Chicago White Sox

No, they’ve officially broken me. I really thought we turned a corner when we starting acquiring players like Grandal & Lynn and pursued guys like Wheeler & Burnes. Felt like Rick Hahn had learned from his past mistakes and would focus his limited resources on acquiring impact talent. Instead, we just squandered $46M on relievers & utility guys and have completely ignored multiple major needs. Again, not sure if it’s Hahn or Tony/Jerry, but something is broken and we are blowing an amazing opportunity here.

Probably, it’s just appalling that we’ve gotten worst in baseball production out of RF for two straight years and are simply throwing a bunch of crap at the position and hoping for the best. It’s appalling that we traded a cost-controlled, 2 to 3 win 2B and are replacing him with a 34 year old UT infielder who hits from the right side. It’s appalling that we are doing nothing whatsoever to address our clear weakness against good RHP. It’s appalling that we are afraid to make long-term commitments to impact talent but have given out two of three total 3+ year contracts to relievers and utility guys this offseason. It’s appalling that we are going to lose a 5 win pitcher and think we can think we can replace his production with no external additions. It’s appalling we think we can rely on Dallas Keuchel to be 1/5 of our rotation despite deteriorating stuff and a K rate that is quickly approaching 5 per 9. It’s appalling that we think spending $50M on relievers is somehow a good allocation of our limited resources. And ultimately, it’s appalling that these clowns might squander an amazing opportunity to bring another championship to the south side.

Just came to concede that the Sox aren’t getting Conforto. It’s been hard for me to accept the levels of incompetence with this organization, but after witnessing them ruining their relationship with their best pitcher over $50k, it’s very clear that either Rick Hahn is way over his head as GM, Tony has too much influence on roster decisions, or Jerry is meddling too much in baseball decisions (or some combo of the three). Regardless, the Sox seem totally content with the core they have in place and instead of supplementing with impact talent would prefer spending like drunk sailors on ancillary pieces. It’s an absolute shame that we will be rocking such a high payroll and haven’t really moved the needle. What a bizarre and epic failure of an offseason.

I still don’t get why we didn’t pursue McHugh. Was he the guy who accused us of service time manipulation?

Probably pitch the game Kopech starts.

Leury isn’t good against RHP despite being a “switch hitter”, so platooning him with a bunch of RH hitters doesn’t make sense to anyone but Rick Hahn & Tony La Russa.

Roster Resource has Leury Garcia as our RF against RHP… Like for the love of god please sign Michael Conforto!

At this point you try slipping him through waivers and simply accept defeat when someone claims him.

Lopez settled for $2.625M or a little less than the $2.8M MLBTR was projecting. Just leaves Giolito now.

So instead of adding left-handed balance we abandon it all together?

What about something like this? CWS: LHP Manaea & C Marchan PHI: CL Kimbrel & $5M cash OAK: 3B Burger, RHP, Dalquist, OF Adolfo, & OF Y. Garcia Basically allows us to address SP & BC in one trade without adding any salary.

No it doesn’t

I think the problem is twofold. First, Boras wants to get paid based off of Conforto’s 2017 to 2020 performance when in reality every team will demand some sort of discount to offset the risk of his shitty 2021 season. Second, the QO isn’t doing him any favors as rebuilding teams would probably rather wait another offseason to address their OF when they won’t lose a pick and precious bonus pool dollars.

People keep saying a Vaugh/Sheets/Engel/Leury combo in RF can replicate Conforto’s production, but dude was a ~4 win player prior to last season. So either you guys are basing all go forward expectations on a down year or think we’re going to get some of the best RF production in all of baseball out of two unproven 1B and a guy made out of glass.

And yet the best relievers make 2.5x to 3x time what Leury makes. WAR doesn’t account for context and treats all runs as being worth the same, which is 100% not the case and that’s reflective in what GMs pay for high leverage relievers.

That’s a ridiculous analogy and you know it. Look at what closers get paid on a per inning basis and tell me high leverage outs aren’t more valuable than other outs. And I’m not even disagreeing with you general premise that we should address the main holes (RF / 2B / SP) before spending at the top of the market for multiple relief pitchers.

Adolfo is gone within the next three weeks. And let’s not overreact to four spring training games, Yoelqui needs to prove himself in AA before we make any plans around him.

They’ve been waiting for robo umps for some time now

Can you summarize what’s happening here? I’m at a swim lesson for my kids and can barely hear.

Graveman got a three year deal.

Legend will ensure it’s the under when he gets 80 games out there.

When you leak information, you only control the message, not how it’s disseminated. The Sox don’t get to tell Levine where to go share this information. They simply want it out there somewhere and let happen organically at Bruce and others’ disposal. Again, I’m not arguing it’s effective. Personally I think it’s kind of dumb. But we were all there for the Machado negotiations and saw first hand both sides leaking stuff back & forth. And Boras uses leaks all the time. Just follow Jon Heyman’s Twitter account if you don’t believe me. Also, front office leaks aren’t always trying to mislead an agent, but oftentimes opposing front offices. Blind bidding processes aren’t easy and downplaying a need can theoretically help other teams feel like they are bidding against themselves.

Sure, but spending at the top of the market and giving two guys multi year deals (which only a handful of relievers received this offseason) is not the inefficiency.

All fair points…I just don’t think Conforto on a 4/$80M deal constitutes a huge contract. It may be big for us, but it’s not giant for most clubs.

No one wants you to leave Soxtalk, but when you make silly arguments you will be called out for them. Works that way for all of us.