thxfrthmmrs

My sentiment on this off-season precisely. I've defended this FO in years past for missing on Manny/Harper/Wheeler/Springer etc, because either the team wasn't ready for those expenditure or we will get our guy eventually. 4 years after rebuilding our window is wide open and our needs are clear, yet we're still waiting to get the guy who will put us over the top. We were told the money will be spent, but it ended up being spent on decent complementary players (Grandal, Hendriks) or a bunch of mediocre, aging players (Keuchel, Eaton, Kelly, Harrison, etc.) because either JR won't commit to 9 figure deals or Hahn is just bad at what he does. Either way, the "finishing touches" being put on this team is nearing disastrous.

I absolutely agree we could do better against quality RHP, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to go after an LHH RF. Castellanos for example is an RHH but has hit RHP the as well as he did LHP the last two years. We don’t have the data for Suzuki, but there is little indication his L/R split is drastic. At this point we think or we hope their endgame is Conforto, but if we miss on him, the other LHH options left either don’t hit RHP as well as the two guys I mentioned, can’t field well, doesn’t play RF, or all of the above. It’s just a bad strategy to be fixated on one requirement and rule out other options that do not meet this requirement.

I wonder what the thought process was for this signing. Hey Joe, I know you’re injured and you haven’t been a high leverage guy for a while, but let me give you the third largest RP contract this off-season and you come play for us. Oh you know about our needs at RF and SP? Oh we will worry about that later!

If your baseline is the worst RF production in baseball over the last 2 years, then sure these guys could do marginally better in 2022, far from enough to be league average, especially not enough for a team looking to make the WS. Also 2 of the guys you mentioned will compete for DH while the other will start at 2B. So are you really creating a thread on how confident you feel about Engel/Leury/Vaughn against RHH starting at RF for a playoff team?

I am with you on the order. But the fact that there is no Sox rumor in 2 and 3 from that list is concerning.

Again, if they see as that big of a need they furthered the issue by bringing in Harrison who is better against LHH throughout his career. There is only one guy in the FA market who could help solve the problem and chances of landing him isn’t great. If we fail to land Conforto, would you want Suzuki, Joc, or Rosario? I am not convinced Joc is a better hitter against RHP than Suzuki even with platoon advantage and Rosario can’t play RF.

Sox had 108 wRC+ last season against RHP which is good for 6th in baseball. While going after an LHH RF is ideal it shouldn’t be a deal breaker to the point they aren’t even checking in on him. This just shows a disconnect in scouting in Asian market and lack of trust in Asian import, which is another failure for this organization. I want Conforto as much as anyone, but I am not hopeful that they get a deal done given the rumored price tag. Suzuki should cost a bit less, but again, it’s disappointing that there is no rumored interest. Our hope to turn is off-season around is solely riding on Conforto.

What’s concerning here is there is no rumor of Sox checking in on Suzuki and they haven’t made any progress in Conforto talk, makes you wonder how much interest they have to spend on that end of the spectrum for RF vs. going dumpster diving or going in house.

The need for an LHH is overblown. If Suzuki checks all the checkboxes - provide solid defense, good bat, offers youth and upside, and most importantly fits within our budget, are you willing to pass on him for just for handedness? We have Moncada and Grandal who are switch hitters to hit in the top half of the lineup. We could have brought back Hernandez to hit in the bottom 3rd but we brought in a RHH 2B instead.

He’s proven enough for the 4 playoff teams I mentioned to go after him.

If contending teams like Padres, Dodgers, Red Sox, and Giants are bidding for Suzuki’s service and the team across town is meeting with him tonight (shows he’s open to coming to Chicago), is there a reasonable excuse for Sox to not be in the hunt?

They knew they fucked up terribly with the Madrigal deal, but it would have been really bad optics on their talent evaluation if they decline Kimbrel after half a season of poor results. So they compounded the mistake by bringing back Kimbrel with full intention of trading him, overestimated his value only to find out teams aren’t lining up for his service. Seriously, what a mess this off-season has been. We could have kept Rodon for Kimbrel money but the FO was too worried about saving face.

Maybe that’s the reason the board is wanting an established veteran star (I am using that term loosely) to be signed to get them over the hump? And how many more chances you’re going to get? You only have this core for 2 more years.

A. We don’t have Madrigal. B. We lost Rodon. C. Unless multiple players from that group takes a significant step, we aren’t getting past the first round.

The organization philosophy is hand out a bunch of smaller contracts to a bunch of mediocre players and hope they don’t under perform rather than big contract to a true difference maker. There is a reason why our biggest contract is still $73M.

It’s looking more and more likely Kimbrel is staying or we have to eat half of the contract to get him moved.

Unless the Sox they actually have a deep farm to trade from and a couple of prospect arms who could make their debuts this year. They still aren’t at the Sox level, but they could be competitive this year if they want to.

Not tearing it down. They just traded their first rounder for Sonny Gray today. Retooling and free up space for a signing is my guess.

Yep. Imagine having to tell Conforto we really want you to pick us over the others but the best contract we could give you is a 4 year deal with club option in year 3 because we have two OF prospects who may be ready then. That is utter failure as a GM.

Our competitive window is now, you get the guy who’s going to improve the team at present the most and worry about the Cespedes/Colas problem in 2 years.

The craze for bullpen spending started when the likes of Miller, Davis, Chapman became multi-inning shutdown weapons that you can throw into a game at any point in the game and shutdown the opponent regardless of matchup. There are a few players who legitimately fit the bill and deliver consistently, the aforementioned guys, Hader, Jansen, Hendriks amongst a select few. However there is a more conventional wisdom that predates this, and that’s RP are extremely volatile and it’s never a good idea to pay for par performances. If you’re paying big money to Joe Kelly (3rd largest RP contract this off season) to be that shutdown weapon for you in a playoff game, you’re taking a huge gamble that won’t likely pay off. In fact, the Rockies infamously spent over $100M a few years ago on their BP and that failed miserably. Again, that was completely due to giving BP arms big dollars based on what they did in the past and all of those arms broke down pretty quickly.

Look, the people who are defending this signing (and the Harrison one) probably thinks we could still afford the RF and SP we wanted, and that we’d be able to trade Kimbrel without eating any money. With Kimbrel’s market shrinking we should have traded Kimbrel and figure out how much we have available to spend, go sign an RF and sign or trade for an SP before targeting another RP. My prediction is this is no longer the case or worse yet the Sox never wanted to throw big money at Conforto and will go sign someone for $10M instead. I would be less critical of this move however if we still end up with Conforto and someone like Manaea even though I think we’re overpaying Kelly.

I was looking for buy low guys who has signed he was the first one that came to mind. It doesn’t have to be Yates but someone similar who fits the bill. With the accelerated FA timeline I would expect a number of RP will be willing to take a discounted deal over the next few weeks and make sure they have a job come opening day. FWIW from what I just gathered looks like Yates is on track for May/June. While Kelly may not be a go on OD with his biceps injury.

I haven’t seen that he’s only getting $5M in 2022. But more importantly what’s his luxury tax hit?

I would look at whoever is left after my signings on offense and pitching and see how much I could spend. It’s much much easier to get good values from bargain hunting RP than RF or SP. But to answer your question I would have looked at buying low on someone like Kirby Yates who signed for 2/$8M or an under the radar guy like John Curtiss who’s still unsigned.