Chicago White Sox

Why? It will have cost us talent no matter what and was stupid as fuck to do. And why are you demanding these fans apologize and then say they shouldn’t take shit personally. Talk about a walking contradiction.

If we’re serious about competing this year, then we need to sign a legit #4 type starter, have Kopech start the year in AAA and serve as the #6 starter, and use Lopez as a reliever and potential #7 starter in the event of multiple injuries. We should NOT consider Reynaldo as a place-holder until Kopech is ready / service time manipulated and hand him a major league starter role. Now is the time to see him what he can do coming out of the pen in shorter stints and based on Katz’s comments that sounds like the likely plan for him next year.

Why not trade one of our most important pitchers plus a top 20 prospect who will likely be major league ready next year for a high school prospect who is years away from helping when we’re entering our competing window? It makes perfect sense to me!

Holy fuck you are insane.

100% agree. It’s amazing how he puts mitigating financial risk over building up his product. It’s going to be so weird when we finally have a new owner whose primary goal is winning and who is willing to take some short-term losses while the window is open.

You’re not getting this, no one has $2M to give Colas in this period and it sounds like even $1M from a team would be a stretch. He will likely wait a year to get $2M to $3M rather than take a few hundred thousand now. And the White Sox have probably the best chance of landing him as we seem to not blow our entire load on 16 year olds and like have some uncommitted dollars of materiality unlike most other clubs. Odds are pretty decent we get both Colas & Cespedes.

I’m not suggesting they will go sign Bauer or anything like that, but perhaps they have the budget to sign Hendriks, a halfway decent starter for the #4 spot, and some sort of left-handed bat. Where I get nervous is adding Hendriks potentially tapping us financially and then being forced to go real cheap with a back-end starter and not adding another bat. If they were prepared to spend $25M/per on Springer, I’m hopeful there is more budget than they’re letting on.

Interesting if true...seems to suggest we should have more money to work with than what the current rumors are hinting at.

All good! Apologies if I came off as overly aggressive in any of my posts.

Fully agree

Lol...yup, let’s renege on a previously agreed upon deal to sign a guy who might be slightly better of a prospect if at all. I’m sure LatAm will guys would love to do business with us after that move.

I think they’re willing to pony up for Hendriks (within reason obviously), but am concerned that will tap them out financially for the most part.

Agree with you on this.

It really comes down to the bat with Madrigal. I know people are shitting on him over a couple base-running & fielding blunders, but I have zero concerns he won’t at least be above-average in both areas even if he’s not as good as originally advertised. That being said, a 3 win outcome is very possible if he hits anywhere close to how he did last year. Steamer is projecting him as a 108 wRC+ hitter next year and ultimately a 2.6 win player, with his BABIP regressing significantly but his ISO improving from amongst the lowest in baseball to what would only be the 10% decile of all qualified hitters. IMO, he has a real chance to beat that wRC+ projection with a slightly higher contact rate / batting average and that alone could get him to 3.0 win mark if healthy. While the complete lack of power will never be sexy, getting 2.5 to 3.0 wins out of the 2B spot for dirt cheap has real value for us as the rest of our young core starts to get expensive. He’s most definitely movable for the right piece because of the lack of ceiling, but that also makes him less attractive to rebuilding clubs. I wouldn’t move him for two years of Musgrove now that we have Lynn in the #2 spot and can simply buy a starter to serve as depth until Kopech is ready. For better or worse, I think he’s our starting 2B for the foreseeable future as long he can find a way to consistently hit a +.300 clip with a ~.360 or better OBP.

Nope, I can’t get behind that at all. The 2019 season is equally important to his go-forward expectations as his 2020 season is. And using career stats ignores the natural aging curve and the fact he switched positions where he has been fantastic defensively. I’m starting to think you have an equity stake in the website.

