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My God, he's only played 29 games. You act like he's given us years of bad defense.

I don’t get why everyone seems intent on trading Madrigal. Granted, he doesn’t have power, but we need guys to get on base for the rest of our power hitters to drive home. He’ll hit .300 plus every year (maybe .320+), strike out little, and provide good defense. We need players like this to play this role and trading him would leave a hole in our lineup.

Eh. Personally, when I think "Future Sox," I think prospects. Not some quad-A reliever. It's probably fine here.

What? for deGrom maybe, if they throw in Conforto.

Now. If rumors were true look at what Lance Lynn would have costed then and now. I was in favor of getting him anyway but the price would have been Kopech or Andrew instead of what we gave up.

I pushed refresh on Soxtalk probably 125 times... that’s something.

I can also predict something will happen fast - there's only 4.5 weeks until pitchers and catchers report, *of course* things need to heat up now.

You all disgust me. Reported. I reported you twice, Joe.

over here trying to do the whole vegetarian thing and this mf

This same group of republicans that keep saying we are rushing to impeach are largely the same group that rushed to confirm a Supreme Court justice after their own leader said this would not be done

I think 2k5 had a senior moment.

Why is he upset Abreu won MVP?

I guess the big difference is that at no point in this contract is it actually 18M/per for for some reason some people can’t comprehend that

If you access, this is a great read. In it he states he didn't full recover from Covid until after the season ended, he was upset that Ricky is gone, and that Abreu is an MVP.

"Would you rather fight 1 Nick Madrigal sized duck or 100 duck sized Nick Madrigals" ?

Lol sorry braski. Hey it’s not like I posted a picture of a guy underneath an au jus waterfall or anything like that

If you've never ordered a cheese fry and used some of the cheese on your beef, have you really lived?

It does some but it is also harder in ways too. The ball travels much faster on artificial surfaces so you need to have faster reaction time and be quicker to the ball. He did win a gold glove in the minors. Not that means everything but he must have done at least a good job on fields that are historically much harder to play on than the MLB ones.

I imagine it just depends on how badly we need a Burnes vs the value we place on Madrigal and Heuer on the current roster along with the future of Kelley and Stiever. Since we can find adequate #4 from the list you mention...I wouldn't be inclined to make that trade. Our 4 guys are all cheap with lots of upsides as is Burnes. It's doesn't have the advantage in unloading expensive vets for a young gun. I do understand some of you think nothing of Madrigal but we will just continue to disagree on that one.

Pretty sure all fields have turf otherwise we’d just be playing on rock.

If the Sox somehow get the Brewers to trade Burnes, Rick Hahn would instantly become a legend. That would make this offseason better than last by a lot IMO.

I do not feel they should have an outdoor ceremony. It is not safe.

Ron has been Yoan's soxtalk account this entire time

He gave us years of bad defense in those 29 games! ?

The Brewers are in baseball purgatory, not dissimiliar to where the Sox were just before they began the rebuild. A weak farm system and an MLB roster of stars and scrubs, their stars being Woodruff, Burnes, Hader, Williams, Yelich, and maybe Hiura. They can conceivably compete in and maybe win a weak NL central, but no way are they contenders in the NL with the likes of the Dodgers, Padres, Braves, and Mets. And they don't seem to have any appetite to add to payroll in the current environment. So they can keep all those guys above and be a .500ish team with them for the next 4 years, or look to trade them at peak values to try to add elite talent to the farm. For those that don't think Madrigal would interest the Brewers, I disagree. Madrigal is exactly the type of profile the Brewers covet (good avg, good walk rate, low strikeouts). Stearns even said as much when they acquired Yelich (back when his career high in hrs was only about 18) and Cain. Hiura is no obstacle to any Madrigal interest. The universal DH is coming soon and that's where Hiura is going. If there's no DH in the NL this year, I'm sure the Brewers would be willing to move Hiura to 1B for the season. What I don't understand is why the Sox seem eager to part with Madrigal and Heuer, or why the Brewers would want current MLB players. A package of Milb players (Steiver, Kelley, +) makes more sense to me.

