Chicago White Sox

Lol…this an absolutely ridiculous take. That list includes a high-end free agent SP, a guy who is currently 4th in fWAR amongst SPs, the 15th overall prospect per BA’s current rankings, a guy on pace for a 3 win season, an All Star SP from last year who put up 2.2 fWAR as a rookie, a guy who is currently a top 70 prospect by BA, a guy who entered the year as top 100 prospect before injury, a guy who was a consensus top 100 prospect before TJS, a veteran from Japan who is still adapting to the majors and who has posted a 3.72 xERA in May, a current top 10 org prospect, and two former top 10 org prospects before TJS. That’s a fuckton of pitching depth and while there are no guarantees with the group, it’s really not all that hard seeing a championship caliber rotation forming when paired with a high end offense and a truly elite closer.

Kelenic does not have options and is almost certainly not clearing waivers. I also don’t see a need to carry four RH outfielders in Hayes, Grichuck, Pereira, & Hill. It’s simply bad roster design IMO and it forces one of them against RHP each game, which candidly I’m not convinced any of them can handle. I agree Benintendi is likely safe for the timing being, but him being the worst defensive LF in recent memory and therefore DH clog is another roster construction problem.

I fully disagree with you here. They are legit competing right now (whether it lasts is a TBD given health of pitching depth) and there are plenty of ways for the pitching staff to improve next year between our top two prospects, Sandlin, a rebound from S. Smith, the TJS guys coming back, and free agency. We have zero financial commitments beyond 2027…a veteran SP of impact is an obvious move next offseason and one I expect us to actually make. Let me ask you this, is the following not enough SP depth to potentially compete next year with a positional group that should be even better: Free agent Martin Schultz Burke S. Smith McDougel H. Smith A. Kay Sandlin D. Thorpe K. Bush M. Adams

The problem is you have both Hayes and Pereira likely coming back in the next couple of weeks. That means you got to cut two of your outfielders just to make room for them. The most likely options are probably Acuna, Grichuck, Hill, & Kelenic. Candidly, don’t think you can cut Kelenic just yet because the underlying metrics are good and the roster need a LH corner OF until Braden arrives. Even Hill is a tough cut given his status in the clubhouse and his role as a late inning defender & pinch runner (especially if Acuna is gone). To me, the best course of action to get Gonzalez on the roster is cutting bait on Benintendi and opening up the DH spot to rotate guys around. I don’t see them doing that this early in the season, but maybe around the All Star break you make the change if Jacob is still hitting and Andrew’s doesn’t come alive.

Fully agree. I can see the core logic, but a comp pick for a previous top 100 catching prospect who is still insanely young seems very light to me.

Fully agree with this. That being said, keep collecting cheap, controllable positional talent and you can always trade some for pitching needs. I also expect us at some point soon to go out and sign a veteran impact starter with our immense financial flexibility, which should negate some of the near term concerns. I do agree the pitching pipeline has begun to run a bit dry though and will need reinforcements.

At some point, the focus needs to shift from maximizing asset value to trying to winning games. Elite relievers are always the paradox of this discussion and I just can’t in good faith say trading what should be a top 2 reliever in baseball and hopefully an automatic three out guy in high leverage scenarios will be worth what’s coming back over the next couple years while trying to compete. Again, we’ll be looking for the heir apparent the second we deal Taylor and it will cost a pretty penny most likely to land said player.

There was one year we did punt like five picks I think (could be wrong) and I don’t love that. But even in say 2024 when we fully punted on two picks in rounds 6 to 10 and partially punted on two more, we came away with Bonemer, Larson, & Antonacci all as overslot picks. There is typically a method to the madness and I have an incredible amount of confidence in Shirley’s ability to both identify talent and optimize the full use of his bonus pool.

Theoretically yes, but agents will still use this to gain leverage to some extent.

Hopefully they’re using this as a final opportunity to see if they have anything in the kid before DFAing him for Hayes. At this point, it’s legit painful seeing his name in the lineup card. I was hopeful that Acuna could right the bat some, but he just continues to pound the ball into the ground and he’s not a good enough prospect to commit at-bats to when he’s struggling so much and the team is actually winning. Hopefully a DFA and a clearing of waivers will happen soon.

Do you mean mobile device on Wi-Fi or actual cellular service?

Feels like punting at least two picks is almost like a cost of doing business type thing. Just part of playing the overslot game to gain ceiling elsewhere.

