Chicago White Sox

Man what indeed

He has a .127 BABIP in the post-season, which is less than half his career average, and is almost certainly the victim of bad luck. If you’re going to hate, at least stick with his defense.

Defensively he wouldn’t add much and it seems like he’s a platoon guy. But the dude hits RHP pretty damn well. Just struggling to find RF trade targets that make any sense.

That would be amazing, but no way the Rays do that without throwing some other things there way plus eating some money.

How is his defense / game-calling?

McCann had a monster season! Definitely the missing link!

Look at how many holes we have and people actually think bringing in a new catcher is somehow realistic. I fully agree the defense could be better, but the hatred for Grandal by a handful of posters here is beyond crazy to me. The gamethreads are almost unbearable with the amount of nitpicking / blame sent his way.

The problem with moving Sheets is you’re going to get the least amount in return, so you’re basically moving him for little benefit. I agree that moving Eloy would be a poor decision given the season he just had. As for Vaughn, I think most savvy organizations would realize how good he was in Jul & Aug before getting injured / running out of gas and would be all over him. I’d hate to move him, but if I can get a similar player at another position it may be the most value additive way to clear surplus we currently have.

$170M would be all-time high for JR and a top 10 payroll for the league I believe. I just can’t see him going above that next year, especially with the potential for a work stoppage.

I think it’s all but certainty that Crochet is in the bullpen next year. As for Cesar, zero chance they pick up that option after his collapse IMO.

Agree. I think they need to move one of the main corner guys in addition to Burger.

Let’s assume we move Kimbrel. This would be our starting point roster prior to any upgrades and we might only have $25M to upgrade it. The flaws are basically having no bullpen after the top three guys, questionable back of the rotation with no depth, extremely unbalanced lineup, and terrible OF defense. Seems problematic to me. Starting Lineup: 1B: Abreu 2B: Gonzalez SS: Anderson 3B. Moncada LF: Jimenez CF: Robert RF: Vaughn CA: Grandal DH: Sheets Bench: IF: Mendick IF: Burger OF: Engel CA: Collins Rotation: Giolito Lynn Cease Kopech Keuchel Bullpen: 9th: Hendriks 8th: Bummer 8th: Crochet 7th: Ruiz 7th: Burr 6th: Foster 6th: Cordero LR: Lopez

Definitely agree with that. I incorrectly assumed trading Madrigal meant the Sox would bump up the player high enough to easily replace him, but definitely concerned that won’t be the case.

Agree. It’s going to be a serious challenge. Hahn will need to get really creative to address all our holes. A couple things I’m expecting is Keuchel flipped for an overpaid guy at a different position and Burger moved for a controllable reliever. Will need to make more moves than that though.

Lol…you must really hate Grandal to use Harold as evidence that Grandal sucks.

Anderson & Moncada are owed a combined $22.5M next year. Add a few more pre-arb guys and we’re quickly we’re sitting around $145M with five spots to fill if we turn down Kimbrel’s option. So it just comes down to how much total payroll Jerry will support. At $170M, we’d be looking at $25M to work with to fill all our holes.

Oh gotcha

Definitely feels like we’ll be capped out around $170M next year. If so, it’s going to be nearly impossible for Hahn to address all the holes on this team with quality additions. Even by moving Kimbrel, we may only $25M or so to work with, so expect a couple Adam Eaton type signings this offseason.

What in the world does this mean? Do you mean for the Sox?

Does wRC+ adjust for the specific competition faced? Don’t get me wrong, I think we have a really good offense in isolation and I’m a huge proponent of wRC+, but it’s still missing the context that we faced a ton of shit pitchers in the AL Central and that we have an offense that both lacks balance and is highly streaky.

The previous “two years” was also 35 innings and he was actually good the last 15 of them, yet you continue ignore the tiny sample size or legit reasons for his struggles. He then went on to be the best reliever in baseball the first half of this year. Maybe he will suck next year, but I’d wager he returns to form wherever he ends up if given a traditional closer role. Whether that gamble is worth $16M depends on the level of payroll available. I don’t think we can afford to take that risk with where I see payroll going, but someone is going to be interested in him on a 1/$16M deal.

Then don’t keep Kimbrel. I’m just saying that if we keep Kimbrel (which is unlikely IMO), we can’t keep throwing him out there in a role he’s not clearly comfortable in as ridiculous as that may seem. Either you hope a move back to the 9th brings out the dominant guy we saw in the first half or go in another direction. As for Liam, some of his value is wasted by being a closer under La Russa. Liam should be used in the highest leverage situations and should see more multi innings outings, but Tony likes a closer who mostly gets just the 9th. He’s getting paid high end closer money regardless of role and has already stated he’ll do what’s best for the team. Optimizing the roster is far more important that protecting one guy’s ego. Ultimately it likely won’t matter as I can’t see them committing that money to Kimbrel with all the other holes we currently have. This was simply a hypothetical “if we keep Craig” comment.

If we decide to keep Kimbrel, then he should be the closer and Hendriks should be the guy who comes in during the highest leverage situations with runners on base.

I’m proposing a Vaughn for Lux trade, not Bellinger.

Vaughn can rotate between 1B and LF for them. I know they got a great season out of Pollock, but dude has a terrible track record of staying healthy. But yeah, hard to say if that’s something they’d even consider. At least the financials would work well for them.