It looks like the Outfield is set

[Saufley]

15 hours ago, AJ'S Cousin said:

With the Giants signing Conforto, the Blue Jays acquire Varsho, there’s not much left out there. It looks like Benny in left, Robert in center and by default Colas/Sheets in right. I’m not sure what’s out there to trade for or sign. The price for Reynolds has now gone sky high Any suggestions? 

Yea, knew it wouldn't happen but was hoping to see Varsho wearing A White Sox uniform this year. Oh well.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Saufley

[bmags]

Romys versatility should play in his favor

[bear_brian]

Adam Duvall would appear to be the best available option, unless Arizona is willing to trade K Marte for something we could afford. Either would require "Scrooge" to open up his wallet. Duvall 

[JoshPR]

Duvall, Mancini?

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

14 minutes ago, JoshPR said:

Duvall, Mancini?

Mancini can't play CF and is basically a DH.

[AJ'S Cousin]

Everyone is not understanding my thoughts. The top free agent outfielders are all gone. Our options CURRENTLY are Colas, Sheets, and yes we all know he’s not an outfielder and yes, we don’t know if  Colas can handle the pressure with his limited time in Charlotte. Sheets, if he’s still on the team is a backup DH, 1st baseman. Hamilton is now the backup center fielder I guess along with Mr. Everything and we’re still stuck with Garcia. This thread is for what options still may be out there. I’m not saying it’s Colas or Sheets. I’d prefer trading Sheets for something while he’s still worth something. TELL ME what we have on the 40 man roster to play right field. What is a fair trade for a right fielder that another team would accept. We can’t get the guy a really want from Pittsburgh. From Arizona we didn’t have enough for Varsho. We didn’t want to spend the money for Conforto. Another disaster would be putting Benny in Right, Jimenez in left and Sheets as DH. Not my idea of what I’d do so don’t jump on me. Would Pittsburgh accept a Colas and ??? For Reynolds? Just a thought. Bears are doing ok on offense at least. 

Edited December 24, 2022 by AJ'S Cousin

[Bob Sacamano]

9 minutes ago, AJ'S Cousin said:

Everyone is not understanding my thoughts. The top free agent outfielders are all gone. Our options CURRENTLY are Colas, Sheets, and yes we all know he’s not an outfielder and yes, we don’t know if  Colas can handle the pressure with his limited time in Charlotte. Sheets, if he’s still on the team is a backup DH, 1st baseman. Hamilton is now the backup center fielder I guess along with Mr. Everything and we’re still stuck with Garcia. This thread is for what options still may be out there. I’m not saying it’s Colas or Sheets. I’d prefer trading Sheets for something while he’s still worth something. TELL ME what we have on the 40 man roster to play right field. What is a fair trade for a right fielder that another team would accept. We can’t get the guy a really want from Pittsburgh. From Arizona we didn’t have enough for Varsho. We didn’t want to spend the money for Conforto. Another disaster would be putting Benny in Right, Jimenez in left and Sheets as DH. Not my idea of what I’d do so don’t jump on me. Would Pittsburgh accept a Colas and ??? For Reynolds? Just a thought. Bears are doing ok on offense at least. 

I disagree that Hamilton is the 4th OF. He’s there for depth in the minors. Still think they add one of Pillar, Duvall, Pham, or another right-handed hitting OF. Someone you can start for Colas against lefties if he struggles. Or at least for the tough lefties.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Bob Sacamano

[Balta1701]

6 hours ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Everything we have read says yes, Colas is capable.

We heard that Avisail Garcia could play CF and Andrew Vaughn could play LF from the same team sources. There should be more skepticism here.

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, Bob Sacamano said:

I disagree that Hamilton is the 4th OF. He’s there for depth in the minors. Still think they add one of Pillar, Duvall, Pham, or another right-handed hitting OF. Someone you can start for Colas against lefties if he struggles. Or at least for the tough lefties.

Not saying they won’t or can’t, but it is worth noting that doing so may well push their payroll higher than last year (Duvall almost certainly).

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Not saying they won’t or can’t, but it is worth noting that doing so may well push their payroll higher than last year (Duvall almost certainly).

Yes it may  but at least it would give us an indication that they do intend to do a little more than last year to get things right.

[Balta1701]

5 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Yes it may  but at least it would give us an indication that they do intend to do a little more than last year to get things right.