Thanks and I definitely will. These past couple of months have been so rough without Soxtalk that I almost convinced myself to post on Sox Machine or god forbid Reddit just to have some one way dialogue. Hoping the recommended fixes will work when I get back stateside, even if just on my home’s Wi-Fi.

That’s certainly a consideration, but Emerson & Roch are represented by the same agency so hard to build too much leverage there. Emerson likely can be had cheaper, but not sure at a dollar amount that likely changes the calculus.

Fully agree. And let me be clear, I am very much a ceiling over floor guy when it comes to all drafts, but at the 1.01 in baseball you can oftentimes be afforded a high degree of floor with the best college positional prospect. And over time, I think taking that floor as long as you aren’t sacrificing too much on ceiling likely pays off. The good news is we should have the pool to double up on high ceiling preps in rounds 2 & 3.

IMO, the draft playbook should be Roch at the 1.01 followed by two high ceiling prep prospects. Giving Roch say an even $10M and the 5% overage should give us a combined ~$2.2M to elevate our 2nd & 3rd picks. For perspective, if used entirely on our 3rd round pick (77th overall), that would allow us to boost the bonus amount to $3.3M or 29th overall money. There is also an opportunity to punt a couple picks in round 6 to 10 to add another $400k to $600k of pool. We could ultimately have enough to pay late 1st round money two prep players with our 2nd & 3rd picks, still make most of our top 10 selections, and still go $150k on a bunch of guys after round 10. To me, this is the way.

The top of this draft feels akin to the “a boat’s a boat, but the mystery box could even be anything…it could even be a boat” Family Guy joke. Everything I have read is that Emerson may have a slightly higher ceiling than Roch but a much lower floor and further distance to the majors. IMO, don’t overthink this, if the two players are close in terms of ceiling, always take the college player.

I don’t see the allure of trading Taylor if we are actually good. Yes, you could get a haul, but ultimately waken a team competing. I also think the truly elite closers are far less vulnerable to volatility. To me, the second you trade Taylor, you will be looking for a similar backend reliever. At this point, just let him close and rack the W’s in close games.

That’s been my issue as well.

Meidroth is the heart and soul of this team, no way we can trade him

I will happily oblige, but I remain confident in this team’s ability to compete.

Fully agree. When it comes to the upcoming roster crunch, Acuna needs to be the first one out the door when a spot is needed (likely for Hayes). His ability to provide insurance in the infield is nice given our current construction, but the bat is not currently major league caliber and we can’t afford to roster him much longer. In the short-term, Venable needs to plan around Antonacci being the backup IF even if he primarily plays LF. Long-term a LH infielder would be of real value though. I love Meidroth more than anyone, but his hitting against RHP is far from great. Against tough righties, it would be great to have Jacob Gonanlez as an option. It would also give us more flexibility late in games as well. However, after we theoretically dump Acuna, it gets much harder to figure out who to option or DFA next. Right now, we are carrying six outfielders if you assume Hayes replaces Acuna plus you are starting your 5th infielder in LF most days. Ignoring Antonacci, three of these guys are LH and three are RH. While it’s not the strongest pool of talent, to Getz & Venable’s credit they are doing a good job of platooning. When Pereira comes back, it feels like one of the RH outfielders will need to be let go. I see people online saying to dump Kelenic, but his underlying metrics remain strong and warrant more runway. More importantly, I see little value in carrying four RH OFs. As such, one of Hayes, Hill, or Grichuk must go. I’d lean Grichuk, but tough to cut bait on a guy who is giving you what you hoped Hayes would without the injury baggage. The other factor here is that Braden Montgomery will also likely be ready at some point in the 2H. To me, unless Benintendi & Kelenic both get hot, he should take over for one of them and it feels like that could be the right time to cut bait on Andrew. And if you can free up the DH slot, suddenly there is a more compelling argument to call up Gonzalez. IMO, Braden & Jacob should both be 2H call-ups so we can continue assessing what we have before we actually cut bait on players.

And OPS.

Will try when I get back to the states.

Verizon for mobile, AT&T for internet. Neither works for me. But in Tokyo right now and able to access on hotel Wi-Fi and same happened during spring break in Mexico. Absolutely brutal that after enduring this s%*# show of a team for the last five years, they finally get good and I can’t talk about them with anyone.