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If the Sox were for sale tomorrow, they'd go for $2 billion easy. Chicago area, marketable brand. The Clippers had nothing and were the second team in their own arena and sold for 2 billion 10 years ago. It's New York, but the Mets sold for $2.4 billion and they share the city with the Yankees. Nets, again, a second team in their city, sold for $2.35 billion — to a person who already owned 49% of the team. A successful White Sox team prints money. JR just doesn't like ~risk~

Seems like you’ve invented collusion.

Forget it, he's rolling.

Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.

Which team would that be? The Sox? KC? Oh, right, now San Diego.

Another great template out there is Anaheim's team. It is the OBVIOUS 2nd team in a market much closer to Chicago in size, and with the work that their ownership team did to get that franchise on track, it is listed at $2.7 billion. This franchise as is now, has a ton of sleeping value. They have no debt. They have no payroll. If you can figure out how to get a stadium built on a lower cost side, and keep the debt low, this is a sleeping giant. A 25% haircut on this team is an absolute absurdity.

some more video on Patiño

I would post a lot more often if I didn’t expect to be trolled by certain mods. I’d imagine that may have something to do with why 90% of posts are made by like 20 posters these days. But whatever, you enjoy yourself

what

Throw another hat into the ring.

Jesus. Caulfield all over Roki watch. Guess I would be too if my team was a finalist.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a minute.

Roki Sasaki is from Rikuzentakata in the Iwate Prefecture. Born in 2001, he was named after the villain Rouki from Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger, a Super Sentai show that was aired in the same year.[2][3] He was in the third grade during the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. The resulting tsunami swept away his house. His father and grandparents died, while Sasaki, his mother, and his two brothers had to live in a nursing home during the recovery.[4][5][6] The family moved to Ōfunato the next year and Sasaki began to play baseball at his new school. wikipedia Wow....didn't know this part of his backstory.

https://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2025/1/14/24343286/today-in-blue-jays-history-trade-david-wells-for-mike-sirotka

A payroll of 105 dollars seems low even for the A’s

This is balderdash. Everyone knows Madrigal would start at second, TA at catcher.

and his arb payout got a little pricey.

Yolmer Sanchez didn't get cut as a 2.0 WAR player. He got cut when he was replacement level player after both his offense and defense fell off, probably mainly due to health.

While SS2k5 does get needlessly pithy, I've done some soul-searching, myself, while reading strings these last few months. WAR and defensive rankings are universally accepted methods of rating baseball players. Any "problem" you feel you have with their methods have already been argued by people who are way smarter than any of us, here. The people who have established them for Baseball-Prospectus and Fangraphs have already argued them out on their platforms. The undervaluing of 1B gets accounted for, oftentimes, in real time. Baseball-Reference has updated their model multiple times, which results in a reseeding of stats. Yes, 30 HRs at 1B may get lost at 1B, while 30 HR at SS is praised, but the ding in value often comes in defensive contributions. Pick two guys. Freddie Freeman, 1B, and Jackson Merrill, CF. They have wOBA's .011 points from each other, and their offensive score is 2.2 from each other. Merrill rates a 6.5 on defense, whereas Freeman is a -9.0. Merrill gets a 5.4 fWAR, Freeman gets a 4.2. While similar on offense, Merrill plays a harder position better, and Freeman plays an easy position below average. I'm not the best person to argue this, as I'm not a mathematician who knows this stuff inside out. So it's great that you decide to have a problem with WAR. It's okay to state that, have a few volleys, then move on. Otherwise, it turns into pages of "yes it is", "no it isn't", "yes it is".....

Spring training begins on Feb. 12 for the White Sox. The start of another lost season.

hahaha, ok man. I guess you really need this. Here you go. I think you are WAY over simplifying this. A 1B's bat isn't "undervalued". It is placed in an appropriate context of a group of players from the same position. Then adjustment is made recognizing that both offensive and defensive skills occur at different average amounts in different positions. By this same argument a 1B's glove would also be "overvalued" because it is much easier to stand out defensively in a position that doesn't provide much defensive value. The comparison to other positions isn't equal either, because if you took a SS and started playing them at 1B, then they would also see the same positional adjustments and their WAR would adjust accordingly. You can't just take any minor leaguer and replace them. That's not what this does. It's a "replacement" player, not any player out on the street, and that replacement player has it's own definition.

It is by far to the best attempt out there to give quality measurements to all aspects of a baseball game, and not just the historic counting statistics. We have so much more data to look at in 2025, why choose to understand less? I guess if you want to live the simple life.

Any stat that depends on something else is by definition "subjective". So when WAR is dimissed, but RBI are held up a statistical foundations, the argument holds no water.

This assumes all players are way more interchangeable than they actually are in the description of "best". Yankees best player is probably either Cole or Judge. You could never play them at SS, otherwise you would destroy your defense, and probably even your offense in the name of Cole. By playing them in SP and RF, respectively, you maximize their skillset to what a position asks of them best.

I've let this post marinate in the wrong thread for too long: Would be awesome if he flipped the switch his age 27 age season like Max Muncy (another guy who played some 1B who is the same height). I’m not going to hold my breath though.

I don’t like Vegas tempting the football gods like this…they will punish us Bears fans harshly by making Petzing the HC.

Unless they are all working together to not be competitive, that isn't collusion, that is coincidence.

If the argument is arbitrary, this gets a whole lot easier, as even RBI are arbitrary and flawed, which is a commonly held view, which is what led to more comprehensive analysis to get to things like WAR and RC+. Not wanting to understanding advanced stats also seems to be a pretty widely held view.

Mired in mediocrity sounds wonderful compared to whatever we have now.

That’s a wild assumption that Semien and Tatis would be as productive if they stayed in the White Sox organization.

I saw this somewhere else - but this goes back to 2000-2024 and how McCarthys offenses have performed and who the qb was. I will notate 2017 with Packers was when Rodger’s was hurt (i think by Wooten or someone on Bears iirc): Mike McCarthy as OC in New Orleans and San Francisco ('00-'05) 00 - 10th in yards, 10th in points (Jeff Blake & Aaron Brooks) 01 - 10th in yards, 13th in points (Aaron Brooks) 02 - 19th in yards, 3rd in points (Aaron Brooks) 03 - 11th in yards, 14th in points (Aaron Brooks) 04 - 15th in yards, 14th in points (Aaron Brooks) 05 - 32nd in yards, 30th in points (had 4 different QBs start games - Alex Smith, Tim Rattay, Ken Dorsey, Cody Pickett) Mike McCarthy as Green Bay head coach ('06-'18) (Brett Favre through '07; Aaron Rodgers '08-onward) 06 - 9th in yards, 22nd in points 07 - 2nd in yards, 4th in points 08 - 8th in yards, 5th in points 09 - 6th in yards, 3rd in points 10 - 9th in yards, 10th in points 11 - 3rd in yards, 1st in points 12 - 13th in yards, 5th in points 13 - 3rd in yards, 8th in points 14 - 6th in yards, 1st in points 15 - 23rd in yards, 15th in points 16 - 8th in yards, 4th in points 17 - 26th in yards, 21st in points 18 - 12th in yards, 14th in points Mike McCarthy as Dallas head coach (''20-'24) 20 - 14th in yards, 17th in points (Andy Dalton & Dak Prescott) 21 - 1st in yards, 1st in points (Dak Prescott) 22 - 11th in yards, 4th in points (Dak Prescott & Cooper Rush) 23 - 5th in yards, 1st in points (the year McCarthy took over playcalling from Kellen Moore) (Dak Prescott) 24 - 17th in yards, 21st in points (Dak Prescott, Cooper Rush & Trey Lance)

What? Lol

I understand being frustrated with WAR. One felt more in control of a baseball conversation when you could look at HR's, see one guy had 33, and another had 21, and come to the conclusion that the 33 HR guy is "better" than the 21 HR guy. Easy peasy. You can't just watch a game, look at the box score, and see who contributed what. But you're playing a little Skeptical Paradox game, here, pretending that nothing can really be known. WAR isn't computed by some guy drinking beer in front of his TeeVee. Defensive statistics are computed based on zone ratings that have nothing to do with the eye test. If a fielder is standing on spot X, which is measurable, and a ball is hit to spot Y, that is 15' from the fielder, with a hang time of 7 seconds, we know a lot about the catchability of that ball in play. We know how fast a runner can run from one base to another, how fast a player can throw a ball, all of this is quantifiable, and has nothing to do with the "eye-test". Players on offense create runs. Players on defense prevent runs. Creating runs are pretty quantifiable. You hit the ball, and get to a base by the time the play's over. The same happens when measuring defense. Again, completely measurable and quantifiable from a fairly robust data set. When running the formula for Pythagorean wins, a win is worth (roughly) ten more runs scored than the opponent. I'm mixing models, here, but if Jose Abreu can create 5 more runs on offense than average, and can prevent 5 more runs on defense on average, that would be worth one win, or 1 WAR. Again, mixing models, but that's how players are evaluated against each other.

You’re welcome to challenge WAR, but you’re also citing volume metrics during the juiced ball year of 2019. Abreu’s 33 HRs ranked 37th in baseball that year whereas it would rank 14th in 2024. Given his mostly average OBP, his 2019 season was only 15% above league average or 60th overall amongst qualified players in wRC+ at 115. And RBI’s is a very meaningless stat without context and you lose a little credibility in your argument when you cite it as a key factor.

Probably because you still don't understand the stat and get told so routinely. Players are more than HR and RBI. Defense, baserunning, etc, matter.

Especially because Ben Johnson has been the name fans have wanted for probably a year, nothing changed this season (if anything fans want him more) and he's sitting out there, waiting for a suitor to sign him up, AND has reportedly shown interest in the Bears job. All the Bears have to do is bring it home...and anyone that has followed the team knows how unlikely that is for the Bears to pull off...because it's the Bears.

There has definitely been a shift in tone from the fanbase when it comes to McCarthy. Last week, when news came out that the Bears wanted to interview him, I would say the general tone was extremely negative. Now it feels like the fanbase is bargaining that McCarthy might not be so bad. I don't think McCarthy is the worst you can do, but holy hell, we can definitely do better.

Exactly this. It sounds nice to say next coach for next 10 years but reality is this hire has to be the person who gets Caleb on track to be an all Pro type of qb. That has to happen immediately over the next year plus in terms of that big leap and continued growth. You get this hire wrong - and wrong isn’t this coach can’t win the Super Bowl, wrong is this coach can’t develop Caleb (and the rest of the team) and this becomes a wasted opportunity. That is why I’m looking purely at who can get that right and position Caleb and rest of the locker room as best as possible to get that part of the maturity, development and growth of this franchise to happen. It has to be Pete, McCarthy or Ben Johnson in my mind. I can also get the idea of Ravens OC or Kingsbury…cause in all cases you are going with proven or at least guys with track records of sustained offensive success or with a coach who knows what he is doing and has developed the position (or McCarthy who has done both).

Since Lovie was fired the Bears have hired Trestman, Fox, Nagy, and Eberflus. Are any of these good coaches? Pete Carroll is a good coach. He has a Super Bowl ring and almost another. He clearly was key in developing players on both offense and defense. He dealt with the loss and turnover of players that is the modern NFL and stayed in the playoffs. He dealt with a prima Donna QB. He then had a castoff from the Jets who turned into a starting QB. He builds a good system and hires staff who go on to be head coaches. All of this is a drastic upgrade from where the Bears have been. He is not my favorite choice for exactly the reason you state. I’m not sure why he would want to get back into coaching, why he retired, or what his future plans are. At the very least he has earned an interview and fair consideration. If things go sideways with Johnson, he is a strong second option. There is a nonzero chance that the Bears hire a hotshot coordinator and in 2 years the Bears are hiring a new GM and coach and saying damn we wasted Williams’s cheap years and we coulda had Pete Carroll.

Andrew Benintenti has put up -0.6 fWAR total for the White Sox with a 90 wRC+ and has been one of the five worst defensive OFs in that time per both DRS & OAA. We just signed a RF platoon for less than $4M that will likely outproduce Benintendi next year. Andrew Vaughn has put up 0.2 fWAR total over his past two seasons as a 1B with a 100 wRC+, poor defense, and negative running value. There are likely AAAA types who could provide similar or better production for a fraction of the cost. To rip fans for wanting more than replacement level production or worse from its players is an absolutely ridiculous take.

Vikings had a great season, but amazing how bad things can look at one game. - Not sure you can give Darnold a new deal after that performance last night, it was horrific. - The Vikings have 37 FA’s set to be FA’s this offseason. - They currently have 3 draft picks for 2025, a 1st and two 5th’s. They traded their 2nd, 3rd and 4th to move up last year to take Dallas Turner, who had a mediocre rookie year, and Jared Verse was still on the board.

Orlando needs to step up his game. He’s had some really bad fake rumors this offseason.

While the comments against him by others in the Chicago media may have been unfair (personally I don't think so) there is no way you win in that situation by responding publicly, and making it worse was that it was on the broadcast itself as opposed to say on social media. It was unprofessional and childish and that comes from someone who has been in broadcasting since 1978.

wow that's funny. I started putting this together too and ended up kinda bored because I was struggling to find team WAR totals. Maybe I did post it? But my conclusion was largely that we would still be a pretty dogshit team that maybe never made teh playoffs. Our pitching would have been too weak in early 20s, and Sale wasn't enough to save us last year.