White Sox Wake-Up Call: April 7, 2021
Good morning. Here’s the rundown:
- LAST NIGHT: The White Sox belted three homers to overcome three defensive mistakes in the third inning, and now they’re 3-3.
- TONIGHT: They’ll try to head back to Chicago with a winning record behind Dallas Keuchel.
- AROUND THE LEAGUE: Fernando Tatis Jr. hits the injured list, other infielders change teams, Dane Dunning impresses, and every team is finally active.
Listen below:
Author
I don’t think we need to hear any more Dunning updates unless he ends up on the IL (see: Tatis) or gives up 10 runs.
I don’t think it’s too early to say the Dunning trade was stupid. 6 years of control over someone who looks like an above average starter for 1 year of Lynn is like Jeff Samardzija part 2.
Also, apparently Nomar now hits fly balls: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/nomar-mazara-is-hitting-balls-in-the-air-yes-its-early-april/
The White Sox ability to evaluate their own players seems ridiculously questionable.
Key differences between this and the Shark trade:
1) This team is actually good. Not a patch job like 2015
2) Lynn is a top 10 pitcher in the AL. Samardzjia was a maddeningly inconsistent player who yo-yoed between very good, average, and pitiful years.
We discussed the move obviously at length, to me maybe the biggest determining factor will likely come down to does Lynn get extended for a couple years.
The Lynn move is only successful if the White Sox make it to the play off, and Lynn himself plays a key role to get us (at least) into the World Series.
This is a good team, and I believe if it makes it to the play offs, it would have done so with Dunning or with Lynn. It is in the playoffs, short series, where the Lynn trade is gonna prove good or not.
Well the other part of it was they traded for Lynn to have payroll flexibility which they then didn’t spend so… it boggles the mind.
I do agree though if you don’t make the playoffs and maybe even win a series its gonna feel like a lost trade.
The entire point of the Lynn trade was to advance them further in 2021 than they got in 2020. If they don’t win a playoff series at a minimum (and, as stated above, with Lynn playing a key role), Hahn blew this trade. If they weren’t going to spend to maximize the one season they’d have Lynn then spending a current Major League asset to acquire him was just plain stupid.
In real time, the trade was a good one. If Lynn tears an ACL tomorrow, it’s not correct to say, “Hahn blew the trade.” Sometimes trades can be good ones with good ideas but just don’t work out. I think this trade was a good idea, no matter what happens to the White Sox in 2021.
Now, I’ll be wrong (and Hahn will have blown the trade) if Dunning turns out better than everybody thinks. If he locks in at 3+ WAR annually, for instance, that’s on Hahn for not recognizing what he has.
The trade was questionable even in real time. Lynn could put forward another top-10 CYA season, but if the team doesn’t build on last year’s success, then what was the benefit of parting with Dunning, who could have helped them build in 2021 and beyond?
I questioned the trade because it didn’t address a need effectively. Yes, we needed pitching, but trading pitching to get pitching isn’t “addressing” the need of pitching. Sure, I understand Lynn is better than Dunning at this juncture, however, when we trade a SP for another SP we didn’t address the need having pitching depth. We just add seasoning to the one turkey. Sure, it will taste better, but it is still one turkey.
Also, after this year is gone, if Hahn fails to extend Lynn (who is not a young arm per se), we will have a bigger hole to fill in 2022. Of course, I think Kopech will fill in nicely.
I did not understand why they parted with a guy who was needed in the here and now. If they’d parted with Thompson, Dalquist, Kelley, Bailey, or some other long-term piece that was not going to help open the contention window wider, I’d have been pretty well on board. Given Dunning was projected to be their fifth or sixth starter and likely to provide 100+ innings, it seemed like robbing needed depth to improve the top of the rotation.
Yeah, seems like Hahn could’ve swung the same deal with Thompson, Dalquist or Kelly.
And no matter how good Rodon is this year, I believe he’s gone, so there are two SP spots to fill.
The benefit is this team has a much better chance at a deep playoff run or world series with Lynn than with Dunning. That’s why you make the trade. It may fail, but it’s a good idea nonetheless.
Dunning seems to me something like the Madrigal version of pitching, except as a pitcher has less value. Yeah, he’ll probably be a 2 WAR ish pitcher for a few years, but he’s easily replaced. I might be wrong, of course.
