Your 2023 Off-Season Plan

[Dick Allen]

12 minutes ago, Baron said:

Well that's the problem. Fine you don't want to pay Jose Abreu the money he got from the Astros. Maybe he could have been cheaper as was mentioned if we reached an agreement early on. Who knows. 

Where is that money been going lately? Has anyone seen it used? From what Rick Hahn is saying this is it. We may or may not have a few trades coming we'll see. But there's no incoming free agents. 

That’s exactly the problem. If the Sox brought back Jose, they would be dumping other contracts just so we can watch his twilight years. I love Jose, but even I thought his last extension was a bit much. Turns out, I was wrong. But now you would really be playing with fire. The one thing I do wonder is how his lack of clubhouse presence will affect the team. There are things to question, but since the Sox refuse to act like a major market team, there really was no choice.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Dick Allen

[Y2Jimmy0]

1 minute ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

Being aggressive and creative is a way out but Hahn thinks those words are punchlines.  He's really the worst possible GM under Reinsdorf.  11 years and he still thinks he can sit back and outsmart everyone while he continues to fail.  I know people like to laugh at how Kenny did things but at least he understood what he had to do to win.  

Kenny can still do that though. It's the same front office. By all means. 

[Harold's Leg Lift]

2 minutes ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

Kenny can still do that though. It's the same front office. By all means. 

That's not how it's set up.  He has final say if  a move is made but he doesn't initiate trades or free agent signings. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

16 minutes ago, Baron said:

Answer my question then. What are they doing without Jose? They let him go to the Astros who we are supposedly sitting competing with. Great. Are they spending that money on free agents? We just got into a whole argument on how they can't do that now. So as it sits we're worse off than last year correct? I know I know you expect Jose to nose dive. 

We're worse off than last year IF you think Robert, Eloy, Lynn,Moncada, Grandal ,Giolito, Kopech, Anderson, Vaughn, Bummer, Kelly all are injured as much or as bad as they were last year.

Having Abreu when everyone else is terrible or hurt under a bad manager led to a .500 team.

A new manager, health and guys playing up to their capabilities is what will help the team.

Yes it sucks when you lose your best player and a model citizen but he wasn't supposed to be our best player in 2022. It was supposed to be Eloy, Robert or Moncada or all 3 of them. They drafted Vaughn to eventually replace Abreu or because he was the best player available and losing Abreu is just a consequence of that.

[Balta1701]

18 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

He's moving back to his natural position. He should be fine.

I think it's entirely possible that Andrew Vaughn is a -10 run or worse defensive 1b. He is probably going to have zero range over there, that's just expected from what we've seen out of him, and that's going to be a big factor in his performance. He also won't get any assists from the shift. 

We don't know what Vaughn will be in terms of reaction time, picking balls out of the dirt, but it's also totally reasonable that he'll be out of practice on several of those as well. People are comparing to Abreu - Abreu took years at 1b to get used to picking the ball out of the dirt. Vaughn hasn't worked regularly at 1b in game speed since 2019, and never with big leaguers or Tim Anderson throwing to him. 

It is unlikely to be as bad as him in the OF, because nothing is likely to be that bad. That doesn't mean he will be fine or even adequate over there, he may well have to hit himself into value at 1b again. 

[Balta1701]

23 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

We're worse off than last year IF you think Robert, Eloy, Lynn,Moncada, Grandal ,Giolito, Kopech, Anderson, Vaughn, Bummer, Kelly all are injured as much or as bad as they were last year.

Having Abreu when everyone else is terrible or hurt under a bad manager led to a .500 team.

A new manager, health and guys playing up to their capabilities is what will help the team.

Yes it sucks when you lose your best player and a model citizen but he wasn't supposed to be our best player in 2022. It was supposed to be Eloy, Robert or Moncada or all 3 of them. They drafted Vaughn to eventually replace Abreu or because he was the best player available and losing Abreu is just a consequence of that.

I can't stress this enough.

The ZiPS projections have these players improving over last year: Kelly, Lynn, Eloy, Moncada, Grandal, Giolito, Kopech, Anderson, Vaughn, Robert, Bummer, Clevinger.

They have these players taking steps back: Cease (this seems unlikely - it's like from 4.4 to 3.6 fWAR though so it's only 1 win), Lopez, and Zavala.

They have Vaughn going from a .750 OPS to a .818 OPS. They have Eloy, Robert, and Anderson healthier. They have Kelly with an ERA in the 3s. They have a 2 WAR season from Grandal with a .750 OPS. They have a .750 OPS from Moncada.

They have all those things and project the White Sox as a below .500 team. 

