squally1313

I don't think you can necessarily take the Cubs 2016-2020 gradual decline and slap it onto the Sox though. They don't have a Heyward, they hopefully don't have a Russell, and they have 2 top 20 fWAR pitchers, ages 27 and 26, locked up for 2 and 4 years, even ignoring Lynn (and to a lesser extent Kopech). Why can't they be the 2017 (or 2015) Astros? Or even the 2015 Cubs? And I guess it depends on how much weight you place on being among the best 2-3 teams in baseball, vs just being in a position to take as many shots at the post-wild card playoffs as possible. I think they're in a good spot to carry their division for a few years. I don't think they'll have the Cubs specific decline, only that the most likely outcome is this is their best team of the competitive window. They may not have the specific components that led to the Cubs decline, but regression to the mean comes for everyone. Will they still be division favorites? Probably next year at the least. But it only takes one pop up team to knock you to the wild card if you aren't in that 'best 2-3 teams in MLB' tier(and sometimes even then like this year's dodgers), and even if they don't they still have to beat the best in the AL to win a title in all likelihood. If this sounds bearish it doesn't mean to be, I like the White Sox roster for the most part and think Hahn is capable of supplementing it further, but there's an actuarial reality, especially when it comes to pitching, and I think it's fair to question if they can replicate that for the foreseeable future. But doesn't the 'actuarial reality' come for every team? By that logic, won't the Astros be worse next year too? I get that pitching is more susceptible than offense, but this was still a 6th in offensive fWAR, 3rd in wRC team with every major piece coming back next year. I don't see why regression is a White Sox unique concept, and so if you set that aside, the core they have (Robert, Moncada, Eloy, Anderson, Vaughn, Sheets, Gio, Cease, Kopech, plus the guys in their 30s), don't need to improve much on 6th best offensive team, best pitching (by fWAR) team to have as good a chance as anyone the next couple years.

I don't think you can necessarily take the Cubs 2016-2020 gradual decline and slap it onto the Sox though. They don't have a Heyward, they hopefully don't have a Russell, and they have 2 top 20 fWAR pitchers, ages 27 and 26, locked up for 2 and 4 years, even ignoring Lynn (and to a lesser extent Kopech). Why can't they be the 2017 (or 2015) Astros? Or even the 2015 Cubs? And I guess it depends on how much weight you place on being among the best 2-3 teams in baseball, vs just being in a position to take as many shots at the post-wild card playoffs as possible. I think they're in a good spot to carry their division for a few years.

Yeah, this was the Sox best chance and they didn't get the job done. Kind of like the Cubs at the start of the run everyone talks about their bats but it's the pitching that really made the team special. Meanwhile Rodon is a FA, Lynn will be 35 next year, and Cease hasn't shown what he did this year before. They're going to slide Kopech in, and that will help, but this rotation is going to regress a lot. It'll still be quite good, but there's really no place to go but down from #1. Can the offense pick up the slack? You look at Robert, Eloy, and Vaughn and you probably think "Of Course!" but we all saw how assuming your guys will keep improving turns out. And even on this side of the ball, they have no 2B, and their 1B and C are starting to get pretty old. I assume they still are willing to spend resources to do some stuff this winter, though likely nothing huge. So at that point you'd expect a slightly worse team next year? But then you have to think about the rest of the division. It's been complete horsefeathers the last few years, but that might not still be the case next year. The Twins and Tigers are expected to be pretty active this winter. The Indians and Royals will likely make a few moves, and have some significant help coming from the farm imminently. So even if the Sox hold serve talent-wise, it's not going to be nearly as easy next year. They're not going to crash and burn, but they really needed to at least make some noise during these playoffs. Eh. On the flip side, even a 'slightly worse' version of this team should carry the AL Central pretty easily. Can't assume full health from Robert and Eloy, but I'd take the over on the 520ish PAs they got combined this year. Vaughn and Sheets both have plenty of pedigree. The Madrigal/Kimbrel trade obviously hurts, especially if they can't teach one of these corner guys into a marginal second baseman, but Moncada can play there, so they can be flexible in who they target. Pitching will regress because it always does, but the offense should improve and there's a lot of margin for error the next few years that you feel pretty safe saying they'll have a few more shots at the playoff lottery.

I went to one of my nephew's little league games in July. Any shred of faith I had left in humanity left me that day. Just moved out to the suburbs and we're right down the street from a huge park with a ton of baseball/football/soccer fields. Only have a 2 year old, so don't have to deal directly with it for a while, but walked over and started watching a football game with 10 year olds and my god, the Dads involved. At this point that's probably better argument for me than the health issues.

