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Totally disagree. A team really thinking they are a championship contender doesn't rely almost exclusively on rookies, and not exactly top 50 prospects at that, to cover 2 positions. They need help at catcher. MLBTR had a piece the other day showing their weakest positions last season were C and RF, and they did nothing. I am sure a couple of these guys are going to bounce back, but all of them? And they aren't going to be hurt most of the time/ I think teams that say they are contenders should act like it.

It just amazes me how unaggressive this front office is. And for whatever reason. They were given a gift when Pollock didnt exercise his option, yet they almost couldn't be less aggressive. SHOW US YOU WANT TO WIN FOR ONCE.

There are multiple guys available or close to being available Preview should publish tomorrow. I don’t know much. 6 names. Luis Reyes has to be $1 million plus. His profile is very interesting. Alvarez is $300K and Uribe is $200K. RHP Luis Danys Morales is signing for like $3.5 million with Oakland. Sox offered him $2.5 million and said they’d trade for more space too accommodate. So they have at least $2.5 million

Luxury tax is AAV based, so the structuring of this deal is likely more around cash concerns for this year.

Did anyone tell the Sox it wasn't April Fools day yet? No one is buying tickets because of this move except maybe Andrew's mom.

Pollock? I'd take Duvall over Pollock purely due to the defense ability and flexibility.

I used to stick up for Leury because he was my adopt a prospect but Leury Garcia is a poor excuse to have playing most positions. He should be a getting his minor leagues and NRI contracts after last year. ANdrus got DFA by a non contender w 1.8 war because they no longer wanted to pay him more money when his bonus kicked in after 550 AB. He shouldn't be getting any games. The Sox should have a versatile 4th OF and a decently versatile INF who can provide way more than Leury does. I'm totally mystified by anyone being OK with him on a team that's supposed to care about winning.

Just over $5.2 million

It’s clearly a self imposed limit the White Sox are worried about, they aren’t close to hitting the luxury tax. There’s no reason to backload this in this format if you’re not trying to avoid a payroll limit this year. In my count, yea this now leaves them a little more than $11 million below last year’s total payroll, whereas a level contract would have left them about $5 million below last year’s payroll.

There are areas that you do not want to get that stuff on !

I thought I explained it pretty clearly, but I’ll try one more time, and keep it simpler. No one is surprised by the moves they made this offseason. It’s what the White Sox do. We shouldn’t accept it being OK.

Just fill the hot tub and dip them.

Better get it by the 5 gallon drum !

This was my thought as well — it’s potentially a good sign that they deferred it because it may mean they’re still committed to filling the roster out.

Come on it's baseball, they will use

Hahaha holy s%*#, wow. They really do think we are dumb enough to get excited by an Andrew Benintendi signing…

Jesus they're even backloading this deal?

It’s not realistic but they are nowhere near $250 million. They lost Abreu and got Pollock to leave. If you are in a championship window, a fan base should expect the payroll to rise each year as core players generally have thei salaries increase. Clevinger hopefully can do what Cueto did last year. Benintendi should help. I like Colas as a prospect, but you are putting a lot on him and either Sosa or Romy and possibly Perez behind the plate. It’s not like the Sox have an upper echelon farm system. There should have been better options. I think they will be better, but if you look at White Sox history under JR, after disappointing seasons, they usually bounce back and win 85. I will admit I am sick of the team hoping to win instead of trying their best to win.

I guess I don't really follow. Be mad, gnash your teeth and light your pitchforks if you wish. There is good reason to be fed up - the Sox were awful in 2022, and have mostly botched every decision of note since losing to Oakland in October 2020. But you cannot possibly be suggesting the Chicago White Sox were going to operate with a $250M payroll in 2023. Its just not reality. You can carry 2 MLB catchers on the roster. One of them is getting paid $18.25M and is going nowhere because of that. He has also been the 2nd or 3rd best catcher in the game over the past half decade +, and if he can get healthy, its reasonable to expect a better 2023. Seby Zavala by measure of fWAR was the 6th most valuable catcher in the AL last season. He is also out of options. Again, there is no room to add another catcher to the roster. Clevinger was a perfectly acceptable backend SP add with upside. I see no reason to be upset about that move. Yes, the lack of any move at 2B is frustrating. I agree. But again they weren't going to blow by $200M payroll, and its reasonable to expect that Sosa/Romy/JRod can give you close to what Harrison did for 15% of the cost. It was pretty obvious that the Sox were going to move on from Tony, add around the edges with a focus on getting more left handed and better defensively, and run it back in 2023. And that is what they've done to date. I struggle to see why anyone would be surprised by this.

