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So if the old story about how no one every took their gains was actually true, the fact they had nine figures in debt means those gains are long gone.

Why do you think he’s going to turn into a pumpkin?

He's a dude that is a peak 60 to 65. But yeah, he has to stay healthy, and he has to condition himself to go 180 innings. Neither of those are a for sure thing. But him and Smith you really, really need to get a #1 starter out of, especially now that Grant Taylor is out of the picture in the rotation.

He’s had consistently above league average offense for 3 seasons. It’s certainly not sexy, but credit where it’s due.

I have no idea where you guys come up with this stuff. Getz literally listed off like four or five needs at the Winter Meetings and said they were focused on addressing them via free agency. A $90M payroll is literally nothing. We were spending that much or more every single year since winning the World Series outside of 2018 (peak of previous rebuild). And even then, our 2018 payroll would be over $90M in current dollars. Point is there is zero reason to think we are going to be below $90M in payroll. I get we have accumulated losses in recent years per Forbes, but we also had gains during the past rebuild and brought on the Ishbia’s to a greater capacity to help address their debt. No way the payroll is going down or staying flat vs. last year after finally getting a TV deal in place and having some second half momentum, which means any minimum floor should somewhere above $80M and a realistic one would be closer to $90M.

They shouldn't need to. But who knows with how this franchise is being run right now.

I know he has a lot of concerns about swing and miss, but I still can't believe the White Sox signed the two time NPB MVP who hit 56 homers in a season during a deadball era to play first base and bat left handed.

FV's for guys like Schultz are funny though. His distribution more likely looks like this: If he gets healthy and stops over tinkering his likely outcome is as a 1 or high 2 (far right of the distribution), but if the knee/body doesn't hold up allowing him to maintain his mechanics then he's a zero. I just don't see much middle with Schultz. Maybe when you average those out you get a 50, but he's an example as to why using the FV grade to dictate star power doesn't always work.

Agreed. So glad Getz stayed far far away.

This. They weren’t planning on doing much, if any spending. Murakami fell into their laps and it was a good opportunity to get a potential power hitting star at their price.

It seems likely that they still have a topline restrictive budget number that they have to stay under. If they could hypothetically trade Robert (even if they eat some money) for Petty and a lotto ticket or something, they could wash out most of the Murakami cost and add a SP who is basically for free money wise and theoretically they could still have some money left for a FA SP too.

Relatedly, Rikuu Nishida has been involved hosting camps for Japanese players who want to pursue the college > draft route. Along with Mune, can't hurt to keep raising the Sox profile there.

I could see them wanting to move on from Robert if they believe he’s unable to stay healthy, but I don’t think they need to shed his salary to fit Murakami into the budget.

O'Hearn going to turn back into a pumpkin. Good on him for getting a few bucks with a nice stretch of games

This deal pretty suggests Sox have to eat half of Benintendi’s salary to get rid of him.

And maybe Overstock.com sponsers the "O" on O'Hearn's jersey for $10M, or so.

Surely nothing worse than the US, step-poster?

I would rather sign Mune, but that said, O’Hearn is gonna help Pittsburgh. With their young pitching, a average offense makes them a playoff threat.

Mangun is probably a backup right? Cruz wasn’t very good in CF and they can use someone who can play the position. Cruz probably would shift to LF (or DH I guess). Roster Resource currently has O’Hearn at DH but that is just a guess. Horwitz does have experience at 2B so could be his spot.

Yep, Ryan O'Hearn isn't bringing in any outside revenue.

Now the Pirates have more cost-certainty at 1B. I wonder which of O'Hearn/Horwitz moves off of 1B to LF or 2B, respectively.

I bet the 8 million gets covered easily by Japanese advertisement and engagement

Yeah, I don't know if it's conditioning or whatnot, but I think Getz just wants to move on from that era, which is fine.

Maybe they can still be in on Robert too