Chicago White Sox

Cease has six years of cheap control, struck out 10 per 9 in his first major league stint, and has a 2.2 win projection for next year per Steamer (which is very conservative with young players). Darvish is coming off a monster 2nd half and has a 3.8 win projection for next year, but is 33 years old and is owed $81M over the next four years. Trading Cease for Darvish is likely a 2 win upgrade next year (at best) and you’d still need two starters but with $20M less to fill those spots. This also ignores the fact that Cease should continue to get better and potentially match Darvish’s production from 2021 to 2023 at a fraction of cost, not to mention would be under control for 2024 & 2025 as well. In summary, trading Cease straight up for Darvish would be an incredibly stupid deal that would never get an ounce of consideration from our front office. As for Rizzo, he’s an excellent player under control for two more seasons at a total cost of $33 million. At $9M/win, he could provide ~$39M in surplus value over the next two seasons. That’s some real nice value, but Madrigal is a guy who is all but a guarantee to provide at least 14 wins over the next seven years for peanuts (defense, base-running, and elite bat to ball skills provide a 2 win floor IMO). Hell, if he can provide six wins over the next three seasons before he hits arbitration that would be worth ~$52M in surplus value alone. While this wouldn’t be as egregious as Cease for Darvish, I still would not even consider this trade. Instead I’d simply get a stop-gap at DH for a year (perhaps EE) and transition to Vaughn in 2021. And just for fun, running this trade through basetradevalues.com as a 2x2 trade (ignoring Basabe, etc), we’d be giving up $82.4M in value for $36.5M in value. While I don’t agree with certain valuations, I think it’s good enough to demonstrate how one-sides this trade would be, especially for a team that should be able to fill holes via free agency.

While this is obviously bullshit, I do think Keuchel will probably be the guy for us if he will accept a three year deal.

He may hate it but he’s hit perfectly fine as a DH in his career.

This is the single worst trade proposal I have seen in my 15+ years on the site. Like I know that will come off completely dickish, but I can’t believe any legit Sox fan would propose such garbage.

? Why would they ever non tender McCann if they could extract value via trade. That legit makes no sense.

Easy discard for what? What if he falls of a cliff as a 33 year old? Regardless, he’s not getting a $15M AAV which is the only thing I’m arguing.

I don’t see that price being even close to being realistic. Let’s all remember how good Morton was when he signed his 2/$30M deal. Yes he took a hometown discount, but Miley is nowhere near the same level ability-wise and also is 33 years old. He may get a two year deal, but I’d wager it’s around $20M max.

2/$30M seems like way too much for Miley IMO.

I think they want a guy that can start at 2B for 4 to 6 weeks until Madrigal is ready.

Go back to San Diego bro...

I don’t know, with 1B & DH pretty locked up by Abreu & Vaughn in 2021 & 2022, there may not be room for Collins unless he can be the primary backup catcher.

Completely confused by your catching proposal as you have two of them playing against righties and McCann not really in the mix. Seems to me we need to get rid of one of McCann or Collins if we sign a full-time DH like Encarnacion.

We had none of these guys four years ago because we traded away our entire controllable core, were able to land Robert before the LatAm rule changes, and completely tanked for a couple seasons that allowed us draft two top five picks. Unless you want to blow shit up again there will not be a big second wave of prospects anytime soon. There will be a handful of guys that might help, but most of the talent will be in place by June. The window to be great is 2020 to 2023 and we need to take advantage of that because our margin for error is slim as fuck given our lack of depth I’m not suggesting giving Bumgarner $100M+, but we can’t punt two years while the young guys develop as you suggest. And for the record, I am not a negative person at all, just someone incredibly frustrated by what appears to be a lack of vision, creative thinking, & boldness from our front office & ownership group.

You do realize we will have a bottom five farm system by mid season once Robert, Madrigal, Kopech lose their eligibility. We have completely failed to supplement the core rebuild guys we acquired via trade outside of top five overall draft picks and Robert. You cited a second wave of prospects coming to save the day that does not exist. This idea of sustained success is a huge long shot at the moment and therefore we should be doing everything in our power to maximize the four years left we have of Moncada & Giolito.

We need both. There is zero reason that Hahn can’t pursue both at the same time. Also, who fits this #2 starter type that you think we’ll pursue?

Holy shit you are talking about a two year window?! And who is this second wave of prospects you refer to? I pray to the baseball gods that Hahn has a much aggressive in place than you do or god help us all...

Do you realize how bad our #5 starters were last year?

I’m glad your plan is a two or three year plan!

Then we’ll go with Dylan Covey and god knows who then...

And mostly affordable guys where it should only take an extra million or two to land them. You’d think we’d have our pick of the litter given our financial flexibility.

What? I said the market is quickly running out of starters, not that Anderson has caused it to run out right now. No idea what you are arguing

Oh I know, but that still doesn’t change the fact that the supply side is quickly shrinking and if there is a guy we really like on a one year deal (like say Wood) that maybe we should be a bit more aggressive. My concern (which is a bit Parkman-ish admittedly) is we view all these pitchers as interchangeable and are simply waiting for the best bargain possible. That seems unlikely, but at the same time we haven’t signed anyone yet which is still very much surprising to me.

I mean, the market is quickly running out of pitchers. Kind of bizarre that we’re waiting to see who will be the last man standing and simply signing them rather than be proactive and going after a guy we think may be undervalued.

I will say this, we pretty much have to go out and sign Encarnacion. Add him to the middle of the lineup and that makes this Mazara move easier to digest: Robert, CF Moncada, 3B# Abreu, 1B Jimenez, LF Grandal, C# Encarnacion, DH Anderson, SS Mazara, RF* Madrigal, 2B Might as well move McCann or Collins because there won’t be enough playing time for both of them though.

Mazara is a bad baseball player. It’s cool he has 79 HRs by the age of 24, but he legit sucks at everything else. And honestly, 20 HRs isn’t good for a corner OF in the juiced ball era.