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Your 2023 Off-Season Plan


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On 10/5/2022 at 12:53 AM, chw42 said:

Vaughn's fading offense the past 2 years in September has really made him look just alright as a hitter. When in reality he looked pretty good for the first 4 months of the season in both years. Vaughn has way more value in the future on the Sox than he does in a trade. You'd be selling low on him right now. 

Vaughn is very slow, and hits too many ground balls. His defense in general is poor. This is holding him back.

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On 10/8/2022 at 11:25 AM, Chicago White Sox said:

For some context on our underperformance, the Sox went from 9th overall in positional fWAR at 23.1 in 2021 to 21st overall at 15.3 this year.  That’s a 7.8 win decrease YoY or a 33% decrease.  Who were the primary drivers of that?

  • Grandal: -0.4 (-4.0)
  • Moncada: 0.9 (-3.1)
  • Garcia: -1.1 (-2.9)
  • Anderson: 2.0 (-2.7)
  • Engel: -0.1 (-1.6)
  • Robert: 2.1 (-1.2)

These guys were six of our top seven guys in terms of fWAR in 2021 with Abreu being the other.  They provided 3.4 wins across 2,136 PAs (1 fWAR/628 PA) this year vs. 15.5 wins across 2,452 PAs (1 fWAR/158 PA) last year.  Outside of Yaz, none of this should have been expected, at least not to these levels.  And even with Yaz, no one could have expected his power to completely disappear after the 2nd half he had in 2021.

As we look towards 2023, I can’t see Yoan, Tim, & Luis not being better.  I mean, Robert could barely swing a bat near the end of the year and Moncada put up a 76 wRC+ despite averaging a 124 the previous seasons.  As for Tim, he started hot, but imploded once the calendar hit June.  Was there something going on behind the scenes (Jackie stuff, cheating scandals, etc.) or did he develop some bad habits?  Regardless, he wasn’t the Tim we’ve come to know & love.  With Sleepy Tony La Russa finally gone and hopefully a younger, higher energy manager in place we see all three improve next year.  I could easily see an extra 8 wins out of this group next year, although that would be partially offset by the production we got out of guys like Andrus, etc.

Then you got Leury & Engel, two role players who were surprisingly productive in 2021.  The latter never seemed healthy this year and was just plain bad.  The reality is he will be non-tendered and his playing time will likely go to Pollock, who if used appropriately should be an upgrade despite being overpaid.  With Leury, the simple answer is he’s not as bad as he was this year and not as good as he was in 2021.  IMO, he’s an ok 26th guy who is highly overrated by a front office who doesn’t understand how to value positional flexibility correctly.  The good news here is he can’t be as bad as he was this year and even if he is our new manager won’t keep running him out there day after day like Tony did.  We saw proof of this when Cairo took the reigns and basically stopped playing him.

The real area of concern is Grandal.  If his lower body doesn’t get healthier, then he’s basically cooked.  And he’s at an age where you can’t bank on that happening.  Given his salary, we have no choice but to run him out there for a month or two, but need to be prepared to quickly pivot.  Whole Seby had a real nice offensive season and Perez hit well in AAA, the reality is we aren’t getting 2021 production back unless Grandal finds the fountain of youth.  I think we need to accept defeat here for 2023 and hope that improvements elsewhere (as indicated above) can offset our losses at the catcher spot.

The only certainty next season is that we will never see Leury again hitting third or an intentional walk on a 1-2 count.

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9 hours ago, Tnetennba said:

I’d be happy.  I would call it a successful off-season all things considered.  

Edit - I’d prefer if Seby were the starter and Yaz the backup, but it’s a minor quibble.  

At least, the proposal is to hit Yas 8 th. I remember in the old days a lot of catchers hit 8 th.  Unless, Yas recovers his old form, he should not be hitting higher than 8 th. IMO.

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1 hour ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Yeah like a 1 year, like $12-$15 mill pillow contract so he can be a free agent after the season?

