Chicago White Sox

Keith Law mentioned in his White Sox prospect rankings that Ramos was dealing with shoulder issues last year. While the comment was used to rationalize why he didn’t play much 3B, I’m sure it impacted his hitting to some extent as well. Incredibly productive season for the kid and I expect him to start cracking too 100 lists next year and challenge Montgomery, Kath, & Vera for the #1 spot in the system.

Alright, I'm going to bump this thread in hopes of a CBA being agreed to in the next week. From my perspective, I think the Sox will have five priorities heading into part two of the offseason: Add a left-handed power bat, preferably one that can play a solid RF Acquire a #3 type SP via trade, likely on a one-year deal to limit cost Sign or trade for a cheap 2B, possibly one who can platoon with Leury Trade Kimbrel for salary relief and major league depth / role players Sign a decent reliever to fill-in behind Hendriks, Bummer, & Graveman With those focus areas identified, here's how I could see Hahn addressing them. As I've stated numerous times, Michael Conforto is a perfect fit for this roster as he's elite against RHP (our biggest weakness on the positional side) and is more or less average in RF (a massive upgrade from Vaugh / Sheets though). He should without question be the number one priority when a CBA is agreed to and I truly believe he ends up on the South Side. To round out the lineup, I'd go ahead and sign Brad Miller to a cheap deal to be the strong side of a 2B platoon with Leury. Miller posted a 123 wRC+ against righties last year and has been solid at 2B from an advanced metrics perspective. Combine him and Leury and I think you can easily get two wins out of the position for dirt cheap. From there, the focus turns to the rotation. The challenge addressing this need is twofold. First, free agency is running out of quality options. The only two guys I'd argue are #3 starters or better are Kershaw & Rodon. Both have serious health concerns and we already passed on the opportunity to lock Carlos in via a QO. As such, that pretty much forces us to go the trade route unless we're willing to bank on a guy whose stuff continues to regress each year (Keuchel) and a guy who will be on an innings limit (Kopech) to cover 40% of our rotational needs. The problem here is we have the worst farm system in baseball. I'd love to go out and acquire Sonny Gray, but we don't have the pieces to get such a deal done unless we absorb a bad contract (say Moustakas) or are willing to give up Vaughn. That basically leaves guys who are on one year deals with rebuilding clubs. The A's have a couple of these guys and I really think Bassitt could be had for a package built around Burger & Dalquist. Finally, the Craig Kimbrel situation has to be addressed. I supported the trade at the time, but it was an unmitigated disaster in hindsight. However, the reality is we need to move on (we simply can't afford both him & Hendriks) and recoup whatever value we can, even though it will certainly be less than what we gave up. I still see the Phillies as the likely landing spot here. In terms of return, I'd expect us to get a couple of major league role players. The main piece I could see happening is Rafael Marchan, a 23 year old, defensive oriented switch-hitting catcher who can immediately challenge Collins for the backup spot behind Grandal. A second piece that seems possible is Jose Alvarado, a 26 year old, left-handed reliever with big stuff but who has struggled with control the past couple years. He's definitely a project but one worth seeing if a change of scenery with Katz can unlock his 2018 form (2.27 FIP | 2.1 fWAR). I know many here would be disappointed with that return while others will think it's unrealistic, but it feels about right to me given the Phillies' desperate need for a closer. Regardless, moving Kimbrel requires us to add a reliever IMO and I think bringing back Tepera makes the most sense. His age and lack of track record should keep the price reasonable and he showed some serious stones in game 3 against the Astros. Make these moves and I think we've got as strong of a roster as any team in baseball.

Has Trump back-tracked yet?

I didn’t threaten to move to Nashville…I actually fucking did it. And trust me, going to a Sounds games is not anywhere near as rewarding as going to a Sox game.

Ramos finally getting the love he deserves!

I think RF and SP should be the priority. I think a 2B should be added, but we don’t need to blow a huge chunk of resources on the position.

I refuse to get too concerned over a fight between millionaires and billionaires, but it’s very clear if the MLB wasn’t basically a monopoly the players would get paid more. There isn’t really much of a debate that the owners were getting more than their fair share of the pie under the previous CBA and aren’t negotiating in good faith. And it’s that latter point that bothers me, because it doesn’t seem like the players are asking for all that much and yet the owners are willing to fuck over their customer base to claim a couple ten million more dollars here or there. Hopefully the owners will cave a bit last second, because we should all be enraged if they cost us baseball games because they refuse to concede any ground to the players.

Great post and we all that know deep playoff runs are super lucrative. And while I think the owners are totally full of shit in terms of the profitability of owning teams in general, this is not the “gotcha” moment Passan thanks it is IMO.

OIBDA is basically EBITDA so Passan’s take is not quite accurate.

IMO, Stiever & Lambert have both been victims of health and lost development time during the pandemic. Stiever in particular went from A+ to the major league mini-camp when the pandemic hit. I get they’re getting up there in age (especially Lambert), but posted great K rates in AAA last and I truly believe there is untapped potential there. I wouldn’t call them “great” back-end depth by any means but I think they’re fine for where they should be sitting in the pecking order (#8 & #9 type guys).

The upper minors lack high-end SP depth, but there is actually quite a bit of backend type guys. I still believe Stiever & Lambert can be contributors at the major league leave and McClure & Bilous are semi-interesting. For as weak of a system as we have, I can live with those guys as our #8 & #9 starters. The gap between them and Lopez unfortunately and that likely has to be addressed via trade & free agency.

