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Why do the Braves need to bring racism into baseball? Some of us would like to just enjoy the games.

In addition bWAR for some reason 2017 4.1 bWAR in 109 games 2018 3.4 bWAR in 153 games 2019 3.9 bWAR in 151 games 2020 2.1 bWAR in 54 games fWAR 2017 4.4 fWAR in 109 games 2018 2.9 fWAR in 153 games 2019 3.9 fWAR in 151 games 2020 2.1 fWAR in 54 games So...he "barely touched it" in his 2017 season where he hit 4 war in 2/3rds of a season, but when he was at 3.9 in 2019, that's not 4...that's 2 "and change" I guess. And in 2020, where he had 2.1 WAR in ONE THIRD OF A SEASON that is somehow held against him as a 2 WAR season.

What makes you think Kopech is going to pitch any better than he showed us this year. I watch a lot of games and wasn't impressed. Cease, Cease, Cease all I keep hearing is how he has the best stuff which may be true but he's lost between the ears on how to get batter's out consistently. Seems any bad call by the umpires throws his game off which leads to him not being able to locate the plate, which resulted in walks, walks, walks. Rodon not testing the market with Boras as his agent is another one that I'll believe when see it, hope so but you certainly can't count on him being a part of our rotation.

Nope, I think you can fairly easily trade Keuchel and burger in a package to a rebuilding team (even easier if the new CBA has a salary floor) for the one commodity contenders need that rebuilding teams do not...relievers. Obviously we will have to eat some portion of that salary however. Guys like keuchel have value to rebuilding teams. 1. They mentor young pitchers (like nova, & shields did in our rebuild, an no not worth the tatis trade). 2. They eat innings protecting their young starters and bullpen. See Detroit where skubal * mize were just throwing 3 to 4 innings despite doing well because they innings were capped. 3. They can the use guys like kuechel as currency to get more prospects if they rebound. Imagine if we were rebuilding waht we could have got for Dallas if we traded him after he started, what? 7-1? Traded at the end of May not at the deadline. A trade could look something like this: Keuchel + Burger+ Collins + money to Texas for Jonah Heim (or there other catcher) and Barlow 9 or some other reliever. Or Burger and Keuchel = Money to balt. for Frye or plutko or Burger and Keuchel + Money to Arizona for Carson Kelly

What about his most recent year, the year he was beneath Leury, beneath 39 game Adam Engel. To pay top dollar for such a player, and forgo the necessary acquisitions at 2B, in the bullpen, considering a fifth starter, is hoping for a third straight season a new RF acquisition won't suck as he did the past season. See Mazara and Eaton. Let alone bringing in yet another high priced NL "stud" hitter which ultimately turns into a turd in the AL. Tthe Sox have spent an inordinate amount of money the past two seasons paying a players top performance of yesteryear, and pulling out excuses when players are in decline, or players in their thirties are injured and don't perform or are injured far more than they were in the past. We have a difference in opinion, my point is you don't lock most to all of your remaining available payroll on a player who sucked ass last year, would have been a downgrade over internal options, and will cost you a lot of money. I'm not too worried, as I doubt the Sox will commit whatever resources they have this off-season on Conforto. What contract ($s and AAV) are you willing to throw at Conforto?

I will accept this is as an admission that your Abreu threads are trolling and henceforth lock them. See, mods do stuff!

Ok Didn't say it wasn't; try reading closer. Yep, but it's a substantially smaller gap than it used to be. Here's one article, of dozens available, explaining this: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/9/21/17885820/pitch-framing-strike-zone-jorge-alfaro-tyler-flowers Didn't say it was -- but it's a nearly universal consensus (and was at the time of the White Sox signing) that Grandal is/was elite at the former and terrible at the latter -- and that happens to be who we're talking about. It seems like you had a particular-shaped complaint that you wanted to fit my post into ahead of time. I don't even have a problem with Grandal on this team, lol. All of the teams that are employing specifically those players? The two teams in the ALCS are good examples, but you can find more.

