Leaderboard

Murphy is a stud, but blowing up the farm system for a catcher given all of the other needs doesn't strike me as a great idea.

Good thing the Sox are already laden with left handed hitters.

What were the Giants thinking?? He might accept and then they'll be stuck with an ace on 1 year deal.

Bruce Levine couldn’t catch a cold let alone a legit MLB rumour.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/11/jon-jay-to-join-marlins-as-first-base-coach.html Machado to Marlins, it's a lock.

For a team that has more resources, this makes sense, but the Sox don't. There should be ZERO position player acquisitions that aren't left or switch hitters, and that can't play 2B or LF well.

If I'm understanding this correctly, a team that seemingly doesn't want to take on much payroll this offseason is exploring the opportunity to trade major young assets for a player who plays the same position as Grandal, a 34 year old washed FA signing costing the Sox 18 million dollars in 2023. And he bats right handed. Awesome.

Ruined Eloy’s bicep and ruined 2020 game 3 momentum…time to ruin the farm system also

That's why I've been whining the last year about giving Rodon away. It was like Hahn was working for another team and not the White Sox by not extending the QO to Rodon, not to mention after not doing that I wanted them to resign him. He screwed up in my book twice on Rodon and more than that by using money that should've been paid to Rodon on crap a guy like Kelly ! Damn he sucks.

Sure, Jim, that’s exactly in the Sox’ offseason plan. First, cancel the annual fan fest. Second, make the most spectacular free agent signing in the team’s history, and then have no forum on which to show him off and take a bow. Reinsdorf showed up at the Soxfest after the Belle signing. Do the math, Jim.

Sox really should go after this guy, but we all know Jerry is too loyal

If Kenny really is leaving as soon as after this season, we shoudl be on the phone right now looking to work this guy into our system somewhere high.

Extending the QO to Gio at the end of this season and getting the pick is probably equal or more value to what you could possibly get right now for him. Think what the Cubs did with Contreras. He’s still more valuable to this team than anywhere else right now, and you still have the option of flipping him at the deadline if the team stinks. I don’t think a competitive 2023 Sox team exists without Gio on this team (along with a decent bounce back from him).

Jerry & Hahn when they hear that notion.

He faced the Tigers. He sucks. He's expensive. He's older. He won't stay healthy. He is a waste of money. Thanks Tony.

Bowden wakes up tomorrow, hungover and moans "I'm never drinking with Larussa again"

I wish this had a chance to be true. I'm down for any scenario that kicks Grandals bum ass to the curb.

Not sure why the Sox would do that other than money. Anderson seems like a safe bet to return his 4 war self

The most important thing a catcher can do is provide leadership, call a good game and catch the ball and have a strong throwing arm. Catchers should never be prioritized. They are usually base cloggers who age poorly. It would be a misappropriation of funds at this time, right up their with relievers. There are plenty of catchers who do the little things well enough out there for cheap. Plus if you aren't cutting Grandal loose that's a lot of money tied up in catchers for one season. Oakland will try to get a lot since he has 3 years left. They are testing the waters to see if they can get a haul. My guess is he doesn't get moved this off season. I'm 53/47 on it though.

All this nonsense because of the overpaid garbage catcher currently on the roster.

No thanks to all of that.

This is a rumor I like

Exactly that was my point. Anthopoulos isn't an idiot.

That's the problem. By this time Abreu wasn't supposed to be our best position player. Could've been Anderson, Jimenez, Moncada, Robert or Vaughn but Murphy found his way to the Sox in the form of Reinsdorf and Hahn and that Law took over.

If you trade for a guy named Outman and all he does is make outs, you deserve what you are going to get,

The guy who brought the suit got almost $50k in PPP money, and then got it forgiven.

Since Alcantara had more complete games than most other entire teams I guess that means he was ONLY using humidor balls. Judge’s accomplishment should not be diminished by your cynicism.

A lot of people have also noticed the 200 rpm drop in his spin rates on his fastball this year as well.

While that team can compete if enough guys return to form, I continue to believe that I'd say "that team can compete if enough guys return to form" if all they did was sign Gallo and Kiermaier and back of the rotation pitcher. That leads to the key point. However good of a job we do adding players this offseason - it won't matter nearly as much as getting the guys currently here back to form. If you do a spectacular job of adding players, they might get you 25% of the way caught up with Cleveland, while the other 75% has to come internally. And second, what are the odds that the current guys won't get us there? Seems annoyingly high to me. In other words, I would still go with "First do no harm" as the message this offseason. We don't know what things will look like next year, but if Moncada and Grandal struggle again that might be all it takes to leave that team missing the playoffs again, and now they traded Montgomery and are 1 year from losing Anderson and have only 2 pitchers in their 2024 rotation. Was that worth losing Montgomery and Crochet? Naw. Worry about that at the trade deadline if you have to, don't trade away anyone of really any value during the offseason. You could do everything right in the trades, have everyone scouted correctly, and still set the team back a couple years.