Fair, probably depends a lot on the Sox fans you interact with. Most of my Sox fan friends will beat me to making LaRussa jokes. Went to a handful of games at the Cell and saw some Bad Fans, but you also see that at Wrigley (and the UC, and definitely at Soldier). There isn't a 'good' fan base in pretty much all of professional sports.

Eh. I'm in my mid 30s. Most of my friends are Sox fans, but we've gotten past the whole Cubs vs Sox thing. Sucked in 2005, but whatever now. Feels like forever ago, but we're still only 5 years out from winning ours. It'll flip again. La Russa sucks, and he's going to screw up something here at some point (if they make it through today), but there's like 8 dudes on their team that I'd trade anyone on ours for, both talent wise and personality wise. I agree with this. 2005 was brutal but since we won I really don't care. Their fans get on my nerves and occasionally trigger me but at the same time I kind of like having a little sports excitement in town and as much as it sucks when they clobber us the team is super likable. I have no problem pulling for them among what is a pretty unlikable field of teams. Yeah you can't criticize/stereotype all Sox fans as caring way too much about the Cubs and then be that upset at them doing well, especially given how unlikeable the Cubs org is at the moment. If I get a month of the city being excited for games, for people getting together to watch them, etc etc etc....better than pretending to like, latch onto the Braves. If it gets to game 7 and LaRussa blows it in some hilarious way? Awesome. But just give me fun baseball with some semblance of meaningfulness for as long as possible.

Toews Captain, Kane full time alternate, Murphy and DeBrincat splitting the second A between home and away games. All the advanced analytics absolutely hate us, but the one way to get rid of those problems is to have a stud goalie (Flower) and a generational player who has always converted a ridiculously high amount of his chances (Kane), so we'll see.

If it were just the White Sox players? Yes. But unfortunately they're packaged with their fan base. Therefore, their fans' misery must be greater than or equal to mine. And I'm a Cubs fan, so... Eh. I'm in my mid 30s. Most of my friends are Sox fans, but we've gotten past the whole Cubs vs Sox thing. Sucked in 2005, but whatever now. Feels like forever ago, but we're still only 5 years out from winning ours. It'll flip again. La Russa sucks, and he's going to screw up something here at some point (if they make it through today), but there's like 8 dudes on their team that I'd trade anyone on ours for, both talent wise and personality wise.

Go White Sox. Most of those guys are fun and maybe it'll put some pressure on the Cubs to actually put out a strong team.

Four scoreless innings, 5 Ks. Guess who had over 5.5 strikeouts.

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Chris Taylor is like the 15th best player on the Dodgers and I would trade pretty much anyone on the Cubs major league roster for him, which is fun.

Some terrible managing by Mike Shildt there. Will forever love the fact that the dudes name is Mike Shildt.

Agree with the overall goal, but 'taking pressure off the defense' is such a dumb, old school baseball-y way of saying it. And the rest of his quotes above are also not very promising at all.

Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool.

Schwarber hitting a no doubt bomb to right off Gerrit Cole to put his team up 3-0 in the third inning of the wild card game. A tradition unlike any other.

A post trade deadline loan system would be a fun idea to think about (and then probably ultimately decide it wouldn't work). Every team gets to make one loan transaction, trading something permanently for the services of one player for the rest of the year that goes back to their original team in the offseason, all parties (both teams, the player) have to sign off on the transaction.

Steele and Thompson are both already 26, Thompson will be 27 by opening day next year. Neither of them were top 100 draft picks, or have really shown anything in the upper levels of the minors that would lead you to believe they can turn into quality starters. Maybe if they had a full year last year to show something, but they didn't. Alzolay will also be 27 by opening day next year, has shown some success, but still holds a FIP and xFIP above 4 as a starter (FIP above 5) and continues to not be able to get lefties out. Finding three MLB quality starters to sign with us is pretty difficult, so I'm sure someone is going to get a chance, but these are not guys to build around. I don't disagree that the odds are not in the favor of any of those guys individually, but at the same time I think they're fine enough candidates. Yes, Thompson and Steele weren't Top 100 picks, but Thompson was a slot pick at 105, and Steele was a 5th rounder who got a 2nd round-caliber bonus. They aren't absent of pedigree. And yes, all 3 are not young or what we think of when we think of traditional prospects breaking into an MLB rotation, but the improvements to player development across the league means none of them are a long shot based on age alone. They aren't a Schwindel/Ortega type either where you have to be very worried about imminent decline eating at their development in the next few years. If the roster and rotation were in a different place I might be more aggressive coming over the top of them, but given the current state of things I think those 3 are a perfectly viable approach to the 5th SP spot. Yeah I think we all took different routes to the same conclusion. Hendricks, Mills, 2 vet starters, and (for me) the better of Thompson/Steele, with Alzolay trying to be a poor mans version of Kopech. Tell whoever ends up in AAA they can take Mills' spot whenever they earn it, and realistically they'll end up in Chicago come July anyways after we get whatever we can for the veteran starters (or cut bait).

