Chicago White Sox

Acuna doesn’t do anything for me unless he’s a secondary piece. If my scouts felt Baty could play LF, I’d do that trade in a heartbeat. Not sure the Mets give up four years of Baty for Robert though unless they are super desperate for a CF.

Gotta disagree. You don’t trade Robert to add an infielder you have nowhere to play. Either get something that helps long-term or you hold out until the trade deadline.

Again, why is this an either/or thing? Both are fucking problems and should be addressed.

Where would he even play?

I’m not saying he’s worth it, but you have to remember with these insane long-term contracts that the AAV’s are very much diluted by back years with limited expected production. Tucker’s contract very much makes sense for expected production over the next four years.

Why do they want infielders though?

What you’re ignoring is the fact that the Dodgers have essentially bought themselves a guaranteed playoff spot every year. No go look at the bottom 10 clubs and see how frequently they make the playoffs. When you’re rocking a sub $100M payroll, your margin for error for development, health, & even luck is basically zero. The Dodgers don’t deal with these same challenges the can afford insane levels of depth. They can also build a team that is optimized to win World Series and reduce a lot of the volatility that is the MLB playoffs. Let me frame this another way…why is is this a good thing? Who is benefiting from the Dodgers outspending many teams but a 4x to 5x ratio?

So as long as they are theoretically “beatable” you are ok with a team being able to spend +4x the amount as certain small market teams?

This is an absolutely absurd post. The Dodgers have a regional TV deal that lets them outspend the competition and the dumb MLB has limited rules in place that prevent them from doing so. Glad you think it’s cool a sport has no market size parity.

100%. There is fucking parity in this stupid fucking league. If I didn’t absolutely love the Sox for some sick reason, I wouldn’t waste a second watching the MLB.

Yup, theoretically when you payroll bandwidth you got to take advantage of when really good players hit free agency because they may not be later. Unfortunately that won’t be us, but conceptually I’d seriously consider if I were the owner of the White Sox.

This Tucker market seems ridiculously below expectations. I really Ishbia was in charge right now because we should be all over this guy at the price points and length being discussed.

To White Sox?

He’s Benintendi type bad defensively and we can’t roster two guys like that

FWIW, Alberto had an introductory Zoom call and Paz will have one next week. I’m not sure I recall Rule 5 picks having these types of media sessions either.

Invite as many NRIs as you can fit into camp. I’m certainly not against another OF addition depending on what the plan is for Benintendi.

I’m not following. Are you suggesting we are going to restrict these guys to like 330 PA’s each? Getz should be fired immediately if that’s his plan. I don’t think you are actually suggest that though.

I don’t disagree, but Pereira doesn’t have options, so he’s getting a spot or you risk losing him. I wouldn’t bring in Castellanos as competition for him though.

I’d rather give those at-bats to Periera. Former top 100 prospect with multiple plus tools coming of a 128 wRC+ season in AAA and who has only had 176 major league plate appearances to date. Much better use of playing time IMO and right now I’d much rather him get the at-bats than Kelenic.

I see no way that Teel & Quero get significantly less playing time than they did last year. Combined they had 973 PA’s across AAA and the minors. The White Sox only had 654 PA’s from their catchers combined like year. If you’re keeping both, you have to find a way to get them another 300+ PA’s and that means both playing at the same time about half the time. My guess is Benintendi splits time between DH and LF in hopes of less outfield usage keeping him healthier and making him less bad out there. That would probably open up enough at-bats for Teel & Quero at DH. But again, they both have to be in the lineup or else we are just wasting them.

Just to be clear, you think the Sox are going with a straight catcher platoon and won’t regularly have Teel & Quero in the lineup at the same time?

For what purpose?

I’m not sure what stats you are looking at, but Mead has been a +.200 ISO guy for almost the entirety of his minor league career despite being well below league average in terms of age. He is a two time Baseball America top 100 prospect who has always been considered to have above average raw power. As a 21 year old in AA & AAA he was on pace for ~20 HRs if he would have had 500 PA’s. These takes on Mead are just flat out wrong. Yes, he has sucked in ~500 major league PA’s across parts of three seasons with a 77 wRC+ to date, but guess what? Young players can get better with reps & time. Imagine having this same conversation a year ago about Sosa when he had a 66 wRC+ in 578 PA’s across three seasons. And Sosa was never half the prospect that Mead was. I’m not guaranteeing a turnaround here by any means, but these are the types of guys you buy low and sell high on and if you like Mead (whom the Sox went out and acquired) there is some logic to the set of moves in question.

It’s wild you can’t admit you were wrong on this one point and continue to deflect and move the goalposts.

100% it only makes sense if there is both a return you like for Sosa and you think there are some ways to fix Mead. But right now, Sosa is not going to get a ton of playing time (baring injury) and unlikely to maintain his value unless you find a way to get him more at-bats (and all for the OF idea, but not convinced yet the Sox are considering it).