Eminor3rd

This is the biggest concern I have as well. You can hide one mediocre OF, but when you start stacking them up...

I’ve seen a lot of this guy, both streamed and even two games in person. Overall, I’m on the fence as to whether or not he can be an impact addition. I think he’ll hit, but I can’t be confident he’ll hit more than a AAA slugger. Some things that the generic articles aren’t saying: 1. The guy is a really good teammate. Very popular in the clubhouse and legendarily level-headed. 2. He is a forward thinker. Has gone out on a limb and spoken out against destructive old-world baseball practices in Japan, such as the ritual overuse of amateur pitchers, among other things. Though there is a growing momentum to change these things, it’s still in its infancy and for a player to speak out as he has is really sticking his neck out against the administration that employs him, for no obvious material return. Just an interesting character note. 3. The exit velos are elite for NPB and above average for MLB. The power is real. He is, also, a fastball hitter, which is kind of rare for Japan, and contributes to his relatively high K rate. Essentially, he is the closest thing to an “MLB-style” hitter, that grips and rips, that is in NPB right now, other than maybe Hotaka Yamakawa. 4. The defense is not good, but it’s because of lack of range, not at all because of clumsiness. The arm is also probably slightly above average, although to be fair, that’s hard for me to tell. It’s just what I’ve read/heard. He would be a fun add and a good teammate, regardless. Performance could range from Daniel Palka to peak Billy Butler that can fake the OF. I assume it would be a low cost addition, but who knows.

Not true — he’s performed well against MLB pitching in WBC and the two other exhibitions that have happened since. Now, it is absolutely true that he yet to see GOOD MLB pitching. But he’s held his own against average MLB pitching.

The fact that they were the highest bidder on Wheeler is encouraging because it at least indicates that they understood how critically important Wheeler was for them in this particular market, given their self-imposed spending limits and the alternatives that are left. Unfortunately, whether it’s their fault or not, they missed on Wheeler, and there’s simply isn’t a comparable alternative available that they’ve decided they can afford. The types of prospects they can afford to part with aren’t good enough to get a guy anywhere close to as good as Wheeler. And the next tier of pitchers on the free agent market are either substantially worse, substantially riskier, or both. At this point, the best Plan B (other than deciding to actually try to be a legitimate MLB franchise and go and get Strasburg) is probably to ride the excruciating train that will be the Ryu bidding, as Boras drags it all the way into March knowing he has to cash in on the elite year of a guy who has somehow gotten to free agency despite being healthy for roughly a quarter of his career. Ryu has the ability to out-produce Wheeler (he just did), but if you want to talk about risk — this is not a guy you want to commit too many years to, especially at the AAV that his 2019 performance is gonna command. Dude has been plagued with myriad issues, including shoulder problems that looked like they were gonna end his career just a few seasons back. Maybe you can get him at... what... 3/65? I don’t know that you can risk much more than that given his health track record. Especially not if you need him to be a horse in the #2 spot. The Dodgers were a great fit carrying nine legit starters and shuffling them around like rookies by exploiting the DL and paying the guys enough to stop their bellyaching about getting shuttled back and forth to AAA, but that’s not what the Sox are gonna be able to do.

If you choose a historic outlier to set your expectations, you’re going to be disappointed nearly every time.

I certainly didn’t gather THAT from his post.

Man I don’t know what to tell you. If that’s how you evaluate players in 2019, I can understand why most of what’s being said here seems confusing. I don’t intend that to sound mean, so I apologize if it does. But you’re really missing close to the entire iceberg by just looking at the tip.

Not bad, though. More like “inefficient.” But is that really a problem with this roster? the whole point to this rebuilding strategy is that you collect so much talent that’s underpaid (In other words, extremely efficient) you have space to actually get what you need via free agency, in which only the highest bid wins, making every win, by definition, inefficient. if they were only ever going to sign players that the rest of the market misses on, there was never any point to rebuilding in the first place. You can be an also-ran fringe wild card contender and still be willing to get free agents on “good value” no matter what your payroll is.

I’m not being sarcastic. You said the fact that Giolito would be the best starter on the White Sox means Wheeler isn’t a TOR starter lol. My point, which you haven’t addressed, is that there is no alternative within the White Sox means. THAT is why it’s a huge miss. Not because there aren’t better pitchers in the MLB, but because there’s no one else they can get. Thus, missing him means dealing with a significantly worse replacement.

I’m not sure you read my original post.

Tons and tons of fly balls and homers, even while pitching in one of the most homer suppressing parks in the MLB. Presumably that gets a lot worse at GRF.

Also, you’re saying that if Scherzer and Verlander are on the same team, one of them suddenly “isn’t a TOR starter?”

You mean the guys that get $200M contracts?

He was the 15th best pitcher in the MLB last year by fWAR. What is a TOR pitcher to you?

Wheeler was the guy. He was the only realistic shot at TOR performance that didn’t require a $160M+ contract. The other “fish in the sea” are either substantially worse or substantially more expensive. I don’t think the abject despair some are feeling is overblown if you look at the context of the market. The only way to get the pitching they need now is via trade, which would pull from a talented bun already thin system, thus hurting the teams chances, and all, again, for the sake of saving money. The team is simply not operating at the same level as the rest of the MLB. If this is how they are going to act, only blind luck will ever bring a championship

5/125 is perfectly reasonable for a 29 year old coming off of two consecutive 4+ win seasons. This franchise is a fucking joke.

All bluster

Addressed several times in subsequent posts

Yes, if they fail to address the rotation in a major way, despite several options being available for just money, which is the asset they’ve been working so hard to save to use, and directly promised they would, yes. Major disappointment.

The implication is what was wrong about what you said. I’m arguing that the Phillies are much more likely to win a free agent bidding war than the White Sox, given that they’ve done so several times in recent history, and consistently have bff run substantially higher payrolls for the past two decades. You’re trying to argue against that, I guess based on them not signing every player they were interested in last year, the same year they won the bidding to give out the richest free agent contract in the history of baseball?

They got Harper lol

I said more than the White Sox. Not the Nationals.

Phillies being involved is not good news. If they want the guy as much as the White Sox do, they’ll absolutely be willing to pay more.

A DH coming off a career year , largely driven by one great half, with Boras as his agent.

Jon Lester was a way better pitcher at the time of his signing than Bumgarner is now. He was coming off a five win season, 2.46 ERA/2.80 FIP over 219 innings. Strasburg in 2019 is a better comp for Lester in 2015.