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And also I don't think the Sox FO should be ashamed. Yolmer should be ecstatic he got that long of a shot to play so many games over a dreadful period for the Sox. He wouldn't have had that shot with many teams. He made a good amount of money. I think everybody can walk away somewhat satisfied.

why would you give ricky the benefit of the doubt tho? This is a guy that batted Reed 4th FFS.

I like Yolmer. I’m glad he signed elsewhere. There are about 7-8 guys I’d rather have that are still FA.

Betts is a real option two contracts from now.

But why? We all like him personally - but as a baseball player, just imagine he was on the Giants for the last 6 years and came over to us on a minor league contract ... we wouldn't bat an eye and say the deal is worth nothing. Take the person out of the equation, we need to move on from this idea that these guys have a place on a team that's really competing for a playoff spot. Yolmer Sanchez was fine for 2015-2019 ... we've turned the page. If we are truly dedicated to winning we need to focus on guys like Scooter Gennett as your UTIL/backup. There's a guy you can probably pay less than $5mm for that was averaging over .300BA, .350OBP and hit 50 home runs over two years before last year that was completely railroaded by a bad groin injury.

It’d be behind idiotic not to. 2 weeks is never better than 1 full season. Ever.

They seem to keep their managerial plans very close to the vest, but I've always had a suspicion that he's "next in line". Based on what I've read about him, I'd love it. It would also correspond well with all of the pro-analytics quotes and articles that came from Soxfest.

Re: Renteria, his roster management late in 2019 really irked me too. There was absolutely no reason for Welington Castillo to get significant playing time in lieu of Zack Collins, for example

Joe Morgan was complete horseshit

I have no problem with a woman on the broadcasts; I just think she was bad in general. Men certainly are bias against women announcers for unwarrented reasons - for example, everyone hates on Doris Burke and Doris is fine and she really understands the game and her knowledge is shown. Mendoza was just a players apologist who did this acting as a "friend" to players and not an analyst. She's also a moron who promoted cheating.

1. All prospects have risk 2. There are more All-stars in baseball than 70 grades given out by FG's by nearly 20 times. 3. Scouting should try to be right, not cautiously optimistic 4. It's OK to be wrong about a guy and evaluators need to get over that fear. 5. Robert is a 55 on FG; so he's no where near a 70. 6. Every prospect has concerns, and in what world does Robert have a .310 OBP? He is projected for a .317 (still low) but he was running 340-380 last year. And yes, no prospect is perfect so Robert deserves a 70; his ceiling is elite. 70 isn't too high for generational tools. This thought process that if he doesn't pan out, then my grade looks stupid is naive. Luis Robert is projected to be a 3 WAR player in the MLB as a 22 year old rookie; if that's not a 70 talent, then nothing is. It's one of the rosiest projections for a prospect I've seen.

Yeah, but seriously why is Steve Stone, a representative of the team, being a jerk to a former player for this team?

Yeah, Baker is a very short term manager.

He will at least get Machado money so why agree to a contract now? No reason at all.

There are hundreds, they just don't get any opportunities or interest because they aren't former players or sexy names. Brian Kenny wrote about this in Ahead of the Curve, it's actually pretty interesting.

my thought is: why not both? Find a manager that can make the right tactical calls and motivate the boys.

Pretty sure we have to ban @Moan4Yoan now.

If the Sox win because of Renteria and not despite as I believe they will, I will eat my skepticism. Until then, I reserve the right to be critical.

The Red Sox

People think ricky will play yolmer a lot because ricky played him over alen hansen and some other bums. Pretty funny.

Adolfo, Rutherford, and Dunning for Betts. Who says no? Not a big return but decent B prospects for a rental.

He might need old school college aluminum bat to clear the fences there

Yeah I hope he catches on in SF. He clearly wasn't getting any offers better than the 6 mil or so the Sox would have owed him in arb. Maybe he just needs a fresh start.

I get people not liking Renteria, but thinking he's too dumb to only play Yolmer once or twice a week with an infield of Madrigal, Moncada, Anderson is absurd.

Yolmer signing elsewhere is a good thing. It opens up the opportunity for them to bring in someone better. Brock Holt, Scooter Gennett, etc.

I think he is. This offseason was unprecedented in terms of signing players and spending, and next offseason could be the next tier.

Depends on a lot of things obviously, but the Sox could sign him for $35 million per year and still have a league-average payroll next year (assuming options are declined on EE, Gonzalez, etc. and arb raises are normal). If (big if) TWO of Kopech/Cease/Lopez have great years (let’s say 3+ fWAR) and the position players perform as expected, it’s somewhat likely that RF will be the only major need, in which case I absolutely can see them allocating all their resources towards one player.