It is why I want a president. If the president ends up evaluating and saying - hey Pace is actually really good, this is a coaching issue, fine. If the president evaluates and goes, those are good moves, etc - you still have stability. I do agree with you the only reservation is if Nagy isn't the guy - than you are shifting systems with a young QB - and I'm never a big fan of that, but I can live with it if we aren't talking about a top 5 type of pick. Right now - I think you have to take a QB - just know you may take another one in a year (if you are at the top of the draft - and that can be okay). I probably prefer round 2 - but if I'm Pace - I swing - if Jones looks good, Pace probably saves his job and who knows, maybe Nagy does as well. It could be Trubisky is back with a young QB and they invest in the oline. If that is the case - probably a wasted season, but it would still be a solid direction forward. I really just wanted that new head to really spearhead this thing and get a complete view of the org and over the course of the year come to conclusions and move forward.

Yep. I wouldn't mind trying to get guys on short term deals to try and win one or two quickly. We also need to injury proof our team, so having more than necessary will help us to avoid injury slumps. I think we should be closely monitoring the Michael Brantley situation. If he can only get a one or two year deal we need to get him here. He can DH as a lefty, and fill in for Eloy when he injures himself running. Vaughn can spend the year in the minors and play more next year.

Then he wouldn't have used phrases; "would have been" & "would be"; if you replace them with "is" then I agree. As a fan, I hope Vaughn crushes it and creates a great problem for the Sox. But, with my GM hat, I searched roughly 20 of today's best MLB players and can't find any who didn't spend at least one full and/or multiple partial seasons in the minors crushing it before getting their chance; aside from Abreu who built his phenomenal multi-year resume in the highly respected Cuban league. Anything's possible but history emphatically says he plays the entire 2021 in the minors. Right or wrong, GM's are unwilling to jump start that service time clock without a substantial resume. His college stats credit ran out on draft day and he's next level-ground zero (plus a few AB's). And its possible that he could smash .350/.900 and still not get called up, its happened before. They are also grooming him to be the next great Sox 1Bman. Sitting him on the bench as DH doesn't get that done. Not taking anything away from his incredible talent & future; just being realistic about how orgs operate.

Got my parents & in-laws set-up to get their first doe of the vaccine tomorrow and thursday, respectively. I am sure it will be chaos at the actual site - but feels like progress. Counting down the days until I am eligible (my wife was already eligible and got her first dose about a week ago - although no one really knows yet how she is supposed to get her 2nd dose).

Burnes hasn't pitched more than 100 innings in any single season since his A+/AA season in 2017. If they want you to back up the truck for that, you walk away. It scares me to be talking about dealing a lot of good prospects for a guy who has NEVER made it to 100 innings as a major league pitcher.

Just want to go back to this. There may be a difference between Trump and Cruz--true believer vs. cynical asshole. But that's where the differences end. At best, Cruz fully knows he's been helping spread the Big Lie about the election being illegitimate and stolen for months, and that his votes last week were the culmination of that. There was no legitimacy to any of his claims, and his concerns were all bad-faith bullshit. It was mountains of red meat for the conservative base and helped further the lie that Trump didn't actually lose and that Biden/Harris are illegitimate. There's no way to differentiate the effect their actions have just because their motivations may be different. Nobody should humor any of his bullshit, his fake calls for "election integrity." He doesn't care. This was entirely about attacking Biden's legitimacy and endearing himself to the Trumpist base.

Jacob DeGrom who?

You’d make him the odds on favorite to win the NL Cy Young based on awesome nine starts?

My top option is La Stella. He can DH and rotate positions including shifting Jose to DH at times. Grandal can get some DH or 1st... again shifting Jose to DH. Imo La Stella gives you a LH bat, plays multiple positions to spell people and in case of injury. He also doesn't block Vaughn if he's good enough to come up in May. If we sign him we can rotate DH between: Him Jose Collins Grandal Then see what happens with Vaughn. He just makes a ton of sense for us. Hey won't be too expensive. Just sign the guy or let the guys mentioned above handle DH.

