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Bruce Levine is very good friends with Gene Watson. It's very likely true. The White Sox are fucking idiots. Salvy Perez can't really catch anymore and he posted an 86 wRC+ last year with -0.3 fWAR. This whole thing is absurd.

Y'all remember when we could have hire Bochy?

Bryce is one of the coolest players of all time

According to advanced stats Jose Abreu was the most value position player on the 2022 White Sox, by a vast margin. He has 3.8 fWAR. Luis Robert had 2.1. SO TELL ME GREG, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT?

Lance found a way to give up 5 HR in an inning but only 4 counted for runs. Is that what people meant when they said the Dodgers fixed him?

This isn't the NBA. Practically no one cares about MLB playoff ratings, nor should you. They make up a tiny slice of MLB's overall revenue. There's probably like 1 commercial marketing guy who cares about that. Frankly, MLB is better off when different franchises make the ALCS other than New York or Boston fairly regularly, because spreading the success around leads to those teams selling more season tickets and building stronger fanbases long term. It is good for MLB that the Rangers are back in the playoffs in a big population center, that will help grow the game in that area and it will help create new long term ad sales and purchase agreements for that franchise. It isn't bad for MLB that everyone hates the Astros, either, although there is less excitement here than there was before their run began. It would be good for MLB if this turned out to be a good, competitive series, with few blowouts and it running 6 or 7 games, but still, the impact of getting a team that missed the playoffs for a decade back in the ALCS is bigger than pretty much anything else.

If we're just gonna suck (not spend any money) I'd just give DH to Sheets. If we're "retooling" who knows. It does speak volumes that we don't really even have decent DH out of Vaughn, Sheets and Eloy. That's a lot of draft and prospect capital that didn't pan out.

With only 4 bench spots, I would never target acquiring an everyday DH, unless they were truly an elite 4-5 + WAR type player like an Ohtani, Frank Thomas, Yordan Alverez, Edgar Martinez truly elite / HOF type of player. Would rather have a solid hitter who can also field 1 or more positions rotate in and out with your best 4-5 hitters getting rest from the field. If Getz can do just that and nothing else, it will be an improvement over Hahn., will add a few wins a year just on roster construction. Add injury & IL management to the mix for a few more wins.

I'm glad Pito found his bat in time for the postseason...but I'm definitely not upset that we aren't the ones paying him $60 million for the privilege of waiting until September for "August Abreu" to arrive. I'm happy he helped take out the trash, and also hope the Astros lose out from here. I hate the Astros moderately less than the Twins (who I hate meaningfully less than the Guards), and I bet on a Rangers Phillies WS. As for Lance, I'm not happy that he got shelled necessarily, but I hope it puts an emphatic end to the idea that the connection between this garbage season and Lynn's numbers was "Katz and the defense magically ruining Lance Lynn" as opposed to Lance Lynn's individual regression independently contributing to the team's overall struggles.

This has been as boring of a postseason as I can remember and I’m surprised the Dodgers didn’t just try their young guys like Pepiot or Sheehan over Lynn. Dodgers without Buehler, May, Urias and Gonsolin just didn’t have enough pitching left.

Imagine being able to sign him for $25M a year and saying nah and then potentially trading for Salvador Perez at $21M a year. Harper would have been an amazing fit and sold a fuckload of tickets and merchandise.

Bryce Harper at $25M a year looks pretty damn good right now compared to *maybe* paying Sal Perez $21M a year. Makes no sense they didn’t pursue him harder that one off-season. Was a better fit than Machado. Sigh.

Regardless of anything else, I still can't get over the fact that this would take the 2023 White Sox and make their OBP worse.

Yes, but the Phillies will definitely regret his contract eventually maybe possibly!

I am not as anti-Perez most Sox fans seem to be. The FA catcher market is putrid, and I sure as s%*# know I don't want Lee as the only option. The issue is the dollars due. If the Royals eat $27-30M, essentially making it a 2 year $14-17M deal, and the Sox give up nothing overly interesting, I can live with that. What I cannot live with is paying him anymore than $7-8M AAV, and/or giving up anything of value to acquire him. Thing is, I bet the Royals still value Salvy a good bit just because he is their guy and fan favorite. He's worth more to the Royals than anyone else. So they probably aren't just going to hand him over and pay 75% of the tab to do so.

Perez was somehow worse than Grandal last year…..hard pass

He was such an obvious choice it was almost comical. Til I die I'll never understand how he was not the hire. (I mean I understand, of course, but I can't believe it.)

