Chicago White Sox

Versus playing other spots in the field or not DHing? I assume the former.

Are all three expected to go on the 60 day DL? Based on that last update, feels like Berroa could be ready well before June.

Going to be a fun camp. Let’s just hope for better injury luck than last year.

Will be interesting to see the price here. My guess is it will be for about $1.5M with some incentives. Anything over $2.5M would be insane to me.

Fedde better come out of the gate running or he will lose that rotation slot fairly quickly. Just a fuckton of young arms who will be pushing for starts soon enough.

Rotation Depth Chart: Major League: Shane Smith (R) Davis Martin (R) Anthony Kay (L) Sean Burke (R) Erick Fedde (R) Mike Vasil (R) Sean Newcomb (L) Jedidson Paez (R) Minor League: Jonathan Cannon (R) David Sandlin (R) Tanner McDougal (R) Duncan Davitt (R) Noah Schultz (L) Drew Thorpe (R) Mason Adams (R) Ky Bush (L) Chris Murphy (L) Tyler Schweitzer (L) Riley Gowens (R) Hagen Smith (L)

Most likely yes.

I’m optimist about Smith & Burke. Think Thorpe, Sandlin, & McDougal push for spots pretty quickly. The group could get significantly better by mid season, at least on a talent basis. Obviously hard to say what rookie pitchers will give you right out of the gate.

As long as he comes dirt cheap, I’m totally fine with this. Overall stuff appears to be mostly the same as 2024, so his issues appear to be mostly command related. Given our past success with him, got to think Bannister has some tweaks in mind to get back on track. If not, he (hopefully) is a cheap placeholder that can be cut when a young arm is ready and pushes Newcomb to the bullpen ahead of OD.

Fucking A…just fixed it.

As I look where the projected OD roster stands right now, the biggest immediate “need” would be the rotation. Shane Smith is the only guy who is arguably a long-term rotation staple. Looking at his performance last year and assuming some improvement, I think he has the potential to be a #3 SP on a championship level team. For 2026, he’s the automatic #1 and should last the season in the rotation. After Smith things get dicey real fast. Martin has been very mediocre in his major league career and his strikeout stuff regressed significantly last year. If he can’t find an out pitch, his longevity in the rotation could be short lived. Kay is semi interesting, but also a complete wild card. He should be able to provide innings, but will they be any good? If not, he could see himself in the bullpen by the 2H. As for the last two spots, I think one of the jobs is Burke’s to lose. I think it’s very important to remind people that this kid god better as the season progressed and was able to be fairly productive by the end of the season despite hit slider going completely backwards last year. If that one pitch returns to form and we see the guy who flashed at the end of 2024, I think we’re talking a guy with #3 potential. So to circle back to the original point, the #5 spot right now is a massive hole. If we really want to give ourselves the best chance to surprise next year, we should go out and add a veteran SP. There are plenty of free agents who will only get one or two year deals that could potentially work for us. That being said, is signing a vet the right move to make with a long-term vision in mind? IMO, I think there is a case to be made to stick with what we have. I 100% get the adage you can never have enough pitching and I’d certainly feel differently if this team was one hole away from being serious contenders. And I’m sure the baseball gods will curse us with multiple injuries in camp for posting this. However, I simply like the young arms we have and want to ensure there is ample runway for them. What’s changed my tune here a bit is Vasil. I always felt that he should be a guy to open the season in the rotation and be given a short-term audition. If he fails, he goes back to a bulk reliever role and another young arm takes his spot. The other addition that changes the calculus some is Sandlin. They clearly like the kid given the financial risk they assumed to get him. I assume he’ll start the year in AAA for some seasoning, but think he could be ready by May to replace the weakest link. But beyond just those two is a sizable list of pitching. People rip the Cease trade and rightly so, but the centerpiece of that trade is still alive & hopefully kicking for the Sox soon enough. This is a kid that was Minor League Pitcher of the Year back in 2023 with a minors leading 186 strikeouts. He was a consensus top 70 prospect in the game and pitched well for us in the minors prior to TJS despite stuff backing up some. If this kid’s velocity picks up a tick, he has a chance to be a legit #3. No idea when he’ll be ready and he probably gets some seasoning in AAA when that time comes, but he’s a guy we’ll need to make room for at some point. And then you have the three top 100 prospects in Schultz, Smith, & McDougal who all could or should arrive this year. Starting with Schultz, who reached AAA last year and has as high of a ceiling as any LHP prospect in baseball. If can get past his knee issues and fix some mechanical stuff, he could be pushing for a spot very quickly. Smith wasn’t perfect last year, but made 20 starts at AA and followed that up with a great AFL stint. If the command can be harnessed, he will pushing for a job by the 2H of the year. Finally, you got McDougal who pitched 113 innings and was very fucking good in AA. I’d argue he may be the most major league ready of the three if his AA command is here to stay and I see a non zero chance he could force his way into an OD rotation spot.

