2 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I assume you mean a combined 65 million. The way you wrote it seems to indicate giving one player a 65 million dollar a year deal.

But over and above that, it takes two to tango. Said players have to want to take the Sox offer and unless they overpay or show significant progress this season that may be a hard sell.

Signing Jon Jay and Alonso are such fireable offenses! And some of the pitching signings! The fact nobody is fired shows the Sox don't fire people.

1 hour ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Again, they are slightly below league average by fWAR (#20) so what’s your point? They have a decent bullpen already with a reasonable path for improvement to average or above average next year via AA/AAA reinforcements in the near future.

I thought the bullpen game on Monday showed our bullpen has potential.  Three single run innings allowed Not at all a bad effort.

2 hours ago, OneDog847 said:

I agree. There is a very good chance that Madrigal never makes it past AA. 

That would suggest that Kenny personally scouted him.

2 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Yes, of course. $65M a year gets you Rendon, Cole, and a late inning reliever. That’s a solid combined 10+ WAR for next season.

Less than $65M a year could have gotten us Machado, Harper, and a late inning reliever.  How close did we come to making that scenario happen?

16 minutes ago, Fan O'Faust said:

Less than $65M a year could have gotten us Machado, Harper, and a late inning reliever.  How close did we come to making that scenario happen?

Yea that wasn’t my point at all

19 minutes ago, Fan O'Faust said:

Less than $65M a year could have gotten us Machado, Harper, and a late inning reliever.  How close did we come to making that scenario happen?

I would rather have Tatis for $600k per year.

1 hour ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I have to agree with Balta myself. I see very little in the system that inspires confidence. Or as I have put in in the past, a bunch of "retreads, no-name's, has-been's, cast-off's..." Basically four A stuff. Burdi is about the only one who I think can make an impact. The rest are all flotsam and jetsam. 

7 of the Sox top 30 minor league prospects are being groomed for relief roles. How exactly are these a bunch of “retreads, no-names, has beens, castoffs”? That makes no sense. Not every relief prospect around the league is a top 100 MLB prospect. In fact, I don’t think any are. And not every relief prospect has to be a future MLB closer to contribute in a big way to an MLB bullpen.

2 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

7 of the Sox top 30 minor league prospects are being groomed for relief roles. How exactly are these a bunch of “retreads, no-names, has beens, castoffs”? That makes no sense. Not every relief prospect around the league is a top 100 MLB prospect. In fact, I don’t think any are. And not every relief prospect has to be a future MLB closer to contribute in a big way to an MLB bullpen.

That doesn't mean they're any good! Some of those guys have ERAs over 7, WHIPs over 1.5, in the minors right now. Go to previous White Sox top 30 lists and you'll find similar numbers of relievers, many of whom never even made the big leagues. From 2015 - Spencer Adams, Tyler Danish, Chris Beck, Jace Fry, Nolan Sanburn, Andre Wheeler, Michael Ynoa, Jordan Guerrero, Andrew Mitchell, almost all of them viewed as relievers, Fry is the only one who even had decent outings out of them.

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

That doesn't mean they're any good! Some of those guys have ERAs over 7, WHIPs over 1.5, in the minors right now. Go to previous White Sox top 30 lists and you'll find similar numbers of relievers, many of whom never even made the big leagues. From 2015 - Spencer Adams, Tyler Danish, Chris Beck, Jace Fry, Nolan Sanburn, Andre Wheeler, Michael Ynoa, Jordan Guerrero, Andrew Mitchell, almost all of them viewed as relievers, Fry is the only one who even had decent outings out of them.

Balta: By the way have you seen what Frankie Montas has been doing this year for the A's?

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

That doesn't mean they're any good! Some of those guys have ERAs over 7, WHIPs over 1.5, in the minors right now. Go to previous White Sox top 30 lists and you'll find similar numbers of relievers, many of whom never even made the big leagues. From 2015 - Spencer Adams, Tyler Danish, Chris Beck, Jace Fry, Nolan Sanburn, Andre Wheeler, Michael Ynoa, Jordan Guerrero, Andrew Mitchell, almost all of them viewed as relievers, Fry is the only one who even had decent outings out of them.

Sox bullpen has pitched 14 innings and allowed 5 runs (3.21 ERA) so far this series to the best offense in baseball, on the road. How is that possible since they aren’t even decent, your words

5 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

 

Ha, I just discovered that Fangraphs under advanced stats allows you to sort by the difference between ERA and FIP.

Guess which bullpen has the biggest difference between their ERA and Fielding Independent Pitching in the bigs right now (which suggests an ERA that might go the other way)?

FIP is not a predictive statistic 

7 minutes ago, Jose Abreu said:

FIP is not a predictive statistic 

FIP has to be my least favorite advanced stat. People put wayyyyy too much stock in it

17 minutes ago, mqr said:

FIP has to be my least favorite advanced stat. People put wayyyyy too much stock in it

Agreed. It's literally just a three true outcomes aggregator. It doesn't tell you anything you can't tell by just looking at a pitcher and determining if he's a strikeout guy, high walks guy, and/or high home run rate guy 

14 hours ago, OneDog847 said:

For all we know this might be the plan. JR owes the fans nothing and responsible only to his other shareholders. The plan might be to just keep payroll extremely low under the guise of rebuilding. 

Ain't much we can do if that happens except b**** about it on a message board. 

This is just some dumb conspiracy bullshit.

13 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I'd be willing to take a wager on that statement. These are the White Sox remember. He may, MAY be traded but he won't be released with the Sox on the hook for nine million.