The other possibility is that they aren’t willing to do that until they move payroll somewhere else and that’s why we heard another surge of Hendriks talk this week. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

7 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The other possibility is that they aren’t willing to do that until they move payroll somewhere else and that’s why we heard another surge of Hendriks talk this week. 

I am aware of the possibilities. I can't take a stance one way or another. It's a guessing game.

Just seems odd that an uplifting move like Benintendi would be immediately followed by a cost cutting move.

Plus even if Hendriks is traded and the Sox save some money I'm not certain that it would signal they aren't going to spend any more.

But it would help to sign someone 1st before a Hendriks trade . Teams like the Yankees and Dodgers have to solve their own position player issues before I'd commit to dealing with them about Hendriks.

[4uckOffCommieScum]

54 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

We heard that Avisail Garcia could play CF and Andrew Vaughn could play LF from the same team sources. There should be more skepticism here.

Both the Brewers and Rays played Avi in center field

[Bob Sacamano]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

We heard that Avisail Garcia could play CF and Andrew Vaughn could play LF from the same team sources. There should be more skepticism here.

Maybe he’s a better defender than Garcia?

[Bob Sacamano]

48 minutes ago, FourEyesShottenhoffer said:

Both the Brewers and Rays played Avi in center field

True.

[Eminor3rd]

I don't know if this was mentioned elsewhere, but it looks like we just lost Mark Payton to the NPB (Seibu Lions). 

[Flash]

Re-sign Engel. 

 

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Maybe he’s a better defender than Garcia?

While it’s not perfect for reasons I will note, we do have one way of estimating his range, his RF - range factor, the number of balls he gets to over 9 innings. This is not a true modern stat but it does allow some comparisons.

For example, when Robert came up, he was at 2.8 (I’m being lazy and not doing the last significant figure). Last year when he was no longer an elite fielder he was down to 2.4.

Aaron Judge played some CF as a fill in last year. He was at 2.3. He was at 2.1 when he played the corner spot.

Andrew Vaughn last year was at 1.8. Now, fewer balls go to the corner than to CF, so you can’t compare exactly from one position to another but we can tell that’s bad because we saw Vaughn last year.

Colas last year was at 2-2.1 in his time in CF and 1.9-2 when he played RF. 

When Garcia was in CF for the 2020 Brewers, his was 1.7.

Now for all the caveats. This is not a statcast number, more things can affect it than just a guys range. A team that gives up more fly balls will push this higher, more strikeouts and ground balls will push it lower. Defensive positioning will affect it and so poor coaches can push it downwards. Maybe the White Sox had ground ball pitchers at multiple levels and bad coaches and bad scouting.   However, that number was pretty consistent across multiple levels, which would argue that it’s difficult to be dominated by pitching or coaching. This also doesn’t take into account throwing arm, and it doesn’t take into account how many errors the guy makes, all of which affect his total defense.

If his number was 2.9, I’d be giving all the same caveats but also saying he may have the tools of an elite OF. But it’s at the other end, so again given all those caveats, but this doesn’t suggest he’s likely to be a very good CF. Likely he’s got more range than Vaughn and maybe a strong throwing arm makes him a really good RF, but for what I have to work with, this suggests he would not be a guy we want to rely on in CF. Maybe he can be an emergency CF and play there a couple games when Robert is out and Sheets is the only backup OF on the roster, but this suggests using him there long term during a Robert injury could be a bad strategy.

[Bob Sacamano]

1 hour ago, Flash said:

Re-sign Engel. 

 

Minor league deal, sure.

[Sleepy Harold]

4 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

We heard that Avisail Garcia could play CF and Andrew Vaughn could play LF from the same team sources. There should be more skepticism here.

Colas has received positive reports in the scouting community about his defensive ability this season. He's someone who can handle CF but someone you probably don't want to depend on as your everyday CF because he doesn't have the speed you'd like your CF to have. He wouldn't be Rob Mackowiak out there. With that being said I wouldn't want to depend on him as the backup CF. Someone needs to be brought in to take care of that. I'd want to let him focus on RF and learning to hit at the ML level. 

[maxjusttyped]

4 hours ago, Eminor3rd said:

I don't know if this was mentioned elsewhere, but it looks like we just lost Mark Payton to the NPB (Seibu Lions). 

Not a great sign of where the OF depth is at when this feels like a notable loss

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

5 hours ago, Eminor3rd said:

I don't know if this was mentioned elsewhere, but it looks like we just lost Mark Payton to the NPB (Seibu Lions). 

