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The White Sox could win 76 or 77 games and it won’t change their draft position in 2027. Why not try to be decent. A couple of crazy things happen, and you have a fun summer.

Sox officials are claiming that they’ll eat money for a better return. I was skeptical as well but that’s what’s being said.

So what we all thinking? Robert + cash to Mets for Ryan Clifford? Quero to the Phillies for Crawford? Use the savings on Robert to sign Bellinger per Boras riddle? Meidroth, 2B Teel, CA* Bellinger, RF* Vargas, 3B Montgomery, 3B* Clifford, 1B* Sosa, DH Baldwin, LF# Crawford, CF* Now we fucking boys!

That’s the type of dumb petty bullshit I could believe. It also doesn’t mean Jerry isn’t willing to eat some money for other teams. When it comes to insiders, I will always place Ken Rosenthal’s info above all else.

The #1 pick wasn’t really a fix. We had the best odds at almost 30% lol this isn’t like the Guardians having a 2% chance at #1 pick 2 years ago and landing it.

Thanks for the info. I was going to Key West in March, but that Iowa game is too much to resist.

They sent 4 million in the Eloy trade but I guess that was too long ago.

Ken says pretty definitively they are willing to eat some money for a better return. The reaction on here...that's impossible. I'm sure Ken was pulling that report out of thin air.

Because that would cost money, and Jerry isn’t doing that.

No doubt the past clouds my judgement, but Chris Getz was a part of that past. As GM, he messed up with the Cease trade, but looks like he did well on the Crochet trade. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t trade Robert when he took the job,. At the end of 2024 he admitted he was surprised at 121 losses, but thought 110 was possible. If you are planning on being that bad, you aren’t going to be good for a while, so while there may be no bigger Luis Robert guy on Soxtalk than me, it made no sense not to trade him if you weren’t going to be any good for at least 3 or 4 years. He had a front row seat to what happened with several much ballyhooed prospects the previous few years, so he should know what happens could be bad, and it was. I just want them to be good. I know it’s crazy, but I don’t get much joy in watching them play poorly. Some things make no sense. Brian Bannister supposedly is a genius, yet ‘Ethan Katz had so much influence, he cancelled him out. He gets replaced by the Royals assistant pitching coach, who someone says is the guy that made the Royals pitching staff hum, but also said that the White Sox assistant pitching coach just stretches guys out. So a small market division rival has a guy who apparently is the reason their pitching staff improves, but in the Chris Getz model, the individual in the same position with the White Sox is more of a yoga iimstructor. Doesn’t seem like forward thinking to me.

Scott Boras riddle links Cody Bellinger to White Sox? https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-white-sox-potential-destination-cody-bellinger

For our sake I hope it is, maybe Sterns gets desperate and actually gives the Sox something of value for him.

Mets better have some big trades left because their offseason is awful.

Polanco signed to the exact same years and dollars as Robert. Obviously, he had a much better offensive year, but Robert's defensive value is lightyears ahead of Polanco. Maybe he's not as overpaid as we thought.

Roch was ranked the #42 prospect by BA coming out of high school. Scouting report at the time below.

Braves blogger breaks down how to fix Rolison:

Worlds tiniest violin begins playing

The Sox include money to SAVE more money, but hardly ever to elevate the prospect return. Once again, the needless inclusion of Tatis in the Shields trade to save just $2-3 million extra per season on that onerous contract. They had already added Erik Johnson, a former top Sox prospect. And how much revenue has Tatis generated for SD? Easily in the hundreds of millions. Penny wise, pound foolish. 26.5 fWAR x $7.5 million=$199 million (if they were to buy that production in FA terms)

May I interest you in Robert and Quero

This is all cool and all but I hate reading geek s%*#. That's why the games are played. And that's the beauty of it. The unknown. All these geek stats and projections are interesting and so.ewhat informative you can't take them by heart

And your argument is dumb.

Here's what I think is going on. You forgot about us sending money in the Eloy or trade or forgot the trade existed when you typed it a page ago. The rest of this doesn't matter because the point I was making previous is we have included money in the very recent past in trades. Your digging far too deep trying to diverge from that point.

"Jerry isn’t likely to include money because he’s Jerry."

I'm really curious as to why you threw in the comment about getting a top prospect back in the Eloy trade in reference to this potential one.

Can't see this happening. This is Boras posturing trying to drive up more interest.

A month ago, SoxTalk was throwing out numbers in the $5-10 million subsidy range on Robert... Really can't imagine JR sending anywhere near that higher side number along just to pick up a prospect...and it's not going to be enough for those who felt certain the Sox could get Crawford or two decent Reds' minor leaguers at one point. If they threw Quero in as a sweetener, too...it would just be more infuriating.