One of the single dumbest posts in SoxTalk history.  You actually think the Sox won’t release him, but plan on either rostering him to the end and not playing him at all OR simply out of pure stubbornness to eat some money will continue play him to the point of his options becoming guaranteed and being on the hook for even more money.  You can’t honestly believe this bullshit which means you’re just hating to hate.

13 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Almost a third of the WS top 30 prospect list consists of guys that will likely end up in a relief role. Plus, the big league bullpen already rates as only slightly below league average. The bullpen is already decent and wouldn’t take much contributions from current minor leaguers to push it to above average.

How is the bullpen decent?  Colome should be traded at the All Star break is he can command a good return and after that it’s a bunch of unknowns and question marks.  We have a lot of young guys who could potentially fill roles, but right now I don’t feel certain about any of them.  We desperately need Hamilton & Burdi to regain form and snag some spots.

13 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I may have forgotten them but can you give me examples. Did they cut Dunn? LaRoche? Keppinger? et al. Not trying to be snarky just can't think of anybody off the top of my head save for Santana and they only owed him peanuts.

The White Sox ate $8.5M of Keppinger’s deal.  I’m sure there are other examples of them eating a few million dollars here or there.

10 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

How is the bullpen decent?  Colome should be traded at the All Star break is he can command a good return and after that it’s a bunch of unknowns and question marks.  We have a lot of young guys who could potentially fill roles, but right now I don’t feel certain about any of them.  We desperately need Hamilton & Burdi to regain form and snag some spots.

Look at their numbers this year (#13 in ERA, #20 in fWAR). And I said, the bullpen looks decent next year only if they hold on to Colome and Herrerra into next season. Obviously, if they trade either one that’s problematic but that applies to most teams if they unload their 8th/9th inning guys.

Edited May 23, 20196 yr by JUSTgottaBELIEVE

13 hours ago, OneDog847 said:

I agree. There is a very good chance that Madrigal never makes it past AA. 

14 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Look at their numbers this year (#13 in ERA, #20 in fWAR). And I said, the bullpen looks decent next year only if they hold on to Colome and Herrerra into next season. Obviously, if they trade either one that’s problematic but that applies to most teams if they unload their 8th/9th inning guys.

Like I said, Colome should be traded if he can net a top 100 prospect.  Herrera has been garbage since returning from his injury and I’m simply not ready to make a call on what he might capable of next year.  Bummer has looked good, but as Fry has shown us this year, relievers are volatile as fuck.  Marshall has been effective and Burr has shown some signs of promise.  We might feel good heading into next season, but right now, no metric will convince me otherwise that this bullpen is littered with question marks.  We need some of the higher caliber relief prospects to step up.  Burdi’s command has been a disaster at AA, but it’s way too early to panic on him.  Hamilton’s stats are ugly but his peripherals have been pretty good over his last ten appearances.  If those guys could step up and show the potential to be lock-down relievers in the majors that would go a long way to making me feel more confident about the bullpen for next year.

But to get back on topic here, the Sox will need to make some major changes soon if they’re serious about competing next season.  We desperately need to get a look at some of young guys and see who might be options for next year.

The guys I’m most interested in seeing by July 1st are Cease, Collins, Mendick, & Lambert.  And depending on where they want to use Collins, I’d probably give Palka one last shot.  That means Alonso & Nova need to be DFAed.  That means Rondon will need to be removed from the 40 man.  If they believe Collins can stick at catcher, then Castillo needs to go at some point as well.

Cease is the only one of those guys really guaranteed a spot next year.  Would be great if one or two of the others showed enough ability to be able to plug holes this offseason.  With the minor league system really struggling, reinforcements will primarily have to come from free agency.  And while we should theoretically have a ton of money to work with, money has its limits and the more cheap solid-average guys to fill spots the better.

28 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

But to get back on topic here, the Sox will need to make some major changes soon if they’re serious about competing next season.  We desperately need to get a look at some of young guys and see who might be options for next year.

The guys I’m most interested in seeing by July 1st are Cease, Collins, Mendick, & Lambert.  And depending on where they want to use Collins, I’d probably give Palka one last shot.  That means Alonso & Nova need to be DFAed.  That means Rondon will need to be removed from the 40 man.  If they believe Collins can stick at catcher, then Castillo needs to go at some point as well.

Cease is the only one of those guys really guaranteed a spot next year.  Would be great if one or two of the others showed enough ability to be able to plug holes this offseason.  With the minor league system really struggling, reinforcements will primarily have to come from free agency.  And while we should theoretically have a ton of money to work with, money has its limits and the more cheap solid-average guys to fill spots the better.

Without Rodon, there is definitely room for another SP. It seems like Banuelos is nothing more than a reliever.

17 minutes ago, soxfan2014 said:

Without Rodon, there is definitely room for another SP. It seems like Banuelos is nothing more than a reliever.

If we had two additional competent starters we could compete for the division this year.  Cease & Keuchel would work for me.

1 hour ago, soxfan2014 said:

Without Rodon, there is definitely room for another SP. It seems like Banuelos is nothing more than a reliever.

I keep forgetting we have three shit spots in the rotation.  Yeah, might need to keep Nova around depending on Banuelos looks when he comes back.

2 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I keep forgetting we have three shit spots in the rotation.  Yeah, might need to keep Nova around depending on Banuelos looks when he comes back.

Yep...right now you have Giolito, Lopez, Nova, Covey, Banuelos (assuming he makes his next start, otherwise there is literally no other options as we saw Monday in a bullpen game lol).

Edited May 23, 20196 yr by soxfan2014