LUIS ROBERT TRADED

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

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.

[PaleAleSox]

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. 

[WhiteSox2023]

If the Sox are indeed at $67 million in payroll for 2026, I believe they currently have the lowest payroll in baseball.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

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.

[Chicago White Sox]

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.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

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. 

[fathom]

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.

[WhiteSox2023]

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.

[almagest]

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. 

[wegner]

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.

[southsider2k5]

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.

[fathom]

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.

[Bob Sacamano]

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.

[fathom]

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

[southsider2k5]

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.

 

[Snopek]

I miss the bears

[Dick Allen]

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.

[Dick Allen]

Now they add Conforto and Schriffen will start talking playoffs.

[WhiteSox2023]

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.

[Jake]

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.
 

[TheBooneLoganEra]

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.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

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. 

[PaleAleSox]

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. 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

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 53 minutes ago by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Jake]

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.