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Too Legit to Quit. Now that he faced the tough grind of his first MLB season, took two months to get acclimated before turning in an elite performance as a 23 year old, before succumbing to the grind and some late season injuries. Outside of Robert and perhaps Kopech, Vaughn is the guy I want the Sox to keep the most among their core.

How weird do you have to be to side with billionaires who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire over the players who are the entire reason you watch the game? Jerry Reinsdorf is undoubtedly leading the charge and trying to break the union, just like in 1994, during the middle of a White Sox contention window... despite having made billions of dollars as an owner in professional sports while the players are simply trying to play baseball and be compensated fairly in relation to the revenue they generate... There's no bias here. The game is not the game without the players. The entertainment does not exist. Even a 50/50 split has always felt absurd, given the importance of the actual product and the rarity of the assets, yet in baseball the split has moved closer to 44/56... People who side with big corporate employers over employees are just brainwashed sheep, frankly.

My 75% guesstimate might have been an exaggeration, but on par with your supposition that every player is a spoiled millionaire. Your fast food and expensive women quip tells me enough and I won’t waste my time debating you on the matter any further.

Thank you for such a thorough reply.

If you were to count to a million it would take you a little over 12 days. If you were to count to a billion it would take you over 30 years. A little perspective on how fucking stupid the millionaire vs billionaire argument is.

That two month span he was our best hitter. All while play (admirably) a position he hadn't played since grade school. Kid is legit AF. I will be sooooooo pissed if we trade him.

PASS! Sox need a serious roster overhaul via trade before Schwarber makes a lick of sense.

The basic and fundamental problem is shown on this page in the tweet SSHM shared. Over the past 20 years, baseball’s revenue has tripled. However, the earnings of the players have not tripled (Mike Trout’s deal compared to ARod - would have been $750 million, for an easy example). The owners, through a variety of means, have limited salary growth - the luxury tax limits high spending teams, revenue sharing means the Pirates and Marlins make a hefty profit if they spend nothing, and teams like the Astros and White Sox clear a fortune while they are rebuilding. The end result is a broken free agent market. When only 1 or 2 teams are trying to get better, Machado and Harper don’t get contract offers in December at all, and we wind up with these 3 month free agent sagas that are bad for fans but which push costs down. That is a symptom of the problem. Ownership will change a lot of things, but this is a HUGE win for them, the equivalent of hundreds of millions of extra dollars among the 30 owners per year. Under no circumstance will they give this up and allow things to rebalance without a fight. That is the fundamental issue and it’s why I mostly come down on the side of the players. It also negatively impacts the game, because it’s no fun watching a team win 55 games with a payroll lower than what Max Scherzer is making and it’s no fun watching a 3 month free agent sagas compared to the big signing surges we see in the NBA and NFL. However, the NBA and NFL run differently, and that shows why some blame goes to the players too. They have a defined share of the money going to the players, with a salary cap and floor set by the revenue coming in, and with an independent audit to verify it. The MLB players have specifically rejected this format, in part because it does limit the upper salaries, in part because 2 decades ago their share of revenue was growing and they didn’t want to shut down that gold mine, and in part because these 2 sides trust each other so little that they don’t believe the owners wouldn’t find a way to “Joel Osteen” some of their money into the wall of a bathroom to avoid an audit, which frankly some of them might. Had the players agreed to a true revenue split, the game would look very different, some of these problems wouldn’t exist, and this lockout might never have happened, so there is blame for the players as well.

So bored of this.

