Chicago White Sox

That seems like a pretty light contract for him.

What makes you think he’ll finally be able to identify a good OC? They had like four different ones during his three year run in Miami. And does his handling of Tua make you confident he’s the right guy for Caleb? Hiring Flores would be a tremendous risk and one we can’t afford to take. I just think it’s foolish to hire a HC candidate because he runs a good defense, especially when you have a young developing QB. Go grab the next defensive oriented HC who fails like the Vikings did with Flores themselves and you are set at DC. This next HC hire to be entirely focused on turning Caleb into a legit franchise QB and that dude is Ben Johnson. Warren needs to make it happen one way or the other and settling on anyone else (even Vrabel) would be a huge disappointment.

I think he means the other Kim the Dodgers just signed.

Murfee, Scholtens, or Colas IMO.

It’s not going to happen obviously, but trading Robert for Lux would be even dumber now than ever before.

Oh you’re talking about Yolmer. Did Ordonez or Lee come up that way?

The option isn’t likely to be used, but is a solid insurance policy in the event his May to Sep hitting from last year carries over.

https://soxmachine.com/2025/01/following-up-what-even-is-the-white-sox-infield-right-now/

I’m not following here.

Fully agree, it’s not a great 40 man roster but most of the relievers at least are somewhat interesting and/or performed well in small samples. They also all have options which is a nice plus. I’d rather keep them then add a true dumpster dive SS.

I would definitely support this type of signing. Curious what the price would be here. He declined an $8M mutual option in exchange for a $3M buyout. Obviously there was no guarantee the Reds would have picked up their end of this even if he had accepted, but my guess is Junis thinks he can get $5M or more in free agency. FWIW, Fangraphs’ crowdsourcing projects him to get 1/$6M.

lol…I legit thought about using it. But when someone basically posts “why is a team coming off the worst season in baseball history rebuilding instead of trying to win right now” I felt the need to be a bit more direct.

Is this a serious post?

Amaya was a top 15 prospect for the Dodgers for a couple years. Obviously those days are long gone, but he can actually play a decent SS and he did crush LHP back in 2022. He probably ends up being the odd man out, but I’m ok with him starting the year as the backup IF and weak side platoon at SS. I don’t think we need a veteran SS though. I totally get not wanting to start the clock on certain guys, but we can’t keep releasing controllable talent for two month stop gaps while also blocking other prospects who are already worthy of playing time. Trading for Gilbert resulted in us cutting the one positional guy on the 40 man roster who was an obvious cut in Shewmake. The only pitchers you could argue are easy cuts are Murfee and maybe Scholtens, although we just carried that dude an entire year despite being injured and he might have some value to us as a guy who can soak up innings in a pinch. Beyond those two, you are probably looking at Colas as the next most obvious cut. I wouldn’t lose sleep over him being DFAed, but I’d rather keep him at AAA and see if Fuller can work some magic than add a dumper dive, stopgap SS in free agency.

Does anyone know why Junis dropped his slider usage rate from 62% in 2023 to 45% in 2024? Despite a drop in velocity across the board, it looks like his pitch mix changes are the biggest driver of his K rate dropping from 10.1 per 9 to 6.8 per 9.

I don’t know much about this kid TBH…I was more just saying he is a real prospect due to his age and ranking within the class.

I’m referring to the “175 pounds soaking wet” comment. He’s clearly a much smaller player than Zobrist, but that doesn’t mean he’s some scrawny little slap hitter which is how I have taken your series of comments to imply. Baldwin can actually impact a baseball.

I think with this signing, you are looking at the following infield to start the year: 3B: Rojas* SS: Baldwin# 2B: Sosa Vargas likely becomes the primary DH who fills in at 3B against LHP as Rojas has strong platoon splits. Amaya starts the year as the main backup infielder and slots in at SS against LHP. This leaves a AAA infield of the following to start the year: 3B: Ramos SS: Montgomery* 2B: Meidroth All three of those guys likely receive a call-up by June with hopefully Rojas being part of an early trade to clear a spot (he does have an option FWIW) and Amaya likely the odd man out unless he quickly shows something, injuries happen, or one of Sosa or Baldwin flops. And with the inflow of so many infielders, my hope is Baldwin eventually moves into a mini Zobrist role and plays all over the IF & OF while still getting mostly everyday ABs. Lots of moving pieces here, but at least I can see some semblance of a plan. I still don’t love adding Rojas, but it does make more sense if you have decided Vargas can’t stick at 3B and you view Ramos as being the likely heir apparent.

At least he’s a legit prospect and not some Yolbert Sanchez type. Will be nice once we start seeing an inflow of kids from the Dominican though.

Steamer 600 projections for the various 3B / 2B options on the roster: Meidroth: 107 wRC+ | 2.8 fWAR Baldwin: 92 wRC+ | 1.9 fWAR Rojas: 95 wRC+ | 1.9 fWAR Vargas: 103 wRC+ | 1.8 fWAR Sosa: 95 wRC+ | 1.7 fWAR Ramos: 91 wRC+ | 1.7 fWAR Six of our top 10 projections are guys who play those two positions. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all these guys would hit these projections if given a full season worth of at-bats and Meidroth in particular is such a unicorn that he’s clearly breaking their model. However, the point here is that we have enough young internal options worthy of a legitimate look that we don’t really need a veteran stopgap. And if you’re signing Rojas as a potential flip piece, I don’t think the juice will have been worth the squeeze come July. Again, the story is different for RF. Tauchman has a Steamer 600 projection of a 109 wRC+ and 1.8 fWAR. Fletcher, DeLoach, & Colas all project to be at 0.0 to negative fWAR players. At their ages, they are simply not worthy of committing serious playing time to on a team in desperate need of competent bats and they should have to force their way into earning opportunities. As such, a Tauchman / Slater platoon for RF makes sense as a stopgap since they are blocking guys very unlikely to be productive major leaguers.

Lenyn Sosa is Getz’s greatest LatAm success during his entire time as the head of player development program. Him turning him into a useful major leaguer would be a legit feather in the cap for Chris.

SS is different than 2B / 3B. If Rojas could play a decent SS then I’d feel very differently, but there is zero reason to believe that is the case.

I agree on Vargas & Sosa, but Meidroth is ready for his shot.

This is definitely part of the issue. Meidroth was the third piece of a Garrett Crochet trade. He was 31% better than a league average hitter in his first go around as a AAA infielder. What else does he have to do to earn an opportunity? Baldwin was stellar last year in the minors. Sosa was very good in AAA last year. Vargas has destroyed the minors. What else do those guys have to do to earn an opportunity? My beef isn’t with Josh Rojas himself…he’s a perfectly fine role player and may end up being a nice little value signing. The problem is whatever you might get for Rojas at the deadline is a fraction of the value of what it would be if one of the kids above worked out. It’s simply poor and none of the rah rah Getz guys are going to convince me otherwise as I just witnessed how little Getz was able to extract for much better assets this past year.

I’m good with the veteran RF platoon. Fletcher, DeLoach, & Colas are all old for prospects and weren’t good anywhere. However, Baldwin was stellar at both AA and AAA (SSS on the latter), Sosa was good in AAA and in the majors in Sep, Meidroth was very good in AAA, Vargas has destroyed AAA, and Ramos has a lot of ability and should be ready soon. We have multiple options at 2B & 3B and should be giving these guys a shot. I am all for not rushing prospects and adding cheap veterans as placeholders when needed, but I don’t see that being the case at all right now.