Chicago White Sox

I still have full confidence that Madrigal will be an above 2B for years to come and with the juiced ball and some swing changes he could be much more than that.

I’m unable to watch the game, but is there an easy way to tell how much he’s thrown each pitch today? The talk of increased curveball usage is very promising to me.

I’m not sure WAR is a great way to evaluate relievers. That being said, most teams need relievers come the deadline and there are only so many truly elite options. After those handful of guys, a guy who has proven he can handle high leverage innings becomes pretty valuable. Whether that commands a top 100 prospect or not remains to be seen, but I think there will be plenty of interest in him.

I’ve been on suspension until today, but I got to say I love this year’s approach to the draft. Upon further consideration, Vaughn was the right pick for the spot. He’ll move fast and quickly provide us with a middle of the order bat to pair with Jimenez. After that, I love grabbing a pair of athletic, projectable HS arms plus a HS outfielder with elite / plus, plus speed. Sounds we’ll also land another four or five interesting HS kids on top of that to boot. I absolutely love the infusion of youth & athleticism into the system, but the question quickly becomes where we will play all these kids? There’s going to be some logjams on the positional side. Here’s what we’re potentially looking at Great Falls & Arizona this year: Outfield: Connell, Weaver, Comas, Mieses, Coronado, Guerrero, Beard, Acosta, Glass Infield: Quinteiro, Delgado, Maldonado, Gladney, Pimentel, Diaz, Ramos, Sanchez* 1B/DH: Reyes, Abbott, Mendoza Catcher: Ortiz, Torres The outfield & infields are going to be packed and I’m sure I’m missing some guys. Really wish we had another short-season team, but regardless it’s going to be fun seeing who breaks out of this group. Really need Getz & staff to step up and play their part now.

Lopez needs to figure his shit out and fast. I really wish he’d bring back the curve as that was his bread & butter breaking ball with the Nationals. Still no idea why they completely cut bait on that and went with the slider.

I will guarantee short of an injury that Cease is up this year and most likely sometime in June.

With Colome it’s pretty simple. If you can get a top 100 to 150 caliber prospect for him then definitely move him. If not, then keep him for another year. No reason to just give him away, but at the same time we should capitalize on him if the market works to our advantage.

I’m not sure what me moving to Nashville has to do with the overall tone of the board? I admittedly was beyond pissed when the Sox failed to land Machado and I was a whiny little b**** about it for a stretch. However, after a while I realized the same old complaining was adding nothing to the overall quality of the board and I could tell others were sick of hearing it, so I made a conscious effort to tone it back substantially. I am not telling people they can’t be pissed off with ownership or management, but the same comments do not need to be repeated ad naseum in every single thread. As for you, my post really wasn’t aimed at you or your K-rate fascination. While I may wholeheartedly disagree with the extremes you take your viewpoint, you are least making a baseball argument and not just whining. Message boards need dissenting opinions to generate worthwhile discussion.

I have no idea how they thought adding him was a good idea. Honesty, I could care less about the money we’re wasting on him, the bigger concern is our brain trust somehow thought adding a guy who doesn’t strike anyone out was a good fit for the Trackman / juiced ball era of baseball. It simply doesn’t invoke a lot of trust in our key decision makers.

The problem is there aren’t a ton of reliable TOR starters and even less that will be available just for money. There are handful of mid rotation starters that will available next offseason, but if you want a TOR guy it’s either spend massively on Cole, gamble a bit on Wheeler, or trade the few high end prospects we have for one (which would be disastrous IMO). While I’d love Cole it’s obviously a pipe dream as he’ll get way more years than we’ll be prepared to go on an arm. I do think Wheeler’s injury history keeps the years down to an amount we can play in (5 max). And if the Sox can’t swing that kind of deal, then we all might as well find new hobbies because the rebuild will simply not be successful. We don’t have the ammo to fill our holes via trade.

Why are we using ERA to evaluate a pitcher in May? Also, does his stadium somehow allow him to K more hitters than other NL pitchers? I have no idea why Wheeler gets so much hate on this board. Dude is literally one of the hardest throwers in baseball and actually has good enough command to be a legit TOR starter. If our medical staff feels they can keep him healthy, I’m 100% all-in after Cole.