I'm just going to throw out an idea for discussion that's been percolating in my head for a while. 1. I think the Sox are still going to be in the running for Carlos Rodon on something like a 3 year deal. Maybe with an opt-out after 2 years? The Sox need Rodon, who was their best pitcher in the first half of last year. Not only was he their best pitcher -- even better than a great year from Lynn -- but he's a lefty, which the Sox don't have in the rotation. The Sox know Rodon better than anyone else. They won't do this is they know his shoulder is fried. But I think it was just innings fatigue. I expect he'll bounce back this year and be able to sustain his velocity for longer. Rodon knows and must like Ethan Katz, because he turned his career around in just one offseason. Does Rodon want to ditch that and go elsewhere? To a club that may or may not be a contender? I think Rodon still has unfinished business with the White Sox. I think he wants to win a Championship, and if he had his choice, the Sox would be the team he would want to win with. The reason the Sox haven't already signed Rodon is because his market isn't set yet. The Sox are not going to set the market for Rodon, but they might meet whatever the market turns out to be. 2. If Rodon returns, and Kopech is added to the rotation, the Sox will have 6 starters. Why not use all 6? I haven't done a deep dive into the effectiveness or lack thereof of 6-man rotations. I think most teams don't use them because they don't have enough pitching depth and want to use their top guys more often. Didn't Milwaukee use a 6-man rotation last year? What happened last year was that by the time the playoffs rolled around, our starting staff was cooked. Lynn, Giolito, Cease, and Rodon all got torched. Lynn had the knee issue. Rodon lost his velocity. Cease had the strength, but was his usual head case. And Houston was the worst matchup because of how well they handle fastballs, and how hard they are to strike out. I think this year will be better, but I still think pitchers won't be ready for 200 innings. (Can you believe the 2005 Sox had 4 starters who went over 200 innings?) So my thought is why not go to a 6-man rotation to ease the burden over the season and make the starters fresher for the playoffs. If you go to a 6-man, you can also keep Keuchel to see if he has a bounce-back year. His 4th year doesn't vest unless he pitches 320 innings across 2021-2022, or 160 innings in 2022. He pitched 162 innings in 2021, so you have to keep him under 158 in 2022. With a 6-man rotation, you can easily do that. The other reason to go to a 6-man is because Michael Kopech isn't ready for a full season as a starter. The Sox need to keep his innings down. How do you do that without shutting him down, and then starting him back up close to the playoffs? A 6-man rotation is one way to do it and still provide him steady work. The way I would order them would be: Lynn, Rodon, Giolito, Cease, Keuchel, Kopech. Kopech isn't the 6th best pitcher, but he's the one who can pitch the fewest innings, so that's why I would put him at the back. Plus, he's a huge contrast with Keuchel. Lastly, a 6-man can obviously become a 5-man for a stretch if anyone gets dinged up and has to go on the IL. You don't have to use spot starters like Lopez nearly as much. ************* I think the chances of this happening are low. Rodon has to sign, and the Sox have to think outside the box to go with a 6-man rotation. But I still think it's a good idea. The Sox do not need to burn out their starters to win the AL Central again, no matter what the Tigers have done. They should be thinking postseason from day 1. Anyway, that's my thought.

I’ll go with Feb. 29. You can pick the year.

There is zero chance something happens before Feb. They will need the hard deadlines of spring training to make it happen.

AH, I must have missed that you guys were communicating via PM's and I somehow got access and that this conversation wasn't posted on a public message board. My bad. I'm glad to see you couldn't refute my points though.

That Andrew Vaughn article is must-read material for Soxtalkers. Thanks for sharing. It also gives me a bit of pause about spending large sums on a player like Conforto. But that's just me!

They're not paying a net negative tax rate really, that may have been a slight exaggeration unless we're talking about people who started industries and businesses which were heavily subsidized by government dollars and then also had the government subsidize the sale of said product by covering a base of the cost with government dollars promoting sales and growth; this could be argued to be a negative tax rate because effectively they're receiving more in government subsidies in one way or another than they're giving back in tax dollars. I'm not going to pretend that I know the business backgrounds of every MLB owner or that they fit that bill but it is possible if you reach with the definition. That said, there have been plenty of studies done that show what you're saying is misrepresenting the reality of the situation. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/23/what-is-the-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-on-the-wealthiest-americans/ "New OMB-CEA Report: Billionaires Pay an Average Federal Individual Income Tax Rate of Just 8.2%" Now you can argue that those loopholes are available to everyone, but that would be an incorrect proclamation when you actually account for this thing called reality. Players can't skirt the idea that their earnings are revenue; for example, they can't be paid in stock holdings. Effective tax rates are really the conversation here, and frankly it's all that matters. The proclamation that they're merely following the tax code is incredibly misleading, as they're actually using their wealth to exploit the tax code to levels of which we've never experience. As an example, from the chart above, in the 40's and 50's, following the mass labor movements, effective tax rates for the elite in the country reached as high as 90%+ in the highest bracket. I'm not going to derail the conversation much further, and while SSH is exaggerating slightly your proclamation that the tax code is somehow based in fairness and equality available to all American's isn't actually true or honest in execution.

