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Just realized this is an old friend alert. Brandon Hyde, the Oriole manager fired earlier this year, was once a White Sox minor league catcher. He played on the 1999 Burlington Bees team that won the Midwest League Championship, that year. Mark Buehrle also pitched on that team. Due to work and family responsibilities, I found myself single a lot that summer, so I'd jump in the car, and go see the Burlington Bees or the Cubs' Lansing Lugnuts play. I made it a point to visit every stadium in the Midwest League. The most beautiful one was the home of the Quad City River Bandits, which was featured in the film Sugar. Cedar Rapids had a great, old stadium, too. I really didn't like the new ones, like Kane County, or Fort Wayne. Oh, well. Just wanted to share that realization. Rays Hire Brandon Hyde As Senior Advisor To Baseball Operations - MLB Trade Rumors

If only they had the capacity to feel embarrassment.

The Rockies are the White Sox of the west.

Rinse. Repeat. Foster Griffin, forner KC first rounder and one other guy coming back stateside will be cheapest options. https://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/chicago-cubs-trade-free-agent-rumors-ideas/201899/cubs-free-agent-target-foster-griffin Option 3 will end up probably like LHP Kyle Hart and is more or less an afterthought. Kona Takahashi (29)* The Seibu Lions are expected to post Takahashi this offseason. The right-hander has a 3.39 ERA in nearly 1200 innings at Japan’s top level. He’s coming off a 3.04 mark over 148 innings. While the run prevention is solid, Takahashi doesn’t have the bat-missing stuff that’d generate huge big league interest. He struck out just 14% of opponents this past season. An MLB deal is possible, but he’s unlikely to command more than a couple million dollars. There are some similarities between Takahashi and Shinnosuke Ogasawara, who signed a two-year, $3.5MM deal and pitched in a swing role for the Nationals. mlbtraderumors.com

Pagan's going to be way too expensive due to 2025 success...serious case of buying at top of his market career-wise and age as well. Blackburn is "sure okay fine whatever." Farm system SHOULD at this point be producing cheap/er replacements to plug in that have a lot more future payoff.

Was reading a Brewers' forum after the Williams signing and thought this was interesting. Lots of fretting over a $136 million payroll and whether they will have to trade Peralta Megill or Mears to free up space for deadline deals in mid-summer. Ofc some argued this is the same exact going on a decade with MIL and owner Attanasio. "PLUS, the Brewers had some pretty large capital expenditures in the past few years. 1-Dominican Republican Academy. State of the art facility in AZ and the Carolina Affiliate and their investment in their ~75M stadium. They had Rick Schlesinger on to talk about those investments and while they initially committed around $20M to the first round of the DR facility@(when it had just 22 Dorms) the 31 Acre facility now has 120-some dorms and the price ballooned both there as well as the AZ facility that was originally projected to cost $60M and due to Covid, related supply shortages, it escalated to over $100M. ALSO during this time, the Low A Carolina Affiliate... which we don't know what they spent to buy the team (about $20M) or to invest in the facility (estimated at $35M). That, as well as Miller Park investments/renovations is a WHOLE lot of money from ~2018 onwards and they likely have pretty significant debt payments each year when added up cumulatively." https://brewerfanatic.com/forums/topic/46422-brewers-reportedly-concerned-about-payroll/#comments ONE more comment regarding this... which... just drives me nuts in general, but Mark Attanasio owns about 34-39% of the Brewers. He's their principal owners, not the majority. But the 40%... that's... really "out of touch." Especially for fans who I think know better. That's a good talking point when you're trying to troll another team, but... it lacks ANY nuance that I would expect.

Congrats, good for him. Hope he does well.

I guess this is good for the Sox...

Candidly, I’d try to trade Quero for a major league ready OF prospect of similar value and get Benintendi out of the OF (make him a platoon DH until Jerry is willing to release him). I’m very much open to adding a decent veteran OF to the mix, but not sure Garcia is the guy I’d target.

I haven’t given the offseason much thought yet, but I do like the idea of O’Hearn on a two year deal to anchor the middle of the lineup. Meidroth, 2B Teel, CA# O’Hearn, 1B* Robert, CF Montgomery, SS* Vargas, 3B Benintendi, LF* Quero, DH# Baldwin, RF# Not a terrible lineup if you keep everyone. Sosa would have to be on the bench and would need to rotate around, but I’d like to see him get a look in LF to see if he can get him more at-bats that way.

White Sox: Adolis García, OF García became a free agent after the Rangers non-tendered him, and although he hasn’t looked like the two-time All-Star who averaged 32 homers, 99 RBIs and a .777 OPS between 2021 and ‘23, García still averaged 22 home runs and 80 RBIs during the past two seasons, albeit with a .675 OPS. García could look to sign a one-year deal in an effort to re-establish his value. https://www.mlb.com/news/free-agent-match-for-every-team-2025-26

No. I also believe the occasional bad contract is a healthy sign of a team being competitive.

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

Only Georgia’s Kirby Smart would top Kiffin based on 2025 data, per USA Today, and represents a $4 million bump for his base salary with the Rebels. Kiffin’s deal includes several performance-based bonuses, as expected. Should Kiffin lead the Tigers to a national title, he has a clause that will make him the highest-paid coach in the sport, according to the report. He also can get a $4 million bonus for LSU winning the SEC and the national title in the same season, with $1 million for the SEC crown and $3 million for being the best team in the country. https://nypost.com/2025/12/01/sports/inside-lane-kiffins-91-million-lsu-contract-after-ole-miss-divorce/ Much more impressed with how Cignetti has gone about transforming Indiana and not just jumping at the first Penn State-like offer thrown at him.