And regarding a Madrigal & Cease for Castillo & Moustakas deal, it all depends on how teams view Madrigal & Cease who are no longer prospects but are now major leaguers. Zips has both guys at ~2 wins next year and both have two pre-arb years left. Those four years of control would theoretically be worth $72M at $9M per win vs. a total of cost of $2.5M. Right there is $69.5M in surplus value. And perhaps the marginal value for players in the 1 to 2 win range isn’t that much. Let’s say those wins are valued at a cost of $6M per, that would bring the surplus value down to $45.5M. Either way, that ignores the possibility of future improvement, the value of their arbitration years, and any inflation in free agency. Point is a case can be made that if these guys are viewed as 3 win players long term then they are probably a fair return for Castillo + Moose. BTV is not valuing them as major leaguers though, but rather as prospects. Again, this is where the subjectivity of projections comes into play. Everyone has their own view on go-forward expectations and using Zips as our baseline instead of BTV would tell a much different story.

Flash - Yoan Moncada was ranked as the 7th most valuable asset in baseball by Fangraphs in August. While not the end all be all, the reality is Yoan was one of the most valuable assets in baseball prior to 2020 and did not suddenly become a negative value player after a semi-disappointing, COVID impacted season. I tried using him as an example of a flawed projection methodology by BTV and this was your response: I then asked you if you were actually defending a negative surplus value projection for Yoan since you seemed to imply that I was somehow being emotional and/or non objective in calling out BVT. And yes, saying that Moncada has negative surplus value is a laughably bad take and I fully stand by that. Not sure you were even arguing that point or not, but it felt important to call out given your responses to what I deem to be very fair criticism.

And that’s ignoring his 5th year team option that would further add value.

3.3 wins per season x 4 years of control = 13.2 projected wins over the life of control. 13.2 x $9.0M cost per win assumption = $118.8M in expected future value. $118.8M - $60.0M in guaranteed contract commitments = $58.8M in surplus value.

Fucking Reisndorf is totally going to blow this window for us by cheaping out. I understand the need for budgets, but if a $7M salary puts your roster over the top the owner should be making an exception. Hendriks, Quintana / Richards, & La Stella gives us a complete roster with some semblance of depth and a potential best in class bullpen come October. An owner that is serious about winning a championship adds those guys and doesn’t blink an eye. It’s absolutely sad what we have to deal with as Sox fans.

Dude, you are taking this way too personally, which is very strange since unless you created the site none of these comments are directed at you. You keep saying they provide a very “comprehensive” description of how they come up with their projections, but here is their blurb on this piece of it for major leaguers: Well gosh damn, it’s now clear as mud how they came up with that negative valuation for Yoan Moncada...lol. Again, you keep acting like coming up with a projected surplus value is simple math exercise and the reality is it’s not because future performance is uncertain. The prior season does NOT automatically predict the future season. I have no idea what BTV is doing to come up with a negative valuation (since they don’t explain their methodology!), but my guess is they are simply anchoring off the prior year. Meanwhile, well known projections systems like Zips & Steamer both project 3.3 win seasons for Yoan next year since they are looking at a broader set of data points and not just 2020 results. With no further growth in performance or with any inflation in the cost per win in free agency (so $9M per win in all years), his surplus value would be ~$60M. I personally would estimate his future production to be higher than what those models project (in this case more like a 4 win player), which would place his surplus value closer to $90M. Regardless, the point here is that some of BTV’s surplus value projections (more than just Yoan) are simply bad, which undermines the tool. By all means keep using it as a reference point, but if you posted any outputs that involved Moncada for example you would be laughed at. This has nothing to do with White Sox fans overvaluing Yoan, but everything to do with BTV’s poor forecast model undervaluing him due to a bad 2020 season.

My point is any tool that views Yoan Moncada as a negative surplus value player can’t be relied on even as a point of reference.

When you say “what else they do”, does that mean if they don’t sign Hendriks and go with a cheaper bullpen option?

I’m not sure what I’m missing here, but a player’s surplus value when it comes to trades is based on expected future performance and not on historical performance. There isn’t a magical formula to calculate future performance, which means projections are inherently subjective even if the models used are data driven. The flawed input in this case is the forecast model that thinks a 25 year old, former 70 grade prospect in Yoan Moncada is not going to provide $60M in value over the next four years after coming off what would have been a 4 fWAR season despite being negatively impacted by COVID-19. If their model is ignoring player context, then the tool is basically worthless.

Are actually trying to argue that Yoan isn’t worth a 4/$60M contract? Because that’s is one of the most ridiculous takes I have ever seen on this site.