What a disgrace. Baseball players are ridiculously over paid as it is. I can't believe they would be so selfish as to force a work shutdown.

Politicians have more leverage over baseball than other sports because of the anti-trust exemption. A threat to remove that exemption could certainly expedite the process. Who knows if they would go that way.

Probably Philly. Maybe Mets. Maybe he stays on the Sox. But the Cubs aren't undoing last July's trade. Its not even worth talking about.

Well, that;;s just because it takes so much longer to say one hundred four million eight hundred and sixty three than it does to say four.

The minors are not part of this discussion...we are discussing Major League players. You obviously want to cast ownership in the same negative light as you accuse me of painting the players. No matter how you try to spin it...You are simply wrong with the 25% guesstimate you used in the original post.

And none of those guys have any expenses and have every dollar in the bank. Ok.

I find it impractical to explore all rosters in baseball when responding to a forum statement. The use of the current WS roster was to refute Tnetennba's point of 75% of players are not millionaires...is just not accurate. These employees vs employer debates are useless since people have preconceived opinions of who is right or wrong. We all have our biases even though many claims to be impartial.

Free Agency: Trevor Story - 112 career wRC+ estimated cost: $18M-22M+ Annually Pluses - Defense (while this has been very muted outside a tremendous 2019, lots of signs he should be a great 2b - he is excellent at DP depth), Power (career .251 iso) Walks (9% walk rae) Minuses - Unknown coors effects Below Avg vs. RHP (98 career wRC+, 83 last year, our division has excellent RHP) Contact (23% K rate) Josh Harrison - 103 2021 wRC+ estimated cost ($4-5M+ annually) Pluses - Contact (13% krate) Not bad vs RHP (98 wRC+) Defense (outs above average loves, loves Josh Harrison) Minuses - Inconsistent offense (career 98 wRC+) BABIP dependent no power Age of decline (34 years old) Jose Iglesias - 91 2021 wRC+ estimated cost ($2-3M+ annually) Pluses - Contact (14% krate) Defense (outs above average likes his 2b more than his SS at this age) Minuses - BABIP dependent offense Bad vs RHP (81 wRC+) Doesn't walk Donovan Solano - 105 2021 wRC+ estimated cost ($2-3M+ annually) Pluses - Slightly above average offensively Average power 96 wRC+ (counts as positive with this group) Minuses - Bad defensively unreliable walk rate, higher k rate 34 years old Andrelton Simmons - 56 2021 wRC+ estimated cost ($6-9M+ annually) Pluses - World class defense at shortstop Can backup TA Plus Contact Minuses - Horrendous offense Zero power BABIP driven offense Career 85 wRC+ vs RHP Trades: Jean Segura - 103 2021 wRC+ COST 14M + 1M 2023 buyout Pluses - Great defense at second Contact (13% K rate) Average vs RHP Minuses - Fathom says he is mopey and has bad vibes Lacks power Expensive money wise Tony Kemp - 127 2021 wRC+ COST $2.5M Pluses - Great OBP in 3 of last 4 years (STEAMER predicts .350 OBP) Career 103 wRC+ vs RHP, 130 wRC+ last year Good, versatile defense by OAA Seems like he should be cheap prospect wise Minuses - Not a strong history of reliable performance to trust any of the above aside from defense Jeff McNeil - 93 2021 wRC+ COST PRE-ARB did not see value Pluses - Career 126 wRC+ 3 years of control Career 132 wRC+ vs RHP Contact 14% kRate Walk Rate 13% Walk Rate Great defense at 2b by OAA very likely the most perfect fit possible Minuses - Bad 2021 Expensive by Prospects/talent likely Ryan McMahon - 95 2021 wRC+ COST PRE-ARB did not see value Pluses - Above average vs RHP (106 wRC+) Good power (.195 iso) Good walk rates Minuses - Bad contact (25-30%K) While excellent last year, in 2019-20 was a ground ball machine a la Leury Garcia Amazing at 3rd, but only average to slightly below average at 2b by OAA Likely requires a very strong package of talent Tommy LaStella - 94 2021 wRC+ COST $6M Pluses - Madrigal-level contact Good BB rate Good GB% career 107 wRC+ vs RHP Minuses - Bad 2021 Back injury in 2021 and struggled after Not good defensively, possibly very bad late bloomer Possible platoon bad w/ Leury Easiest way out of this appears to be Kemp trade. Best way out seems to be McNeil, but I have 5% confidence he's traded.