He is a defensive hole, expensive, a 2.4 bWAR player. 2015-2021 bWAR: 2.1; 0.6; 3.7; 2.7; 3.6; 2.1; 0.9. 2015-2021 dWAR: 0.8, -0.2, -0.5, -1.0, -0.7, -0.1, -0.9. Hard Pass.

Bosox losing, and the Astros being caught (again), would be as close as you’d ever get to that “wish they could both lose” scenario when two hated teams plays each other. 😂

Oh my God! Didn’t I start with stats? Sox LAST in baseball in passed balls and wild pitches. Sox LAST in baseball in throwing out runners. Those are stats! You guys quote this stat or that stat as empirical proof. Isn’t often the difference between a hit and a error an “eye test”, an opinion. Doesn’t that opinion affect offensive and defensive war? Isn’t the weight given to offense vs. defensive stats in war, and how war was created based on the values attributed to this or that based completely on opinion. Quote any stat you want, You cannot watch Grandal catch a week’s worth of games and claim he is anywhere near the defensive catcher McCann was. You guys making fun of the “eye test” are like the guy standing in the rain while everyone else is under an umbrella insisting that the radar on your phone says it’s not raining.

You can remove "this season" and be correct every time. Atlanta was dead in the water when they essentially lost their entire outfield. Look what a competent FO can do. I'm beyond jealous.

Another guy our FO may have missed is ALDS MVP Astros Yordan Alvarez, a Cuban defector. Thought we had these type of guys cornered with Abreu and others. This guy is pretty awesome hitter and a lefty. He was signed by the Dodgers and traded to the Astros, which LA admits now was a mistake.

Beyond QO to Rodon, love either Toronto option. The likely answer is the money has been spent. Glad Wainwright and Molina already signed.

I'd rather sign Yan Gomes than anyone else. We're thin at catcher. Between Vaughn, Eloy, Burger, Sheets and Engel We can get by on the corners. Of course if Robert gets hurt again, it could get ugly real quick.

That is a good bench mark.

You should know by now that "eye test" is internet speak for "confirmation bias".

Insider alert! Lol

There are definitely Bars on 100 level that serve cocktails, there is like a crown royal club I remember. No idea if they'd serve you shots though, kinda doubt they'd have cups for it.

I think Lopez is your 6th starter, long man, spot starter next year (With off days in April and rainouts you won't need 6 starters for example). But I think we must sign a legit starter next year whether thats Rodon, Scherzer, Gausman, Desclafini, Verlander, Darvish, etc. Not sure I'd put gray in same category as quintana or hill.

Starting pitcher? Why do we need a SP? We have 5. 6 if Rodon takes QO. I have zero idea how any person can say that RF shouldn't be a priority, and your lack of concern for OF defense is....concerning.

I love Semien but I really love Jose Ramirez who is a FA the following year.

Came here to hopefully get some LAD/ATL series talk after admins got political and shut down that thread only to find admin posting about the MLB's political contributions of $15k (literal piss). I don't know about you guys but I've always followed the MLB Postseason (topic of this thread) because I want to learn and talk about the political contributions the MLB makes with their pocket change. Was always under the impression this topic was against the rules of the site but glad we can have these conversations.

While teams like the Dodgers are putting converted shortstops all over the field the Sox will put converted first baseman. That's not going to close the gap. This team needs to get more athletic not less.

In an above post I explain why I think Gavin might be special and not a candidate for major regression. I never said I was against improving the position or having an insurance policy. I'm against Gavin as just a bench/ph hitter because we won't learn what he is in limited playing time. Full disclosure, I considered conforto for next year as a rf answer when I saw a list of probable free agents before we brought up Gavin. But, I saw conforto has the best left hitting option available, but not necessarily a good option. I see Conforto as a high "floor" person not a high "ceiling" person. I would be all for sign a better left hand hitter FA rf he was out there for this year, but he is not. Someone like Benitendi, harper (duh), verdugo, carlson, etc. This is my opinion, I could be wrong as could any to which I am debating. Which is great a healthy debate. Being a defensive liability is a great point. One I feel can be mitigated in various ways. What frustrates me is a couple of things. 1. Too many of us seem to see players in a vacuum. He sucks or is great now so he will always suck or is great (think how many suggested luis Robert was a bust after 2020). If a player is bad its always some trend not that he was playing hurt, his wife divorced him, his brother died. No he is bad. This is not to make excuses for players but there is a bigger picture that stats don't explain. 2. Statistics are an important tool that are often mis-used and misunderstood. 3. I have seen the sox go through a bevy of adam, Dunn's, Larouche's, etc looking for a lefthanded hitting slugger and when one may finally fall in our lap's we are so quick to dismiss him. I don't want to have the Tatis regret with Gavin when he his hitting 35 bombs and batting 2.80 for the A's (no I do not think his talent is anywhere near Tatis, just that people will be bitching how shitty the organization is for letting Gavin go, because we knew all along how good he would be..like Tatis)

