almagest

Smith just signed for 3/39 with a 4th year option at $13 mil with a contender. I don't think you were getting him for 3/40 without that option year or making that year guaranteed, and then you're looking at 50+ million. Yeah he's really good but I don't think Colome kept the White Sox from signing him, plus $31 million isn't going to be a third of their budget longer-term.

Colome was pretty good last year. Who are you getting for 8.5 mil/yr that's going to be as good or better in the same time period?

Once all the other team information came out I figured Wheeler would go elsewhere. Any time we hear any deal info leak the player is as good as gone.

Thank god we're hearing from lemonade again.

After getting burned by the Machado/Harper fiascoes I'm not letting some random Twitter guy break my heart again. We'll see what happens the rest of the week but I'm assuming this continues for another couple weeks.

If a lemon-based twitter account breaks the Wheeler signing it will be perfect.

Cole slight preference. Happy with either. More concerned that Cole wouldn't do well here because of our difference in pitching (and everything really) philosophy from the Astros, though Giolito's improvement makes me feel better about that.

Some of Ozuna's advanced stats are encouraging but I'm still nervous to sign a player who on the surface didn't have a great year in a system known for getting a lot out of players. I have no confidence that our player development and advanced scouting will do anything better than provide no benefit to his performance and honestly will probably end up hurting him overall. I'd be more in favor of signing JD Martinez to stick him in right field to be terrible on defense because even with that giant handicap I think he'd still out-perform Ozuna because there's no way we could screw up his bat. He could also provide a big benefit as an example of how to approach hitting.

There were bad passes and one pass too many a couple of times but overall I agree. They looked great in the first three quarters.

Some notes from the game: White looked pretty good moving the ball but his shot is not great Felicio is even worse live than he is on TV Gafford is solid but got into foul trouble quickly I liked the three-point focus The back of the bench is atrocious Zion is like a faster Barkley

I'll be at the game tonight. Really interested to see Lonzo & Zion on the Pels side and Coby White for the Bulls.

I wouldn't think about that until he's closer to free agency and you don't think you can resign him. No guarantee you're going to get what you want for trading him. Honestly, you'll probably get a similar package to what we got for him in the first place - one higher minors top 20 prospect and a couple of lower-level solid options. I don't think teams can afford much more than that and trading him now with so many years left on his deal after a 5+ WAR season would mean we'd need to get more back to make it worth it.

Betts would be an enormous upgrade in our biggest position of need. It only makes sense if they can sign him to an extension and if the ask doesn't involve any prospects of note, which means it doesn't really make sense. Would be a great potential move, though.

An L here with Detwiler getting shelled but a 4-4 from Timmy and homers from Moncada Eloy and Collins.

They have the talent to win 95-100 games on the offense still, and that likely won't change next year. They need a lot of pitching help though. Lester might be done, Hamels is probably a 5th starter at best, Quintana is best as a 3 or 4, Hendricks is fine, and hopefully, Darvish can continue pitching well. That's three dependable starters with only Darvish having ace potential - you could argue Hendricks but I'd need to see 30+ starts and ~200 innings before I'd give that to him. They almost definitely don't have the money for Cole but that's a great fit for them. They also don't have much trade capital to acquire an ace. I assume they'll be active in the mid to lower-tier free-agent pitching market but will that be enough for them?