I would have agreed with you that the catcher's situation was acceptable...in early December, but at that time, we didn't know how severe the back problem for Grandal was. The White Sox did. If Grandal just had repeated leg injuries, then a decent rehab and strengthening program might have had some ability to give him a shot at playing a portion of the season. But, trying to rehab a back injury of the sort that he has seems likely to be a different beast. Learning about that made it seem way less likely that the White Sox have a reliable catcher in Grandal this year, and like it or not - Zavala and Perez with "Maybe Grandal can play through a serious back injury" is not better shape than in most teams. It has an outside chance at working, but it relies very heavily on a guy with a serious back problem. Is there a good option there? I'm not sure, the right option was to not trade away their third under control catcher last trade deadline if they had a catcher whose back had gone out. Unfortunately, that can't be easily undone right now. Also worth noting, I think some of the ludicrous trade proposals we've seen (Hendriks for two top 50 prospects from the Dodgers or for the #1 prospect in baseball!) have left people wondering why there hasn't been more done. Furthermore, this was fed by one "Rick Hahn" who said that he would have to do work on the trade market and who has since made...0 substantive trades, which suggests that perhaps this "Rick Hahn" misread the market and misunderstood his organization again.

They were an 81 win team last year, almost no one was healthy, nearly everything went wrong and were managed by a guy that appeared to intentionally put them in a terrible position to win each night. We basically played the entire 2nd half of the season without TA or Robert. Robert had 0 HRs and 2 RBI after July 14th. Sure, we lost an aging Abreu. That hurts. But our defense has improved drastically getting AV out out the OF, and our lineup is going to perform better against RHP with Benintendi and Colas in the lineup. IMO, "a couple injuries away from a 79 team" seems wildly pessimistic considering what we saw in 2022.

Sox needed an LH OF. They signed the 2nd best one available. They were never going to acquire 2 starting caliber OFs this offseason and effectively block Colas. The Sox catcher position is full. There is no room to add another MLB catcher to the roster. The Sox are still in better shape at the catcher position than most teams. I would prefer they acquire a real LH 2B, but most expected they'd go with the kids with perhaps a stopgappy cheap vet, and that looks to be the case. I am not impressed with the Sox offseason, to be honest. But its about how I expected it to go. Sign a backend SP, sign a LH OF, and hope the rest of the team gets healthier and performs better. My names were Nimmo and Heaney per the OP in the Offseason Plan - they didn't do that good due to how the FA market unfolded, but the Sox signings were not awful by any means. The bottom line is this roster was mostly cemented in coming off 2022 due to contractual status, or inability to move due to coming off underperforming seasons. It is what it is. I would love for them to add another player than could factor into both the 2B and RF mix, but there really are not any FAs left that fit that bill unless you want to try to get Profar to play 2B for the first time in a few seasons. Just not exactly sure what you expected.

https://official.nba.com/l2m/L2MReport.html?gameId=0022200552 Yup. I won't rip Pat for not boxing out Mitchell when Mitchell should have been called for that. Also, Allen should have been called for a travel. But my question is...what's the point of these memos if nothing comes of them?

Of everyone out there - he would be my preferred signing. But as you mentioned - he isn’t coming back.

Looking back at the 1959 sale of the White Sox, I wish Finley had bought the team instead of Veeck.

The reality is - they wanted the game to go on because that is probably there #1 contingency plan - find a way to play. Because rescheduling is hard especially this late in the season. There really is no solution which will be perfectly equitable.

They're a $20 billion company. They should absolutely know what they would do if a natural disaster caused the cancelation of a football game 1 week before the playoffs start, you want to think through things like that beforehand specifically because you don't want to wind up in uncharted waters. This setup isn't that different - the teams cannot currently play, that is the starting point. You don't want to publish all those things you've thought through, but you should have something thought through as an example scenario. Hell, you might even practice for things like that in the offseason as a training exercise for your staff.

