Chicago White Sox

Anyone else having issues with MLBTV?

Age might catch up with them….that’s possible. But Tauchman has shown no signs of slowing down and I trust Fuller’s evaluation of Slater. Projection models predict this will be a ~2 win RF platoon on a Reinsdorf budget. That is a 4 win improvement over the garbage we trotted it there last year and would blow Fletcher, DeLoach, & Colas out of the water…age he damned.

Which guys? Jankowski? He will be DFAed within seven days. Tauchman has been a legitimately productive OF for the last few years despite every poster here calling him “crappy”. Slater was one of the best hitters against LHP from 2019 to 2023 and was almost certainly a recommended “buy low” target of Fuller’s. I wouldn’t have added Taylor with the other two vets already in place, but Taylor is an elite defender who put up 2 fWAR/season from 2021 to 2023. Fletcher, Colas, & DeLoach can’t even hit AAA pitching in the second most hitter friendly park in AAA. People are demanding Getz be fired for losing 121 games last year and then turn around and complain about him adding what should be a 2 win RF platoon vs. the -2 wins they got out of the position last year. At this point, people will whine about everything. The people who were applauding the additions of Eder & Fletcher when first acquired are now throwing hissy fits about Getz being a total idiot for trading for them in the first place.

Getz gutted the pro scouting function after making this trade. If anything, this is a bad look on Barfield for recommend Fletcher over McCarthy.

Jankowski will be DFAed in less than a week. Might be eaiee to sneak Fletcher through waivers right now given alll the player movement happening.

Janikowski will be here for a week at max. The decision comes down to Greg Jones vs. Dominic Fletcher.

Because Fletcher, DeLoach, & Colas aren’t major league caliber players. They aren’t even young anymore for those who think they will suddenly figure things out at the major league level despite being bad at Charlotte.

Unfortunately we needed him in case we got in a fight with Nick Madrigal at the bike rack

They will win 50+ games barring incredibly bad injury luck (which can happen)

FWIW

Sox have six batters on the roster with 5+ plate appearances vs. Kikuchi: Benintendi: 13 PA | 1 BB | 3 K | 4 H | .742 OPS Vaughn: 9 PA | 1 BB | 1 K | 1 H | .311 OPS Taylor: 7 PA | 1 BB | 1 K | 2 H | 1.232 OPS Robert: 6 PA | 0 BB | 4 K | 1 H | .333 OPS Slater: 6 PA | 0 BB | 3 K | 0 H | .000 OPS Thaiss: 5 PA | 1 BB | 2 K | 1 H | .533 OPS

Let’s get some Gamethread talking going.

Just remember that Montgomery, Teel, Quero, Meidroth, & Ramos will be coming up at some point and will assume significant at-bats. I wish I could say the same about the pitching reinforcements but they all got TJS.

So his source talked to five clubs who all shared their plans to claim Oscar Colas on waivers shortly after he was put on them? Unless that source is part of the league office and teams proactively shared their intentions to placing claims it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Same here…I mean he did have a bad spring offensively, but by the time you hit your 50’s you should realize spring training results are mostly meaningless.

I think you undervaluing OBP and focusing way too much on power. These guys have elite track records of drawing walks. Over a full season these guys will post well above league average OBP’s. How much they impact the baseball remains to be seen, but the OBP alone will put them right around the 100 wRC+ mark give or take. I also refuse to overreact to a bad spring from Meidroth and a bad 2H last year from Vargas where he looked frail as f***. The stats don’t lie about Chase’s elite plate discipline and plus bat to ball skills and I have watched enough video of him to believe isn’t a pure slap hitter like Madrigal. And Vargas was such a well regarded prospect in the minors that I refuse to accept what I saw last year was the same dude. No 60 hit tool player with some pop should look that pathetic and I am optimistic he will at least be a semi-useful hitter. I am far worried he’ll end up a low end DH than the bad hitter he was last year. As for the others, Baldwin just looks like a solid all around hitter. I think with enough runway he will overcome any initial growing pains and be right around league average. Tauchman has been league average or better against RHP for multiple years so not sure why we should expect anything different. Sosa is admittedly more boom or bust, but the fact he’s got a swing that maximizes his raw power and is able to regularly square up on the ball gives him a chance to be an above average if he can make some strides on the chase rate. Honestly, I’m much more worried about Colson coming and being anywhere closer to league average than the guys highlighted above.

Why couldn’t a team claim him and just put him on the 60 day IL?

Who is getting DFAed to make room for the three NRI’s? Two people got to go and it’s harder to see who that is with Eisert on the major league roster and us claiming Greg Jones. That would really suck to DFA Carela. He’s not a huge piece, but a team coming off the worst season in baseball history can’t afford to dump a top 25 prospect with three options.

Piece of advice for fake insiders, don’t pretend you have sources at five major league organizations

Gilbert didn’t make it?

Mitch Spence threw 150 innings for the A’s last year.

Taylor is an elite defender who was a 2 win player from 2021 to 2023. His bat fell off last year, but he’s far more likely to be a productive major leaguer than Jankowski or Jones. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have signed Taylor given all the other veteran OFs, but these guys aren’t really that interchangeable.

Robert can obviously hit. I expect an above 100 wRC+ out of Vargas, Meidroth, Baldwin (if he gets playing time), and possibly Sosa. I think Teel & Quero will be above average hitting catchers when they get called up. Hell, I’m confident you’ll get a 100+ wRC+ out of a Tauchman / Slater RF platoon. The problem is beyond Robert, no one is likely to be well above 100 wRC+. And shockingly, if this all happened, the offense would blow last year’s out of the water.

Early favorite for POTY!!! Well done!

He’s super interesting as a AAA lottery ticket, I just hate rostering him because he doesn’t help the major league club right now and the chance of him ever amounting to something before he ages out is incredibly remote. But his ceiling is super fucking high if he could ever hit just a little.