January 21Jan 21 44 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said: This return really really sucks. But, it is certainly better than just not picking up the option and getting nothing. However, Jerry once again Jerry's and was unwilling it appears to pickup some money to improve the return. I'm really not sure this is true, but I do understand the logic. Roster spots are finite. At bats are finite. If Acuna is a negative player then he's taking opportunity from elsewhere, and getting a negative player for 2 million is worse than having a positive player for 20 million. Unless you're cheap obviously. The only way this is better than not picking up the option is if Acuna is an actual MLB quality player. Otherwise you just wasted money on no production instead of paying the 2 million for him to move on and giving an opportunity to someone else.
January 21Jan 21 1 minute ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: I'm really not sure this is true, but I do understand the logic. Roster spots are finite. At bats are finite. If Acuna is a negative player then he's taking opportunity from elsewhere, and getting a negative player for 2 million is worse than having a positive player for 20 million. Unless you're cheap obviously. The only way this is better than not picking up the option is if Acuna is an actual MLB quality player. Otherwise you just wasted money on no production instead of paying the 2 million for him to move on and giving an opportunity to someone else. The Sox have no one better than Acuna to give the opportunity to. He at least has some tools that might play.
January 21Jan 21 If the Sox are indeed at $67 million in payroll for 2026, I believe they currently have the lowest payroll in baseball.
January 21Jan 21 18 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said: Lottery tickets…yes. Bad ones? Fully disagree. Acuna has truly elite speed and has much more bad speed / raw power than his size would indicate. There is a chance he could play a double plus CF defense and we already know his ability to handle SS & 2B (which provides a UT player floor). The bat is a massive question mark and I can’t deny his production has been bad over the past two years. That being said, he has some tools and will be an interesting project for Fuller. As for this Pauley kid, he was an over-slot signing who basically got 6th round money who offers some interesting raw stuff even if he remains a work in progress command wise. Again, this isn’t a good trade by any means, but I wouldn’t call these bad lottery tickets. Still disappointed that they would accept this return rather than roll the dice on a bounce-back. Our outfield right now is hands down the worst in baseball and I don’t get much joy from dumping guys with serious ceiling on a reasonable one year deal to save Jerry money, but @fathom was apparently right. Worst SP and worst OF in the MLB. Can't believe some think this team can be remotely competitive. I'm not really that interested in a guy who has a bad hit tool AND has no power. Guys like that don't exactly have a strong track record of breaking out. Speed and defense don't matter when you can't hit the ball. Another Fuller MEME though, so we got that going for us.
January 21Jan 21 9 hours ago, Timmy U said: Meh. It should be an open competition between a lot of post hype prospects. Frankly, Pereira has been a lot better in the minors than Acuna. We are returning to the Tilson, Ryan Cordell era of truly sucky Sox outfielders. Brooks Baldwin is now the trusted veteran of the bunch. Fully agree. I think Baldwin is a lock for one of the spots, but otherwise it should be an open competition. I still like Periera the best out of the post hype guys and he deserves as good of a chance (if not better) than Kelenic & Acuna for a regular role.
January 21Jan 21 5 minutes ago, PaleAleSox said: The Sox have no one better than Acuna to give the opportunity to. He at least has some tools that might play. Well they did have someone better, and they just traded him so they could have the lowest payroll in baseball. In his last 700ish Minor League at bats (not even big league at bats) he has a wRC+ in AAA of 70. If this guy wasn't a former top prospect, he'd be struggling to find AAA playing time.
January 21Jan 21 5 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: Worst SP and worst OF in the MLB. Can't believe some think this team can be remotely competitive. I'm not really that interested in a guy who has a bad hit tool AND has no power. Guys like that don't exactly have a strong track record of breaking out. Speed and defense don't matter when you can't hit the ball. Another Fuller MEME though, so we got that going for us. Yep it’s frustrating they’re going to be around 100 losses again.
January 21Jan 21 2 minutes ago, fathom said: Yep it’s frustrating they’re going to be around 100 losses again. If you consider Benintendi to be what he truly is at this point, a DH, the Sox literally don’t have a true major league caliber outfielder right now.
January 21Jan 21 46 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said: So you think nothing is better than this? Is that what we’re really going with here? I'll gladly eat my words if Acuna figures out how to hit, but the org is absolutely not in a better place with a guy who can't hit in AAA and a bullpen arm with control issues in A ball.
January 21Jan 21 11 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: Worst SP and worst OF in the MLB. Can't believe some think this team can be remotely competitive. I'm not really that interested in a guy who has a bad hit tool AND has no power. Guys like that don't exactly have a strong track record of breaking out. Speed and defense don't matter when you can't hit the ball. Another Fuller MEME though, so we got that going for us. i saw a write up on our current and future starting pitching last week and it was truly bleak. I came away quite depressed.