Nice savings of around $6 million. I will guess he makes the Giants but it’s obvious he wasn’t that highly desired.

Was about to say the same. I wish Yolmer the best, but he has had 600+ games to show he could hit enough to be a regular. If he had come up in a different org that didn't suck before going full rebuild he probably doesn't even get half of those games. It was time to part ways. His glove is good enough to keep him on a roster for his quality defense, but its pretty obvious no one was knocking down his door with a starting spot.

Sox FO should be ashamed of themselves. Goldglover was in the org for 10 years and has to settle for a minor league deal... I guess Abreu didnt like him 🤣 "Turned down major-league offers for chance to be everyday starter at second base." ok sure

Damn I thought Yolmer had a chance to some back. I'll miss him dumping Gatorade on himself during walk off celebrations.

I think the only chance Madrigal breaks camp is if he has a monster spring and players clamor for it.

That's awesome. I've wondered how popular the MLB is in Europe. They really should tap into that market more to grow the game. I'm not sure how feasible it would be to regularly do games there but this increased season length to give more off days could be a precursor to it. This is something that should be addressed in the next CBA.

But if we're specifically talking about Mookie Betts, it's worth noting that for top line players like that during this offseason, the White Sox declared themselves out of the game before it started.

This was one of the reasons for the move. Not the biggest one, but we did actually get like 1-2% of our traffic from Europe, and that disappeared at the beginning of 2018 when TribCo screwed the pooch on that stuff. Also, FS now has a writer who in fact resides in Europe, which could not have happened on CN.

That's literally the point of every one of these contracts. Just as an example - in Fangraphs valuations, Mookie Betts last year was worth $53 million. You are not going to pay him even $45 million for any one season in his next contract, which would be roughly fair value for his expected performance in the first few years. However, he's going to get that money - you could sign him to a 7 year, 350 million deal that pays him $50 million a year, or you can up it to 10/$375, you're basically offering him $8 million a year for each of those last 3 years, it gives your team the ability to pay him under $40 million a year during the years that you are most likely to be competitive, and if he holds together as even a 1-2 win player over the final few years of his contract you also get that performance out of him. Whoever does sign him for that kind of money, that's how they do the math. Plus, if there's an opt-out in there that the player is good enough to take, then you might even get out of the commitment for those last few years.

I’ve said it already before and will repeat it here again: If the Chicago White Sox sign Mookie Betts, I will dance naked anywhere this forum asks me to.

Stone sounds like my echo machine. I've been saying no to Puig and Zobrist forever . Holt was one of the first guys i wanted at the start of the off season and have recently suggesting Miller too or Flores if he's still around.

I think that’s probably it. Most teams want him as a utility man. He would likely start at 2B for the Cubs but they have no money to pay him.

Sure, because they traded for him instead of signing an above average, above replacement level, above DFA candidate OF. What else are they supposed to say? "We're actually just rolling the dice here".

I grew up on Franziskaner (and Hacker-Pschorr). Good beers for me to do some reminiscing. Basically any hefeweizen will help with that.

I've heard that Yolbert, Thompson and Dalquist are slated to start in Kanny.

Yes, please have only Ex-MLB women.

Jon Miller and Joe Morgan were the best broadcast duo for Sunday night baseball.

The new site looks phenomenal though. I've said it before many times, but the content Futuresox puts out is simply phenomenal. I recommend it to all the White Sox fans I know. As we enter the (hopefully) golden age for the White Sox, I hope Futuresox and Soxtalk get an influx of new White Sox fans, causing both sites to flourish like never before.

She’s terrible. And in the future, ESPN, please do not add female softball players to broadcasts just to be PC.

in another rumor - cubs in on Gennett. Seeing as it came out of nowhere, I'd guess theyre decently down the line in talks... I realllllly hope that number isn't less than like $4-6mm. I think it would be a huge miss not to give him a shot to handle 2b, OF, 1B, DH, etc. etc. etc. around the diamond for that price. He's only a year removed from a combined 303/.351/.508 slash with fifty long balls over two years before that. He's a guy I've wanted the Sox to give a chance badly...

Kopech would need to miss around 57 calendar days from Opening Day to not exceed 172 service time days in 2020, which would be May 21st - if I am doing my math right.

Sure, for as long as you want. 😂

There will always be some type of issue as long as any promotion/free agency/arbitration is tied to time. There has to be a cutoff at some point.