When I look back at last offseason it's amazing how just about everything didn't matter If the Sox kept Renteria or signed Hinch instead of Tony, they win the division and lose in the ALDS. If they sign any RF other than Springet, same thing. If Rodon went somewhere else, as great as he was, same thing. If they don't trade for Lynn, same thing. Although if they didn't do that he probably wouldn't be available for a 2 year offer. It probably would have made things closer and maybe Cleveland doesn't make Cesar available to the Sox and they have to settle for Escobar.

There are also legit reasons showing a pitcher is in a downward spiral. In the two season's prior to his great first half of this year, his era for the Cubs was 6.53 in 2019 and 5.28 in 2020. Add that to the 5.09 he posted with the White Sox in the second half and and I don't believe we'll get much for him without eating some of his salary. You and the Sox may be confident someone will pick-up that 16 million dollars but based on his stats prior and after the first half of this year I'm not. I was at a game during this season and I sat next to a Boston transplant who was there to see his Red Sox, Kimbrel came up and he said if it's any consolation he wasn't confident of his ability when he pitched for them and won the WS. All the GM's know the Sox are backed into a corner by picking up the 16 mil option and that we have no use for two closers making 30+ . Based on that knowledge I doubt the offers will come rolling in. His only good stats in the last three years were the first half of this year without any real pressure to perform since the Cubs were in the rebuild mode after the 11 game losing streak. Time will tell as there's always a desperate sucker, but I doubt that will happen without the club eating more than the 1 million that they could have saved money by cutting bait. Admit it didn't work out and move on.

Set it to qualifiers, still behind Adam Duvall, who'll come at half the cost. Sox need Jermaine Dyes, not another $15M-$20M / year player. They are restricted enough at this point with a top heavy payroll.

Recognizing racism isn't becoming woke. I enjoyed those games (I was 12-22) in the 90s and when I realized what was going on it definitely changed my enjoyment of those games and I wasn't a fan of it. At some point a lot of bigoted pejoratives changed from regular conversational words to words that should not be spoken due to their meaning to a race. If you want to push back on ageism so much then maybe you should sit this one out .

minimum attempts set to 10 huh 🙄

It's a good thing they have a Hall of Famer baseball person to make it all work.

How might a team go about minimizing the weaknesses by a guy like Grandal? Well, the front office could do it. You might make sure you have a backup who can block stuff and who you have confidence coming in late in games, which could also help rest Grandal’s older legs. If say, you had 2 backups, one was bad at framing and the other even worse at blocking, maybe you keep the guy around who blocks the plate better. Better still, you start working with that guy to improve his framing, it can be done. Or if you are thinking of paying a high price for a reliever in a trade, and that reliever relies heavily on a nasty knuckle curve in the dirt, maybe you recognize this will be a problem for your catcher and skip that trade. And if you don’t have people in your org who recognize that issue beforehand, you find better people. And hypothetically if you are in a playoff elimination game and your starter has a big fastball and a wipeout slider, but has had shoulder problems lately and not thrown a lot of pitches, and that starter gets in trouble in say the third inning, maybe with a runner on third, you recognize as a good manager that the catcher might not want to call for the slider and risk a passed ball, so before your pitcher throws three straight fastballs, you ask whether the pitcher still has his best fastball, and if he doesn’t you take him out before that at bat. Totally hypothetical.

Matrix Maldonado had 7, Christian Vazquez had 10. Reading this board you would think Grandal has 3 or 4 a game.

