Who the heck could the Sox even sign in FA next year?

[LittleHurtCG]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

I was just watching the new "AIR" movie about Nike and Deloris Jordan...

The thing that REALLY struck me was the fact that I could just never imagine Rick Hahn believing in something so much that he would risk his entire career, his position, his family on the type of bet Sonny Vaccaro made on Michael Jordan.

I couldn't imagine him pulling all-nighter after all-nighter in week before the draft or right before hosting Machado or Harper...that desire of wearing his heart on his sleeve in the quest for Sox greatness.

It's not that he couldn't even give an emotional speech that spoke directly to Sox fans or a future #1 draft pick or free agent target, it's that there's something in his manner that says all the right things but it just lacks the conviction, the belief, that what he believes in is right and good and that he can almost will it into reality in the future by sheer determination.  It feels like that's why we come up short on so many important free agent negotiations...in the end, he's representing Jerry Reinsdorf, and there's always going to be a limit to what he's willing to offer because that risk-averse side of the baseball operations execs and Board of Directors will kick in and they'll get lost in all the things that MIGHT go wrong instead of focusing on what COULD go right.  There was a point in time that KW once legitimately believed the Sox could win the battle for the city of Chicago with the Cubs...now, it's almost like Hahn is resigned to his fate and playing out the string like a marionette, but any vision of this team BEING great/amazing has disappeared with the morning fog.

I just don't and can't believe in Rick Hahn...even to the extent that we placed our faith in the KW who wasn't afraid to hurl over the post-game spread tables to get his point across.  An Ozzie and Cora who weren't afraid to haul those players out in the early morning or offdays when they kept making the same mistakes in fundamentals or execution.

KW once had that edge, that chip on his shoulder when he was in his 30's and 40's, but he too has lost that burning fire and passion for the team/organization.

After almost two decades of Rick Hahn, I still don't have a clue what he actually stands for...whatever it is, it's certainly not excellence.  I also don’t get the feeling he has genuinely been desperate for anything in his life, that everything has come way too easily and too quickly without it being earned on the talent evaluation side.  He’s always going to be more of a lawyer/negotiator than criss-crossing the continent or flying over oceans to locate the next great Sox player.

 

He stands for kissing his boss ass every day and getting paid handsomely to do it. 

[greg775]

6 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

That was my thinking this off season when I advocated trying to acquire some young rookie OF's. But mostly everyone here didn't like that idea.

The team needed to get younger , faster , better, more power. LH defensively and cheaper in the OF so that's where I started. The money used on Beni could've been used to try and sign a pitcher for multiple years given the Gio, Lynn and Clevinger situations and the dearth of pitching in the next free agent class.

But very few agreed or wanted untested, slightly older or unranked rookies. It was a mini retool and not necessarily geared at competing this year unless those rookies performed but would 've looked better for the future and freed up money for other areas.

Still hoping the Sox can turn it around this year but with the recent spate of injuries things are looking grim for at least as long as it takes for those players to get healthy without other pieces also getting injured and the pitching to somehow get better.

I'll give it to into June and see if Crochet becomes a reliever again or if they are going to rehab him in the minors as a starter. Hard to count on Hendriks to become his old self. He could take a while to get back up to speed. I liked the Beni signing just because it was a LH batter but as stated, I preferred getting younger, faster, LH and more power.

I prefer Beni-ball more than lift and pull BUT if all of baseball is doing lift and pull, not so sure Beni's 10 homers a year will cut it. The Sox need new owners to address the signing of free agents. I think a sale and total housecleaning is in order, even though changing owners doesn't always matter. For instance the Royals new owner seems buffoonish just like the last guy.

Edited April 14, 2023 by greg775

[Lip Man 1]

13 minutes ago, greg775 said:

I prefer Beni-ball more than lift and pull BUT if all of baseball is doing lift and pull, not so sure Beni's 10 homers a year will cut it. The Sox need new owners to address the signing of free agents. I think a sale and total housecleaning is in order, even though changing owners doesn't always matter. For instance the Royals new owner seems buffoonish just like the last guy.

You are right, no guarantees with new ownership that anything will change. But we know how things have deteriorated under the ownership since 2007. I'll take my chances.  

[Eminor3rd]

Yamamoto is gonna slay. Maybe Giolito and Lynn coming off the books makes the Sox a player there?

But it doesn’t make them better, just fills a fresh hole. 

[caulfield12]

2 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

Yamamoto is gonna slay. Maybe Giolito and Lynn coming off the books makes the Sox a player there?

