Chicago White Sox

I’m not sure how you’re getting -3.0 fWAR out of Cease or López as we’d hopefully only need one of them to start next year and that’s if we only add one starter. Bauer, Gioltio, Keuchel, & Dunning would be your 1-4 to open the season. Kopech should be ready at some point for that #5 spot. We basically would need Cease or López for a couple months (baring injury) and even then we have like seven off-days in April & May which reduces the need for a #5 starter. I would still add a depth piece, but you could probably survive with a cheaper swing-man if you add the certainty of high end performance that Bauer brings to the table.

I know Harold mentioned him as well, but he would make a ton of sense for us.

Sorry, meant La Russa.

I’m definitely not suggesting it’s Bauer or bust this offseason, although I do think he’d be the ideal addition for us. That being said, we do need to add a legit #2 / #3 starter worst case scenario and to me that means either signing Stroman or trading for one. And obviously if we can add a backend starter as well so we have both depth and the ability to give Cease some time in AAA even better. All that said, I truly think there will be 14 playoff teams next year and if constrained I’d rather commit my resources to that top spot (to set us up better for October) than spread it over two rotation pieces (as our offense should hopefully get us there).

I 100% agree. I think he’s way undervalued by both Law & Fangraphs, but my point is Grandal was a consensus top 7 free agent last year in a class with at least a couple major stars whereas McCann is ranked fairly low (or not at all) despite pretty nice numbers the last two seasons. This idea that McCann is the better player is just kind of crazy to me and I think most baseball experts would agree with that.

Renteria must have someone in mind already for the 3B coach job as no one else other than Capra has been let go yet.

It’s amazing how differently James McCann is valued by his diehard fans on this site vs. other baseball analysts. Keith Law doesn’t even have him ranked amongst the top 40 free agents. Fangraphs has him ranked 33rd overall, but only projects him to get a deal around 2/$14M. I personally think he’s being undervalued, but it does go to show how ridiculous the idea is that’s he suddenly the better catcher than Grandal.

Agreed, although I think we still need to acquire one legit #1-#3 starter

I know you’re joking, but I don’t think Jerry was close with Gar, that was Michael Reinsdorf.

I don’t follow.

It’s called science.

But the players have never managed before so fuck their opinions!

I’ve got bad news for you, but La Russa also won World Series due to cheating. And I love that you use counting stats to try to make Hinch look bad. Yeah, Hinch does have less World Series trophies than La Russa, but he has also managed 28 less seasons. He’s both won more and made more World Series on a per season basis and both him & La Russa have won equally half of their World Series appearances yet you only hold losing one against A.J. Hinch also has the better lifetime winning percentage for whatever that’s worth. All that being said, the credentials don’t really matter. The concerns here center around timing & fit and whether a 76 year old La Russa is the right guy to connect with motivate a young core and to partner with a front office on in-game strategic planning. There are very obvious reasons to be skeptical that La Russa is going to connect with a bunch of black & brown players (let alone the White ones) given his incredibly old school view on things. There is also reason to be skeptical that Hahn will have enough influence over La Russa to be able to force Tony to align with the front office on any in-game strategic planning. There is real risk this quickly becomes the Tony show and that’s the last thing this White Sox team needs. IMO, now was not the time to get cute and go with polarizing manager, but alas Jerry put his own interests ahead of his front office, players, & fanbase.

Honestly, my three biggest issues with the La Russa hiring are as follows: We once again did no due diligence by failing to complete an extensive interview process and at least compare the qualities of La Russa to other candidates At face value La Russa seems to be a terrible fit for a young, enthusiastic team and creates unneeded risk of a clubhouse blowup at some point La Russa’s addition puts the organization hierarchy in question and potentially gives the manager too much influence on potential personnel decisions

It appears they’re sincerely protesting the hiring.

I think a lot of those prices seem too low, but they reflect a market adjustment due to COVID. And the Mets could easily sign McCann, but they also could just go sign Realmuto. This is going to be a fascinating offseason because the handful of teams prepared to spend a bit could really clean up.

I'm sure a ~$150M payroll target is unreasonable and some of these estimates are going to be way off, but holy shit would I quickly do the following and then just go to fucking war: Bauer = 4/$90M Pederson = 2/$20M McCann = 2/$14M Colome = 2/$14M Kluber = 1/$9M

Fangraphs has posted their contract predictions for the top 50 free agents! If Jerry is willing to spend some money to please his buddy Tony, damn could we clean up this offseason. Some of these prices are well below expectations. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2021-top-50-free-agents/

Who the vast majority of the players are upset about. But yeah, who the fuck cares about the actual talent because we now have a cognitive declining 76 year manager who hasn’t actually managed a team in 10 years!

What do you mean?

FIFY

You sure that date is right? Everything I’ve said says the QO deadline is tomorrow and that free agency technically begins sometime tomorrow. EDIT: I see we’re taking about different deadlines, but the non tender deadline is actually Dec 2 so we still get to enjoy Mazara & Rodon for a bit more time

I’m greatly concerned Brantley can’t play RF and I’m also worried about his bat falling off based off his Statcast numbers.

I’m sorry, I guess a GM firing an incompetent manager and trying to replace him with arguably the top available guy on the market is a power play. Luckily Uncle Jerry checked his ass right?!

Because it’s a Jerry Reinsdorf franchise unfortunately