They wont get Conforto now that Colas is at the door.  They will wait it out till May and bring him up.  

 

videomoviespeechhoosiersintro.jpg

Your OF is on the roster

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Just now, southsideirish71 said:

They wont get Conforto now that Colas is at the door.  They will wait it out till May and bring him up.  

 

videomoviespeechhoosiersintro.jpg

Your OF is on the roster

I'd still love for them to add a left handed hitting OF. If it's true they are going to part ways with Abreu, Vaughn can play 1B, Eloy should be the DH, and Sheets shouldn't be a factor on the team. Assuming Pollock picks up his player option, that is the platoon player with either Colas or Conforto/other left-handed bat and Pollock opens the year getting every day at bats until Colas is called up.

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3 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

I'd still love for them to add a left handed hitting OF. If it's true they are going to part ways with Abreu, Vaughn can play 1B, Eloy should be the DH, and Sheets shouldn't be a factor on the team. Assuming Pollock picks up his player option, that is the platoon player with either Colas or Conforto/other left-handed bat and Pollock opens the year getting every day at bats until Colas is called up.

The way I see it.  This is Reinsdorf we are talking about.  So this is the scenario I see playing out.  Colas is cost effective and they will wait until May to get them another year of control.

LF Pollack

CF Robert

RF Colas

DH/1B  Yaz/Vaughn/Sheets/Eloy    One of Eloy/Vaughn/Sheets getting traded.  Yaz is a boat anchor and will be fine until say around June and they they might ditch him. 

 

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44 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

I'd still love for them to add a left handed hitting OF. If it's true they are going to part ways with Abreu, Vaughn can play 1B, Eloy should be the DH, and Sheets shouldn't be a factor on the team. Assuming Pollock picks up his player option, that is the platoon player with either Colas or Conforto/other left-handed bat and Pollock opens the year getting every day at bats until Colas is called up.

This is the route,  Will it be taken?  Who knows.  But definitely should be Plan A. 

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2 hours ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Yeah like a 1 year, like $12-$15 mill pillow contract so he can be a free agent after the season?

Conforto was bad in 2021 before getting hurt and hasn’t played baseball in a long time. $12-15M seems like way more than he’ll get. I’d cut your guesstimate in 1/2

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12 hours ago, hankchifan said:

Vaughn is very slow, and hits too many ground balls. His defense in general is poor. This is holding him back.

Don't turn your back on his -.2 war. Solid all around. But wait he was rushed to what we call the big leagues.

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2 hours ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Yeah like a 1 year, like $12-$15 mill pillow contract so he can be a free agent after the season?

Something like is that what I’d expect.  And our stadium is a great spot for a guy with LH pop to pad his stats a bit before hitting the market.  I’d rather have the higher floor player in Nimmo, but Conforto on a pillow contract wouldn’t be the worst outcome.

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1 hour ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

Either would be very big gets IMO

My view is they can’t just use Colas as their only way to add lineup balance.  We are going to need another OF who hits from the left side.  Nimmo or Conforto could work, although the latter is a far riskier proposition given his 2021 results,  missed 2022 season, and uncertain status of his should coming off surgery.

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21 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

This is the route,  Will it be taken?  Who knows.  But definitely should be Plan A. 

The one absolute should be a quality LH OF bat along with Colas, and Sheets on the pines. I wonder if less dads are raising their sons as LH bats. Used to be fairly common.

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24 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

My view is they can’t just use Colas as their only way to add lineup balance.  We are going to need another OF who hits from the left side.  Nimmo or Conforto could work, although the latter is a far riskier proposition given his 2021 results,  missed 2022 season, and uncertain status of his should coming off surgery.

I think both are incredibly risky.  Conforto for the reaasons you mentioned and Nimmo due to his vast injury histroy, and we are a team already riddled with injury prone players.

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https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/10/mlb-projected-arbitration-salaries-2023.html

Projected arbitration numbers for 2023 from MLBTR. They are usually pretty close.

White Sox (8)

Edited by Bob Sacamano
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