But it doesn’t make them better, just fills a fresh hole. 

https://sports.yahoo.com/giants-pitcher-logan-webb-reportedly-agree-on-five-year-90-million-extension-155154279.HTML

Webb off future FA markets now. 

Don't forget Clevinger also will more than likely be out as well. 

 

When's the last time we seriously bid on a Japanese player/pitcher? 

Tanaka, right? 

[caulfield12]

This rings so familiar eight years later... 

"Terms of the White Sox's offer to Tanaka have not been revealed, but both the length of the contract -- especially for a pitcher -- and the dollar amount are nowhere near in line with White Sox contracts in the past. The team has always balked at long-term deals for pitchers, and the biggest financial commitment they have ever made in a contract was Jose Abreu's $68 million deal earlier this offseason.

There is not a high expectation that the White Sox will turn to the next tier of free agents on the market, such as Matt Garza, Ervin Santana (haha, although he was solid for Minny until he got hurt, KW always get his man) and Ubaldo Jimenez. While Tanaka would have cost more than any of those pitchers, his appeal was that he was an extremely rare pitching talent whose prime years still figure to be ahead of him.

Garza, Santana and Jimenez are all over 30, and investing long term in any of them figures to be less of a certainty despite the fact that Tanaka has never pitched in the major leagues.

That doesn't mean the White Sox aren't looking at the 30-something crowd to fill out a rotation spot. Expect them to pursue a short-term commitment to pitchers bunched in the middle tier of the free-agent class (that sounds more like the Sox)"

https://www.espn.com/blog/chicago/white-sox/post/_/id/17948/white-sox-swing-and-miss-with-tanaka

 

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

This one also made me laugh about the Sox future rotation after Sale/Q and how badly it turned out in terms of passing up Tanaka...ofc the Cubs went with Jon Lester at that time, ultimately. 

"The White Sox have a bona fide staff ace in Chris Sale to build around moving forward, as he has quickly emerged as one of the best starters in baseball since joining the starting rotation in 2012.

The team wisely locked him up with a team-friendly five-year, $32.5 million extension prior to the 2013 season, and he is under team control though 2019, including a pair of option years.

Behind Sale, however, the rotation is a question mark in both the short-term and the long-term. Here is a look at the current projected starting rotation to open the 2014 season."

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1915340-masahiro-tanaka-is-smart-splash-for-cubs-white-sox-rebuilds Chicago White Sox Projected Opening Day Rotation
Player	Age	2013 Stats
1. LHP Chris Sale	24	30 GS, 11-14, 3.07 ERA, 226 K, 214.1 IP
2. LHP Jose Quintana	24	33 GS, 9-7, 3.51 ERA, 164 K, 200 IP
3. LHP John Danks	28	22 GS, 4-14, 4.75 ERA, 89 K, 138.1 IP
4. RHP Erik Johnson	24	5 GS, 3-2, 3.25 ERA, 18 K, 27.2 IP
5. RHP Felipe Paulino	30	DNP: Tommy John surgery recovery
-. RHP Andre Rienzo	25	10 GS, 2-3, 4.82 ERA, 38 K, 56 IP
Baseball Reference

Edited April 14, 2023 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Davis Martin and prospect Sean Burke are sidelined by injuries at Triple-A Charlotte. At 20, Cristian Mena is precocious enough to be at Double-A Birmingham, but he and 2019 second-rounder Matthew Thompson have ERAs over 5.00 with the Barons.

Katz said he has been too involved with the churn in Chicago to review video of newly acquired prospects Nick Nastrini and Ky Bush. But given Bush’s rough debut Saturday with Birmingham (31/3 innings, 12 hits, seven earned runs, no strikeouts), they might need more seasoning before getting on Katz’s radar.

 

James Fegan   suntimes.com

 

Cannon 

N. Vera

Crochet

Nastrini

Edited July 31, 2023 by caulfield12

[YouCanPutItOnTheBoardYES!]

Montas and Severino are the two reclamation projects I’d go after.

[caulfield12]

6 minutes ago, YouCanPutItOnTheBoardYES! said:

Montas and Severino are the two reclamation projects I’d go after.

How did Severino look last night against Baltimore?

[CentralChamps21]

On 4/13/2023 at 5:29 AM, caulfield12 said:

Ohtani to Sox is a no go since they didn't make his initial preference list and he will likely receive $475-525 million anyway...

 

We want Ohtani here

We want JR gone

Obvious solution is to give Ohtani JR's ownership stake in exchange for signing with the Sox.

[caulfield12]

58 minutes ago, CentralChamps21 said:

We want Ohtani here

We want JR gone

Obvious solution is to give Ohtani JR's ownership stake in exchange for signing with the Sox.