Why would they do that? If all those guys got better shouldn't they? Well yes, but they also lost a 4 win player in Abreu, a 2.5 win player in Cueto, and contributors in Pollock and Harrison. That's a hole of 10 wins to make up. On top of that, the White Sox's run differential last year pegged them as a 3rd place team, worse than the Twins and below .500, so if they can't match their elite performance in 1 run games again they're in a deeper hole still. 

They absolutely can be healthier, improve across the board, and finish below .500. Do not underestimate how deep of a hole they are in. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

33 minutes ago, Baron said:

"How many innings has he played at first base?"

So he doesn't have enough time in to judge him right? 

This is correct . 290 innings @1st base is the equivalent of 32 9 inning games and his sample is spread out over 2 years. This is misuse of  defensive metrics .

The worst thing to do when judging defense is use small samples spread out over time. You need a large sample size of continuous play to make an accurate statement and even 1 year may not be enough.

It's the same mistake others here made when judging his OF defense after his 1st year and saying it was adequate. It may have been adequate in that sample but a larger sample would tell the true story and we found that out last year. He never had the speed or instincts to play OF permanently which is what I always told those people.

Edited December 9, 2022 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[Baron]

1 minute ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

This is correct . 290 innings @1st base is the equivalent of 32 9 inning games and his sample is spread out over 2 years. This is misuse of  defensive metrics .

The worst thing to do when judging defense is use small samples spread out over time. You need a large sample size of continuous play to make an accurate statement and even 1 year may not be enough.

It's the same mistake others here made when judging his OF defense after his 1st year and saying it was adequate. It may have been adequate in that sample but a larger sample would tell the true story and we found that out last year. He never had the speed or instincts to play OF permanently which is what I always told those people.

That was the point of giving Bill James's projection for next year. As I said above it's not Abreu innings. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I can't stress this enough.

The ZiPS projections have these players improving over last year: Kelly, Lynn, Eloy, Moncada, Grandal, Giolito, Kopech, Anderson, Vaughn, Robert, Bummer. 

They have these players taking steps back: Cease (this seems unlikely - it's like from 4.4 to 3.6 fWAR though so it's only 1 win), Lopez, and Zavala.

They have Vaughn going from a .750 OPS to a .818 OPS. They have Eloy, Robert, and Anderson healthier. They have Kelly with an ERA in the 3s. They have a 2 WAR season from Grandal with a .750 OPS. They have a .750 OPS from Moncada.

They have all those things and project the White Sox as a below .500 team. 

Why would they do that? If all those guys got better shouldn't they? Well yes, but they also lost a 4 win player in Abreu, a 2.5 win player in Cueto, and contributors in Pollock and Harrison. That's a hole of 10 wins to make up. On top of that, the White Sox's run differential last year pegged them as a 3rd place team, worse than the Twins and below .500, so if they can't match their elite performance in 1 run games again they're in a deeper hole still. 

They absolutely can be healthier, improve across the board, and finish below .500. 

SO how did they manage to have good years in 2020 and 2021 . Who are key contributors to those teams that we don't have now.  Use the same metric their zips projections.

[Balta1701]

16 minutes ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

That's not how it's set up.  He has final say if  a move is made but he doesn't initiate trades or free agent signings. 

More than that, if Rick Hahn is this smart and capable, then he should have seen this situation coming. I did! You can go back to the trade deadline and I was talking about getting ready for a salary cut this offseason and trying to minimize the hurt. Maybe he doesn't come in with a full rebuild plan, but maybe last offseason he's making noise about not spending as much on the bullpen since they know they have an upcoming risk of hitting a payroll limit. Or maybe at the trade deadline last year he pushes to shake things up on the roster with a trade - move Lopez and Pollock along with a portion of his contract to a competitive team and get back a AAA outfielder or something crazy like that, saves $10 million and maybe fills the backup OF role. If Pollock was so unhappy on this roster then is LaRussa going to scream about that?

I keep coming back to the 2019 offseason. Not only did they miss out on their big guys, but they were complete idiots elsewhere. They added >$50 million to their payroll that offseason and I was very frustrated by it at the time because they made no moves that benefited them long term. Yes expensive bullpen help is nice, but does your 60 win team really need a closer for $18 million over the next 2 years? Do they need an extra $16 million reliever? Do they need a veteran 1b or OF? These were bad decisions at the time, but they also were wasteful. I am not as angry about missing on the Keuchel deal as I am about moves like that which were just dumb at the time and wasted money that they could have right now. These are the exact same moves we've been seeing since, flailing for no reason. With some foresight, you plan ahead and realize that limiting your spending short term is smart, but hey no, we need more bullpen veterans in 2019. It's exactly what they did to get themselves in trouble last year. 