January 21Jan 21 15 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: Worst SP and worst OF in the MLB. Can't believe some think this team can be remotely competitive. I'm not really that interested in a guy who has a bad hit tool AND has no power. Guys like that don't exactly have a strong track record of breaking out. Speed and defense don't matter when you can't hit the ball. Another Fuller MEME though, so we got that going for us. The highlight of the winter was signing a Japanese star to a 2 year deal for about 15 to 20% of what he was expected to get before the off-season started, and only because the owner had to be begged to outlay $40 million. The Sox had a bit of goodwill for about 15 seconds there, and then back to the dumpster.
January 21Jan 21 1 minute ago, southsider2k5 said: The highlight of the winter was signing a Japanese star to a 2 year deal for about 15 to 20% of what he was expected to get before the off-season started, and only because the owner had to be begged to outlay $40 million. The Sox had a bit of goodwill for about 15 seconds there, and then back to the dumpster. And as interesting as he will be, it’s two years at most and then he’s gone. They’ve done nothing to make the team better in possible competitive years. Best thing of offseason was clearly Ishbia telling the Pope they’ll have a new stadium in Chicago.
January 21Jan 21 Does anyone else think the Mets offseason has been “meh” so far? I almost rather would have kept Alonso and Nimmo, with Baty at 3B than adding Bichette (likely doesn’t have arm for 3B), Robert and Polanco (both injury prone), and aging Semien.
January 21Jan 21 3 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said: Does anyone else think the Mets offseason has been “meh” so far? I almost rather would have kept Alonso and Nimmo, with Baty at 3B than adding Bichette (likely doesn’t have arm for 3B), Robert and Polanco (both injury prone), and aging Semien. Supposedly Nimmo and Lindor had issues
January 21Jan 21 6 minutes ago, fathom said: And as interesting as he will be, it’s two years at most and then he’s gone. They’ve done nothing to make the team better in possible competitive years. Best thing of offseason was clearly Ishbia telling the Pope they’ll have a new stadium in Chicago. I mean he is either successful and we trade him, or he isn't and we eat the cash. If he is too successful, he is going to go FA, and get the big deal he wanted initially from someone else. I guess we can hope that things change internally after the lock out/strike and our ownership situation, but eh.
January 21Jan 21 2 hours ago, ChiSox59 said: Well because acquiring two players is better than paying $2M for him to go away???? Not saying this is a good move, but it's >>>> than not picking up the option. It worked out that way because Kyle Tucker went to the Dodgers. 9 times out of 10 it doesn't work. You gambled $20 million and the prize was Luisangel Acuna. The White Sox show why they are a horrible organization every day.
January 21Jan 21 6 minutes ago, Dick Allen said: Now they add Conforto and Schriffen will start talking playoffs. With Schriffen talking about Fuller’s swing changes for Kelenic, Acuna, and Conforto, at least we will all be too drunk to care.
January 21Jan 21 I think there is potentially more than meets the eye with Acuna. He was clearly rushed to MLB IMO and that can make the development trajectory a little wonky or at least less predictable. He showed a profound lack of power production in MLB last year. Yet I can see on Statcast that he has some seriously respectable bat speed. In his debut he was moving the bat at the Soto/Springer/Rooker/Tatis tier of bat speed. It dropped a tick last year along with his production. I have a feeling that he was getting a message about plate discipline or contact that was not resonating and it led to him allowing the ball to get deep on him and swinging a relatively flat bat. I think these are the marks of a player in survival mode. Maybe he'll never get out of it. In spite of absolutely putrid production in MLB last year, he still had a positive WAR in both major systems for calculating WAR because he's such an asset on defense and on the basepaths. So you can perceive a kind of high floor here as an overall baseball player despite the floor being clearly rather low at the plate. I'm envisioning a sort of Adam Engel/Leury Garcia hybrid. But if you could get him swinging the bat differently there might be more in the tank. He just doesn't pull or elevate at all. Some guys don't do that because it's hard to do it. But I'm not against seeing what he's got. This isn't like saying you want to see if Chase Meidroth can start hitting for big power if he just starts turning and burning...the Meidroths of the world (to be clear, I love the guy) don't move the bat fast enough to hit the ball hard consistently. Acuna has that physical raw power ability that makes me wonder if lightning might strike. Of course, I am prepared for the reality of a lot of chopped ground balls.
January 21Jan 21 1 hour ago, Baron said: Am I the only one that kind of likes Acuna? For whatever its worth mlb network this morning seems to believe White Sox won this trade.