You have a way with words.

The owners and veteran players have room to be generous and compromise by taking care of the younger players and minimum wagers. Otherwise we can watch some minor league teams play in the mlb ballparks for a while.

I agree that we will be in the Rodon sweepstakes unless the FO has health issue knowledge that discourages them. The 6 man rotation seems very reasonable when considering how the modern starter finds the old 200 innings standard a wearing experience. The Katz relationship has to be a good tie-breaker IMO.

I'm not suggesting they are spoiled, I believed until proven otherwise they are hard working, competitive men, trying to make the most money possible. So I agree that is a silly thought. I also think it's silly to worry that Luery is only earning $5.5 mil next year instead of $7 mil or that Roberts might not be a free agent soon enough. Which Sox contract do you look at and think damn I would feel better if he was making more? I doubt any of them. I also don't care how much the share holders earn.

I'll take the over.

All this said - I really want to keep ME. I feel like a really elite front office is worth its weight in gold (relative to what franchises pay the players) - and right now (small sample size), I feel like this front office is trending in that direction. So with that in mind - give the man a pay raise and just tell Portland NO.

https://www.fool.com/taxes/2020/09/25/why-does-billionaire-warren-buffett-pay-a-lower-ta/ This is not rocket science, here. Or simply look at the net taxes paid by corporations like Amazon/FB by domiciling in Ireland or the Caribbean. Or a certain former president the past 10-15 years. Not something any middle class taxpayer can do, exactly. Even the billionaires know it’s a joke. “A 70% marginal tax rate. A 77% estate tax. A 3% tax on every dollar over $1 billion of net worth. As various plans to tax the ultra-rich gain steam in American political discourse—and after a recent bombshell report that the 400 richest Americans paid a lower tax rate than other income groups last year—many billionaires have been challenged to address their very existence amid growing income inequality. At least a dozen billionaires have made public statements that call for the super-rich to pay more in taxes. On Monday, Salesforce chairman and cofounder Marc Benioff penned the latest in a string of billionaire op-eds calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. The California software entrepreneur, who ranked No. 93 on The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans released earlier this month, wrote that “increasing taxes on high-income individuals like myself would help generate the trillions of dollars that we desperately need to improve education and health care and fight climate change.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/cartercoudriet/2019/10/15/billionaires-more-taxes-gates-buffett-bloomberg/?sh=7cfe5bf57792 Even Forbes of all publications is sympathetic. In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row. ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits. Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each and every year. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax

Boo I wanted this pinned for the entire lock out

If you read my post you will find I side with no one. Yes, I do point out that both sides of this argument are to blame. This discussion started with someone using bogus numbers which I called him on. You do the same thing every day.

Go outside.

This thread is really making me depressed.

Fat chance, that's the one thing I'm thinking is a certainty.

At the end of the day, this is my hope as well. I want to see the Minors and pre-arb guys get paid better, fewer stupid Manfred-ball “innovations, and if expanded playoffs are inevitable a system adopted that isn’t gimmicky and doesn’t cheapen the regular season.

Saw a tweet from the Hornets game that said Vooch/DeRozan/Lavine was the first trio of teammates to put up 25/5/5 in the same game since 2010......They we're 2 assists a piece from DDR and Vooch away from doing that 2 games in a row... If those 3 guys can gel like that the whole season, there's really no reason this team can't be a title contender. I'm not even sure they really need a big like Christian Wood or KAT that can score, they could really just use a good defensive big with some size..

he's saying your correlations aren't the same. If Kimbrel was getting hurt by the bouncy ball, then cesar's power numbers should have maintained on the sox. Instead Kimbrel was getting crushed with homers while cesar's power evaporated.