[Dick Allen]

1 minute ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

SO how did they manage to have good years in 2020 and 2021 . Who are key contributors to those teams that we don't have now.  Use the same metric their zips projections.

I can assure you if all the guys improve, there is no way they are going to be below .500. I actually think Balta knows this, but anything negative White Sox is a bandwagon he can’t help but jump on. I’m guessing the Zips projections before last season told the Guardians not to bother playin in 2022.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

7 minutes ago, Baron said:

That was the point of giving Bill James's projection for next year. As I said above it's not Abreu innings. 

But you also said his 1st base defense was "poor to bad" based on misusing defensive metrics because of the sample size. I'm not saying he's good or bad . I'm saying we just don't have enough data yet to know . But he's our 1st baseman so we'll find out.

[Balta1701]

3 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

SO how did they manage to have good years in 2020 and 2021 . Who are key contributors to those teams that we don't have now.  Use the same metric their zips projections.

Jose Abreu. Carlos Rodon. No biggy right? That's only a 10 win step back. 

On top of that, a younger Yasmani Grandal (4-5 wins is really big). Dallas Keuchel giving an excellent season in 2020 - without which they probably miss the playoffs. 

[Balta1701]

3 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

I can assure you if all the guys improve, there is no way they are going to be below .500. I actually think Balta knows this, but anything negative White Sox is a bandwagon he can’t help but jump on. I’m guessing the Zips projections before last season told the Guardians not to bother playin in 2022.

I bet they did. They project the Guardians to take a step back this year too!

Tell me, where are the 16 rookies the White Sox are going to bring up to contribute? Are they well prepared and coming out of a highly ranked system? 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

2 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

I can assure you if all the guys improve, there is no way they are going to be below .500. I actually think Balta knows this, but anything negative White Sox is a bandwagon he can’t help but jump on. I’m guessing the Zips projections before last season told the Guardians not to bother playin in 2022.

That was my point. Seems pretty impossible to think career or even just very good years out of 10 or 11 key guys on the Sox would result in a below .500 team.

[Dick Allen]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I bet they did. They project the Guardians to take a step back this year too!

Tell me, where are the 16 rookies the White Sox are going to bring up to contribute? Are they well prepared and coming out of a highly ranked system? 

Sox will not need 16 rookies to come in if all their guys improve. Not only improve, but actually play. Abreu and Pollock were the 2 highest in games played. I don’t know if it’s possible everyone suddenly is available 140 games in 2023. I would tend to doubt it. But they will add a couple more players in all likelihood, and if they get across the board improvement, their run differential and win total will trend very positively.

[DFAthewave69420]

Non-Field Related — Offseason Plan for all should be to revamp White Sox Twitter and liquidate all the frauds.  People like Patrick Nolan with no credibility and are an embarrassment to the fan base.
 

Patrick Nolan is not even a WSox Season Tix holder.  Only buys a holiday voucher pack.  Publicizing a response to someone doing their job, while lying about your status, is bottom of the barrel type stuff.

 

[southsider2k5]

 

[southsider2k5]

 

[Baron]

Anyone want to guess what happens if they fail to make the playoffs in 2023? 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Jose Abreu. Carlos Rodon. No biggy right? That's only a 10 win step back. 

On top of that, a younger Yasmani Grandal (4-5 wins is really big). Dallas Keuchel giving an excellent season in 2020 - without which they probably miss the playoffs. 

ARe you throwing their stats in a blender ? I'm confused. ABreu won MVP in 2020, Keuchels good year was 2020. Grandals was 2021 since not enough time in 202 for 4-5 WAR Rodon was 2021 . Cease has stepped up to replace the 2021 Rodon year. Kopech or Clevinger or both can replace anything Cease did before he became really good. Lynn can be better than he was in 2022. Giolito can replicate however good he was . Moncada can be a 4 WAR Moncada that he was in 2021.

Eloy has never had a 3 WAR year . You don't think that's possible at DH ?

Luis Robert had a 3.3 WAR in 68 games in 2021. You don't think he can have 5 or 6 playing a full season ?

[Bob Sacamano]

3 minutes ago, Baron said:

Anyone want to guess what happens if they fail to make the playoffs in 2023? 

Everyone in the front office is brought back.

[Baron]

1 minute ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Everyone in the front office is brought back.

I don't think that's happening. 

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

7 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

 

Ouch

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

7 minutes ago, Baron said:

Anyone want to guess what happens if they fail to make the playoffs in 2023? 

Nothing.