Chicago White Sox

Steamer 600 projections for the various 3B / 2B options on the roster: Meidroth: 107 wRC+ | 2.8 fWAR Baldwin: 92 wRC+ | 1.9 fWAR Rojas: 95 wRC+ | 1.9 fWAR Vargas: 103 wRC+ | 1.8 fWAR Sosa: 95 wRC+ | 1.7 fWAR Ramos: 91 wRC+ | 1.7 fWAR Six of our top 10 projections are guys who play those two positions. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all these guys would hit these projections if given a full season worth of at-bats and Meidroth in particular is such a unicorn that he’s clearly breaking their model. However, the point here is that we have enough young internal options worthy of a legitimate look that we don’t really need a veteran stopgap. And if you’re signing Rojas as a potential flip piece, I don’t think the juice will have been worth the squeeze come July. Again, the story is different for RF. Tauchman has a Steamer 600 projection of a 109 wRC+ and 1.8 fWAR. Fletcher, DeLoach, & Colas all project to be at 0.0 to negative fWAR players. At their ages, they are simply not worthy of committing serious playing time to on a team in desperate need of competent bats and they should have to force their way into earning opportunities. As such, a Tauchman / Slater platoon for RF makes sense as a stopgap since they are blocking guys very unlikely to be productive major leaguers.

Lenyn Sosa is Getz’s greatest LatAm success during his entire time as the head of player development program. Him turning him into a useful major leaguer would be a legit feather in the cap for Chris.

SS is different than 2B / 3B. If Rojas could play a decent SS then I’d feel very differently, but there is zero reason to believe that is the case.

I agree on Vargas & Sosa, but Meidroth is ready for his shot.

This is definitely part of the issue. Meidroth was the third piece of a Garrett Crochet trade. He was 31% better than a league average hitter in his first go around as a AAA infielder. What else does he have to do to earn an opportunity? Baldwin was stellar last year in the minors. Sosa was very good in AAA last year. Vargas has destroyed the minors. What else do those guys have to do to earn an opportunity? My beef isn’t with Josh Rojas himself…he’s a perfectly fine role player and may end up being a nice little value signing. The problem is whatever you might get for Rojas at the deadline is a fraction of the value of what it would be if one of the kids above worked out. It’s simply poor and none of the rah rah Getz guys are going to convince me otherwise as I just witnessed how little Getz was able to extract for much better assets this past year.

I’m good with the veteran RF platoon. Fletcher, DeLoach, & Colas are all old for prospects and weren’t good anywhere. However, Baldwin was stellar at both AA and AAA (SSS on the latter), Sosa was good in AAA and in the majors in Sep, Meidroth was very good in AAA, Vargas has destroyed AAA, and Ramos has a lot of ability and should be ready soon. We have multiple options at 2B & 3B and should be giving these guys a shot. I am all for not rushing prospects and adding cheap veterans as placeholders when needed, but I don’t see that being the case at all right now.

We should not be panicking on a young player for “shitting the bed for a month”…that’s called development

You have clearly never seen Baldwin play once in your life

We are not talking about the same players. The minor leaguers have gained a full year of experience and some of them have even take some initial lumps in the majors. There are simply more quality, major league ready options now at 3B & 2B than there were last year. Additionally, Meidroth was acquired after putting up a 131 wRC+ in a full season at AAA and Vargas was acquired as our key deadline piece who has already dominated the minors. These guys and a couple others need to actually play so we can start assessing if they will be viable pieces for the future or if we need to find other solutions at those spots.

MLBTR was projecting $4.3M for Rojas, so assuming it will be for more than you’re thinking. Regardless, relievers are volatile. Plenty of guys with past success have a bad season or were injured and have to take a prove it deal. Go look at last offseason and there are plenty examples right in that price range.

Fully disagree on Baldwin. Dude has a plus hit tool, plus speed, some power, and is a very smart, fundamentally sound, and versatile defender. To say he’s not much of a prospect is laughable. The only reason you’re not seeing him on prospect lists is he flew through the upper minors last year, made the majors, and quickly lost his eligibility. Does he have a superstar ceiling? No, but he’s a dude with enough ability to be an above average regular if all goes right. Also, how long do you expect this rebuild to take? When can we can start trying to develop some positional players? Do we have to wait until Schultz, Smith, & Taylor are fully developed since those are our three high ceiling arms? Right now, we literally have zero established building blocks on this offense if you assume Robert will eventually be traded. At some point, we have to actually commit to playing the young bats. Last year we gave a ton of mediocre vets to buy some time until the younger players were ready, but we are now past that point IMO.

Having plenty of at-bats “post trade deadline” doesn’t make sense when there are multiple young players ready now. And 200 plate appearances is simply not enough playing time to make a meaningful evaluation on a young player.

Lol…you are guessing too. The only difference is I’m actually considering where he’s played at in recent years to make an educated guess and you are just going with what’s easiest to justify the move and play devil’s advocate. I don’t think he’s a bad player, but I wouldn’t be signing a guy who takes away playing time from the only few positional areas we actually have some internal options. And Brooks Baldwin is a very legitimate prospect who shot through the system last year. No idea where you came up with that notion, but he’s a dude worthy of a ton of playing time next year.

I don’t think they’re planing to use him at SS though. Seems like he’s getting one of 3B or 2B.

Maybe…I’m just concerned they won’t use him in that capacity. I’d also rather use our limited budget on a free agent reliever who might be able to close. I think there is more flip upside with that type of player vs. utility guy.

We have two of the top catching prospects in all of baseball likely starting next season at AAA. Lee’s hold on the starting catcher job will be short lived, but you might as well use that playing time in interim on him.

Meidroth too. He just put up a 132 wRC+ over a full season in AAA.

Rojas is not really a SS though. If you play him at 2B, you are blocking one of Sosa, Baldwin, or Meidroth. At 3B, he’s blocking Vargas, Ramos, & Sosa. Those are the only spots we have multiple young options that actually need playing time. Those five dudes are going to lose a lot of at-bats due to this signing. And I’m not trying to be a hater either. I didn’t dislike the Tauchman / Slater additions as none of Fletcher, DeLoach, or Colas have done enough in AAA to be handed an opportunity. That’s not the case with several of the guys mentioned above.

It’s absolutely wild. The only spot we have multiple prospects at is 2B & 3B and we just blocked them all. No fucking clue what we are doing here.

Lot of rumors out there regarding Ben Johnson, but not sure how legitimate they are. It sounds like he wants the Bears job, but may push for a different GM to be paired with him (WAS Assistant GM). At the same time, Poles would like to stay clear of him for the same reasons. Again, not sure if there is any merit, but if so, I’d quickly kick Poles to the curb and let Johnson do his thing. Just got a bad feeling that Poles will be allowed to make the call and he’ll bring in a defensive minded “leader of men” type like Flores and f*** this all up.

Earn it how though? By having a good spring training? Those numbers are mostly meaningless from a predictive sense. If it’s based on AAA numbers, he deserves the first shot because no else has the track record there that he does. Ultimately, we are coming off a 121 loss season and can’t really pass on giving an extended look to a former top 50 prospect. 157 plate appearances after a mid season trade from the eventual World Series winner to the worst team in baseball history is simply not a large enough sample size.

I think that Feels like “and” would make more sense than “not” given the rest of the tweet, but obviously I wouldn’t put money on us still being in the mix

This kind of reminds me when Hahn kept trading international bonus slot to other teams for minor league relief prospects. Hopefully this “acquire all the unproven LH relievers in the 30’s that are a tweak away from real trade value” strategy works out better because this one in particular doesn’t make sense to me.