Chicago White Sox

It really needs both. This idea that teams should be allowed to spend tenfold more than their competition because of the market they are in is ridiculous while at the same time the Pirates trotting out like a $30M payroll is simply unacceptable. It probably won’t happen because MLB likes having its big market teams in the playoffs as much as possible, but floors & caps are exactly what’s needed.

Why do you expect Lynn to regress?

Look, I’m all for giving Cease a shot next year, but let’s not use his flukey ERA to suggest he pitched like a 4.00 ERA pitcher last year. He’s a complete wild card at the moment, but one with tantalizing upside if he can put it all together. He’s got to learn to command his stuff and figure out a way to reduce the cut on his fastball. If he can make strides in those areas, he should be more than fine as our #4 starter.

I only mention it given the possibility of an extension.

Does that mean no Vaughn opening day or that Collins won’t be getting a job out of the gate?

Grandal will for sure make the list.

Keuchel has averaged about 6.0 innings per start as of late, which means he’d only have to make 27 starts for that 4th year to vest. We’ll have to hope that Cease & Kopech pass him by come 2022 and (along with a Lynn extension) can push him down to the #5 spot in the rotation. That way we can skip him a handful of times and then hope he misses a start or two due to injury. He’s an important piece of the rotation this year, but I do worry about 2022 and especially 2023 with him. It would definitely be nice to have that $20M freed up for other things.

Jose will certainly regress but he’ll be better than what projection models are expecting out of him IMO. He legit was in much better shape last year and put up a xwOBA in the 93rd percentile.

Pretty sure Adolfo was awarded an extra one for missing so much time due to injury.

The reason depth matters so much now though is there will be five playoff teams instead of eight. The margin of error is simply much narrower now.

I think we have many players who are ascending and it appears Pecota is weighted too heavily on career vs. recent performance. For example, Tim Anderson is much better than a 2 win player and basic scouting over the past two years would support that notion. Unless you think he’ll forever be hampered by COVID, then Yoan’s projection should be more heavily weighted on his 2019 production than anything else. And how in the world could any model predict 5 wins total as the median outcome for Giolito & Lynn? Hopefully I’m reading something wrong here, because if true that’s just plain embarrassing.

Why is Robert an extreme risk? Even as a league average hitter last year he was on pace to be a 4 win player do to his elite defense. IMO, he has too much natural ability to be much worse than that in his sophomore year.

Some of these projections are simply way too conservative. Without question Robert, Moncada, Eloy, Anderson, Giolito, Lynn, & Keuchel will blow their numbers out of the water assuming they are relatively healthy. No reason to lose sleep over another insanely conservative projection model.

I mean, I don’t think any of us have a great understanding of what his full role is in the front office, but he’s certainly more than just the “contracts guy” and is definitely evaluating talent in some capacity whether through traditional scouting or analytics.

Nope! Jerry had a premonition in 1999 involving the future owner of the Sox telling him to keep the minor league teams in the Carolinas for the next three decades so it will be easier for said new owner to leave a top three market for the untold riches of Charlotte / Raleigh and therefore Jerry went along with the plan for...reasons.

This is the definition of insanity in written form

One first plus other stuff is fine by me given that we’re stuck with Pace & Nagy for another year, but two 1sts for him would be insanity.

This was a great listen. Some very interesting takes on the younger guys, including Bryan Ramos being the rookie ball kid he’s most excited about (said there was top 10 consideration).

Peacock & McHugh both make a lot of sense if healthy.

RIP Pedro Gomez

Glad I took the Bucs in this one

Don’t get me wrong, I think we would have been worlds better with Brady and should have more seriously pursued him. But with that being said, our offense lacked weapons after Robinson and had a shitty offensive line and I’m not buying that Brady alone makes us better than the Packers.

Pretty hot...look at the weapons Brady has vs. what he would of had in Chicago.

What don’t you like about Haber?

Just saw Al’s tweets. I have zero problem with bringing in Cespedes on a minor league deal.