Ahhh, yes. Let's let another year of the window disappear with a giant hole in RF. Sorry man, its just a terrible plan. I am not suggesting we get rid of Gavin, but handign him the job, whether that is DH or RF, is a terrible idea.

so? Conforto bloomed earlier. It took Gavin longer but he clearly has gotten better. Why do you think he will stop getting better?

greg's back!

Abreu is still a vital cog. I hope he stays healthy. This team's flop in the playoffs really changes my outlook on the "rebuild." Sox pitching staff is really in shambles following the decline of Keuchel and dead arm or whatever Rodon had. Also, Lynn wasn't exactly money in the playoffs and Cease wasn't either. The bullpen is not lockdown. Liam had a nice year but also was far from automatic. The lineup? Injury after injury. Rick Hahn needs to address injuries. No excuse when you are a team like the White Sox to not have the BEST trainers. Maybe the Sox do have the best. I sure hope so. As far as Jose ... I could see him having an even better year next year. If I had to guess ... a monster year next year and Sox win it all. After that his decline begins. Sox lineup could be deadly with Robert and Eloy and Adolpho coming with Timmy and the many other bats. Sheets looks like a star; Vaughn and Burger MLB quality bats.

Yaz has defensive issues that I believe go under the radar in stats measurements @CeaseAndExist. After watching him here in LA for years I expected them when we signed him. Pitch selection when up the the count could be attributed to his game calling also.

Do you actually watch the games? Your cool with all the passed balls and 0-2 fastballs down the middle?

Sure bring politics into a baseball game thread. Some of us would like to just enjoy the games.

What do you think he would get if he were a free agent this year under the old CBA? I could see him getting $20 million guaranteed but over 2 years. I can’t see him coming close to $16 million on a one year deal. Maybe $12 if the market was strong that year?

I think there is a better chance of TA catching than Hahn leaving. Why would he leave just as the rebuild is over? Maybe he doesn't have enough power, but he never did, and never left. And really who is going to hire him and give him total control? It wouldn't be based on winning. KW leaving could be a different story. His wife quit the local news. Maybe they want to retire and enjoy life. But I don't know why he would walk away when he must feel the team is on the cusp.

Caulfield: God help the Sox if they do these things. Also Caulfield: The under .500 Padres might be ok next year due to a AA pitcher that regressed and several pitchers coming back from severe injuries.

I have grown to dislike Merkin's reporting - he always seems to just give the worst case scenarios so if things don't turn out better than that, he has tried to quell the hopes of Sox fans. Obviously Boob already reported that Kimbrel's option will be picked up, but Merkin confirms as such here. I think that is noteworthy for the many people that feel the Sox should reject the option. Boob's takes are usually only about 50% right anyhow.

If we sign a LEGIT RF or 2B, I am fine with the other being in-house or dumpster dive signing. Ala, if we sign Semien for 2B, I am fine with Engel/Sheets. If we sign Conforto, I am fine with Leury/Romy/Hernandez

They’re much better off with Conforto and then using their trade ammunition (whatever there is remaining next year at the deadline) to add more starting pitching. They can get by with what they have on the pitching front and maybe one more veteran reclamation project, at least until July. Which means Lopez, Lambert and Stiever.

I will add if there’s a way to somehow retain Rodon & sign Conforto, that would be beyond amazing and I’d totally be ok with dumpster diving at 2B and the final spot or two in the bullpen.

Those are probably five of the biggest questions, although getting some sense of payroll expectations for next year would be the big one. The difference between say a $190M payroll and a $170M would be massive. I still think we’ll be closer to the latter and that realistically means Kimbrel is gone (which we already know) and that we can only afford one larger contract. As such, that means either Rodon returns on a QO or we sign a high end RF / 2B (with Conforto being far more realistic than the premium infielders). I think we ultimately fill the rest of our holes with cheaper internal options and C tier free agents.

Guess being the key word. All you can do is guess as to whether they're really that good or still cheating.

Craig Kimbrel and Matthew Thompson for Gavin Lux

My Many Saints of Newark Review: IT STINKS!