Not even sure that would be enough when he desperately wants to play playoff baseball.

Closest to a guarantee is the Dodgers or Astros.

[The Kids Can Play]

On 4/14/2023 at 8:10 AM, caulfield12 said:

I was just watching the new "AIR" movie about Nike and Deloris Jordan...

The thing that REALLY struck me was the fact that I could just never imagine Rick Hahn believing in something so much that he would risk his entire career, his position, his family on the type of bet Sonny Vaccaro made on Michael Jordan.

I couldn't imagine him pulling all-nighter after all-nighter in week before the draft or right before hosting Machado or Harper...that desire of wearing his heart on his sleeve in the quest for Sox greatness.

It's not that he couldn't even give an emotional speech that spoke directly to Sox fans or a future #1 draft pick or free agent target, it's that there's something in his manner that says all the right things but it just lacks the conviction, the belief, that what he believes in is right and good and that he can almost will it into reality in the future by sheer determination.  It feels like that's why we come up short on so many important free agent negotiations...in the end, he's representing Jerry Reinsdorf, and there's always going to be a limit to what he's willing to offer because that risk-averse side of the baseball operations execs and Board of Directors will kick in and they'll get lost in all the things that MIGHT go wrong instead of focusing on what COULD go right.  There was a point in time that KW once legitimately believed the Sox could win the battle for the city of Chicago with the Cubs...now, it's almost like Hahn is resigned to his fate and playing out the string like a marionette, but any vision of this team BEING great/amazing has disappeared with the morning fog.

I just don't and can't believe in Rick Hahn...even to the extent that we placed our faith in the KW who wasn't afraid to hurl over the post-game spread tables to get his point across.  An Ozzie and Cora who weren't afraid to haul those players out in the early morning or offdays when they kept making the same mistakes in fundamentals or execution.

KW once had that edge, that chip on his shoulder when he was in his 30's and 40's, but he too has lost that burning fire and passion for the team/organization.

After almost two decades of Rick Hahn, I still don't have a clue what he actually stands for...whatever it is, it's certainly not excellence.  I also don’t get the feeling he has genuinely been desperate for anything in his life, that everything has come way too easily and too quickly without it being earned on the talent evaluation side.  He’s always going to be more of a lawyer/negotiator than criss-crossing the continent or flying over oceans to locate the next great Sox player.

 

Hahn might be known as a lawyer, but he will never be known as a good negotiator. 

To your point on what he stands for, Hahn stands for two things:

1. Being great at deceiving his boss JR and literally have the greatest GM gig in the last two decades, when every other GM in sports is totally jealous that Hahn can be so inept at his job and still be employed.

2. Hahn is the new poster child for the "Peter Principle" of Sports GM's 

[The Kids Can Play]

2 hours ago, CentralChamps21 said:

We want Ohtani here

We want JR gone

Obvious solution is to give Ohtani JR's ownership stake in exchange for signing with the Sox.

Here is a good option:

We need some ridiculous rich billionaire with Jeff Bezos like money, to come in and make an offer so insane that even Jerry can't pass it up. The offer is so attractive it even accounts for the hundreds of millions to handle the taxes of the sale, that Jerry whines about he doesn't want his family to suffer with.

Then that owner goes out and recruits Andrew Friedman away from the Dodgers and not only pays him more money (record salary for sports team pres.) and makes Friedman the new Pres of Baseball Ops, along with giving him an attractive ownership % stake. 

Then finally, the new owner goes out and signs Ohtani to the richest contract ever. Although Chicago isn't LA where Ohtani apparently likes to live, since LA is closer to Japan since his wife likes to go back to visit often, the new owner agrees to let Ohtani and his wife use his private jet anytime to fly back to Japan. 

Then the city throws a parade even before we win a WS title, just to celebrate the new owner getting rid of JR and his loser FO.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Not even sure that would be enough when he desperately wants to play playoff baseball.

Closest to a guarantee is the Dodgers or Astros.

The morning show guys at 670 were saying Ohtani on the White Sox would be one of the few ways to get them back proudly wearing all their Sox gear again.

 

Not even Cubs' homers are optimistic about getting him...even with Suzuki already on the roster.

Edited July 31, 2023 by caulfield12

[shago]

5 hours ago, CentralChamps21 said:

We want Ohtani here

We want JR gone

Obvious solution is to give Ohtani JR's ownership stake in exchange for signing with the Sox.

JR only owns 19%, it's not enough 😀

[FloydBannister1983]

On 4/13/2023 at 2:46 PM, greg775 said:

It might be time to change as fans. Just be happy we have a major league baseball team in our city to follow. I don't think anybody on this board has listed a viable scenario in which the team can get back on track as a contender for years to come. Not sure how wise it was to sign Beni for five years though some baseball experts like him a lot.