Update after latest moves / news: Lineup: 1B: Murakami (L) 2B: Meidroth (R) SS: C. Montgomery (L) 3B: Vargas (R) LF: Baldwin (S) CF: Acuña (R) RF: Hays (R) DH: Quero (S) CA: Teel (L) Bench: BC: Lee (R) IF: Sosa (R) OF: Pereira (R) OF: Benintendi (L) Rotation: Smith (R) Martin (R) Kay (L) Burke (R) Vasil (R) Bullpen: CL: Dominguez (R) SU: Taylor (R) SU: Leasure (R) MR: Hicks (R) MR: Newcomb (L) MR: Gonzalez (R) MR: Gilbert (L) LR: Paez (R) DFA’d or Returned: IF: Mead (R) OF: Hill (R) RP: Alberto (R) 40 Man Roster Depth: IF: Murray (R) OF: Peters (L) SP: Sandlin (R) SP: Cannon (R) SP: Davitt (R) SP: Thorpe (R) SP: Bush (L) SP: McDougal (R) SP: Murphy (L) RP: Eisert (L) RP: Berroa (R) Non 40 Reinforcements: CA: Romo (R) IF: Antonacci (L) IF: Bergolla (L) OF: Montgomery (L) OF: Kelenic (L) SP: Schultz (L) SP: Smith (L) SP: Adams (R) RP: Franklin (R) RP: Davis (R) RP: Coffey (R) RP: Peoples (R) RP: Borucki (L) RP: Schweitzer (L)

I’d love to see Vasil as the #5 to open the season and put Newcomb in the bullpen where he belongs. Best internal alignment for the broader pitching staff IMO.

You basically listed out a 90th percentile outcome for every player and said this is what you think will happen. I’m not looking to poop on anyone’s parade, but all of that happening is way too unrealistic. You essentially have a 60 win team jumping 20 to 25 games as your base case assumption. Beyond that, you think a team coming off triple digit losses should rush prospects that aren’t fully developed to fill major league needs. I’m all for optimism, but we aren’t even remotely close enough ready to start sacrificing our future to win a couple extra games now.

Didn’t catch that…makes much more sense now.

Fantastic news on both accounts. I was confident that Iriarte would make it through waivers due to his stuff (and results) going backwards, but was uncertain if Romo would as well. Glad we’ll have him in AAA and gives us more flexibility to make a Lee trade if we so choose now.

I said when they first claimed him this would be their plan, but figured the Orioles would wait more than a couple of days to try and sneak him through.

Better / not terrible / entertaining…sure. Good enough to rush prospects to fill major league roles when we have numerous long-term holes in the rotation? Not even close IMO.

In a year where we aren’t going to be serious contenders. Do the right thing and let him build up his innings in the minors as a SP.

Why would it be a good thing?

Not overly valuable, but have their uses. Just funny because the Bulls have for a long been willing to sell them for cash. So up until right now, the org didn’t find them super valuable. Now they are like Pokemon and we get catch em all.

I’ll be honest, I have no idea why people still support the Bulls at all. Under the Michael Reinsdorf & AKME combo, they have shown that they aren’t serious about winning and just want to print money at the UC. Just an absolutely embarrassment that they continue to sell out. Took my son to one game and actually felt bad that the player product was so fucking bad.

And play in one of shittier divisions in baseball

I’m actually blown away at just how bad AKME are being NBA front office executives. Like the basic principle for any front office is to buy low and sell high and we continually wait to deal players when there value is at an all time low. And all for the hope of a play-in game appearance.

A good one this time though. The Bulls are both boring & bad and have been stuck in NBA hell for a long ass time. Wave that flag and start tanking.