January 3, 2005 - As part of a plan to add more depth to the rotation, the Sox signed veteran hurler Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez. “The Duke” started strong in 2005, faded somewhat down the stretch but pitched perhaps the most historic inning in franchise history when he came in to a bases loaded, no out situation at Boston in game #3 of the A.L.D.S. with the Sox only leading 4-3 in the sixth inning. He proceeded to get two pop outs and a strike out as the Sox held on to win 5-3 and advance to the A.L.C.S. He was traded that off season as part of a deal bringing Javier Vasquez to the White Sox. January 3, 2007 – The White Sox were looking for another solid hitter to join the lineup and G.M. Kenny Williams thought he had found him as he made a deal with Oakland and acquired outfielder/first baseman Nick “Dirty 30” Swisher for Ryan Sweeney, Fautino De Los Santos and Gio Gonzales. Unfortunately the deal fell far short. In 2008 Swisher put up decent numbers 21 doubles, 24 home runs and 69 RBI’s but he turned into a distracting presence in the clubhouse, was benched by manager Ozzie Guillen towards the end of the year and was then traded to the Yankees…where he promptly regained his Oakland form in four solid seasons. Sweeney hit higher than .286 in three of his four years with the A’s while Gonzales blossomed into a solid starting pitcher for the A’s and then later the Nationals where he won 21 games in 2012. The Sox signed him as a free agent for the 2020 season but he was injured and only started four games in the 60-game pandemic shortened year.

Come on dude, no league has a contingency plan for this. Zero. The nfl fucked up trying to make the show go on, THAT was the contingency plan. We are in uncharted waters now

Did something happen to George Springer?

If he didn't already want to not be here, the fact that he can play a competent CF would have made him a good fit as a backup OF.

Benintendi has never played RF. I don't think he is going to start with the Sox.

I'd take Biggio for a song.

Yeah, I was starting to think I would be ok if they somehow brought him back cheaper but then remembered he really couldn't play RF. They need a 4th of who can play all 3 spots.

I’d be really shocked if he did. I don’t know who is handing him a starting spot let alone $8M. He might be able to cover CF if you squint, but he doesn’t offer much versatility as a backup either.

Biggio will be in the mix too.

Bears odds

That over parts of ten seasons is absolutely putrid.

Oh sorry I saw your post and thought he was coming over at 24

If Andrus wants to sign for cheap and to be a backup, sure sign him. But I’m sure he’s holding out for a starting spot as of right now. I don’t think anyone is really “ok” with Leury being on the team. He’s here with a guaranteed deal so our opinion on him doesn’t really matter. They aren’t going to cut him. It is what it is.

I expect the Bears to be in the playoff hunt next season. Might not make it, but I expect them to be in the hunt all season. The year after, I would fully expect them to be the favorites in the division. If they aren't, they messed up. Fields might not be the reason why, it may be bad roster management by Poles, injuries, or a host of reasons, but it doesn't matter. If they aren't on that path, then they failed. (Should also be noted the "approach" the Bears have taken wasn't all executed by the current management team. Poles didn't trade that capital or draft Fields. But given the incredibly poor cap management by Pace, a "reset" to clear out dead money and players was absolutely the right decision.)

Elvis will be the twins starting SS...and help them be awful....and we all rejoice

Not only is the jingle annoying, but then they have to make comments about how it sounded. Who cares?

There is some advantage beyond playing him a full season. Sosa could be on fire in AAA and if Andrus regresses to the mean. Sosa would then likely be called up to start. I don't expect Romy to put up numbers like Sosa will in AAA . Then Andrus backs up Tim which is surely a better option than Leury at SS. Or Tim again gets injured and Andrus at SS and Sosa at 2nd base. Surely any scenario not involving Leury is much better. Popeye hasn't even started AAA yet but did well in the 2nd half of the season at AA. But he needs even more seasoning than Sosa. Please keep in mind that we are trying to field the best team possible in 2023 within some constraints of management. . It's not a given the Sox will even entertain the notion of signing both Duvall and Andrus let alone Duvall who is needed even more. Much like the Sox finally got around to taking Eloy, Vaughn and Sheets out of the OF , they need to get around to not putting Leury, Payton , Hamilton , Reyes or Popeye in pivotal roles in 2023.

Jinkies, wegs. Seems such a silly thing to twist one's knickers so. Didn't know you felt so strongly. A thousand pardons, old chap.

They're not trading Hendriks unless blown away with an offer or they're dogshit again come the trade deadline

This is one of the least surprising things this offseason if you have been paying attention.

The Chicago Cardinals football team left Chicago for St. Louis in 1960 and are now the Arizona Cardinals and after all these years there's still a soft spot in my heart for them.