Fair point, but how many owners are abusing the revenue sharing system? Seems like that’s got to be less than 10. Other than that, I think it’s mostly stuff they will ultimately agree to in some fashion other than a hard cap (but that’s due to the players).

I’m going to be honest, but the CBT is not the problem. In fact, the game desperately needs a hard cap to improve parity. Set it at $240M or something and then have it grow based on some economic factor each year. At the same time, there are ways to get the cheap teams to spend more. I really don’t like the idea of expanded playoffs, but it should encourage less tanking. Same goes for a draft lottery and increasing the minimum salary for pre-arb players. But what I’d really like to see is a major shakeup to revenue sharing and to force recipients to actually spend what they receive on player payroll. It’s complete bullshit that some owners are pocketing that shit. With those tweaks I think you have something that would work for the players with minimal impact to the owners. And most importantly, you should have a game with much better parity.

What I like about the system is it’s a lot younger than it’s ever been. While no one is a top 100 prospect type just yet, there are a dozen or so guys that have that kind of ceiling in their range of outcomes. Obviously the vast majority of them will never reach their full potential, but the system can improve in a hurry even if a handful take a big step forward this coming season.

It’s really the only card they have so hopefully it gets things moving. The fact the owners plan to negotiate daily next week is also a good sign.

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Yeah, I’ve seen the text messages. Just cause the girl was whack job who was likely looking to profit off this doesn’t mean Bauer didn’t do anything wrong. Regardless, I will wait and see what kind of punishment (if any) MLB hands out based on their investigation. If it was truly just good ole fashioned “rough sex” then he should receive no suspension.

I hate seven playoff teams, but if you’re going to do it I do like the “pick your opponent” element of it.

Is that including Conforto?

I’d bet considerable money that one of Burger or Sheets is dealt this offseason to address the rotation or 2B.

Outside the box trade idea that will likely trigger this board but one worth discussing: Gavin Sheets + Dallas Keuchel to CIN for Sonny Gray + Mike Moustakas This trade adds ~$8M in salary in 2022 & ~$30M in 2023 assuming Gray’s team option is exercised. The assumption here is that Moustakas is used as part of a 2B platoon with Leury or Romy. Before I get completely laughed at, both OAA & UZR/150 had Moustakas as a slightly below average 2B defensively during his short stint there in 2019 & 2020 and that seems to be consistent with the scouting reports I’ve read. And regarding the bat, he had been 9% to 23% better than league average against RHP over his previous six seasons prior to 2021. Was last year an outlier due to a plantar fasciitis injury or the beginning of a steep downward trend? If my scouts & medical staff believe it’s the former and that he can still be adequate at 2B, then I think this is a move worth exploring. And just to be clear here, the focus is landing Gray while also dumping Keuchel. I’m not some huge Moustakas fan like Caulfield or Greg, but simply view acquiring him as a way to possibly kill three birds with one stone. And only taking on ~$8M in salary to address the rotation & 2B is a big plus if you’re also looking to add Conforto for RF. As for the Reds, yes they’d be leveraging Sonny Gray to dump Moustakas’ sizable contract ($34M remaining). Yes, they’d also be taking on Keuchel’s $18M salary for the year, but it’s only half of Moose’s and could possibly moved at the deadline with a rebound. Worse case he gives you some innings and then is released before his option is picked up. On the plus side, they get a major league ready bat that can slot in at DH and eventually replace Votto at 1B. BTV’s has this as a fair trade and while I think that tool is somewhat of a joke, I do feel like it’s a fairly even deal and one the Reds might accept. Whether it makes sense for the Sox is the bigger question, but still a very interesting proposal.

Vaughn is worth considerably more than a fringe TOR starter on a one year deal. We literally just acquired one year of Lance Lynn (a legit TOR) for Dane Dunning. Bassitt should come cheaper, especially when there are other teams with pitching to trade.

One name that I think is consistently underrated is Bryan Ramos and this tweet got me very excited: One interesting thing about Ramos is Law confirmed that he was dealing with shoulder soreness last year and that was a big reason he didn’t play much 3B (mostly DH with a little 2B mixed in) but that he’s more than capable there.

It’s officially prospect ranking season and with nothing else to discuss baseball wise at the moment, I thought it’d be a fun exercise to outline our own rankings. Feel free to do more or less, but 20 is usually a good number before you start getting into fringier territory. Here is my list: Colton Montgomery, SS* Oscar Colas, OF* Wes Kath, 3B* Norge Vera, RHP Jake Burger, 3B Jose Rodriguez, 2B/SS Bryan Ramos, 3B/2B Andrew Dalquist, RHP Matthew Thompson, RHP Yoelqui Cespedes, OF Sean Burke, RHP Jared Kelley, RHP Romy Gonzalez, SS/OF Jonathan Stiever, RHP Jimmy Lambert, RHP Yogurt Sanchez, 2B Tanner McDougal, RHP Jason Bilous, RHP Lenyn Sosa, SS Misael Gonzalez, OF Just missed: Micker Adolfo, Luis Mieses, Christian Mena, Wilber Sanchez, & Brooks Gosswein.

What wasn’t sexual assault? Just because something can’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court doesn’t mean it didn’t happened.