You're probably right. And this is part of the problem we face with Reinsdorf. When they make a bad signing (Keuchel should of never been signed, but that's on Hahn/KW, not Jerry), it limps the team for the duration of that contract. That shouldn't be the case in a major market. The Sox are in Chicago, not Kansas City or Oakland. They should have a top 10 payroll every year. Here is the White Sox team payroll rank the last 10 years (opening day payrolls): 2021 15th 2020 18th 2019 26th 2018 29th 2017 24th 2016 20th 2015 15th 2014 20th 2013 8th 2012 11th 1 year of the last 10 in the top 10, and it was 9 years ago. The 'cheap narrative' looks pretty accurate according to this list.

How amazing. I wonder if Bears would go Tomlin route if Steelers move on. I have never known what to think of Tomlin but hard to argue how many years they were .500 or better.

As I have said before...I'm not going to lose any sleep over the millionaire players or the billionaire owners. I'll watch and play golf and let them worry about their differences. They aren't worried about me and I won't spend any time worrying about them.

This was also my takeaway. Once Escobar was gone, the best 2b remaining were Leury and Hernandez. So if we are getting a better 2b than leury they are coming from trade, or we are shocking everyone and signing Trevor Story.

I think it is Harrison if we are counting out Story. But he definitely has the "I'm about to fall off a cliff" vibe, he was just brutal with the As. But is graded at 2b way higher than I expected. It's not good though. Escobar was the FA play that made the most sense, just like he was the Trade last year that made the most sense. And now there isn't a 2b out there that you can trust to get you more than average offensive production, so we are mostly just measuring defense. Last year there were multiple cheap, great options at 2b in Wong, La Stella, etc. Really confused what they have in mind here.

Didn't Graveman indicate the playoff atmosphere on the South Side was one of the reasons he was sold on playing here?

McNeal would be great, especially cause he can play some OF too. But I think that's a pipedream. He'd be very expensive and Mets are trying to win. For me, 2B predicates quite a bit on what we do in RF. If we were to sign Conforto, we can go any number of directions at 2B and be fine. LaStella is still a super interesting name for me. Giants could probably still use more SP and Keuchel would play well in that park. Those two are close to an eveb swap $ wise, but LaStella has 2 years ($5.25M in 22; $11.5M in 23) versus Keuchel's 1 year at $18M (with $1.5M buyout on $20M team option that becomes vesting upon 160 IP in 22). Sox probably have to throw something interesting in here as well - perhaps Burger would interest them. They are getting old and thin and IF corners. I love the LaStella fit. That also creates about $12M in room for 22, combined with moving Kimbrel, Sox would create about $30M to spend on Conforto and SP by going this route. Lineup: Anderson SS, Moncada 3B, Abreu 1B, Eloy DH, Grandal C, Robert CF, Conforto RF, Vaughn LF, LaStella 2B Rotation: Giolito, Lynn, Kopech, Cease and FA SP But the FA SP options getting pretty thin, so perhaps we go trade route with Gray/Castillo/Mahle/Manea/Bassit for the last SP using Sheets as the headliner with a combination of our HS pitching prospects and/or MLB ready guys that don't have much of a role in Chicago moving forward.

I'm down. And I think people are underestimating the Sox willingness to spend major money and get over $200 million in payroll.

Shoulda denied his contract, traded for Frazier or signed Escobar.

No interest in scab baseball, owner collusion, or their other disgraceful tactics. Fuck Outed Roider Frank Menechino, alias Jerry Legler, and the other scab players. Frank "GIDP" Menechino continues to screw over the next generation of players with his shitty coaching. In terms of FO and management paid by ownership during lockouts, kudos to Sparky Anderson and others who told MLB and their owners to GFT, and kudos to then Federal District Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor who saved baseball from destruction at the hands of the owners led by Bud Selig, and his puppet master, Jerry Reinsdorf.

This was a really dumb move. I’m surprised Hahn did this.