Podcast: Revisiting the White Sox Offseason Shopping List
Rundown:
- White Sox non-tender deadline moves
- Why we feel Oscar Colas is most likely the White Sox Opening Day starting right fielder
- The internal options at second base
- Ethan Katz asking for help with starting the rotation
- Rick Hahn says the trade market will be more fruitful. How is that possible with such few trade assets?
- Latest White Sox coaching hires
- San Diego pursuing Jose Abreu
Hahn and Reinsdorf, will we ever get anything other than empty promises and phony media narratives from them?
On a positive note, if they rush Colas up, at least he will legitimately improve their defense in RF. I’d rather see him out there than some typical scrub they pick up, no matter how much he struggles.
he is 24 I wouldn’t call that a rush, he got a full season in the minors and showed well in AA and AAA, plus he has some other professional experience
the main gripe is that a contending team in the suppose window should have a much bigger commitment to filling holes with proven MLB talent as oppose to hoping for a top prospect to immediately produce
Yeah, we should be more like the Astros. Did they panic when Correa left in free agency? No! They *checks notes* called up a prospect with limited ABs above A+ ball. Wait…
Yeah right, look how well it worked for us to call up a prospect with no ABs above A+ and but him in RF. An obvious blueprint for success.
Your parallel is at a 90 degree angle. You should look into that.
I would say it has no angle
If you think comparing Andrew Vaughn’s to Oscar Colas’s situation is a 1 for 1 comparison, I frankly don’t know how to respond.
This coming from the person who compared Colas to Jeremy Pena, rich.
I would guess your response would be to go with a Julio Rodriguez comp or better yet, Juan Soto.
Team loses MLB starter.
Team has top prospect at that position close to the majors.
Team chooses to promote prospect instead of signing/trading veteran.
Team sees positive results.
We are currently on Step 2. From Hahn’s comments, we’re probably heading for Step 3. Will we get to step 4? I have no idea but I’d like to hope so. So yeah, I think the situations are pretty damn comparable even if the players might not be. But you’re just to damn interested in your schadenfreude circlejerk to try and look at anything objectively.
I’d settle for Colas being a RF version of Jeremy Pena. Not sure how likely it is, but it’s close to the only hope this team has for much upside in 2023. Pena was a third round pick, it’s about time the Sox had somebody come up with outrageous success for a change.
Let me be perfectly clear that I think expecting Colas to produce anywhere near what Pena did is a fool’s errand. If it happens great, but expectations should be tempered. Having said that, it’s not unreasonable to think that Colas can be an opening day starter and not completely fall flat on his face. This isn’t an Vaughn/Sheets situation where they were thrust into a role they were already ill suited for without acknowledging the lack of experience. Colas looks like he is ready to contribute in the big leagues and successful organizations know when to play the kids and when to plug the holes with veterans.
Expecting anything from this team is a fool’s errand. This team is like 2 or 3 very good position players short of being interesting again, and they are going to have to get exceedingly lucky to add anybody to the roster that will move the needle at all. They won’t sign anybody, almost can’t trade for anybody, so that leaves hoping for Colas to be the bomb. Even if he is great and a huge upside surprise, he’s just one player. He’s also one of their only hopes. But he’s a lefty hitter who can field, so he does have the potential to help two of their most pressing needs. He should help the defense from day one.
About the only other possibilities are trading Liam and/or Graveman for prospects with high upside who might be ready in a year or two. It’s slim pickings for fans of this mess of a team, thanks to Hahn and Jerry.
I was happy to see San Diego is pursuing Abreu. I think that would be a nice place for him to finish out his career. They have a good manager and are committed to winning.
Abreu winning a World Series for Walter O’Malley’s grandson would be the most irritating outcome for Jerry Reinsdorf.
Wonderfully astute, brilliant and often hilarious in a kind of gallows humor way — a perfect start to a Monday morning in yet another Sox offseason. Sadly, though, analyzing the baseball thinking of Rick Hahn is something along the lines of sussing out the political acumen of Michael Dukakis.
Personally , the sox should offer a 1 year contract to Abreu. He has said that he wants to stay with the sox, make it so he can retire here. I really don’t think it would take a lot of money to do that. The sox should look at Cleveland or Houston for the way to field a competitive team, both did that in totally different ways.
The top 5 guys in the Astros lineup had WARs higher than every position player on the Sox. Yeah, the Sox should look to the Astros… which would means adding 2 or 3 great hitters who can play defense, and a couple very good starters. That’s all it would take. I’m sure Hahn is working on all of that as we speak, with great prospects to trade and an unlimited budget to make that a reality.
I don’t think it will happen at all, but signing him would be fine if the plan were something like: 1) sign Abreu, 2) trade Vaughn for a legit starter to fill one of the Sox major holes, 3) trade Hendriks for a legit starter at a different one of the holes, 4) use the salary relief you presumably got from the Hendriks deal (at least a chunk of it) to help you sign a third legit starter to fill the last major hole. If the plan is sign Abreu and still have Jimenez/Vaughn/Sheets filling OF spots, I’m out.
My old pipe dream was trading Hendriks and using the freed up money plus the expiring Abreu slot to sign Verlander.
My new pipe dream is even pipier – do a three-team deal, unloading Hendriks to contender with a deep farm system then send a couple of top prospects plus the haul from Hendriks to the Angels for Ohtani.
Ohtani is everything the White Sox need other than a 2B – he hits left-handed, starts every fifth day, and plays OF defense (poorly but playably). Even at $30M he’d be a bargain.
is that a crack pipe by chance
@soxfan did say it was pipier
I would LOVE to see Ohtani with the White Sox. I just have a feeling the Angels will hold on to him until the trade deadline.
Funny that in 2022, one makes a crack about pipe dreams being related to, well, crack. If I’m not mistaken, the phrase comes from opium pipes which induced wild dreams back in the day.
Ohtani has 8.1 innings in the OF for his career and they all came in 2021. Andrew Vaughn is more of an OF than Ohtani is and that’s how it should be.