Podcast: Interesting week ahead for White Sox with MLB Trade Deadline looming
Guest: Patrick Lyons, DNVR
- Josh Nelson and James Fox recap the White Sox splitting another series against Cleveland
- Odd playing time for Andrew Vaughn
- Learning to live with Eloy Jimenez in left field if he hits homers
- Dylan Cease’s incredible run
- MLB Trade Deadline targets for the White Sox
- White Sox vs. Rockies preview with Patrick Lyons of DNVR. [39:37]
Author
God no shit, can this team try playing our best players for a change? So sick of this nonsense. This team is insane when it comes to protecting players from having to play, and whatever plan they have isn’t working when you look at the crazy amount of injuries. If people can’t play regularly, put them on the IL or send them down. We have a few intriguing minor league guys I’d like to see get called up anyway.
Also, the money will be spent? Spend every cent of it on a Cease extension. This kid looks like someone who will give you a chance to compete every time you make the playoffs. He is 100% worth the risk.
Bob Gibson and Dylan Cease:
The only 2 guys in MLB history to allow 3 earned runs total over 11 starts.
Pretty amazing
Am I hearing that Cease is better tan Sale?
Well one thing I do know is that signing Cease to a long extension makes way more sense than the Bosox signing Sale to that latest extension lol.
Is the issue with playing time Vaughn? His OF defense offsets his offense. He has been worse than last season and even worse than Sheets.
I may be alone on this one, but I would want to see him perform under pressure before I gave him the farm.
I think the biggest thing that hasn’t been talked about is how Luis Robert impacts what’s done at this deadline. No one knows what’s going on except Lightheaded and Blurred Vision, and that he’s now on the IL. If Robert is out for an extended amount of time (see: A month vs a 10 Day IL trip), the Sox Front Office needs to add a true outfielder who can actually play defense (Naquin, Gallo, etc). A low buy is more than likely as I don’t view the Sox as a true player for Soto (despite that he fills like 3 separate needs).
Without Robert, this team has like 2 fully functioning outfielders that are capable defensively as well as offensively (in my math, Pollock + Engel = 1 OF | Vaughn + Sheets + Eloy + Leury = 1 OF). I just keep getting the heebie-jeebies about an injury like that with the history we’ve had in Chicago sports (Crawford missing a year with concussions + rehab | Bickell with what became MS).
A long term injury like Robert could drastically change what happens with the Sox trade deadline.
Good point regarding Robert’s current health status. If he doesn’t return by Friday for the Oakland game, I agree with everyone that someone like Tyler Naquin would suddenly become a necessity/priority for the White Sox.
Re the deadline
1) Going to be really interesting to see the volume of trades across MLB. My money is on lower than normal, with most of the acquiring being done by a small number of teams who are willing to pay very high prices in terms of the prospect return. But we’ll see – it’s the first trade deadline under this CBA and with expanded playoffs so no one really knows.
2) For me, we have seen this team hovering around/below .500 for a long time and have a very thin farm system. If it’s a choice between using our limited prospect capital to try to get to the playoffs/win a playoff game this year versus trying to re-fashion the roster in the off-season, I’d probably choose the latter. The advantage of that would be that hopefully by then either or both Yaz & Eloy will have established some value that will open up some opportunities to re-allocate assets in a significant way. We could stand pat (plus or minus a middle reliever) and still make things interesting this year without limiting our potential for 2023 and beyond.
At least so far there aren’t a lot of compelling names floating out on the market. There’s the typical bevy of RP’s and a few SP’s but not a lot of position players of value. It kind of matches up with the coming FA market.
I think if we could get a solid lefty RP who is here for more than 2 months, that has value for this team. The afore mentioned AJ Puk could be excellent but I think he might be a little too pricey, his teammate Sam Moll is having a really good year but is not what I would consider solid.
AJ Puk is having a heckuva year, and I like Josh’s suggestion of a trade involving Crochet + for Puk.
