’d prefer leaving all five spots open for our younger, more controllable arms. The reason for this is I like our in-house options and feel like we have a large enough quantity of guys to survive a season. I’m going to break this down into two sections. First, I want to go through the four guys I think deserve spots baring injury or truly disastrous spring trainings. Davis Martin (28 years old | 4.02 xERA in Y24 | 1.9 fWAR in Y25) Jonathon Cannon (24 years old | 4.37 xERA in Y24 | 1.4 fWAR in Y25) Drew Thorpe (24 years old | 4.68 xERA in Y24 | 1.5 fWAR in Y25) Sean Burke (25 years old | 3.91 xERA in Y24 | 1.7 fWAR in Y25) While this may not be the most exciting group of pitchers, they all project to be useful major league starters based on their Steamer 600 projections above and their success last year in admittedly SSS. All four of these guys should have six years of control remaining which makes them potential assets. Giving them each 32 starts next year (baring trades or injury) should be a priority for us. That leaves the #5 spot to fill and we have a lot of options there. IMO, this should be an open competition heading into spring training between the first three guys listed below. The last two guys should not be in the Opening Day mix, but could and should be pushing for rotation spots later in the season. Nick Nastrini (25 years old | Majors | TBD org | 0.5 fWAR in Y25) Ky Bush (25 years old | Majors | #9 org prospect | -0.9 fWAR in Y25) Mason Adams (25 years old | AAA | #10 org prospect | 0.3 fWAR in Y25) Jairo Iriarte (23 years old | Majors | #6 org prospect | -0.3 fWAR in Y25) Noah Schultz (21 years old | AA | #1 org prospect | 2.6 fWAR in Y25) The Steamer 600 projections above aren’t obviously pretty for the guys other than Schultz, but I think they are over-indexing on SSS in AAA / major leagues for the most part. I personally think Bush & Adams are close to being ready and are very much capable of being productive major leaguers next year. I have no idea what happened with Nastrini last season, but he went from a fringe top 100 prospect to a huge question mark. That being said, if no one grabs the role in spring training, I’d be ok with using Nick as a placeholder in the #5 spot for a month or so. See what you have and if he fails, then try him as a reliever. As for Iriarte & Schultz, while I don’t want them in the OD mix, I also don’t want to block them with a mediocre veteran. If / when they are ready, they should be given spots because their ceilings are so much greater than the other guys mentioned above.

10 WAR improvement other than losing the production Crochet would have provided, ignoring any other options we currently have at those positions, and assuming those three guys repeat those levels of production. You’re likely getting two 2 win players and a backup caliber catcher for what should be a 5 win pitcher. From a trade perspective it’s likely an even swap of fWAR next year, but from an improvement I’m not even sure we’d be better when it’s all said and done. And no, people are not nuts to want elite positional prospects over average major league players with 4 to 5 years of control. For example, Steamer 600 projects Campbell at 3.0 fWAR next year as a rookie vs. 2.2 fWAR for Abreu. And you get basically 7 years of control with Campbell. Obviously there is no guarantee with any given prospect, but the odds suggest a premium prospect like Campbel will likely outproduce the average starter. Ultimately, we should be trying to amasses talent that will hit around the same time to optimize our next window. Using our best trade chip to get a bunch of average players in hope of putting a 60 win team on the field next year is a poor long-term strategy. We simply don’t have enough talent in our org right now to accelerate things.