January 21Jan 21 6 minutes ago, Jake said: I think there is potentially more than meets the eye with Acuna. He was clearly rushed to MLB IMO and that can make the development trajectory a little wonky or at least less predictable. He showed a profound lack of power production in MLB last year. Yet I can see on Statcast that he has some seriously respectable bat speed. In his debut he was moving the bat at the Soto/Springer/Rooker/Tatis tier of bat speed. It dropped a tick last year along with his production. I have a feeling that he was getting a message about plate discipline or contact that was not resonating and it led to him allowing the ball to get deep on him and swinging a relatively flat bat. I think these are the marks of a player in survival mode. Maybe he'll never get out of it. In spite of absolutely putrid production in MLB last year, he still had a positive WAR in both major systems for calculating WAR because he's such an asset on defense and on the basepaths. So you can perceive a kind of high floor here as an overall baseball player despite the floor being clearly rather low at the plate. I'm envisioning a sort of Adam Engel/Leury Garcia hybrid. But if you could get him swinging the bat differently there might be more in the tank. He just doesn't pull or elevate at all. Some guys don't do that because it's hard to do it. But I'm not against seeing what he's got. This isn't like saying you want to see if Chase Meidroth can start hitting for big power if he just starts turning and burning...the Meidroths of the world (to be clear, I love the guy) don't move the bat fast enough to hit the ball hard consistently. Acuna has that physical raw power ability that makes me wonder if lightning might strike. Of course, I am prepared for the reality of a lot of chopped ground balls. The guy has a 70 wRC+ in AAA over his last full season+. No one is talking about only his MLB failures.
January 21Jan 21 3 minutes ago, TheBooneLoganEra said: For whatever its worth mlb network this morning seems to believe White Sox won this trade. The only place blasting it is here for the most part.
January 21Jan 21 Sox took "if you ain't first, you're last" a little too literally (lowest in 2026, lowest committed in 2029): Team Rank Payroll 2026 Payroll Proj 2026 Luxury Tax Proj Guaranteed % Arbitration % Pre-Arbitration % 2027 Commitments 2028 Commitments 2029 Commitments LAD 1 $429M $396M 95.8% 2.0% 2.2% $404M $298M $244M NYM 2 $355M $357M 90.3% 6.9% 2.9% $216M $139M $96M TOR 3 $282M $311M 87.9% 7.8% 4.2% $218M $189M $136M PHI 4 $280M $316M 79.4% 17.3% 3.4% $189M $137M $109M NYY 5 $263M $286M 79.1% 17.2% 3.8% $173M $145M $72M ATL 6 $262M $259M 91.8% 5.1% 3.0% $154M $111M $59M HOU 7 $242M $238M 75.4% 20.9% 3.7% $141M $79M $13M CHC 8 $231M $244M 89.9% 5.0% 5.2% $75M $65M $61M SDP 9 $220M $262M 84.0% 11.6% 4.4% $178M $148M $125M BOS 10 $197M $266M 86.3% 9.7% 4.0% $147M $109M $110M SFG 11 $185M $212M 84.8% 2.8% 12.3% $146M $137M $109M TEX 12 $178M $201M 85.3% 7.1% 7.7% $123M $54M $52M LAA 13 $177M $192M 73.4% 16.0% 10.7% $58M $37M $37M ARI 14 $171M $203M 84.2% 10.1% 5.7% $131M $104M $117M DET 15 $161M $190M 53.6% 38.5% 7.9% $38M $8M $5M SEA 16 $156M $181M 65.7% 25.2% 9.1% $76M $64M $66M BAL 17 $149M $189M 53.4% 39.7% 6.8% $54M $35M $38M KCR 18 $146M $183M 66.8% 24.2% 9.1% $84M $45M $49M MIL 19 $134M $139M 58.9% 27.1% 14.0% $42M $36M $22M CIN 20 $112M $137M 42.0% 46.7% 11.3% $32M $25M $10M COL 21 $110M $128M 72.0% 15.9% 12.1% $42M $38M $14M MIN 22 $108M $127M 53.0% 29.1% 18.0% $56M $26M $0 STL 23 $104M $119M 24.8% 44.1% 31.1% $14M $0 $0 WSN 24 $96M $119M 31.6% 36.8% 31.6% $5M $7M $9M PIT 25 $95M $115M 67.8% 13.3% 18.9% $49M $36M $15M ATH 26 $87M $130M 72.1% 7.7% 20.2% $27M $34M $42M TBR 27 $80M $97M 47.6% 36.1% 16.3% $9M $0 $0 CLE 28 $78M $97M 55.1% 20.1% 24.8% $37M $36M $22M MIA 29 $69M $80M 50.0% 16.6% 33.5% $5M $0 $0 CHW 30 $67M $85M 65.5% 1.4% 33.2% $38M $2M $0 Edited January 21Jan 21 by Look at Ray Ray Run
January 21Jan 21 1 minute ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said: The guy has a 70 wRC+ in AAA over his last full season+. No one is talking about only his MLB failures. Poor AAA production is why I said I think he was rushed to MLB. Sometimes that happens because the scouts have decided the guy is going to have .650 OPS no matter the level, but sometimes it means a guy is simply being rushed. Of course I don't know that you can fix a guy being rushed by continuing to throw him to the wolves, so maybe luxury utility player is all he will ever be.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.