Balta1701

I don't have access to the pay stuff but found this from a year ago.

There's my problem. They are absolutely going all in on "we can develop all these guys into way more than they're worth right now". If 2 years from now they were wrong, this team looks like the 2020 Royals, 4th place, not all that good, and future 5th place finished coming, but likely with the same guys leading the way.

If they're wrong do they get fired?

This is more an expression of their inability to find the kind of elite guys they gathered up during the last rebuild than it is a strong supporting statement for these guys. Perhaps this works better, but this statement illustrates how they are trying to rebuild based on depth alone. It's at least different from Hahn, but not obviously better? And elite numbers without elite velocity is a harder thing to say will translate. Sometimes it's Buehrle, often it isn't.

My guess based on last year was that teams would be more willing to give up those prospects if they were sitting in a playoff spot in July and Cease was sitting there with a 2.85 ERA.

Hell, from that point they added 2 more top 5 picks and a top 15 pick before their first playoff appearance.

I would buy this also, which would tell you a lot about who the actual GM is right?

If he's not a CF defensively then this is a much weaker deal because a dozen minor league HR but a decent A-ball OBP is a Benintendi-type corner outfielder, unless he grows into more power with age?

All right, harder one for I think everyone - When the Baltimore deal went down, I said that the return wasn't so big that you'd say "This destroys the White Sox if they turned it down and then Cease got hurt." I would stand by that, no reason to rush to that deal. If the White Sox turned this down and Cease got hurt, it feels like this is a minor bit of damage but not a lot. It feels to me like this isn't such a heavy return that you'd think it would dramatically change the White Sox's rebuild schedule if they held onto Cease and he got hurt. Some additional depth, but question marks on everyone. That, to me, seems like a reasonable standard for doing a deal now - it would have to return so much that it's not worth waiting to the deadline. Anyone disagree? Was this a deal we couldn't afford to turn down? If so, care to explain? Happy to listen.

I find it interesting that they brought back a young CF in this deal.

It looks like he was already pitching out of the bullpen in the minors last year, so I think it's safe calling him a reliever for now. There's promise here, if any of these guys break out then this looks like a great deal, but this is definitely not what people were demanding a month or two ago.

Looks like he has a total of 30 AA innings? Let him throw at least a half season against AA level competition first.

So I guess congrats that he moved at all? One solid prospect, one guy outside the top 100 with promise, and a likely reliever is probably 1 more player than I thought he was worth, so I guess y’all can brag on that, but this is a far cry from what he was supposed to be worth. Is Zavala Robert’s replacement?

The obvious problem with wanting to bring in Maldonado to be around the young catching prospects is...Lee, the young catching prospect still in the big league camp, was with the Astros last year, as was Maldonado.

I'm live-tweeting a conference right now and "Holy Overpay" just showed up trending.

Ridley to the Titans.

Soon as in "the 2024 season?" Sure.

All along I've said that Getz is going to want that higher value price and teams aren't going to pay that price until they see Cease in April. That continues to be the obvious version of how this has gone, no matter how many times people try to push different things through the media.

And yet people tagged me in this thread last night because they needed to brag about the clear and unambiguous fact that things were going to happen.

There is a clear benefit to the White Sox in trying to sell the Yankees on the idea that other teams are interested and putting in new bids, to encourage the Yankees to raise an offer they've been unwilling to improve. We have been watching this the whole offseason, it's a vicious combination of people with similar motivations and no accountability. The White Sox want to make it sound like there is interest in him, insiders know there are no consequences if they're wrong and they get lots of clicks when they can talk about a trade market involving the Yankees, the White Sox know there are no consequences if they exaggerate a little bit in a way that might help them because the insider will push the same story again 2 months later.

He has 2 home runs so he has an .856 OPS in recorded spring games.

The Yankees probably put in calls to both Boras and the White Sox and anyone else who might be selling a pitcher as Due Diligence - seeing if any of them have dropped their price is a reasonable move. The message then gets sent out, probably by Getz - "We've re-engaged with the Yankees" to the insiders, even though if nothing is happening it's probably true that they talked. For the White Sox, they again may put a little pressure on other teams to try to drive the market. In reality, the other teams are wanting to see where they are during the season and where Cease is during the season, and the Yankees aren't yet desperate enough to try to make an all-in move.

But the eyeball emoji!!

If you have an elite SS prospect at AAA, he's probably also top 25 in baseball, maybe better. That's tradeable for elite pitching or all star players (Robert caliber) if you do have a guy fully blocked.