Chicago White Sox

Why do you think this?

Rick played hardball when attempting to deal Quintana. I actually thought he was competent at the time because of how well he maneuvered to get that deal. He’s lost all my faith since then.

So let me get this straight, because Grandal sucked prior to coming back, we have should assumed that’s the level of performance we’d get the rest of the season? Just ignore his entire history as a player and assume he’s going to be Reese McGuire levels bad with the bat. Gotcha, totally makes sense. Also, you need to stop using fWAR (or any WAR) as the end-all-be-all for evaluating catchers. I get you’re a numbers based guy, but it is nearly impossible to quantify the full value of a catcher with a single number and can be difficult at times to separate what the catcher controls vs. the pitcher. And for a backup catcher, you certainly can’t just take a partial season and increase his playing time and assume his fWAR will increase linearly. Look, you may think McGuire was a capable backup catcher for us, but I just don’t think a guy who is 50% below average offensively being serviceable unless they are an elite defender and I didn’t see that level of defense with Reese. Yes, that is mostly based on eye test and I have no idea how he is as a game caller, but most of his component stats back that up (pop time, framing, blocking). Now, if his hitting moving forward resembles how he performed with the Red Sox (even normalized for the ridiculous BABIP), I’d 100% feel differently. But he legit looked like the worst hitter in the league not named Leury Garcia while with the Sox.

I mean, it’s possible they didn’t like Reese in the clubhouse and wanted to move on from him regardless. Usually guys that jerk off in parking lots are a little on the weird side. He also had a 54 wRC+ with us which is unplayable despite his defense. Regardless, there was almost zero chance we were going to keep two backup catchers without options on the 40 man roster all off-season. One of them was likely to be traded before spring training. Not sure Grandal coming back from injury is having this butterfly effect you think it is.

Who needs analytics when you have a Jerry Narron to solve all our catching problems. Speaking of which, did you simply eliminate his position as part of the La Russa fall-out?

I generally agree with your views, but I think you’re way off-base here. We should want more guys like Grandal who are determined to play through their injuries. It’s the manager’s job to determine if a guy is healthy enough to contribute. Blame Tony or Hahn for not forcing him to the DL and/or finding alternatives to take on his role.

I won’t post the tweet to avoid giving him more attention, but that Happy Man dude claims the McCann for Leury trade fell through over “monetary reasons”.

Sounds like the McCann for Leury trade fell through ???

That’s totally fair, but he only made two starts in AAA. I seriously doubt they would have started him in AA again after the way he finished off the season. Again, I don’t think he should be counted as critical depth, but I think he did enough last year to be our #8 or #9 SP.

True, but adding Schultz, Pallette, & Cannon helps a ton and we’re also getting McDougal back. That’s four legit arms on top of Vera & Mena. Simas is a semi interesting prospect and I’m not counting out Thompson or Kelley just yet.

The lower minors is loaded in pitching, it’s the upper minors that is the problem.

Burke turned it on quite a bit over his last eight starts for the Barons (14.2 K/9 | 3.03 FIP) and may be closer than many here think. I think it would be nuts to enter the season with him as our #7 starter, but I think he’s fine a spot or two below.

No way the Sox are adding that much payroll. If we aren’t capped out already, I bet we’re awfully close. I’d say we have $10M max to work with and that’s likely being generous. Only way to add Conforto or Segura is by trading a piece like Hendriks or Giolito.

I’m pretty sure this Steve guy is a fraud and the timing of this rumor is awfully suspect given we were just talking about him in another thread, but I’d be very excited about his addition. He is an ideal 4th OF.

Fully agree. If we add a veteran 2B, Romy should get first crack at a bench role with Sosa getting a little bit of time in AAA. He’s getting up there in age and is a more versatile player.

External scouting reports. Here is what Baseball America said about his defense in their latest top 10 list: Here is what Baseball Prospectus said in their top 10: This is aligns with what I’ve read elsewhere. Good reads / routes make up for his average speed and would allow him to fill in at CF, but realistically he’s a RF in the long-run.

Sounds like Colas could play there for a few weeks and not completely kill you, but that also means Gavin Sheets sliding over to RF ?‍?

I don’t think the infield depth is all that bad, especially if we add a LH 2B to the mix and push guys like Sosa & Romy into bench roles. It’s really our OF depth that is the problem and possibly catcher depending on how cooked Grandal really is.

He’d be the perfect 4th OF for us IMO. Obviously you have to weigh his addition vs. filling needs elsewhere, but I don’t think 4th OF is a spot we should overlook.

He completely disappeared from here the moment FootlongComiskeyDog started moving on up in the fake insider world. He also was notorious for sharing that specific Twitter user’s tweets. It seems pretty apparent to me they are one and the same.

Yup, I wonder if Happy Man is a Soxtalk poster. We already outed Mahoney & Orlando as foodies and you got to think other desperate, attention seeking losers would leverage Soxtalk to draw attention to fake insider accounts.

I listened to about 20 minutes of one of FootlongComiskeyDog’s Twitter spaces and Happy Man was basically the only “guest” who talked. Not surprised he’s attempting to be an aspiring foodie. I’d put odds on this being accurate at like 0.000000000000001%.

I’m on a crusade for negativity? Show where I haven’t been objective.

Why wouldn’t he? Because he has no plate discipline. You seem to be on such a crusade for positivity that you lack objectivity. Cespedes still has a chance to be a major league 4th OF, but he’s got a long way to go before he gets there and you haven’t cited a single reason to believe he will. When 5’ 9” Cespedes has 80 grade power and walks 15% of the time we can start using Aaron Judge as support believing his 30% K rate won’t be detrimental to major league success.

Why do you think Cespedes will take two steps forward this year?