I’m not going to defend Reinsdorf, but this idea he won’t spend any money is beyond ludicrous. He isn’t a Jeff Loria type owner looking to rebuild so he can pocket some revenue sharing money. I’ll keep repeating it but the organization is going spend big this coming offseason. I won’t get my hopes up that it will be Rendon & Cole (although I think they will make token efforts for both guys), but there are some nice pieces that could really help us. Zack Wheeler is 28 years old, throws hard as fuck, and is on pace for a 5 win season. He can be the defacto ace on a young pitching staff. If Cease can get like half a year or more of major league seasoning this season, the following rotation should be good enough to contend next year: Wheeler Giolito Cease Kopech Lopez Lambert/Dunning/cheap vet* The bullpen will no doubt need work, but again, we’ll be sitting on a fuckton of a money and should easily be able to add a quality veteran or two to the mix. As for the offense, we have three spots 100% filled in 3B, SS, & LF. Abreu will likely be back on a short-term deal. McCann at a minimum will be in the mix at catcher if not the starter. Collins will be in the mix somewhere, whether C, 1B, or DH. Robert should be ready to go by late April IMO and we can probably get by with some combo of Leury, Tilson, & Cordell in CF for a month. That leaves our biggest holes in RF, 2B, and possibly DH. Give me the 28 year old Marcel Ozuna to fill the hole in RF (dude is destroying the ball this year despite some bad luck and his power would play well at the Cell). Go sign an older, but still productive 2B (Forsythe, Kendrick, etc.) to a cheap one year contract to hold down the fort until Madrigal is ready. And if it’s me, as good as McCann has been, I’m going to add to Grandal as well as he’s simply a game-changer behind the plate. That leaves you with the following lineup: Moncada, 3B# Anderson, SS Abreu, DH Jimenez, LF Grandal, C# Ozuna, RF Collins, DH* Garcia, CF# (Robert by May 1st) Forsythe, 2B Tell me that team isn’t good enough to make a run at a shitty AL Central? And I 100% believe that type of offseason is possible financially despite what you and some others might think.

Nice post Jimmy. People writing off Madrigal this early into his career is absolute insanity.

It’s completely reflective of what the site has become. One horrific series and the trolls come out guns blazing. Really sad to see what’s become of this board.

This thread sucks a big fat dick. Like could this OneDog clown be any more excited about getting destroyed by the Twins. The best part is advocating for more tanking when our draft record is atrocious and our player development staff is complete garbage. Makes total sense to burn more of Moncada, Giolito, Anderson, & Eloy’s service time so we can rack up a bunch of top five picks that will help us five years from if ever.

I’m only trading Abreu if I can get something impactful for him. If not, I’d rather not trade him to contender and realize what a postseason run feels like. We may actually need him around for the couple years and I think keeping him makes it easier to retain him. Also. I don’t think Eloy has the physical traits to play 1B. To me either he makes it in LF or he’s a DH. My guess is he’s playable enough out in LF for a several years (I think he’s better than he’s shown this year) before moving to DH in his late 20’s. As for Collins, we need to decide pretty quickly whether or not we think he can fit at catcher long-term. If not, get him up here in a few weeks, play him at 1B, and see how the bat looks against major league pitching. I’m still cautiously optimistic with him, but like fathom said I’m not making any long-term decision-making based on him at the moment. Would be great to use a lost season to get some more intel on him.

Yeah, having Robert & Basabe in CF & RF respectively would definitely make it much easier to play Eloy in LF. And I agree on the trade value piece, which puts more pressure on us to have a successful offseason in free agency.

Right now, we just have to hope for a return to 2018 form and that alone would make him a quality #5 starter. Not the ideal outcome for him, but it enough for us if we add a TOR starter to pair with the three guys you mentioned.

Poppy - I hate being such a blatant dick, but it’s time we take action and clean up this site given all the trolls, whiners, & straight haters roaming around here. It’s starting to get out of control and the conversation is suffering as a result. By no means should negativity & criticism be banned, but it needs to be far more focused, objective, and relevant to the conversation at hand. If the small group of posters here who are polluting the overall quality of the site are unwilling to change on their own, then maybe the rest of us should be more vocal and actually tell them how we feel about their terrible contributions.

Lol...what a terrible post. Cease is a top 20 prospect who should not be rushed because holes on the major league roster. Zavala is a fringe top 15/20 prospect and is the only other catcher on the 40 man roster. The Sox aren’t adding someone to the 40 man roster because Castillo will miss seven days. This is just hating to hate.

The González / Forbes trade might turn out to be the best deal and that’s the one trade where we traded a single vet for a young, toolsy prospect. Really wish we did more moves like that in hindsight.

Honestly, if those two make it, I’m far less concerned about the struggles of González, Rutherford, & Adolfo (pre injury).

This didn’t age well ?

When did we execute the plan I’m suggesting? When we added Melky & LaRoche? I would consider those guys to be C free agents.

100% disagree. I’m all for going after the elite guys, but assuming we miss out on them we can’t continue punting more seasons. We have four seasons of control left of Moncada & Giolito and most of our key minor league reinforcements should be ready by early next year. The time to make moves is next offseason. And B tier free agents aren’t necessarily a bad thing, especially in this environment where they aren’t getting ridiculous contacts.