If the bar is that low why limit yourself to this city.  You can root for anybody.

[Nokona]

Snell pitching too well again so you'd think he's out of the picture. 

Flaherty and Lorenzen make sense. 

Would take Mahle or Odorizzi for the back end as well

Edited July 31, 2023 by Nokona

[Timmy U]

Yeah, I just looked up Snell's numbers. That man has earned himself some serious $ and probably a trip to NYC to pitch for the Yankees or Mets.

[TheFutureIsNear]

At this point going out and signing vet free agents would be like getting rims put on a broken down Ford Taurus.

This team isn’t getting turned around in 1 year, probably not even 2. I don’t think this is the off season to spend even if it were a possibility. Free agency should be used to push a good roster over the to maybe compete for a championship, this organization needs probably about a dozen good players before we even talk playoffs.
 

Wait it out, suck another year, let all the $ come off the books, and then maybe start to build the roster back with free agents for a playoff push after we have a few more young guys come up and hopefully supplement the roster. 

[Balta1701]

12 minutes ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

At this point going out and signing vet free agents would be like getting rims put on a broken down Ford Taurus.

This team isn’t getting turned around in 1 year, probably not even 2. I don’t think this is the off season to spend even if it were a possibility. Free agency should be used to push a good roster over the to maybe compete for a championship, this organization needs probably about a dozen good players before we even talk playoffs.
 

Wait it out, suck another year, let all the $ come off the books, and then maybe start to build the roster back with free agents for a playoff push after we have a few more young guys come up and hopefully supplement the roster. 

The White Sox are going to have to spend money just to fill out a roster. They literally don't have pitchers.

Take a look at the prices that pitchers are getting this trade deadline. If you have a guy who comes out healthy and has a good half, who is also affordable, they are useful at the trade deadline next year. If you sign 3 or 4 guys, they're not all going to be good, but hopefully one or two of them are, and those guys will be tradable. 

Just don't make the Benintendi mistake of signing someone to 4 years or the Clevinger mistake of signing someone without an appropriate background check.

There's lots of possible names. Hyun-Jin Ryu, Luis Severino, Frankie Montas, Sean Manaea, Noah Syndergaard, Carlos Carrasco, Wade Miley, there's all sorts. 

[TheFutureIsNear]

3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The White Sox are going to have to spend money just to fill out a roster. They literally don't have pitchers.

Take a look at the prices that pitchers are getting this trade deadline. If you have a guy who comes out healthy and has a good half, who is also affordable, they are useful at the trade deadline next year. If you sign 3 or 4 guys, they're not all going to be good, but hopefully one or two of them are, and those guys will be tradable. 

Just don't make the Benintendi mistake of signing someone to 4 years or the Clevinger mistake of signing someone without an appropriate background check.

There's lots of possible names. Hyun-Jin Ryu, Luis Severino, Frankie Montas, Sean Manaea, Noah Syndergaard, Carlos Carrasco, Wade Miley, there's all sorts. 

Oh of course, they should def take as many shots on high upside 1 year deals as possible. I just read the OP as something like “who can we sign to fix this and compete right away?” And my answer is definitely still no one. 

[caulfield12]

5 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The White Sox are going to have to spend money just to fill out a roster. They literally don't have pitchers.

Take a look at the prices that pitchers are getting this trade deadline. If you have a guy who comes out healthy and has a good half, who is also affordable, they are useful at the trade deadline next year. If you sign 3 or 4 guys, they're not all going to be good, but hopefully one or two of them are, and those guys will be tradable. 

Just don't make the Benintendi mistake of signing someone to 4 years or the Clevinger mistake of signing someone without an appropriate background check.

There's lots of possible names. Hyun-Jin Ryu, Luis Severino, Frankie Montas, Sean Manaea, Noah Syndergaard, Carlos Carrasco, Wade Miley, there's all sorts. 

Manaea was short on his stuff last year...not much upside there except to take innings and protect High A/AA starters like a Vince Velasquez sort of did last year.

[Balta1701]

Just now, caulfield12 said:

Manaea was short on his stuff last year...not much upside there except to take innings and protect High A/AA starters like a Vince Velasquez sort of did last year.

....ok?

[SoCalChiSox]

If Manaea opts out, they'll sign him on a buy low deal since they wanted him before.

They can prolly get 2 3/4 SPs on 1-2 year deals at somewhere between 10-14m each per year. If they keep Cease, add those 2, Kopech at 4 and then Nastrini or Bush at 5 (or Toussaint), they may go with that.