Feel like the Sox could get a nice haul from the Dodgers for Hendriks.

I will say this much about Gio. Almost all of his drop off last year traces back to his defense. His FIP alone is almost a run lower than his actual ERA. Much of the run up in H/9 is also related to the defense. Teams aren't stupid, and can see these numbers in front of them, probably in a much more detailed format than the generic stats which are out there. He is a guy who gives you 30 starts a season, and works into the 7th inning pretty much every 5 days. Those guys are hard to find, and can save a pen. Lucas Giolito has a lot more value than people are giving him.

Is there really a baseball position player named Outman? That’s funny. Kinda like a golfer named Bogeyman. Now if he was a pitcher, that would be a badass name.

I read his question as being about like, where do you tell them to put the lump sum first, and yeah I think there are special accounts that exist for that and you'd first want to get your house in order with a wealth management lawyer and accountant before even claiming it.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/james-outman/24770/stats?position=OF OUTMAN! OUTMAN! OUT MAN! OUTTTTTMANNNNNN The people want the sox to trade for outman I'm hearing.

You get something back for him, hopefully something that fills other holes.

While i know how this will play out, I'd love to at least hear that we made gio a 4 year, 80mm extension offer and he turned it down before we trade him and he ultimately goes on to have a nice career elsewhere with a ton of success. I can see it already ... Giolito to the Dodgers, Giants or Angels. Also before everybody gets up in arms about that being too much money, dont forget he finished 6,7,11 in cy young award voting before this last year where he had a 4.06 FIP. Was always hopeful we'd keep this core together a bit longer as it had promise. But alas we have a terrible GM and a terrible owner. Mismanaged funds + a poor vision of when to push the pedal down and make a few good signings this offseason lead to this ...

It's difficult to improve your team with a bad GM, an owner who won't increase payroll, and a farm system that's improving but still one of the worst in baseball. Hopefully improved coaching, better health outcomes, and regression for guys like Yaz, Moncada & Giolito will fix everything.

Carlos Rodon had his surgery in May of 2019. He next threw a competitive pitch in late September of 2020, and he was really terrible at the time. That 16 months isn’t a totally unreasonable schedule, it’s 12 months or more just to heal and then several months more to build back strength on average. You should be prepared for him to not be fully effective until towards the end of the season, if not longer, as it would be unexpected for him to be 100% after only 12 months. 27 year old Luis Severino had the surgery in February 2020. He threw 6 innings in 2021 because a few other things kept being sore. Syndergaard had it in 2020, threw 2 innings in 2021. Tyler Beede, March 2020, threw 1 inning in 2021. Chris Sale, March 2020, still hasn’t avoided injury, came back Mid August 2021. The only guy I can find in recent years who was back in 14 months was Glasnow, who pitched in 2 games in September and October of this year 14 months after the surgery.

I bet he's really excited knowing we're making a big push for Judge. Lol

They have a lot of money. It’s crazy when orgs don’t make the avoidance of paying an injured player the number one priority. If he doesn’t accept they get an asset. Voila

Rick Hahn just wet his trousers

Yes, I think it goes without saying that if you take a bad year and project every trend to continue indefinitely, you're going to see...other bad years. The Guardians, by the way, could have done the same after last season. I think people who are hopeful are assuming things will be better next year, as sometimes happens in baseball. Also, I just want to note that it's mindbending to see the identically-shaped and reasoned posts on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum just a year or so apart. Are you one of those people who phonebanked for Obama in '12 and stormed the Capitol in '21? ?

No. Those guys (guy?) base 99% of their posts on what they read on this board.

My sources are telling me Vince Velasquez won't be back. Of course, unless something changes.

That's embarrassing The Athletic pays him to write these words.

Lol

The Pollock money probably ends up going to a 5th starter. That means you got about $25 million to figure out 1 OF spot and maybe address 2B.

It honestly seemed that way when I saw his first interview here. The fact that he straight up turned down $8 million when he probably doesn't get more than that anywhere else tells you how much he didn't like playing here.

If this was the reason... I'd get it. We're only human.

Pito will probably be available for cheap. If so, sign Pito for 2-3 years and launch Vaughn for pitching. Try to sign Bennentendi and/or Trea Turner. Hendriks is not un-tradeable. Trade for another OFer if Colas does not look like he can play RF and handle major league pitching. Trade Lance Lynn and look for another TOR starter