Definitely agreed on the last part. Should have included this above, but Thompson and Steele have a combined 41 innings in AAA. In an ideal world, let them go out there every 5 innings and see if one of them dominates. Give Alzolay the 5th spot and tell him it's a short leash and he probably ends up in the pen. Of course, this roster is far from an 'ideal world', so I guess we'll see all of them making a few starts next year.

I think you leave one spot for those three to fight over, and fill the other two with vets. I hate what seems to be already crystalizing as the conventional wisdom that we need 3 vet SPs. I don't want to hear any more whining about not developing starters if we're not going to give any starters an actual opportunity to develop. Alzolay's dong problem is probably a fluke, while Steel (prior to yesterday) and Thompson haven't really looked like viable starters. I think you go into ST expecting Adbert in the rotation but keep an open mind. Steele and Thompson are both already 26, Thompson will be 27 by opening day next year. Neither of them were top 100 draft picks, or have really shown anything in the upper levels of the minors that would lead you to believe they can turn into quality starters. Maybe if they had a full year last year to show something, but they didn't. Alzolay will also be 27 by opening day next year, has shown some success, but still holds a FIP and xFIP above 4 as a starter (FIP above 5) and continues to not be able to get lefties out. Finding three MLB quality starters to sign with us is pretty difficult, so I'm sure someone is going to get a chance, but these are not guys to build around.

I wouldn't let them stand in the way of any potential signings, especially with money to spend and their relatively recent success in flipping short term veteran starters for prospects if the team doesn't pan out. I don't really see anyone on the FA list, pitching wise, you want to sign to some huge deal (Gausman and Stroman would be at the top of the list I guess?), so focus on the B and C list and save the long term money for the offensive side of the ball.

I guess I'm just dumb enough to stick with "my" teams no matter how horsefeathers they are so I wouldn't really give a new team a chance. I'm not gonna flip allegiances, but I go to as many Sox games as Cubs games since they're convenient and cheap as opposed to inconvenient and expenaive. It doesn't immediately need 2M die hard fans to be viable. If the Bears move up to AH, the new team could maybe play up a North Side/South Side thing similar to Cubs/Sox, especially if the Bears continue to lag behind the rest of the league in terms of actually developing a team. Though I'm not sure how attractive being the White Sox of the city is to a new owner.

It is pretty much right off the same train line as where downtown AH is, so in theory you can turn it into a second AH downtown, though I doubt there's enough of a population currently to support both. I'm sure the idea is to pull in as much of the Soldier/UC/Wrigley concert business as possible. As mentioned, the space is huge, so plenty of space, just not sure if you're going to be able to drive enough traffic there the rest of the year.

His xwOBA would put him at 21st out of 26 qualified first basemen per FG. Add that to a complete lack of defensive ability, a bad spot on the aging curve, and a walk rate that's never once, at any level, been over 6.4% and you've really got something there.

None of those guys were "better prospects than Peyton Manning." And for every one of them, there's a dozen guys picked around those spots who flame out I mean, you literally quoted the post and misquoted me. I never said "better" than Peyton Manning. I said on the same level. Also, I don't see the point you think you are making. They were very widely considered the top prospects at their position, until the draft came and for whatever reasons they all fell, like Fields did. It seems like you are being contrarian for contrarian sake. Because people have "seen it" for the last 4-5 years who actually get paid to "see it" (HS ratings people, college recruiters, college coaches, Heisman voters, college poll votes, NFL scouts) have said this and you "not seeing it" is very clearly you choosing not to see it. When you don't know what you are talking about, maybe defer to those that do, especially when the extent of your evaluation is "I don't see it" and you are arguing actual facts like Fields being the 3rd fastest timed QB in the league right now. "For whatever reasons" doing a lot of work here.