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So I just got a text from a buddy of mine who is very connected (to MLB not necessarily Sox). Said Sox are on fire right now and close on a couple sizeable moves.

The funny thing is I guarantee other team fan bases hate their bullpen and wish their GM spent money on bullpen guys like the WSox.

Just... exhausting. Hahn won't stop spending his assets on Relief pitchers. it's honestly amazing.

I don’t really get the push back on this deal. Last few guys in Sox pen aren’t that good. We needed another guy. Tepera or Kelly - who really cares. Potato potato. Some people will just b**** about anything.

Whu would anyone want Cano?

Listening to Jack speak makes me miss Peavey44

Some of the complainers would be same guys posting “why would he say no and hurt their trade leverage”

Not that he's an uber prospect, but I really hope Yolbert Sanchez has a great spring training and makes the Sox think about it at 2B. I will say Harrison hustles his ass off abd is a great clubhouse guy. But this is very disappointing.

Madrigal was a top 10 2nd basemen (by fWAR) at the time of his injury. His bat clearly plays at the big league level and I think he was making strides before the injury. I don't want to have another Madrigal debate with anyone, really, but he was objectively a very productive player and clearly better than the utility guys they've brought in to replace him.

So they traded away a club controlled guy and a likely 2.5 WAR 2B for some b**** ass overpaid guy that can't pitch non 9th scenarios who they now are trading for .50 on the dollar in order to spend the first moves of the offeason trying to FILL THOSE HOLES ON THE CHEAP. FFS.

Sounds like a medical problem

Hey Tony, even though Craig is standing 15 feet away from you do you expect him to be gone in the next week? Ya man, get this bum out of my sight.

I mean what’s he supposed to say? The dude is on the roster until he isn’t. He’s not going to say “well, yah…Kimbrel is gone fellas. Just a matter of time until Rick makes a deal.” Just not gonna happen.

Find someone that overrates you as much as the Sox do with Engel

If you think Adam Engel is better than Michael Conforto, you may be an idiot

Even if he’s getting traded, overspending on BP is the reason why we lost Madrigal. We’re being managed by someone who is about a decade or two behind in baseball who insists on throwing all the resources at BP and paying for past performance, while successful orgs invest in scouting and pitching development to develop their BP arms (see Rays’ spending on BP). I’m more ok if we threw the money at someone other than Kelly. Kelly was decent with Dodgers last year but was used in low leverage situations, and yet we’re paying him like an 7th or 8th inning high leverage arm. For comparison, Raisel Iglesias, who is arguably a top 5 reliever in baseball, got $14.5M AAV, which is basically what we’re paying Harrison and Kelly (longer contract and all). Also FWIW the Dodgers who have unlimited payroll could have kept Kelly for $8M this year, yet they declined the option. We’re paying him $17M for next 2 years.

As I said, I prefer to wait until I have all of the information and see how the roster fits together. Why make a judgment when you don't have all the information? If they stand pat bad. If they trade for Manea, good. If they sign Conforto and trade for Manea even better. However it's all hypothetical so there is no way to judge until they are done.

Rub one out, you’ll feel better after that

The “big move” didn’t need to be at 2b. I didn’t say that. But the Sox weren’t that close to Houston last season, and thus far are a worse team in 2022 than 2021. Josh Harrison and Joe Kelly aren’t pushing this team over the edge. That’s the point.

Plus he hates the Astros and vice versa.

Nick Madrigal does not belong on an MLB roster. He's a glorified singles hitter. He does nothing else.

Just give me Manaea and Conforto and go to battle

This is bad. Massive downgrade from Madrigal. And hell, i'd of rather seen them just pick up Hernandez's option. We better see Schwarber, Castellanos or Conforto signed.

Well at least Kelly can play in Toronto

I guess you guys were right and you can just go out and sign a Madrigal like 2B for nothing.

The FO clearly like guys who throw hard sinkers. Maybe they played a lot of MLB The Show.

How many years in a row are Sox fans going to fall for this nonsense. Each of the last two years we had threads created about how unstoppable the White Sox bullpen was going to be. The best bullpen in baseball will not end up being who you thought it'll be. Signing RP's coming off career years is almost never a good strategy.

How many god damn opportunity costs are we going to take on in pursuit of relief pitchers? You know what, if the team is up 8-3 instead of 5-3 in the 7th, maybe we don't need so many fucking relievers.

Anyone in this thread know if the Mets by any chance traded for Chris Bassit? ?

I don't think its a rumor it was more like Heyman saying McNeil seemed like a logical fit for us. We've been saying that for a while but McNeil had some run-ins with Lindor about his fielding and positioning.

It’s almost like we shouldn’t have traded ours for a shitty reliever.

Isn’t that why we have Engel?

Angel Hernandez has been working with a larger home plate for years.

Just stop

Kenny and Rick are ignoring TLR calls. That's my story and I am sticking to it.

That LaRussa comment is the only thing giving me hope

Greatest manager ever as long as he gets Jerry to open that wallet!

Vaughn and Sheets are just too slow though to play RF. We’re just going to get stuck again with Engel in CF and Garcia in RF far too often.

One name that hasn’t been discussed for 2B is Gleyber Torres. He’s coming off a couple rough years and the Yankees have a bit of a 2B squeeze at the moment. No idea if they’d move him or what they’d be looking for, but he’d a great buy low guy for us.

The majority of posters here are Bears fans. Can we please not use goalpost analogies?

FO doesn't like the prices out there and they are putting their state media to work.

If they go into this season with a platoon in RF once again after all the plug and plays the Whitesox used will show the incompetence of the front office

Company mouthpiece.

Yeah I saw this…what a stupid fucking take.

Everyone was so nice today i figured id stir the pot a bit. This is certainly a hot take.

The sun rose today. Hopefully a more positive day here on Soxtalk! ?

Oh crap, you went ahead and went all Aaron Rodgers on us you critical thinker. When the Sox picked up Kimbrel's option, I was fine with it, because I assumed he had a deal in place. I'll still give him the benefit of the doubt that something will get done, and they won't have to eat dollars or give away extra assets to move that deal. But I'm a tad nervous now. I don't want other moves that need to be made this winter compromised because those dollars are tying up Jerry's wallet.

Someone will take him because they won’t be as emotional as Sox fans and overreact to his two month stint with us. On a full season basis, he was 6th in fWAR at 2.2, 7th in FIP at 2.43 (w/ at least 30 IP), 3rd in K/9 at 15.08, and had a 98th percentile xwOBA. This was over 59.2 innings, which is roughly a full season for him. Meanwhile the other “year and a half” everyone loves to cite as being horrible was a total of 36 innings (~60% of one normal length season for him). And the best part is Kimbrel wasn’t even bad in 2020. Coming off a COVID impacted spring training, he had two bad appearances to start the season (33.94 FIP in 1.3 innings). Over the rest of the season, which was a total of 14 innings, he posted a 1.12 FIP with a 18.0 K/9. He literally was just as dominant over the final 91% of the 2020 season as he was with the Cubs to start 2021. I know, I know, Two Gun Pete will call me a “slicer & dicer” for daring to use any sort of critical thinking when assessing Kimbrel’s stats over the past two years. And he definitely won’t like me using context and pointing out that changing roles, experiencing a 44 inning YoY inning increase, and/or dealing with a sick daughter may have had something to do with his sudden falloff after joining the Sox. Regardless, some of the brightest minds in baseball were highly interested in him at the trade deadline and I have zero doubt a few of those same minds see a potential buy low opportunity here. I doubt we get much in return, but major league front offices almost certainly value Craig Kimbrel much higher than the majority of posters on Soxtalk do and we will be able to move him.