Bertz
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Everything posted by Bertz
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People are fickle, and want change but they don't want to give up value. There are four people on this roster with real value: Hendricks, Yu, Willson, and Happ. (I'd guess in that order, but not positive). If you want to fundamentally improve the outlook for 2022+ while taking the smallest bite out of our chances in 2021, Willson is the obvious name to go. It's like not even close.
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Yeah this is my takeaway from the last six years with our core. For whatever reason, I'm going to guess that development further down the ladder is so much better now, you shouldn't really project improvement from position players after their first year or two in the league. Those first 1000ish plate appearances at such an insane level of competition teach guys a lot. But afterwards, in aggregate, guys lose athleticism about as fast as they gain skill, and they just plateau until somewhere in the 28-30 neighborhood, when father time starts working faster. That doesn't bode well for the White Sox going from good to great unless it happens this year. Like if Luis Robert doesn't take a big jump this offseason, it's much less likely to ever happen. What becomes more likely is that he improves his plate discipline at about the same rate he loses prowess in CF, and just settles in at 3ish WAR. That's not a bad thing, but it makes building some 105 win juggernaut pretty unlikely.
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The only person who I know definitely wouldn't be a big step down is Boog Sciambi. I'm sure there are folks I don't know who would be good, too, but Sciambi is the guy Marquee should be after here IMO. Yeah Boog comes to mind immediately as the guy I want. He and JD would probably be a blast together.
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This horsefeathering sucks. Though I think he's generally the "your favorite sports writer's favorite sports writer" type so he'll have a job at the Ringer or something by the end of the year.
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That would significantly soften the blow if they are legitimately going to search for and hire a worthy replacement. I'll believe it when I see it though. I know we should expect the worst when it comes to this offseason, but this pretty clearly means Myers isn't getting the job. He's currently already under contract, so if the network is saying they're looking for an outside hire he's not in the running.
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I think if we also see him pick up some national games, I'll legitimately believe he left for the right reasons. As the Cubs announcer, Len took almost no days off. If he's trading 155 Cubs tv games for ~100 White Sox radio games, ~25 White Sox TV games, and ~10 National Broadcasts, that's a real signal to me that he was bored or burnt out or something like that.
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The more I sit on this the more the Chris Myers part bugs me. Like if Len wanted to leave because he's bored, hates Sinclair, wants a job that lets him do more national games, or whatever, I'm okay with that. He put in 15 great years here, and I don't hate having him leave while he's still on top. Chris Myers though is just so blah as a replacement. He, along with Kenny Albert, are the quintessential B Team PBP guys in my head. I really hope that he's just a placeholder, and that they're going to go get someone better, someone with an actual personality, ASAP. Like maybe Boog Sciambi would like to be "the guy" here rather than the #2 guy at ESPN? Or even better, go get the someone younger like Len was when they got him.
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If McCann is getting 4 years Willson is worth a stupid high amount in trade
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On a pure on-field standpoint I think this is more of a headscratcher than Schwarber. Like I know he slumped in the latter part of the year but come on. Relatedly, I thought this was a pretty compelling defense of holding onto Winkler:
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I wish the market lent itself to this more. This was already a good defensive team last year. Bring in a real CFer and shift Happ to left and it could be elite.
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Alberto makes a ton of contact, and absolutely murders lefties. He'd be a real solid bench option, though maybe doesn't make sense on a roster that already has Bote and Hoerner.
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Robert stock is a fun guy to have in the mix for the 7th/8th spots in the pen. Really high octane stuff, though he's got problems throwing strikes.
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Thus far, Jose Martinez has been NT'd, and the Cubs picked up Robert Stock from Boston
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The only meaningful difference between Caratini each season is HR/FB rate, which is incredibly noisy. And given he is a part time player, that's going to be particularly noticeable. The safe assumption is that he's basically the guy from his three year averages. That's fairly unexciting, but is an above average hitter for a catcher. Combine that with modestly above average framing, and he'd be a decent starting caliber C IMO.
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Good is probably a strong word for the SP market, but certainly much less bad than expected. At least so far.
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While I like the idea in a vacuum, unfortunately Urena probably only makes sense if we trade a starter. None of him, Mills or Alzolay have options next year (I think, I know there was some iffiness on whether Alzolay would get a 4th). Given that all three would have pretty big questions on their expected performance, I would hate to be locked into keeping all three on the roster. My #1 choice would be to go get Gray from Colorado. Given that he shows up on all of the potential non-tender lists, it seems pretty clear that he's in the Schwarber zone where even if he's not cut his trade cost will be minimal. I would gladly give up someone from the back half of the Top 30 to bring him in. He seems to be by far the most likely guy to pull a Gausman next season. Gray makes sense no matter what level of tearing it down is occurrs this winter.
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Well then
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Minor was my preferred safe but unexciting rotation option. Curious what he netted salary-wise
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This is going to continue to be a very slow offseason, but we might get a burst of activity this week. I think if Schwarber goes anywhere this offseason it'll be pre-deadline. And this week is probably the most likely time for KB to go too, though it if he's still here on Thursday I don't think it changes the odds of a trade all that drastically.
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Hoffman's always been a guy people think will pop after leaving the Rockies, but this still seems most likely to be a fairly nothing trade
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I think too, now that the cat is out of the bag with tanking and it's less of an...this is probably not the best choice of words...innovative strategy, I'm not sure that it nets you out that much better than a soft rebuild or a re-tool or whatever. The Phillies have clearly botched their rebuild. The White Sox are set up well, but don't look primed to reach super team status at any point. The Braves are awesome because of Acuna and Albies, who were non-premium IFAs they could have gotten regardless of whether they bottomed out. Yankees didn't tear it down. Dodgers didn't. Etc. The difference between a regular good team and a super team is basically one additional star. You have a better chance of netting that guy by selling more pieces sure, but we're blessed with being in a payroll tier where more reliably you can just go buy that guy when the time is right.