Email a copy of 'Offseason In Review: Chicago White Sox' to a friend
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By Tim Dierkes | at
Email a copy of 'Offseason In Review: Chicago White Sox' to a friend
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DarthMurph
Great article. I agree that the White Sox could be contenders in 2015.
Sky14
The Sox front office has done a great job in turning around the outlook of this franchise in relatively a short period of time, in my opinion. They didn’t have much on the farm and a lineup that was bringing them nowhere and added 3 young players along with Garcia for relatively little given up.
Puig Power
I freely admit I was one of the doubters, but this process with the White Sox has been fascinating. I wish them the best and I’m curious to see how this year’s team plays.
coreif
They’re my 2014 sleeper pick.
jdsmith84
Is it possible to get the right Adam Eaton in the link? It’s ALWAYS wrong.
Strugz
Jose Hernandez and Oscar Taveras raise their hands.
Unassisted Triple Play
I give their offseason an A+! I did not see all this coming but they shifted into the right direction with every move they made. It will be interesting to see how all these young new pieces gel with one another.
bjsguess
Hmmm … I think the Abreu projections are pretty optimistic. If every team thought that he would deliver 30+ HR’s year in year out his contract would have been much, much higher. It’s just as likely that he hits 250 with 20 HR’s. At that level of production you would have a $7-10M/AAV player.
Basically this remains a smart signing. His floor isn’t much lower than his contract value. A reasonable projection of 3 WAR gives you a surplus of $5M or so annually. And if he really turns out to be amazing he will be an absolute bargain. This was a solid B+ signing.
The other area that strikes me as being overly pessimistic is the portrayal of Santiago. The guy has a couple of seasons under his belt at age 25. His career ERA is 3.41 and he strikes out nearly a batter an inning. There are legitimate concerns about his control and obviously FIP/xFIP hate him because of the walks, but having a cost controlled, league average starter is pretty valuable. And Santiago could turn out to be much better than league average.
I don’t have an issue with him getting moved. It made sense for the White Sox to trade him. I just don’t buy into the idea that he’s just another arm. You don’t sport an ERA+ of 126 while playing in Chicago’s park without having some game. If he can get his BB/9 down into the 3 range the guy could be a very solid major league arm. As a result, I’m not sure that they got the best value out of him.
Overbrook
You could be right on Santiago, but Eaton a good bet to be solid CF for the Sox. I liked Santiago too, liked his K rate, but he broke down some toward the end of the year; also, from the Sox perspective, he was a bullpen piece just a year ago, so it’s not like there was a huge investment in him (not that that should necessarily matter).
brian310
and they also had a surplus of left-handed starters.
NRD1138 2
Amen about Santiago. Santiago has a lot more upside than Danks and is young yet AND a lefty…The Sox better hope that Eaton produces and Santiago does not go win 15+ games with the Angels this year.
jwsox
Even if he does win 15 games, which is unlikely because even the halos still don’t known if he will be their 5th starter, bullpen guy or go to the minors. Bt even if he does it would still have been a smart move for the sox. The sox got a true lead off center fielder who was the odds on favorite for rookie of the year last year before his injury. And is cost controlled longer than Santiago at a position of more need then a mid rotation starter. The article is right. The whitesox had a surplus of pitchers. Sale clearly isn’t going anywhere. And Q gets better and better, and us younger and a better over all pitcher, danks couldn’t have been moved at the time, maybe this season, Johnson is going to be a very good very solid pitcher, rienzo showed signs of brilliance. And they needed right handed balance. They NEEDED a young high upside high floor centerfield who is cost so trolled and they got him.
mattfromchicago
Having watched Santiago for most of the past 2 seasons, I can tell you he is barely a 4th or 5th starter on a decent team, he’s certainly not going to be a better than average AL starter. He’s probably best utilized as a spot starter/long relief man in the bullpen.
Hugh Hughes
Abreu’s projection is not overly optimistic. At the plate, Abreu blows Puig out of the water…book it. The signing price was relatively low because he is Cuban, plain and simple.
Vandals Took The Handles
Excellent, excellent breakdown!
Quantifying – and putting into perspective – Abrau’s contract in the ‘Deal Of Note’ section was something seldom seen in baseball journalism today. Of course Abrau has to perform. But the “25+ home runs per year, a .340 OBP, and average defense” is something that should be attainable if the man stays relatively healthy and plays home games in the Cell.
Am extremely impressed with what Rich Hahn has done in the 8 or so months since he realized that an accelerated rebuild had to happen, and convinced the owner of it. He based off of his starting pitching and asked his top-tier pitching coach to develop some back-end starters and the bullpen – again, reasonable expectations. Most importantly, he went after a young lead-off guy to set the table (Eaton), and 3 young middle of the order run producers – Abrau, Garcia and Davidson. Genuine lead-off guys that don’t just hit foul balls and walk but rather disrupt defenses, and middle of the order run producers are is demand in MLB. Very few are traded, and those that are free agents command astronomical salaries. Hahn did the right thing by getting young payers with those abilities, and using one of MLB’s best coaching staffs to assure they reach their potential.
jwsox
Don’t forget the good amount of very good middle infielders the whitesox have come up soon, thus forcing a trade of Ramirez and beckham. Micha Johnson is going to be a beast. Marcus semien has shown he can compete at the mlb leve and Tim Anderson should make it to the show soon and never to back down. They have a bright future.
Hugh Hughes
The other good thing the Sox have going is massive payroll flexibility that is only increasing. They could easily add 40-50 million a year in FA signings next off-season.