Chicago White Sox

@DirtySox - Great stuff as always!

Zero concerns with taking Thome…I’d love to grab him. But if the cost to get him is effectively Jacob Gonzalez, then I think it’s a highly questionable move.

This is only selling high if you don’t believe in the player. As I mentioned in my last post, two years of mediocre Gavin Lux returned a Comp A prospect and a decent prospect. With any extended stretch of productive major league play and Jacob’s value exponentially increases. And while he’s blocked right now, any injury to an infielder or Benintendi and he’s a regular once again. If Getz & Fuller don’t think Jacob can sustain what he’s showed in Charlotte and the majors over the past couple of weeks, then I agree this is selling high. But to me, this feels like we’re overpaying for an asset he had to have for reasons unknown vs. not believing in the player. If we were really trying to sell high, we’d have waited until after the draft when more teams are engaged.

This website is pure garbage. This is suggesting Jacob for Woods would be a fair trade…lol.

Fully agree with you here.

Having an extra pick and the additional bonus pool dollars is awesome, but the draft is still a crapshoot and the odds of the player selected at #34 becoming a quality major leaguer is far from a guarantee. And we just used our best, most fungible trade asset to get it. To me, there should have been a second prospect coming back to make this trade make sense, one who could have been used to help upgrade the major league team. The Reds gave up a Comp A pick and Mike Sirota (pre blow up) for two years of Gavin Lux. I get Lux was a massive prospect and only one year removed from a very nice season, but I think 6+ years of the current version of Jacob is at least worth as much. This feels like Getz was committed to getting this pick at all costs for reasons not yet known. I’m actually pretty excited about Thome as a prospect, but if they made this trade to ensure they 100% get him then that’s a bad move. Right now, you dream Landon can be as good as Jacob one day and if he can’t play SS at the major league level I’m not sure the ceiling is really any higher.

Fully agree.

We should start seeing the rewards of our new LatAM program next year. It’s hard to believe we have lasted this long with only a partial functioning program.

Wikelman Gonzalez takes Jacob Gonzalez’s spot post trade.

I don’t think this new guy cracks the 40 man roster this year…that’s what makes him somewhat attractive. Paul Janish has confirmed McDougal is coming, but not my guess is that will be post the All Star break. I could see Schweitzer get the call in the short term.

We just traded our number two prospect per Kiley to do so though and lost a trade chip that could have been used to augment the major league team at the deadline in the process. We have simply shifted a more advanced asset for a less advanced one and have lost some trade flexibility in the near term. Tomorrow will be a fuckton of fun though.

But why did we have to trade him now? Most teams are 100% focused on the draft and not looking to buy for or sell from their major league roster. Obviously the answer is they wanted the Comp A pick and this was the price to get it. That being said, we could have traded Jacob at the deadline or in the offseason and still dealt with the roster crunch then. And conceptually, there would have likely been a bigger market at those times.

Maybe some people don’t realize he’s not a 1B? The Pirates are going to play him on the left side of the infield which is where he spent most of his career. He can also play 2B and looked pretty good at 1B despite being new to the position. He doesn’t need to be Murakami for the bat to play up at other infield spots. Chase Meidroth is on pace for like a 2.8 win season by just being a league average hitter and providing quality 2B defense. Jacob may not be that level of defender at 2B, but he has almost hit as well as Chase despite adjusting to the majors and enduring a massive slump. If he can just be a slightly better hitter than Chase, he’s a very valuable player.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m super excited for what this means for the draft. I just think it feels like we overpaid a bit for this specific draft pick so we could have the highest bonus pool possible. And candidly, it’s hard for me to ignore the production history of guys taken in the Comp A round and just assume the best case scenario for us. I’m an optimistic guy by nature, but don’t like this trade on paper. I may feel differently tomorrow once I see what Shirley was able to accomplish though.

Just fully disagree with you on the evaluation of the player and certainly don’t agree we had to trade him now because he was blocked.

That’s the $200M+ question.

Is this a dig at my player projections? If so, please provide some examples of all these “rosy WAR guarantees” I have made. I’m happy to be humbled, but don’t appreciate digs that come without any specifics. And yes, he’s slow as f***. I fully disagree with you on his power though. In AAA, his 90th % EV was in the 80th percentile and his hard hit rate in the 76th. More importantly, his max EV was in the 95th percentile. Was his HR output inflated from playing half his home games at Truist? No doubt, but dude was hitting the s%*# out of the ball with his new stance. And he was doing this all with good swing decisions and solid in-zone contact to boot. I’m excited for an extra pick and the extra bonus dollars it comes with. I just feel like this is an overpay to get those luxuries.

The crappy reliever we got appears to be a bit more exciting than the one we gave up and doesn’t require a 40 man spot yet. He is Rule 5 eligible this fall, so if he’s any good it doesn’t really help with the roster crunch.

He also flashed a pretty good hitting profile in the majors that made believers out of previous skeptics like Keith Law & Kiley McDaniel.

Don’t agree with this guy on the batted ball data…looked pretty good to me over the last two weeks when he was our best hitter.

Because Gonzalez is far more redundant with Roch & Bonemer coming

How does this allow us to trade for more pitchers? We just gave up one of our top couple of prospects to get pick that can’t be traded for quite some time.

I don’t want to be that guy, but draft picks bust. I love Shirley and think he’s a legit star when it comes to talent evaluation, but he’s far from perfect. Look at the Hagen Smith pick (which was overslot) and what we could have taken as example (and yes, I know Getz is more so responsible for that). Do we really think a late 1st round college pitcher is a slam dunk? It’s why prospects are less valuable than proven commodities and draft picks are worth less than similarly talented prospects. That bust potential requires a discount from a valuation perspective and it just doesn’t seem to be baked into the equation here.

He’s a Japanese guy and the culture is very different there. I’d wager he like to sign with the Sox long-term if they come with a respectable offer.

Just feels likes an overpay and that we should have gotten an actual nice 2nd piece along with the draft pick. I mean, the rumor is Pittsburgh was looking for a quality reliever for then pick prior to this. I struggle to think that an everyday positional player is worth less than that.