What has Rodon done to show he is an ace other than be a high draft pick?

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Maybe but maybe not. He is still a pretty young pitcher that has four pitches meaning that he doesn't have to throw hard all of the time to get guys out. I say that the jury is still out on Rodon.

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

Oh definitely. I am not saying he is a bust or anything close. Just saying I dont think he is an ace on a really good staff. He can definitely be a good pitcher and be a middle of the order guy on a good staff.

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

That's an odd set of parameters.


Rodon will probably have one real ACE like year

Lester is easily going to win more games, so odd take indeed.

But that's most guys. I don't think it's out of the question for Jose Quintana to have an 18-4 season.

Jon Lester is the Cubs' ace. If you think he's going to be better than Rodon over the next two seasons, I'd say think again.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

18-4?

18-10 I could see, but not 14 games over.

_________________

???

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Guys worse than Quintana have had seasons better than that.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Why do you think he was a high draft pick? He has a Carltonesque slider. And I've seen enough of him to expect that he will have a nice big league run at some point. Of course, he could get hurt again.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

He was a high draft pick because he had huge potential. But what has he done since then to be an ace? Again I am not saying he is a bust or even a 4 or 5. But he hasn't done anything yet to be seen as an ace.

Being a high draft pick doesnt cut it otherwise Mark Appel would be leading the Astro staff right now.

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

He didn't throw 7 scoreless in AAA the other night. You can see what he is. We can revisit it after his next couple seasons. The only thing that will stop him is an injury. That could well happen.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

You clearly think more highly of him than I do at the present moment. Per The Score, teams are in talks with the Sox about acquiring him. For you, what would it take to pry him out of Rick Hahn's hands: no deal, a Sale package, a Quintana Package, an Eaton package, something lesser? If I'm Hahn and I get a Sale package or Quintana package I do it.

On my phone and remote so I can give you the research later but I refer you to his string last year of, I believe, six straight starts against eventual division winners all in the middle of playoff runs in which he posted an era of around 2 and greater than 1 k per inning. He then had to be shut down for injury but I’d suggest that is as tough a run as any pitcher had last year in the entire league and pitched just like the ace you doubt he can be

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

If they do trade him, it will just be another nail in the White Sox coffin. I still have huge heartburn about them trading Sale and Q. Dominant pitchers are very hard to find and develop and the Sox could rationally have had one of the best starting pitching staffs in all of baseball. Now we are left with very little except "prospects" who may never make it.

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

Sox were going nowhere with Q and Sale; the "Go For It" attitude amounted to nothing. I'm glad they decided to totally rebuild and have attended more games this year than in a long time because I enjoy seeing the young talent out there.

_________________
Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

Rodon can easily be great, but his risk factor is so high the Sox have to treat him as if he doesnt exist.

I just simply disagree with you. When you have two quality pitchers like Q and Sale along with a young guy like Rodon, you have a CHANCE in every game that they pitch in. As for watching young talent, what young talent do you enjoy watching? Our outfield is the worst in baseball. Our catchers are shit. The pitching staff is one of the worst in the entire Cooper era. They really only have four major league position players and one(Garcia) is injury prone. This is a terrible team. ITs a joke.

As for the Go for it failure, that is totally on Reinny's failure as well as Williams. Most of the guys they brought in were over-the-hill who they irrationally hoped to squeeze a couple of rebound seasons out of. Reinny is just a cheap assed bad owner.

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

Nah. His talent is significant and smart organizations give great talent more than a few changes to blossom. Then you have organizations like the White Sox who trade great talent away on a wing and a prayer.

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

They made the right move trading Sale, they did not make the right move getting back the best package.
They got rid of Eaton at exactly the right time and I believe eventually we will come to appreciate the players we got in return.
The Quintana and Robertson/Kahnle deals both to me feel like huge wins at this stage. Especially the Yankees trade.

No way. You just shouldn't ever trade a guy like that, especially on that contract. It's still frustrating that everybody involved wasn't fired for either that decision, or in putting the Sox in a position where that decision felt necessary.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You're telling me if they also got Benintendi or Devers from the Red Sox you'd be upset about that trade? Or if they pulled off the Nationals offer which probably included Robles and Soto? How about getting Albies and Ocuna from the Braves?

I dont like the Sale trade either, but its entirely because of the players they got back. They could have had a good team THIS YEAR had they pulled off the Sale trade properly.

Yes Im upset at all those packages. You don't trade Sale for almost anything. None of those players you mentioned will have a better career than Sale.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Soto and Albies very easily could.

Also you're overrating Sale. He breaks down after 150-170 innings every year. Career ERA in August is 3.22, which is still pretty good but not "wont trade him for anything" dominant. September ERA of 3.78. He gives up twice as many HR in September as he does the first four months of the year. His K-rate dips, his BB-rate increases. There is no "statistical noise" to it either, over his career his September FIP is 3.86, almost exactly his career September ERA.

That and his goofy attitude and crazy bullshit is really tiresome. He's got weird quirks that get old really fast, like how Minnesota just destroys him. His career ERA over 130 innings against Minnesota is just below 4.00, and that's with him owning Minnesota his first few years in the league. Even worse is against the Tribe his career ERA is 4.78. That's half the division he's either average or straight up bad against.

He's a great pitcher to get you off to a hot start and he is sure is fun to watch, but a winner he is not. The Sox were right to trade him. They may have waited just a couple months too long off the absolute peak of his value but whatever. They just fucked up bringing in Moncada and Kopech as the return when they could've gotten so much more. I still think odds are good they win the trade, but they may not win as much they could have. Or even more worrisome is that wont have won that trade as much as they needed to.

I feel as if that post effectively ended this conversation but I would still like for you (and perhaps others) to come appreciate the strength of my anti-Chris Sale thesis.

I think you made some solid points but I think your conclusion is way off base. He's a once or twice in a generation pitcher that routinely can go deep in games. His career is beyond the ceiling of most prospects they traded for this past offseason. There isn't a person or argument in the world that can convince me trading Sale was a worthwhile thing to do, regardless of package returned(assuming it's a prospect package, like obviously I would trade him for Mike Trout, etc). He's too good.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

If he were really this good he'd have won a Cy Young by now. Or at least been robbed of a couple Cy Youngs. He's never won a Cy Young and looking at each of the awards individually a good case could be made each time that he didn't deserve the award. I know that feels like an arbitrary way to distinguish a pitcher but that matters when you want to defend him by calling him a rare find. Right now he's in the drivers seat to win a Cy Young this year, but who knows...August is in 3 days and his career paints a very clear picture about what his next two months will look like.

I think you just liked watching him clown batters. I did too. It was special watching him in a White Sox uniform. But that team still didn't win games. You can get all pissed off about the Hahn/KW moves that were made and say the ALL-IN offseasons were failures, but Sale's talents just did not translate into successful White Sox seasons. What they really needed to do was spread all that great value they got out of Chris Sale at one position to getting good value out of less-than-Chris-Sales at multiple positions while hopefully adding somebody who could also be a star player like Sale was for the Sox. I think they will accomplish goal 1, but not goal 2 of the Sale Trade.

Sale did his part to win games on shitty Sox teams. He had next to no help the entire time. And that gets back to what has always bothered me the most about the trade, and one I acknowledge I have been a broken record on - if you have to trade a player like Sale at that age on that contract, everybody involved needs to be fired because that is a colossal organizational failure at every level.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

If the Red Sox offered Sale for Eloy right now straight up I would say no.

I wish Eloy lots of luck and smile ear to ear as I welcome Sale back to the place he never should have left.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul