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The White Sox asked for Rhett Lowder, Chase Petty and Sammy Stafura. If the Reds think that’s ridiculous, I’d tell them to enjoy finding a Cease level guy in free agency.

Gotta love Chris Getz handicapping the market by focusing on a specific need instead of just going for best talent

This is how low the expectations are for Getz. We're forced to make up tropes that don't actually exist to make ourselves feel better about having Getz.

Cease and Eloy back to the Cubs would be hysterical and freakin awesome.

At this rate it feels like we’re heading towards “Ok, once Brad Keller finally signs, the Cease talk will really start heating up.”

Doesn't matter how deep they are. You don't win if you don't supplement outside of your organization. No farm is perfect.

I don't make money on my hobbies. Do you? They're net negative cashflow. Sports teams are a hobby for billionaires and they should be expected to run at a loss. They're not like regular businesses. If an owner isn't in it to win championships every year then they need to sell. I want owners that are in for a short time and willing to sacrifice a sizeable portion of their fortune to win a championship, and if they can't do it, sell to someone else willing to do the same.

Until I see the books, yes. If they're going to be secretive about how much they're making I'm going to assume they're hiding massive profits like those with bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and such.

And now for a feat of strength: stomaching the 2024 Chicago White Sox!

Who is trading useful pitching for one year of Santander?

That’s funny. I think position players are a foundations. They are much more consistent and less prone to injuries. Pitching is a year by year phenomenon. 2 years ago it seemed the braves pitching staff was loaded. Now they’ve had to support that while they have the number 1 offense. One is gonna stick around to build on imo.

Among the bad things, extremely annoying that the white Sox have chosen to focus on boosting Bruce Levine and Bob Nightengale with information we need to pay attention to

But the true discussion has nothing to do with the owners being swindlers or whatever name you want to call them. It has to do with the disparity between them. No matter what you believe from them you can't honestly believe that Kansas City or Milwaukee can compete with LA or NY in an unlimited system.

We needed an additional thread for airing grievances? This is like complaining about your hair getting wet after jumping in the pool.

Yet the Dodgers only won over the 60 game season, because it limited their exposure to their seemingly annual high priced domestic violence suspensions and limited wear and tear on their pitching staff. With the same manager and top heavy payroll philosophy, I’ll be very surprised if they win more than one World Series under Ohtani’s contract, baring say more owner 102 game lockouts for pandemics, CBA negotiations, or some new concocted owner scam. It’s a Kleptocracy, not Capitalism. MLB Owners largely socialize their capital costs on taxpayers, and privatize the profits. These same owners are also not held to American anti-trust laws as all other businesses including the NFL and NBS are subject.

I will say that I agree, he got more than I expected, and I’m very high on him. That said, I’ve come to believe that when we talk about “years” in these types of deals, we’re just not thinking of it correctly. The important number is the total investment; the more years you can spread that investment out, the bette for the team. At the end of the day, the bidding drove the price to 1m over the previous record for a pitcher, it might as well have been a 20 year contract — you work the depreciated cost into your budgeting at the time you sign. The NPV of the contract actually goes down if you spread it out. Looking at it that way, it reframes how you think about the White Sox and their idiosyncratic spending limits. Jerry Reinsdorf insistence on avoiding the “risk” of a long term deal but paying market AAV on shorter ones is just another way he’s spending his own money inefficiently.

As to the article, the Sox had a very top heavy system after the Sale, Q, Eaton trades and failed to build any sort of depth behind it. Once that singular "wave" graduated, the system was barren and they found themselves back where they had been for the previous 15-20 years. Just not good enough with no means to improve. They half-assed the rebuild and sat on their hands expecting it all to work. Then JR TLR'd the org, and a rebuild set up to fail was completely fucked. Happy Fucking Holidays to you to JR...

The A's model seems to be lose for 4-5 seasons, win for 2. Starting in 2008, the Rays had 6 winning, 4 losing, and are on 6 winning, again.

Nobody is expecting teams to not go through rough stretches, but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask them to do everything possible to maximize a competitive window. Those last 3-5 years. And also, if the players they've signed are still good they can salary dump them for nothing but payroll relief if necessary. In the current model, I think that fans of smaller market teams would be fine with some lean years in return for a 3-5 year window where ownership does everything possible to try to win a championship. The contracts don't exist in a vacuum, they can be dumped if necessary to another team trying to win. Like the Sox window ended, but if they would have signed Harper in 2019 like they should have, I don't think they'd have an issue dumping that contract if things went south like they ended up doing.

The Rays are a fucking unicorn. How many other teams successfully do what the Rays do? Cleveland trades away veterans when they are about to get expensive. How often is Cleveland a legit threat to win anything but the shitty AL Central? How has that worked out for AZ, Colorado, Cincy, The Marlins, The A's, etc etc over the years?

As the saying goes, if you want to play, you have to pay. If you can't handle a fire, get out of the kitchen.

I wouldn't mind a cap and floor system as long as it's like the NFL where the floor is like 88% of the cap. The NFL is king because all revenue is league revenue and it gets split evenly amongst the 32 teams. I have no clue why every sports league isn't run this way.

There are multiple people that work as baseball writers, that say that owners are being cheap and raking in massive profits. If I can find more legit writers that agree, I'll present my evidence. It was all over twitter when Ohtani signed.

Balta and aly would like a word with you.

I still contend that something went haywire at mid-season of 2021 under the management of TLR.

If the Orioles were offering Kjerstad and Westburg, I think the deal would be done

80 million

As we are finding out, that was just an excuse because JR didn’t want to put the work into finding someone who would disagree with him, just opting for yes men willing to do things his way and kissing his ass every chance they get. All these guys do the exact same thing. Just look at their quotes over the years. Hahn, KW, LaRussa…. Praise him up and down talk about how all he wants to do is win, and mention how the losing is killing him. If it were killing him, he’d be long gone by now.

This is true, the problem is Getz was a David Eckstein wannabe, so that type of player he likes.

This sucks but it all comes back to JR. He doesn’t want to pay for pitching. He’ll pay the going rate for a mediocre at best position player except if they play RF or 2B,,and LaRussa convinced him anyone can play RF. So they have to find cheap pitchers.

The Angels just don’t have much left…that Giolito trade was truly a disaster for them and cost them a big chunk of their prospect currency.

It's called manifesting.

JR’s dream is a rotation full of soft tossing lefties who know how to “pitch” and a lineup full of David Eckstein’s. Let’s pray to the baseball gods that Getz doesn’t feel the same way.

If that’s the case then the Braves being favorites make all the sense in the world. I personally hate the idea, they desperately need offense in the system on top of pitching of course but idk about you guys, I’m tired of watching Sheets, Romy , Colas, Remillard, Lenyn, or anybody not named Robert for that matter get any amount of ABs.. I’d like to think this is simply a negotiation tactic to have teams with lesser pitching up their offers

We are also reminded ,with the release of Luis Patino, that the Rays got 4 prospects from the Padres for Blake Snell headlined by a starting pitcher (Patino) and a catcher (Mejia). Starting pitching and catching are volatile positions . I can't really blame anyone for wanting position player prospects especially LH power hitters who also provide fielding and baserunning value. If your WAR if fully dependent on your pitching arm it's hard to make an impact. A position player with speed and defense can accumulate WAR and contribute to wins even if the bat never fully develops. This is why you have to consider a high floor as well as a high ceiling. The larger the gap between floor and ceiling the bigger the chance for a boom or bust player. Being a LH hitter gives you advantages in a sport where good hitting careers are often predicated on how well you hit RH pitching. It also gives you an advantage running since you are closer to 1st base to start . Vaughn so far is a perfect example. He can't rack up fielding or baserunning WAR. Despite being touted as a generational type hitter he hasn't yet figured out how to hit or get on base against RHP. In general all things being equal, it's just easier to do well against opposite handed pitchers . Conversely it's easier for RHP to get RHH out. As a hitter it's all about how well you see the ball and LHH get to see a lot more pitches that they can see well. The Sox entire history of losing can be tied to many things and having the worst LH hitting among all the teams in baseball history is right there at the top of the list. Was Moncada the only position player among the highly ranked prospects the Sox got in the 1st rebuild trades who hit LH ? Didn't the Sox get a lot of SP also? The whole Eaton trade was Giolito, Dunning and Lopez. Sale got Kopech. Quintana brought Cease. I'd like to see things handled differently this time. However with JR in charge and unwilling to pay for pitching maybe our GMs under him lately don't have much of a choice than to trade for pitching. JR also doesn't invest in scouting and development so drafting pitchers didn't help out the rebuild either nor did his mandates regarding the international draft. So many failures led by Reinsdorf .

Yeah, I’d rather take a look at an arm like that than Sammy Peralta.

Says the biggest meatball of them all. Amazing. Who gives a s%*# if he had options? The Sox literally have like 3 big league relievers at this point. If he sucks, DFA him in May. It’s the same exact situation with Dievi Garcia. Post hype SP prospects with tons of cheap control are the exact type of guys the Sox should be trying in the pen in what appears to be a lost season. 75% of the time they turn into nothing, but that is how you find legit controllable pen pieces on the cheap. I dont pretend to know more about Pitino than the Sox, so I am sure they had their reasons but there are at least 3 other guys in the 40 man with clearly less talent that you’d think would have come first. That said, it’s not like this is a big loss. Were talking about the very back of the 40 man divisions on one of the worst rosters in the game. it’s just a curious move.

The Angels system is cheeks

I think Getz was trying to fool Jerry into thinking he dumped Yoan's contract.

Or Benintendi being so close to Robert...based on what exactly? Benintendi has only had one good season in the past four...and that was largely on the backs of being in that Yankee lineup, not unlike Pollock with the Dodgers then subsequently falling off a cliff.

There’s no universe where Wyatt Langford is on the table.

Exactly what I was thinking as well

I would do Langford straight up for Cease

I mean, no one is really up in arms about this but ok...

I am not saying he's the answer to anything. But he was a curious choice to DFA (I mean, Sammy Peralta is on the 40 man - that man was batting practice). Patino just seemed like a great guy to give an extended try out to in the pen in 2024.

But from a single source? Or multiple pitching coaches? The media tends to run with a story.

I do think one distinct difference is - in NFL - you do see a lot more parity in teams, agnostic of market. In NFL - Tom Brady is the outlier - but besides that - good franchises, regardless of market can succeed. In baseball - it takes threading the needle because the competitive balance is totally different. NFL is clearly a more fair and levelized playing field in terms of the cap structure. MLB is not. No way around that. Rays don't have the same opportunities the Yankees do...period. In NFL - you really don't see that game. Cincy & Pittsburgh have same opportunities as say Giants/Jets. I do recognize in football - owners who have more cash - may still have an advantage in sense that how you structure deals and bonuses can still drive a slight advantage, but it is nowhere the same as in the NFL.

Was this supposed to fool people into thinking they traded Moncada?

The Mets must have mildly competent scouts (compared to Sox) if they decided to acquire a no name from our woebegone team. Can you imagine scouring the Sox roster for players?

Getz gets a Christmas bonus as he acquired JRs favorite- cash.