Chicago White Sox

Cease is going more than 120 innings if he’s healthy. He pitched 140 in 2019 and I fully expect that many if he makes 30+ starts.

How many innings are you expecting out of Giolito, Lynn, Keuchel, & Cease next year?

We’re one of only five clubs to never have signed a $100M contract. Do you realize how ridiculous that is for a baseball team in Chicago with one of the sweetest stadium deals in all of sports? I’m glad your optimistic, but Jerry deserves doesn’t deserve a free pass here. Adding Lance Lynn was a huge move for 2021, but cost us a promising young arm in Dunning (who could have helped us for the next six years) all because Jerry’s need to cut payroll limited our options. Liam Hendriks was also a fantastic addition, but his signing forced us to gamble in RF once again, go cheap with starting pitching depth, and not add a left-handed bench piece. All this after Reinsdorf pocketed millions during the rebuild. So no, my frustration is not centered around missing out on Machado’s $300M contract, but rather that even just another $10M or so this year could have gone a long way to improving our playoff chances. I hope in the end our lack of depth doesn’t really matter, but it’s totally fair to be a little pissed that Reinsdorf is kicking off the first real year of our competitive window with a YoY payroll decrease, COVID or no COVID.

Let’s not act as if every pitcher is going to pitch half as many innings as they did in 2019. Yes, we need to be careful and manage workloads, but the reality is there are +1,400 innings to fill and all guys will be taking on massive YoY increases to fill them. Pitchers are creatures of habit and pitching on six days of rest will likely lead to poor results IMO. There are more creative ways to fill innings that would hopefully be more effective. Like I said previously, there are seven off-days across our first 44 games plus the likelihood of a few rainouts. Go five man rotation and give each starter five or six innings a start max (less where game situation permits). Let Lopez & Crochet go three innings every five days or so. The other six relievers should be able to pick up two or three innings a week. If need be, ride someone like Jimmy Cordero hard for a month or so until Fry & Kopech are ready. There are creative ways to fill all these innings without killing guys or going with an actual six man rotation.

Then have multiple guys who can go multiple innings in the pen. Use a sixth starter here and there to give guys an extra day of rest. But I really don’t want our starters pitching on six days rest in April & May as their normal routine.

Six man rotations just don’t seem feasible to me, especially not early in the season with so many off days. Just limit guys to five or six innings max in April & May. We have a deep enough bullpen to cover three or four innings a night.

I’m not a Hahn Truther by any means, but he certainly could point some fingers at Reinsdorf for undermining him in certain areas (free agency, LatAm, the draft, etc). and still being able to build an insanely talented roster. He may not be at the top of a team’s list for an open GM job, but I’d wager he’d get some interviews and would easily find a high-end front office role if he ever decided to leave.

I just don’t think 20 to 30 additional innings out of the bullpen with the Sox warrants giving up an extra year of team control. We already have a deep bullpen and there are six off-days in the first 40 games. I really don’t think having a limited Kopech in April & May materially changes our chances of winning a World Series.

I’ll keep saying it, but we can all be super excited about the potential of the team while also being frustrated with ownership. I think this team can legit win the World Series this year and can’t wait to watch things unfold, but ownership has not done us any favors for 2021 and the mix of Jerry’s need for TLR and his general financial risk aversion will likely lead to a shortened window. Just sucks to finally get to the point where we should have built up enough financially flexibility to stomp on the necks of our divisional rivals and instead went cheap this offseason.

I really do not like the idea of starting the year with Kopech in the bullpen. Get that extra year of team control back by starting him down in AAA and slowly ramping up. I’m definitely worried we’re going to do short-term focused things with Kopech & Crochet to appease La Russa that end up shortening the window.

What did he say?

Al’s Beef is really pushing the idea of Kopech beginning the season with the Sox in their bullpen. That seems like an incredibly stupid idea and I hope it’s baseless speculation.

Stop worrying so much, I’m sure no one else will get injured ?

Great assessment by Biggs https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bears/ct-chicago-bears-ryan-pace-carson-wentz-20210214-trl3prx4pventltuwjkh4elx2i-story.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

I think Madrigal bats 9th no matter what, but I do think Eaton is the wild card. I could see La Russa batting him 2nd, but ultimately I’m expecting him to do the right thing to start the season and keep him towards the bottom of the order.

I don’t like the idea of guys pitching on six days rest that frequently on top of giving 30% of our first 40 starts to Rodon & Lopez. With only five playoff teams there needs to be a greater sense of urgency than that IMO.

Here’s what I think Tony will go with: Anderson, SS Moncada, 3B# Abreu, 1B Jimenez, LF Grandal, C# Robert, CF Vaughn, DH Eaton, RF* Madrigal, 2B

Alright guys, assuming everyone is healthy and Vaughn is somehow on the OD roster, predict what you think the lineup will be. Feel free to share what you’d if you feel it will be different, but ultimately this is about what La Russa will put in the scorecard.

You want to go with a six man rotation when we have six off-days in our first 40 games and the likelihood of a few rainouts? Finding reasons to give both Rodon & Lopez starts at the same time seems like a good way to dig ourselves a hole to start the season. I’d much rather skip the fifth starter spot altogether on off-days and just limit our top four starters to shorter starts over the first six weeks. That seems like the better plan of attack if you believe our bullpen is the real deal.

These are different issues though. The NBA will continue to have super-teams as long as they keep max contracts in place that vastly underpay the top stars in the league. They could fix that in a second, but that would hurt their TV ratings and ultimately the bottom line, so they‘ll continue to let half the league rot in NBA hell. The only challenge with the NFL is the QB position and the limit of premium players there. That issue affects all clubs equally though, which puts a greater focus on talent evaluation to be successful. Honestly, the NFL is pretty close to perfect from a parity standpoint. Just got to make sure when you have the chance to land a franchise QB you take Deshaun Watson over Mitch Trubisky

lol...there’s the correction coming from the front office and I’m personally glad to hear it! Buy the extra year of team control and save as many innings possible for the second half of the season.

Very different from what Merkin has been hinting at for some time. And doesn’t really make sense when they just brought back Rodon and claimed he was fighting for the 5th rotation spot.

Do you know how much more in revenue the Dodgers & Yankees make than the Pirates and Rays? It has little to do with these small market pocketing money and everything to do with the massive TV deals from being in large markets. I do agree that revenue sharing is broken to some extent since the small market teams can pocket that money theoretically, but that can be fixed by a salary floor. The only way to prevent the Dodgers from spending significantly more than their competition is to put a hard salary cap in place and not the ruse that is the luxury tax.

I’m not faulting the Dodgers for spending $250M in payroll, I’m faulting the league for not putting rules in place that force better parity. In other sports large market teams aren’t gifted a massive advantage over their small market peers, which is evident by teams such as the Jets & Knicks being absolute garbage for extended stretches of time as they can’t simply spend their way out of the cellar. There is no doubt in my mind that baseball is broken when the the Dodgers’ payroll can be 8x of that of the Pirates. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will ever change since MLB cares more about generating big playoff TV ratings (and the financial benefit that comes from that) than giving every team an equal shot each year.