2 WAR starting pitchers are not easily replaced. Only 70 starters managed 2.0 fWAR in 2019, and almost a third of them didn’t pitch a qualifying number of innings.
Well, I guess I could say relatively easy. The same could be said for 2nd basemen, too, of course. Only 19 2nd basemen had 2.0+ fWAR in 2019, and a handful of those are utility players or even played more in other positions.
19 second basemen covers almost 2/3 of the league. 70 starters accounts for less than half the spots allotted them on rosters.
Well, it doesn’t, because (as I said) a handful of those 19 are utility players or guys who play other positions. Gleyber Torres counted, for instance, even though he played most of his games at SS.
2 WAR starters are relatively easy to replace because the path to being a 2 WAR starter is basically just be competent and stay healthy. The competent part is easy to find (see Reynaldo Lopez, 2018 & 2019) but the staying healthy part is more difficult. But, there’s no reason to think Dunning will stay healthy more than the next guy. So, it is relatively easy to find a 2 WAR guy in terms of talent. That’s different, of course, than him staying healthy for 6 straight years and reaching that number.
Sounds about right.
(X) Doubt
Yeah, I’ve been waiting for BP to finally get around to publishing their 10-year PECOTA projections before writing a post for the trade, but viewing the Lynn trade as a good one boils down to:
It’s not to say that you can’t make an argument for those things after all:
That said, the longer your list of extra conditions boils down to, the less likely it is that the trade ends up really making any sense.
I didn’t love it at the time. I’ve come to be more okay with it, but (especially given how the rest of the offseason evolved) I still think it was probably a mistake.
Nice analysis.
Is your position that the the Sox should have retained Nomar Mazara at a likely arb figure of over $5M (per MLBTR)?
I am often up for Sox management bashing. I can rant about the Lemon-Kemp trade till this day. That said, I think using Mazara having a good few days is not a legitimate criticism. Even if Mazara has figured something out and has a great year, it was still the right move to non-tender him.
I don’t think anybody here questioned moving on from Mazara. I don’t believe a single OPP plan retained him in arbitration, and very few tried to bring him back as a free agent.
I didn’t think anyone questioned moving on from Mazara but I think hitlesswonder in the original comment is citing Mazara as an example of the Sox failing to evaluate one of their own players correctly.
He signed with the Detroit Tigers for comparative peanuts. If he finally has his breakout season I think it’s safe to say most of the league failed to evaluate him correctly. The White Sox needed somebody who had proven performance in their history. They were hoping Mazara would establish that in 2020, but he did not, so he didn’t fit the bill for what was needed in 2021.
We agree completely. The comment we’re responding to agrees completely. I think hitlesswonder may disagree.
I did bring him back in my OPP plan (resigned him as a cheap free agent). I’m sure we all agree having Mazara in our team will be a much better situation than what we have now.
Don’t think so. I’d rather have Eaton.
We do not agree on that, actually. Much as I hate Eaton, I’m not gonna sit here and declare Mazara a better player after six games.
Mazara: .286/.286/.500
Eaton: .250/.375/.400
Sorry, Mazara is not really producing the same way Eaton is, and what Eaton is providing is more what the White Sox needed because they already have a roster full of guys who hit for huge power but swing at everything.
Oh no… don’t misread me. I also prefer Eaton, but I was thinking on having Eaton and Mazara…rather than seeing Vaughn uncomfortably chasing flies in LF. Of course, signing both (Eaton and Mazara) makes no sense before Eloy’s injury. My plan was to save up money with a cheap Mazara so we can go after Trevor Bauer. And, on top of that, we still had Dunning.
I think upgrading on Mazara in RF was the right decision but added that link about Nomar because it fit the theme of the Sox not-so-great talent evaluation. I (and fangraphs) am not convinced Nomar will sustain this, but we’ll see.
Letting Nomar go was certainly more than defensible, however….
Very valid points. I think Eaton will be better than Mazara, but when it comes to the $$$/WAR ratio, I am certain the Mazara deal will be better. However, you don’t win championships by buying cheap WAR, but by having a lot of it.
https://twitter.com/scotgregor/status/1379843418344538114
This is fine.
Unlike today’s lineup
https://twitter.com/whitesox/status/1379847048661454853?s=20
I guess TLR is all over Lamb’s 1.022 career OPS against Seattle.
Or his .500/.500/.500 triple-slash against Dunn.
Yeah, seemed likely.