I wouldn't call vaughn punting the position, after all vaughn is the top 1b prospect in baseball and a consensus top 30 prospect. Obviously even a high floor, advanced prospect can take some time to adjust to the majors (even some all stars have been bad their 1 or 2 first seasons) but I think with vaughn's advanced and safe profile you can bank On him at least producing a 100-105 wrc+ with a chance for more. That wouldn't be fantastic at DH but also not a huge loss since few teams have an ortiz or cruz these days. Imo the chance that vaughn totally struggles and produces an 80 wrc+ like EE last year is rather slim, so I take the decent floor with upside to be a top3-4 DH in the AL right away.

Fantastic article about the Sox’s bullpen: https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/news/liam-hendriks-joins-a-fascinating-young-white-sox-bullpen

Fuck boys. My fault. I totally misread this and criticism is definitely warranted. Yeah, This deal is not so bad. I mean 13 million for a reliever is pricey but at least he is the best going now. I do still hold out hope we can get up to 150 payroll but whatever as long as we win.

Liz Cheney - "there has never been a greater betrayal by a president." Yeah, that whole Iraq war thing that was started by Bush and orchestrated by your dirtbag father was a pretty big betrayal to this country. The guy is a war criminal. If anybody knows how to spot a dirtbag politician, it is her.

What other pitchers have signed extensions at a similar point in time? Tell me why Nola is the outlier? Have you done any research on this at all? You keeping trying to act like 5/$75M is this ridiculously low number, but it’s 23% higher than Nola’s extension just two years ago. If it’s really a big outlier, show me all the other extensions that prove this. And no, Yoan Moncada is not a good comp...pitchers are inherently riskier and that’s baked into the potential cost of a deal.

I’m sure I will get pushback on this, but what exactly was Cooper doing with these guys the last few years

I totally get the uncertainty, but I don’t think he’s gettable for that package if he has a better track record. The Sox would gambling on the 2020 version of Burnes being legit, but the upside would be tremendous. But given the new pitches and the mix shift to his high end secondaries there is reason to believe the former top 50 prospect has finally figured his shit out. If this team really wants to dominate the Central for the next half decade, trade for Burnes and then extend Gioltio & Lynn for five & two years respectively. All of a sudden you’re looking at what could easily be the deepest, most talented rotation in baseball. Perhaps it’s a bit of overkill, but with the overall strength of our lineup & bullpen we could legit pull something like this off. Lucas Giolito - 5 years Lance Lynn - 3 years Corbin Burnes - 4 years Dallas Keuchel* - 2 years Dylan Cease - 5 years Michael Kopech - 6 years Garret Crochet* - 6 years And you’d still have a wave of guys in Kelley, Thompson, Dalquist, & Vera who are three or four years out!

Must be some sort of power move

People love Colome the more they didn't watch him. His ERA+ was 558 last year, which is just bonkers. And I was satisfied with him! But I totally understand this move.

I’d do that for sure. I don’t care about Stiever or Sheets. While losing Madrigal would hurt, a guy like La Stella is capable of providing just as much production, and the Sox could probably live without Heuer too. Burnes has the potential to be a top of the rotation arm and is controlled for a LONG time.

Burnes for Madrigal + Heuer + Stiever + Sheets. Who says no? Probably the Brewers, but that’s a lot of major league ready or near major league ready pieces for a mid-market team that could be open to retooling. It probably depends on how they view Stiever, but he’s the closest thing we have to a major league ready pitching prospect with any sort of ceiling (not including Kopech). I’m sure most clubs view Kelley as the superior prospect, but I’d imagine the Brewers would want pieces that are closer to the majors to even consider moving Burnes. Still very interesting to think about.

FWIW: Harold told me this yesterday afternoon. There’s no reason to question his info.

Pretty evident with how yesterday and today went down that McCaskey doesn't have any vision and that is probably very indicative of why the franchise has been the way it has for the past 30+ years.

I heard about the signing yesterday afternoon. If those dopes are "insiders" why did they have to wait for Passan to break the news?

Adding Cutters.