Are we goal post shifting now?

I need this dude on the South Side tomorrow

Joe Kelly must be his idol.

This dude is great, haha. He deserves all da moneys.

Nope, and please don’t think about waking me up right now!

Yeah, so 1/$10-11M for like a Single-A arm would be a steal.

That trade makes no sense. Collins was in the conversation for ROTY until he slumped in September. Mears was better than Zerpa last year. What do the Brewers see in Zerpa that I don't?

Seems like he won’t give money to him but might some other team. Which is stupid, but at least it’s not completely “no money to anyone.”

Direct quote from this Rosenthal article in the Athletic:

No

Jon Heyman says they aren’t willing to, while Ken Rosenthal says they are willing to.

Do you really believe Jerry is going to pick up money to get a better return?

The not willing to eat money has already been disproven though no?

We seem to love .653 ops hitting corner infielders.

With the #1 pick, the Sox also get the largest amount of bonus pool money. They are NOT going to skip over the person they like best because of signing bonus money.

Its just speculation based on a lot of things going right. If Carlson is the best fielder who can also hit he's the SS. Colson is chosen for 1st because he fits the physical profile more than Cholowski which leaves Roch at 3rd base. Why would Colson's value be diminished if he can hit the same at 1st as he does at SS but SS has a better fielder and 1st base has possibly the best defense it can also get from anyone on the roster ? Sometimes you forget this is a team game. It's not about building 1 player's value at the expense of the team's value. It's the little things that make the difference in winning and losing . Sure he'd need to learn the rope at 1st but he can field groundballs, go back on pop ups like a SS. He can snag high line drives, stretch far forward and wide because of his height. He can turn a 1st to 2nd to 1st DP and be a strong cutoff man because of his arm. As a tall guy who has already experienced back problems at a young age you also may be increasing his value by doing things that are not as stressful to his back. Availability is a very valuable ability. Baseball talk man. The more your best players are on the field the more valuable your TEAM. Optimize their individual physical traits to maximize team performance. Its a long sesdon and physically demanding with all the twisting and turning that playing SS and swinging a weight (a bat ) while twisting your hips as fast as you can. Maybe Robert couldve been a great player if he had understood along with bulking up he also needed flexibility and core strength. Or on the flip side some bodies cannot handle extra muscle/weight genetically when put in a physically demanding position. Those are things you need a lot more data on about family medical history but unfortunately theres not much info except for 1 or 2 generations back.

They wouldn't have traded for Crochet without knowing they had a very good shot at extending him. Same principle with any team acquiring Skubal for JUST one season.

Steamer 600 doesn’t really take advantage of platooning and there are ways to get more with less obviously by doing so. For example, Sosa put up a 121 wRC+ against LHP in the 2H of last year, but was basically league average against RHP. He can certainly be a valuable role player, but his performance against RHP as a 1B/DH leaves a lot to be desired. Adding someone like O’Hearn who has put up a 122 wRC+ against RHP over the past three seasons vastly improves our production at that spot. To me, that’s the most obvious spot to add to enhance the offense without blocking a kid’s long term growth. Bleday is a tough one to crack and I have no strong feelings on his outlook for last year as I candidly haven’t seen much of him. That being said, I do like the idea of adding someone that can push Benintendi out of LF and possesses some level of upside. I full acknowledge Braden Montgomery shouldn’t be too far out, but you just never know if development will go as planned. And our OF depth is super thin even with the trade for Pereira who really feels like a weak side platoon option more than anything. That being said, of all the OF options in free agency I feel like Bleday makes the most sense for us given his price, age, & potential team control.

supposedly sox are willing to include money in trade with Robert. Behind a pay wallet but others read it

Amen.

What is Querro's value? A recent top 100 prospect who generated 1.2 bwar when called up. 22yo switch-hitter at premium position. Yeah he is slow, so are almost all catchers. The fact he didn't bomb when called up I would think adds to his value so I would be holding out for a similar young player with some success in the outfield or if getting prospects a top 100 plus more?

A large part of it has. Quero has made the jump to the bigs, and didn't put up a .375 OPS. He hit. Sure, he still needs to grow into the different corners of his prospect, but he's no longer a complete unknown prospect. His gap power will expand as he grows up. I think Quero has a lot more value than the top AAA catching prospect who still hasn't played a game in the bigs. Sure, Quero putting up a very solid full season offensively and defensively would increase his value, but you're going to burn a cheap pre-arb year getting to that value. It's a limited market. A team who doesn't see themselves ready this season, but having the spot for Quero to grow into - may not want to wait a year to pay more for him. This is mostly academic, as I don't think Getz is going to move Quero or Teel for anything short of a monster return relative to their respective values.