Leaderboard

Just looking at the Phillies offseason and it’s crazy how much they accomplished. Harper, Realmuto, Segura, & Cutch just on the positional side. They also were able to move a bad contract in Santana and shift Hoskins to 1B, which is also a big positive. Throw in Robertson and they had the best offseason bar none. The sad reality is we could have accomplished something similar over the next two offseasons. All it took was landing Manny or Bryce this offseason. After those misses, I just don’t see a great path forward for us in free agency nor do I see a quick turnaround.

Its. March. 5th.

Why write that

How many times does the same exact injury need to happen the same exact way before they either make him wear a sliding glove or make him slide feet first?

I think I have decided there was collusion between the sox and the phils this offseason. To me that is the only logical reason no to go after Harper after MM signed. There had to have been a "gentlemen's" agreement that if they backed off MM we wouldn't try for Harper. it might sound conspiratorial but I really cant think of a good reason not to go for Harper. (he ended up being cheaper than MM)

Going Thursday night after work. I'm so cool.

Hes not good.

That's some easy power right there.

He is only going to get better. He hasn't been focused on just baseball for very long and just his 3rd year in the league at 25 he was a 20/20 guy.

Absolutely. This is free cheese. Make the opponent either change his line up early, and tie his hands for the rest of the game, or give the reliever, someone you would have used later anyways, optimal match ups. The regular starter can still go 5 or 6 or 7 innings.

I will never understand why they gave up on him https://mobile.twitter.com/MarksReeseWIP/status/1103011984528891905

Oh come on, you know nothing that has been said on this board this offseason has been accurate

Pretty sure the 3-inning / 5-inning thing is the penalty for not running out a grounder. Ricky makes the player stare into the sun for 3 straight innings. This is especially bad considering today is a Giolito start, we all know how long his innings can last. edit: words

SHUT YOUR FACE!

I'd pay if I could afford it but in my financial situation it would be a frivolous purchase. I could do either BA or the Athletic and since the Athletic covers all sports, I choose them.

Seems like deja vu from last year. All it’s missing is Madrigal getting a season-ending injury.

Man, some really odd takes in there indeed. Rivera at 16? I like the guy but, no. Burger at 23 is hilariously low. Henzman and Booker don't belong on a T30 or even all that close to it IMO. No Flores or Lambert are surprises. And I still think Stiever is consistently underrated - he's on no one's list other than FutureSox (and even there I think he's low at 28).

Plus.... the pitch face. How can anybody give up on that pitch face?

There are people calling Hansen a non-prospect? A guy who made T100 lists a year ago? With his filthy stuff? That's ridiculous. The command and injury risks came back BIG time last year for sure, and he's fallen back on the ladder, but he is absolutely still a significant prospect. You just don't give up on that level of talent, especially when he's shown before for a year and a half at a stretch that he can dial it back in. He's a prospect now and will be for at least another couple years even if he struggles.

L in front of Garcia. Some habits are hard to break.

That means they’re required to be in the dugout for that amount of time to be a good teammate, then they head out.

After what just happened this offseason, I have serious doubts about our ability to make big additions in future offseasons as well. If we weren't going to be players for 26 year old stars, why would we pony up for 29-30 year old guys? It very well may be a year early, but you cannot control when premium talent will be available for only money. Using our financial flexibility to sign elite players should absolutely be a large part of our rebuilding effort. I believe they did try hard for Machado, and felt they had the best offer until the Padres blew them out of the water at the last minute. Fault still lies with the organization for not getting it done.

Run away as fast as you can, velocity decline, throw to contact / "grounder" pitcher at Gtd HR Field = bad idea

The total lack of command/control with everything doesn't profile to anything if he doesn't get it back. Bullpeners are often the two pitch pitchers who can't develop a third pitch. The inability to throw a strike is career threatening. I really hope he gets it back cause he was looking really really good at one time.

steal

The Sox pitching is a huge wild card. It could be anywhere from very bad to pretty good, or anywhere in between. That is what you get when 3/5 of your staff is 26 or younger and 2/5 are veteran retreads. Reading the Fangraphs writeups on Rodon, Giolito and Lopez weren't very inspiring though. Surprisingly enough, they think that of the three Lopez is the worst of the bunch. They don't think Lopez is a major league pitcher. They're not sure Giolito is either, but they're more optimistic about him than Lopez. They think Rodon is nothing more than a #4. So maybe the pitching really is worse than we think and there isn't room for growth.

I fear our pitching. It is potentially very bad.

Our pitching is overrated and MLB.com agrees, as they have us as the 18th rated pitching system. We are boom or bust. The good news is that we can trade our surplus outfielders and DH types for pitching down the line.

This is out-of-control homerism. I'd rather have any one of Acuna OR Albies for Moncada and Kopech combined at this stage.

What a weird assumption that the scouting was based on BA100 lists. Really weird assumption. You’d have to apply that same logic to the other trades to really put the cherry on top of this clown case you’re arguing Even today I’d rather have Moncada/Kopech than Acuña/Albies. Everyone has the same frustration with Moncada man, your position isn’t anything new. It’s just the general disappointment of last year with a bit of whiny added and a side of cliff-diving. Everybody is familiar with that point of view. A little improvement and he’s suddenly a reeeeeeally good player to have.

He's been a league average hitter so far and he's only 23.

Would it kill the son of a b*tch to show some loyalty to the FANS, for once!

If our beleaguered fan base is slow to supporting “winners”, it’s because there have been so few of them throughout the team’s history. Just 9 trips to the postseason in the 118 years of the team’s existence. So don’t go down this “it’s a two way street” baloney when it comes to the fans’ responsibility in all of this. We are the consumers of a product that has been very bad for a very long time now. It’s a one way street at the moment with the sole responsibility to turn this mess around squarely on the owner and management team’s shoulders. And you saw in the past ten days or so how seriously they took that responsibility, despite having all of the means and resources to do so. They have earned the low attendance figures, the rock bottom TV/radio ratings, and now the ire of a long-abused fan base over this latest in a long running list of failures and franchise-crippling decisions perpetrated by the billionaire Reinsdorf and his goon management team.

There it is, blame the fans for not supporting a shit product. I actually enjoy your overall contributions to the site, but I completely disagree with your assessment on the business side of things. And what wrongs are worse than this? White Flag? Strike? What else is even close?

Isn't the bigger question, what is the same in both cases? I think it starts with a J and ends with an erry.

Anyway point is while I wouldn't want Dick Williams or Dayton Moore running the white sox, I have to agree with balta that Rick Hahn is the worst GM in the league at this point. Some bad ones got fired recently, nobody has been operating as long with as little accomplished. DiPoto had similar constraints as when hahn took over and still created an 89 win team with paperclip trading. And DiPoto is not good.