Probably why they signed Hamilton if they knew that Payton to Seibu was a thing.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

4 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

While it’s not perfect for reasons I will note, we do have one way of estimating his range, his RF - range factor, the number of balls he gets to over 9 innings. This is not a true modern stat but it does allow some comparisons.

For example, when Robert came up, he was at 2.8 (I’m being lazy and not doing the last significant figure). Last year when he was no longer an elite fielder he was down to 2.4.

Aaron Judge played some CF as a fill in last year. He was at 2.3. He was at 2.1 when he played the corner spot.

Andrew Vaughn last year was at 1.8. Now, fewer balls go to the corner than to CF, so you can’t compare exactly from one position to another but we can tell that’s bad because we saw Vaughn last year.

Colas last year was at 2-2.1 in his time in CF and 1.9-2 when he played RF. 

When Garcia was in CF for the 2020 Brewers, his was 1.7.

Now for all the caveats. This is not a statcast number, more things can affect it than just a guys range. A team that gives up more fly balls will push this higher, more strikeouts and ground balls will push it lower. Defensive positioning will affect it and so poor coaches can push it downwards. Maybe the White Sox had ground ball pitchers at multiple levels and bad coaches and bad scouting.   However, that number was pretty consistent across multiple levels, which would argue that it’s difficult to be dominated by pitching or coaching. This also doesn’t take into account throwing arm, and it doesn’t take into account how many errors the guy makes, all of which affect his total defense.

If his number was 2.9, I’d be giving all the same caveats but also saying he may have the tools of an elite OF. But it’s at the other end, so again given all those caveats, but this doesn’t suggest he’s likely to be a very good CF. Likely he’s got more range than Vaughn and maybe a strong throwing arm makes him a really good RF, but for what I have to work with, this suggests he would not be a guy we want to rely on in CF. Maybe he can be an emergency CF and play there a couple games when Robert is out and Sheets is the only backup OF on the roster, but this suggests using him there long term during a Robert injury could be a bad strategy.

You should also look at  " jump" along with range. This will show how instinctual an OFer is. Vaughn's was very low. But I would offer that getting those baseball savant type stats won't mean much for a while since he has to play a good amount before those stats can be compiled. cola's arm will definitely be better than Eloy's Vaughn, Sheets and probably Benintendi's too eventually.

I don't think defensive positioning has much to do with range. I think it's based a starting point and a finishing point when tracking down a catch. Jump may be the same thing although it seems like something based in micro seconds and how fast a player reacts from the crack of the bat or the ability to read a flyball's end point quickly. The more you know about how a ball spins from a RHH or LHH is all prep work and keeping that in your head in the OF.

[Balta1701]

12 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

You should also look at  " jump" along with range. This will show how instinctual an OFer is. Vaughn's was very low. But I would offer that getting those baseball savant type stats won't mean much for a while since he has to play a good amount before those stats can be compiled. cola's arm will definitely be better than Eloy's Vaughn, Sheets and probably Benintendi's too eventually.

I don't think defensive positioning has much to do with range. I think it's based a starting point and a finishing point when tracking down a catch. Jump may be the same thing although it seems like something based in micro seconds and how fast a player reacts from the crack of the bat or the ability to read a flyball's end point quickly. The more you know about how a ball spins from a RHH or LHH is all prep work and keeping that in your head in the OF.

You’re taking it as those these are statcast stats. If those are available for minor leaguers I don’t know where to get them. This is literally “number of balls fielded divided by number of innings times 9”. That’s something that is available to everyone and that I can compare from one level to another. Other things do influence it, but a major portion of that is correlated to a guys actual range in the OF, so even for minor leaguers where I don’t know how to look up statcast numbers I can look this up readily and get moderately useful information about his range.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

7 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

You’re taking it as those these are statcast stats. If those are available for minor leaguers I don’t know where to get them. This is literally “number of balls fielded divided by number of innings times 9”. That’s something that is available to everyone and that I can compare from one level to another. Other things do influence it, but a major portion of that is correlated to a guys actual range in the OF, so even for minor leaguers where I don’t know how to look up statcast numbers I can look this up readily and get moderately useful information about his range.

I don't think they are available but I wouldn't count number of balls fielded divided by number of innings  times 9 as anything meaningful or even moderately useful. Even statcast info wasn't very useful Vaughn's 1st season in the OF since everyone here was saying he was adequate while I screamed until i was blue in the fingers that he was terrible .