Toronto is what I think the White Sox would have been if their window was open and they spent wisely on free agents. An oddly constructed team that doesn't really get the results they should.

Trust me, I'm the one trying to tell people he has negative value. I was just stating his absolute maximum return. If you are moving on from him it is for the money and/or the cleaning of the clubhouse... not the return. With all of the free agents still on the board it is way to enticing this time of year to not repurpose his money and replace him with a vet minimum DH or pre-arb player. Getting DH production from the clouds seems like one of the easiest boxes to check this offseason.

Jose had a minus WAR this season.

Jose clutch as usual? Did you happen to catch those playoff games against Oakland?? He left alot of Palehose on the bases that series. I am sorry but I no longer root for him in that Houston uniform and Mattress Mack can kiss my butt.

Have to root for the Rangers even though I simply hate the artificial look of domed stadiums...they were so close in 2010/11 before the Nelson Cruz debacle/disaster.

Greg, I have a simple question for you: Do you know what the terms micro and macro are?

Gotta love Abreu beating up on the Twins.

Glad to hear that you don’t have a golden idol of Stoney to which you sacrifice fatted calves.

I like anything that makes Jose look good. Wish I felt the same about any current White Sox. To be honest there's not one Sox player I'd defend against attacks on here. And not one coach. Just Steve Stone. I still 'worship' him in a non religious sense. Not as high on Jason B. Go Jose!!

Ha ... my guy Abreu homered again tonight. And the Sox wouldn't resign him and tons of fans were ready for him to leave. Result, Sox 101 losses; Astros happy! Way to go Jose Abreu! You sir are a 'winner' advanced stats be darned.

I understand Jose was here far longer and like I said earlier, is likely getting his number retired here. But if you want to know the difference between him and Lynn, look no further than this thread: People are hyped for Jose smashing the Twins and enjoying Lynn getting rocked.

Moreno hit one out, had it called foul, and then hit one fair on the next pitch.

Thankfully, the Phillies and Rangers methods of competing (farm system/development AND generous FA spending in combination) are winning out in the end. Not that it will impact the way that the White Sox do business in the least.

Yeah, he can hang out with Middleton this off-season and they can talk about their prior careers in baseball, and how they were such incredible teammates and contributors while everyone else sucked.

Dylan Cease is coming off such a bad season that if I were an opposing GM I’d expect him at a large discount. You are not getting anywhere near two top prospects and additional pieces for him right now, especially since his down season also saw a drop in his velocity. There’s almost no harm in waiting to the trade deadline with him right now, he might not be as good as he was in 2022 but he probably will be better than he was in 2023.

Lance Lynn. I've seen this performance before.

Lance giving up dingers again.

Well no one ever dispute that. Edit: would actually love to see people try

Just like the last two years of the Machado deal JR refused to cave on...preserving future profitability at a time he wasn't statistically likely to even be alive.

I was downtown at Daley Plaza for that. What an enjoyable moment! There are two organizations more corrupt than Chicago - the IOC and FIFA!

Yeah, you’re basically declining TA option (or picking it up and hoping he’s the same guy he was 2 years ago) and hoping you get lucky on like 7-8 other signings and everything clicks, like 2005.

Jose Abreu's regular season OPS in 2020 was .987. Very few first basemen win MVP awards with .831 OPS's, even in virus-shortened seasons. His playoff OPS was not higher than his regular season OPS.

Only Caulfield can keep a Padres thread alive on a White Sox message board in October.

Of course it would never happen but I wouldn't mind seeing 1 and 2 have to win 2 games while 7 and 8 have to win 3 to advance. 3-6 all have to win the same amount.

So happy for Jose. Hoping he's another guy Hahn couldn't build around to get a ring with another team.

Celebrated the day Richie Daley finished in dead last in the 2016 Olympic Bid. The city would have lost billions, literally would have had to declared bankruptcy by now. It has only been kept afloat by massive infusion of "COVID" funds which have come to an end.

Baseball is a game of streaks. It's not who is the best but the best at that time.

"We're going to trade Tim for a Haul so we will pick up his $14 million option but we don't actually want him on the team so I hope nothing goes wrong with this strategy" seems super familiar.

I don’t disagree, but that wasn’t my point. If you were Canha, and you had identical $2/25 offers, and one was from the White Sox, why would he come here? Without a deal that blows others out of the water? Canha doesn’t move the needle for this current squad, why massively overpay for another Benintendi?

I vote make them start the wild card series the Monday after the season ends. Then they can play a 3-game series over 3 days (no off days in this scenario) and they can start division series Friday.