That said, I think Crochet + Ramos would be too much given that really we’d be trading Ramos for a shot at the playoffs this year and he is probably one of our top 2-3 prospects. But I like the framework Josh suggested with a lesser secondary piece.
I’m not against trading Crochet but not sure that this is the trade I’d want to use him for. Yolbert Sanchez would be a good + he doesn’t have a way forward in the org and will be out of it in a year anyhow.
I get that Puk could help us this year and Crochet can’t, but since Oakland isn’t contending anyway, wouldn’t we assume they’d want Crochet and a lot more since him and Puk are such similar pitchers? Puk isn’t even arg eligible yet, so it seems like they just hold on to him unless there’s a deal to be had where they rake the other team over the coals.
I think you’re probably right, and that is where things fall apart for the Sox because with a bottom of MLB farm system and a .500-ish record through 100 games it really doesn’t make sense to overpay for a reliever for the value he is going to provide in 2022 because even if he’s fantastic it probably doesn’t move the needle much on a disappointing season. And at that point you are better off having Crochet + in 2023 and beyond and just getting comfortable with maybe missing the playoffs in 2022.
Yeah, I still don’t understand the idea of giving up anything to improve the bullpen of all things, especially if it’s specifically a move that is mostly focused on 2022.
As far as maybe missing the playoffs, I think that is a long shot. The next 3 weeks should put them in first easily. They are playing complete crap teams non-stop for 19 games, and the Twins/Guardians will be playing very tough teams. They will almost certainly gain enough games by mid August to be in first. As bad as the Sox have played, if the Twins or Guardians were any good, the Sox would be 10 games out. Their central rivals are very mediocre, at best. The Sox are not great, but they are better than those two teams.
This is Puk’s first good year, not unlike Bummer a few years ago. I’m just not down with overpaying for relievers with a pretty short resume of success. As you said, it would not move the needle much anyway. Their position players on the field are their weakness, just as mediocre, defensively challenged, prone to being shut down by RHPs, and injury prone as last year. There is no point in adding marginal players trying to fix that. The way they fix it is to sign legit top tier FA’s in the offseason, so the Sox aren’t the 6th best team in the AL hoping to miraculously beat teams that are clearly better in October.
I think as far as position players, it’s going to have to wait until the off season. We’re going to need to do a fundamental reassessment of our roster as I think it’s flawed to a level where majors changes may be necessary.
That’s a good point.
Unfortunately, “because White Sox” the same people who put this team together will be in charge of making those major off-season changes…Sigh…
How about we do a deal with the devil and trad eloy to the dodgers.
They need some depth in the outfield for this year and beyond with bellinger forgetting how to hit and becoming a soon to be expensive free agent next offseason.
We get ride of one of the many bat only positionless players we have and send him to a team with competent coaches who can either teach him how to field or force him to Dh only.
In return I’d look for something like the following.
David price – Sox need a lefty of any kind, we can slot him in at the back of the rotation or have him be a lefty bullpen arm. He’s expensive and past his prime but by taking him and his contract we can also ask for some prospects in return… such as….
Michael Busch – a lefty 2nd, 3rd, 1st basemen who’s got a slash line of 277/371/544 with an ops of 915 in AAA this year. Will be blocked by the several other all star infielders the dodgers have so he seems like the ideal trade candidate.
Nick nastrini – a RHP in high a who’s only 22 and has 104 strikeouts in 68.1 innings. A bit wild with 33 walks but has gotten above average across the board for his “stuff” just need help controlling it (add in Katz). He would be a nice addition to the project pitchers currently sitting in low and high A for the Sox with Kelly, Thompson, dalquist and now Schultz. Nastrini seems like a lottery ticket worth adding to the mix.
Realistically this doesn’t help the Sox a ton this year unless both price and Busch catch fire but candidly the Sox aren’t winning it all this year anyways. This could be a good “retool over rebuild trade” as I love the idea of getting rid of eloys glove and contract next year and adding in a lefty at second who looks to be able to take his walks and drive the ball out of the ball park.